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The following request for comments is closed. Personal attacks and smokescreens by Slowking will never help their case. The abuse of certain wikis is extensive, and especially if you want to argue that a block should be void because every admin from 5 different wikis gave you an involved block, you can't particularly do that while creating infinite socks. The behaviour exhibited by this user is clearly below a reasonable expected standard for the global community. That said, considering the depth of the comments and weighing consensus here, there is not yet sufficient consensus to enact a global ban on Slowking4. -- Amanda (she/her) 14:01, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

About

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Greetings, my name is Seawolf35 and I am creating this RFC to propose a global ban for Slowking4 (talk • contribs • block • xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date (alt) • CA • gblock • ST • lwcheckuser). A chronic cross-wiki sockpuppeteer and abuser.

Credit goes to MJL, from who I stole the formatting for this proposal from.

Note: The previous RFC, which closed as no consensus, can be seen here.

Criteria confirmation

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  1. The user demonstrates an ongoing pattern of cross-wiki abuse that is not merely vandalism or spam.
    Not vandalism: Yes
    Or spam: Yes
  2. The user has been carefully informed about appropriate participation in the projects and has had fair opportunity to rectify any problems.
    Warnings from admins and others: Plenty
    Time given to change: Over 10 years
  3. The user is indefinitely blocked or banned on two or more projects.
    English Wikipedia:
    Wikimedia Commons:
    Italian Wikipedia:
    Simple Wikipedia:
    Wikidata:
Formalities
Required Steps
  • Confirm that the user satisfies all criteria for global bans:

Nominator requirements

Behaviour

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History

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"Slowking4 has no respect for the Commons community as a whole, nor for many of its members, and he refuses to act with basic civility."[1]

This user is currently indefinitely blocked on 5 different projects for many reasons, socking, copyright violations, harassment, and personal attacks being the main reasons. They continue to sock and abuse for over a decade and have not stopped at all. I highly encourage you to follow the links provided as they will further highlight the immense cross-wiki disruption caused by this user.

This will most likely only scratch the tip of the iceberg in showing all of the disruption this user has caused.

Blocks and bans

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English Wikipedia
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Slowking4 is currently banned for repeated sockpuppetry where they were initially indefinitely blocked in 2013 for (Continued systematic abuse of non-free content policy, plus repeated personal attacks) (Block Log). They have continued to sock and evade their ban to date with over 240 confirmed and 29 suspected sockpuppets.

Relevant links and further evidence from the English Wikipedia
Wikimedia Commons
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On Commons, they are currently indefinitely blocked for a "Clear disinterest in changing behavior in any way, block evasion using sockpuppets". They were first blocked on Commons for "Long-term pattern of personal insults, disrespect for the community, sockpuppetry, etc." They have also evaded their block on Commons as well over 30 times. They were brought to c:Commons:Administators' noticeboard/User problems at least five times for comments such as trying to call out their perceived "incompetent "malignant assiduity." of others.[2]

On Commons, they have repeatedly disrupted the project in order to make a personal point as evidenced here and here just as a few examples of many such comments and incidents.

They were shown to have willingly caused confusion of legal matters of copyright for an editor on Commons in this ANU thread.

Relevant Links and Evidence from Commons

Wikidata
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On Wikidata, Slowking4 is currently indefinitely blocked for sockpuppetry with the reason of "Abusing multiple accounts: over a dozen undeclared alternate accounts", see their block log. They were found to have over a dozen undeclared alternate accounts at this Wikidata Administators' noticeboard thread.

Relevant links and further evidence from Wikidata
Simple English Wikipedia
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On the Simple English Wikipedia, Slowking4 is currently indefinitely blocked for violating the one strike rule and constantly being disruptive and unkind towards other editors of that project, see their block log.

It was said by Operator 873 on their talk page here that they were given many chances on Simple alone to change their ways. They still blatantly refused to cooperate with others such as here.

Relevant links and further evidence from the Simple English Wikipedia
Italian Wikipedia
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On the Italian Wikipedia, Slowking4 is currently indefinitely blocked for being a repeat offender of making personal attacks, see their block log.

Relevant links and further evidence from the Italian Wikipedia


References
  1. ↑ "Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems". 
  2. ↑ "Commons:Deletion requests/File:Sir Henry Rider Haggard.png: Difference between revisions". 

Closing statement

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To close, I would like to take a quote from -revi from the last RFC, "Doing one good thing doesn't invalidate 100 bad things". Those 100 bad things have more than doubled from the past RFC, now there are more that 240 confirmed sockpuppets of Slowking4 on the English Wikipedia alone. They have also been indefinitely blocked on one more project, the Italian Wikipedia, since the last RFC.

I know they contribute to Wikisource projects but that does not invalidate the hundreds of transgressions on other projects. Please consider that when making your decision on how to vote. Thank you for your time. Seawolf35 (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Slowking4

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Hey there, precocious low count editor. I trust you will steer clear of a WMF ban like your predecessor, User:Naleksuh
you have stripped off the false claim of legal threat, and you are left with non-specific attacks by involved admins, and double secret circumstantial evidence. please present diffs of "abusive" conduct. I don't think that word means what you think it means.

  1. English wikipedia - This was retaliation for a content dispute with User:Werieth, a sockpuppet of betacommand. It was a block without notice, or warning.
  2. Commons - This was a block manufactured to go for the first abortive global lock. this behavior has been repeated against other users. This admin blocked talk page access, and ghosted an email request.
  3. simple - This was a ball not a strike, a dispute over an out of process speedy deletion.
  4. wikidata - This was a block for 30 edits among 100,000. This admin blocked talk page access.
  5. Italian - This was a block for collaborating with the notorious POV editor, User:Camelia.boban.


There has never been an examination of the facts of this case, since there has never been due process shown.
I can confirm that Culturefan4 is not me. go ahead an do the checkuser. Imagine a "cultural buzzsaw" so toxic that editors will adopt alternate accounts to express unpopular views.
note for stewards - I would suggest the adoption of the following rubric: "ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next day on the front page of their local paper ... with the reporting done by an informed and critical reporter."
Especially since this case has already been in the press. I should like to thank the supporters for their assistance in my recognition by the press. --Slowking4 (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I should like to confirm that Rideabeez is not me, nor is User:Smschadl, rather she is Suzanne Schadl , Chief of the Latin American, Caribbean and European Division at the Library of Congress [1] I have the great pleasure an honor to collaborate with knowledge professionals such as her. That will not change, regardless of what you may decide. Slowking4 (talk) 22:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"the Arbitration Committee resolves disputes by canceling them. Rather than deciding which editor is right or wrong or arbitrating disputes, the Arbitration Committee identifies and favors the parties who hold high levels of social capital due to their long-term interactions as editors of the encyclopedia." - Grisel, Florian (2023-05-04). "Canceling Disputes: How Social Capital Affects the Arbitration of Disputes on Wikipedia". Law & Social Inquiry (Cambridge University Press (CUP)): 1–22. ISSN 0897-6546. doi:10.1017/lsi.2023.15. --Slowking4 (talk) 19:53, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"The peer production communities we examine tend to reproduce undemocratic, non-inclusive, organizational hierarchies of leadership and participation. As wikis grow, the probability of adding new leaders drops and these entrenched leaders are increasingly active in administrative activity while using their authority to remove contributions of experienced community members." - "Laboratories of Oligarchy? How The Iron Law Extends to Peer Production" (PDF). JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION. --Slowking4 (talk) 03:27, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Statements by other parties

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Survey

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Support

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  1. Support Support As nominator Seawolf35 (talk) 15:40, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support Support Wikisource may be worse-off but a global ban, but this positively affects many other WMF sites. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 20:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support Support I got to be honest, I find it utterly absurd that we're still talking about a user who has pursued a pattern of cross-wiki disruption for literally well over a decade as if they're in any way a positive to the mission. Some of the criteria I'm seeing in the opposes are "well, he's not banned on <insert specific wiki here>" -- which is NOT a criteria of the Global Ban policy; or "It would make Wikisource worse" -- not a compelling argument given that losing one individual editor on one specific project does not outweigh the level of harm inflicted on MULTIPLE other projects. So perhaps a reminder is on order on what that policy is:
    1. The user demonstrates an ongoing pattern of cross-wiki abuse that is not merely vandalism or spam. No global ban is required for uncontroversial cases of cross-wiki vandalism or spam, since these may be handled with a block or lock (which may be made by a steward, without need for extensive discussion). See Steward requests/Global.
    2. The user has been carefully informed about appropriate participation in the projects and has had fair opportunity to rectify any problems. These projects must have demonstrated a good faith attempt to explain acceptable practices and behaviors that are consistent with their mission and scope. This criterion is to show users reasonably know what is expected, have had ample opportunity to appropriately address concerns, and chose not to participate appropriately in projects.
    3. The user is indefinitely blocked or banned on two or more projects. These blocks or bans must be based on the user's local disruptive behavior, and do not include protective blocks such as preemptive blocks on user without local edits, and blocks based on account security issue or problematic username.
    There is no significant dispute over whether Slowking meets the criteria for #1 -- this is the definition of an ongoing pattern of cross-wiki abuse that is not merely vandalism or spam. There is no significant dispute over whether Slowking meets the criteria for #2 either. 10+ years is well beyond a sufficient amount of time for a user to acquire clue. And there is no significant dispute whether Slowking meets the criteria for #3 -- he is indefinitely blocked or banned on significantly greater than 2 projects. It's long since past due for this to happen. Edit: And if I wasn't convinced already, Slowking's wildly inappropriate statement convinces me that this is a person who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near any Wikimedia project. ⇒SWATJester Son of the Defender 20:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  4. Support Support As Swatjester noted above, Slowking4 is clearly eligible for global banning. I think that seems unarguable. Whether or not we should or must is a place where reasonable persons disagree. In my mind, the argument for globally banning someone needs to be something that is weighed on how disruptive and negative the problems are, how widespread it is, and if the trajectory is at least toward getting better or worse. As far as this kind of disruption goes, it's not the absolute worse, where it's spam or extreme POV pushing or violent threats, but it's pretty bad. The part where he pulled weird stunts on Commons purely to be provocative is really unacceptable and the use of hundreds of sockpuppets is the next step below the kind of wrong behavior I enumerated as the absolute worst. To the extent that it's a matter of contagion across these projects, it seems very obvious that it is: it's not some one-off or personality-based issue on one wiki or in one community, but a fundamental part of this person's editing purpose. But those two could be overlooked if the user was seemingly trying to work on this or recognized that it's a problem, but evidently, he sees no problem with his behavior. Particularly after already having had this conversation about globally banning once and then he accelerates the use of sockpuppets? Why?! It's totally incomprehensible and the community at large needs to state that this is not acceptable. On a personal note, I actually only found out that Slowking4 was banned on multiple wikis somewhat recently and purely by accident. I have seen him on en.ws many times and thought that he was a perfectly normal and helpful editor. Until this nomination today, I never knew why he was blocked and I figured that it could have been some ancient thing from years ago and was some one-off, but it looks like this behavior is still ongoing and has been endemic across multiple wikis. It seems like this is the kind of thing he's prone to doing and we also have no reason to think he isn't doing it at en.ws: does anyone know that he is not engaged in some weird shenanigans and gaming systems over there? I would put smart money on it that he is. It's sad. I'm hopeful that a time-out of 12 months or something will encourage him to come back refreshed and want to be a good editor, but who knows? I wish it weren't so, but if the problem is getting worse, a more radical solution needs to be imposed. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems like this is the kind of thing he's prone to doing and we also have no reason to think he isn't doing it at en.ws: does anyone know that he is not engaged in some weird shenanigans and gaming systems over there? I would put smart money on it that he is. Exactly. A user who doesn't seem very careful is double-checking primary documents for accuracy? What could possibly go wrong? And that's my take *with* an extra helping of AGF.Elinruby (talk) 01:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support Support As others have shown, Slowking4 is not able to work constructively. This was demonstrated on many occasions and on several projects. Yann (talk) 00:21, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support Support A global is the next to last step to a full WMF ban. This has gone on long enough. It doesn’t matter how many wikis at once or all at once. On simple we have a WMF banned individual and the moment we see them we get them blocked. I wholeheartedly support this as Wikipedia does not need this to continue and it’s a time sink for our dedicated volunteers as is so having a global in place requires hardly any thinking. Da LambTalk to me!Please don't eat da 🐑! 02:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Why does being global banned require any less thinking by the Simple English Wikipedia than being locally banned there? * Pppery * it has begun 03:32, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support Support per everyone else, given the disruption Slowking4 has done on five projects and with their sockpuppets, not counting the English Wikisource. Codename Noreste 🤔 talk 02:44, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Strong support Strong support That would be unforgivable. Ayane (talk) 05:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support Support Their continued creation on en of large numbers of low-quality stubs on notable people (many just translations from other languages, I have no idea with what aid), the repeated speedy deletions of these many stubs as ban evasion, and the repeated outcry of "but they're notable!" and attempts to save what would be easier and better rewritten from scratch, are a continued disruption, well beyond the sockpuppetry itself, and the translation aspect makes this a cross-wiki issue. David Eppstein (talk) 07:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Strong support Strong support Despite their contributions to Wikisource, this behaivour is unacceptable. Miguu (talk) 07:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Strong support Strong support for one should be locked while not locked, globally, shall be banned. Lemonaka (talk) 11:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support Support Gli sono state possibilità di fermarsi. --Smatteo499 (talk) 13:28, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support Support — IмSтevan talk 15:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support Support The community needs to move beyond "good edits absolve bad behaviour", it only ever encourages continuation of bad behaviour. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 15:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support Support - SlipknotRlZZ (talk) 16:39, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Strong support Strong support Toxic users should get one clear message and not be supported and encouraged to be toxic by parts of the community. --Mirer (talk) 18:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not encourag[ing Slowking4] to be toxic. I am encouraging them to continue doing the things they are doing that are not (AFAICS) causing toxicity. * Pppery * it has begun 18:43, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Strong support Strong support per ActivelyDisinterested and mirer. I will never understand how you can support such people. - Squasher (talk) 19:29, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support Support long overdue. Natuur12 (talk) 20:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Support Support --Xneb20 (talk) 22:28, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support Support --ɱ 22:31, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support Support The Master of Hedgehogs (talk) 23:23, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Support Support as a CU on enwiki who has blocked more of their socks than I can count. To be honest, I couldn't care less if he does some good work on other projects. He's thumbing his nose at the global wiki community because he knows he can get away with it. It's time to stop being victimized. RoySmith (talk) 01:45, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Support Support I am normally pretty hesitant to vote for a global ban if the user is still productively contributing somewhere. But we have to draw a line at some kinds of behaviour, and repeated socking and harassment across multiple projects needs to be across that line. Nobody is so valuable that we should put up with their abuse. – Ajraddatz (talk) 02:39, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Support Support good contribs to Wikisource do not outweigh this editor's decision to engage in extreme sockpuppetry. Lepricavark (talk) 02:42, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support Support per above, we are late with this --Mtarch11 (talk) 04:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Strong support Strong support Now THAT is what I call a real clear consensus for an implementation of a global ban. kleshkreikne. t 10:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    26 to 19 is in no way a real clear consensus * Pppery * it has begun 15:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So you are 1.) counting Culturefan4 and 2.) assuming that it's not a sockpuppet of Slowking4? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if Culturefan4 were a sockpuppet of Slowking4 it wouldn't matter. Slowking4 is not banned on Meta so is free to contribute to this proposal.
    Regardless of how one counts, Kleshkreikne's argument is inherently circular - it makes no sense to support a global ban proposal because it already has a consensus. * Pppery * it has begun 15:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Regardless of whether Slowking4 is banned on Meta, participating in this discussion under a different name would be a clear failure to act in good faith. Lepricavark (talk) 03:31, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if you don't count Culturefan4's vote, 27-18 is still no real clear consensus. So Pppery is right. Mondo (talk) 17:00, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Unless you think all opposing voters are sock puppets of his. Given your other posts and attitude on here, it wouldn't surprise me if that's what you thought, lol. Mondo (talk) 17:02, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So the guy who just wrote "I will not respond to your post" writes this? Please stop. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Which I wrote after you wouldn't give me a chance to respond with your “Are you just going to ignore me” post, a mere few hours afterwards. Like I said: we're all volunteers here, so you should give people some more time to respond. Mondo (talk) 17:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You can have all the time in the world. My question was genuine. Take as much time as you'd like, friend. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want to give me all the time in the world, then why did you even write “Are you just going to ignore me”? That sounds more like you're demanding a response from me, even though I had other priorities. Posting something like that is not a good attitude, you know. Now if you had written this somewhere tomorrow, I would understand, but not after a mere few hours. Mondo (talk) 17:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I appreciate that and I apologize if that seemed pushy or rude. I asked because it seemed like we had some quick back and forth and then when there was no answer, it wasn't clear why. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:28, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Alright, apology accepted. 🙂 Mondo (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Really? I sure don't call it that. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 21:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Update: Kleshkreikne has been globally locked for sockpuppetry/LTA. Stricken vote as per w:en:WP:DENY. 182.2.74.5 07:09, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Support Support Milkout (talk) 15:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Support Support --Gripweed (talk) 21:51, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Support Support Thooompson (talk) 22:21, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Support Support Someone who violates community rules that grossly cannot be excused by apparently good contributions in some areas. --Dealerofsalvation (talk) 22:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Support Support --TenWhile6 (talk | SWMT) 10:05, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Support Support [2] --Ankermast (talk) 16:47, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Support Support His continued presence in the projects is a net detriment. I'm sorry, but I can't see how "he does some good work over in this pile of the project" can ever countenance his abuse of multiple other parts of the project, and we have absolutely ejected contributors who have done so (and I'm absolutely certain I can find contributors in the oppose section who have supported doing the same for other users). As for the one argument for "it won't stop him from abuse", well, no, but it will at least establish consensus that his continued abuse of multiple accounts is sufficient for locking. (That aside, this has never been a valid reason to oppose telling a contributor formally that their time is done.) It's his choice to be abusive, and it is absolutely in our powers to say in response, "no, that's enough". Izno (talk) 20:39, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  33. to balance culturefan4. ltbdl (talk) 01:03, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Support Support per mirer. --Icodense (talk) 06:13, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Support Support.-FusionSub (talk) 11:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Support Support --Count Count (talk) 16:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Support Support For all the disruption caused by this person, both what is exposed above and what I know from personal experience and interaction with him.--- Darwin Ahoy! 18:10, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  38. after I've read all the arguments here: Support Support, -jkb- 20:58, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  39. Support Support per RoySmith and Izno. In response to Bluerasberry's arguments, I would argue that someone who knowingly and willfully violates the norms and policies of our online communities on an industrial scale is not someone who should be representing the Wikimedia movement in meatspace. There is also precedent for globally banning contributors who were contributing positively to a project at the time of their ban—see Requests for comment/Global ban of INeverCry 2. — Callitropsis🌲[formerly SamX · talk · contribs] 15:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Assuming you mean Russian Wikipedia, although some people claimed he was active there in truth his last edit there was several weeks before the global ban was proposed and he was never active there to anywhere near Slowking4's level of activity on Wikisource. * Pppery * it has begun 16:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Callitropsis: Your characterization of participating in meatspace events doesn't match my experience of Slowking's approach. He, like IMO any good Wikimedian, will include his own perspective when introducing Wikimedia projects, but I have never known him to insinuate that his perspective represents that of "the community" or "the movement" etc. Furthermore, doing so in community-run events among peers gives a strong sense of accountability; if he ever were to veer in that direction, the presence of other Wikimedians gives the opportunity for them to push back. I'm unpersuaded by your comment, it seems under-informed. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:59, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a fair criticism. I'm not familiar with that aspect of his work and have accordingly struck that part of my comment, although I still support a global ban based on his conduct onwiki. — Callitropsis🌲[formerly SamX · talk · contribs] 18:27, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Support Support Ingenuity (talk) 17:07, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  41. Support Support Utilizing sockpuppets is unacceptable in my opinion. ☀DefenderTienMinh⛤☯☽ (talk) 07:04, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  42. Support Support Ditto Ajr above. If the project bans/blocks you from editing, it means you are simply not welcome unless you address the issues you were blocked for. Creating socks and going crosswiki just increases the problem. If they were just contributing constructively to a project and not disrupting others, I would oppose this. But that is not the case here. They continue on evading blocks on multiple projects and now I think this is a long overdue.--BRP ever 14:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Just noting that I have changed my mind since the last proposal which I opposed. BRP ever 14:20, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    BRPever Buried in the RfC, was there evidence of socking in recent times? The text linked as "continued to block and evade" links to a report that states the most recent editing was June 2023. If there's more to the story, I wonder why the RfC doesn't say so in plain language. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 16:15, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Peteforsyth Excuse me, but the link I believe you are referring to links to the EnWiki SPI page for Slowking, there are reports that resulted in socks being found from around 10 days ago. I don’t believe that is June 2023. Seawolf35 (talk) 16:22, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Seawolf35 That's relevant info. Is there a reason you didn't lead with this? Do you also have evidence that he has engaged in harassment and abuse, two terms you do invoke in the OP? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 21:32, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I suggest you follow the block logs a few of them seem to be for 'harassment and abuse'. There are hundred of account, so it will take a while. All these blocks are definitely not coincidences, and there are clearly issues which the user is refusing to address.--BRP ever 00:09, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    [3] is one of Slowking4's last posts to Commons, where he adds to a closed discussion to add a little general hostility all around. For more clear abuse, a little search brought up Commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Sir_Henry_Rider_Haggard.png ("excellent, time for a trip. thanks for the regurgitation, but i don't need to raise anything, about your incompetent "malignant assiduity." i will enjoy your crash and burn just like Betacommand.") and Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Wikimedia Cuteness Association at Wikimania 2017 ("Fæ - you went to wikimania london; i take it you are never going to a meetup again? because dumping on those who do, might get you unloved?" - which puts a new light on his presence at physical meetings.) This is a quick search of mostly DRs because they were easy to cite. There's a lot more stuff including a lot of open hostility to everyone around who didn't agree with him on something.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:07, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the specifics Prosfilaes. (Noting that not all these links are publicly visible, which is fine -- but I appreciate your text quotes.) I agree that open hostility to everyone around is a theme; but that is very much a different thing from harassment, where targeting and a systematic approach are key considerations. There's a great deal I don't like about Slowking's behavior, but from all I've seen it is far from the worst behavior. Scattershot hostility is a problem, and I have no objection to individual wikis blocking or banning him according to their own processes. To support a global ban, I'd want to see much clearer evidence of harassment or abuse. I haven't seen that kind of behavior from Slowking, and at this point I'm pretty confident that's because he hasn't engaged in it. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 13:54, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  43. Support Support He had a warning with the last proposed global ban, and doesn't seem to have reformed at all. His comment here shows no evidence that he thinks he needs to reform in any way. He says, for example, "Commons - This was a block manufactured to go for the first abortive global lock." As anyone can see, he advised another user to lie to OTRS and disruptively change their license. And that was the tipping point, because as I recall deeply, every discussion post by him was hostile. The project was horrible, and everyone doing things on the project was bad, according to him, which did nothing to improve the project, just made working on it less fun and rewarding for everyone else. He said nothing about the 240 confirmed sockpuppets on the English Wikipedia. I might agree that he can continue working productively where he does so if he agreed to stop being disrupting elsewhere, but we didn't even get token assurances for that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:23, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd like to add that for the discussion about harassment, I'd say that attacks on "deletionists" are repeated attacks on another group of editors. Discussion on the subject is fine and appropriate, but when groups form and start attacking each other, it can kill rational discussions. On the Italian Wikipedia he wrote
    "deletionists destroy what they cannot create, they order and border and shout we are great they war and they war with the tools that they score but they cannot command the ingrates"
    "deletionists fight with the paid they hate that some others are made they yell and they yell at the endless bombshell the soul crushing is only a band aid."
    That was 2021; going back a few more year Commons:Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2018/02#Dismissal_of_deletion_requests_from_“bad”_sources "this is good, but assumes that the deletionists (the same ones you interacted with) will actually abide by consensus. as we know, they are prepared to block people, or sock, to delete a file (with impunity) so not much hope there." That makes the environment hostile.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:49, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    [4] was added during this discussion "the drama caucus (one of your admins among them) will continue to put the stewards to the test, until they get the result they want. lest you think that the neglect of the WMF is bad, just consider the active hostility of a solipsistic clique of functionaries." More attacks on other users with no self-realization. (Is a solipsistic clique even possible?)--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:25, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Now as per Slowking4. As he points out, Wikimedia, as other social systems, has a bad habit of rewarding high social status over any sort of justice. Instead of letting a repeat sockpuppeter and ban evader get away with his actions, the system should deal with him like any other problem maker, instead of accepting him for his social status.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:08, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  44. Support Support There should be an End to this. Adtonko (talk) 14:43, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  45. Strong support Strong support. -- Jeff G. ツ (please ping or talk to me) 21:54, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  46. Support Support Regardless of the productivity on project A or project B, the user has been causing damage to many other projects and has shown a complete refusal to understand the extent of the damage been caused. It is expected of editors who have generated some kind of conflict to take a step back, analyze the context and seek a solution, either by remedying the damage or retreating from some spaces. The user preferred to do the opposite and, therefore, deserved the ban. ━ Albertoleoncio Who, me? 00:34, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  47. Support Support Unacceptable behaviour. --Phyrexian ɸ 11:52, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  48. Support Support as they have repeteadly refused to conform their behaviour to Pillar#4. --Argeste (talk) 13:14, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  49. Support Support The primary goal of wiki projects is to help everyone share in the sum of all knowledge, not to socialize. Unfortunately, Slowking4 has shown to be destructive in contributing to knowledge sharing, despite appearing to be a skilled social media creator in real life.--Bramfab (talk) 17:05, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This makes no sense. Those of us in opposition are not doing so because Slowking4's a skilled social media creator. If anything this is backwards - he is good at contributing to knowledge sharing and nearly getting banned because of his lack of social skills/refusal to follow the social norms of the community. * Pppery * it has begun 21:37, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  50. Support Support Its not like he hasn't been warned and he continues to do it. -Djsasso (talk) 18:24, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  51. Support Support --Kirk39 (talk) 07:48, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  52. Support Support Based on huge time years-long time sink he created at English Wikipedia, the oppositional attitude demonstrated in the statement, and the vacuous nature of most oppose votes. Hello, this is who we have training new users? I see the point of the anti-centralization opposes, but the alternative here is to permit the damage to be repeated over and over project by project. Elinruby (talk) 22:00, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there any evidence that the damage is be[ing] repeated over and over project by project? If that were the case then Slowking4 would have been blocked on at least one new wiki since 2021. * Pppery * it has begun 01:14, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's very quaint take on the effectiveness of Wikipedia governance. Or, think about it, maybe he got better at not getting caught. Or, as on en-wikipedia the other week, he is getting caught for blockable offenses, just not as the already-blocked sockmaster. There is some sort of ideology here that I might actually agree with, but he won't cooperate even to the extent of explaining himself, so any effort to properly channel the energy seems doomed. Meanwhile he is *training* ppl ffs. Elinruby (talk) 01:47, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  53. Support Support Threatening stewards with doxxing and defamation in their statement here - on top of everything else --Kritzolina (talk) 06:56, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Slowking4 did not actually say that. He did not actually threaten to do any particular act or omission whatsoever. James500 (talk) 08:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  54. Support Support Michileo (talk) 09:44, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  55. Support Support It is mind boggling to me that this should even be a question. Why anyone would want an editor who so clearly shows an inability to be trusted working on any WMF project is beyond me. The amount of time wasted by this person is mind boggling. Strongly support a global ban, as well as the development of better tools to rapidly respond to this kind of abuse with as little effort as possible. It is long since time to put an end to this charade. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:24, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  56. Support Support I was already leaning support, just was considering the impact on Wikisource, but there have been a few supports that have made me change my mind, and the statement by Slowking4 is poor. --Ferien (talk) 23:36, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  57. Support Support the amount and bandwidth of disruptive behavior shows that there is no point in AGF anymore, but the user is a proven burden to the global communities. Denis Barthel (talk) 09:26, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  58. With a lot of regret. We have technical evidence of the issues you're causing at other wikis, in such a way that you can't claim that you're mostly blameless as you've said at your statement. I wouldn't care if you had the blocks without the sockpuppets. While I note that there is no clear evidence that you've harassed someone or anything like that, you should know that repeatedly creating sockpuppets isn't acceptable. And while I note that you've apparently done well at in-person events, it should be noted that you're privileged to be able to do this, and the average editor would not have the resources to be able to interact people offline the way you've done - after all, Wikimedia is an online-first community. Plus, your statement didn't really address the issues raised by the OP. As a result, I would be forced to support a global ban for you, though I'm open to a rethink if you can at least commit not to create socks anywhere. Leaderboard (talk) 18:06, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  59. Ever since my first encounter with Slowking4, his only aim throughout his editing career that I have seen is in making a point. Intentionally socking (or editing logged out) to show that all of Wikipedia is against him and the ones he supports, intentionally going against community standards, decisions or conventions just because he does not like it (not with an intention to improve, no). I’ve had the discussions with him where I tried to recognize his good work, but the level of distrust of the majority of fellow editors on the projects where he got blocked he shows is making any such discussion useless.
    It should be understood that Slowking4 has been editing over many projects using multiple accounts (even if that action itself does not necessarily have to be disruptive or bad). I would however not be surprised if many projects (including WikiSource!) have missed situations where multiple accounts were used to further his points, to ensure that material (either by himself or others) is not deleted or quietly recreated, or to ensure that no decisions were taken against him (or the ones he supports). I there do not understand the extreme extension of good faith by (especially WikiSource) users that believe that Slowking4 did never do anything on their project that he routinely, and proven so, does on so many other projects on their project (and I know that he will be editing, also on WikiSource, to make the point that also this global ban, if enacted, is a wrong decision, that he cannot be stopped, and to honor the opposes he gathered here). Note that he is not socking because he is blocked, he is using socks to make a point, to get his way, and I see no reason why that behaviour is not performed on any project he is working on.
    I continue to recognize his good work, but his behaviour does not in any way make him different from those who he so vehemently opposes. Support Support. —-Dirk Beetstra T C (en: U, T) 00:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  60. Support Support Good behavior on one wiki doesn't excuse years of socking, harassment and cross wiki disruption on multiple other projects. ~Δ (delta • t • c) 21:40, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  61. Support Support Wikisource will have one less person contributing, but given the fact that he has abused 5 (and perhaps counting) wikis, we shouldn't tolerate his behavior for the benefit of one project. 5 > 1, and the ban would prevent further abuse. Justarandomamerican (talk) 03:36, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  62. Support Support Support - I don't really care how productive Slowking is at Wikisource, his perennial socking elsewhere negates that and then some. JCW555 (talk) 19:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  63. Support Support --Euku (talk) 20:21, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  64. Support Support per above. This should not be denied - I have read over opening statements and if he isn't globally banned, he would be globally banned sooner or later for such behaviour. Anster (talk) 05:05, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This is pure circular reasoning. * Pppery * it has begun 21:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "A rain jacket is a jacket for rain"—that's about as informative as this comment. As Pppery said above, this is circular reasoning. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 01:31, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  65. Support Support per above --Wüstenspringmaus talk 06:13, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  66. Support Support Indef-blocked or -banned on five projects is quite an achievement. Add to that the mass sockpuppetry on multiple projects and the thoroughly underwhelming statement above, and we get a picture of someone completely unsuited to following the basic standards of conduct that are common to all Wikimedia projects. A no-consensus result here will only encourage even more abuse. SuperMarioMan (talk) 18:18, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  67. Support Support --Ghilt (talk) 14:58, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  68. Strong support Strong support Sockpuppets are okay, but not to this extent. Slowking4 also makes vandalism. Please ban him. --Xyz610 (talk) 16:18, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  69. Strong support Strong support while i think SPs can be okay sometimes, the user went over the top Luix710 (talk) 15:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  70. Support Support Slowking4 deserves to be personal attack removedSeawolf35 (talk) 23:04, 20 April 2024 (UTC). Ahri.boy (talk) 21:55, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I wonder what the phrase means? It currently redirects to the global ban page and was created by an IP from the Philippines so I assumed that it was some Filipino acronym. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:39, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I assume it's an abbreviation of "SanFranBan", referring to the location of the Wikimedia Foundation's office in San Francisco. I've seen the term spelled out before but never as an acronym. * Pppery * it has begun 02:44, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

[edit]
  1. Oppose Oppose Nothing fundamental has changed since the previous global ban request, only some numbers have gone up. The only thing a global ban would actually change is to make Wikisource worse off while making no other projects better. If someone is told not to do thing A, and they do it anyway, it's pure spite to say that you now can't do thing B either unless there's some evidence their doing thing B is itself causing harm.
    This is why for a long time I've been opposing global bans of people who aren't indefinitely blocked on the wiki(s) where they are most active, which Slowking4 isn't. Nothing other than Slowking4 getting blocked on the English Wikisource can possibly change my mind here. * Pppery * it has begun 19:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    To everyone supporting this: What do you think it will accomplish? Slowking4 will presumably be just as willing to sock around a global ban as he is to sock around a local ban. I could see some logic to this if Slowking4 were regularly disrupting new wikis, but the most recent block is 2021 so that isn't it.
    Global bans generally do little but send a message as the people they apply to are usually blocked on all the wikis they want to edit already by the time they get global banned, and while I can support that if it truly is all that it does I can't support weighing that message against suppressing actual constructive edits elsewhere. That's what I described above as spite. * Pppery * it has begun 22:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's valuable to communicate that we don't permit certain types of behavior from people just because they've been around long enough and made enough friends. That's simply "professional standards of practice".--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:40, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The question is who "we" is. The Commons community has communicated that. The enwiki community has communicated that. The Wikidata community has communicated that. Et cetera. The Wikisource community has decided they do permit Slowking4's behavior, and no convincing reason for overrulling that decision has been presented here. I am not opposing because I am Slowking4's friend, I am opposing because I don't follow the logic that leads to this global ban at all. * Pppery * it has begun 15:29, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    We is the Wikimedia community, all of us together. I certainly couldn't do my work on the English Wikisource if I couldn't access Commons and Wikidata.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:50, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    socking around global ban, lock can then be enforced by all stewards per regular check or Foundation once reported. That's the difference if you really want some. Lemonaka (talk) 20:26, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose Oppose Again, nothing has changed since the last ban request. There's no reason that a user should be prohibited from contributing constructively to some projects just because they're banned on others. Kk.urban (talk) 20:08, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I also don't agree with the claim that globally banning this user will positively impact any project. Kk.urban (talk) 22:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose Oppose I don't think this global ban would help anything. It will only result in a prolific and non-problematic editor at English Wikisource being banned from the project. Is Slowking actively causing disruption on other wikis? Nosferattus (talk) 00:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Nosferattus Did you look at the links I provided for the English Wikipedia, Slowking4 has had several socks blocked in the last 7 days alone, this has been going on for over a decade. Seawolf35 (talk) 00:31, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Seawolf35: Yes, I did briefly look at them, but it looks like he was evading the block to add new uncontroversial content to the wiki, not edit warring or voting or insulting people. Evading the block is clearly bad, but is he actually causing disruption anywhere? What was the impetus for starting a new request? Nosferattus (talk) 00:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose Oppose does good work at enWS and is not problematic. Local communities can block as they require.  — billinghurst sDrewth 03:21, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose Oppose I interacted with this individual in-person at WikiConference North America/2023 and I had no concern about his in-person behaviour. Implementing global ban not only impacts Wikisource, but would also preclude Slowking4 from participating at in-person events. And also per others above. Nothing fundamentally has changed since last request. This current proposal seems a bit like double jeopardy. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:42, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    How is it double jeopardy when he has committed the same offense over and over again? As pointed out above, he has not only kept on doing the same thing, but evidently done it much more than before: that is the opposite of double jeopardy. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Since you meet him could you explain why he have been acting like this on all Wikis? Trade (talk) 11:43, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    My thought here is that not all experiments in improving the comprehensiveness of content, so that it levels out across the wikis, are going to work. It's a cautionary tale for us, before we get sucked down into the machine learning/AI rabbit hole ... For me, Slowking4 has a curmudgeonly sense of exasperation that I find quite humorous. Culturefan4 (talk) 14:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Trade That is a private conversation and I intend to keep it that way. OhanaUnitedTalk page 01:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If a user cannot be trusted on-wiki, I don't think they can off-wiki, unless you can elaborate more regarding "but would also preclude Slowking4 from participating at in-person events." SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 07:00, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Strong Oppose Oppose! A global ban is clearly not the solution here. If you look through their recent contributions at the English Wikisource, constructive contributions are still being made there in abundance. And, just to to illustrate my point, Wikisource is a site that desperately needs all the contributors it can rack up. We are a quite small community, with a quite huge ocean of things that theoretically need to be done to make its content coverage even close to comprehensive, so banning even a single active contributor would be a huge step backward for us. So, a ban from Wikisource (or a global ban in this case that'd impact Wikisource work) should be done extremely sparingly. (Our tiny active editor population is a major hole in the Wikisource community's ability to get things done well compared to other WMF wikis, and I have noted this many many times. I even started a WikiProject to try and come up with ways to bridge the gap...) I have no comment on Slowking's behavior on other wikis, except to say I'm not thrilled that they engaged in this behavior myself, but the English Wikisource behavior is just innocent enough, and more importantly constructive enough, to get a pass from me. This global ban would be awful—it would effectively do an active harm to our project, worse harm even than vandalism itself (if you will), and I am wondering whether or not this detriment has even been considered by the supporting party. SnowyCinema (talk) 07:20, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose Oppose par principe, je suis contre les blocages globaux. Merci de laisser gérer les blocages par les communautés locales. D’autres part je trouve déplacé le rameutage effectué sur tous les projets pour un problème qui ne concerne que quelques uns d’entre eux. Ce procédé de blocage global devrait purement et simplement être interdit. --Le ciel est par dessus le toit (talk) 07:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Just opinion does not negate the extreme cross-wiki disruption of this user. Seawolf35 (talk) 08:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Seawolf35: C'est leur opinion que les blocages globaux sont jamais justifiés, si je lis leur commentaire correctement. Vous êtes intitulé à votre propre opinion sur les blocages globaux et il/elle est intutulé à leur propre opinion aussi. (Désolé pour ma français pauvre). 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 17:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Sur le projet sur lequel je participe, je n’ai jamais vu cet utilisateur, pourquoi devrait-il être bloqué sur celui-ci ? mon opinion vos bien la votre non ? chaque communauté est capable de gérer ses vandales, il me semble. Il me semble que je ne suis pas intervenu dans votre vote, pourquoi intervenir dans le mien, qui êtes vous pour commenter ma position ? Le ciel est par dessus le toit (talk) 07:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose Oppose. Let them continue to edit Wikisource lol. --UA0Volodymyr (talk) 10:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. If a user works good on his main wiki (enWS in this case), he should not be globally banned. MBH (talk) 10:35, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose Oppose I strongly disapprove of the user using this many socks, but he apparently does a lot of good work on Wikisource. Local wikis can ban this person (and their socks) if they see fit. Mondo (talk) 11:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose Oppose Socking is not acceptable, we all agree with that. Having said that, I see no good reason to ban a productive editor, who is working relentlessly on Wikisource and his homewiki as well. Some bans, like the one he got on en.wiki were too harsh in my opinion. All in all, I'm in favor of giving Slowking4 one last chance to try and to do better. Nobody got far by insulting and attacking editors left and right. Cheers. — Sadko (words are wind) 12:40, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sadko, Slowking4 already had one last chance in the last RFC proposing a global ban for them. They have had more than enough "last chances". Seawolf35 (talk) 12:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose Oppose Under the name Slowking4, a good contributor to multiple projects as far as I can see. To judge from comments above, an outstanding contributor to Wikisource. If a global ban were effective it would harm the projects. Andrew Dalby (talk) 13:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Oppose Oppose Suggesting to provide a global ban by providing an exception on English Wikisource. If doing vandalism there are this, the specific exception can be removed. Adithyak1997 (talk) 15:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Oppose Oppose per comments above. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 17:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Oppose Oppose per Cremastra --Thzht (talk) 18:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    What? 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 21:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Oppose Oppose Absolutely not. Editor has been a valuable contributor to multiple GLAM projects and is an effective ambassador for Wikimedia and open source. Janni Rye (talk) 02:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    But have you checked their work? My concern isn't the idiom strangeness MT can produce, or poor sentence construction. It was that it really showed a disregard for accuracy. And lots of content that may or may not be accurate doesn't help anyone. In fact, large-scale inaccuracy is my main concern here, regardless of whether they are fun at meetups or believe in their mission to right great wrongs Elinruby (talk) 09:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Was this remark meant for me? I am without a clue what it is about. Maybe it was a test edit like the one removed a few minutes earlier? Janni Rye (talk) 00:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    it's a question for you. You're welcome to answer or not. But it 's a genuine question. You said they do good work, right? I could swear you said a valuable contributor to multiple GLAM projects and is an effective ambassador for Wikimedia. I asked what metric you were using for that.
    The diff you are waving is probably from when I dropped my phone and didn't notice the exit window was open because I was running. It's a little insulting that you would think I would do test edits in a meta RfC, but whatever. I know clicking is hard. Elinruby (talk) 04:37, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "Running with phone" works for me. I was not the one who called it a "test edit", but since you seem to object to diffs, I will let you sift through the edit summaries on your own to find out who said it. Believe me, when someone types two apparently unintelligible sentences, late on a Saturday night, in a thread where all the "oppose" votes are being badgered, and one of them starts with what looks like "killllll" in some conlang, "test edit" is not exactly the first thing, or even the second thing, that comes to mind. I do not personally find it "insulting" -- compared to what I was thinking, it was very diplomatic, and they did you a favor to revert it.
    "Contribution metrics", no, I don't go with that editcountitis, IMO it is for hat collecting. Janni Rye (talk) 15:15, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    oh whatever. I thanked them for reverting. That's what you think my point is??? Thanks for the reminder I guess, that some people read in subtexts that aren't there. I think this conversation is enough to push me firmly into the support camp. I notice you are still so preoccupied with being right that you haven't answered the actual question. Don't bother at this point, it's pretty clear there isn't any kind of formal metric. Elinruby (talk) 21:45, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Oppose Oppose Global ban is not justified when he's a great contributor to multiple projects. I would support local bans. This is not a solution. This solves nothing except harming a few projects where he contributes constructively. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 04:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Random sample contribution from random sock:[5] Elinruby (talk) 10:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Irrelevant to my point. Ban him in English Wikipedia then. Global ban is not justified. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 14:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    How is it not justified? Per global ban:
    1. The user demonstrates an ongoing pattern of cross-wiki abuse that is not merely vandalism or spam. No global ban is required for uncontroversial cases of cross-wiki vandalism or spam, since these may be handled with a block or lock (which may be made by a steward, without need for extensive discussion). See Steward requests/Global.
    2. The user has been carefully informed about appropriate participation in the projects and has had fair opportunity to rectify any problems. These projects must have demonstrated a good faith attempt to explain acceptable practices and behaviors that are consistent with their mission and scope. This criterion is to show users reasonably know what is expected, have had ample opportunity to appropriately address concerns, and chose not to participate appropriately in projects.
    3. The user is indefinitely blocked or banned on two or more projects. These blocks or bans must be based on the user's local disruptive behavior, and do not include protective blocks such as preemptive blocks on user without local edits, and blocks based on account security issue or problematic username.
    Which of these three does not apply to Slowking4? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:09, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Merely meeting the above minimum criteria does not mean that a global ban is required. Opposition to a global ban proposal does not have to argue that it doesn't meet one of those criteria. * Pppery * it has begun 15:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So how is it not justified? I didn't say it was obligatory, but above, the claim was that it's "unjustifed". He's clearly eligible, so it's justified. Or is there something I'm missing? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:16, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I explained why I think a global ban isn't justified in my initial oppose comment above. * Pppery * it has begun 15:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And I wasn't responding to your comment. I asked someone else and you inserted yourself. It is certainly justifiable to globally ban him, since he unarguably meets the criteria. We could disagree on if we should or what the merits of it would be, but calling it unjustifiable is simply not true. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I also already explained why it's not justified above. You don't have to agree with my opinion. We can agree to disagree. I find it problematic that you try to force everyone to follow your own "opinion". This RFC is on-going, and we shall see if there is consensus for the global ban or not. I'll stop participating in this pointless discussion. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 15:34, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That doesn't answer my question. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I gave you an answer that you don't like. My answer is still there. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 02:42, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You wrote that you'd stop, yet you didn't. Why are you not being a serious person? What is your game? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Koavf and @Nguyentrongphu, please stay on topic or take this elsewhere. Seawolf35 (talk) 07:21, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm allowed to change my mind. Your behavior is troubling. First, you tried to force everyone to agree with your opinion, then you're throwing random accusation (bad faith). Nguyentrongphu (talk) 03:40, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If you see value in continuing this line of conversation, please take it elsewhere as was already suggested to you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It was suggested to you too, buddy. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 09:10, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If it is so clear to you, why is there even an option to oppose? Mondo (talk) 16:51, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, you're one of those guys who just ignores others' questions and asks fallacious ones, I see. I'm a nice guy, so I'll bite: There's an option to oppose because that's how the process works and because as I have written multiple times: it is reasonable to disagree about this. Of course, you would know that, had you read what I wrote. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not reasonable to disagree if you keep trying to convince others that it's justified. Or as Nguyentrougphu wrote in his post above mine: I find it problematic that you try to force everyone to follow your own "opinion". Mondo (talk) 17:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If it weren't justified then we couldn't disagree! What in the world are you talking about? Do you think everyone is coming here with perspectives that they think are inherently unjustifiable? That is the strangest thing I have seen all day. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, as other posts show, including the one I quoted, I'm not the only one who feels like this. Mondo (talk) 17:33, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Going into a conversation thinking that someone who disagrees with you is fundamentally unjustified in having that opinion is definitely a lot like having a bad faith attitude. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Oppose Oppose IMHO (without knowing the user myself) this looks like attempt to punish (not bdisciplined) contributor, while one is contributing more then 99% contributors (in quantity), doing outreach work and promotion and not doing any (new) significant harm...Can only imagine that full ban would create enemy out ally and deficit of contributions in Wikisource. Until Wikisource community decides to ban the user or their behavior becomes risk for other projects/work I do not see need for global ban. --Zblace (talk) 09:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Bans don't have to be eternal. Do you think that having a year away would be helpful? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:30, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You really think they would stay away for a year after all the sock puppetry? Mondo (talk) 11:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't. Does that mean that we as a community just throw up our hands and say, "Well, I guess you're just allowed to do whatever you want"? I'm not suggesting that a global ban will be effective for literally every use case: I'm saying that it's sending a message that this behavior is unacceptable and the community does not allow it. There is no perfect method to stop sockpuppets, so rather than make the perfect the enemy of the good, we can express our interest in disallowing this kind of behavior and then leave it up to local admins and stewards to stop sockpuppets. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    > I'm not suggesting that a global ban will be effective for literally every use case
    You clearly said that you thought they would stay away for a year, so you did kind of suggest that. Mondo (talk) 11:49, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I did not say "would". What I implicitly wrote was "should" and he certainly would stay away from his main account. What do you propose should be done about someone who has hundreds of sockpuppets over a decade+ and participates in silly stunts and petty fighting across multiple wikis? Nothing? Should we just say, "Well, someone can't be 100% blocked from all potential sockpuppets and IP edits, therefore, he can do whatever he wants"? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:58, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    > What do you propose
    If you don't know my proposal by now, then you clearly haven't spent much time on this page, because I already made that clear. See Oppose #10. Mondo (talk) 12:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And how is your solution better? You do agree that he is eligible for this ban, correct? If so, why shouldn't we have a global ban? According your logic, he's just going to do whatever he wants with a raft of sockpuppets anyway, so may as well make the symbolic gesture to say that his behavior is wrong. I don't even know what your point is at this point if your argument is that he can just do whatever he wants. You're already offloading the responsibility of blocking his hundreds of sockpuppets across c. 1000 wikis anyway, so why not one more and send the message? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 12:30, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you just going to ignore my post below or are you busy? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I was busy. It's not like I get paid to hang out on Wikimedia/Wikipedia, you know. And even then I sometimes have other priorities in real life, like today. If you're this desperate for a response, then yes, I'm going to ignore your post. Mondo (talk) 16:58, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I can tell you're not actually participating in good faith, so that's to be expected. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:02, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, you're not participating in good faith either. Look at your attitude towards me and others on this page. Mondo (talk) 17:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Give me an example of anything I have written here that shows that I am not representing myself genuinely or that I am not taking what others say seriously. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Oppose Oppose Good gravy, folks! This fellow is the heart and soul of the open wiki-culture movement. He's been leading the charge on finding new ways to make our serious cultural content more comprehensive for many years now. We wouldn't be the same without his curmudgeonly presence and all of his substantial contributions. An old-fashioned dedication to the civilizing mission of the encyclopedia is not so easy to find. Thank goodness for editors like Slowking4 (and Wiki Ed)! Wikipedia's policy of random volunteer editing incentivizes pop-culture trivia, sci-tech, and self-promotion. Editors like Slowking4, who are in a position to devote serious time and efforts to cultural uplift, are tough to find. Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Culturefan4 (talk) 14:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    This is Culturefan4's first edit on Wikimedia - I don't think they're eligible to vote. Kk.urban (talk) 14:39, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    True enough-- as an old-time editor who has had too much trouble with trolls to maintain an ongoing, single internet identity, I am effectively excluded from participation in the Wikipedia community's deliberations. But I have been watching the situation with Slowking4 play out over many years, and even though my vote may not count, I would hope that my voice might still be heard. Slowking4 is an inspiring person who has been one of my mentors, and I want to speak up on their behalf. Culturefan4 (talk) 15:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And no, I'm not Slowking4, just one of their fans. Culturefan4 (talk) 15:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't know that Wikimedians have fanbases. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 22:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks like a DUCK. - Darwin Ahoy! 18:13, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Oppose Oppose Nothing has changed since the last time we had this discussion. No problem will be solved by this global ban, and it would cause significant harm to Wikisource and in person meetups and conferences. Gamaliel (talk) 22:34, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, Gamaliel. Agree 100%. We need to support our dedicated in-person volunteers, who have contributed so much to helping us train new editors and conducting outreach with cultural and technical organizations. ~~~ Culturefan4 (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Strong oppose. As far as I can see, a global ban would seriously harm and disrupt Wikisource. Editors on one WMF project should not be allowed to use a global ban to extend a dispute on their project to another project where that dispute does not already exist. This dispute is not Wikisource's problem, and editors from other projects should not attempt to make it Wikisource's problem. No evidence of disruption on any site, other than the five where he is already blocked, has been produced. It is not apparent that a global ban would stop any disruption that would otherwise happen, and which is not already being stopped by local blocks. A global ban would destroy the indepedence of the Wikisource community to decide who to block, and who not to block, on their own project, in relation to Slowking4; and it would do this despite the fact that there appears to be nothing wrong with the way in which the Wikisource community is exercising their discretion in relation to Slowking4. This would in turn create a precedent for further interference with the independence of the Wikisource community to run their project according to the community consensus of that project. The policy Global bans says "A global ban is not a form of punishment . . . A global ban's purpose is to prevent harm to Wikimedia projects". In my judgment, on the face of the evidence presented, and having regard to the arguments made, the proposed ban would be purely punitive, and it would not and could not prevent any harm to any Wikimedia project. Further, the proposed ban would cause harm to Wikimedia projects, namely Wikisource and, according to XavierItzm, the Spanish Wikipedia: The proposed ban would therefore cause the very thing that the policy is meant to prevent. On both counts, the proposed ban would violate the policy. James500 (talk) 02:36, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Strong oppose. The user’s significant and uncontroversial contributions to es.wikipedia.org are a testament to a dedicated wikipedista. XavierItzm (talk) 06:31, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Strong oppose I wouldn't count the infinite block in Italian, given hastily more to avoid inconvenience and for participation (taking the other blocks as evidence of guilt), than for personal attacks. Furthermore, I have not even encountered copyright violations as reiterated. They would have been one of the winners of the contest, we preferred not to give them the prize so as not to have further friction with the community. --Camelia (talk) 08:52, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Camelia.boban HI Camelia. You are aware this SlowKing4 person described you as the "notorious POV editor, User:Camelia.boban" in his intervention above, and blamed you for his ban in wiki.it, right? Something I know for a fact it's false and an actual insult to you. - Darwin Ahoy! 18:16, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh @DarwIn, I thank you for your concern, but please take it ironically, "notorious POV editor" is ironic, it means exactly the opposite.  I know this user very well, I have met them in person several times, I know their content creation and advocacy activities (including being a member of the affiliate WikiDonne, but we are both also members of WMDC), as well as their continuous involvement on posts of our social channels.  It's not an insult, but a mockery of what some in itwiki think of my wiki account, my "activism" and the "very dangerous POV" geared towards writing more entries about encyclopedic women. Camelia (talk) 21:42, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Camelia.boban I suspected it was irony, indeed, though I don't think it was the best context to be ironic... Thanks for the clarification. - Darwin Ahoy! 09:37, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You are right, maybe not the ideal context to be ironic. Camelia (talk) 10:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Camelia.boban, if the reason of the block in it.wiki were their participation to the contest you organized, they would not have been the unique participant (among 29) blocked for it. The idea of the contest was to write rhymes on “What Wikipedia represents to me/to all of us”. Unfortunately, Slowking4 caught this opportunity by spinning it in a backdoor to repeatedly offend the community as a whole and its rules (rhyme 1, rhyme 2, rhyme 3, rhyme 4, rhyme 5). Moreover, at least in one case it was not an original rhyme, rather a slight modification to song lyrics abundantly under the threshold of originality/creativity that is needed to avoid copyright infringements. When an it.wiki administrator made them informed about that infringement, Slowking4 replied “you might well find yourself the subject of a poem”, expressly stating their intentions about the participation to that contest. As for the contest jury's choices, I am not interested in meddling, and to be honest they are out of scope here (perhaps, they would provide information only on the care the organizers have to the welfare of the Wikipedian community they were celebrating compared to the success of their own initiative). --Argeste (talk) 13:09, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Beh @Argeste, this poem too was cosidered an attack to the community and deleted. Even if, you are right, the author was not infinitely blocked, maybe because local. The impression given is that of a certain intolerance towards anything perceived as irony towards the community, seen as untouchable and only God. And consequently the desire to get rid of things as quickly as possible. You agree or not, it doesn't even matter, but an infinite block one week after the first edit of a registered user (non-IP and non-vandal and with the rule still in force that a block should not be a punishment and should be done progressively), mostly based on the history of other blocks, I think it's an unique even for itwiki. Camelia (talk) 13:48, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sorry Camelia, but what you wrote is factually false, again.
    That user made their first edit in it.wp in January 2012 (ref.), was noticed of repeated rule violations in January 2021 - non after a week but nine years after! - by two different administrators, replied to them with mocking tones and threats. Then it got a short block (one week) by a third one, in perfect adherence with blocking policies. Despite this, Slowking4 devoted their first edits after the one-week block to blame other users to "engage in calumny" "lie to manufacture a false charge", adopt "argumenta ad hominem". In compliance with general blocking policies, a block for personal attacks that follows another one for the same reasons results in an indefinite block: why do you believe that it.wiki admins would discretionally avoid to conform their actions to existing universal blocking policies to pardon a user ho has been absent for years from the main namespace and, moreover, has proven not to know Italian an thus had made no valid contributions? --Argeste (talk) 16:23, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You know very well that I was talking about the first(s) edit(s) of the conflict that led to the infinite block in itwiki. Sharing an edit from 12 years ago - which was otherwise constructive because puts a text back in its place - only to demonstrate that I technically said something false is a painful reconstruction. Camelia (talk) 09:13, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Another false statement: before being blocked indefinitely, Slowking received a one-week block. Didn't read what I wrote just above? --Argeste (talk) 00:21, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't believe this is a serious accusation made by an adult. This is beyond gossip. I strongly oppose this global ban even more after seeing the level of accusations made at this guy who happens to have a peculiar sense of humor. If italian wikipedia and a couple of projects can't handle him, I'm sure other, more quiet and friendly communities can. Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 00:01, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    He was blatantly rude to other editors on Italian Wikipedia; I don't know how you get friendly communities when you let someone like Slowking4 express hostility to other users.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ignacio Rodríguez, tbh I have not time to waste investigating the rules of your home wiki and ascertaing wheter they are UCoC-compliant or not, but please be sure that in it.wiki beginning a dialogue accusing another user of reasoning in a childish way or lacking in seriousness, as you did, is considered unacceptable. --Argeste (talk) 00:21, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Oppose Oppose This user is an excellent in-person Wikimedia community trainer and participant in governance and policy discussions, and I do not want to lose that. Because a global ban is exclusion from all Wikimedia activities, it is not the correct response to the complaint. Speaking only of what I know, I have known this user to be a friendly, sociable, knowledgeable, sharing, and well-spoken participant in in-person Wikimedia community events such as WikiConference North America and smaller meetups and trainings in North America. The Wikimedia community has a shortage of trainers who are reliable to present and teach Wikimedia to beginners. I trust this user to teach Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikisource, to strangers, and as a representative of the Wikimedia community in the region. I have talked to them in-person for hours at perhaps 20 events. I have only known them to be suitable as a community organizer. I appreciate that they so routinely speak in advocacy of Wikimedia community interests, which is something that I feel we need and which I do not want to lose from them. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:31, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Bluerasberry: A hypothetical question, meant to challenge your logic, not meant to suggest anything specific about the user in question. So, an exaggerated case, again, NOT meant to suggest anything about this user. Suppose a user is consistently engaged in diabolical activities online, but conducts themselves with perfect adherence to social norms in person. Is that sufficient to conclude that consequences shouldn't apply to meatspace? I think not; should people harmed by their diabolical online activities have to endure their presence while participating in community events? Should the user be permitted to gather information as a natural part of meatspace participation, that can then be leveraged in their online misbehavior? If you agree with my line of thinking here, could you address how this does or doesn't apply in the current case? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 13:50, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Peteforsyth: About the general case:
    If someone is negative, hostile, rude, or incivil, then I have no tolerance for that. Friendly social behavior is required.
    If someone is incompetent, then they should have access to training and a little support, but competence is required. If they cannot achieve that, then they have to go.
    If someone is disruptive on the level of a Wikimedia project, then I support community processes for blocking a user per-project.
    I do not support globally blocking a user in all ways when they are civil and competent, but disruptive in some places, while they are constructive in other places. There can be a remedy, but universal exile is not it.
    Also, the pattern of behavior I am describing is common but unrecognized. We the Wikimedia community lose a lot of talent due to failure to support users who are constructive and friendly in some places, but unconstructive though friendly in others.
    I have a research proposal here which describes some of this. "Investigating Neurodivergent Wikimedian Experiences". I am not suggesting that neurodivergence has anything to do with this case, but our investment in neurodivergent accomodation is zero, when we should be global leaders and models in developing support structures for these cases. If we had neurodivergent accomodation, then as with any kind of accessibility support, it helps all users and not just those in the minority demographic.
    In the hypothetical you described, you used the term "diabolical". If that means ill-intent, then that hypothetical user should go. If instead you are describing a technology-savvy en:gremlin, then we should do a census of how many tinkering creatures we have, and if the numbers are enough and the cost-benefit ratio works out to organize this demographic, then we need to invest in diversity support.
    I lack faith in ban processes like this one because 1) I do not think this is a one-off case, but rather part of a massive pattern of losing users that we should retain and 2) I do not find Wikimedia accessibility support to be sufficient for diversity and 3) I do not think the Wikimedia Movement is able to have conversations about such things. I am not expecting miracles of accomodation, but I do think it is reasonable to define a floor and cut-off which is funded above the level of zero where it is now. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:42, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Very thoughtful and informative response, thank you Bluerasberry. Considering. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Oppose Oppose. I'm uncomfortable with this "request for comment" which looks too much to me like a tar-and-feathering by mob rule. Though I've met this person at Wiki conferences, I'm not familiar with their online editing, and certainly don't see much evidence presented here to support the suggested 'death penalty'. Right now the community is in the process of electing its first U4C, and think this sort of conduct question would be better handled by that committee, who would hopefully look into this potentially serious concern in a more structured and fair manner. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:50, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Oppose Oppose. It seems clear that Slowking has done a number of things over the years that were problematic, but so what? The affected wikis took action, and those blocks remain in place, as well as deliberations that can be invoked in the future. But even after all this discussion, it remains unclear to me what is the precipitating event, or what is the concern for the future. Why are we having this discussion, now? What has changed since the well-participated "no-consensus" discussion in 2020? Slowking has been active in Wikisource and meatspace, and I don't see anyone saying his behavior in either context warrants a ban, nor that his actions in either space has supported misbehavior on the wikis that have banned him. When we go to the extent of a global ban, it should be something that is very clearly thought-out and very clearly argued. That is not the case here. An RfC of this magnitude demands great resources of the community, and is stressful to the subject of the RfC. This is not how we should go about addressing problems. In addition, I would urge others to read Bluerasberry's comments here, IMO they reflect a very clear-eyed view of these matters. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 00:55, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd like to emphasize that my !vote is based entirely on the lack of a sufficient case being made in the nomination above. If a user has behaved in a way that makes somebody think a ban is needed, it's important that the issue be taken seriously; part of that is taking the time and making the effort before calling on the community to pour extensive resources into the issue, to make a clear, well founded, and dispassionate case. That has simply not happened here (neither before nor during). It's taxing on the community to consider a poorly put-together proposal. I'm sure it's taxing on the user nominated for a ban as well. All of that is a cost that should be considered ahead of time. We need to do this better, and that starts with a solid proposal. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 03:06, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Oppose - Like some others here, I also have experience with Slowking in multiple contexts and appreciate several of the perspectives here. I genuinely like Slowking and find him to be friendly, helpful, knowledgeable, and easy to talk to at IRL events. I'm pretty sure every time we've talked at a wiki event, I've come away having learned something, which is high praise. I've also hung around Commons and observed that he seemed to have built up a lot of resentment/frustration/anger for that place and many of its users and let it show frequently enough that I wasn't surprised by the indef when it happened. I've also been around enwp long enough to see an awful lot of community time spent dealing with a prolific sockpuppeteer (although, as an aside, I suspect if it weren't for the socking, slowking would've had a good case to get unblocked there as even as a sockmaster there are frequently users trying to preserve his work).
    I'm disappointed in some of the oppose and support !voters here whose !votes take the form "in my personal experience, [slowking is great | slowking is terrible] and I don't know about all that other stuff". Take the time to learn about the other stuff. Learn about how the subject of a proposed ban, the most severe sanction we can impose, has affected or would affect other people's participation. Learn how we have networks of GLAM partners, tons of great images, and hordes of newbies and even experienced users that slowking has taught and otherwise helped to bring to the wikiverse; learn why his participation at commons could dissuade some users there from coming to an in-person event he was attending; learn why the same could be true for an enwp admin who has spent countless hours cleaning up after sockpuppetry. We're a movement after all, and people participate in many capacities. That's true for slowking and the people slowking interacts with, positive and negative.
    At the end of the day, I just don't think this is what global bans are meant for. According to global bans, it is to prevent harm to Wikimedia projects when a problem cannot be addressed by the community through less restrictive means. There are multiple communities that have made the decision that slowking is an asset, and it is those communities that would be most affected. Absent strong evidence of egregious bright lines being crossed, absent private evidence that necessitates communities be protected from something they're unaware of, and absent a finding that the involved communities are incompetent to judge for themselves, it's a decision those communities should be left to make. None of that has been demonstrated here. Those of us active in the off-wiki world have never had great guidelines for how to handle users that run into trouble on-wiki and continue to come to events. Certainly no blanket rule would do and there are a wide range of considerations, but neither taking away the judgment of those communities nor putting on blinders to what happens elsewhere is the right way to go, because both fail to appreciate the reality that we are participants in a network of projects and/or global movement where people are active on many projects and in many capacities at once. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:02, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Oppose Oppose. If the Wiki projects are "are entirely self-governing" then deciding whether or not to block a specific user is up to that project's community and not up to another project's community or the 'global community'. MLTRock (talk) 22:28, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There are global rules that all wikis have to follow, such as the wmf:Terms of Use or wmf:Universal Code of Conduct, but also the global ban policy. In that way wiki projects are not „entirely self-governing“. --Johannnes89 (talk) 09:17, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The proposed ban clearly violates the global ban policy, so far as that policy says "A global ban is not a form of punishment . . . A global ban's purpose is to prevent harm to Wikimedia projects". Accordingly, there is no policy basis for allowing the Meta community (whose mere 4,000 active users are certainly not the global community, or even close to being a majority of it) to strongarm the Wikisource community with a local majority of voters at Meta, and on the strength of a mere headcount of voters there (since there is no policy-based argument for the ban, and most of the support voters are giving no reasons at all, or virtually no reasoning, or "I don't like it" reasoning, for their votes). The global ban policy itself says "Wikimedia projects are entirely self-governing", using those words exactly, without any caveats, qualifications or exceptions. James500 (talk) 12:56, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    In case you were not aware, the proposer notified all relevant communities via their Village Pumps or equivalents about this vote, so there is sufficient visibility to whomever is interested. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:51, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I was not commenting on the visibility of Meta, as opposed to Meta's lack of participation. As far as I can see, most people !voting here are people who regularly participate in discussions on Meta. I am here because I now regularly participate in discussions on Meta. Many of the people !voting here have hundreds or thousands of edits on Meta (which is even more than me). I am seeing a lot of editors with "fancy" Meta userpages, and very few with redlinked userpages. In other words, most of the participants seem to be Meta regulars rather than people who came here because they saw a notice elsewhere and are not Meta regulars. Simply notifying the relevant communities does not mean they will actually show up, or even that they will see the notice in time. Discussions in any Wikimedia venue tend to be dominated by the regulars of that venue. A genuinely "global" discussion is unusual. To put it another way, I am not seeing a lot of Wikisource editors !voting for a global ban. If they support it, where are they? James500 (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    But if they aren't motivated enough to come here and use their SUL accounts to participate in a conversation that is technologically identical and has many of the same norms, etc. then how critical must his contributions be to said communities? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:51, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Of the Wikisource admins, I see Billinghurst, SnowyCinema and myself. That's about 1/7th of the En.Wikisource admins. There's not 26 Commons admins here (=185/7), so I think we have a pretty representative sample from Wikisource. Non-admins are harder to count, but I note that Koavf, though he doesn't mention it, has 17,000 edits on En.Wikisource. Most heavy users will at some point come to Meta and set up a userpage that displays on all Wikimedia projects, and users who care to discuss at a place like this are heavy-enough users to know Slowking4 by name. We don't have a jury summons situation, but I think we do have a decent representation of the populace who cares to talk about Slowking4 here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:53, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Oppose Oppose, as per comments of Bluerasberry and Gamaliel above. Slowking4 has been helpful to many people at many events and a global ban would prevent attending them and training others, which would not be a good outcome. I see wisdom in many comments above from different perspectives. Different projects make their own decisions which may be the best we can do. I'm looking for other pathways. -- econterms (talk) 23:49, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Oppose Oppose Khardan (talk) 08:52, 23 March 2024 (UTC).[reply]
  31. Oppose Oppose For the many reasons given above, especially continued positive contributions on projects, with acknowledgement that Slowking4 has engaged in unacceptable socking on some projects. But blocks are already in place on those projects, and that all this seems to have happened years ago. In reading the current proposal for this ban, I see that socks were discovered recently, and socks were blocked recently, but those are admin actions not made by Slowking4. In a ban proposal, I would expect to see recent actions that warrant a global response, yet all of the actions I could find in the provided reports and diffs are from years ago. It is only admin actions to those old socks that have occurred recently. If there are recent actions by Slowking4, they are not identified in the proposal in a way that I could find them. This proposal is merely a rehash of a discussion that already happened. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:16, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Oppose Oppose I oppose most global bans. Blocks are a community's prerogative, and every community has the right to block any user they want. Obviously support for globally banning abuse accounts, cr1eated to spam or introduce disinformation. But this user has been blocked on many projects for community issues, that we elsewhere have nothing to do with. We should be able to decide if we keep a valuable contributor. Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 23:42, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Oppose Oppose - As someone who understands how projects here works, HELL NO, I have known this user for a very long time and i'm actually amazed at how well he has managed to refrain from taking that other route users who feel injustice take. Global Ban should only apply to perverts, pedos, psycopaths, stalkers, spammers, people abusing their powers and rights and ofcourse the most obvious reason, people who are distruptive on multiple projects without actually contributing to it. I know the projects no longer value "Actual" contributors but we don't start globally banning them to prove a point. Unless a user crossed one of those lines i mentioned above. I'll never support a global ban...--Stemoc 23:57, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Oppose. This proposal has as much merit as the previous proposal, although I must say that, at least, this proposal looks better. (2) In the first place, this proposal is inappropriate because neither the first nor the second criterion has been met. Given the failure of the first proposal, Slowking4 is not on notice, and certainly has not been on notice for 10 years, that his actions are not appropriate. Similarly, where his actions addressed in the last proposal (which are substantially the same as the actions addresses in this proposal) were not found to be abusive, it cannot be said that the actions stated constitute cross-wiki abuse; and certainly, Slowking4 could not have known such. (3) Having read the accusation, this proposal is what the formal proposal should have been, with a clear summary of the reasons for Slowking4's having been blocked on several sites. However, as he was not banned after the previous discussion, only something more egregious, occurring since the previous proposal, would suffice to justify a ban. The proposer in this case has not shown any substantial change in circumstances which would justify a different result from the previous proposal. (4) The only change is that Slowking4 has been banned on Italian Wikipedia, at which he had 95 contributions. I cannot state as to the impartiality of the block, but it believes to have been based upon allegations of actions taken on other projects (and not on that project). (5) I can speak, however, as to the impropriety of his blocks on other projects. His block on Wikidata is entirely owing to that project's ban on alternate accounts for any purposes, and such an automatic block is proof of no wrongdoing under generally accepted standards of conduct. So far as my memory avails me of my researches into his blocks on Wikimedia Commons and English Wikipedia from the time of the first proposal, those blocks were earned in response to his having made enemies of administrators at those projects as opposed to any actual wrongdoing. My experience in those places confirms the general propensity for the abuse of the privilege against the general. Given these, his block on Simple English Wikipedia stands, to which I can give no comment. (6) This accounting leaves five blocks, and in turn shows one block potentially genuine (Simple English Wikipedia), one block automatic (Wikidata), one block inconsequential (Italian Wikipedia), and two blocks retaliatory (English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons). This means that third criterion is not properly satisfied. (7) On the equities, also, this block would cause much greater harm than good. The main project to which Slowking4 contributes is English Wikisource, and many administrators and editors at English Wikisource can testify as to his great value to the project and his generally unexceptional and unproblematic behavior. I myself know Slowking4 through his works and his actions, and know him to be upstanding and good in his deeds. If this ill-intentioned policy succeeds, I would expect and would not oppose a "Fastqueen5" editing on English Wikisource, and would do the same were I in such a position. (8) As a general proposition, it is entirely improper to effectuate a ban on English Wikisource by means of many editors who do not know Slowking4 or his contributions to the project. How these people, who contribute to Meta of all places, can think to benefit the project-space by forcing a ban upon a very contributive editor, is beyond my ken. It certainly cannot be for the general benefit of the project-space; this ban proposal, which is entirely duplicative of the previous proposal in its particulars, serves no use but to waste the time of people who actually contribute to Wikisource (such as myself) to defend another proposal to ban one of our most useful editors. (9) The projects from which he has already been banned stand to receive no benefit from a global ban of Slowking4; but yet, editors from those projects seek to force other projects who do not share their administrative philosophies to ban him. Were this proposal brought in the proper forum―on English Wikisource―I would be more understanding of a neutral appraisal of Slowking4's actions on other projects. But the proposal has been brought here―on Meta―a forum designed to canvass for people who continue to hold a grudge against Slowking4―all with the express purpose of overturning the decision of English Wikisource not to ban him, and usurping the proper role of the project's administrators. (10) Now I must look to you, Seawolf35, and see what right you have to bring this ban request. You have never used English Wikisource, and your two edits there were in relation to this discussion. You edit primarily at English Wikipedia, and secondarily at Wikimedia Commons; as you know, Slowking4 is already banned from these places. Lastly, you have edited some at Meta, which is of no concern as to use. (11) Why, then, do you see a necessity of bringing forth claims against Slowking4? It would not change your life a jot, and yet it would disrupt the operations of English Wikisource―about which you apparently do not care―by the loss of a great and productive contributor. Without troubling myself with what would of necessity be unpleasant excursions to those places, I may assume that you have been influenced by the same conspiratorial interests which led to Slowking4's having been banned from those places (or should I say place, limiting the inquiry to English Wikipedia); but I mean this as no imputation against you. (12) I next turn to examine the particulars of your complaint; but again, I am confronted with the lack of new evidence. The same responses in terms of evidential sufficiency which were brought against the former complaint may be brought against your complaint, which I will not belabor with repetition. I may state only that the bad actors involved in the previous instance are less obvious than they had been previously. (13) I conclude by addressing your repetition of a personal attack on English Wikisource. You say that we are but one thing, but that, somehow, English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons can count as many hundreds of things, in determining what "things" (of good or of bad) Slowking4 has done. This is despite the fact the Slowking4 had edited more at English Wikisource than he has at either or both of English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. I need not repeat the projects to which you contribute. (14) I may say that, in making your proposal more cogent that the previous one, you have also made it address less serious allegations, and be a further waste of time. While I do not believe that you deserve a ban, as such as was received by the initiator of the previous proposal, I do hope that you keep to useful edits at English Wikipedia; although I may also state that your behavior in relation to other commenters here has been very rude and uncivil, particularly as you seem unable to respond legitimate criticism of your position. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 17:51, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @TE(æ)A,ea. Hello, sorry for impolite, can you segment your comments? They are wall of text, which means too long to read and usually will be ignored. This wording recorded me of PlanespotterA320 (talk · contribs) Lemonaka (talk) 04:48, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    TEA's comment is not actually a "wall of text" because it does not consist of noise, hand-waving, irrelevance, repetition or the like. It has been said that "consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of . . . policy". I do not see any policy on Meta that contradicts that view of consensus. The length of those arguments is certainly not relevant and is certainly not a valid grounds for ignoring anything. Any closing admin who fails to read the whole of a discussion should probably be desysoped. James500 (talk) 07:07, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, was there any prospect of that happening or are you just making up stuff? I agree that any admin who does a bad job of being an admin should not be an admin. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:21, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Unless I have misunderstood, Lemonaka said there is a prospect of that happening, in the immediately preceding comment. James500 (talk) 07:33, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    He wrote nothing about a closing sysop ignoring it. He correctly surmised that normal human beings such as me see this and think, "I'm not reading all that", which is exactly what happened. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:47, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Slowking4 socks on Wikipedia. Are you saying that he doesn't know that behavior is not acceptable? I'm not sure how you think someone gets notice that their behavior is inappropriate, if Slowking4 hasn't. He can't have notice his behavior is inappropriate until there's been a successful ban, and he can't be successfully banned until he has notice his behavior is inappropriate is a literal Catch-22. As for getting banned on Commons because he made enemies of the admins, it is first more complex than that, as detailed above, but even if it were that simple; I joined Wikipedia seven years before Slowking4, and Commons three years. I have managed to make enemies of 0 admins in that time. Either a bunch of people just managed to develop an irrational hatred for him, or he made those projects a hostile environment for those admins. I can provide endless links of him making Commons a hostile environment, and contrary to (4), it seems that he went to the Italian Wikipedia, took a project that was supposed to be a fun good-will project, and posted attacks at his fellow Wikimedians (in general terms, as "deletionists", instead of singling out users, but attacks they were).
    As for (3) "as he was not banned after the previous discussion, only something more egregious, occurring since the previous proposal, would suffice to justify a ban" is certainly not true. Most legal systems, either formally or in practice, will crank the punishment up on serial offenders; making enemies on five projects and not getting banned should not mean there is no tipping point where a user has caused too much disruption across Wikimedia projects.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:23, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Prosfilaes: The reason why he isn't on notice is similar to my reasoning behind (3), which you misconstrue. He is not a serial offender because he has not been banned on Meta; the last discussion on Meta did not find his behavior to be so egregious as to justify a ban; if his last behavior wasn't bad enough for a ban, and the behavior alleged here is (as I claim) the same as his previous behavior, then, logically, he doesn't deserve a ban now (and, similarly, if the behavior then wasn't bad enough for a ban, the same behavior now shouldn't be either, and doesn't put him on notice). I'm not saying that there needs to be a successful ban for there to be notice, I am saying that the fact that his previous ban request, which alleged substantially the same offences as previously, failed, puts him on notice that his behavior is acceptable, or at least does not put in him on notice that it is not acceptable. My allegation as to (4) goes to materiality; he was banned because he was banned elsewhere, not because his behavior justified a ban. As to the "hostile environment" nonsense, I can only say that you must be extremely unobjectionable, or acquiescent; from my experience, the slightest opposition on either English Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons is met with great reproach. From his attitude on English Wikisource, I can imagine that he similarly questions the questionable actions of administrators elsewhere; and the results of that is getting banned. As I stated above, I don't think that the community of people who dislike Slowking4, especially where those people (including the person who began this discussion) edit only at places where he is already banned, have any right to speak as to a ban on another project―which is what this discussion is, a proposal to ban him from English Wikisource. Looking over your support !vote for argument, and finding none, I will not respond to it. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 21:40, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • As I said, a cop giving you a warning for speeding does not mean that your behavior, if continued, won't get speeding tickets or your license revoked. Your logic fails. Had I known that him not getting banned the last time was notice that his behavior was okay, I would not have been neutral last time.
    • I recall you almost getting blocked on the English Wikisource because consensus went against you and you couldn't let it go. Let me put you notice that that doesn't mean you would indefinitely get to behave that way on the English Wikisource, that if you choose to be disruptive on a regular basis, you won't be permitted the same lenience, that a pattern of behavior is not the same as one occurrence. This isn't a threat, this is notice, because apparently the fact that you didn't get blocked implies to you that your behavior was appropriate, and as an admin, I need to fix that misapprehension. I worked with Slowking4 on Commons and it was exhausting because it felt like every time he came to the discussion, it was to shit on everyone and everything. When I gave in to my temptation to snarl back, I was told it wasn't productive and asked to back off, and did so. You blame the mean, mean admins, but this user who was not an admin on Commons was tired of dealing with his shit, and suspects that any community governance, be it admins or mob justice, would have dealt with him on Commons. There's no "slightest opposition = great reproach"; there's whining about shit over and over produces a proportional pushback.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:10, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Prosfilaes: But "a cop giving you a warning for speeding" means that the cop has determined that you are in the wrong, just that you're not in trouble (yet); that is not what happened here. Just as saying "Your logic fails" doesn't mean you win the argument, saying "This isn't a threat" doesn't make it not a threat. I've been threatened before, on English Wikisource and on English Wikipedia, (I cannot recall as to Wikimedia Commons,) and your actions (as an administrator, no less) definitely imply that you would ban me, given the chance. You may call it a "promise," a "warning," a "notice"; but it is (if not, perhaps, in addition to those things) a threat. That you are an administrator and know other administrators tells me all I need to know; certainly, you are not one to utter any opposition to your clique. You can understand easily, with some introspection, the actions of which I complain, and to which Slowking4 has been subjected, as you are, if not engaged in such actions, certainly in support of them. Along the same lines, you seek to impugn my comment on this discussion by vaguely hinting at some past wrong I am alleged to have committed; I may say only that if you wish to ban me on Meta, you're in the wrong discussion. As to my "great reproach" comment, you have helped me in providing an example in your most recent response, so that I do not need to search at length through records dispersed on other projects. You respond to my arguments, not with arguments, but with half a paragraph of aspersions unrelated to Slowking4; this in response to our argument; truly, "great reproach" (from an administrator on the main project to which I contribute, no less) for the "slightest opposition" to your position. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 00:40, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • There was no option for the members of the previous discussion an option to give a warning. You're trying to game the system; he couldn't have been on notice because the previous discussion didn't give him a warning, and by "didn't give him a warning" you mean the closing admin merely said there was not consensus for banning. 19 people said he should be banned and many people who disagreed said that his behavior off En.WS was unacceptable. That's notice.
      • "That you are an administrator and know other administrators tells me all I need to know; certainly, you are not one to utter any opposition to your clique." It turns out that when you say things like that about a group of people, they tend not to like you. If you think Slowking4 was banned because admins hated him for no reason, it's because you don't recognize behaviors that antagonize people.
      • I don't want to ban you. I want you to recognize your behavior was inappropriate and self-moderate. When you start claiming that a user who is banned on so many projects had no notice, I felt it necessary to give you notice.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:16, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • Prosfilaes: You keep saying that you do not want to ban me, while at the same time accusing me of bannable offenses and even putting me "on notice" (which, in your wording, is justification for a ban). Consensus is the driving force behind these projects, especially for those without administrator powers. It does not matter that some people thought Slowking4's behavior unacceptable; there was no consensus that it was, and thus no notice. Similarly, some user, namely you, who seeks to "give [me] notice" for behavior neither actually identified or associated with an offense, does not notice make. I do not say that there must be a consensus discussion on any such issue, but that there was, and there was no consensus, is what matters. As to your second paragraph, I may only state that I appreciate the diversity of your examples. Your third paragraph indicates contradictorily; you give me notice for having violated (in no specific instance) rules of propriety (whichever one you would like to ban for me, I would presume) and want me to "self-moderate" my "inappropriate" "behavior" (to whatever standards you my imagine), or ... what? Logically, if an administrator tells you that he personally dislikes your behavior (in this case, telling me that I have been "give[n] ... notice" for "inappropriate" "behavior," what else would be the next step but a ban? Referring back to my previous point, you have repeated your earlier notice of a ban in the course of our continued discussion, in which I do not cede to your point; what else is this but "'great reproach' ... for the 'slightest opposition' to your position"? TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • You're right; I was not specific enough about what you did, and this is not the place. If you're saying that any objection to behavior from an admin is an attempt to ban, which is "great reproach", and the actions there are are "slightest opposition" (I don't generally consider saying that all admins are a cabal "slightest opposition"), then I think you've stacked the deck pretty heavily in your favor, giving you free reign to complain while making those disagree with you presumptively unreasonable.
        • The previous discussion was not a discussion about whether Slowking's behavior was unacceptable, it was a discussion on whether to block him for it. A solid majority said that his behavior was unacceptable, from my count, including many of the opposes. Tbiw even wrote "Give him last show and after that proceed to the next step" in his opposition to the ban, which I read as giving Slowking4 one last chance. You want a bureaucracy, you can have formally written notice, just like any HR department. But you simply can't have a minimal bureaucracy and "you have no right to do anything until there's an explicit final warning in their file".--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • Also, after I disagreed with Slowking4 on Wikisource about whether we could host a document, and consensus went my way, he opposed renewing my status as an admin (to which I didn't bother responding.) In response to a disagreement on a technical matter, he asked for formal removal of certain rights on Wikisource. You could call that "slightest opposition gets great reproach", but not from the admins.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:54, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          • Prosfilaes: You talk about "stack[ing] the deck pretty heavily in [my] favor," but then conveniently re-interpret everything you have said in the light most favorable to yourself, which (presumably) makes me unreasonable. Of course, I read what you say, I see what you have written, and makes reasonable implications therefrom; these I have stated. That you would make different assumptions, is understandable, especially as you made the utterances; but I do not know how you think, and so must interpret only what I can see. As to bureaucracy, I do not particularly like it, and that is why I oppose this process generally; if a project is made by the members who form its community, why is Slowking4 up for a ban on Meta, which is filled with people who do not contribute? You talk about a "solid majority" saying something-or-other, but the result was "no consensus" for anything: including "no consensus" for that being a last-warning !ban. As for your last point, I generally agree with Slowking4's position; although I take no position on the merits of that case, that is the most reasonable route against an administrator. If you do not want to be criticized for your actions, you can step down at any time from the position. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 18:09, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          • The result was not "no consensus" for anything; the result was "no consensus" on the specific proposals. And consensus can change.
          • Do you want us to have this discussion on the English Wikipedia? Besides the insult to all the people working behind the scene to keep things working at Meta, this is about more than the English Wikisource.
          • Again, you believe if you have disagreement with an admin, you should try and get them deadmined. You seem to start with hostility to admins and then act like it's outrageous that they don't respond with love. If an admin argues something as a user, and consensus agrees with them, then that has nothing to do with their status as an admin. Inappropriate responses to disagreements is part and parcel of the problem with Slowking4.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:00, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
            • Prosfilaes: The result was "no consensus" on anything; there were no other words in the closing statement. In addition, that ban request had multiple separate proposals, and there was "no consensus" on anything. What do you mean by "Do you want us to have this discussion on the English Wikipedia?" In fact, what do you mean by anything in your second paragraph? Your last statement is the easiest understood, and the easiest dismissed: most of the people commenting on this proposal here do not use English Wikisource, and thus will not be effected by this ban. Slowking4 edits primarily at the English Wikisource, (in fact, since he has been banned elsewhere, he now almost exclusively edits there,) so this is really a ban targeted at one community. It is, in fact, in direct contravention of the decision of the community not to ban him. As for your last paragraph, what do you mean by "deadmined"? To your comments, I am not hostile towards administrators, as a class, but only so engender where I have been attacked by administrators before, which, despite your protestations to the contrary, is fairly frequent. It is, in fact, the reverse of your statement: the administrators "start with hostility to" normal editors, "and then act like it's outrageous that they don't respond with love." The problem, of course, is, that when administrators don't like something, they can ban their opposition. TE(æ)A,ea. (talk) 22:14, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    My goodness, you are going to make me defend English Wikipedia. I am a vehement critic of its governance processes, but "the slightest opposition on either English Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons is met with great reproach?"
    Er? No?
    I have told an Arbitrator on his talk page that a decision reached by the Committee in my opinion violated the principle of legality, ie that no law should be retroactive. That Arbitrator is the enforcing administrator for a sanction against me (which I believe to be unjust, but that's another matter, and btw it was placed by someone else). Although I was a party in the case I referred to (Grabowski) I was not sanctioned in it, so that wasn't sour grapes. With that background out of the way, here is my point:
    Look at the power differential there. If en.wikipedia were truly the blasted hellscape you seem to think it is, there was nothing stopping that man from calling what I said uncivil or even a personal attack, and instabanning me.
    So, much as it astonishes me, since I said just this morning that ANI/AE are mostly arbitrary processes, I am afraid I have to refute your claim with extreme prejudice.
    I edit the most contentious of topics, and believe that there are bad admins, and many disincentives for lazy admins to act against bad users, but it is certainly not the case that we dare not speak a word in protest. Elinruby (talk) 08:55, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Oppose Oppose with regret. As mentioned, this user is extremely good at ensource. I also accept that the user seems to have no respect for any other project. However, global blocking would not do anything to alleviate such issues, especially since the user is a prolific socker.
    If possible, I propose to add a warning at his global user page. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:38, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    James500's reply below took the words out of my mouth. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:28, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I would also Support Support a templock, if such is possible. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:14, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Aaron Liu:, to be clear, I don't read this as "lock this account and never let him come back", but it could be "lock this indefinitely and allow him to request an unlock on his talk page after six months". That's a perfectly plausible closing strategy for the admin who calls it (and it does seem like the consensus is roughly 2:1 in favor of locking, so I think that's a reasonable balance of the majority's wishes and respecting the others who think it's not necessary). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:16, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Oppose Oppose nothing has changed since the last ban request. most wikis don't need protection from Slowking4. no need for a global ban. ban local if it's necessary. --Knoerz (talk) 08:17, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Leaning oppose. I am perhaps somewhat less favorable to this position than some of my Wikisource compatriots, out of sympathy for other projects, but there are usually measures short of a global ban that can be taken to correct even cross-wiki misbehavior. Any Wiki that has a problem can block the editor, and if something with more teeth is required, a temporary ban of perhaps a few weeks should be tried first, before moving to an indefinite project-wide ban. BD2412 T 00:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Slowking4 has been sockpuppeting on en.wikipedia since 2011 and indef-blocked there since 2013, since then accumulating over 250 confirmed socks, two blocked just within the last week. With such a long record, why do you have any hope for any sort of behavioral correction from a "temporary ban of perhaps a few weeks"? David Eppstein (talk) 07:29, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Why do you think a global ban would help en.wiki counter Slowking4's sockpuppery? A global ban would prevent Slowking4 from disrupting other projects, but there is no reason to believe that they intend to do so, given that nothing new has happened since the first RFC. I don't see how a global ban would help projects where Slowking4 is already blocked to defend themselves against them. This is a genuine question, not a polemical one: I'm willing to strike my !vote if there's a good reason (other than expressing disapproval) to ban this user. Gitz6666 (talk) 07:57, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  38. Oppose Oppose No need for a global ban, while the user shows activity on different Wikis it is not a "global" problem that needs a global block. Each Wiki should be able to deal with any problem with this user accordingly if the necessity arises. ~ℳɑrio (talk) 06:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  39. Oppose Oppose Per Pppery, SnowyCinema and others. There's no point in banning a user who's contributing constructively to a project and not harming others. Besides, nothing significant has happened since the last RFC. Yes, they've been blocked on it.wiki but I've reviewed that block and am convinced that concerns about Slowking4's past record were a determining factor. See their user talk page on it.wiki (especially comments by L736E) and see the blocking admin Argeste's comment here above at 13:09, 22 March 2024 and what follows. As to it.wiki's block, I agree with Ignacio Rodríguez's This is beyond gossip. I strongly oppose this global ban even more after seeing the level of accusations made at this guy who happens to have a peculiar sense of humor. --Gitz6666 (talk) 10:38, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

[edit]
  • Neutral Neutral As Pppery mentions, this global ban would mainly cause issues for Wikisource. But in my opinion, it is also unacceptable for someone to sockpuppet to this scale – so many accounts on so many wikis – and they are going to keep going because they know they can still get by contributing on another project just fine. While Wikisource may be working well with Slowking4's help, cleanup is having to be done on many other projects thanks to the sockpuppetry, and by leaving these RfCs with no sanctions, we're doing nothing but encouraging this behaviour. --Ferien (talk) 20:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Does it matter? How does a global ban affects his ability to sockpuppet on a wiki he's already indefinitely blocked on? I'm more worried about the Italian Wikipedia block, since that would be prevented by a global ban.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:45, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      If even a global ban wouldn't stop sockpuppetry on other wikis, that's not someone I would like to see as a member in good standing of any Wikimedia community. --Ferien (talk) 21:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • I spent *months* cleaning up this user's translations. And that is just me, and as far as I can tell a non-trivial number are still listed at en:WP:PNT. I was originally, in the whole CTX discussion, quite sympathetic to the notion that this sort of mass-translation was bringing in information that had been beyond the ken of English Wikipedia, which has enabled some quite parochial views in the past, and maybe still does. Nonetheless. I have been up close and personal with some of their translations, and they were not to be trusted. It is nightmarish to contemplate the idea that the user is still active on other wikis. I hope they are not doing translations for Wikisource, because if so, they should all be carefully checked. Note that I primarily deal with French to English, which is a leap that machine translation handles rather well. This is less true of Spanish to English and still less true of Portuguese to English and becomes a laughable proposition when it comes to Arabic or Chinese. I have invested the time to clean up one or two translations from Ukrainian that I felt were important, not by this editor, but mentioned here to illustrate the general point of the dangers of this kind of article creation. This required careful checking and enormous amounts of research in many places to find out what we were even talking about, and the sourcing had to be done ab initio. I will almost certainly support a global ban, but would like an explanation of the point someone made about it causing problems for the Italian wiki. Also, someone please reassure me that whatever they are currently doing at Wikisource does not involve translation? Finally I don't think that "they will just sock anyway" is a convincing argument. Let's not even bother to *try* to validate the information we are hosting? What? Elinruby (talk) 03:45, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Slowking4's edits on Wikisource are mostly proofreading English texts and do not involve translation. * Pppery * it has begun 04:10, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      thank you for that information. What is the issue with the Italian wiki, do you know? Some translation problems still listed, years later:
      Ymblanter may wish to comment as they seem to have been involved in nuking some articles I gave up on rescuing. (I am now a recovering inclusionist, btw.) That said, I have never interacted directly with this user
      and cannot comment as to editing style or attitude. I am nonetheless horrified to discover that they are still active on other wikis and strongly suggest an editing restriction from translation. Elinruby (talk) 05:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • Also: [6] Elinruby (talk) 06:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        Are we supposed to believe that Slowking4 is fluent in German, Catalan, French, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch? David Eppstein (talk) 18:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        believe me he's not Elinruby (talk) 01:19, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • At the risk of a "de-rail"-- I don't see how banning this user will solve the problem of machine translations. Took a look at the translated articles page. I found them a rather interesting selection, and much higher quality than the Cherokee machine translations, which were useless (and also antagonized actual Cherokees.) Thank you for your work, Elinruby! As a former working translator, my solution would be creating a "Machine translations submitted" section at AfC, and when the AfC draft comes up for deletion, moving links to the original articles to a "Translation and copyediting requested" page, so that interested editors could copyedit and prune as necessary. Culturefan4 (talk)

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it is a derail. But in ten words or less, that won't work because the project is, as far as I know, quite dead. Slowking4 and about six other editors drowned it. Machine translation isn't per se the issue though. The issue is the accounts using it at scale without checking the results or the accuracy of the original. Elinruby (talk) 01:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • I am striking my original neutral as I am moving to support. --Ferien (talk) 23:20, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know much about the situation so I don't feel qualified to vote. But maybe if Slowking4 could simple keep working on Wikisource with the understanding that all the sockpuppetry and other abuse is to stop, that would be a good solution to this issue. Resili (talk) 19:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral so far: I also don't feel qualified to vote; the nomination is not very specific about what current issue this intervention aims to address. I get the impression that many well-established users see a problem that needs addressing, and Koavf does a pretty good job indicating what it is, but I still feel a bit underinformed. However, Slowking4's response does nothing to acknowledge or to refute the allegations. Either would be somewhat helpful: "I did sockpuppet, I felt justified at the time but now recognize that this behavior is inappropriate regardless" would be something, and "I did not sockpuppet, these allegations are fraudulent" would be something. But a bunch of heat without saying either of those things makes me very unsure of the user's intentions. I should note that Slowking has attended events that I've organized, I've enjoyed meeting with him in person a number of times and collaborating on various projects on wiki; but I don't think any of that gives me enough insight to factor into a decision like this. The kind of behavior alleged could easily outweigh any sense of personal connection. But it does seem unsatisfying that nobody on either side of this seems able to sum up the issues in a way that feels anything like comprehensive. -Pete Forsyth (talk) i19:55, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    He also did not respond at the last one. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:57, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Peteforsyth: In case you did not see, Slowking4 has written a statement above. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Koavf: Yes, that's what I was referring to above. Slowking's statement here adds a good deal of heat without shedding any light. If he'd just stayed quiet I'd probably be !voting "oppose". He hurt his own case with what he had to say, IMO. This whole thing feels like a giant waste of volunteer resources. I imagine a clear statement from either side might make the difference for me, I could go either way, and some indication that somebody is framing things in terms of the Wikimedia vision is really all that seems absent. Both Slowking and his detractors seem to be driven by personal motivations in a project where that should always be a secondary priority. Sigh. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 21:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, I'm not so smart. Sorry. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:03, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Does it help if I say that for me it's about the giant time suck of his poor-quality contributions? The editor posted to my meta page that banning him won't improve the translation process. No, but it will prevent further such abuse of it, and the creation of other such unverified stublets from English. I don't see how that's personal animus. It really doesn't matter if he is a fun guy at meetups. Meetups are not the purpose of Wikipedia. Elinruby (talk) 17:52, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Elinruby In a word: no. You create a straw man when you suggest anybody argued that he is a fun guy at meetups. You are (not for the first time) complaining that he is responsible for time that you chose to spend doing something. While you might have found a compelling point with either of those things, what you chose to do instead was distort your representation. So I'm unpersuaded. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 20:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    good thing I don't really require you to be convinced. But I am not actually *complaining* about that. I am pointing out the scope of work that was/is required. Which nobody is at the moment doing afaik. And that's not the problem, it's just a symptom of the problem, which is the quality control. He didn't cause the systemic problem but he did create a whole bunch of stuff that further exacerbated it. PoV reasons as far as I can tell? Who knows. Are they doing stuff like this now? What's with the sockpuppets last week? Who knows? Just saying, hey the dumpster's on fire. And point of order, Justin definitely said above that he knew him from meetups, and perhaps someone else above as well. Elinruby (talk) 09:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Followup to Peteforsyth fwiw the other person talking about meetups was OhanaUnited, in addition Justin (Koavf), so really, you should strike the straw man remark. Fwiw however I also found Bluerasberry's comment compelling. I speaks on some level to why I am still sitting out here as neutral. Elinruby (talk) 22:23, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    To be clear, I do not know this person from meetups. If something in my comments implied that, pardon me. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    i re-read, looks like my mistake, sorry. Elinruby (talk) 21:10, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although the criteria are met, they are criteria to determine whether a ban should be considered, and do not necessarily mean there should be a ban. I had come here to oppose based on that, the contributions where Slowking4 is not banned, and the first paragraph of the Global bans page. After reading the statement by Slowking4 here, I'm not sure. Peter James (talk) 14:57, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    just musing that based on their statement they don't feel that have done anything wrong so behaviour seen by others as problematic seem likely to continue. Elinruby (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I merely answered your question, I have not illusions that my opinion will carry any special weight.
    Re: events, I also discussed working with Slowking in person. But none of us said (in this discussion) that he is fun, and none of us said that being fun was a reason to avoid a ban. Nobody has made that argument here. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:15, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    i am tempted to followup and ask if he is *not* fun, but I guess I see your point. I am getting an impression of personal connections from some of the opposes, was I what I was trying to say there. I can see how it might seem dismissive when it's at least in Justin's case apparently mentioned as making the decision difficult. Elinruby (talk) 00:13, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    And I'd be tempted to answer, but I'll stick closer to what we seem to agree is relevant :) Thanks for acknowledging the point. Sorry I didn't express my comment wasn't more clearly the first time. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 00:23, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Slowking4: A sincere question, if you feel like answering it: What is the point of all this? I have gotten the impression that you think there's under-representation. If so I somewhat agree with that. But I do not see how this is resolved by mass-producing boring articles, unless it's an attempt to flood the zone. I only ever saw a fraction of it, so maybe there's some theme here that I am missing? Elinruby (talk) 06:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See, here is the thing. A somewhat sympathetic editor lobs him the mother of all softballs and he doesn't bother to answer. This is academic in his mind maybe? There's a lot of energy here if he could be persuaded to row in the same direction as everyone else. If not though, he's just a time sink. And he's *training* more time sinks. if he doesn't answer this I will reluctantly support a ban. Elinruby (talk) 01:18, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is pretty standard of interactions with him. He is RightTM, and doesn't have time to engage civilly or productively with those who are Wrong. Why else would someone maintain a sock farm for years doing the same stuff, across multiple projects? Does that sound like acceptable and desired behaviour?
And what a stunning indictment of our community that we look at this and say "well at least he isn't actively disruptive on one project, this sounds like someone we want training our new editors". Absolutely bonkers. – Ajraddatz (talk) 13:52, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note that I've refactored part of my comment above, perhaps out of overthinking. The intent was to argue that repeating socking over years is not good behaviour and should be condemned in response to some opposers seeming to be ok with it. As originally worded, I think it was a bit too moralistic or perhaps had other unintentional implications. After a few years of less wiki activity, I notice more and more how much we put up with behaviour that would really not be tolerated in real life and would probably seem absolutely bizarre to a non-wiki-bubble person. – Ajraddatz (talk) 20:06, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think it is possible to draw any inferences from his silence at this time. This kind of RfC does not have the procedural safeguards that would be necessary to ensure a fair hearing. We do not have an impartial jury, a qualified competent judge, rights of audience, rules of admissibility of evidence, rules of cross examination, natural justice, powers of discovery, compellability of witnesses, standards of professional conduct of advocates, or etc etc etc. The fact that we are now discussing what we imagine his silence might mean . . . says everything about how fair a hearing this is likely to be. In his position, I would be reluctant to say anything for fear of having my words twisted. If someone were to do that here, there is no judge to tell that person to shut up and to tell the jury to disregard his comments. James500 (talk) 22:36, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"This kind of RfC does not have the procedural safeguards that would be necessary to ensure a fair hearing" You think, e.g., that it needs to be structured like a criminal court case to be fair? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
He has also vandalized Uncyclopedia too. 38.43.22.44 22:53, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Has he also vandalized Fandom and Miraheze wikis too? Ahri.boy (talk) 23:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@38.43.22.44 who cares about this anymore? If you see him vandalizing Uncyclopedia then show me the evidence. ☀DefenderTienMinh⛤☯☽ (talk) 08:12, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further Discussion

[edit]
Comment Comment—What exactly did Slowking4 do that warrants their behavior to be harassment? I see the word "harassment" casually thrown around by a few people but no actual evidence (at least in this discussion or the previous) of harassment. I have seen a good amount of personal insults from SK4 towards editors, a clear disrespect for the status quo of certain communities (including with his socking), and modifying signatures to reflect dislike for certain people, but I would call all of this (at worst) childish trolling and a severe annoyance on the part of administration. I've certainly never seen SK4 engage in behavior indicative of the very kinds of people who tend to engage in horrendous and brutal harassment campaigns online. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I am saying because it's a very strong claim, provide clear, obvious, and unambiguous evidence of harassment, because this unfortunately seems to be a big point used against SK4 in the discussion, yet the actual harassment is barely elaborated on. SnowyCinema (talk) 01:46, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for asking this SnowyCinema. Yes, this is where I find myself the most tripped up as well. It's clear that Slowking has done plenty of stuff that he shouldn't, and that's worthy of some kind of consequences. But "harassment" is a pretty high level, and in my mind is the kind of thing that would warrant one of the more extreme interventions, as proposed here; but I don't see evidence of it, either. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 13:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Peteforsyth I find his behavior on commons to be an example of harassment. Repeatedly stalling community process, non-stop insulting of community members, the signature modifying to reflect dislike for certain editors is certainly what I would call harassment of people in my view. Seawolf35 (talk) 13:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Peteforsyth asked for "evidence", but I do not see evidence. I see three new accusations, without evidence. Can you explain these things, with evidence? Janni Rye (talk) 16:26, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"signature modifying to reflect dislike for certain editors"?. His final signature on Commons before being blocked was <font face="Vijaya">[[User:Slowking4| Slowking4]] § [[User_talk:Slowking4|Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge]] </font>. I would say that expresses that he liked Sander.v.Ginkel and thinks he shouldn't have been banned, not dislike for anyone. There are plenty of people who I think were wrongly banned, and I am allowed to express that opinion if I want to. His current signature on Wikisource is [[User:Slowking4|Slowking4]] ‽ <span style="font-family:UnifrakturMaguntia">[[User_talk:Slowking4|''digitaleffie's ghost'']]</span>, which cannot be interpreted as expressing dislike for anyone at all since digitaleffie died without being involved in any controversy I can see. * Pppery * it has begun 16:37, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Digitaleffie was mentioned here as "Wikimedian at the Smithsonian Institution": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-01-01/News_and_notes
This is Sander.v.Ginkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive941#User:Fram
It's sad that a newbie had to go through that, especially since so many people offered to help. Janni Rye (talk) 18:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Janni Rye Take this as an example of willingly disrupting community process. They blatantly mislead a new user with copyright matters then refuse to acknowledge it. I would call that an insult to the whole Commons community, as well as disrupting community process. Seawolf35 (talk) 18:20, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So this guy upload something to Commons and then found out it was bad for his new business and wanted it deleted. So he asked nicely, and they told him, it is more than 1 week, and rules are rules, so too bad for you. It looks like the very, very, very important "community process" that was "willingly disrupted" was telling this poor newbie to shut up and go away. And you think it was "an insult to the whole Commons community" that Commons was not able to wreak this guy's business. Janni Rye (talk) 18:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Janni Rye, did you actually read the thread I linked? I was talking about the fact that they gave blatantly wrong legal advice to that user. Telling them to lie to OTRS about image permission and revoke an irrevocable CC license. Their intent was to cause confusion, that is disruption. Seawolf35 (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Did you give the wrong link? I do not see any "legal advice". I do not see anything that is "wrong", or a "lie" or "revoking". How did you determine "intent"? Do you read minds? Please explain why you do not think you can change permissions. If something is incorrect there, please explain why, other than by assume bad faith.
"did you actually read the thread I linked?" sound very rude. Janni Rye (talk) 20:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Slowking4 Do you have any comment about this? To me it reads like something I'd never expect or want to see a longtime user doing, but it's been 5+ years, maybe you have a fresh perspective on it? I'm pretty sympathetic to your goals, but your approach seemed unfair to the uploader, and like it caused drama where there need be none. I can certainly see why people trying to work alongside you would get frustrated and try to intervene. Any thoughts? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 20:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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As far as I can tell 1.2 is perfectly legal (why would any license be illegal?) and was in use on Commons at the time. It was mostly used as a de facto non-free license.

I do believe you can change a license as long as it is going from more restrictive to less restrictive and not the other way around. Whether a 1.2 license is more or less restrictive than the license already in use is anyone's guess, since the files do not seem to be available any more. Janni Rye (talk) 00:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's no license ever allowed on Commons that was more restrictive than GFDL 1.2, and Jcb says "It's not allowed to change a CC license into GFDL 1.2." There's no question here about whether or not the suggestion was to change to a more restrictive license.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:07, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It bothers me that we have this guy training people. Elinruby (talk) 21:17, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While you may have complete confidence in this anonymous person's ability to make accurate pronouncements about legal matters, with total memory recall of what was in effect five years ago, and without introducing any POV or leaving out any important detail, the idea of "an anonymous person says another anonymous person says, trust me on this" is not the most ideal way to cite policy. For starters there is this https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing and this https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3-faq.html But are we talking here about a hypothetical situation that changes a license or one that adds a license, resulting in a dual license?
But I don't think it matters, and this is why.
My anonymous friend Randy from Boise says anyone can edit a file description page, and that it probably won't be noticed. Not unless you put it in plain sight on a talk page where a lot of people can see it, which is exactly what Slowking did. If Slowking really intended the newbie to make those edits, he would have done it quietly, by email, or at least on the newbie's talk page. So his message was for the people who were refusing to help the newbie. Judging by the way the other people over-reacted, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it would have worked. In addition, the newbie got an idea of where to escalate his concerns to the next level if his concerns continued to be dismissed. So at that point there were two options, they could delete the files or they could take a chance on the issue being escalated and then probably have to delete the files anyhow, and with a lot more effort on their part. It did work, and without making the newbie jump through a lot of hoops.
The last piece of this is the dog-whistle embedded in the instructions, of using the format that certain photographers were using to use Commons and Wikipedia's favorable google rankings to advertise their businesses and drive business to their own personal websites by offering on their user pages to change the de facto non-free license to a more favorable license for a price. For insiders, they were willing to change the rules to help each other make money off of Wikipedia, but for newbies, "rules are rules", even if it meant bankrupting the newbie's business. Slowking didn't call them corrupt or hypocritical, but it looks to me like he understood the two-tier system of justice and wanted a more human and responsive result for the newbie.
It's too bad there is no ombud to help new users navigate the system. It means users like Slowking end up acting as advocates, and drawing fire from jobsworths and people who do not understand public relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobsworth What is the alternative? When people have a negative experience with Wikipedia, they will talk. They will talk to the neighbors, they will talk to the press. Eventually, Wikipedia will get the reputation for being the kind of organization that should be avoided, and any good will for Wikipedia that has been built up by outreach advocates like Slowking will be evaporated. Janni Rye (talk) 23:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So basically dismiss anyone else as "anonymous"? I am not anonymous; even if connecting my pseudonym to my real name wasn't trivial, I have 15,000 edits on Commons, 7000 on en.Wikisource (where I'm an admin), and 14,000 on a few other Wikimedia projects. You can know who I am by my actions on Wikimedia projects. Likewise, Jcb isn't anonymous; he has a quarter million edits on Commons and is a member of the VRTS team, meaning his physical identity is on file with the WMF.
And wow, this is an interesting perspective on things from someone who has 59 edits on Commons, all in File space on their own uploads. Almost like you're someone's sockpuppet.
For those who aren't socks; one of the complaints about Slowking in several is that he engages in broad hostility to the entire project, that he drives away newbies and experienced users by including in every discussion a comment about how Commons sucks and the people working on it sucks. He didn't give people good experiences with Commons, and it looks like he was banned from it.WP for the same thing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:25, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it isn't something I wouldn't normally brush off -- I edit contentious topics on en.wiki -- but the post to my meta talk page after I commented here came across as off-topic hostility, especially since he didn't answer when I replied. This was my one and only direct contact with the editor. Elinruby (talk) 00:13, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to alert the participants in this discussion

ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next day on the front page of their local paper ... with the reporting done by an informed and critical reporter. Especially since this case has already been in the press. I should like to thank the supporters for their assistance in my recognition by the press.

— Slowking4
This one reminded me the case of PlanespotterA320, THEY are trying to dox and harass users after being banned! As a victim of such behaviour, I'd like to inform that everyone who vote for a ban, please get notice and protect yourself from further retaliation. Lemonaka (talk) 11:50, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's been a while since the global ban proposal. When can we expect any outcome? Mondo (talk) 16:01, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
From Global bans § Obtaining consensus for a global ban: Discussion should be open for at least two weeks, but no more than one month. Given how contentious this RfC has been, I doubt it'll be closed before April 14th. — Callitropsis🌲[formerly SamX · talk · contribs] 16:09, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quick reply! 🙂 Mondo (talk) 16:29, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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What do they mean by "dox"? How can Slowking dox anyone? Do you all know each other from somewhere? Maybe Fandom or Wikia? Janni Rye (talk) 15:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CVE on checkuserwiki. Though fixed. Lemonaka (talk) 03:23, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question Question: Would adding a warning at his global user page that links to the writeup on this page be against policy? It still wouldn't prevent socking, but it could possibly give other projects a warning about the user's behavior and give them a giant formal admonishment from meta. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:41, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By what authority could you do that? Slowking4 is not restricted in any way on Meta so you have no more authority to edit his userpage there then you do mine. * Pppery * it has begun 21:32, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Aaron Liu That would do absolutely nothing to stop the socking, block evasion, etc. Seawolf35 (talk) 21:37, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It would serve no purpose but as to be a slap on the wrist, of which Slowking has had plenty. Seawolf35 (talk) 21:38, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This would be a very public slap on the wrist. A global ban wouldn't do anything to stop the socking, block evasion and etc. either. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:40, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A global ban absolutely would. Beyond actually sending a message, which a slap on the wrist would not do, it would permit global action to be taken against Slowking's socks - more eyes looking, more hands available to act. It might also eventually encourage him to move on and find other things to do with his time if we come out and say, with our actions, that years of abuse are not actually acceptable. This has happened with other similarly disruptive users before. We should hold our contributors to a higher standard than only being disruptive on some of our projects. – Ajraddatz (talk) 21:56, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If Slowking4 is globally banned it will not stop him from socking on enWP or any other wiki on which he is already blocked. What it will do is to prevent Slowking4 from editing constructively on Wikisource or any other wiki where he is not already blocked. If Slowking4 is not allowed to edit constructively on Wikisource or any other wiki where he is not already blocked, then he may (and probably will) have nothing better to do with his newly inflicted additional spare time than to sock on enWP. If the community removes all remaining outlets for constructive editing that Slowking4 has, then doing so could (and probably will) increase the amount of time he spends socking on enWP. The most likely outcome of a global ban is that the community will get a lot more of the behaviour it is trying to prevent. A global ban will probably increase the harm to the English Wikipedia, and, if a certain portion of the enWP community were to insist on using superior numbers to force a global ban against the wishes of the smaller wikis, the ban would probably rebound on the enWP community like a badly aimed boomerang. Every minute that Slowking4 spends editing on Wikisource is time that he does not spend socking on enWP. James500 (talk) 06:38, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, no. I've been doing this for a long time - I've seen it time and again that these problematic editors, once shown the door for good, eventually move on to better things. I don't want to call out too many specific people, but just look at the WMF global ban list and see how many of those people are still actively socking (hint: it's a low number). There is absolutely value in giving a strong, clear message that their behaviour isn't welcome. And as I've said before, we should hold our contributors to a higher standard that not actively vandalizing on one project. None of us are irreplaceable, Wikisource will survive. – Ajraddatz (talk) 17:42, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have no confidence in the ability of the enWP community to detect and confront the majority of sockpuppets. If I was to write a list of all the accounts I believe or suspect to be sockpuppets, but which the enWP community seems to be oblivious to, it would be a very lengthy list. James500 (talk) 22:53, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Uncyclopedia for example 38.43.22.44 22:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Removed ☀DefenderTienMinh⛤☯☽ (talk) 08:18, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was trying to workshop a proposal. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:40, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Useless. They can easily sock away. Lemonaka (talk) 02:43, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Someone ought to make it clear the exact nature of the so-called "disruption". Slowking is believed to be creating articles about women--hundreds and maybe thousands of articles. At one point there were 559 articles about women and other underrepresented groups deleted by an administrator in Saudi Arabia, without any review, because they were believed to be created by Slowking. So when the voters above say they are desperate to "stop disruption", they are desperate for Slowking to "STOP WRITING ARTICLES ABOUT WOMEN." This is not new to English Wikipedia. Look at what the media has written about Wikipedia's treatment of Katie Bouman, Clarice Phelps, or Donna Strickland. If this page was a BLP, it would be deleted already. Janni Rye (talk) 22:28, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Janni Rye This RFC is not for arguing content issues. Seawolf35 (talk) 22:42, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've searched your names up and have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Without sources this just sounds like a conspiracy theory, especially in the face of the giant repository above of his behavior. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:48, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Try google.
Donna Strickland: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nobel-prize-winner-physics-2018-donna-strickland-wikipedia-entry-deleted-sexism-equality-a8572006.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/10/08/why-nobel-winner-donna-strickland-didnt-have-wikipedia-page/ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/03/donna-strickland-nobel-physics-prize-wikipedia-denied https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/10/2/17929366/nobel-prize-physics-donna-strickland https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wikipedia-bias-1.6129073 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nobel-prize-winner-professor-donna-strickland-wasn-t-famous-enough-for-wikipedia-jx6pn7v2v
A more in-depth piece. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/female-scientists-pages-keep-disappearing-from-wikipedia-whats-going-on/3010664.article Janni Rye (talk) 23:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a mass deletion discussion. I was once sitting in the same room as someone who was permanently banned as a Slowking sock, which she wasn't, so I am somewhat skeptical of these claims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive315#mass_deletion_of_pages_created_by_a_sockpuppet_of_Slowking4. Janni Rye (talk) 23:15, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Argh, maybe I should stop using Bing. But the pages were also glanced to see if there was anything worth saving, and 500+ bad articles is disruption. Plus, that is only one facet of the behavior Slowking is accused of.
Some of your links also point toward the lack of press coverage for the lack of articles about female scientists. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:51, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They were not "bad" articles except in the sense of being about women (instead of Pokémon or football), and presumed to be written by a Slowking sock. They were not checked for "goodness", but for whether anyone not-Slowking had made any major edits to them afterward. They found a policy for it, I forget which one. Maybe WP:DENY, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Bans_apply_to_all_editing,_good_or_bad .
If you look at the actual edits, instead of what is being said about them, there is usually a very different picture of what is going on. I looked at a couple of them (see above somewhere) and there is usually something going on that conflicts with outreach goals. But there is nowhere to report it, except to the same people who are doing it. Some of his ideas I would have liked to see developed further to see if they could have been implemented (which I believe was the initial conflict on English Wikipedia about "fair use" of images), but there is no group for that either.
It is tempting to see a large number of collected links on a page like this, think that there must be something there, and start "both sidesing". But we would not do that for a BLP. Everything would be removed until it could be verified. Can you imagine someone posting a series of derogatory remarks about a famous person and some of them are obviously wrong, so the decision is we don't have time to look them all up, so let's keep half of them. Janni Rye (talk) 02:25, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have just checked Bing. A search for "Clarice Phelps Wikipedia" only brings up this odd talk page in the first two pages of results. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Clarice_Phelps
With google, the same search brings https://thewire.in/science/what-a-deleted-profile-tells-us-about-wikipedias-diversity-problem "Clarice Phelps made history twice when she helped discover a new element, and was the first African-American woman to do so. She was then wiped off Wikipedia." https://thebrilliant.com/profiles/clarice-phelps/ https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/female-scientists-pages-keep-disappearing-from-wikipedia-whats-going-on/3010664.article https://www.quora.com/Why-the-Wikipedia-page-on-Clarice-Phelps-is-deleted-Clarice-Phelps-likely-was-the-first-Black-woman-to-have-contributed-to-the-discovery-of-a-new-element "Wikipedia just won’t let this Black female scientist’s page stay" https://www.dailydot.com/irl/wikipedia-clarice-phelps/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/17/jess-wade-scientist-wikiepdia-women/ Janni Rye (talk) 02:57, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds like every discussion on globally banning someone, where they claim it's not for the clearly explained reasons that are clearly true, but because someone is against their higher mission. That third parties writing about important subjects have got caught in the crossfire between admins and a sockpuppeter is hardly an argument for the sockpuppeter.
You're arguing in bad faith. We shouldn't trust anonymous people (despite the fact that they are users with long documented histories under those aliases) and should treat this like a BLP, but we should also take seriously the word of a sockpuppet making a claim that some person (real name and alias unmentioned) was falsely accused of being a Slowking4 sockpuppet.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:16, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This looks pretty definitive. [7] Janni Rye (talk) 18:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Rideabeez is not blocked and has never been. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:31, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
[8] Janni Rye (talk) 20:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That literally says that it's only "possible" and inconclusive with two CUs disagreeing over behavior and no action taken. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:29, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Serious, why nearly all global ban discussion then become a battle ground for all the users, instead of discussing the one may be banned? Is there any better way for formatting such discussion? Lemonaka (talk) 02:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Because they want attention. It is a pattern I have seen across all global ban discussions. 38.43.22.44 22:57, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In case people haven't seen it yet, noting that more socking on enwiki has been confirmed just now. — Callitropsis🌲[formerly SamX · talk · contribs] 02:59, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Two of them, yes. But two others are dismissed as respectively “highly unlikely” and “plausible, but not enough to warrant a ban”. I don't approve of his socking, btw, just putting this here as a summary for people that don't want to click the link or don't understand what's written there. Mondo (talk) 10:28, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to close

[edit]

This conversation has been open for a month and has ~100 !votes with a small stream coming in daily. Per Requests for comment/Policy, this must be closed by a steward. Do any other commenters think that this conversation has more-or-less run its course? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:05, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think there's plenty input now. Mondo (talk) 09:19, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Someone has made some anonymous edits to the original RfC. Janni Rye (talk) 18:37, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it wasn’t me and I have no problem with them. They just made confirmation links. Seawolf35 (talk) 18:50, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have "no problem" with someone changing the original RfC, after everyone has commented, but before it is closed?
You have no problem with an apparent sockpuppet changing your post?
You have no problem with stealth edits that are not documented where everyone can see? Janni Rye (talk) 19:09, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I saw the edits, and decided to leave them. It is fine. Drop the stick. Seawolf35 (talk) 19:14, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You are clearly being disruptive. None of their edits change anything substantial and they added potentially useful links that do not change the context at all. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:16, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is consensus to ban by the looks of it, but give the stewards some time to discuss this within themselves before closing this discussion. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 08:14, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have a strange definition of "consensus". Nosferattus (talk) 22:59, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Due to numbers and some opposers not addressing it, I think we have rough consensus for a templock. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
yeah, more socks for opposition help the defendant of this case. That's all what I can say. Lemonaka (talk) 19:45, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You think all of those that oppose are socks??? Mondo (talk) 19:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You deliberately misunderstanding my words, trying to protect the defendant of the case? Who said all of those are puppets? Only one, two or three socks can hijack and lead all the discussion, and yet checkuser request has been declined by stewards though they confirmed it's obvious sockpuppet. Lemonaka (talk) 10:18, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Lemonaka (that Culturefan4 is the sock of someone). --SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 00:01, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not randomly speculate and let the stewards determine consensus. And for the record I Oppose Oppose a templock too, even though I didn't say so above, because the very same arguments I used above continue to apply and it's furthermore inventing a process out of thin air. * Pppery * it has begun 16:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Pppery's opposition of a templock. Mondo (talk) 16:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sockpuppet request

[edit]

Someone has made stealth edits to the original proposal. This was done after most comments had already been made, but before the close. There was no notification of the changes on any page where it could be seen, and no attempt to notify users who had already made comments.

The edits were made with a VPN, from a globally locked IP. [9] I have made a request for a check. [10] If someone knows how to format these requests better, maybe some of the people above who are so outraged by sockpuppets, feel free to add to the request, and get to the bottom of this. I do not understand how someone can edit through a globally locked IP while signed out. Janni Rye (talk) 19:32, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: someone keeps adding the sockpuppet edits back in. [11] Janni Rye (talk) 19:53, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How is this all a violation of policies or a pattern of abuse? And IPs are only globally blocked and not locked, also they are only blocked after someone makes an edit or a log. A09 (talk) 14:11, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What is your problem here? An IP added some fairly neutral informative links that any number of people looked at when added and decided didn't matter. Is there anything wrong with them? As far as I can tell, this is an excuse to complain more than actually bring up a real problem.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Prosfilaes here and Seawolf35 and Aaron Liu in the paragraph above. Please stop, Janni Rye. Mondo (talk) 10:18, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question Question: When this guy says that this-all has been covered in the press, does anybody have any citations? I, for one, would like to see a nice summary (in journalistic style) of what this user has done or is accused of doing (besides socking) so that I can make a more informed !vote. Bwrs (talk) 00:40, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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