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Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

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Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (36 out of 4034 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Left Front (India) 2022-11-19 18:42 indefinite edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry Ohnoitsjamie Ek Thi Rani Ek Tha Raavan 2022-11-19 15:07 indefinite create Recently deleted BLP Anarchyte Manoj Mathura 2022-11-19 06:58 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Liz Manoj Kumar (educator) 2022-11-19 06:57 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Liz Manoj Kisan 2022-11-19 06:54 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Liz Lovitt Records 2022-11-18 19:13 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Justlettersandnumbers Template:R from symbol 2022-11-18 17:59 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2749 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Igor Girkin 2022-11-18 17:51 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement: GS sanctions Ymblanter Snowdon 2022-11-18 17:43 2022-11-25 17:43 move Persistent disruptive editing Less Unless Paige (wrestler) 2022-11-18 14:31 2022-12-18 14:31 edit Arbitration enforcement: WP:ARBINFOBOX2; requested at WP:RfPP DatGuy Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Babikian 2022-11-18 06:36 indefinite edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry Cryptic Template:Db-banned-deleted 2022-11-17 22:43 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated: Sockpuppetry activity Liz Template:Db-banned-notice 2022-11-17 22:42 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated: Sockpuppetry activity Liz Sam Bankman-Fried 2022-11-17 21:56 2022-12-17 21:56 edit,move Persistent violations of the biographies of living persons policy ToBeFree Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 2022-11-17 17:59 indefinite edit Arbitration enforcement: General sanctions Ymblanter Abid Hussain (LIS Scholar) 2022-11-17 15:10 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated; requested at WP:RfPP Kosack Mariupol 2022-11-17 06:24 indefinite edit,move Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War Prolog Turning Red (soundtrack) 2022-11-17 02:23 2023-05-17 02:23 edit,move racist trolling Drmies Ashton United F.C. 2022-11-16 22:50 2022-11-23 22:50 edit,move Persistent vandalism Number 57 Russian occupation of Kharkiv Oblast 2022-11-16 19:59 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree Yuriy Barbashov 2022-11-16 19:58 2023-11-16 19:58 edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree Flags used in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine 2022-11-16 19:57 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree Oleksandr Kobets 2022-11-16 19:55 2023-11-16 19:55 edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree Collaboration with Russia during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022-11-16 19:49 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022-11-16 19:47 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement: WP:ARBEE; WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree Allegations of genocide of Ukrainians in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022-11-16 19:46 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Liberation of Kherson 2022-11-16 19:44 2022-11-30 19:44 edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree Liberation of Kherson 2022-11-16 19:40 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree 2022 Dnipro missile strikes 2022-11-16 19:39 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree 2022 Russian theft of Ukrainian grain 2022-11-16 19:38 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/RUSUKR ToBeFree 2022 Chornobaivka attacks 2022-11-16 19:33 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement: General sanctions Ymblanter 2022 missile explosion in Poland 2022-11-16 13:41 indefinite edit Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War Prolog Pokémon Go 2022-11-16 09:13 indefinite edit,move Persistent vandalism from (auto)confirmed accounts Anarchyte Kharkiv 2022-11-16 07:29 2023-05-16 07:29 edit made it approximately consistent with the previous protection Ymblanter Noa Tishby 2022-11-16 07:13 indefinite edit,move New editors are prohibited from editing this Arab–Israeli conflict related page: as per WP:ARBPIA4#General sanctions upon related content El C 2022 missile strike on Poland 2022-11-15 21:10 indefinite edit Persistent vandalism Prolog

Massive off-wiki campaign aimed at disrupting Wikipedia

I noticed this Turkish-language Reddit link.[1]. It seems a massive off-wiki campaign has been initiated by Turkish-language speakers to create more disruption in the cesspool known as WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS. As the posts/comments were in Turkish, they were translated using Google tranlate:

• "The first spark was ignited in order to correct and organize the unfounded claims we have seen on Wikipedia recently. r/turkviki was established. Let's get organized from there."[2]
• "Friends, this subreddit was founded on the termination of unfounded claims made on Wikipedia. Our aim is to put an end to the unfounded allegations made on Wikipedia, the propaganda activities targeting our country and nation, to express the truth and correct the mistakes."[3]
• "we need a larger audience, salaried employees of wikipedia, and I don't know how effective we can be against the current Turkish hatred"[4]
• "Turkish Wikipedia Community Discord server. Friends, I left the link below if you would like to join the works that started before us."[5]
• "Friends, let's start with the liberation war first and let there be a spark of salvation for us from the lies in Wikipedia."[6]
• "First of all, we must explain why this claim [Armenian genocide] is not true. For example, instead of the 1.5 million people they said, there were actually 1.1 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. There is no article about genocide against Armenians in the Treaty of Mudros Sevres or Lausanne. Until 1948, the United Nations and the League of Nations before it never defined a crime called genocide, and if you eat pizza and eat pizza in the future is a war crime, they cannot hold you guilty for what you did in the past. You can write that the deportation was carried out by the Union and Terraki and that the remaining Unionists completely severed their ties with the party at the Sivas congress, and the Parliament was against what the Committee of Union and Terraki did. In addition, we must reveal the evils committed by Armenians in the public opinion, instead of the crimes they have committed, the terrorist attacks of ASALA in Europe will be the best examples."[7]
• "Ottoman archives of the period are available on this site: Devletarsivleri.gov.tr (<cant post the entire link due to blockquote error>) It is enough for someone to translate it into Turkish for us to understand. then we edit the page on the wiki."[8]
• "The first thing that needs to be changed is the name. Then we will add the villages and towns burned by the Armenians. The number of people killed by Armenians is not specified. We should add them too. Let's diversify the missing parts as comments. Good luck with."[9]
• "A patrol is here! hello, i am zemxer from turkish wikipedia. As I'm on patrol on Turkish Wikipedia, I try to help new users as much as possible. You know, there is an approval system for the contributions made in Turkish Wikipedia, and I am one of the patrol friends who approve these contributions. I can help users and groups who want to contribute to Wikipedia and who want to make these contributions in an impartial framework. good wikis"[10]

So this group of people 1) clearly state their intention to spread Turkish government propaganda at Eng.Wikipedia disproven by the rest of the world 2) They receive support from users at the Turkish Wikipedia. Posting it here at AN as suggested by several administrators. You might be interested in this: @Rosguill: @Buidhe: @Bbb23: @Seraphimblade: @Black Kite: @Deepfriedokra: @Johnuniq: @HistoryofIran: @Dennis Brown: @Drmies: @El C: @Khirurg: @Kansas Bear: @Cplakidas: ‎- LouisAragon (talk) 12:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Noting this is still ongoing, see Vahakn Dadrian and its abuse log. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 15:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

The discord server

When looking at the members of their discord, I noticed a person named "Berk". He has a portrait of Ulugh Beg as his discord profile picture, the very same added by one of our own Wikipedians, BerkBerk68, here [11]. In other words, they must be the same person. BerkBerk seems to have a prominent role there, as he has published the rules of the discord. This is not the first time user:BerkBerk has participated in off-wiki canvassing through Discord, see for example these two posts back in July 2021, where user:BerkBerk tried to recruit an admin to his "14 people" discord, which was apparently focused on editing the Syrian Civil War and 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. [12]-[13]- LouisAragon (talk) 12:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Note the date 27-06-2022 at Discord:[14] Seems there's a triad involving editors at the Turkish wiki, off-wiki people, and editors at Eng.Wiki. - LouisAragon (talk) 12:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@LouisAragon, this report may have all kinds of merit, but doesn't the "The discord server" bit inch into WP:OUTING? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:15, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Berk#2835 is me, and that community has permission from authorities of Turkish Wikipedia, and it is not interested in English Wikipedia editing. Many experienced/authorized Turkish-language editors are in that group, furthermore I am not the owner of that server. I undertake all the mistakes done by me at "discord" one year ago. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:18, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Why am I not surprised to see you engaging in this kind of stuff again. Not interested in English Wikipedia editing? What is this you have written under Planlama ("Planning") then? Google Translate "Users will be divided into 2 main sectors as English and Turkish Writers. It is obligatory to make a total of 100 edits, 60 from one sector and 40 from another sector, on behalf of users who want to participate in both. When the new week is started, the number of edits between sectors (60-40) may change." I did write a similar report about BerkBerk to ArbCom sometime ago, though I am still awaiting an update. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I invite administrators to the discord server to prove that there is not any single edit provoked by me in english wikipedia, everything asked will be translated by me, and for any kind of distrust, access to server logs (+ProBot for deleted messages) will be given. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:35, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

The discord link here just got deleted [15] (including the user who posted it) and the discord is now gone. Something you and co. trying to hide? Fortunately I took pictures of BerkBerk's "Planning" list before hand. Would it violate WP:OUTING to post it here? --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:39, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

that text is not written by me, the person who writed it wanted me to post it (I understand the reason now), the planning list is already posted and I have opposed the things going on reddit on that server aswell. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:42, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Kutlug Şad — 13.10.2022 O zaman r/Turkviki başlı başına canlı kuklacılık ("Then r/Turkviki is completely meatpuppet") Berk (me) — 13.10.2022 Öyle zaten ("it is, already") Kutlug Şad also posts a screenshot showing him posting a nationalistic comment, calling reddit users to the discord and asks me about it, I told him "don't". BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:44, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

again, all logs and messages will be opened for Administrators. I have never motivated anyone to make any edits on English Wikipedia on that server. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:45, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

So.. you wrote for the sake of someone else? Honestly, your excuses bore me. Prepare to make more, as this is not even scrapping the barrel. As I said, I also have that huge ArbCom report of you. Not to mention you have been called out for nationalistic editing or similiar by other users than me. Let's not forget my previous ANI report of you either. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:45, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I have found messages of the owner sending me the text in order to publish it on server at 27.06.2022. since "discord screenshots" can't be used here, I will post it when its necessary. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 16:39, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I strongly urge you (both) to only send any personal data like that to ArbCom — posting screenshots/text or anything that someone could argue is personal data will, at the very least, cause drama. The back and forth here is unlikely to resolve the issue, given that it appears to depend on this private evidence. — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 17:49, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

its not just me, but also another experienced editor pings 2 other editors including me, asking if that would be "meatpuppet". and I respond: "it would absolutely be called that because it is". messages at 13.10.2022 proves that I am blaming that subreddit. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:50, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@HistoryofIran Per Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 169#Discord logs Posting discord logs on wiki is oversightable. Email them to arbcom. 192.76.8.81 (talk) 13:46, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I see. The issue is that it (respectfully) takes too long if I message ArbCom. They still haven't updated me regarding the ArbCom report of Berkberk, which I sent two months ago. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:49, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@HistoryofIran: If you believe there's action that ArbCom can take, I'd suggest starting a case request — just ensure you keep the right side of WP:OUTING etc, and (re-)email the committee the private evidence — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 18:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

• Based on the evidence already provided in this thread regarding how this Discord group has been advertised and coordinated on Reddit, specifically taking issue with content on en.wiki, I don't buy the claim that this is unrelated to en.wiki editing. Frankly, the rhetoric surrounding this group online is WP:RGW and vitriolic enough that I would have serious concerns about them even operating as a group on tr.wiki; there may be a case for starting a discussion on Metawiki. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:39, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

  You are openly invited to the aforementioned group to see the proofs of my opposition on the subreddit. messages there are clearly showing that individuals wanted to support the subreddit and to invite reddit users while experienced editors including me opposed that. it would also prove the fact that I have never encouraged/supported anyone to edit on english wikipedia. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 18:01, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

  Could you more clearly explain what the purpose of this Discord group is? Setting aside your specific participation, what is the purpose of the group, and why has it been promoted on reddit forums in the highly combative manner detailed by LouisAragon in the first part of this discussion? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:07, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

  The fact that both the Discord and Reddit sub-forum are now private makes BerkBerk's claim even less believable. I also still have that screenshot of his "Planning" message if an admin is interested. --HistoryofIran (talk) 17:52, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  Actually, according to this post from 9 days ago, the privating the subreddit was something planned in advance, so. That's on me. ~Styyx^Talk? 23:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  Ah, glad to see. Some users think that I am managing a whole reddit group despite I have opposed that group days ago. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 15:29, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  promotions were made by different users and multiple experienced users including me thought that it would be meatpuppetry and opposed that (as it could be seen on the server messages including the meatpuppet expression). The general thought of the community is that Turkish community on Wikipedia have been regressed a lot due to the disgusting decision of Turkish government on blocking Wikipedia, and therefore source interpretation has changed a lot, which I totally agree with that. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 15:27, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  Turkish community on Wikipedia have been regressed a lot due to the disgusting decision of Turkish government on blocking Wikipedia, and therefore source interpretation has changed a lot, which I totally agree with that, this does not allay concerns that the discord is operating as a POV-pushing platform. Additionally, your position in this thread is that there is a subset of people involved with the discord that have been publicizing it improperly, against your advice and against the intent of the server in the first place, would be a lot more convincing if you identified the black-hat editors misusing the discord so that we could investigate and address their malfeasance. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:39, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  ofcourse, the user that I have warned about this situation is Kutlug Şad as I explained above. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 16:23, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

There's some POV editing happening right now at Karapapakhs, who were renamed to "Karapapakhs Turks" by some IPs and a new account. Drmies (talk) 21:05, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Have seen a large increase in dubious editing on Turkic history-related articles recently. I asked for a sockpuppet investigation into one because I thought edits were too similar. However, accounts coordinating off-wiki could very possibly be another solution. ~~ AirshipJ29 (talk) 00:17, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Two brand new users are currently engaging in POV editing at Seljuk Empire, attempting to remove 7k sourced information through edit warring. This is not good. --HistoryofIran (talk) 15:44, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• Aaand r/Turkviki has been made private by its moderators. ~Styyx^Talk? 17:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
• My screenshot of BerkBerk's "Planning" comment also shows a certain user (who has the role of "Yönetici", meaning "Executive"), that is User:Beyoglou. A notorious xenophobic pan-nationalist and sock (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Beyoglou/Archive), whom BerkBerk has claimed that he has "no relation to" [16] and has tried to defend [17]. Yet they are in the same discord, curious. Not to mention some of Beyoglou's socks have come to the aid of BerkBerk several times. Again, I have all kinds of proof to back this up, but WP:OUTING is not making this easy. I would prefer to send this to an admin who would be willing to make a quick judgement of this, rather than ArbCom. Though if I have no choice, I will send it to the latter. This connects rather too well with my current ArbCom report of BerkBerk. --HistoryofIran (talk) 12:12, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  Individual administrators aren't allowed to act on non-public evidence. It has to be ArbCom for something like this. – Joe (talk) 12:14, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks, I have sent it all to ArbCom and asked them about an update regarding my other report. However, I do think some sort of action or actions needs to be taken here, as this is very concerning. We can't just sit idle. --HistoryofIran (talk) 14:09, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

• I've gone ahead and blocked BerkBerk68. If y'all have a clue as to other editors I should block based on this matter, ping me. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:31, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  Was that an action based on private evidence (as you mention on the user's talk page) provided to ArbCom? If so, we can assume this was a block made in your capacity as an arbitrator (given that you wouldn't have access to that private evidence were you not one), and not a "standard functionary" — correct? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 20:30, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

  @TheresNoTime Ya know, that is a good question. I'm not 100% sure of that answer? I don't think it can be a block in my capacity as an Arb, because individual Arbs can't place blocks. An ArbCom block is by its nature a block by the committee and we only place them after a vote. So I think it must be a block in my capacity as an individual func. I asked that question of another Arb before I blocked, since I too wondered that, and they were also of the opinion that I could use the info ArbCom had been emailed to make an individual block. We do that from time to time with other matters: we get emailed something that really doesn't need the whole committee to waste its time on it, so one of us will just do it as an individual admin action. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 08:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

  An individual admin action based on private evidence that no other admin/functionary (other than those on the committee) can verify/review? Doesn't that sound incredibly close to a recent discussion.. perhaps the community needs to be consulted on if they're happy for these actions to take place. I'm certainly not, and would expect our arbs to use a bit of common sense. — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 08:18, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

  I read that RfC as saying that individual admins couldn't make those blocks, but individual CU/OS could, or of course ArbCom. So unless I've misinterpreted that RfC, I don't see how taking the action as an individual CU is an issue? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 08:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

  I thought the whole point with allowing that was private evidence was available for review by those with relevant access (i.e., all functionaries can review the private evidence which led to an action being taken)? Seeing as all functionaries are unable to review this evidence, and this wasn't an action by an arbitrator, all I can see is that you've decided to make a block based off of this thread. Perhaps that's warranted, I don't particularly care, but I definitely do care about ArbCom making somewhat secret decisions but enacting them in their private capacity. Whom do we hold accountable, the committee or the arb? How can we review an unblock request in this case? Do we contact the committee, or you? Why didn't ArbCom forward this evidence to the checkuser list when it decided it as an entity didn't want to do anything with it? These are worrying questions, and the community deserves transparency in how often this happens. — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 08:39, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

While I see your concern, I'm not sure it's a major issue. Let's say that someone emails ArbCom an UpWork profile and says "so and so is a paid editor." Technically it's private evidence. But it would not be worth the time of the committee for all 15 members to deliberate and vote on blocking an obvious paid editor. So an individual Arb can just block said obvious paid editor without needing to make it an ArbCom block. It would be no different if say someone had emailed just me, and not ArbCom. In either case, the block I make is as an individual CU. The appeal is not difficult: the CU looking into unblocking just emails the blocking CU (pretty standard procedure) and asks what the basis for the block was. The blocking CU sends over the UpWork profile, and all is well. This case here is but a variation on that theme. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 08:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I disagree, so have opened a dedicated thread below. Thanks. — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 08:52, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Thanks, CaptainEek. I will soon make a (probably unpopular) proposal here on how we can deal with this massive off-Wiki campaign, I would appreciate to hear what you all think of it. We shouldn't take this matter lightly one bit imo. Before the Reddit got private, there were like 400 members. --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
• :"I believe this all goes back to the current massive off-wiki campaign aimed at disrupting Wikipedia, which Beyoglou plays a leading part in."

  There is a massive witchhunt going against a lot of person has nothing to do with our so called "massive discord group". I don't even know any of the banned user excluding my sockpuppet "Crasyy". But as I said they try to accuse all vandals and newcomers on Turkish-topics of being meat puppet and related to our "pan-nationalist" group and block them. It's a concerning situation when it comes to newcomer users who try to edit Turkey related topics. when some of the users that making witch hunt against us notice these newcomers, will try to ban them with accusation of relating to us. Is creating Wikipedia-related community and editing Wikipedia illegal according to policies? Absouletly not. But when it comes to some idiotic teenagers in reddit that has nothing related to us, they made our discord group "Pan-Nationalistic", "Xenophobic". 95.70.214.41 (talk) 14:19, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  For example under this comment a user named "Nyhtar" says "They are even disrupting article not related to WP:KURDS". A random vandal changes "Russian" with Kurdish and accused to be in one of these groups.

  @TheresNoTime:

  @CaptainEek: and other users who involved. 95.70.214.41 (talk) 14:35, 10 November 2022 (UTC) <--- blocked sock of User:Beyoglou

Proposal

• Proposal: WP:ARBECR (which includes a 500edits/30days restriction) over WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS articles.

As LouisAragon rightly put it, the WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS is a cesspool, and it's not going to get better anytime soon, especially with these massive off-wiki campaigns. In my 10 years on this site, the vast majority of IPs and brand new users in this area have been WP:NOTHERE, often ending up getting indeffed for pov editing and/or egregious attacks. It's also too easy for these troublemakers to sock nowadays, it's almost laughable. For example, see this long SPI archive [18] of the notorious sock Aydın memmedov2000, which doesn't even show all of their socks, there are even more of this person here [19]. Sadly that's just one of many cases. It would alleviate so much time and stress on Wikipedia if we implemented at least some sort of restriction in this area. --HistoryofIran (talk) 00:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I concur with HistoryofIran that there are too many LTAs in WP:AA2 (I can't speak for WP:KURDS) and that something needs to be done to address this. Aside from the LTA HistoryofIran mentioned above, there are 2 additional LTAs (1 & 2) whose socks I must report at least once or twice each month. It's extremely rare for a new account or IP in AA2 to make a helpful edit; instead, 99% of the time, they only do so to vandalise or promote a POV. I think the requirement of 500 edits and 30 days (which could possibly be lowered to 200-300 edits and 15 days) is a good idea to address this problem, so I support it. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 10:44, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support Yes, for both. There's so much disruption in these areas, I'm surprised we don't already have a good enough restriction on them. Nythar (💬-🎃) 22:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Take a look at this edit I reverted just now. They're even disrupting article not related to WP:KURDS. Let's at least ECP articles directly related to that topic area. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 22:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support applying WP:ARBECR to AA2 and KURDS. Levivich (talk) 16:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support something needs to be done concerning the flood of IPs and sockpuppets. The AA2 area is continuously being disrupted by the socks of Aydın memmedov2000, Beyoglou, Steverci. And a listing of disruption for the last 3 yrs: 2022 disruption 2021 disruption, 2020 disruption. I think this says it all. --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:45, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

If anyone needs further evidence, check out the 8 9 10 reverts by an IP at the Orontid dynasty. --Kansas Bear (talk) 03:31, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support Clearly something needs to be done here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:53, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support Surely something must need to be done about this disruption. --Magnatyrannus (talk | contribs) 22:22, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support Very sensible proposal to reduce the disruption. Khirurg (talk) 23:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support Long, long overdue. - LouisAragon (talk) 15:30, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support the disruption is only ever going to grow, and it's already at unsustainable levels. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:44, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support Even though this won't stop them, it will certainly hinder their disruptive activity. Demetrios1993 (talk) 21:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support Clearly there is almost no good activity by IPs and plenty of autoconfirmed socks. This is probably the most effective remedy. ‡ The Night Watch ω (talk) 19:01, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
• @HistoryofIran: I have no opinion on the proposal but would suggest replacing "500edits/30days restriction" with "extended-confirmed restriction" – WP:ECR was carefully drafted specifically to address the nuances of applying a topic-wide 500/30 restriction. Best KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:56, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I see, so it's more or less the same as my proposal, but also takes cares of other details related to it. Thanks, I have slightly reworded my proposal. --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support, this is a good idea considering what I've seen when patrolling vandalism. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 23:35, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support, Disruptive IPs and socks are becoming a big nuisance for the AA2 area, with experienced editors spending significant time protecting the articles from the never-ending flow of IPs, socks, and new accounts, when they could be spending it more efficiently. Yes, it will affect new editors who have good intentions, however, I believe it is better for them if they do not begin their editing in intense editing areas such as AA2. So, I fully support proposed initiative. A b r v a g l ^(PingMe) 06:18, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support, but only for ethnic or political topics in this area. Under the current scope of AA2, an article about an Armenian railroad would be covered by the sanctions, but ECP would be counterproductive unless the railroad has a significant role in an ethnic conflict, or a non-ECP user has repeatedly added ethnic fanaticism to the article. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 10:53, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support per constant disruption/vandalism by IPs on AA2 topic area. – Olympian ^loquere 06:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Query I'm not against applying WP:ARBECR, but it seems to me this is an ArbCom-level restriction that needs to be applied, not one that we can do via WP:AN based on its phrasing. I support its implementation, but there appear to be some bureaucratic hurdles we should clarify. Buffs (talk) 22:02, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:General sanctions#Community sanctions says the community can impose any general sanctions it wants, and can (and has) made its general sanctions identical in substance to sanctions imposed under ArbCom's procedures. That's if it wishes to, of course; the community is "not bound by Arbitration Committee procedures and guidelines" when imposing these general sanctions. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:58, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• This overwhelming support surely is more than enough for the WP:ARBECR to be implemented? --HistoryofIran (talk) 21:10, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Ongoing problems with #CfACP

Ever since problems were raised three weeks ago with the #CfACP campaign, I've been keeping an eye on the edits of Special:AbuseFilter/1073. To recap, this is a meta initiative with four Wikimedians in residence, to combat climate disinformation. The quality of the edits has been very poor: copyright violations, weird wikilinks (for instance, [[global positioning system|global]]), nonsensical citations (f.i. a dermatology paper to talk about the environment), and additions of unsourced text. Participants barely engage on talk.

@Jwale2 is coordinating. The participants from the Kenyan part of the project, for which @Cmwaura is the WiR, are responsible for most edits. @Clayoquot has been so kind to offer training, but disruption has continued. Not entirely sure what we do in similar circumstances. @Astinson (WMF) may advice from the WMF side.

I propose we ask the organisers the following:

1. Immediately stop recruiting volunteers
2. Deal with problematic edits themselves. Cmwaura is a new editor herself, so I'm not sure they have the skills to do this.
   1. Monitor edits. Check each for copyright. I have not seen a single comment on participants talk pages from organisers, nor any corrections in main space. Which means volunteers have had to check around 400 edits, most of which require reverting + warning, or fixing.
   2. Inform participants of basic policies on copyright, linking and citations. Ask problematic editors to stop editing unless they have finished training.
3. Clarify to participants that they will not get compensation for data usage if their edits are unconstructive.

In addition, I think it would be good if an uninvolved administrator could keep an eye on the abuse filter, and place partial blocks from main space/CIR blocks where appropriate. Many participates continue to disrupt after multiple warnings. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:54, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Sending brand new users into a topic area with DS is unwise -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:28, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

An experienced editor is needed to guide brand new editors in this area, which we don't seem to have. For a DS topic, it's a relative friendly topic area. The disruption is around generic WP:Competence is required issues, so I think the DS angle is less relevant here. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 13:39, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

It is deeply unfair that the (apparently paid) organizers of this project are refusing to engage appropriately. This essentially forces unpaid regular editors into the position of having to scrutinize and correct 400+ problematic edits added by barely-competent participants in another stupid WMF outreach project. This goes double in the area of climate change, where editing usefully may take more scientific understanding than many volunteers have (myself very much included). Frankly I think we should mass-revert anything with this hashtag and block participants if they keep adding rubbish to articles. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:02, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Looking through that edit filter log, here's a summary of the last few edits from that contest, ignoring edits that were just adding images:

Extended content

1: VickyOmondi adding some content copied almost word-for-word from the source it was taken from, plus some unsourced material, to a GA. 2: Wikilinks added by Smilymecy, many of which were nonsensical or incorrect. E.g. linking "global" in "global crop production" to Global Positioning System; linking "impacts" in "Climate change impacts are stressing agriculture, forestry..." to Impacts of tourism; linking the wrong species of moth that was already linked correctly before; or linking common words like Africa and Canada or "century". 3:Mmaua1 adding material copied word-for-word from the source it was taken from. 4:Kemboh adding an unsourced, incorrectly formatted statement that duplicated the material in the sentence directly preceding it. 5:More wikilinks added by Smilymecy, I couldn't be bothered to look through them, so I gave up at this point.

Why does the WMF continue to run these "contests" and "campaigns" which do nothing but degrade the encyclopedia and waste editor time? From what I can see, the campaign participants have not responded to any of the concerns other editors have brought up on their talk pages, and nor have they tried to rectify any of those issues. For example, VickyOmondi's talk page is filled with dozens of warnings about copyright which all seem to have been ignored. I get the feeling that under normal circumstances, some of these users might have already been blocked for disruptive editing/WP:CIR/WP:IDHT issues. Thank you Femke for donating your time to help clean up their contributions, but I heavily question why it was made necessary for you to do that in the first place. (edit conflict) Endwise (talk) 09:04, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Today's edits were inappropriate changes of WP:ENGVAR, and the insertion of citations at random locations; I reverted all. Still no response from the organisers. @Jwale2 was active yesterday.

Is this type of disruption sufficiently straightforward that I can impose blocks myself, given how involved I am in this topic area? (I prefer somebody else deal with it, not only because I've yet to figure out how blocking works).

If we do not get a credible route for improvement from the organisers in the next few days, and disruption continues, would it be an idea to disallow these edits with an edit filter? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Given multiple warnings, I'd be inclined to it now. Distinct, I would also (now) contact the WMF grant-giving setup stating the issues being had and that we advise against the provision of any grant to any of the four, until sufficient guarantees of engagement have been carried out. Those receiving grants have a vastly higher obligation to make damn sure those editors they're supposed to be supporting are, and that communications are adequately handled. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Quite frankly, indef anyone who isn't responding to warnings (especially copyright), until we can get them to communicate. Communication is not optional and we have had way too many of these ridiculous contests creating major issues. Asking nicely hasn't worked, so we need to take more drastic action. It's immensely unfair to those who work in that area to have to deal with this on top of the normal level of bad edits. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Femke lets have a call if that works for you, to further address the situation. Jwale2 (talk) 19:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Jwale2, I don't feel that it's fair of you to expect Femke, as a volunteer editor, to handle this via a phone call. Can you please respond to these concerns onwiki? That's where the damage is being done. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:39, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos, I am not saying we should have a phone call, I ment we should have a meet-up either online using any of the suitable tools like google meet or zoom, also I am not looking at only @Femke joining, everyone here in the forum can join because of the openness of the community. If that has been agreed a follow-up link will be sent so that we can discuss this.In the mean time you can all watch this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=196DsSMUfy0. Thanks Jwale2 (talk) 04:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Jwale2, If you're wondering what to say, I strongly recommend saying that you will immediately email all the participants of CfACP and ask them to pause editing, and that you also commit to reviewing all of the edits that participants have already made and fixing any damage that they have caused.

What you're seeing here and on the User Talk pages of various participants is serious warnings from the Wikipedia community. If the problems continue, Wikipedia will take steps to stop the disruption, even if that means banning your project altogether. The only way to avoid that is to stop the disruption yourself. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:25, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Let's see: "Hi, your project for which you are a paid (?) coordinator, is causing tons of problems, can you please help us in cleaning up the mess and reducing the flow of further problematic edits?" "Nah, not really, but you can join me on zoom or watch a 30 minute youtube video instead!". Time for an edit filter to stop the project, and blocks for people persistently adding copyvio's and the like. And in the future, we should be blocking all these initiatives a lot faster once they turn out to be timesinks here.

I mean, this is the kind of shit this effort produces: an editor changing from one English variant to another, and along the way linking "gangs of professional poachers" to Ganges. Before this, the same article was edited by another CfACP editor, who succeeded in linking poachers to Poachers (film) (twice!) and skirmishes to Skirmisher (amidst a see of overlinking, e.g. linking modern). Fram (talk) 08:50, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Other edits from yesterday are less a lack of competence and look more like sneaky vandalism or whitewashing: this "typo" correction removed the whole "controversy" section. Perhaps it needed removing, but doing it as "edited typo" with a minor edit indication looks very bad. Fram (talk) 08:58, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I seem to have missed this thread being started, but if there are problematic editors like this they should be blocked, even if only for short periods, until they can demonstrate that editing appropriately is more important than winning a t-shirt in a contest. Primefac (talk) 09:17, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jwale2: Issues concerning Wikipedia are discussed in the open using text comments that everyone can see (we don't meet-up in private calls). Assuming the claims above are correct, the participants must stop immediately or all those involved must be indefinitely blocked. Johnuniq (talk) 09:39, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@Johnuniq, well noted. Jwale2 (talk) 22:27, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Spot check, recommendations

Pardon the new subsection. Uninvolved spot check here. I just opened a list of the 300 most recent edits in the edit filter and clicked the diff for the first time each username popped up (excluding unrelated hashtags). Here are all of them:

• [20] changing focussing to focusing. Focusing is generally more common, including in Australia (the subject of the article), but focussing isn't wrong. Meh.
• [21] adding a citation to the official website in the lead. Not in line with best practices for leads or citations, but not particularly damaging, either.
• [22] adds an organization to a list of organizations. looks good.
• [23] changing English spelling variation. I don't see, at a glance, if the article uses one in particular, but it's likely unnecessary.
• [24] adding wikilinks. At least one seems more or less positive; the others are WP:OVERLINK.
• [25] adds an image to an article on the 2020 East Africa floods, but the image is taken in 2019. it's possible the image could help illustrate issues with drainage/water management in that region, but the context should be clearer. Just "rainy day in bujumbura" isn't particularly useful.
• [26] adds a citation (to material I think the same user added). Seems like a decent source, added properly.
• [27] Expands an overview with a statement that's implied in the preceding sentence, though I could see why someone may find it useful to spell it out (i.e. X affects Y, so changes in X affects amount of Y). Not necessary, but not damaging, either.
• [28] adds a wikilink. Looks appropriate as first instance of that term. It's linked below, but that doesn't make this addition incorrect (the next AWB user will grab it).
• [29] links first instance of "weather disasters" to natural disaster, which seems pretty reasonable.
• [30] adding a citation to a section the same user just added. The section is clearly inappropriate in style and tone, and the wikilink is not intuitive. The citation looks reliable enough, but I cannot access it to ensure it's appropriate where cited.
• [31] adds wikilinks. One looks constructive, one is a redlink (with some formatting trouble), and one is circular.

On a scale of 1-10 where 10 is extremely constructive, 1 is extremely damaging, and 5 is neither constructive nor damaging, the average of these edits is roughly a 4 in my subjective estimation. That is, they're mostly not so constructive, but not all that damaging.

That's not good, but I question the urgency to undo all of them en masse, both because the problems are pretty minor, and because this isn't the great big bomb of bad edits that I was expecting from this thread. The combined impact of this campaign and 1lib1ref and WPWP amounts to about 12.5 edits per day over the past few weeks. It looks like about two thirds are this contest, so we're talking about 8-10 less-than-ideal edits per day. That's not nothing, but it doesn't strike me as an emergency.

That said, participants clearly need more training and guidance, and organizers need to understand a cardinal rule of Wikipedia-related campaigns: volunteer Wikipedians really really really resent feeling like they have to clean up after people who are getting paid/supported. I dare say it's the surest way to turn people against whatever you're working on and make your life hard. The best thing you can do is stay in communication on-wiki, work to fix the existing problems (although some will make it seem like you have to go through all of the edits, making a visible effort to fix things is what most people are really looking for), and, most importantly, explain how you're going to help prevent additional problematic edits through training/dissemination/oversight.

Just based on these edits (and what other people have mentioned), here are a few best practices to disseminate:

1. It is of paramount importance that everyone understand the extent to which Wikipedia respects copyright. Failing to summarize material in your own words, leaving it too similar to the source, will get you banned from Wikipedia faster than any of the other issues being raised. This can be a cultural challenge, because copyright rules and best practices vary by country. Wikipedia has to adhere to a strict view as practiced in the US.
2. When adding wikilinks, click on them to make sure it's the correct page. Only link the first instance a subject is mentioned, and don't add links to subjects that don't exist. Never link a general concept to a specific subject (like from the term "climate change" to an organization with "Climate Change" in its name).
3. There are multiple variations of English, with different spellings and stylistic conventions. It may be wise to google a term before "fixing" a spelling to see if what you're changing is actually considered valid, too.
4. If a new user is unsure what they're doing is correct, they can ask first. Ideally, there are people connected to the contest they can ask, but there are also new user resources like the WP:TEAHOUSE (although that, too, is volunteer run, so we must be mindful not to flood it).
5. I'm sure others may have things to add.

Feel free to leave a message on my talk page. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

So if the average of these edits is a 4, what is the weighted average? That is you looked at a sample of 300 by 12 different editors. If 100 edits were done by someone who is at an 8 that means something very different than if 100 edits were done by someone who is at a 2. If the larger number of edits is coming from editors lower on the 1-10 rating that suggests a different course of clean-up than if the edits are more evenly distributed among editors or more edits are done by the more competent editors. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:23, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Good question, though I don't have time to calculate that. (and on consideration checking the most recent edit from each person and generalizing the impact is better suited to something like WPWP than this project, since here someone may make a larger edit followed by smaller ones). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:35, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

If a spotcheck shows that most edits are not really useful (but not actually damaging), and a detailed check shows that inbetween these "meh" edits you have a number of clearly negative ones (copyvio, bad links, ...), then you end up with net negatives. You may "question the urgency to undo all of them en masse", but if your spotcheck has shown anything, it is that nothing much of value is lost by undoing these edits, while the checks of others have shown that actual problems will be removed: and en masse reverts will at the same time save us a lot of work and frustration (as evidenced by Femke's comments). Nothing to lose, lots to win, so why not? Fram (talk) 09:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

It's a fair argument from the content perspective. Mass rollback just comes off as a rejection of the project and its contributors, and inevitably catches some constructive edits that shouldn't be reverted. That's a drastic move I'm not ready to support. This is obviously a big project with a big budget that has the potential to do a lot of good. Rejecting it when the negative impact just isn't all that expansive seems like too much. Obviously any bad edits should be reverted, but, you know, let's make sure they're bad. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:35, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

For the people who still expect something useful from the paid coordinator Jwale2, see Paid editing disclosure. Refusing to disclose thei paid status, refusing to engage meaningfully with the community here and instead setting up zoom calls, and then failing to show up at the appointed zoom call with an unpaid volunteer without bothering to let them know that they are too busy. The utter disrespect for enwiki while running a campaign which creates lots of issues while providing no benefits for anyone but Jwale should be enough to show them the door. Such parasitic behaviour should be eradicated, not tolerated. Fram (talk) 09:06, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I have no problem with the Zoom suggestion. Many people consider making the time to connect "in person" (in the sense that Zoom is more personal than enwp communication) is a gesture of good will and friendliness. If I were Jwale2 I'd probably also be looking for someone to meet with to better understand the problems and how to fix them, and just have a conversation removed from the angry clamoring to "eradicate [my] parasitic behavior" (people tend to be less willing to say such things when you're looking at each other, after all). Missing a call when a volunteer agrees to one is pretty bad, though. We all have freakishly busy days sometimes, but there's some catching up to do now. A question, though: what's the breakdown of responsibilities. Each country has a Wikipedian in Residence -- is it them, rather than the coordinator, who is ultimately the one who needs to check edits? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:35, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

In a Zoom, you get to explain things to one or a few people, and then what? Then these people must relay the responses here? Why would we add an intermediate level to have this discussion, which is about the edits on enwiki? And not with some newbie, but with someone experience enough to become the paid WiR for this? Someone with more than 300 article creations (with 62 of those deleted, a very high ratio of about 1 in 5 articles deleted!). And of course, you are reversing cause and effect; I talk about "parasitic behaviour" just because they want to have the position and the money, but not the consequences, the work, the responsabilities that come with it. To use that as an excuse not to come here is reversing cause and effect. If they wanted "good faith and friendliness", they could have shown perhaps some inclination to take the issues serious (and no, posting a link to a 30 minute youtube movie is not really helping). Jwale2 was made aware of the issues on 19 October, nearly a month ago. Nothing has improved since. Fram (talk) 13:21, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I just revisited your spotcheck. Your first one was part of a series of 4 edits, which I just reverted. The editor came across "floral and fauna" and instead of correcting it to "flora and fauna", they linked "floral" to Floral (emblem) and added a source for both the words "flora" and "fauna"[32]. That's not a "meh", that's an "ugh", a negative we can do without.

Your third one[33] may seem useful, until one notices that the same organisation was already included twice in the list... So labeled "looks good" in your list, but I reverted it. Your fourth and fifth ones were already discussed and are both reverted already. The 8th one was already partially reverted, and I reverted it completely as a copyvio[34]. 9th one was already reverted[35]. This one[36] was reverted as well. The few others were mostly meh are at the very best a useful wikilink, but overall this is a clear timesink, a waste of money from the side of the investors and a waste of time of volunteers both those enlisted by the WIRs and those here. Fram (talk) 14:15, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

As recommendations have already been given, both to individual participants by volunteers and to organisers, and all were basically ignored, that route is not feasible any more. While the conversation has moved from the edit filter, I still think that's the best solution for now to ensure these concerns are no longer ignored. Can somebody set up and edit filter to disallow?

I don't know who at the WMF is responsible here (@Jwale2/@Cmwaura)? In an unrelated call, I have spoken to somebody who knows the funders well, who will do some enquiries. I afraid my involvement ends here, as an old injury has resurfaced. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:11, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Tgr has provided some Quarry queries that could be of interest here:

• Revert percentage for one or more users
• Revert percentage for a hashtag

The latter gives an overall revert rate of 26% for all #CfACP edits. This includes complete manual reverts in addition to automated ones. Edits that are partially reverted, like this one which I partially reverted in this edit and this edit are not included. The second query gives us a list of users whose contributions should be individually checked, preferably by people who are part of the Code for Africa project. There are definitely edits with the hashtag that still need to be reverted (again, preferably by people responsible for the project) but unfortunately it's too late to do some of them automatically. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:28, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Finance stuff

I'm just going to leave this here: One of the sources of funding for this project is a USD $95,000 grant from the Poynter Institute.[37] I have asked Jwale2 to make a paid editing disclosure; people might be interested in the reply here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jwale2#Paid_editing_disclosure . Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:45, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. If anyone should be getting paid, it should be those such as Clayoquot who are cleaning up this mess and have tried to resolve this without shutting down the campaign. If it were up to me, I'd hand Jwale2 an indef right now for UPE. Looking at Jwale2's history here, I am flabbergasted that anyone though putting them in charge of an editing campaign was a good idea; they have no clue about how policies work here. Their response to a copyright warning from Diannaa was to, and I'm not making this up, invited her to a podcast interview. Creations that end up deleted as at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Filling Station In Ghana give me no confidence either.

Editors far more skilled and polite than I have tried their best to resolve this. As Femke says above, they've been stonewalled. All that leaves us with is an edit filter and/or blocking the participants. One or both should be done in all due haste. This is a tremendous waste of volunteer time and we shouldn't have to deal with it anymore. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Just FYI, the Wikimedia Foundation didn't fund the project, we did send them documentation on how to create WIR roles, but we were not involved in the WIR selection or plan of work process. Several previously successful organizers are involved in the project, so I would recommend giving benefit of the doubt -- and that they are learning from their mistakes. We do have some contact with the team, and will bring some of the concerns in these threads to them -- I also have more direct contact with some of the WIRs and am providing more mentoring and support as is requested, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 13:38, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

From our perspective as volunteer editors, we don't see any of that. What we see is a continuing pattern of campaigns like this causing disruption, and those responsible for the campaigns not being responsive to community concerns. We are not getting paid to handle any of this, but the WIRs are. That's immensely unfair to the community. These edit campaigns may be well-intentioned, but time and time again this happens. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:25, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Pausing editing

I just got an email from Cmwaura that she asked me to share here as she doesn't have a good Internet connection today. SHe has told the Kenyan editors editing climate change articles to stop editing for now. Cmwaura is the WiR for the Kenyan volunteers in the project. I am not sure if her message will get to the other countries, but this should dry up most of the stream of bad edits. She also shared details of how she is arranging for more training for herself and others. Best, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:26, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

The Edit Filter log has been quiet for the past 24 hours. I hope it stays that way for a while. Femke and I, and maybe other volunteers here, need the rest. Hopefully, the CfACP organizers will use this pause in activity to fully examine what went wrong and address the root causes. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:14, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Need spot-checking for #CfAEP

Jwale2,who brought us #CfACP, also seems to be the organizer of #CfAEP. I looked at edits to two articles and one of the edits turned a correct factual statement into a factually incorrect one.[38] Hooray for misinformation-fighting! Would anyone like to do some further spot-checking? Here's the hashtag search tool. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:28, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Is there ANYONE besides Jimmy Wales in charge of things at Wikipedia anymore?! This is an absurd situation. $95,000 is a lot of money. I read this entire thread, the Diannaa interaction, saw the invitation to watch the youtube video (I even watched the 1st few minutes of it), and saw the responses of Jwale2 (who is always agreeable and assenting but apparently does not carry through on anything). Please, Clayoquot, don't run yourself ragged over this. I am a woman too. You and the others in this thread should be getting that $95,000. Well, the solution would be if Wikipedia were better managed and these ridiculous initiatives were not even undertaken.--FeralOink (talk) 16:16, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

New essay about noticeboards

Editors and admins here may perhaps be interested in WP:Don't knit beside the guillotine. It addresses some aspects of the wiki-culture at noticeboards, and grew out of a now-archived discussion at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 16#Making ANI less toxic. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:02, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a fantastic essay, definitely needed more than ever in this day and age. I will thoroughly ponder its lessons, and will do my best to take them to heart. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 16:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Well written, Tryptofish! But ... is this your way of telling us that you have a completely unrelated doppelganger who looks just like you? --GRuban (talk) 19:47, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

It is a far, far better essay than I could ever write... --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a really excellent essay. #Dealing with it is especially good advice. The (thankfully few) times I've been the subject of the ANI mob, I've felt appallingly alone, and wondered why nobody is stepping in to speak reason. But when I see others being subjected to it, I can't even bring myself to read the whole thread, never mind try and de-escalate. We should do better. – Joe (talk) 09:34, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

• In our current culture, I don't see mob rule going away any time soon, but we would do well to avoid such behavior. Hyperbole and assumption of nefarious motives is the way people see the world (especially online). I applaud the effort all the same. Buffs (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
• Much as I like the content of the essay, on the essay's talk-page I commented that the choice of title and historical examples is peculiar, and could cause the essay to be criticized for (unintentional) gender bias. NightHeron (talk) 11:48, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

  It's history...it's hardly gender bias... Buffs (talk) 17:59, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

A choice is being made concerning what history to include. Obvious historical examples of the harm caused by a mob mentality would be the witch hunts in Europe and America, the pogroms in the Russian Empire, or the lynchings in the American South. In all those cases virtually all the perpetrators were male. But those examples weren't chosen. NightHeron (talk) 19:52, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

They weren't chosen not because someone hates women or prefers men, but 'cause angry mob of lynchers is already used as example here. Please don't be quick to assume bias or discrimination. a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 21:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps you didn't notice the word "unintentional" in my posting above.

BTW the picture at WP:Angry Mob Noticeboard is not of a lynch mob. NightHeron (talk) 22:40, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Alright, as someone from the US, you know more about lynch mobs than me. If you say that toy villagers on the picture don't look like they're going to do pogrom in Lego City's ghetto, I trust you. This all was intended as lighthearted nod to humorous "noticeboard", but I again messed up like dummy. Sorry and have a nice day! a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 14:28, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Great essay, Tryptofish. The mob mentality at ArbCom proceedings and other dramaboards can be horrific. They often function as kangaroo courts with no rights or protections for the accused. All forms of gross violations of our rules of conduct are allowed, including real-life slander and libel, with no repercussions at Wikipedia, but very real damage in real life elsewhere. I was once dragged through an ArbCom trial, and I was very close to committing suicide. Never in my life had I felt so helpless and alone. Fortunately, some other editors defended me and exposed the dubious nature of the accusations, my accusers community banned, and I was later vindicated.

I asked an admin whether BLP applies to editors and was told it does not. All living persons, including people not associated with a BLP article, are protected, but not editors. That's awful. That explained what happened. Ever since then I have been reluctant to participate at dramaboards. They are not places where justice is served. I have never fully recovered from that experience. Before that, I never had issues with depression. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:08, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much for that post, Valjean. As someone who has long had depression myself, but not in any way as a result of Wikipedia, I am very moved by what you describe. The thought that anyone could even briefly consider suicide as a result of an experience at this website chills me to my core, and I hope everyone keeps it in mind whenever they interact with any of our noticeboards. I won't be so presumptuous as to hope that the essay I wrote will lessen the risk of something like that ever happening here again, but I do hope so. I also hope that you are getting all the medical help that you need; that's had a tremendous benefit for me. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Self-requested review: Tamzin's blocks of Volunteer Marek

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

---

Brief summary:

• At 4:39 on 6 November, I blocked Volunteer Marek (talk · contribs) from editing the article Aaron Maté for 7 days, for (in my view) gaming the 1RR in effect on all Syrian Civil War articles. This came alongside blocks of Poyani (talk · contribs) and Hobomok (talk · contribs) for edit-warring on the same page, and a subsequent lengthening of the 1RR on that page to a 72-hour window.

Rationale for p-block

VM's edits to Aaron Maté, making the same revert after 27 hours, and then again after 31 hours, while making no other edits to the article, appeared to be deliberate gaming of the community-imposed 1RR on Syrian Civil War articles. VM doesn't seem to dispute that this was deliberate; he just feels he didn't do anything wrong in doing so. Even if this was not a 1RR violation by way of WP:GAMING, it was regular old edit-warring. Repeatedly making the same edit that you know will be reverted is edit-warring. The timeframe does not matter. VM is far from the first person to be blocked for three reverts in under 60 hours. VM also doesn't seem to dispute that he was edit-warring; he just insists that it's okay because he was (he feels) right.

• Marek's response to that block prompted Newyorkbrad to request he strike an aspersion, which VM obliged.
• VM's subsequent comments echoed that same aspersion though and were otherwise incivil; while an administrator does not become INVOLVED because a user responds incivilly to their administrative action, I recognized that it was bad optics for me to take action, so I asked NYB to assess whether action was needed.
• VM then removed that comment with summary Please refrain from posting here again.
• I restored it with summary this is an inquiry relevant to your ongoing unblock request. if you would like to remove it, you are welcome to remove the full request. you do not get to curate what the reviewing admin sees.
• VM removed it again with summary feel free to post on NYBrad's talk page. But in the meantime, since you've said "That's all I have to say here unless pinged by a reviewing admin" and since you WEREN'T pinged by anyone, including any reviewing admins, and since this is MY talk page and I don't feel like being threatened by someone who has already made one bad block: please. refrain. from. posting. here. .... ever again (unless pinged by a reviewing admin
• I siteblocked VM with rationale Community sanction enforcement: Disruptive editing and personal attacks in response to edit-warring p-block on a WP:GS/SCW article. As disruption has occurred on own talkpage, revoking TPA; you are welcome to submit an AN appeal through UTRS.

Now, to start off: I fucked up. Removing content from your own unblock discussion is more straightforward disruption than personal attacks, and, importantly, much less personalized. And disrupting one's own unblock discussion is routinely grounds for loss of talkpage access. So I thought that the same optics issue involved in taking action over the personal attacks would not appply. Clearly, I was wrong. From my perspective, having already made the decision not to block over the aspersions, the crucial role of the comment removals was clear to me, a but-for cause of the block. But I recognize now that to anyone other than me, this came across not much different than if I'd blocked one step earlier. I also felt there was some time-sensitivity involved, as potentially an admin could come along to review the unblock, be deprived of the information that the blocking administrator felt the blocked party had engaged in personal attacks during the request, and unblock based on imperfect knowledge; in retrospect, this was unlikely, and it would have been better to bring the matter to AN or AN/I promptly.

I apologize for falling short of the expectation that administrators not give off an appearance of impropriety, and await the community's trouts and admonishments. That leaves us, though, with the question of what to do with the block. I do think my block was justified, and did not violate INVOLVED, but I recognize that it should not have been made by me. So I am opening it up to peer review. I have no objection to any admin restoring TPA, reverting to the p-block, or unblocking outright, if there isn't consensus to maintain the current sanction. Update 14:42, 7 November 2022 (UTC): Reverted to p-block (see below); review still requested as to whether to maintain p-block or unblock outright.

Courtesy pings: @Red-tailed hawk, Piotrus, GizzyCatBella, Only in death, Zero0000, and Fyunck(click). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 12:47, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oh, and for admins, noting without comment utrs:65091. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 12:48, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  You think just "trouts and admonishments" are what should happen?

  This was a "respect mah authoritah" block, or lèse-majesté if you prefer.

  Way outside of what the community expects from an admin.

  It leaves me, for one, with absolutely no confidence that you understand how to behave impartially and fairly.

  Yeah - you fucked up... Begoon 12:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Two things -

  1 - Tamzin is a great (in my opinion) but newish administrator and we are all humans, mistakes happen.

  2 - We'll probably see all of those crawling up here because of the editor affected by the block. Just ignore them. - GizzyCatBella🍁 13:00, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Tamzin, where's the "personal attack" in feel free to post on NYBrad's talk page. But in the meantime, since you've said "That's all I have to say here unless pinged by a reviewing admin" and since you WEREN'T pinged by anyone, including any reviewing admins, and since this is MY talk page and I don't feel like being threatened by someone who has already made one bad block: please. refrain. from. posting. here. .... ever again (unless pinged by a reviewing admin)? Is it saying you made a bad block, or is it saying they feel threatened by your subsequent behaviour? I don't see an "attack" in either thing... Begoon 13:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Begoon: I addressed te matter of the personal attacks in this comment on my talkpage. To answer your direct question, I was not saying there was a personal attack in that edit summary. Looking back, I wish I hadn't mentioned personal attacks in the block rationale at wall. The presence of any personal attacks was merely context for what came next; the block itself was for removing the comment (and, pace BilledMammal, I have never seen OWNTALK interpreted to mean that an editor can pick and choose which comments an unblock reviewer sees, especially those by the blocking admin). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 13:18, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I haven't seen any editors choose to use the provision in those circumstances, but that doesn't mean they aren't permitted to do so. At the moment, there are four justifications that would permit you to restore the comment, and as far as I can tell none apply here and as a consequence your edits were both WP:EDITWARRING and a violation of WP:OWNTALK. This comment restoration was an understandable mistake, but still a mistake and I believe it would be best to quickly reverse the mistake, as well as the actions that were taken using that mistake as a justification. BilledMammal (talk) 13:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I really do not think it wise to suggest that Tamzin violated WP:OWNTALK here. Users should not be able to remove comments they don't like from their unblock request. OWNTALK (a guideline) yields to WP:OWN (a policy) where the two contradict, and they most certainly do with this section: [User pages] are still part of Wikipedia and must serve its primary purposes; in particular, user talk pages make communication and collaboration among editors easier. These functions must not be hampered by ownership behavior. (emphasis added) If users could remove any negative comments from their unblock requests, that would make editors (or in this case an uninvolved admin) trying to communicate their concerns to unblocking administrators more difficult.
Tamzin was absolutely in the right to initially restore her comments/questions regarding the unblock (no comment regarding later actions), and it would be a mistake to think WP:OWN does not apply here. VM's interests in maintaining his talk page do not outweigh Wikipedia's regular unblock processes.
For the record, this comment is meant to solely address the OWNTALK concerns here. I don't have any other comment about Tamzin's behavoir here or elsewhere. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:56, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

When someone is asked to not post on another's user talk page, they should do so unless absolutely required to do otherwise. There was no need to restore said comments (or, quite frankly, even make them in the first place). No one is required to keep disparaging remarks on their talk page. Buffs (talk) 22:39, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Buffs: That would completely change the nature of how unblock requests are conducted. You are suggesting that if User A requests an unblock, but User B provides evidence against them (or any other feedback meant for administrators), User A has the authority to remove it because it's "their talk page". That'd be absurd and clear gaming the system.
You don't actually own your talk page as explicitly stated by WP:OWN. Also, just to be clear, WP:REMOVED makes it pretty clear that there are certain things that shouldn't be removed by users if they're part of wider community processes; the list provided isn't exhaustive. The unblock request process is clearly a part of that process.
I don't have any opinions on whether Tamzin should've commented there in the first place or not, but I know all users have a right to comment on active unblock requests as a matter of process (per Wikipedia:Blocking policy § Unblock requests). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Just commenting to reiterate that you are absolutely right here and the relevant guideline that explicitly prohibits this sort of thing is WP:TPNO which I didn’t see anyone point out. Anyone saying otherwise is wrong. While editors generally have the right to delete comments from their talk page, yes people, it is absolutely prohibited to selectively delete a part of a significant exchange in a way that misrepresents the record of the exchange that occurred. You obviously cannot just suddenly decide to start to delete someone else’s participation from an ongoing conversation which they are party to. And you obviously can’t just appeal a block and choose to delete the blocking admin’s comments about the block or appeal (I’ve never even seen anyone attempt it!)

Also, just to remind everyone, while “banning” users from your talk page like VM did here is hardly a foreign concept on Wikipedia, it is not a right, it is a specifically-articulated form of tendentious editing. Regardless of everything else, let’s not defend the actual policy violations here. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 08:01, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

No. Tzemin’s comment that I removed was not part of the appeal process. It was made *after* they said “I’m not going to say anything more”. Then they decided to come back to rub it in some more. There was absolutely nothing necessary about it. If they wanted to they could have made the comment on Newyorkbrad’s talk page. It was gratuitous and unnecessary, and provocative, to put it in mildest terms I can. Volunteer Marek 08:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

There was an active appeal on your talk page at the time, and the comment was specifically addressed to an admin known to be reviewing it. If the comment was gratuitous and unnecessary, and provocative (a claim I have no opinion about), that still does not mean you were in the right to remove it. Perhaps Tamzin should've posted directly to NYB's talk page (which could've avoided further antagonizing against you - again no opinion there), but two wrongs don't make a right as far as I know. You shouldn't have removed that comment, VM; and this shouldn't be that big of a deal to admit outside the context of the remainder of these events. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps you missed "they should do so unless absolutely required to do otherwise". If it is required, then it is required.

If User A requests an unblock, but User B provides evidence against them (or any other feedback meant for administrators), User A still has the authority to remove that from their talk page. That isn't gaming the system. User B is under no obligation to provide evidence on their talk page when they've been asked to stay off. They can just as easily post that information on their own talk page, an admin's talk page, or AN/ANI (at which point a notification would be appropriate). I don't think WP:REMOVED says what you think it says: "Policy does not prohibit users, whether registered or unregistered, from removing comments from their own talk pages, although archiving is preferred...There is no need to keep them on display, and usually users should not be forced to do so."

"The unblock request process is clearly a part of that process." You're interpreting something that isn't there.

WP:TE is an essay whose interpretations have "not been thoroughly vetted by the community." I can write an essay supporting literally all of anyone else's behavior (pick someone), but that doesn't mean it carries weight. If you're going to hold people to account based on the not-widely-shared-or-codified opinions, this is going to get really messy really quickly.

As VM stated, T's comment was well after the appeal process, not part of it. The idea that the blocking admin has an obligation/duty to vocally correct anyone they've blocked and to publicly do so on the User's talk page and the user is obligated to keep it there is absurd in the extreme. Buffs (talk) 16:47, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

(1) The appeal process was still active. This page clearly shows {{unblock}} is active, and the block log makes clear VM was still partially blocked. How anyone can claim the appeal process was over is beyond me.
(2) REMOVED is written with the idea that comments are normally addressed the user who's talk page they are posted on. Unblock requests are an obvious exception to this since people are going to want to talk to the blocking admin, reviewing admin, etc. Whether certain comments have been read by the blocked user is not relevant when the comments aren't being addressed to them.
(3) No, User B can not post evidence against User A on their talk page or AN/I, etc. The community discussion about whether to unblock User A is happening on their talk page because (under normal unblock requests) that's the only page they can edit (and why would forking the conversation even be seen as a desirable outcome?). User A can't effectively respond to evidence presented outside of their talk page, so it'd be maddening to allow discussion about them to happen literally anywhere else besides their talk page. If User A is uncomfortable with that, then they either need to (i) appeal to AN/the community directly so this conversation doesn't happen on their talk page despite the fact they won't be able to as effectively respond (also risking a CBAN if their request fails), or (ii) not appeal their sanctions in the first place.
Before you point out that this was just a PBlock, please consider the fact that policy explity treats the unblocking process for both PBLOCKs and regular blocks as the exact same. The logic may not always apply, but the community decided that was what the case should be. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:57, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

(1) "The appeal process was still active" WP:REMOVED states "Declined unblock requests regarding a currently active sitewide block" may not be removed. At this point, this was not declined. Tamzin's remarks after VM's request to leave the user talk page had nothing to do with the unblock, but were remarks about the user's actions AFTER the block.

(2) you kinda proved point 1 above

(3) Whether or not someone is blocked doesn't mean you cannot seek another venue for your discussion/further administrative action nor is he obligated to keep material on their talk page that doesn't fall in the realm of the exceptions noted in WP:REMOVAL. Whether it is wise to ask for the blocking Admin to stay off your page is irrelevant.

(4) I have no idea what you're getting at with the Pblock...I never made any statement about it. Pre-emptively attempting to take apart an argument I didn't make...really odd... Buffs (talk) 22:15, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

It’s clear you’re one of the users who feels very strongly about this situation but you’re straightforwardly wrong here and obviously you’re one of the main reasons for my comment. Nobody has to listen to me but in spite of the contentious circumstances this part is fairly straightforward and the policy considerations are clear. Do not try to push a narrative that VM did nothing wrong here, they were absolutely not allowed to delete comments that misrepresent a significant exchange (in this case the blocking admin was commenting on further sanctions being warranted) or ban a good faith editor from their talk page just because they’re in an unpleasant dispute. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 00:20, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

obviously you’re one of the main reasons for my comment Me personally? I'm touched. I thought we were supposed to Comment on content, not on the contributor.

Do not try to push a narrative that VM did nothing wrong here What a wonderful argument! Oh wait...there isn't one here. It's just "don't disagree"

they were absolutely not allowed to delete comments that misrepresent a significant exchange nothing was misrepresented. It was a comment to another editor and was removed. He didn't refactor the comment. It cleanly/clearly falls within the bounds of WP:REMOVED and you've shown no rationale otherwise.

...or ban a good faith editor from their talk page just because they’re in an unpleasant dispute. Again, this is explicitly allowed. "If an editor asks you not to edit their user pages, such requests should, within reason, be respected...[it goes on to state that required notices cannot be banned]"

You are completely entitled to your opinion, but your opinion is not policy. FWIW, I agreed with you under prior rules (WP:OWN)...and was blocked by an admin. That segment of WP:User Pages was added in response. Buffs (talk) 19:19, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I do not have an opinion, I am completely uninterested in this situation. I am just clarifying policy implications that you and others are leaving out of your arguments, because that’s part of my job as an administrator. Beyond that, I have no desire legitimize your attempts to undermine policy considerations just because they don’t line up with your side in a dispute, and I’m not going to become baited into an argument with you. Your repeated insistence that I’m wrong is irrelevant, I’m not trying to convince you, I’m simply documenting this for the record. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 23:53, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I do not have an opinion, I am completely uninterested in this situation Okaaaaaay...they why are you replying?

I have no desire legitimize your attempts to undermine policy considerations just because they don’t line up with your side in a dispute I'm not undermining policy. I'm quoting it. In summary, you have yet to actually show how any part of what I stated was incorrect in any way. Effectively, all you've said is a Trumpian "Wrong!" and declared your opinion correct because you're an admin.

I’m simply documenting this for the record. You don't have to do any of this, but you're continuing anyway...that's pretty much the definition of an argument. Buffs (talk) 04:24, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Ah, ok, I don't see any of those things as "attacks", and, as Brad says below, an admin who has just blocked someone, particularly questionably, is going to need a thicker skin than that before escalating to harsher blocks unilaterally (and I'll go further - should in nearly all circumstances not do so themselves at all). I'm not sure there's really any defence for how you used your tools here, frankly - it seems to me like "how not to admin" 101. Begoon 13:31, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed Buffs (talk) 22:15, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

(ec) Editors are forbidden from removing four types of comments from their talk page; I don't believe any are relevant here, which means WP:OWNTALK applies and Volunteer Marek was permitted to remove the comments.

In such circumstances, I believe the correct response would have been to make the comment on Newyorkbrad's talk page, rather than edit warring over it and then blocking the editor you were in an edit war with. Without considering the wider dispute, I think the correct response now is to revert the block. BilledMammal (talk) 13:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

agreed Buffs (talk) 22:40, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Tamzin, in the past I've seen you try to deescalate a situation [39]. I think that would have been the proper thing to do here. In this case VM was frustrated by original admin action and got frustrated. Their actions on their talk page may not have been helpful but given the wide latitude people are given with respect to their own talk pages I don't think it crossed any lines nor did it require further actions to protect Wikipedia. Thus I don't think the further escalation was justified and the action taken could certainly be seen by others as "respect mah authoritah" even if that wasn't the intent. Springee (talk) 13:53, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Newyorkbrad:

• Volunteer Marek e-mailed me yesterday asking me to comment one way or the other on the page-block. I asked Tamzin for her response first, which she provided, for which I thank her. I view the page-block as being of borderline necessity. As Tamzin acknowledges, VM did not violate the 1RR/24h that was in effect on the page at the time, and if I am reading the chronology correctly, there was an ongoing talkpage discussion. I would not have blocked, even p-blocked, but it's well-known that I am less of a "hawk" on "edit-warring" than many other admins. In any event, even before this escalated, I was not planning to act as the reviewing admin on the page-block, because I was specifically called to the page, and blocked (even partially blocked) users do not get to select their own reviewers; but the page-block has served its purpose and I suggest that if not reversed, it at least be commuted to "time served." The same goes for the other editors who were blocked at the same time.
• In my view, the full block, while placed in good faith, was unwarranted and should be overturned, whether by Tamzin or by consensus here. Adverse comments by sanctioned users against sanctioning admins are part of the territory. While I'd prefer it to be otherwise, sometimes these comments become personalized, and while I would not have expressed myself as VM did, I don't think he crossed the line into blockworthiness with his comments. (He did, at the outset, strike one comment I thought particularly unnecessary.) As noted above, it can be especially escalatory for an admin who perceives herself as the target of an attack to place the block, except in cases of gross abuse or harassment, and this was not that. I do, however, agree with Tamzin that VM should not have removed comments by the blocking administrator from his talkpage while an unblock request was pending.
• The removal of VM's talkpage access was unnecessary. I suggest that that be reversed immediately so that VM can comment on-wiki, rather than in an UTRS thread that only some administrators, and no non-admins, can read.
• One user has suggested bringing this matter before ArbCom. That is not necessary and I hope it will not be pursued.
• Lastly, while looking into this yesterday, I noticed that many of the unblock requests in CAT:RFU have been pending for weeks or months. We promise blocked users a reasonably prompt review, and should keep that promise, even for blocks with a much lower profile than this one. It would be useful if some admins with some extra time would give attention to those; I will try to do my part in clearing the backlog. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:07, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  I removed TPA because the disruption was happening on the talkpage itself, so otherwise a siteblock would have seemed purely punitive. But I'm not going to argue on that if even one admin disagrees, so, TPA restored. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 13:14, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• I have opened a case request at ARBCOM here. That is about Tamzin's poor decision making and use of advanced tools in enforcing that. Not about overturning Marek's block, which this noticeboard is more than capable of doing. What it cannot do is remove tools from an Admin who slaps someone with an escalated block for being annoyed at a particularly poor block to start with. ARBCOM have made it clear over the years removal of tools is their remit and I have no wish to see Tamzin continue with their high-handed approach, and this sort of poor thinking is exactly why they were lucky to pass RFA in the first place.

As to Marek's block I think it should be lifted ASAP for being poor in the first place, and poor in the escalation. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:16, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oh goodness. One hates to see this. One of the most difficult parts of being an admin is being able to show restraint in the face of comments that could be seen as pointed or escalatory. In light of the essay that Tryptofish posted, I don't want to jump to any sort of conclusions regarding what the next steps are in this scenario. But within the scope of this thread, it's safe to say this was not a good block. It seems that at the very least, some formal apologia is needed in order to avoid an ArbCom case (which I think at this point is a little too aggressive a next step for a relatively new admin).--🌈WaltCip-(talk) 13:47, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• I agree 100% with Newyorkbrad. Both the page block and the site block should be lifted ASAP, ideally by the blocking admin. 28bytes (talk) 14:12, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• The original block could be debated but it was rather mild and not much out of the ordinary. The second block looked too much like a personal response to VM's angry reaction to the first block. When people are blocked, they often react badly but taking this on the chin is in the administrators' job description. In the most severe cases a different admin should step in. VM's removal of a paragraph was improper but didn't prevent the pinged admin from reading it. I would prefer to see the second block lifted. Zero^talk 14:15, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• FYI, Tamzin has undone the site-wide block. The page block remains, and can/should be discussed here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:37, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Okay, it's clear there will be no consensus to maintain the siteblock, so I have reversed that, and have apologized to Marek for overreacting and escalating the situation. I've left the p-block intact, and will leave it to another admin to decide whether to maintain it or unblock outright.
  I do want to say a word on thickness of skin. I get a lot of criticism way worse than this, and shrug it off. Just as I shrugged this off; I took no personal affront, because I learned long ago to disregard those kinds of comments. I don't think I was acting emotionally here. The emotional response would have been to run for the hills, out of knowledge that blocking an experienced user would likely lead to stress. Instead I did what I thought was the right thing, based on facts, not feelings; I just miscalculated badly. Really badly. And I'm sorry for that, and sorry to be taking up volunteer time with this. That's the opposite of what I ever want to do here as an admin and as an editor. I hope people trust that, if this were the kind of mistake I make habitually, it would have come up about a thousand blocks ago. I can assure everyone it's not a mistake I will make again. I thank my peers for their feedback here, and will bow out from here on out unless anyone has any questions. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 14:42, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  I do have one question. You say you "miscalculated badly". Can you expand on that? What calculation did you make, and what was its "wrong" result?

  And one more: " I can assure everyone it's not a mistake I will make again". What was the mistake, and what will you do next time instead?

  I'm not trying to flog the horse, really, but the answers to those questions aren't really clear to me yet, sorry, from your perspective...

  I know what I think you did wrong, I'm just not clear on what you think you did... Begoon 14:50, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Begoon: No, I welcome the questions.

  1. The miscalculation was not realizing that this would come off as retaliatory. As I said in my initial post, in my mind, the removal of the comment was a bright enough line that it differentiated things from if I'd blocked purely over the aspersions. I do genuinely think I would have made the same block if I saw this on some random unblock request without previous involvement. But clearly to anyone else this just looked like me getting my feelings hurt and blocking over it. I should have realized it would look that way.
  2. The mistake is maybe better framed in terms of the lesson learned: If one is having to say (words to the effect of) "I'm not technically INVOLVED", it's probably best to proceed as if one were INVOLVED. (Or more precisely applied to this case, just because no policy outright prohibits an admin from blocking a user who has been criticizing their administrative action, that doesn't mean that it's remotely a good idea.)

  -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 15:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks. I think the "optics" were far worse than you seem to understand - in fact I'd much prefer you to be contrite about what you did than how it might look... The fact that your reply above is basically wikilawyering about how you might have conceivably thought it would be ok is quite telling. On the other hand, you did open this section by saying "I fucked up", which is to your credit - I guess I was hoping that meant more that you knew what you did was basically unjustifiable, and an utterly incorrect use of tools, than that you thought it might just be tricky to explain away... Begoon 15:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  I am concerned that you don't see this as a violation of WP:INVOLVED. You and VM had a dispute, which included edit warring by both of you, over whether it was permissible for VM to remove your comment. This is clearly a dispute in which [you] have been involved, but you persist in saying I'm not technically INVOLVED. BilledMammal (talk) 09:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• Generally dont think the original blocking admin should be the one to respond with escalatory blocks for conduct after the block, leave that to somebody else. And I like VM, but I do agree that the initial sequence was "gaming" (and I note Zero's distaste for that term, but still use it). If you are actively working towards some compromise or resolution or pursuing DR then sure partial reverts may not be gaming, but the 1RR is put in place to not just slow edit-wars but to stop them. If you are repeatedly reverting, without change, you are edit-warring, and if you are doing it just outside the x number of hours then you are gaming. That said, I am sure VM would have taken a hey, this looks like slow-motion edit-warring, can you please pursue DR instead of reverting comment in stride and done exactly that. The block was justified but not necessary, and that being the case means it should have been handled with less forceful means. nableezy - 15:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Talking some specifics, the partial block needs to stay. In this talk page section numerous editors pointed out that Mate should not be described as a "conspiracy theorist" in Wikivoice. VM has put that language back in twice now [40], [41]. There clearly is no consensus for this and the continued attempts to reinsert it is disruptive, requiring editors to "burn" their revert. Mr Ernie (talk) 15:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Fully protecting the page, a notice of 72h 1RR time expansion and eventual warning was a more fitting way. Original blocks (all 3 editors) should be also lifted. - GizzyCatBella🍁 15:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Fully protecting the page would have prevented the edit warring, yes, but it would have also prevented the lead from being expanded and rewritten to more closely follow MOS:LEAD and address the SYNTH concerns on the talk page. Full protection should rarely be used, and the use of p-blocks seems more narrowly tailored than full protection towards stopping edit warring if only a limited number of users are actually edit warring. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:49, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

P-blocks prevented access to the talk page. That terminated the ongoing discussion among affected editors. A straightforward warning with a request to continue the discussion and reach consensus first, would work much better in my humble opinion. - GizzyCatBella🍁 20:08, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

No, it was just a block from editing just the page Aaron Maté. Not Talk:Aaron Maté or any other place where discussion would have continued. nableezy - 20:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Got it 👍 - GizzyCatBella🍁 20:17, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Did affected editors know that they still can edit talk page? I think they didn’t 🤔 ? - GizzyCatBella🍁 20:19, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Never mind, they did know. - GizzyCatBella🍁 20:23, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin: - do you stand by your statement that this was without a doubt, the most unbecoming conduct I've seen from an experienced user in response to a block? starship.paint (exalt) 15:17, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

VM's site-block has been reduced to a page-block, his talkpage access has been restored. Tamzin has apologised for her actions as an administrator. There's no need for an Arbcom case. Let's remain calm & move on. I've been around the 'pedia for about 17 years, so trust me. My advice 'here', is the best advice. GoodDay (talk) 15:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

17 years, you say? Well, that's me convinced. Thanks for your deep analysis - it's always a joy to absorb. Begoon 15:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Ah, the perils of p-blocking, I could sing tales of dread and wonder on these. ;) Look, Tamzin, like I said to you last time when you acted too authoritatively by way an intentionally-cryptic public warning — you are moving too fast and loose. It's one thing to study experienced admins, it's another to actually be and act as one. You are still very new. You're did half things right and half wrong here. Credibly, what you did right, the p-block, etc., was done exceptionally well. [Stricken: this was mostly stated about how well WP:GAME was explained. Beyond that, I'm a bit hazy about the overall timeline.] But after that, it's all down hill.

When you venture into the GS/ACDS topic realm, you're going to run into users that perfected walking the line like a tight rope without ever crossing it in a major way. VM is an exceptionally challenging editor to deal with in that regard. I try not to repeat this too often, because what came to pass came to pass, but to my ever-lasting regret, I was instrumental in arguing before ArbCom for his EE topic ban to be lifted, which came to pass.

Yet, here he became the victim. VM will usually respond uncivilly and unkindly even to warnings (not to mention sanctions), no matter what. That's something you ought to expect, and not just from him; there's no shortage of users who act that way. But keeping your finger off the trigger when it gets heated, when you feel that heat, that, as alluded to, is the other half where you faltered. So, you really do need to start taking it slower. Temper non-emergency actions against users whom you've sanctioned. As I know you know, it is standard practice to give sanctioned users extra-leeway. The challenge as an admin is to live up to that maxim. Because the fallout when you fail to do that, is this easily-avoidable time sink. El_C 18:03, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I concur that Tamzin is "moving too fast and loose," as I described here.[42] The ban I previously received from another admin was dubious enough, but Tamzin's subsequent block was reflexively capricious, absolutely without merit, resulting in a permanent black mark on me in the block log. I see absolutely no contrition on Tamzin's part, which only deepens my concerns about Tamzin's suitability to be an admin. soibangla (talk) 21:41, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

@Soibangla Your topic ban and resultant block were completely correct and followed policy to the letter. You were given numerous warnings that your talk page comments fell within the boundary of a topic ban and were told to stop commenting - the "black mark" arose entirely due to your own actions. You have already had this explained to you at your talk page, at the talk page of the enforcing administrator [43] and at AN [44] where every single person has pointed out that you have a flawed, incorrect understanding of how discretionary sanctions work. How many times are you going to continue beating this dead horse? How many times do you need the workings of discretionary sanctions explaining to you? Your request to have the log entry removed is completely without merit and would be an example of gross administrative tool misuse - Wikipedia:Revision deletion#Misuse RevisionDelete does not exist to remove "ordinary" offensive comments and incivility, or unwise choices of wording between users, nor to redact block log entries. 192.76.8.87 (talk) 22:08, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I will not consider the views on this contentious matter from any editor who posts IP. soibangla (talk) 22:20, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The IP is absolutely correct. This isn't an opportunity for you to air your grievances or relitigate your block. -- Ponyo^{bons mots} 22:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Discriminating against IP views is an uncivil act by definition unless backed by evidence of sockpuppetry/block evasion. Buffs (talk) 22:36, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Undo P-Block of VM and apply a solid trouting

  From a technical standpoint, Volunteer Marek did not violate WP:1RR as all the edits were outside the 24-hour window. You want to view that as gamesmanship? That's fine, but the justification for this block is flawed at its premise. Now, is this the start of or a continuation of edit warring? Probably, but you didn't make that case. If someone is going 58 in a 60 mph zone, you don't write them a ticket for for speeding "because it was clear what they were trying to do." Buffs (talk) 21:36, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  This is a flawed analogy. The correct analogy is someone driving 62 in the 60 mph zone knowing nobody would usually bother to write a fine, and if somebody would, they have good lawyers. Ymblanter (talk) 21:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, but why do they have such good lawyers? When I started editing here, an admin warned me: You need to read WP:3rr carefully. It’s not an allowance. Well, I guess the same applies to 1RR. VM is constantly edit warring in the EE area while formally abiding by the 3RR rule: he literally does it all the time. Why doesn't anybody intervene? And the same applies to incivility. El C says VM will usually respond uncivilly and unkindly even to warnings. Ok, but this happens not only when VM deals with admins issuing warnings and blocks, but also and especially with fellow editors and even newcomers. Since no one is paid here to be bullied, I don't understand how this could be allowed to go on for so long. I welcomed the block, although I thought it would have been better applied in response to some of his many intemperances against non-admin users. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:16, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  I intervened last time and you remember what the result was. Ymblanter (talk) 22:19, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Even NYB stated "As Tamzin acknowledges, VM did not violate the 1RR/24h that was in effect on the page at the time, and if I am reading the chronology correctly, there was an ongoing talkpage discussion." The "law" wasn't violated. Buffs (talk) 22:41, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  There was ongoing talk page discussions, which VM was participating in. Which makes the 2nd revert of the “conspiracy theorist” language disruptive, as clearly VM was aware that most editors did not support it in the article. Mr Ernie (talk) 22:50, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Then wouldn't a simple warning be sufficient? The threshold for "disruption" is exceedingly low. Buffs (talk) 16:50, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  3RR and 1RR are both bright-line rules. You cross them and the punishment is clear/crisp/unambiguous. To both of you, no, the analogy is driving 58 in a 60 zone, but what he really should be cited for is reckless driving because the road conditions warrant a slower speed. You want to cite VM or anyone else for 1RR or 3RR, then you better have clear evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you need to provide other evidence of an infraction. What you are describing is incivility and/or edit warring. If he's to be blocked for that, honestly, given the general sentiment, I don't particularly have a problem with it if it's backed up with evidence, but that evidence is not presented here.

  ...in short, this is NOT 1RR or 3RR and VM is following those rules to a "T". Buffs (talk) 22:34, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  I'd say the gaming description seems quite reasonable. A new account would probably be warned, maybe p-blocked. An experienced editor should know better. I'm not sure what the right way to handle the issue would have been, but I don't think the original p-block was crazy. As long as VM acknowledges that their behavior wasn't great here and they will avoid similar things in the future, I think we're good and the p-block should be removed. Hobit (talk) 22:14, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Editors - Please learn all the facts before expressing your opinion - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:18, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Hey Gizzy, perhaps you should WP:AGF and assume we've all read the history and know the facts. I don't agree with Gitz, but I assume he/she has read the history and relevant criteria. 1RR and 3RR are bright lines. Anything else really falls under edit warring. If the person is edit warring, block them for that, not a violation that didn't happen. Buffs (talk) 22:27, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Got it 👍 - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:31, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Actually I hadn't missed a single comment and I had followed the drama in real time as the events unfolded, a bowl of popcorn on my lap, so there might be lack of understanding on my part, but no lack of information. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:45, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry, Gizzy. Misread the comment. I think we're on the same page here. Buffs (talk) 22:52, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

  Assuming the comment from GCB was directed to me: yes, the blocking reason should have been something about a slow edit war and gaming. And yes, I think a warning might have been best as a first stop. But I do think a p-block in this case isn't crazy. Is there some other point that I'm missing? Hobit (talk) 22:52, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

IMHO the concerns brought up at ARBCOM should instead be raised as a separate thread here. A request for a self-review of a block does not have the scope to deal with the issues raised.North8000 (talk) 22:43, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Not to belabor the point, but anyone reviewing please look at the page history for the context. Volunteer Marek reverted 5 times in 3 days - (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), all while a talk page discussion was ongoing and had been started on the first day of the edit warring. This is a pretty clear cut 1RR violation that would have probably been handled with stricter sanctions had it been reported at AE. Mr Ernie (talk) 01:12, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

No one, and I mean absolutely no one editing that page was aware that there was a 1RR restriction on that article until Tamzin announced it. There was the additional problem of various brand new, fly by nights accounts showing up reverting and removing info left and right (obviously such accounts don’t really care much about 1RR). Volunteer Marek 07:44, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

BTW, a very similar situation to the one on Aaron Mate article is taking place at Mariam Susli AfD (these two persons are linked, they share the same “propaganda space” and both have canvassed users off wiki to edit their Wikipedia pages). There’s some really over the top shenanigans going on over there (and the article) with some very likely coordination and/or sock puppetry from like half a dozen accounts. It’s also Syria related so I’m assuming under 1RR, basically the same kind of POV, but drooling donkey donuts, now I’m all paranoid about engaging and trying to take care of it. Volunteer Marek 08:17, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

And on that note let me point out that having a GS/SCW 1RR restriction on contentious articles such as these *without* a concurrent 500/30 restriction that allows for reverting non auto confirmed accounts is really really really foolish. It’s basically handing over the relevant articles to fly by night throw a2ay accounts who, unlike established editors, don’t care about 1RR because they simply move on to the next account. Why do we never think this stuff through? Just love of making up rules? The “something must be done and this is a something” mentality? Volunteer Marek 08:40, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

No one, and I mean absolutely no one editing that page was aware that there was a 1RR restriction on that article until Tamzin announced it — that's because there wasn't, until Tamzin announced it (on Nov 3, you were pinged). More importantly, in order for WP:1RR to come into effect, an admin must place the required notices (added also on Nov 3): talk page notice, page notice. El_C 09:01, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmmm, it doesn’t seem like thats what Tamzin thinks [45]: (1RR) which I did not impose, but rather merely noted the existence of; it had rightly been in effect since the article was created. Now I’m even more confused. Is it always in place if it’s Syria related or does it have to be officially “announced” first? How come the admins don’t know this? Volunteer Marek 09:20, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

It came into effect once Tamzin imposed it in the manner I described above. Until then, while the WP:SCW sanctions regime was pertinent to that page, it only existed in potential. El_C 09:36, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek @El C All articles related to the Syrian civil war and ISIL are under a community imposed 1RR restriction, which does not require notice. See WP:GS/SCW&ISIL#1RR: In addition a one revert rule, which does not require notice, with the following specifications is imposed. 192.76.8.87 (talk) 09:43, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

See also the preamble of the remedies section Pages may be tagged with {{SCW&ISIL sanctions}}, and {{Editnotice SCW 1RR}} may be used to indicate that articles are under general sanctions. The presence of these templates is not a prerequisite for issuing sanctions, but editors should be made aware of them prior to being sanctioned. 192.76.8.87 (talk) 09:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) IP, that's the thing with WP:GS rules, they can be especially arcane. With WP:ACDS, across the board these notices are required for enforcing 1RR, etc. Which is why there has been a growing push to subsume GS into DS, so they could be better standardized. And which is why I felt WP:GS/RUSUKR was a step backwards in that regard. But as for WP:SCW, indeed, its page states:

The presence of these templates is not a prerequisite for issuing sanctions, but editors should be made aware of them prior to being sanctioned. Editors must be notified of discretionary sanctions with the {{subst:Gs/alert|syr}} template (emphasis added).

So, due to these arcane features, technically, the page notices were not required. But also, technically, the {{subst:Gs/alert|syr}} was, and Tamzin placing it alongside the sanction itself was (technically) inappropriate, as it is meant to alert editors to it [full stop]. In my view, none of that really matters. I presume VM was aware that it was put into effect on Nov 3 when he was pinged. And if he somehow wasn't aware of it until being sanctioned, well, that would be a fuck up (not on VM's part, I miss pings all the time). El_C 10:13, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@El C Per the GS page, these sanctions are modelled after the Palistine-Israel Arbitration case. The only part of the ARBPIA Sanctions that requires awareness are the discretionary sanctions, [46], the extended confirmed restriction and 1RR rule do not require an editor to be aware to be enforced. This has been clarified in these 2020 clarification requests [47] [48]. Reading the general sanctions page I think the same setup was intended here, the 1RR restriction is applied "In addition" to the general sanctions, rather than as a part of it, and the requirements for user talk page notices doesn't make any sense combined with the statement that the 1RR rule "does not require notice". 192.76.8.87 (talk) 11:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

As a matter of principle, no editor should ever be sanctioned for violating a restriction unless he or she was reasonably aware of the restriction, using the term "aware" with its common-sense everyday meaning. The only exception would be if the edit would have been improper anyway, even in the absence of the restriction. But this thread is probably not the best place for any further discussion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

IP, I've moved downstairs because this section is too long, and it's too annoying trying to find this thread within it. El_C 17:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Comment: the situation at Aaron Maté had developed into a shit fight. There was some discussion through edit comments which isn't ideal but does demonstrate editing toward consensus. IMHO somebody needed to call time-out, have editors go to a neutral corner and listen to the ref and start up a real discussion. Wikipedia:Gaming the system would state: "Borderlining" – habitually treading the edge of policy breach .... I don't think a pattern of gaming conduct was reasonably established. Wikipedia:Gaming the system would state: A warning from an administrator is usually the best way to prevent gaming, because a clear warning should help correct both good-faith mistakes and bad-faith games. Nor is it clear that Hobomok has been made DS aware, though I would think that VM probably is. Seven days block does seem somewhat excessive in the first instance. I don't think that these blocks were reasonable or appropriate. Poyani has already been unblocked. So should Hobomok. As to the block applied to VM re civility: nemo iudex in causa sua. VM does need to watch their civility but I think that the circumstances should be considered and significant latitude given. I would agree with the observations of Newyorkbrad (and El_C) in this and that the block should be fully removed. If possible, I would suggest these blocks be erased from the record if possible. To Tamzin, others observe that they are a new admin that has generally shown good judgement. They acknowledge (at least in part) that they fucked up. They are prepared to accept a trouting from the community if that is our decision but IMO a Beluga sturgeon is more in order. Such an admonishment should be noted but I don't think that in itself (this incident) any further action is require in respect to Tamzin. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:15, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

The situation at the Mate article has become a shit show for a very simple reason - for the past few months (and maybe even going further to 2021 when apparently there had been some COI looking editing going on) there has been a steady flow of brand new (occasionally sleeper) accounts coming to that article, trying to remove any negative information about the subject no matter how well sourced it is. This of course escalated recently when apparently Mate posted about the article on twitter, effectively encouraging his followers to go edit it along the same lines (remove any negative … etc.) A lot of these accounts have like five or ten edits to their name yet they also possess an uncanny knowledge of esoteric Wikipedia policies (like quoting WP:COATRACK in their first ever edit). They also have absolutely zero compunction about misrepresenting their edits with false edit summaries (like falsely claiming that text sourced to The Guardian is sourced to a “blog” or “LinkedIn”) or following 1RR for that matter. Because for them there’s no consequences to breaking the rules - just make a new account. Volunteer Marek 09:26, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

At the time, the Guardian source presented as a hyperlink "[1]", where ref 1 was to Lidekin. So, unless there was deliberate interference with the citation (I didn't see one), the revert comment was in "good faith". Cinderella157 (talk) 10:48, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that's true. Initially the ref was not formatted but it did not "present as" or link to LinkEdIn. All you had to do was click it or hover it to see that it was indeed the Guardian. Am I missing something here? By the time I restored it it was properly formatted. Volunteer Marek 16:09, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

More eyes please

I have been partially involved in adminning the Aaron Maté page over the past few days although Tamzin has borne most of the burden. Now with them potentially stepping back from the article + ongoing Ukraine war + upcoming US elections + change of ownership at Twitter, the article is likely to receive more outside attention in addition to the ongoing disputes. So can some experienced editors and admins add it to their watchlist, help resolve the current differences, and keep an eye for more flare ups? Thanks. Abecedare (talk) 20:07, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this, Abe. To be clear, this isn't an outright recusal from the article, but an acknowledgment that most heavier-duty admin situations there would probably not benefit from me being the handling admin at this point in time. If it's something like a disruptive SPA or a sock, or an incredibly blatant 1RR violation, I may still take some action. But the last thing a contentious article needs is an admin who will only invite more contentiousness if they make an even slightly controversial block/ban. I'm also around if there's any questions about the scope of the page sanction I imposed, although it should be quite straightforward: same as the regular 1RR, just change "24" to "72". -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe)

Response needed at VM's

BTW - Would an administrator please respond to VM's unblock request. GoodDay (talk) 23:03, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

• Sure thing. Unblocked VM and Poyani, for time served. I don't think they'll be fighting in this article again. I guess I should unblock User:Hobomok for the same reason, though they seem to have quit and I'm not impressed with the enormous amount of bad-faith editing they displayed. I don't know, though. Should I unblock without an unblock request? Does it matter? Drmies (talk) 01:59, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Hobomok unblock? why not. My guess is, he'll un-retire, shortly after. GoodDay (talk) 02:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Can you remove the DS from the topic area if nobody will bother to enforce it? Get rid of the bureaucratic nonsense that is routinely unfairly enforced. I am bookmarking this thread for the next time an admin tries to tell me about 1RR. It is officially dead. Mr Ernie (talk) 02:09, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Upon further consideration - Drmies you don’t have the authority to undo DS admin actions unless certain provisions are met. Looks like we may need an Arb case after all. Mr Ernie (talk) 02:13, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh Jesus Christ. Well. Someone redo the sanction, whatever. Or, Mr Ernie, make me party to an Arb case, whatever. And make sure you slap the two now temporarily unblocked editors on the wrist for incorrectly placing unblock templates on their own talk pages. I'm going to read a book. Drmies (talk) 02:58, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Drmies: Unblock as you see appropriate. Let's just end this. /pos -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 03:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) For what it's worth, the block on Poyani appears to be an ordinary edit warring block, not a GS enforcement block. As such, I don't see a reason that Drmies is prevented from unblocking that user in response to the unblock request. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:08, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I didn’t make the rules. In fact I’ve been outspoken that they are stupid. I’ve also been outspoken that they should be enforced uniformly and fairly if they are to be enforced at all. But again, I’m pinging you to be my savior if I revert 5 times in 3 days on a 1RR article. Thanks in advance. Mr Ernie (talk) 03:12, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

FWIW I believe we can modify AE sanctions with a clear consensus of uninvolved editors on AN (ie, here), so all we need is a quick straw poll (or not even that, if the consensus is obvious.) --Aquillion (talk) 19:02, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Can we please all stop repeating the same nonsense? VM didn't "revert 5 times in 3 days on a 1RR article", they reverted 3 times on a standard 3RR article, then 1RR was imposed, and they reverted twice in the next two days. If you want to enfirce rules uniformly and fairly, or if you want to start an ArbCom case, first make sure that you have the facts, which have been explained in this discussion again and again, right.

Secondly, what's with the "Drmies you don’t have the authority to undo DS admin actions unless certain provisions are met." According to WP:GS/SCW, "Sanctions imposed may be appealed to the imposing administrator or at the appropriate administrators' noticeboard." The blocking admin started a review here, and stated explicitly "I have no objection to any admin restoring TPA, reverting to the p-block, or unblocking outright, if there isn't consensus to maintain the current sanction." So, please enlighten me, what "authority" did Drmies miss to undo the block, which "provisions" weren't met, and what would warrant an ArbCom case? Please don't needlessly and wrongly create additional drama in an already tense situation. Fram (talk) 10:03, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Fram All articles relates to Islamic state and the Syrian civil war are under a community imposed 1RR restriction, which does not require notices to be enforced: WP:GS/SCW&ISIL#1RR. The article was never a "standard 3RR article", it was always under 1RR, it was just that the people editing the article don't seem to have realised that such a restriction existed.

I completely agree with you about the reversal of the block though, it was brought here for review with the explicit instruction that any administrator could remove it. 192.76.8.87 (talk) 10:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I would not feel happy, however, about sanctioning an editor for breaking 1RR on an article where there was no notice whatsoever about discretionary sanctions on the talk page (and no mention of them in the 21 talkpage threads that existed before the DS notice was added on 3 November), let alone a 1RR notice. Black Kite (talk) 10:20, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

To reiterate what I just stated above, until an editor is made aware of the sanctions regime being in effect, it cannot be enforced. So, if we're following the rules to the letter, as noted: Editors must be notified of discretionary sanctions with the {{subst:Gs/alert|syr}} template (emphasis added). Therefore, technically, only those violations that come after that alert, then become sanctionable (or deemed violations, however you phrase it). El_C 10:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

And to reiterate what I said above, you are incorrect. 1RR restrictions passed as a remedy do not require awareness to be enforced, 1RR restrictions placed under discretionary sanctions do. 192.76.8.87 (talk) 11:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Which inevitably leads to the quite reasonable defence by an editor that they could not break a restriction which they were unaware existed, regardless of whether "awareness is required". Black Kite (talk) 11:30, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

That defense is usually not accepted. It happened to me a few weeks ago, and either the reviewing admin didn't look very closely at the details or didn't care. Mr Ernie (talk) 13:13, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Mr Ernie: I did not see the sanction discussion against you (I haven't been very active lately), but as a matter of principle I uniformly oppose imposing sanctions for any edit where the editor was not reasonably aware of the restriction he or she allegedly violated (unless the edit would obviously be improper in any event). This has been my consistent position for 15 years. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:42, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

IP, wrt to there being discretionary sanctions inside Wikipedia:General sanctions and general sanctions inside Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, no one understand any of that (save maybe NYB, above, who is a lawyer). I wouldn't be able to devise a more confusing system if you paid me. And I'm one of the most active admins in that area. But as to the purpose and function of an alert, and in general, the alerts — these are intended to come before a sanction derived from the sanctions regime they alert over, always. They are never meant as mere info packets alongside a sanction message for that same sanctions regime. Imagine the following. An admin sanctions a user in 2022 over, say, WP:AA2 (easy to write), but also attaches {{subst:alert|a-a}} alongside the sanction message. They then tell the sanctioned user something to the effect: I see you haven't been given an alert to this sanctions regime since 2018, so here it is again, to remind you of it. Oh and btw, I'm also sanctioning you on the basis of that sanctions regime that maybe you forgot existed. If so, tough luck for forgetting.

Beyond that and more concretely, there is a best practice which started with WP:ARBPIA at the enforcement level (not at the arcane committee level) a few years ago, then went on to be applied elsewhere. It goes as follows: barring chronic repeat offenders, sanctions for WP:1RR don't really happen anymore unless the editor in question is first given a chance to self-revert (and if it's too late, they're usually given a break). I'm ballparking here, but this easily ended up reducing the number of blocks for 1RR by, like, 80 percent. And anywhere you'd go: WP:AE, WP:AN3, WP:ANI, WP:RFPP, an admin's talk page — the reporting user would be asked the same thing: did you let the user know that they broke 1RR and ask them to self-revert? So, ultimately, regardless of what all these weird rules of code and code of rules that no one understands actually say, that's how 1RR is enforced in practice. El_C 16:57, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@El C I think I've caused some confusion here regarding the words "alert" and "aware" and their wikispeak meaning vs their normal usage, for which I apologise. The discretionary/general sanctions requirements for talk page notices, edit notices etc (to make someone "aware" of the sanction) only apply to discretionary/general sanctions. They do not apply to the 1RR restriction because it is not a part of discretionary/general sanctions, it's a standalone sanction in its own right. The 1RR restriction essentially runs on the basis of use common sense, give people notice, giving people to self correct etc. as you describe, but the formal awareness system and templated messages do not need to be followed. The whole argument that they couldn't be blocked for edit warring under/gaming 1RR because they didn't have the awareness template doesn't hold, because the awareness template is not related to the 1RR restriction and ample efforts were made to inform them of the existence of the 1RR restriction via edit notices, talk page notices, talk page messages etc.

The original ARBPIA sanction was modified in 2019 to require edit notices on pages before it could be used, which brought it more in line with normal discretionary sanctions on the basis that it was possible to sanction editors who did not even know these sanctions existed, [49], but this requirement is not present in the 2012 era version of the restriction used here and was removed from ARBPIA again in the most recent case.

I fully agree that DS/GS are a complete mess, but I think that's just an artefact of it being a confused system that has grown out of 2 decades of arbitration cases. Really it needs a full rewrite - defining some boundaries on what an admin can do as an individual action and what requires a consensus of admins would be a good start (can an individual admin place an indefinite topic ban or does it need to go to AE is a perpetual debate). 192.76.8.87 (talk) 18:28, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

IP, what I'm getting at, is that in the vast majority of topic areas covered by sanctions regimes, it doesn't matter if it's 1RR or any other enforcement mechanism (that's a direct sanction). When these are applied while invoking a sanctions regime, then that sanction has to be logged and all the awareness criteria apply. That's as per the cross-currents of conflicting rules.

Anyway, I think we're sort of getting lost in the sauce. The issue is to have a good, consistent standard across the board. As I mentioned at the DS reform page, many (most?) of ArbCom are not that experienced working on the ground floor of the day-to-day AE, so they may have gaps about some established best practices; what works best in practice. But, regardless, there is no reason for DS/GS to be that opaque. I'm sorry to repeat this and even quote myself for emphasis, but the presentation: discretionary sanctions within Wikipedia:General sanctions and general sanctions within Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions — is incredibly confusing and counterintuitive.

But even with all it's failing, I think there needs to be a sweeping move to, if not subsume (like with WP:GS/COVID19→WP:COVIDDS, WP:GS/IRANPOL→WP:ARBIRP, WP:GS/IPAK→WP:ARBPAK, et cetera, etc.), at least standardize WP:GS to follow WP:ACDS. I haven't kept up with the DS reform developments, but I suppose the question is how long will it take. If it's soon'ish, wait. But if it's gonna be a long time, might as well (with the power of magic) standardize all GS with un-reformed DS, just to have a semblance of overarching consistency, at the very least. El_C 19:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• Stating the obvious: The endless murkiness and contradictory guidelines and policies and recommendations around GS and 1RR and sanctions thereof need to be straightened out and clarified and codified, stat. Softlavender (talk) 11:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions have a different appeal route than normal administrative actions. Appeals can only be made by the sanctioned editor, by asking the sanctioning admin or opening a review at AE, AN, or ARCA. Additionally, no admin may modify the sanctions without explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator or consensus at AE, AN, or ARCA. I don't believe Tamzin's statement opening the discussion here qualifies, as it also states "if there isn't consensus to maintain the current sanction." I don't see consensus that the partial block was not justified. Finally, as the article is a BLP, and valid BLP concerns had been raised, edit warring to insert contentious material 5 times (especially against a talk page discussion consensus) is never appropriate. Editors get blocked for that on a daily basis without much drama. Mr Ernie (talk) 13:08, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

This is not a DS topic area. It is a community GS topic area. All DS are GS not all GS are DS. Arbcom controls DS. Some GS are controlled by arbcom some by the community. This GS is controlled by the community and so it's not actually appealable to AE or ARCA which are Arbcom spaces. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:49, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Reads more like "I was blocked unfairly, so everyone else should be as well" sour grapes than an actual defense... In any case, Tamzin agreed to an unblock "if there isn't consensus to maintain the current sanction.": not an active consensus that it was a bad block, but lack of consensus that it was a good block. In the above discussion, from a rapid glance (bound to miss some people), I see Newyorkbrad opining that the block was "of borderline necessity" and that they "would not have blocked, even p-blocked", Only in Death called it "a particularly poor block", 28bytes said "Both the page block and the site block should be lifted ASAP", Zero said "The original block could be debated but it was rather mild and not much out of the ordinary.": Tamzin then said "I've left the p-block intact, and will leave it to another admin to decide whether to maintain it or unblock outright." (so no longer requiring a lack of consensus even). After this, discussion continued with Nableezy saying "The block was justified but not necessary, and that being the case means it should have been handled with less forceful means", you said "the partial block needs to stay.", Gizzycatbella said "Original blocks (all 3 editors) should be also lifted", Buffs said "Undo P-Block of VM", Gitz said " I welcomed the block"

So it seems obvious that there was absolutely no consensus to maintain the sanction (more leaning to a consensus to unblock), which means that Drmies was following both the "prior affirmative consent" of Tamzin (see also their later comment I included above), and consensus here (plus what Barkeep said). Fram (talk) 13:51, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I was not blocked, so I'm not sure what the sour grapes refers to. Mr Ernie (talk) 14:07, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

If you weren't blocked, then I don't know what this was about. Fram (talk) 15:40, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

The "I was not aware" defense. Mr Ernie (talk) 15:58, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

You used that defense, and you weren't blocked. And somehow this justifies or is comparable to VM's block? Never mind, I doubt this will become a fruitful discussion. Fram (talk) 16:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• My $0.02 based on reading the whole thread and looking over the sum total of the evidence: I think at this point we don't need an ArbCom case or any sanctions against Tamzin at this time. This entire thread serves the purpose of educating them on the mistakes that they made; they have admitted to the mistakes, proactively sought feedback, undone their mistakes themselves; all the things we expect out of anyone who screws up. Rather than being evidence that they are not responsible enough to use the tools, the response here by Tamzin, proactively starting the thread themselves, and conscientiously taking on advice from more experienced admins, accepting the well-deserved criticism with grace, is literally a model for how admins should behave when they screw up. Perfection, even by admins, is not required, but this is how WP:ADMINACCT should work. Given all of that, this entire event should be taken as "lesson learned" and the thread closed with a trout for Tamzin and no further action at this time. I think if we see this behavior again by Tamzin, then we should consider moving forward with an ArbCom case, but at this time, it is not necessary. --Jayron32 14:34, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

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Suggestion

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In the midst of the firm head shaking above, I think something of some importance has been lost. When a 1RR is imposed in a hot-button topic you have a mix of good and bad faith editors. In ARBPIA, when the 1RR was imposed topic-area wide it was imposed along with the extended confirmed restriction so as to prevent the fly-by-night made an account to revert and vanish type of editors. I cant really think of a case of a topic that is so disrupted that it requires DS/GS imposed 1RR but also not so disrupted it does not need extended confirmed also. The Syrian Civil War GS goes half way there, saying Reverts of edits made by anonymous IP editors that are not vandalism are exempt from 1RR but are subject to the usual rules on edit warring. I propose to modify that to match ARBPIA, so that reverts of non-extended confirmed editors and IP editors are both exempt from the 1RR and not considered edit-warring. Can use the standard phrasing found in whatever arb page that uses it. nableezy - 17:49, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• Just as point of information on the history here, which may clarify how we wound up in this situation, ARBPIA1 (2008) had no ECR or 500/30 clause. That was ARBPIA3 (2015, as 500/30 restriction; converted to ECR last year). The SCW GS were created as an extension of ARBPIA1&2 in 2013. As they were explicitly intended to be identical to the PIA sanctions (except where procedurally impossible), I imagine they would have included the ECR if it existed at the time. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:44, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
• EZ support and a Like. A clear improvement in a number of ways. One reason I've always found this clause, which I believe is unique to this GS, discomforting is that it relegates IPs as 2nd class citizens while still being allowed to participate in the ongoing editing process; as opposed to just fixing a tenure in the normal way. In my view, once an IP is allowed to edit a page, they should have the same rights as any other named account, regardless of tenure. It seems to also distinguishes IPs from nonconfirmed named accounts. As such, theoretically, a 2-day named account would have an advantage over a 2-year IP (this wouldn't actually happen, of course, but it's still worded like that). Not to mention that we get the wtf cross-current of a 1RR exemption that at the same time is still subject to the usual rules on edit warring. El_C 21:17, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  Any time El C and I see the same on an issue, it's probably a good idea...support Buffs (talk) 19:24, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• I think this is a good discussion to have, but would rather not see it buried in another discussion in a user-behavior thread. If we're going to make such a change to standard practices, even a much needed one, I would prefer this were a new thread, and either held at WP:VPP or held as a new thread at WP:AN and advertised at VPP. If it's important enough to do, it's important enough to do right. --Jayron32 11:49, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I mean, we could retitle the header from "suggestion" to "proposal to," I suppose, but it seems fine as a subsection. Also, WP:AN is the correct venue (by far), WP:VPP, not so much. We're not changing the policy in significant way on WP:GS; we're altering a specific thing about one of many GSs, and AN is where that's done. Most recently, to expand the scope of Wikipedia:General sanctions/Uyghur genocide (that discussion is here, if you're interested). El_C 15:29, 9 November 2022 (UTC) Added: oh, that was WP:ANI, actually. But it doesn't matter, the two are basically interchangeable in that regard (i.e. proposal in a subsection that follows an incident @Incidents). El_C 15:35, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough. I just don't want this discussion, which is really unrelated to the discussion to which it is attached, lost or see that people who have an interest in contributing can't find it because it is in an unexpected location. --Jayron32 15:36, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

It's true that while the incident above involves this sanctions regime, it only does so wrt its general features and it as a general example. This proposal concerns its unique features. So, a subsection or refactoring to a new thread, I'm good with whatever. But WP:VPP would be good for having the WP:CENTRAL discussion about standardizing the myriad of hodge-podge WP:GS sanctions regimes to align with one standard: WP:ACDS. Myself and an IP editor discuss that issue at some length above. BTW, I was of course in favour of expanding the scope of WP:GS/UYGHUR. But, truth be told, I, myself, had always treated it with expanded scope (because, fuck it). El_C 15:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC) Added: Jayron32* (ugh!). El_C 15:59, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Can I suggest that if the idea is to do some larger standardization to wait? Hopefully in the next couple of days the Proposed Draft of the revision to WP:AC/DS will be posted and before the end of the year it will be possible for the community to amend their GS authorizations to allow them to be heard at WP:AE. Given the feedback ArbCom has received I suspect the community will want to do this in at least some instances and it's conceivable to me that the community could want to do this writ large. This feels of a piece with some larger scale wording standardization of community GS. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:01, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh, days, wow. Okay, we got our answer. Self quote from above: I haven't kept up with the DS reform developments, but I suppose the question is how long will it take. If it's soon'ish, wait [...] El_C 16:20, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Barkeep, sounds good, but just provisionally I'm going to support the above suggestion. Volunteer Marek 16:27, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

To be clear I was commenting about larger scale changes. This was not a suggestion or comment about nableezy's suggestion in this instance. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• Unblock Volunteer Marek, Trout Tamzin, Move on per Jayron32. FOARP (talk) 13:51, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  @FOARP: You do know that VM has been unblocked for over 2 days, right? Unless we want to double-unblock them... (how does that work? Is it like a Get Out of Jail Free card? Do they become an admin automatically? How does unblocking someone already unblocked work?) --Jayron32 14:42, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  Does one get Jimbo's user rights if they are triply unblocked? :) – dudhhr ^talk _contribs (he/they) 17:49, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  Not for now... Sarrail (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Jayron32 - I was under the impression that the P-block was still in place. If it's been lifted happy to celebrate this having been done. FOARP (talk) 14:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Here is the block log. Drmies lifted said block on November 8. --Jayron32 14:58, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Jayron, I wasn't clear if that mean the p-block was gone or not, but if it does...nothing much more to say except Support the above suggestion as eminently sensible. FOARP (talk) 16:16, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

It's all good man, I was a bit of an asshole back there. In reality, the thread is so WP:TLDR anyone should not be blamed for missing stuff like that. --Jayron32 16:52, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

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Sanctions: discretionary, general, standing

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So, to continue my rant, consider the following. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles (WP:PIA) mentions three kinds of sanctions:

1. Discretionary sanctions are mentioned in the opening paragraph ("the discretionary sanctions procedure") and elsewhere throughout.
2. General sanctions are mentioned at WP:PIA#ARBPIA General Sanctions, WP:PIA#General sanctions upon related content, and elsewhere.
3. Standing sanctions are mentioned at WP:PIA#Standing sanctions upon primary articles.

Who understands this? El_C 04:44, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Given that 1RR is mentioned in the lead section but not under General Sanctions, does that mean all articles in the topic area are subject to 1RR by default? Never mind; according to the documentation at {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}}, The visibility of this template is a prerequisite to sanctioning an editor for violation of the 1RR restriction. Does this contradict what the IP said above, or is the template documentation wrong?

This page and WP:AC/DS (pretty much mandatory to comprehend any of this) are awfully hard to parse; they're certainly not structured in the same way most policies are. They're written too much like laws, not like prose essays, and Wikipedians are not all lawyers.

Evidently (at least, according to {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}}, in absurdly small text), we average users are expected to familiarise [ourselves] with WP:PIA, WP:AC/DS, WP:ARBPIA4, and {{Arab-Israeli Arbitration Enforcement}} before editing pages in the topic area. Fine, but surely at least the reading experience of WP:AC/DS can be improved. That page is cited all over the place, and it's incredibly difficult for a first-time reader (like me) to even figure out what exactly a sanction is without reading minutely through half of it. There is a single sentence that explains what sanctions are, and it's all too easy to miss when there's absolutely no indication of what parts are important and what parts are irrelevant trivia to anyone besides administrators. ( Peanut gallery comment) Shells-shells (talk) 06:50, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Like myself and the IP, you're kinda getting lost in the sauce, Shells-shells. So, welcome to the club. The 1RR notice thing (etc.), though, it's really not that important to the thrust of my argument, which is about accessibility. What actually prompted me to create this subsection is that earlier today, following a request at RfPP, I WP:ECP'd an article under ARBPIA. Then, I imagined a new (unconfirmed) or newish (confirmed) user trying to edit that page and seeing the following (emphasis added):

• 18:22, 10 November 2022 El C talk contribs block protected Adam Bakri [Edit=Require extended confirmed access] (indefinite) [Move=Require extended confirmed access] (indefinite) (New editors are prohibited from editing this Arab–Israeli conflict related page)

Then, I imagined such a user clicking on the highlighted link. A link containing contents that even I, one of the most active admins in the DS/GS realm of the project, struggle with. So, that's where I'm going with this. El_C 07:20, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I catch your drift. I guess the question is: Why are these abstruse policies so public-facing? Sanctioned articles, by their very nature, typically attract new and inexperienced editors. If restrictions must be placed on them, surely they should be as clear and straightforward as possible, no? After all, most of Wikipedia is not impenetrably bureaucratic like this. How come these specific bits are so confusing and incomprehensible? Shells-shells (talk) 08:24, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Now that (public-facing) is the right question and direction. Needless to say, it should also make more sense to experienced users and enforcing admins. I still don't know what Standing vis-à-vis General vis-à-vis Discretionary is suppose to mean exactly. But it would ^stand to reason that someone does.

Like with the point I made concerning discretionary sanctions within Wikipedia:General sanctions and general sanctions within Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions — "impenetrably bureaucratic" is an apt description. Are we stuck? El_C 16:22, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I do. General sanctions are the largest category. Discretionary sanctions are 1 kind of General Sanction which authorize admin to act. Another kind of general sanction is Extended-Confirmed protection which means all pages in the topic area can only be edited by EC editors. This particular set of sanctions came into existence over time and so standing sanctions details how to rolls this out. I wish they'd used another name.

On the whole this is needlessly confusing. ArbCom is attempting to clarify some of this with more understandable language. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:15, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Please consider, as you work on this, the public-facing versus the deep. It'd be great for 'deep users' to also be able consult a simple guide, 'cause who can really remember what's what?

Also, if "General sanctions are the largest category" of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, would the reverse be true — that Distortionary sanctions are the largest category of Wikipedia:General sanctions? Because there's a music to that, and also it's fuckin' insane. Cheers! El_C 00:13, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

With the caveat that some users might not follow the specific definitions laid out on the guidance pages, general sanctions are a type of Wikipedia sanctions that apply to all editors working in a particular topic area. These contrast with editing restrictions, also called "personal sanctions", which apply only to individual editors. So page-specific restrictions are general sanctions, such as page-specific one-revert rules or extended-confirmed protection. Editors should know about a given page-specific restriction before receiving a sanction for violating it. An edit notice is the usual mechanism, but there could be other ways (for example, you might participate in a discussion where it is mentioned).

For topics where discretionary sanctions have been authorized, a single administrator can apply sanctions that would normally require community consensus. One possibility is for the administrator to apply a page-specific restriction (thus, a general sanction). Just like community-imposed page-specific restrictions, editors should know about it before being sanctioned for violating it, and there are multiple ways to learn about the restriction. Administrators can also impose a personal sanction on their own authority, provided the editor has first received a discretionary sanctions alert message on their talk page, using the officially designated template, or one of the other conditions for awareness of the authorization of discretionary sanctions has been met. isaacl (talk) 03:11, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

isaacl, as a policy authority, could I maybe press on you to voice an opinion as to my repetition? Which is as follows: citing the use of discretionary sanctions under Wikipedia:General sanctions, like with WP:GS/UYGHUR (top Ombox→) as a "community-authorised discretionary sanctions regime"; and citing the use of general sanctions for Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, like with WP:PIA#ARBPIA General Sanctions — does the way in which these things are worded sound intuitive to you? And if not, would the solution be colours? El_C 04:24, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Without colours, I've come to realize that a solution that would take us a good ways forward would be to simply rename the Arbcom and Community sets of sanctions. So, change Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions (WP:ACDS) into something like Arbitration Committee authorized sanctions (WP:ACAS); and change Wikipedia:General sanctions (WP:GS) into something like Community authorized sanctions (WP:CAS).

I mean, both redirects are taken (Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Fortifications task force, respectively), but that can be worked out. Or they could be renamed into something else, just without the Discretionary / General in the title of either. 'Authorized' should do, then outline discretionary and general to one heart's content within each. Anyway, maybe I'm just speaking into the ether with this, so I'll stop talking now. El_C 05:03, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

The first sentence of Wikipedia:General sanctions/Uyghur genocide seems to be an example of the term "general sanctions" being used to mean "community-authorized discretionary sanctions" (or, as the closing statement of the relevant discussion put it, community-imposed discretionary sanctions). I agree this is confusing. (The first paragraph in the "Remedies" section does seem to be correctly using Pages with discretionary sanctions to mean pages where a restriction has been enacted by an admin on their own individual authority.) The ongoing review of discretionary sanctions has discussed new terminology and a somewhat different approach, which I think could be used as a common base for authorizing more administrator authority by either the community or the arbitration committee. The community could also take it out of the hands of the arbitrators and modify policy to generally allow more kinds of sanctions to be enacted directly by admins, without requiring community consensus. (For example, policy could be modified to allow admins to impose a one-revert rule on any article when they deem it is warranted.) isaacl (talk) 08:39, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, isaacl, I remember, Counter-Terrorists win, I love the Krieg most, etc., but my issue above wrt to #Name isn't that Discretionary sounds intimidating or whatever. Rather, it's that this weird Discretionary/General inversion and intersection across both WP:ACDS and WP:GS is extremely disorienting. In that sense, I'm not sure resigning ourselves to only renaming the former would be enough. Thus, I hope to see you push for that broader view, so that we don't end up with a bandage solution where that confusion still remains acute. El_C 20:55, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, I didn't say anything about "discretionary" sounding intimidating, and I've already espoused unifying the framework for authorizing additional administrator authority, so the terminology is the same no matter who did the authorizing, or just reaching consensus to approve additional unilateral admin actions across the board, which will also simplify matters. isaacl (talk) 21:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

No, not you, I meant, the first bullet point in #Name is that It's implicitly intimidating. Anyway, I believe in having community-authorized sanctions regimes, but with that "unified framework" (i.e. standards), and I want any of the weirdness with Discretionary/General inversion and intersection gone. So, I hope we're on the same page there. El_C 21:31, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

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Nominations now open for the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections

Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates in the 2022 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections. Nominations must be transcluded by 23:59, 22 November 2022 (UTC). Please note that there is a change to the process this year: per WP:ACERFC2022, questions may only be asked on the official questions pages after the nomination period is over. Thanks, Mz7 (talk) 03:41, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Bad module deletion

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Respected admins, I would like to bring to your attention a module which has been improperly deleted, resulting in redlinked calls appearing in millions of pages.

The module in question is Module:Class/configuration. This was deleted by admin Nihiltres as "Housekeeping and routine (non-controversial) cleanup: made obsolete by changes to parent module; also I am sole author of this page". This most definitely was not a non controversial deletion that had to be done unilaterally. If you click the "What links here" link in the left sidebar of module, you can see it is still called by 3.3 million pages. Pick any page and see the list of templates used in the page, this red module will be listed there. All these are broken due to premature deletion. This module should be undeleted ASAP and wait till the count comes down to zero, only then is it safe to delete.

Thank you. Tasleem Shah Junejo (talk) 16:14, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Why haven't you discussed this with Nihiltres? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:41, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Also for the benefit of people like me, what is this module here for? I am looking at two pages that link to it, Talk:Tic Tac (TV series) and Talk:Hunting Venus, and see nothing broken. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:54, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Module:Class renders table cells with article ratings, mostly for use in WikiProject banners. Module:Class/configuration contained configuration details and loaded the JSON-based definition file (which required a separate loader page for importing the JSON file). With the release of some new Scribunto code, mw.loadJsonData, that allowed directly loading a JSON file, I imported the configuration into the main module and used that new code rather than an external "loader" module. That made Module:Class/configuration obsolete, so I deleted it, believing it to be uncontroversial cleanup (G6) and as the sole author (G7). {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 17:02, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

See Special:Contributions/Tasleem Shah Junejo; their only edits so far are to start this topic and notify me. Especially given that this action happened weeks ago, this smells like an attack on me more than a legitimate complaint. That said, being who I am, if others want to entertain it, I'll happily defend my actions.

In particular, can anyone show me a page with a broken call? I changed Module:Class in a way that removed dependence on Module:Class/configuration before deleting Module:Class/configuration, so the only calls to the latter should be pages that haven't been re-rendered since I made the change. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 16:57, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Seems like a dummy edit to Talk:Harina de otro costal made it disappear from Special:WhatLinksHere/Module:Class/configuration, so I guess that these redlinks are leftovers that the database hasn't noticed yet. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:01, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Noting that the OP has been CU-blocked by Blablubbs. --Kinu ^t/_c 17:05, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Discretionary sanctions review: proposed decision and community review

The Proposed Decision phase of the discretionary sanctions review process has now opened. A five-day public review period for the proposed decision, before arbitrators cast votes on the proposed decision, is open through November 18. Any interested editors are invited to comment on the proposed decision talk page. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:54, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Comment at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/2021-22 review/Proposed decision

Cascade-protect Wikipedia:Manual of Style and all subpages

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The Wikipedia manual of style, including all subpages should be always cascade-protected. There is no reason to edit it. Vandalizing a template or file transcluded in the page may cause disruption to the page.
Protection parameters: (edit=Need administrator access) (move=Need administrator access) (cascading) (indefinite)
Thank you. 143.44.165.14 (talk) 02:30, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The MoS is only semi-protected at the moment, so full-protecting is a bit extreme. The policies are also constantly changing every year or so, and that would mean the page and its templates need to be edited just as frequently. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:10, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - Wikipedia guidelines are supposedly descriptive and not prescriptive. Fully protecting the pages would prevent them from being updated to reflect the current situation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:46, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Strong oppose per MJL and BMK. Pages should not be protected preemptively, and cascade-protection of the MOS would also cascade-protect all templates transcluded onto it. Per WP:CASC: This page is used to protect:
  1. High-risk templates that should always be protected, using cascading protection. On occasion, accidental unprotection or transclusion of unprotected templates into protected templates have led to severe disruption.
  2. High-risk files transcluded by them or used in the interface.

Neither of these criteria are met for the MOS or its subpages; the MOS is not a high-risk template or file.

– dudhhr ^talk _contribs (he/they) 15:52, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Level II desysop of Stephen

The Arbitration Committee has determined, through the CheckUser tool, that Stephen (talk · contribs) has edited while logged out in a manner that harasses another user. The Committee has been unable to establish a satisfactory or alternative explanation after discussion with Stephen. Accordingly, the administrator privileges of Stephen are removed under the Committee's Level II removal procedures.

Supporting: WormThatTurned, Cabayi, Primefac, Donald Albury, Barkeep49, L235, CaptainEek, Izno, Beeblebrox

For the Arbitration Committee, CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:32, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Level II desysop of Stephen

Professor Penguino appears to have breached the "WP:1RR"

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

---

Their edit was amended here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Famine_(Ireland)&diff=1121631017&oldid=1121629882 because 2 of their 3 sources did not check out.

Their original edit was discussed on the talk page Talk:Great Famine (Ireland)#Journalist who writes about cooking and drug taking used as a source for Irish history

And then removed here : https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Famine_(Ireland)&diff=1121882175&oldid=1121769529

So they've now reverted 2 edits within 24 hours??? Without engaging on the talk page.

I recommend a permanent ban for this user. Clearly they don't not deserve it but Wikipedia Admins

P.S. Just joking. Their edit was really unsourced rubbish. Perhaps an admin could explain it to them without a ban? Cheezypeaz (talk) 00:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

This is totally unfair. Sourced content was removed with little or no explanation. I did not know I was breaching WP:1RR. To be fair, it looked like someone was just blanking citations. Professor Penguino (talk) 00:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

So much for WP:Please don't bite the newcomers and WP:Assume good faith. I love Wikipedia. I'm shocked at this accusation and over-reaction. Professor Penguino (talk) 00:19, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with you. Wikipedia is very harsh about rule breaking. Even if you did not know about it. However one of the reverts you reverted did contain a link to the talk page. I suggest you revert your reverts and engage there. I don't want you to be banned. Cheezypeaz (talk) 00:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Really? On my end the revision just says "see". I've already breached WP:1RR, I don't feel like it's my place to revert my edits. Professor Penguino (talk) 00:26, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

It says "Potato dependency: see talk" Cheezypeaz (talk) 00:30, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't see it, but I'll take your word for it. I'll revert my edits in a few minutes. Professor Penguino (talk) 00:34, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification that you were only joking -- still, not a great joke. Not funny. You had me really disappointed and worried. Professor Penguino (talk) 00:33, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. If any admin wants to ban anyone because of Professor Penguino's reverts then please ban me. Cheezypeaz (talk) 00:44, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate your clarification. Live Long and Prosper. Professor Penguino (talk) 00:50, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Contacting IPv6 users

IPv6 addresses are generally allocated with one /64 per customer. See these pages for more information:

IPv6 subnetting reference

User:TonyBallioni/Just block the /64

Contributions per /64 IPv6 block can be viewed by adding /64 to the Special:Contributions URL. That, however, is just about the limit of MediaWiki's helpfulness in dealing with them. Viewers for other types of logs (edit filter, etc) only work with individual users or IP addresses. This is fine for IPv4, but not for IPv6 where a "user's IP address" is effectively an entire /64 subnet. Some system configurations switch addresses within a subnet much more frequently (daily or more) than an ISP assigns a new subnet.

Single IPv6 addresses are much less stable than single IPv4 addresses and IPv6 /64s.

Which brings me to the point: It is very difficult to contact an IPv6 user because you can only leave messages on talk pages of individual addresses. If their operating system switches addresses, they won't see the messages ever again.

This is a technical limitation of MediaWiki. Are there any solutions or workarounds? --Frogging101 (talk) 16:42, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Frogging101, it may (eventually) be moot. IP masking has been coming for 3 years now. Cabayi (talk) 17:33, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

In addition to this forthcoming feature, phabricator is probably full of requests for a /64 talk page notification feature. Nothing will be done about that, especially with IP masking on the agenda. One extreme option that I've used to great effect before is to use a block message. But that's extreme, and not always effective. For normal cases, there's detailed coverage of solutions and workarounds over at Wikipedia:IP hopper. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:46, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The /64 thing isn't very reliable anyway, it depends a lot on where in the world you are and who your ISP is. Lots of people jump around much wider ranges than that. Girth Summit _(blether) 17:50, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

IP masking? Where can we tell them that this is a bad idea? Frogging101 (talk) 18:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure that you can. However, start here: m:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:26, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

IPV6 addresses can be automatically configured by the attached router to include your connected devices UNIQUE MAC address, making unmasked ipv6 edits traceable in some cases to specific people and not just networks. This MAC address can follow you from network to network of they are also configured to provide guaranteed unique addresses, allowing a user to be tracked easily as they travel. Masking is good, unless you really need to find dissident voices as part of your government job. The night king kills Arya in the winds of winter (talk) 23:45, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Two suggestions for consideration:

1. Add a link to MediaWiki:Anontalkpagetext with a list of IPv6's with a talk page in the same /64...

   e.g. on User talk:2600:100F:B1BE:D70D:7DFA:D992:F760:3915 → Special:PrefixIndex/User_talk:2600:100F:B1BE:D70D:

2. Start leaving messages on the /64's :0:0:0:0 address & redirect the actual talk page there. It would coalesce the /64 for talk purposes. If :0:0:0:0 causes problems, maybe use :77:69:6B:69 (wiki)?

I've not fully thought it through. Just spitballing. Cabayi (talk) 13:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that will work. You want to trigger that "You have new messages" WP:OBOD, and centralizing the discussions onto a page that isn't the IP address you're currently using won't have that effect. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:18, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

The elephant in the room that unfortunately often doesn't get discussed in these situations is that IP editing, and policies and procedures and norms surrounding it, including talk page communication was enacted basically 2 decades ago, before IPv6 existed, where all addresses were IPv4, and where most editing happened from hardwired, desktop computers with stable, static IP addresses. This is not the world we live in, and yet most of our standard practices around IP addresses still operates like we are. It's been an openly known and not often discussed problem that has existed for a long time. I'm not sure there is a solution, or at least, not one worth working on, as the entire IP editing system is being massively overhauled with the IP masking processes coming down the pike from WMF. And no, it's not worth arguing against at this point; the natural conflict between privacy and security will always exist, and the pendulum has swung towards privacy. If you can square that circle and somehow create a system that perfectly protects privacy and allows perfect security, good on ya. A lot of minds smarter than you have been working on it for centuries, and have not yet figured it out. No, we have no reliable way of communicating with IPv6 users. The reality is, we never have, but we've also never really tried to fix it. --Jayron32 18:51, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

General sanctions question

Would 2022 missile explosion in Poland fall under Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

It should, since it appears to have been a side-effect. Animal lover |666| 09:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. Ymblanter (talk) 09:41, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Article mistakenly moved to Wikipedia namespace

Would an admin mind taking a look at Wikipedia:Bomb the Rocks: Early Days Singles 1989-1996? The article Bomb the Rocks: Early Days Singles 1989-1996 was, for some reason, moved to the Wikipedia namespace with this edit, which looks like just a good-faith mistake. I've moved the article back to the mainspace under it's new title, but that created a cross-namespace redirect and I'm not sure how to deal with that. There is also a redirect at the pre-move article title Bomb the Rocks: Early Days Singles that redirects to the Wikipedia namespace; so, that also probably needs to be cleaned up. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for taking care of this Materialscientist. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:06, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

User:LDS20 - block review

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

---

I've just indeffed this editor purely on the basis of their user page (linked above) which I've only blanked, not deleted. I am unconvnced that a user whose userpage claims them to be a member of the "Ground Forces" of a neo-fascist and racist organisation, as part of "1st Woodland Combat Brigade" and whose "battle campaigns" include 2020–2022 United States racial unrest is worth keeping in a collaborative environment, regardless of their actual edits.

Your mileage may, of course, vary. Black Kite (talk) 18:58, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Without actual evidence of disruption or violation of policies via diffs, I don't think an admin should not be justifying actions with essays when deciding to indefinitely and unilaterally block editors. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:26, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  "Without ... I don't think ... should not be justifying"... Well, there's a triple negative for the ages. — Trey Maturin has spoken 19:34, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  I completely concur with DWF. It's a slippery slope without any rails. Buffs (talk) 22:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Sorry, I'm too busy laughing at someone claiming to be a Proud Boy saying "I believe if we can move beyond all the hate and divisiveness..." to come up with a good review of this block. Maybe just a kid role-playing? Trolling? --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:31, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Their edits are actually OK (I think - I'm not sure about this stuff). The block is purely on the basis of the userpage, which probably violates at least two of the five pillars. Black Kite (talk) 19:39, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  That is, apparently, Runic. Makes "kid role-playing" slightly more likely. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:45, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed. And it looks like a phonetic translation of the info already on their page, as well as a personal name. Dumuzid (talk) 19:47, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

They are specifically Anglo-Saxon runes rather than the similar long branch Younger Futhark (the Ear (rune) gives it away) and are indeed phonetic-based spellings of personal names. I'm trying to say this as neutrally as possible, but runes are often used by groups other than kids roleplaying, so their usage shouldn't be discounted, but also shouldn't be taken at face value as something negative either. Edit: thinking about it, there's no sense beating around the bush. Runes are sometimes used by white supremacists. They're not the only ones that use it so seeing runes isn't a clear-cut indication that someone is associated with white supremacy by any means, but a self-professed member of the Proud Boys saying that the 2020–2022 United States racial unrest is a "battle/war" that they took part in does raise an eyebrow and the runes should not be used as evidence that it's a kid roleplaying (the other details not fleshing out, however, does suggest that). That said, they've put their name, DOB, and location in that infobox, if they're trolling they might be trolling in someone else's name. - Aoidh (talk) 05:05, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• If you're going to block someone and discuss them here, please state specifically why, in policy, they should be blocked. Citing essays (which aren't policy) and "probably violates at least two of the five pillars" is inappropriately vague. I'm not here to say "let's invite all the Nazis in!", but if he isn't disrupting anything, why not simply remove the portions of his page that are generally not permitted and move on? You've already blanked his page. There's literally nothing for him to do at this point to be unblocked other than acknowledge he can't promote his affiliations.

  I would expect that the same rules apply to these users of {{User antifa}}? Buffs (talk) 22:26, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• If any other admin thinks this sort of thing is OK, they are of course welcome to accept the unblock request that is currently at User_talk:LDS20 (which appears to contain little self-awareness, but whatever). Black Kite (talk) 19:55, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support block. The Proud Boys are designated as a terrorist group in my country, Canada. In addition, they are basically what WP:NONAZIS is all about. I think proudly proclaiming your membership in (indeed, directorship of a chapter of) a "neo-fascist, white nationalist" group is incompatible with collaborative editing good. Oh, sure, the edits may be fine, but this reminds me of the bartender story. Also comment I placed the unblock request on hold. Can the closing admin please resolve their unblock request as per whatever consensus emerges here? Thanks. --Yamla (talk) 19:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• Do not unblock. Infobox officeholder? OK.. apparently the office held is that of Director of Proud Boys of St. Clair County. 1st Woodland Combat Brigade? And under the heading "Battles/wars" in the infobox, we find 2020–2022 United States racial unrest. (This is a long, detailed Wikipedia article which does not even mention the Proud Boys. I guess that does not prevent the user from being proud of the group's achievements during the unrest.) Also 2020-21 United States election protests. This user who is attempting to bring "battles" and "wars" to Wikipedia needs to be blocked either per WP:NONAZIS or as a flaring troll. Do not unblock; do not waste more time on them. Bishonen | tålk 20:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC).
• Dont think we should be blocking people without evidence of actual disruption. Started with Bedford, and looking back at how this has continued I kind of regret talking myself into that block on the basis of a couple of shitty edits to the mainspace, but at least there were shitty edits to the mainspace that could justify it. Not going to spend energy arguing for an unblock, but I do wish the block had not happened. Theres enough crap going on that we dont have to actively look for problems. nableezy - 22:07, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed. We are going down a path of blocking people for political differences. In no way do condone any of these groups, but the block itself is based on claimed affiliation, not actual edit history. Buffs (talk) 22:26, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Theres close to 0 chance this is going to get overturned, nobody is going to go to bat for a user with 327 edits saying he's a proud Proud Boy, but down below theres a statement about "divisive and polemical views" being by themselves disruptive. And Im sure somebody will come along with a Hate is Disruptive wikilink, but we are continuing down this path of a Wikipedia orthodoxy that if one strays from it they are shunned from the community. A place of knowledge is not supposed to be a place free of divisive views. It is not supposed to be a place where you are always comfortable. The body that makes up the editor base of the English Wikipedia is largely white, male, liberal (by US standards at least), progressive on most social issues. I dont even have to base this on my own userbox, as was discussed earlier and others are hinting at below, as I dont even consider it to be a "pro-Hezbollah" userbox anyway. What it is being against results like this. Results in which a body of editors decides that it is unacceptable to hold a view. Not make an edit, but hold a view. Whatever view. And I can understand that this is to make this a more welcoming place for the minorities that are underrepresented in our editor base. I can imagine that it would not be comfortable to be Black and editing Murder of George Floyd alongside a self-declared Proud Boy. Not everything is supposed to be comfortable. We should be blocking people based on their actions as it relates to other editors directly and our articles. Not on some idiotic infobox on their userpage. nableezy - 23:18, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  To clarify, the user page I'm envisioning for that example is something that says explicitly something along the vein of This user supports Hezbollah, not a weird green and yellow box that explicitly supports violent resistance but doesn't name a specific group as the desired target. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:46, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Even then, shouldnt matter. You are basing the idea that this should be prohibited on the basis that some other states have condemned them. So what? (And as far as the 911 report, it also calls the 83 Beirut bombings "Hezbollah's massacre of marines", which would be a surprise considering it was founded in 1985). But really, so what? The African National Congress was designated a terrorist group by the United States and other South African allies. So what? What does that have to do with anybody's editing? nableezy - 23:54, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Regarding What does that have to do with anybody's editing, perhaps nothing. My intent with the questions below were to try to elicit policy-based reasons from editors that support the justification for the initial block, but I'm left without seeing a strong policy basis for it. I think there's ample justification for blocking per WP:NOTHERE as a troll, but I'm unsatisfied with the original rationale for the block if nobody can point to policy that justifies it. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:20, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support block: I don't think that editing privileges should be extended to a self-identified member of a violent, neo-fascist organization, the Proud Boys. --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:24, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Should we block members on site if they are part of violent, anti-fascist organizations too? Buffs (talk) 22:35, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

there's no need to bludgeon the discussion. --K.e.coffman (talk) 05:30, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Gotcha. "don't like the group = deserving of blocking...but only for groups I don't like. Others are fine if I like their organization". Buffs (talk) 06:15, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Questions. How do people feel about blocking supporters/members of violent terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah? Is there a policy basis for such a block if they indicate their support/membership on their user page? If so, what is that policy basis? If not, what policy basis applies to this block and not to the case where a supporter/member of Hezbollah is editing Wikipedia and disclosed so on their userpage? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:44, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  ^^^ What WTH said... Buffs (talk) 22:55, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) I am less familiar with Hezbollah. My understanding is Hezbollah has a political wing as well as a militant group. My personal position is someone identifying themselves on Wikipedia as a part of a terrorist organisation should be blocked. I believe, but could be mistaken, that the militant group part of Hezbollah may qualify, but the political wing would not. The Proud Boys, by comparison, only have the militant part. The specific policy is harder to find, and may not exist. WP:POINT by posting the infobox? Wikipedia:User_pages#Advocacy_or_support_of_grossly_improper_behaviors_with_no_project_benefit? WP:CIVIL? I accept the possibility that my position may not backed by policy and we may be obligated to allow people to post their support or participation in terrorism, white supremacy, and other distasteful topics, though I hope that isn't the case. --Yamla (talk) 22:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  The proscribed remedy for advocacy as you cited is "These may be removed, redacted or collapsed by any user to avoid the appearance of acceptability for Wikipedia, and existing speedy deletion criteria may apply." It says nothing about blocking him. Buffs (talk) 23:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  I wasn't going to reply to this, but what do you think would be the reaction of a non-white US editor who came to this editor's page to discuss an issue, to find they claimed to be a part of a group that included violent racists? Black Kite (talk) 23:31, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  To be blunt, that's not the issue at hand (the issue is what have been his actions that justify a block), but I'll address it anyway. The answer is: I haven't the least idea what some hypothetical person's reaction would be. It could be anything from indifference to curiosity to anger to rage to "well this guy is clearly an idiot" to "man, I want to be part of Proud Boys" to "I hate that they just let anyone on WP" to "well, I don't like that opinion, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion" to...who knows? There isn't a simple monolith opinion or reaction that's possible to describe for a "non-white US editor". The idea that you believe there is a single opinion is highly concerning. Likewise, and more importantly, you have no idea of my minority status, so you seem to indicate that you feel that my opinion should be discounted minority (

  You should deleted the offensive material (as directed at Wikipedia:User_pages#Advocacy_or_support_of_grossly_improper_behaviors_with_no_project_benefit). Nothing you've cited justifies your block. In fact, you openly stated that none of his edits were inappropriate in articles.

  Since you've bothered to reply to a comment that wasn't directed at you, perhaps you can explain why there's no effort on your part to block avowed members of a organization dedicated to using violence to achieve their political goals? You've already made remarks that people of specific religious faiths shouldn't be allowed to close discussions involving political matters (and defended that action).

  If you want to block someone, it should be for policy reasons, not an essay that does not have widespread acceptance. Buffs (talk) 05:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Hezbollah's delegation depends somewhat on the country; some countries (like France) recognize a difference between the political wing and the militant wing, while the United States and United Kingdom don't distinguish in status. Page 68 of the 9/11 Commission Report even notes military ties between the group and Al-Qaeda in the mid 1990s.

  There's a content guideline that Userboxes must not be inflammatory or substantially divisive, but in general the solution is to simply delete the pages that are in violation of that (and, while technically that wasn't a userbox on the right side of his page, I think that this same logic applies here). This user should remain blocked under WP:NOTHERE for being a clear troll whose account was made to intentionally be as inflammatory as possible. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:32, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Great, so you think the block was fine, and your Questions above were literally just an attempt to hijack this discussion into an unrelated third rehash of a specific user's page that I've seen people post this week. Parabolist (talk) 01:02, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Not quite. If you read my rationale for the block, it's that the user's a troll who made an inflammatory userpage in order to drum this up, which leads me to believe that they're WP:NOTHERE. That's quite different than the original rationale for the block, which I'm not able to find a strong policy basis for. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:17, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Here, here. Buffs (talk) 05:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• The infobox on their user page is an extremely bad look that goes well beyond the "advocating violence" litmus test that is more or less consensus right now, as it suggests having proudly committed said violence (as well as holding a view of the George Floyd protests that could be described as "fringe", but is so out there that "tendentious" may be more accurate). Their unblock request is also weak, as the focus on their lack of racist intent seems like sealioning. That having been said, I don't think jumping to an indef block is appropriate. I also strongly disagree with the litmus test to userspace propriety being based around the question of terrorism, a label which says more about a group's relation to institutional authority in its area of operations than it does about their moral character or the extent that advocating for them would be disruptive to other editors. I also think that the "advocating violence" test is overly simplistic, but don't have a 30-second solution other than the Solomonic "no political content in user space at all" that I don't think anyone wants. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:49, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  I see no evidence that they "proudly committed said violence". There were lots of people who simply protected businesses against rioting and that may be to what he's referring...no idea if that's true. Buffs (talk) 22:54, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  I think that framing it as participation in a military campaign, on behalf of a paramilitary grouping, pretty clearly suggests violence. "Protecting businesses against rioting" can also be a violent act. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:01, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Even the US military has decorations for humanitarian missions. While it's vague, I think you're concluding WAY too much. Buffs (talk) 23:29, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  I also agree with Floq below that the odds that LDS20 actually are a member of the Proud Boys is very, very low. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:10, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse block. Creating user pages of this sort, promoting divisive and polemical views, is in and of itself disruption, as such content violates WP:NOT and WP:POLEMIC. The user should be unblocked if they convincingly promise not to repeat such conduct. Sandstein 23:03, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• The thing is, if I were to guess, I'd say that "Second Director of the Proud Boys of St. Clair County, 1st Woodland Combat Brigade" has about a 0.1% chance of actually existing. It's something a 7th-grade idiot would think sounds realistic. LDS20 has shown, once again, how easy it is to troll WP. Someone should just decline the unblock, archive this section, and ignore the kid and/or troll behind this. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:07, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  So...why should he be blocked then? Buffs (talk) 23:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Because they're trolling. Floquenbeam (talk) 23:31, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  And, as I've said above, imagine if I was a non-white editor who came to discuss an issue with this editor, only to find they were part of a violent racist group? But you do you, Buffs. Black Kite (talk) 23:34, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse block per Floq and Bish. WP:PACT. Miniapolis 23:18, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• Question Block, my thoughts here is that this would on the surface further the idea that Wikipedia is a liberal website. I have a very strong distaste for their sentiment and views but can't this be handled by Discretionary sanctions IF the editing rises to that level? That seems like a relatively simply fix without a block that can be twisted in purpose by those who wish to? Unbroken Chain (talk) 23:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Anything can be twisted any way people want it to. Decisions should be made on the basis of the rules, and what's best for the encyclopedia. Second guessing every decision with "how could a bad faith actor spin this?" will ruin your ability to do anything, and it's not worth spending the brainpower on. Parabolist (talk) 01:05, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Parabolist, their actual edits seem constructive though, I'm not seeing problematic editing other then the obvious userpage. Unbroken Chain (talk) 02:24, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• I haven't reviewed the full edit history, but this case is a fairly obvious troll and blockable as such. I would still caution that blocking solely for userspace stuff when they're not disruptive in mainspace is a dangerous road. If the user in question here wasn't a probable troll, a better solution would have been to just blank the problematic material and then give the user a pointer to the userspace policy (again, not really suited for troll situations). There's a line between being a host for problematic material on all ends of the spectrum and/or feeding trolls, and excessively policing userspace and personal speech. Does the fact that I have {{User MSG descendant}} and {{User CSA descendant}} alongside other similar US military history userboxes violate Wikipedia:No Confederates, which I've seen cited on par with the NONAZIS essay? No, but based on the tenor of some discussions I've seen here and at MFD, I'd bet there'd be some established editors who would say yes. Hog Farm _Talk 00:32, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  What evidence is there that he is a "fairly obvious troll"? Buffs (talk) 06:12, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• The user says that they are from St. Clair County, Alabama. An early edit was to remove content about a vicious local campaign of racist violence and harassment against Black Muslims in that county, as reported by Time magazine. The Pell City Public Library in the county seat maintains an archive of newspaper articles about that racist campaign. LDS20 removed that content three times, calling it "vandalism" in their third edit summary. The editor who added that accurate but unreferenced content was brand new, but left Wikipedia after their contribution was reverted three times. Nobody explained the need for references to them. LDS20 hss also tried to keep any mention of notable drag queen Trinity the Tuck out of the "Notable people" section of Springville, Alabama, despite the fact that person spent much of their childhood in that town and attended high school there. I think that LDS20 started out as a civil far right POV pusher and morphed into a troll playing the role of a civil POV pusher. So, I endorse the block, although I do not think that NONAZIS should be given as the reason. That essay may be popular with many but I do not think that it enjoys widespread enough support in its present form to be used in this fashion. Whitewashing racist violence, erasing gender minorities and grandiose userpage trolling are enough to block for disruptive editing. As for the troll's skills, they got a bunch of us to discuss a controversial Lebanese organization and the definition of terrorism, did't they? Cullen328 (talk) 02:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  If you are going to cite someone's history, you really should provide diff's to illustrate. You should also provide them in context.

  First, you stated, he had An early edit was to remove content about a vicious local campaign of racist violence. While that was indeed the content removed, you failed to mention that the reason it was removed was that it didn't have a source mentioned...and it didn't. While {{cn}} could have been used, unreferenced material can be removed on WP. Furthermore, it appears the information was grossly disproportionate in the subject's history section (clearly violating WP:UNDUE). I'm not saying it should/shouldn't be mentioned, but when one issue accounts for 1700 of the 2100 characters for a county over 200 years old, I think that pretty clearly violates WP:UNDUE.

  You also stated LDS20 hss [sic] also tried to keep any mention of notable drag queen Trinity the Tuck out of the "Notable people" section of Springville, Alabama. Look at the whole history. While I see the removal here and here, I think there's a reasonable debate as to where someone is "from" and seems to be a reasonable content dispute. He wasn't arguing for exclusion, just placement elsewhere. Later, he trimmed unnecessary details, but left it in-place...this was 2 months ago. It seems very much that discussion yielded keeping it and he was willing to abide by consensus. I also see some highly defamatory remarks added to the article about LDS without any justification in violation of WP:BLP, WP:CIVIL, WP:Casting aspersions, etc. I think that this pretty reasonably could be considered "Vandalism" and was correctly removed...arguably it should be revdel'd. To argue that the person left WP is without evidence. To the contrary, it is very likely that this person didn't leave, but became a registered user: Special:Contributions/AbbyN1982.

  In both of these instances, you've made a lot of assumptions in bad faith and inappropriately left out details. Buffs (talk) 06:11, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Buffs, diffs are needed when the edits in question are hard to find or confusing. I provided links to the two articles where the edit histories are not at all difficult to parse. The edits are readily visible and obvious. As for the racist violence and harassment that took place in Springfield in 1969, I was able to find evidence of it with a ten second Google search and the local public library maintains an archive about it. It was not minor. It was violent, egregious and institionalized, and the then governor of Alabama was a cheerleader and an enabler. Perhaps this kind of thing could be forgiven from a genuinely naive new editor, but their ugly indistrial strength trolling in late 2022 renders that theory spurious. Nice try, though. Cullen328 (talk) 06:55, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Buffs, did you not notice that I wrote accurate but unreferenced? Please read what I wrote more carefully. Thank you. Cullen328 (talk) 07:00, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Also, Buffs, you are entirely mistaken about the editor I mentioned who might have been discouraged fron editing Wikipedia by LDS20. I was talking, as should be clear to anyone looking at these edits, about User: Onnani and their factual but unreferenced newbie edits to St. Clair County, Alabama. Read the edit summaries by LDS20. They never claim that the content was false but rather that it was Nor a significant staple in the county's history. What does "significant staple" mean in this context? Staples are wire fasteners for papers or basic foodstuffs in a region. Do we need to pad out the article about a that county to include its minor role in the Creek War or its impressive Cotton mills in order to also include content about the vicious violent racism that took place there? If so. please feel free to add more content about that other stuff. Cullen328 (talk) 07:52, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Read WP:SIGNIFICANT...WP:UNDUE applies as well. I'm not for its removal entirely, but it was clearly and unnecessarily heavily weighted. Buffs (talk) 16:40, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse block - per WP:NOTHERE, WP:TROLL, and WP:NONAZIS. We are in control of what we want this community to be, and I, for one, don't want this person in it. I'm sure there are those who consider that an entirely unsophisticated reason, not based on firm philosophical grounds, but I could care less. Kick the guy to the curb and let's get on with improving the encyclopedia. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:34, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse block and perhaps reblock on review for gross incivility or the like. RAN1 (talk) 06:10, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Black Kite: Just an aside, this block reason falls under WP:NPA#WHATIS: Comparing editors to Nazis, communists, terrorists, dictators, or other infamous persons. RAN1 (talk) 22:04, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Then he should have been blocked for that reason. Buffs (talk) 03:52, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

• I don't believe this first edit is of a 22-year-old Alabamian named Wesley S. Heath? Someone is playing games here but the purpose behind it is unclear. - GizzyCatBella🍁 06:15, 17 November 2022 (UTC) - (no opinion anymore if the account should remain blocked because most of their edits seem to be fine, besides for those spotlighted by Cullen328.) - GizzyCatBella🍁 06:56, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I didn't want to comment on it above because even though it's not hard to figure out I didn't want to just come out and name the person, but since they gave the name in the Latin alphabet themselves, that name is exactly what the Anglo-Saxon runes at the top of that infobox says, for whatever that's worth. - Aoidh (talk) 17:34, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Ok, I'll be the guy who first goes beyond questioning the block and I'll go straight to: Oppose block on procedural grounds. None of the required methods of communication with this user were followed. No attempts at correction were made. No warnings were given. The blocking admin went straight for an indef block with no justification based on policy (only an essay) and without any attempt to WP:AGF. The portions of their user page that were not allowed should simple have been removed per Wikipedia:User_pages#Advocacy_or_support_of_grossly_improper_behaviors_with_no_project_benefit (this is policy, not merely an essay). Buffs (talk) 06:31, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• All right, Buffs, that is your sixteenth post in this thread in a timespan of seven hours. You seriously need to be done now. You have made your position absolutely clear and then some. Bludgeoning the discussion is disruptive. Bishonen | tålk 08:17, 17 November 2022 (UTC).

  Gotcha...people who respond and have questions need not appear on here. A solid chunk was simple agreement. Buffs (talk) 16:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Do not unblock per https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:LDS20&diff=prev&oldid=1111294273 where user claims leadership of a chapter of a terrorist organisation. Daveosaurus (talk) 10:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse Block I just want to briefly note a slightly different take here--were I an admin, would I have made this block? I would not have. But I think it is entirely reasonable and within the sphere of discretion afforded to admins. We need not agree with an exercise of power to decide that said power was validly exercised. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:27, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse Block per WP:HID. Yes, it is an essay. Let me clarify for all of the people who repeatedly refuse to understand why people link essays in discussions like this: because it saves the time of having to type an entire WP:TLDR rationale every time. Hate speech, and support of hate groups, is disruption and is thus legitimate grounds for blocking. But you'd have known that had you read WP:HID. --Jayron32 17:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  ...which is another essay...not really helping your point. If you block for "repeated violations of WP:V as outlined in WP:AN ESSAY" that's viable. You're saying there is a reason for the block as outlined in WP:policy and it is explained by an essay. I'm fine with that. I'm actually not against blocking him based on his user page. But once that inappropriate information is removed, what is the rationale for the block? The rationale for a block should not be WP:IDONTLIKETHAT, but based on policy. If you cannot outline the actual policy violation, the block should not stand. Buffs (talk) 03:57, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse Block per WP:NONAZIS: Right in the user's info box was what could be seen as an SS logo. No thanks. Kjscotte34 (talk) 18:57, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse block If someone comes right out and tells you they are a violent fascist, take their word for it and take appropriate action. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:01, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  Where did he say "I am a violent fascist"? Buffs (talk) 03:53, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

  Here, specifically the part |office = Director of Proud Boys of St. Clair County ... |allegiance = Proud Boys (2020 - Present), linking to the article that identifies Proud Boys in the first sentence as a neo-fascist organization that engages in political violence. Levivich (talk) 04:07, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

  That's ridiculous. The Proud Boys are no "violent fascist" organization. All they do is meet for tea and crumpets on Sunday mornings and read from The Bible while listening to Easy Listening music. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:25, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Beyond My Ken - 😂 I’m sure that’s exactly what those folks do - GizzyCatBella🍁 17:12, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse block I think a lot of people above are missing the part where this user advocates for race war as an armed conflict in which they are a director of a contingent of a "woodland combat brigade" of the "ground forces" of the Proud Boys. This is a group that has attempted to violently overthrow the US government. This user is trolling us. They also say they support "actual science, real history, deep philosophy, and politics." WP:DUCK and this sure is quackin'. WP:DFTT. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:33, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

  That reminds me of some questions I had about the 1st Woodland Combat Brigade of the Proud Boys of St. Clair County:

  • First, how many Woodland Combat Brigades do the Proud Boys of St. Clair County have, such that they need to disambiguate "1st" vs. "2nd", etc.?
  • Secondly, what combat brigades do they have other than Woodland Combat Brigades? St. Clair County, Alabama has a total population of 91,000 -- which in some parts of the world would be called a "town" and not a "county", but this county is apparently so large by Alabama standards that it has two county seats: Ashville, Alabama (population: 2,000), and Pell City, Alabama, which is a "city" of course because it has a population of 12,000. So, I think we can safely estimate there are zero Urban Combat Brigades among the Proud Boys of St. Clair County. What does that leave us? Mountain Combat Brigades? Well, St. Clair County exaggerates its "mountains" about as much as its "cities": St. Clair County's highest peak, Bald Rock Mountain, is 1,575 ft (480 m)... it's a medium-sized hill. So, is there a 1st Hills Combat Brigade?
  • Third, who the hell are they preparing to engage in combat against? Who is threatening to invade St. Clair County, Alabama, such that it needs a brigade to engage in woodland (and, possibly, hills) combat? Or, even more perplexing, who would St. Clair County, Alabama want to invade such that they need a combat force? Neighboring Etowah County, Alabama? This is the thing I never understand about these conservative militias in the US: liberals are notoriously anti-gun, anti-war, anti-violence... so who is it that conservative militias expect will take up arms against them? Other conservative militias, right?
  • Which leads me to my final question: is there a 1st Woodland Combat Brigade of the Proud Girls of St. Clair County?

  Inquiring minds want to know. Levivich (talk) 17:24, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

References

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

Requesting deleted articles to post their contents off-wiki

Is deletion review needed to request the retrieval of deleted articles (e.g. by e-mail) not for the purpose of restoring the article on Wikipedia, but to post it on another wiki? — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:46, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Nope, deletion review is only needed to restore deleted pages to mainspace. If you'd just like article text back to post elsewhere, you're welcome to post at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion or email an administrator individually. Many of us (myself included) would be happy to send you deleted article text, so long as it's not grossly inappropriate material (e.g. something deleted under CSD G10). Ajpolino (talk) 02:02, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

See Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to provide copies of deleted articles. Animal lover |666| 05:58, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

So no inflammatory BLP material and copyvios right? — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 20:07, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Request to create a bunch of redirects involving ɕ

The character ɕ seems to be part of an edit filter. I've been adding a load of International Phonetic Alphabet redirects from the symbols to the relevant pages (e.g. ʈʂ), but I can't add any involving this character, as apparently it's restricted to administrators.

Unfortunately, each sound tends to have quite a few different variants. Could the following all please be redirected to Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate? My intention is to make things as easy as possible for anyone who copy and pastes one of these into the search bar, so I want to add every possible variation. The redirects tɕ and t͡ɕ already exist, so no need to create those.

• cɕ
• t̠ʲɕ
• c̟ɕ
• ȶɕ
• c͡ɕ
• t̠ʲ͡ɕ
• c̟͡ɕ
• ȶ͡ɕ
• t͜ɕ
• c͜ɕ
• t̠ʲ͜ɕ
• c̟͜ɕ
• ȶ͜ɕ

Many thanks. Theknightwho (talk) 05:59, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

The character is found on the MediaWiki:Titleblacklist, line 13. .*[ℂ℃℄ɕƌʥℇ℈℉ℊℋℌℍℎℏℐ‼ℑℒℕ℗℘ℙℚℛℜℝ℞℟℣ℤℨ℩ℬℭ℮ℯℰℱℲℳℴℹ℺⅁⅂⅃⅄ⅅⅆⅇⅈⅉⅎ].* <casesensitive> # Select Unicode Letterlike Symbols (excluding Kelvin, Angstrom and Ohm signs, see talk) – dudhhr ^talk _contribs (he/they) 16:23, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I know. That is why I’m requesting that an administrator make these pages here. Theknightwho (talk) 16:27, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

BTW, I believe that bypassing the title blacklist does not need admin privileges; page movers also bypass it. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 20:11, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Template editors bypass it as well. – dudhhr ^talk _contribs (he/they) 20:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I'll get on it. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:34, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I'm happy to sort out the redirect categories etc. once they've been created, so bare redirects would be great. Theknightwho (talk) 16:38, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

The bare redirects have been created. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:41, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Great - thank you. Theknightwho (talk) 16:41, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps page protection is warranted for the Aaron Mate BLP talk page

I wanted to bring this to your attention, Administratiors. I fully realize that talk pages are not typically page protected, however, I have never read a talk page like this before. There ARE standards of decorum that should be upheld for talk pages, especially for BLPs. Yet the tone is like 4chan, but crueler. It is a cesspool of hate and malice directed at this poor soul because bad editors are allowing their own political and other biases/opinions to run wild. For example, I found 35 word counts of "journalist" and at least three sub-sections where editors challenged whether Mate should be described as a journalist, followed by vigorous WP:RS and WP:NPOV supported discussions, and resolution achieved. Yet yesterday another he's not a journalist sub section appeared and had to be addressed.

Unsourced hate is directed toward Mate because (these are all examples on that talk page; I'm not being sardonic): "he writes for a publication that isn't sympathetic to Uighyurs", "he's just like Max Blumenthal", "Tablet says he's okay, so he must be a propagandist shill", "he's pro-Russia", "he's pro-Assad", "he's a propagandist because it pays better", "CounterPunch has included his work on occasion", "The Guardian UK says he's one of 28 bad guys that spread disinformation", "he's a Houthi apologist"! And of course, that he is a conspiracist. That he's left-wing is generally agreed upon. He's pro-Palestinian. I'm not left-wing. I'm not pro-Palestinian. Regardless, I can write with a neutral Wikipedia voice. Just because Zelenskyya kicked up a fuss and got Aaron and Max disinvited from some event doesn't mean that all impartiality must fly out the window. If Aaron is pro-Assad, that doesn't mean Wikipedia should use pejorative adjectives in describing his work. Please, will someone do something about this? I don't have the permissions to. FeralOink (talk) 16:52, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

When I look at this, I don't see anything that merits page protection. There are some heated discussions on the talk page, but I see nothing to indicate in the page history that it is the target of disruption or vandalism, or bad faith; nothing from the talk page has been removed or reverted, aside from archiving, in the last several weeks as far as I can see. If there's nothing worth reverting, then why do we need to protect it? If there are some diffs or examples of vandalism, disruption, or other problems that I have missed in combing through the page history, please post them here, but I see nothing in the page history that indicates that protection is warranted. --Jayron32 17:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Stephen - case request

Consistent with the Arbitration Committee's procedure on return of permissions following expedited removal, Stephen (talk · contribs) has requested that the Committee open normal arbitration proceedings to examine the removal of permissions and surrounding circumstances. Stephen has additionally requested that the case be heard privately, and the Committee agrees that there are significant privacy issues constituting extraordinary circumstances. Accordingly, the Committee directs its clerks to open an in camera arbitration case titled "Stephen", with no public evidence or workshop phase. Instead, relevant evidence may be submitted to the Arbitration Committee by email (arbcom-enwikimedia.org).

For the Arbitration Committee, Primefac (talk) 18:24, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Stephen - case request

Review request re my unblock of Rathfelder

This morning, El C drew my attention to a piece on Wikipediocracy, criticising my recent decision to unblock Rathfelder, who I had blocked shortly beforehand for sockpuppetry and votestacking. There is some stuff in the piece that I was unaware of until now, and which might have made me respond differently had I known about them at the time. However, since I'm in the position of catching off-wiki flak for the decision, I feel that my judgment could be called into question on the best way to go forward - hence, I am passing the buck asking for a review.

The background: I received an e-mail from an editor outlining their concerns that Rathfelder and Bigwig7 might be one and the same person, and pointing out multiple CfD discussions where they had overlapped. The concerns seemed credible, so I ran a check, and confirmed that they were being operated by the same person. Since they were obviously votestacking, I blocked, and notified the community at this noticeboard. A couple of days later, Rathfelder requested unblock, we had a discussion, and he agreed to accept TBans from categories and deletion discussions, and the withdrawal of his Autopatrolled flag (I felt that was needed since any articles he created would, by necessity, be uncategorised and hence would benefit from NPP review), and also a one-account restriction. Since the only inappropriate editing I was aware of was the use of multiple accounts in deletion discussions, I felt that this would be sufficient to unblock (preventative not punitive, etc).

What I didn't know at the time: mainly using the Bigwig7 account, Rathfelder created the article Alex Scott-Samuel (he has also edited it with his main account). Now, Rathfelder is open about his real-life identity (public disclosure). Scott Samuel was the chair of a body, the Socialist Health Association, which Rathfelder had been director of. There was a clear conflict of interest there, which was not disclosed on either account; further, he used sources in the article in which he himself was quoted. I believe he alluded to this in his unblock request: I also used it a few times to edit controversial pages about living people who would recognise my name. That should have been a red flag for me, and I should have probed it before unblocking. To be honest, I think my eyes glided over it - it was a long unblock request, and I already thought I knew what the problem was - I missed it, mea culpa. I don't know whether there were other instances of COI editing.

At this point, I would like the community to consider what the best course of action is - whether that be reinstating the block, warning, or nothing at all. I would also be grateful if an experienced uninvolved editor were to look over that article closely. Girth Summit _(blether) 18:51, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ouch. That's a tough call man. First of all, let me say that I hold no fault with you. You've done everything right here, you acted in good faith and had appropriate empathy towards a user who themselves said things that any reasonable admin would have taken as reasonable conditions for an unblock. If someone is going to err one one side or the other, to err on the side of empathy will always be the proper call for me. Secondly, you've asked for outside eyes on a situation where you've clearly botched it up yourself. That's the proper course of action, and if more admins did that, Wikipedia would be a utopia of good governance. I'm not 100% sure I have the answers for how to proceed until I hear some input myself from other people. I've not fully made up my mind yet, but if we do decide to leave Rathfelder unblocked, I would impose an additional community restriction of a TBAN on ALL WP:BLP editing, broadly construed. They have proven themselves untrustworthy in that area, and any continued presence at Wikipedia (if they are not blocked or sitebanned outright) should be under some restrictions. --Jayron32 19:02, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• I think I understand what I did and why it was wrong. I would like to have a chance to show that I have seen the error of my ways. Rathfelder (talk) 18:59, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  So are you saying that you previously didn't realize that using a sockpuppet to promote your side in a real-life dispute might be objectionable? Dr. Duh 🩺 (talk) 20:02, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  I didnt see it like that. I didnt think I was promoting my side. I know this sounds stupid. I can only say I was in a stressful situation and clearly not thinking straight. And I did actually try to present the positive sides of Alex Scott-Samuel's work. It wasnt meant to be an attack page, and I dont think it reads like one. I made only a few minor edits to the Socialist Health Association article, only one of which I think really had a conflict of interest, after controversy broke out and I was sacked. I have kept away from both pages since and I will continue to do so. Rathfelder (talk) 21:26, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  • Rathfelder created Socialist Health Association in 2005 and has made 120+ edits to it as Rathfelder {and 7 as Bigwig7) which is hardly a few. And this is not a minor edit (and was after the sacking). Oculi (talk) 22:20, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  True, but I was attempting to be fair - Its mostly about Scott-Samuel's speech to the Labour Party Conference. Most of my edits to the SHA article were about its history, nothing to do with any conflict. Rathfelder (talk) 22:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  The second half of that edit removes the reason for your dismissal and implies that it resulted in the loss of key financial support, which may be fair to you. NebY (talk) 00:34, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  If you didn't think you were doing anything wrong in creating Alex Scott-Samuel, why did you use a sockpuppet to do it? – Joe (talk) 06:53, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think an unblock is unreasonable, but given the COI editing, and the apparent creation of an attack page on somebody else, a topic ban from all things Socialist Health Association and additionally a BLP ban would be appropriate. nableezy - 19:09, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  With the added socking and restoring very poor edits to a BLP he has a COI with, reinstate block. nableezy - 15:28, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• There are few "high crimes" on Wikipedia, but sockpupppetry to game consensus, and COI BLP editing to gain advantage in a real-life dispute, are two of them. Girth did nothing wrong given the information available at the time and hindsight is 20/20. My !vote is to reinstate a full indef block and let the editor pursue unblock avenues in the ordinary course like everyone else. Unblock conditions like TBANs etc can be handled in the ordinary course as well. Levivich (talk) 19:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
• This discovery is all the more disappointing following my prompt on 7 November for Rathfelder to come clean if there was anything else to disclose. Given his history of vote-stacking on articles about health service–related organisations, I suggest that if there is to be an additional topic ban, then we should be considering a ban on health service–related articles rather than all BLPs. – Fayenatic London 21:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  But I did disclose this. That is why I disclosed my personal history. And in my defence I have created or editted a lot of healthcare related articles but I have never done anything improper with any but these two where I was personally involved. Rathfelder (talk) 22:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  I mean this in genuine good faith, but I think you have made your point. I don't think arguing here does you any favors. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:55, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  I think they may be referring to another apparent sock account used to vote at a RfC [50] in which both your Rathfelder account and BigWig7 sockpuppet also voted. But that's just a guess. EnPassant♟♙ (talk) 22:59, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Quoting Fayenatic london, "we should be considering a ban on health service–related articles". Drmies (talk) 01:25, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - user:Harry Boardman's last 20 edits include the organizations rfc mentioned above by EnPassant, Alex Scott-Samuel and Socialist Health Association (edit summary:‎ Spelling/grammar/punctuation correction); Bigwig7 has this (edit summary:‎ Spelling/grammar/punctuation correction). Healthcare in Belgium has been edited by both Rathfelder and Boardman. 11 of the first 13 edits to Alex Scott-Samuel are by Bigwig7, Harry Boardman and Rathfelder. What are the chances? Oculi (talk) 01:53, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. This addition to Alex Scott-Samuel of a thoroughly nasty phrase without quotation marks but with attribution to The Times (actually it was the Sunday Times)—so I am unable to check whether the phrase is even in the article cited—on 25 March 2019 by Bigwig7 is unacceptable. (It followed the addition of his being on a list in The Economist, with neither source being flagged as opinion articles in the edits.) And that was in our article, unchanged, when I edited it a little more than 24 hours ago. If those edits were made in the heat of emotion after dismissal, quite apart from that being a very good demonstration of why COI editing is wrong, I would have expected that human decency would suggest going back at some time during the next 3½ years, re-examining that biography of a living person, and changing at least that passage in wiki-voice. Yngvadottir (talk) 03:33, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  Can find the source here, and it did indeed include that phrase, but it isnt any better. It is an editorial by Sarah Baxter, and it should have been attributed to her if it should have been included (and imo it should not have been). nableezy - 05:04, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  Restored by Harry Boardman. (Harry Boardman was a folk singer from Manchester.) Oculi (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• At the time, I did think you were a bit quick to accept Rathfelder's explanation at face value and unblock, Girth Summit. But that's nothing to criticise and you didn't have the full story at the time. But now we know, the indef needs to be restored. Levivich has summed it up well already, but years of deliberately manipulative socking and creating attack pages on your real-life political opponents is not something you come back from with a slap-on-the-wrist topic ban. And yes, Rathfelder's version of that article was an attack page, that described its (Jewish) subject as a ringleader in "antisemitic bullying" and "a swivel-eyed middle-aged conspiracy theorist". I can't imagine we'd even be having this conversation about someone with a lower edit account. Like the Wikipediocracy writer, I'm also very suspicious of Harry Boardman and potentially more sockpuppets. – Joe (talk) 06:36, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with Joe and others that an indef should be restored, as I feel Rathfelder was unblocked under false pretenses. I further detail my reasoning in my follow up to the original notice I posted to GS' talk page last night: User_talk:Girth_Summit#WPO blog post: Rathfelder – "a good editor". Sorry, am writing in haste. Thanks. El_C 07:13, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• Since GS made it clear below that he is leaving the matter entirely to the community, meaning that the CU block is unlikely to be reinstated, and because I find a standard indef that any admin can undo insufficient — like many users below, I also support a community site ban (WP:CBAN). I should add that Rathfelder's comments since I've written the above did the very opposite of convincing me against this being the only viable outcome at this time. El_C 01:43, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes Harry Boardman was me. I'd rather forgotten about that. That was a very difficult period in my life which I had rather shut out. And I entirely agree that these conflicted edits are more serious than vote stacking. All I can say in my defence is that neither had much effect. I dont think any decision about categories was altered by my vote stacking. I did my best in the article by Scott-Samuel to be objective, but he was effectively my employer. I put in material about his career and achievements, and it was all referenced to respectable sources. I have put a lot of time and effort into wikipedia. These discreditable episodes are a very small part of what I have done, and my circumstances have changed. There is no reason to suppose that they would recur. I would see a complete block as an excessive punishment. I would hope to be given a chance to redeem myself. Rathfelder (talk) 09:02, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  I was on the fence until this half admission, which I doubt Rathfelder would have disclosed if not for direct questioning. Time for a site ban. Note, I have no issue with Girth's unblocking under the information available at the time. This was an established user and no reason to question the disclosure. Star Mississippi 19:52, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• Site ban. I'm not really active here these days. But I think long-term "good" editors who abuse Wikipedia for their own ends are one of the project's most insidious problems, and I just have to offer my thoughts. Rathfelder now says "I did my best in the article by Scott-Samuel to be objective." No, he painted him in a bad light, while whitewashing content about himself, that much is clear. And used *three accounts* to keep it negative. Someone trying to be objective would have discussed it rather than edit war, and wouldn't have hidden their obvious COI. Then he says "These discreditable episodes are a very small part of what I have done..." I'm not seeing "episodes" here. I'm seeing Rathfelder socking to abuse consensus for years, right up until he was caught and blocked. And that has involved using at least three accounts, in some cases, to votestack discussions. And now we get gems like "I think I understand what I did and why it was wrong"! I'm generally pretty forgiving. But Rathfelder has acted as though he's superior to the community for so long, I think he should be removed from it until he can make a convincing case to be readmitted (after spending some time away). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:42, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Keep blocked we have much more useful editors banned off Wikipedia for similar activities with socks. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:58, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Site ban. Like Tenebrae, this is an abuse of the community processes. I echo Boing!. Jip Orlando (talk) 14:49, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Site ban. Given all that has been revealed above, I don't think the community has much choice in the matter. Vote-stacking with socks is grounds for an indefinite block. Socking to create and maintain a conflict-of-interest BLP attack page alone would be grounds for a community ban. Combine the two, and add in the lack of disclosure of the Boardman account when asking for the block to be lifted, and the continued attempts here to minimise the significance of what has been done, and anything less would be untenable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:16, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Site ban per Boing and AndyTheGrump. starship.paint (exalt) 15:24, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Full Community Siteban - I'm unhappy this is happening, but it goes much deeper than what may be resolved with a topic ban from medial subjects. We've all been here long enough to know using sockpuppets to votestack is not ok and there is a serious breach of trust here. That combined with the COI editing puts it over the top for me. If Rathfelder would like to return at a later date, he may go through the usual avenues available. EnPassant♟♙ (talk) 18:47, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support a site ban or, failing that, an indefinite topic ban from BLPs, in addition to the restrictions he already has. I get a feeling, looking at his latest contributions, that he may have done some good work on categorizations. At the same time, the revenge editing, the lack of disclosure of another sock account (Harry Boardman), and the apparently false statements suggest that a site ban is the only appropriate solution. If he wants to appeal, he can follow the instructions at WP:UNBAN.

Several of his statements are suspicious:

• I was deceitful I dont think my bad behaviour had much effect. It was confined to the backstage area of categorisation discussions. [51] – The evidence in the above comments suggests that the misbehaviour was not restricted to category space;
• I was in those cases very careful to use reputable sources and avoid bias. [52] – You created an attack page with content describing the subject as a "swivel-eyed middle-aged conspiracy theorist" [53];
• I made only a few minor edits to the Socialist Health Association article, only one of which I think really had a conflict of interest [54] – No, you made 130 edits to this article, when including edits made by your socks. Many of them weren't minor;
• I entirely agree that these conflicted edits are more serious than vote stacking. All I can say in my defence is that neither had much effect. [55] – Untrue. The subject of the article was reportedly very distressed;
• But I dont know what TBans are. [56] – I find it incredible that an editor with almost 550,000 edits wouldn't know what "TBan" means.

Finally, even if the WPO post contains inaccuracies, the evidence presented on-wiki clearly demonstrates that he needs, at the very least, these three topic bans. Dsuke1998AEOS (talk) 19:12, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

• Site Ban I'm not sure why this is even up for discussion. No one is bigger than the project, and I don't care how much "good" was done, socking to vote stack, on top of having a COI negates all of that and then some. Also if someone is going to need multiple topic bans to even be allowed to edit, they shouldn't be editing period. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:51, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  The reason it's up for discussion is set out at the top of the thread. I hope you can understand why I brought it here for discussion - I made a mistake, which has been publicly criticised on an off-wiki site, so any action I take now would be open to accusations of trying to cover my own arse. I want to step back from the situation entirely from an administrative angle and hand it over to the community. Cheers Girth Summit _(blether) 21:28, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

  In any case, since 3X clearly does not apply, if an editor wants a site ban this needs to be up for discussion. Nil Einne (talk) 06:09, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

• Site Ban from my reading of the above thread. The extension of discussion here, provides the editor considerations which are not afforded to every other blocked editor. The editor is free to seek an unblock on their own after some time has elapsed. Bruxton (talk) 21:41, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Site ban per above discussion. NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 22:06, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Site ban - I hesitated between !voting for a site ban and simply restoring the indef block, but I think that the editor has abused the trust of the community too many times now in too short a period, and has stretched our AGF well past the breaking point. If he wants to return to editing, let him convince the entire community to give him another chance, rather than a single admin who may or may not be aware of the background of the case - that requires a CBAN. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:37, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Site ban per BMK and Boing (good to see you again). Miniapolis 23:19, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• Site Ban per Levivich and others. This editor cannot be trusted. If they are reinstated with multiple topic bans, I don't trust them not to find another area in which to edit corruptly. The apology is of the "Mistakes were made" type. We would be making another mistake to reinstate this user. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:45, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support Restoration of Indefinite Block to be treated as a CU block. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:01, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Severe UAA backlog

Title speaks for itself. Need some eyes over there. Thanks. Taking Out The Trash (talk) 22:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Cleared for the most part (some bot leftovers). 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 01:26, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding contacting admins for Level 2

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

The first step of the Level II procedures is amended to read:

1. The initiating arbitrator will contact the account via e-mail asking the account to contact arbcom-en and leave a message on the account's talk page alerting the account to the email. If email contact is not possible, the initiating arbitrator will leave a message on the account's talk page asking the account to contact arbcom-en.

For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 00:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Arbitration motion regarding contacting admins for Level 2

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2023 Memphis 901 FC season

Seems the article, got removed and deleted while at AfD. I am not sure what the process is here, if the AfD should be closed, or if restored. The article looks like it could have been speedy deleted anyway. Regards, Govvy (talk) 06:36, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The article was moved by its originator into draft space while still tagged for deletion, and is at Draft:2023 Memphis 901 FC season, where it is displaying an error message. My preference as nominator of the AFD would be for it to be moved back to article space to allow the AFD to run its course. Moving an article to draft space while it is tagged for AFD is an effort to game the system that I see from time to time, and the policies are less than clear on what to do in that situation. My own opinion is that moving an article that is tagged for deletion should be disallowed, but other editors have reasons that they understand. Someone else can figure out how we should handle this, since I seem to be in the minority in thinking that the move should be disallowed. Robert McClenon (talk) 08:04, 19 November 2022 (UTC)