Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Read these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
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User:Amirhosein Izadi

I am surprised that my proposal to ban User:Amirhosein Izadi on account of hoaxing was archived without being refused or heeded. A subsequent sockpuppet investigation had a checkuser request declined, but hoaxing is still a bannable offense, right? I saw no counterarguments being made in the last discussion in regards this user being a hoaxer. He's done this multiple times and has voiced no intention to stop. So, again, i believe it may be necessary to block this user to prevent him from creating further hoaxes. Once he's stopped from creating further hoaxes i'd like to go through his articles and see what is and isn't a hoax. Please consult Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Turkmen Sahra and the previous ANI thread as to how i've deduced this user is a hoaxer. I find this case bizarre, never before have i seen an unopposed proposal be archived and ignored. Koopinator (talk) 19:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

It's possible that your thread was archived due to inactivity rather than because an admin declined your request; I think WP:ANI has an automated script which does that. I think one of the issues also is that the user (Amirhosein Izadi)) stopped editing a week ago so the situation would appear at first glance to be less urgent. In the mean time, I think it would be helpful to go through his contributions to identify potential hoaxes. I have tagged one article already as a hoax which you identified, and I am willing to take a look through his history later today to see if I see anything obviously fake. Michepman (talk) 01:33, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, my first ANI thread was created only a few hours after that user's last edit. The only reason i'm now creating this thread on a week-long inactive user is because the admins have been taking their sweet time with taking action. I think it's better for me to get to work with these hoaxes now rather than wait for the day that the admins actually enforce this consensus. Hopefully that day comes sooner than later. Koopinator (talk) 12:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Koopinator: in my experience, just grab the nearest admin and ask for their comment. Also, the less words you make people have to read, the better. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:01, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Not an admin, but have been noticing this case as it develops. Archiving is automatic; it appears your thread was simply overlooked. Good on you for bringing it up again. I support an indefinite block on the hoaxer. If no admins respond, as MJL said, you may have to ask someone directly. -Crossroads- (talk) 02:10, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bbb23: can you please look at this thread and take action? Koopinator (talk) 07:48, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• Previous Thread: I think Archived here. Lightburst (talk) 15:12, 3 January 2020 (UTC) someone erased this comment twice - not sure why - please explain.

• I removed it twice because the OP linked to it in their initial post, so your link is unneccessary. Surely you know how to look at the revision history of this page to (a) see it was I and (b) see my edit summary explaining why I removed it. But all that for absolutely nothing.--Bbb23 (talk) 03:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bbb23: Doh...Thanks, by the time I look for the diff, there are always so many new posts that I could not be bothered to weed through them all. I just kept reposting. I also did not see that the OP included it and that is my mistake. Lightburst (talk) 04:09, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• Viewing the user's fawiki contributions shows "07:28, 10 December 2018 Sunfyre blocked Amirhosein Izadi with an expiration time of indefinite". @fa:User:Sunfyre: Would you mind outlining what the problem was at fawiki? Johnuniq (talk) 06:28, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah that's quite concerning. FWIW, I did see the earlier thread. Did not comment at the time in part because what I saw was suspicious but also quite difficult to assess given the obscurity of the subject matter of what they were dealing with. They failure to offer us any explanation was not re-assuring, still I also did not want to kick out an editor who may be an expert on an obscure non English subject area just because of a misunderstanding. While I can't say for sure, I wonder if other than the time of year others also felt the same, hence the limited response. Nil Einne (talk) 12:55, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: At this point i don't think there's any remaining doubt as to this user being a hoaxer. Consider the article Ice Flower (album) by the same creator. "Ice Flower has been featured in several prestigious publications, including the Los Angeles Times" - this sentence is sourced to this article, freely available online. The reference looks convincing, it is from the right publication and the title looks related to the subject matter, the only problem is the source's text does not make a single mention of an album called ice flower. It is deliberately intended to deceive the reader into thinking the reference & info is legitimate when it isn't - a textbook definition of a hoax. I see no reason to keep this thread open or keep this user unblocked. When i first failed to find the sources, my mind went to the Bicholim conflict investigation from 2012. In that case, the AFD immediately led to the article being deleted in a day and the editor being banned within a week. I wish this investigation would've gone that smoothly - that there's wouldn't be a need to wait a week on my unopposed AFD, that i wouldn't have to make 2 ANI threads, no separate sock investigation, no cross-wiki shenanigans, no admin user saying it could all be a misunderstanding and that jazz. Koopinator (talk) 14:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: The block log entry at the user contribution page at fa-wiki [1] contains a Persian word with a link. That word put into Google Translate comes out as "Sabotage". It links to a policy page [2] that is apparently equivalent to our WP:Vandalism, per both putting the top of it into Google Translate and the interwiki link. That page of ours does talk about hoaxes. This is all very consistent with this editor being a hoaxer. I am going to notify Sunfyre on their talk page on fa-wiki to ensure they see this, in case that link did not generate a ping. -Crossroads- (talk) 04:23, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Crossroads: Thanks. My ping did not work. I forgot that a normal User:Example link is needed to generate a ping, not fa:User:Example. Johnuniq (talk) 04:32, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• User:Amirhosein Izadi (User:Amir.85) is WP:SNEAKY: The user is suspected of creating false articles.--Sunfyre (talk) 15:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• • Thank you Sunfyre. Here is Sunfyre's reply to me at fa-wiki: [3] The translation (with some commonsense tweaks) reads:
  • @Crossroads: Hello, User: Amirhosein Izadi, User: Amir.85, He was making inaccurate information with both accounts, so he was denied access. (en: WP: SNEAKY), For more on this, read this and this. - SunfyreT
  • Each "this" gave me a link. Each discussion can be pasted into Google Translate and read. They are not long, but they establish that this user's content is not trustworthy and most editors were saying his content should be deleted.
  • This all supports that both Amirhosein Izadi, and the account Sunfyre has just mentioned, Amir.85, should be blocked indefinitely. The Amir.85 account does have 2 edits on en-wiki from just the last few months the latter part of 2018, [4] so it should be included.
  • I concur that this user's content is not trustworthy and should be deleted. All of it. Only exception should be if someone else has personally verified it, but that won't be the case generally, as most of the sources are in Persian and it is too hard to check each piece. We already know this user is a liar, and even if there is content that is partly true, it is still totally misleading. I know Koopinator has PRODded some of the hoax articles - I think the rest should also be put through PROD or AfD (possibly AfD to prevent WP:REFUNDing, and perhaps they could be bundled into one nomination as well). Finally, any PRODs that get removed for some reason should be sent to AfD.
  • I think we should also commend Koopinator for insisting this not fall by the wayside and for tracking down and destroying false information. -Crossroads- (talk) 19:25, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
    • @Crossroads: Thank you for your kind words. While i think a lot of this user's articles are unsalvageable, there are some articles from this user which i think should be partially kept. These are Battle of Rasht, House of Dadvey, Mohammad Qoli Salim Tehrani. Recapture of Isfahan, Siege of Tabriz (1908), and Atabak Park Incident. These articles were translated from good-faith articles from Persian Wikipedia, with the user in question adding fictitious material. I used Google Translate on the original articles to get an idea which claims were fabrications and which were good-faith importations, then i removed the fictitious material and copied the original sources to verify the good content. In Battle of Rasht i also added a small amount of information, since i was familiar with the subject at hand. Koopinator (talk) 19:49, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
      • Agreed with you here. Basically my thought was that any content original to this user should be presumed false. If some of it was on a page created by him, but was original to good faith users on fa-wiki, then that could be fine. You seem to be doing the right thing with regard to what to save and what to cut.
      • Johnuniq, any further thoughts at this point on the two problem accounts? -Crossroads- (talk) 06:26, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
        • @Crossroads: By two users, do you mean Amirhosein Izadi (talk · contribs) and Amir.85 (talk · contribs)? The latter has a total of two edits, plus several entries in the edit filter log, and no activity since October 2018. The former has no activity since 27 December 2019. If they were to resume editing and declined to engage with other editors asking about the veracity of their articles I would be willing to block indefinitely until a satisfactory explanation was available. However I do not see proof of a hoax at enwiki and blocking now might not be right. I'm sorry to drag this out but can we leave it another week and see if they have resumed editing. Johnuniq (talk) 06:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
          • @Johnuniq: You see no proof of hoaxing? To repeat myself, consider the article Ice Flower (album) by this user. "Ice Flower has been featured in several prestigious publications, including the Los Angeles Times" - this sentence is sourced to this article, freely available online. The reference looks convincing, it is from the right publication and the title looks related to the subject matter, the only problem is the source's text does not make a single mention of an album called ice flower. It is deliberately intended to deceive the reader into thinking the reference & info is legitimate when it isn't - a textbook definition of a hoax.
            "Subtle hoaxes seriously undermine enwiki. If there is some possibility that a hoaxer will start editing again in the future, then a block prevents that harm." Koopinator (talk) 07:17, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
            • @Koopinator: Thanks for your work on this—maintaining the integrity of articles is very important. Be assured that if the editor resumes editing but fails to provide a satisfactory explanation, they will be blocked. As a clueless admin, all I can assess is what good editors have concluded and I don't see very many such editors who have concluded that a particular article is a hoax. The biggest clue is the block at fawiki but we don't know much about that. Google finds lots of pages discussing the singer Kourosh Yaghmaie and his song "Gol-e Yakh" which apparently is "Ice Flower", for example [5]. The question remains concerning whether Ice Flower (album) exists. The Los Angeles Times article is definitely about Kourosh Yaghmaie (with a different spelling of the second name). It discusses "Back From The Brink" by Kourosh. According to this the first track is "Gol E Yakh" which, as mentioned, is apparently "Ice Flower". That makes the topic very murky and I would want to see more evidence before blocking the user before they have responded. Johnuniq (talk) 09:10, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
              • @Johnuniq: Well, maybe i chose a poor example since this was an example of a claim that is a hoax and not an article topic that is a hoax. Take Capture of Ardabil and Battle of Turkmen Sahra (of which the latter was deleted in prior AFD): In the former article you have sources with bogus page numbers, Iranica which does not contain info about Ardabil in the 1910s, and a non-existent (as far as Google search will tell me) work from 2008 called "Russia in the Constitutional Revolution". In the latter article, Battle of Turkmen Sahra, none of the sources supported the existence of the battle, and no google books searches indicated that it existed. Claims unrelated to the battle's existence were also unsourced or had sources which had nothing to do with the claim presented. And this user has had plenty of opportunity to prove he's not a hoaxer, i invited him to comment on the possibility of hoaxing back on 20 December in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Turkmen Sahra, but he continued editing unrelated articles. Koopinator (talk) 11:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Johnuniq, below there was an indef issued on the basis that indef need not mean infinite, but it was partly to force the user to acknowledge the complaints and address them. [6] Couldn't there be a block of Amirhosein Izadi on that basis? It seems dangerous to leave him free to roam without addressing this. What if he pops up again months or years down the road when or where nobody is scrutinizing? As for not having edited since 27 December, that is the same day Koopinator opened the first report. It's just taken a while to get it handled. It seems pretty clear that Amirhosein Izadi is ignoring us. I say we force him to pay heed.

As for Amir.85, I did have a brain fart in saying that account edited in the last few months. [7] I was subconsciously thinking it was 2019, but it's 2020 and the edits were in the latter part of 2018. Still, seems that if one is blocked, so should the other. Fa-wiki established they are the same person and the two edits from Amir.85 are the same behavioral pattern (about music, "creating" an article from an article on fa-wiki, adding dubious material).

Bbb23, Narky Blert, Dekimasu, Michepman, any thoughts on what to do with this? -Crossroads- (talk) 16:00, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I have no good evidence for this idea, just a sneaking suspicion: that Amirhosein Izadi has had several or many accounts, and drops them like hot potatoes as soon as rumbled. The high quality of his User Page suggests a second or later rodeo. There can't be many English-Farsi cross-Wiki trolls, but there is at least one: Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Chyah.

I too would like to commend Koopinator both for spotting the problem and for persevering with it. I've only ever nailed one WP:HOAX, and proving the fact was a real pain. (It had been around for several years, but the creator had made one tiny mistake - linking to a DAB page - which brought it within the scope of my radar.) Narky Blert (talk) 16:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Narky Blert - Honestly I cannot think of a real reason not to ban this person. I realize that he hasn't edited since the 27th, but the misconduct that we are talking about here is too pervasive, sneaky, and dangerous to just ignore solely because he has (possibly temporarily) stopped editing. He has over 1500 edits that will now have to be manually checked over for hoax material, and this will be a painstaking process since his hoaxes are constructed in such a way that you have to have a reasonable amount of patience and subject matter expertise to tell.

I too have only discovered one WP:HOAX in my career, and it was one that had managed to go undetected for years because the hoaxer used fake sources and plausible sounding details. This guy is even more dangerous since his area is a less well understood by the majority of English speaking editors. Michepman (talk) 22:49, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Michepman: (Non-admin comment) Nor can I. Hoaxing is the worst sort of misbehaviour. Even after having spotted something odd, it takes more time and effort to root it out than to write a similar-sized article - very possibly at least double.

Gud catch! I can't remember (or be bothered to look for) mine, but it had the same tell-tale signs. A C18 French painter, knew all sorts of people; all his paintings were collected after his death by one person, and unluckily lost in a fire in late C19. All sources demonstrating notability were print-only, not in English, and impossible to locate. Plausible circumstantial details and bluelinks and sources, which only began to smell after considerable digging.

There's a paradox here: the more you know about WP, the easier it would be to write a near-undetectable hoax; but the less inclined you would be to do so. Narky Blert (talk) 00:17, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, I've actually come around to the view it may be best to block them at least until they are willing to engage. I'm generally also very reluctant to advocate a block to force engagement unless there is a reason we absolutely require (as opposed to desire) engagement. But IMO especially with the Farsi wikipedia question mark, combined with what happened with the battle articles, I think it's got to the point we need the questions answered before they edit again. (I did look into the Ice Flower stuff myself after reading Johnuniq's comment and ended up deciding there was too little info, even having looked at Geocities and other such places to be able to conclude whether such an album existed.) And maybe they've abandoned the account, but maybe not. Given the type of concern, I don't think we should just ignore it as stale since I don't think there's any guarantee anyone will still be watching in a few months. Nil Einne (talk) 06:46, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Inappropriate claims

I try to edit article "Statuta Valachorum" to be as accurate as possible and editor Sadko (talk · contribs) makes unacceptable claims. I quote: "because this is some new sort of revisionism" "This is another popular narrative in Croatia, mostly in right-wing and modern Ustaše circles" {I am just reading what is in front of me. I do not need help of any sort, I do my own work. The current text is a Frankenstein-like creation and I plan to alert various Wiki projects of any problems, bad use of sources and lack of consensus, because this is some new sort of revisionism - and we already have enough of it in the Balkans. The idea is pretty much simple (and this is not addressed to you Ktrimi); one should add Vlach where there is a mention of Serbs in modern-day Croatia. It will furthter prove that Serbs of Croatia are only some poor Vlachs, and that they were brainwashed to become Serbs by the Serbian Orthodox Church, which can be later used for daily politics. Vlah holds the same meaning for Serbs as Šiptar does for Albanians... I hope that you will have this in mind. This is another popular narrative in Croatia, mostly in right-wing and modern Ustaše circles. I claim that this is only a more sophisticated form of bias driven POV, which can be seen from the whole body of work. And no, I am not attacking anyone, just analysing what I can see here and telling you what you are taking a part of, because I guess that your knowledge of Serbo-Croatian circles and various data is limited. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 00:30, 5 January 2020 (UTC) - http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User_talk:Ktrimi991#Statuta_Valachorum"}. It would mean that my involvement in editing Wikipedia is revisionism and close to Nazism and Ustasha regime. I want that this clames be harshly punished and not to be repeated again. I am here in good faith and please respect me as a person. If this needs to be reported elsewhere please direct me to the right place, thank you. Mikola22 (talk) 09:00, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, which I think is the case here. Everything which I said is correct, I stand by all of it and every Balkan editor is aware of those facts. I did not say that it has anything to do with Nazism, please do not play the victim when you do not have to. You made a logical mistake right there. I said that it is used in those circles, and it is, which is rather alarming. I have a duty to my ancestors who were fighting various dictatorial regimes to point to any possibility of such ideological moments dominating editing of a noble project such as Wikipedia. Revisionism and creative entepretation of history should have no place on Wikipedia. These are great articles covering some of these issues, you can use Google translate and I can help you with translation of some parts, if the Google's tool fails.(Бранимир Марковић: Хрвати сви и свуда, EPOHALNO OTKRIĆE Bošnjački akademik: "Vučić i Srbi iz BiH poreklom su Vlasi") Thank you very much for reporting this as in incident; this is the way Mikola thinks he can edit controversial articles, just take a look at this creative editing, so to say - I am deleting this part "(mainly Serbs)" because this requires consensus, the other sources(books etc) do not mention mainly Serbs as Orthodox refugees in that part of Croatia ie Varaždin Generalat and evidence for this is provided in the sources I cite below throughout the page. The direct source mentions Serbs. 2) Here I add Vlachs because there are no historical documents that mention Serbs in Vienna otherwise this Serbian source(book) Serbs were also mentioned in the source... More of it here - http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User_talk:Ktrimi991#Statuta_Valachorum Thank you for your patience regarding these messy Balkan issues. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 13:13, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Just to prove that I was not overreacting and that I am not paranoid, here are some of the diffs in which the same user, Mikola22, cites wartime fascist officials as if they were RS - http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Croatian_Orthodox_Church&diff=925377120&oldid=925375409&diffmode=source http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Bjelopavlići&diff=925371428&oldid=924037952&diffmode=source and more on Sremska Mitrovica and other articles. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 14:05, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the editor's previous blocks I'm wondering if this should be seen as an WP:AE issue - if blocks don't work, a topic ban may be the solution. I don't know much about this issues but I'll ping the Admins involved before with the blockes. @TomStar81, Yamla, and Bbb23: any opinions? Doug Weller talk 15:53, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Doug, I don't know which editor you're referring to. All I know is that both editors have been disruptive lately, and that needs to stop. I don't know enough about the topic area to comment about AE, one of my least favorite forums on Wikipedia.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bbb23: fair enough, you blocked both this week. Doug Weller talk 17:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, in the beginning I used data of that historian and I did not know that this historian is forbidden in Wikipedia(otherwise, to this day I have never heard that he is forbidden here), that historian lived and died in Yugoslavia without any sanctions, how could I assume that he has something to do with fascism? I didn't know until then that it had something to do with fascism (this book has doctoral dissertation defense and I thought it was RS). The book is from 1937 and Croatian edition 1991, and today is in all libraries in Croatia especially in Catholic institutions and is used as a source in books or scientific works by Croatian historians or in school system. Otherwise I only put information from the Vatican archives(original archival material) that he has in the book. Therefore from the first day I started editing Wikipedia he saw fascists and Nazis in me. Here I give my energy and knowledge to improve the articles as much as possible while he uses hate speech instead of working in good faith. Therefore, I demand a harsh punishment and that such things no longer happening. I'm not a fascist and a nacist. I am from Croatia and I respect everyone, but this hate speech must be sanctioned. I spend my days here making articles better he offends me in the worst possible way. Mikola22 (talk) 16:58, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I refute the notion that I was (deliberately) disruptive, it is just that admins are sometimes rather busy and have too much on their plate and so they just count reverts (going by the book) and do not have the time to look at the content and the nature of reverts more deeply, which is often the case with issues which are not in their original sphere of interest (Balkan history and what not). I was a collateral damage of one Wiki rules while trying to defend an article from addition of dubious sources, bold edits without consensus and manipulation with sources, as seen above. I rest my case and I am even surprised that this was brought over here, because, in my mind, it's nothing more than looking for reasons to report people, and finding offenses which do not exist in the original text. Historian is forbidden? P.S: The editor who mostly works on articles about history of the region apparently had no knowledge about works by a prominent local fascist official. I simply don't belive it. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 18:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• I have promised to the two editors that I will help them find a solution to the said content dispute. It is not a difficult one, just patience and careful use of reliable sources are needed. One thing I would say is that @Sadko: should stop making personal attacks, aspersions and assumptions about other editors. It is sometimes impossible to have a proper discussion with him on controversial stuff. @Doug Weller: is right that such issues are AE ones. Sadko, if an experienced editor, not Mikola22, reported you at AE, no doubt a topic ban would be the result. You have produced massive amounts of evidence against yourself. One just needs to take a quick look at your comments on talk pages and edit summaries, where you continuously accuse other people of having certain goals on Wikipedia and so on. You need to reflect. Sadko and Mikola22 are keen on writing new content, so good faith and cooperation can solve the content issues. I plan to propose some edits on the article soon to help the two editors. Till then they best do not edit the article. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:17, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Ktrimi991:I came to your talk page with suggestion to tell me what to do next, I have exposed all the changes and sources which I have(and there are more sources) to make article accurate as possible. Editor Sadko comes to your talk page not to make a joint decision in peace to improve accuracy of that article(Statuta Valachorum) but to talk about my edits as Nazi and fascist. This is not right. It is evident that his actions are not in good faith. I have been searching for data and RS sources for this article throughout whole week but it doesn't matter to him, he mentions Ustashes. Mikola22 (talk) 19:28, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Iam not making personal attacks and there is no "massive amount" of anything, that is simply not completely true. I am having in mind that we different views on a number of things.

This is a fine example that I am doing no such thing; I attacked the text, the content, the way in which sources are used and not anybody personally. That can be seen on your TP, for starters. I am sorry if you do not like what I was able to read into. I can agree with the last sentence. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 19:37, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Your comment that I have a duty to my ancestors who were fighting various dictatorial regimes to point to any possibility of such ideological moments dominating editing is rather confusing. I think that editing Wikipedia is not a "duty" to our ancestors, and should not seen as such. Anyways guys, the new year is in its first days so we better focus on other things right now. I will soon ping you two on my talk page with a proposal on the article. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:58, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• Idk if @Doug Weller: or @Bbb23: or someone else wants to close this discussion before it becomes too long. This might be better suited for AE rather than ANI/I. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:46, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Editing by Mikola22 is very tendentious. He uses different methods, at first he tried to make his own interpretations of primary sources, then he used outdated sources of 19th century and fascist historians. Now this is cherrypicking and strong violation of the "weight" rule. But his bias remains the same.--Nicoljaus (talk) 13:19, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes at first I didn't know the rules of Wikipedia and I thought that Wikipedia was based on original information ie sources, if I used outdated sources I dont know what should that mean, I thought every source was RS and now I use the latest data. This fascistic historian are in every Catholic library in Croatia, and this historian is also mentioned in some schools master's thesis and other Croatian historians use his data. I used his information from Vatican archives and I no longer use it even though it is a valuable source of information in Croatia. Therefore I once again ask that this attack on me is properly punished because I'm neither a Nazi nor a fascist. We must understand that Croatia has a history which is based on historical sources while someone does not like that. I have already found more forgerys that existed in articles about Serbs from Croatia and editor Sadko did not want to accept that editing in peace and obviously this is a problem for someone here. However, we all work together to make articles accurate as possible. If someone does not like some historical facts this is not a reason for insults me with hate speech that I am a follower of fascists and Nazi Croatians. Mikola22 (talk) 14:19, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Here's more recent information on the fascist historian I quote: "Croatian Cultural Society Napredak Zadar and the Archdiocese of Zadar organize the presentation of Proceedings from the International Scientific Symposium Krunoslav Stjepan Draganović - Priest, Historian and Patriot" Welcome word: Msgr. Želimir Puljić, Archbishop of Zadar and President of Episcopal Conference of Croatia(2015). Does not mean that Croatian Catholic bishops are fascists because they promote Krunoslav Stjepan Draganović. At first I thought it was RS and my intention was to present some information about Catholics from the Vatican archives.Mikola22 (talk) 15:26, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

That's the problem: Mikola is eager to find the arguments for whitewashing, but he, for some reason, failed to see numerous sources about Ustashe background of Krunoslav Draganović. And the similar story is repeated with his edits again and again.--Nicoljaus (talk) 01:08, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not interested in fascists and Ustashas and I do not know who is Krunoslav Draganovic. I only know that he is a patriot in the Croatian Catholic church. And I used information from his book from the Vatican Archives, the book is from 1937 and 1991. And now I know this facts. Therefore calling me a follower of Nazis and fascists for editing some article in good faith should be harshly punished. Mikola22 (talk) 06:35, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

No one says that you are Ustash. But you make a tendentious selection of information. For you, Krunoslav is a patriot and a Catholic, and you do not notice everything else. And you do the same thing with every "Croatian" issue.--Nicoljaus (talk) 09:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Krunoslav Draganovic is patriot for Croatian Catholic Church not for me. I put information from his book(Vatican archives) at the beginning of Wikipedia editing because I only knew this fact about him. Today some others historian use his book as a source of information. For you he is a fascist and for the Croatian Catholic Church he is a patriot. I do not research his works or his history because I am not interested in it, I am interested in information from books to make Wikipedia accurate as possible. You are probably obsessed with Krunoslav Draganovic but I didn't know who he was. You have to know that Croatia also has a history and we must respect it no matter how much you dislike it. I respect Serbian history but we also need to enter information from the Croatian view. I know this is a problem for you and Sadko but we need to make Wikipedia more accurate and better. If I do it in good faith that is no reason to compare me to fascists and Nazis. Mikola22 (talk) 10:55, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

You are probably obsessed with Krunoslav Draganovic Here is another problem. Instead of apologizing for your errors you are starting acquisitions on other editors. It was your job to find out who is the author of the source that you tried to use.--Nicoljaus (talk) 14:12, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

After administrator rejected his proposal in White Croats article this is how editor Nicoljaus expresses his good faith (White Croats talk page) I quote: "A simple “fuck off” would help to express the same thought much shorter. And with about the same level of validity.--Nicoljaus (talk) 12:31, 4 December 2019 (UTC)" Therefore this statement is clearly not in good faith but no one accuses you of insulting administrator decision. You were just angry and that is why such a reaction but it's not my fault for such decision of administrator.Mikola22 (talk) 21:20, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, here is diffirent story. I was naive and thought that there was just a technical question and a misunderstanding. However, it turned out that in certain circles they still talk about the giant White Croatia from Elbe to Dnieper with its seat in Krakow. And to protect this ancient myth, a real mobilization was carried out. I have learned a lot of new things there!--Nicoljaus (talk) 01:20, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of a LONG week, but after looking through this briefly I say AE-block his ass and wait for that to fail so we can indef the account. And best protect the article pages too since this comes under not one but two different AE sub headings: Eastern Europe and German War Effort. Food for thought.

@TomStar81: I have no idea how to solve this dispute, but I think you forgot to sign.--Calthinus (talk) 16:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I think a TBAN for both users. I am not sure both are being exactly honest and are both POV pushers.Slatersteven (talk) 15:43, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: What concrete did you do for accuracy of Statuta Valachorum article? I quote: "no, you have to get consensus for these changes. You do not get to make a case and then act as if you have won the debate." You supported Sadko although you do not know history of that region of Croatia at all. You didn't help with anything and now you would ban and me? POV pusher? You did not see that this was largely a copied article from Serbian Wikipedia? Is it then a neutral article? But these are laws for the Vlachs, Croats are also Vlachs and where they are in the article? Do you know history of Croatia? Do you know that Croats in Dalmatia are Vlach in documents, we're not Serbs because of that or maybe we are? You support that article and Sadko, and my edit where I placed Vlachs with the Serbs consider POV pushing? What if I put information about the Croats who were under the Vlach name at the time? Whether and this is POV pushing? From where Serbs in an article that talks about the Vlachs? Then the Croats etc are actually of Serbian origin? Promotion of this claim is called how? Then we will also change the article about Vlachs from Wikipedia, there are not mentioned any Serbs there.(The Orthodox Vlachs spread further northward along the Carpathians to Poland, Slovakia, and Moravia and were granted autonomy under Ius Vlachonicum (Walachian law), there is no mention of Serbs in that law. If someone does not know the Croatian, Bosnian, Albanian etc history this is not a reason for all those who know that history a little better consider POV pushers. And that is why we need to work together in good faith to keep the articles accurate as possible. And normally without insulting anyone that is personal Nazi or fascist, that deserves the harshest punishment. Mikola22 (talk) 18:21, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I am talking not just about one article. I recall your attempt to use the dodgy source discussed at length above, and how you at first claims you were using historical documents rather, and ironically as I pointed out a third party source interpreting them. In fact if I recall it was only after some effort you seemed to accept this [[8]]. It maybe just bad use of English, but you seem to often say things that seem to not gel with what you mean. You (for example) seem to claim you have personal access to the Vatican archives, do you? Its clear you mean "his book about the Vatican Archives, but you said "I used information from his book from the Vatican Archives". In a less contentious area this might not be an issue, bit in a highly controversial topic not being able to make yourself clearly understood causes confusion and conflict. Also you say you will now not use Krunoslav Draganovic, but you also )in effect) try to defend his use by "Croatian Catholic Church", and strongly imply that many Croatian sources use him (do the ones you want to use?). It all adds to a sense you are more interested in pushing a Croatian nationalist POV. You are (in effect) pretty much a wp:sap. By the way I have called for you both to be TBAN'd this is not some one sided attempt to silence some "truth about the Vlachs", its an attempt to stop the pair of you ruining it for everyone else.Slatersteven (talk) 18:48, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

If I didn't know the rules of Wikipedia at first what does that have to do with this edit or in the last month, or with the fact that Sadko insults me for being a Nazi? You (for example) seem to claim you have personal access to the Vatican archives, do you? I used this information from the book (1991), about these Catholics Bjelopavlići a few days ago I found it in the book of Malcolm Noel "Kosovo: A Short History". I can't find the whole book anywhere, when I find it I'll edit Bjelopavlići artice. Where the conflict is, the Bjelopavlići are referred as Catholics is that a problem for you and Sadko? Bjelopavlići are allegedly Serbs, whether that may be a problem? Do you edit article in good faith or what is it about? It is forbidden to mentione Catholics? I'm not defending anyone, I live in Croatia and I have not researched the work of Krunoslav Draganovic. I know that he is a patriot of the Croatian Catholic Church, I only knew that about him. And I thought it was RS. I don't know how you can't figure it out. "Croatian nationalist POV" maybe it's from your viewing angle because you don't know Croatian history. If you knew the history of Croatia then you would not defend Sadko, you probably would defended accuracy of information in Wikipedia articles and the principle of good faith. Why you don't change the "Statuta Valachorum" article for the better. Whether it is the law of the Serbs or Vlachs? Have you read the article? If you don't know Croatian history then ask me. Therefore, you have no good faith in this case. This is not right.Mikola22 (talk) 19:39, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Hold I am even more confused, you launched a RSN thread about using historical documents, now you seem to be saying you do not even have access to the source you were quoting, but rather a source even further removed form the archives (one you also say you do not have access to at the moment). As to Draganovic, again this may be a language issue but you made much about how Croatian historians use him, Now it may be that you are trying to say "he is used widely in Croatia and I was mislead about his nature". The problem is it can be read a number of ways, as we cannot guess at your real intention.

Your attitude (also displayed in a number of edit summaries reading (quite literally) "I have spoken") seems to be "I am an expert, I have final say". This is not how we do things (and I note your DR was closed for lack of real discussion at the talk page). Also I am not defending Sadko I have said (for gods sake read what people write, I have already pointed this out once) he should be TBAN'D too for the same reason as you.Slatersteven (talk) 10:51, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

You do not even have access to the source you were quoting, What are you talking about? At the beginning of editing(two months ago) I used Krunoslav Draganovic's book as a source of information for Catholic Bjelopavlići, since this source is not acceptable I found another source ie book of Malcolm Noel "Kosovo: A Short History". when i find that book and page then I will post that info in the article about Bjelopavlići. What's the problem here? as we cannot guess at your real intention. And these are Nazi and Fascist intentions? You've been torturing me with this Draganović for two months now, what you want from me? To admit that I'm a Nazi? Do you understand that i'm not researching Draganović, he is a patriot of the Croatian Catholic Church and I used his information from the book (Vatican archives) the same archives uses and Malcolm Noel and I thought it was RS. This is not how we do things (and I note your DR was closed for lack of real discussion at the talk page)Where is the consensus and discussion on talk page about entering "Serbians" throughout whole "Statuta Valachorum" article. Show link. He should be TBAN'D too for the same reason as you. I'm trying that this article be accurate as possible, Sadko wants nothing to change in the article and calls me a Nazi and your suggestion is TBAN'D and me? I have been searching all week that the article be accurate as possible but you and Sadko didn't want to accept that. For that reason Sadko called me a follower of the Nazis and now you would TBAN'D and me. I have no more words. Mikola22 (talk) 17:06, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

"I found it in the book of Malcolm Noel "Kosovo: A Short History". I can't find the whole book anywhere, when I find it I'll edit Bjelopavlići artice." which book could you not find the whole of?Slatersteven (talk) 17:16, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

In the Serbian review of book ""Kosovo: A Short History" are mentioned Bjelopavlići who are and Catholics. It's a book review and I still do not have book as a source. Mikola22 (talk) 20:21, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

John V. A. (Jr.) Fine in his book(When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkan, page 410) cites and work of Krunoslav Draganović from year 1938(talking about Catholics, Croats, Illyrians, etc) which is published by "Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts". If someone quotes John V. A. (Jr.) Fine and that part of the book probably you're not going to talk about that edit for two months and insult some editor that he's a Nazi because he put that information on Wikipedia. And if you and Sadko want some information not to be entered then that's another problem. So administrators and moderators should pay more attention to this. Otherwise when I put data about Bjelopavlići and their possible Albanian origin according to several RS. Sadko did not want to put this information from several RS as part of the article. It seems that the present situation is being defended from a few editor here ie Serbian point of view which is not in good faith and neutral point of view. Interestingly Bjelopavlići are a tribe from the territory of Montenegro with possible various origins and in the article it was wanted assume their Serbian origin without some concrete RS. Mikola22 (talk) 07:57, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Good faith does not mean we have to accept "I am using an RS" when in fact you are using an unspecified review of the source. Can you not see how this is disingenuous? Nor it is the fact time you have made claims that have turned out to not be quite truthful. This is why I see a problem, this is why I do not think it is a language barrier thing. Not was it only me and Sadko who pointed out Search Results

Web results John Van Antwerp Fine is a reputable and reputable historian (and as far as I can tell his books are published by the University of Michigan Press, not the "Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts", at least "The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century" was which was the source I believe was brought to RSN.Slatersteven (talk) 10:42, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

In fact you are using an unspecified review of the source. I do not use review but I have found information about Bjelopavlići in that review(of Malcolm Noel book). And when I find that book then I will put this info in the article. I haven't put anything in the article yet since I don't have RS. I can tell his books are published by the University of Michigan Press, not the "Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts", John Van Antwerp Fine cites Krunoslav Draganović and the same information was released in 1938 by "Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts". Sadko uses hate speech and speak that I'm a fascist and a Nazi and John Van Antwerp Fine cites Krunoslav Draganović in his book. Otherwise what are you doing here? Article "Statuta Valachorum" waiting for you to refine it and make it more accurate. You reverted article and my edit and now you talk with me about Krunoslav Draganović. Sadko offends me that I'm a follower of fascists and Nazis because I edit articles to be accurate as possible and you talk about Krunoslav Draganović? So far I have not noticed any contribution from you? Except you're always around Sadko. We must all work to keep the articles accurate as possible and not because of that insult someone that he is a follower of fascists and Nazis. Mikola22 (talk) 12:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Slatersteven:Both users, care to explain>? I do not want be dragged into the mud because I pointed out to a bad use of sources and what not. Several other editors and myself are fighting this sort of vandalism and POV pushing and yet, I am to be found equally guilty? Take a look at this cherrypicking, for example: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Yugoslav_Partisans&type=revision&diff=934721120&oldid=934282768&diffmode=source The whole point was: I was reported for some "inappropriate claims", I gave links and proves that they were not inappropriate and that I had a solid basis for my assumption. I shall not answer on this thread any more, I have other projects to work on. cheers Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 16:49, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

You edit warred, that is one reason (we all forget or get carried away but even so). You do appear to have a similar battleground mentality towards preserving the Truth as Mikola22. Let me be clear, I came into this dispute (not the ANI, the dispute) because of RSN notices. Thus I am not aware of any history behind these articles or you editing history. As such I can only judge you based upon the intransigence I have seen form you towards compromise. Maybe you are right and every source Mikola22 uses is crap, or maybe (as in some cases does appear to be the case) the articles need a bit of a re-wording. The problem is that neither of you seem to be capable of compromise, its either your way or escalation. But as you both feel a TBAN in unfair.Slatersteven (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

Neither Mikola22 or Sadko may make changes relating to Balkan ethnicity (in any article) without first achieving consensus.Slatersteven ([[User talk: as they were|talk]]) 10:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Yoicks. That sounds like the best.. Endorse/support.-- Deepfriedokra 10:55, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Doug Weller talk 15:09, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Note Sadko appears to have rejected this [[9]].Slatersteven (talk) 15:39, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with the proposal but it must state here what that consensus means. Does this mean and third party assistance, arbitration, etc because we may not reach consensus on talk page and Sadko did not come to joint discussion (Statuta Valachorum article). What if someone seeks consensus on talk page or elsewhere and there are no interested editors or as Sadko does not want to reach a joint decision in good faith. I can't wait for consensus five years. They must also be specified and articles which are under that consensus. There are also, unfortunately and some editors such as Slatersteven who reverted my edit although he does not know Croatian history but he must have noticed that my changes had RS. Then I guess he probably read that RS and in good faith accept that edit. I suppose he stood up for the Serbian name in the article and he probably expected a consensus for that change but where is consensus for puting Serbian name through article even though we have very little mention of Serbs in that area of ​​Croatia. If someone(editor) wants to contribute to the accuracy of some article he can do a little research and contribute with something and not leave things as as they were. Maybe Slatersteven is administrator or moderator I don't know, so he just monitors it but in any case we are all working on the accuracy of the articles and not just me. However, punishment for insult must be because I am not follower of Nazis or Fascists. Sadko didn't work in good faith to make Statuta Valachorum article as accurate as possible, he came there with purpose to insult me. Mikola22 (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Then Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and gave up his aspirations.

-EEng

Be rational enough to stop with the constant aspirations allegations. I am alive and well and can speak for myself and my motives, thank you. There is no insult, as the text and selective use of sources were criticised. I am generally inclined to reach a consensus with fellow editors and have a good discussion in order to actually get to something (a conclusion/solution), with editors who are capable of such a thing, and behave like adults, with Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Civility in mind. Sadkσ (talk is cheap) 02:24, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Oldperson – personal attacks despite awareness of WP:NPA

Oldperson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

The talk page where the latest offensive behavior occurred is Talk:TERF, in which this editor accused User:Crossroads of having an "anti trans POV" (1). This editor has indulged an "us vs. them" contemptuous behavior in gender-related articles in which editors he/she disagrees with are accused of being anti-transgender and a "TERF" (trans-exclusionary radical feminist): (2).

I first experienced confrontational behavior from this editor here (3). He/she followed this by referring to me as "transphobic TERF P...S..." in an editor's talk page (4). Antagonistic comments posted by this editor include describing editors as "TERFS allied with homophobes" and "adept at manipulating the guidelines like NPOV and AGF" (5). He/she made the accusation that, in an article, there is "a conspiracy or at least a organized group effort" among some editors (6).

This editor is very well aware of various Wikipedia policies. Besides admitting to being aware of "the rules about personal attacks" (7), the editor was made aware that gender-related topics are subject to ArbCom discretionary sanctions (8).

He/she has been warned by at least three editors I'm aware of about making accusations and personal attacks against other editors: (9), (10), (11); about improper summaries (12); about edit warring (13); about using talk pages as a forum (14). The editor has also invited other editors who favor his/her editing decisions to intervene on his/her behalf and help circumvent WP's edit warring policy: "Since edit warring is verboten and there is a 1rr perhaps another editor would consider reverting the revert" (15)

I responded to the recent personal attack, on the particular article talk page, against User:Crossroads (16) , and posted a warning on User:Oldperson's talk page about the incivility towards another editor (17). The response from User:Oldperson:

"I take notice that you have jumped into the frey in defense of your cohort, or is it a case of a stuck pig squeals. Apparently you identify with my comments and critique. if not then you would not have reacted as you did.. I tire of your condescension and threats. You apparently believe that you are my superior, that your own bias is hidden behind wikilawyering and skirting PaG.. If you want to take me to ANI do so, but beware of WP:BOOMERANG. My advice to you is that you tone it down and cease being a pro-TERF, anti Trans advocate Your bias is as transparent as the panes in my front window.. Maya d'Angelo said "If a person tells you who they are believe them". There are many ways to tell what a person is, other than verbal confesssion. "By their fruits they will be known". There are at least three editors on TERF that do not disguise their POV, as one can easily ascertain such from their edits." (18).

This editor cannot claim ignorance of Wikipedia policies. Many editors have made him/her aware of them, and several others of his/her unacceptable behavior. This editor needs to refrain from engaging in any further accusations and personal attacks against any editor. It may also be best for all editors of, or interested in, gender-related topics if this editor was blocked from being involved in gender-related subjects. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 09:53, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Oldperson is very much a problem. Pretty much every interaction I've had with them has been unpleasant. This user well illustrates why competence is required. This isn't a social network; we're here to build an encyclopedia, and this user is not competent to do that.

Here are some further examples of Oldperson's personal attacks and incompetence:

Details

Personal attacks To MarioGom: Since you asked my opinion. I think that you might be a TERF or TERF adjacent, oops didn't mean to be accusatory afterall we are supposed to AGF,but you asked for opinions. [10] (mentioned above; this shows that Oldperson knows it is against AGF) The above is an unsubstantiated ad hominem, by an editor who does not have ability or credibility to make such statements. (Was not an ad hominem, as can be seen.) [11] Doubles down: My comment was directed to Crossroads and not Newimpartial. [12] "[Haukurth]'s back to back edits here and here appear to be one sided, TERF protective." [13] tq template not working for this one I really want to be respectful of editors, I really do, but frankly your response is obfuscatory, and that is playing nice. Havine a "balanced" quote in a reference just doesn't cut it. Those who find this article in a search and read it, very seldom if ever bother to click on the citations and when they do they don't read them, so all that J.Q. Public gets is one side of the argument. I also noticed that you used WE in your response. This then is a coordinated effort between you, Haukurth and Crossroads. I find that interesting. [14] Personal bias and agenda are not legitimate justifications for the reversion or edit, remember WP:NPOV, not so long as you are an editor [15] your comment above is simply your own opinion, which quite apparently is strongly anti trans POV....Oh did I accuse you of not AGF or having an ulterior motive. I certainly did, maybe it is bad form, and Wikipedians aren't suppose to resort to such, however considering your very firm, often stated critical position and your self admitted interest in human sexuality. Stating that you appear to be transphobic is not an unjust or unwarranted accusation, it arises from your hundreds or is it thousands of edits. [16] (Pyxis Solitary quoted this one briefly above; it's worth being quoted more fully.) Casting aspersions Articles like this generally attact editors who have an interest in human sexuality, advocates and opponents. The opponents obviously outnumber the advocates... [17] Incompetence In response to DIYeditor evaluating a source: Who are you to judge the quality? [18] This brief discussion, with quotes like Who do you think you are talking to anyway? and your choice of quotes is sensationalism, prurient and inappropriate for the general public, especially the young folk who might access the page. [19] Even though the article already had academic sources: Peer reviewed academic articles are not appropriate, nor will they be found....The only sources that make sense or those found in the common realm, which includes (at this point) Youtube and self published sources. [20] Editing a quote from a source: [21] Editing another's comment: [22] Misusing talk page as forum: [23][24][25]

DIYeditor described their behavior well as trigger-happy accusations of POV. [26] And so did Aircorn when he said they treat this place more like a reddit forum than an encyclopaedia. [27] As Pyxis Solitary noted, Mathglot made Oldperson aware of the discretionary sanctions; she also noted that Oldperson was warned about their problem behaviors by Starship.paint, GPRamirez5, Jayjg, and others. I've wondered before if this editor is as bad in their other editing areas; based on the fact that they have received warnings from editors that I have not interacted with and that likely came from these areas, I strongly suspect that this is so.

At minimum, I think this editor should be topic banned from gender as Pyxis Solitary suggests. However, I truly believe Oldperson's general incompetence despite being instructed and warned over and over again makes them a net negative to the project, so I would support an indefinite block. -Crossroads- (talk) 18:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Crossroads: I partially agree with you. if a block is issued, I would support the block, but not indefinite. I think a temporary block is a good answer to this because I would like to see if this user makes constructive contributions after the block is over. If the same behavior continues after the block, then I would support an indefinite block. Interstellarity (talk) 23:18, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll just note that while personal attacks are unacceptable there is some editing and argumentation which seems at least subtly sympathetic to transphobic viewpoints going on. Oldperson may not have handled it well but at least some of the things that make them shout at least make me raise an eyebrow.

I'm not sure what to recommend part from saying that an indefinite block is definitely not appropriate in the first instance. My advice to Oldperson is to be incredibly polite to people who might be editing with a POV and to always argue the point not the person. If they are pushing a POV this will reveal itself soon enough and then that can be followed up on through the correct channels, not by blasting them on Talk. I would also recommend that as many experienced editors as possible (preferably those who are familiar with transphobic rhetoric, euphemisms and dogwhistles) keep an eye on the articles in question. --DanielRigal (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

---

Note that I fully protected TERF for 2 weeks. I also left Oldperson a warning that were they to continue to behave in this way, a topic ban from the gender topic area may soon follow. Basically, they need to discuss the content in a matter-of-fact way, while at the same time, avoid speculating on the motives of opponents. Hopefully, my warning will be heeded. Depending on their response, I may end up closing this request with no further action. We'll see. El_C 02:36, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

So let me get this straight: Oldperson engages in personal attacks and incompetent behavior for months on end, is warned repeatedly, continues the same behaviors despite admittedly knowing the rules, and all they get is a slap on the wrist, and is rewarded by having the version which they edit-warred for [28] locked in for 2 weeks? -Crossroads- (talk) 03:11, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

There are so many diffs that could have been included in my ANI statement about this editor's behavior towards other editors, but it would have been too much. Just so you know, he/she accused an Admin of WP:STALK (19), insulted the Admin, which led said Admin to state in the summary: "Go away. do not come back." (20). Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 03:06, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I see... Well, in any case, let's see if they can shape up from here on out. El_C 03:11, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

If Oldperson fails to engage the article talk page (doing in so in a civil and collegial way), I will revert the protected page to the other version. But the version that got protected — that was random. El_C 03:15, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Pinging Drmies and TonyBallioni - from the diffs above I see these two admins have dealt with this user before. I also think this report should be open for longer so more with experience with the user have time to comment. -Crossroads- (talk) 03:13, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Until Oldperson provides guarantees that their behaviour will be up to par from now on, this report will not be closed. El_C 03:15, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, I remember that editor. Very unfortunate, but by the same token I would have expected them to be on the verge of an indefinite block much sooner. Drmies (talk) 03:49, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• I have only ever encountered Oldperson in relation to the TERF article so have no comments on their ability at other articles. Ignoring the POV and personal attacks (which by themselves should be enough for at least a topic ban) they clearly lack the competency to edit this area or are simply WP:NOT HERE. I won't add much to the diffs above, but just point to a conversation started by them at my talk page after I reverted their change to another editors talk page comment (User talk:Aircorn/Archive 11#You speak nonsense). I basically suggested an ignore them approach unless they started fooling around in article space. Since there last three edits at TERF have been a slow burn edit war [29][30][31] which has now lead to it being locked for 2 weeks they have gone beyond being an annoying talk page presence to actually harming the encyclopaedia. AIRcorn (talk) 07:03, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Given the amount of errors introduced in his recent edit to TERF (discussed at Talk:TERF#Edit request: Fix the italics and spacing in the lead. and User talk:Oldperson#Please be more careful with your reverts.) and the problems with the majority of their other edits I think we need an indef for competency reasons alone. We are all volunteers here and it is hard enough working in controversial areas at the best of times. An editor who can't or won't adhere to even simple editing practices is a timesink we can do without. AIRcorn (talk) 21:17, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• I was quite frustrated with Oldperson when I first encountered them, less for POV reasons than CIR (despite being warned about it: constant FORUMing, clobbering others edits, not using preview, not indenting properly). This last edit that has been locked in at TERF is another CIR example. For no reason it clobbers potentially useful edits by other editors to go back to Oldperson's preferred version. Oldperson does not even care if the edits they are obliterating are by other ostensible trans-allies (in Oldperson's schema). As to calling other editors anti-trans there is some subjectivity to this so we can give Oldperson some degree of leeway to point out the issue, but many of these comments are bordering on the same FORUM problem they have been warned about many times, and are markedly unCIVIL. I will be interested to see if Oldperson is able to reply here to all these issues. As always, I think if someone can explain their missteps and assure ANI it won't happen anymore, a final chance is in order. I do feel they've already been strongly cautioned by Drmies. —DIYeditor (talk) 07:32, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
• My primary concern with this user is their almost near constant encroachment into FORUM territory. I’ve seen it on at least a dozen pages. Note that this isn’t restricted to gender-related issues. They’re arguably just as active on AmPol pages, especially those related to Trump. It’s not that they don’t *occasionally* have decent points, or the rare decent edit, it’s the “heat to light” ratio. There are definite civility and CIR issues with this user, and a ton of people have tried to help, to little avail. Honestly... There doesn’t seem to be a capacity for collegial editing right now. That’s not to say that they couldn’t improve, but aside from their grandstanding and straddling the line of personal attacks, their inability to successfully ping most users after almost a year (as just one example) isn’t encouraging as to their competence. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 08:02, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
• Note that when Oldperson attacked me ([32]), it was our first interaction as far as I can tell, and it was in response to a completely civil proposal I made in an article talk page. I finished my proposal with the sentence What do you think? as a friendly way to ask other editors for feedback. Oldperson appeared out of the blue to attack me, explicitly trying to use AGF as a shield and implying that because I asked for opinions he was entitled to attack me. I think this is one of the most blatant personal attacks I've received both on any wiki. --MarioGom (talk) 14:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Adding this obvious conspiracy theory, that a Wall Street businessman and Woodrow Wilson advisor "financed Bolshevism and the rise of Hitler and National Socialism", looks pretty worrying, especially in light of some of their talk page comments like this. --RaiderAspect (talk) 13:30, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• RaiderAspect, that is seriously troubling, and I am hoping more admins will take a look at it. TonyBallioni, would you like mustard or mayo with your daily Jewish conspiracy theory? And I wonder if there's a couple of editors who can look at Antony C. Sutton, so that the article doesn't merely parrot the man's books. Drmies (talk) 21:06, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Oldperson has replied on their user talk page: [33] It's just more paranoia, personal attacks, and refusal to change. Combining that with the latest competency issues detailed above, I trust the admins know what needs to be done. Pinging Drmies, El_C, (TonyBallioni already pinged). -Crossroads- (talk) 21:46, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• I remember when this editor helped me in tea house board. He was a nice guy. I see that he has strong opinions, he says he is old. Most of my friends are old people. People even call me an old person because I am always with them. I believe they are usually wiser than the younger generation. I understand why oldperson was blocked but I think that if he appealed and said that he is not going to violate civility policy in Wikipedia then I think he should be unblocked. This is what a wise person would do. I have been blocked before because of civility issue with a provocative editor who turned out to be a sockpuppet. At that time, I was new and I came from Twitter where civility was not an issue. In any case, I think User:Oldperson has a second chance. I hope other editors would forgive him.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 08:55, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

X. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 02:43, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Blocked

I’ve blocked based on the totality of the above, which I feel is WP:TE or pure CIR. Don’t really care which one, a block is needed, and the only way they should be allowed to edit again is if they can have a discussion and we receive assurances that the behaviours demonstrated won’t be repeated. This means indefinite, as it forces the discussion. Note indef is not infinite. I’m on vacation and about to leave my home country for a week or so, so my connection will be more limited than normal. Any admin is free to remove this block without consulting me if they feel it is no longer needed and that the concerns have been addressed. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:58, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I support this move. I didn't say anything earlier but although I strongly disagree with Pyxis Solitary's and probably Crossroads's views, IMO calling editors TERFs is a step too far into the personal attack line unless it's something they use to describe themselves. Perhaps saying someone hasis advocating anti transphobic views is justifiable in some cases, but there's no need to use terms like TERF. Note that I supported using the term in articles without attribution if the sources support it (which the community didn't agree with), so it's not like I have some hatred of the term. I haven't looked at the other stuff but IMO it's enough to justify an indef if OldPerson has given no indication they will stop. (As some may know, I'm a strong proponent of indef even for regulars when we require some behavioural change and the editor has shown a strong resistance to such a change, under the indef isn't infinite, or even potentially very long.) Nil Einne (talk) 09:45, 7 January 2020 I modified my post after the replies below due to a serious error. See below for further explanation. I also added a timestamp which wasn't present due to a signing error on my part. 05:56, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Nil Einne, I don't have TERF/anti-trans/transphobic views. These articles do however attract a few with very strong activist views, resulting in some attempts to skew articles into saying things in wikivoice that are not proper and to advocate one societal POV in order to promote social change, which really undermines Wikipedia's persuasiveness in the end anyway. WP:SOAPBOX, WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, WP:ADVOCACY and all that. Oldperson was like that. That is why I keep an eye on that article. You also stated, Perhaps saying someone has anti transphobic views is justifiable in some cases, but there's no need to use terms like TERF, but anti-trans and transphobic are pretty clearly worse than TERF. They obviously are personal attacks. -Crossroads- (talk) 15:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: "although I strongly disagree with Pyxis Solitary's and probably Crossroads's views". What a clever way to say you believe Oldperson's accusations.
Before you get knee deep into buying what an off the rails person says about another editor, you need to have followed the bouncing ball from Day One. And in this case, you clearly have not bothered to read the comments posted in talk pages by editors whose views you "probably" disagree with. The irony of Oldperson and others like him/her, is that while they rail against those they perceive to be "anti-trans", they refuse to look in the mirror and see how they can be regarded as "pro-activism". Enjoying the finger before wagging it. Whatever my personal opinions may be, whatever company I keep, whatever faith I follow -- and all the other many elements that make the person -- I edit any article I am interested in as long as there is RS to support my edits, and I don't care if I do or don't like what the RS has to say, if it's legitimate it goes in. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 01:59, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Unrelated to the grounds for the ANI

@Pyxis Solitary: My comments about you have nothing to do with what what Oldperson has said. Although I rarely edit the area, I've seen enough of what you've said and done here on wikipedia by myself to decide that I extremely strongly disagree with your views, in fact I find them offensive. (And I say this as someone who strongly questions whether gender really exists as anything other than a social construct.) I came to this conclusion long before I read anything Oldperson had said. And it was in fact precisely because I've read what you posted that I came to this conclusion. Frankly I didn't even know that Oldperson was active in the area. I've seen them editing somewhere before but it was something else (I think politics).

Incidentally, I question your claim that you always edit in support of the sources, again from what I've seen with my own eyes but won't discuss this further since I do not have diffs to support my claims. I'm not going to bother to look for them since I do not believe they rise to the level that justifies action against you.

As for Crossroads, my comment on them were much more to do with the fact that they seemed to be in solidarity with you than anything Oldperson had said. If I'm mistaken I apologise to them. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned Crossroads since I don't have good reasoning but I felt it would better make my point.

Normally it wouldn't matter and I would never bring it up, hence why I've never mentioned it in the months since I came to the conclusion. You are of course welcome to your views, just as I am welcome to mind, including that I find your views offensive. We are required to edit neutrally and in collegial fashion here on wikipedia no matter how strongly may disagree with the other person. The only reason I brought it up was to emphasise that support for the indef wasn't something just those opposed to Oldperson's views felt, but those who may in part agree with Oldperson. Oldperson seems to be displaying a 'persecution complex' so I felt it helpful to emphasise to them, you're in the serious wrong here. Who knows, maybe even some third party readers of these thread may feel this was just opponents getting their way with someone they disagree with.

@Crossroads: as I said in reply to Pyxis Solitary, I apologise if I am mistaken about your views. As for the rest, I stand by my claims I still stand by what I intended to say which as explained below, isn't what I actually said and I apologise for that. In some instances it's perfectly acceptable to say that someone is using wikipedia to advocate anti-semitic viewpoints or racist viewpoints or homophobic viewpoints or islamophobic viewpoints or whatever else, to be able to discuss the problem with appropriate diffs etc. Precisely whether it is appropriate in this instance I make no comment since I only very briefly glance at the evidence. But the point remains, that while those may be appropriate in some instances, I can't imagine there is ever any reason to call a fellow editor a TERF. Therefore the fact that the editor refuses to stop doing so, is from my POV, sufficient justification for an indef block.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I just realised I made a serious mistake in my original post and apologise. I meant to say it's acceptable to say someone is advocating anti-trans views in some cases, rather than it's acceptable to say someone has anti-trans views in some cases. I have corrected this and again apologise for any hurt or confusion caused by my original incorrect statement. Nil Einne (talk) 05:56, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I make no comment about this dispute more broadly (too high-conflict an area for me) but saying that you "can't imagine there is ever any reason" to call someone a label widely and ordinarily used for people who hold anti-trans views is deeply troubling to me. There may well often be reasons to hold back in the interests of not escalating conflict and I probably wouldn't do it on Wikipedia, but to suggest that someone be indefinitely blocked for doing is such an extreme view that you'd be politely asked to leave many real-world spaces for doing so. The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:12, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

"Although I rarely edit the area, I've seen enough of what you've said and done here on wikipedia by myself to decide that I extremely strongly disagree with your views, in fact I find them offensive."
I invite anyone, editor and reader, to search my editing history in these articles and their talk pages.
"I do not have diffs to support my claims. I'm not going to bother to look for them since I do not believe they rise to the level that justifies action against you."
You want to accuse without diffs to support your allegations? And whatever you claim I've said don't "rise to the level that justifies action against you"? You've made a libelous, derogatory statement about me and absolutely violated WP:PA. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 06:22, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

You've made a libelous statement about me

Might want to rephrase that statement, as it could be construed as a legal threat. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:11, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Grammatically, it's appropriate; but I changed it. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 00:15, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@The Hand That Feeds You: No. Calling something "libellous" is not a legal threat. Saying you will sue for libel very much is. FYI. ——SN54129 19:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

possible violation of editing restrictions

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

---

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I really wish I wasn't here and we didn't have to have this conversation, but it seems Rich is probably violating his community-imposed editing restrictions. I didn't go looking for this issue, I have a lot of U.S. geographic locations on my watchlist and Rich lit it up with these changes the last day or so. As logged at WP:RESTRICT#Placed by the Wikipedia community the restriction reads as follows:

Regardless of the editing method (i.e. manual, semi-automatic, or automatic; from any account), Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from making cosmetic changes to wikicode that have no effect on the rendered page (excepting those changes that are built-in to stock AWB or those that have demonstrable consensus or BAG approval). This includes but is not limited to: changing templates to template redirects, changing template redirects to templates (see here for AWB stock changes on this item, with the understanding that bypassing template redirects will only be done when there is a substantive edit being done), changing the spacing around headers and ordered lists (except to make an aberration consistent with the rest of the page), and changing the capitalization of templates. Furthermore, prior to orphaning/emptying and deleting categories or templates, the appropriate processes (WP:CFD/WP:TFD) should be engaged.

Here is a fairly representative sample of the hundreds and hundreds of edits Rich has made in the past few days, at impossibly fast speeds (about one edit every six seconds while active). By my read of the restriction, it completely forbids making cosmetic edits. Changing {{commonscat}} to {{Commons category}} is basically a textbook example of a useless cosmetic edit. It is also arguable that changing "residing" to "living" is basically cosmetic as it does not effect the readability of the text, residing being an easily understood word. In my opinion the last thing we need is another user going on a jihad against a word they don't like. We also don't need edits that don't improve articles. The above restriction is overly wordy, but is doesn't appear to me to give him cover making purely cosmetic edits if he adds a silly, pointless edit to the prose at the same time and calls it "cleanup" in the edit summary. The whole thing seems like an exercise contrived to more or less comply the exact wording of the restriction while violating the spirit of it. In short, I think overall Rich is a decent guy and an asset to the project, but these edits are not of real value and appropriate action should be taken to curtail this sort of activity. (I'm going to be extremely busy for the next few days so I'm basically leaving this here for the community to decide without me, if I'm totally wrong about this, so be it.) Beeblebrox (talk) 19:55, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes totally wrong, stock AWB changes are permitted. Pity you didn't talk to me first. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:58, 5 January 2020 (UTC).

I didn't talk to you first because I knew from previous experience that you would say something exactly like this. I'm not asking you, I'm asking the community. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:22, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

This is an administrator noticeboard, not a community noticeboard, there is rarely a need to bring something up here (or indeed any noticeboard) before discussing it with the other editor. It's not collegial for starters. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC).

• Sorry, but just glancing at contribs, I see 14 edits at 19:55 5 Jan 20 (one every 4 seconds or so) changing "residing" to "living". I don't think these are improvements; to me, this is more like adding a space and deleting it. I agree that "change one word across all articles" is almost never a good approach. These edits don't appear to violate the weirdly-specific wording of the prohibition quoted above, but nevertheless, I'm not in favor of these kinds of mass edits (changing "residing" to "living"). – Levivich 20:59, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I understand that you are not in favour of the substantive change, and that's fine, we can have a discussion about that - elsewhere. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC).

• Not just 14 - there are thousands of them (I counted around 9,000 in the last 24 hours alone). Very odd behaviour indeed. (Incidentally, {{commonscat}} -> {{Commons category}} is indeed an AWB builtin, so it doesn't violate the sanction). Black Kite (talk) 21:07, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) This does appear to be a violation of the sanctions, although I'm more concerned that Rich's recent edits (within the past 24 hours [34] [35] [36] [37] [38]) do nothing but inflate his edit count—just changing "residing" to "living" without making any other substantive changes to those pages does not improve the encyclopedia. That sort of tendentious editing is in itself disruptive, in that by looking at his recent contributions, he's doing this approximately 10 times per minute. Thus I think just nitpicking if Rich violated his restrictions or not de-emphasizes the real issue and ignores what is a symptom of a bigger problem. So if we're going to nitpick whether Rich violated his restrictions of not, then I don't see how Rich editing at monstrously fast speeds (flooding recent changes and watchlists whilst making no improvements to the encyclopedia) should be anything short of the main focus of this discussion.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:42, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• The editing restriction is about cosmetic changes to wiki markup. One may dispute the worth of changing "living" to "residing" as much as one wishes, but it is neither cosmetic nor wiki markup. Sorry, but this seems like somebody is looking what to complain about, and I'd dismiss this thread summarily. Debresser (talk) 21:31, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
  • (Non-administrator comment) But making bot-like edits of this sort is disruptive. We've had cases like this before where editors were making bot-like edits and that user was restricted to no more than four edits per minute. I don't think there needs to be a repeat of that of any sorts. I'm not too concerned with the editing restrictions myself whether he violated them or not, but his recent contributions clearly show that he's doing this at machine-like speed. It's the whole making changes without making changes at mass speed that's disruptive and a cause for concern. There's no improvement to these pages or any noticeable change to these pages just from changing "residing" to "living" amongst all the other tiny changes he's making at this kind of speed.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 21:57, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
    • As I mentioned above, other editors may view formal language as a good thing. And we can by all means have a discussion about whether or not it is. But there are fora for that that are not AN/I. Beeblebrox has claimed this is a violation of my editing restriction. It is not. Branching out into other areas which have not been discussed in a collegial way at a suitable venue is not helpful. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC).
      

It might be better to instead have a discussion about this via a WP:Request for comment. From the above discussion, it sounds as if there's no actual violation of a Wikipedia policy or of the editing restrictions; merely making small edits quickly and efficiently is not in and of itself a violation of the rules as far as I can tell. There does seem to be a dispute about the quality of the edits being made, but that seems to be a content or stylistic issue. Michepman (talk) 00:20, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Just got home, good to see some decent input here. As I mentioned in my initial statement here, there may not technically be a violation of this very bespoke restriction, even though the edits in question don't actually improve articles. What I didn't mention is that this restriction, and one other restriction regarding mass article creation, are the final artifacts of a years-long effort to get Rich to stop making these mass edits of dubious value without a prior consensus. This has already been the subject of an arbcom case, and Rich was desysoped and prohibited from using any sort of automated tools for a number of years. It is therefore more than safe to assume he was aware that deciding all on his own that a certain word was now verboten and just running some sort of process to remove it entirely from thousands of mainspace articles very well might be seen as disruptive. I feel like given his reaction so far it is important for all participants to understand that this is not as out-of-the-blue as he is acting like it is. Nobody should be able to decide all their own that a certain word is always wrong and make mass changes like this, and there's no possible way any thought is going into the individual edits,there are simply too many too fast. Rich is apparently quite upset that upset I didn't talk to him first, but given his past history and previous extreme WP:IDHT behavior around exactly this type of issue that simply didn't seem to be an effective way of dealing with it. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:04, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not happy with the narrative you are spinning here. You are the person who has refused to engage in a collegial manner, closing down discussion with me both here and on your talk page. It's clear, and should have been clear to you before you posted that this is not a violation. Therefore even mentioning that is an attempt to poison the well, as indeed is most of your post above.

As seems to be the consensus, we can have a discussion about the use of language in articles, by all means. When I attempted to engage you about this, you shut down the discussion.

I cannot help you unless you are prepared to engage in with me on what your substantive issue is. I am prepared to wait until you are less busy, in a few days, my talk page is always open.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 09:00, 6 January 2020 (UTC).

• We do not need an RfC to know that it is highly disruptive for an editor to decide to change thousands of articles from "residing" to "living" without prior discussion. I see a claim of "thousands" above—is it really that many? I assume there has been no prior discussion—is that correct? What about the fact that edits like this are marked minor? An edit that is cosmetic is prohibited, and it's hard to envisage what other kind of routine edit should be flagged as minor—changing a word is definitely not minor. Johnuniq (talk) 09:34, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

It seems absurd to be condemned for making a change both because it is not minor, and also because it is too minor. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:16, 6 January 2020 (UTC).

At a quick count, it is indeed between 8,000 and 9,000 American localities over the last few days, yes. Black Kite (talk) 18:19, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Note that the AWB change of replacing "commonscat" with "commons category", a rather pointless change already made on thousands of pages and probably scheduled for thousands more (commonscat is, after all these changes, still used on more than 100,000 pages, without causing any issues or problems), was added by Rich Farmbrough himself to the AWB page in September 2019 [39]. This is basically an editor deciding themselves which edits don't violate their editing restriction by putting it in the AWB list first, and then making the edits. Either remove the restriction or reverse his mostly unnecessary AWB list additions and prohibit him from editing that page as well. It should be trimmed back down to only list incorrect template redirects (typos or confusing, unclear names). "Before adding a rule here you must ensure that there is consensus in favour of the template renaming.", which doesn't seem to exist for most or all of the additions made by Rich Farmbrough on that page over the last year95% of these changes. Fram (talk) 11:16, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Of course you don't mention that this was removed by you along with almost everything else there. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC).

More than 2 1/2 years before you reinstated it. And I discussed my edits on the talk page, and most things I removed were approved by two others (with no objections), and the remainder was restored. Previous discussions (at e.g. ANI and AN) had shown that these unnecessary template replacements (from one very commonly used version, like "commonscat", to another) were seen as disruptive (flooding watchlists and page histories without an actual benefit) and had lead to blocks and other sanctions. Fram (talk) 14:36, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Wait – an editor who is subject to the above-quoted restriction is still able to add stuff to AWB?! That seems like gaming the system. I mean, the language is excepting those changes that are built-in to stock AWB, and that's totally defeated if someone subject to such a restriction is able to add built-in stock changes to AWB. – Levivich 15:36, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: It would seems that before we got here, pre-2019 Wikipedia bent over backwards to ensure sanctioned users were fully accommodated. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Remove AWB access? Seems like the path of least resistance forward. There's blatant gaming here, and if it's being managed through AWB, then this seems like a simple way to resolve it. Maybe some other wording about using tools to make (semi-)automated edits should be added. Just a thought. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Eh - quite apart from the thousands of pointless US location edits, I hadn't realised that RF had actually added that change to the built-ins. That's gaming the system. Agree - remove AWB. Enough is enough. Black Kite (talk) 18:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a reinstatement, as I pointed out. If you are prepared to put the work in to maintain the list, be my guest. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:28, 6 January 2020 (UTC).

• Support withdrawal of AWB, but it doesn’t go far enough, if that’s some sort of tacit permission by omission of mention of manual edits. I recall a well-known 2015 case involving rapid-fire edits, where in response to accusations of bot-assisted editing, the protagonist said this: I have not been using any automated processes or bots. I am simply a fast typist. I apologize again... [and] promise not to do so again. (full ANI discussion) The main issue in question in that case was very different than in this one; the one aspect where the two are similar is in the use of rapid-fire editing in pursuit of a questionable goal for which the user had already been warned or sanctioned before. In the earlier case, the user understood the issue, and apologized repeatedly. What’s striking to me in this case, is that I’m not seeing understanding or apology, but only hunkering down, pushback, and argumentation. If AWB is withdrawn, the same reasoning should apply to manual edits as well; perhaps limited to an "N edits per day" threshold, as was discussed in the earlier case. Mathglot (talk) 20:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• I do apologise for defending myself. Clearly I should have hung myself from the nearest lamppost, after posting a grovelling apology.
• To set some context, I rewrote the demographics paragraphs in the Rambot articles over the course of several months in 2006. I was aware at the time that there were remaining infelicties of phrasing and vocabulary. It seemed unexceptional to resolve one of them.
• We now have a situation where the denizens of AN/I are unhappy about not the putative reason for Beeblebrox's posting, but half a dozen other things, ranging from making changes that are too small, or too l§arge, to changes no one should have the right to make, to the fact that I don't roll over and die. I am happy to engage on all these matters, though it sèems to me that they are best addressed in appropriate fora.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:25, 7 January 2020 (UTC).

Rich, this sort of comment is why I came here instead of talking to you first. I don't see this at all as being about Beeblebrox -vs- Rich. I remember fondly when we met in person several years ago,and you seem like a genuinely nice guy, but you have a long-term pattern of making highly questionable mass edits like this, and editing restrictions and arbcom cases have been necessary to curtail them in the past, so just opening a thread on your talk page seemed highly unlikely to bring about a successful resolution. And as I've said all along, it may not (at this point I suppose we can say probably is not) technically be in violation of the elaborately worded editing restriction, but I believe these edits violate the spirit of these restrictions, as well as others you've managed to have rescinded, in that the point of all of them was to get you to stop doing exactly this sort of thing. And I think Blak Kite's observation above is particularly relevant, in that you gave yourself permission for an exemption to your own restrictions. Very clever, but not very smart, and certainly not helpful. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I was reviewing my talk page for March 2006, back when I was doing a lot on Wikipedia. At that point I was getting messages every day, some of them raising issues. They were pretty much all resolved in a very short timescale, either because I could explain why what I was doing was correct, or because I could quickly fix the issue.

We could have had a conversation about this which would have run, I imagine, something like this:

<Beeblebrox> Hey Rich, I think you are breaking your editing restriction here. It says ....

<Rich> Thank for letting me know, this is within the restriction because...

<Beeblebrox> Hmm. Well I'm still not happy because....

Then you would have said, I hope, what it is that you are unhappy about. And it's not clear from what you have written what that is. It really can't be all the things you have mentioned, it seems to me. Perhaps it is because your watch list got busy. Perhaps you have concerns about rapid editing. Perhaps you think changing "residing" to "living" is a really bad idea. I don't think it can really be a gestalt of all of these, and the, perhaps four or five, other things you have mentioned.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 09:30, 7 January 2020 (UTC).

But would you have replied or taken any notice, Rich Farmbrough? When I asked you on your talk-page about two edits that appeared to me cosmetic only (one of which I was quite wrong about, sorry!), you didn't even acknowledge. The other was this; what visible difference did that edit make to the displayed text of the article?

Anyway, support removal of AWB, and also a blanket restriction on making rapid-fire bot-like edits of any kind, by any means. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:51, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

A talk page stalker kindly replied 11 minutes later. I am sorry I didn't add a personal note confirming that they were correct, I will try to do better in future. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:10, 7 January 2020 (UTC).

• AWB access is controlled via Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage, right? Rich Farmbrough is not listed on that page. I don't understand why he's been editing Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects if he doesn't even have access to AWB. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:15, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Question for NinjaRobotPirate, I'm not going to get involved in this discussion, but your question stuck out for me and it's worth investigating. There is an AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) user right, which the subject of this ANI thread does not appear to have. However, the subject has a number of other user privileges. Is it possible that the subject can be using AWB to perform editing actions using those other user rights? Still, I'm not sure how he's getting past the editing throttle without AWB. A curious question indeed and one worthy of investigation. --Doug Mehus T·C 18:44, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

There isn't actually a user right for AWB. AWB checks to see if you're an admin or your username is listed on Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. If you're not authorized to use AWB, you could still run an unapproved bot, though. WP:BOTPOL is the applicable policy for that. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:21, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirate, Oh, interesting. I thought I had seen AutoWikiBrowser or AWB in the user rights' log, though. I could be remembering incorrectly, though. I wonder how he is able to get around the edit throttle then? If you don't have AWB, aren't you limited to a certain number of edits per minute or something? Do any of the other user rights bypass the throttle? I know you're busy, Primefac, but if you have time for a quick reply to shed some insight on how it works, it'd be helpful. --Doug Mehus T·C 19:29, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

You are correct, Rich does not have AWB access and even if he did AWB is essentially rate-limited just based on how the script works; bots making simple edits to small pages can sometimes get to 30 pages per minute, and maybe 40 if it's a slow editing day. However, that throttle is somewhat program-created; there are scripts that users can install that essentially allow bot-like editing by pre-loading a bunch of pages and/or "auto-clicking" a save button. I would guess (though this is pure speculation) that he has such a script running, but I do know that his monobok page has code that automatically changes some of the things mentioned in this discussion without him even having to think about it (pretty much the same as AWB's auto-fixes). Primefac (talk) 21:05, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Support removal of AWB access per above. I also agree with Justlettersandnumbers that Rich should be restricted from making rapid-fire bot-like edits of any kind (except when reverting vandalism). And seeing as Rich continued to defend his actions until there was support for the removal of AWB access, it wouldn't have mattered anyway if Beelebrox had brought this to Rich's talk page instead of here, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. That being said, Rich's comments have strengthened Beeblebrox's case —not worsened it— that starting this thread was absolutely necessary. I think Beeblebrox did the right thing by bringing this to the wider community instead of trying to deal with it himself, given what's been showing to be ongoing behavior. My suggestion to Rich is that he concentrates more on other areas of the project —like fighting vandalism, contributing content, fixing typos, etc— that way he can still make use of his time here without his past problems resurfacing. Rich can always have his AWB access reinstated if he's able to show that he's learned from the behavior that got it taken away to begin with—that is after he's focused on other areas of the project for so long.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 19:29, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
• Question for Rich Farmbrough – Though I commented above, I wanted to do a little more research before !voting on the #Formal proposal below. This is what I found looking more closely at RF's contribs:
  1. Round 1: 102 edits in 5 hours (Jan 2 15:03 – Jan 2 20:11) = 20 edits per hour = 1 edit every 3 minutes. [40]
  2. Round 2: 190 edits in 38 minutes (Jan 3 21:20 – Jan 3 21:58) = 5 edits per minute = 1 edit every 12 seconds [41]
  3. Round 3: 4,500 edits in 5 hours (Jan 4 21:51 [42] – Jan 5 02:54 [43]) (9 pages of contribs @ 500/page) = 900 edits per hour = 15 edits per minute = 1 edit every 4 seconds. Peaks at 20 edits/min or 1 edit every 3 seconds.
  4. Round 4: 3,750 edits in 8 hours (Jan 5 11:41 [44] – Jan 5 19:55 [45]) (7.5 pages of contribs @ 500/page) = 468.75 edits per hour = 7.8 edits per minute = 1 edit every 7.7 seconds
  • Each of these 8,500 or so edits changes "residing" to "living", plus a few minor corrections here and there. All of them have the edit summary "clean up". None of them have an WP:AWB tag, nor a WP:JWB link in the edit summary. @Rich Farmbrough: how did you make these edits? What tool or script did you use? – Levivich 19:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
• For the record as of the time of this writing Rich does not have AWB access, but his monobook does contain a lot of the same "genfixes" for template redirects. I won't bother pinging all those who have implied he's been using it, but I thought I would mention it since it seems to be of concern. Primefac (talk) 21:11, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Formal proposal

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

---

Based on how this discussion has progressed I propose the following:

Rich Farmbrough is not permitted to make any mass changes to articles, broadly construed, and regardless of editing method, cosmetic or not, without a demonstrable consensus from the community that he is explicitly permitted to do so. Further, he is entirely prohibited from using Auto Wiki Browser or directly making any edits to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects or any other page related to the governance and use of automated or semi-automated tools. Any such changes desired must be proposed on the appropriate talk page, and may only be enacted by other parties. This sanction does not replace or nullify other pre-existing sanctions on this user, and may be appealed no sooner than one year from the date it was approved by the community.

This should curtail this issue and eliminate the sort of gaming/end running that has apparently been going on with the previous overly-wordy, overly specific sanction. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:00, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Basically this is a ban from editing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC).

• (Non-administrator comment) Support per the reasoning I've already given here and here. Since it's gone the direction of a formal proposal, it's better to have all the ducks in a row and cover all the bases than for the reverse to happen—a repeat. Seeing as this proposal is just a formality to what's already been the outcome of this discussion, a formal proposal will have more teeth than anyone (whether they're going around looking for this issue or not) starting an infinite amount of ANI threads about this same exact issue—and I've noticed this happens all the time on AN/ANI these wiki days. I feel as if we as a community shouldn't have to keep discussing the same exact issue dozens of times before we finally decide to do something about it.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 05:38, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
• Why {{noping|Rich Farmbough}}? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 09:23, 8 January 2020 (UTC).
  

Because you were already informed of the discussion and are clearly following very closely. Personally, I don't like it when people keep pinging me in discusisons I'm already active in. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:47, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Well I am not following it closely, and I have probably been a little clumsy with my responses, because I don't have time to devote to these shenanigans during the week, but one ping when you stick the knife in and another when you twist it would seem appropriate? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:15, 8 January 2020 (UTC).

The martyr complex isn't doing you any favors Rich. The proposed language is meant to be copied to WP:RESTRICT if and when it gains consensus, so it should contain a link to your username. There was no reason to ping you and no nefarious reason for not doing so. Nobody is trying to murder you or drive you to hang yourself. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:42, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I just happened across this today, relating to an issue an open-source author had with Pay-pal. I think perhaps if you read it you will understand that that is pretty much how I feel.

Certainly there are people who would like nothing better than to end my wiki-life, if you had watched the wiki closely you would know that there has been significant real life risk too. But saying someone is sticking the knife in, is not meant to be understood in a literal way, which you must surely know.

You posted a screed here which accuses me of many things. Rather than addressing them, you spin out more accusations, that "I would respond like that" - am I not allowed to point out that your leading position is, on it's face wrong? that I have a "martyr complex", that I am guilty of IDHT, that I am going on a jihad. It doesn't matter how many accusations you add, they do not address the issue, moreover they make this discussion more poisonous, because people will assume that you are correct, and will ignore the mollifying constructs, like "basically decent" and net positive".

I still would like you to identify what the actual problem is - i.e. what made you unhappy, and approach me about that. It seems to have been a watchlist concern.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:45, 9 January 2020 (UTC).

• Support, though if we could line up the same ducks with rather fewer words that would be good :). What I am only just beginning to understand is that this is already a repeat, or rather just one in a long series of repeats; Rich Farmbrough has an extensive block history including a one-year site-ban, and almost all of those blocks are apparently for misuse of automated editing. It also appears that he's been using AWB without authorisation (no idea how that is possible, but we definitely need to make sure that it can't ever happen again), and editing the AWB documentation. This is the minimum remedy in the circumstances. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:25, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Justlettersandnumbers The one year block (not a site ban) was for correcting quotation marks in a draft article. You couldn't make this stuff up. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:49, 9 January 2020 (UTC).
    
• Oppose naturally. It's a shame that I can't ping the 379 people who left me thanks in 2019, mostly for clean-up work. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:15, 8 January 2020 (UTC).
  
• Support, although it may need to be tweaked or expanded to simply disallow all edits with the appearance of being script-made or -assisted. His edits are officially not done by AWB, but by presumably some personal copy / version of it, so disallowing the use of AWB won't make much of a difference. Basically, this looks way too much like a return to the habits that caused the initial discussions and sanctions. Looking at some of his latest edits, you get a series of 9 edits to PANTA, which make the usual minor improvements, including dubious ones like changing "Santa Clara, California, United States" to " Santa Clara, California, United States", adds links to disambiguation pages like HP and SGI, and leave the main problems with the page in place (like the claim that "PANTA Systems is the only data warehouse appliance vendor to validate their claims of high perform, high availability and low cost with an externally verified world record.", where they changed the bare url to a ref, but didn't notice that that ref actually contradicts the claim). Worse is what happened in the 4 edits to European Datawarehouse, which make again some minor improvements, but at the same time introduces unexplainable errors like changing "Dutch Securitisation Association" to "Dutch SecuritisationAssociation", "Instituto de Crédito Oficial" to "Instituto de CréditoOficial", "Moody's Group Cyprus Limited" to "Moody's Group CyprusLimited", and "Société Générale S.A." to "Société GénéraleS.A.". If, after four edits, you add about as much errors as you have removed, then you shouldn't have bothered making these edits in the first place. Fram (talk) 09:20, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Lets just look at the PANTA article, Apart from the fact the WP:NOT COMPULSORY, your reading of the reference is way off. It is obvious that the withdrawal was dated 2012, way after PANTA folded. That is the reason I didn't remove this as puff straight away. There is a huge document attached which I skimmed, and decided was not something I was going to read in detail. However because you are being your usual self, which I recall you have promised not to be, I spent 60 seconds with the archive to add a link to the page as it was nearer the time the reference was added, and another 60 seconds with Google to establish the basis of the claim, which, as far as a world record goes, seems valid. The sentence is still puff, and I'm sure that someone will fix that soon. They will not be able to do it if their time is taken up with oppositional Wikipedians.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:09, 9 January 2020 (UTC).

• Support - There is other work that this fine editor can do apart from constantly making these rapid-fire, and often pretty baffling, changes to articles. The changes could still be made to articles individually, but only in cases of clear consensus on the talk page.Eliteplus (talk) 19:46, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Eliteplus, in the present case a much better way to gain consensus would be with a discussion at WP:WikiProject Cities. Otherwise we would have to have 20,000 discussions. Also if you are ever baffled by one of my edits, my talk page and my email are available. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:45, 9 January 2020 (UTC).
    
• Support altho I find it frankly hilarious someone who is restricted from doing high speed mass edits (except those built in to AWB) precisely because their judgement about mass edits can't be trusted - is allowed to alter/add tasks to AWB on their own judgement. That's a huge oversight failure on the communities part in regards to who can change/use AWB and needs to be tightened up. This btw JLAN is why we can't have simple restrictions with Rich, he just has no intention of abiding by them unless every loophole is closed down. Almost everyone else would understand 'Don't make minor/trivial edits to masses of articles without gaining consensus first'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:34, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

You completely misunderstand what I am restricted from. Of course why would you understand it, the editing restriction is itself absurd, ancient, and enacted without a !vote. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:23, 11 January 2020 (UTC).

• Support (non-admin comment) – In June 2012, 13 arbitrators voted a 30-day block (9–3), based on the understanding that despite being indefinitely prohibited from doing so, Rich Farmbrough made automated edits in breach of the sanction on 31 May 2012 with the proviso (C iv) that If Rich Farmbrough breaches the automation prohibition again... he will likely be site-banned indefinitely with at least twelve months... before he may request the Committee reconsider. After two other blocks (November, January), RF was blocked for a year in March 2013 for AE of previous sanctions. And here we are again, for essentially the same thing. And the only thing under discussion is an AWB/rapid-fire edit restriction? Of course that should be supported, but it seems a minimum bar and very lenient given the history. No doubt there are countervailing positives I’m not aware of; several editors in the various Arb discussions mentioned RF’s considerable contributions to the encyclopedia, and perhaps that is a mitigating factor in stronger enforcement. Mathglot (talk) 20:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support - RFs statement above that this amounts to a ban from editing, unfortunately, makes this more necessary, because it appears that RF is saying that they can't be bothered to edit manually the way some of us do. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:35, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

There has been no effort to discuss this change, I spent 2 months in 2006 improving the wording of the US Census 2000 articles, which there was consensus for. There are still several badly phrased parts. Of course if you want to fix them all at one per day for the next 100 years, you could do that, of if you don't care you can just leave them. I seems that very few people give a damn about these articles.

And I certainly do a lot of manual edits, I am a person who can be bothered, and I can be bothered to work on many areas of Wikipedia.

The reason I say this amounts to an effective ban is that I was blocked for a year for manually fixing quotation marks in a draft to help a newbie. I believe the argument was that using search and replace constitutes automation. Phrases like "any mass changes to articles, broadly construed," would be subject to the same overreaching interpretation.

Hope that helps.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC).

You know, Rich, you’re a pretty effective advocate for your own cause, in your calm apparent voice of reason. But really, it’s just more pushback, minimizing, and IDHT, isn’t it?

RF: "I was blocked for a year for manually fixing quotation marks in a draft to help a newbie." Goodness, that does seem highly excessive, the way you phrase it!

What RF was actually blocked for, excerpted from ArbCom enforcement action

Excerpt from ArbCom enforcement action The restriction at issue was imposed on Rich Farmbrough – with his agreement – in lieu of a full site ban ([46]). He obtained the first, two-week block for violating a similar community restriction ([47]) in November 2013. He then violated the restriction in January 2013 and remained blocked for it until 19 March 2013, but proceeded to commit the next violation as soon as three days later, on 22 March. In addition, Rich Farmbrough continues to argue that the restriction should not apply because his edits are beneficial ([48]). In view of all this, I believe that he has no intention of complying with the restriction unless forced to do so, which we can only do by blocking him. Considering that not even a two-months block has deterred him from re-offending three days later, and that he was saved from an indefinite site ban only by agreeing to the restrictions he has now proceeded to violate, I conclude that the block should be of the maximum duration allowed by the decision's enforcement provision, i.e., one year.

Mathglot (talk) 19:38, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I argued no such thing. I argued that the restriction was a poor one since it prevented good things from happening.

Moreover I was blocked for EXACTLY what I said, and simply cut and pasting something someone else wrote here does not change that.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 04:02, 12 January 2020 (UTC).

Yeah, I've noticed this as well. Rich manages to sound very reasonable when excusing his unreasonable actions. This includes his current argument that I should've spoken to him on his talk page before bringing this here. That sounds very reasonable, and in many if not most cases I would agree, but I knew from previous experience that he would do just what he is doing here, making excuses and pretending not actually know what the problem is, and other delaying tactics, and it would not curtail the problematic editing. It's not worth going into the details but I've had other encounters with him where by the end it was clear he'd not been entirely honest, despite his actual language being painfully polite. To my mind this is actually more impolite that just being blunt and honest in your language. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:57, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

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

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

@Beeblebrox: Please be aware of WP:NPA. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 04:02, 12 January 2020 (UTC).

User:ThosLop

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

Another editor recently started a thread here about this problematic editor. That thread was archived without action to here. The crux of the issue is that the editor is adding fire department/district websites to the external links section of various articles. Examples; [49],[50]. More than a hundred of these edits have been reverted per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cities/US_Guideline#External_links, WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, and WP:LINKFARM. The editor has been warned about these edits starting in August of last year (see User_talk:ThosLop#August_2019). Despite multiple attempts at contact by several different editors on this editor's talk page, despite several warnings regarding the issue, despite the prior WP:AN/I thread, despite a final warning to his talk page here, this editor is continuing as before; [51]. To date, the editor has made 381 edits; all to mainspace. The editor has never once made a talk page edit. The editor is either unwilling to discuss the issue, or is completely oblivious to the hundreds of revert messages they have received and the many talk page notices that have appeared on their talk page. Regardless of why they are acting in this manner, their edits are disruptive and they are refusing to discuss the issue in any respect. I am asking for them to be blocked to prevent the continued disruption. The editor has been notified of this thread. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 01:20, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I've left a message on ThosLop's talk page. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:01, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@NinjaRobotPirate: They appear to either have ignored or not understood your message. [52] Yosemiter (talk) 21:43, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

At this point, this editor has been warned multiple times, including a final warning here, had a WP:AN/I thread started about them prior to this one located here which they failed to respond to, and were given effectively another final warning by NinjaRobotPirate here. To date, the editor has never edited a talk page, and has ignored every warning, every thread, every revert against their edits. They continue to add inappropriate external links. It's time to block. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:36, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I've indefinitely blocked ThosLop pending some kind of effort to communicate. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 05:13, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Now unblocked. ThosLop looks to understand the issues raised here, and I've pointed the editor our help forums. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:51, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'm quite hopeful based on the communication on his talk page. Thanks Ninja! --Hammersoft (talk) 20:07, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

User:SMcCandlish

There's a large disagreement going on at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography regarding the future of WP:JOBTITLES in which there's a lot of strong but respectful disagreement going on between a bunch of editors. My sole history with this topic is posting on the talk page a few days ago that I was unhappy with the status quo and interested in moving to change that but probably not immediately (for one, I'm currently working on the six million articles push before Wikipedia's anniversary in a few days) following a WP:RM discussion in my editing area of interest.

Several supporters of the status quo have engaged respectfully in that discussion, but SMcCandlish has been extremely aggressive and has repeatedly threatened that I'll be banned if I keep talking about having the section changed. I've noticed that he's previously been put under an interaction ban with another user back in May last year for similar behaviour on similar topics.

Examples of banning threats (amidst many other examples of unnecessarily aggressive talk page conduct):

• "To use an actual quotation, The Drover's Wife's "A fire always starts with a spark ..." screed is a clear demonstration that this is a WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:BATTLEGROUND matter for this person, who seems unaware that 'become an activist against guidelines I don't like' behavior routinely leads to topic bans"
• (in response to suggesting that people who wanted to avoid aggressive talk page attacks could contact me directly) And now canvassing to conspire offsite for long-term battlegrounding against a guideline you don't like? I'm sure we'll see that diff come up again later.
• Oh, please. I'm trying to prevent you eventually ending up topic-banned, by pointing out what you're doing that's likely to lead there eventually

My entire contribution to this topic, which I engaged with for the first time ever on 29 December, is visible on the current version of the above talk page and nothing I've done has possibly warranted these continued threats and aggression. Requests to stop have just been treated with more of the same. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Your accusation and canvassing invitation at this edit did strike me as extreme, and I'm not surprised that you got a strong reaction. I'd consider it more of a warning than a threat. Dicklyon (talk) 03:02, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

By that point, SMC had already made several, shall we say, highly-opinionated remarks in that thread. And it's hard to believe the sincerity of 'I'm trying to prevent you from getting topic banned' when it is preceded by 'I'm sure we'll see that diff again.' The level of hostility that SMC has for the OP would suggest that there is more history between these two than the OP let on. Lepricavark (talk) 03:14, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Lepricavark: I don't think it suggests there is any history. The main problem here is that SMcCandlish often creates a highly toxic environment in MOS-related discussions with walls of text, accusations, strawmen etc. Having occasionally seen his antics over many years when I occasionally involved myself in an MOS-related question, I'm amazed that he's managed to avoid being topic banned from the area. Number 57 16:10, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Number 57 has a partisan viewpoint in the discussion at issue and is not a neutral ANI respondent: "Personally I think MOS:JOBTITLES should be removed from the MOS ... per Coffeandcrumbs and TDW." [53]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:41, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I mean, that's just ridiculous. My comments here are nothing to do with the fact that I have !voted differently to you there and everything to do with your behaviour over many years. I would not make these comments about any of the other editors who having opposing views to me there – and indeed could not, as I have not seen any of them behave like you. Number 57 00:10, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

It's not at all ridiculous to point out that you're topically involved, and siding by name with one of the parties in the underlying content dispute (though mis-citing that editor's position; TDW did not propose removing the entire guideline section, and has even said below that they do not support such a notion). It's not an accusation of anything, it's just an observation that you're on one side of this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

If I've ever encountered him before on Wikipedia, I don't have any memory of it: I rarely edit outside of Australian topics so I'm not sure where we would have crossed paths. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:30, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• TDW is fomenting WP:DRAMA with hyperbolic ranting, blatantly canvassing for people to collude in e-mail to campaign against guideline line-items TDW doesn't like (a diff I predicted might be used as evidence against TDW, and so it has come to pass), casting aspersions that basically amount to a conspiracy theory about MoS and its editorial shepherds, denying reality (e.g. suggesting that this line-item or that has no consensus basis, when other editors have dug up an entire talk page section of MoS history for TDW, including multiple RfCs), urging that our guidelines be ignored without good reason (going back further than Dec. 29), and so on. I've warned the editor multiple times that taking this "give me my way on my stylistic pet peeves or I'll never cease fighting" WP:BATTLEGROUND attitude (which is a matter of interaction behavior, not about the content under dispute) is the sort of thing people eventually get T-banned for. My effort to curb this tendency and get more collegial behavior – a shift I fervently hoped to see happen in lieu of it continuing into topic-ban territory – has simply resulted in me being accused of engaging in "personal attacks" and making "threats". That's especially hypocritical; if TDW considers even a take-a-hint-and-calm-down allusion to ANI to be "threatening", and "inappropriate" behavior for an established editor, and various other "I'm a victim!" things TDW has been saying, then what is TDW doing here trying to abuse ANI to get rid of an opponent in a content dispute (which is going nowhere near where TDW wants it to go)? Let's nip this in the bud right now. Just the fact that TDW has been able to generate this much negativity in such a short time is a really bad sign. Our guidelines do not exist to serve as targets for Quixotic windmill tilting, much less for organizing a cavalry of meatpuppets to do the tilting. Make your case, let people have their say without turning it into a verbal combat, and accept the result.

  PS: TDW is blatantly falsifying the facts. I obviously never said anything about anyone being T-banned for "talking about having the section changed". No one in their right mind would suggest such a thing. Anyway, I can diff all this stuff this later, if anyone wants to keep this thread open and examine the behavior, but I'm about out of time for WP today. PPS: TDW seems to be kind of "thrashing". E.g., see this pointless revert. I merged the diff evidence thread for an ongoing thread above it into that above thread as a subsection, a completely normal and helpful refactor (inspired by the fact that people in that main thread kept asking for those diffs when they were already there on the page). TDW reverted with "Please don't move other people's comments without asking", which doesn't describe the refactor (I didn't touch anyone's comments in any way at all). And none of the material was TDW's, anyway. The editor is just lashing out in a petty manner and trying to pick a fight. I almost came to ANI when TDW posted the canvassing invitation, but decided to just warn and see if things got better. Now, out of fear of having their behavior examined at ANI, TDW is ensuring that exact outcome. It's rather strange.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:58, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  It's interesting how users were complaining about the inconsistency in capitalization of terms like 'President' (of the United States, not some garden club) and your first comment in the thread alluded to a really ridiculous subtext to this, that runs something like 'This marginally notable person has a job title of "Social Media Evangelist", and the grand total of three sources that mention this person, all of them newspapers that capitalize every job title at all occurrences... That's quite a leap. Also, while you and TDW are probably both a bit guilty of misrepresenting one another's words, it is true that you brought up topic bans at the end of your very first post in the thread. And since you were talking to a veteran editor who is presumably familiar with how we do sanctions around here, that really wasn't necessary. Given that you were two non-admins engaged in a sharp disagreement, it was unwise for one of you to warn the other. That's just a recipe for further escalation, which is exactly what happened. Lepricavark (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  Nah. Anyone who understands process can let another know how it usually goes and why. It's actually entirely customary to try to discuss a behavior problem with the problem editor, and to avoid a noticeboarding, including by letting the other know that step may eventually be taken. Notably, I didn't receive that courtesy from TDW, though TDW essentially engaged in the same so-called threat, by incorrectly accusing me of being subject to an ongoing AE sanction; there is no such sanction, but the obvious intent of the gesture was to imply that TDW would use this against me if I did not yield to the editor's wishes. Then TDW ran to ANI to file a completely bogus report anyway. Further hypocrisy, twice over. This reeks of the need for a WP:BOOMERANG sanction. Anyway, I did not feel "threatened" or otherwise offended, it was just an incorrect claim by TDW, and an attempt to silence an opposing voice (contrast my criticisms which were simply an attempt to get that voice to be civil and constructive). If I had in fact been subject to a sanction that I might be breaching, then it actually would have been sensible for TDW to have raised it to me and suggest that I might be headed for trouble. That is to say, Lepricavark is basically just making up an "only admins can warn anyone about anything" idea, out of nowhere.

  As for the content dispute, WT:MOSBIO has seen multiple low-volume but very similar complaints about MOS:JOBTITLES, all of them resolving to a desire to capitalize occupational, officeholder, honorary, and other titles at all or most occurrences. The commercial job title example I made up serves to illustrate the point that they're all the same excessive-capitalization preference, but without me tying it to anyone in particular's previous proposal in this regard.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  No, I merely think it's bad form for one experienced user to talk to another experienced user as if the latter is an uninformed newbie, especially if the two editors are engaged in a strong disagreement. How did you manage to arrive at 'only admins can warn anyone about anything' from 'two veterans non-admins engaged in a dispute should probably not warn one another'? Do you always make such egregious leaps of illogic, or does it just seem like a pattern because you have done it at least twice in this thread? In the future, perhaps you should not attempt to tell me what my words mean unless you intend to do a better job of being accurate. Also, the commercial job title illustration that you used was a blatant strawman and your attempt to justify it is unpersuasive. Lepricavark (talk) 14:55, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  See my diffs of TDW's behavior and arguments below. The editor frequently makes statements that indicate a poor understanding of processes, consensus formation, and policy-and-guideline matters. Of particular relevance is that TDW seems to have trouble understanding the difference between things like expired community I-bans and ongoing WP:AC/DS sanctions, how and why to do an ANI, the difference between objections to TDW's behavior toward other editors and in regard to how to pursue changes to guideline wording, versus objections to the content of TDW's change proposals. TDW is not an uninformed newbie, but clearly has understanding gaps (especially about things like sanctions), even after they've repeatedly been explained. There's no way to rectify that without addressing it directly, which is what I did. I disagree with your idea that non-admins shouldn't warn each other. Is there a policy or guideline on this you'd like to cite? Do you think admins who are in a dispute should warn each other? It's unclear what the logic is, honestly. Anyway, you're right that the commercial job title example wasn't very pertinent (if the discussion in question is taken as sharply delimited along public-office lines, and somehow completely unrelated to previous MOS:JOBTITLES threads). But it was an aside, and was not central to any argument I made in that post or elsewhere. I'm happy to retract it as questionably relevant. However, it's more interesting to swap in a local office-holder title, for example, which produces the same argument but is more tightly on-topic.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:41, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm just baffled at where this aggression is coming from, and most of this is attacks for things I've never argued. I'd like the guideline changed. I'd like to hear from other people who like the guideline changed but might be put off engaging on that particular talk page by aggressive behaviour like SMcCandlish's. I've never said anything that could be remotely interpreted as "give me my way on my stylistic pet peeves or I'll never cease fighting": I've just said that I'd like it changed, and suggested that, at some point in the future, I might start an RfC about it. I had no idea this was even an issue until the WP:RM popped up just before Christmas, and I've not nearly done the research I'd want to do before I put that out. One of my main hopes was to initiate some discussion and see where things stood, and it's generated helpful responses: for example, another user went through this morning and documented the whole process history of the creation of WP:JOBTITLES, which illustrated that at each stage it's been expanded with very low participation, which supports the prospect that a new RfC seeking much wider engagement might be able to provide helpful guidance as to where the broader Wikipedia community stands on the issue.

The WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality is SMcCandlish's and SMcCandlish's own - numerous people have spoken up in that discussion taking the same point of view of him and done it perfectly respectfully without any of the kind of aggression that has defined his behaviour. It's not a matter of a content dispute - it's a matter of knocking off the threats and aggression and SMcCandlish behaving like every other person who agrees with him on the talk page. Nor am I "trying to get rid of" an opponent - an agreement from SMcCandlish that he'll tone it down and look to say, his friend Eyer, for an example of how to behave towards people he disagrees with would do just fine.

The reply above illustrates some of these issues - the mere fact of my discussing the possibility of changing the guideline is described as "quixotic windmill tilting" and the possibility of engaging more people in an environment where decisions affecting between hundreds and hundreds of thousands of articles are repeatedly being made by between three and five people is described as "organizing a cavalry of meatpuppets to do the tilting". Looking for people who might be interested in collaborating on drafting up an RfC proposal (because I certainly don't have all the answers for what it should look like beyond thinking that the current language is not working) is not "canvassing", at least in any negative way. (I have zero interest in getting into individual-article-wars over this - an MOS warrior I am absolutely not.) If we do a wider community RfC and it goes a different way than I'd hoped, then that's totally fine, but five people is not a basis on which one might be convinced that the topic is resolved and should be dropped for all time. The Drover's Wife (talk) 04:49, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

While I don't agree with the way SMcCandlish approach, I have to agree with them and Dicklyon that it was a mistake to advocate discussing this privately. Collaboration on policies and guidelines, as with article content, should generally take place on-wiki. If an editor is causing problems with collaboration then ask from them to be blocked or topic-banned if it rises to that level, or ignore them if it doesn't. Even if you just plan to take the results of your collaboration to an RfC for feedback from the wider community and heck even if everyone involved declares their involvement, or doesn't take part in the RfC, there's still a strong risk it leaves everyone unhappy about the situation. Nil Einne (talk) 06:47, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I should've been more clear with that comment: I didn't mean off-wiki so much as "not on this talk page" (i.e. my talk page, etc.). There's certainly no reason RfC planning needs to take place off-wiki. As for the rest, that's why I've raised it here: SMcCandlish's behaviour is a huge problem for collaboration of any form in a direction he doesn't agree with taking place on the actual MOS pages themselves (which is why it came up in the first place), and a collective response from other users to cool it with the aggression would go a long way towards helping along a broad consensus outcome (whatever that may be). The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:28, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

That's a bit better. But still taking things which should be discussed on a page talk page to someone's user page is generally a bad idea. Especially if it's done with the intention of excluding some interested party. I'm not saying it should never be done, sometimes it can be helpful for editors to work on their own thing for a time perhaps with a few others. But that's mostly the case where several editors want to do their own thing separately and then come together and try and stitch together a result. As I said, if SMcCandlish is causing problems, the best is either to get them sanctioned to end it if it rises to the level or just ignore them when you feel what they are saying it not useful to building a consensus. I understand it can be frustrating and difficult, but for better or worse collaboration here means you sometimes have to work with people who's approach you find unhelpful and trying to exclude participants without the community agreeing generally results in poor outcomes and even worse ill-feeling. Nil Einne (talk) 07:29, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Having read through the entire original discussion, all I see is a robust and lengthy clarification by SMcCandish, which I found quite thoughtful and interesting. I saw no direct or implied threats by them towards anyone, especially The Drovers Wife. TDW was quite reasonable in what they said, but made the mistake of concluding that threats had been made by SMcC against them personally where none was made or intended, and I was also surprised by TDWs apparently unintended broad invitation to discuss matters with them off wiki. Its easy for frustration to come across as far more than that, but I see no case to answer here, except to say to TDW that being hasty to come to ANI is never helpful and was not appropriate here. Nick Moyes (talk) 10:28, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I can't say I've ever come across discussions this "robust" on Wikipedia in years: I've had plenty of disagreements, but I can't ever recall someone responding in such an aggressive tone in the very first instance. Is this par for the course on MOS topics? It certainly isn't anywhere I've edited. I'm also not sure how I'm supposed to take, in response to me making a first post on the talk page raising issues with a section of the MOS, a strong suggestion that continuing might lead to a topic ban - even in the most charitable interpretation, that relied on wild and unjustified assumptions about what I was there to do that had no basis in my post. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
    • More WP:IDHT and "I'm just baffled" and victim-posturing theatre. How many times does TDW need it explained to them that the content matter is immaterial? When TDW implies that those who disagree with their views are "grammatically" wrong and conspiratorial (while TDW is the one canvassing to collude), that is worthy of warnings that it's a bad idea. Has nothing to do with "what [TDW] was there to do". It's not about TDW's views, but TDW's behavior, which is the behavior that was actually aggressive. This is covered in more detail below.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
      • You're so caught up in your anger at having to discuss the subject you haven't even picked up what my views are: it is a matter of fact to say WP:JOBTITLES is being applied in ways that are basically ungrammatical, as can be seen by source uses demonstrating that some applications on a much-written-about topics are completely novel and not done outside of Wikipedia. I am not somehow suggesting that all applications of WP:JOBTITLES are ungrammatical. And now, you're going to accuse me of "backpedalling", because you've again assumed things that were way off and when I've explained my actual positition you're going to decide it's just changed from the one you'd imagined I'd had. The consistent allegations of "conspiracy" for planning an RfC that would change the wording from the status quo are getting old at this point. Your continued responses on that talk page were many, many times more aggressive than anyone else on your side, and yet for some reason you keep projecting these things onto me: none of your diffs actually show anything beyond plain old disagreement with the status quo, though I should obviously in hindsight, given your first response, have dropped any colloquialism and started writing in lawyer-prose to avoid intentionally being taken out of context.The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:47, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

        You are not a mind reader, and should stop projecting. I'm not angry at all, actually. I find all this a bit tiresome, but it is neither angering nor entertaining. I can discuss style matters all day, though; they don't bother me. Next, that's not what grammatical means, as has been explained to you repeatedly (IDHT again). I've conclusively demonstrated you're backpedalling, below. And you're not reading what's written; I didn't say your canvassing was a conspiracy (though it is collusive); I said you keep implying those who disagree with you are conspiring, and I've diffed the evidence of this. Ultimately this comes back down to my original summary of the issue: All this drama was caused because someone tried to misapply the guideline to an inappropriate case at RM; that proposition went nowhere, yet you flew off the handle anyway. MoS already has a safety valve in it: if the sources more or less uniformly apply a stylization to a particular topic that is at odds with what MoS would default to, we follow the sources. All this invective against the guideline, all this vitriol toward a nebulous set of "enemies" (2, 5, 3, you keep picking different numbers of them) you bend over backwards to imply are stupid without quite saying it, all the canvassing (at least twice), all the histrionics of claiming to be "aggressively" "attacked" when your behavior is criticized – it's all pointless, unnecessary drama. If people behaved like this every time someone tried to misapply a policy or guideline at RM, then WP could consist of nothing but yelling.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:34, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

        Repeatedly explaining that there is a huge gulf between the wild assumptions of bad faith you've made on my part from my very first post expressing discontent with the current wording of the guideline and what I've actually been doing is not "backpedalling", regardless of whether you've convinced yourself just as "conclusively" as you did in misreading my position in the first place when you went off at the mere notion of change. It isn't "invective against the guideline" to suggest that it's unclear in some situations and should be amended to provide clear guidance and miniimise the situations where people have to apply the "safety valve" you referred to. Threatening that people will be topic banned because of what you've frenetically imagined they might do in the future based on the mere fact they've disagreed with the current wording of the guideline is not "criticising behaviour", it's just being randomly threatening, and dismissing any request that you tone it down as "histronics" once again illustrates why the suggestion that I could have approached you on your talk page would have been unhelpful. And you're the only one who keeps bringing up "enemies" as a WP:BATTLEGROUND response to my attempting to discuss issues of process and raise the notion that more involvement in these kinds of wide-ranging discussions is a good thing (more feedback totally changed the outcome of the ongoing RfC, even wider feedback would provide more useful guidance whatever the ultimate outcome). The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:46, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

        This is getting too circular. The diffs below speak for themselves, as does your behavior in the bullet-points thread below it where you continue to escalate with false accusations of being attacked, and various other handwaving. If we filter what you've written above to remove the dodging and excuse-making and victim-posing, and just focus on your declared present intent, that sounds like progress and I'm satisfied with it. However, "raise the notion that more involvement in these kinds of wide-ranging discussions is a good thing" isn't something you've done; it's part of the community norm, and no one on any side of this has suggested anything contrary to it. So no, it's not a cloak of invisibility you can put on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:40, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

A detailed diff-xamination of the behavior of User:The Drover's Wife

There are no "attacks" (not by me, or by anyone else toward TDW, anyway). Just review the discussion (both WT:MOSBIO#RfC: First mention in the first sentence... (MOS:JOBTITLES), and WT:MOSBIO#WP:JOBTITLES. What you should notice pretty quickly is "Yes per SMcCandlish reasoning", "Yes. Per SMcCandlish", "SMcCandlish is doing such an obvious job of talking sense here that I feel no need to add anything", and so on. No one but TDW has anything to say about my alleged tone. Meanwhile, TDW is being farcically theatrical about about me, about the guideline, and (most importantly for ANI) anyone who disagrees, tarring them as conspiratorial (wait, who was it who was canvassing for an off-site group to pursue forcing MoS into "the right version"?) and ignorant of English grammar, among other things. Let's have a quick look:

In the MOS:JOBTITLES RfC opened in November 2019

"not supported by reliable sources either in practical usage (in any sense) or in authoritative style guide usage" [54] (Just not true, as has been shown in WP:RM after RM in specific cases, while previous MoS discussions on the generalities have cited said style guides in volume and detail. As noted below, a single case of one person not understanding the guideline who proposed a bad move which didn't succeed seems to be what set TDW off, on a tiresome slow-motion tirade against the guidelines and against editors who follow it or had anything to do with it.) From same post: "This is has gotten to the point where you've got two or three Wikipedians attempting to make Wikipedia use an entirely interpretation [sic] of English grammar as distinct from the entire rest of the language" (That's the same kind of "evidence I don't like doesn't exist" WP:IDHT act, combined with a WP:CABAL conspiracy theory; MoS is probably the most-watchlisted guideline on the system, and has had thousands of editors). From same post: "These changes are ungrammatical", and "interpretation of English grammar", earlier. (This has nothing to do with grammar at all, but with style conventions which vary by publisher. Mislabeling style matters as "grammar" issues (i.e., not choices to make but rules to obey or you'll be considered wrong and stupid) is the hallmark of uninformed language prescriptivism and the argument to ridicule fallacy. By contrast, "this are some example grammars error of". If you violate a language's grammar, you really are making an error. If you don't apply entirely optional capitalization the way TDW prefers, that's not an error, it's simply a decision.) From same post: "slipped in because a very small number of editors (I count three on this talk page) have changed a guideline on their own whim with outcomes that are increasingly ludicrous" (so, multiple concluded RfCs don't exist, it's really a three-person Cabal of Doom. And WP consensus is "increasingly ludicrous"; I guess all other editors singly and together are just idiots compared to TDW's godlike wisdom. NB: TDW didn't bother to actually look much into the history of the editing of that section and the discussions behind it (and after it); Coolcaesar did much later (here; DPW didn't see it until 6 January [55]): "On 10 September 2017, User:Great scott initiated a RfC on the capitalization issue .... User:SMcCandlish initiated a second RfC on 21 September 2017". Who opened the RfCs is irrelevant; they ran their course. As I've said twice there, anyone's free to open up yet another RfC, but the outcome is rather predictable. If reliable sources do not with near consistency capitalize something, then WP will not either. NB: There's a third RfC, opened 9 November 2019, still at the top of WT:MOSBIO page [56]. It was unanimously in one direction (though just today, almost a month late, TDW belatedly added opposition and someone else did shortly thereafter, when directly canvassed by TDW to do so [57]). From same post: "the Cambridge Australian English style guide says it should be capitalised" (Now we know where this is coming from. It's the same nationalistic "give me my accustomed style preferences, or else" posturing that led to the last topic ban from MoS. NB: The Cambridge style guide for Australia is just their British one with some Australian vocabulary thrown in. It's a learners' work, and not comparable to New Hart's Rules (a.k.a. Oxford Style Manual), one of the style guides on which MoS is actually based. But whatever. For every question in English usage, various style guides conflict with each other. It's why we look at so many of them in building MoS and refining it over time. The problem here is in deciding that this one is right, rather that just a data point. This exact "my source, or else" behavior – a form of WP:OR – was also implicated in the same previous MoS T-ban.) From same post: "What Wikipedia says is defined by definition by what is written [sic] in reliable sources and not the passionate if completely unique interpretation of English grammar of Wikipedia users Eyer and Coffeeandcrumbs." (The conspiracy theorizing and ad hominem slander just gets weirder: neither of those editors had anything to do with that guideline wording, and as usual the factual claims are simply fake. How Wikipedia styles what it writes is determined by consensus at MoS, among all editors who care to participate. WP does not write articles on, say, chemistry in the style of a chemistry journal and video game coverage in the style of a gamer magazine; it uses the same style throughout the encyclopedia. Our consensus on that style is based on mainstream, academic-leaning, high-reputation style guides, and our analyses of aggregate RS usage of English, via Google Ngrams, etc.) "Perhaps it might be time for an RfC to whack WP:JOBTITLES on the head once and for all if this keeps up: the take of this handful of users is so grammatically unusual that I highly doubt it'd survive full-blown scrutiny extending beyond the usual suspects on this page." [58] (Pure WP:BATTLEGROUNDing, conspiracy theorizing, and falsifying facts to cast aspersions at TDW's "enemies". And more nonconstructive "I wish there was an RfC so I could WP:WIN" posturing. So, just open a fourth RfC and get it over with. I'm confident in the outcome. Why isn't TDW, without first trying to eliminate his chief opposition with whom so many other editors vocally agree?) These are "discussions that impact hundreds if not thousands of articles." [59] ... "As a matter of process, considering this RfC proposes specific changes to specific articles, it would generally be Wikipedia practice to notify users on those particular talk pages that it is proposed to change them." [60] (Pure balderdash, and WP:GAMING. We would never in a million years notify "hundreds if not thousands" of article talk pages about some RfC. WP:FRS exists for a reason. So do WP:CENT and WP:VPPOL if people feel a particular issue rises to that level.)

All of that is from this thread Since that RfC didn't produce an answer TDW likes (and TDW seems to have missed it), the editor opened up another thread here. It isn't an RfC (and couldn't be one, per WP:RFC, because it's not even close to neutrally worded but is an advocacy piece):

In the ongoing, broader MOS:JOBTITLES thread

"applied in ways that are ungrammatical and contradict all usage in reliable sources" [61] (The same two falsehoods as usual.) From same post: "a couple of editors changing proper noun usages as if they were common nouns with religious fervour" (Thats it, denigrate other editors with argument to emotion and straw man fallacies.) From same post: "we've got editors claiming that Wikipedia should essentially rewrite the rules of English grammar" (A blatant fabrication, for the same ad hominem purpose.) From same post: As if we couldn't already tell this was just TDW's personal pet peeve, the editor concludes that the output of JOBTITLES "generally looks ridiculous". (Never mind all the other style guides, and modern, mainstream publications that do not capitalize public office and commercial job titles. They'r'e all just stupid and wrong!) Decides to double-down on this opinion-mongering and denigration of those who don't agree: "replacing fine prose with worse prose in the process" [62] (Everyone's just a terrible writer unless they write TDW's way.) Makes one of those comments worse: "essentially rewrite the rules of English grammar and decapitalise proper nouns" [63] (Adds in the linguistically confused claim that because some people capitalize office titles that they are "proper nouns". More on that below.) "every discussion on this page featuring this stuff seems to feature the same five or so people with strong opinions that are never grounded in any actual sources of any kind" [64] (More shamelessly false aspersions. This guideline is tested at least weekly, sometimes several times per day, at WP:RM and almost always depends on a source usage analysis.) In same post: "I'm not sure this ever had consensus in the first place." (It's thrice-RfCed, but it's not a consensus because TDW doesn't like it.) "The concept of office titles as proper nouns is completely lost on these people" [65] (Yet another "insult other editors to hide my argument being empty" ad hominem. There is no consensus in any sense that job and official titles are "proper nouns"; the sources don't say that, and editors in the aggregate don't agree with that because, of course, the sources don't say that. Reliable sources on English usage mostly say to capitalize these things when they are directly attached to a name. Some also suggest doing it when discussing the title/office itself as the subject, an idea that MoS adopted, mostly to forestall "give me capitals or else!" lobbying, apparently to no avail.) That same post [66] rails on and on about someone TDW is sure misinterpreted the guideline and someone else who didn't notice a prior RM. TDW is angry, at individuals, and is misdirecting it at a guideline and at people who understand and apply the guideline, and at people who don't take the TDW view on the question, and who try to warn TDW that venting angrily at everyone and accusing them of being stupid and a conspiracy isn't going to end well. "the whims of a small handful of Wikipedians shouldn't override actual reliable sources on correct grammar" (Same stuff: denigrate other editors, assert falsely that they have the sources wrong when we all know otherwise, and falsely claim it's a grammar matter, i.e. a right or wrong matter.) In the same post, TDW again tries to rely on Australian publications and is pushing an explicitly nationalistic angle. But WP:ENGVAR does not apply to things like when to capitalized office titles; Australian usage is as mixed as British and American and Canadian. ENGVAR applies to firmly fixed matters of national-level dialectal differences, like the colour/color split.) "There are a whole bunch of people frustrated about this who haven't seriously challenged it because of the hassle of going up against the hardcore RfC crowd" [67] (Except there seem to be maybe five such people, all of them much calmer about it than TDW. I have no idea what nefarious conspiracy "the hardcore RfC crowd" might be, but TDW seems unclear on how consensus is formed and how RfCs work. I've never heard of anyone being afraid to participate in them.) From same post: "A fire always starts with a spark, and traction only comes from people discussing the issue. This is the first step, not the only one." (This amounts to a WP:SOAPBOX and WP:BATTLEGROUND declaration. At first I wasn't entirely sure that's what it was, but TDW's call to come join him in an offsite mailing list to strategize about how to overturn MOS:JOBTITLES makes it very, very clear. TWD is an activist against WP guidelines the editor dislikes. This is a WP:NOTHERE activity, albeit in a confined space. While TWD is clearly "HERE" when it comes to creating article content, this person is obviously not competent in one very particular way and needs to exit MoS-related pages or be removed from them with a sanction. This same sort of rally-to-my-righteous-cause attitude was much of why we T-banned the last editor I recall being T-banned from MoS. The purpose of talk page discussions is not wikilobbyists getting "traction", activists lighting a "fire", generals leading an army though many "steps" on a march to victory; it's collegially coming to a consensus through compromise and reason, for the betterment of the encyclopedia for our readers, not for the satisfaction of one person's pet peeves.) "It patently lacks consensus as a starting point" [68] (TDW is convinced that any guideline the editor doesn't like "lacks consensus" if it wasn't established by an enormous RfC at VPPOL. But we all know 99% of our WP:P&G pages did not originate that way. This material was established by RfCs, and people follow it more and more, and it's upheld every other day in another RM, but that's just not good enough. If TDW can canvass a few people to show up, then obviously that means it's time for a war to get what TDW wants. In at least seven places in this couple of threads, TDW dwells and dwells on a supposedly too-low number of editors at any prior RfCs, yet in this post crows that recent arrivals – namely people whose RM arguments did notn prevail, a grand total of three or so TDW-agreeing people – means the guideline is wrong. Well, no.) In the same post, TDW claims that people editing in compliance with the guideline is the "disruption and destabilisation of articles being edited based on the personal opinions of individual editors" (As usual, TDW is going after editors not commenting on content. And following a guideline is not "based on ... personal opinions". As Mandruss put it: "[Editors] are merely implementing a guideline that has existed unchanged for 18 months. If that's 'disruption and destabilisation of articles', I'd like to know what guidelines are for. ... It makes no sense that a dozen or so editors should be able to block implementation of a guideline because they disagree with it." And it's not even that many.) Now TDW starts getting nasty. "Suggesting that users who disagree with you are going to get banned is comical behaviour and you know better." [69] (Of course, I did no such thing. What I actually said was that TDW "seems unaware that 'become an activist against guidelines I don't like' behavior routinely leads to topic bans. (Fortunately, most editors who arrive at MoS, AT, or other WP:P&G pages with this attitude are disabused of it before it gets to that level.)" And that's true, both as to typical long-term process outcomes, and the usual efficacy of drawing attention to those outcomes.) From the same post: "This is how a tiny handful of users who frequent MOS pages are used to acting:" (conspiracy theory again) "try to shut down discussion" (no one did that) "ludicrously aggressive personal attacks" (there were none, at all), "intimidate people into thinking moving to change the thing is too hard or pre-emptively moving an RfC too early." (no one did either of those things, though I think the second was meant to say "closing", and no one did that either). And you've just got the wrong mark if you think that's going to work here." (Pure battlegrounding.)

And there's more:

In another RfC on the same page, and some later posts also at that page

In another, unrelated RfC at the same page, about whether to use plain English "Justice Mary Gaudron" or the law-journal obscurantism "Gaudron J" (a no-brainer), TDW's take (10 December): "it's an (extremely common) convention for how to refer to a judge in writing. We write about topics based on what the sources use, not on the opinions of some random guy on the internet." (Another mass-besmirching of anyone who worked on MoS or who writes in compliance with it, supposing that MoS and we get ideas not from style guides and other sources but from Web forums. And it's yet another falsehood and another IDHT: TDW posted this long after other editors in the same short discussion had pointed out that this style is not general, common usage, but only used in law citations. And it's more activism against the guidelines and how they work; WP certainly does not write articles about legal topics in the way that legal sources like law journals would; that's the WP:Specialized-style fallacy, and would be against MOS:JARGON, WP:TECHNICAL, WP:NOT#JOURNAL.) The same thing came up again here, and TDW posted (19 December) a shorter version of the same "do it the lawyer way" idea, despite that getting no support before. (IDHT again; TDW was alone in an RfC otherwise unanimously against the idea, a 14 to 1 WP:SNOWBALL. This is someone who is not trying to build consensus and go along with it, but who is importing a "write my way, dammit" attitude from offsite and trying to apply it here, meanwhile accusing other editors of conspiracies to force others to write their way; it's pure projection. This is a WP:CIR problem and why I think a T-ban will eventually be necessary if the behavior doesn't change.) Given that I was calmly critical of TDW's !votes in both of these discussions (in nearly the same words, given that they're basically duplicate threads: [70], [71]), and posted those demurrers on 27 December, the same day that TDW suddenly got involved in MOS:JOBTITLES stuff, and increasingly combative about it, I think this is too "coincidental" to ignore. It looks like TDW doesn't like being contradicted or criticized (that's an "attack", you see), so has gone on the warpath, seeking revenge. I'm not sure what else would explain going to ANI because you're mad at someone for suggesting that ANI might be needed, and other strange antics. More pointless battlegrounding: After I observed that the RfC at the top of WT:MOSBIO was unanimous, TDW added a contrary !vote a month late and canvassed another, as noted above. The "rationale" for this seems to just have been to post a "stick it to you" message at me [72], since obviously it will not have an effect on an old RfC. The pseudo-!vote states "Many of these positions are never decapitalised in any form of usage, so it'd just be an attempt to use Wikipedia to push a position." So, not only reiteration of the same bogus claim, but a diffuse accusation that you're PoV-pusher if you don't do things TDW's way, if you follow the guideline when TDW doesn't like it. This is the same tiresome incivility by skirting the edge of the exact letter of WP:CIVIL, being snide toward all and sundry by waving a hand in a general direction than pointing a finger at an individual. Needs to stop. Returns to trying to rely on his preferred Australian pedagogical style guide [73], in the same post as going off on The Chicago Manual of Style, being clearly under the impression that MoS just does what it does (nope; it's one of many style guides consulted in building MoS, though it is one of the main five or so, only some of which are American). That was more "only my preferred sources matter" hypocrisy and cherry-picking. More of that here: "someone with a strong preference for CMOS has managed to get that into the MOS" (Yes, it's clearly the CMoS conspiracy!). In same post: "as it gets more aggressively rolled out in a global project" (If you don't agree with TDW you're "aggressive". And TDW is again trying to make an ENGVAR case for something that cannot possibly qualify for ENGVAR because of WP:COMMONALITY which supersedes it on all but the most ingrained features of a dialect of English.) The editor simply lacks the information and understanding (about language, English style, MoS and its history, WP:Consensus, etc.) to contribute usefully to these discussions, and cannot seem to resist being snide to opposition, combative against "the system", and finger-pointing at individuals who get in DPW's way. Then the canvassing/collusion post: "if you're yet another person who's frustrated with WP:JOBTITLES but you don't want to put yourself on the receiving end of the kinds of threats and personal attacks that are par for the course from its defenders here, feel free to contact me privately. This is something we'll be working on for a while." [74] Above, TDW is playing a CYA game, claiming this meant to take it to user talk, but that's not a plausible interpretation, since no discussions on-wiki are private. Aside from that, forming a WP:FACTION on-wiki with the explicit purpose of lobbying against a guideline is verboten; WP:MFD will delete such pages with prejudice, and has done so many times in the past, per WP:POLEMIC, WP:NOTHERE, WP:USERPAGE, WP:TPG, WP:NOT, etc. (For an MoS-pertinent example see here, and another here). When I objected to this, TDW exploded: "This is the second time you've directly threatened me for having a different opinion from you." [75] (Just plain false. If TDW cannot tell the difference between "a different opinion" and "violating WP policy", we have a really serious problem here.) Repeats the same hyperbolic nonsense: "direct threats when someone disagrees with you". From same post: "Changing things on Wikipedia often takes time, especially when you know there's existing small-but-determined opposition, which is obvious to anyone who's been on Wikipedia for more than five minutes." (Just doubling down. Not "Oops, I shouldn't canvass and conspire", but an stated plan to continue for a long time, because TDW things battle lines are drawn, and that doing this is normal. This is the main reason I think a T-ban is necessary; this could translate into years of disruption otherwise. From same post: "you're already under one discretionary sanction for your talk page interactions over the MOS." (Wow. Not only is this factually wrong – there is no such sanction – the obvious intent of this is to be threatening/intimidating. If anyone doubts that, notice that this ANI thread was opened not long afterward. Even after TDW was corrected about this "sanction" thing. Another competence problem: if you can't stop running to a noticeboard to file an unclean hands vexation ANI to get an upper-hand in a content dispute, even after you realize your "smoking gun" is gone, then you need to step away from the topic area, for a long time.) From same post: "I'm not going to reply to any more of your replies containing threats lest I get drawn into the mire. (Not just yet another false accusation of threats, but a supposed excuse to refuse to address the problematic behavior and to escalate, and TDW did just that in coming here.)

Note the complete lack of acknowledgement of any concerns raised about the editor's behavior, the generalized hostility to anyone who does not agree, the sanctimonious assumption of correctness and that anyone who disagrees is just plain wrong, strange conspiracy-theorizing and apparent inability to distinguish a guideline from people following it from people who worked on it back-when, and no efforts at dispute resolution before running off half-cocked to ANI, after complaining that even hinting at ANI is a "threat" and an "attack".

As far as I can determine from TDW's repetitive but rather unclear ranting, all of this pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric was generated simply because someone who did not understand the guideline attempted an RM that DPW and others (apparently correctly) opposed, because all of the sources for that particular case capitalized it. That's it. In TDW's mind this somehow transmogrified into a conspiracy of those "three people" (sometimes TDW says two, sometimes five), who had nothing to do with the guideline wording, and also a terrible guideline that must die no matter what. It's just a WP:CIR matter, if someone can't discern the difference between a) a guideline, b) people talking about and following the guideline now, c) people involved in the RfCs that formed the guideline quite a while ago, and d) one random person who apparently misunderstood the meaning of the guideline. I mean, gimme a break. All this drama, for that? I think I in particular have been targeted because I dared to stand up to TDW's blunderbuss assumptions of bad-faith and stupidity on the part of those TDW's disagrees with, was critical of TDW's actions, and keep getting "cited" in "per SMcCandlish" !votes in discussions that TDW desperately wants to WP:WIN.

That's enough for now; past my bed time!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:15, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Firstly, as per the Arbitration enforcement log, SMcCandlish was the subject of a discretionary sanction in May 2019 banning him from interacting with another user for six months over his talk page behaviour on this exact topic. I'm not sure why he's trying to deny this: these things are publicly logged for a reason.
• The RfC he refers to is ongoing and, as of this morning, had three !votes. That's not "not going the way TDW wanted", that's an RfC that desperately needs more input. This is, again, part of the problem: suggesting that it get more feedback (such as by advertising it on the talk pages of the specific high-traffic pages it proposed to amend) is treated like an outrage warranting escalation to even more aggressive behaviour because he sees three !votes as being a completely adequate response to an RfC and gets very angry at the prospect of someone seeing otherwise. My thread on that talk page was obviously not intended as an RfC but my own comments and a request for an informal discussion.
• I wasn't canvassing for "an offsite group to pursue forcing MoS into "the right version", I was conscious that it was likely some people who may have relevant views were being scared off by the aggressive responses I was getting from SMcCandlish for raising it, and suggested that people who might want to collaborate on an RfC could contact me elsewhere. As someone else said above, I absolutely could have phrased that better, but I've had no engagement with this topic outside of that talk page and one WP:RM and don't plan otherwise.
• I'm not sure what form of dispute resolution I could have pursued apart from this: I want the threats and aggression to stop so everyone can work towards a respectful resolution to this, and all I've asked for here is that they do because it's clear it won't stop unless the message comes from senior editors. I'm not asking for more than that.
• I said from my very first comment on that thread that I had issues with how it was being applied in practice and that it should be amended to make things clear. It would be a bit hard for me to think it was a "terrible guideline that must die no matter what" because clearly there needs to some guidance on capitalising offices, and I'm not an expert beyond recognising that some of the ways in which it is currently being applied contradict overwhelming source usage going well beyond the WP:RM that caught my interest. Because the response was so aggressive from the get-go and the very fact I'd raised an issue seemed to be met with rage, I think SMcCandlish entirely missed what I'm trying to do, and what the take of any RfC I move will be. I do think there's a desperate need for some much wider consultation on the finer points of this because, as the history with diffs someone did this morning of the history of that guideline shows, it's generally been instituted and expanded with extremely small amounts of participation.
• There's no assumptions of bad faith or stupidity, although there is, as noted above, some concern about the willingness of people to declare "consensus" from three to five people agreeing on an issue affecting vast amounts of articles. This is, however, largely a process issue as long as people are willing to engage, but it's very difficult to try and move something like that forward when someone is being extremely aggressive: it has the obvious tendency to polarise things. No one is disputing that there are several people who share SMcCandlish's views on the actual content dispute and agree with said views in discussions. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Having been formerly subject to a mutual temporary I-ban != "you're already under one discretionary sanction". Verb tenses matter. So does the distinction between WP:IBAN and WP:ACDS. That was just another attempt to backpedal, like claiming that the canvassing to private conversation for long-term strategizing on how to get what you want didn't mean e-mail and protracted tendentiousness.
  • Lots of RfCs do not garner more input than that. We're all volunteers here and cannot be forced to comment on matters that don't interest us. The RfCs close nonetheless and are taken as valid. If not that many care to comment, even via WP:FRS, then that's just how it is. Anyone is free to run another RfC if they think one is needed, and to neutrally "advertise" an RfC to other pages while it's still running, though the result in this case would be predictable (the proposal in that RfC was rather weird, calling for using a completely different capitalization style in the lead sentence, and I think everyone here knows that would never fly).
  • Nope. You're just backpeddalling more and more. It's fine to retract it, and it's good that you're effectively doing so with this. But you can't pretend you didn't write these things: "feel free to contact me privately. This is something we'll be working on for a while" [76] ... "A fire always starts with a spark, and traction only comes from people discussing the issue. This is the first step, not the only one." [77]. The only legit sentiment that can be good-faith distilled from that is that change happens through discussion. But that means on-wiki not "private" discussion, and it isn't "traction" in winning a dispute.
  • For starters, try raising your concerns on a talk page with that editor, without falsely accusing them of "threats" and "aggression", without implying three-editor (or is it two, or five? get your story straight) conspiracies to deny you your pet style, using snide language that implies everyone but you – from fellow editors to off-site style guides – are stupid and "grammatically" wrong, without pretending that sources don't use varying styles, etc. People are often boomerang sanctioned for filing a vexatious ANI grievance with unclean hands and without having made any direct resolution attempts with whomever they're targeting with the ANI.
  • There are no "threats" or "aggression" or "rage" towards you. It's weird to me that you'd use hyperbolic argument to emotion like this (after much of the evidence about you focuses on this bad habit) in the same breath as complaining that I exaggerated your displeasure with the guideline. However, you haven't identified a way to change the guideline other than to propose doing every title differently, by following a simple majority of whatever sources we happen to turn up at the time for that particular case. That would amount in practice to having no guideline, which is what I suggested your goal was. It's not how style is done (or can be done) on Wikipedia, or we would have no consistency at all, even within the same category. See WP:Common-style fallacy; this idea comes up all the time (especially in pop-culture topics). Finally on this bullet-point, the vast majority of our WP:P&G pages' material is instituted with low levels of involvement, and it's always been that way. When P&G material remains stable for long periods and is informed by RfCs and the like during formation and affirmed and refined in later ones – as is the case here – it presumptively has consensus (see WP:EDITCONSENSUS policy). If you want to propose something like "no substantive P&G changes without a 25-editor quorum" or something, you know where WP:VPPRO is.
  • The diff pile provided above conclusively demonstrates consistent (habitual? I don't know, not having diff-dived your editing elsewhere) assumptions by you of other editors' bad faith and stupidity. Every other post you made in these threads has a conspiracy theory or an everyone's-an-idiot-but-me insinuation in it (or both), sometimes more than one per post. That's what's "extremely aggressive"' and "has the obvious tendency to polarize things".
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
    • The interaction ban was obviously what I was referring to, even if I may have gotten the exact basis under which it occurred wrong. I'm not sure why you're accusing me of needing to imagine a second one.
    • That RfC was a call for specific amendments to many specific, high-traffic articles, and yet no one notified those talk pages that there was an RfC to amend them because the RfC's backers were convinced three or four was fine participation. There's no reason not to notify those people: more participation is good, and it undoubtedly gives the guidelines more moral authority when it's proposed to change them down the line. The disinterest in soliciting wider impact on wide-ranging changes is certainly a process issue - and the persistent allegations of "conspiracy theories" for raising it is yet another attempt to shut down people raising legitimate issues with personal attacks.
    • There's no backpedalling there: at no point have I shown interest in doing anything beyond working with some other users on an RfC, though I clearly should've been more aware of the prospect for my words to be deliberately taken out of context considering the comments you had already made at that time. For someone who's enthusiastically been accusing me of "conspiracy theories", I've no real history of editing outside my area of interest at all and didn't plan to start now even if you managed to convince yourself I was sekritly up to something besides working on an RfC.
    • Trying to raise concerns about the aggression of a user who escalates each and every time the subject is brought up doesn't work - here, just as in real-life. For that to work, there has to be the possibility that they're capable of de-escalating on their own without being told to do so by someone they'll listen to. A statement that I was disengaging from your most aggressive threads because I'd had enough was something that you tried to cite above as an escalation on my part (after again escalating your aggressive posts in response to that). I've got no enthusiasm to subject to myself to escalating rage any more than I absolutely have to.
    • You're absolutely right that we haven't identified a way to change the guideline. That's exactly why we don't have an RfC already, why I've been pushing for further discussion the entire time, and why I've looked for interested editors to work with me. I'm seeing cases in which WP:JOBTITLES is attempting to override overwhelming source usage and I'd like this to stop. I also completely agree that "following a simple majority of whatever sources we happen to turn up at the time for that particular case" is completely unworkable. And so, there's a need to fine-tune what we have around the edges so we've got clear guidance that doesn't wildly clash with real-world usage in some situations. I might be able to come up with an answer that gets us closer to that point given time and research - but so might someone else. And that is the kind of thing we could've gotten to if discussions weren't being derailed by the extreme aggression. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:47, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
      • Please stop melodramatically calling every disagreement with you an accusation, an attack, aggressive, rage, or anger. It's a very tiresome and transparent argument to emotion fallacy. And you keep doing it even after this is pointed out and after you've been asked to stop. I.e., you are playing the WP:IDHT game again, and intentionally escalating by being inflammatory.
      • No one said there's no reason not to more widely advertise an ongoing RfC. But we don't advertise expired RfCs (though we might re-open a recent one), and more to the point we don't canvass specific people to them.
      • I don't believe anyone's going to read what you wrote (which I quoted) without concluding that you're backpedalling, so I'm not interesting in circular argument with you about it. However, while you did suggest (in genuinely aggressive terms) an RfC at one point when it suited your uncivil rhetorical purpose ("time for an RfC to whack WP:JOBTITLES on the head once and for all .... the take of this handful of users ... the usual suspects on this page." [78]), when it came down to it you later appear to have opposed the RfC idea twice when others wanted to do it: "because of the hassle of going up against the hardcore RfC crowd" [79] (whatever that means), "An RfC is one way of people discussing the issue, but nowhere does it mandate it has to be the first step." [80]. You made circular, miring arguments that re-re-repeated a lot of venting, then ran to ANI to make false accusations of being personally attacked, instead of just dropping the stick and moving on, or opening an RfC, or at least getting out of the way of others who wanted to. (As I've said repeatedly, I think the proposed RfC is unnecessary and will have a predictable outcome, but that people should just do it if they want to rather than continue to argue about wanting to.)
      • "a user who escalates each and every time the subject is brought up" – That's one hell of an accusation, for which you've provided no evidence. Meanwhile, my diffs demonstrate that this actually describes your own behavior (which has actually continued right here in ANI!). So, more projection.
      • "You're absolutely right that we haven't identified a way to change the guideline." – I never said anything like that. I said you didn't propose something workable. You've just been a signal-to-noise-ratio problem in the discussions, pointing fingers at others (very repetitively), making false pronouncements about grammar and sourcing (ditto), mistaking one editor's misunderstanding at RM (which had no effect beyond unanimous opposition) as a cause for battlegrounding against a guideline and everyone who follows it properly, and getting in the way of other editors who already have a clear idea what they want to have an RfC about. Utterly nonconstructive and anti-collaborative. You're wasting other editors' time just to grandstand. Same with this ANI report. WP doesn't need "interested editors to work with [you]" on doing more of any of that. Next, it's not possible for an inanimate guideline to be "attempting to override" anything; individual editors might do that, and you should raise the issue with them. The whole reason for all this drama around you is your failure to understand the difference between "Editor X tried to mis-apply a guideline" and "The guideline is broken, must not have consensus, and is really a 2/3/5-editor plot, I can't make up my mind". We are not missing "clear guidance that doesn't wildly clash with real-world usage in some situations". If source usage is overwhelmingly in favor of a variance from what MoS prescribes in some particular case, then we apply that variance, already; there is no hole for you to patch. The guideline needs some clarity work, as the re-opened RfC on a narrow point about the lead sentence indicates, but that's a discussion you've already !voted in. I hope this is the final round of this waste of time and energy. I fear you're going to recycle the same fallacies and changing of your story, and I'm going to keep pointing out it's fallacious while diffing evidence of what you really did and said. Cf. the first law of holes.
         — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
        • There is no drama around me whatsoever outside of your aggression. There is a discussion I started, which everyone else is engaging with fine and has already moved things forward in a number of ways. The crux of this seems to be that you have an intense disdain for people generally discussing what they perceive as issues with the guideline at all outside of an instant RfC that you could fight against: you repeatedly refer to discussion as "battlegrounding", you repeatedly declare taking the same interpretation as overwhelming real-world usage as "making false pronouncements" and you've just said that it's "getting in the way" of users with a different opinion. I understand that you don't want me or anyone else to work together (or talk about potential ways of working together) about changing the guideline, but that's an attitude issue for you to work out rather than an issue anyone else on either side needs to take into account. If you don't want to engage in discussions about guidelines in which people are expressing views you might not agree with, don't do it and take your (to use your turn of phrase) WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality elsewhere - there are a bunch of people who strongly agree with you on the content issue who are more than capable of doing that in a constructive and respectful fashion and seeing if we might perhaps move things forward. It can absolutely be the final round of this argument in that case - and in the meanwhile, everyone else will work on finding some common ground, or, failing that, coming up with a proposal that can draw as wide consensus as possible. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:24, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

          Just more IDHT, circularity, and misdirectional handwaving. This doesn't warrant any further response.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:22, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Where's the Rfc-in-question that has currently 'low' participation? GoodDay (talk) 16:49, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Probably Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#RfC: First mention in the first sentence... (MOS:JOBTITLES). It started in November, but has has very little participation until recently. Nil Einne (talk) 17:04, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Just commented there moments earlier, guessing that might've been it. That Rfc's tag expired about a month ago (mid-December), thus removing it notice to a larger community. It should've been closed & reviewed, IMHO. GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Formal closure's not really necessary when the result is unanimous, and WP:ANRFC has a big backlog (especially around the holidays), so no one bothered requesting one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

It's just been re-listed, so no probs. GoodDay (talk) 20:32, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah. While it's true that a formal closure isn't always needed, I think it's fair to say that trying to change a large number of articles based on an RfC with only 3 participants is likely to result in significant pushback. Whatever the reason for the former low participation, at least, again for whatever reason, it's getting a lot of attention now so hopefully a well accepted consensus will develop. Nil Einne (talk) 07:21, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Sure. More input is always better. It's a bit strange that it's taken 18 months for this to come up, and the RfC attracted nearly no attention for two months, but whatever. The community will work it out one way or another.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:12, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Am I the only one to find it funny that for all this talk of The Drover's Wife receiving a topic ban, it was, I think, impossible for them to receive a MOS/article titles discretionary sanctions topic ban until this ANI? I had a quick look at the logs, and don't see any sign they have received or given an alert. And from their comments here, I'm doubtful they were involved in any cases. Technically I'm not sure if they meet the awareness requirement even now since this is neither arbitration requests or arbitration enforcement but still since they are talking about it, it's perhaps a stretch to suggest they are not aware, partly why I didn't give them an alert. (That said, I also wouldn't bring a case against The Drover's Wife based on this ANI as an indication of awareness.) Might it have been better to simply give an alert rather than all that talk about how their behaviour may lead to a topic ban? Nil Einne (talk) 16:53, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  "Awareness" requirements apply to WP:AC/DS and WP:AE actions involving DS; not WP:ANI matters. Community decisions and sanctions are not bound by such bureaucracy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:44, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  Sure but um WTF does that have to do with anything? I never suggested that they were as it's completely irrelevant to my point. No one has seriously suggested TDW be topic banned in this thread. There was intensive talk of them being topic banned elsewhere. This would almost definitely have been in the form of a discretionary sanctions topic ban, something which TDW, may very well never not be aware of, since quite a lot of regular editors don't know much about the discretionary sanctions as evidenced by their unnecessary concern or argument when they receive an alert. But that would have never happened since rather than giving them the necessary alert, you thought it helpful to tell them how so many people are topic banned etc for that. Even though these nearly always come in the form of discretionary sanctions topic ban and you never actually bothered to give them the mandatory alert, something which as I already said, is not only necessary but may actually be useful as something they as a regular, may have been unaware of. Unlike all the other nonsense you sprouted. Nil Einne (talk) 06:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

  As a further follow up, from my experience as a regular at ANI, probably 80% or more of the time when someone comes here with something which is covered by the discretionary sanctions process and tries to ask for a topic ban and the proposed recipient isn't illegible eligible for the discretionary sanctions process because no one alerted them, the result is effectively 'WTF didn't someone give them an alert earlier? Oh well never mind we've given them one now. If they keep at it, take it to AE' and it's done. The discretionary sanctions process isn't perfect by any means, but for all its flawed it's often easier and more drama free than ANI.

  So while technically anyone is still eligible for community sanctions in an area covered by discretionary sanctions, it's rare and mostly happens when admins were reluctant to sanction someone or when they are unable to decide on an outcome, perhaps because it's too complex or unclear if it's covered, or well 'politics' i.e. because of the popularity of the participant; and whatever the case the community wanted more. Sometimes it's also use for a more 'bespoke' sanction than is likely from the discretionary sanctions process. It's not generally used when the only issue is that someone thought it better to sprout at length about how an editor is going to receive a topic ban, but then never gave them the mandatory alert.

  The MOS discretionary sanctions doesn't seem to be a good example, since despite your claims, topic bans from it seem rare. (Although for the record, I counted 1 topic ban which is I think active but irrelevant since the editor is indeffed arising from the DS process, and none from the community.) By comparison if we compare Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log for American Politics 2 or Palestine-Israel articles, or Eastern Europe, Indian and Pakistan or GamerGate, or heck even BLP or Fringe Science, to similar topic bans shown here Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community, well the difference is obvious.

  So I stick by comment. It's silly to make such a big deal about topics bans to a regular, if said regular has never actually received an alert and heck may genuinely be unaware of discretionary sanctions in the area, or even how it normally works, and the alert would hopefully greatly help them understand both matters, far more than your comments, and it's an area right smack in the middle of something covered by the ds process.

  Nil Einne (talk) 07:07, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

  Correct a typo illegible above, thanks to User:Nick Moyes for alerting me! Nil Einne (talk) 08:12, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

  I'm glad you didn't change "sprout at length". Narky Blert (talk) 16:39, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

  There's a "Jack and the Beanstalk" joke in there somewhere.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:32, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

  I recommend concentrating on the Tendril perversion angle. EEng 00:24, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

  Whew, I thought that was going to be a redirect to something about "tentacle porn".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

  You may be thinking of Octopussy. EEng 23:53, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Nil Einne: I don't understand your "WTF does that have to do with anything?" response. You asked a policy question about notice requirements, and I answered it (correctly). If TDW has already been subject to "intensive talk of them being topic banned elsewhere" then this editor's behavior probably needs a more in-depth examination than just what they're doing in one series of threads and one bogus ANI report. I certainly agree that AE and AC/DS would be more expedient, but the user will need to first receive a {{Ds/alert|mos}} (and similar, with a different DS code, if TDW's previous potential topic-ban is in another DS topic area) at User talk:The Drover's Wife. But since I'm the other party in a dispute with that editor, and we already know that any notice, warning, or criticism of any kind will be wrongly spun by this editor as "threats" and "aggression", I don't think I'm the most appropriate editor to leave such a template at that talk page. Nudge, nudge.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:32, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

  To be absolutely clear, the only person who has ever suggested that I could be topic-banned from anything is SMcCandlish and from an area that my entire contribution to has consisted of !voting in one WP:RM and making comments on one talk page over the space of a week or so regarding possible changes to a guideline that he disagrees with. @Nil Einne:, can you clarify that comment? I'm assuming it's unintended and you were just referring to SMcCandlish's posts but it's a pretty extreme and unfounded personal attack if it was. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:30, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

• For those of us in a hurry, could Levivich wrote a limerick or haiku summarizing the thread so far? EEng 23:53, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  Having seen the screed,
  administrators agreed:
  "Too long, did not read."

  – Levivich 00:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

  Burma shave. EEng 02:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

  CLOSE THE THREAD

  AFTER 10k

  NO ONE

  READS IT

  ANYWAY

  Burma-Shave

  – Levivich 05:01, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Spectacular. Guy (help!) 11:48, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, you're absolutely brilliant. EEng 08:04, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

indeed, and you chose the right sign. His wit is razor sharp!! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:44, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive threats

Wikieditor19920 (talk · contribs)

The editor has made four false accusations of stalking and threats to bring me to ANI in an apparent attempt to stop my contributions. They also keep posting to my TP despite my demands that they stop posting there. As they haven’t brought this to ANI, I am bringing it here in an effort to stop the threats.

Diffs:

• 20:06 5 January 2020 http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Objective3000&diff=934297853&oldid=934286280
• 00:38 7 January 2020 http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Talk:Murder_of_Tessa_Majors&diff=934521970&oldid=934519572
• 02:26 7 January 2020 http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Wikieditor19920&diff=934537158&oldid=934532207 (In edit summary)
• 02:57 7 January 2020 http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Objective3000&diff=934541580&oldid=934300033

They have also accused another editor of stalking and threatened them with ANI in the same period.

• 00:16 7 January 2020 http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=User_talk:SharabSalam&diff=934519200&oldid=934501701

The editor also threatened admin action against me last July and then complained on El C’s UTP. This is the threat and the result:

• http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User_talk:Objective3000#Tag_removal_at_Antifa_(United_States)
• http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/User_talk:El_C/generic_sub-page13#Continued_removal_of_cleanup_tags_at_Antifa_(United_States)

I am not asking for any sanction. I would just ask that the editor be informed that attempts to intimidate editors with opposing views is not proper. O3000 (talk) 14:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

This fits the definition of WP:HARASSMENT

Harassment is a pattern of repeated offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to intentionally target a specific person or persons. Usually (but not always), the purpose is to make the target feel threatened or intimidated, and the outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine, frighten, or discourage them from editing.

Wikieditor19920 should be warned to desist or face a block for so clearly violating this policy. - MrX 🖋 14:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

It looks like Bishonen warned Wikieditor19920 about similar behavior just a few days ago. Perhaps the warning didn't stick. - MrX 🖋 17:56, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Clearly not a threat per WP:HARASS#Threats: Statements of intent to properly use normal Wikipedia processes, such as dispute resolution, are not threats. If you feel threatened by it, perhaps tell them that? Oh wait, you told him to never post on your talkpage after his first post there ever. --Pudeo (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

That's not a very helpful comment. Was it intended to be? An editor is making repeated, unfulfilled threats to a single user in the context of basic content disputes. Whether that meets the wikilegal threshold for harassment, or whether it's just annoying and disruptive, I think it's behavior that is not WP:CIVIL and it's certainly not something I would want to be subjected to. - MrX 🖋 16:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh wait, you told him to never post on your talkpage after his first post there ever. No, that was not their first post there. You will find it in my list of diffs. But you are correct that I demanded they stop posting on my UTP -- after which they posted twice more with threats and accusations. O3000 (talk) 17:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

MrX You have absolutely no basis to jump to any conclusion here. This is a frivolous and abusive report by Objective3000. I was ready to let this drop, but now I'll provide some context. O3000 and I were both involved at Talk:Ilhan Omar for about a week. We both strongly disagreed with each other about a content proposal on that page. Fine. Then, all of a sudden, O3000 suddenly appears at a discussion I had been actively involved in at Talk:Murder of Tessa Majors, a rather obscure page, to disagree and argue with me. This is an obvious case where it seems likely my contributions were followed, and I think any editor's antennae would be raised if someone they disagreed with at "Page A" suddenly appeared to aggressively disagree with them at obscure "Page B" where they had no prior involvement. I [him] on his talk page how he ended up there and whether he was stalking my edits. He [with a belligerent non-answer and told me "never to post on his talk page again]. I gave him notice that if the behavior continued, meaning if he were to suddenly appear at more pages I was at to contest my edits, I would file an ANI report for stalking. 03000 then proceeded to cause trouble at Murder of Tessa Majors by [subtle changes] to implement a proposal still under discussion, which he was arguing for and which has little support, without mentioning it in his edit summary. (The proposal was an article move. Most editors opposed. He proceeded to change the bolded intro to reflect the name of the proposed move, which makes little sense.) Me and another editor raised a concern about this on the talk page and he was reverted. At this point I gave him another warning on the article talk page. He then proceeded to post on my talk page with a phony "polite" message about "personal attacks and threats" (I've made no personal attacks against him) after demanding that I "never again" post on his. I posted a response talk page,] giving him my last warning about the disruptive editing and. I got the "never talk to me again" note from O3000.

There is strong evidence he followed me to another page after disagreeing with me on another, made disruptive edits at that page, and clearly won't let it drop. As I indicated in each of my warnings to 03000, I would only file a report if he either a) appeared to stalk me to another page or b) continued to disruptively edit the article mainpage at Murder of Tessa Majors. And let me say that I would have filed a report had he done either of those things. If he didn't, then, as I told him, there would be no problem. Now, for those warnings, he is reporting me. My guess is that 03000 is not asking for a sanction because he knows he's in the wrong. If an editor gives another good reason to believe they are stalking them and goes out of their way to make trouble, it's perfectly appropriate to post a warning about stalking. I really have absolutely no interest in a protracted dispute w/ 03000, and I really regard this report as abusive/bullying. It is within any editors right to respond to perceived stalking with a warning, especially if that apparent stalking is accompanied by disruptive editing. (I realize I've assumed that 03000 is a "he." Apologies if this is incorrect, treat it as a gender neutral "he" if not.) Wikieditor19920 (talk) 18:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Firstly, the editor has accused three editors of stalking that I know of, the two above and nableezy: [81] and [82]. As to why I would edit such an “obscure article”, perhaps I heard about it because I have lived in the same borough in the same city as the victim for decades and it's in all the local papers. Seriously, the editor should stop assuming those with whom he disagrees are stalking them. As for the rest of the above, it's about content and not behavior -- although it contains a lot of false claims. As for why I brought this to ANI; that should be obvious. It was the only way to stop him from continually threatening to bring it to ANI. Look, all I asked is that the editor be informed that this behavior is not acceptable. O3000 (talk) 19:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

First, it's totally inappropriate for you to bring up unrelated interactions with editors from months ago, with no context, and put these forward as if they stand as evidence of me doing something wrong. Second, this story has been in the paper for weeks, but why is it that you suddenly show an interest at precisely the same time that you and I began interacting? Can you really claim that you did not view my contributions and find the page that way, or that you had no idea your behavior would give the impression of WP:STALK?

Second, if you're going to accuse me of "false claims," then be specific, because nothing I've asserted is false. You knew very well that the change you made to the article I noted above was the subject of an ongoing RfC. It was another editor who pointed that out on the talk page. It's perfectly within my right to give you notice of this behavior. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 19:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I've made my statement and have no interest in defending myself from your constant accusations. Please take Bishonen's warning to heart. You are exhibiting WP:BATTLEFIELD behavior and have been for months. O3000 (talk) 19:34, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I've provided a summary of our interactions from my perspective, in response to the report that you filed. If you're going to say I've made a "false accusation" about you, then you should point out what it is. I would happily correct any mistake, but I've supported my summary with diffs and I don't believe I've made one. If you hadn't appeared to follow me to another page, which I politely asked you about first, and behaved disruptively there, as another editor noted, we wouldn't have had an issue in the first place. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 20:27, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Would you stop? I did not stalk you. SharabSalam did not stalk you. Nableezy did not stalk you. And you made a threat on my TP previous to this incident (in the diffs). And please realize that not agreeing with you is not being disruptive. Read Bishonen's warning. O3000 (talk) 20:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Don't make declarations about what did or didn't transpire in unrelated interactions that had nothing to do with you. When an editor suddenly appears at other pages you've been editing to disagree following a disagreement at another page, that's a clear red flag anyone would address. You dismissed my justified suspicion about WP:STALK with no acknowledgement of how your behavior might've lead to that conclusion, and mere disagreement is clearly not what I'm talking about. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 21:17, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Just want to observe that the hyper-aggressiveness and hyper-personalization on display here are sadly characteristic of WE19920. --JBL (talk) 22:41, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Bishonen's expression of concern in the DS notice seems clear. I'm for imposing some sort of sanction on that, but will not act unilaterally. The question is whether this user is a net positive in post 1932 US politics, or whether they're too het up about it to edit collaboratively. I think they're to overheated, but then I don't know everything.-- Deepfriedokra 02:19, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

  Warning that conduct could lead to a notice board discussion is not a threat. However, there seems to be an inability to discuss matter collaboratively, there seems a lack of WP:AGF, and there seems a problem with accusations.-- Deepfriedokra 02:25, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

  User makes accusations about others, but does not wish there own conduct discussed? Really?-- Deepfriedokra 02:26, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

  Bishonen thinks saying "what a dishonest post" is a personal attack? Meh. --Pudeo (talk) 07:08, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• I didn't get notified about this discussion. I didn't receive O3000 ping. I simply went to O3000 talk page and found his reply. It is very important to clerify this because I will be accused of following Wikieditor's contributions!. I have been editing in these controversial murder, shooting cases. And just to make people aware, this case is very controversial because the teenager who is accused is African American and the girl who was killed is European American. And I don't think I should say that America is full of racism. Wikieditor19992 acts like if there is no person was aware of this article subject before him. So I found about the article, didn't even notice that Wikieditor19998 was there. I just noticed the tag at the article which says that there is a discussion to move the article. I clicked discuss and went to the end of the talk page. I said move per WP:BLPCRIME. After a while I got a message from Wikieditor19992 saying that I am following him because of Ilhan Omar dispute. And that is absolutely not true. Repeatedly assuming bad faith is considered personal attack and harassment per WP:AGF. I have seen this editor making the same accusation about Nableezy before.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 08:12, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Look, this is silly. I never threatened 03000 nor did anything to "stop his contributions." I did assume good faith with 03000 by politely asking whether he'd followed my edits. Besides the issues I raised above, which I believe are justified, I do not have a problem editing alongside 03000. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 08:26, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

"I did assume good faith with 03000 by politely asking whether he'd followed my edits." I see. If it's this edit that you describe as a good-faith-assuming polite ask, it seems you have little sense for how your sarcasm comes across. Either that, or you're hoping people here have no sense for it. Yes, I did warn Wikieditor19920 in December about insulting people. Now I have warned them more strongly (mentioning the possibility of blocks) about pervasive hostility and snarliness, and told them they'll be blocked unless they dial it down. Also, that they'll be blocked if they post on Objective3000's page again. Feel free to let me know if anybody should see them disregarding this warning. Bishonen | talk 13:35, 8 January 2020 (UTC).

@Bishonen: One of the complainants here has told another editor in an American politics related MfD: [83] How about you and your whole busybody crew fuck right off!! Back when that happened, it was mentioned at AE etc. and nothing was thought of it. Now you are warning Wikieditor19992 for far, far less. It seems that there are two sets of standards at play. Different rules are applied for different editors depending on whether they follow the house POV. --Pudeo (talk) 14:20, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Busybodygate is soooo over. What you saw in May 2018, was the culmination of three editors following my edits on several articles, trying to annoy me by changing my talk page posts, and then finally, following me to my unlinked user subpage page to harass me by demanding that it be deleted. For your information, one of those editors is banned; one has been sanctioned in Arbcom cases; and one has been topic banned from American Politics. That speaks loudly to what precipitated my rare outburst far more than some silly conspiracy theory about a house POV. - MrX 🖋 14:44, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Pudeo, I don’t think going back to a comment in a May 2018 MfD about a user subpage that was a draft of a complex, successful ARCA filing is useful. It would take a five page essay to explain. And it certainly isn’t an indicator of some WikiWide bias. O3000 (talk) 14:53, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Although they already received a warning for the what a dishonest post mentioned above, I'd point out that this user has been extremely upfront about their low opinion of the editors they're in disputes with on Talk:Ilhan_Omar. Individually these wouldn't be a big deal, but they have been WP:BLUDGEONing the discussion with comments like these for weeks now despite being warned:

• [84] This is, yet again, another false insinuation that the criticism of her remarks was a minority or limited view. ... That would be an obvious BLP violation which neither I nor anyone here would agree to, so I understand why it makes a convenient strawman
• [85] Our concern is a balanced representation of the sources, not shielding the subject from controversy.
• [86] Don't be ridiculous. I said she reaffirmed her criticism regarding AIPAC.
• [87] There is simply too much reliable source material spread out over too many months for a reasonable editor to argue that the ant-semitic trope allegations is not a prominent and controversial part of her public profile.
• [88] There is a disturbing and consistent trend among exclude votes that I hope any admin reviewing this discussion will take note of. ... It is a terrible shame that this discussion has become so tainted with expressions of opinion about her remarks, about the subject herself, and with overwrought comparisons to other politicians that have little relevance here.
• [89] Further, I don't appreciate some of the tactics being used by editors opposing the content.
• [90] However, the kind of speculating and theorizing that you and SharabSalam are engaging in is exactly the type of behavior that is unproductive and forbidden from article talk pages. Note that both editors they're addressing are experienced and obviously know the policy.
• [91] SharabSalam, this is not a forum for you to discuss your personal views. You are expressing opinions that suggest an inability to edit neutrally
• [92] This is all pure opinion, by an editor, which should not and cannot taint this article.

There's also a lot more from before they were warned beyond the one line they were warned for (eg. [93], You already stepped over the line by sneakily trying to get the content out a few months back -- now you're rewording it in a way that is not true to what's reported), but I figured I should stop there. Editors shouldn't have to deal with this sort of thing. If Wikieditor19920 really thinks there are conduct issues on that page, they know where WP:AE and this page are and how to raise such concerns properly. --Aquillion (talk) 22:07, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment: I am coming late to the discussion, and I am not reading all of the above. Just want to add my two cents. User:Wikieditor19920 makes valid points. And proceeds in a civil manner. Other editors are the problem, here. I don't mention names (though they are probably obvious} ... cuz I don't have the time / energy / interest to get sucked into his drama and his "victim" attitude. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:29, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

This is a retaliatory post. [94] O3000 (talk) 19:36, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, right ... like I need to "retaliate". Gimme a break. From my perspective, you are the problem ... not User:Wikieditor19920. As I said, he makes valid points ... and proceeds in a civil manner. In my opinion, you do not. This is my final word on the matter, here ... as I said ... I don't have the time / energy / interest to get sucked into anyone's drama and anyone's "victim" mentality. Thanks! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:48, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Joseph A. Spadaro, this post is not about the merits of the arguments at Talk:Ilhan Omar, and it's rather absurd for you to show up here and lecture others about civility. Please assume good faith and abstain from calling other editors "problems". --WMSR (talk) 05:10, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@WMSR: This page and this thread are about disruptive editing on Wikipedia articles. I am fully entitled to offer my two cents on the matter, which I did. Why am I not allowed to do so, boss? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:31, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Let's see, what is the term Awilley coined...uhm, I believe it's grow thicker skin. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 03:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose it would save a lot of space to change the fourth pillar of Wikipedia to "grow thicker skin". O3000 (talk) 13:23, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I think they sell a cream for that. SPECIFICO talk 17:12, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

WMSR—you say "Joseph A. Spadaro, this post is not about the merits of the arguments at Talk:Ilhan Omar". I don't understand that. Joseph A. Spadaro did not even mention the Ilhan Omar article. Bus stop (talk) 15:52, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Hunan201p (talk · contribs) personal attacks and preventing me to edit.

Hunan201p (talk · contribs) avoiding to use the talk and says I am doing "blatant censorship" although the older version is wrong and misleading, I explained it on Ashina tribe's talk page.

1. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Ashina_tribe&diff=prev&oldid=934641402 "Removed Beshogur's POV penmanship"
2. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Ashina_tribe&diff=prev&oldid=934641237 "Restoring blatant censorship of longstanding and reviewed content by Beshogur. You are not allowed to re-write articles to fit your POV. Doing so may already have guaranteed that you will be blocked.", long standing does not mean it is always correct.

I have put my time and rewritten the article, and explained in talk section what I changed. Hunan201p says I am not allowed to edit. That is censorship. Here, Talk:Ashina_tribe#Beshogur's_opinions, Hunan201p is removing sourced content by giving his own opinion without any source, saying that those sources are not correct. here is the rewritten version of Ashina tribe, can administrators check if I did any mis thing? All are well sourced, and I checked all sources at origin section here, which they are valid but the text is completely misleading. Beshogur (talk) 17:55, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

This is the fourth time in 1 week that Beshogur has abused the noticeboard after someone reverted his independent re-write of an entire article. Is that something that is going to be taken in to consideration this time? Hunan201p (talk) 18:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I am abusing nothing. What is wrong of my rewrite, can you please explain? I am not going to wait for other users to wait their rewrite. And you can not prevent me by doing it. Are you an admin? If you have problems do it on talk page of Ashina tribe. The revert you did contains misleading informations as I have explained, this, what you did are violating the rules by putting non real info. Also to show admins what he did, four times

1. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Ashina_tribe&diff=prev&oldid=932878319 "Undid revision 932818291 by Beshogur (talk) Reverted falsified edit by Beshogur, left bluelink and explanation at talk page. Please post your references at the talk page with detailed explanations in the future, will be reporting you to an admin if you pull this again"
2. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Ashina_tribe&diff=prev&oldid=932955130 "Undid revision 932884442 by Beshogur (talk) You have done it again! I left a bluelinked reference to your most recent falsified attempt to label Ashina as Turkic, using a reference that does not explicitly state such. Because you continue to use non-bluelinked references that don't support your claims, I will be reporting you. Strongly advise leaving this page alone and discussing on the talk page."
3. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Ashina_tribe&diff=prev&oldid=934263011 "Undid revision 934238782 by Beshogur (talk) Undid revision by Beshogur, did not find new source material to replace disputed references"
4. http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Ashina_tribe&diff=prev&oldid=934269858 "Undid revision 934266674 by Beshogur (talk)"

although he did not revert it this time. I want to show what he was doing. Now doing the same with me rewrite of the article. Beshogur (talk) 18:21, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Beshogur, you seem to be confused. Wikipedia is not a race, and you're not competing against it. This article as it stands has multiple well-referenced academic citations arguing a similar viewpoint, which you are, by your own admission, in a race against time to censor. This should be enough to warrant a block from your editing Ashina tribe and Gokturks. Hunan201p (talk) 18:54, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Can you answer? Have you checked the sources itself. The text written is misleading and sorely wrong. Seems like you did not read them. I have controlled them one by one. Plus I did not remove them on the rewrited version, I corrected them. Beshogur (talk) 18:59, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Not only did you not correct them, it is not your duty to do that in sweeping unilateral edits. The references were reviewed by multiple users, including Wario-Man, and all supported the original statements, which you originally deleted (along with the references themselves). This is the fourth time you have abused the Administrator's noticeboard with frivolous content disputes. I vote for a block. Hunan201p (talk) 19:07, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I have no more words. You confess that you did not check them saying others did. You still do not understand, nothing is wrong with the references, the text written is misleading and wrong, I did not remove them. Some texts were written two times as well. How many times am I going to say that? I have put all of them before, did you even read them one time? Beshogur (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not seeing a solid consensus for or against Beshogur's edits on the talk page. Beshogur, please stop reintroducing content against opposition; one day passing without editors responding to a talk page discussion is not a green light for you to reintroduce contested content. Give the talk page discussion more time; there's several other editors who may weigh in even if Hunan201p refuses to (although I would encourage Hunan201p to engage on the talk page as well). If more than a week has passed without progress on the talk page, take it to the dispute resolution noticeboard or convene an RfC. Don't start a new ANI discussion until these steps have been taken. Hunan201p, please try to be a bit more civil on the talk page and in edit summaries. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:29, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

So nothing said about his former 4 edits I listed above which were clearly

POV pushing? The main problem is this user's behavior in general. Also thanks, I will take it to resolution noticeboard. Beshogur (talk) 20:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

The only thing that is clear about the above diffs is that you and Hunan201p have a disagreement about the article's content. The correct way to resolve this is to get other editors to share their opinions and work toward a consensus on the talk page. It would be incredibly premature to impose sanctions for POV pushing at this time, since there doesn't seem to be a strong consensus for either of your positions, nor evidence that this is a behavioral pattern persisting across multiple articles. However, both of you are pretty close to getting slapped with sanctions for edit warring. Since it seems extremely unlikely that you two will be able to convince each other directly, I would suggest stating your proposed content changes briefly and clearly on the talk page, and then going to work on something else while you wait for additional editors to comment. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:53, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: I've been looking at Hunan201p (talk · contribs)'s editing history and talk page, and he seems to have a history of making contentious bold edits. Often he deletes information that is in his opinion "not well-sourced", before reaching a consensus with other users. He also seems to have an agenda of editing articles in order to favor Indo-European/Iranian origins for something, instead of Turkic or Mongolic. I would hope that Hunan201p (talk · contribs) adds tags like or before he wholesale deletes entire sentences and paragraphs for having "unreliable sources". I would agree that Hunan201p (talk · contribs)'s editing history is problematic. Instead of deleting, it would be more helpful and less contentious to add more tags, like , , or before deleting info. --Leppaberry-123 (talk) 20:30, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm curious how you figured I was biased, when in fact if you look at Wikipedia pages that I've edited, there appears to be a persistent "East Asian" bias, in spite the fact that in most cases, these edits are original research based on extremely low quality references and minimize or ignore comoeting hypotheses, which often have better references. The policy adopted via multiple consensus has been to delete controversial information where it appears with low quality references.-Hunan201p (talk) 11:01, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: You be amazed that Hunan201p is engaged in like over 10 edit warring in just 2 weeks. He always deletes information and replaces with his bias manipulated edit, in the edit summary he would try to convince people by saying "not well-sourced", "not reliable", he is in edit war with piratically everyone. One only needs to look at his history. I'm using only few examples here. Non-sop edit warring he is properly going to do this for years. Either a troll or have clear strong agenda.

[95]

In Ashina tribe page, edit war for 2 weeks with user Beshogur |Leppaberry-123 [96]

In Mal'ta–Buret culture-123 page, edit war for 1-2 week with user [User:Leppaberry-123 [97]

In Y-DNA haplogroups in populations of the Caucasus edit war for 1-2 weeks with User:Calthinus [98]

In Ancient North Eurasian edit war with Krakkos, Chris Capocci, Bathtub Barracuda for 1-2 weeks [99] DerekHistorian (talk) 12:30, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Those links do demonstrate an editing style that is more confrontational than it needs to be, but I'm not sure I see anything that's clearly sanctionable, particularly given that editors involved in those disputes do not appear to have attempted to resolve the discussion on those articles' talk pages. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:57, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: In regards to the Mal'ta–Buret' culture article, Hunan201p has persistently kept making bold edits by deleting information that has been present on the articles for years. I have told Hunan201p for him to first use the talk page to form consensus before making bold/contentious edits, which is in accordance to Wikipedia policy/guidelines.

When reminded of this, he cites (WP:SCIRS) to justify his recurring behavior of making contentious/bold edits before coming to consensus on an article's talk page. Despite the fact that (WP:SCIRS) explicitly states:

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

There are many instances where other users did reach out to Hunan201p in talk pages, such as here: Talk:Haplogroup_NO, but in spite of this Hunan201p still went ahead and stealthily reverted back to his edits several months later, see: Haplogroup NO: Revision history

With Hunan201p himself admitting that in his view Wikipedia has "a persistent 'East Asian' bias" that he needs to correct, it's hard to see his editing behavior as acting in good faith.

--Leppaberry-123 (talk) 21:55, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok yeah, on review there are issues here. While there are times when it is acceptable for editors to be stern and "lay down the law", in the absence of a clear talk page discussion or a clear violation of a guideline or policy an edit summary like this is not ok and comes off as bullying. This edit also appears to be a clear attempt to reinstate an edit despite having tried and failed to get a consensus for it on the talk page.

I honestly don't know enough about the subject matter to have an opinion about the relative merits of the edits that Hunan201p is making. Because of this, and the general lack of talk page discussion on the pages where this has been happening, I would feel uncomfortable implementing sanctions unilaterally. If this behavior continues, however, a TBAN from race-related articles may be necessary, given the clear WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS attitude. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 07:43, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Long term block evasion from Baltimore

Duane E. Tressler (talk · contribs) has evaded a block by Drmies for years. Latest IP is 169.156.4.36 (talk · contribs), and I'm having no luck getting a block this afternoon. I'm also asking that the library be contacted, if that's within admins' purview. Thank you, 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 21:01, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

IP CD63, is that why you are mass-deleting content? tedder (talk) 21:08, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Tedder: CD63 knows what they're doing; please do as they request. Thank you. ——SN54129 21:14, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Serial Number 54129. Mr. Tressler is one of the most determined block evaders I've come across. Absolutely prolific at adding unsourced geography and lore, not to mention a fountain of personal commentary. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 22:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

And years after Drmies explained we don't do it here, adds birth and death dates to every person mentioned in every article. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 22:08, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

For a good sense of the full scope, read Timeline of Baltimore and check its edit history. A monument to unsourced lore and original research. I don't know where to even start to bring that to an acceptable state. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 22:14, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• tedder, yes, those edits probably look very drastic; look at my edits today and you'll see some similar ones. Duane could be a force for good but is not. They edit often from the public libraries and you'd think they'd have a wealth of sources for the local topics they edit, but really nothing that they do is sources. For every interesting and relevant factoid they add, there's a dozen edits with irrelevant and verbose detail, unnecessary dates and wikilinks, and long digressions. One of the IPs we looked at today, they'd been using that since at least 2014. I did in fact contact a librarian for the library system (just to give them a heads-up, in case patrons were complaining they couldn't edit Wikipedia), but of course those librarians can hardly be expected (legally, morally, and practically) to police their patrons' workstations so I don't really know what else we can do. I placed a rangeblock, and before I did so I looked at over a thousand edits: all Duane's. They are certainly prolific. Drmies (talk) 00:03, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks CD63 and Drmies. That gives the context I was missing. tedder (talk) 00:05, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

See our conversation about this from early December [100]. And this sentence [101]. It merits some kind of recognition. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 02:35, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I happened to read the edits and I actually shouted at my screen "That's WRONG!" at a few of them. (I may or may not have some knowledge of Baltimore FYI). RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:59, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Persistent addition of unreferenced content by unresponsive User:Gca.345

Gca.345 has received five warnings over the course of the last month for adding unreferenced information or failing to change references when updating information: 18 December, 26 December, 4 January, later 4 January, 04:45, 8 January. The user has only responded to the second warning on 26 December, asserting that the material came from a reliable source but missing the point about actually citing it.

There are dozens of such edits; here are some recent examples:

1. 04:09, 8 January at Cayman Islands
2. 04:07, 8 January at George Town, Cayman Islands
3. 11:34, 6 January at George Town, Cayman Islands
4. 05:15, 6 January at Share taxi
5. 07:30, 4 January at England
6. 00:58, 4 January at Demographics of the Cayman Islands
7. 02:50, 31 December at Bodden Town (village)
8. 05:38, 30 December at Cayman Islands
9. 05:17, 30 December at Demographics of the Cayman Islands

Despite the warnings and continued attempts at communication, the user continues to add unreferenced demographics information (18:22, 8 January). Can someone assist here? These are good faith edits, but these talk page warnings are not going through. — MarkH₂₁^talk 21:53, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Update: I suppose it took an ANI notice after the several warnings for the user to engage in communication. Hopefully this will no longer be an issue. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:06, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrator assistance requested: Nevermind my last update, the editor continues to add unreferenced material. — MarkH₂₁^talk 23:41, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I've blocked for 24 hrs. If they fail to respond to messages and continue the disruptive editing after the block expires, indef may unfortunately be necessary. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:48, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: The editor has at least made an attempt at citing something this time! — MarkH₂₁^talk 02:50, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

This is becoming a CIR issue if Gca.345 thinks that that is enough of a citation to support the addition of content. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 07:56, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: After another two attempts, including one that utterly misrepresented the source and the latest unreferenced addition, we have indeed arrived at a full CIR issue. — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:03, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Blocked for 2 weeks and left a comment on their user talk page, open to review by another admin. If the behavior continues following the block expiration I think that indef may be the next stop. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 00:16, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

50.239.116.194

This IP user has been adding "references" to sister city info in many US cities like Palmer, Alaska. I requested they slow down and review WP:CITE and WP:MOS, but are unresponsive. I don't think it's vandalism, but they might be promoting the organization they're linking to (a non-profit org.) in the reference. P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 21:30, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

• Yeah, this definitely needs a short block to get their attention. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
• My first impression was also refspam, the domain however appears to be one of East–West Center's so not the worst of sources... —PaleoNeonate – 15:48, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Blatant source removals and blatant Israeli POV pushing on a variety of articles by Greyshark09

User should be warned/blocked for violation of Wikipedia policy of deliberate source removing and censoring articles about Israel.

Example one: User removes Iraq from the infobox of an Israel Iraq clash without summary [102].

Later on sources are added mentioning the belligerent is a part of the Iraqi Armed forces. [103]

User removes the sources and reverts the edit [104].

Example two: User does the same edit in another article despite the sources mentioning PMF being part of Iraqi Military [105]

Example three: User removes an article about Israeli Iraqi clash from related template without summary [106].

Thanks. HadleyEmerald (talk) 11:00, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Did you try to talk to him about your disagreements with his edits (either on the article talk page or on his own talk page) before coming here? How did he respond when you did that? Michepman (talk) 14:38, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Michepman's question is spot on. HadleyEmerald, you appear (based on your contributions) to not have made any attempts at discussing the issue with the editor in question. There's nothing administrators can do here. Please discuss the issue with the editor first. Thanks, --Hammersoft (talk) 14:58, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Nnadigoodluck and WP:BADNAC

A few months ago I came across Nnadigoodluck when I noticed AFD space being flooded with edits (and a few AFDs I initiated were changed.) There were several bad clerking actions ranging from NACs to inappropriate relists, which I laid out here less than 2 months ago, which included:

• this inappropriate relist
• this relist with no reasoning which was later overturned and deleted
• same, subsequently deleted

And you can obviously see the rest in the diff I provided above. I'll also note that I am not the only editor who has raised concerns with Nnadigoodluck over their AFD activities. Fast forward a month and a half, this user again pops up on my watchlist with several BADNACs, though there are some okayish AFD edits, they still seem to be overly concerned with dabbling in AFD clerking.

Just two days ago, another user brought up some bad relists and NACS here. I also noticed this and reminded them of our previous discussion (though one mistake was mine, I misread a vote and thought it was this editor.) Not long after this conversation, with no resolution, this editor again removed the discussion - I understand that they are allowed to do this and removal of the discussion indicates that they've read the feedback and it shows an unwillingness to actually change their behavior.. Within hours of this discussion they went back to clerking AFD and this led to two DRVs related to their closures[107][108] and several more closes, some of which are okay, but in my opinion, demonstrate the same unwillingness to change their behavior. Today, another editor brought up some concerns which were dismissed twice. Their AFD stats are also misleading and it shows a clear lack of experience as the bulk of their votes were padded votes, meaning they were at the tail end where it was inevitably going to result in keeping/deleting or pile-on votes.

So the tl;dr here is that while there are some okay edits, Nnadigoodluck lacks the understanding and frankly the competence to be clerking AFD and I'd like to request a ban from them doing so for an extended period of time. Praxidicae (talk) 16:49, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm the most recent editor to attempt to communicate with Nnadigoodluck, after putting their TP on my watchlist a few months ago during the last AFD-related conversation. I'll admit, I was a little bit peeved that they removed my talk-page notice in the middle of a conversation, but... I'm not interested in edit-warring with this editor on their own TP, I have better hills to die on.

Nonetheless, I do think this is a problem - A lack of understanding is one thing, but this consistent failure to engage or even entertain any idea that there may be an issue with their behaviour is exhausting. For the sake of maintaining the goodwill of the editors who've tried to help this user, I'd agree that a ban from clerking AFD is a good idea, perhaps with a provision that if they manage to improve their AFD stats they could be permitted to try their hand at clerking, maybe a year or two down the line. -- a ^{they/them | argue | contribs} 17:07, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Thank you to Praxidicae for the well-researched diffs. I've only looked thoroughly at at the first 7-8 diffs you identified and I'm, too, troubled by Nnadigoodluck's good faith attempts at closing or relisting deletion discussions but without any clear understanding of when to close and when relisting is appropriate. There were a couple relists that might've been useful, but on balance, most of them were either clear delete/merge or clear delete. So, I'm going to build on this thread you started and move a proposal... Doug Mehus T·C 00:39, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - I haven't researched the history of AFD clerking by User:Nnadigoodluck yet, but I concur with User:Praxidicae and User:Alfie that it is troubling to have two closures by the same non-administrator appealed to DRV in 48 hours. I think that one of the closes is completely wrong, and the other one shows poor judgment on the part of the closer. I now see that other editors have already tried to discuss this. I haven't yet researched the history in detail, but it troubles me. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  Robert McClenon, That's the same way I feel. Looking through Nnadigoodluck's talkpage, one of the closes appears correct and the other was a bad close. One, two, or even three bad closes, okay, that's fine, so long as a willingness to learn from one's mistakes is being demonstrated. But, as you rightly note, Prax (hope he or she doesn't mind me shortening their nickname) has done his or her homework and there is indeed a troubling number of incorrect closures. I don't think we need to outright ban Nnadigoodluck from AfD or anything, but at least from closing and relisting. Reviewing the policies and essay and closure by non-admins would be helpful. Doug Mehus T·C 00:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment— Praxidicae’s decision to bring this to an ANI seems like the only step or the only viable option they could come up with as from my observation of the diffs they have clearly exhausted all other options. I have also noticed Nnadigoodluck close an AFD they themselves opened although I’m not sure this is proper as this seemed to me like a very controversial move/action. Having said that, I’d play the devils advocate here seeing as he has put in good work in other aspects of this collaborative project in terms of content creation & probably is one of the very few Nigerian editors who are still very much active in this community. I fear a ban from AFD clerking activities (although which could as well be the plausible action here) coupled with an administrator stripping away his Autopatrolled rights for off wiki activities only admins were privileged to view/observe might “hit him hard” & as direct consequence, he may decide to permanently exit the project. I see potential in this individual & as Per editor retention is there a less harsh way of dealing with this? Perhaps a final warning? Celestina007 (talk) 00:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Celestina007: Your claim of me closing AfDs that I nominated myself is misleading and untrue. I only close as Speedy keep Nomination withdrawn as seen in here and here. NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 01:03, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Nnadigoodluck please be calm, I am on your side here & trying to make the community let you off the hook with nothing other than a last warning & not necessarily ban you for some months as I see potential in you. You have made some quite bizarre AFD clerking actions in the past of which ironically/coincidentally I personally was going to query you about today via e-mail before I became aware of this ANI case.Celestina007 (talk) 01:31, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• @Celestina007: It's okay. Just trying to clear some things that might presume as if I don't know what I am doing. NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 01:38, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  Celestina007, Thank you for your reply. Did someone suggest stripping away his autopatrolled rights? Apologies if I missed it. I don't think we need to go to that step, but rather, just a prohibition on closing or relisting certain types of deletion discussions, at least in the short- to medium-term. Nnadigoodluck seems like a good editor and I have no doubt his closes were done in good faith, but I just think there needs to be a restriction on closing or relisting certain types of discussions. He could still be permitted to close discussions that are unanimous in favour of keep or redirect, for example? Doug Mehus T·C 01:04, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Dmehus it wasn’t suggested that his Autopatrolled rights be stripped off but an administrator, I’m not sure who now, perharps Yunshui I believe was the one who carried out this actions after saying he carried out certain off wiki investigations & made some allegations with proof only admins were privileged to view. Yunshui did leave a message on his Nnadigoodluck’s talk page regarding this but strange it isn’t on his talk page anymore perhaps removed or archived by Nnadigoodluck I can’t tell. Anyway I can tell Nnadigoodluck is here to build an encyclopedia and all said & done he is definitely a net positive.Celestina007 (talk) 01:33, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Celestina007, Ah, thanks for clarifying the autopatrolled rights change was in reference to a past admin action. Yes, I agree that he is a net a positive to the encyclopedia as well, and I'm open to an XfD or AfD mentorship, but I do think that until the mentorship is complete, he should be restricted from closing (he can still participate) in at least AfDs. Doug Mehus T·C 01:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Dmehus seems like a bright idea & even Nnadigoodluck has accepted this already. Which indicates an editor willing to learn & do good work here.Celestina007 (talk) 01:55, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Celestina007, Yep, agreed. : ) Doug Mehus T·C 01:59, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Praxidicae has been been hounding me for many months. I think that they are obsessed with me and any of my edit is always wrong in their sight, they won't let me rest, to the extent of wrongfully accusing me of relisting an AfD in which I voted in as seen here, which they later came back apologizing. Some months ago when I started AfD clerking newly, they even proposed that I stay away completely from AfD clerking in a very bad manner, without even giving me a chance or even suggesting ways that I can improve as an editor as seen here. Saying that I currently lack the understanding and competence to be clerking AfD is utterly false and untrue, because I've improved a lot, more than I was when I started newly and can be seen in most of my recent AfD closing and relists which are all in good standing for the past one week in [109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136][137][138][139][140][141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148][149][150][151][152]. If they think that I made mistakes many months ago when I was still a newbie, they should judge it with my current editing history and know if I'm still on the same track or not. NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 00:56, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  Nnadigoodluck, I've not looked through all your linked diffs, but looking through the first few, I see no evidence of Praxidicae hounding you. In at least one case, I think you are selectively cherry-picking an example where Praxidicae admitted afterward their error. In most of the others, Praxidicae was right to point out a number of bad non-admin closures on your part. I would support a mentorship proposed by Schazjmd below, but I think until you complete the mentorship, you need to be restricted from closing or relisting at least AfDs. Sound good? Doug Mehus T·C 01:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Dmehus: Sounds okay. I'm open to it. NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 01:23, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment - Yuck. The subject was cautioned on their web page about their activity at AFD, and the subject responds by listing 44 AFDs that they have closed. I said that I hadn't researched the details, but the subject is doing the research for me. That is too many AFDs for an editor whose AFD closes have raised concerns, and it raises further concerns that they don't know when they are doing too much and doing it poorly.

Comment - This isn't directly relevant, but indirectly relevant material indicates whether an editor has the judgment and discretion to work at an advanced level in a complex electronic workplace. It appears that Nnadigoodluck was warned at least twice, less than six months ago, about removing speedy deletion tags from pages that they had created. That implies that we have an editor who either doesn't yet understand deletion policy or only has a recent understanding of it and is rushing into deletion policy too quickly, as well as simply an editor who is pushing limits, when pushing limits isn't a good idea in Wikipedia. The subject and I have done enough research for it to be clear to me that mentorship isn't likely to work. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:25, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Although restricting Nnadigoodluck from clerking AFDs for some time may be necessary, is there any AFD expert who might be willing to take Nnadigoodluck on as an apprentice? The editor seems really interested in this area, but lacks the experience to do the work yet. An apprenticeship could help Nnadigoodluck develop the skills to resume AFD work later on. (Hit an edit conflict trying to post this; now in the light of Nnadigoodluck's comment, I'm unsure whether they'd be open to this proposal, but adding it as a suggestion anyway.) Schazjmd (talk) 01:00, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Schazjmd: I'm open to this proposal and thanks for bringing it up. I want to assist in building this encyclopedia in my own little way. NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 01:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  Nnadigoodluck, I'm glad to hear that. I think with the help of an editor experienced at clerking AFDs, you could gain the skills to be a real asset in that area. I hope someone appropriate is willing to work with you on it. I have no experience with it or I would offer my help. Schazjmd (talk) 01:13, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

When I opened this topic up for discussion 9 months ago there seemed to be some agreement that NAC at AfD should be highly curtailed. In looking at a wider range of AfDs since I've become a sysop I've only become increasingly convinced that this is the correct case. So I am opposed to the principle of non-sysop AfD mentorship on this basis beyond the specific issues noted here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:45, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

Procedural Comment Please !vote for only one of the following proposals. Doug Mehus T·C 00:39, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal A: For a period of not less than three months, Nnadigoodluck is hereby restricted from closing or relisting all deletion discussions.

Proposal B: For a period of not less than three months, Nnadigoodluck is hereby restricted from closing or relisting AfD deletion discussions.

Proposal C: For a period of not less than three months, Nnadigoodluck is hereby restricted from closing or relisting all deletion discussions where there is trending consensus towards delete.

Proposal D: For a period of not less than three months, Nnadigoodluck is hereby restricted from closing or relisting AfD deletion discussions where there is trending consensus towards delete.

Proposal E: For a period of not less than x months (where x is identified by consensus below), Nnadigoodluck is hereby restricted from y to z deletion discussions (specified by consensus below, y refers to the prohibition (i.e., closing, relisting, etc.) and z refers to the type of XfD (i.e., AfD, TfD, MfD, etc.)).

• What happened? Did you run out of letters? Lord.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:02, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

  Bbb23, Le sigh. Doug Mehus has been lecturing us on how Wikipedia works since his arrival. He has about 4,000 edits, and nearly 40% of them are to Wikipedia space. To say that his input often lacks insight would be an understatement. I foresee some restrictions heading that way. Guy (help!) 18:01, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal F: Per the added proposal by Schazjmd and comment by Barkeep49 above, Nnadigoodluck is to be restricted from closing or relisting AfDs (or, alternatively, all XfDs) pending sponsorship and successful completion of an administrator-led mentorship arrangement. Nnadigoodluck may still participate in said AfD/XfD discussions during the mentorship, but not close them.

• Support F (for all XFDs) because I think that option has the best potential to benefit both Wikipedia and Nnadigoodluck. Schazjmd (talk) 02:04, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support F (indifferent to AfDs or all XfDs) per Schazjmd and my comments above. (Sidebar: you placed your vote in the correct spot, Schazjmd.) As an alternative, in light of Praxidicae's comment below, I would alternatively, as a second choice, support A or any other of the other proposals when consensus has been determined. Doug Mehus T·C 02:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support A as the closest to what will work, because I have no confidence that a mentorship will work, and I do not want to waste the effort of the community and the subject. I haven't seen the subject at MFD, but I don't have confidence that they understand drafts. I wouldn't have seen the subject at CFD or TFD or RFD. I have seen the subject too many times yesterday at DRV to have confidence that mentoring will work, after the subject was hostile to the suggestion that they were doing too much work at AFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:16, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I honestly don't see anything wrong with the behaviour here, and I've looked through the initial diffs and the 44 AfDs posted by Nnadigoodluck. I think the DRV thing is a red herring because neither of their closes at DRV were technically wrong, though the no consensus close should be backed out on a technicality (delete was a better option.) I'm not sure I see the problems with the relists, either - is the nominator saying the relists were inappropriate because no further conversation existed? This conversation concerns me, because the initial post asks for the user to stop clerking entirely in the very first post, even though in the third link MBisanz relisted the discussion with no reasoning. And the 44 AfDs Nnadigoodluck posted, to me, demonstrates a level of competence in closing AfDs as a non-administrative capacity. On review, I too would be frustrated to have been accused of not doing good work without an accurate explanation as to what I was doing was wrong, and going directly to "you shouldn't do this" instead of allowing the user to have a chance to learn how to do things better.

There are three things I want to say to Nnadigoodluck in terms of clerking and one in terms of AfDs generally. The clerking: 1) if you're clerking in this area, have Wikipedia:Relist bias open in another tab or browser and work through the steps each time you want to relist, making absolutely sure your relist won't be controversial. 2) if you relist, make sure you explain why you're relisting when you relist (and if you're relisting for the sake of relisting, you probably shouldn't relist.) 3) if you close a discussion, you need to be 100% sure your close is absolutely correct and could not be closed any other way. Almost all of your closes are fine, but going forward, I would ask you to avoid closing AfDs as no consensus, or any closes that could be closed as anything other than keep, per WP:BADNAC. In terms of the AfDs generally: At this point, I would encourage you to participate in AfDs rather than clerk them, mostly per Barkeep49's comment above regarding non-admin AfD clerks. But in terms of any sort of ban, I don't think this has been handled well at all by anyone and strongly oppose any sanctions, and that this ANI thread should just serve as both a general warning and an example to Nnadigoodluck of how they can improve as an editor. SportingFlyer T·C 08:25, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• While I appreciate the kind offer of another editor to mentor them, I think this kind of misses the point. This isn't like writing articles or editing broad topics, it's a narrow maintenance area that is somewhat important but should be left to more experienced users (preferably admins but that's another discussion.) So, Support A, an outright ban for 3 months at minimum from doing any maintenance related activities at AFD/xfd. And I saw a comment above about editor retention and fear this user will leave the project and while I understand the overall concern, I'm not sure this should be considered if a user's sole purpose is to relist/NAC afd. As a note, I was not originally concerned about other fd areas but I am concerned that they will move on to that area if they're banned at AFD only. Praxidicae (talk) 14:01, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to close with no action

I don't think there's any doubt of Nnadigoodluck's good faith here, their actions viewed holistically appear to be within the bounds of what normally happens at Xfd - and yes, some might be considered incorrect, but that's not really Nnadigoodluck's fault specifically because the guidance is (perhaps intentionally) vague and in any case nobody's required to be perfect as long as their actions don't appear capricious.

I think we could do with some clearer consensus guidance at WP:NAC or a subpage on when to leave it to an admin (e.g. minimum numbers of !votes for a relist, maximum number of relists before a no-consensus close, minimum time / !vote count before a non-admin SNOW or speedy keep etc). Not so much to constrain people as to prevent drama like this. I am mindful, though, that admins are not special, and the main reason for admin closure of XfD is (a) the technical need for an admin to perform an actual deletion and (b) the fact that admins have at least some measure of community assessment of their knowledge of policy, so this personal preference for better guidance may be considered unnecessary by others. Guy (help!) 08:58, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I'd have no problem supporting this proposal, Guy, if the nom, Praxidicae, supports it (though I note even the subject has agreed to a voluntary curtailing of XfD closures while undergoing a mentorship). So, call it a conditional support if Praxidicae supports it. --Doug Mehus T·C 18:46, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

  Dmehus, we don’t care what OPs think about anything, we tend to look at the underlying case and consider policy based input from experienced users and admins. With your lack of experience you should focus on other areas not the drama boards. Guy (help!) 19:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose to doing nothing here. The over-involvement of Nnadigoodluck in XFDs is problematic. A closure with no action would risk being seen as encouragement. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:57, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - Strong Support for the suggestion by Guy for a clarification on Non-administrative closures at XFD. The number of recent DRVs involving NAC and including claims of BADNAC show that the guidelines for such closures should be clarified. Maybe the guidelines were deliberately left vague because it was thought that NACs at XFD would be rare and unambiguous; they are neither rare nor unambiguous. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:57, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

  FWIW I also strongly support the idea of clarifying WP:NAC. I would suggest that Robert McClenon is the perfect person to help move that forward. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:12, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support both closing this with no action and clarifying WP:NAC (and hopefully when to relist as well.) I just hope we haven't run off a good faith editor doing good work from the project with this heavy-handed response to a very small issue (especially since consensus at DRV is that one of their closes was absolutely okay and the other was likely okay as well, or at least being considered as okay by several experienced members of the community.) SportingFlyer T·C 00:27, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Request for semi-protection of multiple articles (more complex that typically handled at WP:RFPP)

An unregistered editor using multiple IP addresses - most recently 174.253.160.95 - is edit-warring with multiple editors to add or retain the same content in multiple articles: American Academy of Dramatic Arts‎, List of Florida Institute of Technology people, List of Ohio State University people, and List of Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University alumni‎. All of the edits focus on adding a stuntman to the articles (e.g., [153], [154], [155]) but all of the other editors who have examined these edits have determined that the sources - when sources are provided - are not reliable. There is an open discussion in the article's Talk page in which he or she is fitfully participating while continuing to edit all of the articles against the developing consensus. He or she has used edit summaries (e.g., [156]) that indicate a familiarity with 3RR so I don't think a warning for that is necessary (and it's difficult to keep up with the changing IP addresses).

Can someone please temporarily semi-protect these articles to prevent the unregistered editor from continuing to edit war? (I'd ask for a block but I the IP addresses keep changing - 174.253.160.95, 108.214.242.121, 216.189.211.99, etc. - and I don't see pattern that is amenable to a range block.) Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 18:00, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Actually, for future reference, RfPP is quite suited to handle these sort of requests, and often does. In any case, Semi-protected for a period of one month, all, after which the page will be automatically unprotected. El_C 18:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 18:11, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

You also might want do semi-protect Melvin Wine, as the IP also added that Aukerman is Wine's cousin in the personal life section. Best, GPL93 (talk) 18:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd rather wait to see if it's still on their immediate range of interests, but watchlisted. El_C 18:17, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@El C: just re-added Aukerman to Melvin Wine under the account User:Missuslulu, which also was the account that added Aukerman to alumni lists in the first place. Best, GPL93 (talk) 19:18, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, that was quick! El_C 19:24, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

ElKevbo, I came here to read about a complex case hoping multiple categories and/or tens of articles being requested for protection. I must say I am very disappointed. DBigXrayᗙ 18:59, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Just keep hanging around. We're finding more and more sockpuppets and articles! :) ElKevbo (talk) 20:06, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

StutzTCB has now reinserted the content on at least one of the pages. Hug^syrup 18:22, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

This appears as if syrup is the one involved in starting and continued instigation of this edit war, and bias toward the stuntman, and bent on removing the stuntman's name from all Wikipedia page alum lists and or other mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StutzTCB (talk • contribs) 18:32, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• That is "Hugsyrup", and your stuntman is not notable or noteworthy. Drmies (talk) 18:33, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• Thank you for assisting with this situation. To characterize Hugsyrup's actions as anything but helpful is a total mischaracterization. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 22:33, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Please advise, as I received these disconcerting threats and comments over the past hour or so, leaving the impression of collusion...

Cc'd Praxidicae

The AFD discussion is a forum of civilized, evidence based debate, and if a new entry gets deleted at the end, fair enough...

However, I'm getting the same threats and comments, slightly different wording, at roughly the same time, leaving the impression of collusion, i.e. the editors are coordinating...

I made this frank, but purely observational comment based on profiles: "AI now shapes virtually all aspects of our lives, e.g. Wikipedia bots to Netflix recommendations and the machines that assemble our cars. The fact this is the only fund covering a 1/4 of human civilisation should in of itself warrant an exception WP:IAR, even before what has now become a subjective debate on whether non-western sources have no cachet... I’ve more than a passing interest in making Wikipedia live up to its egalitarian ideals, e.g. the fact those advocating for deletion appear to be Caucasian American should give us pause for thought..."

Please advise, as I received these disconcerting threats and comments over the past hour or so, leaving the impression of collusion: On my talk page: " Please stop attacking other editors, as you did on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xecced. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people. Additionally please read WP:BADGER and stop doing it. Praxidicae (talk) 18:54, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Wow, I merely pointed out an observational fact... If it isn't true, disprove it. After all, this is meant to be a civilized forum of debate, and Wikipedia's goal is to be egalitarian...

However, I'm getting the same comment, slightly different wording, at nearly the same time, giving the impression of suckpuppeting or collusion...

No, you're commenting on editors and not content and you're making personal attacks, stop or this will wind up at WP:ANI. Also your insistence that someone prove their ethnicity is tantamount to requesting someone out themselves to satisfy you. Stop or the next step will be a block. Praxidicae (talk) 19:11, 10 January 2020 (UTC) Consider this an absolutely final warning baseless accusations such as this are nothing more than egregious personal attacks and I highly suggest you redact it. Praxidicae (talk) 19:18, 10 January 2020 (UTC) Please retract your allegations of racism or I'll be taking this to WP:ANI. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 19:24, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

On the AFD: Delete Fails WP:CORP. Promotional article whose sources are either press releases or articles about fundraising. Neither establish notability. Article creator is strictly promoting this company (spam added to List of venture capital firms has been reverted) and resorting to personal attacks (i.e., blind accusations of racism in response to GPL93) on anyone who disagrees with her is certainly not advised. sixtynine • whaddya want? • 18:07, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Nneka Francis (talk) 20:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment @Nneka Francis: Just as a heads up if you take an editor to ANI you have to leave a message on every involved editor's talk page, such as myself, @Beemer69: and @Cameron11598: for starters. Also to refer to warnings about attacking other editors as threats is a bit odd. Thirdly, if you want to put us all through a sockpuppet investigation the instructions can be found HERE, be my guest. GPL93 (talk) 20:32, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• I don't know what you're asking for here but I suggest a boomerang and a block for this editor as they've repeatedly made egregious personal attacks, even after a final warning, accusing myself and others of sock puppetry because they can't seem to grasp that Wikipedia is not a soapbox and I would encourage anyone reading to take a look at this user's behavior surrounding the two AFDs and this absurd request. Praxidicae (talk) 20:36, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - Would you be able to provide links to the specific pages where these interactions took place? It is difficult for us to evaluate the claims being made by you being excerpted without seeing the full context. Michepman (talk) 20:38, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@Michepman: Nneka Francis is referring to warnings left on User talk:Nneka Francis and delete votes on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xecced. Possibly Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muhtari Adanan as well but that was mostly just badgering other editors' delete votes. Best, GPL93 (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

GPL93 - This seems like a classic WP:boomerang. Nneka Francis's conduct in those threads was completely unacceptable and bringing it to the attention of the broader community showed poor judgment at best. He is lucky that the users he was berating did not report HIM. Michepman (talk) 20:59, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Actually let me formalize my response and this request. I propose that the filer be blocked for several weeks in response to their repeated disruption, badgering/hounding AFD voters, repeated personal attacks, accusations and now frivolous filing. It appears that they are only here to right great wrongs and not build an encyclopedia. And since the filer failed to provide any diffs here are some: here, immediately following a warning about personal attacks, they make baseless accusations, here in that same AFD they take their original personal attack accusing editors of being bias/racist into a call to "prove" that they aren't "caucasian American", and there's about a dozen more.Praxidicae (talk) 20:39, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Praxidicae -- It looks like User:Bishonen below has already blocked the user. Once they are unblocked, if they continue to behave this way then I would support a ban. Michepman (talk) 01:37, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Is this for real? Well here is my two cents; they implied that an editor is discriminating against a topic because they are Caucasian. Sounds like accusing someone of being racist to me. I ask them to remove the allegations of racism and instead they open an ANI thread. There are also WP:CIR and WP:IDONTLIKEIT issues at play. Respectfully I think this should be a boomerang, as I've noticed they still haven't removed their allegations of racism. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 20:54, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Blocked. "If it isn't true [that you're all Caucasian], disprove it"?? That's not how it works. I have blocked Nneka Francis for 72 hours for her outrageous accusations of racism,[157] sock puppetry[158] and collusion.[159]. Bishonen | talk 20:57, 10 January 2020 (UTC).
• To label replies to User:Nneka Francis's repeated incivility as "threats" is nothing short of ludicrous. S/he has gone off on hostile tangents toward editors who voted delete from the moment the AfD discussion for Xecced began, including false accusations of racism and asking editors to out themselves, and calling me a sockpuppet. I am in complete support of a block for their infantile behavior that has continued despite repeated warnings, as this topic indicates. sixtynine ^{• whaddya want? •} 20:58, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
• Good block We shall see. I saw no constructive edits! This user impresses me as not here. Their focus seems purely to pick fights. Hoepfully when they return, they'll leave their shoulder chip at home. I wonder if a checkuser would like to take a look.-- Deepfriedokra 09:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

  Had a thought-- left a message about COI and PAID, given the vehemence shown.-- Deepfriedokra 16:07, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

It's clear Nneka Francis is a paid SPA, but we'll see what happens when the three-day ban is lifted (and the article up for deletion gone) and hopefully she will realize she won't have much rope to hang herself with thereafter. sixtynine ^{• whaddya want? •} 19:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

One user, multiple Swiss IPs editing disruptively

• 213.55.220.221 (talk · contribs)
• 213.55.220.45 (talk · contribs)
• 213.55.224.224 (talk · contribs)
• 213.55.220.96 (talk · contribs)
• 213.55.220.111 (talk · contribs)
• 31.10.170.156 (talk · contribs)

And cropping up faster than I can keep track. The edits are poorly written, which would be one thing if the user stayed in place. But they're jumping from one account to another, which suggests that the edits are not well-intentioned anyway. 2601:188:180:B8E0:55AD:391C:FBB:BE24 (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Perhaps page protection for the articles in question.... 2601:188:180:B8E0:55AD:391C:FBB:BE24 (talk) 23:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I blocked 213.55.192.0/18 for 3 days. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 23:43, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Ohnoitsjamie. 2601:188:180:B8E0:55AD:391C:FBB:BE24 (talk) 00:30, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Dalhoa repeatedly making unsupported edit and reverting with little willingness to discuss.

• Human (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Dalhoa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Skllagyook (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I apologize if this message is excessively long. I am unsure how much detail to include and I hope to explain everything adequately. Recently USER:Dalhoa has made an edit to the Human page involving an extrapolation that seemed unsupported by the source they added (and in which they removed statements supported by several refs), which I reverted with detailed explanations. They they reverted me, ignoring my edit notes (I left several edit notes with explanations) and simply (in two reversions) claiming that my edit was "POV" without explanation (I had explained why it was not). I engaged them in a di wescussion (first posting on their Talk page and then moving the discussion to the article's Talk page), and though they made a few replies to which I responded, they have ignored my latest responses and simply reinstated their edit without responding to my responses or attemting to reach consensus (and the responses they did give did not seem to address the issues raised). In reverting their latest edit on the Human page, I believe I may have broken the 3 revert rule but I did so because they seemingly insisted on pushing their edit after refusing to listen and refusing to continue the discussion to reach consensus, and I have since self-reverted. This editor has seemingly shown a refusal to listen in this and other recent exchanges and has recently shown pattern of inaccurately representing sources (along with a persistent tendency toward hostility and incivility in discussions and a failure or refusal to listen). Here is the edit history of the Human article: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Human&action=history and the incomplete discussion in that Article's Talk page: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Human#Behavioral_modernity

Here is a recent exchange I had with them in which they persistently engaged in a uncivil manner (without making clear what their dispute was) and seemingly refused to listen and inaccurately characterized statements made by me while making accusations (despite my not engaging in said behavior, and my requesting them to be civil repeatedly). http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans#recent_changes Another instance of persistent incivility (my first exchange with them) http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Horn_of_Africa#Jebel_Irhoud_in_Morocco_obsession

And here is an instance in which they ignored my request for discussion entirely regarding an edit which seemed to me to be an instance of WP:OR or WP:synthesis (though I did not persist in reverting them and left their edit as it currently is): http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Homo_sapiens#Recent_edits

In my exchanges with this user, they have shown a tendency to make accusations (involving misinterpretations/mischaracterizations of my statements and other actions as well as personal aspersions of my motives and aggressive and insistent accusations and assumptions of bad faith) which then take time for me to address (and lead to long exchanges that make little to no progress - into which they seem to bring an unwarranted combativeness and hostility). I am not sure how to proceed, as discussion does not seem to have worked. I hope I have not responded inappropriately in my dealings with them or here.

Any help/attention in addressing this issue is appreciated. Thank you, Skllagyook (talk) 00:54, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Edit: I have self-reverted/reverted my aforementioned most recent reversion on the Human page (which appears to have violated the 3-revert rule) of Dalhoa's most recent edit (while the issue is addressed here/while waiting for the issue to be addressed here). This post was originally made at 03:22, 9 January 2020. But it never received a response, and I was not sure what to do so I have now posted it again (with minor edits) Skllagyook (talk) 04:43, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Maybe your first posting of this here was ignored because it's a run-of-the-mill content dispute, as opposed to an "incident". Have you look at WP:DR for ideas? Dicklyon (talk) 04:48, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Are you sure? They (Dalhoa) have shown an unwillingness to discuss the issue on the Human page (insisting on reverting while not responding in Talk, or barely doing so, and finally ignoring me). Their behavior on that page seems to me to be (possibly) disruptive (But I'm not sure what to do because I do not want to continue to edit war - I reverted myself - and they have refused to continue the discussion and have simply ignored most of the issues I have raised about their edit). They have also behaved combatively (e.g. in the Talk of the Recent African origin of modern humans page: continuing to do so long after I had conceded their point, never making clear what their dispute was despite being repeatedly asked, misinterpreting what I had said and seemingly not acting in good faith (e.g. in one instance citing an old edit of mine from October to another user as evidence that I held a position they they knew I no longer held - because we had discussed it later). Though have I tried to assume good faith for as long as I could, they seem determined to do the opposite for me, and have refused to be civil on multiple occasions despite my pleading with them to do so (endlessly making hostile unfounded personal assumptions about me and accusations). In some cases, their criticisms (such as on the Recent African origin of modern humans talk page) have been confusing and contradictory (and have begun to seem like excuses to attack me rather than real criticisms). I do not understand their combative attitude and nothing I do seems to help. They have been very difficult to discuss with to say the least . It seems to me like a conduct issue at this point. Am I incorrect? Skllagyook (talk) 13:32, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I see some conduct issues here. At Talk:Horn of Africa Dalhoa created Talk:Horn of Africa#Jebel Irhoud in Morocco obsession (the title itself is not civil) and accused Skllagyook of promoting/favoring a particular region. They accused User:Nezahaulcoyotl of the same thing although he hasn't edited the article although he did edit Jebel Irhoud in Sept/Oct. here they accuse Skllagyook of bias and lack of objectivity. Then Dalhoa (who I just noted has made only 215 edits) wrote "Your changes are not in good faith, your are mixing deliberately the fossils and spreading inaccurate and erroneous information around. The only reason you wanted to keep that section is because the article mentions Morocco and the dating coincides with your Jebel Irhoud dates, you were not adding it to mention East Africa and South Africa coalescence, the quote I added from your academic paper mentions coalescence of South and East-African source populations but you are not interested in that," and more in the same vein until the thread stopped in November. Dalhoa then started a new thread asking "if there are any Editors/Administrators doing editings in the background?" and then "If there are Admins with their own political agenda using this page as their playground we need to know." This seems to be about an accusation that the history of the article had been tampered with. Admin User:Maile66 tried to explain the protection but their explanation wasn't accepted.

This month there have been similar problems at Talk:Recent African origin of modern humans. Here Dalhoa accuses Skllagyook of stalking and deliberately spreading misinformation. Then here[160] of spreading misinformation and "clearing(which seems to be a typo for "clearly" attempts to inhibit accurate information,". Further examples of this sort of comment followed but I won't bore people with them. User:Moxy and User:Flyer22 Reborn tried to deal with the content issue and I hope they will continue. @Joe Roe and Dudley Miles: if either of you have time to also help that would be useful. Pinging you because I've seen you recently discuss the issues. I see that Skllagyook did file a DRN case but that was abandoned because he felt ANI was more appropriate. As Skllagyook has asked me for help I think a warning from someone else would be the appropriate outcome here. Doug Weller talk 16:05, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Hoping to get a response from User:Dalhoa, I left a longer note on their talk page which explains the issue. They have not edited for two days. EdJohnston (talk) 17:03, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you (to all/both that have done so) for addressing this. Skllagyook (talk) 19:31, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: I agree that Dalhoa has engaged in very problematic editing. Although Skllagyook has made edits that others have also considered questionable (as is clear from Skllagyook's talk page), Skllagyook appears to be the more reasonable of the two. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:13, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: I know that this is very minor and perhaps not especially related point, and perhaps an odd thing to mention here, but I feel I should perhaps point out (though I understand that you were referring to much more on my Talk page than this; I would assume you were, as there are, of course, other issues that have been brought up on my page) that in the section on my Talk page entitled "Cushitic People Dispute" it was the other editor (with whom I was having a dispute - Kndmn64, now blocked as a sock puppet) who had removed my dispute resolution notice from their Talk page (rather than me removing theirs from mine - which from the language may not be clear) that the editor Robert McClenon (from Dispute Resolution) was referring to there (on my page). I know this is a tangent and likely a strange thing to bring up here, but it struck me that the language used on my Talk page describing the event is somewhat ambiguous. Anyway, I just thought I would mention that detail. Apologies for the tangent. Skllagyook (talk) 22:41, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller:, @EdJohnston:, @Flyer22 Reborn: Dalhoa has not yet responded here, but has posted two responses on their Talk page ([[161]]) mainly repeating many of their previous accusations, and now also announcing their intention to file a report on me (and others) at the No original research noticeboard (for what I don't know), which seems to me to be unjustified. Their most recent responses seem to include deflections from the issues raised without addressing them, and they still have not addressed the issue on the Human page (nor the topic I started at the Homo sapiens page). Skllagyook (talk) 13:34, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

User talk:97.117.65.7 need his talk page privileges removed

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

---

So, I saw this user while gnoming, and I reverted his comments on his talk page because he changed the comments of a user who gave him a final warning for vandalism. He got blocked, then blanked his page and is now posting insulting messages on his page. Very likely he needs his talk page privileges revoked Necromonger...We keep what we kill 14:53, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

 Done, usually best to ping the blocking admin first, N.J.A. | talk 14:56, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

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

68.194.241.193

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

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user:68.194.241.193 is adding unsourced bio info after her final warning. CLCStudent (talk) 16:18, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

 Done Blocked 48 hours.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 16:23, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

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

Truth213

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

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user:Truth213 keeps adding the wrong year of birth for Iswarya Menon. CLCStudent (talk) 18:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Blocked as a vandalism-only account. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

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

Es204L: A history of incompetency and failure to comply by simple Wikipedia rules

I am writing for file a complaint against user user:Es204L, for persistent vandalism as well as a lack of ability to follow simple Wikipedia rules. User user:Hurricane Noah has previously filed a complaint on this user for a similar reason, and many notes for improvement have been left on the user's talk page, and they are still failing to meet basic Wikipedia standards. Additionally, their lack of ability to use the |english language is evident on their talk page, with claimed 'hiatus' notes having lacklustre grammar and spelling. Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz^{Talk to me here :)} 19:02 UTC, January 11 2020

First, you've provided no evidence. Second, the link to the previous complaint is malformed.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:30, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hurricane Noah, could you please provide a permanent link to your previous complaint, as Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz's link isn't working? I'd really like to read it. Super Typhoon, please see Wikipedia:Simple diff and link guide for how to create permanent links. It's easy when you know how. 😉 Bishonen | talk 19:33, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I see this isn't Es204L'S first brush with ANI, this second link is the one Hurricane Noah mentioned. Maybe this might shed some light on the subject ? Necromonger...We keep what we kill 19:47, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, although I don't see how the link to the SPI is relevant. So in April 2019 the user was brought here and Oshwah blocked them for two weeks. What we need now is evidence of disruption (the OP calls it "vandalism") since that time and particularly recently.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:52, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

here’s one piece of evidence: http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Tropical_cyclones_in_2019&diff=prev&oldid=935158520 I am on mobile right now, but I contacted the OP and asked him to present evidence. Noah^Talk 20:16, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, I do disagree with this being labeled as vandalism as it is good faith. The issue here is Es204L is continually disruptive by not providing sources (forces others to find sources or revert) and removing entire sections while rewriting instead of replacing them with new text. Noah^Talk 20:36, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Removal of copious amounts of text, as well as general carelessness

• Whole section removed
• Unsourced material, changing standard months of activity to a different range of months
• Adds a custom message, replacing chunks of text with 'Es204L under construction'
• Unsourced material yet again, replacing chunks of text and cursing for no apparent reason
• Uncited and duplicated content
• Claiming that the season ended on December 27, when the calendar year wasn't even over
• Terrible grammar when replacing a big chunk of text
• Unformatted text in a completely different paragraph
• Bad grammar and terrible formatting
• Unnecessarily changing image width
• Terrible grammar yet again
• Terrible grammar and spelling
• Terrible english

The list goes on. You can see a list of the user's edits here:

• User's contributions Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz^{Talk to me here :)} 20:35 UTC, January 11, 2020

I agree with you on the SPI, that's why I pulled it out as not needed. Necromonger...We keep what we kill 20:35, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

I've altered the link in Super Typhoon's header as it was malformed. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:15, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• God how I wish editors would NOT do this fancy shadowing and coloring and stuff in their signatures. Surely everyone makes fun of the co-worker who writes emails in five fonts and a ton of colors? Drmies (talk) 22:20, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Drmies: And that's relevant to the topic because? Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz^{Talk to me here :)} 22:38 UTC, January 11, 2020

User:Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz, it's relevant to your report because you asked for admin intervention and I'm an admin. If you are going to come to ANI and ask for drastic measures, since admin intervention is always drastic, the first thing you should do is write up a clean report that editors and admins don't have to repair, and the second thing is probably to try and not piss off the admins that actually come to look at it. Drmies (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz, whatever is wrong in your signature that made me have to do this, please fix it one way or another. In addition, when a thread is started with an asterisk to indent, please continue that format, and indent properly. I start with one, you follow with two--not with a bunch of colons. OK? Drmies (talk) 22:52, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• I looked at three edits linked above. What is the supposed grammatical error in this one? What was the "terrible formatting"? Rather than list a whole bunch of things including things that may well be minor (and then link to ALL the editor's contributions) it is better to pick a set, or a couple of sets, of edits that indicate the problems. I mean, deleting a whole chunk, sure, that's not good--but maybe they had a good reason and just didn't leave an edit summary. We need more than this. Drmies (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• In that section, it wasn't too much grammatically wrong, just a capital letter that was missed on 'Typhoon Kammuri', and that is aside the other edits he's made. If you look his edit history you can see that he's done many, many careless edits which I am not spending my time listing here as it would take a copious amount of time. Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz^{Talk to me here :)} 23:40 UTC, January 11, 2020
  • If you're asking me to block someone and one of the pieces of evidence is a missing capital, I think you know what the answer is. Actually, there's two. The first is "no", the second is "present more better evidence". Drmies (talk) 01:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
  • User:Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz, I don't know which part of FIX YOUR DAMN SIGNATURE was unclear to you. And how ironic, that you want me to block someone for "terrible formatting" when you are here on an administrators noticeboard with formatting so terrible that it fucks up other editors' comments. Drmies (talk) 01:31, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
    • Drmies, and just FYI, I think the problem with Super Typhoon Mercedes-Benz's signature – well, the problem that causes malformation of subsequent edits that led to you making this edit and this justifiably emphatic comment – is that the superscript tag for the "talk" part of the signature isn't closed (that is, the </sup> that should be included at the end is missing). Jonesey95 has fixed the malformed signatures that are already on ANI at present. STM-B, fixing your signature is the FIRST thing you should do when you next log on. Making it less... how should I put this... eye-catching would be good too. EdChem (talk) 10:41, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
• I only briefly glanced at this article, but I see a lot of problems. It has been my experience that articles on hurricane seasons have been generally well written so this is quite a disappointment. I'll try to be more formal with observations on the article talk page, but I do see examples of extremely poor English, and large chunks of unsourced material. I also note the use of citation needed templates that I didn't think would be considered appropriate, but I'll try looking into whether that's a valid concern.S Philbrick(Talk) 02:07, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Evidence from Hurricane Noah

@Drmies: Due to the numerous issues with some of the evidence presented above, I will be compiling evidence in a different section. The edits made by Es204L are not vandalous, but simply disruptive because others have to correct or revert them constantly. Noah^Talk 23:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Original research, unsourced, and unexplained removal No sourcing to validate the 185 mph winds for Halong. The NHC reported Dorian at 160 knots while the JTWC has 155 knots for Halong. Unofficial sources stated higher winds for Halong. Removed a summary paragraph without an explanation. He also mentioned Dorian's ACE as being the highest without any reference. Noah^Talk 23:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• Changed without a source (done 2X)
• duplicating existing content and no reference
• same thing here
• and again
• introducing numerous errors and no sources
• no sources
• no sources
• unsourced again
• removed all content This is disruptive and not the proper way to rewrite a section. The section was simply blanked without explanation and replaced by a note. Noah^Talk 23:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
• removed without explanation
• unsourced info
• unsourced information

If you need more, let me know. Noah^Talk 23:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• Hurricane Noah, I haven't looked at all these links, but if we started banning or heavily sanctioning editors for adding unsourced material, including original research, or forgetting to cite, we'd probably have to block or heavily sanction a quarter of all Wikipedia editors. If the user is engaging in edit warring and not taking it to the talk pages, then there could be merit to one or more topic bans, but I'd prefer to see a mentorship here. I don't see anything that can't be resolved through more diplomatic means here. Also, has Dispute Resolution been tried, too? I further note some of the above references are to poor English, which could be a language barrier issue. The biggest problem I see here is a failure to assume good faith here. Doug Mehus T·C 00:02, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

  I don't know where you picked up such a notion, but we sanction editors, including indeffing them, frequently for persistently adding unsourced material. The key factors are the level of disruption and their history. You're not an administrator. Please stop acting like one.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:06, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Dmehus: We have warned this user numerous times in the past and Hurricanehink offered to mentor him, but he simply ignored us. He ignored the first ANI entirely as well. Keep in mind that after being warned multiple times, not citing is disruptive behavior, especially after acknowledging the issues at the second ANI. Creating a lot of work for other editors to fix is disruptive and prevents them from focusing on other tasks. I honestly don't believe this user will ever come to the table and get help from others considering we already tried to offer it. Noah^Talk 00:11, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Hurricane Noah, That's true, and it's problematic if the user is not citing, repeatedly, on the same topics; however, if it's just a matter of forgetting to cite once or twice in each article across multiple topic areas, it's less problematic as the user makes their edits, which can be easily cited, and then they move on. Doug Mehus T·C 00:19, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@Dmehus: It has been on cyclones this entire time, which maybe has 30 or so active editors across the board. To be honest, I could probably find dozens more edits with unsourced content if I looked further back than 3 weeks and in more detail. From what I saw, he readded his own content after it was removed already. Noah^Talk 00:25, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Hurricane Noah, Okay, re-adding the same content, not necessarily repeatedly failing to cite, without discussing in the talk pages is what I find most problematic, and possibly worthy of further sanction (though I won't weigh in on what that might be). Doug Mehus T·C 00:30, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Note that there is past precedence for adminstrative action against those who chronically fail to cite sources as it is disruptive, but not something serious enough to warrant immediate action like in the case of edit warring. Noah^Talk 01:23, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• There is ample precedent for blocking users who persistently add unverified content. Right now, though, I'm so distracted because of Typhoon's behavior that I don't want to spend a lot of energy looking at these diffs, at least not until I finish my coffee. Maybe Bbb feels like it. Drmies (talk) 01:33, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Drmies, I agree. The grammar issues are troublesome, but not block-worthy. However, the unsourced content is more troublesome. As an aside, any thoughts on how the citation needed template is used (marking the entire passage)? It's annoying, is it permitted?S Philbrick(Talk) 15:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Sphilbrick, I like that you brought issues with the "citation needed" template. Ideally, it should be placed after the offending sentence, not the paragraph in which the offending sentence occurred unless, of course, the entire paragraph is lacking necessary citations. I would also like to see editors use the rationale/reason parameter in the template, so they can identify what, specifically needs fixing as often I find the template is added with Twinkle when the citation is there but doesn't specifically address everything in the paragraph. Doug Mehus T·C 16:01, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Drmies, I also agree with the persistent removal of unsourced content, especially when no attempt has been made to discuss the disputed removal of content on the applicable talkpages. Doug Mehus T·C 16:01, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• I have indefinitely blocked Es204L‎--Bbb23 (talk) 16:19, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion

Please give the user specific warnings, on their talk page, about the behaviors that you find unacceptable. That's a good place to discuss and offer the user some help. If they continue, then maybe you have a case for ANI. I'm not seeing that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

They claimed they understood they needed to cite their content in January 2019, I told them how to add references in April 2019 with no response from them, they got blocked for two weeks ten days later for persistent addition of unsourced content, and after a final warning agreed not to add any more unsourced information in May 2019. What I'm seeing - especially from this exchange - is that they aren't particularly willing to learn. ~ KN2731 {talk · contribs} 11:13, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support Dicklyon's suggestion. Even if the user has received prior warnings, if one or more editors (there seems to be willingness on the part of multiple editors) to coordinate their warnings, the wording of the warnings, and the severity of the warnings, it will make for a much easier, more streamlined future ANI case for sanction(s) against the user the nominator need only to direct editors/administrators to the user's talkpage instead of researching myriad diffs from a host of article pages. --Doug Mehus T·C 16:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Philip Cross BLP issue

I have no choice but to post here as I have some serious concerns here. I don’t know where else to go but Philip Cross has recently been making some questionable POV pushing and borderline slander (in my opinion) on the Rania Khalek article. I would include diffs, but there are too many. Some admins should have a deep look at this. IWI (chat) 01:44, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

A lot of edits have happened in recent weeks and it's not easy for uninvolved people to judge if there is a problem. The first step would be to post a new section at Talk:Rania Khalek with, say, two examples of text which you think are a problem, and why. The last edit at the talk page was on 31 October 2019. If unsatisfied, repeat at WP:BLPN. Johnuniq (talk) 02:31, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes a lot of edits have took place. This user has had a pattern of issues in this manner. Just read some messages left at User talk:Philip Cross/Archive 27. This user is cherry picking articles with defaming comments about this woman. I would revert all of his edits but I think an admin needs to assess this. This user clearly has a POV, as he is removing anything positive in place of something negative. IWI (chat) 03:19, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, this user is already topic banned from Post-1978 British politics, for a similar reason. IWI (chat) 03:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@ImprovedWikiImprovment: Can you provide a diff or point to the archived discussion for the topic ban? --David Tornheim (talk) 14:43, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I looked at the link you gave and cannot find "Khalek" on that page. This is a busy noticeboard so please get to the point: what text in the article is a problem and why? Johnuniq (talk) 06:58, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I removed the citation to an apology for a (deleted) SPLC article which mentions Rania Khalek because the piece, and the responses to it more heavily concentrated on Max Blumenthal. I moved the passage to the SPLC article last year as it more directly concerns that organisation's reputation and activities. (I have only just switched the emphasis on the other article to Max Blumenthal. The media responses to the SPLC's removal of its article in 2018 mainly concerned MB.) I removed a positive comment by Mark Hand on Rania Khalek's coverage of the I/P issue, cited to Counterpunch, because that website has a poor reputation on issues concerning Jews and has published articles by Alison Weir and Israel Shamir among others who have been accused of antisemitism. So on this point at least it is not likely to be considered a mainstream source. Philip Cross (talk) 09:41, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I should add, in case it seems disingenuous, that I did not wholly remove the Counterpunch article. Despite that websites reputation (I believed the other citations added in the last week would not be considered non-RS) It seemed highly unlikely that it would falsify a quote by Rania Khalek, so I substituted a brief passage from the Mark Hand article which related to her issues with The Nation and Israel, an issue to which articles about Ms Khalek regularly return. Philip Cross (talk) 11:44, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Her page is now under ARBPIA sanctions and ECP protected. This includes 1RR. Doug Weller talk 12:17, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

If there are a lot of diffs, then it should be easy. Pick your best 3-5 and show them. As it stands, it's very difficult to assess whether your complaint has merit since you've provided us nothing to judge. I also see no discussion on the talk page about actual problems, instead just another complain of the editor. If you have concerns over an editor's edits, you really should be able to articulate why somewhere. Also admins don't just go around randomly assessing editors. Nil Einne (talk) 13:12, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

My point is that the user has had a history of this kind of POV editing. I am aware that her name isn’t there. IWI (chat) 13:16, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• On this diff, Cross states that Khalek "denied the Syrian government had carried out the Douma chamical attack". In fact, she said that there was no evidence for it. This is not the same as denying it.
• here, cross removes a passage that shows Khalek in a good light altogether, with little explanation other than it is "elsewhere" (where then?).
• here, the material from the source is switched from a third party assessment to a direct quote of Khalek. This clearly aims to discredit.
• here and here, an unnecessary third party accusation is added.

They are some of the issues that I noticed. IWI (chat) 13:45, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

The user appears to have discredited multiple journalists in a similar subtle way. IWI (chat) 13:48, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

"I removed a positive comment by Mark Hand on Rania Khalek's coverage of the I/P issue, cited to Counterpunch, because that website has a poor reputation on issues concerning Jews and has published articles by Alison Weir and Israel Shamir among others who have been accused of antisemitism. So on this point at least it is not likely to be considered a mainstream source." - if you thought the source was unreliable, why would you switch its usage to a quote that discredits the BLP? Wouldn't this make it even worse in terms of the BLP policy than it was before? IWI (chat) 13:55, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

On the Douma attack (the first diff), I later modified the passage to quote Khalek. It suggests she did not believe the attack had occurred at all. The Haaretz article I drew the quote from is concerned with the rejection of certain individuals rejection of early information about the attack which is clearly interpreted as denial. The "elsewhere" comment from the edit summary refers to the SPLC article which I mentioned above. The "aim to discredit" assertion I think refers to the Counterpunch issue I mention above, though the diff seems to be wrong. The penultimate diff refers to a LARB article where the issue of Nation staff members is covered in more detail. I explained in the edit summary that the Eric Alterman Nation blog comment on the issue is rather brief and thus less than ideal. The last addition is not a real addition at all, but the Alterman blog entry restored and fully cited. It includes The Nation's official response to the issue before the main article. Philip Cross (talk) 14:07, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

There were at least 15 direct quotes on that article and you chose the one negative one. IWI (chat) 15:41, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

IWW, sources and websites can be partially reliable for certain things. As the Counterpunch article is a positive article about Khalek, I believed it could at least quote her accurately. (Assuming IWI, you mean the Counterpunch article in your addition above, I have already explained why the opinions expressed on a questionable website are probably not admissible to cite within Wikipedia rules.) Philip Cross (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2020 (UTC) (Parenthetical addition: Philip Cross (talk) 15:54, 12 January 2020 (UTC) )

• Concerned I too have have concerns about Philip Crosses's editing on a different BLP: Max Blumenthal. I will provide diffs later and look at this particular complaint. The main thing I noticed at Blumenthal's article is that Cross tended to improperly summarize the WP:RS he found. He cherry-picked what I found to be quotes which would portray Blumenthal in the worst possible light. He tended to choose critics who had vociferously negative criticism calling Blumenthal an anti-semite, when Blumenthal has a Jewish background. It's the self-hating Jew argument that is applied by Zionists to people who do not support Zionism and point out war-crimes of Israel. I mentioned it here (might be easier to read here at bottom), but will expand on the particular edits by Cross that emphasized this criticism. --David Tornheim (talk) 14:32, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Addendum: I just read the complaint and see Cross is doing the same thing here with cherry-picking of quotes, emphasizing negative and removing positive, and that Cross has allegedly been topic banned from certain British articles for the similar behavior. Do we have a diff of that topic ban? Although I am not an admin, I will look over Rania Khalek to see what is happening and provide diffs if I see the same problem there as with Max Blumenthal. --David Tornheim (talk) 14:41, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

User:David Tornheim removed a citation to an RS, Commentary, because he found the author Bruce Bawer objectionable. Bawer has opinions I do not agree with myself, but that is no reason to not use to his article. As is clear from the RS I cited, Blumenthal is now considered way outside the mainstream and only non-RS are likely to consider his work as being reputable. (I am aware a query on RS/N found otherwise.) As with Rania Khalek, WP editors go with what reliable sources say about an individual. Philip Cross (talk) 14:43, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@David Tornheim: The topic ban is here. IWI (chat) 14:47, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Concerned, too. We could add Cross' extensive fiddling on Tulsi Gabbard's BLP to this list. One diff in particular refers to an op-ed making exceptional claims as an RS. Another pushes the TG is a Russian assset line [162]. Really, have a look at just about any Cross modification of that BLP and you will be able to see his POV loud & clear. Suggest topic ban from anything related to the Syrian war.

NB: the original topic ban sidestepped the main issue which was the Syrian war.🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 14:52, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I cited The Washington Post for the first diff in which it is Kamala Harris who called Tulsi Gabbard an apologist for Assad. The reference (although it is an op-ed) is clearly factual, and the passage which might be thought the journalists opinion does not differ from multiple claims made about Gabbard when she was a presidential candidate. The other, a brief addition, is factual also ("[The] three major Moscow-based English-language websites [are] affiliated with or supportive of the Russian government.") I did not consider these additions to be tendentious. Philip Cross (talk) 15:09, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

The citation you added: Only Gabbard asserts that the United States (not Assad) is responsible for the death and destruction in Syria, that the Russian airstrikes on civilians are to be praised, that efforts to protect Syrian civilians are wrongheaded and that the United States must side with Assad., sourced to an op-ed by someone with a strong POV. I believe you cannot be counted upon to contribute neutrally on the Syrian Civil War, though I don't always think you are wrong. (I remember backing you up on the Douma page itself recently, for example) 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 15:17, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support full BLP ban on Philip. This is the same modus operandi as he operated on british political articles that eared him a well deserved ban from them, he is editing in a similar manner on this topic. NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and of other Wikimedia projects. It is also one of Wikipedia's three core content policies. Philip is a very experienced editor it is a shame he seems unable to edit and improve articles without what is apparently a personal slant. Govindaharihari (talk) 15:25, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I would also support this. His aim appears to be to discredit anyone he doesn’t agree with. IWI (chat) 19:51, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose full BLP ban. @Govindaharihari: That is unjustified by the evidence at hand. Please bear in mind that Philip Cross has contributed to many nonpolitical bios. He is, for example, the top editor of Duke Ellington and literally hundreds of other Wikipedia bios of musicians, more than a few of them still living. A full BLP ban would deprive us of his unparalleled expertise in this field. Let's not toss out the baby with the bathwater. NedFausa (talk) 20:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

At the very least we need a topic ban on the Syrian Civil war/Israel-Palestine conflict as well as journalist BLPs. That would be the minimum. IWI (chat) 20:11, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

NedFausa picked up on something on the Abby Martin article. It seems strange to me, as the user stated, that Cross makes this change after Martin herself makes this tweet referring to Cross himself with criticism. Seems like too much of a coincidence and would show blatant bad faith. IWI (chat) 00:35, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Totally bizarre, evidence-free filing. BLP does not require us to portray individuals in a favourable light. The diffs produced by IWI are utterly mundane. --RaiderAspect (talk) 06:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

My concerns are only one part of this. There are at least three other BLPs that this user has clearly used subtle synthesis to POV push their views about someone the user clearly disagrees with. Cherry picking particular negative quotes and using synthesis to make them look even worse to make outrageous claims of antisemitism is more that just portraying negatively. The user has used falsehoods or misquotes, which is a big deal on a BLP. IWI (chat) 07:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't get the feeling you understand what the BLP policy actually says. If RSs are generally critical of Khalek, or Blumenthal, or whoever, then the article will be generally critical of them. We don't scrub criticism because the article subject doesn't like it; the Donald Trump page would be a one line long if that was the case. --RaiderAspect (talk) 10:47, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• @Philip Cross: Re the first diff, above you say "I later modified the passage to quote Khalek. It suggests she did not believe the attack had occurred at all". How does the source justify that claim? How does it justify how it appears you left the article at permalink: "Haaretz quoted her denial in April 2018 that the Syrian government was responsible..."? To my simple mind, it looks like the source said Khalek had posted that there was no evidence and that means the above are very bad WP:SYNTH violations. Normally, SYNTH violations are a dime a dozen but they are very big deal when present in a BLP. Johnuniq (talk) 06:49, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

The internal link is to "Douma chemical attack", not "Alleged Douma chemical attack." Philip Cross (talk) 07:06, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Whatever your opinions, the source did not say what you said. IWI (chat) 07:29, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Considering arbitration warned you "to avoid editing topics with which he has a conflict of interest. Further, he is warned that his off-wiki behavior may lead to further sanctions to the extent it adversely impacts the English Wikipedia", how do you explain, following this tweet by Tim Anderson (political economist), making many edits such as this to his article? Wouldn’t this be a blatant violation of that warning, along with the Abby Martin issue mentioned above? IWI (chat) 07:36, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I recommend administrators search Twitter using my name as there is evidence suggesting WP:PROXYING, especially concerning the Rania Khalek article. My edits to the Tim Anderson article do not "adversely impact" Wikipedia as they are derived from RS and develop the article. Philip Cross (talk) 07:54, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

No proxying occurred. I made these edits at my own direction after people highlighted your edits to me on Twitter. Even if it did, they are not banned editors. Your claim is absurd. IWI (chat) 07:58, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Correction, they were highlighted, but not directly to me. IWI (chat) 08:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• Philip Cross is the victim of an off-wiki smear campaign who should never have been topic banned from British politics in the first place; as all that led to was the smear campaign scrutinising every single one of his edits for something they don't like, and then abusing BLP to try to get him punished in any way they can. If this was a genuine complaint, why is Philip Cross the only editor they complain about? Iffy★Chat -- 09:23, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Because, very simply, the complaint is about Philip Cross i.e. this is a genuine complaint about Philip Cross. I admit this so called campaign brought my attention to it, but on inspection I became concerned. The editor is simply discrediting the project, and I can’t let that happen. (I answered because it appeared this was a question to me directly). People are saying they won’t trust Wikipedia again, and that is a big problem. IWI (chat) 10:26, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@RaiderAspect: but sources are not generally critical. In fact even the sources used are mostly not critical. The user took a direct quote. There are about 20 of these direct quotes from the person, he chooses the one that would be most defaming. It should also be noted that the person in question actually expressed concerns about her Wikipedia page. Cross has gone through a process of removing positive sources and replacing them with negative ones, or emphasising negative ones more, even to the point of synthesis in one case (the Douma chemical attack one) and literally saying something that wasn’t exactly in the source. Believe me, I understand the policy well and I would not post here lightly. IWI (chat) 13:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Report a user

Moved from AN. Primefac (talk) 02:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to report the IP address User:86.28.95.135. they are constantly adding unnecessary content to Royal Rumble (2020). I have given them a warning on their talk page. L1amw90 (talk) 23:02, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• "Pro" wrestling again. EEng 02:31, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

  EEng, a reliable source of lameness since the dawn of Wikipedia. Guy (help!) 11:42, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Now, now, not everyone here is a swine. But really, comment on "content", not on contributors. EEng 15:59, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

NOTHERE block needed for User:Gaurarjun

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

This fairly new user recently reached out to me asking for adoption. I asked them my standard questions for adoptees. They asked to chat over WhatsApp, I politely declined. That apparently wasn't well received by Gaurajun, who then left [163] this edit on my talk comparing experienced editors to the Gestapo. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, and left [164] friendly explanatory note on their talk about why calling things the Gestapo is...bad. They then proceeded to harass Clovermoss by repeatedly asking her to chat on WhatsApp too [165]. The real piece de resistance here was today, a newbie asked for adoption on my page. Guarajun went to that user's page, and left this edit, again invoking the Gestapo, after being asked to stop [166]. They're also going around and removing "Adopt me" templates from users pages using the edit sum "Experienced user". I get childish or troll vibes here, and think this editor is WP:NOTHERE. Several users have already given AGF'd here, and tried to help, but Gaurarjun has exhausted the community's faith. Also, not knowing that the Gestapo are one of the most evil organizations ever and casually comparing people to them strikes me as WP:NONAZIS. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:03, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Pinging @Nick Moyes:, who while not formally involved may have some input on the matter. If they have a suggestion on how to help save this user, I'm all for it. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

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Refusing to communicate and marking all edits as minor

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Dudewing (talk · contribs) has been repeatedly warned for marking non-minor edits as minor first time July 1 of last year by @Hydromania: [167], then he was reminded again July 21 by @Doug Weller: [168]. I waned him yet again last November [169] because he was continuing to mark all his edits as minor. He has never responded to any attempts at communication on his talk page and continues marking every one of his edits as minor, which at this point is bald-faced disruption. He states openly on his user page "i don't talk here". He's not collaborative and his behavior is disruptive. There's no point in further warnings as he ignores all of them. OrgoneBox (talk) 17:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked. Doug Weller talk 17:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

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Does anyone have the time to fix a bunch of era style changes, so far as I can see AD to CE

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Here.[170] I've asked User:Tpsreport84 to but I doubt I'll get them to do it. Doug Weller talk 17:20, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorted I think, I've discussed it with the editor. Doug Weller talk 12:54, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

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User:Jkofidittir

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So I have read a BBC article about a professor who had been suspended from medical practice after receiving full-time salaries from two universities. I have added content from the BBC page to Professor Akhilesh Reddy's Wikipedia page. Someone or some people have been deleting what I have added and we were in the edit war for a week. Today I have received a legal threat saying that "Please check your information correctly otherwise you will be blocked. This is because what you are posting is considered defamation or slander and would put this site at risk of legal action because of this. Continuing to attempt to post such defamatory material will result in legal pursuit in your jurisdiction. We have requested your information from your Internet Service Provider. Your IP address is 94.193.85.100." and then "The BBC and other venues have thus mis-reported the events and this should be considered "Fake News" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.85.100 (talk) 17:35, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Blocked for the legal threat. 331dot (talk) 17:44, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

I note socking as well (yes I know they have been blocked). I suspect (at this stage) we may need a range block.Slatersteven (talk) 18:41, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

As I was typing [[171]].Slatersteven (talk) 18:43, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

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Problematic edits, using at least two accounts

• Lewys G (talk · contribs)
• Lewys Gil (talk · contribs)
• 79.79.1.65 (talk · contribs)
• 2A02:C7F:8AC9:3100:7808:6E2F:D64F:5155 (talk · contribs)

Two issues here: the competency/disruptiveness factor of an editor (adding unsourced, editorial comments and just really badly written content), and the appearance of their using two (and more) accounts simultaneously. I was going to open a report based on Lewys G's history--it's never a good sign when so many edits are reverted, and the user's comments invariably begin with "I need to" or "I just need to." Then the second account came to my notice. There may or may not be more, but both were used at Cool for Cats (song). 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 01:41, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Persistent addition of promotional and copyright violation content (sorry, but AIV is locked right now)

• TheStraggler (talk · contribs)

Appears to be a WP:COI, given the articles and content. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 02:24, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

A non communication block might be appropriate. He's been here a year, although he appears to have a very narrow field of interest, it doesn't really look like a direct conflict to me. He has never replied to anything nor asked anything anywhere. I think a WP:CIR and WP:Communication is required block might garner his attention if he doesn't reply here. John from Idegon (talk) 02:29, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes. RE: COI I'm looking at the predilection for copyright violations and promotional content for a college and town in Iowa. But it is peripheral to the primary concerns. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 02:32, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Lotus throne

Today, a DYK for the article Lotus throne made the front page, the archive of the hook is here. I did the initial DYK review of the article back on December 18. As I was reviewing it, I noticed what I thought were inconsistencies in the citation style and there were some duplicative citations. Knowing, Wikipedia:CITEVAR, and the standards of DYK, I tried to clean-up the citations to get the article ready for the front page. You can see the four edits I made on December 18 here. I didn't change the content, just tried to clean up the referencing.

This morning, several edits were made that I find concerning. The first two were on my talk page, made by User:Johnbod. I find the anger and the use of profanity in the post and the edit summary uncivil. The third is the edit summary here:

"rvt back beforew [sic] appalling deceptive cite-banditry, to 18 Dec"

Cite banditry? Is that even a thing? Anyway, I made the edits in good faith three weeks ago while trying to prepare the article for DYK. Would some please delete the three edits from the official record? --evrik ^(talk) 04:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

This was an outrageous breach of WP:CITEVAR, which I had not noticed (just before Christmas) until checking the article over after it came off the main page - especially because the worst edits had no edit summaries, which was very annoying. There was nothing wrong with the referencing. It is not true that he didn't change the content - at various points his imposing of the sfn format removed extra information in the notes. User:evrik's comments above show he is blithely unaware he has done anything wrong. I think I have encountered similar bad behaviour from him before, but I can't remember when or where. He has been around for a long time, and clearly thinks he knows it all, but he doesn't. He can of course remove the section from his talk page himself, which is what he normally does (without archiving) with criticism of his edits, of which there is a fair volume. Johnbod (talk) 05:13, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

PS His DYK review was rubbish also! Johnbod (talk) 05:43, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

• I do not want to engage in any kind of back-and-forth about content, style, or any past interactions. I simply want the profanity and insults administratively removed from my page and the edit summaries. Thank you. --evrik ^(talk) 15:17, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
  • ...and then you intend to go on ignoring policy with supreme self-satisfaction! Johnbod (talk) 15:22, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't have put it quite as Johnbod did, but your edit clearly does violate WP:CITEVAR, in particular the instruction to avoid "adding citation templates to an article that already uses a consistent system without templates". And I can't see how his edits qualify either for revision deletion or suppression. Just remove the comment from your talkpage. (And for Johnbod – the comment on Evrik's talkpage does strike me as a bit of an overreaction. One violation of citevar is not a blockable offence, and "WHAT THE FUCK!!!" in allcaps with three exclamation marks is excessively shouty.) Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:40, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
    • Again, I'm not going to argue over the article or the edits. I'm not engaging in personal attacks. The profanity used in the edit summary is now permanently on the history of my talk page. I would like it removed. --evrik ^(talk) 15:45, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Bizarre accusation of socking

I was pinged in a 3RR complaint (where I was not a participant) and Esuka accused me of being an anonIP 46.226.190.219. As anyone here can attest, such an accusation can forever taint a user's edits, and when I asked the user to retract the accusation both in the complaint and on their usertalk page, they said:

"I believe there's enough there to cast reasonable doubt on your story. If that causes you upset or offense that's really not my problem. Also, I don't believe checkuser would clear you either way. Feel free to try and get me hit with a proverbial "slap on the wrist" if it you makes you feel better.".

As you can probably guess, I am angered by not just the accusation, but the cavalier nature of Esuka, who throws out these damaging accusations without a shred of proof and clearly expects to walk away without any repercussions. This user, who has been here less than two years is gaming the system, making accusations they don't have to back up, isn't going to believe the results of the checkuser (if done), and feels there isn't any real penalty for doing so (ie. a "slap on the wrist").
I would like to seek their lengthy, lengthy block from Wikipedia. No one should get to drop in corrosive accusations like that and go to bed happy. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 05:20, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Esuka blocked for 36 hours for continuing to cast aspersions, after just having been warned against doing so. El_C 05:33, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Excessive use of db-g5 by ThatMontrealIP

Can a few people check a bunch of {{db-g5}} nominations by ThatMontrealIP? I have declined Harry Shamoon and Moni Simeonov because multiple people (IPs count) have edited the article, and Angela Slavova because I'm sure somebody in WP:WikiProject Women in Red will take care of it. I'm concerned about throwing the baby out with the bathwater; my understanding of WP:G5 was to get rid of blatantly rubbish articles started by banned editors that didn't quite fit any other CSD criteria. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:01, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I had a look through them, and, with the possible exception of Emily Pogorelc, they all look valid to me. Adam9007 (talk) 17:18, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Richie333: I first asked Mer-C about nominating these and they said nominate them all if they are without significant contribs, as there were copyright issues with Biografer's contribs. I check the history first and nominate if the contribs are not something substantial that would stick. In the case of Harry Shamoun, the IP's contribs are all unsourced. For Angela Slavova there are no siginificant contribs beyond Biografer's. Emily Pogorelc has some IP contribs that Biografer reverted, and some category work. I also find it a bit sad that these have to go, but understand the reasoning I received from MER-C. Thanks. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:21, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Pinging David Eppstein who has been involved in (attempting to prevent) such G5s. @ThatMontrealIP: Whatever anyone else says, the only things that have to go is copyvios, attack pages and anything else we are not. If these articles improve the encyclopedia, then we should keep them. ——SN54129 17:28, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

OK well different admins have told me different things now, so I will stop altogether and let you folks have a discussion.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 17:31, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we should have an AfD for them? If we're to discuss the deletion of these pages, AfD is the proper venue. Adam9007 (talk) 17:45, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I made substantive edits yesterday to articles Nancy Combs, Angela Slavova, Caroline Forell, Lucija Čok, Amy Schmitz, Sonia Aissa, Sandra Irving, Kathryn Albers, Tanja Schultz, Emily Agree, and (earlier) Barbara Aldave, most of which have now been deleted (and in one case only partially restored). I am dismayed to see MER-C, JJMC89, and now ThatMontrealIP so blatantly ignore the requirement of G5 that it only apply to articles to which no substantive edits have been made by others. The articles should be restored and the admins admonished for making out-of-policy speedy deletions. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:57, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Some editors think that all of a banned/blocked editors' page creations should be G5'd, so as to deter people from creating pages in violation of their bans/blocks. After all, if I can create a sock account, create a bunch of pages, and have the sock account blocked but the pages stay... why wouldn't I just keep creating sock accounts and making pages? I mean, what's the point of a page creator using just one account at all? On the other hand, other editors think we shouldn't delete pages just because they were created by a banned/blocked user. What does it matter who created the content? We're here to build an encyclopedia; it makes little sense to delete perfectly good pages, regardless of who wrote them or why. This ought to be resolved with an RfC. With regard to this particular editor, I've gone through many of their creations and have CSD'd a bunch. There are so many errors, including straight factual errors, not per source, copyvios, and totally non-notable people, that I loathe the notion of going through all 600 just in case some might be worth saving. I'm of the "nuke it all" camp–if it's good content, someone will come along and recreate it–someone whose work we can trust. And, I want to de-incentivize the editor from making more pages with other sock accounts. The editor should know that all of their work will be tossed if they create pages in violation of their bans. Simply put: I don't trust Biografer's work, and I think in this case we should G5 it all. – Levivich 18:00, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Persistent vandalism from a range of IPs

For the past week or so there has been a persistent amount of vandalism by IP editors from the range of addresses 80.233.32.x-80.233.47.x, which are registered to Hutchison 3G Ireland. Many of them follow the same pattern and target the same pages, sometimes with almost identical wording, e.g. look at 80.233.42.244, 80.233.36.277 and 80.233.32.86. Several blocks have been applied, but new addresses keep popping up. Some of the other edits may be from different people, especially as they are more subtle. Some have lasted for several days and are still current.

Today I've noticed a campaign of adding biographical articles to pointless categories like "Iranian expatriate basketball people in Sweden" that has been going on for at least a few weeks, I can't say for how long. I intend to track down as many as I can but there are literally dozens still current. One list of these edits is Special:Contributions/80.233.37.88. Some of those not flagged as current on this list still need clearing up, as the articles have had subsequent unrelated edits but the bogus categories remain. I'm going to track down as many as I can. Is there a technical way to find categories with only one or a small number of members?

As far as I can tell a clear majority of recent edits from this range of addresses have been vandalism. I'm leaving this post as an alert but don't really know what to ask for as the best intervention. A block on the IP range would affect the (minority) of genuine edits from there. Indeed triggering such a block might be just what the pranksters are after. As these are mobile edits I'm guessing the likelihood of the ISP being able to do much to trace the people is minimal. FrankP (talk) 17:47, 13 January 2020 (UTC)