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Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (18 out of 8391 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Typ Summary Admin Maria Zakharova 2024-09-15 05:30 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case Saryuparin Brahmin 2024-09-15 03:30 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:GS/CASTE Daniel Case Philippe Lazzarini 2024-09-15 03:21 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Talk:Beliveo Lamoya 2024-09-14 19:25 2024-09-17 19:25 create Repeatedly recreated Liz Beliveo Lamoya 2024-09-14 19:23 2024-09-17 19:23 create Repeatedly recreated Liz Template:Occupation by nationality and century category header/portal/core 2024-09-14 17:01 indefinite edit,move RFPP request Anachronist Jol Thoi Thoi Bhalobasha 2024-09-14 06:03 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated BusterD Ogaden (clan) 2024-09-13 20:38 2026-09-13 20:38 edit Persistent disruptive editing: Regular semi-protection ineffective, persistent block evasion and additions of poorly sourced material. Yamaguchi先生 Galileo Galilei 2024-09-13 19:05 indefinite move Persistent vandalism: per RFPP Daniel Case Template:Infobox cricket tournament 2024-09-13 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2501 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Archive top red/styles.css 2024-09-13 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 3381 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Communist Party of India (Marxist) 2024-09-13 15:28 2024-12-13 15:28 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry; up to ECP as semi isn't sufficient; requested at WP:RfPP Elli Anastasia Trofimova 2024-09-12 21:06 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: WP:RUSUKR Ymblanter Halhul 2024-09-12 16:12 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C Kuči (tribe) 2024-09-12 00:06 2025-09-12 00:06 edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:CT/EE ToBeFree Russians at War 2024-09-11 18:14 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case Flourless chocolate cake 2024-09-11 16:00 2025-09-11 16:00 edit Edit warring by autoconfirmed Valereee Marron glacé 2024-09-11 15:57 2025-09-11 15:57 edit Persistent sock puppetry, ongoing, by autoconfirmed editors Valereee

Mike Peel

In December 2020 (Link to whole conversation), ClemRutter was indefinitely blocked by Diannaa for copyright violations per established practice, after having previously received five copyright warnings. Mike Peel objected to this at the time, calling it excessive and claimed it happened "without even a warning", despite indefinite blocks of those with several copyright warnings over a long period of time being longstanding practice. Two hours later, Mike Peel accepted Clemrutter's unblock request and unblocked them with the rationale "Unblocking based on the past trend of amicably resolving the issues, which I trust will also happen here, and than an indef block seems really excessive in this situation. Let's see what happens at CCI for the longer term issue." I saw this at the time and believed it was an WP:INVOLVED action that he should not have done, given his interactions and apparent friendship with Clemrutter. I didn't do anything at the time as I didn't want to step on Diannaa's toes and thought that things might blow over and be fine, despite most previous experiences suggesting otherwise. A Contributor copyright investigation was filed at the time and Mike Peel commented "Just to note that I have unblocked ClemRutter. The specific issue here seems to be with Thinking School, but I haven't checked past edits by the user. Thanks.", which worried me given the specific issue was not with Thinking School, and that he had not checked the user's past edits when unblocking. I opened the investigation (now at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210111) and me and Diannaa have found several more violations. Given the several book sources cited, many of which are offline and cannot be easily accessed for text comparison, the CCI will be very difficult to complete.

In July 2021 Clemrutter received another warning for copyright violations, this time on Integrated education. This was labeled as a final warning, and Clemrutter was again indefinitely blocked by Diannaa on 4 August 2021 for copyright violations on Northern Ireland Curriculum. The ~2000 edits since the December 2020 unblock have been added to the CCI and will also need to be reviewed for issues. Discussion is currently ongoing on how to appeal this block on their talk. Had they not been unblocked, the issue could have been resolved at the time, and the current situation and block would not have happened- the unblock set ClemRutter up to be blocked again.

After the block, I questioned Mike Peel on his talk with slightly altered version of what I wrote above. The resulting discussion can be seen here; I encourage any reading this to go and read it all. I was concerned with the involved unblock given his board candidacy, and I found his responses to me and later Diannaa and Ponyo to be very lacking, and repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding. Mike Peel repeatedly claimed that Diannaa should have not done the indef herself and she should have taken it to ANI or Arbcom- "My point is that Clem *shouldn't* be a special case - indef blocking is a big thing that should get ANI or arbcom support, unless it's clearly WP:SNOW and/or an intractable user problem.", which I thought was a problematic and incorrect interpretation of the blocking/reporting policy. Ponyo also noted issues as well, saying "Reading through this thread gives me the strong impression that you unblocked Clem because Diannaa didn't handle the blocking as you personally would have, not because there was anything procedurally incorrect with her block according to policy. There are many statements that you've made above that also lead me to believe that you are out of touch with how and when many active administrators on this project choose to use an indefinite block." Mike Peel responded to this with "Look at it another way: I believe my unblock following the unblock request was per policy. We're talking about the general issue in more detail in this discussion, and I'll happily admit that I'm expressing my opinions here rather than quoting policy. Thanks", and after a response from Diannaa, there have been no updates to the discussion for a week, even though there are still unaddressed concerns. I have pondered on whether or not I should bring this here, since I'm unsure what actions to take or if any action is needed, but I think this is something the community should know about given the current board elections and to have more eyes on the CCI and ClemRutter's situation. And as a reminder for other admins, please be careful when unblocking users for copyright violations. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 18:51, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I stand by my actions and my comments (but please read them in full and in context, which doesn't seem to be the case with the quotes here.). I'm interested to see what other admins think to this situation, and my actions. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:57, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

From a review of the (in full) talk page discussions linked above, I'd say Diannaa is essentially completely correct, and Mike is mostly wrong. Diannaa's first indef block was fine. Mike's unblock was technically within policy, but outside accepted practice (unilaterally, against the desire of the blocking admin, based on an incorrect assumption of a lack of warnings). Diannaa's second indef block is fine. Mike does not seem to have a good understanding of how blocking works, and shouldn't be telling other people what is required for blocking/unblocking until he re-educates himself. In particular, he is wrong that an admin should go to ANI or ArbCom before indef blocking someone. He is also wrong that Diannaa should have tried shorter blocks first. He is also wrong that Diannaa should have stepped aside and have some other admin take over. He is also wrong that CR was blocked without warnings. I will say that bringing up Mike's WMF board candidacy is probably a red herring. Finally, if Mike thinks Moneytrees' summary is inaccurate ("but please read them in full and in context, which doesn't seem to be the case with the quotes here"), he should say where. If it actually is in context, then claiming without evidence that it is inaccurate is unethical. As for what to do about it, I don't know, it depends on whether they take feedback here at AN onboard. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:51, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

@Floquenbeam: Thanks for the review. I'm listening. Some points in response: with ANI or ArbCom, my point with that comment was that admins shouldn't feel like they are going at it alone - if they're coming across problems like this, then it's worth getting other admins to have a look as well, both with the specific issue (to get more opinions on the case), and also generally (to get more admins involved in copyvio patrolling). Note the use of the word 'should', not 'must' - but on hindsight, using 'could' would have been better. With the quotes above, it was specifically with the last quote, where "... was per policy" and "... rather than quoting policy" both appear but were about separate things (first about the unblock; second about the extended comments), and I think quoting them together confuses the issue. thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this was a terrible unblock. Not only was it based on an incorrect understanding (that CR had not been sufficiently warned), but MP clearly misunderstood the reasons for the block (it wasn't about the Thinking School article) and even admitted that he "hadn't checked the user's other edits". Simply, like BLP issues, we don't mess about with copyright blocks after a user has been repeatedly warned, regardless of how prolific a contributor they are - they should be indefinite. I doubt if there's anything we can do about the original unblock eight months later, but what is very clear is that MP should certainly not be taking further administrative action regarding Clem Rutter, and probably needs to read up more clearly on the more complex areas (i.e. not simple vandalism etc.) of blocking and unblocking before taking any more actions. Black Kite (talk) 20:11, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

@Moneytrees and Black Kite: You keep saying 'it wasn't about the Thinking School article', but Diannaa specifically said the block was caused by that article. There's a wider issue, sure, but the first block was clearly linked to that article. I've already said that I don't plan to unblock Clem again as things stand, and have already been doing more background reading. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Why doesn't it surprise me that this editor has been an administrator for 14 years? Isn't it time we took a bit more seriously suggestions of term limits for admins? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:15, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

We have plenty of veteran admins who use their tools regularly and are very familiar with how to use them. The problem mostly comes with veteran admins who don't use the tools very often (Mike, for example, has used block/unblock precisely four times in the last ten years). We would be better off with an activity limit, rather than a term limit, but this has been rejected in the past as it's too easy to game. Black Kite (talk) 20:28, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with BK. Mike Peel has been very active, very productive, and very useful. This is not a case of legacy admins clinging to the bit. It's not about lack of activity overall, and not a case of someone being an admin too long. It's not even a matter of someone not using block/unblock much. It's a case of someone not using the block/unblock button much, and then using it in a situation where they didn't research the situation, and then lecturing an admin who is familiar with blocking/unblocking. It's not important that an admin be active in all areas, but it is important that an admin know what they don't know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:37, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger, Black Kite, and Floquenbeam: Just to point out that I regularly use the admin tools for things that aren't logged (e.g., I have a bot that creates Wikidata items for articles, and it's useful to go back and look at deleted articles to see what happened to help debug the bot), for editing protected pages (particularly in the template domain), and for deletion (although not as much as I would have liked, since I've mostly been working in other areas and have limited time/energy). I'm not too active with blocking/unblocking, I'm familiar with the technical tools but - clearly - not all aspects of the social side of it. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I have not looked at the blocks/unblocks, and do not have time to do it right now, but if we managed to solve a similar problem with Elisa.rolle, may be we can solve the problem here without indefinite blocks? The user has 40+K edits, which are hopefully not all represent copyright violations.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

You can see by his talk page that ClemRutter cannot yet be unblocked even as of today, because as far as I can tell from his remarks there, he still doesn't understand why he was blocked or what he did wrong, and has an inadequate understanding of how copyright law applies to Wikipedia editing.— Diannaa (talk) 21:52, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Since that editor was indefinitely blocked for an extended period of time, it may not be a good example of how to deal with the situation without an indefinite block. isaacl (talk) 21:54, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I think what Ymblanter is referring to is User:Valereee/ER, the mentoring program headed by several experienced users that helped get Elisa unblocked. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 22:12, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Sure, it could provide a path to end an indefinite block. Since there is already an indefinite block in place, though, the connotation of solving the problem without indefinite blocks is to lift it summarily, and it's a bit tricky to draw that conclusion from the example, which also had a failed appeal. I agree that it's always good to see editors willing to participate in learning initiatives, from both the teaching and learning sides. isaacl (talk) 22:43, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

• I've been aware of ClemRutter's latest block, and deeply saddened by it. I hadn't been aware of the earlier block, but reading through it, I can't fault either of the blocks, and I don't understand the December unblock. FWIW, I was lucky enough to 'meet' Clem last year, at an on-line London meetup on Zoom, and I don't for a second doubt his good faith, or his commitment to our project. He taught me a few things, and I was inspired by his passion. I can understand why MP might want to see CR unblocked (I do too), but that has to come on the back of some serious undertakings from CR to take the copyright policy seriously, and to take on board the feedback he's been given in the last few months. Girth Summit _(blether) 22:02, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, ClemRutter is clearly in good faith and does not strike me as someone who has intentionally done wrong, I would like to see them unblocked and not having issues with copyright for sure. What I would like to happen is: Mike Peel acknowledges the erroneous unblock and apologizes to Diannaa, ClemRutter is able to understand the copyright issues and gets unblocked, and the CCI gets all nice and cleaned up. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 22:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
    • At the moment I feel able to offer a limited (but not full - see below) apology to @Diannaa: I apologise for interfering in your workflow when dealing with CCI cases by making the unblock in this case.
      That said, I am generally disappointed that the conversation that I explicitly expected to see after the unblock did not happen. This is to both sides: I was expecting Clem to be much more proactive in figuring out what the problems were, and active in fixing them. I was also expecting Diannaa to follow up with the issues on Clem's talk page or at CCI. That seems to be happening now, after the second block, which is good to see (and this is part of why I don't personally plan to unblock them again). However, I still think this should have been able to happen without one party being blocked and having to have their answers copy-pasted to other pages when necessary. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      Diannaa Would there be a problem changing the block to a partial block from article space? That would allow CR to participate in discussions easily, without (I think?) any risk of his introducing more copyvios. Just a thought. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:59, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      Copyright violations on talk pages, drafts etc are still copyright violations. Hut 8.5 12:01, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      Oh, yes, totally - I'd like to hope though that CR would have the sense not to start putting copyvios on talk pages. At the moment people are having to copy/paste his comments into discussions, which seems unnecessary - it's not like he's a vandal who's going around abusing people on talk. Perhaps keep blocked from article/draft/file spaces, but allow engagement on talk until he's shown that he understands the concerns? Girth Summit _(blether) 12:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      Given that CR has already been indeffed once for copyright violations, and carried on anyway, I don't think that being blocked is going to get the message across by itself. Hut 8.5 12:30, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      Mentoring sounds like a good idea on paper, but so far I have not been getting through to him as to what he needs to do differently, so I may be the wrong person to do the mentoring? Or perhaps he believes he was right and I am wrong, and will suddenly see the light and unblock? See for example this post of August 20, where he misinterprets how much copying is allowed, states that the patrolling admin must get consensus on the talk page before removing violations of the copyright policy, and states that the violation that got him blocked was "so minor that it is beneath the threshold of concern". He has not yet posted an unblock request either. So there's no clear path forward at this point. I haven't formed an opinion of the usefulness of a partial unblock; so far I have copied two posts to file talk pages for two files I have nominated for deletion, that's not a big inconvenience (at this point, anyways). — Diannaa (talk) 14:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      Diannaa, OK, understood, it was just a thought. I feel very warmly about Clem following our face-to-face discussion last year, he is passionate about education and is very much aligned with our mission of disseminating information. His failure to take on board what you have been telling him about copyright violations is baffling to me however, and I can entirely understand your frustration with the situation - I think you have been very professional in how you are interacting with him, given the situation. Girth Summit _(blether) 17:08, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      Mike Peel, it doesn't seem realistic for you to expect that I would take over the task of mentoring after you unblocked after two hours without consulting me or even notifying me. I was angry and I walked away. I guess that was a mistake on my part; I didn't think it through that I would likely be the person who would end up cleaning up the resulting mess. I am still angry, too. Fact: Clem won't figure out what the problems were or be responsive to teaching until he admits there is a problem. That still hasn't happened. — Diannaa (talk) 14:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      @Diannaa: You already seemed to have taken on that job (not quite mentoring, but the role of correction) by warning + blocking them. My unblock shouldn't have changed that IMO - or at least that's what I expected. A clear message saying that you were walking away from it would have been useful. Sorry that you're angry - but that also isn't helpful here. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:58, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

      Mike Peel, If you step into a situation and overrule somebody by doing things your way, you should be prepared to own the issue from then on. If you don't believe me, try cleaning the company fridge wherever you work and see who ends up doing it next time. MrOllie (talk) 17:00, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

• Honestly that unblock is a slap in the face to editors who deal with copyright issues. Nobody should be unblocking someone with a history of copyright problems without first making very sure that there aren't going to be any problems in the future. The unblock happened after a mere two hours with no attempt to discuss with the blocking admin or anyone else apart from this, which erroneously claimed the user hadn't been warned (they'd been warned five times) and criticised the block for being indefinite (which is standard for copyright blocks). Now there are another 2,000 edits which need to be checked for copyright problems, which is probably one of the most tedious tasks on Wikipedia. Hut 8.5 12:01, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
• Obviously a bad unblock, and reading Mike, who has used the block button five times in the last 14 years, trying to lecture Dianaa (6301 blocks) and Moneytrees (278 blocks in 18 months) on the blocking policy and CCI is embarrassing. But the elephant in the room is why Mike decided to step in and make this, as far as I can tell, the first unblock request he has ever processed. There has recently been some discussion of whether there's a 'generational' difference in how strict admins are about WP:INVOLVED, but the idea that Mike is a purely disinterested party here just isn't credible. I wouldn't have thought that we'd have to have an explicit policy saying "don't use your admin tools to protect your wiki-friends", but maybe we do. – Joe (talk) 13:53, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
• One concerning part of this, if my understanding is correct, is that there is an admin whose only unblock in 14 years was, by their own admission, of someone who they met at a wikimeetup and consider a wikifriend, without first investigating all the facts and based on a misapprehension of those facts, over the opposition of the blocking admin, and without consulting the community or any other admin (for a third opinion) first. But what is even more concerning than that is that 8 months later, MP still stands by his actions and comments. Levivich 14:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Maybe we should normalize that, if you find out someone's blocked because you're watching their talk page, it shouldn't be you pushing the unblock button. —Cryptic 15:04, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

    It would make sense to me, though it is probably impossible to enforce.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

  • Not my only unblock, see my block log. It's rare, but I do unblock sometimes. (I actually thought I'd unblocked more than is on my unblock log here, but maybe that was on other wikis.) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
    • @Mike Peel: Your first time responding to an unblock request, though? Your other two unblocks were of bots without an explicit appeal and, since you bring it up, both were re-blocked shortly afterwards. But anyway, no response to my actual point, that you were obviously intervening in an area of admin work you normally have zero interest in, because you're friendly with ClemRutter? – Joe (talk) 08:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
• In addition to the apparent bias, lack of pre-unblock research, and post unblock follow-up by Mike Peel (if you as an administrator think there needs to be follow up, don't blame others that it might not have occurred to your satisfaction, you do it). Mike Peel should understand that any "injury" runs not just to Diannaa, it runs to community, the copyright holders, and to the unblocked user, as copyright infringement has both ethical and legal dimensions. Administrators may not be able to stop a user from committing infringement elsewhere, but they can prevent a user from getting into that quagmire, here. Thus, the present limited apology to Diannaa (which even to a fellow administrator, seems decidedly weak, and goes on to blame) seems most unsatisfactory, and lacking in understanding. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
  • My follow-up has included following discussion on his talk page, and a few off-wiki chats. I can do more if needed, but right now it seems that would do more harm than good. In general, the time to discuss this was back in December when the unblocking was done - not 8 months later - but I guess the timing was to make a political point. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
    • You don't think the timing has anything to do with the recent re-block? You're confident that you're just a victim of political machinations here? Ugh. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:24, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
      • Not confident, it just seems odd timing. The unblock was 8 months ago, new block was 22 days ago now, the discussion on my talk page had run its course, and then this new conversation was started out of the blue yesterday. Happy if it's just a coincidence though - but since the poster specifically says "I think this is something the community should know about given the current board elections" ... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:38, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
        • Wait a minute. The second block, which more or less proved that your unblock was wrong, occurred on August 4. The discussion on your talk page started a week later on August 12 and continued through August 18. This thread was started a week later on August 25. Nothing was "out of the blue". You continue to stand by your actions, taking none of your colleagues' feedback on board. There are literally zero editors who have said they agree with your actions. You may yet become the subject of an arbcom case request asking for your administrator permissions to be reviewed. This is all definitely relevant to your candidacy for WMF trustee. I advise you to do or say something to fix this immediately; it will not go away on its own, it will only escalate unless you address it to the satisfaction of the community. Levivich 16:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

          Levivich basically has the timeline down, I'll add that I was on vacation when the second block happened and once I got home I tried getting to it as soon as I could. I should've been more clear about my concerns; one of the outgoing community elected board members faced COI allegations from the community that they helped get a user who had been targeting someone they were in a relationship with blocked (not that I necessarily believe those allegations but it was a community concern), and another one was sanctioned by Arbcom and later created a copyright-violating mirror to the disapproval of the community. So I think it should be more widely known going forward, because this is something the community cares quite a bit about. I don't really know Mike Peel outside of this, I haven't seen anything to suggest that he is a controversial editor outside of his admin actions. Discussion had ceased after a week and no one aside from Mike Peel seemed satisfied, which was one of the main reasons I brought this here. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 18:08, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

• This is beyond absurd, admins have to do blocks as necessary and Diannaa's original block is per long standing practice. That one admin feels that it should instead be discussed at ANI or by ARBCOM indicates that Mike Peel needs to familiarize himself with our policies and practices first. And finally, an admin who unblocks unilaterally should take some ownership of the problem that follows rather than wash it away with a "had a conversation over tea and crumpets and didn't expect it to continue." —SpacemanSpiff 16:43, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
• I have some wishes. I wish Mike would stop telling Diannaa how to act. What really did he think would be accomplished by this piece of (what I find to be patronizing) advice he wrote after his limited apology to her? I wish Mike would accept responsibility for failing to follow policy around unblocks in 2 of his 3 uses of the tool ever [1] [2]. I wish Mike would realize that failing to follow written policy - namely Except in cases of unambiguous error or significant change in circumstances dealing with the reason for blocking, administrators should avoid unblocking users without first attempting to contact the blocking administrator to discuss the matter. - means that he does not know how to use the tool on enwiki. Especially because I have confidence Mike does understand the nuances of "should" judging by his explanation above of what he meant by saying someone should have gone to ANI/ARBCOM. Further, not consulting with the blocking admin isn't a social convention he violated - an example of a social convention violated would be his unblocking of a bloke he liked from a wikimeetup. I wish Mike would realize that this is coming up now because the reblock happened now. Finally I wish Mike the best of luck in his board candidacy - he would bring a lot of skills and experience to the position. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:53, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
  • @Barkeep49: Thanks, that's useful. I'm happy to stop Diannaa how to act (which was meant more to explain my thinking/viewpoint - but regardless). I'm happy to accept responsibility for my unblocks and any failings with policy that they have. I'm happy to commit to not unblocking users, if that would be helpful (perhaps to only unblock in the future *after* training/getting approval from an experienced unblocker). I'm also happy to acknowledge the perceived conflict of interest, and that I should have backed off this sooner (or ideally not started with it!). I'm happy to write off the timing as coincidence/due to the reblock. I'd also appreciate any other suggestions of things I can do now to make this right. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:11, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

    Thanks for this @Mike Peel. It feels like the kind of message that could allow this issue to resolve and which I hadn't seen to date. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:08, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

• Note I reverted this close by Ched- while this is here I would like to see if any further assistance with ClemRutter and the CCI could be offered. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 19:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Moneytrees - then you should have started a thread about ClemRutter. — Ched (talk) 20:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

    Ched, "another bad admin action" - Really? Me and Diannaa have not communicated if we were satisfied (I am still thinking on it and doing other things right now), and I really think keeping it open longer might end up helping someone. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 20:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

    @Ched, reopening a discussion you think was closed too early isn't an admin action. MP's depth of misunderstanding of the seriousness of copyright issues, of what constitutes admin involvement, and of the value of indefinite blocks per the discussion on their talk is concernng, and while like Barkeep49 I think their final post yesterday is at least acknowledging that, it took forever to get us there. I don't think the closing was bad, but if the editors most affected by this issue think there's still productive discussion to be had, I think we should listen to them. @Moneytrees, what assistance w/ClemRutter and the CCI are you hoping someone might offer, and what kind of continuing discussion are you thinking might be helpful here? —valereee (talk) 14:16, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

ClemRutter has asked that the following statement be copied here from his talk page:

I know this is a discussion about User:Mike Peel but I see my name is mentioned here, and today was the first time that I received a courtesy notice. Thanks Diannaa. So I will make a few comments about the process. It may help if you watch my talk page and familiarise yourselves with WP:Close paraphrasing particularly WP:Close paraphrasing#When is close paraphrasing permitted? and WP:Close paraphrasing#Addressing. This is an essay, not a guideline and I would like to see it worked up to guideline. Most of the discussion is on my User talk:ClemRutter

As many of you know I have acted a trainer in the UK, and have written many booklets on the technical side of editing and explained verbal our copyright policies which were particularly important in places like the Wellcome Institute stopping academics c&p-ing their own articles which were published so subject to the publishers copyright. Yes, copyright is subtle- and one can always learn more.Tip: stalk(talk) . I am not an admin: I joined WP to concentrate on content rather than compete and get involved in disputes such as this- I did all of that in my previous life. I can do without the extra Admin tools and all the extra responsibilities. The one tool I could have done with- was the ability to see the text under discussion when it has been removed by a patrolling admin!

I agreed to act as a coordinator on the WP:WPSCHOOLS- I was invited by User:Kudpung who no longer contributes the EN:WP.There is a big question mark there.

Under discussion:Talk:Northern Ireland Curriculum Talk:Integrated education Talk:Thinking School

The dispute is about:

1. Basic Wikpedia stuff: pillars and WP:AGF. We work through cooperation not conflict- tone is everything. Try to fix first. Hyperbola in discussions does't help.
2. Basic editing protocols and using the Talk Page before you escalate an incident. Please read the talk pages of the articles under discussion. There are other protocols- but following the links and you quickly enter confrontational language.
3. WP:Close paraphrasing#When is close paraphrasing permitted? This appears to be highly subjective at the moment and I think we have concensus on Liberal Arts topics- Histories, Biographies, some aspects of geography but when we approach technical articles on educational policy, curricular theory there is a lot of work to do. Trite answers and slogans lead to bad articles. IMHO In an article that is being actively edited {{close paraphrase}} is a better template as it draws other editors into the discussion and leads to better articles- and is less time-consuming than an appearance on WP:ANI.
   There are some interesting thoughts on maintaining editor numbers on meta:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021/Candidates/CandidateQ&A particularly question 1. A lot of work to do. We must solve this by squaring the circle- luckily my memory has deteriorated so much that I can't bear a grudge. ClemRutter (talk) 15:06, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Copied here by Diannaa.— Diannaa (talk) 20:39, 27 August 2021 (UTC) I have posted a response to Clem's message at his talk page, as it contains some incorrect information and misinterpretations of Wikipedia policy.— Diannaa (talk) 21:11, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

• It's rather sad that we have an indefblocked user (whether or not he's figured it out and can mend his ways is a matter for another day) and I'm much more concerned about the one doing the unblock. The replies above amounts to a pretty clear non-apology, and that's highly concerning to someone working in copyright. We do the best we can with (very) limited manpower and if people are just going to unblock because they feel bad and like someone then we won't get anywhere. Someone like that running for Trustee is, frankly, scary. Wizardman 20:58, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

• Soggy that you're angry, Wizardman, but that also isn't helpful here! What, I said soggy, that's my appalling'y. AN: I SED STUP FLAMMING! if u do den ur a fuken prep! fangz 2 raven 4 da help n stuf. u rok! n ur nut a prep. El_C 05:18, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

• I don't understand why some people seem to think that it's difficult not to violate copyright when editing the text of articles. OK, understanding the finer points of the law in various jurisdictions may take some effort, but the basic principle is so simple that nearly every schoolchild in the world knows it. You simply don't copy things, but write them in your own words. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:59, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
• This was a very ill-considered and disruptive unblock by Mike Peel, who I advise considering whether to resign the tools if this is the manner he intends to use them in. I'm very thankful to Diannaa, MER-C, Moneytrees and the other admins active in the copyright area. We may need to authorize a somewhat less discriminate use of the block and deletion tools to get rid of the CCI backlog. Sandstein 20:40, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
• Bad unblock by Mike Peel, who has conspicuously not offered to help clear the 2000 edits added to the CCI backlog, or otherwise help reduce it a similar amount. It seems their problem is that an ideological procedure is more important than preventing actual harm caused (which is the only point of a block, not to be "fair"). Unfortunately, their understanding of procedure is also incorrect, as they think the blocking admin's feedback can be unilaterally bypassed (by (a) not consulting them and (b) going against what they recommend). Due diligence involves far much more research than Mike Peel did here. Also, Sorry that you're angry - but that also isn't helpful here. What the fuck is that? Certainly not an apology for mansplaining over the people who actually do the SPI backlog you have just added dozens of hours of labour to. I thought Sandstein's recommendation of resignation above was a little over the top before reading more and finding it to be perfectly appropriate. — Bilorv (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
• Mike Peel, while I don't know all the ins and outs of blocking policy and conventions, an unblock request should at least be discussed with the blocking admin. There are some exceptions: blocking admin has resigned since placing the block, is inactive, on holiday or the block is clearly abusive. None of these exceptions apply here. If the blocking admin is unwilling to lift the block, it would be advisable to seek input from more admins or users who have interacted much (both positive and negative) with the blocked user. The conclusion could be to overrule the wishes of the blocking admin and grant the unblock, but going at it all alone is generally not a good idea. Even less so when there is a friendship between the blocked user and the unblocking admin. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 10:49, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
• BTW, just voted for 18 out of 19 candidates — am I allowed to say that in this space? El_C 12:02, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Good news: I didn't get elected, so I'll continue to be more active around here! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:24, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

We cannot sweep copyright issues under the rug any longer

Nah, because peoples attention are on this right now, so I really need to say something. We had a giant wind of users helping out with CCI earlier this year, but the backlog has only increased, now there's ~164k articles at CCI. 202 cases, 164456+ articles as of the time of me writing this! That's ridiculous! There's about ~25 or so users I could call up and rally for a case, and we would still barely make a dent in the overall backlog. The backlog just gets bigger and bigger as the years go on, and the issues becomes more and more serious. We have a CCI that just turned 11 years old at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Ardfern. As Mike says on his talk, it's so old the person it's on forgot it even existed! Earlier this year we accepted a CCI, Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Ruigeroeland, so huge it broke the CCI counter's page. It effects an entire massive topic area and the violations are innumerable; a massive community initiative will be needed to clean it up. I was writing one at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Ruigeroeland CCI cleanup, I said back on March 6 that I could "start a cleanup over the weekend" but I have a real life and I haven't been able to get to it. This year I have been really advancing in my career and college work, I simply can't spend as much time as I used to helping out with copyright violations, especially when incidents like this happen and I have to put the time and effort into pursing and resolving them. I don't want to put my foot in the door, I don't like doing it, but I simply don't have a choice. Because if I don't call this out, it'll be the next generation of editor's problem. And that's not going to work out.

Every "copyright admin" has a real life, we can't be here 24/7. Diannaa and MER-C have done so much work in the area for years and years, and it is completely unacceptable. Diannaa has been like Atlas holding up the clouds for so long, and it is not healthy. Dianna's done 87,609 reviews at Copypatrol, and several thousand other reviews off of various requests. She's been the go to person for copyright issues for so long, it's basically a policy to ask Diannaa about your copyright issues. There's so much shit going on, how is it even fair to expect Diannaa to keep up so extensively with a user who is not getting it? But don't worry, DanCherek can take Diannaa's place as the person who carries the massive weight of vetting current edits for copyright issues- he's done 1,275 reviews in the last 30 days. That's not fucking fair for him at all! We can't let this shit continue like that! If MER-C stops editing, the workflow at CCI will face serious issues, since he's the only one with access to the script that removes not copyright-able edits from the the contributor surveys- if he just stopped editing one day, what would we do? Other editors in the area- Hut 8.5, Sphilbrick, and Wizardman, just for example, have been around for over a decade, and despite the work they've done, it just doesn't end. If Any of the mentioned users stopped editing, there would be serious issues for the entire site. That sort of system does not fucking work!

But it's "another bad admin action" if I object to a close of this discussion because I don't think everything has been resolved. Please! I spent easily 400+ hours cleaning up Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Dr. Blofeld, one of the biggest and most controversial CCIs ever, and spent months worth of going to sleep late in order to make just a bit of a dent in it. Near the end of the CCI, when it mostly came down to me, I was spending 10 or so hours a day at the CCI, cleaning up as much as I could. I don't have the time for this, no one does! As Hut says above, cleaning out this stuff is incredibly tedious and takes thought and time- I am just a man, I cannot kill the backlog myself. I have so much regret for CCIs like Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20180325, I've put so much effort into helping out elsewhere that it got neglected, and SlimVirgin, who so kindly helped me with it, died before I could even really start on a serious effort to clean it up! That's real guilt, fuck! There's one CCI I can't even name because it involves oversight-able content, also involves someone who isn't around anymore, which I promised to complete- and I haven't been able to because there's just too much shit! This isn't healthy for me, and I do 1/20th of the work Diannaa does! So no, I find it just a little hard to just immediately accept an apology to someone who works so hard, and I find it even harder to accept when my work is insulted. The WMF doesn't help out (that needs to change, we are not equipped as volunteers to handle this and labor for them over it), and not enough of the user base does.

But Ched is not Mike Peel, so I forgive you Mike, I won't speak for Diannaa but I am happy that you are willing to help clean things up. As for helping out, if you could maybe advise ClemRutter further on what needs to be done to be unblocked and help identify issues, I would appreciate it very much. If you have further questions about helping out at the CCI, please ask I'd be happy to answer.

And now it's time to start cleaning all of this up. And by this I don't just mean the ClemRutter CCI, I mean all of CCI and all of our copyright issues. I want everyone reading this to help out at CCI or copypatrol right now, in some capacity, it does not matter. And I mean everyone, I don't care if you think you don't know anything about copyright, or you're not even involved in this dispute at all and are just some AN browser, read my guide at User:Moneytrees/CCI guide or ask me a question if you're confused. Every bit of help counts, because it is impossible to do this just as one or a few. The whole culture of sweeping copyright issues under the rug and letting them stagnate needs to end now, or it will hurt Wikipedia to an extreme extent. This can't be pushed away any longer, and I'm going to keep pushing this in everyone's face. It's not fucking working.

Valereee, I wanted to keep this open to say that (sorry for the delay) the ideal for this going forward is for someone to be able to help ClemRutter figure out how to reword their contributions and not be so reliant on their sources. We would need engagement and better understanding from them in that regard, and that may not happen. I think Ritchie333 has interacted with ClemRutter before any thoughts one what can be done here, Ritchie? I truly hope ClemRutter can be unblocked and understand copyright better, but I am stumped on what do and at this point I hope writing one of my (popular?) long form things like this can get some more eyes on the situation and help get a better resolution. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 05:55, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I must say, as an admin who usually just writes and contributes to articles, that the instructions for how to help out are daunting to say the least.--Berig (talk) 06:10, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Berig, for what it’s worth, I thought so too until I had actually given it a go a couple of times and then it became much clearer. You could also try starting at Copypatrol (linked above I believe) which is effectively a RC filter for copyright issues with an in built iThenticate system to attempt to locate where content was copied from. firefly ( t · c ) 06:53, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Honest to god, for anyone looking at pitching in, CCI is not all that technically difficult, just tedious. My usual process is approximately this:

1. Open the diff and compare to the current wording in the article - is it still present?
2. If it's already gone, mark the diff as such and move on; if it remains, look to see if there's a source cited
3. If the source is accessible, visually compare the wording or use ctrl+F to find keywords (proper nouns are great for this as they won't change, and unusual words are telltale)
4. If you can't access the source but it looks suspicious based on unusual wording, either reword (if possible) or presumptively remove and note that in your edit summary
5. If there's no source but it looks sketchy anyway, run it through Earwig's Tool or try googling short phrases from the diff to see if anything comes up that predates the diff
6. If you find CV or extremely close paraphrasing at any point, remove it and note it as such in your edit summary
7. If you did all that and you're pretty confident it's not CV or really close paraphrasing, the diff is probably clear
8. Mark the diff in the CCI with your results - Y for copyvio found and removed, N for no issues.

On any given CCI, shorter diffs will be towards the end of a given page/later pages; those tend to be easier, so people newer to the process may want to start there. Even if all you do is mark stuff off that isn't CV, you will be slimming down the lists that the rest of us are dealing with, so that is still really helpful. If you encounter any issues or have questions, the CCI channel on Discord will be only delighted to help, or you can probably ask an experienced CCIer at their talk page - I for one am happy to answer questions on-wiki or on Discord. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:00, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I am tempted to have a go at this, but honestly, ATM, I feel that fake referencing is just as big a threat to WP. Most people here probably don't have a clue about the amount of OR that is hidden in WP articles by using references that either say the oppposite of what they are supposed to say, or don't mention the topic at all.--Berig (talk) 07:54, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Moneytrees and Premeditated Chaos: Thanks for the info! I'll have to have a look into helping with this soon. I feel I owe it to check at least as many diffs as the extra you now have to check from Clem's edits - but would look at someone else's edits to avoid perceived COI. Also, as I offered before, if there's anything that can be automated, please let me know and I can code up a bot script to help. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:27, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for offering to help, Mike Peel. The third page of the ClemRutter CCI had Mike Peel 125 articles and 456 diffs at the point of its creation. There's also an unknown number of articles/diffs on page 1 and page 2 that were post-unblock, since Clem was unblocked on December 29 and the CCI was not created until January 12. Clem performed around 103 edits to articlespace in that period.— Diannaa (talk) 18:17, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Moneytrees, Clem is a real-life friend of mine and one of the few Wikipedians I would trust to look after my children. I haven't had time to digest this thread yet, and I'm rather upset to see Clem blocked at a time when he's got bigger problems to think about right now. From an outsider's point of view, I'm curious to why Diannaa seems to be the only admin looking at this - are we that short of admins specialising in copyvios these days? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:33, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Ritchie333, are we that short of admins specialising in copyvios these days? Yes, unfortunately. Only four admins regularly patrol copypatrol; out of those four, MER-C is only semi active and is usually preoccupied fighting spam and clerking copyright problems, Sphilbrick does not block, and Moneytrees (me) is not always around; these last few months I've been focusing on real life a lot and I was on vacation at the time the block occurred. That leaves responsibility of it to Diannaa... Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 04:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

So because someone is a friend of yours, they must be treated differently than any other copyvio case? That stinks of corruption. The inability of the community to catch these problems when they occur before they have escalated to large CCI cases makes it all the more necessary to be firm when the cases to break - with blocks and presumptive deletions needed to protect the encyclopedia.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:09, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Mildly, I think one point Moneytrees is making is there isn't "another admin" to "place the blocks and the warnings" because hardly anyone actually works on copyright issues. Also, while I wouldn't use strong language like "corruption" I do agree with Nigel Ish that there's nothing wrong with the same uninvolved admin issuing a warning to an editor and later blocking that same editor if they ignore the warning. If you feel this is harassment you'd need some more specific evidence than that. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:41, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

More I think about it the more this needs adding: as with others in this thread Ritchie333 you really do need to substantiate or withdraw your harassment allegation. If you're serious about the allegation then no doubt you have evidence to share: if you're not serious you should correct the record. Either option is better than just leaving this here as an unsupported accusation. -- Euryalus (talk) 03:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Ritchie333, From an actual outsider's point of view, you don't seem like an outsider. Your aspersion against Diannaa is troubling and I wish you'd retract it. El_C 10:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

That is was a reprehensible attack, Ritchie333, being so intimately involved with the blocked user as you claim, you can't speak as an "outsider". -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:55, 28 August 2021 (UTC) (I've struck though, in part, thank you, Ritchie333, for the retraction (although you should have used strike) -- I foresaw an Arbcom case, if this was not remedied, it was such a hurtful and serious thing for you to have done. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC))

Looks like Diannaa is gonna need more baby chipmunksupport before the day is done if this bizarre friend of nonsense is to somehow continue. El_C 11:20, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

This is exactly the kind of attitude that makes it impossible to deal with serial copyright issues. People show up to wring their hands over their wikifriends getting warned or blocked for repeatedly violating copyright, but do absolutely nothing to help remove the CV or mentor the person in question. People see how copyright admins get treated and steer clear of the area - who'd want to get involved if it brings this kind of response down on their heads? I too would like to see Ritchie retract this ridiculous aspersion against Dianaa. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:04, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Lest anyone else think this was "hounding" (??), here are the links to the relevant CopyPatrol reports that Diannaa handled: 1 2 3 4 5. Here's how to interpret them: These five bot reports, where a bot flagged ClemRutter's edit as a potential copyright violation, make up 0.000057 percent of the reports that Diannaa has handled over the past five years. All of her actions (warnings/blocks) happened after she reviewed one of these reports; none of them resulted from what Ritchie333 is implying. Probably because she's busy going through 87,000 other reports to clean up copyright violations. Sorry, but that accusation is baseless and hurtful. I echo Moneytrees' invitation for anyone to help out with copyright cleanup, even if it's just a little bit — it may seem daunting but it definitely gets easier with experience. DanCherek (talk) 11:36, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't know Clem well but judging from the passion of his friends, I'm guessing he's a great person and one who is committed to what we're trying to do here. It makes me sad that someone who is thought of so highly and who is committed to Wikipedia would end up indefinitely blocked, especially at what seems like a difficult time in their life based on what Ritchie has said. But I also wonder where his friends were in all this. Were they helping him behind the scenes after his December unblock or perhaps after the new set of warnings began in July? I don't know whether or not this happened and I hope it did, but if not it strikes me a shortcoming I see in our social fabric at times. To me one of the great virtues of having Wikifriends are having people I trust to nudge me before I wander too far off the path and who can count on me to do the same for them. But this doesn't seem to be how all friend groups operate. I see people who so evidently have so much to contribute but who wear out the community's patience for them and end up indeffed or desyopped and wonder if some earlier efforts from friends couldn't have stopped that sad outcome. As to the matter at hand, I hope Clem is receiving help now from the people who care about him. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:49, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ritchie333, you know how much I respect you, and I'd urge you to look at this exchange and in particular this response. That is not "an acceptable paraphrase", as CR is calling it. He is trying to argue there is no alternative to using certain terms (which isn't even true, I can think of alternatives to most of the ones he calls out) and that because of that, the entire thing is okay. He's ignoring the fact the paragraph structure is identical, down to asking rhetorical questions. Clearly this was cut-pasted and a few words changed. It's very troubling, especially because he is defending it as an acceptable paraphrase, and then later in the exchange he's talking as if everything's been worked out when it clearly hadn't. —valereee (talk) 17:07, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Ritchie333, I agree with the editors in this thread who characterize your comment as "stinking of corruption", "troubling aspersions" and a "reprehensible attack". It represents one of the worst problems of Wikipedia - veteran editors reflexively defending their friends even if they're clearly in the wrong. That's how we get the unblockables. As admins, we owe it to the community to do what's best for the encyclopedia, rather than for any one editor. Please draw the appropriate consequences from this feedback. Sandstein 20:47, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

+1 to DanCherek, Barkeep49, valereee and Sandstein (or should that be +4?). — Bilorv (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Ritchie333, with this edit, you removed the part of your comment at issue in which you wrote "the actions of Diannaa look like hounding - another admin could have placed the block and the warnings", and replaced it with other text. As an administrator, you must know that WP:REDACT directs: "if anyone has already replied to or quoted your original comment, changing your comment may deprive any replies of their original context, and this should be avoided". To me, this looks like you seek to avoid taking responsibility for your poor conduct in this thread. Please amend your edit to re-insert the removed text, and apologize to Diannaa. Sandstein 08:34, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Sandstein, I apologise to any offence caused, as none was ever intended. I do not have any more time to deal with this today, sorry. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• With so few editors who really understand the CCI process, other admins may not tend to take this seriously. I think if the admins and editors who are involved in this process are telling us they need help, we need to listen.

In general I feel if there aren't enough volunteers to do a job, it's either not worth doing, or it's worth paying to have done. This problem is actually one WMF does care about, and there's plenty of money. —valereee (talk) 11:24, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

That's a very good point - some of the very large CCIs are too big for the small portion of the volunteer community that is active in the area to deal with in a reasonable time, or is reliant on checking off-line sources that are not necessarily easily available. Some sort of full time support with access to big public libraries and the like would be of benefit for these large cases.Nigel Ish (talk) 12:05, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

The W?F cannot help directly because that would expose them to legal liability. The W?F can invest in software that isn't shit so that our workflows are faster, our bots are better and copyvio users don't create sockpuppets, and reduce or stop growth rates in certain parts of the world that have a general disrespect for copyright laws.

On our end, it is long-established policy that major contributions of copyright violators can be removed indiscriminately (or deleted through Wikipedia:Copyright problems if it's the entire article). We don't use this policy enough. Sockpuppets? Presumptive deletion. Promotion, original research, BLP issues or other content problems? Presumptive deletion. Difficult to verify offline sources? Presumptive deletion. Remove first, rewrites can wait. Five warnings? No, one is enough, then an indefinite block. No communication? Block.

We are also losing the battle against spammers, for the exact same reason. MER-C 15:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

No books are fabulous. Not everything is online, often the best stuff isn't. Secretlondon (talk) 16:15, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

They can be great sources but are difficult to access and verify any infringement. That's the problem. It takes too much time. MER-C 17:01, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Also against POV pushers.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:16, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

We desperately need more editors from many regions of the world. The solution is to better help new editors understand how importantly we take copyright issues, not to reduce or stop growth rates in certain parts of the world. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:04, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Nope, we can't even do that, again thanks to the W?F. MER-C 19:16, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I've had a go and its a horribly convoluted process going through someone's entire edit history. There has to be a better way than this - picking through ancient diffs. Secretlondon (talk) 16:43, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

The diffs wouldn't be that old if we were serious about copyright infringement. MER-C 17:01, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

One obvious point - why are you going through things on commons? That's up to commons, which has its own processes. Secretlondon (talk) 17:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

because commons cares about copyright more than here. The images need to be cleaned up too. The admins have been generally appreciative of the cci work and we take it through commons deletion processes. It's just like crosswiki spam and abuse. You follow the processes. Sennecaster (Chat) 17:50, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Ritchie, my respect for you is greatly diminished. To be a copyright editor is to walk through brambles, as this thread shows. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 13:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

In regards to reducing the CCI backlog, you guys might want to look into doing a backlog drive. This has worked well for some WikiProjects I've been involved with. You pick a month, you announce/market the backlog drive to folks (via mass message sending, noticeboard posts, watchlist message, etc.), then folks work on reducing the backlog for a month. You make sure there is a leaderboard so that people can see who is being most productive (the competition aspect is motivating). At the end of the drive, you give out barnstars depending on what numerical targets people hit. Sounds dumb, but it creates focus and motivation, which really boosts productivity. I've seen stubborn backlogs completely cleared via a backlog drive. Could organize it via a WikiProject such as Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:51, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Ritchie333, you've been asked by at least two editors to retract your slur against Diannaa, but I don't see any acknowledgement that you've even seen those requests. In case it's not obvious to you, a statement that "Clem is a real-life friend of mine and one of the few Wikipedians I would trust to look after my children" could reasonably be followed by something like "so I can't make any comment here", or perhaps "so I'll try to help him to understand the problems with his edits", but not by any kind of innuendo against the admin who's been trying to make sure that Rutter understands and follows one of our most important policies. Please strike that unacceptable remark. In case others are not aware: Diannaa is not the only admin who works on copyright (my thanks to the others, you know who you are), but she carries a massive load with exemplary fairness and reasonableness; she deserves our thanks, not a stab in the back.

On the wider issue: this is the second time in a few weeks that a legacy admin (thanks to them for long service!) has come out of the woodwork to unblock without consultation with the blocking admin. Would it be worth a reminder in the next admin newsletter that this is not current practice? And perhaps also that it is not acceptable to unblock any user that you know personally? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:11, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers, Good idea. Please, something in the newsletter (no idea how that is done); it's not a panacea, but it would be something worthwhile to come out of this. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:30, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

I have long thought that Diannaa and Moneytrees are two of the three biggest saints on this website, and I have no idea how they do it. (And I extend this to anyone else who's a regular at CCI but who I may not have bumped into as much.) CCI is the worst embarrassment of the project, but it is not because of the people who work there, but the people who don't. This essay by Moneytrees is actually quite tame IMO when you actually consider the burden that has been placed on them and how much of an amazing job they have been doing, with no complaints, kind words and a smile at least 99% of the time.

If you're looking for a way forwards, Moneytrees, I'm not sure whether you've seen the recent AFC Backlog Drive but in June AFC was our third-worst embarrassment of the project and the backlog was completely wiped, even though the backlog was (being brutally honest) planned ad hoc and the programming behind it was not present until late in the drive. Now, I think that's way, way more than you could get from a CCI Backlog, but it proves that backlogs can succeed beyond your highest expectations, and it's worth having a go even if you don't have a perfect plan right from the start. (And upon edit conflicting I notice Novem Linguae has brazenly beaten me to the suggestion of a backlog.) — Bilorv (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I've tried CCI in the past, and I've got one point that I get hung up on that I would really like some advice on. The CCI is Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20190125, and primarily involves an editor that copy and pasted material from unreliable sources in what is one of my prime areas of interest (Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War). Most articles also have copy-and-paste of PD sources in there. It doesn't feel right butchering the articles to leave only the PD material with gaps, but the sources used are so bad that it also doesn't feel write "using" them to rewrite the content. For the most part, I don't have access to replacement sources. I would be doing more there, but I just can't get past how to handle this point without leaving either half-articles or using horrible sourcing. Hog Farm _Talk 04:05, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

It really sucks, but sometimes, if you're unwilling or unable to rewrite, you just have to gut an article of the CV and leave the wreckage. And I mean that goes for lots of areas, not just CCI - if you encountered these terrible sources in a MilHist article outside of a CCI, would you feel guilty stripping the content out, knowing that it was likely to have errors or inaccuracies? If better sources exist but are not accessible to you, maybe someone at RSX or MilHist could help you get them. If that's not plausible, you could leave talk page notes, or invisible comments in the parts you removed so later editors can see what you did and why. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:59, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

The core of the problem is people adding material to articles without sources. Unsourced material is worse than none at all. It's worse than vandalism, because vandalism can be quickly removed. If the source is provided, then the facts can be verified. If it's not, we cannot be sure. (It also opens us up to citogenesis.) I am often relieved to find that material has been copypasted from a PD site. (This happened to me yesterday.) Otherwise, even when I know what it says to be true, I am forced to rewrite because I cannot be certain it is not a copvio. We need admins to take unsourced additions as seriously as vandalism. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:23, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Unsourced statements are Wikipedia's #1 problem. Levivich 06:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I would say that more than half of CV diffs that I encounter actually cite the source. That's not to say that unsourced edits are not problematic, but I would strongly disagree that unsourced edits are the core of the copyright violation problem. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:31, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Premeditated Chaos, In the case of the Edelmand CCI I mentioned below, the copyvios cited an offline source, that I only spotted because I have the same book, so the plagiarism sat in Wikipedia for years and years. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 07:33, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Right, but they did cite a source. In my experience a lot of people doing serial CV are acting in good faith and literally have no idea that copy-pasting (or, yes, laboriously retyping from a book) content into Wikipedia is wrong. They cite their sources because they think that makes the direct copying okay. On the one hand it does make it easier to check for violations because you have something to check against, but you're right that when it's a book source it is harder because books are often less accessible. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

When I remove a large block of copyvio from a draft, I'll usually replace it with {{expand section}}. That might be a good solution in some cases. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:32, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

I have not had a chance to look at this thread before now, as I was out working (and hence off-wiki) yesterday from about midday to 2am. Anyway, I have reworded the above comment to better express what I meant, and would suggest that people consider that I might just not have expressed myself as well as I could because I was online for about ten minutes yesterday. The main point stands - as I consider Clem a friend, I do not feel I can offer any meaningful views on sanctions for them as I don't have a neutral view on the subject.

Of the more general issue, copyvios are one of the most misunderstood parts of the project. Most of the time, from my experience at working at AfC, is that close paraphrasing and plagiarism is added by new or inexperienced users, which is why I ended up writing User:Ritchie333/Plain and simple guide to copyvios after people got annoyed that I refused to restore articles or drafts that I'd deleted as WP:G12. Admins working in copyvios are as rare as hen's teeth and we need more Diannaas and Moneytrees working on the project. Personally, I've chipped away at the odd CCI case such as Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Edelmand but I just find it tedious - I can cope with reviewing ten articles, but five hundred is just too much. If we got more people helping out, then we might be able to make a dent in the backlog. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 07:30, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Ritchie333, I believe what you meant to do was strike what you wrote rather than delete it after others have replied to it and commented on it. 28bytes (talk) 08:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

No doubt. This is too strange. An inappropriate removal rather than a strikethrough (what?) coupled with a the main point stands follow up (again, what?). Ritchie333, I dislike a pile on and forced apologies almost in equal measures, but your initial accusation and your latest follow up suck, well, almost in equal measures. You fire-and-forget some accusatory nonsense, hurtful nonsense, without basis, and now this? What is happening? El_C 08:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Agree with El_C. Ritchie333 you've been an admin for six years, you must be aware of the need to substantiate allegations of harassment and to follow WP:TPG. Not the end of the world but you dropped the ball on both of these in this thread. Gratuitous and unintentionally patronising advice: do better next time. And with that, enough said. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Well, I got more too say. Sandstein, I apologise to any offence caused, as none was ever intended — I'm sure that makes any offense feel better. Sheesh. El_C 10:29, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• It's hard but can brook no excuse. Let's not forget to stress why copyright issues strike at the heart of what this project is; we, Wikipedia, warrant our encyclopedia is freely licensed to copy (apart from NFCC) -- that's a trust we each take on, and cannot shirk. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  Every editor has a responsibility to uphold the integrity of this project with every edit they submit. We preach to stop POV and RS and other issues, we have noticeboards for edit warring and neutrality issues. The copyright cleanup project is dead, the Copyright Problems is a "noticeboard" but is more of a dumping ground and a non intuitive design. CCI isn't a noticeboard. WP:MCQ is the closest we have to a true noticeboard on copyright, and this covers filespace only. There are hundreds of images needing a copyright confirmation alone, with most of them unsourced! There isn't enough people or time anywhere.

  We don't have time to slow down, to unblock people without proof of change, to open more CCIs on 30k+ edits. We're spread too thin. I've spent almost from the day I joined working on Copyright, with now more time spent on Ardfern than anything. I know that case better than I know GNG at this point! Fuck, this is so bad that I was forced to open a case on an entire wikiproject. I can't even begin to work on it, there's older cases with more blatant violations. The lack of care of both copyright and how serious this issue permeates every sphere and every editor. Even with new people, none of us "vets" can take a break. There's so much more to be done. This is barely the start.

  I'm cynical this AN will change anything; this work is hard and very few actually stick around and grind the case out to the end. After people do a few, will they continue to stay and continually help out? We relied on MoonRiddenGirl in the early days, now it's Diannaa we rely on. This isn't sustainable. We need admins, but every time someone runs for copyright it's harrowing and every other admin is too hesitant. We can't afford to be more careful, work slower, we can't be afraid to remove content wholesale. Moreso, we are expected to be accurate. We cannot make mistakes, it's drilled into our heads from the start. Moneytrees is right. This cannot be swept under the rug any longer. We are beholden to uphold the integrity of the encyclopedia as editors, and for too long we've let that slip with CCI. Sennecaster (Chat) 14:51, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• Not a subject I'd typically comment on, having far less experience with it than many others here, but a thought on the subject of everything that comes before a CCI and the framing of CCI:
  The thing which IMO should most contribute to a decision to indef/ban a user for copyright reasons isn't having made the mistakes (even over a long period of time, even prolifically), but refusing to put in the effort to learn where they went wrong and then clean it up themselves. I don't know why we would allow someone to continue being an editor in good standing if they create a massive backlog for other people to go through and don't spend as much of their volunteer time as possible cleaning it up.
  And a big reason, as I see it, why someone might not want to do this is if they feel humiliated by the process or otherwise feel like it's something being done to them rather than with them. The way it's set up, as a formal "investigation" that often involves posts about the person on noticeboards, seems like a law enforcement/suspect relationship whereby someone is expected to sit back and watch the gears of justice (even if they're invited to help, by that time they may feel sufficiently stigmatized to have difficulty doing so). Of course, by the time a CCI is filed, presumably people have received several warnings with clear examples and instructions and have either failed to clean up or continued to add violations, but it seems worth reiterating that the top priority should be retaining the copyright violators to get them to clean up their own stuff, thus avoiding the giant backlog to begin with (to whatever extent possible). Maybe there's a special mentorship sort of program that would be useful to precede any formal investigation and keep the user involved without attaching their name to an investigation. That would require volunteer time, too, but perhaps less? For those active in the area, is this too optimistic? Are we only really talking about backlogs caused by the worst offenders who contributed maliciously and/or have no interest in being an editor in good standing? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:28, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  The CCI backlog runs the full gamut between good faith editors to those banned by the W?F. Serial copyright violators with a complete lack of communication occur far too often, where the only remedy is the banhammer. MER-C 17:05, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  This is my experience as well. Established editors especially will always pull rank, unless their name is Rodw. We are not taken seriously. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 18:22, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  I was going to suggest very much the same approach as @Rhododendrites, at least as far as Good Faith editors with a serious blind spot on copyright violations go, like Clem. So finding a way to guide and encourage them to come back and continue editing, and to recognise and address the problems they hadn’t even realised they”d created seems a win-win, if we can manage it. Sadly, like most people, I have little interest in many topics where copyvios occur, but presumably the offending AGF editor does? I would far rather check and mark their revised work than do that work for them. So finding a way to support and rehabilitate certain types of cv offenders so that they feel they can return and address the work they’ve created seems a worthwhile goal - assuming we can find a way to achieve it without shaming them into disappearing forever. Nick Moyes (talk) 07:37, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

• Oh, by the way, it's worse than this. I also maintain the contribution surveyor, the tool that generates the CCI listings (we had a contribution surveyor before then, but it was authored and maintained by someone who got banned by the W?F). And then there's the whole other existential fight, the one against UPE spamming. MER-C 16:15, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
  • @MER-C: Not to turn this ANI thread into "people with no experience in CCI make suggestions about CCI", but... have you tried taking the output of your tool and having a bot spam the talk pages of the affected articles with a notice along the lines of "Due to [link to CCI page] the following edits may have introduced copyright violations into this article: [diffs from CCI listing]. For instructions on how to investigate and repair the problem, [link to instructions]"? I just looked at a couple of the open cases in my areas of editing interest and found articles I've edited or have on my watchlist, but would never have known to look for possible old copyvio in them. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:40, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
    • I'd support this, but be prepared for people to not like the explosion in their watchlists. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 07:05, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
      • This does have the advantage of possibly reaching people who may have access to offline sources who have the articles watched. It will reduce the problem of the first thing people know about an article having possible problematic content is when the article is deleted. More communications with Wikiprojects would be good as well where they are active - again if we can engage with editors who have knowledge of the subject and have access to sources, then there is more of a chance of saving the articles.Nigel Ish (talk) 08:34, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
      • Yes, some editors could find explosions on their watchlists if it spammed all talk pages for a given CCI at once, and the potential violations were all in one or two areas of interest. Would be great if such a bot could work through multiple CCIs but each in small chunks. NebY (talk) 17:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

    I support this proposal; it allows us to leverage the capacity of editors who already know the articles at issue and are best placed to fix existing problems. Sandstein 08:50, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

  I also think this is a great idea, assuming it's practicable to automatically template the relevant articles. I see no problem if people's watchlists are hit with such notifications. If, as has been highlighted, we have a desperate backlog of unresolved and unaddressed copyvios in articles, we need to mark all these articles for editor attention. Simples. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

This is one of the symptoms of having insufficient administrators. This problem continues to get worse. The solution isn't finding more people to process the CCI investigations. The solution has to involve preventing them from happening in the first place. The project is failing. It's never going to fail with a bang, but with a whimper. Each day forward, it whimpers a bit more. Like lobsters in the slowing boiling pot, nobody really notices. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Bull. The project, Wikipedia, is not failing. Main problems I pick up on is that "Wikimedia" editors are spread too thin among too many projects and would be nice if many of them focused on Wikipedia again (always remember, Wikimedia was set up to aid and uphold Wikipedia, if there are signs of thinning-herd failure look at project distribution), some very good editors have been blocked or banned (a "day of forgiveness" would be nice for long-time editors and controversial blocks, Jimbo can do that with a wave of his arm onto a keyboard), and not enough emphasis on getting more professional writers and researchers to come on board (via media interviews, talk show appearances, talks to professional groups at their conventions etc.). Just some quick ideas. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:09, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

The long term trend of administrator decline (now well over 10 years) has seen many attempts at reversal. Nothing has worked. A year ago this day, we had 517 active admins. Now we have 469, a 9.3% drop in the active admin corps. This is unsustainable. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:25, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Which of course must be reversed. Maybe a "Class of September '21" with nomination of 21 new admins (many long term editors who've expressed interest, and re-nom many who failed before at admin admittance). Jimbo will save us (of course) if he uses some of those magic-wand powers that he has - maybe we can come up with a list of ten suggestions that he can act on as long as he's still active and has some good level-10 powers. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:49, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

This idea will go about as well as introducing a handful of sodium into a fish tank. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

I absolutely oppose this. This mindset, the "day of mercy" as you call it, is why we are in this situation. This is yet more sweeping under the rug of our problems, especially incivility and copyright violations. Blocks such as Clemrutter's don't come out of nowhere. Neither do community bans, which I think we should consider for Clemrutter. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

That really seems unnecessary. This was a productive and committed editor who has certainly had a serious blindspot regarding close paraphrasing and copyright, and that is unacceptable. But if we can get that addressed -and if they'd also be willing to help resolve it, I see no reason to community ban them in the way you suggest. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:32, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

• Actually we can sweep copyright problems under the rug - that's what people like Google/Youtube and Facebook do by insisting that they will only look at such problems if you provide strong evidence that you are the copyright holder. The question is more whether we should sweep them under the rug. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:47, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

  This is incorrect. My Facebook account was disabled after somebody sent a false copyright claim from three different junk e-mail addresses claiming I infringed on their property. Since I was posting my own photographs (currently available on Commons and uploaded by me) they obviously could not provide a strong evidence the photographs is theirs. This was in 2018, and I was not able to get the account unbanned.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

  Pardon my personal commentary here, but that's just scummy that Facebook couldn't do anything for you. What a joke that our copyright system has become. WaltCip-(talk) 14:33, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

  I sent several complaints (counternotices) according to their policies, the complaints were all answered (presumably by robots). All the answers were identical, that they do not see any reasons to think that I own rights to the material I posted (which, again, were my own photographs), and that I should check with the complainant. Given that the complainant also sent me threats by e-mail (so that I had to report them to the police) and perfectly knew that I own the copyright, I obviously did not follow up with them. May be they meant I should go to the court, but in my country this is not possible.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:41, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to facilitate speedy deletion of unprocessed CCI entries

The above discussion shows that the amount of material at WP:CCI exceeds our ability, as a volunteer community, to process it in a timely manner. I therefore propose adding something like the following as a new speedy deletion criterium:

G15. Unprocessed possible copyright violations

This applies to pages that meet the following criteria:

• they have been listed as possible copyright violations at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations for at least a year, and
• they have not been marked as processed by an editor to indicate that any copyright violations have been removed.

If feasible, it is preferable to remedy the possible copyright violation by removing the content that was added in possible violation of copyright, but administrators are not required to attempt to do so. Pages deleted according to this provision will be restored to draft space on the request of any editor who credibly represents to Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion that they will promptly check for and remove any copyright violations, after which the pages may be restored to their original location.

Any suggestions or comments? If people like this, we could make a formal RfC proposal out of it. Sandstein 11:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

This should probably be crossreferenced to WT:CSD. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:56, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Many things listed at CCI are not wholesale violations, they are articles where at some point large pieces of copyrighted text were added. I do not think deleting them is such a good idea, as opposed to deletion of articles with the foundational copyvio and hardly anything else.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, for the latter case we already have WP:G12. But if nobody is willing to do the CCI work and untangle the copyvio from the good content then in my view we are required to delete the whole article, unless we want to violate our foundational commitment to free content and be complicit in ongoing copyright violations. Sandstein 12:19, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but I would say if we go for this solution it must be a revert to the pre-copyvio case (possibly followed by a revision-deletion), not the deletion. Imagine I die tomorrow and someone adds copyvio to Krasnoborsky District, I am not around to remove it and nobody else cares - should the article be deleted then?--Ymblanter (talk) 12:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Hmm. Perhaps it's better to restrict wholesale deletion to instances where the suspected edits include the page creation. And to use reversion+revdel if not. I note that WP:CCI does say If insufficient volunteers are available to manage clean-up, presumptive wholesale removal is allowed. but apparently that's not enough. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

We already have this process - I'd push the deletions through Wikipedia:Copyright problems. These listings are not onerous to process - check history of each article in a batch to see if the copyvio editor is the main contributor and the page cannot be reverted (if it can reasonably be reverted, it can be done so on the spot), then Twinkle batch delete. It takes about five minutes per 20 articles. I deleted over 500 of Billy Hathorn's articles via this method last year. MER-C 14:17, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I think we need something like this, but that the specifics should originate from discussion among those who work most in CCI/copyright and therefore know what will most help them. (Not a comment on Sandstein as I've no idea how much copyright experience they have.) — Bilorv (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Don't think this would be particularly helpful. Most CCI entries aren't pages which were created by the subject but pages which they edited, so if necessary content added by that person can be removed. Presumptively deleting every page edited by a CCI subject would be extremely damaging as there are about 164,000 of them and the vast majority are clean. Policy does already allow for the presumptive removal of content added by someone with a history of copyright problems. Hut 8.5 12:28, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. Presumptive deletion would make only ~5% of the backlog go away faster. MER-C 17:23, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. If it can be resolved by indiscriminate reversion, then do that and revdel the intermediate diffs. Otherwise, G12 applies. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Oppose: This is what WP:CP is for. What we require is more admins to delete articles and revisions, and not-admins to write replacements. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:00, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Oppose - seems to be overkill. WP:CP functions for presumptive deletion if needed. I know from my experience that the CCI I've worked on there's a lot of ones that are actually copied from PD sources or just aren't copyvios or are only an easily-removable or rewritable single sentence or two of violation . This seems like too blunt a weapon to handle the situation. Hog Farm _Talk 06:07, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Oppose That's what wp:CP is for, like Vami said. With this proposed speedy deletion a lot of good articles could get deleted because of easily fixed problems. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 00:09, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Fake referencing

I am usually deep down in the mines digging for information to improve articles with, so I may have missed this topic being discussed here. I frequently come across OR, or POV-pushing where the sources referred to either don't contain the information at all, or actually say the opposite of what they are claimed to say. I am getting more and more concerned by this and I wonder what kind of administrative sanctions that would be suitable for editors who are caught adding fake references or change referenced information in non-trivial ways.--Berig (talk) 08:04, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fictitious references suggests that users found to be deliberately adding false citations should be warned suitably and blocked if the behaviour persists. I agree with that approach; the {{uw-error1}} series of warning templates seems to cover this. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 08:10, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks!--Berig (talk) 08:11, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I personally have very little patience with users who falsify content or lie about citations. Unlike obvious "lol penis lol" vandalism, this has the potential for lasting harm, and blocks should be made quickly. —Kusma (talk) 08:35, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree. I am tempted to just give these editors indefinite blocks.--Berig (talk) 08:37, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I see no point in warning a user that intentionally corrupting articles with false references is wrong, this is something people already know is wrong. I do see the need to determine if it was intentional though. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 09:26, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Tend to agree. An immediate indef seems more appropriate. If some kind of "good reason" exists, this can then be used for an unblock. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:18, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, there was recently such an incident where I could assume good faith due to the circumstances involved.--Berig (talk) 10:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Berig, can you elaborate? I believe you, I just can't myself come up with a scenario under which deliberately adding information not included in the source could be good faith. I can see misinterpreting, but that wouldn't fall under 'deliberate'. —valereee (talk) 13:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Valereee:, in this case, it was a long time editor in good standing who tried to fix a few broken references, believing they were from a particular source that was already in the bibliography, and there were other issues about it. The result was unfortunate, but it is fixed now with the intervention of other editors. I think the editor who did it is embarrassed about it, and I am certain it will not be repeated.--Berig (talk) 13:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

It is edits like these that make me really concerned. The last source doesn't even mention the topic.--Berig (talk) 13:42, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I see -- so certainly not deliberate falsification, just a misstep anyone could make. And, yes, it's often nationalistic POV-pushing where I see this, and it's especially difficult when the source is in another language and isn't available online in a translatable form. I've definitely had occasion where AGF seemed like it might just be credulousness. —valereee (talk) 14:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

WP:HOAX may be relevant and is an actual guideline. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 10:56, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I try to be fairly tough regarding warning and blocking editors who falsify references. Wikipedia is built around principles based on trust and honesty such as WP:AGF and WP:V, and people who make stuff up in the hope of tricking readers and other editors have no place here. Nick-D (talk) 11:20, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I'd be OK with an immediate indef if you were certain that the person was doing it intentionally. I was trying imagine situations where it could be done inadvertently, when a warning might be more appropriate - say someone finds a bit of information in one article with a source, and ports it over to another article, citing the same source but not actually checking it. That's bad practice, but it's not intentional deception if it later turned out that the source was a dud. Similarly, if someone read something in the Daily Mail, which referenced some bit of scientific research, I could imagine them repeating whatever the DM said about it, but citing the original source without reading it - again, bad practice, but not intentional deception. But yeah - if they've set out to deceive, they have no business editing here. Girth Summit _(blether) 18:42, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

It's also more than possible for someone to read one source in a series of citations,^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]} verify that it contains some other bit of info they're seeking for some other article, and then accidentally Ctrl-C on the wrong cite in the series. Reyk _YO! 09:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

This happens all the time in articles that are of interest to children. IP editors, mostly. Basically, they use citations as decorative elements to give their edits more credibility. What sometimes happens is that a reliable source says that a cartoon first aired in 2018. Our IP editor knows this is untrue because they clearly remember watching that cartoon in 2017. However, they're savvy enough to know that someone using Huggle will insta-revert them if they change the date without a citation. So, they replace the existing source with some random citation, preferably one that goes to a paywalled website. Voila! The correct information is now on Wikipedia, and it's even sourced. Outright vandalism is rarer in my experience, but it definitely happens. I tend to range block those as I find them. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:08, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

An example: LouisAlain

Let me give an example of a prolific editor (whom I'll notify directly) who does this (the mild version). User:LouisAlain translates biographies from German (dewiki). In the past, they also translated unsourced BLPs, which got them into trouble. They then started adding "random" sources at the end of paragraphs: sometimes about the subject of the article (but not the paragraph), sometimes not even that. I repeatedly warned them about this in January[3] and again[4], with many examples. To no avail, as a few weeks later the same happened again[5]. When I look at their creations now, I see Thorsten Pech, which had only a few refs in the original German article. LouisAlain adds some to his translation, but again uses random refs in random places, with this to source a biographical paragraph, and this Reddit discussion of a Youtube video to source a further biographical paragraph. At least in this case, both sources are about the same person, not some random namesake, but the end result remains: unacceptable "fake" referencing, to give the impression that all paragraphs are sourced when in reality they aren't. Fram (talk) 15:48, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

I regularly improve new translations by LouisAlain which show up on my watch list, and have not noticed what you call "fake referencing" recently, examples Leo Kestenberg (there was a long passage without refs, now commented out, - please look in the history if you can help sourcing it) and Josef Friedrich Doppelbauer which came with few references. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

There are also articles that are at best lazily translated without checking the sources. Roman Sadnik (from 2021-09-01): second ref, although claimed to have been accessed on the same day, does not mention the article subject. (If you accessed the page, why did you not read it?) Third ref: dead link, marked as dead on dewiki more than two years ago. LouisAlain, I am shocked to see that you have been here 10 years and have 60000 edits but still make this kind of mistakes: why would you ever cite an irretrievably dead link with no known archive, and not even tell people that you know the link is dead? —Kusma (talk) 23:31, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that not only don't they check the sources, but they pretend to have checked them anyway. In Udo Schneberger, they claim to have "retrieved" the sources on "19 August 2021", but the first source doesn't work because they made an error when copying it, and the second source no longer exists. The original, German article had these sources in January 2015, when they were working. Claiming that you have retrieved a source when translating an article, when in reality that source is no longer available, is again fake referencing. Sung-Hee Kim-Wüst, sentence about her early career, sourced to her Shazam profile (!) which contains no biographical information at all[6]. Third source, again a paragraph of biographical information, sourced to this which has nothing of the sort. Johannes Cernota, first source should be about their studies with Luciano Ortis, but that source succeeds in not having any information on either of them[7]! And the second (and final) source for his biography is ... Napster[8], which again has no information relating to anything in the preceding paragraph. It looks as if this is a constant in nearly all their creations (or at least way too many of them). It has often been suggested that they should work through AfC / Draft space instead of creating articles directly: perhaps it's time to turn this into an actual sanction? Fram (talk) 08:20, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Sung-Hee Kim-Wüst has an interesting history: The German article was originally copied from [9]. The text was donated, see de:Diskussion:Sung-Hee Kim-Wüst. So while it is not copyvio according to that talk page post (can't check the OTRS), it relies only on a single self-published source, and the English version now does so as well. (The "Institut-fuer-bildnerisches-denken" ref is just a copy/paraphrase of that). This is nowhere close to acceptable sourcing for a new BLP. —Kusma (talk) 09:05, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Kusma, I've removed the website autobiography from that article and sent it to AfD. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:36, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm going through his last 100 creations one by one (bottom up), and nearly all of them have these issues. Typical examples are Franz-Josef Birk, sourcing a full paragraph to this and one to this. Gereon Krahforst, the first section on his training is only sourced to this. Many of their creations have already been moved to draftspace (e.g. Draft:Hans Robertson or Draft:Friedrich Schirmer, see [10]) where LouisAlain so far refuses to edit. 08:50, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Proposal on article-creation for LouisAlain

Proposal: LouisAlain must create all new articles in draft space, and they can only be moved to the mainspace by AfC reviewers. Fram (talk) 08:50, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support, although I don't care too much who does the moves as long as it is not LA. The responses to concerns (sometimes promises, sometimes just attacks against the editor pointing out problems) like this look like LousAlain either doesn't understand the problem or chooses to ignore it. In either case, things can't just continue like this. —Kusma (talk) 09:16, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

  I think we have two problems, one is adding references that don't reference, and another is to detect that an article written in a foreign language is a copyvio. The first can be avoided by LouisAlain not adding any references, and for the second, Fram would be a good help. All in draft would make it very difficult for me to detect the new ones, - please spare me that trouble if it can be avoided. I'd have to follow contribs, which means several articles per day. I'm just grateful he does it! Many of his creations have been rescued from draft space where nobody watches and nobody is invited to improve. I suggest we help each other. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:26, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

  LouisAlain not adding references would definitely solve the problem of fake references, but then these pages clearly won't be in a state acceptable for mainspace. Having his page creations in draft space wouldn't necessarily have to mean more work for you: I think there could be easy ways to alert you and other interested people of LouisAlain's new drafts (say, a page where announces them to a WikiProject or to all interested people). —Kusma (talk) 11:54, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

  I don't want to be alerted 5 times a day, having my own work. I notice new articles on my watch list, and then look if I will expand. I do one article per day, and can't keep up with the speed. Isn't this Wikipedia, where all can help. You see an article without refs, and decide to tag it or find one. I can't help thinking that finding one might be easier. In German articles, often making a further reading (Literatur) a ref and cite it inline does the trick. - LOOK. Two DYK articles today, and both created by LouisAlain. We'd miss a lot without him. How about more thanks on his talk. I fail to see how admins could help at all in the process of making this corner more collaborative. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:08, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

LouisAlain's response
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
-- Hey, I just discover I have the honour of a whole paragraph on the administrator's notice board. Thanks so much to all who've made it possible. Now, this will be an all out confession : I'm bad ! I'm very bad and I apologize for the chaos and mayhem I have brought to the English wikipedia. Oh the sinner ! oh the criminal ! oh the bloody beastard ! He creates articles that are not perfect when put on the main. Be he and his family damned until the 40th generation ! Hadn't I lost my autopatrol rights some three years ago (didn't know what they were, didn't ask to be granted them, they were presented to me after 50 articles which I suppose were deemed in lign with this Wiki policy), I wouldn't figure on the list of "users to follow step by step", they present a very suspicious figure in our books. Why did I lose my A.P rights ? Well, you know her name... Of course I won't answer to the informer who took at least half an hour of his life to research in the archives examples of my misdeeds. Besides, he once again shows his true colour (for those who didn't know) by evoking sanctions ! (rest assure Mr. informer, this won't fail to happen and you'll have the sadistic pleasure to have another victime on your "user to get rid of" list. My memory may fails me but User:Richard Nevell wrote some three years ago that you were harrassing me. Nothing new under the sun). What a friendly atmosphere to work in when one is surrounded by hunters whose ultimate goal is to kill their prey. I notice that two of the guiding principles of wikipedia are regularly ignored and even stomped on : Supposedly Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia, hence help and support are (at least that's my understanding) expected, not the opposite. Suppose good faith. That one takes the cake ! I'm spoken of here as if I were delibaretly and voluntarily ignoring messages and advice I receive. Duhh ! I've already answered several times to this one but of course to no avail : executionners never listen to those they want to behead. They stubornely pursue their ultimate enjoyment : destroy the other. See fr:Perversion narcissique So I repeat once again : I am bad at finding references. I suck at this exercise. So you may tell me one trillion times to better this part of my translations, you can threaten me with whatever your wild imagination may invent, even cut my wrists or my arms, it won't change my unability to find decent references. I don't know how others do but I can't, I simply can't though I'm doing the research on Google.de. I try my best and all I find are most often very poor references. For crying out loud, what part don't you understand in what I write ? Is my English so poor that I'm even uncapable to be understood ? I repeat once again : I am bad at finding references. I suck at this exercise. Since the discreet intervention of Boleyn three years ago, all my translations are supervised by reviewers (about 4,500 of them since her intervention) who every now and then add the {{refimprove|date=July 2021}} tag. What's the point of being rewieved (mostly by John B123 who I thak here for his education and good manners) when some of my fellow Wikipedian friends insist my translations need more stuff ? As for not reworking the articles sent to the deep freezer, I simply profondly object to the unceremonious handling by some people who lack the basic manners of politess. You see, I belong to the old school and stick to the old fashioned way. Scuttling an article whose completion may have taken one or two hours of work irks me a littel it to say the least. All the more when no explanations are provided. I've reworked some of them before, submitted the new version and it was rebuked. Oh well... The funny thing (kind of) is that the fate of many an article depends on the person who performs the move. Talk of consistancy here ! How amateurish ! I notice there are hundreds of hundreds thousands articles with no ref. (or possibly one or two, including dead links) but obviously nobody cares about them. I've linked to some of them on my homepage (and yes, the informer once spent some minutes to better one of them). Other than that, I can only hear the sound of cricket regarding these so-called "articles". Speaking of so-called articles, the most prolific creator (whose name of course I won't mention) with something in the range of 95,000 articles, seems to benefit a green light for all his stubs of stubs (one sentence or possibly two, one ref or two ad that's it). What is the secret of this user to keep on publishing his botched job ? (Oh, I know about the Pokemon argument which I consider the perfect pretence to not change anything at all). Since it crosses my mind right now, I thank Kusma (who I gather is German) for helping me understand I don't do enough to propagate Germanic culture on the English Wikipedia. I'm shoked here, Kusma, very shoked ! So, to put an end to a long entertaining monologue, I've decided that from today (yesterday actually) I won't translate any article from German, French, Italian, Spanish etc. if is not accompanied by sufficient online references. Here they are : Horst-Eberhard Richter Jeanne Barbillion Armin Thurnher Elfriede Hammerl Brucknerfest August Bauer Willy Spatz Max Martersteig with references found haphazardly on the net. As far as I'm concerned, only Gerda Arendt and Grimes2 actually play the game according to the rules implied by the collaborative thingie. May they find another expression of my gratitude here. Again : I suck at finding good references. I can't like I can't read Chinese. Not to mention my many shortcomings with the HTLM code. Now if you want to castigate and to threaten me even more, You know my name LouisAlain (talk) 00:50, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

LouisAlain, sorry, I have no time to read all this (but hope writing it was good for you), because today it's not only one of your articles but also a violinist who died and has a miserable article - all referenced but not doing justice to what he meant to the world - and there's RL. I like your list of articles, - how about putting just the names of those you plan to do on your talk, and Fram can make a tick if copyright free, and I can make a tick for "will expand", and others can comment as well. - Please, everybody: don't use "<br>", ever, it ruins the colours in edit mode. Alternatives: a blank line, bullets, or close it: "<br />". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:05, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt:: the corrida goes on ! LouisAlain (talk) 08:36, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

So you are bad at finding references. OK. One of the things we've been talking about is that your new articles come with <ref> tags and external links that do not work or that (no longer) link to anything related to the article subject. Can you tell whether a link that somebody else (for example, an editor on the German Wikipedia) has suggested supports the content preceding it? —Kusma (talk) 21:01, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Kusma. I used to delete dead links on the German Wikipedia until someone over there told me not to. So, What am I supposed to do ? I thought I had answered all of your remarks but of course, as is usual, to no avail. Intellectual dishonesty runs deep among some administrators. I raise the issue of the point of my articles being submitted to rewievers. What was your answer (as well as other close friends I have on this site) ? None. Zilch. Zero. The sound of cricket. And I'm supposed to take you seriously ? Comme on. LouisAlain (talk) 08:36, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Not to be mean, but if you can't find good references, you shouldn't be writing a wikipedia article. I get that you're translating, but asking others to find the references is going beyond collaboration and into making things more difficult for the other editors. The way to write a wikipedia article is to find the good sources, read the good sources, and THEN write the wikipedia article from the sources that you find that are good. If you're translating an article, presumably those non-English articles have sources - in which case you should read THOSE sources, make sure they support the information in the article you're going to translate, and then translate the article, using those sources over here in the English wikipedia. It's immeasurably harder for other articles to take unsourced wikipedia articles and then have to find sources that support the unsourced information - because it's not the best way to make sure that the information is sources and paraphrased properly. What you seem to be expecting is that you translate the article, and then some other editor comes along, goes out and finds the sources that support the information you've added, and then they have to make sure that the way you translated things actually fits the sources they found. Do you see how that's a lot more work? Whether there are other articles that don't cite sources is immaterial - we shouldn't be ADDING to that number of articles that are going to make folks have to work harder to find sources and then shoehorn them in. Please don't expect other editors to clean up after you... that's not collaboration. Ealdgyth (talk) 01:11, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Ealdgyth. You shouldn't be writing a wikipedia article. Now we're going further in the process to eliminate me. A simple thing to do is to delete all my translations; sorry about having polluted the project with my filthy contributions. Also, I raised the issue of hundreds and hundreds thousands articles without the slightest reference and with no substance at all. What was your answer ? The sound of cricket of course! What you are suggesting is that participating to the project requires an intellectual scope well above mine. Can one be more discrimating ? LouisAlain (talk) 08:36, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm not saying you shouldn't be here, I pointed out the correct way to write a wikipedia article. And how to properly translate one. I get that you're trying to improve Wikipedia - what I'm trying to do is improve your editing so that you don't feel like folks are harassing you and following you around. So... for example - Tag des offenen Denkmals, which you just translated today. In it, it has the sentence "In 2006, the Tag des offenen Denkmals was awarded as an "Excellent Place" of the Germany – Land of Ideas campaign." with the source here. I note that you included the source because it was in the German article. All well so far. When you translated the article, you said that this source was "365 Orte 2006: Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz. In: land-der-ideen.de, retrieved 6 September 2021." When you put in "retrieved 6 September 2021" you are implicitly saying that you checked that source and it supports the information you're saying it sources - that "In 2006, the Tag des offenen Denkmals was awarded as an "Excellent Place" of the Germany – Land of Ideas campaign". Unfortunately, this is not the case. The solution to this is not to quit wikipedia, but to change your workflow in translating. You should check the sources in the articles you're translating before you bring them over to the English wikipedia. If the sources in the German (or whatever article) do not support the information ... you should NOT attach them to the English translation. This is the problem. You're falsifying references ... even if you're taking the "good faith" approach and assuming good faith on the part of the editors who originally added them in the non-English article. If you'd just not do that, a large chunk of your problems would be gone. You'd still need to find sources for the information, but at least you wouldn't be misleading others that there ARE sources that support it, when they do not. Ealdgyth (talk) 12:52, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support restricting creating new articles in mainspace (but I don't agree with requiring afc; any editor should be allowed to move them to mainspace). I just can't wrap my head around someone saying they are bad at finding good sources but are still creating articles. Finding sources is Step #1 for creating an article. If you skip that step and still create the article, you're only creating a problem. Levivich 13:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Levivich And now I'm learning I am creating problems on the en. Wikipedia; Thanks for the recognition of all the work I have done here. With friends like you...

• Maybe they should be required to provide sources before they are even allowed to create an article.... Rgrds --Bison X (talk) 14:37, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Who's "they" ? When I started learning English some 60 years ago, the pronoun for the first person in singular was "he or him" The times, they are a'changing... No wonder I'm lost in this jungle.

Bison X. But what a good idea ! Creating second rank users who will beg for the possibility of participating to the project. And I thought even correcting a typo was worth intervening. But Bison has his own criteria mind you ! You also show you haven't even read my former answer: So I'll repeat it: I decided two or three days ago I won't translate any article from German, French, Italian, Spanish etc. if it is not accompanied by sufficient online references. Here they are :

• Horst-Eberhard Richter
• Jeanne Barbillion
• Armin Thurnher
• Elfriede Hammerl
• Brucknerfest
• August Bauer
• Willy Spatz
• Max Martersteig with references found haphazardly on the net.

My last 25 artices:

• Tag des offenen Denkmals
• Henri Boncquet
• Emil Jungblut
• Gerda Kratz
• Malkasten-Redoute
• Johannes Radke
• Eberhard Westhofen
• Hermann vom Endt
• Willi Hoselmann
• Alte Tonhalle
• Karl Friedrich Wunder
• Irmtrud Wojak
• Gerlinde Haid
• Susanne Scholl
• Hans Haid
• Waldemar Titzenthaler
• Siegmund Labisch
• Albert Zander
• Zander & Labisch
• Edgar Weil
• Doris von Schönthan
• Franz Danksagmüller
• Wolfgang Glüxam
• Elke Eckerstorfer
• Christoph Wigelbeyer

It's references that you want ? There they are. Now, I'm sure you all guys won't be deterred to attack me on other points some wicked people never fail to find. At least, have the courage and honesty to write you want me to be banned. Also I have de:Friedrich Wilhelm Graupenstein with 69 references in view. Does Bison X have the magnanimity to allow me to take my chances ? Some minds are inebriated with hubris as soon as they smell an opportunity to devour their next.

• John B123 : Please, no need to keep on rewieving my publications, some nice fellows here are showing me the way out. Fram has already showed them the way (blocked twice for peccadillos, and simply ignoring the "Suppose Good Faith" mantra). They don't read my answers, don't take them into consideration, ignore my questions and will pursue their drive to crush me until I'm given the boot. I've been here before and nothing can surprise me from people I'm no match to, intellectually speaking.

• The lengh some people with an ounce of power will go to assert their will on others is simply flabbergasting ! Homo Homini Lupus. Of course we're all equal on Wikipedia except for those who are more equal than the others.

• Plato had a perfect quote for this kind of interlocutors but it would take too much time to unearth it; Too bad, but if you insist (knowing perfectly well you won't) I'll will deliver. In the meantime I have this : Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughter house and thinks : They're only animals (Theodor W. Adorno)

• Forgive them Lord, they don't know what they're doing. LouisAlain (talk) 08:36, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• I've just clicked on the 'random article' button only to immediately land on Archaeologia Polona. 2 references repeated twice. I'm sure the bright minds associated against me will rush to correct the situation (Actually, I don't hold my breath. Nothing will be changed : I'm their target, and nobody else). How pathetic and morally corrupt some people are. LouisAlain (talk) 09:03, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I've reverted it as a copyright violation. I don't think insulting people left and right is your best way forward here. What also won't help is simply continuing with the problematic behaviour: you created Henri Boncquet (translated from dewiki), and added one source to the 1 1/2 sentence "[...]then moved to the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels for a few years. He received his first official commission in 1894: the bronze eagle in the botanical garden at the Schaarbeek Gate in Brussels"[11]. That source has no information on the preceding paragraph at all, so why add it there? (The second source in the article is equally bad, but you copied that, you didn't add it). Fram (talk) 09:14, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
  • In Gerda Kratz (very poor sourcing, but that's in the original), you claim that you retrieved the 6th source yesterday. I doubt it[12]. Claiming that you have checked a source (or at the very least its existence) when in fact you haven't again is faking references. The article should probably be moved to draft as a very poorly sourced, partially translated, unverified article. Fram (talk) 09:19, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Susanne Scholl, created by you two days ago: In this edit, you claim that the statement "Her temporary arrest by the Russian authorities while reporting from Chechnya caused a sensation." is supported by this. Not there (apart from the fact that this isn't a particularly good source). If you can't read French, you should not use French sources. —Kusma (talk) 09:59, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

  @LouisAlain, if you do not address your own behaviour, you will not get anywhere here. This is not because anyone is out to get you, it is because the quality of the sourcing you use is consistently terrible, and you regularly present wrong references that do not support what you claim they support. If you are unable to tell that, well, Wikipedia:Competence is required from all editors here, and those unable to read the references they cite should be shown the door. —Kusma (talk) 10:09, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

As I wrote before : a dialogue of the deaf. I've alredady wasted too much time on this thread which shows how biased some here are. It's blatant that my translations are under fire (probably rightly) but not the other horrors I find everyday on the main. Why am I singled out when thousands other users do far more worse than me ? I'll never know since questions aren't answered here. Does Der Process ring a bell Kusma ? What's the use of being rewieved ? Still waiting for an answer. Why did you wait nearly 6,000 articles to discover my incompetence ? (Sorry, my I.Q has only two digits). There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands articles like Archaeologia Polona that I had to bring to you attention so that Fram intervened. Fram, if you're unsatisfied with Gerda Kratz or Susanne Scholl, please delete, delete, delete. It won't take you more than one second. And since you're at it, delete also all the crap that are on the main (it will take you several month now) and at least 4,000 of my translations. Kusma, please, spare me "your competence is required from all editors here" whereas it is obviously an all-out lie. I've lost complete trust in the way Wikipedia is run by people who behave like Chief human resources officers treating users like their employees to whom orders are given. I now know for a fact that whatever the quality of the sources and references, some will always find something to object to. I'll have to find this quote from Plato which fits so perfectly with someone's behaviour here. It's an everyday psychological mindset around the world.

you claim that you retrieved the 6th source yesterday. I doubt it. I affirm I did, now of course only me make mistakes. And you once again spit on one of the founding principles of Wikipedia : Assume good faith by suggesting I'm a liar and a cheater at that. The man is frontly insulting me and nobody cares. Ô the confort of being part of a corporation where "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" is the keywod at the expense of good faith editors.~Withour Jimmy Wale's support on my side. This whole business is so, so, so amateurish and dishonest.

I thought the point was moot since I announced that I had changed my tack (my "behaviour" in Kusma's parlance) and will translate uniquely articles with correct sourcing in the first place. Is Tag des offenen Denkmals to your taste or do you still want to pursue this silly escalade to more an more references? I wasn't born last year, been around for some decades now and when I see a profile like yours, I know who is adressing me. Have a look at fr:Perversion nacissique (with a translating machine at the handy). I'll translate the French one (yes, I can read French) even if the 36 references are all in French (probably).

I've started translating de:Lorenz Cantador with 27 references. Please all you folks, tell me it's useless, the English version has already it's place in the paper shredder. I don't know about your "competence" Kusma (I wouldn't have had the crass audacity of using that term à propos you. A matter of education perhaps) but I admit you're a virtual Olympic champion at discouraging others. Rest assure you're not the only one. LouisAlain (talk) 12:34, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@LouisAlain, are you deliberately trolling? According to Tag des offenen Denkmals, you accessed this page today, which is a 404. You should be blocked from editing the next time you lie about sources like that. In fact, you should be blocked already, but I'll hide behind WP:INVOLVED instead of doing so as you have started insulting me. —Kusma (talk) 12:58, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Kusma, dear fragile carebear. Don't bother to banish me. I've left volontarily. I'm not up to your intellectual level. LouisAlain (talk) 13:32, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Time to indef block them, I think. Apart from source I highlighted above, and the one from Kusma (where LouisAlain claims in both cases that they were working just a few days ago, quite a coincidence), see e.g. also Hans Haid, where both the 1st[13] and 6th source[14] are not available, even though LouisAlain had no trouble accessing them 2 days ago. Combined with the more and more outrageous personal attacks and ramblings, I see no reason to let them retire now with the possibility of an unretirement whenever they feel like it. Fram (talk) 13:51, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree. We have to be hard on fake referencing, especially if the person has been warned before. I can take care of the indefinite block.--Berig (talk) 13:57, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

No, please. LouisAlain translated all Bach cantatas to French, DYK. And was banned there. Now he created thousands of translations into English. And you come with this proposal?? I thank LouisAlain, and would miss him. Just look for his name in Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/DYK 2021 and its archives. If an estimated 5% of his translations cause problems, why not fix them, but thank him for the 95% others? Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:05, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

If it were just 5%. Even now, with the articles he created during this ANI discussion, we get these issues on many of his creations (e.g. with the sources he "retrieved" during translation, but which are mysteriously unavailable days later, or with sources he added which don't support the preceding text). Perhaps the question should be why he was also banned at frwiki instead? Fram (talk) 14:11, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Agree with an indef. He responded to the concerns raised here by making personal attacks and continuing to add false access-dates to references. Not to mention creating an article without checking the references. It's not acceptable. It's not helpful, it's unhelpful. He needs to stop making articles, and clearly he won't on his own. A block is the only way to prevent disruption such as giving false information to the reader and wasting other editors time. Sorry but not everyone who volunteers their time here is actually helping. We just don't need someone to translate articles without checking references; that must stop one way of another. Levivich 14:16, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

If you have any influence on LouisAlain that can prevent him from deliberately trying to get himself blocked, please use it. Unfortunately I can't agree with your estimate of "5% cause problems"; there seem to be far more, and the deliberate lies about access date don't engender any trust. I didn't go out of my way to search problems, I opened just a few of the pages LouisAlain himself linked to and found that the sources did not work. Reading his French talk page, LouisAlain seems to have a way of being his own worst enemy (and of painting himself as a victim of an abusive system). The ban on mainspace creation proposed above looked to me as if it could provide a way out where LouisAlain does not need to change his way of referencing, with others helping. Sad to see this not working out. —Kusma (talk) 14:29, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@LouisAlain: Why am I singled out when thousands other users do far more worse than me ? We do have thousands of terrible articles, yes. Hundreds of thousands, actually. But you are not being singled out, you are standing out by yourself: If you would add to the number of terrible articles slowly, you would probably pass unnoticed. However, you have created 1400 pages in the last year. Please name any of the thousands other people who create four pages per day that require substantial cleanup regarding sources and prose. —Kusma (talk) 10:14, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose ban I protest a ban of LouisAlain strongly. He is good in translating, with a little weakness in referencing. Maybe there is a solution. I can do the referencing part (timeconsuming, please not so many articles). He can create an article in his sandboxes, I do the referencing. After that, the article can be released to mainspace. Grimes2 (talk) 14:48, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
  • It looks to me as if he is strongly opposed to any such solution, all similar suggestions have been dismissed. If you can get them to agree to such a condition, then that may be a possible way out. Fram (talk) 15:07, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
  • If he doesn't agree, a partial block from mainspace is another option, short of a sitewide block. Levivich 16:29, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

LouisAlain agrees. Important for him is, that he has the ability to release to the mainspace. Grimes2 (talk) 11:06, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Grimes2 Maybe there is a solution. I can do the referencing part this is exactly what can be done if they're creating articles in draftspace. Other users can improve references before it goes into article space, which would be better than having undersourced/incorrectly sourced articles in mainspace. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:15, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

My experience is, that an article is forgotten in Draftspace, and after 6 month it is deleted. What's wrong with an article that is well referenced. The article is only released to mainspace, if referencing is done. Grimes2 (talk) 11:25, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Grimes2, thank you for your work on this. It does not look as if LouisAlain has stopped creating poorly sourced articles in mainspace. Could you and @LouisAlain clarify what the agreement is here? @Fram just had to move Nicolas Mahler to Draft:Nicolas Mahler today, where LA had added an obvious non-source to his translation of the dewiki article. (Great Austrian comic artist by the way, I love his work and am slightly ashamed on behalf of the English Wikipedia that we don't have a decent article yet, but I don't see LA's first draft helping much). In the absence of a concrete agreement, the proposed mainspace creation ban still looks like the weakest sanction we can consider here, and we can't just continue to ignore this. —Kusma (talk) 16:56, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Nicolas Mahler was my fault. This has been fixed. Please take a look at the article now. It can be released to mainspace now. Grimes2 (talk) 17:16, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

• Support ban on creating directly into article space. Forcing them to create articles in draftspace means that if they are undersourced, other editors can help fix them before they go "live" in article space. Or if they don't get fixed, they don't get published. Joseph2302 (talk) 17:15, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment An editor hasn't just had problems providing sourcing--they've been providing false sourcing, lying about it, and are deflecting when caught and insulting the editors who are raising concerns about this. How are we even talking about partial blocks, or accepting people arguing that LouisAlain is a productive editor with "some" sourcing issues? This is a major behavioral fail, which is causing, has caused, and will cause significant amounts of work and rework for other editors to clean up the "productivity". They should already be blocked. Grandpallama (talk) 15:34, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
• AFC is not a solution. AFC reviewers won't be checking citations to see if they confirm the text. What is needed is an Apprenticeship with an extremely diligent fact-checker who will take it upon themselves to check every single citation in anything LouisAlain produces. And since he is apparently largely unable to produce even an accurately cited draft, he should do all these mock-ups in his userspace (subpages and sandboxes), and await the fact-checker who is mentoring him to do anything further. Lastly, If he sucks at citing, he should not be writing articles. It's just that simple. WP:V is the cornerstone of Wikipedia and indeed any encyclopedia. Softlavender (talk) 08:10, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  It's not just sourcing issues, the quality of the translations is also poor. The recently created Dietrich Meinardus, Ludwig von Milewski, Moritz Geisenheimer will all take more time to clean up than rewriting from scratch would, and it's less fun to do for most people. There's a recent warning by @Shirt58 about this on the talk page. LouisAlain creates far too many such articles; we'd need to clone Grimes2 and Gerda a few times to fix them all. —Kusma (talk) 10:01, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• I agree that AFC is not a solution. AFC is not at all suited to handle the issues raised here. AFC generally does not involve looking closely at source material, and there are not sufficient multilingual reviewers in any event. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:17, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose editing restrictions.

  (written yesterday, trying to not participate in the "judgement" but adding information:) Today's pictured DYK was created by LouisAlain, DYK? He began working in a sandbox. I enjoy the work with him. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:19, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

  Today's DYK has Leo Kestenberg, created by LouisAlain, and its that type of article I'd miss much if he left. I believe that articles don't have to be perfect when created, - actually I believe that no article will ever be perfect. But together, we can do our best to make them good. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:52, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

My mistake. Fram (talk) 08:05, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
No improvement Yesterday, they created Joseph Euler. The second source is "retrieved 9 September 2021". It doesn't work though[15]. @LouisAlain: do you claim that this link worked yesterday? Fram (talk) 07:28, 10 September 2021 (UTC) I DO. Mister Fram, you're so eager to fulfill your dream of killing me after 5 five years of stalking me that you make a fool of yourself in the eyes of everybody. The link still works, just scroll down a little bit and you'll find the content of the site. Now, what's next? Will you reproach me to not have indicated it was necessary to scroll down a bit? Or to not have modified said site so that the content pops up on top of their page ? A 9,719 ko.s article in one shot, and all you come out with is another wrong accusation. How other supposed intelligent administrators followed you to this point baffles me. Today, I've just finished Ludwig von Milewski (one shot). Search, search, you may find a wrong placed coma or whatever. But rest assure, sooner or latter you'll succed in your drive to ban me. LouisAlain (talk) 08:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC) You're right, it does, my apologies. Fram (talk) 08:05, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I previously spent more time translating but have since moved on to other activities, in part because of the difficulties posed by translating articles that are not well-referenced (including inadvertently translating copy-pasted content and introducing translation copyright violations, which are fairly difficult to detect and remedy later). Is there any way that LouisAlain could concentrate his efforts on featured articles or similar, to minimize these issues occurring? I think that translation of poorly referenced or unreferenced articles is often unhelpful because of the higher standards at en.wiki, and presumably there are enough well-referenced articles that could be translated to keep LouisAlain busy for some time. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:17, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• I was invited to participate in this discussion, and here are my thoughts:

LouisAlain, you should always double-check and read your sources of information. Writing a new article is a fairly significant amount of work, which requires reading and understanding your source material completely and comprehensively. Indeed, you get the message "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable'. Any work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions" every time you make an edit. This, incidentally is why you can see offers to write articles on my talk page that I politely decline because I don't feel sufficiently qualified on the subject matter. I don't think getting excessively snarky with people who are pointing out mistakes is at all helpful, and will just make other people think you're not a net positive to the project and should be blocked. Sure, I can think of some examples where somebody points out mistakes in my writing in a not-amazingly-polite manner, but usually I remind myself that it's not personal and manage it accordingly.

I'm pleased to see that Grimes2 has offered to help look at some of these articles and improve the verification and sources on it.

I'm writing this message in good faith in the hope you're recognise there's a problem, and that I'm not saying any of this to be mean, but just trying to make sure the encyclopaedia is factually correct.

And finally, Fram, we get that there are problems with LouisAlain's editing, and I think your comments are now bringing more heat than light into the discussion, and it would be helpful if other people chipped into the debate. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:46, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you @Ritchie333. It would be great if some others could help with checking LouisAlain's referencing (and his translations, which commonly require a {{RoughTranslation}} tag; cleaning up such translations is a major effort comparable to writing the article from scratch), which often looks OK if you don't go and click the links and actually really read the reference given and compare it with what it references. It was a surprise to me to see how many of them are broken or incorrect. It could also perhaps show LA that this is not a personal vendetta by @Fram and myself, but a genuine community concern with his prolific creation of articles looking nice from a distance, but requiring serious cleanup work. —Kusma (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Update: Today's new article Johannes Busmann. "Busmann passed his Abitur at today's Carl-Fuhlrott-Gymnasium [de] in Wuppertal, then studied art, music and philosophy at the University of Wuppertal and obtained his Staatsexamen in 1988 and the degree in 1989" claims this reference, which does not contain any of this information. Those who do not read the references they claim to use should not create new articles. This apparently includes LouisAlain. —Kusma (talk) 14:37, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
  • See also from the same day Eugen Busmann, where both this 404 error and this "cannot resolve hostname" are claimed to have been retrieved on 11 September. So we have references claimed to be checked but which don't work, references which work but don't support the text to which they are attached, machine translations (often only half finished, see the "work" section on Anton Josef Reiss), and abandoned "in use" wrecks (Guido de Werd, tagged as "in use" even though LouisAlain has since created 4 other articles, I have moved it to draft instead). Perhaps time that someone closes this section with appropriate measures. Fram (talk) 12:20, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support topic ban at the very least - concerning editing history here. Nice to see others finally recognise that editors repeatedly adding unsourced information to articles is actionable... GiantSnowman 14:55, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• support topic ban Comment - if repeatedly adding fake references is not actionable, what is? I hope everyone here agrees that we are dealing with a very serious type of editing that compromises Wikipedia's reputation.--Berig (talk) 05:31, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• If no action is taken here, why should others take WP:HOAX and WP:verifiability seriously?--Berig (talk) 09:28, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

#WPWP is back

As can be seen in the abuse filter set up after the last AN discussion, there seems to be an uptick in #WPWP. Captions have not been improved. Having checked multiple editors, many seem to be literally copying the file name as captions, even if the file name is a French description. (This is explicitly outside of the rules at meta:Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos 2021, for what it's worth.) I am not sure if significant action could be taken at this point, as the contest supposedly ends on the 31st, but at the very least there should be a default message template explaining the need for appropriate images with good captions that could be placed on participants' talkpages. Would anyone have placed similar messages in the past which could serve as a base? CMD (talk) 15:31, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

We throttle entries but I'm convinced many people aren't even reading the throttle message anyway, as they keep trying to make edits even though they're being disallowed with a message saying you can't make more edits. Eg here or here. So I'm not convinced talk messages will work. Still, I wrote up something at MediaWiki:Abusefilter-disallowed-WPWP for the abusefilter message that could perhaps be useful as a base for a talk page message template.

Solution 2.1 is difficult to do well with the current way the filter works (won't bore you with the technical details), but a small technical change to the AbuseFilter extension could make it easier to implement elegantly for next year. Other than that, I don't really see what else we can do. Personally I'd say enwiki is a work in progress and some imperfect changes being added, that can later be iteratively improved by other edits (and repeat), is (to some degree) how this project works. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:49, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

If there's such opposition to this, why not simply ban it and block editors who violate? GiantSnowman 17:02, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Um, looking at technical contributors here, could we block any edits with a edit summary containing one of a defined set of hastags? Since the contests uses those for tracking it should A) get rid of most of them, and B) remove any incentive to circumvent it (since it wouldn't count). -- Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 17:42, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

It is not the technical part that's a problem. Technically it is trivial to block. The dispute in the original discussion was whether we should block. It doesn't really matter this year since the contest ends in two days anyway. If work is done with the coordinators and perhaps with the devs, we could perhaps figure out alternate solutions for next year, if the community does feel like there is still a problem. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:50, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Some of the contributions from specific editors were valid additions/made in good faith/showed understanding of image rules. We don't want to discourage those, but we do need to handle those editors that added images without considering all factors that go into that. I think we need to make sure that the contest, if run again, includes warnings to all uses that there are image use polices on en.wiki that must be followed, that en.wiki admins will likely be watching for activity in that area, and editors participating that are routinely failing to follow the policies (rather than the one or two missteps) will likely be blocked because of this monitoring. If necessary, we can develop a standard warning for the contest (or tiers thereof) that tells editors that may be making missteps of our policies of what to do and not to do when they participate. --Masem (t) 20:28, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader Given that the co-ordinator at Meta is a banned editor on en.wp, the ddiscussion certainly won't take place here ... Black Kite (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Is the throttling actually working? This filter, which has the throttle applied, has far fewer edits matching than this filter, which is tracking WPWP edits but isn't throttling them. There's certainly far more entries matching that filter than the 25 per day set as the throttle. Hut 8.5 20:09, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Won't the throttling filter only show the ones after the 25 limit (i.e. the ones that are disallowed)? One would therefore expect it to have a lot fewer hits. Black Kite (talk) 20:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Incidentally, this editor has worked their way around the throttle by lower-casing the hashtag. Black Kite (talk) 20:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

The filters use irlike when checking for string inclusion, which is case insensitive so the fact they're using lower case hastags doesn't matter. I suspect this is a bug in the abuse filter extension, probably something to do with caching at a guess, there have been similar problems in the past (see e.g. Phab:T240951, which is still unsolved). It might be worth opening a phab ticket. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Black Kite is right about the mechanics of a throttle filter (it'll only show the hits that were throttled). Re the lower-casing issue; as the IP mentions, the filter is irlike so it should be fine with any case variant. I tried using the editor's edit summary at testwiki (filter is identical to enwiki's, but with a lower throttle quantity there) and they were correctly logged in the filter. So I suspect the IP is right about a caching problem with the throttle. Perhaps Daimona Eaytoy can confirm if this is related. Like the filter in the phab ticket though, this also works over a 24 hour period. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader Hey, I'm writing here, because I saw phab:T240951#7317222. Note that the current filter #1158 is set to throttle by both username and IP address. That means users on highly dynamic ranges will never get the throttle. That is the case for at least one of the users who appear to bypass the throttling filter.

The obvious fix would be to just remove ip throttling, but...unfortunately, as https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/extensions/AbuseFilter/+/691e47a4a6c83ecc3213991a89ad83f145dec9aa/includes/Consequences/Consequence/Throttle.php#170 says, setting throttle only to user will give you only one throttle counter shared for all IP addresses. Not sure if that's intentional (maybe not?), but given this campaign is targeted at logged-in editors, it might not matter for this case. Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:47, 29 August 2021 (UTC)Edited --Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:55, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Martin Urbanec. I thought IP would've been blank for logged-in editors (thus only throttling by user, for logged-in editors). It seems looking at the code snippet, even for them it will still correspond to their underlying IP address? That behaviour doesn't seem ideal? From an abusefilter perspective, I'm not sure it makes sense as I don't see why the underlying IP a user account is connecting from should ever matter, but I may be missing a use case? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Another thought, why can't the user identifier just be by the username? Here is a change by an IP, and here is one by an account, with user_name filled in appropriately. Similar design can be used here? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader If you remove ip from the list of throttle rules, it will work (approximately) that way. Correct solution would be to change getId (which returns same value for all anonymous users) with getName (which returns username/IP address) in the user throttle mode, but that's a breaking change. See phab:T289954, where I suggested exactly that. Martin Urbanec (talk) 22:41, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

@Martin Urbanec: I already made the change for the filter here per your original comment; I was more referring to why the filter extension behaves like that in the first place, which will remain a problem for other (non-WPWP) filters, though I guess that's better off at VPT or phab (phab:T289954 sounds like a good change). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:43, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I have adjusted ProcrastinatingReader's MediaWiki:Abusefilter-disallowed-WPWP into a shorter message at User:Chipmunkdavis/WPWP. Please feel free to adjust/use. CMD (talk) 13:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: Not sure about that message. I think that any warning needs to clearly explain that the rate at which they can add images to articles has been limited, otherwise it's going to really confuse people when this message starts showing up and they find they can't edit anymore. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 14:14, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I was under the assumption that they automatically see the Abusefilter message if they are going at too high a rate? I am trying to create something that can be easily dropped on talkpages, rather than editors having to type out a new message each time. If others feel it needs to be sterner I would not object to a change. CMD (talk) 16:03, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were trying to make a friendlier message for use in the edit filter. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 16:16, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

• Regarding next year, the WMF Growth Team is currently working on an "Add an image" structured task, where they have been quite good about collaborating with us and trying to avoid the pitfalls of WPWP (see the mw talk page). I hope that by next year, the feature will be live, and any campaign will be run through that rather than whatever the current tool is. Hopefully that will minimize problems. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:31, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

• Y'all want to know how ridiculous this crap is - See this diff (note, article is probably gonna be blanked soon as a copyvio). A WPWP editor adds an image essentially identical to an image right below it. The lack of care or even paying attention here blows my mind. If WPWP doesn't get its shit together for next year, I think it's time to ban the damn thing and hand out blocks like candy. If you're going to have a contest that promotes spamming images without paying attention to what you're doing, I think it's high time to run said contest out of a town on a rail. We're being used as a little game by WPWP, y'all. Hog Farm _Talk 05:55, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. If the blocking procedure for this is trivial (presume something automated linked to the edit filter?) then why don't we simply...do it. Those that listen and pay attention can get unblocked. I doubt we'd allow a 'who can make the most page moves in a day' contest, why is this any different? GiantSnowman 06:46, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Ridiculous is the right word. As well as not putting up with this next year, consider recalling this disruption the next time they apply for a WMF grant for it. – Joe (talk) 07:28, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, those newbies, so annoying. Let's just block them all and keep the site to ourselves, rather than welcoming them, encouraging them to contribute better, and growing our editor numbers. Mike Peel (talk) 07:30, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Not to worry, I'm sure you'd be along to unblock them all, Mike. – Joe (talk) 07:34, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: - I think there's a big difference between WP:BITE a productive newbie, and blocking someone who's spamming images as part of a cash contest. "Let's add as many of xxx as possible as quick as we can" is going to be disruptive, no matter who does it. You don't get an excuse to be disruptive just because your new and competing for a cash prize. Hog Farm _Talk 14:37, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

As they're editing for (potential) money, do they have to comply with Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure? They are effectively being paid by the WMF to add these images (as there's a cash prize for it). Joseph2302 (talk) 14:44, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

The question whether Wikipedians in Residence are paid editors is a perennial shit storm generation topic. I do not expect this one to be any easier.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:08, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a good example of what I mentioned above, where the caption is literally just the image title. There must be a common origin to this bizarre practice, somewhere in the WPWP organisation. This obvious flaw continuing long after the WPWP organisers stated they would be involved in cleanup and monitoring is not positive for the outcomes of the initiative. CMD (talk) 15:23, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm wondering how they were planning on doing monitoring an cleanup when they're sitebanned from en.wiki..... Joseph2302 (talk) 16:43, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Lots of terrible captions. Here it is completely unclear to the casual observer why the image has been added and what it has to do with the article. (It it easier if you can read enough Japanese to note that the Japanese caption (written right to left) mentions Shitaya). Yes, we should teach the user and not just complain. But in a turn-newbies-into-editors contest, shouldn't there be some people connected to the contest working on this to provide targeted help and oversight so it doesn't have to be done by people who are annoyed by the incomprehensible hashtag edit summaries? (Short-time financial incentives, by the way, sound like exactly the wrong way to attract long-time volunteers. But maybe that's just me). —Kusma (talk) 21:19, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Let's make things even more complicated: the "Project Manager and Coordinator" of WPWP is Isaac Olatunde[16], account name T Cells, and previously known as Wikicology. Now, Wikicology is since 2016 community banned by ArbCom[17], and on top of this explicitly "topic-banned from images" as well. Seems like the ideal person to organise this campaign... Fram (talk) 15:09, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

So organising a contest encouraging people to add images here seems like a violation of meatpuppetry to me- he's encouraging users to add images to a project he's sitebanned from. Is there any way we can outright ban #WPWP event from en.wiki in future years? Joseph2302 (talk) 15:12, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Yikes, that's quite concerning and absolutely a violation. Looking at grant proposal, was this just totally missed? Courtesy pinging Astinson (WMF), who is listed as the advisor—were you aware of the ban? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:03, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

FYI: I have notified the grant committee in a thread on the grant page on Meta. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

No, this wasn't missed, but just ignored. Phil Bridger (talk)

Sandstein's read of the consensus at the last thread was to implement an edit filter with a cautionary message and a throttle, with banning the contest available as a last resort (and in the name of full disclosure: I voted for banning the contest in that discussion). I do not believe that the remedies we implemented have significantly improved the situation, and I think the harm and cost of volunteer time continues to outweigh the good. Also, to be blunt, I do not think this contest will significantly attract new editors - the quality of these edits suggests to me that most of these people just want the points (and, by extension, the money). Under any other circumstance we would just be handing out WP:NOTHERE blocks for that behavior. I move that we ban the contest on enwiki (setting the filter to disallow) until such a time as the organizers present a satisfactory plan to the community showing how they will modify the contest to reduce the disruption it causes. I considered BOLDly setting the filter to disallow, but given that we had a discussion just last month, I don't think it's appropriate for me to act unilaterally here. GeneralNotability (talk) 02:09, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm still sceptical about the proportion of disruptive edits in this contest, but I see two aspects that mainly count against its continuation. The first, most participants are editing for the money, and that doesn't bode too well with the volunteer nature of the projects. Second, the contest has not really managed to convert people into enwiki editors. I skimmed through the contribs of the most prolific WPWP participants, and none have made non-WPWP edits. Which means we're effectively just paying for edits, rather than this being a lasting outreach effort. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:33, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

I left a comment on the talk page of the grant. It also seems, per the grant budget and talk page comments from the Grants Committee, that T Cells was paid $30/hr, 3 hours per day / 15 hrs per week, for a total of $7,200 USD. I will say that if one is being paid to run this project, then it is reasonable to expect greater effort/involvement in trying to resolve the issues. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:53, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Support ban of #WPWP. No evidence it's produced much useful content, whereas it has created lots of disruption and unhelpful content. That's even before you considered the paid and possible meatpuppetry issues with this contest. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:35, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

• Probably not necessary to say, but Oppose ban for exactly the same reasons, and with exactly the same conditions the last time this exact discussion came up. If there's evidence that the average edit is a net negative, or that too high a proportion are negative (based more than a handful of anecdotes), and that the organizers are not going to go around and clean things up afterwards, and that no sufficient measures will be taken to address the problems next time, then we should start a ban discussion. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:43, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Challenging RfC Closure on "What is the Indian Medical Association's position on Ayurveda?"

This is a request to review the close at What is the Indian Medical Association's position on Ayurveda?. The issue the closer was to decide was, "What is the IMA saying about Ayurveda?" with focus around whether they consider only some ayurvedic practitioners as quacks based on certain qualifying criteria, or all ayurvedic practitioners as quacks. This has been a contentious topic with previous talk page discussions [18][19][20][21][22][23] and more that led to the opening of the RfC. The last vote on the RfC was one week before the closure, and the phrasing of the statement per the cited source continues to be contested even after the closure. The discussion with the closing editor can be found here. In the closure they applied guideline WP:FRINGE over wiki policy WP:NOR because they think the former was mentioned far more, even though that does not appear to be correct. Their close was based on some editors saying that the IMA's position is informed not only by the way that Ayurveda is practiced in India but also by the Indian legal environment without considering whether such a reasoning was backed by secondary WP:RS. Even if their assessment of predominance is assumed correct, core non-negotiable WP:NOR should have still been considered in assessment of all the arguments to correctly reflect IMA's stance with regards to qualifying their position. Furthermore, WP:FRINGE is not intended to decide on issues of what an association is saying, but only to establish if its position is not scientifically mainstream and may therefore be (re)moved from the lede or even the article. But the close does not contain any such conclusion either. -Wikihc (talk) 13:48, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Just noting that, contrary to the huge yellow edit notice, Wikihc did not notify me of this. All of the above has been said already in the referenced talk page and they are attempting to re-litigate that discussion. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Pardon for having an emergency in real life which precluded me from dropping an immediate notice on your talk page. Also, I find it strange that you accuse me for posting on AN per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE as you yourself recommended, since the issue was unresolved after talk with you (closer). -Wikihc (talk) 22:40, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Also noting that users who considered that the article is misrepresenting the IMA source, discussed it with the closer early on during the RfC dispute[24][25]. On this, the closer labelled them as ayurveda proponents, whom the closer did not want to hear from, under an all caps title. Closer thus seems to have strong feeling about the topic and those who have a certain view in the dispute. -Wikihc (talk) 10:32, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Ah, blatant context omission, where would AN be without thee? I have strong feelings about a group of anything proponents who randomly decide my talk page is the proper outlet for their anger against Wikipedia. [26], [27], [28], [29], etc. I am allowed to put a stop to disruptive edits on my talk. Not wanting people to continue disruption does not prevent me from summarizing an RfC, even a related RfC, accurately. I believe you have not demonstrated otherwise. Your arguments here and on the article talk are merely that I did not decide the RfC the way you wanted and must therefore be wrong. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 13:04, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• I see that discussion as reaching consensus for "some", and I think its practical effect should be to confirm the current wording of Ayurveda: the community agrees that not all Ayurveda practitioners are properly called "quacks", but those who claim to practice medicine certainly are. I do think the wording of Eggishorn's close is suboptimal and as a matter of best practice he should consider rephrasing it in a way that conveys fewer of his own feelings and judgments, and more of the community's.—S Marshall T/C 22:33, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Expression error unexpected < operator

Greetings. There is an error message in several pages (it could be in many or all of them) in the bio infobox, regarding the divorce date. Instead of the date, the message appears. Checked Gary Collins, Leonard Nimoy, David Carradine, Elizabeth Taylor. The only place I found mentions of this error are Fandom forums; one says the administrators must be notified: <https://community.fandom.com/f/p/1951276959006722176>
The other presents a solution: <https://community.fandom.com/f/p/2627649423802370196>
Which I don't know whether it works; that's for the ones who really understand coding. Good luck. Maykiwi (talk) 04:02, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

It is possible that the problem is that the template {{Wdib|P570|fwd=ALL|maxvals=1|noicon=true|pd=yes}} is returning dates like 23' 'March' '2011. That is being fed into the #time parserfunction to extract the year, which is throwing "error: invalid time" (inside some HTML markup), and that in turn is being fed to #ifexpr. I don't know why {{Wdib}} is doing this, or if that is even unusual. I don't see any change to the template or the module backing it recently. ST47 (talk) 04:37, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

I have no idea what caused the issue, but this fixed it. ST47 (talk) 04:56, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank goodness, I wasn't the only editor coming across this problem, now fixed. GoodDay (talk) 08:44, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

@ST47: Greetings. Thanks for your efforts. Regarding the cause of the error message, it might be interesting to take a look at this video from the YouTube science divulgation channel Veritasium, about ionized particles that by changing single bits in the memory of a computer or server can cause strange behaviors in them.<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaZ_RSt0KP8> It could be a thing to consider regarding the physical integrity of Wikipedia. Maykiwi (talk) 23:20, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

@Maykiwi: You may rest assured that the issue here wasn't a rogue cosmic ray, but rather a rogue Template Editor on Commons, who made a change to some data file on which we rely, failed to test it, and restored a broken version even after being notified that it had caused issues on multiple wikis. Their privileges have been revoked, though I still question the wisdom of such a reliance on a Commons to store a data file that really should never need to be changed. ST47 (talk) 23:31, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Also discussed at Template_talk:Marriage#Malfunction_inside_of_infobox? and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Date_formatting_and_WikidataIB. ST47 (talk) 23:33, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Blatant vote stacking

After Zefr was reported for violating WP:3RR at Ginkgo biloba (which seems to be a pattern), he canvassed four other editors to join the content dispute[30][31][32][33], some of which have helped him edit war participated in similar disputes in the past.[34][35] I asked them to recuse themselves from a straw poll, but they are participating anyway and will likely determine the outcome. I don't believe that this is how Wikipedia is supposed to work, and I would like to ask that an uninvolved admin take a look at this situation and either take some corrective action or give me advice on how to handle it. Also, I fully expect that Zefr will defend his actions here by saying that he was just enforcing WP:MEDRS, which is a gross mischaracterization of the situation (and not a valid excuse for vote stacking and violating 3RR anyway). Nosferattus (talk) 22:31, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Those are fine editors to "canvass," though, each and every one of em... @Roxy the dog, Psychologist Guy, Girth Summit, and Alexbrn: suck up pings. El_C 00:48, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

But is there a clause excusing canvassing if you like the editors, unwritten or otherwise? Because if so, I think anyone can see that’s a recipe for disaster. And not a good look at the very least. petrarchan47คุก 01:16, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

No, there is no such exemption. El_C 02:02, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

There’s a big difference between “Some new editor is trying to advance a nutty proposition that Novaya Zemlya is an independent nation, and I want others in this topic area to help me oppose it” (which this is not) and “Hey, this topic is under discussion; just wanted you to know” (which this is).

Zefr is an unimpeachably conscientious WP:NPOV editor in this topic area.

Quite a lot of our Northern Hemisphere ‘’’’’volunteer’’’ editors’’ are offline for big chunks of late August and early September, given national holidays and school resumption and the like. We may not be looking at Wikipedia even if we’re spinsters-with-cats who are just focusing on home plumbing improvements and hiding our electronics in our garages. But we probably check email, and a message like Zefr’s appropriately provides a NEUTRAL alert that maybe we might like to look in on a discussion of interest, which discussion might be arguably subject to time limits that might be over before we’re home from the beach. Julietdeltalima (talk) 02:01, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

How dare you besmirch the fine nation of Novaya Zemlya. It's just a little glowy, it's still good, it's still good. El_C 02:07, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Nova Zembla patriots love you. - Julietdeltalima (talk) 16:51, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

It's still canvassing if you're sending messages only to editors who you think will agree with your position. Looking the other way because it will lead to the "right" outcome is a pretty slippery slope. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:08, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. A neutral notice at a relevant wikiproject should serve as notification. Pinging only like-minded users, even if one contend it being a FRINGE matter is, indeed, a slippery slope. El_C 02:16, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, it's circumventing the process and might make others feel like they would need to or are supposed do the same thing (on the opposing side) and Wikipedia could turn into something we don't want. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 02:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I hear all of you! I just hate, as a 50-year-old person with a new highly time-demanding job, that I end up not knowing that some article in which I was interested was up for AFD or whatever—just because sometimes I'm doing a stressful business-management thing all day Monday to Friday with about four minutes merely to go through my watchlist for presumptive schoolchild vandalism while I'm shoving a sandwich into my face, and then can't log into WP at night because the iOS app is so jacked up, and it turns out some AFD got closed as "delete" when I haven't even had time to dig in and notice it, because I'm a volunteer and my very demanding job has to come first.

Gosh, but some of us need to be able for somebody to let us know about these things! It's really difficult for me to spend the time any more to noodle about and find, e.g., AFDs about articles in which I'm interested in the course of life without somebody sending up a signal.

Do I need to figure out, somehow, whether and how to do an RFC about this? This is a volunteer project. I'd kind of like to think I'm a mature and helpful volunteer. It's very difficult these days for me to know about stuff like RFDs and RFCs unless somebody who's seen my handle in the edit history sends me a message—re: which I get an email! e.g. "El C sent you a message on Wikipedia". I don't have as much time as was once the case to loll about reading WP:RFD and the like.

And, again, if I'm miscoding this re: indents, etc., please refactor. I'm sitting in the restroom doing this on my phone. That's how I engage in my volunteer work for WP, by and large. The challenging mechanisms of the iOS app regarding WP administrative functions are more than I have time to winkle out. I am here to do what I think I'm good at doing: copyediting and proofreading especially in my greatly appreciated presumed designation by User:EEng as part of the "hyphen police", which is the second-nicest compliment I've been paid in the past 2 years, right after "I can't BELIEVE you figured out how to accessorize masks!").

I get that canvassing is a huge problem. But there's got to be a distinction between excluding figurative Nova Zembla separationists and just sending a neutral talk-page message of "hey, I know you're busy: you've been in the edit history of this article and there's an AFD that you might not see in time."

I'm just sayin'. You want Wikipedia to be inclusive? VOLUNTEERS ought to know that a thing they're interested in is up for discussion! I get that there are a lot of abuses, but there's got to be a middle ground to accommodate those of us who are extremely grateful for WP:NODEADLINE.

Thanks for hearing me out. I am here when I can be here because I think this is a joyous project. I just, you know, can't always be here. This "personal relief break" has taken about 0.4 of an hour longer than I can justify, but I thought this point needed making. Thanks for letting me share. - Julietdeltalima (talk) 16:51, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't accept that there was anything improper in my responding as I did. This is Zefr's message to me on my talk page. That was the only edit they have ever made to my talk, and I have never edited theirs: I'm not aware of them having any particular reason to think of me as anything other than an uninvolved admin. I was not aware they had messaged anybody else, and viewed their post as a simple request that an admin take a look at a content dispute which was becoming unhealthily personal on one side. Here is my response, which was met by a remarkable level of ABF on the article's talk page, and on my own talk page.

Here's my take on it: Zefr should have used a Wikiproject talk page notice instead of reaching out to individuals. Zefr has also been edit warring on the article, which they should not do even when they are correct on the content/sourcing matter. Nosferratus has also been edit warring, has been inappropriately personalising a content dispute (which I do not see Zefr doing anywhere on that talk page), and has been far to willing to assume bad faith on the part of others. Girth Summit _(blether) 06:03, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: It is trivial to prove that these statements are false. You have edited Zefr's talk page, and interacted with Zefr substantially in the past, mainly in disputes similar to this one. I've been personalizing the dispute because people keep lying and breaking the rules. As an administrator, I would think you would understand that. Nosferattus (talk) 15:25, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

• Is it the number of editors that Zefr asked that is the probem? I have certainly asked admins from whom I have received help or advice in the past to look at a dispute in which I was involved. Is that wrong? Any dispassionate examination of this dispute would, I believe, reach the same conclusion that Girth Summit has above concerning the behaviour of Nosferratus and Zefr. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:32, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
  • @Peter coxhead: No, it's not the number of editors, it's who Zefr invited. All four of the editors that were invited have interacted substantially with Zefr in the past including on his talk page and have participated in similar disputes in the past.
    • Evidence that the canvassed editors were chosen for their POV:
    • Psychologist Guy: They have had numerous discussions on each other's talk pages, often about disputes similar to this one: [36][37]. They have edited 121 of the same pages.[38]
    • Roxy the dog: Here is Zefr inviting Roxy to join a dispute at Paul Stamets: [39]. Here's Zefr and Roxy reverting the same edits at Oil pulling: [40]. They have edited 196 of the same pages.[41]
    • Girth Summit: Despite Girth's false assurances above, he has had substantial interactions with Zefr including a discussion on Zefr's talk page about a very similar situation to this (removing material related to alternative medicine due to sourcing concerns): [42]. Here is Girth and Zefr helping each other edit war reverting the same content at Cranberry juice: [43]. Here is Girth supporting Zefr's opinion at Herbal medicine: [44]. Here is Girth supporting Zefr's opinion at Traditional Chinese medicine: [45]. Here is Girth and Zefr warning the same user within seconds of each other: [46]. Here is them again warning the same user within seconds of each other: [47]. They have edited 246 of the same pages[48]
    • Alexbrn: Here's Zefr inviting Alexbrn to join a dispute at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard: [49]. Here's Zefr inviting Alexbrn to join a dispute at Honey: [50]. Here's Zefr inviting Alexbrn to join two other disputes at the same time: [51]. Here is Alexbrn giving Zefr a barnstar for deleting dodgy medical claims: [52]. They have edited 695 of the same pages![53]
  • This canvassing behavior has been going on for years. The claims that these were just innocent invitations of 3rd party neutral editors is absurd and disingenuous. Sadly, I doubt anything will change as the enforcement of rules on Wikipedia seems to be strongly dependent on seniority and who you know rather than treating editors equally and fairly. Nosferattus (talk) 15:10, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Nosferattus, I encourage you to strike your comments about "helping each other edit war". You have a solid point about Zefr's canvassing, but you are diluting it with aspersions alleging tag-teaming (though not named so explicitly). Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:20, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    I have struck the comment. Thank you for the feedback. Nosferattus (talk) 15:27, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Appreciated! You have a similar comment in your original post. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:32, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Looks disingenuous to me, for example the not-so-subtle twisting of my barnstar to Zefr for deleting dodgy medical claims, into being for deleting plain "medical claims". This should be corrected. I'm on holiday at the moment so can't really look at this, but even from my distant hotel balcony, my spidey-sense is tingling something rotten about this whole complaint (though, granted, Zefr would do better simply to get more eyes by posting to noticeboards). Alexbrn (talk) 16:16, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    @Alexbrn: I added the word "dodgy" as if that made any difference. My point is that you and Zefr know each other and support each other (usually for very admirable reasons like keeping herbal quackery off of Wikipedia). That in and of itself is fine. What isn't OK is Zefr canvassing his friends to win an edit war after violating 3RR. Does that seem reasonable to you? Nosferattus (talk) 17:01, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    The two examples of Zefr invitking Alexbrn to join a dispute are the same link from 2016 (a neutrally-worded statement about a noticeboard discussion). XOR'easter (talk) 20:49, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    @XOR'easter: Thanks for pointing that out. I've fixed the link and added another one as well. Nosferattus (talk) 21:53, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Looking at the diffs presented above, it seems that I did indeed leave two notes on Zefr's talk page in 2018. I actually checked the Editor Interaction Analyzer tool before posting the above, just to see whether we had actually communicated in the past - for whatever reason those edits didn't show up. I'll just have to ask people to believe that I'd forgotten about them.

    Cranberry juice has been on my watchlist since I made this edit in 2018; here is my first edit to Herbal medicine; here is my first to Traditional Chinese medicine. None of these edits were in any way related to anything Zefr was doing on those pages, but it means that the articles were put onto my watchlist. I do indeed occasionally revert dubious changes to articles on my watchlist, and I might occasionally comment on their talk pages. Zefr has made nearly 50,000 edits to this project, and I've made closer to 60,000: it would be remarkable if there were not some overlap. That is not evidence of collusion, or even that we are particularly aware of one another. All I can say about Zefr is that I've seen their name around a few times, I know that they are an experienced editor - and that's about it. I've no idea what they think of me.

    Now look at what Nosferratus writes: ...these statements are false..., ...Girth's false assurances..., ...people keep lying..., The claims that these were just innocent invitations of 3rd party neutral editors is absurd and disingenuous. - this is exactly the kind of ABF, hostile attitude I am talking about. People should not have to tolerate attacks on their integrity or their motivations. Girth Summit _(blether) 16:22, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Oh, and as for having edited 246 of the same pages - you are including in that count project pages such as this one, user talk pages, and many articles that we edited months or years apart from each other. If you restrict it to article space, where we have edited within a week of each other, the count is 34, out of the 22,529 pages currently on my watchlist. Girth Summit _(blether) 16:29, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    So pointing out that demonstrably false statements are false is being "hostile"? That's very Orwellian. Nosferattus (talk) 17:04, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Nosferattus, yes, I view the phrase 'false assurances' as hostile. More importantly though, I view accusations of lying and being disingenuous as direct attacks on my integrity as an honest person who is acting in good faith. You have worded those complaints in such a way as to avoid naming those who you claim have lied - would you care to be specific? Girth Summit _(blether) 17:14, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    You are welcome to demonstrate that you are acting in good faith by recusing yourself from the straw poll that you were canvassed to. Nosferattus (talk) 17:50, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

You are welcome to withdraw the personal attack on me. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 17:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I may have misinterpreted that comment you left on Zefr's talk page, so I'm going to delete it from the evidence to be on the safe side. Nosferattus (talk) 18:52, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

• • I don't need to demonstrate that which should be patently obvious to any impartial observer. I am still waiting for you to be explicit about who you are accusing of lying, and of being disingenuous. If you aren't willing to stand by that verbiage, you should strike it. Girth Summit _(blether) 20:08, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    I'll let the admins come to their own conclusions based on the evidence. Nosferattus (talk) 22:04, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Nosferattus, how can anyone come to any conclusions if you refuse to be clear about the accusations and evidence? Who do you think has lied? Who do you think has been disingenuous? Be specific and provide evidence, or withdraw your accusation.

    Let me be clear about the gravity of your accusation. I have given thousands of hours of my time to this project. Reverting vandals, deleting spam, blocking LTAs who abuse our contributors,, writing content that has been reviewed by my colleagues as meeting FA standards - I try to contribute to the project to the best of my abilities, and I always act in good faith towards that end. None of that gives me any special rights to say what a particular article should say, but I think I have a pretty good understanding of our content policies as a result of it all.

    You have impugned my motives as an editor. You have accused me of editing in bad faith. You have made vague accusations about lying, which I think refer to me. I am deeply offended by your comments here, and on my talk page. I ask that you make it very clear exactly who you are accusing of what. Thank you Girth Summit _(blether) 22:25, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Fine. I accept that you don't remember any of your previous interactions with Zefr and that your statement that you had never posted to Zefr's talk page was just an error. This complaint is about Zefr, after all, not you. Nosferattus (talk) 23:32, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    Nosferattus, who, then, is the liar? Who has been disingenuous? You can't throw accusations like that around as if they don't matter. Be specific, or withdraw them by striking them - they are deeply offensive Girth Summit _(blether) 23:45, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

    I struck through those comments. And for the record, the only person who has been specifically accused of being disingenuous here is me, but I doubt anyone cares about that. After all, the rules of Wikipedia are only enforced for the benefit of long-standing editors. Nosferattus (talk) 00:07, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

    Nosferattus, I haven't seen anyone accuse you of being disingenuous - I may have missed that though can you provide a diff? I would not support anyone saying that about you - for all I have said that I think you are too quick to assume bad faith, I do not think you are a liar.

    Our sourcing rules are there for the benefit of our content, not our contributors. We can disagree on content all day long, but if you impugne someone's motives you are going to a very different level Girth Summit _(blether) 00:16, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

    [54] Nosferattus (talk) 00:19, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

    Nosferattus, fair enough, I'd missed that. I'll leave it to Alexbrn to expand on that, I have no comment to make on your motives. I just hope that you now understand how offensive it is to have someone call you a liar (or make vague insinuations to that effect). Girth Summit _(blether) 00:28, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

(←) I'm seeing a WP:BOOMERANG headed Nosferattus' way for assuming bad faith. Miniapolis 22:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Please remember that many editors have already commented on this thread that Nosferattus is correct that Zefr should not be reaching out to individual, like-minded users, and should instead be using the proper channels. I think Nosferattus has every right to bring up past behavior to make the case to admins. How else can one bring attention to this kind of behavior, which we can all agree is not good? Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 00:02, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

What past behaviour are you talking about here? Be specific about what you think has been problematic. I'm not saying that I, or anyone else, is above reproach, but it is unaccepable for you and N to keep making vague statements that concern other editors' conduct. If you are talking about me, I want to know that; I'm sure that goes for everyone else named in this thread Girth Summit _(blether) 00:10, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. I am not talking about your behavior at all. I am referring to the canvassing by Zefr and the comment just made by Miniapolis, and hoping to refocus the issue on what the complaint is. There is nothing vague about the canvassing accusations (against Zefr, not you) that were documented by Nosferratus. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 00:17, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

• Seems like blatant canvassing to me without even considering past interactions at all. There doesn't appear to be some context here where the people notified were all of those involved in a previous discussion on the same topic. Instead, this seems to be the notifying specifically of the people who would support the notifiers' position. Even if the notification is a neutral template, that is still canvassing. Such notifications are meant to go on Wikiprojects, not specific editor's pages. Silverseren^C 18:43, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Let's set the record straight. WP:APPNOTE, the process followed to invite the review of a medical edit on Gingko biloba by three experienced medical editors and a neutral general admin. The four editors have their own interests and extensive editing experience which my invitation alone would not influence, i.e., not 'vote stacking'. All have had little or no activity on the gingko article, but have edited other herbal articles, having relevant background. I could have chosen from dozens of medical editors who previously coedited herbal articles with me over the past 16 years, but for such a conspicuously incorrect, extraordinary, and unsourced claim here, four reliable reviewers were sufficient. APPNOTE says "Notifications must be polite, neutrally worded with a neutral title, clear in presentation, and brief", all followed with the same message to each editor. I did not post the dispute on WT:MED because the proposed information was minor, unlikely to be of general interest, and obvious misinformation. Note that N did not start a discussion on WT:MED, where such a meritless edit would receive no favorable reception. On the gingko talk page, N initiated a straw poll which has been decisively defeated by consensus. N and supporter Pyrrho the Skeptic (P) are novice medical editors with only a few dozen medical edits combined, most of which have been reverted (many by me) due to low-quality content and absence of good sourcing. There is an air of vengeance-seeking by N in this discussion and many other recent talk page edits. On medical topics, N and P appear to be outside of their competence, WP:CIR - perhaps they would enjoy Wikipedia participation more without such frenetic arguing by staying within their knowledge base. Zefr (talk) 20:57, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to explain that. Please note that Votestacking is defined as selectively notifying editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion. Medical editing experience aside, I think it can be argued convincingly that you are counting on these particular editors to weigh in on one particular side of a topic. Pyrrho the Skeptic (talk) 21:10, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

In addition to kind of admitting to canvassing, your post came across as extremely arrogant and BITEy. Next time, I think it's better if you post a neutral notification on relevant wikiproject pages instead of contacting selected editors who you know will see the disputed content as obvious misinformation. Levivich 21:41, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Didn't need to persuade anyone - review the discussion and poll at the Gingko biloba talk page or go to WT:MED to start a discussion. Better to side with experience and honesty. N and P apparently have a desire for controversy to engage in smearing and disguise the plain fact that both were in error arguing persistently for a baseless medical claim, then seeking some kind of retribution here. Own it and WP:DEADHORSE. Done. Zefr (talk) 23:01, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Zefr, just don't invite individual editors to ongoing disputes, especially like-minded ones, as that is text book canvassing. Use neutral notifications at relevant wikiprojects, okay? Because repetition of this behaviour would be a cause for sanctions. Thank you. El_C 11:25, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

N and P apparently have a desire for controversy to engage in smearing and disguise... is a clear personal attack. Levivich 15:43, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

There's a lot to be desired, in general, with your conduct thus far here, Zefr. You're kind of at the brink, I'm sorry to say. A calm perspective is needed for you to correct your approach (separate from the contested content, as counterintuitive as that may seem). The time to pivot is now. No sense in crashing and burning when a number of different remedies exist when at an impasse. El_C 17:59, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd definitely agree that calmness is to be encouraged, but I'm disappointed that editors such as ElC and Levicich, for whom I have enormous respect, have no comment to make on the repeated and sustained personal attacks upon myself, here, on the article talk page, and on my own talk page. I'm not asking for sanctions - they have eventually been withdrawn, at least partially - but to paint Zefr as the only party in the wrong here is very hard for me to understand. Girth Summit _(blether) 00:26, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: No one is painting Zefr as the only party in the wrong here. Commenting on one party's conduct isn't blessing everyone else's. If we had to comment on everyone's conduct imagine how long the comments would be :-) But hasn't Nosf. stricken everything that they need to strike? I'll admit I haven't looked at any page except this thread, so if there's stuff on your talk page or the article talk page I haven't seen it. But I see multiple editors in this thread who have made either false statements or personal attacks (either way, should be struck). Nosf. is one of them, but Nosf. is the only editor who has actually struck anything. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Nosf's transgressions were already dealt with (by you, directly, here in this thread, and I agree with how you dealt with them and everything you've said about them), whereas Zefr's PA I commented on (which is not the only PA in this thread, by far) occurred after Nosf's transgressions were dealt with. As I understand it, Nosf's conduct is not ongoing (which is why I didn't comment on it), whereas Zefr's is (which is why I commented). Levivich 00:49, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

GS, I'm sorry, but you're doing Zefr (and yourself) a disservice here with such a dividing line. If you felt that the strikethroughs and retractions weren't enough, you should have said something other than fair enough, etc., because to me it looked like that part of it was resolved. Whereas Zefr seems entirely unrepentant about their canvassing, a misstep which, for all we know, they may well do again, and next time, they will definitely be sanctioned for. And if you even give them the hint that they could get away with it next time, you're inadvertently leading them off of a proverbial cliff, I'm sorry to say (truly). El_C 06:06, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

What I'm trying to say is that the process gets tainted when only like-minded editors are contacted about a dispute, even if one is right on the science/content (excepting bonkers fringe positions, obviously). In this case, editors who are likely to support views held by medical orthodoxy (hey, I count myself among them) were notified to this dispute. That's a problem because it brings the canvassed side (for convenience, orthodoxy) under a cloud in the dispute, even when the strength of their argument/sources is likely to win the day.

Now, if members of the adventurist (for convenience) side are engaging in inappropriate advocacy elsewhere or anything else problematic is happening wrt them, rather than addressing that through a passing comment, it needs to be outlined through the format of a separate report (in this case, a subsection will do), with evidence and summaries that can be easily parsed. And expressed in a detached tone.

The sense I got is that, like Zefr, Nosferattus kneecapped themselves with various aspersions about some of the canvassed editors (as mentioned in my opening, all of whom I, myself, hold in high regard). It was dumb. It brought discord for naught. It muddied the waters and made this thread much more impenetrable and unfocused. But they have apologized and retracted. Enough? Not sure. The whole thing is a bit long, so maybe I misread. But what is clear is that the canvassing issue remains, because Zefr does not acknowledge it as being so (i.e. risk of repetition). And that's where we are now. Fair assessment? El_C 08:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

The personal attack N made on me is still extant in this thread. I also note that the article concerned has been on my watchlist for years and I was already at the article when Z's note appeared, having edited it in the past. I'd like to thank Z for defending the project from the inexperienced editors we have seen at Ginko and elsewhere, and perhaps ask him to be a little more circumspect in his communication to fellow editors. Remember that we have some of the strangest policies on teh Internetz, and intimating, accurately, that a page is under threat from people who would degrade the project, is frowned upon FGS. -Roxy the sceptical dog. wooF 09:03, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Why are editors being referred to by capital letters in this thread? It's very odd and confusing. Also, what's FGS? El_C 10:25, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Oh, for God's sake, right. G is for God — even God isn't immune from this, it seems... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ El_C 10:27, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

El C, as always (or at least often!), you are being very wise. I am offended and pissed off by the accusations, and find it hard to be appropriately dispassionate. I should step back, but I will correct you on one point: they have nowhere apologised, or even fully retracted what they said about me. They have stricken certain words, under pressure from myself, but they have done nothing to give me the impression that they genuinely accept they were in error to make those accusations, or that they will not be so quick to assume bad faith of others again. Girth Summit _(blether) 15:10, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Shucks, GS, you're making me . Ah, I see. Duly struck, sorry for misreading. Again, that exchange is long and I found it challenging understanding a lot of it. El_C 15:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@El C: "El N" and "El Z" would have been less odd and confusing? :-P Levivich 15:35, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

That's right, El_Nadir and El_Zenith — now that's a two weddings dance! El_C 15:38, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• Y'all can we just TBAN Zefr from contacting individuals to polls and stop the petty bickering? It has been asserted that Zefr has also done this in the past, and Zefr's explanation of why he did not put a note at WT:MED rather than contact specific individuals does not seem to fly, after the fact. He has also not stated that he will no longer do this (contacting individuals to polls). Therefore a TBAN, which he can appeal in six months, should resolve the issue. NB: The TBAN and my proposal do not reflect in any way on the quality of Zefr's wiki participation or his motives in contacting specific people. Softlavender (talk) 10:56, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Can we not just do that and close the thread? It's more complicated than that. There's been canvassing, but there's also been behaviour by others, and on the content dispute I do rather think Zefr had it right. Gingko biloba isn't a therapy.—S Marshall T/C 12:33, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

S Marshall, that is exactly why Zefr should have posted a neutral note at WT:MED, and not canvassed specific people. Softlavender (talk) 01:17, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:CANVASS is the classic example of what paves the road to hell. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:56, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

The entire canvassing issue needs to be acknowledged by Zefr (assurances), then my warning to them would suffice, I think. But merely committing to [not] contacting individuals to polls (though I missed where that was stated) wouldn't be enough. Canvassing could also apply to disputes that are absent a poll. As my comment above notes at some length, if there are problems with the opposing side, that should be outlined in a format (evidence, summaries) that can be more easily parsed than... all this. El_C 14:00, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Piotrus, that terse comment isn't helping. To me, it comes across as piggy-backing vis-à-vis your own canvassing recently. So, maybe don't. El_C 14:06, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

If terse is not good, rest assured one of my to-do projects is to write an academic article on the damage CANVASS policy has done to Wikipedia and its community. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Uh, I'm rested-assured, I guess...? Anyway, sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. If it involves my own actions, I hope that you'd do me the courtesy of a reply, pre-publication. El_C 14:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Statement by Girth Summit

Over the last couple of days, I've been giving some thought to my own involvement in this affair, and what I might have done differently with the benefit of hindsight. Kudos to El C and Levivich for challenging me in the collaborative way that they did. I was genuinely offended by the suggestions that I had been untruthful, and that I had acted as I did to support someone based on my agreeing with their POV, or because of their seniority, or because we were buddies, or whatever; it's possible that I allowed my righteous indignation to get in the way of my empathy towards less experienced users however.

I maintain that I have no connection with Zefr, other than recognising that they are an prolific, long-term contributor in good standing. I believe that other prolific, long-term contributors will recognise that there is nothing unusual about two people overlapping on the occasional article talk page discussion, and not remembering specifics. I expect that there are literally hundreds of editors with whom I have interacted more than I have with Zefr; I cannot be expected to remember all of those interactions. I genuinely did not remember posting on their talk page in 2018, and here is the interaction analyser that I checked to see whether I had. My method was to type Ctrl+F, then Zefr. User talk:Zefr does not appear in the search results - thus, I concluded that I had never posted on their talk. User talk:Girth Summit does show up, with one edit from Zefr - thus, I concluded that their post a few days ago was the only one they had ever made. As can be seen from the results of that analyser, we have edited a few pages within minutes of each other, a few more within hours, days, etc. Many of these are user talk pages, and I believe that all of them were the results of us simply overlapping when doing recent changes patrolling.

As I've already said, I believe that long-term prolific contributors will look at our interactions, and understand that there is nothing remotely suspicious in two editors overlapping in this way. However, I recognise that to a new user, who has made fewer than 1,000 contributions, this might look like evidence of collusion, or people acting as part of a cabal. I tried to explain that this was not the case, but perhaps I flew off the handle a bit too early without really considering the perspective of a new user, and should have spent longer explaining things to Nosferattus. I would therefore like to apologise to Nosferattus for this post, which was probably below the standards of what should be expected of an administrator. Since they have been willing to strike through the wording of their accusations, I am willing to accept that their suspicions about me were held in good faith, and that I should have made better efforts to explain the situation to them.

In my first comment to this thread, I said that I thought Zefr should have posted at an appropriate noticeboard rather than reaching out to individuals. When I read their post on my talk, I assumed I had been the only one they had done that to, and that they were contacting me as a neutral admin to comment on the edit warring/accusations of disruptive editing/etc. I'm prepared to accept that Zefr believed in good faith that their notifications were acceptable, as they have set out above, but it remains my view that it is better to post on a public noticeboard than to notify individuals. I think that a statement from them indicating that they take this advice on board would be a positive development.

I don't know whether there is any more that Nosferattus would like from me at this point. I retract my demand that they no longer post on my talk, and I'm prepared to let this flow under the bridge, if they are. Girth Summit _(blether) 21:03, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the statement, GS. Yes, the Editor Interaction Analyzer leaves out tons of stuff. I realized this many many years ago when I input myself and the only editor I had collaborated with quite extensively, across dozens of articles, and almost nothing came up. It's very frustrating and the tool should really be reported at VPT and upgraded. Particularly because it's used regarding SPIs. Softlavender (talk) 01:27, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I never accept it as admissible evidence. It's a novelty, that's it. It's troubling that it's seen as anything more. There's no shortcut to diff evidence. El_C 02:55, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: Thank you for posting the thoughtful note. I think we both let our emotions get the better of us. I understand how my actions made you feel unfairly treated, and I hope you can understand how I have also felt unfairly treated. I'm disappointed that Zefr has decided that I am incompetent and "vengeance-seeking". All I want is for the rules of Wikipedia to be applied fairly to everyone. I actually admire Zefr's work on medical topics and his efforts to keep fringe POVs and bogus medical claims off of Wikipedia (as I told him early in our discussions on the talk page). Despite being less experienced than many of you, I always try to cite my edits to reliable, independent, secondary sources, and if it's a medical topic, to review articles or meta-analyses. I'm also completely willing to be corrected when my edits do not adhere to Wikipedia policies and guidelines. What upsets me is someone just repeatedly reverting my edits without adequate explanation, and then breaking the rules (WP:3RR and WP:VOTESTACKING) in order to enforce it. If their opinion really is the more valid opinion, they shouldn't have any trouble fairly establishing consensus on the talk page. After all, that's how Wikipedia is supposed to work, and that's all that I'm asking for. Nosferattus (talk) 04:41, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Another way that Wikipedia is supposed to work, Nosferattus, is to "broaden participation to more fully achieve consensus". That quote comes from the the first sentence of WP:CANVASS: it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it be done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus. That is what was done. This discussion may have taken a different, more constructive course had it been entitled, "Seeking consensus on Gingko biloba", which was my intent, as opposed to the inflammatory "vote stacking" accusation, which it was not. "Broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus" means that editors who were notified have their own editing experience, knowledge, interpretation of the content dispute, trust within the WP medical community, and individual decision-making about whether to even join the discussion. We assume good faith that editors asked to comment have their own ideas to contribute, uninfluenced by an invitation to assess. There was no vote stacking, no canvassing, soliciting, conspiracy, or campaigning to support my point of view, and no persuasion in any of the talk discussion. The only expectation was for independent review and collegial input to benefit the article, as is common (and expected) in scholarly collaboration. Meanwhile, at Talk:Ginkgo biloba, appropriate science- and source-based consensus prevailed. I value WT:MED, and have participated in many discussions there. I also know that not every minor dispute warrants community attention, as was this case. For a more complex content or sourcing matter, I would readily initiate and lead a WT:MED discussion, as done numerous times over the years. Zefr (talk) 14:43, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: logged warning for canvassing

• Support/propose closing this with a logged warning to Zefr about canvassing. Zefr's most recent post, just above, shows they still think they were not canvassing. Unfortunately I think a logged warning is needed to convince Zefr otherwise. Levivich 16:19, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support logged warning. This was clearly canvassing. Paul August ☎ 00:21, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support FINAL warning or a TBAN on canvassing individuals. Even as we speak Zefr is self-justifying and refusing to acknowledge his canvassing [55]. He even says the title of the OP's report here should have been "Seeking consensus on Gingko biloba". Good grief. Softlavender (talk) 03:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• I support a logged warning; but I oppose closing this without more. It's a complex problem that isn't well-suited to simplistic outcomes. Zefr's canvassing, though wrong, was done for the right reasons. We don't have an infinite number of people willing to fight the battles he's fighting for us. I could make a good case for a barnstar as well as a warning.—S Marshall T/C 12:59, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I wish we would not say things like "We don't have an infinite number of people willing to fight the battles he's fighting for us." That's WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. It's this kind of thinking that creates WP:UNBLOCKABLES. The answer is WP:Wikipedia does not need you. There are no battles on Wikipedia that we need people to fight. Editing in a controversial topic area does not justify, excuse, or even mitigate canvassing (or otherwise editing against consensus). If anything, editing in GS/DS areas should make editors more scrupulous, not less. And anyway, the canvassing wasn't "done for the right reasons", it was done to win a content dispute; that's the typical reason, and it's the wrong reason. That we might agree with Zefr on the content dispute should not affect our thinking about the conduct dispute. Levivich 13:34, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
    • The project's ongoing problems with recruitment and retention mean that we don't have an infinite number of editors willing to stick up for MEDRS, Levivich. Wikipedia absolutely does need editors who fight for reliable sources. I agree with you that it doesn't justify or excuse canvassing; but content does matter and in my view it absolutely should affect our thinking here. Misconduct while fighting disinformation is very different from misconduct while promoting disinformation. This is not an attempt to establish Zefrs as an unblockable. I'm merely saying that this proposed remedy, without more, is too simplistic.—S Marshall T/C 13:53, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
      • What are you talking about? Alle editors stick up for MEDRS: that's why MEDRS has global consensus. Alle editors fight for reliable sources. WP:V and WP:RS also have global consensus. MEDRS and RS aren't going extinct; it's not like they're only supported by a brave few. Your comments lionize ordinary editing and ordinary editors. There are, literally, tens of thousands of people editing, and they're all fighting disinformation, or at least they think they are. Even the worst POV pushers think they're fighting disinformation. Providing reliable information is what we are all doing here. The exceptions are extremely few: the number of people we block or sanction is a tiny, tiny minority compared to the thousands and thousands of people who edit without incident. The proof of this is in the encyclopedia: 20 years on, it works, it fucking works!, and it's not because there are a few brave righteous editors who are upholding RS. Puh-leez. The whole crowd is upholding RS. It's the majority opinion, and a large, large majority at that.
        And don't you get it? Can't you see it? This whole dividing of editors into good editors (those who "stick up for MEDRS", "fight for reliable sources", and "fight[] disinformation") and bad editors (everyone else?), it's how this dispute started: it started with Nosferattus, in a content dispute, accusing Zefr of POV-pushing, because Zefr disagreed with Nosferattus on the proper application of MEDRS. That was an example of the battleground mentality. We have policies like WP:AGF and WP:NPA that are specifically meant to address that battleground mentality. Absent evidence that someone is POV pushing (or "promoting disinformation"), we assume good faith: we assume that everyone is here to fight disinformation, to uphold reliable sources. Nosferattus created a large problem by failing to do so, by accusing Zefr of POV-pushing (which led to more PAs from multiple editors, and canvassing, and this thread). And here you are, SM, doing the same damn thing: implying that Nosferattus is promoting disinformation and not upholding MEDRS. Stop the cycle. Either bring the diffs and prove POV pushing or disinformation promotion... or else AGF and treat both Zefr and Nosferattus as editors who are both upholding MEDRS and fighting disinformation (but who simply disagree on the details). Levivich 14:09, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
        • @S Marshall: For the record, the statement that Zefr canvassed to remove was cited to a Cochrane Review from its first appearance, which is considered the gold standard for WP:MEDRS compliance. Please see the straw poll in question. As I mentioned in the initial complaint here, this was not "Zefr enforcing MEDRS", this was Zefr fighting a content dispute by unilaterally reverting 3 other editors and then canvassing. Sure, MEDRS can be interpreted to support Zefr's opinion, but it can also be interpreted to support my opinion. Nothing in MEDRS prohibits adding the sentence I added to the article, and I don't think anyone would argue it is "disinformation". What people are arguing about is the strength of the evidence. This complaint, however, is not about content, it is about behavior, so I would love it if we don't bring the content dispute here. Nosferattus (talk) 14:58, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
          • Despite Levivich and Nosferattus' very outraged, passionate and spirited defence of this, I remain of the view that while Zefr's actions did amount to canvassing, there are mitigating factors. I remain of the view that a logged sanction for Zefr should form part of our response to this, but I disagree that it should be the only response.—S Marshall T/C 15:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
            • @S Marshall: What other response are you proposing? Personally, I think tightening up the language at WP:MEDRS would be a good response. If the community truly feels like Zefr's interpretation of MEDRS is valid (i.e. that cited sources must focus specifically on the claim cited rather than discussing it within research on a related topic), that should be written into WP:MEDRS. Nosferattus (talk) 15:40, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
              • I'm still looking at it, and I haven't finished deciding how I think we should respond. At the moment I envisage the additional required responses as advice and guidance rather than logged sanctions. I can also see good grounds for edits to guidelines. A question that has recently troubled me is how I should act where someone canvassed me to join a discussion and, having read it, I did want to participate in the discussion. I think the editors Zefr canvassed would have benefitted from that too.—S Marshall T/C 16:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
            • I am not outraged and that wasn't really passionate, at least for me. Levivich 17:02, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• Question Can someone explain to me what a "logged warning" is and what effect it has? Nosferattus (talk) 15:05, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
  • It's a warning that's logged at WP:EDR. Levivich 17:02, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - per Nosferattus' question. What is "logged warning for canvassing". GoodDay (talk) 15:17, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

doctor yaser alsaidi

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

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I try to write article about doctor yaser alsaidi when i start to writing i choose thiese name " yaser j. K. Alsaidi and i found that name is on the black list !!! Can i know why and i ask for remove this name from the black list please Thank you for you listen Yellowjoe (talk) 12:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Let me just ping a relevant operative: @Billinghurst: -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 12:53, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Would that be the crosswiki abuse articles, or the sockpuppet? ([56], User:Dr - YASER J. K. ALSAIDI, Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Dr - YASER J. K. ALSAIDI, special:Centralauth/User:Dr - YASER J. K. ALSAIDI ) I will note that the search doesn't show all the deleted attempts. Tell us about yourself Yellowjoe and your relationship to this person or the sock accounts? — billinghurst sDrewth 13:36, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

This is cross-wiki spam, I was struggling with it on one of the smaller Wikipedia (I guess Crimean Tatar) reverting a sock for several days every half an hour until stewards finally did the job. I strongly suspect that OP is from the same sockfarm.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:38, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I apologize for my behavior, but I assure you that I have no intention of publishing subversive content or harming the encyclopedia. All I tried to do was to find out what was the cause of the problem because of my little experience in Wikipedia. As for the person, he is a surgeon and I have a relationship with him. I wanted to present an article to him here as a kind of gift to him, but I found that the name was prohibited and I wanted to know the reason— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yellowjoe (talk • contribs)

Given they have made changes to Rasha Kelej that appear to include promo/puffery and a possible copyright infringement on a picture uploaded to commons, I think the community is right to be concerned about motivation. Slywriter (talk) 17:11, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Yellowjoe: We are an encyclopaedia, not a gift repository. Your attempt at naivety has to be challenged. You have avoided blocks and flouted rules for a personal feel-good. Then you have the temerity to ask the question when you will know the answer after you have again tried to create the article. Zero for which you are to be proud, and if it is truly a friend then puffery helps nobody. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:23, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Dr - YASER J. K. ALSAIDI/Archive. EdJohnston (talk) 03:53, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I can assure you, sir, that I have no intention of sabotaging the content of this encyclopedia....and I apologize for my actions because of my lack of experience. ... and my real goal is to contribute here correctly in order to become an active member in order to spread the information correctly — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yellowjoe (talk • contribs) 08:45, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Yellowjoe and to the person and/or persons attempting to create the bio for this 27-year-old Palestinian doctor (admins only): this individual fails to meet notability criteria at this time. Please stop. El_C 17:08, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

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

Cambial Yellowing

Struck comments from blocked editor

I previously raised a concern about User Cambial_Yellowing. They have taken an extremely possessive approach regarding the article United_Kingdom_Internal_Market_Act_2020. They appear to auto revert any edits but there own. They also delete tags warning of bias etc and delete comments from the talk page. I was concerned about the nationalist bias the article was presenting as such I reported his action here, and flagged on their talkpage. However it appears after alerting them he instantly came here and deleted the incident before anyone could see it. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&diff=next&oldid=1031437569 Due to this behaviour I haven't alerted them this time, in order to allow admins time to consider and prevent the report being deleted again. I have also noticed that they appeared to have stalked me to other articles and blanket reverted edits and tags there. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UK_deaths_in_custody&action=history and on the talk pages https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AUK_deaths_in_custody&type=revision&diff=1040946408&oldid=1034587305 I think this may be an example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:You_don%27t_own_Wikipedia#How_egotistical_power_users_react — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.33.24.203 (talk • contribs)

I have notified CY of this thread. Looking into this a bit, I see CY's revert of a talk page post at Special:Diff/1040946408 mentioned WP:BE in the edit summary. If this is BE, the IP should be blocked. If it's not BE, then the IP's talk page posts shouldn't be reverted. We probably need some admin and maybe CU attention here. Levivich 17:54, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I will appreciate if an admin can block this IP. The earlier investigation identified the IP as a blocked user but as their edits were concentrated on a single article (and the user's history of IP-hopping on mobile to evade), that article was page protected rather than play whack-a-mole. Cambial foliage❧ 18:14, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Automatically applying ECP to high-risk templates

Following the successful closure of the recent RfC to permit preemptive use of ECP on templates, I'm here as promised to discuss how we want to change the thresholds for User:MusikBot II/TemplateProtector, which automatically protects highly transcluded templates based on the configuration.

Skimming over the RfC, it seems most people are content with leaving the template protection threshold at 5,000 transclusions. Meanwhile a 2018 RfC showed consensus to permanently semi-protect templates with 200-250 transclusions. With that in mind, I propose this configuration:

• autoconfirmed – 250 transclusions
• extendedconfirmed – 2,500 transclusions
• templateeditor – 5,000 transclusions

So the only changes are to lower autoconfirmed to 250 from 500, and add in ECP at 2,500. I'm happy to keep at autoconfirmed at 500 if we want, but I do think we should take advantage of ECP now that policy allows it. Thoughts? — MusikAnimal ^talk 18:20, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

• The most important aspects from my point of view: Not increasing any existing limit, adding ECP somewhere between the existing limits, and happily lowering any limit. The proposal meets my criteria. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• I am fine with these numbers--Ymblanter (talk) 18:48, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• What my learned colleagues said. El_C 21:14, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• Looks good. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:18, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
• +1 - David Gerard (talk) 16:01, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) As a non-admin, I feel this proposed change will be beneficial to the wiki. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬 📋｠ 14:29, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Legal threat

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

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Please see this edit. Thanks. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Blocked. 331dot (talk) 10:26, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

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

CBAN appeal from Gleeanon409

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

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Good morning all,

Gleeanon409, previously Benjiboi, is requesting unblock; I have copied their appeal below. They are currently subject to a community ban imposed here in 2010. Yamla commented at their talk page that CU data does not indicate any recent attempts at sockpupetry. No comment on the merits of the appeal, but I recommend that we consider the appeal from Gleeanon rather than requiring that they make it as Benjiboi, given that it has been over a decade since the latter account was last active.

As is seen at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Benjiboi/Archive I have had a checkered history. How people conduct themselves with other editors has improved over the years but back then (2006) I was out and gay and had more than my share of negative attention both on and off wiki from other editors. I was also active with the Rescue Squad which put me squarely in the crosshairs of the perennial deletionist/inclusionist issues. I was new to social media so didn’t handle the constant abuse well, I felt I was targeted and attacked, on and off wiki. Suffice it to say I eventually reacted very poorly and by late 2010 made up a ton of socks which ended up causing headaches to others, it was obvious the attacks would continue and there was an organized offsite effort. I certainly shouldn’t have, and I wish I would have known or considered any better options. I saw zero future for me with a project I loved, and saw zero options but the poor ones I chose. Until 2021 I either didn’t know or realize a standard offer existed. In 2019 I tried to make what I thought was a clean start but was sleuthed out by editors who are into such things. I regret that they also made bad faith accusations as a pillar of the report alleging that I have any support for child rape, I certainly do not, but I’ve learned anyone canu say anything on the internet without consequences. Generally I think my Gleeanon409 account shows that I support insisting on reliable sources and building consensus when disagreements arise. It can take longer but the results last longer as well. I’d like to resume with the Gleeanon409 account with the community’s permission. I’d appreciate if you could take this request to whatever board is appropriate for consideration. p.s. I did try editing a bit on other wiki projects but I didn’t find it to be a good experience. Glee^anon 13:12, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

GeneralNotability (talk) 14:49, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• Question: Can you please elaborate on the statement, "they also made bad faith accusations as a pillar of the report alleging that I have any support for child rape". I'd like to know exactly where those accusations were made before supporting or opposing this unblock request. I understand you have specifically refuted this accusation (here, in your request). --Yamla (talk) 15:12, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  Yamla, speaking for myself, I believe they are referring to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Benjiboi/Archive#07_November_2020 - phrases like Benjiboi has a history of questionable edits regarding children and homosexuality and Gleeanon409, like Benjiboi and proven sock Sportfan5000, has exhibited sympathy toward fringe views of pederasty. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:23, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

• I have a question, although to be transparent, I don't expect to support this request no matter what the answer is. But in case other people find an answer useful: when you say you didn't find editing other wiki projects to be a good experience, please elaborate. What projects? What accounts? Did you end up in conflicts there too? Considering the socking here was still occurring less than a year ago - i.e. a 10+ year history of socking - and Gleeanon409 is blaming other people, not themselves, for that account getting blocked, I can't imagine what benefit there would be to accepting this request. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:44, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• I recall this user well and I'd suggest an unblock on condition that Benjiboi agrees not to edit AFD or DRV, not to ask others to do so for them, not to accuse any other editor of anything at all, and not to edit biographies of living people whose notability relates to LGBT issues, this restriction to be reviewable on AN after a period of good faith high quality editing. Benjiboi, would you want to rejoin the ARS?—S Marshall T/C 17:14, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• If the socking issue is cleared up & the individual is topic-banned from said areas? Then I'll support his return to Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 17:20, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• Frankly, we need to see some introspection and self awareness around the reasons for the blocks and ban before we can consider any amnesty. The above appeal is just full of accusations and blame for other editors. Deletionists? This is hardly a cesspit of homophobia and hatred of lgbtq+ editors so I think I’d like to see a lot more self-recognition around the reasons for the blocks and bans. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:05, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I can see that side of it as well. Benjiboi's editing style was intemperate, he genuinely believed that the evil deletionists were destroying the encyclopaedia and he was genuinely outraged and furious when people wanted to remove content about anything remotely connected to LGBT issues. That was ten years ago. We will now be dealing with a more mature person. We could extract the mea culpa of exoneration from him but, WP:EHP. Let him back, give him rope. Any sign of a crusade against the evil homophobic deletionists on his part should mean another decade in wikijail though!—S Marshall T/C 20:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
    • What exactly are we getting for such a generous attitide bearing in mind the user still harbours grudges from previous disputes. With consistent behaviour over more than 10 years I think we are way beyond saying the user needed to grow up. Leopards don't change their spits and I don't see why we should volunteer for the leopard to eat our collective face. Spartaz ^Humbug! 09:40, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
      • He's coming back either way. This way we know which account he's using and we keep some control; the other way lies SPIs and other timesinks.—S Marshall T/C 15:17, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
        • "He's coming back either way" is like saying that since thieves are going to steal anyway, we may as well just leave all our doors unlocked. Plus, having a valid account didn't stop Benjiboi from socking before. Dealing with a tendentious editor who was recently unbanned is vastly more difficult then filing an SPI. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:34, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• I would consider the attempts to blame the editors who filed the SPI to be a disqualifying move in an unblock request. I don't really care what their motivation was, if they "are into such things", since they were absolutely correct. Further attacking them with claims of bad-faith accusations doesn't help, either. Grandpallama (talk) 19:07, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

  I am thoroughly unimpressed at being pinged to their talkpage in response to my vote here so they can respond that they must defend themselves against accusations of "child rape" support, phrasing that nobody but them has used. Grandpallama (talk) 23:31, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• I'd decline unban per WP:NOTTHEM, as commented on above. Sandstein 20:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• Without reading the ANI where they were banned or the SPI, and ONLY reading their unblock request, I've several issues:
  • had more than my share of negative attention both on and off wiki - why? Was it undeserved, or did you bring this upon yourself? Diffs?
  • put me squarely in the crosshairs of the perennial deletionist/inclusionist issues - again, why? Was it undeserved, or did you bring this upon yourself? Diffs?
  • it was obvious the attacks would continue - why was this obvious? Were you being targeted, or baiting them? Diffs?
  • there was an organized offsite effort - if this is even pertinent, can you link to this please? Why even mention this?
  • but was sleuthed out by editors who are into such things - what the hell does this even mean? Were you in the right or were you in the wrong? Diffs? Otherwise, a little personal attack-y if you ask me.
• I'm sorry, but this request fails to address any of the "why's," & without doing any research for them it, for the life of me, does not tell me one thing about why they were banned or how they have learned from it. Sorry, oppose. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 21:17, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
• Decline unban Back in 2010 100% of those participating in the ban discussion decided to ban this user. Reading that discussion, and this unban request, and looking at but a fraction of their sock puppetry history and disruption I think they were 100% right. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 06:55, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose In 2006 Benjiboi posted regarding the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (diff) at Talk:Nun. See explanation here (where Benjiboi signed as Banjeboi). That was a long time ago but people don't become helpful contributors after that. Nor does Wikipedia need more stuff such as this battle over gay porn and COI. Johnuniq (talk) 10:51, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unban. The same bad behavior was engaged in under the Gleeanon account. This is a serial sockpuppeteer and POV pusher; even now, are we really supposed to believe that they thought that returning as Gleeanon after being banned was proper? Plus, this same behavior pattern of tendentiousness, and of pushing of fringe views about pederasty, was abundantly shown at the November 2020 SPI here. I urge anyone here considering supporting an unblock to read the diff-sourced testimony of multiple editors there - it isn't that long, and it mainly concerns the recent editing under the Gleeanon account. If we allow ourselves to be fooled again into willingly letting them come back after we've seen these same problems in multiple accounts over more than a decade, then the shame is on us. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:25, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unban. I haven't looked through all of the links in the SPI but I found this discussion very concerning – it's obvious from reading the Introduction on Google Books that the source that they advocate using is pederastry apologetica, and I find it very hard to AGF about the suggestion that it's a reliable source. I would also urge editors considering an unban to look at this version of Desmond is Amazing, which is essentially entirely Gleeanon's work. Even aside from the POV editing promoting the concept of "child drag", I really don't think that it's appropriate (or in line with policy) to write such a detail-heavy article, based almost entirely on primary sources, about a child. I don't think that this is somebody we want editing Wikipedia, and certainly not editing content relating to living people or gender & sexuality topics. Wham2001 (talk) 05:56, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unban, for the many reasons pointed out by others. --Yamla (talk) 12:46, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unban. My reasons for supporting the indef block of Gleeanon at the sock report were primarily due to his recent behaviour with the Gleeanon account - the edit warring, deception and personal attacks. He showed up at Harry Hay and immediately archived the talk page to hide the fact he was the same user who had edited disruptively there. He removed admin warnings from his talk page to hide the situation from other editors.[57][58] He then proceeded to forum-shop to try to POV push on that article, for months on end. Then he did all that disruption at the Desmond is Amazing article. He engaged in grotesque personal attacks based in projection. When I warned him to stop whitewashing the Harry Hay article, as he kept removing sourced content about Hay's pedophile advocacy, he responded with, "Your devotion to pedophile content is interesting" - implying other editors were pedophiles because we were concerned about his promotion of what we saw as situations that were exploiting a child (Desmond) and Gleeanon's minimization of the harm done by the pedophile group North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 19:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose unban, with the same reason as Yamla. - Speedcuber1 ^talk 01:09, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

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

Attempt to influence article with money

This is sort of odd, but I figured I should tell someone.

I tagged the article Larry Dvoskin for puffery and unencyclopedic tone. (I have no interest in the article or any idea who Larry Dvoskin was, I was just going through the backlog of links to deprecated source Crunchbase.)

Someone purporting to be Larry Dvoskin has been emailing me, upset about this, and disputing the tag. I ignored this, but the emailer just tried to send me GBP£80 donation to my music blog, to my wife's PayPal.

The payment has been refunded. (I have the screenshots of the transactions if needed.)

However, this feels very like someone's trying to set me up for an accusation of taking payment for editing. I'm posting to state that this is not the case.

Is there anywhere to notify stuff like this? - David Gerard (talk) 15:49, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for reporting this. How ridiculous! The only thing I have to say to Larry Dvoskin is: I'll remove the tags for £40. Levivich 15:52, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

£20. El_C 15:57, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I've been here 17 years and this was actually a new one on me. I added a note to Talk:Larry_Dvoskin#Possible_attempt_to_influence_article_with_money as well - David Gerard (talk) 15:56, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

This is how to respond to "editing bribery":

1. Take the money: in this case, £80 to remove tags.
2. Remove the tags, and, of course, include an accurate edit summary: "Removing tags because I was paid £80."
3. When another editor reverts your edit, contact the person who paid: "Those bastards reinstated the tags! Better send me another £80 to remove them."
4. Repeat.

Think about it, colleagues, we could all quit our jobs!! Levivich 16:05, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Bad strategy. I'd insist on payment in ₿. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:27, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

We should just streamline it and add to article history entries a "$" link where people can pay a fee to have the edit reverted. Of course the community would code a bot to reinstate any such edits, at least until the next sucker comes along and pays. This would be the most effective fundraiser in Wikipedia's history. Levivich 16:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

And here I am, I would have done it for Tree fiddy. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:56, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I am so editing the wrong articles.--Berig (talk) 16:57, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Seriously, you might want to try Meta:Trust and Safety maybe? Them or Arbcom (via email)?Nigel Ish (talk) 17:58, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Wait, you guys are being paid? Nosebagbear (talk) 18:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

As revealed recently, the WMF pays me in hugs & kissess. But the Chipmunk Army is funded by hush-hush sources. El_C 19:00, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

You have been mislead, I haven't even received my allotted physical affection. CMD (talk) 13:21, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

In work, yeah... Enterprisey (talk!) 07:57, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

the reward for a job well done is another three jobs - David Gerard (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, that's peculiar. Anyway, see now Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Larry Dvoskin. Sandstein 20:20, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

On the other hand I would like to add that it is possible that Larry himself is innocent, and some other parties "attempting to bribe" hoping that Larry would take the blame. Everybody can claim to be somebody. I could claim to be Donald Trump and "bribe" people, creating bad name for Donald Trump. SunDawntalk 13:15, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

yep, this is why I said "someone purporting to be" - David Gerard (talk) 13:25, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that would work. I mean, who could possibly believe that St. Donald would ever do anything bad? Phil Bridger (talk) 15:17, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect proxy IP blocking of part of the UN, how do I request this is changed?

Hi all

Recently I've been doing some work with a part of the UN and it appears that they are blocked from Wikipedia because their IP 165.225.95.30 is part of blocked range 165.225.0.0/17. Can someone tell me how to correct this?

Thanks

. John Cummings (talk) 17:40, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

ping AmandaNP who placed the block. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:47, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I should probably link to my response at the help desk, as well as the previous discussion of Zscaler. As a general comment for admins doing range blocks, imagine you are sat in your office in the UN doing UN stuff on their network, you notice an error in a wiki page and try to update it, and then you're presented with this message. You can see just from the range contribs just how confusing it can all be. Sometimes the real reason something is blocked is far less important than the message you are sending to innocent users. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:28, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

The range is also globally blocked for the next three years. 92.5.2.97 (talk) 21:21, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes. This is an issue that needs sorting out, especially given the global block. Black Kite (talk) 22:32, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

As a counter to user:zzuuzz - imagine you are sat at your office in the UN doing UN stuff on their network when you want to vandalise an article. These ranges are blocked for a reason - we shouldn't give vandals who edit from UN computers any freer hand than those who vandalise from their homes.Nigel Ish (talk) 09:25, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure you're not describing UN employees as vandals. In reality I regard the average Zscaler users as highly educated, highly knowledgeable experts in their respective fields, on a high wage and accountable to several people including their employee's network manager, however, I have never suggested that they don't get blocked if they're causing disruption. I have argued against two things in particular: soft blocking them just because of their technical setup, and hard blocking them just because of their technical setup. But here I'm not even discussing the merits of the block but arguing another of my pet peeves. I'm discussing the message we're sending through the block message to the users of this network, which frankly has no reason to make any sense to any of them. Now picture yourself at that desk in that office again and reading that message. What does it tell you? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:32, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Some people who edit Wikipedia via UN computers are undoubtably vandals or disruptive, just like people at the Houses of Parliament and Congress. There should be absolutely no reason why we treat them as superior than anyone else, which is what you are proposing doing. If I access Wikipedia using a VPN I cannot edit - this is no different.Nigel Ish (talk) 12:53, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Let me repeat myself, I am not discussing the merits of the block. It may be justified due to disruption, it may not. I haven't looked into it because it's really irrelevant to what I'm saying, to what this thread is about, and to many of the complaints we regularly get from these types of users. The block reason - the one they're reading - doesn't make sense. It doesn't tell them what the problem is, and it doesn't give any relevant solutions. That template does have its uses, but in this case it provides something worse than nonsense. In case you don't realise, these are not normal VPNs, sometimes not VPNs at all. If you're at work, you can't just turn it off. These networks are generally used as part of highly sophisticated security environments. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:14, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Nigel Ish do you have any evidence for 'Some people who edit Wikipedia via UN computers are undoubtably vandals or disruptive'? Thanks, John Cummings (talk) 11:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The vandalism is why it was blocked in the first place. Again - why should people who are editing through UN networks and computers be allowed to edit from behind proxies when normal common people are not. Why must they be treated as superior beings?Nigel Ish (talk) 11:21, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The last consensus as pointed out by Zzuuzz was that zscaler should be at least anon only blocked. If someone wants to change the message and maybe make a {{zscalerblock}} template pointing to ACC or something, I wouldn't be opposed - in fact feel free to. But the general thing is this is an anonymizing source where people anywhere in the world are able to login and use this network (not specifically the UNs). -- Amanda (aka DQ) 21:05, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

@John Cummings: I've converted the template to something more meaningful, though as I mentioned before only a steward can change the message for the global block. I think the local template should help anyway. These people are going to need accounts, which they'll need to create away from this network - either on their phones, or at home, their local wifi hotspot, or by someone creating their account for them at Special:CreateAccount. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 08:52, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi zzuuzz thanks very much, could you link to the template? I don't understand how to find it. Thanks, John Cummings (talk) 11:08, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

They should see Template:Anonblock feature quite prominently when they try to edit without an account. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:20, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• This is all very well, but there needs to be a bigger discussion about the default position of blocking companies that provide security services like these. See for example this block by ST47. Forcepoint provide services for a wide array of customers. From huge to small (including my employer, a national charity). There is a COVID related issue here (UK) in that my employer just to survive had to transition to an almost entirely remote-working arrangement, which meant for many employees their work-provided laptop was now the primary internet machine in their homes (excluding mobile phones, but no one is going to seriously suggest editing from/through mobiles beyond spell corrections) and being used outside of their work. Likewise many other orgs, educational or otherwise have provided employees and students with hardware, which is all hardblocked from editing. I am lucky in that I can just switch to my home PC, but for many of my colleagues that isnt an option. There needs to be a serious discussion about the use of indiscriminate hardblocks for companies like Zscaler and Forcepoint being the default position, rather than anon-only. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:18, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Although for context, see here for the contributions for the above IP. Not exactly a hotbed of anonymous vandalism is it? Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:21, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  Yes it's a reasonable discussion to continue having. The previous Zscaler discussion I linked to above has a consensus that they be at most soft blocked (in the absence of other abuse). The concepts of data centres, colo, and cloud have shifted markedly since I became an admin, even in the past few years. And as you describe there are now even broader changes to face up to. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:20, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  People probably shouldn't be using their work provided secure IT equipment for any more than incidental personal use anyway. Certainly if I was using my company supplied IT equipment for personal use then I would risk breaching my employer's IT acceptable use policy and risk getting sacked, and I suspect the same applies for the vast majority of users in the corporate environment.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:33, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

  Most employers dont restrict wikipedia for obvious reasons. Most employers are fine with reasonable personal use which is why acceptable use policies exist - to make clear the standards required. Your argument is basically 'editing wikipedia is risking breaching my employer's acceptable use policy' which says more about your employer and your editing habits than being any real measurable standard. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:28, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• Passing note: {{colocationwebhost-soft}} may come in handy for future blocks like this. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:07, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME and airports

User:Anthony Appleyard has moved Hamid Karzai International Airport to Kabul Airport. However I have always seen airport articles use the official name instead of names like say "New Delhi Aiport" or "New York City Aiport". The COMMONNAME policy allows use of official names, but what is the standard practice that should be used in regarding to making airports. If it's using official names then I request an admin to please move back Kabul Airport to its original name. LéKashmiriSocialiste (talk) 19:31, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Correction: The name of the airport has been changed to simply Kabul International Airport by the Taliban, who have removed Hamid Karzai's name [59]. LéKashmiriSocialiste (talk) 19:42, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

AA only moved it because it was listed at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests. If you dispute it, ask to have the move reversed on their talk page; they are an extremely cordial person. The original requester (User:Hindu108) can then start a move discussion on the article's talk page, if they are so inclined. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 21:29, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I will but I'd still like a clarification. Just so I don't end up trying to have it moved to another name in vain. LéKashmiriSocialiste (talk) 22:19, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

You might have more luck at Wikipedia talk:Article titles. I'm not aware of any topic-specific naming conventions for airports, and I didn't see anything in Category:Wikipedia naming conventions except for this long-dormant draft proposal. Even though it doesn't have consensus, that draft still seems pretty sensible, and seems to reflect common practice today. The examples it gives of Munich Airport and Sydney Airport (officially Franz Josef Strauss Airport and Kingsford Smith Airport, respectively) seem to align with the choice of Kabul Airport (and, ultimately, WP:CRITERIA). Colin M (talk) 16:49, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think there's any wide consensus around the names of airports. Stifle (talk) 08:37, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Motion to standardize Extended Confirmed restrictions

A motion has been made to amend the Arbitration Committee's procedures to standardize the extended confirmed restriction. Please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions#Extended confirmed restriction omnibus motion for more information or if you wish to comment. For the Arbitration Committee, Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 03:06, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Motion to standardize Extended Confirmed restrictions

Violation of WP:UNINVOLVED

David Gerard got informed about violation of WP:UNINVOLVED in section Discussion at Talk:Namecoin § The added namecoin.pro links are spam and not relevant on his talk page and refused to review his admin action. As regularly and long term involved editor he shoudn't have taken administrative protection of his own edits, especially those "issue box" about missing sources in question. The corresponding talk page section remained unanswered. Other admins are requested to solve the issue now! Thx! 46.125.249.82 (talk) 10:55, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The issue appears to concern a claim that this edit at Namecoin is spam. It looks like spam to me in that it is exactly what is seen in hundreds of articles every week—a good faith new editor just happens to add links to the favorite website. David Gerard is regarded as Wikipedia's best defense against promotional crypto edits and my recollection is that the community does not have much patience for those wanting to exploit Wikipedia for financial gain. Johnuniq (talk) 11:05, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

If it were a commercial site your argumentation might fit, but it was linked a non-commercial community and project website (what is a wiki site even if you can't see it publicly) with official downloads and profound technological knowledge, what you won't find on the private website of the Github contributor Jeremy Rand at namecoin.org. You might study the Bitcointalk threads to come to an opinion, but I won't post any external links for sure. Anyway, if the Wikipedia community will keep the irrelevant website namecoin.org as "official website" while deleting the relevant links: We won't care! The article in its current poor condition might get deleted as well, as no relevance is shown. 46.125.249.82 (talk) 11:46, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I am inclined to block this IP who is using this highly visible forum to settle their issues outside Wikipedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:35, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Do what you think is necessary, I don't care! But beware: if you maintain an article about a divided community, you will be confronted with the facts! So don't blame anyone for writing the facts after someone else deleted the links to an actual community website! Better delete the whole article instead, then you won't get confronted with the community behind the Namecoin project! Very easy. 46.125.249.82 (talk) 13:10, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I placed the ECP on Namecoin under WP:GS/CRYPTO, which contains the provision precisely for keeping the promotional editing (however well-meaning) down to a dull roar. Any admin wishing to reverse it should, of course, feel free to do so - David Gerard (talk) 13:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Sureley you will be so kind to explain why you consider one website as promotional/commercial and the other one not. But please deliver facts this time, and not just your feeling! 46.125.249.82 (talk) 13:27, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

WP:RS for one. As general advice, if you want your edits in, RSes are your best friend - David Gerard (talk) 13:43, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

The wrong assumption behind this discussion is that namecoin.pro would need promotion through Wikipedia. However, this is not the case as it's primarily a community website to inform the existing community about the "how to" and the underlying technology. Rather, it is the case that the Wikipedia article is in poor condition and needs sources. You may consider namecoin.pro as a primary source, you may claim that it has too few backlinks, but it's definitely a valid source to confirm the facts of the article. And I think we won't discuss here whether the technological facts given on the website are valid and correct or not. Anyway, anyone may restore the article or it will remain in its poor condition for the next 10 years, I don't care! I'm out of here. 46.125.249.82 (talk) 14:12, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

BTW, my last substantive edit to Namecoin appears to have been two years ago - David Gerard (talk) 13:43, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• I see no undesirable conduct by David Gerard in this series of events. Stifle (talk) 08:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

You might take a look at the history at first! Since November 2018 the admin in question got the most active editor of the article, who has now administratively protected his own edits, especially adding, reverting and protecting his missing source issues. In no way an acceptable procedure! 213.142.96.205 (talk) 09:14, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• Endorse protection, the link is clearly unsuitable. I don't know if I'd call it spam although it is clearly there to promote use of the cryptocoin, and it's clearly written by a namecoin enthusiast (or enthusiasts) and is thus not WP:INDEPENDENT. These IP meatpuppets need to back off, Wikipedia does not work by recruiting all your friends to shout down opposition. Ivanvector's squirrel (^trees/_nuts) 12:15, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Most likely you heared about a dynamic IP? You shouldn't suspect "meatpuppets" behind a dynamic IP user. Back to the topic: of course every site of a coin "promotes" the benefits of the coin, that's normal. If you go to which crypto group on Telegram ever, the most common question is "when it will go to the moon"? Our most common answer is that Namecoin is more of an asset. We as Namecoin coders (and this time all coders involved) have no interest in the coin "going to the moon", because the main idea behind Namecoin is to provide a free and censorship-free internet. Anyway, traders need to be informed about what Namecoin is and what it is not. On the other hand, as said on the article's talk page, the site replaces the previous Namecoin wiki, which got deleted by another contributor named Jeremy Rand without consulting anyone from the dev team. Therefore, namecon.org should be considered as the personal page of Jeremy Rand. Last but not least, it should be mentioned that namecoin.pro offers working browser add-ons for domain resolution (for members only, currently). Since this is independent of the Namecoin codebase, namecoin.pro can also be considered a third-party source. It has to be mentioned here that there were already similar add-ons (peername.org and blockchain-dns.info), but poorly coded and therefore no longer usable. 213.142.96.205 (talk) 12:50, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

No, an independent source is one which has no connection to the subject whatsoever. A site which exists to "promote the benefits of the coin" is, by our definition, not independent, and by your explanation it also fails for being self-published. It was removed appropriately, and when multiple IPs showed up to edit-war it back in, any admin would have protected the page, thus WP:INVOLVED was not violated. Ivanvector's squirrel (^trees/_nuts) 13:08, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with the "multiple issue box" remaining in the article and the new source being considered non-third party. Anyway, the article and the only referenced site namecoin.org are without doubt missing the absolute basics of how to register and manage blockchain domains. Without this info, the article (as well as the namecoin.org page) is useless for anyone. At the moment, it only describes a theoretical concept without any practical use. But we have finally changed that. Just read the sections on the talk page that are more or less just about "namecoin is dead", "no sources were found" and "are there working .bit websites". 213.142.96.205 (talk) 13:23, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• (non-admin comment) Endors Protection I see no violation of involved, but what I am seeing is an IP editor who is displaying WP:IDHT behaviour, WP:COI (see above ("We as namecoin coders" aka they are one which would mean any editing about namecoin would violate WP:COI), WP:PROMO, WP:NOTHERE, etc. Lavalizard101 (talk) 13:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  Oh, on the talk page you might find long discussions only by namecoin devs, even not the only one and very active single purpose account called "Namecoin" in the article namespace. According to your argumentation the site namecoin.org would have to be taken out of the article as well ASAP, or even the entire article would have to be deleted in its current state. Thanks for the confirmation! 213.142.96.205 (talk) 13:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  Please stop WP:BLUDGEONing this discussion. --JBL (talk) 15:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

PLUS ULTRA CARLOS's concern about a block (suite)

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

---

The following is to complete a recent noticeboard discussion closed on Sunday morning, August 30, “PLUS ULTRA CARLOS's concern about a block”, originally “Inappropriate block or not - Persisting lack of block explanation - Potential WP:ADMINABUSE ?”. If to be inserted there, please go ahead. Please, note that the remedies requested in point 7 at 'Editor's concern removed from noticeboard', also closed the day after, were precisely to allow the follow-up of the first discussion thread and not to get anyone's scalp, i.e. reopening the section or else. I apologize for not having been clear on that.

It is not the undersigned's intention at all but, if anyone thinks dealing with this post may bother him/her or waste his/her time, please stop reading.

I now understand and fully accept that it was a good block, considering the additional explanations of the blocking administrator, aiming to prevent future disruptive behavior even if the war-edit was ended and things were calmed down. I understand that the administrator perceived the risk of “present” disruption was not clearly ended and that's fine. The same then should apply for the appeal. So both are OK since based in the administrators' perception, not the blocked undersigned editor's.

Please, consider to somehow mention this in any similar block decision, specially concerning newcomers unfamiliar with WP policies. In my case, it would have been understood and accepted at once, provided that reading Wikipedia:Blocking policy blocking policy (in particular the Goals and Purpose section and WP:NOPUNISH) really gave me another impression. Thank you for your understanding. For the same reason, the administrator's perception, another decision could had also been possible, whether to block for a longer period...or not to block at all.

Other issues raised by some administrators are addressed hereafter. Remember to stop reading if you are not in the mood.

I learned vandalism is deemed a personal attack from administrators for it is not mentioned in the WP:NPA, while it could be (only) inferred from 3rd point of « How not to respond to Vandalism » section. To avoid confusion to editors and future newcomers, please consider to clearly indicate in those pages that the accusation of vandalism is well a personal attack.

Regarding another administrator's analysis, the hole-digging stuff: doubting about the vandalic nature of an action is not stupid unless anyone wondering about potential vandalism or coming to that conclusion is being intermittently stupid. As per the semantics, “may break” means “potential break”, conditional tense is better than present, i.e. asserting something is stupid. Please remember WP:BITE.

Then, there are some unwarranted assertions about continuing to claim vandalism. Please, note that the warning was posted in my talk at 10h19 and I never claimed vandalism thereafter, whether to contest the block or elsewhere. This was very easy to check, as it was the absence of such argument in my appeal.

Regarding comments on the article edits and sources...no problem to improve them. Keep in mind, that about 99% of my entries for several countries presented at least one source, some apparently not qualifying as best sources....while no less than 50% of the rest of the article entries have none...

Considering the article content is a list of entries introduced with superlatives, i.e. First, Most, Best, Largest, Oldest, etc. or their antonyms according to published rankings, anyone get the point for criticizing the use of “Best”??? Then, facts are facts, whether perceived as promotional or have indeed a promotional dimension as rankings, the article's object, irremediably have.

I hope you find the above useful. Should some of these questions be further dealt in the editor or article talk, do not hesitate. Thank you very much for your time and assistance.--PLUS ULTRA CARLOS (talk) 11:13, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Move to block PLUS ULTRA CARLOS indefinitely, as WP:NOTHERE. They were previously given the following advice by Daniel: "if you don't drop this and go do something productive, you will most likely be topic-banned or blocked rather expeditiously." They have refused to drop this, and so should be blocked rather expeditiously. --Yamla (talk) 11:19, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree the time to drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass is long past for this user and their perceived slight. How much attention do they want over this? They took it much too far previously and now they are resuming with this wall of text. I read the whole thing and frankly I want my 5 minutes back please. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 11:35, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

TL;DR - "it was a good block".

Is an indef WP:NOTHERE block really the only way to bring this navel gazing to an end? Drop the stick. Cabayi (talk) 13:18, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

PLUS ULTRA CARLOS indefinitely blocked

Based on my previous warning and off the back of the previous discussions, I have indefinitely blocked this editor per NOTHERE. I welcome review of the block. Daniel (talk) 13:56, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

[Pinging Yamla, HighInBC, Cabayi as they had previously contributed to this thread before my block. Daniel (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2021 (UTC)]

I would have blocked them myself if I had seen this first. Cultivation of grievances and using noticeboards to repeatedly continue content-related bickering at extreme length is disruptive. Acroterion (talk) 14:33, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Daniel. I support your block, obviously. --Yamla (talk) 16:04, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

No argument with the block from me. Our interlocutor's prolixity, persistence, and, as already noted, querulousness is tedious, intentionally so. Cabayi (talk) 16:21, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Good block. NOTHERE editors take time from editors who are trying to build/improve the encyclopedia. Miniapolis 00:21, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes good block. I was not sure of they were trolling or just genuinely that way. Either way not productive. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 00:24, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I've had a number of very challenging interactions with this user in mainspace. I got the impression that they are sincere - not trolling - but that they have a very hard time communicating concisely and taking on board corrections or contradictions. Colin M (talk) 16:25, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

No question about it in my mind, this was a good block. Doug Weller talk 09:19, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• Endorse, obviously. This user has done absolutely nothing but whine about this for the last three weeks, after being told repeatedly that their block for edit warring was valid and their complaint has no merit. They should convince us they're going to actually participate in building an encyclopedia before we let them back. Ivanvector's squirrel (^trees/_nuts) 12:06, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

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

Ban appeal by User:Bus stop

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

---

Note: this request is copied from User talk:Bus stop. Black Kite (talk) 20:22, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Unblock request: From a sourcing point of view there can be no doubt that Einstein was Jewish. But it was determined, based on such policies as WP:ONUS and WP:CONSENSUS, that the Albert Einstein article should not pointedly state "Einstein was Jewish". The other editors preferred the language "was born into a Jewish family". WP:ONUS tells us: "While information must be verifiable to be included in an article, not all verifiable information needs to be included in an article...consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted". This information was clearly verifiable but consensus determined that its inclusion would not improve the article. I WP:BLUDGEONED at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Albert_Einstein/Archive_19#Einstein_and_Jewishness. I should not have argued against a longstanding WP:CONSENSUS which did not want to pointedly state that Einstein was Jewish. The other editors weighing in to that discussion disagreed with the edit I was suggesting and I should have respected their opinion when it became obvious that consensus was against me. While I cannot undo the past I can vow never to do that again. I bludgeoned (WP:BLUDGEONED) the article Talk page and I offer this sincere commitment to not be overly argumentative at article Talk pages again. I am asking that my account be un-blocked so that I may continue to constructively edit Wikipedia. This was requested at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive330#Ban_removal_request_of_Bus_stop but my request was denied with the expectation that I wait 6 months before requesting again. Hence this appeal now. Thank you.

Original ban discussion: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1059#Bludgeoning_(Bus_stop). Previous appeal is linked above.

• Oppose "From a sourcing point of view there can be no doubt that Einstein was Jewish." First statement of the unblock is to continue the bludgeoning that lead to the ban. Nope. Not comfortable with lifting the ban at this time. RickinBaltimore (talk) 20:27, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Is this a joke? They basically underline why they were banned in the first sentence.--Jorm (talk) 20:32, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm not sure if it's worse if they are trolling or if this is genuine, but either is a good reason not to lift the ban. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 20:40, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - and I offer this sincere commitment to not be overly argumentative at article Talk pages again, yet the very first sentence of this unblock is them resuming the argument. I think that says it all. Hog Farm _Talk 20:45, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• The only difference between this and the declined March ban appeal is the sentence "This was requested at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive330#Ban_removal_request_of_Bus_stop but my request was denied with the expectation that I wait 6 months before requesting again. Hence this appeal now". There were several there who opposed the request with reasons other than that it hadn't been the six months. This demonstrates a lack of understanding to me, and leads me to believe Bus stop should not be unbanned at this time. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 20:48, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, as this statement is still bludgeoning, and suggest that any future unblock be conditional on a topic ban from Judaism, broadly construed.Jackattack1597 (talk) 21:06, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose as abuse of WP:SO as a simple time-out without any indication of constructive editing elsewhere (the sum total of their edits on other projects since then was an edit war and ensuing walls of text on wiktionary because they were, surprise, blocked there too [for a 1-month period] [60] [61] [62]). A second choice per WP:ROPE could be support with restrictions - either "indefinite topic ban from anything related to Judaism, broadly construed", as per the comments on their talk page by others; or "indefinite 1RR restriction" (due to the edit warring as demonstrated cross-wiki); or both; but given they seem able to disrupt even unrelated topics on other projects, it's at best optimistic, at worst entirely unrealistic to expect that this user will change their behaviour. Courtesy pings for cross-wiki opinions: @Equinox and Chuck Entz: RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:13, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• For context, the dispute at Wiktionary was on a completely different topic: the definition of "found art". Bus stop contended that it really was a misnomer, since the technical term used by artists is "found objects". While this would be correct by Wikipedia standards, Wiktionary is based on usage rather than authoritative sources- and most people who use the term mean the art of found objects. After extended talk-page verbiage and removal of at least one quote illustrating usage, Equinox lost patience and imposed a 1-month block.

My impression is that this is someone who has trouble letting go and looking at the larger context when they feel they are correct regarding a simple point of fact. You may be able to get them to leave this dead horse alone, but one has to wonder how long it's going to be before they find another. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:20, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose as a textbook example of how not to appeal a ban. Grandpallama (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This appeal is indistinguishable from trolling. Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:44, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Unbelievable, how could anyone think an appeal like this would be granted. The Wikitionary dispute is another example of their inability not to be disruptive. Doug Weller talk 09:24, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose and it looks like this discussion can be closed. The unblock request is further evidence that Bus stop doesn't understand their conduct issues and has not worked on improving themselves in the intervening time since their last unblock request. — Bilorv (talk) 10:15, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This is not a ban appeal, this is a continuation of the behavior that resulted in the ban. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 10:25, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Support - Call be soft-hearted or naive. But, I think we should give'em a 1-month try out, so as to prove himself. GoodDay (talk) 11:26, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• I choose soft-hearted. You are soft-hearted. :) HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 13:09, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - Continued failure to drop the stick. Same as it ever was... GAB^gab 18:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Pawnkingthree. --JBL (talk) 20:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Kommentar: Per the editor's post, they seem to be fairly directly saying that they apologize for engaging in the argument and don't wish to do it further ("consensus determined that its inclusion would not improve the article. I WP:BLUDGEONED. I should not have argued against a longstanding WP:CONSENSUS"). It's not clear to me that this is a "continuation of the behavior that resulted in the ban", so much as it's a description of that behavior and the editor saying they won't do it again. This is not to say that they would or wouldn't get into more arguments, but it seems strange to say that their post above is an attempt to relitigate the previous one. jp×g 21:19, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

An additional note — not sure whether it's a point in favor of unblock or a point against it, but I noticed this recently, and it's relevant, so I will mention it even if doing so makes me look like a dumbass. This is kind of a long and boring story, so go ahead and skip to the end if you want. Anyway, I trust we all remember that when this editor was banned a few months ago, it was in the midst of a series of highly political arguments during which they took the approximately righty tack, and their interlocutors took the approximately lefty tack. A few insinuations were made, at this point, that their edits were anti-Semitic in nature. I don't know if it was said explicitly, but the issue was brought up, and it definitely seemed to play a part in people's judgments of the whole affair. I didn't pay much attention, because the issue didn't really concern me (and still doesn't). However, a few weeks ago, I saw this editor's name again. I was working on an unrelated project (the Oracle for Deletion, which parses deletion pages to provide sortable tables of discussions and statistics by day, month, and year back to 2005). I decided to go on Quarry to find the 1,000 longest deletion discussions of all time, which I parsed out here. Looking at a couple of the longest, I was surprised to find a name I recognized: in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of notable converts to Christianity (3rd nomination), a nomination made by our very own "Bus stop" in 2007, similarly oriented around the same issue. Here, however, it seems obvious to me that they are not coming at the issue from an anti-Semitic agenda (for example, they describe Bob Dylan's inclusion in the list as an "offense to Judaism" and "a form of Christian imperialism"). Now, this is kind of a double-edged sword: on one hand, I really don't think they are doing this out of antipathy for Jewish people (indeed, the way they write makes it sound like they are in all likelihood Jewish themselves), but on the other hand, it does seem like this is an issue they've been fixated on for quite some time, and are inclined to start lots of unproductive arguments about. Perhaps a topic ban is in order, if they are unblocked. Perhaps they ought not to be unblocked at all. However, I think this warrants mentioning. Make of it what you will. jp×g 01:15, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Huh -- I typed this up about an hour ago, went afk, and I guess the section had been closed by the time I saved it. Not sure how I didn't get an edit conflict. Oh, well. jp×g 01:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• Comment What a very strange way to open an unblock request. Without that first sentence I might even have been swayed. Perhaps a topic ban is still possible. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:35, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, but for different reasons than many people above. I could stretch my AGF enough to accept JPxG's interpretation of the unblock request. But my bigger concern is RandomCanadian's note above that, while blocked here for relentlessly bludgeoning discussions - and after explicitly promising a few months ago that they had learned their lesson and wouldn't bludgeon discussions again - in late June they went to Wiktionary and got blocked for ... bludgeoning a discussion, one that they had already apparently had issues with in February 2020. They returned to an argument from 1.5 years ago, and got blocked for bludgeoning a discussion. Come on. This is strong evidence to me that Bus Stop really does not understand why they are blocked, is just saying what they think we want to hear, will resume such behavior if unblocked here, and is simply incapable of dropping the stick. No thanks. I suppose the way things work here, we're guaranteed an unblock request every six months, but I've seen enough, and can't imagine what they could possibly say in a future unblock request that I would believe. Too many false promises too many times. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:46, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Good grief. Softlavender (talk) 22:20, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per everyone. Geez... - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 00:03, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

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

Sanity check on some revdels

Hi y'all - per this comment, I have replaced Ultima the Hedgehog and Chiphilla's user pages with {{compromised account}} and revision deleted the page history. I have also blanked and revision deleted the history of Ultima the Hedgehog's user talk page. Given this is another WP:IAR thing, I thought I better drop a note here for review. Many thanks ~TNT (she/they • talk) 23:33, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Good call. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:42, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Totally reasonable. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:52, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Since you asked for review, I think you deleted too many revisions at User_talk:Ultima the Hedgehog, including your edit summary, the message from MediaWiki message delivery, and the early edits. I appreciate there is one revision, possibly several with IAR, which should be deleted. Other than that, looks good and seems sensible. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:54, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Shift-clicking the lot was a little gratuitous, you're right.. I've refined it a little ~TNT (she/they • talk) 00:04, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

And I misread the diffs a little. Thanks for the adjustment, and the deletions. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 00:06, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Inactive extended confirmed users

Some vandalism due to compromised extended confirmed users was reported at ANI (permalink). To reduce the risk from compromised administrator accounts, the admin right is removed from inactive admins (see WP:INACTIVE). Should something similar happen with extended confirmed users? That last link includes: See Special:ListUsers/extendedconfirmed for a list of the 71,923 extended confirmed users. According to WP:ECP, 2878 pages require the extendedconfirmed right to edit. It appears that a bot could list extendedconfirmed users and determine which had not edited for 12 months. It looks like an admin bot could remove that right from inactive users, and the right could be restored by an admin on request if the user returned. This is not a proposal—I'm just flying a kite to see what people think. Would it be worth pursuing this, or do we wait for next time? Johnuniq (talk) 07:46, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

What is the scope of the issue compromised accounts caused? If it's a common problem, this seems reasonably harmless, and easily dealt with by WP:PERM upon reactivation. Would it need a bot, or could it trigger automatically the same way the addition of the permission is triggered automatically? Is autoconfirmed worth similar consideration? CMD (talk) 07:59, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

The traditional pattern is that several accounts will be compromised (by the same vandal) when there is a high profile article. For example, the 9/11 attacks or the US presidential election. It's more common than we'd like. We'd want some sort of protocol for re-granting. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 08:11, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I think this can be approached somewhat intelligently, though maybe not 100%, by checking if they list any email addresses or social media accounts on their user page, perhaps in the history of their user page. This has been the usual vector. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 08:11, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

If it falls afoul of WP:BEANS, don't tell me, or email me privately, but are these compromised accounts being taken by password guessing or via control of people's emails? In many of these cases people will have created their passwords before XC rights were implemented, so the security of their account would not really be important unless they had other advanced permissions (there was little reason for these accounts to be compromised). I'm glad we don't have any password rules on Wikipedia (many, such as ones requiring a special character or a change every 90 days are actively counterproductive to cybersecurity), but perhaps in the future we could require some kind of minimum password strength for an account to receive XC rights. I guess we'd need WMF help there, and only want to make such a change if we really are seeing a lot of XC compromised accounts. — Bilorv (talk) 10:07, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

To give a bit more context: Accounts do get sometimes compromised by password guessing, but in this case and many other cases, re-used passwords and database leaks are the apparent source. Almost every one I've seen has had an account on another website linked on their userpage, often an email address. There are bug requests to check passwords against Have I Been Pwned? or similar (see eg phab:T189641), but I think they've been stalled forever. Also, autoconfirmed accounts are often compromised as part of this. However raising protection to EC for high profile articles does at least provide a reasonable option which isn't full protection, so aiming this at EC seems like a reasonable balance. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:36, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

This seems like a really key point. There are a ton of EC editors, so adding extra security measures like inactivity removals for them will always necessarily have tradeoffs for a large number of editors. But the number of EC editors whose password has been leaked and who reuse that password for Wikipedia is much smaller. I think the best approach for this would be to pressure the WMF to resolve that phab ticket, and then to use it accordingly. One option would be to force all compromised active users with AC/EC to choose a new password the next time they log in, and to remove the advanced permissions of all compromised inactive users. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:10, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Trying to do stuff with compromised inactive users seems to make the resolution more difficult and expensive and seems unnecessary especially if the WMF has a per user salt. If this is desired, seems better to just deal with it on logon. It's not like it matters if an account is technically compromised without a logon so just remove permissions when someone tries to logon with a forced password change/compromised account. Nil Einne (talk) 20:45, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Forcing inactive users to change their password when they next log on won't do much, as the hackers we're concerned about already have access to their email. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:03, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I think we should focus on EC permissions. When 2FA was introduced we were primarily focused on admin passwords and password security - I don't think EC even existed at that time. Regular users who had registered casually long ago and eventually attained EC status would not be so security-conscious and it would not occur to them that a reused or compromised password posed any concern. EC status is a largely invisible process - there's no obvious transition to "my account has a higher level of trust and I need to take security more seriously." One immediate measure could be to mass-message EC editors about password security. This wouldn't reach inactive editors, but it's an easy step to raise awareness and induce at least some editors to think about their passwords. Acroterion (talk) 13:45, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

• Perhaps an automated process like automatically changed from [everything] to none after 2 years of inactivity, and restored to previous levels after 100 edits and 30 days? I guess if it would be too much trouble with WMF, we could authorize an admin bot to go around [none]-righting every account that hasn't edited for two years, once a year. (Bots are not technically restricted from granting perms, are they?) Usedtobecool ☎️ 10:56, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

This might be worth doing, but I don't see how it would have helped in this particular instance, as the compromised account was abandoned before the ECP permission was created, and it received the extended confirmed user right on the same day that it was ( presumably) compromised.Jackattack1597 (talk) 15:28, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

As EC is automatic, ECP just isn't a very high protection level. I don't think revoking it will help much against dedicated vandals, but it will annoy some returning good contributors. Doing nothing looks like the best option here. —Kusma (talk) 16:33, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree doing nothing is the best option. Incidents line this happen not even every year, and negative aspects of every proposed solution outweigh the benefits.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:50, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Happens too infrequently to require setting up anything systematic right now. El_C 18:27, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

While I agree that we don't want to do something that deters inactive editors from returning, I don't see a problem having an option on some of our antivandalism tools that draws extra attention to "first 20 edits from an account that has been globally inactive for at least a year". The returnee need not be aware that their edits are being looked at. ϢereSpielChequers 21:11, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

This would be a good use case for edit tags. Something like "Returning editor" would be a useful tag not only for anti-vandalism but editor retention efforts. I'm not sure this could be done easily with the edit filter, but with the editor-retention angle we might be able to get the Growth team interested in a server-side application to tag edits similar to the "Revert" tag. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:15, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd be more concerned with new page reviewer and maybe autopatrolled. I'm not aware of any instances off the top of my head of spammers compromising an account with one of these rights to get UPE through, but it's not impossible. Also, those are situations where the notability/article expectation standards are continually evolving to some degree, so someone who's been out of the loop too long may not be up to speed. Hog Farm _Talk 00:13, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• Rather than limiting it to just extended confirmed how about defining a point at which we consider an account to be "abandoned" (I don't know, say 5 or 10 years of no contributions anywhere) at which point we remove all advanced permissions from the account? There'd need to be some way of requesting restoration of permissions if someone returns, ideally with some kind of way of verifying the account is still in control of the person who created it. Both the accounts compromised yesterday hadn't actually edited in over a decade. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 00:26, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  5 years of any permission without using the permission would seem reasonable to me, but may be too complicated.Jackattack1597 (talk) 00:36, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  I wasn't thinking "no evidence of using a specific permission", I was thinking "no evidence of using Wikipedia at all". I don't think there's much risk with active users having rights they don't use very often, but if someone hasn't edited or performed a logged action in 5 - 10 years across all wikis I think it's safe to assume the account is abandoned, and leaving the account with permissions is more of a security risk than a benefit. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 16:40, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• What about auto removing and revdeleting every email on a user's userpage that hasn't edited for 4-5 years? I think that could be a possible solution. Cutlass^Ciera 12:56, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  I don't think that would really make much difference, once somethings been on Wikipedia for any significant amount of time it's basically impossible to hide - it'll still be all over the place on mirror sites and will be available in historic database dumps. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 16:40, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  I guess then nothing is the best option, it usually gets undone really quickly and maybe it doesn't need to have such a major change like using an adminbot. I know Google indexes pages and if someone (like an individual, not the massive multimedia companies that Google will bow down to) leaves something they don't want it's incredibly hard to get off of their search results. Cutlass^Ciera 16:48, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

• If we're going to talk about activity requirements at this level of permission then we should just talk about activity requirements for all accounts. Automatically softblock any account that hasn't edited in a year (or whatever reasonable time) and require some kind of authentication (email confirmation, CAPTCHA, I don't know) the next time the account logs in, or something like that. ECP is a purely content permission, you can't really do much damage with ECP that you wouldn't be able to do anyway, and anything you can do is easily detected and reversed. I don't see the need for extra security for just that permission. Ivanvector's squirrel (^trees/_nuts) 13:19, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

  As someone who returned (more than once) after a long absence I'd have been very put out to find I was blocked because of inactivity. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:12, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't see that removing EC from inactive accounts will be much of a benefit. The reason admin accounts have this is because they can edit the main page, and can perform much more disruptive actions (i.e. blocking, deleting) such as range blocking a active large range, or granting themselves edit filter rights and then making a filter which blocks all edits. The damage an admin account can do which is compromised is much more than an EC account can do. As such the automatic removal of admin rights is in itself necessary to reduce the possible high damage that a compromised admin account could do. However, for just EC rights I don't see that the risk of a compromised EC account merits the extra work admins would have to perform to regrant the rights for inactive users becoming active again. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:58, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

It has been explained above that an inactive editor may not have the editconfirmed right but will receive it automatically after they resume activity and make a few edits. That makes my scheme ineffective. However, those who saw the issue behind this might think that strong protective measures were required. The attacker planned well and uploaded shock images then added them to 9/11 topics at exactly the time that thousands of affected people would be viewing them. Yes, that's just vandalism—welcome to Wikipedia—but it is also a warning of what to expect as other means of trolling become more difficult. There are 391 accounts in Category:Compromised accounts. I believe that over 30 admin accounts were compromised when word got around about how easy that was and I was hoping for some mechanism to protect sensitive topics from attack. Johnuniq (talk) 05:31, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

New tool to identify sockpuppets based on writing style

Checkusers on the English Wikipedia will soon have access to a new tool aimed at identifying misuse of multiple accounts based on a person's writing style. masz, developed by Ladsgroup, uses natural language processing to create an individual 'fingerprint' of a user based on the way they use language on talk pages. Checkusers can log into a web interface to compare the fingerprints of two accounts or list accounts with similar fingerprints. The tool is already live on several projects and is expected to start running on enwiki after phab:T290793 is resolved. – Joe (talk) 07:18, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Please discuss this at: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § New tool to identify sockpuppets based on writing style.

IP block evasion

Five days ago I blocked an IP for a personal attack. Today, the user posted again from another IP address. The block was for a week, and five days have passed. There is no behavioral problem in today's post (other than the block evasion). So, does today's post constitute a block evasion, and, if so, is it worth doing anything about it? The user says they can hop IP addresses at will, so blocking them again would just be playing whack-a-mole. - Donald Albury 12:33, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

An administrator may reset the block of a user who intentionally evades a block; I did so now. The talk page is now semi-protected for a week, enforcing the block. Looking at the history of the talk page, the risk of collateral damage is low, and the deleted revisions are egregiously unwanted enough in this community that properly enforcing a simple one-week block is the minimum we need to do here. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for dealing with that. I didn't think of the sockpuppet angle. - Donald Albury 20:36, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Ip 66.210.5.133 harassing on own userpage

So i was casually reviewing recents and found a userpage that the person i mentioned User:66.210.5.133 decided it was good to try to harass me by basically reverting everything and trying to get me to react. I do want to send a request to block him from editing his talk page and maybe extend to inf block. MoonlightVector 17:49, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Without going into the merits of yoinking their talk page access, I will note (for the record) that they are perfectly within their rights to blank their own talk page, so edit warring to keep the content is not something you should really be doing. I'll look at the talk page in a second and see if anything needs to be done (either from an RD or TPA perspective). Primefac (talk) 18:24, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Image visibility: Technical + copyright question

I have received this request on my talk page. The file in the discussion is here. Here are my 2 questions:

1. The file is from the Vatican Library. It is a scan of an ancient written document (papyrus, dated c. 200 AD). While the website states that "All rights reserved. The contents of this site are protected by copyright. Neither the text nor the images may be reproduced, in any form, without the authorisation of the Vatican Library, 00120, Vatican City.", it seems that this specific file is actually, by its nature, in the public domain. Could anyone confirm or not?

2. While I can see (admin rights) the original file, I do not see how I can revert the current file to the original one. The only option I seem to have is to download the original one and to reupload it. Isn't there a more straightforward way to do it?

Thanks! Olivier (talk) 22:50, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I am the person who made the request. I believe the Vatican website is simply copyfrauding. See also c:Template:PD-scan-100. Veverve (talk) 04:19, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Not quite. The Vatican is its own country. It may be PD in the US but it may not be PD in Vatican City. MER-C 18:14, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I have transferred it already, now after reading your remarks MER-C, I am not so sure I should have done so.— Diannaa (talk) 18:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

User: Johnpacklambert

This editor has been discussed intensely and at length at ANI, his own talk page, and other places for almost three weeks. I think that it is time for an uninvolved administrator to assess whether or not community based editing restrictions have gained consensus. Please try to write a closing statement that describes any restrictions in crystal clear terms. This editor needs and deserves that. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Changes to functionary team

At his request by email to the committee, the Oversight permissions of Mkdw are removed. The Arbitration Committee sincerely thanks Mkdw for his service as an Oversighter. Maxim_(talk) 13:36, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Changes to functionary team

Usage This template may be used for appealing arbitration enforcement actions as explained in the 2010 motion in re Trusilver. To use it, please copy the text below to the appropriate forum and fill out the required fields (or proceed as per WP:AEBLOCK in the case of a block).

Note: Do not keep the angle brackets (<>) that appear below in the template. These should be replaced with the text described within them.

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Boodlesthecat

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active 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

Boodlesthecat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Boodlesthecat ^Meow? 18:17, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

Indefinite topic ban from all edits about, and all pages related to, any gender-related dispute or controversy and associated people, broadly construed.

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

The appealing editor is asked to notify the administrator who made the enforcement action of this appeal, and then to replace this text with a diff of that notification. The appeal may not be processed otherwise. If a block is appealed, the editor moving the appeal to this board should make the notification.

Statement by Boodlesthecat

This sanction is for edits I have made at the article . My edits have largely addressed factual issues and have attempted to address serious POV and other issues in the article, eg, prominent use or a label ("TERF") widely considered to be slur by those it's generally directed at (a fact conformed in Wikipedia itself in it's article); a seriously problematic wording in the lead of the article which places gender-critical feminists (so-called "TERFS") as the primary instigators of violent protests, when it is pretty much universally agreed that the primary instigators were far-right, Proud Boys-type bigots, attempts by editors to downplay case being made against a suspect arrested in the case, which challenges the prominent claims of the incident being a "hoax" in the article, among other issues. I have begun a number of discussions on the talk page of the article so editors can discuss various concerns, and although these discussions sometimes get tense (since it involves editors who seem invested in a particular POV), they have been fruitful in making useful edits to the article. The talk topics I've initiated, in addition to participation throughout, have been "TERF is considered by some to be derogatory," "This article conflates gender critical feminists with the far right," "Lead now incorrectly blames feminists and right wingers/fascists, rather than just right wingers/fascists for anti-trans protests," "NY Post as originating source for information on Wi Spa case," "Why keep deleting that LAPD has described suspect as male?," "Being charged and being arrested," all of which have been useful. There are claims of my edit-warring, which I dispute. I've documented some instances of editors trying to bait me into reverting, and noted it when making changes (pointing out, eg, a single word correction pointed out by an editor could have been made by that editor, who instead would delete a chunk of copy, forcing (perhaps baiting) me to make the trivial correction and insert the whole bit back in, and this be accused of "reverting." You'll have to forgive me, but being elderly and disabled, I don't have the stamina to present a fancy defense with diffs and all that. I simply was attempting to help bring some balance to an article with apparent POV issues, as well as being in need (still) of a seriously copy edit. In a nutshell--claims of edit warring I believe are not accurate; and at a minimum, a number of editors engaged in identical modes of editing as I did, so even though I didn't consider any of it sanction worthy, it's clear that sanctions directed solely at me is arbitrary at best. As for tone of discussion, a reading of the talk page would similarly find multiple editors occasionally getting heated. None of it offended me, and at the risk of sounding cliche, I do honestly apologize if anyone's feeling were truly hurt. Amongst many things in my long life (and although I generally never share personal info of any sort on WP, I've been an active supporter for LBGT+ rights probably since long before most editors involved here were born (when we had "gay liberation" as the term covering it all). So it's disturbing to feel that I might be getting tossed into a box of somehow falling on the other side of my actual beliefs, but I feel abandoning fact-based writing, in the long run, will do more harm than good. --

Statement by Crossroads

Firefangledfeathers, per Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Standard provision: appeals and modifications, a person may choose to appeal at AE or AN. I understand why Boodlesthecat chose AN.

More analysis to follow soon. Crossroads ^-talk- 18:32, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Statement by 92.5.2.97

I haven't read the enforcement discussion or have any awareness of the article in question, but wasn't the issue of using terf handled by Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive292#Labeling or categorizing BLP subjects as TERFs or trans-exclusionary radical feminists. So it can be used but only with attribution. 92.5.2.97 (talk) 18:49, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Boodlesthecat

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Result of the appeal by Boodlesthecat

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