Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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

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Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).

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There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.

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Please append {{Doing}} to the discussion's entry you are closing so that no one duplicates your effort. When finished, replace it with {{Close}} or {{Done}} and an optional note, and consider sending a {{Ping}} to the editor who placed the request. Where a formal closure is not needed, reply with {{Not done}}. After addressing a request, please mark the {{Initiated}} template with |done=yes. ClueBot III will automatically archive requests marked with {{Already done}}, {{Close}}, {{Done}} {{Not done}}, and {{Resolved}}.

If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.

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Administrative discussions

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive366#IBAN_appeal

(Initiated 32 days ago on 18 October 2024) This shouldn't have been archived by a bot without closure. Heartfox (talk) 02:55, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Heartfox: The page is archived by lowercase sigmabot III (talk · contribs), which gets its configuration frum the {{User:MiszaBot/config}} at the top of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Crucially, this has the parameter |algo=old(7d) which means that any thread with no comments for seven days is eligible for archiving. At the time that the IBAN appeal thread was archived, the time was 00:00, 2 November 2024 - seven days back from that is 00:00, 26 October 2024, and the most recent comment to the thread concerned was made at 22:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC). This was more than seven days earlier: the archiving was carried out correctly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:16, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

There was no need for this because archived threads can be closed too. It is not necessary for them to remain on noticeboard. Capitals00 (talk) 03:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. It is back in the archive, and hopefully someone can close it there. Heartfox (talk) 05:23, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive366#Is_WP:RECALL_a_policy?

(Initiated 21 days ago on 28 October 2024) Discussion has slowed for the last week. I think the consensus is pretty clear, but I'm involved. – Joe (talk) 17:24, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

 Note: discussion has been archived. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:52, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Proposal to adopt this guideline

(Initiated 101 days ago on 9 August 2024)

Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)#Proposal to adopt this guideline is WP:PROPOSAL for a new WP:SNG. The discussion currently stands at 503 comments from 78 editors or 1.8 tomats of text, so please accept the hot beverage of your choice ☕️ and settle in to read for a while. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Talk:International Churches of Christ#RfC: Referring to International Churches of Christ (ICOC) as a cult in the lead

(Initiated 60 days ago on 19 September 2024) Legobot removed the RFC template on 20/10/2024. Discussoin has slowed. Can we please have a independent close. TarnishedPath^talk 23:11, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

 Doing... I've read the whole discussion, but this one is complex enough that I need to digest it and reread it later now that I have a clear framing of all the issues in my mind. Ideally, I'll close this sometime this week. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:23, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. This issue has been going on in various discussions on the talk page for a while so there is no rush. TarnishedPath^talk 03:26, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: just checking in here. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:53, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm still working on this, and I apologize for the delay. Because of my health problems, I only occasionally have days where I am fit to take on complex stuff like closures, and this particular one is testing me. I do have an outline of my findings in a document, but need to flesh it out and proof it against the discussion. I could finish this as soon as tomorrow, depending on how things go, but I can't promise anything. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:39, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

No worries. Your health always comes first. Best, voorts (talk/contributions) 23:12, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

I fear I gave the wrong impression. My health is in no jeopardy whatsoever, I just have intractable problems with fatigue and focus that frequently keep me from doing the things I want and intend. I appreciate your concern, though. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:37, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Memorial_Hall_(Harvard_University)#Rfc_on_use_of_"imposing"

(Initiated 96 days ago on 14 August 2024)

Coming up on two months since the last comment. Consensus seems pretty clear, but would like an uninvolved party to look it over. Seasider53 (talk) 23:13, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 456#RfC: using photos of record labels from Discogs?

(Initiated 51 days ago on 28 September 2024) Discussion has died down and last vote was over a week ago. CNC (talk) 17:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 20:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments

(Initiated 42 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Turkey#RfC_on_massacres_and_genocides_in_the_lead

(Initiated 41 days ago on 8 October 2024) Expired tag, no new comments in more than a week. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:David Lammy#RfC: First sentence

(Initiated 34 days ago on 15 October 2024) Discussion has died down. The last vote was on 4 November. Khiikiat (talk) 10:10, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Administrator recall#RfC: Should we add text prescribing just signatures, no discussion?

(Initiated 16 days ago on 3 November 2024) The amount of no !votes relative to yes !votes coupled with the several comments arguing it's premature suggests this should probably be SNOW closed. Sincerely, Dilettante 16:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:One_Direction#RfC: Band status and members in the infobox

(Initiated 31 days ago on 18 October 2024) Expired today, last comment was three weeks ago. The consensus on this RfC appears to lean one way among the participants, but because of the high-profile and contentious nature of the change under discussion, I think an uninvolved editor should close. Thesixthstaff (talk) 19:25, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Total
CfD	0	0	0	35	35
TfD	0	0	0	3	3
MfD	0	0	0	5	5
FfD	0	0	0	2	2
RfD	0	0	5	60	65
AfD	0	0	0	1	1

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 November 8#Confederation of the Rhine

(Initiated 18 days ago on 31 October 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:15, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 November 9#Category:Fictional characters from the Solar System

(Initiated 9 days ago on 9 November 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 21:18, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 02:07, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Feminist art movement#proposing merge of Feminist art into Feminist art movement

(Initiated 307 days ago on 16 January 2024) It would be helpful for an uninvolved editor to close this discussion on a merge from Feminist art to Feminist art movement; there have been no new comments in more than 2 months. Klbrain (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

 Doing... may take a crack at this close, if no one objects. Allan Nonymous (talk) 17:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:List of pholidotans#Merge to Manidae

(Initiated 18 days ago on 31 October 2024) Discussion only occurred on the day of proposal, and since then no further argument has been made. I don't think this discussion is going anywhere, so a close may be in order here. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 07:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to close this so soon. Merge proposals often drag on for months, and sometimes will receive comments from new participants only everything couple weeks. I think it's too early to say whether a consensus will emerge. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: OK, so what are you suggesting? Will the discussion remain open if no further comments are received in, say, two weeks? I also doubt that merge discussions take months to conclude. I think that such discussions should take no more than 20 days, unless it's of course, a very contentious topic, which is not the case here. Taken that you've shown interest in this request, you should be able to tell that no form of consensus has taken place, so I think you can let it sit for a while to see if additional comments come in before inevitably closing it. I mean, there is no use in continuing a discussion that hasn't progressed in weeks. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 15:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Wolverine X-eye, I don't think thats what they are saying. Like RfC's, any proposals should be opened for more than 7 days. This one has only been open for 4 days. This doesn't give enough time to get enough WP:CONSENSUS on the merge, even if everyone agreed to it. Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 21:24, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Cowboygilbert: So what should I do now? Wait until the discussion is a week old? Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 11:14, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@Wolverine X-eye:, Yes. Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 17:04, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@Cowboygilbert: It's now 7 days... Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 14:09, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: You still interested in closing this? Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 04:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a priority, given all the much older discussions here. I'll get to this eventually, or maybe someone else before me. In the meantime, please be patient. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 13:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: It's now been 7 days...I know this isn't a priority to you but can you at least take a look at it this week, even if it's not today? Thanks for your time, Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 04:26, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (21 out of 8844 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Mariam Barghouti 2024-11-19 01:24 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:A/I/PIA ToBeFree 17 November 2024 Russian strikes on Ukraine 2024-11-19 00:51 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree User talk:138.64.112.72 2024-11-18 13:20 2025-02-18 13:20 create Repeatedly recreated Ivanvector Thori Si Wafa 2024-11-18 05:28 indefinite create Pppery Betar 2024-11-18 01:03 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP Fathoms Below 2024 in the State of Palestine 2024-11-18 00:29 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP Isabelle Belato Battle of Bamut 2024-11-17 18:21 2024-11-21 18:21 edit Persistent disruptive editing from (auto)confirmed accounts; requested at WP:RfPP Isabelle Belato Rihanna Death 2024-11-16 20:26 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated: per RFPP Daniel Case Justin bieber dead 2024-11-16 20:25 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Daniel Case Template:Infobox airline/styles.css 2024-11-16 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 4651 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II User talk:220.81.134.147 2024-11-16 12:13 2025-02-16 12:13 create Repeatedly recreated Ivanvector Amazfit 2024-11-16 11:37 2025-11-16 11:37 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: persistent WP:COI Yamla User talk:118.237.51.201 2024-11-16 09:42 2024-12-16 09:42 create Repeatedly recreated 331dot Sidhant Mohapatra 2024-11-16 05:45 2025-08-23 01:14 edit,move Persistent block evasion Geniac Solomon Etefa 2024-11-16 02:11 2025-11-16 02:11 create enforcing outcome (draftify) of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Solomon Etefa Asilvering Pannu 2024-11-15 21:56 indefinite edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: WP:CASTE RegentsPark Lamba (surname) 2024-11-15 21:53 indefinite edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: WP:CASTE RegentsPark Mirdha 2024-11-15 21:52 indefinite edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: WP:CASTE RegentsPark Karel Komárek 2024-11-15 17:43 2025-05-15 17:43 edit Violations of the biographies of living persons policy HJ Mitchell Millennium Dome 2024-11-15 13:54 2025-05-15 13:54 edit Persistent sock puppetry Goodnightmush User talk:61.80.147.98 2024-11-15 09:01 2024-12-15 09:01 create Repeatedly recreated 331dot

Request for a second opinion on decision not to semi-protect Barbara Lerner Spectre

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

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• Barbara Lerner Spectre (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Yesterday I requested on WP:RFPP that the BLP of Barbara Lerner Spectre be indef semi-protected. The reason I made this request was due to long term efforts by IPs to add fringe anti-semitic sources to the page. This includes the "white identity" blog Occidental Observer and a book talking about the "Jewish Agenda." My request was rejected by User:Samsara who gave their reasons here. I discussed the issue with Samsara on their talk page, where my reasons for wanting the page protected and Samsara's reasons for declining are set out in more detail. I have come to AN to ask for a second admin opinion on the matter. Brustopher (talk) 11:19, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

• In my opinion – and I'm pretty good at the RFPP thing – Samsara is correct. There are two real choices here: the first is to fully protect it to force discussion, and the second is to block you for long-term edit warring. (I would lean toward the first, not the second.) In any case, this is not disruption by an IP or a BLP problem, but rather an attempt to insert a well-sourced quote. If you don't like the source, that's fine and dandy. Find another one, and it seems there are plenty in this case. Katie^talk 16:44, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
• I concur with Katie and Samsara. I would likely have full protected to prevent edit warring, but declining semi-protection is fine. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:48, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

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

WP:ACE2017

• WP:ACE2017

The 2017 ArbCom election results are posted at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2017#Results, partially certified. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:32, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Now three certifiers, I think that means it's now certified. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:49, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Question: Do the results now have to be accepted by Jimbo (or the WMF), or is that no longer the case? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

That's a great question. The "welcome" messages went out, but no peep from Jimbo. The policy doesn't specifically call it out, but other pages mention him. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:16, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Waiting for the horse's mouth! (User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Question_on_action_needed) — xaosflux ^Talk 00:25, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The new arbitrators are already being brought onto the mailing list and will officially take office January 1. Jimbo Wales hasn't made formal arbitrator appointments in several years. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:05, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad: I agree, and will clean up the documentation that is both here and on meta that references this process, but giving Jimbo a chance to officially declare that he is divorced from the process, if you have found where this has actually occurred previously, I'd love to see a diff. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Best place to look back is previous election results and Jimbo's talk page. Looking back at a post I wrote off-site when I looked at this briefly back in May 2016, it seems that the last 'ceremonial appointment' was back in December 2013. You could check to see if this has definitely not happened since, and then record that somewhere. That link I provide also points back to what Jimbo wrote then about how he saw things panning out. Not sure if anything definite was actually done, though. Other stuff happened since as well. Carcharoth (talk) 14:03, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Agree, in practice this is no longer occurring, but before updating pages referencing that the committee is still "appointed" by him (e.g. meta:Arbitration Committee, meta:Arbitration_Committee/Election_processes#English, Wikipedia:Elections#Arbitration_Committee, etc etc etc., I was hoping to get a statement from him (currently awaiting reply on his talk page) that this is now a pure community process. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:15, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

As I recall, Jimbo Wales saw his role in appointing ArbCom as more ceremonial than one of significance—so as his actual role in the administration of the project has diminished, his ceremonial role has simply faded out of memory. Mz7 (talk) 07:16, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks to everyone for their insights on this. I had forgotten (or never knew) that Jimbo was phasing himself out of even the "ceremonial" rubber-stamping of Arbs, although I knew he was doing so in general, even, I believe, giving up some authority for the "Founder" user right. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:08, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• Jimbo replied at his talk page, which resolves the process issue for normal community run elections. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:59, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Obvious sock

Can anyone please block Mucusslide544 (talk · contribs) as an obvious sock of SuperPassword (talk · contribs)? It's blatantly obvious that it's the same user, as they keep vandalizing articles related to Alan Jackson and keep using #AlanJacksonKilledCountry in their edit summaries. This is a blatant WP:DUCK, and it's ridiculous that no one is willing to indef anyone who keeps doing this. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:17, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

That's a pretty big net being cast there. Not everyone is aware of previous incidents when they come across blatant vandalism. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:18, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Has now been blocked. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

SuperPassword and Peterpansshadow are socks of Tamara787. Please file these sock reports in the appropriate place: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tamara787. I've been blocking these socks as I find them (as have a few other admins), but if the reports are spread out to random noticeboards, it's unlikely I'm going to see them. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:27, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

IP block evasion by user:SashiRolls

Today it's 2001:BC8:249D:100:0:0:0:1, a Tor exit node. Anybody want to take care of it? Geogene (talk) 03:51, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Blocked. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:56, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colin Hemsley

This should be a routine AfD discussion with WP:V and WP:BLP the issues. A "citations required" notice was served on the article in September but was not acknowledged or in any way actioned. When I saw the article, which I found while I was scanning its category, I thought AfD was the logical next step. To be fair, another editor has stepped in and provided some citations so the article will probably be kept if there is no problem with notability.

My concern is with the responses I received at Afd from two other members of the WP:CRIC project and it appears to me, having already been involved with other AfDs relevant to that project, that there is a serious problem around verification and notability issues in a large number of cricket articles. The problem is compounded by the over-defensive attitudes of certain project members, especially by the author of Colin Hemsley, when these issues are raised and attempts are made to have them addressed.

I find it all extremely unsatisfactory (and extremely wearing). The core content policies and WP:BLP are, it seems to me, being openly defied by people in the cricket project who, to be blunt, do not even understand the difference between verification and notability. Regards, Waj (talk) 07:15, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CE Holkar is a very similar (bulk) nomination with more participation, and has spawned a thread at Wikipedia_talk:Notability#Please_clarify_confusing_notability_issue_for_AfD_purposes. I started a thread here in October about earlier nominations of this sort when I gave up on trying to mediate the situation myself. power~enwiki (π, ν) 07:31, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

@Wajidshahzeed: Looking at your comments there, I think it's you who actually doesn't understand WP:V, to be honest. An article without citations does not fail WP:V. WP:V does not require that sources be in the article at all, only that sources exist and that they be, within a certain degree of reason, accessable. If you had just limited it to WP:BLP failure, you would have been correct; however WP:V only allows unreferenced content to be removed, not that "uncited content fails verifiability". Now, that said, an uncited BLP is in violation of policy and should be either given citations or deleted, however the claim of "failing WP:V because no sources are provided" is not one that can be considered to be policy compliant. (That said, don't feel too bad about it: it's a (for better or for worse) common misconception. )- The Bushranger _{One ping only} 08:00, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

I think overly strict adherence to "WP:V only requires sources to exist" can be dangerous. It leads people to think articles don't need sources. Or that it's OK to just wave a hand and say "I'm sure there must be sources lying around here somewhere but there's no need to actually find them." There's no reason for the average reader or editor to believe the necessary sources exist unless they're actually provided. Nor is there a reason to omit references to sources from an article if you know of their existence. The only safe and responsible course it to hold that an unsourced article fails WP:V unless it can be shown to meet it. Reyk _YO! 09:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

An article that has no citations may not be in violation of WP:V. An article that has been previously challenged for not having citations and has had none provided, definitely is in violation of WP:V - citations are required for any challenged material. 'This entire article is unsourced' qualifies. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:36, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Bushranger. I hold my hand up here because I did not word the nomination correctly. I should have said that WP:V was an issue because no citations had been provided despite a challenge having been made three months earlier. I gave an incorrect impression by not mentioning the challenge then. I agree with Reyk and Only in death above.

I must express concern with this response at the AfD by User:Bobo192, especially as he is a sysop. He is saying that my action in pointing out a certain breach of BLP (and a probable one of WP:V) is "disgusting". He is advising me that I should convert an external link into a reference when the link is to a subscription site that I cannot access. It would be unethical if I moved that link into a citation when I cannot see it. I am sure I read somewhere that you must only use the citation you have actually found and viewed, not one that you know about without seeing it. Of course, if sourcing the information is that easy and assuming he can access the site, why hasn't he as author done it himself? Not good. Regards, Waj (talk) 11:31, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm 99% sure that Waj is a sock account, something I've raised in the AfD. Their "final" edit is this after being presented with this. I'd appreicate if someone who's not involved in the AfD to take a look at closing it. Of course, I'd have no issue if someone would bring it back to AfD with a valid rationale to do so. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 15:07, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Dare I say once again, if we were able to stick to the same basic guidelines which have done us no harm over the last 13 years, this whole stupid situation wouldn't have arisen in the first place? It is this which genuine, hardworking WP:CRIC members are finding "wearing", and nothing else. If this had happened with any other sportsman from any other sport with any other guideline, the people putting these articles up for AfD would probably be significantly castigated and warned to stay away from Wikipedia. WP:CRIC is finding itself under unnecessary pressure for the same reason it has existed for as long as it has. People like myself and Jack (and others) are finding our work of the last 13 years undone by people who have just decided to turn up and it is this which is demoralizing. Bobo. 16:56, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• Verifiability means the sources are clearly identified to readers in an article. Where this is not done, there is a duty to add the sources, or nominate the article for deletion. Once the article is nominated for deletion, people not only need to identify the sources, but edit the article to identify these sources exist. This is especially the case for articles on living people.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:28, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

The sources are "clearly identified". They're right there on the article. If they are not, especially on articles I have created, this is a clumsy oversight from me and the fact that they are still not there after 10 years is... silly, of course, but that nobody has put that right over that time is sad. You would not delete Test cricket player articles by this criterion - even though there are many Test cricketer articles with zero references - and to suggest you would with first-class player articles is, once again, deceptive. The solution is not to say, "No references, delete lol", but to say, "Greetings Bobotron, would you kindly alter these external links to references so that they satisfy article inclusion criteria even though it changes not a jot of the article's content?" Or, failing that, do it yourself. Bobo. 04:22, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

File uploaded locally prevents visibility of same file on Commons?

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

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I have a situation I haven't encountered before and I don't know how to resolve it. At the article Yemeni Civil War (2015–present) (a page under a 1RR restriction) there is an image File:Yemeni Civil War.jpg which has been subject to a recent revert war on Commons. It seems that one of the revert-warring editors uploaded their preferred version of the file locally with the same name, and it is that version which currently appears in the article. I don't know how that's possible and I don't know how to fix it. Help?

As a side note, the two editors involved (and a third) are mostly working constructively on the article's talk page to work through the content dispute, and so I'm trying to avoid blocking any of them (I'm also involved, so there's that). But if any admins reviewing the situation think that a block would get the point across better than I've been doing then I'm not going to have anything bad to say about that. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:01, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: Coffee said that it is not a violation in two times because the conflict occured in WMC. --Panam2014 (talk) 15:05, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Ivanvector: File:Yemeni Civil War.jpg is from commons:, do you have an example of the 'local version'? It is possible to upload a local version of an existing commons file, it requires the (reupload-shared) permission, currently only available to admins. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:07, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

I see what happened, Panam2014 has revealed the problem. The original file is File:Yemeni Civil War.svg (different extension), I can fix that. Also, what Panam2014 is referring to above is somewhat of a tangent to this issue. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Looks like you have confused the file with a similar file name, File:Yemeni Civil War.svg. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:12, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Yep. I'll go apologize to everyone around me in the office for all that fish I'm about to have for lunch. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:15, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

For whatever its worth, I dropped at note at COM:AN/B in case anyone there feels further action is or becomes warranted. GMG^talk 15:34, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• When you’re mentioning or referencing someone, you know it’s common courtesy to at least ping that person that you’re actually talking about. Furthermore, you made a request to block me and didn’t even leave a message, luckily @Ivanvector: made me aware of such situation and when I had gone there your request was denied. Now as for my local file as soon as I had uploaded it, I made a request to delete because I said it was a duplicate, so I don’t understand why you’re trying to take things out of context. Chilicheese22 (talk) 15:53, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

If you're referring to me, I dropped the {{an-notice}} on the talk pages of all three of the editors I referred to in my original post, so I don't know what you're trying to get at. If you're referring to Panam2014, they may have assumed you were aware of the thread already since I had already notified you. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: I was talking about Panam2014, he has well over 6500 edits, to just assume things. He knows its policy when opening a case about another editor to notify him promptly. Chilicheese22 (talk) 16:21, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

CC22' behaviour is problematic and time consuming. It modifies the file and the page whereas it was stable for weeks. This behavior is unacceptable and can not ignore it. --Panam2014 (talk) 19:22, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• I just noted that there's a thread about the two editors involved here (Panam2014 and Chilicheese22) on AN/I. [1] Should they either be combined, or this one closed? Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:04, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

This thread can be closed. The issue of there being a duplicate local file was resolved, it was simply a mistake on my part. The ANI thread is a broad spectrum of issues which includes what was going on here, but there's no need for there to be two threads about it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:19, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

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Editor being bullied

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

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The IP being reported below is 62.255.118.6 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

• will take other editor to Arbcom unless comment is struck
• more rhetoric with someone else
• more part 2 with other editor's question

The TP has been "watched" quite carefully by another admin who posted there twice thereafter without dealing with the comments. The offender was warned yesterday. PS-I don't care what's said about me because I've turned this in because I can let loose with some very colorful profanity (well, before someone blocks me!. ;) We hope (talk) 16:08, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Question from a mostly uninformed admin: Given the comments on Blofeld's talkpage, would a report to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Singora be warranted there? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:28, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

It may, as Dr. Blofeld had been the target of the blocked editor's rancor earlier this year. However, the quacking is very similar. We hope (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

There's only one person I know obsessed enough with me and who quacks like this and that's Singora. Difficult to prove though given that the IP is Reading, England and Singora's previous IPs were Thailand.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, the IPs TP & history shows the recent incidents aren't one offs. We hope (talk) 19:34, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• Checked against the Singora case and the UA does not match but it is worth noting that it is a proxy.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 19:39, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

What's to be done about the bullying and other uncivil behaviors at the article TP and at Dr. Blofeld's TP? This IP is the one who began the RfC at Cary Grant, which seems to be a major mess because of the bullying, bludgeoning, etc. from a few sides. We hope (talk) 19:47, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

And today's question is the same as yesterday's-what's to be done about this IP editor bullying and being uncivil to others? We hope (talk) 12:16, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

I have blocked this IP address on the basis that it is a proxy. --Yamla (talk) 13:08, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! We hope (talk) 13:13, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

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Paid use of administrator tools RfC

An RfC has been started on paid use of administrator tools and disclosure of past paid editing during RfA at Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#RfC_about_paid_use_of_administrator_tools. All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:43, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Disclosed paid editing advisory banner

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I'm sure some of you who are more on top of these sort of things are already aware, but there has been a spate recently of editors (often IPs) tagging articles with {{Disclosed paid}} in response to an interpretation of changes in German law (the interpretation being, approximately, that any edit for pay constitutes advertising and all advertising is required to be accompanied by a message to that effect). There was some discussion about this at Template talk:Disclosed paid from which I see that no consensus has emerged for this treatment. However this does seem to be a potentially pressing legal issue. I've been removing the template (for example at Hilary Rosen) citing no consensus or WP:NODISCLAIMERS and advising editors to participate in the discussion. How should we be responding to this? (Note: I said "German law" because in the few instances I've seen the editor always refers to "German law", so I don't know if linking to the European fair trading law section refers to the same thing or if something else has recently changed in Germany specifically) Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:43, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Seems like something you want to ask WMF Legal about. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:49, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not my area of expertise but I'm not aware of any such change in German law. In Germany, you are legally required to identify paid content as such but that has not changed recently afaik. I think the ruling they allude to is this one from 2012. However, this ruling was not made against Wikipedia and has no legal binding for the Foundation as far as I can tell. In the end, German or European fair-trade laws do not bind a website hosted by an American Foundation, so per our policies, such taggings should be reverted and the user educated that we don't care what a court in Munich says. I do think you should inform Legal about this though if you haven't already, let them sort it out. Regards SoWhy 15:53, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks both, that's good advice. I will send a note to legal. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:55, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

There is a conversation about this on WT:COI. There is also concern from a US law standpoint based on FTC regulations that from my (non-lawyer) understanding have been further clarified since the TOU change was put in place. WMF Legal is aware of the concerns some in the community have and have stated that they will be looking into the matter. I expect they will be looking at both German and US law. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:58, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

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cyberbot I disrupting AfD logs with bad transclusions

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Hi, cyberbot I has been transcluding 2 WikiProject Deletion sorting pages to the AfD log [1] [2] today, which makes the log completely unusable. After I reverted the edits (and notified the operator), the bot did the same thing again after 3 hours [3] [4]. Could an admin disable the AfDbot task or fix this issue in some other way so that we don't have to fix the log every 3 hours please. Iffy★Chat -- 15:49, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

The bot is doing exactly what it should be doing - transcluding pages that have AFD discussion on them that are not transcluded to the AFD logs. This issue is actually with the two transcluded pages, which I will attempt to suss out and fix. Primefac (talk) 15:53, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Disabled that task on User:Cyberbot I/Run/AfDBot. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:54, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus, the issue was fixed about fifteen minutes ago. Re-enabling the bot. Primefac (talk) 15:57, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but as a bug fix that was not obvious at all. OK with re-enabling though. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:06, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Never said it was obvious, just thought you'd like to know why I reverted you so soon after you had disabled it. I think I might have been a little brusk in my tone, and for that I apologize; I was intending on being explanatory not accusatory. Primefac (talk) 16:09, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

No harm. It's the Internet; tone doesn't carry õver and I do often talk in this short way as well. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:12, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

õver? How/why õver and not over? Nyttend (talk) 19:48, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Loőks łike ȧ typọ ţo ḿe. Guessing some keyboard layout with a combining ~ key on it. Κσυπ Cyp   20:11, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Or perhaps Jo-Jo meant över. Bishonen | talk 23:19, 21 December 2017 (UTC).

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The user talk page User talk:68.146.84.92 isn’t working

This talk page isn’t working and not allowing anyone to edit it. Try editing it to see for yourself self. https://en.m.wiki.x.io/wiki/User_talk:68.146.84.92 184.56.47.51 (talk) 20:31, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Yo, it's perfectly editable; but per WP:BLANKING, "Declined unblock requests regarding a currently active block" may not be removed, hence the notice's continued replacement. >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 20:49, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Ethan Allen IP Jumpers

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The following IP addresses have vandalized Ethan Allen in the last 48 hours: user:165.161.15.54, user:165.161.3.115, user:165.161.3.113, user: 165.161.8.51, user:165.161.3.116. What I don't know is whether a range block or page protection is more feasible. 2602:306:3357:BA0:2DDB:CC53:F3A3:9B1D (talk) 20:42, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

• Nihonjoe has already protected Ethan Allen, but I see a good deal of other vandalism coming from the range, which isn't very big (165.161.0.0/20), so I've blocked it for two weeks. Thank you for reporting, 2602:306:3357:BA0:2DDB:CC53:F3A3:9B1D. Bishonen | talk 23:17, 21 December 2017 (UTC).

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Whitelisting

BeachBunnyGirl recently asked me for assistance in de-blacklisting an article, since I'd been involved in the article in the past. In short, several years ago there was a rash of spamming in our article about a lake resort town, Put-in-Bay, Ohio, and several of the links ended up being blacklisted. One of them, the useful website of the village's chamber of commerce, was used in the infobox: there being no official website for the village, those of us discussing the situation at talk chose to use the CofC site in its stead. However, someone's since replaced the CofC site with spam, and as the CofC site is blacklisted (on Meta, not here), it can't be put it back without de-blacklisting. Since it's on the Meta blacklist, and since it's not likely to be useful anywhere except this individual en:wp article, I left a note at the Meta admin noticeboard requesting whitelisting assistance, but I was told that I needed to add it to MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist here at en:wp.

So my question: is there a way to whitelist a URL for a specific page, while still preventing its use everywhere else on the English Wikipedia? Kind-of-like what we do with images on the bad images list. If that's not possible (and looking at the page, I'm guessing that it's not), I'm happy to add it to the whitelist and use it in just that article, but I'd definitely prefer to have a way to restrict it to just this one article.

Nyttend (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

With all the evidence coming out about Put-in's interference in American affairs, I suggest we proceed with utmost care on this. EEng 03:54, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

You really oughta put that in small :-) Nyttend (talk) 03:55, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

The two web sites that were mentioned by User:BeachBunnyGirl are http://visitputinbay.com and http://visitputinbay.org. I don't see much value in using either link in the infobox. Our article Put-in-Bay, Ohio is about the village of Put-in-Bay (population 138) and that village has no web site. The closest governmental web site that would provide any information is most likely that of the township, http://www.pibtownship.com. From a newspaper article we learn that the village has an administrator, a mayor, a village council and a police department. But we don't learn anything at all about those matters from the Chamber of Commerce web site (.com) or the corresponding .org, which belongs to another group. So in my opinion, we could omit both these links and not bother with the whitelisting. EdJohnston (talk) 05:53, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposed new user group

Relevant discussion: "Talk:Discussion to incubate a user group for Wikipedia Military Historians." >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 04:46, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

• I don't think I've ever heard of a user group on Wikipedia not referring to user rights/flags. An explanation of what the term means in this context is probably warranted. – Train2104 (t • c) 23:40, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

  Personally I'm a bit surprised there's no "opposition" section in the discussion. If you only get the option to support or do nothing, then of course it's going to be implemented. Primefac (talk) 23:43, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

  User groups, in the context of editing, refers to who are the admins, rollbackers, confirmed users, etc. User groups, in the context of organization, refers to affiliates that gather for a common theme like Art+Feminism. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:40, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

  I also thought it was the former that was being referred to, so I was a bit confused at first when I read the proposal. BTW, the pointer to it would have been more appropriate for the Village Pump rather than here, I think. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

  Me three. Saw "user group", thought "userright", got very confused. Looks just like it's a proposal to start a sort of meta-level wikiproject. Neat idea. If there's any thematic group it'd work with, it'd be the milhist folks. Anyway, looks like there's nothing to see here. I move to close/archive. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:41, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

2018 Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee welcomes the following new and returning arbitrators following their election by the community. Their two-year terms formally begin on 01 January 2018:

• Alex Shih (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• BU Rob13 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Callanecc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• KrakatoaKatie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Opabinia regalis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• RickinBaltimore (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Worm That Turned (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

All incoming arbitrators have elected to receive (or retain, where applicable) the checkuser and oversight permissions.

We also thank our outgoing colleagues whose terms end on 31 December 2017:

• Casliber (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Drmies (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (retaining CU & OS)
• GorillaWarfare (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (retaining CU & OS)
• Keilana (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (retaining OS)
• Kelapstick (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Kirill Lokshin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

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

• Stewards are requested to remove the permission(s) noted from the following outgoing arbitrators after 31 December 2017 at their own request:

  Checkuser: Casliber, Keilana, Kelapstick

  Oversight: Casliber, Kelapstick, Kirill Lokshin

• Outgoing arbitrators are eligible to remain active on cases opened before their term ended if they wish. Whether or not outgoing arbitrators will remain active on any ongoing case(s) will be noted on the proposed decision talk page of affected case(s).
• All outgoing arbitrators will remain subscribed to the functionaries' mailing list, with the exception of Casliber and Kirill Lokshin at their request.
• All outgoing arbitrators will be unsubscribed from the arbitration clerks' mailing list, with the exception of GorillaWarfare and Drmies at their request.

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:10, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#2018 Arbitration Committee

Drmies (right) passes the torch

–EEng

• I can't believe it's almost over. It's like a dream. :( Drmies (talk) 22:45, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Every November/December, I consider running for a seat. But, my refusal to hand over personal info, gets the best of me. Oh well, I wouldn't get many support votes anyway :) GoodDay (talk) 02:23, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• At least we can't blame Putin for this result. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

86.179.83.0/16

Can an admin please block 86.179.83.0/16 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) from editing? The entire range appears to be used by long term abuser Iniced. Thank you! Hastiness (talk) 16:05, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

No, there are legitimate anon contributors on 86.179.0.0/16. Also, please don't create IP user pages like this. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 16:24, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Uh, what the fahhhh?

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So, at 10:49, 23 Dec @Coffee: left a notice on my talk page concerning some edits at the Andrew McCabe page (long story short, there's some potential WP:BLP vios on the article, I removed them, a brand new account created with the specific purpose of only editing that article started an edit war, that brand new account, is well versed in Wikipedia policy, it's an obvious sock, per WP:DUCK, yadda yadda yadda - standard story) and that he placed the article under discretionary sanctions. I left a response on my talk pointing out that Coffee was (once again) enabling disruptive fly-by-night accounts. I also asked how the placement of DS on the article affected the current status of the article since another user had made a further revert, continuing the edit war, AFTER Coffee placed it under DS.

Lo and behold, several minutes later I find myself topic banned by Coffee for... well, not sure what exactly. I haven't made any reverts. Hell, I haven't made any edits to any articles. I just responded to Coffee's notice.

When I expressed incredulity at the ban (and yes, the exchange at my talk got heated, seeing as how I'm pretty pissed off right now), Coffee claimed that the topic ban was made for leaving this note on another user's page. JFG was the user who continued the edit war on the article on behalf of the WP:SPA account, after I left the article alone. Here is the text of my note exactly:

This edit was made at 12:54, Dec 23. It restored BLP violating material that a single purpose brand new created throw away account started an edit war over. Discretionary sanctions were added to the article at 10:45 Dec 23, more than two hours prior to your edit. As such your edit is either an outright violation of the discretionary sanction OR it's a blatant attempt to game the restriction by "jumping in first". Please self revert. Volunteer Marek 23:33, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me what exactly about that note is topic ban worthy? I mean, you can disagree (and I'm guessing JFG does) but topic ban worthy? What. The Fucking. Fuck.

Honestly, the more likely explanation is that Coffee took offense at my response ON MY OWN TALK to his placing the article under DS and enabling the WP:SPA account (though Coffee's subsequent comments are even stranger - they state that they were not aware of the edit warring warning, which he himself placed on my talk - which raises the possibility his account has been compromised. Or, more likely he's just making up inconsistent excuses for his actions ad-hoc) and made the topic ban as a "respect mah authoritah" kind of block.

Full disclosure: in the past I have criticized Coffee for not having the maturity and temperament to be an admin (this sort of proves it) and have often stated that the "can't restore edits even once" discretionary sanction provision that he came up with is ridiculous and counter productive. Volunteer Marek 00:06, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

 Administrator note Please be sure to check WP:AC/DSL for how many times this user has had issues in this area. This short-term topic ban was placed to give time to the user to evaluate their behavior against our policies in this area, including our policies on discretionary sanctions. It was also placed to prevent further disruption in their editing of Andrew McCabe and related articles. I did not see their rant regarding my warning prior to leaving the ban... and such a response would doubtfully have had any effect on my topic ban if I had seen it prior at any rate, as their comment appears to only make the issue I had seen at JFG's talkpage more apparent. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 00:12, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, in regard to this claim "Please be sure to check WP:AC/DSL for how many times this user has had issues in this area." - the answer is once. In a highly controversial WP:AE report which was exactly over Coffee's ridiculous "can't undo an edit without consensus" restriction which has caused an insane amount of disruption (the restriction, not the editors) in this topic area because it's so freakin' hard to understand, and so easy to game. I resent the fact that Coffee is trying to imply (notice he writes in purposefully vague terms) something which isn't true. Volunteer Marek 02:18, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, feel free to review the entirety of my explanation/back-and-forth to this user on their talk page. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 00:15, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Reviewing administrators: Please see this personal attack VM just made about me on his talk page. If this is their behavior when they get sanctioned, they need a longer topic-ban in my administrative opinion. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 00:18, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "Evaluate their behavior" - are you trying to be a condescending prick? "Prevent further disruption" - what further disruption? I stopped editing that article. JFG was the one who continued the edit war, hence my note on his talk page which was the basis for this topic ban. This is idiotic. You've totally flipped it. Instead of sanctioning or warning the guy who continued the edit war, you topic banned the guy that left a note about it. Volunteer Marek 00:17, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

JFG restored the article to its state prior to your edit war. Your second personal attack is noted though. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 00:20, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

It wasn't "my" edit war. And JFG continued the edit war. Yet you topic banned the guy who left a note about it, rather than the guy who kept on edit warring. Seriously, you are not fit to be an admin. Volunteer Marek 00:49, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Tone it down Volunteer Marek. I understand you are irritated right now so I'm cutting some slack, but a couple of your comments directed to Coffee are bluntly not acceptable. You have pushed this particular envelope as far as you can w/o getting blocked. If you have some issues or concerns discuss them civilly. Thank you. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:31, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Damn skippy I'm irritated. I just got topic banned for leaving a note on another user's talk page. A polite note. Not a personal attack. Just a goddamn note. Volunteer Marek 00:49, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

"your edit is either an outright violation of the discretionary sanction OR it's a blatant attempt to game the restriction by 'jumping in first'" does not appear very "polite". — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 00:52, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Notes like this are frequent, standard, made all the time, you can look through any active editor's talk page and you'll see half a dozen of them. To topic ban somebody for it is fucking stupid. Really really stupid. Volunteer Marek 01:10, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Tangent. - The Bushranger One ping only 06:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Ow dear - too much Coffee - an admin dissapears for months after a critical issue and then returns six months later all guns blasing - editing many hours a day all of a sudden - making controversial admin actions ...hmmm ... Govindaharihari (talk) 00:57, 24 December 2017 (UTC) If this type of commentary is to be expected, I'll be taking this off my watchlist. It appears this is in good hands for now at any rate. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 00:59, 24 December 2017 (UTC) Admin under discussion takes admin noticeboard of his watchlist - la la la la la Govindaharihari (talk) 01:03, 24 December 2017 (UTC)} Govindaharihari you do understand why Coffee was absent, correct? VM may have a point -- I'll need to catch up on the full story -- but your ignorance is not helping him.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 01:05, 24 December 2017 (UTC) Both of you, please drop this line of conversation. ~ Rob13Talk 01:07, 24 December 2017 (UTC) Just to be clear - I have no idea about what any of this is about. All I know is that I got topic banned for no reason - leaving a note on somebody's talk page. If there is some circumstances here that I'm suppose to be aware of, well, I'm not. Volunteer Marek 01:10, 24 December 2017 (UTC) I don't care why Coffee was absent - I only care about his actions on return after many months - he should imho take his time returning and stop all these controversial admin actions - Govindaharihari (talk) 01:11, 24 December 2017 (UTC) Obviously you care, else you wouldn't have brought it up. And "controversial" is yet to be decided. Try not to jump the gun, yeah? --Majora (talk) 01:15, 24 December 2017 (UTC) Just drop it. It isn't essential to this discussion, especially since Govindaharihari has no idea what he is talking about.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 01:17, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• I think everyone here was acting in good faith, and can get all sides. Coffee, who I respect a lot, is doing difficult work in AE, and is one of the few admins who is willing to work in the area. I can see why Coffee might view JFG's restoration to the status quo as within the sanctions, and view Volunteer Marek's post as trying to work the sanctions to his advantage. I've had egg in my face before about AE sanctions I meant one way, and thought everyone would read them that way, and they didn't. Discretionary sanctions are a tough area, and I have sympathy for admins who work there regularly.
  I also can see Marek's point of view: every interaction I've had with him on AE he's always done this type of message to try to avoid a WP:AE filing. He thought he was doing something good to try to avoid enforcement of what he thought Coffee meant by the sanctions, and he got sanctioned because Coffee looked at it a different way. That would irritate me too (though, I don't condone the language used towards Coffee here at all).
  I think what is probably the best action at this point is for Coffee to remove the sanctions on Marek voluntarily, and for Marek to talk to Coffee in the future if he has any questions about the sanctions. I think this would help prevent any future issues and hopefully make everyone whole in this particular circumstance. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:54, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni:, note that I've explained why the material violates BLP here. Now, I realize that it's possible for reasonable people to disagree on that. In fact, I do think there might be SOME material in what I removed that could be included without violating BLP - if properly rewritten. However, when BLP comes into play, the burden is on the person trying to restore the potentially BLP violating material. Indeed, I believe you pointed this out yourself not that long ago in another discussion. Not much damage will occur to the encyclopedia if the material stays out for a few days and then consensus decides to put it back in. A serious amount of damage can occur however if it's kept in for awhile and it does violate BLP. Hence, I was completely in the right (and so is User:Calton, whom Coffee is now threatening to ban as well) to insist that this get hashed out on the talk page first. And do keep in mind that it was a WP:SPI, loudly quacking brand new account (as John points out below) that was doing the restoring. Volunteer Marek 03:02, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Marek, you sum up my philosophy on ONUS pretty well. I don't particularly agree with your BLP explanation and am not sure it falls under the exemption, but I do prefer that these things be discussed and almost always prefer being conservative on these things. If I were active in that discussion, I'd likely call for it to be removed until we could sort out the BLP issues, so I get your point of view. At the same time, I've been in Coffee's shoes before, and get how difficult dealing in these areas can be. He is one of the few admins who is willing to make the tough calls here, and while I might not always agree with him, I always know that he is trying to make the encyclopedia run more smoothly. That's why I think the best solution here is what Malinaccier describes below as shaking hands and moving on. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:27, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, well, the edit war is actually continuing and somehow I don't see Coffee handing out warnings or sanctions to TWO out of THREE users who have continued to edit war on this article. And these are precisely the two users who have violated WP:ONUS and WP:BLP. Volunteer Marek 07:43, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I do not find the note Volunteer Marek left to be particularly objectionable (i.e. ban-worthy) in isolation; however, my reading of Coffee's topic ban is that it was made because of Volunteer Marek's long history of disagreements in this topic of editing. Now, I do think Coffee's move is heavy handed, but I do think it was within the realm of reason given Volunteer Marek having come off of a one month topic ban from Donald Trump on December 15th. I agree with TonyBallioni's suggestion that Coffee removes the sanctions on Volunteer Marek and further suggest that Volunteer Marek offer an apology to Coffee for his behavior. At this point, it is probably best for both parties to shake hands and move on. Malinaccier (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

There is no "long history of disagreements" here. There is one DS sanction I was subject to. One. Which was also over Coffee's ridiculous "can't undo an edit (even if it violates BLP or other guidelines) without getting consensus" restriction, which pretty much everyone who edits in this topic area will tell you is an insane, pointless, counter productive, totally-gamable, difficult to understand and easy-to-violate-on-accident restriction. Volunteer Marek 02:21, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

So, you’ve never taken anyone to WP:AE to enforce that same restriction? Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:25, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I have to agree with Tony as well. Talking with VM before coming to such a heavy-handed decision could have spared us a lot of drama. Despite his case, this isn't to say VM should have acted so hostile toward Coffee, and, although I don't expect an apology, it would help move this issue in a positive direction.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 02:12, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

More bullshit from out-to-lunch administrators. I wish I could say it's outrageous, but it isn't. I strongly recommend that the admin corps come out of their ivory towers and spend some time editing this encyclopedia, especially in areas that are contentious. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 02:42, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• The topic ban against VM is short (24 hours) so it might be argued that the issue should be dropped with a warning to VM that while venting for a short time after a sanction is anticipated, such rants are unacceptable. However, Coffee's above "check WP:AC/DSL for how many times this user has had issues in this area" demonstrates that a simple count will be used against VM, so the sanction should be examined here. The first edit by TeddyToons (talk · contribs) was to revert VM using "CRYBLP" in the edit summary. Given the context, Coffee might have indefinitely topic banned TeddyToons for such blatant DUCKing (on reflection, it might have been well-aimed trolling intended to provoke VM). However, it appears Coffee interpreted VM's comment at User talk:JFG#McCabe as warranting a ban (Coffee mentioned that in diff). I agree with the comments above that such comments are standard in all contentious areas—I watch a few pages unrelated to American politics and people frequently use that approach, and it generally works well since it gives an opportunity to ensure others are aware of the background—there is nothing inappropriate about VM's comment. My recommendation would be that Coffee reverse their topic ban so this discussion can be closed. Johnuniq (talk) 02:43, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• @User:Coffee: Please review the reason for the topic ban in view of comments made here. Thank you. Johnuniq (talk) 03:13, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to ping Coffee since he said he wasn't going to pay attention to this page. Volunteer Marek 02:53, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Why bother? He made it clear that his mind couldn't be changed, another quality seen much too often in the admin corps. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• Courtesy ping Coffee. In case you haven't been following the discussion, please see above.

My take: FTR I tend to agree with Tony's assessment. I can see both sides of this, but in the particular case at hand the TBAN may have been a bit precipitous. This is not intended as a criticism. We all do our best day to day to stay on the right side of judgement calls, and sometimes we fail. It doesn't help that there are a few too many folks who seem to think that passing RfA confers some form of infallibility or omniscience and who therefor attribute any failings to malice or willful incompetence. All of which aside, I do believe that in this instance forbearance while seeking some clarification might have been the better course. For now I also suggest lifting the TBAN. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:18, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem: I've not known you to have bad judgement in matters like this, so I see no reason to not listen to your advice here. @Volunteer Marek: The 24 hour topic ban is hereby vacated and replaced by a firm warning to not accuse other editors of attempting to "game the sanctions", or otherwise comment on motivations unless such accusations are being made at WP:AE. This change has no effect on the page restrictions nor the discretionary sanctions that are still active across much of the area. Please continue to adhere to such sanctions as normal. I don't expect you to understand where I am coming from on this, but I do wish that you know I have no hard feelings towards, nor vendetta against, you. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:36, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@Coffee If I haven't made any bad calls in matters like this it's because I am one of those admins Tony alluded to. I avoid ARBCOM like the plague. I don't even like the drama boards like ANI and ... ummm... here. In the 364.5 days I have been an admin I have imposed ACDS editing restrictions on an editor exactly once and then only to avoid having to indef them. Anyway IMHO this thread has run it's useful course and perhaps someone can close it now. Merry Christmas. -Ad Orientem (talk) 13:54, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• Well, whatever disruption was supposed to be prevented by a 24 hour TBAN probably ... could ... have been foreseen to be ... likely matched by this thread... which was very likely to be forthcoming. I suspect that has something to do with... well I checked the log, and this appears to be the first time that a 24 hour TBAN has ever been instated as an AE action, at least in the unarchived logs (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). And... wikilinking to wikt isn't normally the most effective way to diffuse a heated situation. So, there are problems with the initial string of edits, but this doesn't seem to be the most effective way of solving them. GMG^talk 03:35, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• For what it's worth I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to figure this out, following all the links and diffs given by Coffee, and I still don't have a clear idea of what specific problem the topic ban was meant to solve. I see that as problematic. The other problem I see is Volunteer Marek's aggressive and condescending response to Coffee. Not sure how to best resolve this, but if I were Coffee I'd make it easy on the community, give VM a clear explanation of what specific things VM did to get banned (including all relevant diffs!) and what my thought process was, and then I'd likely rescind the ban. Then if I were VM I'd apologize for calling Coffee a snot nosed brat and stuff. ~Awilley (talk) 05:12, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• Given Coffee's message to me on my talk page regarding the removal of a potential BLP violation, VM's response is understandable, maybe even justified. BLP policy does NOT in any way shape or form require potential violations be "blatant", as Coffee claimed, BLP policy requires caution in controversial edits, and by any reasonable interpretation and practices, BLP policy trumps discretionary sanctions Coffee claims applies. Coffee is so obviously wrong and his threat on talk page -- and it's a threat, not a warning -- is so out of line that it's clear to me that he's not merely mistaken, he's actively putting his thumb on the scales. --Calton | Talk 07:55, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

And the irony here is that he accused (and sanctioned me for) of "making a threat", where in fact I only left a note on a user's page, whereas *he* was actually making threats at your talk page. What's the difference? Coffee is an admin so he gets to make threats but we're not so we can't even leave notes? I was gonna drop this but then I saw that and just how cynically abusive that is, and it just got my ire up again. Sorry, this isn't a "hug and make up" kind of situation. This is a "not an isolated incident", "conduct unbecoming" and "someone who shouldn't have the tools in the first place" kind of situation. Volunteer Marek 08:31, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I will divide my comment into what happened, and then my reaction. Looking at the history of Andrew McCabe, we see the following.

• Volunteer Marek removed a bunch of text from the article in an edit with the summary: rumor mongering BLP vios.
• A new account, TeddyToons, reverted VM with the message stable consensus / CRYBLP as their first edit.
• Both of them reverted back and forth, till 3RR was reached.
• Coffee then added a DS template on the talk page, imposing 1RR and the "consensus required" restriction, and left a message to VM and TeddyToons about edit-warring. Neither VM nor TeddyToons made any further edits to the WP page.
• TeddyToons' last edit was reverted by Sro23 and then re-reverted by JFG with the message: Restore pre-warring version until talk page discussion resolves the dispute.
• VM left a message to JFG on their talk page. Coffee then topic-banned VM for 24 hours, citing the last diff.

Now, I will react to this matter:

This is a completely unjustified TBAN. There is nothing in the last diff which deserves any sanction. If that is the standard, nobody will be safe in this area (or in any other area, for that matter). Besides, a 24-hour TBAN is completely useless (the practice at AE is usually something like a month or three months, at the minimum). Such a silly TBAN only serves to be a "mark" on someone's record, to be used in the future by various parties. This, needless to say, is an extremely bad thing. I see nothing in Coffee's replies above which give even a smidgen of justification for this action. "Discretionary" does not mean arbitrary.

Now, I understand that this is a contentious area and admins do what they can. What Coffee should have done is to bring the matter to AE and let others weigh in. If JFG felt threatened or something, they could have brought the matter to AE (JFG didn't say anything about the matter, AFAIK). This way, the matter could have been debated and appropriate action taken. There was no hurry for any sanction, since neither VM nor TT had edited the page since Coffee's placing of restrictions. I would bet good money that if this matter had been brought to AE, nothing would have happened, which is the correct course of action. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• Coffee has done a lot of good work for the encyclopedia, but in the past couple of days I've seen admin actions from him that are overly-aggressive and lacking in appropriate discretion, including blocking Casprings, Scjessey, and the aggressive warning and topic ban of Volunteer Marek. The only user who should have been blocked is the very obvious sock-troll TeddyToons.

The DS editing restriction that prevents reverted edits from being restored without consensus is crippling the principle of determining consensus by bold editing and is being blatantly abused by SPAs, trolls, POV pushers and socks who use it to WP:GAME the system. This is obvious to anyone who has edited articles with this restriction, but a handful of admins continue to insist that it's preventing disruption while they somehow manage to ignore disruption caused by SPAs, trolls, POV pushers and socks.

Marek's personal attacks on Coffee are understandable given the circumstances and Coffee's tone, but they are highly-inflammatory. Coffee is due an apology from Marek.- MrX 13:02, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Rescind the TBAN and mark it as such on the DS Log page

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

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• Support: See my explanation in the section just above. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

As info, the topic ban has already been rescinded - see here. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:54, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. I'll close this section then. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:10, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

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

Rescind the warning at DS Log

• The section above is obsolete, but the "warning" logged at DSLog is scarcely better. It serves the same function: as a "mark" on VM's record and it will be used against them in the future (you can count on it 100%). In my opinion, there is nothing here which requires a formal sanction. It should be rescinded too. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:21, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
• Agreed. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 11:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

  Rescinded. Alex Shih (talk) 15:13, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support after reviewing the chronology provided by Kingsindian in a previous section, and noting that Coffee reverted Alex Shih's close on this matter. This more than anything makes the whole affair look like an attempt to rack up "Volunteer Marek" entries in the official DS log, which I'm sure isn't the intent, but still looks bad. ~Awilley (talk) 20:52, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion

I know this is probably the wrong place to suggest this, but if Wikipedia actually took its BLP policy seriously, (a) every BLP would be under pending changes, and (b) this drama would never have happened. Once upon a time, Wikipedia marketed itself as the encyclopedia anybody could edit. That slogan was abandoned years ago. We have WP:ECP almost by default on contentious articles based on an ArbCom decision, but we turn a blind eye to a policy with legal considerations. Something is seriously wrong with that. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 11:16, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

We do not have enough manpower to handle pending changes if they are configured at every BLP--Ymblanter (talk) 14:05, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Baloney. I'd bet that practically every one of those BLPs is on somebody's watchlist. What edit does an unregistered editor have to make to a BLP that can't wait until an experienced editor reviews it and allows it to go live? We're talking about a policy with legal ramifications, not NPOV or NPA. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 14:28, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I think you underestimate how many times per day IP editors update stats on sports biographies. GMG^talk 14:31, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I do not think this is correct (and, yes, I am actively editing in contentious areas).--Ymblanter (talk) 14:36, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

For reference, Category:Living people has 1,105,073 members, out of 6,912,798 total articles. BethNaught (talk) 14:13, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

My impression was that the German Wikipedia has pending changes applied. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:21, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I believe they have flagged revisions, which is not the same.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:33, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Pending changes redirects to Flagged revisions. Whatever be the exact mechanism, the principle is the same: some editor has to approve changes. If it can work on the German Wikipedia, why not here? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:43, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

For pending revision, the changes are not shown until approved. For flagged revisions indeed every change has to be approved, but they are still shown before approval unless configured otherwise. (I had extensive experience with flagged revisions in the Russian Wikipedia seven years ago). In the first case, the changes need to be approved asap, whereas in the second case they can wait (and indeed they do wait for years in the Russian Wikipedia). I have heard that indeed in the German Wikipedia changes are approved reasonably quickly, but here we can not even recruit enough editors for the new page patrol, and it requires way less efforts than if all our BLPs were set on pending changes.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for clarification. As to your latter argument, I would suggest that the NPP population and population for pending changes/flagged revisions are not the same. For the latter, it can be anyone (of reasonable experience) who has a BLP article on their watchlist. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:05, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

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

Rescind the warning at DS Log

• The section above is obsolete, but the "warning" logged at DSLog is scarcely better. It serves the same function: as a "mark" on VM's record and it will be used against them in the future (you can count on it 100%). In my opinion, there is nothing here which requires a formal sanction. It should be rescinded too. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:21, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
• Agreed. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 11:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

  Rescinded. Alex Shih (talk) 15:13, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support after reviewing the chronology provided by Kingsindian in a previous section, and noting that Coffee reverted Alex Shih's close on this matter. This more than anything makes the whole affair look like an attempt to rack up "Volunteer Marek" entries in the official DS log, which I'm sure isn't the intent, but still looks bad. ~Awilley (talk) 20:52, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
• Note - With Alex's blessing, I am reopening this specific subsection. Per this discussion, the warning was originally rescinded, and then reinstated citing the fact that this thread was not robust enough to constitute a consensus. Since it seems to be an outstanding question, if there is strong opinion or argument one way or the other, this would be the appropriate forum. GMG^talk 00:48, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
  • ...okay, I feel like this is something I shouldn't have to say to a fellow administrator, but: Coffee, the First Law of Holes is applying here. Stop digging. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:22, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support rescinding the warning. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:57, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

203.87.171.0/24

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

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Could someone renew the block on this range? It's used by an LTA, see contribs. Simplexity22 (talk) 00:33, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

 Done Thank you Simplexity22 for the heads up! — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 00:36, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

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

Legal threat by indeffed sockmaster

This is merely a formality since the editor in question is now indeffed for sockpuppetry. The sockmaster behind user account Frankabr. has issued what looks like a legal threat at his talk page here [2] (see the comment, "Where would a lawyer send you papers?") The sockmaster is attempting to persuade admins to consider an unblock at all three of his accounts (two of them socks, User:Envirowhacko and User:Chessfool. Since it's the holidays, I know people are a little more sentimental and the number of folks paying attention to matters needing attention is down. Just didn't want this one to fall through the cracks of scrutiny considering there has been a legal threat made and that's always been a sure way to true and forever indef status. Happy holidays, eh? -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 21:41, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I see now that an admin has taken care of the legal threat by blocking talk page access. May I suggest this also happen at the sock account talk pages as well? Thanks for acting so quickly, Jo-Jo Eumerus. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 21:47, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

 Done. Cheers (and Merry Christmas)! bd2412 T 22:28, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Blocked user claims to have an admin's phone number

While looking through the requests for unblock report, I came across this. I'm not sure where this falls on the red-alert scale (given the admin in question has openly provided "sufficient details to find it" on their userpage), but I'm pretty sure this is something that is decidedly not kosher. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:52, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

I've emailed the admin to make sure they were aware of this. I'm debating on removing TP access for now. SQL^{Query me!} 03:17, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

He definitely has some strange ideas. Talks about what and who he knows, but can't "name sources"? Sounds like he mistakes us for some Hollywood rag. He certainly is not submitting acceptable unblock requests. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:39, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Andrew Davidson and RFAs: time for a topic ban?

Moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Andrew Davidson and RFAs: time for a topic ban?

Some background information: Andrew Davidson (recognizable by his signature "Andrew D.") is a long-term contributor who has contributed positively to this project extensively. However, he has long been known for his disruptive, and regularly recurring, oppose !votes in RFAs, such as in the ongoing RFA for Muboshgu. In this RFA, Andrew asked a question which has since been heavily redacted for containing potentially BLP-violating information regarding a RevDel-ed edit. In response to Andrew's oppose on the same RFA, Beyond My Ken told Muboshgu that "It's his [Andrew's] judgement which is untrustworthy -- as he's proved over and over again on RfAs -- not yours." On the basis of this and many other disruptive RFA votes, other users have already suggested that Andrew be topic-banned from RFAs (e.g. [3] [4] [5] (these are all quite recent, too)). For these reasons, I would like to formally propose such a ban. Everymorning (talk) 04:38, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I've supported this for a long time. His votes include some real gems that are observationally equivalent to trolling. See, for instance, this, where Andrew opposed because the candidate hadn't outed themselves or disclosed their gender. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:51, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

It should be noted that your specific example, while it reflects quite poorly on Andrew, is two years old. If these proposed sanctions are to pass, we need to have evidence from several more recent RfAs. Lepricavark (talk) 04:56, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Regardless of age, it makes clear the attitude Andrew takes to RfA. Oppose at all costs, finding whatever flimsy excuse he can to do so. Recent examples of similarly baseless opposes are plentiful. He's argued that saving a clearly-unsuitable article by moving it to draftspace is somehow a sneaky attempt at getting it deleted, opposed for removing unsourced content, opposed a candidate as being a reckless deletionist for nominating a list of all films that feature Christmas specifically in a non-important role (!), complained that a candidate didn't characterize a living person as a descriptor so bad it had to be revdel'd when Andrew said it, and argued that bot operators should never be admins. He almost always asks questions after he has already opposed, showing that he's asking for the sake of asking, not to evaluate the candidate; I have never seen him change a !vote based upon an answer to such a question. His behavior is highly disruptive. I want to add that I wouldn't support an RfA topic ban just because I think someone is using crazy criteria. The problem is that Andrew isn't using criteria. He's opposing any way he can in a "watch the world burn" kind of way. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:57, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

• Some quick notes: this has been brought up earlier this year, in a much more comprehensive manner. The same thread was also mentioned in the current RfA, so I am a bit surprised it wasn't mentioned here. In addition, topic bans should be proposed in WP:AN instead as a procedural note, so I will proceed to move this thread. Alex Shih (talk) 04:55, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
• Strong support--He is clearly surplus to our requirements.And keep this thread open for at-least 24 hours.Winged Blades^Godric 05:44, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support: The comment at BethNaught's RfA alone, honestly, should've drawn an RfA ban. No opinion on the length other than to say I generally don't like indef topic bans because they tend to be permanent for better or worse. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 06:08, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

For the record and the curious, Mendaliv is referring to this edit where Andrew Davidson gripes about Beth's name and lack of clear stated gender. Seems similar to Andrew's comment on Muboshgu's RfA. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:31, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support - My observation is that Andrew Davidson's oppose votes do not seem to arise from a predetermined criteria for the acceptance of new administrators, instead he appears to do extensive research in order to find something (anything) which he can use against the RfA candidate, and then proceeds to oppose on that basis. If he can not find something substantive, he will use even the flimsiest rationale to base his oppose vote on. It's really well past time that he should have been banned from RfA. I don't think his modus operadi is likely to change, so I'd be in favor of indef, because it leaves open the slim chance that I'm wrong, and he can have a change of heart, and convince the community of it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:20, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

• Before it is pointed out to me, yes, this is a change from my !vote in January. I have since changed my mind. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:23, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support Andrew Davidson's long record of opposition to most RfA candidates for flimsy and minor reasons has passed the point of disruption. In fairness to Andrew, he supported my RfA. However, I have been flabbergasted dozens of times by his conduct at RfA, and it is time for it to stop. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:46, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Concurring with BU Rob13 and other supporter of this proposal. This pattern of voting goes back years, also during his editing as Colonel Warden. He has habit of regularly being the lone opposer (or one of very few) even on RfAs that are clearly going to be successful, and he appears to have a an aversion to RfAs that may well close with a blank 'oppose' section. Over time, I have made various appeals to his better nature on his talk page but they are ignored. He occasionally does support a candidate, but without being accused of bad faith, I believe this to be a ploy for his eventual argument against requests for a topic ban which he has known for a longtime would end up here sooner or later. Despite his otherwise admirable outreach work, I'm afraid that his participation at RfA contributes very much to the combined reasons why we don't get so many candidates. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:50, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I fully agree. It is not an accident that when the idea of a topic ban started being floated (early to mid 2016) his support percentage went up. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:58, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
• support- Net negative at RfA for a long time. He opposes candidates for such crimes as not being a native (though fluent) English speaker, voting delete on an AfD that he wanted kept, and enjoying the work of Hunter S. Thompson. And does so with calculated superciliousness. I think it's primarily trolling. Reyk _YO! 07:22, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support - I hadn't been aware of this before, but looking through the links provided...wow, the description of 'find something, anything, to oppose' is entirely accurate. Barring somebody from RFA should be an absolute last resort, as we need the broadest possible swathe of opinions on those seeking the mop, be they good, bad, or ugly, but when there is a pattern of behavior that is indistinguishable from trolling, eventually it can only be taken so much. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:45, 26 December 2017 (UTC)