Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive367

Requesting a page ban for Aearthrise

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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In under two years, Aearthrise (talk · contribs) has completely dominated the Pennsylvania Dutch-article, contributing over 75% of its content and making 80% of all edits [1][2]. During this period, his personal and professional conduct concerning this article has been highly problematic up to the present: Aearthrise has repeatedly disregarded WP:SOURCE and WP:NPOV, shows clear signs of WP:OWN and has made repeated personal attacks and involved himself in edit-warring. Examples of this behavior includes a disregard for using reliable sources and showing bullying behavior [3][4][5] [6][7][8][9][10], pushing personal preferences (demanding a different font be used for the article), edit warring and making insulting remarks [11][12][13][14][15][16][17], spamming (RFC-)discussions with Ai-generated text, trying to remove alternative views and using unreliable and/or unsuitable sources [18][19][20] [21][22][23][24], including this survey [25] on the first 50 references added by Aearthrise, of which nearly half were found to be either untrustworthy, self published and/or more than a century old.

To put it very bluntly: this user is trying to turn a Wikipedia-article in to a personal page about his own claimed heritage [26]) and is trying to shape this heritage to his own preferences. Users who doubt him or disagree, are either spammed or bullied into submission, or ignored altogether.

In June 2024, I alerted the admins to much of this behavior (see here), but this request was quickly spammed with text; and although other users did get involved and confirmed Aearthrise's behavior as being highly problematic, no formal action was taken. Despite this, Aearthrise subsequently left the article alone for some time; which essentially froze the conflict. Recently however, Aearthrise has resumed editing the article and immediately started removing all of the cite- and request-for-sources-tags that had been added previously to his remaining and highly dubious sources [27], is once again trying to include wording like "German Pennsylvania" [28] (an article he previously created, which then got deleted for being OR [29]) [30], adding OR [31] and by adding images taken from news sites and uploaded (by Aearthrise himself) to Wikimedia Commons under a false public domain-license.[32]. In other words: he's again repeating his disruptive and damaging MO.

He has been repeatedly asked to stop his behavior [33][34][35]; but simply refuses to adhere to Wikipedia policy, instead insisting that his outdated/unreliable sources are fine and that others should 'prove him wrong' [36][37].

In the previous request for intervention here, @SnowFire: made a very poignant analyses of Aearthrise's behavior [38] which he ended with the following remark: "If Aearthrise is satisfied that they can do better and is willing to commit to working collegially forward, and understands that not every random old source they find is necessarily that usable for Wikipedia, there's nothing that needs to be done other than perhaps a warning. If Aearthrise plans on just restarting the edit war, and plans on snidely replying to newbie questions while being wrong himself, then a page ban from Pennsylvania Dutch & Pennsylvania Dutch language may be in order. But I'm hoping that isn't necessary.".

In light of all that happened a few months ago and all that's seemingly about to repeat itself, I'd like to now formally request for this page ban.

In my opinion this page ban doesn't need to be permanent, but long enough for (the sources involved with) this article to be thoroughly examined by other users without them being harassed, bullied or spammed while doing so: the pattern of toxicity which has surrounded this article for the past two years, needs to be broken. I kindly ask the admins here to intervene. Vlaemink (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I have fully protected the article for one week while this is evaluated further. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:03, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Voorts. Unfortunately Vlaemink has been trying to bully me by threatening to complain to administration to get his way. I've told him that he is abusing of the Administration notification system, as he has tried to get me banned from the page before.

He claimed then that I am doing WP:OWN, but he had no evidence to show that, and indeed I stepped from the article for a half year. Especially now, this is a baseless accusation.

He is now trying to ban me again because he claims that sources that have an older publish date are automatically unreliable, which responded that it's not the case and that reliable sources are those can be verified, and that he should read WP:AGEMATTERS to understand what categories are time sensitive.

Vlaemink recently removed content from the page from a source from the United States Government, claiming that it was WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH, and that it was unreliable, only based on the fact that it was published in 1883. I asked him is the United States Government an unreliable source? And he didn't respond.

The problem here is a lack of willingness to cooperate or to understand the policies of Wikipedia better.

Anyhow, you can read the whole history on Talk:Pennsylvania_Dutch, and you can see what has happened over time. Aearthrise (talk) 22:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

@Vlaemink: could you please condense this down into about one paragraph, preferably with diffs bulleted and a brief explanation as to how each diff is problematic. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:14, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Aerthrise's edits at California Cantonese (formerly Chinese Americans in the California gold rush) are also extremely problematic. I have never heard of this term, and none of the sources added use it. Google Scholar has 12 hits for the phrase, and most are splices (... and the news of the Gold Rush of California. Cantonese communities later memorized this large wave of migration). This seems to be either incompetence or synthesis. This is similar to earlier edits (note an AFD from June) and they have no other edits; if no suitable explanation is forthcoming the action should be an indef block and not just a pageban. Walsh90210 (talk) 22:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to wait for Aerthrise to respond here and for Vlaemink to condense their complaint before I take any action, but another admin should obviously feel free to take any action they see fit. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:18, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm still looking at the Pennsylvania Dutch article; the two easiest-to-understand complaints (that Aearthrise has made a lot of edits, and that some of the sources are over a century old) are not problematic on their own. Walsh90210 (talk) 22:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Here are five citations for California Cantonese:

"Using the Words that Were Theirs Dialect, Accented Speech and Languages Other Than English in Asian American and American Indian Literature, Barbara Downs Hodne, 1995, pg.18": Through the narrator's perspective, we see California Cantonese as defining a complex and disjunctive linguistic identity.

"The Story Behind the Dish Classic American Foods, Mark McWilliams, 2012, pg.142": ...the cookies growth from Japanese traditions; another confidently asserts that they are a "true California Cantonese tradition".

"Departing Tong-Shaan: The Organization and Operation of Cantonese Overseas Emigration to America (1850-1900)

Volume 4 The Gum-Shaan Chronicles: The Early History of Cantonese-Chinese America, 1850-1900, Douglas W. Lee, PhD, 2024, pg.301": ...Hakka totals, while small, remained somewhat consistent, even as their "market share" declined steadily in the period 1860-1889. The slight change in this group's numbers over the decades is generally insignificant because its totals remained the smallest in nineteenth-century California's Cantonese community.

"California Magazine - Volume 7, Issues 1-4, University of California, 1982, pg. 91": California's Cantonese considered anything outside of Canton as North. Aearthrise (talk) 06:31, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

"Assignment Peking, Issues 1-4, Edward S. Aarons, 1989, pg. 33": She spoke unnaturally, in English. "I can only speak California Cantonese..."

The California Cantoense name is more recent, as historically this community was usually called "California Chinese", but recent immigration since the reopening of China in the 1970's has made the term also include recent Mandarin speakers, who don't represent the scope of the article. For that reason the more specific was chosen for the sake of clarity. Aearthrise (talk) 22:25, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Also this speech from Walsh90210 about California Cantonese has nothing to do with the complaint Vlaemink is launching now, so lets focus on that instead of opening a separate can of worms. Aearthrise (talk) 22:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

It is relevant because any problems are not isolated to a single article. That said, there is already a very long discussion about this at Talk:California#California name header, where several other editors have pointed out these issues. Walsh90210 (talk) 22:41, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

This charge from Vlaemink is isolated to a single article, Pennsylvania Dutch, which has nothing to do with any other articles. You're saying it does, but that's just an opinion. We should stay on track with the issue at hand, not open another can of worms. Aearthrise (talk) 22:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Your conduct is at issue here, and your edits regarding other ethnic groups are relevant to your conduct. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:54, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

That's about an ethnic group, not claiming a language exists. Secretlondon (talk) 18:38, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the talk page archives, I see a few possible concerns from the past 18 months at Pennsylvania Dutch:

• Aearthrise wants certain quotes to be in the Fraktur font. No other editor has supported this, and I do not see any recent edit-warring on the issue.
• There are disagreements on how to explain that "Dutch" has a shared etymology with "Deutsch". This is a normal part of the editing process; if any Vlaemink's behavior here is more problematic.
• Poor use of sourcing. This might be where there is a pattern of problematic editing. But the use of quotes from 19th century diaries, etc. isn't necessarily problematic, and Aearthrise doesn't seem hostile towards replacing content sourced to defunct blogs etc.

Overall, the behavior at Pennsylvania Dutch should be cause for increased scrutiny (and the edit-warring justifies the temporary protection), but I don't see the case for an indef-block based solely on behavior at that article. I am more concerned about the tendentious behavior related to California Cantonese than any diff I have seen at Pennsylvania Dutch. If there are specific diffs I missed among the 38 diffs listed from the past 18 months which are relevant, somebody (ideally Vlaemink) should identify them. Walsh90210 (talk) 22:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for this summary Walsh90210; as for the Fraktur font, it has already been removed, as we've come to a consensus on the talk page through an RFC post. Aearthrise (talk) 23:01, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

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My findings:

• Aearthrise's incivility, assumptions of bad faith, and dismissive attitude toward other editors appears to be part of a long-term pattern of behavior (see this discussion from August 2023 and this discussion from March 2024).
• Some examples of Aearthrise's incivility, assumptions of bad faith, casting of aspersions, and personalizing disputes with Vlaemink:
  • Your commentary makes you seem like the type who doesn't like learning, nor wants to learn (the whole purpose of Wikipedia), and is evident based on all of the thin arguments you've proposed. (19 June 2024)
  • This is your problem- you want to operate on ignorance and your emotions rather than from evidence and knowledge, and you've shown that time and time again. Even now, you're showing how your feelings were hurt and trying to use that to win the argument. You have a bruised ego. (20 June 2024)
  • Your actions show that you don't understand Wikipedia policy, instead you follow only what your emotions tell you. Your actions have neither been constructive, nor cooperative. You are just being belligerent for no reason, and you continue to threaten to abuse the Administrator notification system. (26 November 2024)
• Aearthrise has bludgeoned this ongoing discussion and exhibited an IDHT attitude towards editors who have told him that consensus for his addition is not developing.
• In terms of content, I'm concerned that Aearthrise thinks that self-published books (Special:Diff/1230587470) and websites (Special:Diff/1230718720) are reliable sources. I'm also concerned with their conflation of historical research and writing (Special:Diff/1259009121), which does value original research of primary sources, with writing an encyclopedic article that summarizes the secondary historical literature.

I am formally warning Aearthrise that this method of communicating with others is not acceptable. I also think a one-way indefinite IBAN toward Vlaemink would be appropriate. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:04, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your summary voorts.

I don't understand the terminology "IDHT attitude" nor "IBAN", if that means what you call "bludgeoning" (giving an answer to most responses), but I try to do everything in the best interests of Wikipedia readers, i.e. to give the best quality articles.

I don't believe self-published books are reliable, as I mentioned about Yorgey's book, "I agree that Yorgey's book should be paired with another quote". It was a personal memoir published from a Pennsylvania Dutchman who lived and faced discrimination during World War 2, and unfortunately has passed away, and I found his memoirs to be a relevant view for the article.

I don't believe random websites are reliable sources either; I do however attempt to get as many as possible sources to give information to an article- 99% being peer reviewed books (from Google Books) pertinent to the article.

I understand the importance of reliablity, I also understand the importance of cooperation, and I do cooperate with any community consensus.

Again I thank you for the effort you put into this investigation, and I wish you all the best voorts. Aearthrise (talk) 02:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Aearthrise, you've had an account on Wikipedia for 11 years now. You don't have to be familiar with every policy or guideline acronym but you should know how to look them up: WP:IDNHT and WP:IBAN will inform you of what is being referred to.

Instead of attacking Vlaemink, did you have a response to all of the diffs/edits he shared in his report on your editing? It would help you if you could respond to any of these personal insults he noted in his complaint. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:38, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

About the "diffs that he added, is that he's dredging old posts from early June and July; there was already a consensus we came to on on the older Admin talk page where he reported me earlier.

I have tried to work very calmly and peacefully with Vlaemink ever since July, and I don't see how any of our new interactions could be considered "toxic". I left the article for him, for half a year, and as soon as I returned to start editing, he didn't want to cooperate at all, and has reverted content on sole basis that it was from older publication date.

I don't think that it's right that the older diffs are being repeated here, as if this continued behavior since then, it's not.

I made a pledge to be kinder and not bring ego into the discussions. I used to get frustrated and angry, and all of those diffs that Vlaemink has added are from that older time before July.

As for the sentence "Your actions show that you don't understand Wikipedia policy, instead you follow only what your emotions tell you. Your actions have neither been constructive, nor cooperative. You are just being belligerent for no reason, and you continue to threaten to abuse the Administrator notification system.", this is in regards to repeatedly claiming that a source from the US government was WP:OR and unreliable only because it had an older publishing date 1883.

The quote was The High Dutch Pennsylvania Journal, a weekly German newspaper, was founded by Joseph Crellius as early as 1743...., as this was being added for a citation about the High Dutch Pennsylvania being an early newspaper from 1743 on the Pennsylvania Dutch page.

This is in direct response to an earlier attempt to reason and cooperate with him:

This is social history, and the social history doesn't change like physics or an applied science. Indeed, the older sources are the best for this culture, as its cultural height was written about mostly before World War 1 and 2.

Sources don't need to be contemporary to be valid. They only need to be true, so you need to prove that they're untrue or unreliable; just making a claim from them having an older publication date is not a valid reason to say they're unreliable.

I recommend you read WP:AGE MATTERS to understand what categories are time-sensitive.

He didn't want to listen to it, and instead acted belligerently, threatening me with complaining to administration for even speaking to him about why sources from older publications in this case are fine.

I let him know that firmly, but not in disrepectful way- and I explained exactly how I interpreted his actions.

Now he has complained to the administration, and he's trying very hard to get me banned from editing a page that I have contributed greatly to; all I care about is providing a good article, and if he can help me in that, I am more than grateful for it. Aearthrise (talk) 06:38, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

PS: Thank you for adding the WPs Liz, I appreciate it. Espescially with WP:IDHT, I see that when I do try answer every response, it could be seen as hearing but not listening.

I'll work on that, and again I thank you. Aearthrise (talk) 07:02, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. I said my piece in the previous discussion. I hope that people do not overly fault Vlaemink for long ANI posts. Just because someone is long-winded doesn't mean they are "wrong", and when I investigated the last time I found that Vlaemink was largely correct in everything they brought up. I remain concerned that Aearthrise's style of analysis and citation is simply not in keeping with Wikipedia expectations, in addition to the attitude and conduct issues. I will hesitantly suggest that Wikisource (for transcribing old books) and Wikibooks (for publishing "heritage" style history works) may be worth an investigation as an alternate place to apply this zeal for the kind of stuff that Aearthrise is interested in? But at the end of the day, if Aearthrise is on Wikipedia, he needs to comply with Wikipedia standards, which means using stuff like old historical documents very carefully, and working collaboratively with others. (Disclaimer: I have not closely examined Aerathrise's more recent conduct, so the above should be taken as related to Vlaemink's previous report + a few diffs from above. I could be convinced if someone wants to argue a deeper dive says otherwise.) SnowFire (talk) 04:50, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

  Hello again SnowFire, it's good to hear from you; I hope you've been well. I appreciate what you did for me back in July.

  You helped get over a big ego problem after that period, and I took a break from Wikipedia to breathe and get connected with the world.

  Your last message indeed touched me very much:

  I am making one more short comment here so that this thread isn't archived without action. Vlaemink was not very concise in raising the problem, but that doesn't mean it isn't a real problem, IMO. I've posted my own tl;dr analysis above and would encourage at least some admin to wade through the mud to provide some semblance of a way forward for these feuding editors, even the "bad" kind of a-curse-on-both-your-houses.

  You helped me see the light here:

  Thank you SnowFire; I don't want to be cursed, and I don't want Vlaemink to be cursed either: we've had a discussion with very heavy emotions, and lot of mudslinging- the only result of that kind of behavior being a big mess.

  A good Wikipedian should be able to edit without bringing in such strong emotion; in my final words, this whole experience has been a lesson on why it's important to manage frustration and anger.

  Frustration and anger shouldn't be present in article management, and I still hold to that. Perhaps I do make a lot of responses out of habit, but they're not out of anger nor frustration anymore, and I thank you for helping me to get to that understanding.

  That whole ordeal earlier this year meant a lot more to me than you can imagine. Aearthrise (talk) 06:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Since another editor got accused of being long winded, I will try my best to be concise. Aearthrise's behavior at Talk: California#California name header has been bizarre, aggressive and incomprehensible. The editor has gotten the notion in their head that there is a non-existent ethnic group in California called the "California Cantonese" and a non-existent language also called "California Cantonese". The fact is that Cantonese immigrants and their descendants in California are not a separate group from similar Cantonese communities in Nevada, New York, New England or British Columbia. Although a search of the entire internet yields a few occasions when the words "California" and "Cantonese" exist side by side, the concept of "California Cantonese" as a distinct ethnic group or language exists only in Aearthrise's mind but not in the scholarly literature. It is synthesis that this editor bludgeoned ad nauseum at Talk:California in recent days. Cullen328 (talk) 09:40, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello Cullen328, I know you're frustrated, but this culture is indeed notable to California, and it is distinct from Cantonese in Modern China.

Historically this culture has been called "California Chinese", but in recent times this term has also evolved to include foreign Chinese, the majority being Mandarin Speakers, muddying the terms meaning. California Cantonese also exists as a term, and is more specific to this historic ethnicity.

Here are some citations for this ethnicity under the "California Chinese" name:

• 25 Events That Shaped Asian American History: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic, Lan Dong, 2019, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, pg. 52:

"By 1868, many California Chinese had left mining areas in favor of the railroad construction, and more were needed to fulfill labor demands. Most of the Chinese laborers hail from impoverished Cantonese areas, primarily Sunwui and Toishan in the Sze Yup area."

• From Canton to California: The Epic of Chinese Immigration, Corinne K. Hoexter, 1976, Four Winds Press, pg. 15:

...Chinese students. Moreover, he had the ability, unusual for an American, to speak the Cantonese dialect spoken by most California Chinese.

• Trees in Paradise: A California History, Jared Farmer, 2013, W. W. Norton & Company, pg. 258:

...California's Chinese came from a subtropical region (Guangdong Province) with a long history of citriculture, they knew more about oranges than most colonists, who started their orchards in ignorance.

• Labor Immigration under Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States Before World War II, Lucie Cheng, Edna Bonacich, 2023, University of California Press, pg. 224, pg. 226:

...most of them in turn came from Guangdong province. Largescale Chinese emigration to the United States began shortly after the California gold rush started in 1849...

The overwhelming majority of the California Chinese came from the Pearl River delta region...

• California Folklore Quarterly, Volume 7, 1948, University of California Press, pg. 123:

A Chinese Roman Catholic priest had been imported to San Francisco, and Kip often met him on the street. However, his work was unsuccessful, for he spoke a different dialect from the Cantonese majority.

• California: An Illustrated History, Robert Joseph Chandler, 2004, Hippocrene Books, pg. 51:

California's Chinese came from southern China, around Canton.

• Agriculture and Rural Connections in the Pacific, Lei Guang, 2017, Routledge, pg. 35:

The majority of California Chinese came from the Pearl River delta region, with four rural districts around Canton accounting for the largest number of emigrants in the 19th century. Aearthrise (talk) 12:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Aearthrise, your technique in the California dispute is to search, search, search until you find the word "California" next to either "Cantonese" or "Chinese", and then engage in impermissible synthesis to claim that California Cantonese is an ethnic group native to California and that California Cantonese is a distinct language native to California. That's called cherrypicking. To make your case, you repeatedly link to California Cantonese, which was a mundane student written article about Chinese immigrants during the California gold rush until you radically edited it one week ago to transform it into a tool for your pet theory, which is shared by no scholars of the history of the settlement of Chinese immigrants in California. You have made 69 edits to that article since November 20 to push your point of view and create a debating tool. You have concocted this notion out of passing mentions rather than significant coverage by academic experts, and you try to bully and intimidate any editor who disagrees with you. It is time for that behavior to stop. Cullen328 (talk) 17:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Binksternet described some of your behavior on California Cantonese as a Massive misrepresentation of sources. Cullen328 (talk) 17:55, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I can only confirm that Aearthrise used the exact same M.O. on Pennsylvania Dutch: copied google-searches or ChatGPT-generated lists which mention a certain word combination, which are then put forward as supporting a personal POV. To question or disagree is to be bullied, demeaned or intimated. Vlaemink (talk) 18:38, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I never added ChatGPT information to an article Vlaemink, that's not true at all. What you're referring to is an interaction between an anonymous and I in June where I showed 5 citations where Elon Musk mentions his Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.

I tried to make a point of how easy it was to verify that information showing that a quick search on Google would show him the same being first 5 citations on Google, that it's a true statement.

None of the citations were ever used, except for the Forbes citation which is a reliable source and verified to be accurate.

Anyhow, I have already turned a new leaf in my interaction style after the discussion since July and your older complaint, and I don't bring ego into my responses. Aearthrise (talk) 20:43, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I haven't bullied you or have been hostile Cullen328, i've only spoken to you with normal language. You say i've bullied and intimidated you, but you don't have any proof for that and are leaning on Vlaemink's statements. Aearthrise (talk) 20:34, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Thinking that US Chinese would be the same as those in China is an odd one. It doesn't mean that there is any specific about Cantonese speakers in California. Secretlondon (talk) 18:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@Voorts: Per your request I've tried to condense the problem into one paragraph and provide some context/examples for the diffs mentioned above. Please let me know if you feel this matter is too big for the Administrators Noticeboard and should maybe be taken to the Arbitration Committee instead.

The problem: Aearthrise's use of older material or share of total editing aren't problematic in and of themselves, but they are incredibly toxic and damaging to the article within the broader context. He doesn't use an older source incidentally, he uses these constantly; often with falsified publishing dates. When people (rightly) question his personal views and/or sources, he resorts to demeaning comments, spamming talk pages with what appear to be Ai-generated 'citations' (examples of which can be found in the discussion above), ignores Wikipedia policy and habitually resorts edit warring; driving away users who could have substantially improved this already niche-article. He's been doing this for about 2 years, basically unopposed until June of this year, when his behavior was called out. Instead of changing his ways, as many users implored him to do, he stopped editing the article for several months, only to return over the past days and continuing his disruptive and harmful MO as if nothing happened. Other users have pointed out his behavior isn't limited to the Pennsylvania Dutch article, but this is my primary concern and I would request that he be banned from editing this article; either permanently or at least until the article's reliability (as it is now) can be thoroughly evaluated, without Aearthrise being able to edit-war or spam other users while this is going on.

Diffs and examples:

Problematic use of (unreliable, outdated and/or primary) sources, WP:SYNTH/WP:OR and WP:NPOV.

47thPennVols (talk · contribs) expresses her concern about 5 sources that Aearthrise has provided, explaining that the publisher of some of these sources (Stackpole Books) are not considered to meet Wikipedia quality standards and going on to cite an academic review of one of the sources, which explicitly stated that it contained ″numerous errors″, ″interpretive and rhetorical overstatements″ and needed ″to be handled with care″ [39]. Aearthrise's reply is ″You are continually waffling and nitpicking, but you have not yet provided ONE source for your claim. I've already provided 5 sources both historic and recent that demonstrate the usage of Dutchman in regards to the Pennsylvania Dutch community″, i.e. displaying incivility and completely ignoring the serious issues raised. 47thPennVols asks to Aearthrise to stop edit-warring and being uncivil and repeats the problems (irrelevance, self publication, age) with the sources Aearthrise has provided, concluding that despite all the evidence provided, Aearthrise remains unwilling to consider any perspective on the matter other than his own.[40] Aearthrise's reply is: ″Your "perspective", i.e. original research, is invalid; the only citation you've provided is a weak Dictionary.com entry that is not at all related to the Pennsylvania Dutch. There is nothing to "agree to disagree"- you have not provided sufficient proof for your claim, and your attempts to remove "Pennsylvania Dutchman" from this article are completely unjustified. I shall roll back your last edit.″ [41] After this, 47thPennVols makes one final attempt to change the article, which Aearthrise reverts. He then added to the talk page: ″You undid my reversion of your post claiming "Ther term "Dutchman" is considered to be a slur by many in the Pennsylvania Dutch community"; either produce reasonable evidence of your claim now, or I shall revert it again.″ [42], after which 47thPennVols (understandably) abandons her attempts to improve the article. In a NPOV-dispute concerning the etymology of ″Dutch″ in ″Pennsylvania Dutch″, there seem to be two main trains of thought. Both views have reputable academic publications behind them and are widespread among scholars and per WP:NPOV, both views should be represented in the article, as they had been prior to Aearthrise involvement. Aearthrise opposed this, considering one view to be ″the truth″ [43] and the other nonsense and again and again [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] removed the alternative view from the article. An RfC was made to resolve the matter, which Aearthrise subsequently spammed, thereby deterring other participants.[49][50][51][52][53][54] In June, an extensive and thorough survey was made of the first 50 sources listed in the article [55], which showed that almost half of the sources listed were either outdated (we're talking over a century, sometimes over 150 years old), personal webpages, sources copied form existing articles (but now read/checked, and not supportive of claims made), (defunct) tourists websites or autobiographies. In most cases, the publication dates of the sources provided had been changed to make them seem far more recent. [56]. As a result of this, an unreliable-sources-template was added to the article.[57] In the subsequent report to the AN, numerous users voiced their deep concern about Aearthrise's behavior and use of sources:[58][59][60][61] Later in June, a made up article "German Pennsylvania" (created by Aearthrise)was deleted for being WP:Synth/WP:OR.[62]

Making uncivil, derogatory and demeaning remarks.

Theodore Christopher (talk · contribs) expresses his concerns about the relevance and reliability of a long bilingual quote (longer than the section its in) that Aearthrise wants to be in article. Additionally Aearthrise insists that this quote should use the Fraktur font (𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔰 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰), which is not only unnessary but goes against Wikipedias manual of style. Aearthrise subsequently barrages Theodore Christophe with derogatory and uncivil remarks: ″Although I already answered this question in an edit, which you choose to ignore now, I shall entertain the question with this response.″ [63] ″You speak on that the usage of Hebrew and Greek are irrelevant to Palatine German- this is another statement without a thought.″ [64] ″Your inability to comprehend that is telling of your mindset; you ignore sound arguments and prefer to just waffle and blather.″ [65] ″Your words are based in ignorance, coming and from an outsider to Pennsylvania Dutch culture, you who don't even speak the language nor know our cultural traits.″ [66] ″As I said in my previous post: "your thoughts are not worth very much.″ [67] ″Lastly, your (...) quote is completely incorrect, and it shows you lack knowledge of Pennsylvania Dutch culture or basic understanding of the message.″[68] ″Your arguments and words are all vapid nonsense (...)″ [69] Theodore Christophers edit were repeatedly reverted by Aearthrise and he (once again, regrettably but understandably) stopped engaging with the article. When I joined this discussion some time later and wrote I fully supported Theodore Christophers changes and argumentation, this too was ignored or waved away and edits reverted multiple times. Directed at me, Vlaemink (talk · contribs): ″This is your problem- you want to operate on ignorance and your emotions rather than from evidence and knowledge, and you've shown that time and time again. Even now, you're showing how your feelings were hurt and trying to use that to win the argument. You have a bruised ego.″ [70] ″Your commentary makes you seem like the type who doesn't like learning, nor wants to learn″ [71] ″You deleted my responsse here earlier for making a discussion here, but yet, as a hypocrite, you started a discussion here yourself!″ [72] ″You are hypocrite and are playing a game to get your way.″ [73] Directed at an anonymous IP: ″It takes a "special" person to ignore the citation that's already present on the article, and a lazy person to not take it upon himself to make quick a google search. [74]

Immediately resuming problematic behavior after Wiki-pause.

The very first thing that Aearthrise does after returning to this article after several months is to remove the unreliable-sources-template: [75]. Marked as a 'minor' edit, he provided the following rationale: Removed tags: ″Previous editor posted multiple unreliable citations tags, saying claiming citations were "outdated"; months later, after discussion on talk page, still hasn't proven how the citations our outdated.″ — thereby showing the exact same ″Sources/Wikipedia policy doesn't matter, you need to convince me″-attitude as before. He then commenced to removing all of the individual cite- and request-for-sources-tags and tried to re-add information which had previously been removed for lacking reliable and valid sources.[76]. He again tried to include wording like "German Pennsylvania" [77] despite this being previously deleted for being OR [78]. He tried adding images again taken from news sites and uploaded (by Aearthrise himself) to Wikimedia Commons under a false public domain-license.[79] On the talk page, his replies to urgent requests to stop edit-warring and stop (re)-adding untrustworthy material, were met with the same dismissive attitude and stubborn defense of using problematic sources.[80][81]

Thank you for your trouble.Vlaemink (talk) 12:50, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Your first two columns are just a dredging of content from earlier June and July; they're not pertinent to this discussion, because these have already been discussed on a separate complaint that you made.

I haven't been rude to you or made a comment that demeans you at all, but you're acting like I did. I've only tried to reason with you about the type of content included on the page, of which you have said that only "proper, contemporary" sources are reliable and allowed.

I've tried to speak to you about why that's not accurate for the Pennsylvania Dutch article's topic.

Under the third column, you're making many different accusations:

• I removed the unreliable tag citations, because you were guarding them under the premise of only "proper, contemporary" sources, claiming that all the older publications were unreliable without proving it; it is not problematic to use sources from older publications, as long as they are reliable and truthful, like the US Government from 1883 citation that I added. I recommend you read WP:AGEMATTERS to know what categories are time sensitive.
• You claim I tried to include the word "German Pennsylvania", but following the page logs for November, that's easily refuted, so this not a valid accusation at all.
• You're talking about licenses now, and I could use help if you see it could be improved; this is from 1931 Sunday Newspaper.
• For the fourth point, you are talking about my responses to you, firstly of you saying I started an edit war, which is false. Secondly, that you launched a smear campaign against me in the attempt to ban me from editing the article earlier this year. That was wrong of you, because you weren't doing it because of behavior, but because you weren't getting your way on the article.

This can be seen by the fact that I only made a reversion with a complete explanation on November 22, the second time, when you returned, you were very hostile with me on November 26th saying:

You are [not] removing the unreliable sources tag until reliable sources are provided. You are also not going to add WP:OR by "corroborating" your preferred theories by adding primary sources instead of reliable scientific literature. - This is you calling the sentence "such as one of the oldest German newspapers in Pennsylvania being the High Dutch Pennsylvania Journal in 1743.", cited with an 1883 publication from the US Government as WP:OR, which is incorrect, unless you're saying that the US Government is an unreliable source.

and

You can call my insistence to adhere to Wikipedia policy "threats" all you want, it is not going to change the fact that the overwhelming majority of sources you've tried to add to this article and are now trying to pass as reliable by removing source-tags, are not acceptable. You can huff and puff all you want, it's not going to work. Revert my restoring of the cite- and source-tags again and you will be reported. - Again, you didn't prove that any of the sources you called outdated and unreliable were unreliable other than saying that they have an older publication date. If they are unreliable, then they should be removed; you have had half a year to show that the sources were unreliable, which I asked you to do.

Your actions here, and especially writing "Page ban for Aearthrise" show your motivation to get me banned, and you're trying very hard with the administrators to do that. Aearthrise (talk) 13:37, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

My request for a page ban is not meant as a 'witch hunt', as you've tried to frame it, but a last resort to safeguard the integrity and reliability of this article. Your edit-history consistently shows a blatant disregard for core tenets of Wikipedia as well uncivil or even bullying interaction with Wikipedians who disagree with you. The reasons why my request includes many of your statements and actions from the past two years, instead of merely the past few days is, I hope, obvious: to show both a history and a pattern. A pattern, which you have just now resumed without any noticeable changes. In fact, in mere days you've been involved in two conflicts: this one, which has been going on intermittently for two years now, and a new one concerning "Cantonese Californians" — both showing the same pattern of abusive behavior and highly questionable use of sources.

The fact that some of the content has already been listed in my request for admin intervention in June is of little consequence as that request did not end in admin intervention. Instead you spammed the request, got a lot of negative feedback and then basically left Wikipedia for several months; after which the conflict seemed frozen and the request got archived: it is only logical for this second request to pick up where you left off. I'm confident the admins involved will see the logic in this as well, and I am hoping the combined total is cause enough for a lasting solution on this issue. Vlaemink (talk) 14:12, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Ban from article space

Thank you, Vlaemink, for filing this report. The proposed page ban is not enough to solve the problem, I'm afraid. A ban on article space is in order because of the extensive misrepresentation and many falsehoods purveyed by Aearthrise in article space. The California Cantonese article is a case in point, in which Aearthrise decided unilaterally that Chinese-heritage people speaking Cantonese in California were an ethnic group somehow differentiated from the same ethnic types who speak Mandarin or any of the minor languages of China. Aearthrise transformed the article from a history of Cantonese-speaking people in California to a mish-mash of Chinese settlement in California, based on the ethnic group infobox, using sources that may or may not mix in Mandarin-speaking Chinese, and may or may not include other US states. The topic is now a total violation of WP:SYNTH. In particular, I saw Aearthrise insist that an irrelevant book cite was appropriate,[82] followed by Aearthrise adding another irrelevant cite four minutes later as a purely defensive reaction,[83] followed in the next hour by Aearthrise replacing both of these with an older teaching aid text which finally supported the text and provided some context.[84] I don't think Aearthrise should be deciding for our readers what is true. Binksternet (talk) 18:59, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I would say a narrower topic ban from ethnicity and nationality, broadly construed, is more appropriate. Nobody has raised issues with Aearthrise's other areas of editing. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Voorts, please don't do that; I've spent 11 years on Wikipedia and I've made great contributions.

I've created many beautiful, well-sourced articles for peoples who were completely unheard of, or only mentioned in passing on other articles: Alaskan Creole people, Alabama Creole people, Saint-Domingue Creoles.

I've improved the quality of articles massively with very constructive contributions: Pennsylvania Dutch seen here; Louisiana Creole people, seen here.

I don't believe I deserve to be banned from working on ethnicities, or nationalities, as that's what I've spent time, effort, and love to help build on Wikipedia, helping teach about the beautiful peoples of our world.

I ask that you please don't ban me from working on Wikipedia articles with ethnicities. Aearthrise (talk) 20:59, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Now I support indef from article space per everyone else. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:23, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Binksternet I didn't decide that this was a separate culture, but it's clearly shown if you look into the sources for this people, and they've established themselves with the cultural traits of 1.Being the original descendants of California Gold Rush Miners from Canton, and 2. Being Cantonese and pertaining to the culture shared in California, but also where China becomes closed off to America, which later Modern Mandarin Chinese that came in the 1970s were different.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=California_Cantonese&diff=1259637668&oldid=1259599862%7C You started with deleting the whole article based but only mentioning the Charlotte article. You said the Charlotte article was misuse and "about Chinese people born in California leaving to go "home" to China in the 1900s after suffering racism", which I reverted because you had deleted not only what was with the citation, but everything else on the page.

I then shared what I cited from the Charlotte book on the discussion, and I was nothing but cordial with you on the talk page Talk:California Cantonese#Misuse of reference book by Charlotte Brooks.

Then you removed the sentence "In recent times, many Cantonese speaking immigrants from Modern China (e.g. Macau, Guangzhou (Canton City), and Hong Kong) have also settled in California." Which, is true. Hong Kong and China major sources of recent Cantonese migration in California.

You said I added another citation, as "a defensive" reaction, but I simply misread the citation, which I explained to you with the statement "Reverting back, this is the third reversion and the limit for reversions; "templeuniversitypress" source specifically mentions the recent peoples who came to California, and names the Cantonese Cities Guangzhou, Macau, and Hong Kong. Read discussion response", as this aligns with WP:3RR.

I read the citation again fully and I acknowledged that it was talking about a specific case of migrants counted in the membership of the Chinese Fellowship Church, and after that I got another source which said exactly where recent immigrants came from. Here is the acknowledgement.

"Followed in the next hour by Aearthrise replacing both of these with an older teaching aid text which finally supported the text and provided some context." This is exactly how Wikipedia should function: making constructive edits to give the best quality article. Aearthrise (talk) 20:28, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The defensive maneuver you made was to add a book reference four minutes after you reverted me. There is no book in the world that you could read in four minutes to find support for your notional topic. The pages of the book you cited talk about Chinese-heritage members of a particular East Coast US church, as polled in 1976 and 1995. A table on page 343 shows that these are not California Chinese, nor are they primarily Cantonese speakers. The sole connection to your notional topic was a quote by the author on page 344 citing a 1994 paper by Bernard P. Wong titled "Hong Kong Immigrants in San Francisco". The basic idea being expressed was that American chinatowns were initially using the Taishanese language, then they transitioned to Cantonese, eventually changing to mainly Mandarin-speaking, but there are still other languages spoken by ethnic Chinese in American chinatowns. None of this was about California in particular. Your reactionary edit was a travesty, made too quickly in anger. Binksternet (talk) 21:12, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Binksternet, I acknowledge that I misread the table on page 343 as having to do with the entire immigration from Modern China between 1976-1995, but it was only speaking about the immigrants of the specific church.

I thank you for your help in getting that source settled, and I don't have any bad feelings towards you.

I like when the fruits of cooperation can lead to a better quality article like this, especially when dealing with sources. Nobody can do everything alone. Aearthrise (talk) 21:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I find it disconcerting that you would use a phrase like ″the fruit of cooperation″ to qualify the interaction that Binksternet just described.Vlaemink (talk) 21:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

The meaning fruit of cooperation is a better quality article. Binksternet helped me in that, and we made constructive progress on the article. Aearthrise (talk) 22:15, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support indef Aearthrise says he hasn't made hostile comments to Cullen328, but on Monday he said You are not being honest now, and you're reaching for straws.. If he can't recognize that is hostile, he is incapable of being part of this project. Walsh90210 (talk) 20:52, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

  Walsh90210, "You are not being honest now, and you're reaching for straws..." was a direct response to him saying The Manual of Style is not irrelevant and this is not a key fact. "California Cantonese" is not a language. Cantonese is, but it is not a native language in California. I am not obligated to study those other cases, but those names are probably inappropriate for those infoboxes too. Most importantly, you do not have consensus for your proposed change, which is required., because he said that I was saying MOS was irrelevant, which I wasn't; I was talking about his argument saying it's not a native language because it's not from an indigenous tribe, but I rebutted by saying "native" didn't mean "native American" in that case.

  If you consider this hostile language, then I apologize for it Cullen328, and I'm sorry if I offended you were offended by it.

  My intention wasn't to offend you with saying it, but rather to point to out and I don't seek to offend people on Wikipedia. Aearthrise (talk) 21:14, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support for a topic ban concerning languages, nationalities & ethnic groups indefinite block from article space as just proposed by Voorts (talk · contribs) Binksternet (talk · contribs). A long term pattern of disruptive and harmful editing over multiple articles has now been clearly identified and needs to stop. I have no confidence in his current apologies and promises of betterment: he did exactly the same when he was reported back in June, and continued his previous M.O. regardless. Vlaemink (talk) 21:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Update: I've changed my stance based on recent edits (i.e. today) on New Netherlander. Here, Aearthrise (re)added a 1887-source (which does not even contain the wording it's supposed to support)[85] and a made-up Dutch translation of "New Netherlanders", which he tries to provide a reference for by adding a book on the integration of Jews in the Netherlands between 1814 and 1851 (transl. "New Dutch: the integration of Jews in the Netherlands 1814-1851)[86]. I'm now convinced this user should no longer be allowed to edit the article space, the risks that this user brings with him when it comes to the use of sources, the addition of OR/synth and NPOV are simply too big.Vlaemink (talk) 14:10, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

• Vlaemink, I understand that you dislike me, but I haven't attacked you in November, and you're acting like I did.

  I only reverted two posts on Pennsylvania Dutch over a course of 4 days; you were guarding the page, but your reasoning to delete content like the 1883 citation from the US Government I added was not valid.

  I tried to explain that to you by sharing the WP:AGEMATTERS, but all you said that you would complain to administation if I reverted the page again. That wasn't an edit war, which is described by WP:3RR, and now you're trying to get me banned from that page for challenging your saying that sources can only be reliable if they're contemporary to today.

  I want to cooperate with you, and i've tried to do that, but your hostile attitude to any change of idea on older publications has caused this new ordeal. Aearthrise (talk) 22:12, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Support indefinite block from article space. If consensus for that outcome does not exist, then Support topic ban from ethnicities and languages and dialects, broadly construed. Voorts is very gracious in saying Nobody has raised issues with Aearthrise's other areas of editing but that is because this editor rarely if ever edits outside the topic area of ethnicity and language. It might be argued that their extensive editing to Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard might be a counterexample but the fact of the matter is that Beauregard was a Louisiana Creole whose first language was Louisiana French. A large percentage of this editor's work is POV pushing about language and ethnicity, trying to promote population groups to the status of "native" ethnic groups and to promote accents, dialects and regional language variations to the status of "native" separate languages. This editor has demonstrated that they do not understand that synthesis is not permitted. They do not understand that the Neutral point of view does not permit them to cherrypick Google hits to advance their POV pushing agenda. They do not understand that edit warring is not limited to the brightline WP:3RR but is a far broader restriction. They understand nothing about building consensus and their usual attitude when anyone objects to their poor quality work amounts to "everyone else is wrong and I am right" although they refrain from saying that openly. Instead, that is revealed in how they bludgeon discussions, repeating weak points over and over, and refusing to engage with or refute the arguments of the editors who disagree. Instead, they insist that other editors misunderstand what is obviously true, and that their opponent's points have no merit. My personal experience is as a California resident for 52 years who has repeatedly visited urban and rural Chinese communities here, and researched and read and purchased books and done previous work on articles about Chinese immigrant communities in California such as Grace Quan and Frank Fat's. That shows that I take the topic area seriously. I do not claim an academic level of expertise, but I do have a functioning bullshit detector. And the trivial factoid that this editor tried to add to the infobox of an exceptionally important article California was bullshit for several substantive reasons that I and several other editors analyzed and debated at great length at Talk: California#California name header, where that editor made an astonishing 116 edits in short order in defense of adding that trivial factoid to the top of the California infobox, utterly bludgeoning the discussion and convincing no other editors except for a brand new IP making their first edit. Their attitude from beginning to end was "you are all wrong and misinformed and making weak arguments and only I am right". Just one example of the deep weakness of their argument is a quote that they have repeatedly put forward in support of the bizarre notion that "California Cantonese" is an actual language native to California: She spoke unnaturally, in English. "I can only speak California Cantonese.... Is this an article in an academic journal by a scholarly expert who argues that "California Cantonese" is an actual language? No. It is a fleeting comment by a random unidentified woman who does not speak English well, and is literally of zero value in making the case that "California Cantonese" is a language native to California. And to advance this spurious notion, Aearthrise heavily edited California Cantonese and Cantonese to shoehorn their pet theories into those articles as well. That is an attitude incompatible with a collaborative editing environment. That is not a new attitude for Aerthrise. Take a look at the conversation about Yankee that took place at this discussion in August 2023 and where Aearthrise makes similar bizarre and idiosyncratic arguments based on original research and synthesis that "Yankees" are an actual ethnic group when no scholars agree and the term has at least three distinct and contradictory meanings, none of which is an ethnic group. This discussion among several others shows that this editor is here only to advance their own highly idiosyncratic notions about ethnicity and language, as opposed to neutrally summarizing what the full range of high quality reliable sources say about these topics. Cullen328 (talk) 07:20, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Another example of Aearthrise's misrepresentations is Kathryn Dyakanoff Seller. Before Aearthrise got their hands on the article, she was described as an Alaska Native educator and her ethnicity was descibed as Aleut. She was born in 1884. After Aearthrise was done with it, she is described as a Russian Creole educator. There are zero references to reliable sources that call her Russian Creole. Admittedly, Dyakanoff sounds like a Russian name and the Russians colonized Alaska until 1867, but a Russian name in Alaska at that time is not sufficient to call a person "Russian Creole". For example, R. Kelly has no known Irish ancestry. Maybe she had some Russian ancestry or maybe she didn't but that is not something that can be inferred from a name. We need an inconvenient thing called a "reference to a reliable source" to call somebody a "Russian Creole", but Aearthrise does not care. That editor does it anyway, and the seven references are identical before and after the POV pushing edit. To be clear, creole identities and dialects and languages and ethnic groups are a very real thing that should be documented on Wikipedia, but only based on neutral summaries of what reliable published sources say, not on what some individual Wikipedia editor infers from a name that "sounds Russian". Interestingly, there is a recent edit summary on that article (which is not a reliable source but possibly an indication of a problem) that says I am a family member, she identified as Aleut and there is no evidence that she was Russian. Cullen328 (talk) 09:02, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello Cullen328,

I didn't make that edit on that says she was a Russian Creole (terminology for people born in Alaska during the Russian Empire). If you follow the diffs, it was User:ChuckDabs who wrote it; I added that she was Alaskan Creole, but I admit, I was mistaken in it.

Thank you for bringing it up, and I've made the proper changes to the article. Aearthrise (talk) 13:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Cullen328, should we reconsider using Dyahanoff's image to illustrate Alaskan Creole people? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:39, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Liz, to be frank, I do not know, because Aearthrise created Alaskan Creole people on February 9, 2023 and is the author of over 90% of the content. Reliable sources seem to categorize the Creoles in Alaska as one of many population groups living there, specifically those of partial Russian and partial indigenous ancestry, which strikes me as right. Aearthrise claims that every Russian subject in Alaska pre-1867 was an Alaskan Creole, which seems off to me. To say that I do not trust Aearthrise's work is an understatement. Cullen328 (talk) 19:59, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Liz, a 1944 journal article called The Russian Creoles of Alaska as a Marginal Group defines the group succinctly: The present Russian creoles in Alaska are the descendants of mixed marriages between Russians and Alaskan natives which occurred during the period of Russian rule in Alaska, The term "creole" was legally defined by the Russian authorities to mean the children of Russian fathers and the native women, and it was used in this sense in the Russian colonies. I do not see any major definitional changes in more recent sources identified by Google Scholar. Aearthrise's definition seems to be idiosyncratic and based on their original research. Cullen328 (talk) 20:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@Liz:, the terminology "Russian Creole (Kriol)" or Creole in general is used to describe diverse groups of people born from both colonial, migrant and indigenous ethnic origin. Whose genesis is within a period of colonial administration and continues to exist after that period. Please see Creole peoples and Louisiana Creole (Louisiana Creole is an creole group currently present in the Southern U.S.).

@Cullen328:, I know nothing about Kathryn Dyakanoff Seller. Perhaps her non-Anglicized birth name (Ekaterina Pelagiia Dyakanoff) is just an example of a Russification of native peoples' personal names by the previous Russian administration, this especially likely given she was only born 17 years after the Alaska Purchase.

Given that, I think it would be remiss to remove the Cyrillic spelling of her name as it was likely spelled that way by her Aleut or Kriol parents (Nikifor and Pelagia Dyakanoff) in 1884.

(source: https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/kathryn_d_seller.pdf)

Also, though not a source we use on Wikipedia, a privately managed Geni account for Kathryn Seller's family lists her great-grandfather Vasilii Diakanov (Dyakanoff) as born in mainland Russia. I would wager that she is marginally an Alaskan Creole and mostly Aleut in extraction.

(source: https://www.geni.com/Vasilii-Diakanov/6000000022657577428?through=6000000022657432529)

Thus, if the majority of her make up Aleut and/or Alaskan Native, it is absolutely correct to call her an "Aleut" educator. I recommend a flag for this article for further review and for more sources.

This article is definitely not as cut and dry as "I am a family member, she identified as Aleut and there is no evidence that she was Russian.", I believe that family member is unaware of Kathryn's full ethnic origin.

Please keep me in the loop guys!

ChuckDabs (talk) 03:34, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

ChuckDabs, as I wrote previously, Maybe she had some Russian ancestry or maybe she didn't. I agree that the matter is not cut and dried. The problem is that Aearthrise and another editor made an assumption without relying on a reliable source, and that is a policy violation. As for the definition of "Creole", we cannot apply a definition from Louisiana to Alaska. I found a 1944 academic definition for Alaska. I would like to find out if that definition is contested or has evolved over the years. Cullen328 (talk) 03:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not a very prolific editor, but having seen this topic by chance- when reading the P. G. T. Beauregard article in December 2022, after (what I now know to be) extensive editing on it throughout that year by Aerthrise, it struck me as "off" in some ways. The things I noted at the time were that the article was heavily dependent on one source- in places an uncomfortably close paraphrase of it (P.G.T. Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray by T. Harry Williams, a reliable but older work, published 1955), and that the article incorrectly claimed that Beauregard had endorsed Grant for president in 1868, and, bizarrely, claimed that Beauregard endorsed Grant while attributing to Beauregard a contemporary quote saying that Grant would "become the tool of designing politicians." (Cited to Williams; text added by Aearthrise in this diff.) On investigation I found that the actual book said just the opposite- that Beauregard loathed Grant and considered leaving the country in the wake of his victory; and the "tool of designing politicians" quote is actually taken from Williams's narrative text- it is not attributed to Beauregard in the book, and was not written until decades after his death. At that time I wasn't Wikipedia-savvy enough to track down who added it and in what context; I just fixed the error myself with reference to the cited book.

Now, two things strike me in the context of this thread. The first is that shortly before I found and fixed this error, Aearthrise got very aggressive with an IP editor who pointed the same error- their error- out on Talk:P. G. T. Beauregard, saying, in response to the IP's pointing out that the "designing politicians" text hardly sounds like an endorsement, You're irrationally imagining and inserting your own context considering he voted for Grant; the phrase "become the tool of designing politicians" is just Beauregard's way of saying that he will help bring change. Is English your first language?- doubling down on their misreading of the text (he didn't vote for Grant, the pseudo-quote is meant to be critical of Grant), instead of either consulting the book again or even acknowledging that the plain meaning of the text that was in the article is confused. The second thing is that the Beauregard article had (and still has) a subsection titled "Treatment by Anglo-Americans due to his Creole heritage," which fits the pattern noted above of motivated ethnicity-related editing, and is shaky in its own right- it's entirely sourced to Williams's book, it seems to be assembled from separate incidents in the biography where Beauregard can be portrayed as having experienced discrimination based on his background, and if the subject is in fact due for coverage in the article, it probably isn't due for coverage at such length (eg it's much longer than the brief coverage of his wife and children immediately above it). These issues themselves are obviously fairly old, but they definitely fit the apparently ongoing patterns laid out above. Yspaddadenpenkawr (talk) 14:32, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

having quietly read through this whole thing, and the plainly retaliatory post below (#Review of Vlaemink's actions), i'm really not impressed with Aearthrise's attitude and behavior. our ethnicity articles are consistently some of the messiest, most bloated with OR/SYNTH/etc, and most poorly-written articles on the project, and Aearthrise is contributing to that with their consistent bizarre POV pushing at the expense of reliable sourcing and verifiability. what Yspaddadenpenkawr points out regarding the Beauregard article should be the final straw. support ban from articlespace and a topic ban from ethnicity, per Cullen328 in particular. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 15:31, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support indefinite ban from article space. If Aearthrise wants to, he can politely and collaboratively suggest sources of interest on talk pages, but it seems best to leave it to others to judge their suitability. In general, Wikipedia is very reluctant to ban users for bad content, but there comes a point where it's unavoidable. Aearthrise, I believe you that you're acting in good faith, but the conclusions you are drawing from weak sources just aren't merited. I hope you don't lose your taste for free content, but I will again humbly suggest something like Wikisource as a place to transcribe old documents or the like. There are ways to contribute here, but it's clear that your judgment in historical matters does not match the expectations of the community. SnowFire (talk) 07:43, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose ban from article space, but Support topic ban from ethnicity and nationality, broadly construed. I get that Aearthrise doesn't appear to have contributed outside this topic, but that's the exact reason why I oppose the broader ban: there is no evidence either in support of or against a ban outside of the topic area. Even Cullen328's thorough and excellent argument admits that the only potential example of editing outside the topic area really isn't outside of it.

Banning them from article space functionally means they won't have the opportunity to demonstrate how they edit outside the topic. I'd rather the community impose a sanction that gives them the opportunity to do so, while also putting a stop to the damage being done in the topic area.

--Pinchme123 (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Banning them from article space functionally means they won't have the opportunity to demonstrate how they edit outside the topic. They can use edit-requests. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 20:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Hence the word "functionally". Submitting an edit request is asking someone else to edit on your behalf. --Pinchme123 (talk) 07:12, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Liz, while this conversation continues, Aerthrise has resumed editing the problematic California Cantonese article, making 48 edits within a four hour period. Cullen328 (talk) 08:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

They seem to have issues with restraint and moderation. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 09:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I thought I would spot check one of those edits, at random I chose this one about the Californian Cantonese style of architecture[87]. The reference is for Understanding Ordinary Landscapes pages 81–84, which usefully is available via Google books[88]. It doesn't discuss any Californian Cantonese style of architecture, it is about Chinatowns in general in the US and Canada. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

That is typical of the type of unacceptable original research that Aearthrise routinely engages in, to the detriment of the encyclopedia. Cullen328 (talk) 18:05, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

This makes no sense: if I couldn't edit articles directly, I could make edit requests; the edit requests I made would clearly demonstrate how [I] edit. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 22:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I suspect that User:98.174.88.181 might be loutsocking. I'm not sure if it's okay to say that here – if not, any admin may revert and revdel. Toadspike [Talk] 08:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
• Comment @Aearthrise added this information [89] . Because saw no mention of this information on the cited page [90], I removed it [91]. LeónGonsalvesofGoa (talk) 13:14, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Review of Vlaemink's actions

Vlaemink has made repeated behavior of threatening to complain to administration to solve content dispute issues.

At the same time, he has been challenging me to make an administration complaint myself, but I didn't feel that it was right to abuse the administration system to solve disputes.

However, Vlaemink has made a new complaint against me recently, and is asking me to be banned from an article, Pennsylvania Dutch claiming that I was doing edit warring, but has not shown proof of that other than bringing up points from June and July that weren't pertinent to the discussion.

Recently on New Netherlander, Vlaemink removed the infobox and a citation saying what he believed was "definite", that people born in New Netherland weren't an ethnic group, and that the their Native_Name in the infobox was never used (i've since added a citation that proves otherwise) and he is continuing to say that only contemporary sources are allowed to be used on Wikipedia.

I mentioned to him several times that a source isn't unreliable just for being published at an older date, and that he should read WP:AGEMATTERS to see what kind of categories are time-sensitive.

I don't know what more I can do now.

I don't want him to face problems, like he is trying to do with me, but his editing style is disruptive and his attitude is increasingly hostile for no reason. Thank you. Aearthrise (talk) 13:31, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

This is an extension of #Requesting a page ban for Aearthrise, so you should probably include it as a subheader of that. CMD (talk) 13:41, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Under no circumstances whatsoever have I threatened you. What I definitely have done, is warn you multiple times that I would ask for admins to intervene if you continued to ignore Wikipedia-policy and disruptive editing — which you chose to ignore.

• The term "edit warring" entails more than breaking the 3RR; something which Cullen328 (talk · contribs) recently pointed out.[92]
• As for the New Netherlander-article; here I removed a 1887-source, added by you, which did not contain the wording it claimed to support [93] and removed a supposedly Dutch translation, also added by you, which was plainly wrong. Instead of backing down, you then added a reference about the integration of Jews in the Netherlands between 1814 and 1851;[94] in support of your translation. I consider this highly problematic, because it shows that you are both willing to add translations in a language you clearly do not understand (in Dutch adjectives are conjugated, "New Netherlanders" is translated as "Nieuw-Nederlanders", "Nieuwe Nederlanders" is simply a term for recent immigrants in the Netherlands) and willing to add invalid references to such "translations" in order to push your personal POV and/or preferences.

I'm very sorry to say this, but your latest comments here are clearly just another an attempt to re-frame your current predicament as a witch-hunt or personal vendetta. This is not the case: everything mentioned here, and not just by me, concerns your problematic behavior and use of sources — which you've consistently displayed for over (at least) 2 years. Vlaemink (talk) 15:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

This is clearly a retaliatory filing. Cullen328 (talk) 18:52, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Request for a decision

Though I want to emphasize that I am fully aware that being an administrator is voluntary and fully understand any reluctance or wariness to work through everything that has been written here, I feel that (with the possible exception of the recent suspicion of sock puppetry [95]) the discussion above has run its course. I would therefore kindly like to ask an administrator to make a decision in this complicated and long-running case; as Aearthrise has only been ramping up his edits over the past few days. Vlaemink (talk) 11:50, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I endorse this request for an univolved administrator to close this matter. The damage to the encyclopedia is ongoing. Cullen328 (talk) 19:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Disruptive IPs

Hi there, User talk:47.55.210.87 has been repeatedly warned about disruptive editing and edit warring by myself and other users. They have not engaged in any talk page warnings and continue to edit war/disrupt pages. This morning they used a different IP (Special:Contributions/142.162.146.44) to do the same thing at List of members of the House of Lords. Can an admin please block these IPs? Jkaharper (talk) 13:03, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Both are blocked for one month. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:00, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Malcolmxl5:, thanks for doing this. However, the IP has now returned under a sockpuppet – Special:Contributions/199.255.219.197. Thanks --Jkaharper (talk) 00:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

@Jkaharper. This is obvious block evasion and I have blocked the IP. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:53, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

For their interest, also tagging User:Telenovelafan215, User:Waxworker, and User:CyanoTex, who have each issued warnings to this IP before. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkaharper (talk • contribs) 13:05, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Allegations online that some bank is contacting its customers over modifying its Wikipedia entry

Whatever the heck this is: https://www.reddit.com/r/bunq/comments/1h1qzi0/bunqs_head_of_corporate_affairs_messaging_me_for/ (https://archive.is/qWHIZ). This seems extremely bad to me, if true.

Someone linked this in the 'scord. The user, here, is @Snarkyalyx:, who can provide further detail. jp×g🗯️ 16:30, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

They have told me they are compiling a big post of all the stuff they've heard from the bank. jp×g🗯️ 16:32, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Noting previous discussion of the topic at Talk:Bunq#The subject of this article (bunq) has identified and contacted me outside of Wikipedia (through the bunq banking app helpdesk) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

My account was never explicitly threatened. Their tone was very suspicious, but bunq's customer support has assured me "my money is safe". They're still investigating and I haven't heard back about any stances yet. Snarkyalyx (talk) 16:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Amended title. jp×g🗯️ 16:51, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

• Hi everyone. I closed the original discussion that User:JPxG started on this topic at WP:ANI because it was not, and still is not, "an urgent incident or chronic, intractable behavioral problem". I also suggested that "WP:AN might be interested though". It is good that JPxG has taken my advice and moved it here. It is curious, however, that they ever considered it to be an urgent incident or chronic, intractable behavioral problem... even after User:snarkyalx informed them that, actually, no "explicit" threats were made. Indeed, this whole affaire is a nothingburger of bargain bucket proportions: nothing has actually happened, and more to the point, there would appear to be nothing that either Wikipedia administrators nor the community can actually do about it. Serial Number 54129 17:09, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  I do have to say that some suspicious stuff is still going on as I don't believe bunq will just move on from this based on their communication and some other stuff. Also, a sockpuppet investigation regarding one of the alleged paid editors is still ongoing here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Pridemanty Snarkyalyx (talk) 17:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  Between the likely undisclosed paid editing on Bunq and the fact that someone at the company went out of their way to find a user who reverted them outside of Wikipedia, even if no explicit threats were made, this is still an incident that merits investigation rather than a "nothingburger". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:27, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  It is being investigated. This is good. SerialNumber54129 17:39, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  Another reason why "Incidents" is such a poor name for that board. Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:45, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

• As far as the issue in the title Allegations online that some bank is contacting its customers over modifying its Wikipedia entry goes: The affair is concerning, but mainly from the standpoint of snaryalyx's personal privacy (and I'd probably report to a European financial supervisory authority if I were them). It's got nothing to do with us otherwise. Any promotional content on the article can be dealt with in the usual ways, although personally I think the tagbombing in Special:Permalink/1258373131 is problematic and also rather dubious (when an article's prose is largely controversies, it's debatable whether it's really {{advert}} - maybe more like {{anti-advert}}). I also think some of those controversy subsections are (were?) undue. But all of this can be dealt with through the usual editing process and use of content noticeboards like WP:COIN - it's not an AN or ANI issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:18, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

  Exactly. And SPI, as mentioned above. SerialNumber54129 14:03, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

  It also appears further evidence has been sent to ARBCOM, I would hope and expect that if it is at all compelling they will revoke EC from the paid editor and probably block them as well. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 22:59, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

• To be blunt, I think this is much ado about nothing. If this user wrote something negative about a company and the company reached out to try to address their concerns, why is that a bad thing? Some people are more interested in harming others than fixing problems. Now, if they tried to take their money or reacted negatively/tried to shut them down, that would be different, but I see no evidence of that. Buffs (talk) 19:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

  The company is a bank. They wrote me via their help desk inside their app. They violated my privacy and made me incredibly uncomfortable. Maybe they tried to create a COI, I don't know, but this went beyond professional and personal boundaries. I didn't write 'something negative' about their bank, this isn't a review-app, it's a place that gathers information and composes it in a neutral manner. They have certain responsibilities under EU legislation too. Snarkyalyx (talk) 22:35, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

  Regardless of whether they are a bank or not, why is reaching out to address a problem a bad thing? Buffs (talk) 22:38, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

  Because they weren't trying to address a problem by inviting me to their marketing events and whatnot. Using personal, private, customer data they were entrusted with to track down and confront a Wikipedia editor is out of line. GDPR exists. Remember, banks occupy a unique position of trust. They did not need to contact me to fulfill their contractual obligations, hence it falls outside of what they're supposed to do. Moreover, I felt at the very least creeped out and a little harassed. This is bad.

  I disclosed this here on Wikipedia for transparency. Snarkyalyx (talk) 22:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

  That's not what I'm seeing here, but YMMV. I appreciate the clarification. Buffs (talk) 01:10, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  I don't understand how this will work any differently for me, what they did can objectively be considered against consumer protection and/or privacy regulations. Snarkyalyx (talk) 02:27, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Determining consensus

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Over nine months ago at Talk:Internet_celebrity#Splitting_article I proposed splitting Internet celebrity and Influencer with User:TonyTheTiger/sandbox/Influencer. No determination has been made. Should I seek administrator action or an WP:RFC or some other process? The topic has already been at WP:RM/TR ([96].-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Just at a glance, it isn't clear to me what admin actions you would be looking for. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 21:04, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Can admin determine if there is a consensus to split? Can someone give me advice on the propriety of an RFC?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:47, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to point this out, this is nine months ago. Frankly, I don't think anyone is going to necessarily feel comfortable closing a discussion that old with any reliable measure of confidence in the outcome. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 08:06, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) IMO you can probably WP:JUSTDOIT, since CommunityNotesContributor is the only other contributor to that sandbox article it's probably easier just to copy and paste it into mainspace and note that CommunityNotesContributor also made edits, with or without linking to the diffs. If anyone objects they can do the R and D parts of BRD. Alpha3031 (t • c) 08:24, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand why a cut and paste would be better than a move that would preserve the history. The move would require an admin though since the target of the move is already a redirect.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:55, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• In response to all of the above: Closure requests is generally the place to post requests that discussions be closed. Merge and split discussions often generate very low participation and therefore can become very old, so unlike some other types of discussions, I am often willing to close such discussions when they are almost a year old. Anywhere, there's a clear consensus to split here and the redirect's history isn't worth saving, so I'll tag it with {{db-move}}. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 21:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Thx for getting this done.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:23, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

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MrSchimpf

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Has reverted many of my helpful edits that fall in line with Wikipedia policy and style. For example, changing the phrase "passed away" to died, which falls in line with MOS:EUPHEMISM. I don't want to risk getting into edit wars/3RR. I feel these edits were valid and improved the articles. Megainek (talk) 19:16, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@MrSchimpf: Can you expand a bit upon your decision to use rollback in these three edits? Were you perhaps reading the diffs backwards, or did you intend to use rollback here? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:24, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Those were unintended rollbacks and should be restored and I certainly do apologize for that; there's no issue with that and I have now self-reverted myself seeing those edits as I went through reverting edits made against the advice of several editors. However, the reporter (who I feel has no case for AN at all) has been urged several times through the last year to stop arguing that WP:NPOV somehow applies to the neutral terms 'short-lived' and 'long-running' to describe the longevity of television series (which is very common in the fields of television writing and criticism), and had both @Premeditated Chaos: and @Tamzin: advise them of such last year.

They chose to not hear that, not respond and continued further until I came upon them again on Early Today removing mentions about the NBC soap Another World being long-running, and a short-lived version of Today known as Early Today being such, and reverted another mention when I came upon PMC and Tamzin's talk page warning to them, saying that most readers would not think forty years would be 'long-running' and somehow a WP:PEACOCK term.

As they had never responded to those concerns, I reminded them that a warning to a talk page does not expire and expected them to adjust. Instead, they reverted me back, called me a vandal, and asserted that those two longtime admins somehow do not understand the Manual of Style. In the course of their new edits, I found this edit somehow asserting the removal of 'stereotyping' when it merely noted the producers produced specific and known comedy content and again warned them to stop, and a talk page message warning that they were now being disruptive. As the editor refuses to discuss their edits outside of edit summaries and ran right to here rather than another proper venue such as 3RR, I feel the report outside my mistaken rollback is spurious, and do wish the editor would communicate outside boilerplates. Nate • (chatter) 20:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Glad to see the revert was mistaken, as I was also confused what the issue was there. As to "long-running", yes, I stand by what I said last year: Megainek, you need consensus at WT:MOSWTW or similar in order to driveby-remove that term, which on its face does not seem peacocky to me and at least two others now. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 20:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Let me add my support for perfectly commonplace phrases like "long-running" and "short-lived" with regards to TV series. So, that's at least four editors. Cullen328 (talk) 22:24, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, reiterating that I still feel "long-running" (and etc) is a perfectly reasonable phrase. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:23, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

"Passed away"->"died"? Okay, that I have no problem with provided that you aren't modifying quotes. But I concur with Tamzin, PMC, and Cullen328 as a fourth administrator that changing "short-lived" or "long-running" in the context of television series is ridiculous and not supported by MOS:EUPHEMISM. EUPHEMISM doesn't cover industry terms and industry terms like these most definitely aren't puffery. I would urge you to stand down rather than continue on this edit war. If you believe that those terms are covered, then start a formal RfC. But until there is RfC consensus in favour of your position, you must stop this behaviour, Megainek. TheSandDoctor ^Talk 18:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Not to pile on too much, but common terms are not a big deal. That's basic editorial decisions/descriptions, not puffery. If you want to change that, I'd invite you to start a discussion. Otherwise, please don't do it again. Buffs (talk) 21:12, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

IP sockpuppet

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The IP blocked in this discussion is now sockpuppeting as 180.74.217.97 to continue their disruptive edits. MB2437 14:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be anyone else on Special:Contributions/180.74.192.0/19, so I blocked that. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 14:42, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

File:Hélène Carrère d’Encausse par Claude Truong-Ngoc sept 2013.jpg

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Please create the above page with {{Featured picture|Hélène Carrère d'Encausse}}. Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 18:36, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 21:29, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Could someone create the talk page with the following content? Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 18:48, 3 December 2024 (UTC) {{WikiProject banner shell|class=FM|1= {{WikiProject Biography|s&a-work-group=yes}} {{WikiProject France}} {{WikiProject Russia|hist=y}} {{WikiProject Central Asia}} {{WikiProject Women writers}} {{WikiProject European Union}} }}

This appears to have been done. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:16, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Username77712

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi, I found this user @Username77712, and they seem to be a new vandal. Check this and this, and when told their edits were revised, they did this. Thanks for reading. Shovel Shenanigans (talk) 16:36, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

User blocked. In the future, feel free to report these at WP:AIV. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 17:58, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Noted for the future. Shovel Shenanigans (talk) 18:09, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Garudam Topic-ban appeal

Last year, I was blocked on English Wikipedia due to a username violation and sockpuppetry. I successfully appealed through the standard offer and by abiding 6 months criteria and was conditionally unblocked by Elli after agreeing to stay far away from the Maratha Confederacy. As part of the conditions for my unblock, I accepted a topic ban on articles related to the Maratha Confederacy (broadly construed). It has been two weeks since my unblock, and during this time, I have made over 1,700 edits since tban, focused on constructive contributions. My major efforts include:

• The articles I have created: First battle of Eran, S. R. Goyal and Siege of Chittor.
• The articles I have significantly refurbished and expanded: Battle of Devarakonda, Battle of Bhutala and Yuzbak Khan's invasion of Kamarupa (most of them are B-rated).
• Some productive discussions: [97][98][99][100][101].

I want to assure that I will never engage in 3RR violations or disruptive behavior again and will continue making constructive edits. In the past, I acted immaturely and failed to collaborate effectively with other editors, which led to a battleground-like situation. I have learned from my mistakes and I am committed to fostering a civil and mature editing environment. I would like to work on all topics, and once my topic ban is lifted, I will ensure my contributions adhere to Wikipedia’s standards. Please consider my appeal for lifting the topic ban on the Maratha Confederacy. Garudam ^Talk! 20:52, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Weak support for 1RR only Give him a little slack on the rope. Let's see what he can do. Lifting with 1RR restrictions would be a better intermediate step. Buffs (talk) 01:04, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your support Buffs. I would tend to make productive edits. Garudam ^Talk! 21:52, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• Weak support to lift topic ban with 1RR instead. (It has not been long enough for full support.) Per Buffs above.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 09:27, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  Given that it has only been two weeks since my unblock, I would agree and lifting my topic ban with 1RR means alot. I would keep proving myself. Thanks for your support Deepfriedokra. Garudam ^Talk! 21:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Far too early to appeal.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:58, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  Well yeah Bbb23, I know it might be early for me to appeal my topic ban, but I believe I can prove myself if given the chance. Even with a 1RR restriction, I’m confident I can contribute positively. Please take a look at my contributions, there’s little to no disruptive edits since my unblock. Garudam ^Talk! 21:48, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  It's been less than a month since the topic ban was imposed. Procedurally, it makes no sense to lift the ban so quickly. Usually, we wait six months before considering an appeal, but certainly at least three months. I do think you should stop Welcoming IPs who haven't edited in months. That shouldn't be done for named users, let alone IPs.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:15, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Garudam, how would you describe your conduct in the discussions you have had involving JingJongPascal? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:41, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  We had a long back-and-forth discussion(s) and those were more of an informal in nature, even if their viewpoints are pseudo-historical, I should have maintained a proper decorum throughout our conversation. Garudam ^Talk! 23:04, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  Oppose for now; suggest waiting until three months; not enough time has passed for a proper evaluation of contributions. There seems to have been a fair bit of edit-count-inflation in the past two weeks, hence the huge 1,700 figure—this took 25 edits, could have been done in two. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:34, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  I understand. While your weak support would have been more than enough with a 1RR restriction to demonstrate my commitment, I realize now that I should have waited for at least three months before appealing. Regarding my edit counts, they appear inflated because I often make edits in part (say stepwise or linearly) which could have been streamlined had I used a desktop interface. Garudam ^Talk! 17:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Based on your comment above, are you rescinding your t-ban appeal? Conyo14 (talk) 19:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  No, that would mean disregarding other considerations. Additionally, I am not requesting for a complete lift of the tban. A 1RR restriction would be a more balanced approach for now, allowing me to contribute constructively to topics related to the Maratha Confederacy, so that after 3 months I can show that I have improved and get the complete tban lift. Garudam ^Talk! 10:47, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  I would advise increased use of the preview button. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 03:44, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks Airship. Garudam ^Talk! 10:51, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Two weeks is too soon to have any confidence that the changes in mindset are going to stick. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 02:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. Too soon and Garuda may be a high risk if topic ban is lifted too early. Ahri Boy (talk) 03:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean by high risk? My contributions have been largely constructive in last 2 weeks, with little to no instances of disruptive edits. Garudam ^Talk! 10:50, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Ohh, just keep the contributions flowing. I hope no same mistakes will happen again. Ahri Boy (talk) 11:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Unban/unblock request for Albertpda

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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• Albertpda (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Albertpda/Archive
• Pinging @Yamla: UTRS checkuser-in-residence.
• UTRS appeal #94970
• Appellant is globally locked, which will make participation by appellant slow and cumbersome.

Here then it is--

I acknowledge that I'm banned on the English Wikipedia and wish to request WP:UNBAN. Here is my request to appeal the ban and I would like someone to post it to the appropriate area: "I sincerely request to be unblocked for the first time as I haven't been unblocked before, and be given a chance to return to contribute to the community. I understand that in the past I have engaged in warring edit and using accounts to evade to continue editing after being blocked. After mustering sufficient knowledge and experience, I have come to terms with the rules and acknowledge that I must embrace a serene approach in editing and resort at all cost to discussion when disagreements arise. I will restrain myself to the one-revert rule and embrace discussion. I also understand that abusing multiple accounts only complicates the matter and I will not sockpuppet under any circumstances. I will be very appreciate if I get extra help as a startup to further immerse with the positive environment.

If unblocked, I would start editing in simple articles related to sports and geographical locations, as these type of articles generally lacks controversial segments so it would be easier to get used to the editing process. If disagreements arise, I have read and know how to use the WP:3O to soliciate third opinions for a consensus-reaching process. I also read and understand WP:DR, WP:MEDIATE, WP:RFC and other policies and will strictly resort to and abide by these when disagreements arise. I will ask questions whenever necessary.

After all, Wikipedia is an environment of collaborative editing and positive exchange. I now understand this well. We strike to construct a friendly environment. I learn to understand and respect other people's stances on matter. Warring edit counters this aspect and should be absolutely avoided in my mind. When I was first blocked I was a completely new editor to a new environment so I have yet to foster any experience and therefore engage in warring edit without knowing that contested edit must reach consensus. I now have read thoroughly the editing process and the policies to understand what I must abide by to create constructive and positive collaboration. I have never been unblocked, so it is worth it to give me a chance to prove that I will be a great contributor."

Carried over -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:14, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

• tentative and hope filled support unblock.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:07, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
• Is it confirmed that there has been no sockpuppetry recently? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:16, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  I was hoping Yamla would pop in. He did not comment on this UTRS. {{checkuser needed}} to be certain. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 20:31, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

  CU isn't much use here. The Albertpda account is  Stale, which would be expected as it's globally locked. I don't have CU access on UTRS and am not sure how that works but maybe that would be more helpful.

  I would be extremely hesitant to unblock this user even if CU comes up clear. The socking history is extensive and their edits are pretty much all disruptive, see the most recent sock listed at SPI for example. This doesn't seem like a situation where someone is trying to make valid contributions but keeps getting blocked for block evasion. I do not see the point in unblocking someone who's likely going to go around indiscriminately blanking articles. Spicy (talk) 13:36, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  The CU data from the UTRS request shows that it is coming in from a spur.us confirmed residential proxy. The particular IP address range is hard-blocked on en.wiki. There's been no evasion from the IP address range, but that's a truism as it's been hard-blocked. Based on the UTRS CU evidence, I can't even be sure the UTRS is coming from Albertpda (but have no evidence it isn't). --Yamla (talk) 13:43, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  change to support with 1 RR restriction for 1 year and single account restriction -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 16:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• Weak support per above. Given that the user has no recent sockpuppetry on any Wikimedia wiki, then the user might be unlocked soon. Ahri Boy (talk) 22:44, 16 November 2024 (UTC)
• I'm landing, with some hesitation, on oppose. I feel slightly guilty doing this because I cannot really articulate why, but I feel in my gut that unblocking would be a mistake. Something about the request… I don't know, it kinda feels like someone who knows what types of things they should say in an appeal but isn't exactly sincere. The fact that it can't meaningfully be demonstrated that he has repented of the sockpuppetry and disruption only exacerbates my concerns. I'm sorry. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 18:02, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Compassionate727: I cannot rationally articulate my tentative support, so we are even. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:10, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

  Reply to Compassionate727 carried over-

  "Thank you but you should or may have not also bring in the first two sentence that are not in the quotation marks, can you remove them from the request on the noticeboard, because it may make the request looks somewhat awkward. Can you kindly carry over my reply to Compassionate727 in the noticeboard as follows: Compassionate727, I'm really, really sincere about being unblocked. I really regret the edit warring I did and the subsequent block evasion. It's important to note that I have never been unblocked so why is giving someone a chance so hard? I can be easily blocked again if I infringe the rules again. Why would I take all this time to write the request and wait just to be insincere and blocked again? Anyone can mature greatly, please give me the opportunity to be positively productive. I first created my account 9 years ago. The primary reason for my block was because of edit warring. All the other accounts were blocked only because of block evasion. I addressed above how to avoid edit warring in the future, and especially I will restrict myself to the one-revert restriction. 9 years ago I was younger and not as clear headed. If you unblock me, you can either get a vandal that easily blocked after seconds (which is a very small risk) or a positive contributor who contribute positively for years (which is a very reasonable great positive exchange). I promise you with my hearts I will be on the latter side."

  Carried over by me. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 06:08, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Compassionate727: -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:11, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

• Noting Global lock has been down-graded to a global block. Hopefully, Albertpda can now edit his talk page. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:48, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

  I disabled the global block locally. Hopefully, that fixed it. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:12, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  Noting to hold the archival bot at bay that I'd hoped for greater participation. 😢 -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:26, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, the unblock statement says "If unblocked, I would start editing in simple articles related to sports and geographical locations, as these type of articles generally lacks controversial segments so it would be easier to get used to the editing process." I do not know about sports, but my interactions with this user (specifically various socks) were disruption in geographic articles. Someone saying a topic that they have created large numbers of sockpuppets to war in "generally lacks controversial segments" inspires no confidence. If they want to be unblocked, they should pledge to avoid this area that has clearly caused huge issues, not pledge to specifically go back to it. CMD (talk) 09:17, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

  reply carried over

  @Chipmunkdavis:: I pledge to avoid editing in the area of geography for a period of a year while making at least 1000 good faith non-disruptive edits in other areas. I also pledge to be restricted to a one-revert restriction rule. May you accept it?

  reply carried over

  -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:50, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

  A year and 1000 non-disruptive edits? It's not up to me to accept, but if an unblocking admin wants to take that on I won't stop them. CMD (talk) 14:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

  reply carried over-

  @Chipmunkdavis: So may you support the appeal with the addition of this condition? -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:16, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

  I am unsure if I would support the appeal, but as above an admin is welcome to disregard my oppose to the original request given the modifications. CMD (talk) 02:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

• You know what, I'm convinced. I'll support if a one year 1RR restriction is imposed, and I'm neutral otherwise. No opinion on the TBAN from geography, I'd need to understand this user's history better than I do. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 12:50, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support, they have put in the time to learn about the project and understand their mistakes. It seems that they've grown and matured; I believe they deserve a second chance. StartGrammarTime (talk) 15:36, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
• Weak support hold them to their word. You've got some rope...use it well. Buffs (talk) 15:51, 21 November 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose Socked for too long. Let him prove he can productively edit any sister wiki before requesting unblock here again. Capitals00 (talk) 03:27, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

  Can't. Globally blocked. I disabled it locally so he could participate in this discussion. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:30, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support. I'm an optimist. I'll support this, with a 1RR restriction for one year, and a 1 account restriction indefinitely (i.e. no WP:LEGITSOCKs). – bradv 04:04, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

  Null edit to hole the archive bot at bay. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:01, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  OK to close? -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 16:55, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

  objectively it looks liek the consensus is to unblock. Opposition points noted. Buffs (talk) 19:35, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Close Albertpda?

Would anyone like to close?-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 09:46, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

West African copyeditors (again)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The recent thread has been closed (not yet archived as of time of writing), so I presumed the disruption had stopped - not so. What do we do now? Block editors? GiantSnowman 10:00, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Have they been warned repeatedly before? They should not continue without a clear consensus. Ahri Boy (talk) 11:04, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I’ve reversed my close on the topic so that you can continue there. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 13:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks - see #They're still at it - what do we do?. GiantSnowman 16:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Stats

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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hi I've changed the stats as they are totally wrong. I know my career so let me change it thanks Robski11 (talk) 09:09, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@Robski11: this isn't an admin matter. How about engaging in the conversation on your talk page User talk:Robski11 instead? Or simply take note of the reason provided there as to why your edits have been reverted. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 09:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@Robski11: as I have mentioned (twice) on your talk page, the stats displayed in the infoboxes of footballers' articles are for LEAGUE GAMES only, not all competitions, as it says at the bottom of the infobox. This is the standard for literally every player in the world who has an article. The stats in the article perfectly match the LEAGUE numbers shown at Soccerbase -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 17:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Orange Mike and the block button....again

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Orangemike (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

We were here about this a few months ago: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive363#Block review User:Jamiesonandy I'm fairly certain there are a few older threads about basically this same issue as well, I've found this one from twelve years ago:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive235#Orange_Mike, and I recall speaking to Mike on his talk page in the past about why he seems to block users hours after other admins clearly decided not do so, I'll see if I can't dig those up.

Here's one: Me bringing up another super agressive block thirteen years ago. Me questiong why he was rapidly overtuning my admin decisions fourteen years ago, to which he did not reply.

And from last month, Mike accusing a new user of socking when they were soft blocked and explicitly told it was ok to just make a new account. The help desk recent edit history is quite a mess but I distinctly recall he he referred to them as a "smelly sock" in his edit summary.

Basically, the issue is that Mike will come very late into a situation that has already been addressed by another admin, the user has made no edits in the meantime, and Mike will just show up and issue and indef block anyway. It seems like Mike likes to substitute his own harsh judgement of new users over the judgement of other admins, and this has been an issue for a very long time. I don't think Mike is acting in bad faith, rather he hastily assumes it in others, based on very little evidence, in this case one single now-deleted edit made eighteen hours earlier. Mike issued an indef NOTHERE block for that. The edit was bad, the creation of a very spammy talk page, but I deleted it last night and left a notice on the user's talk pages, and they had not edited again.

I am not asking for a review of this specific block as I have already overturned it, but these concerns have brought to Mike's attention by myself and others and it seems like what we get every time is some version of "if there's a consensus I'm wrong I guess will accept that, even though I'm totally not wrong." I'm also notifying @Floquenbeam: as they have tried to intervene/mitigate this issue in the past incidents above. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Re edit summary: It was "I smell socksweat". SerialNumber54129 20:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

For those sane enough to have avoided adminship, the deleted userpage read if you are have problem such subpoena on highcourt of state call me ,Emergency Call Center and then a phone number. I wouldn't object if an admin blocked for that in the first instance, but also think that an admin's decision not to block for something should generally be respected. (I was just talking with JBW about this on my talk, about how there's no explicit protection for the inverse of WP:RAAA. I think we both agreed that, written policy or not, the standard for blocking notwithstanding a no-block ought to be something along the lines of "no-block was a serious error in judgment".) So I agree that Orangemike should not have blocked here, especially given past threads on the matter. That's also colored by my experience with Aryanoboi two years ago. Orangemike blocked that account half an hour after I declined a UAA report on the basis that "Aryan" isn't always a Nazi thing and there's at least one person named "Aryan Oboi"; I posted to Orangemike's talk about this but got no response.

Given the multiple threads on this, I can't help but think: We just had someone who's a great guy and was a generally good administrator get desysopped because he only offered to step away from blocking when it was too little, too late. Orangemike does lots of good work here, both as a content editor and in other administrative capacities. Maybe now would be a good time for Mike to recognize that username blocks, or maybe blocks of new editors in general, just aren't his strong suit. I had the same realization a few years ago myself regarding complex edit wars, and it turned out to be a great decision to just not deal with those. And the nice thing about voluntarily stepping away from an administrative area is that there doesn't need to be a bright line like with a TBAN. You can use some common sense here and there. But recognizing one's strengths and weaknesses is an important part of being a good admin. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 20:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

To kind of summarize my long opening post, I think the issue here is assuming new users are acting in bad faith as opposed to simple lack of understanding what Wikipedia is and is not. And as you say, very much like what we've seen in recent events that I would've hoped other admins had learned from as well.

It's also frankly just rude to have someone occasionally basically saying "my judgement is better than yours, your decision is therefore overruled" for nearly fifteen years. I'm pretty over it. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 22:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I've not seen problems with SPAMU blocks. Did I just miss them? Anyway, there are plenty of things admins can do apart from blocking. WP:PERMS comes to mind. Perhaps venture into those areas? I've needed to redefine myself a couple of times as the needs of Wikipedia have changed. This may be an opportunity for growth. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

It's been clear to me for some time that I have a more severe attitude towards accounts which seem to me to be obvious spammers and NOTHERE than some other admins and editors. If my colleagues (and I respect many of the participants in this thread) really feel it's becoming problematical, I will take the username page off my watch list and only respond when asked to by other editors. Far be it for a Quaker like myself to go against what seems to be a consensus. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I have done so. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that's for the best. Part of what I have tried to express to you over the many years that this has been going on is that at a certain point it starts to feel personally insulting to have another admin repeatedly come in and basically dismiss your decisions and substitute their own. So, it isn't just bad blocks, which is bad enough, but also disrespecting your colleagues and their ability to make decisions. Becoming problematical is a heck of an understatement for something that's being brought up repeatedly for over a decade, but if you're willing to back away from these type of blocks that should finally resolve it. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Orangemike. Hold the newcomers in the Light. The spammers and sockpuppets can't help themselves and will trip on their own feet eventually. -- asilvering (talk) 19:09, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

No comment on the issue itself, but when someone expresses a concern, taking a step back to consider is a really good response. Valereee (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Off-wiki misconduct in Palestine–Israel topic area

As previously announced, the Arbitration Committee received private evidence appearing to reflect off-wiki misconduct related to several editors in the Palestine–Israel topic area. The Committee sent a copy of the evidence to the users in question via email, notified them on their talk pages, and gave them an opportunity to respond. Based on the evidence and the responses, the matter has been resolved as follows:

For making edits in the Palestine–Israel topic area after off-wiki canvassing requests, and encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing, Ïvana (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is indefinitely banned from Wikipedia. This ban may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, Moneytrees, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose:

Abstain:

For making edits in the Palestine–Israel topic area after off-wiki canvassing requests, and encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing, Ïvana (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is topic banned from the Palestine–Israel topic area, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, Moneytrees, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose:

Abstain:

Based on private evidence, the existing topic ban of Salmoonlight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) may now be appealed only to the Committee. The other provisions of the topic ban remain the same.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose:

Abstain: Moneytrees

For making edits in the PIA topic area after off-wiki canvassing requests, and violating the extended confirmed restriction in the Palestine–Israel topic area, Samisawtak (talk · contribs) is topic banned from the Palestine–Israel topic area, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, Moneytrees, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose:

Abstain:

For gaming the extended confirmed restriction, the extended confirmed permission of CoolAndUniqueUsername (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is revoked. An administrator may, at their discretion, restore it following a request at PERM at which CoolAndUniqueUsername shows that they have made 500 substantive edits.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, Moneytrees, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose: HJ Mitchell

Abstain:

For gaming the extended confirmed restriction, the extended confirmed permission of Tashmetu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is revoked. An administrator may, at their discretion, restore it following a request at PERM at which Tashmetu shows that they have made 500 substantive edits.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, Moneytrees, Primefac, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose: HJ Mitchell

Abstain: Sdrqaz

For the Arbitration Committee, Aoidh (talk) 17:57, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Off-wiki misconduct in Palestine–Israel topic area

Most active administrators

Just to remark that in the list of most active administrators of all times we now only have three four current human administrators, and one of those three has not edited for four months. No action yet required at this point, just FYI, since this is, well, Administrators' noticeboard. Ymblanter (talk) 09:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

• Sorry, I see now that I did not express correctly what I wanted. Out of 10 most active administrators, 4 are humans who are currently administrators, one of these 4 is inactive.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

• And Fastily has just resigned, so the backlogs will be piling up there as well soon. Black Kite (talk) 09:19, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  Indeed, the four (I have now corrected myself) current human admins in the top ten are Explicit, Liz, Materialscientist, NawlinWiki, the latter one being inactive. We should be watching backlogs in speedy deletion.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:31, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Fastily contributed a lot to reviewing PERM requests and FFD. We could honestly use quite a few more admins who were comfortable reviewing files and answering questions about their copyright status. I can only think of a handful of admins who work in this area of the project. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 09:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Way back when I did some work in this area. I might return to it, but a way to watchlist the WP:FFD subpages as they are made would be helpful. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

FFD pages are per day, one would need to wacthlist once per day, but I would not know how to automatize this. Ymblanter (talk) 10:36, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

For anyone interested, Fastily handled most of the requests for rollback at WP:PERM/Rollback. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:27, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

For a long time, Fastily handled PERMS virtually by himself. Recently, a few more admin bods have assisted with requests. I'm assuming it is a time consuming task as it requires looking at edits and assessing their merits and asking applicants questions. He did such a good job with PERMS and obviously had a good routine. He was polite but firm about asking applicants to do more work towards PERMS.

Hopefully someone will step into the void. Knitsey (talk) 17:14, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

FastilyBot did a load of work too, hopefully someone else will take on some of its tasks. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 18:02, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Seems prudent to direct anyone interested in this to WP:BOTR#Replacing FastilyBot. WindTempos _they ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:11, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I'm just overly optimistic, but the CSD queue cratered since we got the admin election admins and hasn't gone up since. Seems fine, at least for now. -- asilvering (talk) 02:33, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

It would be a good idea for admins to go through a list of all the non-admins who are likely to pass an RfA and offer to nominate them (something admins should probably be doing anyway). That would be the most efficient way to address these admin backlogs. And apparently it needs to be clearer that requesting adminship means agreeing to WP:ADMINACCT; hopefully making that clear will limit the number of times that admins make appalling decisions, refuse to acknowledge them, get way too many chances, and then get recalled (current count: 2). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:01, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely not, especially since these requests would tend to fall on deaf ears. (mine especially.) You have a fair number of people who would meet those requirements but are not interested in a Hell Week. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 17:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The recent admin election results, where only 1/3 of candidates were elected and only one had more than 80% support, seems to indicate there are a not-insignificant number of editors that outright do not want there to be more admins. Whether they simply have standards that don't match the actual pool of eligible candidates, or actually want fewer people with the mop, is not clear. We're going to have to have some kind of cultural change - either convincing those editors, or reaching consensus to overrule them - in order to have a larger and more sustainable number of admins.

(For the record, I voted about 60% support / 30% abstain / 10% oppose, and was estimating I would be on the more cynical side. The actual totals were 37% / 37% / 26%, for an average percentage of 58%.) Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:13, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the data could be analyzed in other ways. For instance, if I'm counting right, every candidate who had a nominator succeeded. That compares favorably to RfA. Valereee (talk) 19:39, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that it was harder to have the confidence to vote "support" under the time limitations that come from reviewing 30+ candidates simultaneously. But still a good idea to let folks run in a group.North8000 (talk) 19:47, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we have enough data on which to base firm conclusion about the admin elections. If the experiment were re-done with some of the teething problems fixed, we would be on sturdier ground. I think the large candidate pool, while encouraging in some ways, made things more difficult but I think a re-run would have a naturally smaller pool, especially if it becomes a regular thing. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:20, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I absolutely believe some of the reason for the high number of candidates was pent-up demand. People who for the last five or ten years might have been interested, but not via RfA. Valereee (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I mentioned this on the election talk page at the time: I opposed a large number of candidates who I (probably) wouldn't have opposed in a normal RfA because I was concerned about the lack of scrutiny being applied in that election. Nobody else admitted it, but given how more than 600 people voted, I would be surprised if I was the only person. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:20, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the election ended up having 600 voters, so I think it would have been safe to "abstain" instead of "oppose" on candidates when unsure or not having time to do a detailed background check. 600 is enough voters that someone who did have the time to do the detailed background check would pick up the slack. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The best candidates at both Ace and aelect only had 80% support. To me, this says that there is a -20% support penalty when using secret voting. I don't think the reason is particularly important. I think we should just work around this by lowering the pass threshold. The aelect candidates in the 60 to 70 range were good, and we should make it so that they can pass in the future. An RFC for this is in the pipeline. Stay tuned. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

What I suspect is more likely that if an RfA is at 95%+ Support, people don't bother to oppose, because (a) they know it's not going to make any difference, and (b) they'll probably get harangued for it by supporters. Black Kite (talk) 09:33, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

There were candidates I opposed in the election that I wouldn't have opposed in an RFA for this exact reason. If you look at the voting trends it is abstains that trend down as support goes up, not opposes. That points to voters abstaining on candidates they didn't know or have time to check. There is no grounds for lower the pass mark. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:37, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• It's only going to get worse with RECALL in place. GiantSnowman 19:20, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean, "Human administrators"? Aren't all administrators human? GoodDay (talk) 19:56, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

@GoodDay No, there are also a load of adminbots. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 19:59, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The two all-time most active administrators are actually bots. Ymblanter (talk) 20:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Some of them might also be dogs. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:26, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

User:Radiant!/Classification of admins * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 06:41, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Or dogbots! RoySmith-Mobile (talk) 14:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

• @Ymblanter: can you link to where you got that stats please? :) Also, just noting that quantity is not the same as quality. Many admin actions are very easy, especially deletions (hence admin bots, hence the ability of several admins to rack up six-figure log counts) but I agree the bus factor is concerning, even accounting for the long tail. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:33, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
  • The awful scoreboard. —Cryptic 20:35, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  The one I am using is User:JamesR/AdminStats, there is a big table at the end which I sort by the total number of actions and count the position manually. Ymblanter (talk) 20:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  And, yes, sure, all metrics are imperfect, but usually they still provide some useful information. Ymblanter (talk) 20:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  Oh, I knew about ADMINSTATS. I just don't tend to look at the table at the bottom because it takes too long to load on my computer! And yes, you're correct, there is still something useful we can glean from statistics but they should be taken with a pinch of salt. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:46, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Admin stats only counts the times you did something, not the times you refused to block someone, delete a page that wasn't a problem etc. We're not robots. If anything saying no is more important. Secretlondon (talk) 22:54, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Admin actions aren't everything and it's difficult to quantify a number of tasks that some great admins work at. For example, the number of unblock requests that someone like 331dot declines or replies to prior to unblocking, or ARBCOM time spent writing significant text or analyzing long conversations and evidence, or the admins working at WP:CFDS to process category renaming requests. Never the less, there is some value in admin actions, it's just not the only way to evaluate someone's contributions and we should be mindful of that. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:38, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree, too, Josh. I think of the time some admins spend talking to new editors or blocked editors, trying to explain Wikipedia's processes to them, and I think those are invaluable activities. But personal conversations, one-on-one discussions, are not quantified and don't have a "leaderboard". Or time spend on noticeboards or DRN or the Teahouse, working to resolve and deescalate disputes. Of course, many of these discussions are also done by editors, too, but I know some admins who will spend their time trying to guide confused or frustrated editors into being productive contributors and I think those actions are some of the most important that admins can take on because they can lead to more constructive editors. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:31, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Admin stats are a good way of determining how many (and which) admins are doing the high-volume, tedious, repetitive stuff. It takes a special workhorse of a person to do that stuff day-in and day-out for years. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 03:12, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Ffd

• Wikipedia:Files for discussion

I tried to catch up with Ffd, but the backlog (which was zero at the day I posted the above) is steadily growing. Despite being a commons admin, I can not handle all nominations, some give me pause. I am by far not the only one working there, but I still see that almost every day one or two nominations stay open.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Elections, recall, and backlogs

With some more time passed, I'd like to bring up a question that grows out of the discussions above. We've had two admins (Graham and Fastily) stop being admins as a result of the new recall process, and we've gotten a bunch of new admins via the trial of the election process. Do they in any way balance each other out? In other words, where are there backlogs now developing in the specific areas where Graham or Fastily used to work? And have any of the admins who were promoted in the recent election been taking over in those areas, to reduce the backlog? I'm asking this because editors are having a lot of discussions about whether or not the two new processes have been a good thing, and it would be good to base those discussions on actual data rather than feelings. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

These questions have no relevance for the discussion though. We don't promote admins for specific backlogs, we promote admins because we believe they can be trusted with the tools and will probably do some useful stuff with them of their own choosing. Whether these admins (or admins elected through regular RfA) have taken over any tasks previously done by Fastily or Graham is of absolutely zero importance for a review of the process. As for the recall process, the same applies. We should never treat admins (or editors) differently based on some irreplaceable characteristic. We don't do this when admins are brought in front of ArbCom, and there is no reason to do this for recall. "Oh, if you were just a rank-and-file admin blocking socks and vandals and you did X and Y, we would desysop you, but since you are the admin doing task Z, we will not desysop you"? Fram (talk) 09:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree we shouldn't expect that the next editor receiving administrative privileges must replace the most recent editor leaving the admin corps. I also agree that the election or recall processes shouldn't be modified to incorporate backlog management (for example, limiting election candidates to those with specific interests). (Participants in the votes or discussions can, of course, consider whatever factors they feel are relevant when making their decisions.) I do think, though, that the community should take stock of the tasks that can use more admins, and recruit appropriate candidates. They aren't being selected solely to reduce specific backlogs, but it would improve resilience to have more admins with the appropriate skills and desire to deal with certain task queues where there is a shortage of volunteer admins. isaacl (talk) 16:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course, if you e.g. have a non-admin doing consistently good work at CCI, approaching them to become an admin because we need more admins in that area of work is a good idea, nothing wrong with that. Fram (talk) 16:27, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I think those replies are, frankly, silly, and I hope they don't discourage anyone from responding in a serious manner. I've seen arguments that the recall process works just fine because we can easily replace lost admins, and it's easy to slip from that to an argument that the advent of lots of new admins getting elected is a great way to replace those who are recalled, which may be sloppy reasoning, not backed up by data. If anyone thinks that nobody has raised concerns about backlogs happening after the two recalls, well, they haven't read the discussion just above. As of a few weeks ago, lots of people were saying above that they were worried about those backlogs. With a bit more time passing, I want to see if the problems are self-correcting. Apparently, they aren't. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to call my response silly and imply I'm not serious just because I have a different viewpoint on how to address the problem of backlogs. Anyone participating in a recall petition, a re-request for adminship, or an administrator election is free to take backlog concerns into account. I just think the recruitment aspect needs to be improved, regardless. Once upon a time I suggested having an open house week where people involved with the various initiatives and queues could make sales pitches to editors seeking to volunteer. I don't know if this specific format would work or not (and it only got one reply), but the general idea is that we need to find editors interested in taking on support tasks and match them to the available work items. If there just aren't enough people to do the work in question, we need to figure out how to change the workflow so it can actually get done. For work that needs special user rights, we need to recruit suitable candidates, and put a corresponding pitch right on the appropriate request/nomination form ("Users who can help out with X, Y, and Z are really needed!"). isaacl (talk) 23:10, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea - I'd even consider running if there was an area of the project which needs help but requires admin tools to properly use. For instance, I've thought about running before to be able to close AfDs, but I haven't had the time of late and still believe AfDs need participants more than closers... SportingFlyer T·C 23:16, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

My responses were 100% serious. You are arguing that the recall process is bad because the admins it removes are especially needed for some backlogs. That is a perverse reasoning. The recall process would be bad if it routinely required RRFAs for admins which turn out to be generally supported. So far, we have had one RRFA which supported the recall, and one admin who didn't want to have a RRFA. Not a single recall has been shown to be incorrect. The people voting in the two RFAs weren't socks, disruptive editors, editors with an obvious grudge, ... That the removal of these two admins has bad consequences for some backlogs doesn't show an issue with the recall process, but an issue with the fragility of some processes which rely on too few people. Fram (talk) 09:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

They both seems pretty serious and on point. PackMecEng (talk) 00:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Rather than getting into a back-and-forth with editors who are unhappy with this discussion, I'd prefer to get back to what I asked at the top. I'm not saying that we should refrain from removing misbehaving admins based on any possible backlogs that might result, and I'm not saying that we should select new admins simply to fill existing backlogs or require them to work on things that don't interest them. I'm noticing that a lot of other editors, not just me, have said above that they are worried about backlogs, and I'm noticing that some of the arguments being made on other pages around the project are that there is a positive synergy between recall and elections because the latter solve issues that come up with the former. And I think that I can conclude at this point that we still have the backlogs that are pointed out above, and that we should not look upon admin elections as a targeted way to clear any backlogs resulting from recall. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that elections are a targeted way to clear specific backlogs. I do think there is a general feeling that having more admins will increase the probability of finding someone who can address the various backlogs, and that elections might help with selecting more admins. That being said, it's no guarantee for any specific area, and some areas are either sufficiently arcane or uninteresting to most that I think targeted recruitment is needed to significantly raise that probability. isaacl (talk) 23:04, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I can agree with that. I think this comes down to a matter of elections not being a valid reason to dismiss concerns about recall, because that's not what elections are designed for; each process should be justified in its own right. And of course the concerns raised at the top of these discussions, about admin backlogs, remain as concerns. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 6 December 2024 (UTC)