Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Welcome — post issues of interest to administrators.

For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the 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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Do not post here to rush the closure. Also, only do so when the discussion has stabilised.

On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.

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.

When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.

Include a link to the discussion itself and the {{Initiated}} template at the beginning of the request. A helper script can make listing easier. Move discussions go in the 'other types' section.

Any uninvolved editor may close most discussions, so long as they are prepared to discuss and justify their closing rationale.

Closing discussions carries responsibility, doubly so if the area is contentious. You should be familiar with all policies and guidelines that could apply to the given discussion (consult your draft closure at the discussions for discussion page if unsure). Be prepared to fully answer questions about the closure or the underlying policies, and to provide advice about where to discuss any remaining concerns that editors may have.

Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this is not normally in itself a problem at reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would need tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.

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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.

Other areas tracking old discussions

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• Wikipedia:Proposed mergers/Log
• Wikipedia:Proposed article splits

Administrative discussions

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive366#IBAN_appeal

(Initiated 18 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)

Requests for comment

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

(Initiated 87 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 47 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)

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

(Initiated 38 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)

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

(Initiated 2 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)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Total
CfD	0	0	0	0	0
TfD	0	0	7	0	7
MfD	0	0	1	0	1
FfD	0	0	1	0	1
RfD	0	0	28	0	28
AfD	0	0	1	0	1

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 October 9#Template:Redshirt

(Initiated 50 days ago on 16 September 2024) No new comments in the last week or two. Frietjes (talk) 15:26, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2024 October 9#Template:Chapter disambiguation pages

(Initiated 38 days ago on 28 September 2024) No new comments in the last week or two. Frietjes (talk) 15:25, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

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

(Initiated 294 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)

Talk:Death of Mahsa Amini#Proposed merge of Mahsa Amini into Death of Mahsa Amini

(Initiated 33 days ago on 3 October 2024) No new comments in a bit over three weeks. Can we get an independent close please. TarnishedPath^talk 13:25, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Wikipedia and antisemitism#Proposal to merge to Criticism of Wikipedia

(Initiated 10 days ago on 26 October 2024) Request an admin or very confident closer sorts this out. Controversial subject, and although consensus may be found, it is also necessary to close an out of process AfD now started [[1]] that was started to confirm the merge discussion. Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:40, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

It's a messy situation, but I argue that the most logical thing to do now is treat this as a deletion discussion, to be evaluated at AfD (ignoring the filer's framing as a merge discussion). — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 15:50, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:List of pholidotans#Merge to Manidae

(Initiated 5 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)

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (44 out of 8811 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin User:Arif Antor 2024-11-05 22:04 2024-11-06 22:04 create Liz User talk:Qcne/talk/talk/talk/talk/talk/talk/talk/talk 2024-11-05 22:04 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Ivanvector Draft:Battle for BFDI 2024-11-05 20:17 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated; WP:BFDI Queen of Hearts Dov Lior 2024-11-05 20:01 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade User talk:Qcne 2024-11-05 19:57 2024-11-08 19:27 edit,move Widr Template:2024 United States presidential election B 2024-11-05 16:40 2025-01-31 23:59 edit,move Arbitration enforcement WP:AP2. Match protection level of 2024 United States presidential election.; requested at WP:RfPP Ahecht Wikipedia:Good articles* 2024-11-05 09:47 indefinite edit,move Used in a high-risk template and no need for regular editing. Elli Wikipedia:Featured articles* 2024-11-05 09:46 indefinite edit,move Used in a high-risk template and no need for regular editing. Elli Tim Walz 2024-11-05 04:05 2025-08-27 20:53 edit Persistent vandalism: Major vandalism by an autoconfirmed user. May fall under WP:AMPOL too, but this isn't arbitration enforcement; it may be removed by any other administrator Nyttend JD Vance 2024-11-05 04:01 indefinite edit Candidate in a worldwide prominent election; another candidate was just pagemove-vandalised by an extended-confirmed editor; protection will expire just after the election Nyttend Jewish National Fund 2024-11-05 02:31 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case The Bloodline (professional wrestling) 2024-11-05 02:24 indefinite edit Persistent disruptive editing: per RFPP Daniel Case Pratihar (Rajput clan) 2024-11-05 02:14 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:GS/CASTE Daniel Case Ada vbe Eben 2024-11-04 23:13 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Amortias Wikipedia:Unified login 2024-11-04 20:51 indefinite move Persistent vandalism; lengthy history of vandalism here and no reason for changes without cause BusterD Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced 2024-11-04 17:12 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade Asian News International 2024-11-04 16:55 indefinite edit,move Restoring protection by Daniel Quinlan: Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/IPA; requested at WP:RfPP Protection Helper Bot Prachi, Gujarat 2024-11-04 13:05 2025-02-04 13:05 edit,move WP:GS/CASTE Primefac Oduduwa 2024-11-04 10:52 2024-11-18 10:52 move Persistent sock puppetry Callanecc Ada and Abere 2024-11-04 10:51 2024-11-18 10:51 move Persistent disruptive editing Callanecc Egusi 2024-11-04 05:16 2024-11-11 05:16 edit,move Persistent disruptive editing from (auto)confirmed accounts Chetsford Highway 4 shooting 2024-11-04 01:09 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement,WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade June 1980 West Bank bombings 2024-11-04 00:58 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade Muhammad Shabana 2024-11-04 00:57 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade The battle of Hatikvah Neighborhood 2024-11-04 00:47 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade Hussein Hazimeh 2024-11-04 00:43 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade Rula Hassanein 2024-11-03 22:54 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade Operation Tyre 2024-11-03 22:38 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade Operations attributed to Israel in Iran 2024-11-03 22:36 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade 2024 Israeli Secret Document Leak Scandal 2024-11-03 22:34 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:CT/A-I Significa liberdade 2038 Asian Games 2024-11-03 22:31 2028-11-03 22:31 create Repeatedly recreated: See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 April 13#2038 Asian Games Sdrqaz Eskerê Boyîk 2024-11-03 22:22 2025-05-03 22:22 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Ymblanter Ole Sæter 2024-11-03 22:16 2025-05-03 22:16 edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Template:Zero width joiner em dash zero width non joiner 2024-11-03 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2505 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Talk:Shehzad Poonawalla 2024-11-03 09:37 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Liz 2024 in Israel 2024-11-03 01:32 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement WP:CT/A-I Asilvering General Union of Palestinian Students 2024-11-02 23:28 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C Ikwerre people 2024-11-02 23:24 2024-11-09 23:24 edit edit warring Izno November 2024 Batroun raid 2024-11-02 23:01 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:ARBPIA Ymblanter David Ivry 2024-11-02 03:17 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Ajlun offensive 2024-11-02 03:11 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Black September 2024-11-02 03:07 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Template:First Intifada 2024-11-02 03:01 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Thom Yorke 2024-11-01 23:49 2025-02-01 23:49 edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish

User Indici, uploading copyrighted images, automated creation of gastropod articles.

There is a user Indici, which appears to be either some sort of bot, or a user using automated scripts. The user has recently created a very large number of articles on gastropods. There is a concern that all of the images being used on these articles are copyright violations, some of which clearly have a watermark which indicates so. The user has also taken to overwriting articles with thier script's output, with dubious increased usefulness (See: Calliotropis_philippei). The user has not responded to the numerous comment and complaints about their behaviour on their talk page. The issue gets bigger with every new article they publish and I fear that what I have seen is just the tip of the iceberg. I cant spend time investigating myself at the moment, as I am at work. Could someone please look into this user's contributions and decide if action needs to be taken? The copyright images issue seems to be a pretty big problem. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 01:34, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Looking at their edits, They claimed to be the owner of the images here=, but that is pretty much the only interaction they have had with other editors. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 01:37, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

This is user Indici here. I'm only trying to contribute our information that we have of the new described species of shells by citizen scientist and book author Guido Poppe. Many of the species do not have a page on wikipedia or have outdated information that has been pulled out automatically out of WoRMS many years ago. Also many of the species do NOT have an image. So a few days ago I took it on myself to start uploading all the missing information and images of all species that we described and discovered. I read that some people think these images are not mine. They can always contact me for more clarifications. There is no BOT, it is me who is entering and uploading all this information to wikipedia. ....added at 02:26, 23 August 2018 by Indici

Yes, you have been contacted for more clarifications. Make them here and now. These images that you are uploading: Do you own the copyright to all of them? -- Hoary (talk) 02:31, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

More urgently, please respond at Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_uploaded_by_Indici. -- Hoary (talk) 02:36, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Seems to be moving along at a snail's pace. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 06:57, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Indici, apart from the image issue, it is extremely bad practice to completely overwrite existing articles with new material of doubtful quality. Taking as an example Conus beatrix, over which you edit-warred (as in a lot of cases) with Plantdrew: your version erases the reference to the original species description, distribution and size information, a number of useful external links, and the synonyms list. This amounts to a net loss of information, not an improvement. You cannot wade into articles like that and expect everyone to cheer you on. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:05, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Understoond: I'll review this, it seems I misunderstood some of the workings of the system. I'll check and revert where needed and add the new information where suitable. --Indici (talk) 07:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Indici, you have said "I've ownership of all the images uploaded." Unless you explain this persuasively at Commons:Deletion_requests/Files_uploaded_by_Indici, I fear that they'll all be deleted. -- Hoary (talk) 09:24, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

And the image ownership claim implies an additional concern with WP:COI, besides the mass rapid-fire unexplained reverts and problematic changes; an advance discussion of game plan at WT:GAST might have saved some trouble. Dl2000 (talk) 03:30, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I notice that the final version (1 Feb 2011) of the soon deleted page Conchology, Inc. read:

[...] In cooperation with other companies and museums, we aim to provide the best services worldwide and to enrich the malacological world with new informatic tools of significant purposes in the taxonomical/nomenclatoral fields. [...] The secondary function of our company is, as a consequence of the above, to promote the study of the systematics of the Mollusca. [...]

(my emphases). This was after seven edits by Indici; the only other edit was Zachlipton's request for speedy deletion (G11). -- Hoary (talk) 22:58, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Indici may have dropped out. See this. -- Hoary (talk) 23:02, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

RfC close review

The RfC Talk:Donald Trump#RfC: Should the lead include a sentence about Trump's racial stance? was recently closed by Winged Blades of Godric (WBG). Given the controversial nature of the topic, and the "close call" in opinions expressed by editors, I had requested a closure by an uninvolved admin.[2] Accordingly, I asked WBG to revert and let an admin process the close. (See User Talk:Winged Blades of Godric#Admin close?) However, shortly after our dialogue started, WBG failed to reply further, probably busy in real life. Meanwhile, the closure asserted by WBG has been implemented in the article, but editors are already disputing it the wording in a new section. For all these reasons, I believe that fresh eyes on the RfC are needed. I'm not sure of the procedural details, but I was advised to post here. — JFG ^talk 20:57, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Note: There was prior consensus, established in February 2018, to omit accusations of racism from the lead section. Obviously, we all know that WP:CCC, but the question becomes: is there enough new information about Trump's "racially charged comments" since February, and does this new RfC express sufficient support to override the consensus from six months ago? — JFG ^talk 21:08, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

I’ve just read through the RFC and I’m finding it difficult to understand how the closer found consensus. This needs to be revisited. Mr Ernie (talk) 21:34, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

It's kind of academic, because the RfC has effectively been superseded by a more recent discussion. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

That discussion was predicated on the disputed close and was started 21 minutes before the close was disputed on the closer's TP. Few if any editors knew it was disputed, including me. Perhaps JFG should have posted a comment to the effect that the "specific-wording" discussions were premature until the dispute about the more general question was resolved; I'm guessing he failed to anticipate an argument like yours above. But the shortest path to article content, if any, was, rather than suspend the issue for a week or two while the close dispute was processed, to allow the "specific-wording" discussions to proceed with the understanding that they were contingent on the close holding. That reasoning is just as valid without a "premature" comment from JFG. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:51, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

@Mandruss: I was puzzled to see this "weak consensus" quickly added to the current consensus list, which traditionally has been reserved for strong and undisputed consensus adjudications. Then, reading the reasoning of the closer, I was even more puzzled. In particular, I wonder how he could assess consensus from "a rough weight-based re-count of heads" (his words), which, not knowing how he did his weighting, and seeing 8 support and 10 oppose unweighted !votes, brought me to doubt the outcome and request fresh eyes here. If we don't count heads and just look at the closer's reasoning about discussants' arguments, he seemed to dismiss the voices of opposing people because he was "not much impressed" with their arguments, but he did not comment on the voices of supporters, except for one person who wrote what he called an "excellent rebuttal". The conclusion of consensus to include looks like a WP:SUPERVOTE to me. — JFG ^talk 23:48, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

@JFG: As I understand it, a supervote is where the closer expresses a position on the issue and allows their position to affect their close. Consensus is about strength of arguments, and who should judge strength of arguments if not the uninvolved closer? I grant you that this is susceptible to the closer's natural bias, but this is the best we can do until we eliminate humans from the close process. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:11, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Of course, I can't read the closer's mind, and I wish he could clarify his reasoning if he comes back online. I am only disputing his reading of the discussion. Some experience at WP:Move review has rendered me sensitive to the possibility of supervoting, even unconsciously. We are all humans, equipped with an intuitive pattern-recognition engine that we must actively silence when processing contentious discussions. — JFG ^talk 00:28, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I support any call for admin review from an established editor in good standing who lacks a reputation for wikilawyering abuse of process. This qualifies. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:32, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

(Blush) (There must be an emoji for that but I'm on an old-skool physical keyboard.) — JFG ^talk 00:58, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

{{blush}} › Mortee _talk 01:27, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

@Scjessey: It's not exactly "academic" because the topics are different. The new discussion is about using the "racially charged" euphemism or directly reporting allegations of "racism". The main topic of the RfC was whether to include something about "racially-charged comments and actions" in the lede section at all. Prior consensus was a clear "no", but the recent RfC was more evenly divided. The new discussion started developing while the RfC closer was off-wiki, hence the overlap now. — JFG ^talk 23:36, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

JFG, this statement of yours is inaccurate: the closure asserted by WBG has been implemented in the article, but editors are already disputing it in a new section. That “new section” you linked is not a dispute of the close. It is a discussion of the exact wording to be used, implying an acceptance of the close. Exactly as anticipated by the closer, who said But, feel free to tweak the wording, as necessary by normal t/p discourse. I honestly don’t see any dispute of the close on that talk page. (Disclosure: I am WP:INVOLVED at that page.) --MelanieN (talk) 00:13, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree; I have amended my statement accordingly. It does not change the fact that this RfC was a very close call on a sensitive topic, so that a review of this NAC is warranted. I have not participated in the discussion about wording because I think the close should be revisited first. The fact that the same arguments are coming back in the discussion indicates that consensus is hard to find. Note that even though I opposed the inclusion in the RfC, at the end of my long discussion with Snow Rise, I suggested that perhaps there was a way forward with writing the text from a different angle. — JFG ^talk 00:21, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I do not agree it was a "close call" at all. The weight of argument was clearly on one side, even if the number of !votes was less persuasive. I didn't even bother !voting, since it seemed so clear cut. Frankly, I'm weary of the number of RfCs at that talk page. In the good old days, RfCs were only necessary when there was some kind of a deadlock that needed to attract more editors, but now their only real purpose is to get an uninvolved editor to perform a close and stop the squabbling. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:08, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I'm not sure why Winged Blades of Godric (talk · contribs) hasn't submitted to the RfA gauntlet yet ... power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:17, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Seriously? You're seeing the reason right here. ansh666 03:29, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Isnt it expected that a closing editor (admin or non admin whatever) is expected to explain in detail (if asked) his judgement for the closing statement ? There has been a request at [3] Winged Blades of Godric could have explained his closure but I dont find that explanation anywhere. While we are debating it here, can someone point me to it, if I missed that explanation from Winged Blades of Godric. --DBigXrayᗙ 15:17, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

There's plenty of explanation:

I am not much impressed by the arguments from some of the opposers (MONGO, JFG, GW) all of whom has been excellently rebutted by Snow.I similarly fail to parse PackMeceng's last line, in light of the abundance of reliable sourcing on the issue and some arguments by the last !voter, which can be assigned as OR. That leaves us with WP:LABEL (which does make an exception in cases of abundance of reporting by reliable sources) and WP:WEIGHT. A rough weight-based re-count of heads do lead to a consensus for inclusion. But, feel free to tweak the wording, as necessary by normal t/p discourse. ∯WBG^converse 12:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

-- Scjessey (talk) 17:29, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi  Scjessey You have simply copy pasted the Closing statement from the RFC. Clearly this statement was not sufficient for the folks invovled in the RfC which is why they approached WBG on his talk page here [4]. And since then I have not seen any statement from WBG explaining the consensus. What I am trying to say here is that the Closing editor should be ready to explain his closure to the people who ask for it. If the Closing editor is unable or unwilling to further discuss his closure with the involved editors, then I believe he should not proceed with the closure in the first place. All this debating/drama/time on this thread at AN above could have been prevented if WBG could provide a suitable answer for his actions. That is missing and that is all I am trying to point here. cheers --DBigXrayᗙ 18:59, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Looks like Godric has been offline for the last four days. He made a couple of edits today so maybe he is back, but he can't be blamed for not replying when he hasn't been here. --MelanieN (talk) 19:35, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

May be, but WBG did reply to the involved editor here and he chose to ignore the Elephant in the room, which is the "further discussion" of his closure statement. WP:AN/RFC clearly states that Any uninvolved editor may close most discussions, so long as they are prepared to discuss and justify their closing rationale. Because requests for closure made here are often those that are the most contentious, closing these discussions can be a significant responsibility. All closers should be prepared to fully discuss the closure rationale with any editors who have questions about the closure or the underlying policies, and to provide advice about where to discuss any remaining concerns that those editors may have. The whole point of writing these policy lines on the RFC page, was to avoid threads such as this one on the AN pages. hope WBG returns back soon and explains his closure. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:22, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

WBG made two edits today and not a peep from them about this, despite the multiple pings here. Not even a "hey real busy IRL but I'll get to this soon". This thread amounts to a non-admin review of the close, by editors including three involved. There is no such process in policy. We are not here to debate the close, we are here to debate the legitimacy of the request for admin review of the close. That's the process. There is zero evidence that the request was brought in incompetence or bad faith, nothing more should be required, and I suggest an admin accept the request for review. If Scjessey is correct, it will be an easy review and JFG will no doubt accept the result. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:48, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I have been quite busy in IRL and have not received any ping or notification, as to the existence of this thread aprior to Pac's t/p message.I'll try to address the issues, sometime later in the day.Best,∯WBG^converse 03:09, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Sorry I neglected to post this notice. Glad you're back. — JFG ^talk 03:16, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Reviews at WP:AN per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE are undertaken by the community, not by a single admin; if a consensus exists here to overturn the close it will be overturned. There is no especial process for reviews of non-admin RfC closures whereby one admin can review it (and overturn it if it is bad) that I know of Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:52, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

and this makes sense, because involved parties whose opinion did not match with the (non-admin closure) will follow WP:IDONTLIKEIT and misuse this option to request an Admin as a new closer with some possibility of a favourable close. It is ok to ask for a review but lets first wait for WBG to explain his closure. the community can then comment if it is supported or needs to be overturned. --DBigXrayᗙ 15:33, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

and this makes sense, because involved parties whose opinion did not match with the (non-admin closure) will follow WP:IDONTLIKEIT and misuse this option to request an Admin as a new closer with some possibility of a favourable close. Not so much. The same potential for abuse exists whether it's one admin or multiple non-admins. Either way is another roll of the dice.
I stand corrected then, Galobtter. I got it wrong partly because a single-admin review would make more sense to me than a "consensus about a consensus" discussion—who assesses that consensus? (I have to keep reminding myself that the words "logical reasoning" do not occur at WP:5P.) At the very least involved editors should be excluded from the review for obvious reasons. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:08, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

It is basically like a WP:DRV or WP:MRV Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:10, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

@DBigXray: I know it was a copy/paste. My point is that the rationale provided at closing was more than sufficient explanation. I'm uncomfortable with close reviews being sought by editors who aren't happy with the result of a close, basically. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:05, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

A "close challenge" is meant to be made when there is some sort of obvious problem with the closer's reading of consensus that should invalidate it, not simply because you disagreed with the closer's reading or because another person might have closed differently. You are correct that WP:NACD advises that "close" or "controversial" discussions are "better left to admins", though as a general rule, WP:CLOSE is clear that being an admin isn't a prerequisite. The non-admin close was, procedurally, poor form, but not necessarily a breach of policy. That aside, it looks like a valid close to me. I'm not sure how anyone can claim there was no explanation, there was a clear explanation of how weight was assigned in determining the consensus, with specific arguments and rebuttals specified. A non-admin doing the closure is not a sufficient reason to overturn, given that the closer is a highly established editor in good standing, and the only other reason I'm seeing for even disputing the close is this comment, which directly prompted this close review and was essentially echoed above with the SUPERVOTE allegation. Let me be extremely clear: accusing a closer of making a bad faith close based on personal bias, without evidence, is a personal attack and an aspersion. It needs to be directly substantiated with evidence, or it is in itself an offense. So, if the concern is strictly an NAC, I will endorse the closure, problem solved. If the concern is bias, evidence is required, or the claims need to not be repeated again. If there are other valid reasons for overturning this close per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, let's hear them. Swarm ♠ 22:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Swarm The !votes were 8 support and 10 oppose, with the closer somehow finding consensus in the clear minority. That is not consensus. If RFAs are closed no consensus at 70% then I’m simply baffled how an RFC finds consensus at 44%. Mr Ernie (talk) 22:51, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

@Mr Ernie: Surely this is a textbook example of WP:!VOTE at work, is it not? The closer found the "majority" did not present a solid enough argument, despite accumulating more !votes. What's more, the discussion about the specific wording in the more recent discussion, and the strong consensus it appears to be achieving, backs up the closer's reasoning (albeit after the fact). -- Scjessey (talk) 23:03, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Exactly right. It is entirely possible to have a minority consensus. It's unusual, but fundamental. The theory behind this is that when a minority viewpoint demonstrates that it's more in line with overarching consensus (i.e. policies and guidelines) than a majority viewpoint, the overriding community consensuses supporting that minority view are factored in. Not only is that allowed, but it's the fundamental principal behind the system by which this whole project is governed. Consensus is judged by adherence to policy above all else. If the closer felt that multiple !voters were refuted with policy-based counterarguments, then that very realistically tilts the reading of consensus away from the typical "majority rule" we're used to. The key here is that such readings are not meant to be arbitrary. They need to be rooted in hard policy. That's why the first thing I checked when I saw "excellent refutations" was whether these refutations were rooted in policy or whether the closer simply "liked" them better. They were indeed rooted in policy, so it seems procedurally valid to do what the closer did here. Swarm ♠ 01:40, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Swarm, I hear you saying that, while "'close' or 'controversial' discussions are 'better left to admins'" per NACD, a non-admin closer is free to ignore that guidance—even if an admin has previously been requested per that guidance. Per Wikipedia tradition, it's guidance that means nothing in the end, is unnecessarily complicated, and serves only to send even experienced editors in several different directions. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:22, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Right, it's guidance that's there for a reason, of course. But that's not a firm rule, even relative to the rest of Wikipedia rules, which are supposed to be considered flexible and ignored when needed. I understand the frustration, and certainly think WBG should learn from this (it's usually best to avoid actions that result in avoidable drama). However, it's not a valid objection to overrule an otherwise-valid close. Swarm ♠ 01:44, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The lack of inclusion of recent consensus into the close makes this a bad close and one that should be overturned. Consensus can change, but a minority vote should not be able to change a firmly held decision made by previous consensus. It reeks of a "you quoted policy but I interpret it differently" supervote. I personally think the line should be included, but there is no way I would ever try to pull a support consensus out of that discussion, especially with something similar reaching a different consensus just six months prior. Nihlus 02:55, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

The guidance from consensus policy appears to be the opposite of what you're saying. See WP:CONLEVEL. The previous discussion was a local consensus, whereas this was a formal RfC, which is a higher level of consensus that inherently overrides any previous local consensuses. And there's WP:CCC, but I think that point is moot, because the two discussions didn't ask the same question. The "previous discussion" was a direct proposal to include the phrase "criticized as racist". The RfC was a general question to include a sentence about Trump's racial stance, with a tentative proposed wording that was entirely different than the previous discussion. No, I think you're grasping at straws here. You were the one who actually prompted this challenge, and in the same comment you directly claimed that the close was influenced by personal bias. Do you have any evidence of that? Swarm ♠ 03:46, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

@Swarm: Where did you read that it is a "higher level" of consensus because I don't see that on that page anywhere? There is no global consensus on it so your point is irrelevant. And obviously consensus can change, that was very clearly not the point I was trying to make. The topics are so close to being the same that the small difference doesn't matter at all. Even without the prior discussion, I would not have closed it the same as it is obvious there is no consensus there. Further, please point me to where I said that the close was influenced by "personal bias," because I assure you I have made no such comment. I'll actually ask you to retract that statement. Thanks. Nihlus 04:12, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Nihlus, I think Swarm is talking about this quote from User Talk:Winged Blades of Godric#Admin close?: No, it's a terrible close by WBG and one in which your perception is biased. I think it's reasonable to interpret your comment that way, although I suppose you may try to distinguish between "perception" and "personal"; in either case, it would be helpful to have evidence of perception bias to move things along. Alex Shih (talk) 04:30, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

WP:CONLEVEL is a very fundamental aspect of consensus, and it's not complicated. A community consensus is a higher level of consensus than a local consensus. An RfC is a community consensus, as opposed to a local consensus. I find it hard to believe you're not yet familiar with this concept. And, yes, I don't see any other way of interpreting the phrase "your perception is biased". That's an allegation of bias. Now, I'm not going to pedantically argue about what you intended to say, I will gladly retract my comment as soon as you clarify what you meant by "bias". Swarm ♠ 04:41, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

You both realize that my comment was directed towards MrX and his bias in saying that the close was appropriate as he had participated in the discussion, right? Further, there is no local consensus trying to override an RfC, which is why I was confused by your seemingly misplaced comments. The “local” discussion came first where there was strong opposition to include. The RfC followed and reached a no consensus but was closed incorrectly. Your train of thought is hard to follow as I am struggling to see the relevance to the discussion at hand. Nihlus 05:05, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh, no, I misunderstood your comment as being directed at WBG. Sorry, that's my mistake. I've struck that out. I'm sorry you find my "train of thought" hard to follow, I'm just trying to cite the relevant policies in the most simple way possible; if you need clarification on anything, I'm happy to provide it. The point of contention here is obviously that you think WBG misread a "no consensus" as a "weak consensus". That's simply not sufficient reason to overturn, or even challenge, a closure. The prior "local" discussion that you're claiming should have influenced the reading of consensus in the RfC, in short, would have no bearing on the RfC, even if it was the same discussion, which it wasn't. Swarm ♠ 05:47, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Calling a sitting president a racist in the lead, whether or not it is true, is something that needs to be done carefully and a "weak consensus" to do so is problematic. Failing to take into consideration a pattern of consensus, regardless of whether or not you think it is local or not, is problematic. As it is the basis of almost everyone's argument here, I'll ask that everyone read the second line of their WP:CCC argument: On the other hand, proposing to change a recent consensus can be disruptive. What may be recent to some may not be recent to others, so your mileage may vary. With that being said, I don't need clarification on your interpretation of a policy; we'll just agree to disagree, as we are wont to do. Nihlus 12:00, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Holding a political office does not afford a subject any special treatment on Wikipedia, for very good reason. I honestly don't know what a pattern of consensus is supposed to be.- MrX 🖋 17:30, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't know why people keep citing WP:NACD. That is a shortcut to the deletion process. We're not talking about a deletion discussion, so it's not really fair to say that it was e.g. "poor form" for a non-admin to make this close as WP:RFC and WP:CLOSE (which has separate sections for challenging deletion discussions and "other closures" like RfC) are clear that any uninvolved editor can do the close. Might as well say it was improper because WP:RFA says discussions should be closed by bureaucrats. I also don't get emphasizing numeric majority. If we're going by numbers then it's a vote, not a !vote. The reason we call it the latter is because consensus isn't necessarily reflected in the numbers. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:46, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Good point. I only brought it up because JFG cited a WP:BADNAC criterion as being the original reason for his complaint, and I remembered NACD it to be the actual policy behind WP:NAC, which is merely an information page. As both redirect to specific sections, I completely overlooked the fact that neither of them are even applicable as they refer to deletion policy. Thank you for pointing this out. Winged Blades of Godric, I apologize for saying your closure was in poor form—that was purely an oversight on my part. Agree with the rest of the above sentiments. Swarm ♠ 03:24, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

@Swarm: An apology is non-necessary and I agree with your comments, in the entirety except as to the point of non-admins not closing controversial RFCs.Thanks,∯WBG^converse 05:25, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Closer's rationale

• Comment--
  • I will start off by apologizing to to JFG for not tending to the t/p thread due to RL issues.
  • I will largely border on an overall analysis of the !vote(s), (along with their corresponding rebuttals) and how I weighed them.
  • Thus,
    • To start off, it is beyond dispute that the host of sources do mention Trump to be indulging in some form of racism with varying words and forms.
      • Caspring's argument
        • OK
      • Snow Rise's argument has been excellent (Vide something of this sort is WP:DUE for the lead).
      • GW
        • Snow's rebuttal has been again superb, in my eyes. (Vide and thus has no weight when measured against an inclusion issue that needs be judged under WP:V and WP:NPOV......we evaluate the sources on their face value without filtering them through our own meaning making and assumptions about what the sources "really meant"....)
        • I will say that I was convinced that given the volume of reliable-sourcing, the inclusion can't be countered on grounds of word-style, alone.But, I will also concede that there were scopes for improvement which led to my scopes for tweaking.
      • MrX.
        • Initiator.Brought a host of sources.Good enough:-)
      • MONGO's argument, is in my opinion, worthless.
        • Read Snow Rise's rebuttal, for my classification.
      • MarkBasset's argument was good.Also, goes for PacEng's arguments
        • Except that I'm hazy about how it violates WP:LEAD (Please point to specific lines, when you are pointing to page-long guidelines....) and also that WP:RACIST does not offer a blanket prohibition on the usage of racist et al.
      • HunterM267's argument might have been been far more valuable if the sources did not pertain to Fox News.Umm........But, it was good, as a direct rebuttal.
      • JFG's argument
        • It was a pleasure to read his discourse with SnowRise.But, once again Snow's arguments have been superb.I also do not like JFG's last reply which sought to indulge in original research to discover about Trump's racist stances.What matters and what solely matters is how reliable sources perceive Trump's actions/statements/policies.We don't have to rake our brains to double-check the media.
      • Wumbolo's argument was Okay-ish.
      • OID
        • Hyperbolic but well-grounded enough in light of previous arguments and evidence.
      • MarieParadox
        • Was seemingly just a vote but ought be counted in light of Caspring's reasoning.
      • Fleischman
        • Quite potent argumentation. (Vide tremendous amount of RS coverage)
      • Fyunck
        • Supports the theme but not the wording.
      • Coretheapple
        • Logical and good enough.Placement's a matter of editorial discretion and no weighintg can be done.
      • Aquillion
        • A very-well-crafted succinctly-put argument.Agree in entirety.
      • Dankster
        • Good enough.Thinks the statement to be prudent enough to deserve a lead mention, unlike Coretheapple.
      • LiteratureGeek
        • A host of original research.Media might be sensationalist but when a host of highly reputed media sources choose that path, umm.......we have to go down that line.Also, read Snow Rise's reply to MONGO.

In my opinion, the above discussion leads to a policy-based consensus for inclusion of the broader theme of perceivement of trump's comments and actions as racist/racially charged, though there is a bone of contention as to the precise wording of the sentence.

Further discussions at a subsequent thread for fine-tuning the wording seems to be moving quite productively.

I will also like to invoke the fact that closing discussions aren't executed by a count of heads and that an argument which has been countered well-enough is quite less weigh-able, in the eyes of the closer.

I also agree with Mandruss that whilst I try to evaluate arguments, as neutrally as possible (and I am not editorially involved, either in APOL in any form or manner), this (the closure) is susceptible to the closer's natural bias, but this is the best we can do until we eliminate humans from the close process.

Nihlus, consensus can change and the poser(s) are not same.

Thank you.∯WBG^converse 05:25, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: Thank you for that full explanation, which I think fully backs up your close rationale, and will surely satisfy JFG. As I mentioned before, I did not participate in this discussion but I would've supported the inclusion of the material, of which the wording is now being discussed in the subsequent thread. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks WBG for bringing the dish everyone was killing over. Courtesy ping to JFG,User:Mandruss, User:Nihlus to confirm if they have anything more to add to this discussion. regards. --DBigXrayᗙ 19:33, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

If the only requirement is that the closer lay out some detailed reasoning, with no need for highly-qualified, uninvolved, thorough evaluation of that reasoning, then that requirement has been satisfied. It may be the best we can expect with limited resources. Nothing further to add. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:08, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Rebuttal: no consensus

First, I thank Winged Blades of Godric for taking the time to provide a more detailed rationale for his close. Unfortunately those details only highlight a contradiction between the closer's reading of the discussion and his own conclusion. In WBG's closing message, he stated: A rough weight-based re-count of heads do lead to a consensus for inclusion. Now we can read his clarification of the weighting he applied to each participant's arguments:

• Supporting arguments accepted: Casprings, SnowRise, MrX, Only in death does duty end, Marie Paradox, Dr. Fleischman, Aquillion, Dankster
• Opposing arguments accepted: Markbassett, PackMecEng, HunterM267, Wumbolo, Coretheapple
• Supporting arguments rejected: none
• Opposing arguments rejected: GorillaWarfare ("Snow's rebuttal has been again superb"), MONGO ("worthless, read Snow Rise's rebuttal"), JFG ("once again Snow's arguments have been superb"), Literaturegeek ("A host of original research. Also, read Snow Rise's reply to MONGO.")
• Unclear assessment: Fyunck (opposed the RfC text but said he would support an alternate wording)

This gives a "weight-based re-count" of 8 supporting voices (all accepted), 5 opposing voices accepted, 4 opposing editors whose arguments were rejected, and 1 opposing who was not counted because he might support an alternate wording. Even if we entirely discard the opinions of 5 people that WBG rejected (almost all on the basis of SnowRise's comments), that leaves us with 8 supporting voices and 5 opposing ones, so that it's very hard to infer even a "weak consensus" from such an assessment; the prudent path would have been to conclude "no consensus". WBG also had the option to contribute his voice to the discussion and let somebody else close it.

There is indeed no dispute that many sources have reported on Trump's "racially-charged comments and actions", and those are appropriately reflected in the article, in a "Racial views" section. The question under examination was whether this issue should be mentioned in the lede section, and how. WBG concluded that it should be mentioned, and left the wording to be discussed further; however the wording was a key element of the question. Other RfCs had been launched in parallel with different wording proposals, and they failed. Contrary to WBG's assertion, the post-RfC discussion about wording is not "moving quite productively", it has plunged into a quagmire of opinions arguing whether we should qualify Trump's deeds as racist directly or using various euphemisms including the one proposed in the RfC text. The very fact that it is so hard to agree on wording should have weighted the closer's conclusion to a "no consensus" reading.

WBG also failed to address a key argument in the discussion: how to take prior consensus into account. In my introduction to the close review, I wrote: There was prior consensus, established in February 2018, to omit accusations of racism from the lead section. […] Does this new RfC express sufficient support to override the consensus from six months ago? I have not seen a reply to this question. It is interesting to note that the proposed wording in February sounded milder ("Many of his comments have been criticized as racist, which he has denied."), and was nevertheless rejected by a wide margin of editors (5 support to 13 oppose + 1 neutral). Some commenters argued that the question was different, but others have assessed the questions to be essentially the same; again, it all depends on the wording.

For the last two years, disputed statements in the Donald Trump article have been closely monitored with a list of accepted consensus, including formal RfC outcomes and informal discussions that showed clear-cut agreement among a large sample of editors. This mechanism has promoted article stability, and has avoided repeat discussions of similar issues. When new information arises, consensus is amended. This latest RfC has too weak a consensus (according to WBG) to be elevated to a binding item on this list.

In summary, I urge the community to revert to a finding of "no consensus" for this particular RfC. Editors could then propose other variants to address the racism theme in the lede section. There are many ways to skin this cat, but the one proposed here did not gather sufficient agreement. — JFG ^talk 05:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Anything around 60% is indeed weak consensus, unless we are setting up new policies/guidelines.As to why I derived from Snow's rebuttals, was that they were too well based in policy. The prior discussion was with an entirely different poser and quite much ago.Consensus can change.∯WBG^converse 06:46, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I wish people in this discussion would stop spouting "consensus can change" as if that will make people's concerns immediately invalidated or something. Of course it can change, no one has said that it couldn't. People are merely saying that such a "weak consensus" (your words, not mine) should not be enough to overturn a previously established and "strong consensus" for the opposite. The best route is to either let the conversation continue until a stronger consensus can be reached or default to the previous consensus (or no consensus). Dismissing individuals' arguments that you don't agree with is a supervote and another reason this should be overturned immediately. Nihlus 07:07, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I have to agree with Nihlus here, this is not a consensus can change situation. Especially after such a short time with nothing new added. It is a rehash of the essentially the same RFC. Also they are correct again that a weak consensus like that should not overturn a recent strong consensus. Finally, setting aside if this is actually weak consensus, is weak consensus really the bar for inclusion of a contentious label to the lead in one of the most viewed BLP articles these days? PackMecEng (talk) 13:20, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@JFG: Why are you continuing to question this? A large proportion of the "regular" Trump article editors have clearly moved on and are working constructively on appropriate language. Does this serve any useful purpose whatsoever? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:01, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Considering our feelings about Trump, I think ethics would suggest that we let uninvolved others decide when to shut down a review of a close that adds Trump-unfavorable content to his bio. Don't you? And this is not a WP:STICK situation when there are three experienced editors opposing the close. As for other editors moving on, see my first comment. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Mandruss, what I'm waiting for, is the opinion of un-involved editors (JFG and PackMec are both involved, Nihlus, you and Scjessey ain't) .Once, I see three-four un-involved long-standing editors, disagreeing with my closure with no one in support, I'll gladly (and ought to) revert.∯WBG^converse 13:51, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Would this be paid editing?

See this page for details of the research and other issues.∯WBG^converse 05:42, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi all. Around a year ago, a WMF staff member reached out to me about participating in some external research to understand how experienced closers on Wikipedia go about closing an RfC or other similar discussion. At the time, I received compensation for participating in the interview, but no on-wiki contributions were made, so no paid editing disclosure was needed. Now, I've been contacted for a follow-up. The researcher has developed a tool that attempts to assist editors in analyzing and closing RfCs. They're looking for editors on Wikipedia to use the tool to close an RfC and then provide feedback on it in a follow-up interview. It's unclear to me whether this would require a paid contribution disclosure. While I would be compensated partially for making an edit, the actual contents of the edit are entirely up to me; I choose which RfC to close, and I close it exactly how I would normally with no input from any outside party. I simply test out their tool while doing it.

Could I get some opinions on whether this counts as "paid editing" that would require a disclosure? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:19, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm in the same position as Rob.So, comments are equally welcome from my end:-)∯WBG^converse 06:53, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, now you've disclosed it, so whether or not it counts, you're safe :-) Nyttend (talk) 02:06, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

@Nyttend: While I've quite literally disclosed it here, this disclosure wouldn't meet the requirements of a paid-contribution disclosure per WP:PAID. For a variety of reasons, I wouldn't be willing to disclose in the manner demanded there. If I put a disclosure on my user page, I'm worried it will be taken the wrong way (e.g. to mean I'm paid for my contributions generally) or used by abusive paid editors as "proof" there are paid administrators. If I disclose in the edit summary/talk page related to whatever RfC I decide to close, I'm worried it will be used by any participants who are unhappy with the result to challenge my close, even though I would (of course) perform it neutrally and without any outside influence. Worst case, if the community isn't clear that this doesn't require a disclosure, I'll participate in the study while requesting the researcher take what compensation would come my way and donate it to the WMF instead. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:35, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Worth disclosing (as you have), but no, that's not paid editing. Hobit (talk) 02:13, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• It's clearly paid editing and it is fine to undertake with the required disclosure. Btw, in my experience most university ethic boards overseeing such research would advice that that the compensation structure for such research be based not upon the number of RFCs the participant closes (since that would create a perverse incentive) but on a fair estimate of time/effort devoted to giving feedback on how well the tool worked.

(It hopefully doesn't need to be said, but my comment is about the principles involved, and not the persons. BU Rob13 IMO is taking exactly the right approach by being open about the project and inviting feedback here.) Abecedare (talk) 03:31, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Interesting, I don't see this as any different than (say) editing while at work (where you are allowed to "browse the web" if you have no other tasks to do). Could you explain your reasoning? Hobit (talk) 13:10, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

The compensation is technically for the feedback, not the act of closing an RfC. Of course, closing a single RfC is necessary in order to evaluate the tool. Does that change anything for you, Abecedare? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:37, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: The fact that you are getting paid for the feedback, and not the close(s) themselves addresses exactly the issue I had raised in my post above, and increases my confidence that this is a thoughtfully-designed research project. But IMO the requirement for disclosure remains since the payment still creates a secondary incentive for you to close RFCs (I am ignoring the possibility of using the tool in the sandbox). Now, I realize that in your case that inducement is essentially a hypothetical concern, but the very point of having universal ethical and disclosure guidelines is to avoid such case-by-case considerations. Consider the thought experiments:

• Lets say the researchers had put up an ad on Mechanical Turk: "Use this tool to close an RFC on wikipedia, and you'll get paid for your feedback". Would we not call that paid editing?
• Or lets say, instead of of being open in your original post, you had logged out and posted as an IP, "Hi all. I have an account on wikipedia and around a year ago..." Would we then not have asked that the activity be disclosed?

Now both the above scenarios, and especially the first one, raise concerns other than the simple question of whether the activity is paid or not. But my aim in presenting them is to (hopefully) show that if we anonymize the scenario (ie. remove you and and your established on-wiki reputation from consideration), it becomes clear that the activity does qualify as (ethical) paid editing. Does that make sense to you/others? Abecedare (talk) 17:34, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

In both of the scenarios you listed, no one would be required to disclose. Payment for use of a tool and providing feedback on it is not payment for contributions.

Also, I’ll repeat my objections to saying that our standards are the same for research conducted on Wikipedia as a topic vs. commercial editing, and note how much I hate the use of “paid editing” as a term. The TOU and our guidelines were intended to target commercial editors and make it harder for them to use Wikipedia as an advertising platform. In an attempt to make it seem like we aren’t discriminating against spammers, we sometimes take ridiculous stances like the community appears to be taking in this case by forcing an arbitrator who is well known for his privacy concerns (I think this is a fair description of Rob) to disclose more than is required under the TOU, breaching his personal privacy for a minimal sum just because a blind reading of the TOU without looking at the context can be read as “money must be disclosed.” That’s not the intent here, nor is it required, and forcing disclosure in these circumstances only increases the legitimacy of parties who use the disclosure as a weapon to ignore local policies on advertising for their clients. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:45, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Given the key phrase from the terms of service, "...you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation", RFC closures are encompassed as a contribution. As the FAQ says, "...you must disclose your employment, client, and affiliation when making any type of paid contribution to any Wikimedia project. This includes edits on talk pages and edits on projects other than Wikipedia." isaacl (talk) 15:26, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

@Isaacl: I suppose that may actually be the key here. I'm not actually required to make a contribution to Wikipedia in order to receive this compensation, technically. I have an option to "close" an already closed RfC. The compensation is for the feedback on the tool, not the edit I would be making. Does that change your thoughts? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:34, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand: are you saying it is sufficient for you to use the tool to figure out how you might have closed an RfC, and then report this to the study in a way other than editing Wikipedia? If no contributions to Wikipedia are involved, then the terms of service do not come into effect. isaacl (talk) 15:45, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

That would be sufficient to complete the feedback phase and receive compensation, yes. Obviously, if I spent time closing a difficult RfC, though, I'd like that close to be implemented. Otherwise, I'm wasting some other volunteer's time to repeat my close. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:44, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• I don’t think this falls under WP:PAID, and don’t think the mandatory disclosure applies (for full disclosure, Rob asked me about this before, and I told him the same thing, but agreed it would be best to get community feedback in the interest of transparency.) Rob would be paid for providing feedback on a tool, not paid for any specific action taken on-wiki. Classifying this as paid editing is equivalent to the strawman argument that getting an $8 coupon to buy a sandwich at a university cafe during an editathon counts as paid editing: it doesn’t, it clearly isn’t the intent of the terms of use or the local guidelines, and people need to stop pretending that the TOU disclosure requirement is broader than it actually is. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:42, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree this isn't the same as conventional paid editing. For better or worse, the terms of usage are broadly drawn to minimize gaming, and it's too easy to see how non-neutral interests can influence editing through compensation of supporting tools. Think of how the soft-drink industry funds studies on the value of hydration; it could fund edit-a-thons where it didn't direct you to edit any specific pages, but provided you with tools to help find hydration-related information. Or... it could fund a study much like this one, to see if RfCs for hydration-related topics are closed differently based on the tool. isaacl (talk) 15:59, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
    • And it wouldn’t be paid editing or covered by the terms of use, which cover only paid contributions to Wikimedia projects. Not analysis of contributions to Wikimedia projects or being a test subject. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:05, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
      • Yes, agreed, as I said above, the terms of usage only take effect for contributions. But if the test subject is making edits as direct part of the study, even if it's the tool that's being evaluated, then the edit is a consequence of the compensation. isaacl (talk) 19:46, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
• Responding to the post at COIN...

If you decide to do this, it is paid editing. The payment is for behavior, not content (which is indeed unusual), but it is still pay.

Because the pay is for behavior not content, there is no need for "prior review" so there is no issue with actually doing the close directly.

With regard to the reputational/mischief risks around "paid editing" you mention, the simplest way to avoid them would be to not accept the money. So perhaps ask yourself if the money is worth those risks. Only you can judge that for yourself. But not disclosing at your userpage and locally, is not the correct way to manage those risks. Doing that ~looks~ like avoiding scrutiny which is actually more opportunity for drama.

In my view if you choose to do this, of course you should disclose this clearly on your userpage, as well as when you do a relevant close. The disclosure should be simple: "I am receiving compensation as part of a WMF university research project into a software tool I am testing that is meant to help closers evaluate the discussion, and my feedback on the use of this tool. The judgement expressed in the close is my own". The disclosure on your userpage should provide the start and end date of the consulting gig.

Since the pay is for behavior and since the research project involves your behavior and judgement, it would be interesting when you are done to see if participating changed your behavior:

• for example you might close more discussions than you usually would. (The fact that you are testing a tool, which is interesting in itself, also could change whether you close more or less, of course). I don't think you closing more or fewer discussions is a bad thing; there is no real risk here.
• Use of the tool will effect your closes. It would be like closing a discussion with a 2nd closer, where you have some other opinion you have to consider while writing the close. That's kind of interesting, but risks to the project would seem minimal. The final judgement will be your own.
• I wonder if your approach to challenges of any given close made using the tool would be different (maybe influence you to be less open to a challenge since the tool might give you a sense of higher objectivity or something). Again this seems like a minimal risk.

Those are my thoughts. Jytdog (talk) 15:45, 25 August 2018 (UTC) (initial redaction based on further information provided here. I may change further based on other clarifications... Jytdog (talk) 15:38, 26 August 2018 (UTC)) (again redacting, the gig is to do one close, not a bunch of them. This is really small potatoes. Jytdog (talk) 19:21, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

This is creating a false equivalency when none exists, and is dangerous. Rob would be getting paid for external research related to Wikipedia, not his contributions here. If consensus is that this falls under PAID, I’ll be proposing an RfC to exempt external research from the disclosure requirements, because I feel very strongly that such a reading of the current policy is harmful to the purposes of Wikipedia. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:56, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I understood from the OP that the pay is for doing closings using the tool. The pay is connected to the editing; not the content but the behavior. No closings, no pay. This pay-for-behavior thing is something we haven't thought much about as a community. I haven't thought much about it, at least. I will think about other sorts of behavior people might be interested in paying for that doesn't involve getting some certain kind of content into WP or about swaying some community decision. It's interesting. Jytdog (talk) 19:09, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Technically, I do not need to perform a close to receive the pay. I was explicitly offered the option of "closing" an already closed discussion (e.g. evaluating how I would close it, using the tool, ignoring the existing close). What they're after is the feedback, and that's what I would be compensated for. I think this whole thing highlights how poor our definition of paid editing is, though. I think it's rather clear everyone agrees this shouldn't be covered, but several think it is due to an overly broad definition. We could do with some further exemptions or refinements of the paid editing definition, in my opinion. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:25, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree this shouldn't be covered. Lots of research is funded by special interests, and so it's unclear to me that avoiding a disclosure is desirable for this scenario. isaacl (talk) 05:21, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I would only close a single RfC with this tool to provide feedback, so most of that wouldn't be relevant. I will not be making a full disclosure, for sure, since I do think the risks outweigh the benefits. If the consensus is that this is paid editing, then I'll instead have the researcher donate the compensation to the WMF on my behalf. That way, I'm receiving no compensation and am not a "paid editor", but it's going to a good cause. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:34, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Would you not be closing, were you not paid? I take it the answer is, you will be closing just as you would normally, except using a tool, and you will get paid if you report on the tool's use. Well, I think there are multiple ways one could handle this to ally any issue, but my suggestion is that in the edit summary, you put 'closed with '[ToolClose]', as that is the way our system often discloses similar things, like when I and others edit with Provelt [5]. And I guess I would also put on my talk page "I am testing '[ToolClose]' and the WMF will provide some compensation for my report on its use", and when you're done, then that can just archive. See also WP:ADMIN where it discusses paid by WMF. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:50, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

It's not the WMF providing compensation, but rather a researcher at a major research university. I likely would not close an RfC in the absence of this research merely because I'm fairly busy these days with my role on the Arbitration Committee, but I'm receiving absolutely no influence in which RfC to close. I plan to just pick something complicated-looking at WP:ANRFC - probably whatever's been there the longest - and close that. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh, you mention WMF up-top, so this research is in conjunction with WMF? Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:21, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

The researcher is working with the WMF, as external researchers usually do, but I don't know that it's in conjunction with them. A WMF staffer reached out to me initially along with other closers for a round of interviews, but since then, all contact has been with the researcher. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:42, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Then I would amend what was on your talk page to trace the connections, but you would first have to clarify the WMF connection, which you can probably clarify by contacting the WMF person. You might also want to think about if you have not closed in a while closing without the tool, so you have the experience fresh. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:48, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Also, I see above, you say you could do dry re-run of closes, not actually doing anything for the pedia, if you did do just that, no extra anything is needed (You could also try to know as little about what the close was and later compare, by eg. having someone else transfer the pre-closed RfC to your sandbox - just have them follow copying in Wikipedia). Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:35, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

• Yeah, ditto, but I would not take any money so all good here :-) Guy (Help!) 22:19, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

(1)In my opinion, this not paid editing. To think it is, is to misunderstand the basis for our rules about paid editing and COI. The reason we have these rules is because of their effect on writing NPOV encyclopedic articles--NPOV is the fundamental principle upon which these guidelines rest. There is no reason to expect that someone given money for writing or editing or reviewing anything they might choose to do will cause a violation of NPOV, and this goes for routine administrative actions also.

(2)However, the enWP is reasonably concerned to keep its contents and decisions about content independent of the WMF. This is based upon the basic principle that we are a volunteer organization where everyone can edit. Professionalizing our decisions goes against the very reason that WP was founded in the first place. As WP has become complex, there has been need for a certain involvement by the WMGF in some aspects--but we have never accepted any involvement in content (except to make sure its legal & help us keep it free from external influences).

(3)That goes for research into WP also. It's desirable and necessary there be research, but it cannot be allowed to affect content or other decisions at the encyclopedia. This prohibits breaching experiments--it also prohibits editing or adminsitrative actions which are done for some purpose that might even potentially conflict with the true purposes of the encyclopedia. We are I think rightly particularly sensitive of this for actions by admins, or similar decision-makers, even when they do not directly invovle content. Therefore I think this sort of activity must be explicitly declared. This is the same whether or not there is money involved. (There are indeed certain types of otherwise desirable research which this might prohibit, but it's like any rule on ethical research.) DGG ( talk ) 03:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• User:BU Rob13 would you please clarify what activity this involves? In the OP you wrote use the tool to close an RfC then here you said you could just go through the motions and not actually do a close. This matters, since the first involves actually saving an edit, while the second does not. Also I just noticed that the OP says do this once and this is what you have said a few other times. Are they really just looking for you to do this once? This is also relevant... Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:46, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  I have just seen a similar email in my inbox, which I suppose makes me "involved" enough to join the conversation and reply to your query. The researcher in question has developed a new tool to help close RFCs. They want users like Rob and myself to use their tool to close 1 RfC, give feedback, and we will be paid for our efforts.

  I am in the same line of thinking of TonyBallioni and others on this matter, in that we are not being paid to close a specific RfC (there is even the caveat given of or a previously closed one), but rather that we are being asked to use the tool. To me this does not sound like a "paid contribution"; it's saying "hey, here's this thing, how well do you think it works?" The caveat mentioned basically means that it doesn't have to be a "real" RfC that's being closed, so it could be used on a "fake" RfC but something tells me the point is to look at a convoluted RfC and see if this tool makes it easier to edit.

  In other words, I do not think disclosure is required. Primefac (talk) 15:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  Yeah, what Primefac said. A single RfC, and technically, we don't even need to make the closing edit to be paid. They want the feedback, and that's what the compensation is for. Having said that, from my perspective, I want to improve the encyclopedia, and if I'm going to the effort of working out a close, the thing that most improves the encyclopedia is for me to implement that close. It's a waste of effort for me to "close" a discussion off-wiki but make another closer duplicate my work for an on-wiki close. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  As one of the editors, approached in a follow-up to test their tool, I pretty much agree with PFac.∯WBG^converse 16:39, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  Two things. If you are saving an edit and will be paid for that, it is "paid editing". We get all kinds of sophistry from people around what "editing" is (e.g. talk page discussion is not "editing"; editing policy or discussion about policy is not "editing"). Second, people considering doing this, should not be evaluating themselves how the community should classify this. See Bias blind spot. I can't tell you how many discussions I have had with editors with an WP:APPARENTCOI who start out insisting "I have no COI here" and when I finally draw a disclosure of the relationship from them, they are in the PR department or are friends with the person or the like. Most everybody who has a COI thinks they are "doing just fine, thanks". The thing to do is disclose, and let others evaluate. Jytdog (talk) 16:37, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  Jytdog, whilst I'm obviously not the one to evaluate the aspects of PAID declaration, I think your equivalence is grossly hyperbolic.Neither I nor PFac nor Rob are liaisoning with any PR department.All that we will do, is to choose a random RFC, and execute a closure via the help of the tool and later provide feedback about our experience et al.∯WBG^converse 16:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  Too much emotion. Bias blind spot is a very, very human thing. Jytdog (talk) 16:47, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  I have no interest in participating, so I'm not really sure how knowing the specifics/answering your question/giving my thoughts mean that I'm biased, but whatever. I can see where you're coming from, and while I'm not quite as firm in my belief that it doesn't require disclosure as I was before, I still think this doesn't fall under the definition of a "paid contribution" (since the close would have happened regardless of whether the pay is coming). Primefac (talk) 17:33, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  the thing about "blind spot bias" is about a person who is involved with it, judging how to consider it and what to do about it. It's just a human thing. That's all. I hear you, that you don't intend to take them up on their offer. It's unhappy to me that there is drama around this; nobody here has said "wow this could really damage the project". If there is one clear consensus in the discussion, it is that. I have acknowledged that this is pay-for-behavior not pay-for-content and that is some different kind of animal. But it would be better just to disclose it since money is involved and edits are being made, exactly to avoid stupid drama later. The not-disclosing would become the point of drama, and it would have a "hook". Jytdog (talk) 19:15, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)A third thing - since they are really are looking for just one close from each person (which I find a bit strange from an experimental design perspective, but whatever) the effect on the project is really minimal and again there is no big deal here. But everybody doing this for pay (or even if they refuse pay and as part of the research, as aptly noted by User:DGG above) should disclose it at their userpage and when they do the close. It is not complicated. Paid editing is paid editing. This is very GLAM like and benign. I hope the researchers doing this have a page somewhere in WP where they describe the project; they should link everybody doing this there (and the disclosure each person makes should link there). Disclosure is good. Jytdog (talk) 16:52, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  Disclosure is good, but in re-reading Rob's original post it sounds more like he's concerned about the outcome of such a disclosure. Is "I tested a thing for a person" (hyperbolic shortening intentional) acceptable, or would he have to use {{paid}} and give specific details, which could then potentially be used to track him down? Primefac (talk) 17:36, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  The disclosure does not have to use {{paid}}, look for example what I have on my user page. I would not call myself a paid editor, and in fact I oppose paid editing.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:39, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  The {{paid}} tag is never required; the main thing is the disclosure. Jytdog (talk) 19:08, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

If you want to focus on improving the encyclopedia, then why don't you just forgo the payment and help without it? I find the payment for stuff like this to be highly inappropriate and the secrecy surrounding the "tool" to be problematic. In light of the community discussion and Arbcom's decision, closing an RfC as an administrator while being paid to close it could be viewed as a violation of this restriction. I highly recommend that no one move forward with this if they wish to avoid the obvious trouble that it will carry. Nihlus 17:36, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

But they're not being paid to close an RfC, they're being paid to use a tool to close an RfC. Also it is not a use (or abuse) of admin tools because there are no admin tools being used. Primefac (talk) 17:38, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

That sounds like the same thing to me. If editing the wiki is a requirement for using a tool, then they are being paid to edit the wiki. It's that simple. As to whether or not it is a violation, it could very easily be viewed as one and desysop requests could be made (with merit) if someone found them to be troublesome or a violation of the rules surrounding it. Closing it as an administrator while being paid can easily be seen as leveraging the sysop bit while being paid as it has implied authority that comes with it. As I said, if you want to focus on improving the encyclopedia, then all of this can easily be done without being paid. However, the questions will linger as this bell can't really be unrung. Nihlus 17:47, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I doubt seriously those alleged desysop claims would find merit, if they were made at all. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:56, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

if they were made at all I assure you that someone will make a formal complaint. Nihlus 17:59, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

So? Sometimes like 75% of the project is complaints (no biggie). :) Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:10, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• I think allot of discussion is just unneeded. It costs nothing to do some kind of disclosure here, no-one is wanting anything "private" or you all would not be here right now disclosing this stuff, just follow the spirit of nothing wrong with some disclosure and minimally do something like in the edit summary, and on your talk page etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:43, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
• BU Rob13, someone is paying you to make a contribution to Wikipedia. That falls under "paid editing". But you don't have to add anything to your user page. It would be enough to say on the talk pages when you close the RfCs that you've been paid by [name of researcher, university or whatever's appropriate] to test a new tool. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:20, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
  • That sort of works but if there is a choice between local or central (at the user page), then local is better. The purpose of the local disclosure is that people who are "affected" are made of aware of it at the time; in my experience people who have had some interaction with someone editing for pay or with a COI, learning after the fact about that (say by going to the person's userpage at some later point in time after the interaction has been underway), have a negative reaction, in great part due to the lack of local disclosure. Again the only problem I see with this, is someone coming across it later and thinking they have found some scandal. That is all avoidable with clear disclosure. So normal disclosure (user page + local) Jytdog (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
    • Definitely not disclosing. The risks of an admin having to publicly disclose as a paid editor outweigh the benefits of this research, in my opinion. I guarantee if I made such a formal disclosure, abusive paid editing groups would be impersonating me by the end of the week, backed up by a convenient paid editing disclosure they could link to on-wiki to "prove" they have an admin willing to pull strings for the highest bidder. Further, I'm now worried that even participating in this study at all will cause harm, as paid editors could point to this discussion to show admins do engage in "paid editing" if I go through with it, even if I do some gymnastics to avoid having to disclose (e.g. declining compensation). I'll certainly respect the community's decision on this one, but it's the wrong decision. The community has deprived a researcher attempting to benefit Wikipedia of useful data. It's unfortunate I will not be able to participate in the development of a potentially useful tool. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:08, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

      @BU Rob13: Why can you not do it for free? Nihlus 09:11, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

      At this point, I feel that undertaking any activity as an administrator that the community has decided is on the same level and requires the same level of disclosure as the activity undertaken by spammers and abusive paid editors is likely to damage the project. If I go through with this now, even unpaid, paid editors could still point to this discussion to show that an administrator is willing to accept pay for contributions, which is not what I was actually doing in the first place. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:30, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

      • • • I urge you to not play around with what an "edit" is; an edit is any saved change to WP, anywhere. I am sorry you feel it is dirty. If "feeling dirty" prevents disclosure, that is shooting oneself in the foot, since most scandal arises when people feel something is being hidden. Jytdog (talk) 23:05, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
• Better nomenclature? Perhaps we need to come up with better terminology for the type of research participation being discussed here. While I do think such paid participation needs disclosure, Rob et al are right that just calling it "paid editing" without trying to differentiate it from activities of (typically) COI/promotional editors is misleading and unhelpful. With a bit of brainstorming it should be possible to come up with something akin to "Wikipedians in residence", which afaik, is not treated as a scarlet letter. Abecedare (talk) 13:57, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• Yeah, I endorse that idea. It seems a shame that we could be missing out on helpful research and tools because of the paid editing problem. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
• In my comments above I noted that we should treat this like GLAM. WP:COI says There are forms of paid editing that the Wikimedia community regards as acceptable.... I oppose obscuring things. Clarity is good and disclosure is good. Jytdog (talk) 22:58, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
• I don't think participating in research (or, for that matter, acting as a liaison for a gallery, library, archive, museum, or educational institution) should be a mark of shame, but I don't think it should be a free pass, either. As I alluded to above, I think disclosing the associated research is desirable so that the context of the research, including its funding source, can be known. isaacl (talk) 04:08, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
• Regarding nomenclature, I think the most straightforward description is research participant. isaacl (talk) 04:15, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't think we should treat this as usual paid editing, since you are not paid to edit any content or change any editorial behavior. So it does not make sense to add yourself to talk pages with Template:Connected contributor (paid). Obviously other paid editing provisions such as requesting edits in talk pages do not apply either. However, I think you should disclose it in your user page or talk page that you are being compensated for this and a link to a page where full details of the research and payer can be read, and a brief comment in edit summaries would help too. --MarioGom (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

So I too got an email about this today; however specifying no compensation. Per this diff done a few days ago, "no participants will be compensated for their participation in this study", referencing this discussion. I'm interested in participating, and with no compensation being there, there is per se no issue with paid disclosure. However some people above seem to want a disclosure even if there is no pay involved. I'm fine with putting in the edit summary of the closure something like "Close was aided by the tool Wikum, to give feedback for research", basically along the lines of Primefac's "I tested a thing for a person". Would that satisfy people? Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:19, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

TBAN request: User:Kbog and Machine Intelligence Research Institute

• Kbog (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Machine Intelligence Research Institute (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

We've experienced aggressive advocacy from Kbog on this page. In general I have found Kbog to edit this way on things related to Exciting Possibilities About the Future (transhumanist, effective altruism stuff) but this has gone over the top. There is a combination of a) not understanding the mission of WP and the basic P&G through which we realize it; and b) aggressive editing and responses, instead of learning what we do, and how we do it.

This is not helped by

• Kbog's overall fierce inclusionism and sense of WP:OWN with respect to their own edits, as they state by the words and images on their userpage. The machine gun imagery disturbs me every time I look at it; they view this as "satire".
• their view of what we do here as something like what goes on in social media like vbulletin boards, on Reddit boards, on Facebook, and so on, as they wrote here.

Keep your dirty liberal hands off of my content!

Anyway, to the MIRI page.

It has been fancruft since the day it was created in 2004. User:Zubin12 came along in July and started cleaning it up and got it to this point, and clearly pointed out the PROMO aspects of the page on the talk page.

This opened some fierce engagement to clean it up further. Kbog and I overlapped, and I yielded to them; they brought it to this state, and came to the talk page and wrote: I finished the article to my current satisfaction. That is quite a strong statement, on a page that is being contested. It invites scrutiny of their work, and that scrutiny finds their work deficient in the basics of scholarship as well as our policies and guidelines.

In response, for starters I pointed out the overwhelming reliance on primary or SPS sources when they were done. In response they trimmed some, and made a dog's breakfast of a response on Talk, completely confusing the concepts of "independent source" and "primary sources" and "SPS" and failing to understand that having big swaths of content driven by SPS or primary sources is not good. Indeed they wrote: If an article can be made longer with appropriate use of primary sources, without being too long, then it's an improvement. Because more, accurate, information is simply a good thing.

This basic orientation that "more is better", even if it is driven by shitty sources that don't actually support the content, is just not what we do here. The combative attitude along with misunderstanding the mission and basic P&G makes it almost impossible to help them think clearly about sourcing and content, much less reach consensus.

I went on to look at just a couple of passages, and you can see the pile of errors in this section on Talk. They then replied, interspersing their comments with mine, which i fixed; you can see that discussion here. Their response to problems with the page as they left it - with unverified content, etc -- the content that was, again in their own words, to my current satisfaction -- was to blame other people, say "I didn't have the source", and just more or less knee-jerk rejection. (diff).

Something to point out in that small example paragraph was this sentence they had left in the content: "In early 2015, MIRI's research was cited in a research priorities document accompanying an open letter on AI that called for "expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robust and beneficial"(source)."

That passage typifies their editing -- MIRI is not mentioned in that important document. Some of their researchers are cited - maybe five citations out of the 70 or so references there. The content is pure commentary/OR. They actually believe that this is just fine - No, that is a straightforward statement of fact, which is different from commentary. (same diff as above) and not at all OR/commentary on a source that is not about MIRI, where the content gives outsize importance to MIRI's role in the document. Pretty typical advocacy-driven editing.

Elsewhere on the talk page and in the article, others have been addressing OFFTOPIC and SYN content added by Kbog. Kbog has responded by edit warring ( just yesterday, 1) two reverts in one diff series; 2) again; 3) again, and later 4) reverting the "primary" tag, and 5) again). They responded to my edit war warning with this: silly, removing it from their page.

On talk they have been writing things like:

• this favorite of machine-gun toting OWNers Anyway, you cannot remove material without building a talk page consensus first. Merely saying "let's take this to the talk page" doesn't give you a right to continue edit warring. The material stands until there is a decision to change it. and
• this What bizarre theatrics are these, where the very defenses that exist to ward off deletionist gadflies are used as a pretext for their further persistence. It seems that literally everything, to you, is a reason to be combative, and
• misrepresenting my stance as being somehow OK with the page three times, (diff, especially egregious diff, diff (bottommost)), even though as I noted above, I stopped working on the page and yielded to them. They have no idea what the page would like if I were to take my run through it.
• this - Sure, there are three editors who have axes to grind here, with thoroughly unconvincing objections. I haven't seen any level-headed, independent person to side against me.. The key words there are I haven't seen, and the sense is wrong -- this is really about not hearing.

The fan-driven, bad-quality editing related to MIRI extends to other pages and edits like this, removing content sourced from the New York Times about Vernor Vinge coining the phrase the "singularity" about AI catastrophe, with an edit note not really x-risk as part of this sweep through a section about AI, and leaving a description of the views of MIRI person Eliezer Yudkowsky very prominently displayed in its own paragraph, sourced only to a primary source by Yudkowsky. Classic advocacy editing, promoting MIRI or its people, using weak/primary sources.

This person is very clearly a committed advocate, both to MIRI and to their vision of Wikipedia as some sort of blog where the goal is to build as much content as possible, based more or less loosely (sometimes not at all) on seemingly any old source, with no discernment between high quality independent sources and a press release or blog, and no distinction between summarizing what a source says and commenting on that source, no sense of edits that are strongly grounded in P&G or extremely weak. What matters to them, apparently, is making the article longer.

Before filing this, I tried to reach out to them on their talk page, and we had the exchange that you can see here. I have tried as much as I am willing, but my patience is exhausted.

The strife on this page will be endless as long as they remain involved, since they are not aiming at the mission, don't follow basics of scholarship, ignore P&G except as it suits them, and are unteachable due to their aggressive hold on content they add. Again -- Keep your dirty liberal hands off of my content!

Please topic ban this person from editing about MIRI. Perhaps AI more broadly. Jytdog (talk) 02:39, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

There's a hefty dose of material that most editors won't want to read above. Fortunately, I do have time. A brief summary:

• Kbog has editing in this content area (roughly, topics related to Eliezer Yudkowsky, including MIRI, Effective altruism, and LessWrong) since 2015.
• Most recently, he was edit-warring with Jytdog (the filer) at Machine Intelligence Research Institute (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) about whether to include the {{primary}} maintenance tag. Neither looks good in that.
• There has been extensive discussion at the talk page since mid-July. It seems unlikely that all editors will ever agree on the content of the article. There are extensive discussions of what references can be used. Kbog opened an RFC yesterday, it appears that David Gerard, Jytdog, Gbear605 and Zubin12 (the other editors active on the talk page since July) all disagree with him.

Overall, I think a TBAN would be pre-mature; if the RFC confirms that there is a consensus against Kbog's views of what the content on the page should be and he continues to disagree voluminously, a TBAN might be called for then. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:01, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Power, when you say "That's a hefty dose of WP:IDHT", do you mean the acronym to be "I don't have time" (to read everything presented above), or do you mean (per the link) that I am guilty of "failure or refusal to 'get the point'"? In the context of your sentence, it's not clear. K.Bog 04:17, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I meant that most of the people reading this noticeboard will not have time to read Jytdog's entire post (and look at the relevant diffs/talk pages). I've removed the link as I thought it pointed elsewhere. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:22, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, I think your summary is accurate, except I believe Gbear is neutral (we haven't substantially disagreed, just a bit about template etiquette). K.Bog 06:06, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

User:power~enwiki Thanks for the summary. My OP was too long. However the first three diffs of edit warring are not with me, but with Zubin12 related to the NPOV/SYN/OR issues. The last two are indeed me. Would you please correct your description above? Thx Jytdog (talk) 21:51, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I was referring to your edits at 03:56, 26 August 2018 and 04:01, 26 August 2018. Kbog may have been engaged in multiple edit wars on that page. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I am aware that I did those two. Your summary skews the facts. But whatever. Jytdog (talk) 20:59, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello. I've certainly made some errors and oversights about content: human errors, which I did not press after being shown them. In addition, I reacted aggressively in some of the arguments about this page. I also edit warred once, one fourth-revert which I didn't realize was past the limit. This is because I was frustrated by Jytdog and others' behavior towards me. Things that I have written or kept in the article have been repeatedly characterized by Jytdog as "fan-driven", "bad quality", "fancruft with shitty, bloggy sources", and so on; whenever I attempt to dispute such labelings with reference to WikiPolicy, I am rebuffed with wholly authoritative assertions that I don't understand what we do here, that I never learn, that it's simply "too much" primary sourcing, that the sources are simply "bad"; reasons for these assertions are lacking, and they are supported not with specific Wiki Policies, but with the insistence that I'm not listening and therefore really am proving his point, with the insistence that I'm fan editing and therefore aiming at the wrong thing, and similar non-answers. I meet every proposed change with valid arguments, but I get evasion and stonewalling in response. Jytdog is right that he hasn't convinced me of many things regarding about how to write a Wikipedia article. But this isn't a matter of my willingness to learn, it's a consequence of the fact that I haven't been given good reasons or references to WikiPolicy. I can't be reasonably expected to learn from someone who doesn't do an adequate job of teaching. Therefore, to the extent that I'm wrong about anything, presumably the right thing to do here is for someone else to explain things in a more compelling fashion, instead of assuming that we have to TBAN me just because Jytdog here has failed to change my mind. Please don't accept Jytdog's spin that I am refusing to listen: if you look through the specific arguments, you'll see that I'm fundamentally, honestly disagreeing on the basis of regular reasons, and I don't believe that Jytdog's views are representative of the broader Wikipedia community. In some cases, you will also find, I have been okay with other people's changes.

Beyond adhering to what I believe to be WikiPolicy, my own idea of what a Wikipedia article should look like is driven by what I have seen counted as good examples of Wikipedia work, such as (I have used this example before, and not received any response) the "good article" Kantian ethics page, which has extensive detail from published primary sources (I'm not fighting for blogs, press releases and so on; I used to, but I think Jytdog will have to admit that I did learn better than that). In academic articles more broadly, you can find similar examples. I do not mean this as an "otherstuff" assertion, I am impressed by such articles and I mean to show how it is that I have arrived at this perception about how Wikipedia articles ought to be written, contra the insistence by Jytdog that it is fan editing and advocacy, and how it is that I am skeptical about Jytdog's assertions about how things are typically run around here.

I have focused on these topics, AI and EA (though not exclusively). They are of interest to me, and I care about having good articles for them. I am also focusing on them in reaction to the phenomenon displayed here, where I find that a select small group of editors is unfortunately prone to attempting to cut them apart. I think that they are more in need of being watched than many other articles, because I have not encountered this sort of behavior in other topics that I have worked on, and it seems to me that Jytdog is on a bit of a crusade against advocacy, which he is overly prone to suspecting. That is why I've been rather stubborn: I think that he's being overzealous, and that warrants some pushback. I would not be so stubborn if I were working with editors who I trusted to have no preexisting biases about me or the subject at hand. That's why I opened the rfc.

If you look through my edits on other articles you will find that I have also made reductions of unpublished primary sourcing, reduction in weight given to groups like MIRI, adding opposing viewpoints and secondary sources, as well as very ordinary improvements (style etc). Please judge on the basis of looking seriously through edits, rather than making up your mind on the basis of cherrypicked examples. I believe that Jytdog's assumption about the appropriateness of talking about the singularity in an AI catastrophe article constitutes WP:OR or WP:SYNTH, but I think most people here would rather not see us bicker about such examples, so just look through my history and judge for yourself. I certainly have left up a lot of problematic content, but I don't have time to fix everything, and I believe that it's better to leave up over-weighted or imperfectly-sourced content until I or someone else adjusts it further, rather than taking a hatchet to it.

By the way, that is not a machine gun. It is an AR-15, a civilian semiauto rifle. From my background, I see it as a regular rifle that can be used for many things. This is just a convenient representation of the kind of problem here: Jytdog insists that his perspective is right, and he refuses to acknowledge the possibility that I may have an honestly different view, which is the primary cause of my stubbornness. Is this the right place to judge Jytdog? No, it's not. My point is simply that my behavior has not been demonstrated to be a sufficiently severe problem here to warrant a TBAN. K.Bog 04:17, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

You know, answering a very long complaint with a very long response is not a terribly effective strategy. At least Jytdog gave us bullet points to latch onto.

On the issue of the photo and "Keep your liberal hands off my content" caption, I think that clearly violates WP:POLEMIC,

• Polemical statements unrelated to Wikipedia, or statements attacking or vilifying groups of editors, persons, or other entities (these are generally considered divisive and removed, and reintroducing them is often considered disruptive).
• Material that can be viewed as attacking other editors [in this case "liberal" editors]

so I'd ask you to remove it before I nominate it for deletion at MfD. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:55, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

OK, I'll revise into bullet points, and remove the picture. K.Bog 05:02, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

hanks for removing the AR-15 image & caption from your user page. I appreciate your doing so. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:03, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Summarizing my long statement into bullet point form:

• I have made oversights and errors, but when I see these, I do not fight over keeping them in the article. I will try to make higher quality edits in the future.
• I have been too aggressive in the arguments about this page, but only as a reaction to the hostile way that these particular people have been consistently behaving on these articles; I don't treat true third parties (like people from rfc) the same way, and will generally try to do better in the future.
• Jytdog is misrepresenting me as refusing to listen, when in reality I fundamentally disagree with his interpretation of WikiPolicy and he is failing to make serious arguments about it.
• Jytdog is generally misrepresenting my edits and behavior as being worse than they are, largely on the basis of his overzealous suspicion that I'm an "advocate", when in reality I simply care and know more about a particular topic than I do about others. K.Bog 05:12, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• The issue -- as I have demonstrated with diffs - is that you do not understand our mission to provide readers with accepted knowledge or the essence of the P&G through which we (a community of no-name people) realize the mission; the way you use sources is driven by some misguided notion that articles that are longer are "better"; you have no understanding of WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV - you give excessive WEIGHT to content based on weak sources and give content expressing your observations as much WEIGHT (or more) as content summarizing high quality sources. The result is badly sourced (often unsourced OR) excessively detailed fancruft; not Wikipedia articles solidly grounded on P&G. You resist learning with machine-gun-toting vehemence. What led me to ask for the TBAN is that trying to reach consensus with someone who operates this way is impossible at worst and a time suck at best. There is little to no common foundation upon which to reach agreement. Jytdog (talk) 14:57, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• I am aware of your views on how to interpret WP:WEIGHT, WP:NPOV, WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and WP:PRIMARY, and it is a valid viewpoint: the main point of dispute here (we really haven't had intractable arguments about any other decisions regarding the content of the article) is that you believe that externally published primary sources can only be used for a very small amount of an article's content, whereas I believe they can be used for perhaps half or less if the topic calls for it. I support those policies too, I just find that you have not made an honest attempt to reach a consensus about how to apply them: "we will never settle the MIRI page", "You are unteachable", "insisting on things that are dead wrong in policy ... Your response is breath-taking in how adamantly wrong it is," "your missing the mark on the mission, your editing and arguments that are pursuing the wrong mission and ignoring key P&G in your pursuit of the wrong mission, and your aggression and unteachability each of which mean that there will be no forseeable end to this", "You have been unteachable, with all this aggression. How can we teach you?", "please focus on the problem with your behavior", "someone who barely understands what we do here and how we do it", "You aren't listening", "Refusing. Fighting like hell every step of the way", "your complete refusal to engage with the mission and what the P&G call for", "It is just selfish", "more unrestrained, off-mission behavior from you... unrestrained advocacy, ignoring basic norms of communication and editing", "It is impossible to reach consensus when you are aiming at the wrong thing", "It is a blatant advertisement, full of sources by the organization and quotes that are not encyclopedic. This is not an encyclopedia article", "It is disgusting to see fancruft with shitty, bloggy sources on science topics. Video games, I understand more This is just gross", "This is editing driven by something other than the basic methods of scholarship we use here", and more of the same constitute perpetual insistence that I am wrong and you are right, not an attempt to persuade or reach consensus. I know that we're both stubborn, but you've been inadvertently hindering your own ability to build a consensus, and I think that you ought to try a more modest approach before calling it a lost cause. K.Bog 17:31, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• I won't reply here further, but will wait for others to review this. I will say that yes, I have tried to explain that as long as you are aiming for the wrong thing, consensus is indeed impossible. Thank you for showing that. Jytdog (talk) 19:15, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Block review

Just blocked User:Evansjack1, who appears to have been a problematic editor more or less since the start. He hasn't edited in a while, but has gone right back to the behavior that led to two other blocks before. It appears he's only here to edit the article about himself to remove controversial information (despite having been advised to only edit the talk page due to COI). As you can see on User talk:Evansjack1 he seems to lack the basic competency to interact productively with the editing community, and he seems to be here mostly to scrub his Wikipedia article. Bringing this for review because of the potentially high-profile subject (although I'm not sure his identity was ever actually confirmed). GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:57, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I remember this editor well. This is long term (even if sporadic) disruptive editing, and I endorse your block. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:12, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I tried to help this user a few days ago and opened a discussion on the talk page about a reasonable complaint they had regarding inappropriate text in their article. And there was clear agreement from the local editors with his viewpoint that the text in question was inappropriate and should be trimmed (save for the user who wrote the content). Jack then immediately proceeded to derail the discussion with a laundry list of edits he wanted made to the article. The local editors, without blinking, began discussing his issues point-by-point and at length, as you can see on the talk page. So, while I sympathize with someone having an article and feeling that they're treated unfairly in it, Jack was receiving a high degree of hands-on assistance from people who were genuinely trying to help improve the quality of his article while listening to his input and attempting to address his concerns, in spite of the fact that he was obviously attempting to be way too controlling over his own article. Given that, there's really no excuse for him snapping like that and edit warring over the removal of content. I very recently told him not to edit the article, and he should be well aware of the COI standards we have by now. It's a reasonable block, and he will definitely need to accept a topic ban from editing his article as part of any unblock. Swarm ♠ 07:20, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

This block has now been written about by DCist: <http://dcist.com/2018/08/jack_evans_maybe_got_blocked_from_w.php>. Someone should perhaps e-mail ComCom. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:43, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Will do, thanks. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:46, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

This is the first I've heard of Comcom. If anyone there is reading this, FYI, I just responded to a query at OTRS, from what appears to be a member of the press. ticket:2018082710010828--S Philbrick(Talk) 00:02, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

New js/css admin restrictions are now in force

Hello Admins, new protections for javascript and css pages have been enabled. See Wikipedia:Interface administrators and its talk page for the progress on this change here. If you need a page updated, the edit-request process is the best way to get your requested edit completed. The same goes for if you need one of these pages speedy deleted. Please feel free to join in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Interface administrators for more information. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 11:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

viewdelete and jss/css

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T202989

What I'm assuming is a bug regarding access to viewing deleted versions of js/css pages appears to be going on. See phab:T202989 for status updates. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

This is being discussed with the dev team to determine if it should be restored, if you would like to comment please do so on the phab ticket. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:34, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Delete userjs/usercss pages coming back

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T200176

A change (phab:T200176 to restore your ability to delete (but not undelete) these pages is scheduled to be back this week. If you need any of these pages speedy deleted in the meantime, feel free to leave an edit request on their associated talk pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

This access should be working again, please let me know if you are having any issues with deleting other user's js/css pages now. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:55, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Block review of user Gunnermanz

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

I yesterday blocked this user. I have never heard of them until several days ago, when they added a wall of text on Talk:RT (TV network) [6] (which is on my watchlist). After they were reminded (by another user) of WP:NOTFORUM they posted another wall of text equally violating NOTFORUM [7]. Then I hatted the topic. They were unhappy and responded with further walls of text (see [8] and the messages above that one) at which point I gave them a warning. Then I went to their talk page to log the warning and saw that earlier that year they were blocked for exactly the same behavior for 72h by NeilN but their only reaction was to remove the warning [9]. They have in total slightly over 200 contributions, and since 2016 I only see contributions on talk pages (last page of their contribution log), so that I decided to block them indef per WP:NOTTHERE. They are unhappy with that, but, rather than posting an unblock request they are posting further walls of text on their talk page. Since people in the past had issues with my admin conduct, and the user is complaining exactly about the admin conduct, I am bringing it here and would appreciate a second pair of eyes - may be I was too harsh with them? They seem to have made some useful contributions in the past.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:19, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• Good block but support lifting block anytime soon or whenever Gunnermanz writes a convincing unblock request. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 09:33, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
• Good block; might be time to revoke talkpage access though.They also appear to have removed the block notice. Curdle (talk) 11:36, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
• I agree with the block, but I also concur with Curdle about revoking talk page access, especially considering this. Erpert ^{blah, blah, blah...} 14:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
• User talk privileges revoked. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 19:24, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
• That looks fair enough, at least unless the user promises to stop using article talk pages as forums to post walls of text. I did especially like this 14k wall of text which starts with "I am extremely busy at the moment and this response is therefore written in some haste". Hut 8.5 19:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

  Thanks a lot to everybody who responded.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:41, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

  Perhaps he meant he was going to type his response really, really fast? Blackmane (talk) 02:39, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Involvement review

I have fully protected University of Chicago Law School due to a report at AN3 where, while the report was being discussed, multiple previously uninvolved editors appeared at the article to join the edit war. One of the users involved in the report, Lorstaking, has accused me of involvement with respect to their editing in a separate discussion (see User talk:Abecedare. To the best of my knowledge Lorstaking and I have never interacted outside of administrative discussions and user talk pages, and I have taken no action against them directly, though it should be said I find myself frequently disagreeing with them in those discussions. At any rate per the "any admin would do the same" provision, and the facts that the page was already protected recently and that I have never edited the page, I believe my action does not violate WP:INVOLVED. If other admins reach a different consensus then please feel free to undo my page protection, but then please consider watching the page. Thanks. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 11:49, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I have not looked at the linked discussion, just general thoughts. WP:INVOLVED is interpreted by different people very broadly. For example, I have seen an interpretation that an admin, coming to protect a page and seeing it for the first time, can not remove obviously inappropriate edits first because they thereby become involved and can not protect the page. For me, this is way off mark, but it was a respected user (I do not remember who, it was quite some time ago), and they were quite serious about it. People argued that the same admin can not protect the page twice because the first protection makes them involved. I would not agree with that either (and I have proteced some pages multiple times, just because there are not infinitely many admins working on RFPP) but I am sure there are users which could interpret this as INVOLVED. I would personally say that if an admin had an exchange with a user on an unrelated topic without severe consequences (like blocks), or if this exchange was purely administrative, protecting a page where this user is edit-warring is not INVOLVED (assuming the admin has no relation to this page). Interpreting this broadly, a user can discuss with all active admins and then claim that all of them are INVOLVED. (I am not claiming that Lorstaking was aiming at this, most likely they did not). Other people could disagree with me, but I guess most would be on my side. Having said this, if a user in good standing complains about INVOLVED, it is always good for an admin to ask for a second opinion.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:02, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• Involved or not, you have protected what shows a promotional version and is also against clear consensus on the talk page. I believe the report had to be left opened. Either the reported edit warring editor had to be blocked or page had to be put under extended confirmed protection per original request. If an editor is still reverting even after getting reported on WP:AN3 then there are obvious chances that the involved offender needs to be blocked and that was the case here. Excelse (talk) 12:08, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the input but I see the situation differently. I think that most admins would agree that when many users are edit-warring, it is not constructive nor fair to block just one of those users just because of who got to the noticeboards first - page protection is a better response. And I only protected the extant version at the time I decided to protect (see WP:WRONGVERSION) - if I had chosen a different revision to revert to, then I would be participating in the edit war. The editors can now discuss what material should be restored or removed. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:49, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

A general rule is that an editor who is still reverting even after being reported to AN3 for the same offense is qualified for a block or should be asked to self-revert. Page protection can be seen as endorsement to edit warring until page protection. Excelse (talk) 12:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

If what you said were true then any edit-warring editor could game the system by reporting editorial opponents to AN3, but fortunately for Wikipedia your "general rule" is not how it works at all. When a report is received, administrators review the situation and decide what is the appropriate preventive course of action. If an edit war is being perpetuated by one editor, often that editor is blocked, and it's just as often the filer of AN3 reports who gets blocked. A page where many editors are edit warring is more often protected, because blocking one editor would not prevent the edit war from continuing. Protection is not an endorsement of edit-warring, it's literally the opposite. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:22, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• From the material linked I do not see any INVOLVED issue and the page protection was a reasonable action. There is no indication of editorial involvement or disputes between Ivanvector and Lorstaking nor disagreements between the two so bitter where I would suspect Ivanvector of even the appearance of bias re Lorstalking.
  I would suggest that the editors involved in the dispute be cautioned to address disputed edits in manageable chunks rather than en masse. From what I can see in the page history the original edits were made incrementally so it should not be difficult to address on a per edit, per section or per source basis. Jbh ^Talk 12:27, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
• Ivanvector joined the ANEW report only because it involved me, similar to their involvement on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Eulalefty,[10] where Ivanvector disputed the evidence I had provided[11] but two other SPI clerks agreed that the evidence was enough for blocks.[12] These two incidents on two different days occurred after Ivanvector and me had heated disagreements on a discussion already pointed above.[13] You should not be following reports made by a particular editor for disputing their legitimacy per WP:HOUNDING. In the first message on ANEW Ivanvector even claimed that I reverted the editor for the first time after "three months"[14] when I reverted him since first day. There were many other disagreements and it seemed clear that Ivanvector ignoring the problems with the SPA who has probably has COI but find the ways to dispute the legitimacy of my report. However, I agree with the above that it is not even that much of a deal whether Ivanvector was involved or not, the very issue with how he dealt with the report. An SPA who is depending on providing false edit summaries to frequently edit war for retaining his WP:BROCHURE as clearly evident by his 2 recent reverts while already going through an ANEW report. He clearly had to be blocked or warned not to make anymore reverts unless he gains consensus since present consensus is against his version or otherwise he has no consensus. Lorstaking (talk) 12:47, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• On the issue of the SPI, nothing Ivanvector did makes him INVOLVED with respect to you. Your filings at SPI tend to be overly aggressive, and you often take it personally when members of the SPI team question your evidence. In this instance, Ivanvector's comments were extraordinarily mild. As for your hounding accusation, it takes an awful lot to demonstrate hounding, and you haven't done it.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:07, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• I don't have anymore to add there, but Ivanvector had asked sanctions for me earlier.[15] And I never take "it personally when members of the SPI team question" the evidence. Lorstaking (talk) 14:35, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Lorstaking seems to have decided that I'm following him around, though I've explained how I came across the ANEW report in the first place. That seems to be making them perceive intent in my actions which isn't there. Their SPI report on Eulalefty was declined by a checkuser for being stale, and two of the three pairs of comparative diffs that Lorstaking provided did not clearly demonstrate a pattern to me, but they had called it "obvious" so I asked them to clarify so I could understand what was so obvious. They didn't respond to my question but instead provided more evidence, which is just as good, though I still don't understand the pattern and if someone files another report on that case I'll have to ask again. Then another clerk beat me to the block, it was overnight for me. And yes, I did question Lorstaking's ANEW report. Lorstaking and the reported editor sparred three months earlier, after which the reported editor and several others worked together to build out the article with relevant historic details, some of which does appear to need copyediting for NPOV, but nobody seems to have felt during that time that any of the content was unduly promotional. Then Lorstaking reappeared on the article after three months and without discussing the matter at all nor attempting to explain what their issue was with any of the content (other than "same promotion") they removed all of the incrementally added content in a single revert - see where it says "112 intermediate revisions by 17 users not shown", they're just going back to their last edit three months ago and undoing everything. I think we might be misunderstanding each other's English but this is what I mean by "after 3 months" but might also be what Lorstaking refers to as "since first day". Lorstaking vaguely hand-waved that there are issues with some of the content, and there are, nobody's saying that the content is perfect, but many other editors have been trying to help with that without resorting to rewinding the article by three months. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:16, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Nicomachian has made 3 reverts since he was warned for edit warring. If you don't want to block then another alternative was to put article under ECP. The page was put under WP:ECP by Kudpung in 9 May 2018,[16] against this same SPA as " Persistent spamming". Why it couldn't be put under ECP this time too when problem is still the same? WP:ECP is made for these reasons. Lorstaking (talk) 14:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Swarm saw fit to full-protect the article at the last instance of protection resulting from this same edit war, I followed suit. At the time of your report you had each reverted twice within the past 24 hours, and in my opinion this round of revert warring began with your mass revert, so it seemed unjust to block the other user. I also didn't fail to notice that a certain set of editors turned up at the article who have a habit of conveniently appearing whenever one of you ends up in a content dispute, and the group of you together have reverted to your 38,492-byte version seven times since 11 August, despite the page having been protected already, and despite other uninvolved users trying to work through the situation. This isn't the one-sided edit war you perceive it to be, and at this time I believe that full protection is the way to deal with the disruptive behaviour on both sides. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:41, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes we have already tried that formula before and Nicomachian is still not getting consensus for his edits. There was no reason to repeat what has already failed. If you wanted to follow the same suit then you could do that early or Swarm would've done that when the initial report was made. It would be making sense but you are protecting the article when Nicomachian was already deserving a block for edit warring or a warning to stop reverting. The "mass revert" was justified because we don't retain WP:BROCHURE on main pages and Nicomachian is focused into edit warring to retain it. Like Lyndaship added that "what has been added is an absolute load of filler and guff. Most of the paras can be reduced to a sentence",[17] but to you these are "editors turned up at the article who have a habit of conveniently appearing whenever one of you ends up in a content dispute" which is not only an unfounded accusation but exactly speaks of your bias. There is no consensus to favor the WP:BROCHURE. You are also told here that Nicomachian already deserved the block when he reverted two times after the ANEW, you have made no warning to him "despite" he is repeating this pattern of edit warring and avoiding discussion since last 2/2 protections for the sake of his WP:PROMO, which again shows that you are not neutral in this case. Lorstaking (talk) 16:55, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

You know, if you have any actual interest in improving the article, you could be participating in the discussion on the talk page right now instead of still trying to get your opponent blocked. Nicomachian is "not getting consensus" because every time they try, you wave them off as a spammer and refuse to engage. The only objection you've specified with the content up to this point is the use of the university press as a source, but you're not listening when several uninvolved editors point out that it's fine in this context, and overall you're not listening to many editors now who have asked you to stop reverting because the content is not unduly promotional. You have a valid point about Books LLC, but this one thing does not justify throwing out all of the content. You've alleged misleading edit summaries and sources not supporting content but you have yet to specify any particular instances, and Lyndaship's drive-by comment about "filler and guff" is singularly unhelpful. I haven't "warned" Nicomachian because they were already reported (by you) and because in my view you're the belligerent here.

At any rate, all this nitpicking about who reverted who and which version should be reverted to is pointless bikeshedding. The article is protected so that nobody will revert anybody until the issue is settled. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:14, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

"and refuse to engage"? That's completely an unfounded accusation. I am always participating in the discussion, problem is with Nicomachian who almost never participates. No one has pointed until now that the content is "it's fine in the context". No one has asked me to stop reverting and my reverts are not an issue here because I had already stopped reverting. One editor had misunderstanding about the history of this article, just like you who believed that Nicomachian was writing for 3 months when he was simply edit warring without gaining consensus. Now the way you are presenting the only one side of this issue while ignoring the blatant WP:PROMO by an SPA. How it is "belligerent" when I am only adhering the consensus to remove the WP:BROCHURE? Lorstaking (talk) 17:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

There is no such consensus; you seem to have completely made it up. As for Nicomachian "simply edit warring without gaining consensus" that's just simply not true at all, and I can only assume by this point that either there's an error in your browser that makes the article history not show up for you, or you're deliberately and maliciously misrepresenting the truth. Nicomachian and several other editors incrementally built the article, over the course of three months and more than 100 edits, without any evidence at all of edit warring or even any single reverts that I can see. Then you came along, declared all of the edits spam, and rolled back three months worth of work, then edit warred to maintain your version citing a consensus that does not appear to exist at all. That's belligerent. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:47, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• A few thoughts: WP:INVOLVED reads "an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits which do not show bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area." No evidence has been provided whatsoever showing that Ivanvector has acted in anything other than an administrative capacity in this situation or with respect to the involved users. To the best of my knowledge such evidence doesn't exist. Furthermore, neither version of the article is particularly good; they both contain reams of unsourced info. Ivanvector is quite justified in not reverting after protecting; if the promotionalism is so blatant, it is the users adding who should be sanctioned first (as they are all registered users). It is bothersome, but not surprising, to see a bunch of editors whose usual areas of interest are far removed from the University of Chicago line up on the same side of a dispute there. Finally, this edit-war is serious enough that Ivanvector would have been justified in protecting the page even if involved, per WP:IAR (and he isn't involved). Vanamonde (talk) 14:28, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• WP:INVOLVED: "whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits which do not show bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area". The above diff here by Lorstaking shows that Ivanvector requested sanctions against Lorstaking, however uninvolved admins didn't sanctioned him or found him qualified for that. That certainly does speaks of "bias". Rest of the incidents have been also mentioned here that does show that Ivanvector could be well watching over the reports made by Lorstaking, though there was no mischief in Lorstaking's part nor the intervention of Ivanvector was really helpful. This incident reminds me of Mike V and The Rambling Man. Mike V had acted in administrative capacity but was biased towards The Rambling Man. I would also conclude that anyone edit warring after warning on their talk page should be blocked right way as that is clear disregard to WP:DR. Page protection was not an ideal choice here. Razer(talk) 15:38, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Again, this is a cherrypicked diff from a discussion on topic bans for widespread disruptive behaviour under the ARBIPA topic area, on which I was commenting as a neutral administrator. Razer2115 is also misrepresenting the result: eleven editors drew sanctions from that discussion, and GoldenRing's close noted "I am not going to take any action against Lorstaking at this time, though they should note that some have found their participation on noticeboards, and in particular as it relates to [the sanctioned editors], to be disruptive and I advise them to go careful in the future." I don't see an assessment of my competence in that statement. For anyone who wants to review from a neutral perspective, my full statement is in the archive, and you'll note that I either endorsed or proposed sanctions for 12 editors throughout the course of the discussion, which does not demonstrate a bias regarding any one individual. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I am talking only about Lorstaking, not "eleven editors". It is contrary to WP:INVOLVED to first attempt to seek sanctions and then start watching over the reports concerning the same editor/s to find out if they can be sanctioned or otherwise get the negative outcome for their reports. Razer(talk) 16:25, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the problem with your comment: I was talking about eleven editors. Twelve, actually. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:48, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@Razer2115: an uninvolved administrator opining at AE that sanctions are warranted against an editor does not render them "involved" with that editor. If you had read the full quote, which is helpfully provided by Vanamode immediately above you, you would see that "an administrator who has interacted with an editor ... purely in an administrative role ... is not involved". Given that the interaction you cite obviously falls into that category, which you left out of your quote, you're either intentionally casting aspersions or simply not understanding WP:INVOLVED here. Would you care to explain how this mistake happened? Swarm ♠ 17:12, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Technically that wasn't "purely in an administrative role", because Ivanvector had commented above the section of uninvolved admins on WP:ARE and proposed the sanctions against a number of editors including me but uninvolved admins (commenting under the section of uninvolved admins) didn't sanctioned me and Lorstaking. This is why I had also mentioned the example of V and The Rambling Man, where Mike V had interacted purely in administrative role but was deemed to be biased by the community. Ivanvector recently had negative interactions with Lorstaking as original post mentions, right before he joined the reports that involved him. It does indicate that there are more chances that Lorstaking would see negative results if Ivanvector is going to take any action given the history itself. Razer(talk) 17:27, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Evidence suggests otherwise. I noted in the ARE thread that I was commenting outside the "uninvolved administrators" section because I had interacted with so many of the editors being discussed through clerking at SPI. I have clerked 4 SPI reports filed or commented on by Lorstaking: [18], [19], [20], [21]. Three of those resulted in the reported users being blocked, and in the fourth I endorsed CheckUser based on Lorstaking's report, though it turned up inconclusive. I'm failing to see how I'm biased against Lorstaking based on the "history", but please do go on. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:38, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Even though he made a statement in the "Discussion" section, as opposed to the "Result" section, he was obviously commenting as an uninvolved administrator for the purpose of sharing his observations and recommendations. You're grasping at straws. Swarm ♠ 17:43, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• The accusation of involvement at User talk:Abecedare appears to be a frivolous, unsubstantiated aspersion. This is concerning, because the context of the dispute at hand is Lorstaking repeatedly rolling back major changes to an article on the basis that the user they're reverting is obviously a spammer. Myself, Ivan, and at least one other administrator, EdJohnston, as well as users Robminchin and Simonm223, have looked at the situation and don't think it's at all clear that Lorstaking's basis for reverting is in fact true. The accused "spammer" has come across as perfectly willing to engage in discussion to improve their edits, yet Lorstaking seems unable or unwilling to AGF and even try to handle the issue responsibly. Had I actioned this, I probably would have blocked both sides for edit warring, so Ivan's "involved" protection comes across to me as pretty reasonable for a user with an alleged grudge. Swarm ♠ 17:30, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• I have been always willing to AGF as evidently I had accepted 10k bytes of the content even though the information was entirely unsourced[22] but not really a violation of core policies. I haven't seen him until now that he is engaging in the discussion unless when he finds his preferred version to have been reverted. He has not addressed any problems yet either. Therefore there has been no violation of a policy by me. @Ivanvector and Swarm: I don't think we need any more opinions now, do you mutually agree with closing the thread? I am inclined to let this go and work to build the consensus. Lorstaking (talk) 17:47, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• I mean, you only "accepted" their content after I suggested you do so. I appreciate you making an effort to work this out, I just wish it had come sooner. Swarm ♠ 17:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You have a strange definition of assuming good faith, seeing how you assumed that all of Nicomachian's edits are spam, and that I was deliberately harassing you. At any rate, I'm satisfied that protecting the page was not a violation of WP:INVOLVED, which was really all I was asking about. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:56, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• Somehow I managed to duck in and edit that article yesterday (adding a minor thing to an image caption) without knowing all that warring was going on (must have been in a lull). Looking at that article history now, wow, I think any reasonable admin would have protected, so no INVOLVE vio. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
• Noting that I discovered and it has been also agreed on the talk page that protected version violates WP:COPYVIO. Admins are welcome to take action on the diffs as violations occurred since the first edit made by Nicomachian.[23] Lorstaking (talk) 01:56, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

There was one sentence which appears to have been an inadvertent copyright violation. It was, however, present in much of Nicomachian's work, through subsequent incremental revisions. The affected edits have been suppressed. Two administrators were already on it when Lorstaking posted here. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:21, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Nyttend worked on redacting copyvio before anyone and he joined the article after I had posted here. Lorstaking (talk) 17:01, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest Lorstaking put down the WP:STICK - there are now several editors at the page working it over to address all their concerns without resorting to a 15k rollback and a lot of people are putting time and energy into improvements. Simonm223 (talk) 17:09, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Just FYI

There is an apparent attempt to re-litigate the consensus achieved above on WP:Administrators' noticeboard#Suppression or courtesy blanking of an AfD page containing libelous material now to be found at User talk:Jimbo Wales#The underlying question. -- Softlavender (talk) 16:05, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Good grief let it go. Mr Ernie (talk) 16:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately several editors in that discussion have decided to ignore the consensus here and blank it anyway. – Joe (talk) 18:32, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• FWIW, I think Michael Hardy should be community banned, and I'm one of those "re-litigating". This notice is decidedly non-neutral. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:41, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• Certainly, running off crying to Daddy when Mommy says "No" is not the kind of behavior that we expect from an admin and "one of the most respected editors on Wikipedia". Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:17, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I personally think Micheal Hardy should be site banned. Afootpluto (talk) 21:27, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

• Regardless of a ban, I think he needs to have the mop removed. ASAP. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 06:45, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

The AfD is full protected in a blanked state after four admins edit warred on it (I realise consensus was to not blank but it doesn't mean everyone should lose their heads and angrily revert over it); obviously admins can physically override this and restore the material, to which I would say : do that and expect those calling for an arbcom case for a desysop to form an orderly queue over there. Since nothing on WP:JIMBOTALK is policy, I wouldn't pay any attention to it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:41, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Actually, it was three admins and one random jackass. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:46, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Beyond My Ken is absolutely bang on with their comment - If the answer is No than that should be the final answer .... It literally is no different to running from one parent to another ...., Not sure if site banning is OTT but I'd certainly support desysopping as their actions are unnbecoming of an admin. –Davey2010^Talk 19:45, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

You're "not sure" if site banning Michael Hardy is excessive? Is wikipedia slowly being taken over by idiots? @Bishonen: please don't ban me for this comment. Woscafrench (talk) 20:53, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Just put {{fbdb}} at the end of your comment, then you'll be fine. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 21:32, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, over-riding community consensus and blanking the page should be considered inappropriate use of admin tools. Natureium (talk) 19:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
• The blanking should be undone. Consensus on Jimbo talk is worthless. There was consensus at AN, and going to a page that lost all relevance to the governance of this project years ago to appeal community consensus at the appropriate noticeboard is inappropriate. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I think what I take most away from the above discussion is "is this a hill worth dying on?" It certainly isn't worth risking your admin tools to override full protection and put the page in your favoured state, and it's not the end of the world that the AfD is courtesy blanked, in my view. (Or, what PackMecEng said). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:57, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sure as hell not editing through the full protection. That is a desysop waiting to happen. I just think there is an issue when an admin goes from an actual community noticeboard to the madhouse that is WP:JIMBOTALK, where many of the regular watchers here don't ever frequent (I do my absolute best to never post there, and know many who also feel that way) and then people decide that a few random comments on Jimbo talk give reason to override a discussion at AN. That's bad for the project, especially after Jimbo's recent spate of ridiculous actions, which include using his admin tool to move through protection and then telling Cullen to keep off his talk page for calling a spade a spade. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:02, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• Perhaps I am missing something in this whole debate, I was never part of it. But who the heck cares? So they want to blank the page 2 years later, it is still in the article history for anyone that wishes to read it. Maybe everyone should just move on and find better things to do. PackMecEng (talk) 19:54, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
  • The larger issue to me is admins acting against community consensus rather than just whether this page is blanked or not. Natureium (talk) 20:13, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
• I just want to point out that we're all throwing shade on MH for pursuing a conflict over whether this page should be blanked or not. But when Sarek blanked the page, half of those people pursued a conflict over whether the page should be blanked or not. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:23, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
  • To clarify, are you faulting the people that restored the community consensus, or the people that decided that the community doesn't matter and did whatever they felt like? Natureium (talk) 20:26, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

The people who continue to beat a drum about it instead of just shrugging and moving on. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:55, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• I don't really think the blanking is that big of a deal. We should focus more on Michael Hardy, who has lost the confidence of the community and ought to be desysopped. Unfortunately, it is far from guaranteed that ArbCom would be willing to take his tools away, and an ArbCom case would be unnecessarily complicated regardless of the outcome. While we the community are not vested with the power of desysopping Hardy directly, I see no reason why we could not !vote to siteban him until such time as he resigns his tools. Lepricavark (talk) 02:21, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
• So why doesn't someone start a community ban proposal? I'd do it myself, but I'm an IP...12.171.137.4 (talk) 13:58, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I know four people who have "volunteered" to start that discussion. Including myself, to be fair. I can't speak for anyone else, but I won't start such a discussion until HM's current block is up. No matter what I think of his behavior, he has the right to respond and defend himself. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:19, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

His block has already expired, fwiw. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:29, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, within the hour or so preceding me posting that. I'd still like to make sure he's back by waiting for him to make an edit, or be sure that he's not making any edits for a day or to to indicate that he's not willing to defend himself before I get going. Others may, of course, disagree and beat me to the punch. I'm not really worried about it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I would leave it be for the minute. Michael did not disappear to avoid sanctions, he was booted off. If he doesn't come back, that's a shame as I think we can all agree he did do some good work, but it means no action should be taken at that point. If he comes back and goes back to gnoming on articles, that's fine - the block did the trick, and we escalate accordingly (next block 2 weeks? 1 month? indef?) just like any other editor. If he comes back and accuses the blocking administrator and who knows who else of all and sundry, then we can talk about sanctions. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:54, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't really disagree with you, I just would like to cut off any future drama that would result in those escalating blocks before it happens. MH has made it pretty clear over the last couple years that he can't handle conflict and disagreement. But I'm not going to sweat it too much, either way. If someone starts the thread down below, I'll !vote to indef with him giving up the bit as an unblock condition. But if everything dies down and no-one hears a peep from him for a while, then I may just think about how much I respect your opinion and forget that I said I'd start the discussion. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:14, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• In my uninvolved opinion the blanking should be undone. If it was just a matter of disagreement I would say to leave it blanked, because what harm does it do? But there was clear consensus against blanking the AfD, and consensus should be upheld. Michael Hardy blanked it anyway, and has apparently only done so because of revisiting a two-year-old grudge against a user who hasn't edited since their first exchange, for which MH was reprimanded by Arbcom. Many editors have observed that the other user's comments were not libellous, yet he continues to hold that grudge. Ironic that MH behaves this way, yet calls everyone else a bully. And, an editor who runs to the founder to request shutdown of the project is clearly, by definition, not here to build an encyclopedia. Support site ban, and endorse WP:LEVEL2 desysop. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:40, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Actually that AN discussion was closed a "no-consensus" (probably because the discussion was about "libel", which blanking neither requires nor claims, and then it became about Hardy, the 'heat not light' part of the close). And no, I don't think, Micheal Hardy did blank it after that closed discussion (other admins/editors did). As to the rest, take it to Arbcom, if it matters. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:47, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

He blanked it here, and went on the first of several tirades on the matter here. This followed his post a month earlier on that same user's talk page, who at that time had not edited in 18 months, coincidentally since their last run-in with Michael Hardy's odd passion for this issue. However you're correct that the thread at AN followed those posts, and that RickinBaltimore closed the AN discussion apparently as no consensus for blanking, but I note that nearly everyone who commented was opposed to it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:09, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• As an apparent "what's in everyone's best interest" solution, I propose leaving the AfD courtesy blanked (not suppressed), and leaving Michael Hardy alone about it. If he wants to continue making a big deal about it, we can burn that bridge when we come to it. Can we agree on that and move on? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:12, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

^This. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:14, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:29, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• He needs to lose his tools. And if he won't do the community the courtesy of resigning, we should ban him until he resigns. Leaving him alone is the easy thing to do, but it doesn't solve the problem. Lepricavark (talk) 15:16, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• While the community has the power to do this, it would almost certainly lead to an arb case anyway: appeal from bans is still within their remit if there is a large procedural question, and a ban enacted in place of a community based desysop process is definitely the type of community sanction that would be appealable to the committee (on grounds that the ban isn’t actually proportionate since the goal was just to force resignation.) I think I’ve said this before when this option has been suggested, but seriously, the quickest way to actually bring raise the question is just filing a case request and skipping the CBAN step that will likely result in the same case request. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:54, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The way I see it, the problem is that one administrator is obsessively passionate about blanking one two-year-old AfD, versus a whole bunch of people who don't give a fig one way or the other but are sort of annoyed by this admin's behaviour. If letting him have his way on this one thing that nobody really cares much about will make him stop with the campaigning, then yeah, it does solve the problem. He didn't misuse the tools here, and so it's very unlikely that Arbcom would take this on. Pursuing it is just needless dramah. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:56, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, perhaps, that and blanking is an editor action (in that any editor can blank an AfD) not an admin action. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:06, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• What Ivanvector says. Ideally, courtesy blanking is harmless enough that we shouldn't be chuffed about it but blanking against consensus is not something we should condone. But, "things Wales" have a logic of their own and are usually too much of a hassle to deal with so it's probably better to just let the whole thing go. --regentspark (comment) 15:41, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
• Update Off his block and he immediately went back to prosecuting his case at Jimmy Wales' talk page. So it looks like he didn't learn a lesson. Simonm223 (talk) 17:57, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

  It is not true that I insulted or personally attacked six other users.... I called them bullies. Aaaaaalrighty then. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:01, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Meh. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:15, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Do I propose he be community site banned here? -Roxy, the dog. wooF 19:32, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Probably. He's coming unhinged and not at all acting like someone who can be trusted with the tools. Lepricavark (talk) 21:08, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Just file the case at WP:ARC and save the site ban process per my comments above. I highly doubt that CBAN in lieu of a desysop will save any time. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:12, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

And is highly unlikely to suceed anyway.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

But that's what happened last time, it was booted upstairs to Arbcom for rubberstamping, and here we are again. A Cban would show him the door directly. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 21:34, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Furthermore, I've heard enough horror stories about the treatment of the editors who brought the previous case to ArbCom. If a Cban with a resignation proviso isn't the way to go, just go for a straight-up Cban and don't let him back even if he resigns. Lepricavark (talk) 21:36, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: The last time that was attempted, most parties walked away with the distinct impression that ArbCom made a mess out of things and was too easy on Michael. See the various comments about it during this latest round of drama. I don't think anyone has mentioned that case without critizing ArbCom's handling. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:53, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@MPants at work: a few things 1) this is a different committee and is in my view probably one of the more competent ones we've had in a while. 2) "CBAN until tools handed in" or "CBAN while still having the tools" is going to involve ArbCom either way because of either the appeal of option 1 (which I'm confident would happen) or in option 2 because the idea of having an admin who is CBAN'd is so ridiculous that they would have to take a desysop case to either desysop or review the ban. I was just getting back into Wikipedia in 2016, so I didn't follow that case, but the fact that there was a previous case and that it wasn't handled well if anything suggests that a new case would be approached with a heightened sense of wanting to get it right. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:57, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Jeremy Corbyn

There has been a request for administrative assistance on this article on the talk page, though I'm at a loss to suggest exactly what to do. Obviously the antisemitism section has got a bit out of hand and people are arguing about how much due weight there should be. The most immediate thing I can think of is a 1RR restriction on the article; I don't think handing out blocks would be at all beneficial at this stage.

For the record, although I have supported Corbyn in the past, it's been more from a "not Theresa May" viewpoint, and I don't have a strong opinion on him anymore and think some of the recent criticism is justified. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:34, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Just apply "pending changes". Which is both apt and massively ironic. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:36, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

The page is already semi-protected, which means pending changes would not help.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:53, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Well that blows my best joke (of today). Thanks though. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:00, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

My dog's got no nose. How does it smell? Terrible!

Anyway, does anyone else support putting the article under 1RR? Edit summaries like this are hardly conductive to resolving the dispute. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:07, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd suggest indef blocking them all, or at the very least, cherry-picking the best personal attacks and protecting them. Richie, you're an admin, and one of the few who does a decent job here, just do what you think's best. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Individual article sections can't be put under 1RR, can they? Until quite recently it was clear which was the culprit hotbed of editorial unrest. But now it seems to have spilled out a little. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:27, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

No opinion on "should" or "should not", but if it's appropriate, why not? You can't possibly enforce 1RR, or 3RR, or anything else like that with technical means only, so we have to have social decisions on what you may or may not do, and those decisions get enforced by a human using technical means. We already impose per-page bans on people, and topic bans that affect individual sections (go to WP:TBAN and look for the word "California"), and 1RR bans on entire pages; I can't see why a 1RR restriction on a section would be a bad idea, if that specific section (and only that section) is having problems that could easily be resolved with a reversion restriction. Nyttend (talk) 00:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

1RR might not be a bad idea, but on what basis would you impose it? Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/BLP issues on British politics articles did not provide us with a possibility to impose discretionary sanctions in this area. Or was there a earlier decision somewhere about BLP?--Ymblanter (talk) 10:57, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I was kind of hoping about 20 people would come here, say "support 1RR", then it would be under community consensus. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:02, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: The page already shows a 1RR notice when you edit it - I was assuming it was under 1RR, though looking at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log - it seems the 1RR restriction was supposed to expire in 2016. Parts of the page are under WP:ARBPIA#General 1RR restriction anyway, and WP:BLP obviously applies - all you've got to do is properly log the 1RR page restriction. I wouldn't section limit this - too complicated - as the content has been bouncing around between sections and could wind up in, say, the lede.Icewhiz (talk) 11:09, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree with what Icewhiz says here. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:31, 30 August 2018 (UTC) ... although I'm pretty involved, so you might want to totally disregard my comment.

• I think this is what Icewhiz meant, but Ritchie333, under WP:NEWBLPBAN you could unilaterally impose 1RR on the article if uninvolved. For the record, I would support a 1RR restriction: I don't know how much good it will do because I suspect liberal use will be made of the BLP exception, but I can't see it doing harm. Vanamonde (talk) 13:46, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
• Endorse 1RR, and if there is liberal misuse of the BLP exception, full protection. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:11, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
• I'm definitely an involved user here, but I would say that full protection would probably be a good idea. Simonm223 (talk) 14:22, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Confirmed user request

NCWP appears to be doing a fine job reverting vandalism; would someone consider confirming their account early so their edits will stop triggering filter 1? Thanks. Home Lander (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 20:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jauerback: Not really a huge deal but I notice you didn’t set an expiry, they will be autoconfirmed in the next 24 hours or so. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:25, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

But Beeblebrox, why does it matter? I figured that the ability to time-limit rights was for testing ("will this person abuse the right? This way it will go away by itself, and nobody will complain that I removed it") or for someone who needs a right for only a short period of time. And it's not as if we have a limit on the number of manually confirmed users. Nyttend (talk) 22:35, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

It's not a big deal - there are a couple of odd edge cases related to the edit filter, but not a big deal - someone will usually "clean up" these periodically as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:07, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I would file that under “only needs the right for a short time” but again, not a big deal. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I'll be honest, it never occurred to me to set an expiry time. I guess that shows how often I've changed rights. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 11:19, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Too fast for my understanding

Can this be done manually? I blocked the editor because the edits are crap, but now I'm wondering if there's more going on. Drmies (talk) 03:30, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@Drmies: I know what you mean, but I think it's still homsap; the highest rate is wat four, five edits a minute? I think that's perfectly doable. And incidentally, it would be possible to do about (*guess*) thirty, forty—by the means of having loooooads of tabs open, making the edit, and then just saving them one after the other. Which is a bit of a palava, but. Anyway, you get my drift. Morning! —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 04:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Hmm I suppose that's true... Drmies (talk) 14:11, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

It looks machine-authored. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:55, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

If the machine's 12-years old  :) —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 08:20, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Closing an edit-warring report as a 3RR report

Hi, the administrator User:RegentsPark recently closed an edit-warring report I made as a 3RR report with no violation. In the discussion I explicitly mentioned I am not making a 3RR report, and closing the discussion as such is, I feel, a deliberate misrepresentation of the problem that was reported.

Please open the discussion and close it as an edit-warring discussion, not a 3RR discussion. Bright☀ 08:44, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Or you could do what RegentsPark suggested you do: file a complaint at ANI. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:54, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@BrightR: WP:AN3 is not meant to be a place for handling long term edit warring issues (or any long term issues for that matter). If you feel an editor needs to be sanctioned for perennially edit warring, you need wider community input, and the best place for that is ANI (or AE if it involves arb sanctioned pages). Best wishes. --regentspark (comment) 12:04, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Huh? The title of the page is literally Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring and the first line in the series of boxes relevant to that page is This page is for reporting active edit warriors and recent violations of restrictions like the three-revert rule (emphasis mine). Unless you're reading "active" to mean "making the reverts over the past X hours", the page seems exactly the place to report any kind of edit warring. You don't need to violate 3RR to be listed at that page. --Izno (talk) 13:17, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Izno, the complainant is alleging hounding and long term edit warring on multiple articles, that's something that should be addressed at community level because it would need more context. On the complaint itself, there was no bright line violation and BMK had stated that they would not be reverting further. Best wishes. --regentspark (comment) 13:50, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Still it's wrong to close a discussion as if it's about 3RR when it is not about 3RR. Bright☀ 20:13, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• RP's action was quite correct. ANEW is for addressing recent edit-warring, typically violations of 3RR or 1RR. There was no violation here. BrightR's report was describing a recent (minor) conflict as an example of long-term behavioral issues. The place for that is ANI. If you wish to pursue this further, please open a discussion there (and if it's a really long-term pattern, you should open a discussion here, at AN). Vanamonde (talk) 16:08, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Closing a discussion (or undoing a block) by shifting the focus perpetuates the problem. For example, RegentsPark closed a discussion by shifting the focus of the close to consensus and reverts (it is confined to statements about consensus and reverts). BMK admitted almost no wrongdoing (I do not lie; responsibility to build a consensus [is] not mine; deserving of a slap on the wrist) and promptly returned to incivility, edit-warring, and disregarding consensus. If the close addressed these issues instead of shifting the focus, change could have been effected.

This discussion isn't about BMK though, I'm just asking RegentsPark to frame the close correctly. There is a huge difference between No violation and Not blocked, especially when it comes to preventing a recurring problem. Bright☀ 20:13, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Proxy server?

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

---

User:103.85.241.58 appears to be a proxy server.[24] what is the best place to report such a thing? Would AIAV be appropriate? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Post a request on WP:OP. Lorstaking (talk) 17:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I've blocked it as an open proxy.--Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 17:34, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

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

Personal sanctions - instead of topic banning what about prohibiting the use of professional literature ?

UPDATE - In this thread, I am ONLY seeking education. I already know a fair bit about ANI-DS-AE. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:33, 30 August 2018 (UTC) In the event a user makes frequent mis-use of primary sources or professional/academic literature, do we already have some sort of restriction short of topic banning such folks outright? Something like a ban on using certain types of material? What do admins call this? Are there written guidelines about it? Have we ever done that sort of thing? Thanks for any help. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:15, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Why should we have anything else in this case apart from a topic ban or blocks of an increasing duration? If someone can not use the sources properly they should not edit Wikipedia at least in this area.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:09, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• Restrictions or topic bans can be proposed on here or WP:ANI. D4iNa4 (talk) 18:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
• I had a peek at the situation I'm pretty sure you're talking about and it would appear that WP:CIR applies a little bit. Simonm223 (talk) 18:20, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but I hate to go that road because there's much good from this ed as well. Hence, my quest for education about options that might keep the good and prevent noise on the specific trouble. Not, repeat not asking for action right now. Just education for future reference. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:33, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• @NewsAndEventsGuy, in case you talk about me, I disagree about how you frame my edits when writing, "makes frequent mis-use of primary sources or professional/academic literature". If you don't want to discuss this further do not respond, and as I asked you before please stop making up claims about my edits. prokaryotes (talk) 18:59, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

making up claims is not the same thing as making the occasional good faith mistake and since I am not trying to make a case here I would be glad to talk to you more about any aspect of our interaction at the proper place - our user talk pages. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:11, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I thought we agreed that you ask me to provide an explanation when in doubt, as you did recently at the sea level rise page. Just keep it focused on the questions at hand (without sharing your personal opinion in regards to why I edit..). prokaryotes (talk) 19:18, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

To repeat, to discuss you-and-me with me, please add a news section to the thread at my user talk, or if you prefer your own user talk. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:55, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Site Ban Proposal: Michael Hardy

Michael Hardy has just started making personal attacks again right after his block expired for personal attacks. [25] Two years ago the Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Michael Hardy was opened and found that Michael Hardy made uncivil comments in the past. He has also failed to drop the wp:stick over the current incident. I personally believe admins should lead by example and be held to a higher standard than regular users. With Michael Hardy's past and current behavior, I propose a site ban. With the condition that he can get unbanned if he resigns the mop. Afootpluto (talk) 22:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose the community does not have the authority to desysop, and this is just an end run to attempt that. This would lead to an inevitable case anyway on appeal, and would waste even more community time. If people want him desysoped, they should go through the normal procedure, not create some new method that would not achieve consensus if put to a community RfC rather than just a thread at AN. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)