Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard: Difference between revisions
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Following on from comments in a thread on the [[Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard|Bureaucrats' noticeboard]] about discrepancies between [[Wikipedia:Administrators]] and [[Wikipedia:Bureaucrats]] regarding when 'crats should not resysop an editor on request, I am proposing changing the former to match actual practice and at the same time remove a potential unrelated ambiguity/contradiction regarding administrators who voluntarily resign their tools and subsequently have an extended period of inactivity. Please discuss this at [[Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Clarifying "controversial circumstances"]]. I have also advertised this discussion at [[WP:BN]]. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 19:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC) |
Following on from comments in a thread on the [[Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard|Bureaucrats' noticeboard]] about discrepancies between [[Wikipedia:Administrators]] and [[Wikipedia:Bureaucrats]] regarding when 'crats should not resysop an editor on request, I am proposing changing the former to match actual practice and at the same time remove a potential unrelated ambiguity/contradiction regarding administrators who voluntarily resign their tools and subsequently have an extended period of inactivity. Please discuss this at [[Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Clarifying "controversial circumstances"]]. I have also advertised this discussion at [[WP:BN]]. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 19:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC) |
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== User:SineBot Not Working == |
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Anyone know why [[User:Sinebot]] is not working anymore |
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Revision as of 01:32, 30 October 2018
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Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).
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Administrative discussions
(Initiated 24 days ago on 13 December 2024) challenge of close at AN was archived nableezy - 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 22 days ago on 15 December 2024) voorts (talk/contributions) 00:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
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Requests for comment
(Initiated 90 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 70 days ago on 28 October 2024) Participation/discussion has mostly stopped & is unlikely to pick back up again. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Note: This is a contentious topic and subject to general sanctions. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)- Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 22:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 61 days ago on 6 November 2024) RfC expired on 6 December 2024 [1]. No new comments in over a week. Bogazicili (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 52 days ago on 15 November 2024) Clear consensus that the proposed edit (and its amended version) violate WP:SYNTH. However, the owning editor is engaging in sealioning behavior, repeatedly arguing against the consensus and dismissing others' rationale as not fitting his personal definition of synthesis; and is persistently assuming bad-faith, including opening an ANI accusing another editor of WP:STONEWALLING. When finally challenged to give a direct quote from the source that supports the proposed edit, it was dismissed with "I provided the source, read it yourself" and then further accused that editor with bad-faith. The discussion is being driven into a ground by an editor who does not (nor wish to) understand consensus and can't be satisfied with any opposing argument supported by Wikipedia policy or guidelines. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 45 days ago on 22 November 2024) Legobot has removed the RFC notice. Can we please get an interdependent close. TarnishedPathtalk 23:08, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- Note: Ongoing discussion, please wait a week or two. Bogazicili (talk) 14:08, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 39 days ago on 28 November 2024) Legobot has removed the RFC tag and the last comment was a couple of days ago. Can we please get a independent close. TarnishedPathtalk 10:42, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 38 days ago on 29 November 2024) Legobot has removed the RFC notice. Last comment was a couple of days ago. Can we get an independent close please. TarnishedPathtalk 11:24, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 35 days ago on 2 December 2024) The last comment on this was on 24 December 2024 and Legobot has removed the RFC tag. An independent closer (preferably an admin) would be welcome. Many thanks - SchroCat (talk) 15:57, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
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Deletion discussions
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| MfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| FfD | 0 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 7 |
| RfD | 0 | 0 | 36 | 0 | 36 |
| AfD | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
(Initiated 40 days ago on 27 November 2024) * Pppery * it has begun... 20:02, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 17 days ago on 20 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:10, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 17 days ago on 20 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:10, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Closed by editor JJPMaster. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 16:32, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
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Other types of closing requests
(Initiated 103 days ago on 25 September 2024) Open for a while, requesting uninvolved closure. Andre🚐 22:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 82 days ago on 16 October 2024) Experienced closer requested. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 80 days ago on 18 October 2024) This needs formal closure by someone uninvolved. N2e (talk) 03:06, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think it would be better to leave that discussion be. There is no consensus one way or the other. I could close it as "no consensus," but I think it would be better to just leave it so that if there's ever anyone else who has a thought on the matter, they can comment in that discussion instead of needing to open a new one. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 14:15, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
Not done per above. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 16:21, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
(Initiated 69 days ago on 29 October 2024) There are voices on both sides (ie it is not uncontroversial) so a non-involved editor is needed to evaluate consensus and close this. Thanks. PamD 09:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 60 days ago on 7 November 2024) Looking for uninvolved close in CTOP please, only a few !votes in past month. I realise this doesn't require closing, but it is preferred in such case due to controversial nature of topic. CNC (talk) 10:44, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
- Note: I'm happy to perform the merge if required, as have summarised other sections of this article already with consensus. I realise it's usually expected to perform splits or merges when closing discussions, but in this case it wouldn't be needed. CNC (talk) 20:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
(Initiated 40 days ago on 27 November 2024) Discussion seems to have stopped. As the proposal is not uncontroversial, and I, as the initiator, am involved, I am requesting an uninvolved editor to close the discussion. Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 11:02, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
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Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection
Proposed topic ban for StreetSign
DS template needed
Will an admin please (re-)install {{American politics AE}} at Talk:Veracity of statements by Donald Trump? Thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:26, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- Mandruss, out of curiosity, where is the policy that says only admins can add that template? Just for my own education. zchrykng (talk) 13:04, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- Nevermind, found the information here and read the template more carefully. zchrykng (talk) 13:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Mandruss: Do you feel the discretionary sanctions are necessary on this new article? It looks like it is only a few hours old with a dozen edits. I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of heading off potential edit wars vs. hampering development of a new article with the tedious "consensus required" sanction. ~Awilley (talk) 14:48, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- I would say that as a rule of thumb, any article connected to the subject of Trump is very likely to be the locus of conflicts and should be labelled with the DS notice. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:52, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Awilley: On a subject like this, edit wars are not "potential", they are a flat-out certainty. I don't know how much productive development can happen under those conditions. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:00, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- I will keep an eye on the article over the next few days and will be ready to place the template if it looks like things start getting out of hand. (Or any other admin can place it whenever if they think it's necessary.) ~Awilley (talk) 15:04, 23 October 2018 (UTC) I personally kind of expect newer articles to be a bit more "wild west" than established old articles. I would further argue that the "consensus required" provision strongly favors the status quo, which makes sense on old articles with tens of thousands of edits, but not so much on brand new stubs. ~Awilley (talk) 15:10, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Mandruss: Do you feel the discretionary sanctions are necessary on this new article? It looks like it is only a few hours old with a dozen edits. I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of heading off potential edit wars vs. hampering development of a new article with the tedious "consensus required" sanction. ~Awilley (talk) 14:48, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- Nevermind, found the information here and read the template more carefully. zchrykng (talk) 13:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
I don't feel that 1RR or "Consensus Required" would be beneficial, but the "discretionary sanctions notice" from {{Ds/talk notice|topic=ap}} might be helpful. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:16, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks, I've added that to the talk page. ~Awilley (talk) 03:28, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
Change to Arbitration Committee mailing list
The Arbitration Committee has recently switched from using the Mailman software for our mailing list to Google Groups. Google Groups has been used internally by the Wikimedia Foundation for some time, and it contains several modern features that will improve the Arbitration Committee's workflow.
As part of this change, the mailing list address is now arbcom-en
wikimedia.org. Please send all future mail intended for the Committee to this address. The -b and -c lists have similarly moved to arbcom-en-bwikimedia.org and arbcom-en-cwikimedia.org.
Messages sent to the previous email addresses will be forwarded to the new addresses for a time. Other lists maintained by the Arbitration Committee, including funtionaries-en, clerks-l, and oversight-l, remain unchanged.
For the Arbitration Committee,
~ Rob13Talk 19:21, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
- Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Change to Arbitration Committee mailing list
Signature of User:RecentEdits
RecentEdits has a very similar signature with User:Figfires in this page. Considering this, I have given him a notice on his talk page on October 16. But then he did nothing, and this edit showed that he want to hide his confusing signature, rather than fixing it. Since this problem aroused Figfires and other editors' concern in User talk:Figfires#Re: 2018 European windstorm season. We want to seek administrator's attention. I know that blocking is the final action that we have to take, so I hope RecentEdits can come here and solve this issue. --B dash (talk) 03:15, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- I understand that both signatures use the same color scheme and look similar (in that they are both green with a glowing green background). But is it really that hard to tell which is which (they both have different names in the signatures)? Your signature and mine both have the same color scheme too! As far as I can tell, he has no edits to talk talkspace, only 22 edits in usertalkspace (of which most were unsigned). And I wouldn't neccessary say he wanted to "hide" the signature, but maybe he wanted to remove what you had just told him was a policy violating signature. -Obsidi (talk) 20:19, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Obsidi and B dash: That much is true; however, this is a clear case of RecentEdits attempting to copy Figfires' signature, so perhaps this case is different. Hdjensofjfnen (♪ Oh, can I get a connection? Alternatively, trout me.) 04:39, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- The issue is not the confusion, it is the trolling factor. Someone might check the contributions of RecentEdits (talk · contribs) and work out whether they do not understand common courtesy or whether trolling is likely. Johnuniq (talk) 04:49, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- This is certainly concerning; hopefully RecentEdits will change their signature voluntarily before replying here. I suspect this is more likely to be a new user unaware of site rules rather than a sock who is deliberately trolling. But even still: the signature-style-copying is not acceptable, and they must now be aware of that. While it is minimally acceptable not to sign comments on one's own talk page, that is strongly discouraged as well. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:57, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- @RecentEdits: - just change the colours, that would be sufficient. A lovely blue, perhaps; try this:
[[User:RecentEdits|<span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#000092 0.3em 0.4em 1.0em,#000092 -0.2em -0.2em 1.0em;color:#000092"><b>RecentEdits</b></span>]]<sup>[[User talk:RecentEdits|<span style="color:#990000"><b>Send me a message!</b></span>]]</sup>. Fish+Karate 08:43, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- @RecentEdits: - just change the colours, that would be sufficient. A lovely blue, perhaps; try this:
@B dash:@Obsidi:@Power~enwiki:@Fish and Karate:I understand my mistake, and I deeply regret it. I will make sure to not make this blunder again, and no, it wasn't purposefully. Thank you! RecentEditsMessage me here.
- @B dash, Power~enwiki, Fish and karate, and RecentEdits: Great that this was resolved successfully. Hdjensofjfnen (♪ Oh, can I get a connection? Alternatively, trout me.) 16:09, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Journalist wants to see article history
Hi! I was wondering - I was contacted by a journalist who is researching the Warren Chaney case from back in 2015 and wanted to see the (now deleted) articles and the edit history. Would this be something she should go through WMF for or are we able to send her this information and/or restore the articles to a userspace for her? (If restored they would certainly be restricted to where only admins could edit the page, similar to how the hoax museum's pages are locked.) ReaderofthePack (｡◕‿◕｡) 20:13, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- Do they have a company email address from a reputable news source? If so I would be inclined to assume good faith, but check the history for abuse before providing. Just my $0.02. Guy (Help!) 20:25, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- If the journalist works for a Kentucky newspaper -- especially the Kentucky New Era -- I would be VERY cautious. --Calton | Talk 14:21, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Why the bias against Kentucky newspapers, whether Christian County or otherwise? Nyttend (talk) 04:08, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Web search shows that a bunch of the stuff in the Chaney "biography" was "sourced" to the Kentucky New Era. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 05:53, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Among the citations to the New Era were [2] from 1987 and [3] from 1978. Yes, as news reports they're primary sources on those events, but how are they one bit different from any other news reports, which by definition are always primary sources on the news events they're reporting? Nyttend (talk) 22:21, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Web search shows that a bunch of the stuff in the Chaney "biography" was "sourced" to the Kentucky New Era. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 05:53, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm having trouble seeing much abuse potential given that the info (or at least what looks like an intact revision of the Cheney biography) is out there anyway. Maybe I'm missing something though. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 08:14, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- It seems to me there are 2 sets of articles to consider here. The articles on the alleged movies are not likely to have much info that is of concern (albeit I never saw them and am not an admin). This probably applies to the articles on the book and organisation. The articles on the people would need to be treated with greater care considering the possibility for BLPvios. Whatever happens, it should IMO be made clear that we don't (I assume) know for sure who is behind these articles. Nil Einne (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what the edit history could do, however. A list of IPs and usernames with timestamps doesn't seem to present much of a BLP risk to me... --Jayron32 16:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- IPs are classed as personal data. But really should we be providing copies of deleted articles anyway? Unless we also provide the entire edit history doesn't it fail attribution under the license? Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:35, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- AFAIK, there's no requirement to provide the entire edit history. Simply providing a list of the all contributors should be sufficient. It's what we say at Wikipedia:Userfication#Cut-and-paste_userfication for example. I don't really see why IPs from edit histories should be considered personal data. If someone had asked for their IP to be deleted and that was honoured, we shouldn't reveal it. But it's accepted that if they chose to edit, their IP is shown. There's warnings about it and all that. In fact, there's a clear contradiction if our free licence requires a list of contributors, but we can't do so because of contributors privacy. Effectively it means the free licence isn't actually free since editors able to object to people reusing their work because doing so would require also including 'private info'. No, all editors can do is ask is we delete their IP from the list with the understanding that by doing so they're giving up their right to be identified as a contributor in that way, and while we would normally honour such requests we aren't required to. And yes, editors should be aware that deletion of an article doesn't mean it's gone, since articles can be undeleted for a variety of reasons and anyone can copy it in accordance with the licence terms which requires a list of contributor. Remember also we have Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to provide copies of deleted articles and userficiation of jokes etc (maybe not hoaxes) is accepted practice. While the text for the category is a little confusing, my understanding is a number of admins are willing to provide the text by email or similar of articles provided there aren't reasons they shouldn't (like BLP or copyvio). Hopefully they also provided the list of contributors, although I suspect some do screw up. That said, while we are not required to provide edit histories, it sounds like this is something the requestor wants. This is likely to be more difficult to do unless we can agree to userfication which seems unlikely. This would probably need to be done via Help:Export and the requestor will need to have a way to be able to use it. Nil Einne (talk) 10:15, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- For clarity, I meant providing copies of the articles, as per the original request, could be a problem for the 2 or so biographies. Nil Einne (talk) 10:11, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- IPs are classed as personal data. But really should we be providing copies of deleted articles anyway? Unless we also provide the entire edit history doesn't it fail attribution under the license? Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:35, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what the edit history could do, however. A list of IPs and usernames with timestamps doesn't seem to present much of a BLP risk to me... --Jayron32 16:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- It seems to me there are 2 sets of articles to consider here. The articles on the alleged movies are not likely to have much info that is of concern (albeit I never saw them and am not an admin). This probably applies to the articles on the book and organisation. The articles on the people would need to be treated with greater care considering the possibility for BLPvios. Whatever happens, it should IMO be made clear that we don't (I assume) know for sure who is behind these articles. Nil Einne (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Why the bias against Kentucky newspapers, whether Christian County or otherwise? Nyttend (talk) 04:08, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- We have a ton of mirrors that don't have full history (including the one where I found the Chaney bio), and nobody has complained about license afaik. I do have to wonder what present-day journalistic interest there might be in a years-old lame wikipedia hoax. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 01:43, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- The complaint about the Warren Chaney article was that it contained made-up information. See WP:Articles for deletion/Warren Chaney. At least one participant in the AfD used the term 'deceitful'. This wasn't just the common problem that good references are hard to find. See also User:ReaderofthePack/Warren Chaney. The creation of Wikipedia's article on Warren Chaney and the related ones happened in 2011. There was a lot of sockpuppetry. I wouldn't favor releasing either the deleted article or the edit history. EdJohnston (talk) 02:15, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Re the IP's comment, other people violating licences does not excuse us violation licences. Definitely people do complain here when they find someone has violated their licence, unfortunately a lot of sites don't care and it's not something that's easy for us to do anything about. I believe some contributors have contemplated DMCA complaints or similar. EdJohnston's comments re-enforce my view we shouldn't provide the biography articles but I still don't see a reason why we can provide the other ones unless they also made significant claims about living people. Nil Einne (talk) 10:11, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Looking a bit more, it seems that some of the film articles did claim people were involved who probably weren't. I have to admit, to me if they are being provided privately to someone, with the understanding the articles may be hoaxes and the info totally unreliable and since it seems like the people named were famous people, I wouldn't consider this to raise BLP concerns. But I understand others may disagree. Nil Einne (talk) 10:30, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Re the IP's comment, other people violating licences does not excuse us violation licences. Definitely people do complain here when they find someone has violated their licence, unfortunately a lot of sites don't care and it's not something that's easy for us to do anything about. I believe some contributors have contemplated DMCA complaints or similar. EdJohnston's comments re-enforce my view we shouldn't provide the biography articles but I still don't see a reason why we can provide the other ones unless they also made significant claims about living people. Nil Einne (talk) 10:11, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- The complaint about the Warren Chaney article was that it contained made-up information. See WP:Articles for deletion/Warren Chaney. At least one participant in the AfD used the term 'deceitful'. This wasn't just the common problem that good references are hard to find. See also User:ReaderofthePack/Warren Chaney. The creation of Wikipedia's article on Warren Chaney and the related ones happened in 2011. There was a lot of sockpuppetry. I wouldn't favor releasing either the deleted article or the edit history. EdJohnston (talk) 02:15, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- ReaderofthePack, is the journalist only covering the Wikipedia saga around that user? Or are they pursuing some other angle (as well)? Given EdJohnston's comment above about how deceitful and inaccurate the article(s) was/were, I would be very hesitant to provide copy(s) to a journalist without being clear, because it could cause that misinformation to be further promulgated and perpetuated. Softlavender (talk) 10:39, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- If you give the deleted article to a journalist, it doesn't have much value to them unless it's understood he can use that material in whatever article he publishes. So, releasing the deleted article to anyone (who is not bound to confidentiality) is equivalent in risk to restoring the whole article for public viewing. If the purpose of the original deletion was to get false claims off our website, then reversing the deletion is giving up on that. EdJohnston (talk) 01:59, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry for the late reply! As far as the journalist goes, the author is Ashley Feinberg (pinging her: @Ashfein:), who wrote this article about the deletion when it happened. She's now with the HuffPo and it looks like she's planning to cover the whole Wikipedia event as well as Chaney himself - I don't know that you could cover one without really covering the other at least a little. Basically, she kind of wants to unravel everything to figure out exactly what happened. I'm admittedly curious to see what she could find, as she could most likely discover some of the things that we weren't able to concretely identify, such as the work with celebrities that we weren't able to really discover as much about, like the TV special. A lot of what has been confirmed hasn't been 110% confirmed, so it'd be good to get some confirmation on that as well. To be a bit more to the point, the whole Chaney thing is pretty much one of the largest hoaxes I've seen on Wikipedia due to its size and relative longevity - it existed on here for about four years. There have been hoaxes that have had farther reaches, such as the Amelia Bedelia hoax, but most of them haven't really been this grand in scope. I'm intrigued to see what Feinberg could discover, to be honest.
- As far as what she would do with all of the info, I'm not entirely sure but I think that the time stamps could be useful as far as investigation goes and comparing it against the content that the lot of us put together as far as the Chaney material goes. If restoring it live would be an issue, is there a way that we could provide her with the info another way? ReaderofthePack (｡◕‿◕｡) 23:27, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Again given EdJohnston's several cautions, I would suggest instead that she interview administrators who have the time and willingness to provide detailed information on the article's edit history. Even though it's a bit time-consuming, it would actually be easier and less time-consuming than for someone who has never edited Wikipedia to try to parse through the article's various iterations. As EdJohnston says or implies, we can't afford to let the article or its iterations be publicly viewable by anyone except those Wikipedia has entrusted with those advanced permissions. Softlavender (talk) 23:43, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Hello! Yes, just to give you guys a little more information, I'm not looking to republish the articles in full. I've seen the articles on the various Wikipedia mirrors that exist, but what I really need is the various edit histories of the pages, the users that made the edits, the talk page discussions, timestamps, etc. As far as journalistic value, solving internet-based mysteries is one of my very favorite things to do (see here and here), and the entire Warren Chaney situation is one of the most fascinating I've ever come across. Nothing would be republished in full, I'd only use bits and pieces (most of which would probably either be minutiae or talk page discussions) to make my case, whatever that case ends up being. Hopefully that was helpful, but I"m happy to answer any more questions you might have! (Also, apologies if this isn't formatted correctly — I've lurked on Wikipedia forever and covered it extensively, but this is really my first time attempting to jump in.) Ashfein (talk) 00:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- As far as I am aware, that wouldn't be possible without the article and its iterations being publicly viewable; even it was on a user subpage it would still be viewable to anyone who knew it was there. I think the feasibility or advisability of posting it on a user subpage would need to go through a serious official consensus of administrators or Stewards or WMF officials. And are we only talking about that one article, or various related articles? Softlavender (talk) 00:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- OMG the secret Comey Twitter account! I remember that well! People, this person is a f**king genius; in early 2017 she single-handedly discovered the anonymous Twitter account of James Comey (through the most obscure and tiny clues)! Comey was so impressed he offered her a job at the FBI [4]. I support allowing her to view the article(s) and its edit history and talkpage history. Her confidentiality is assured; she is top-notch, and I am one of her biggest fans (for having cracked the Comey case). Softlavender (talk) 00:26, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm skeptical of the journalistic usefulness of that episode but I think there's some overreaction happening. As Ashfein says, the basic info is out there on wikimedia mirrors, so there's no horrible secrets to protect. The question I see is more about the usefulness of exhuming some zombie prank from N years ago instead of leaving it in the ground where it is now. Don't we have enough new silly drama every day without having to rake over old and long-dead silly drama?
Regarding supplying copies (if deemed appropriate): is it possible for an admin to use special:export to extract the revision history without restoring the pages on wiki? Or is it really that big a deal if they're temporarily restored in user space, long enough for Ashfein to download them? Ashfein, is there some new present-day relevance to this hoax, or is it just curiosity about one of Wikipedia's weirder old moments? Just wondering, and hope you don't mind my asking. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 00:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Added: the juiciest reporting I could see coming out of this would be discovering that some celebrity or politician was involved, e.g. someone in the Trump White House. As intriguing as that might be though, that type of investigation is what we would call a WP:OUTING attempt. As such we normally couldn't get behind it. I wouldn't do so myself if it were just for gossip value. If there was something of major public interest I could see going the other way, but it's hard for me to imagine what might be given the known info. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 00:50, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Since you presumably aren't a journalist, and aren't interested in the story, and don't know what it would entail, those personal opinions don't really matter. What matters is the confidentiality and integrity of the journalist. This journalist is not gossip-monger; she's an internet researcher. ReaderofthePack said that 'the whole Chaney thing is pretty much one of the largest hoaxes I've seen on Wikipedia due to its size and relative longevity - it existed on here for about four years. There have been hoaxes that have had farther reaches, such as the Amelia Bedelia hoax, but most of them haven't really been this grand in scope." It certainly sounds like good journalistic and historical value to me. In terms of prospective outing, the journalist said she is happy to answer any questions we have. I'm also sure she would learn the ToS and polices of Wikipedia, and abide by them, and also agree to run the final draft of her article by WMF Legal or whomever wanted to vet it. Softlavender (talk) 01:05, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- I looked at the articles Ashfein linked and that's what raised the question of outing for me. The first article's purpose was to out an anonymous Twitter account as belonging to James Comey, and the second was about some Heavens Gate people who are still around maintaining a now-obscure website but mostly quietly minding their own business and who would rather have been left alone. She linked those articles as examples of the "internet mysteries" she likes to solve, and therefore of the type of investigation I'd expect to see. I don't see much historical interest in these sensationalizing pop-culture articles either. We have enough trouble dealing with our drama from one day to the next; we don't need to be paraded around as a freak show. (It's a bit different if someone like Dariusz Jemielniak writes something up in a deeper context of Wikipedia history and criticism).
Anyway, there really isn't anything relevant in Wikipedia's TOS or policies about people using info from Wikipedia off wiki, and running a final draft past WMF Legal or anyone else would be contrary to any journalistic practice I've ever seen. So I wouldn't expect or ask anything like that from Ashfein. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 02:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- I looked at the articles Ashfein linked and that's what raised the question of outing for me. The first article's purpose was to out an anonymous Twitter account as belonging to James Comey, and the second was about some Heavens Gate people who are still around maintaining a now-obscure website but mostly quietly minding their own business and who would rather have been left alone. She linked those articles as examples of the "internet mysteries" she likes to solve, and therefore of the type of investigation I'd expect to see. I don't see much historical interest in these sensationalizing pop-culture articles either. We have enough trouble dealing with our drama from one day to the next; we don't need to be paraded around as a freak show. (It's a bit different if someone like Dariusz Jemielniak writes something up in a deeper context of Wikipedia history and criticism).
- Since you presumably aren't a journalist, and aren't interested in the story, and don't know what it would entail, those personal opinions don't really matter. What matters is the confidentiality and integrity of the journalist. This journalist is not gossip-monger; she's an internet researcher. ReaderofthePack said that 'the whole Chaney thing is pretty much one of the largest hoaxes I've seen on Wikipedia due to its size and relative longevity - it existed on here for about four years. There have been hoaxes that have had farther reaches, such as the Amelia Bedelia hoax, but most of them haven't really been this grand in scope." It certainly sounds like good journalistic and historical value to me. In terms of prospective outing, the journalist said she is happy to answer any questions we have. I'm also sure she would learn the ToS and polices of Wikipedia, and abide by them, and also agree to run the final draft of her article by WMF Legal or whomever wanted to vet it. Softlavender (talk) 01:05, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Protection needed?
I was wondering if it would be appropriate to ask for long term extended confirmed or pending changes protection for Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. The article is a frequent victim of Hoggerdhigh, usually through IP or newly made accounts. Sario528 (talk) 21:38, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- Since the page has no history of protection, I have applied a week's semi-protection to address the immediate disruption and a year's PC protection, which theoretically will keep it in check. Sario528: In the future, please post requests for protection to WP:RFPP. Vanamonde (talk) 04:55, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
Major changes to talk page archive assistant script
When using Archy McArchFace to archive talk page threads, selecting a level n header will now select all of the sub-headers that it contains. You no longer have to select those headers yourself. Happy archiving! →Σσς. (Sigma) 06:35, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
RT story on Wikipedia
Did you know, according to Chris Hedges, some Wikipedia editors are unpaid? It must be true, it was on Russia Today, where we learn how "Wikipedia has become a tool to propagate the reigning ideologies and biases of the ruling elites". See also Talk:Criticism_of_Wikipedia#Interview_on_Russia_Today for more quotes. --Calton | Talk 14:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Wait, I'm supposed to get paid? Where the heck are my checks? RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:20, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- The lede of Russia Today article, quite correctly, states that "RT has been frequently described as a propaganda outlet ..." I do not see why we should take anything they publish in any way seriously.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:22, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- You should take it seriously, because in every pile of propaganda, there may well be a grain of truth. RT is rubbish, but don't let them co-opt such a critique of Wikipedia. In many ways, Wikipedia is such a tool... RGloucester — ☎ 14:27, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- It's just that, 'RT says, 'you are a tool of the ruling elite' ', sounds like comedy. Is it 'takes one to know one'? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:56, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is by necessity based on reliable 'mainstream' sources. There is no choice in this regard, as otherwise it would be impossible to create a coherent work. However, this means that Wikipedia reproduces the bias and prejudices of those sources, which are controlled by the capitalist 'ruling elite', and therefore propagates their ideology. It's worthwhile to be conscious of this fact, whilst also understanding that the age-old mantra 'verifiability, not truth' (even if that phrase itself has passed into history) is a necessary form of bricolage. RGloucester — ☎ 15:14, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- What tool are you? I call dibbs on needle nose pliers of the ruling elites. 24.151.50.175 (talk) 15:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- "The ball peen hammer of the ruling elite" has a nice ring to it. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:29, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- There is clearly one optimal answer: the ruler of the ruling elite. --GRuban (talk) 16:13, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- But a little disturbing? Theodore Streleski and [5] Nil Einne (talk) 17:13, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm a tool of the elite? AWESOME Drmies (talk) 17:16, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- I see myself as the screwdriver of the ruling elite, although I could be the margarita of the ruling elite if required. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:19, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- "The ball peen hammer of the ruling elite" has a nice ring to it. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:29, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- What tool are you? I call dibbs on needle nose pliers of the ruling elites. 24.151.50.175 (talk) 15:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is by necessity based on reliable 'mainstream' sources. There is no choice in this regard, as otherwise it would be impossible to create a coherent work. However, this means that Wikipedia reproduces the bias and prejudices of those sources, which are controlled by the capitalist 'ruling elite', and therefore propagates their ideology. It's worthwhile to be conscious of this fact, whilst also understanding that the age-old mantra 'verifiability, not truth' (even if that phrase itself has passed into history) is a necessary form of bricolage. RGloucester — ☎ 15:14, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- It's just that, 'RT says, 'you are a tool of the ruling elite' ', sounds like comedy. Is it 'takes one to know one'? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:56, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- You should take it seriously, because in every pile of propaganda, there may well be a grain of truth. RT is rubbish, but don't let them co-opt such a critique of Wikipedia. In many ways, Wikipedia is such a tool... RGloucester — ☎ 14:27, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Where's my money, Jimbo?! - Alexis Jazz 04:10, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
"Controversial" media, and how best to filter it ....
This is going to be a tricky posting (and likely a heated disscussion), so please bear with me.
Recently I was doing some image patrol work, trying to find media which needed updating in anticipation of structured data at Commons. This was done using a query on Quarry ( https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/18892 )
However, amongst the filenames returned were filneames for media the filename suggests that the content of that media may be either controversial (at best) or illegal in some Non-US jurisdictions (at worst), and thus would be content that contributors shouldn't edit (for legal reasons in their jurisdiction), or which they would be uncomfortable with editing. This is also a concern that some jurisdiction such as the UK, have penalties for "viewing" certain types of content which whilst merely controversial in the US, may be illegal in the respective Non-US jurisdiction. (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45842161 for one such instance).
Fully filtering content has been proposed many times before and as I understood it would not be possible currently.
Whilst Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, currently follow US law (and thus only censor to the extent that US law requires them to), it would be appreciated if there was a better mechanism for admins and uploaders to mark "controversial" media, so it can be explicitly dropped out of queries or searches compiled by contributors in jurisdictions with different (legal) standards, especially as it would for various reasons not always be possible to use a filename to know if content was going to be "controversial" without nominally viewing the content.
I'm aware that there is a badimage list, but it was my understanding this was only used reactively.
I'm posting this to the Administrators Noticeboard, so that someone more experienced can work out a solution and post an RFC in the appropriate manner.
(I will note that in a related aspect of the UK issue, I'd already put forward an informal proposal here about External Links Wikipedia_talk:External_links#WP:ELNEVER/_WP:ELNO_Should_explicitly_indicate_not_to_link_sites_which_contain_'illegal'_content. ) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- This sounds like exactly the sort of thing structured data is eventually supposed to be for. Such that things can be tagged as various categories of things that users might want to filter out themselves, without it actually doing anything by default without the users choosing to do this filtering... (thus avoiding issues with actual project-wide censorship while allowing users to filter things on their own and also allowing location-based filtering too if there does wind up being consensus/legal need for it). So my random recommendation at this point might be to look into if any of the existing categories might be candidates for creating flags (or whatever the hell you call it) in the structured data that will then be filterable by for such a use case? -— Isarra ༆ 16:46, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- For various reasons, I'd feel exceptionally uncomfortable going anywhere near "controversial" media (let alone editing/tagging), but if other admins want to review/tag images so they don't appear in a query like the one I mentioned ( or suggest a tweak to it), I have no objection.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:52, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
User:6Packs/User:If2020/User:Ohmy45 sent me an email requesting an appeal for the block
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- 6Packs (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- If2020 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- Ohmy45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
I was sent an email from this user requesting an appeal for the block, so I am copying and pasting this email below. I am not sure what to do with it, so I am quoting the email below, errors included:
Dear Jesse,
I write this in reference to my Wikipedia account user:6 Parks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/6Packs. I was blocked on 5 October for a sockpuppert, see account. I sent this to one Admin who had blocked me but he hasn't edited since I sent the email.
I know its really wrong to have created more than one account and it honestly really pains me that I now just have to watch comments on Teahouse and never able to help. My mistakes and punishment dearly affect me everyday because I live a lonely old man life and Editing Wikipedia used to take me off the loneliness and feel like living among a community of human beings.
Due to my mistfortunate acts, I am not allowed to participate in the one thing I have fallen in love with and this has been a tough pill to swallow these past weeks since my block. My life really feels lonely and empty because I spent all my day - time editing 24/7 on my account 6Packs as I am an unemployed retired old fellow who only spends time trying to improve the enclopedia and try as much to enjoy every minute of it. I am very very sorry and ashamed that my decision to create more than one account led to me being banned and not allowed to participate any longer.
On my account, I had created about 50 good articles prior to my block and contributed mostly to preventing vandalism and did not cause any harm to Wikipedia despite my mistake of having previously had another accounts which I stopped using having crea ting the 6Parks one. Presently, I can't edit that anymore and my actions feel like I cut myself further away from the world without my Wikipedia participation. To relieve my stress, I tried creating a Facebook account but I just don't feel part of that as I don't get any knowledge or interest in the posts of people there. Additionally i tried Watching soccer every weekend but after the game, i return to the loniliness and feed my loneliness by reading the posts and comments on Teahouse and Help desks. Wikipedia has become such an addiction and a hobby of mine and it hurts that I made mistakes that I now have to live with by facing the consequences of my mistakes.
I could have posted this on my account talk page but I am currently locked out of the account. I ask of you to kindly see if you can assist me or post this plea on the Admin Notice Board so that maybe the Wikipedia community can decide if I deserve another chance with my account or still remain blocked as I am very lonely affected by this and wish to, should the community see fit, be given another chance. If there is more punishment i can be given before being accepted back or to clean up even 1000 articles that need help in a day, I am more than willing to do it in order that I can be allowed again into the Wikipedia community.
Kind regards 6Parks
-- This email was sent by user "If2020" on the English Wikipedia to user "Jesse Viviano". It has been automatically delivered and the Wikimedia Foundation cannot be held responsible for its contents.
If I have broken any rules, please let me know. Jesse Viviano (talk) 15:23, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Given the extensive checkuser-confirmed sockpuppetry, we should probably note that the user is banned rather than blocked, under WP:3X. There's nothing in the unblock request that gives me even the faintest hope we can trust they'll stick to a single account, especially given they've been violating WP:EVADE and WP:SOCK in the past week. I count 16 sockpuppet accounts. The most I'd advocate is that we'd consider unbanning them roughly under the terms of WP:SO which require six months with zero edits and zero further sockpuppetry. I don't object if others wish to look on this more favourably. --Yamla (talk) 15:40, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- (EC) Per WP:NOTTHERAPY, the editor's need to edit wikipedia is not something which makes a difference to us. If the editor has the problems they outline, I strongly suggest they try and seek some sort of help elsewhere to deal with them. As for an unblock, my first thought was that editor is clearly missing out a big chunk of the story. Sockpuppets may be indefed, but the master is not unless they either keep creating socks or do something else majorly wrong. A quick look suggests that this has been going on since at least June, not October and is still ongoing. Beyond the sockpuppetry, it seems like there is some fixation with creating an article on some Zambian author. There has also been a global lock, possibly because the same thing is going on at simple and/or commons. I suspect there may be more, either way other than needing to stop socking probably for at least 6 months the editor would need to be more honest if they want to convince the community to give them another chance. Nil Einne (talk) 15:54, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- I received this email aswell. This is impressive[6] Looks like undisclosed paid editing to me. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:48, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- I received an identical email as well. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 21:16, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Me too. I got the same email but did not feel comfortable in responding to it. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 22:05, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- This seems like a standard offer situation, and it's been far less than 6 months without sock-puppetry (the most recent block was this month, and 16 sockpuppet accounts is a lot). I'm not sure if they're formally banned from other Wikimedia sites (such Wikisource); that may offer them an opportunity to contribute in the meantime. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:54, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- I was sympathetic to the request but with multiple admins saying he emailed them and socking as recent as few days ago that has taken me aback. Not sure how many more they emailed. Since there's new socking as recent as 19 October this account should not be unblocked. But the standard offer can start now. –Ammarpad (talk) 05:02, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- The account main account is globally locked, and another was locked 22 days ago, so I suspect there is more here than meets the eye. We are unable to consider the request for an en.wiki unblock due to the global lock: any unblock here would have no impact on the situation. They must appeal to the stewards for an unlock first and then make a request on their talk page for the purposes of transparency among other reasons. This also means it is explicitly not a standard offer situation since it doesn't really matter if we welcome them back if they don't have the technical ability to even log into their account, and meta/global does not have the concept of a standard offer, which is an en.wiki specific practice. TonyBallioni (talk) 07:25, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- I think it's still a standard offer as per as enwiki is concerned. Yes, G-lock is a separate issue, but if they convinced stewards to unlock them today, that's just part of it as they wouldn't be unblocked here because of that --they have to follow standard offer. So now, they have to try to convince stewards to unlock them before the earliest time when their standard offer unblock can be considered here, that's in six months time from now. If the time elapses, and due to failure to convince stewards, remain locked, then there's nothing that can be done from enwiki part, since unblock is meaningless. –Ammarpad (talk) 08:09, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Eh, its often abused to mean “we should mindlessly unblock after 6 months” before even considering the lock factor, so I’d prefer we not further this idea with blocked users, especially in situations where there’s a good chance the WP:SO essay is meaningless because of a global lock. It’s not a policy, and waiting 6 months guarantees nothing if there isn’t reassurance the disruption is likely to stop, especially in cases where we literally will not even consider unblocking because of the lock. Anyway, someone should likely close this thread as there is nothing to do now. TonyBallioni (talk) 12:59, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- (Non-administrator comment) Incidentally, regrding the reposting of an email in its entirety, it's worth checking this section of WP:EMAIL. FYI. ——SerialNumber54129 07:47, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- The sender explicitly asked for it to be posted here, so there's no any breach in reposting it in its entirety. –Ammarpad (talk) 08:09, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Who mentioned a breach? ——SerialNumber54129 08:22, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- That section you linked to. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:31, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Note that this user is considered a cross-wiki long-term abuse case and a local unblock discussion (if successful) will not stop them from being locked globally. See the list of socks on my home wiki. Vermont (talk) 12:51, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Last socking on enwiki alone was last week, I'm not inclined to even consider unlock. — regards, Revi 14:23, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
Two-way disruption on ANI
Would an uninvolved admin please put a stop to this? Erpert blah, blah, blah... 20:55, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Look at timestamps. They stopped bickering at ANI 2 days ago. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Closure needed for Requested move for Killing of Jamal Khashoggi
Can someone please close the Requested move discussion for Talk:Killing_of_Jamal_Khashoggi#Requested_move_20_October_2018. 7 days are over and the discussion has drawn opinions from all sides. We can wait but posting here since the article is currently listed on the Main page so a faster response will be appreciated. I have voted myself, so I am unwilling to close. --DBigXrayᗙ 12:11, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Also please read the "Move to killing" section on the talk page for a better understanding of the consensus over there. There was some move-warring recently, which may or may not be addressed. wumbolo ^^^ 16:22, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
_by_Ólöf_Pálsdóttir.jpg){kind=link}
Request to lift topic ban
Please refer [7], regarding my topic ban on FGM. I have voluntary accepted the ban as I didn't complied to self restricted FGM editing without discussing on respective talk pages. Although there were not even one 1R issue, my editing was felt interruptive to some editors as citation provided by me were not termed as proper RS.
My further editing since then had no further similar issues and had tried to further learn on selection of proper RS.
I request for lifting topic ban on the subject. I voluntarily further restrict myself to put my views on respective talk pages only, till it is well discussed there.Md iet (talk) 12:44, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- For convenience — FGM = female genital mutilation. Nyttend (talk) 12:54, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- User:SlimVirgin opened a complaint on my talk page at User talk:EdJohnston/Archive 44#User:Md iet, in April 2018, which led to me to impose this ban. The general issue (now, and in the past) is concern about 'whitewashing' of FGM which is a practice of the Dawoodi Bohra, a Muslim sect centered in South Asia and East Africa. For that sect, FGM appears to have status as a religious practice. UN bodies regard Female genital mutilation as a human rights violation. Though User:Md iet's ban was set up as a voluntary ban, the topic of Female genital mutilation is now understood to fall under WP:ARBGG, per this October 2018 ban of Muffizainu. In that AE thread, the closing admin decided that FGM is a 'gender-related dispute or controversy'. I haven't yet decided whether to support the lifting of Md iet's ban; I suppose he should explain why the problem won't occur again. If his views are similar to those that Muffizainu expressed in his own AE discussion, it doesn't seem very promising. EdJohnston (talk) 15:51, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Please see my reply at [8].Md iet (talk) 05:39, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose appeal. Female genital mutilation is a featured article based on the best available sources. It faces periodic attempts to whitewash text. Unsourced boosterism such as diff (25 August 2018) indicates that the present restrictions should remain. (For background, see Talk:Female genital mutilation#NSW Australia case concerning Dawoodi Bohra#Female genital mutilation.) Johnuniq (talk) 23:33, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose. Md iet (talk · contribs) and Muffizainu (talk · contribs) arrived at FGM last year within a month of each other, and engaged in advocacy on behalf of the Dawoodi Bohra. The article mentions the Bohra only in passing: "Smaller studies or anecdotal reports suggest that FGM is also practised in ... India by the Dawoodi Bohra." There is more at Dawoodi Bohra#Female genital mutilation. Muffizainu's position, which contradicts the available evidence, is that the Bohra practise Type Ia FGM only (removal of the clitoral hood) and that we should call what they do "female circumcision", not FGM. He recently created a POV fork at Khafd, which is what led me to request a topic ban. Md iet seems to oppose FGM, but (if I've understood him correctly) wants to use Wikipedia to suggest other approaches beside passing laws against it, which he believes is counter-productive. The main problem is that they both use sources poorly. See Talk:Female genital mutilation/Archive 16, which is mostly discussions with them from September 2017 until recently. SarahSV (talk) 02:26, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Having read some of the talk page archives I don't think this editor should be editing these articles. The archives of the FGM article show a few editors engaging in long arguments to prevent inappropriate material from being added to an FA. We need to help those editors, not send them more people to deal with. Hut 8.5 18:57, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Unblock appeal by SashiRolls
SashiRolls (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
SashiRolls has submited an unblock request after coming off of an ArbCom block. As GoldenRing is not currently active, and the block log specifies appealing to the community, I am copying it here for community discussion. The text of the appeal follows:
An Arb has suggested that I follow the template for appealing that can be found at the en.wp guide to appealing blocks as closely as possible. So here we go:
- State your reason for believing your block was incorrect or for requesting reconsideration.
- I do not believe I should still be blocked for WP:NOTHERE. My record of contributions at fr.wp [9], en.wikiversity [10], meta [11], and even simple.wp [12] show that I've been able to improve WMF "knowledge" products while trying to contribute or just learn from meta-reflections and how-tos in more effective places. I have even contributed to en.wp occasionally through people who thought my proposed text was a reasonable improvement and added it in their own name. I have not violated any en.wp rules during the period of my block. Concerning the rest of the accusations in the block record, I will be frank. I do not believe I should have ever been blocked for "harassment and intimidation". That is simply smear.
- Address the blocking administrator's concerns about your conduct (the reason given for your block).
- After over a year of being blocked I have still had no further explanation from @GoldenRing: concerning the "harassment and intimidation" claims (no reply to any email in fact, so I stopped trying long ago). If he still stands by his block, I would be happy to hear why.
- Give evidence.
- Let's stick to the basics of the affair I was blocked over:
- I commented at AN/I when Crossswords drew my attention to an incident they had filed (§).
- I followed a bot notification to an RfC on a page in American politics called "And you are lynching Negroes" which caught my attention. As a result, I was blocked by Dennis Brown on Sagecandor's request (§) for 6 months for "wiki-hounding". Dennis Brown has since defended his block as being "community-based", although I suspect they've realized the error of that (very small) "community" by now, since they've been a regular WO reader in the two years since.
- After being blocked I learned a fair bit about the history of the en.wp editing environment by reading the critical fora and continued to observe the political sphere. It was no secret that Sagecandor had begun writing a lot of book reports in the weeks before my return, and when I noticed them adding to the en.wp Bibliography of Donald Trump, I thought it wise to try to inform the readers what was going on. I was blocked indefinitely on Sagecandor's request (§) as a result of documenting this on the talk page.
- It has been suggested to me that a better approach would have been to start an SPI as was done when they returned to en.wp in 2018, after at least a half-dozen people had worked to compile the evidence adduced in that SPI. (§)
- I have remained interested in Wikipedia and its problems. I wrote an article and compiled a lot of data concerning Wikipedian sourcing § while blocked.
- In October 2018, the Arbitration Committee removed the second layer of block they had placed on me to solve the problem of the smear about "harrassment and intimidation" being broadcast to anyone who clicked on my user-name.
- Again, if Goldenring (§) would like to defend the use of the words harassment & intimidation, I would listen to whatever they had to say, but I think the facts show otherwise. I remember reading in the guidelines not to leave out the background. Essential reading is Cirt's established MO of asking for action against so-called wikihounds on trumped-up charges. (§)
- I would be touched if Goldenring would unblock me personally with an edit summary retracting his caricature of straightforward observation as "harassment and intimidation".
- Thank you for taking the time to read this request for administrative review of the two blocks that Cirt requested be placed on my account.
— 🍣 SashiRolls (talk) 00:38, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
I'll leave this open for community input. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:15, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Note: Some background reading here - Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive217#SashiRolls --Calton | Talk 01:27, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- I do not believe I should have ever been blocked for "harassment and intimidation". OK, that's an immediate non-starter: Decline unblock. --Calton | Talk 01:27, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm gonna have to go with decline just because I don't see any acknowledgement of the behavior that led to the block, nor any commitment not to engage in such behavior again. I just see an editor denying that such behavior ever took place, and alleging a series of vendettas to explain why they were blocked.ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:04, 28 October 2018 (UTC)- (Non-administrator comment) Decline per Calton.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 02:35, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Decline I saw some of the discussions at the time but forget the details. My decline is based on the flawed judgment shown in the appeal regarding the implication that GoldenRing was entirely wrong (and no one noticed), and the portrayal of Wikipediocracy as something other than a cesspool for discontents. Johnuniq (talk) 04:33, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- I hope (and expect) that whoever reviews this will discount ad hominem attacks like that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:51, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- (Non-administrator comment) Decline per Calton. Carl Tristan Orense (talk) 06:35, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
I would like to explain the logic to Johnuniq: Sagecandor was a sock of Cirt. Cirt's appeal of their topic ban prohibiting them from editing about politicians and political culture was declined 13-1 the last time it was appealed to ArbCom [13]. Cirt , therefore, had no right to be socking to avoid scrutiny given that there were active sanctions against their account, which they were violating. By extension, they did not have the standing to prosecute anyone for noticing their highly abnormal editing patterns which -- as it turns out, again -- violated active sanctions.
As for assurances / pact of non-aggression: I have no intention of tracking down any more socking sysops, nor do I intend to lay down evidence of any further wrong-doings by anyone in the inner cabal, not to worry. I'm just giving en.wp a chance to fix an embarrassing mistake it has had made for it by an absentee sysop/clerk.
So far, this thread includes no DIFFs showing any harassment or intimidation of Sagecandor whatsoever and plenty of DIFFs showing Sagecandor/Cirt falsely crying "wiki-hounding/harassment/intimidation" (the link provided above leads to dozens of examples of it). I look forward to this request being studied in depth by an uninvolved administrator here at the Administrator's Noticeboard, because I would really like someone to reply with evidence rather than just per Haps -- who provided no DIFFS -- or from half-forgotten memories of a case they never understood had been brought by a scrutiny-evading sock with quite a reputation... (i.e. quite a way to be welcomed to Wikipedia). By the way, Calton, MPants & Johnuniq, nice to see you again. ^^ — 🍣 SashiRolls (talk) 06:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Copied by request from SashiRolls' talk page [14]. GorillaWarfare (talk) 07:08, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Decline It’s always about other editors, including admins. That was true last year after coming off a six month block and is true after another year block. Had the editor finally come to grips with their own behavior, I might feel differently. But, this unblock request is just another list of grievances and failure to indicate any future improvement in behavior. O3000 (talk) 11:52, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Question for the community: can someone provide a link to the "harassing/intimidating" behavior in question? 28bytes (talk) 12:33, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- @28bytes: generally, see the diffs offered in this AE request. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Ivanvector: Thank you. I'll be honest, I'm a little uncomfortable that the AE thread was created and presented by a (now-indeffed) sock account to evade a BLP ban to (successfully) get someone who was questioning their edits silenced. But I'll look through the individual diffs now. 28bytes (talk) 14:27, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Apparently per the AE request that got them indeffed, I outed them via anagram or something because I've discovered both their real name and their mother's name, which is frankly a level of conspiracy driven paranoia that makes me happy I live in a place where Google Maps can't find my house, and the banjo music from the forest mostly scares everyone away. GMGtalk 13:20, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- @28bytes: generally, see the diffs offered in this AE request. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm an admin with no prior interaction with SashiRolls and who generally stays away from AP2 topics and doesn't read Wikipediocracy at all, so everyone should be able to evaluate the neutrality of my next comments. Decline this unblock request per WP:NOTTHEM (generally) and site ban per WP:NOTHERE. SashiRolls is obviously a user with a score to settle who has a history of disrespect for Wikipedia and its editors. This request is dripping in battleground rhetoric - they themselves are the sole defender of Wikipedia, they are infallibly right and everyone with a different opinion is in their way. They were blocked for socking two years ago and have repeatedly referred to that action as a "gag order" and by their own admission are still contributing in spite of being blocked. They say they were blocked at Cirt's request, which isn't how blocking works and ignores the many other editors also supporting that action in the AE thread, and the fact that Cirt was also socking and that GoldenRing is away don't matter even one tiny bit at all. They don't acknowledge at all that their past behaviour was disruptive, they even defend it as having been in some kind of constructive interest. With the attitude displayed here there is zero reason to think they won't immediately resume their crusade if they're unblocked, and so they should not be. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- I would like to reassure Ivan Vector that I have no intention of going on any crusades and bear no grudges against anyone. Contrary to what you said, I do not think I have some mission to "save" Wikipedia or that it would even be possible for one person to do such a thing. I'm not a hasten-the-day agent trying to get myself embedded in plain sight into Wikipedia. I've already told ArbCom that I have learned that the high-conflict political pages are probably best avoided entirely (not only for the peace of the project, but for my own peace of mind). There are just too many people with too many divergent viewpoints to act efficiently in that area. Some people I respect would probably consider this laziness, but such is life. I've had more than enough of wiki-drama.
- On the other hand, I do have an avid interest in learning, and en.wp is a place from which I've learned a lot, on many levels. It is a tool I've used regularly for over a decade -- entirely unnoticed for about 10 years (§: the first account I lost my password to) -- prior to recent events in US politics. Not really having had the time or the competence/expertise to edit well during that period (which was much more permissive of OR than en.wp is today), it was only in 2016 that I dipped into the conflictual areas and began rigorously learning the citation templates. I sometimes have been known to just lurk in the background and help people who like to move more quickly by helping them format references properly. I generally am most interested in the reference sections of articles (since that's where all the facts come from) and like to give scholars / journalists credit by including their names in the citation templates. It's important to give credit where it is due.
- I can also help the project by copy-editing (in two languages) and note that there is a lot of fr -> en.wp translation work that I could dig into. In terms of writing: I have been working on improving my synthetic skills, because I have an annoying tendency of trying to pack too much into a sentence. As a general rule, I like to think of the reader. I have not created 1000s of articles, just one in fact (in both French and English), as well as an unpretentious English phonology page at wikiversity. I am here offering to help improve en.wp in a minor way. I look forward to continuing to learn in that process.
- For reference here are some of my last content edits to en.wp, written in the hours before being indefinitely blocked as WP:NOTHERE [15]. Some other long-standing contributions can be found in this section. I appreciated the research I found on that page. I find it fascinating that Choctaw, Mobilian Jargon, Yoruba, and the Bostonian press were all probably involved in the spread of the new word OK, and had no idea of that before I started looking through the assembled documents in that en.wp entry (some of which had been deleted, others not). So, OK. I'll try not to soapbox, but I did want to acknowledge that I'd heard your concerns, I.V., and to respond to them. I am neither a crusader trying to convert "infidels", nor a creep. SashiRolls (talk) 17:39, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Copied from User talk:SashiRolls TonyBallioni (talk) 19:06, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- I'm tempted to Accept their appeal, at least procedurally: the AE case that was the immediate cause of the indef should never have been (able to be) brought, although I accept than even a blind pig can occasionally find an acorn in the dark. And although WP:NOTTHEM argumnets are probably the worst arguments one can make in an appeal, I can actualy understand it in a case where, arguably, the "THEM" in question has broken as many if not more of our behavioural guidelines than the blocked editor. I suppose ultimately it may—repeat, may—have been the correct result, but its procedural deformity is writ exceeding large. ——SerialNumber54129 14:36, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Accept per SerialNumber. The idea of keeping someone blocked who was taking a close interest in an editor who was actively socking to edit in an area they were banned from is laughable. Especially since it was well known for a long time that Cirt was editing as Sagecandor. It comes across as the usual "we are not going to admit we were wrong but to be unbanned you must still kowtow and admit you were at fault" arrogance that is rife amongst a certain type of admin. If Sashi misbehaves block them again. But complaining their unblock request is about other editors, when it was other editors bad actions that resulted in their block, is petty. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:58, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Decline - I understand the positions of SN54129 and OID, it seems wrong for someone caught up in the actions of a bad actor to suffer for it, but I'm more convinced by the argument of Ivanvector, particularly concerning the tone of the request. I see nothing there to indicate that SashiRolls has changed their attitude. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:00, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- I think we should accept the unblock request. These comments in particular give me the impression he plans to edit here for the right reasons. 28bytes (talk) 20:11, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- I really admire the chutzpah of an editor who, using a sock puppet account created to avoid a topic ban, brings action against another editor, noting discretionary sanctions in very same subject area, filing an AE case on the grounds that editor is casting WP:ASPERSIONS at them that they know full well are perfectly true. All experienced editors know that you should never, ever file an AE request, because you're just as likely to get blocked yourself as the subject of your motion; but not only does the victim get indefinitely blocked, the perpetrator walks away Scott free. Well, not completely free, they took his sock away from him. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:34, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- But how do the actions of the other editor, and the lack of sanctioning of that editor, justify the behavior of the appealing editor? Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:50, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Accept per Messrs. 28, 54129 and OID. Sure, there's some understandable indignance in the unblock request - insufficient grovelling, one might say - but given the circumstances of the block being caused by a bad actor seeking to obscure their own misdeeds, who wouldn't feel a little aggrieved? Unblock, and let their subsequent actions speak for themselves. Anything else feels petty and punitive, and we don't do that, right? -- Begoon 21:25, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Accept - I do not subscribe to the doctrine of infallibility of the WP community and cannot help wondering that if all the facts were known at the time of the block it may have resulted in a wp:boomerang instead. Jschnur (talk) 21:45, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Some context: A bit of transparency here: I exchanged words with SashiRolls a little bit over at that "other" site where we might not be able to link: (Redacted). Let me provide a bit of context of my biases: 1) I actually think Cirt has historically done good work in content. 2) I think SashiRolls is very prototypically Wikipedian (and I include myself in this critique) having a short fuse, an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong, and the prototypical feature of being self-involved. But, there but for the grace of WP:KETTLE go I. 3) If you people think this request is problematic, you should read the thread to see what SashiRolls had initially wanted to request. Would that we had had a few more rounds of back-and-forth for editing and counseling about what the right way to go about doing this might be. The !vote-count might be very different if we had done that. But we have the history we have, the hand we are dealth. That SashiRolls had the presence of mind not to ask for an addendum to a block log means there is someone working that account who is willing to take criticism on board.
- Now for even more pontificating that y'all didn't ask for: Wikipedia is an absolutely horrible place to people like SashiRolls who lose their social capital. As soon as someone goes down, the typical response to is gang up and kick them. SashiRolls simply does not have the experience with this society to know how to say the right things to get back in right with the culture. With some time and practice, I think there is evidence that SashiRolls may get there. I have tremendous sympathy for this problem. I've been in the very same boat.
- I know that people can learn and change and adapt. I only slightly hesitate to add that Wikipedia, as well, changes, and so maybe that's something to consider here with respect to some hindsight about what occurred. Wikipedia, as a community, has demonstrated a willingness to stick its neck out and let people like me back in after shitcanning. But, to the point, I think that SashiRolls exhibits the characteristics that he too might be able to adapt into that kind of editor who this website can not only accommodate but come to accept or even value.
- That leaves the question as to whether to unblock this poor soul. I actually do not think it appropriate I offer an opinion on that since I coached SashiRolls over at that other evil site. I don't know whether SashiRolls has been able to, as they say here, "take enough on board" to not get back into the kind of shit that sent him packing in the first place. In fact, as we all are human, SashiRolls may fail again. But I also fail from time to time in spite of having been reaccepted into this weird and wonderful website. Each time I feel I fail better and become better at communing and navigating this place because of it. I get the impression from my brief interactions with SashiRolls that this kind of thing is a distinct possibility.
- With all that in mind, I would just ask the jury here to consider whether they think this account will ultimately be a net-positive or a net-negative when it comes to Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesn't often get people asking to be a part of it in the serious way SashiRolls is asking. I understand that some people are either so abused by the site or so congenitally unsuited to working in this environment that they should be told to go find other outlets (people have said as much about me). But I tend to believe that this is probably the minority of people who take the time to write block appeals and respond to concerns the way SashiRolls has. That's not to say that there is no risk, and while I think that eventually SashiRolls is likely one of the people that would be better to let back in, the question I cannot answer is whether it's the right time or not.
- Is SashiRolls carrying a grudge? You better believe it. Is this a problem? Potentially, but there's also this principle of WP:ROPE. Still, you may all judge that the likelihood of success is too slim. Perhaps SashiRolls didn't practice enough in learning about the peculiarities of Wikipedia culture and didn't get enough help writing a decent request for unblocking to reach the appropriate tone, make the right promises, describe a future in the right way to make you all confident in a successful renaissance for the account. I get that, but the question I ask is whether such poor timing, as it were, is a good enough justification for saying, "no, you must remain an un-person".
- So please ask, is it better for SashiRolls to learn the ropes of Wikipedia unblocked now, or is it better to spend some time cast in the wilderness and maybe come back with a better-formed statement that will make you feel better? I honestly don't know the answer, but I hope my stream of consciousness rambling was helpful for some of you.
- TL;DR: SashiRolls shows some characteristics of being able to be a good community member here, but doesn't yet know enough Wikiculture to be able to understand what is or isn't possible in navigating a return to "good standing". It may be possible for SashiRolls to learn this by being unblocked, or you may think the risk is too great that SashiRolls will end up kicked out again.
- jps (talk) 23:07, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- This actually tracks some of my thoughts pretty well. I'm opposed because Sashi isn't saying the right things. If Sashi can say the right things, that would change my mind.
- The need for Sash to say the right things comes from the fact that Sashi is not a pure victim here. If that were true, then it wouldn't matter whether Sashi said the right things or not, I'd support the unblock. Also, if Sashi were entirely in the wrong, it would not matter, I'd oppose the unblock. But the issues that led to this block were partially of Sashi's doing. So if Sashi recognizes that and vows to avoid that behavior, then there's literally no need to keep them blocked. Also, the suggestion that Sahsi should grovel is fucking juvenile: We are not here for justice or to assuage our own feelings. We're here to build an encyclopedia. Groveling does not contribute to building an encyclopedia, so not only is it rarely asked for, the suggestion that it's being asked for in this case is just ridiculous. The only thing being asked for is some evidence that Sashi will handle problems such as those that led to his block with more skill in the future. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:26, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Well, I think deciding what is "groveling" and what isn't "groveling" is largely a question of semantics. Some people have found success with shamelessly groveling, but what we're ultimately talking about here is composing a written word essay that will give people the right feels. It is a bit of a "rose by any other name" sorta scenario. It's, at the very least, a hoop to jump through. jps (talk) 23:39, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Meh, I see a difference between "groveling" and what has been asked here. For example, I think it's fair to characterize a demand for an apology as groveling, or demanding that an editor requesting unblock agree to conditions that are unprecedented or which place an undue burden on them in their editing. I don't see anything like that being asked here. I see myself and several others saying "We're not sure that Sashi won't get themselves in trouble again, based on what they say".
- I'd like to point out that Sashi's response to Ivan is heartening, but not quite what was asked for. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:43, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Surely, trying to get someone who wants a certain outcome (unblocking) to produce a product that reaches a certain set of standards (evidence that you won't get in trouble again based on what you say) will ultimately cause us to wonder whether we've just coached someone into being constructive. But, as Munroe says, MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED. In any case, I don't know whether the first impulse of this website, to want to see this evidence in the unblock request itself, is the right one or not. I haven't seen the studies that show what the outcomes actually are between those who write the right things and those who do not. SashiRolls is surely reading this, so perhaps we'll get some insight from them! jps (talk) 23:51, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's my outlook, too. I don't give a flying fuck how they get there, only that they get there. As far as I'm concerned, your coaching offsite is no different that on-site mentoring, and kudos to you for doing it. If it works, we're up one experienced editor. If it doesn't, we're down one disruptive editors. Win-win. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:56, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Surely, trying to get someone who wants a certain outcome (unblocking) to produce a product that reaches a certain set of standards (evidence that you won't get in trouble again based on what you say) will ultimately cause us to wonder whether we've just coached someone into being constructive. But, as Munroe says, MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED. In any case, I don't know whether the first impulse of this website, to want to see this evidence in the unblock request itself, is the right one or not. I haven't seen the studies that show what the outcomes actually are between those who write the right things and those who do not. SashiRolls is surely reading this, so perhaps we'll get some insight from them! jps (talk) 23:51, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) To an extent it is semantics, yes. I'm sorry my use of the term is viewed as "fucking juvenile" and "just ridiculous" - my intent was to perhaps encourage consideration of how it might feel to the blocked user who has made a good faith effort to appeal in as honest a fashion as they can. I see, as 28 does, much in Sashi's most recent statement to indicate that they want to contribute for the right reasons, and, for me, the "right things" are said there. As OID puts it, Sashi may well feel that
"the usual "we are not going to admit we were wrong but to be unbanned you must still kowtow and admit you were at fault""
is in play, and I sympathise with that. Like it or not, there is a perception that getting unblocked can be less about honest self-reflection than it is about reciting the 'correct' mantra, with or without sincerity. -- Begoon 00:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)- I don't think "we" were entirely in the wrong to block Sashi. That being said, I'm not unsympathetic to their position. We've blocked one of the editors who was problematic on "our" end, and the other has stopped editing. So we've handled the problems on our end. So now if Sashi can handle the problems on their end, we're golden. The only real disagreement is whether they've said the right things to indicate that. I say no, you say yes. But I'd note that it certainly wouldn't hurt Sashi to use my standard, here, as they'd gain another supporter while simultaneously losing a detractor. And that alone might be enough to convince another detractor or two. It sure couldn't hurt. Meanwhile, sticking to his guns and refusing to admit any problems... Well, there's no consensus to unblock right now. We know what that means. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:09, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Well, I think deciding what is "groveling" and what isn't "groveling" is largely a question of semantics. Some people have found success with shamelessly groveling, but what we're ultimately talking about here is composing a written word essay that will give people the right feels. It is a bit of a "rose by any other name" sorta scenario. It's, at the very least, a hoop to jump through. jps (talk) 23:39, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- I’m having a few problems with these arguments. 1.) First, the editor has had a year and a half to figure out how to gain approval for an unblock, and has failed this rather trivial test. That’s a very long time over which the editor could have examined unblock success rates. You can call that integrity or you can call that WP:CIR. 2.) I don’t care about the fact that some other editor was blocked who started part of the process that resulted in one of the blocks. I only care about the result and if it was based upon diffs and the editors responses. 3.) I get the feeling the editor feels they are somehow above the guidelines and policies when they are “right” and I have seen no new evidence that this has changed. 4.) I don’t like the characterization of “groveling” applied to simply admitting flaws in past behavior and explaining how one will avoid that in future. Which one of us is perfect? Seriously, saying “Sorry, I’ll work on that” is not groveling. 5.) As for rope, in this case it was played out to the level of a ship laying a transatlantic cable. O3000 (talk) 00:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Have you ever had cause to request for an unblock after being indefinitely shitcanned? It is far from a "trivial" test, let me assure you. At least it was for me. I am sympathetic to your concern that you think the person may think themselves "above" Wikipedia law. That's kinda the issue we're grappling with in this treaded discussion. Whether we call this a call for "groveling" or whether we call it "introspection" runs into the problem of other minds. Let's just say that you want a certain thing and it may be hard to provide it. As for your final argument, my point about WP:ROPE is to say that any unblock will be subject to it as well. Leashes get shorter after each event. Some people get once bitten twice shy. I get it. But there are examples of people returning and so the question is whether we have enough data to know that this is a bad idea. As I intimated, I really don't know. jps (talk) 00:25, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Good responses. The problem of other minds is important as wikis are built upon collaboration. Yes, we only “know” that our own mind exists. (OK, I’m not even certain of that.) But, if one wishes to collaborate, one must find an effective manner whether one is playing with other sentient minds or a video game. What I’m worried about is twice bitten, third shy. I’m just not seeing any change in attitude whatsoever. O3000 (talk) 00:41, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- 10-4. My evidence comes purely from witnessing SashiRolls change approach in how to proceed with this request. Maybe SashiRolls will respond to this discussion directly to provide more evidence, but maybe not. In any case, I can understand where you are coming from. jps (talk) 00:45, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Good responses. The problem of other minds is important as wikis are built upon collaboration. Yes, we only “know” that our own mind exists. (OK, I’m not even certain of that.) But, if one wishes to collaborate, one must find an effective manner whether one is playing with other sentient minds or a video game. What I’m worried about is twice bitten, third shy. I’m just not seeing any change in attitude whatsoever. O3000 (talk) 00:41, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Have you ever had cause to request for an unblock after being indefinitely shitcanned? It is far from a "trivial" test, let me assure you. At least it was for me. I am sympathetic to your concern that you think the person may think themselves "above" Wikipedia law. That's kinda the issue we're grappling with in this treaded discussion. Whether we call this a call for "groveling" or whether we call it "introspection" runs into the problem of other minds. Let's just say that you want a certain thing and it may be hard to provide it. As for your final argument, my point about WP:ROPE is to say that any unblock will be subject to it as well. Leashes get shorter after each event. Some people get once bitten twice shy. I get it. But there are examples of people returning and so the question is whether we have enough data to know that this is a bad idea. As I intimated, I really don't know. jps (talk) 00:25, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Accept I have spent a lot of time reading the evidence. I certainly recognize that SashiRolls is not blameless. For example, I would normally bristle when an editor calls another editor a "prosecutor" at AE. But in this case, Cirt/Sagecandor was, in effect, an illegitimate prosecutor. That otherwise capable editor and former administrator was topic banned from U.S. politics for dogged POV pushing among other things, and then spent a couple of years defying their topic ban with the Sagecandor sockpuppet. I was certainly fooled by this sockpuppet and gave them a barnstar shortly before they were blocked, much to my embarrassment when I found out the truth. I have never claimed to be a sockpuppet detective. Much (though not all) of the problems that SashiRolls encountered were as a result of their interaction with this lying, vindictive, driven POV pusher. It is impossible for me to re-read the evidence so meticulously presented by the Sagecandor sockpuppet without considering it to be tainted by their own deceptions and vindictiveness. On the other hand, I see no evidence that SashiRolls has engaged in any socking or disruption since their block. Accordingly, I believe that this editor deserves another chance. I encourage SashiRolls to do their best to separate the wheat from the chaff that they have received in all these conflicts, and recognize that their own behavior has been suboptimal on several occasions, as many editors other than Cirt/Sagecandor have pointed out. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:00, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Comment I'll leave the unblock question to people with a clearer sense of whether Sashirolls is likely to become a worthwhile contributor if unblocked, but I'm unimpressed by the initial request which didn't acknowledge the previous misconduct amply documented by Cirt and others in those AE threads, and with some of the pro-unblock arguments. Objecting to the process based on Cirt/Sagecandor's status at the time is totally different from pretending those diffs don't exist (they are there in the revision history no matter who points them out). And the process objection is not persuasive either.
Cirt's socking is something to possibly weigh into consideration if the overall case is iffy, but it's not dispositive. This is not a court, we don't have an exclusionary rule, talking about "standing" is obnoxious wikilawyering, and Cirt is not a prosecutor (someone entrusted with state power with a high potential for abuse). And many astute editors weighed in at those AE's and affirmed that the blocks were warranted, some of whom gave diffs of their own. A closer analogy to Cirt's AE filing might be an undocumented immigrant reporting a crime. You might call the ICE on the reporter (if that's your thing) but you should still go after the criminal. The "prosecutorial" counterpart would be something like using improperly obtained checkuser evidence, and nothing like that has been alleged here.
BMK's "it seems wrong for someone caught up in the actions of a bad actor to suffer for it" misses the points that the "caught up" person is also a bad actor, and that the purpose of the block was to spare the rest of the community from suffering from SashiRolls' disruption. Per NOTBURO we aren't supposed to nail people on technicalities. We similarlity shouldn't let them off on technicalities. I found the initial unblock request either disingenuously ignoring or lacking awareness of the previous problems, both traditional signals for declining to unblock (plus others mentioned NOTTHEM regarding Cirt). On the other hand, maybe the diff that 28bytes linked shows some promise. So I'd decide the request primarily on that basis. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 03:16, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Accept per statement and Cullen328. The declines are not persuasive. Give Sashi another chance - reblocks are easy. Cirt certainly fooled a lot of us and it’s time to start making up for that. Sashi thought they were dealing with an editor with a similar experience as they had, not a former admin with 200,000+ edits to the site who was gaming our policies. Cirt was an expert at eliminating opposing viewpoints. Don’t give them one more. Mr Ernie (talk) 03:51, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Accept I would say that Cullen's comments pare this request down to their essentials. Forensic with humanity, as is usual from this colleague.I would add that I fully take O3000's points and agree that honest self-examination publicly aired but with dignity, ain't grovelling. The bottom line is that the community can revisit any further issues and use it's consensual powers accordingly to block. WP:ROPE, colleagues. So lets call rope another chance. Simon Adler (talk) 04:06, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- I've changed my opinion to Strong Decline based on this response to my comments to jps and Begoon, which reads to me like more denial of any wrongdoing combined with several not-so-subtle attempts to get under my skin. This diff contains a more detailed response of mine. Suffice it to say, Sashi has just convinced me that he's not going to stop over-personalizing disputes (and indeed, inventing disputes to over-personalize). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Sigh, just as I'm about to post an "Accept" !vote, and then this shit happens. Starting beef with another editor is the very definition of
not saying the right things
. Sigh. Mr rnddude (talk) 04:39, 29 October 2018 (UTC)- Yeah, it's disappointing, and this why I talked about the possibility of failure and asked whether we wanted it to happen here or offsite. If the main feature of your Wikipedia career was in the context of a personality feud, the tendency is to revert to that. This is not an excuse, it's just an explanation that this is learned behavior and that getting past it is not exactly what Wikipedia is set up to accomplish. WP:MASTADONS is the cynical way to say this. jps (talk) 11:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Sigh, just as I'm about to post an "Accept" !vote, and then this shit happens. Starting beef with another editor is the very definition of
- Support unblock. Per Cullen, for instance. I think that SashiRolls can be a productive editor, despite the tone of this unblock request, if they are true to their word and refrain from sleuthing. Drmies (talk) 04:32, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblock. I think some consideration should be given to the fact that SashiRolls was actually right about the socking concerns. While being right is not justification for approaching an issue in an inappropriate way, SashiRolls was a direct victim of Cirt/Sagecandor and I think that was reprehensible behaviour by Cirt. Essentially, I see SashiRolls as an honest person with high moral standards, who just didn't approach the Cirt/Sagecandor thing very well. I have to say I'm shocked to read above that "it was well known for a long time that Cirt was editing as Sagecandor". Put me on the list of dumb admins who didn't know, and shame on any who did. I'll also add that I really don't like this "saying the right thing" requirement for unblock appeals - I prefer people who are honest about what happened and about the way forward, rather than those who are simply good at brown-nosing. Anyway, do we want back a productive editor whose ban turns out to have been tainted (at the very least), who still adhered to the ban without any sign of deception, and who clearly wants to help us build the encyclopedia? I do. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:31, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Oh, and if this unblock request is successful, I strongly recommend that SashiRolls heed the sound advice of Cullen, above. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:34, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Note: I've just realised I lost half a sentence in editing the above, so I've added it now - in italics. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblock. I have spent some time mulling this over. I'm not happy with the WP:NOTTHEM-like attitude, but I definitely have some empathy for the situation SashiRolls is in. Ultimately, this is mostly a "per Cullen" support. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 07:00, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblock for abiding by the block. Those objecting the unblock per "WP:NOTTHEM" should understand that it was not possible to write a sensible unblock request without talking about "them". Capitals00 (talk) 08:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- (Non-administrator comment) Accept. First off, this was going to be a vote to decline, and then I changed my mind as I was writing my rationale. My thought process follows:
- I can sympathize with Sashi's circumstances, but only to an extent. Sometimes life just sucks, and this is just as true on Wikipedia as it is off. I agree with the Stoics that your ability to accept this and optimize your own behavior within your constraints, and ultimately accept whatever fate those circumstances deign to hand you, is a valuable virtue. Experience shows its importance to any interactions involving considerable amounts of stress. Unfortunately, Sashi hasn't demonstrated the levelheadedness that I would prefer to see in someone whose time on Wikipedia has been characterized by high levels of stress. Some people, by mechanics I don't pretent to grasp, always court drama. When I see tales like this, I cannot help but worry that Sashi is one of them. Certainly, Sashi's comments here would explain why he courts so much drama: his tone is always combative. He probably doesn't even realize it. But his uncouched truth-telling (as I speculate he sees it) probably is problematic to the less patient editors among us. That is not a condemnation of anyone in particular; we all have personal strengths and weaknesses that translate onto this project, and we as a community need to be able to work with that.
- This applies to Sashi too. The question for then becomes whether he is likely to cause disruption. I see two possible ways this could happen. 1) He could have an axe to grind with those who he perceives to have wronged him. 2) His tone could suck him into other incidents in the future. I dismiss the first possibility offhandedly, seeing as the principal figures that have wronged him are now gone. The second is a more serious concern, but one I ultimately find to be insufficiently weighty. Do I think he'll irritate editors in the future? Yes. He has demonstrated an ability to this already today. But do I think will be a major issue? Not really. I've observed as spats broke out on talk pages I watch. They're often caused by editors who are just a little too edgy in their tones and just a little too willing to point fingers at someone else. SashiRolls is certainly both of these things. Yet in my experience, these disputes normally just dissipate, as editors reach an understanding or decide they have better things to pursue. No real animosity is left over, and no considerable time or energy has been wasted. We have countless editors like SashiRolls on this project, being productive and doing great things for this project that more than compensate for their occassional squabbles.
- I hope that SashiRolls is unblocked and does great things for this project. Regardless, I would just like to encourage him to keep in mind that sometimes, it's better to say less. Speculating about facts that other people are better positioned to contribute is generally not worth your time, as is highlighting something that's not there. If either of those things seem important to others, someone else will raise them; if not, raising them yourself will only backfire. Just say what you know and are willing to do, and let it speaks volumes for you. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 08:51, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Comment It is off-putting, to say the least, that SashiRolls does not seem to get that something like, this to a neutral observer would reasonably appear to be 'harassment and intimidation', playing at the borders of attempted WP:OUTING. So, caution to SashiRolls should this appeal succeed, as it seems it will, don't do things like that. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:49, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Support per Boing and Cullen. I'm sorry - but anyone that knew that Cirt was editing as Sagecandor and knew he was violating a topic ban - that's just wrong and unhelpful. That said, Sashi needs to take on board that he doesn't need to be the crusading investigative reporter for Wiki. Edit more articles, worry less about the political aspects of the behind the scenes stuff. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:40, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- I dunno. If it were just a matter of SashiRolls getting blocked for tangling with Cirt's sockpuppet account, then I'd say we should unblock SashiRolls with an apology. But that doesn't seem to be the sole issue here. Leaving aside the block that stemmed from Cirt's report, a brief glance suggests that this editor has a) abused multiple accounts, b) been topic-banned from the Jill Stein article, and c) been prohibited from commenting on WP:AE threads because of low-quality/inflammatory posts. Balanced against all of that problematic behavior, I don't see much constructive work. Even if we give him a free pass on everything Cirt-related (which seems fair), this isn't an account that screams "net-positive".
As for the unblock request, groveling isn't necessary, but people generally are on their own personal best behavior. If someone is combative or unpleasant during an unblock request, it's fair to conclude that they'll only be more so if unblocked. If the goal of the unblock request is to convince us that SashiRolls isn't going to hold grudges or pursue petty interpersonal BS, then I don't think it's gone very well so far. I also have a pretty low tolerance for people who use Wikipedia to promote these kinds of conspiracy theories, especially in light of the events of the past 10 days or so.
That said, I understand the arguments in favor of an unblock, and the desire to make things right in terms of the interaction with Cirt's sockpuppet. I will say that, if SashiRolls is unblocked, I'd take his commitments here quite seriously. In other words, these aren't just campaign promises; I will assume that he's being honest with us, that he will avoid grudges and crusades, will avoid politically controversial topics, and will contribute positively by copyediting, improving referencing, and so on. If he's not following through on those commitments, then I think it's fair to hold him accountable. MastCell Talk 18:23, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks to everyone for their encouraging feedback. I will endeavor not to sleuth around, be defensive, turn into an annoying moralist, or even get overly involved in wiki-chat-chat at all. I'll probably take some time in obscure corners to re-acclimate myself to the environment if unblocked. I'm not in any rush to promise a mountain of contributions and deliver a molehill, though. I've been in a lot of "rooms" with different rules of late and so will need to readjust, as mentioned above and on my talk page; so I'll simply try to avoid engaging in some areas. I just thought that I would try to get the block undone now & request that it be recognized in the edit summary that Cirt's use of sockpuppets was a very important part of my block history. That will help me be more at peace with what happened. I'm sure of it. Thanks for all the constructive criticism and support. The support from those I've interacted with since being blocked is particularly appreciated, because I do believe you know me a bit better than those who have not. — 🍣 SashiRolls (talk) 18:31, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Copied from: User talk:SashiRolls. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:39, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- I would hope that if you are unblocked, the unblocking admin would include a permalink to this discussion in the log entry - and I think that would document it far better than a log entry summary could. It's what I'd generally do (though it obviously won't be me who closes this one). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Comment. I'm not going to take a position on the request, but I want to make note of something that concerns me. From time to time, I google "Tryptofish". Over the past year, the off-wiki results have been in large part SashiRolls (or a false flag, but I doubt it) posting at multiple websites about how bad I am, very grudge-y in tone. So, admins, make of that what you will. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblocking. I was one of the admins who participated in the AE case and advocated for an extended block based on the evidence provided. Indeed, the behavior on display at the time was poor regardless of who else was involved. Whoever, I also believe that everyone aside from outright trolls and vandals should have a way forward. I'm convinced SashiRolls wants to contribute and improve Wikipedia. --Laser brain (talk) 23:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblock per Boing! and Cullen. The Cirt/Sagecandor business (I've copyedited articles for Cirt, and had no idea about the socking either) muddied the waters enough that some AGF is in order. Miniapolis 01:11, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
The world has come to an end
Clearly this is the case, as there is nothing at WP:RFAR. I check it daily, and I can't recall the last time I saw that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:56, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Shhhh, don't jinx it for us! ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:01, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, Mr Smith, reporting that there is nothing at RFAR is grounds for receiving arbitration... ——SerialNumber54129 20:27, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
Site ban proposal for Catcreekcitycouncil
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As documented on this LTA page, CCCC has been vandalizing Wikipedia for over six years, has created over 500 sockpuppet accounts to achieve this, and has shown no signs of stopping his disruption despite his primary target page (Cat Creek, Montana) being indefinitely extended protected [16]. He has recently began making claims about "zombie birds" in Michigan and other nonsense (along with his usual lions in Montana hoaxes). I'm surprised that he hasn't been officially community banned already, now's the time to do so. funplussmart (talk) 01:26, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@TonyBallioni and Funplussmart: We're *way* past WP:3X territory here, he's been active since 2012 with 54 archived SPIs and 493 tagged socks (which isn't even all of them, at this point most admins are just following WP:RBI and indefing them without tagging as soon as they pop up). The CheckUsers are sick and tired of dealing with him, and at this point most SPIs are just immediately closed and referred to AIV since he's constantly surfing proxies. I support just procedurally banning him under WP:3X now rather than dragging the CheckUsers into this again. (side note: he literally left a personal attack on my talk again as I was typing this message) --Nathan2055talk - contribs 01:55, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Same for me. He just put stuff on my talk page. funplussmart (talk) 01:59, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- That was my point
. This is an LTA and they aren’t going to be unblocked. The paperwork is meaningless. The only reason I said maybe was that I’m unsure of the CU findings post-policy change. Regardlsss, it doesn’t matter at this point. Just RBITonyBallioni (talk) 02:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Okay Nathan says that a lot of the recent disruption has not been from CCCC but rather Jeffman12345, an LTA I had quite an ugly experience with a while back. I put the {{banned}} tag on his userpage for the same reason I put it on CCCC's page, WP:3X. funplussmart (talk) 02:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- While I'm happy that we now have a firm basis for community bans for both of them, at the end of the day there's really no reason to try and figure out who's who since the procedure is the same for both: WP:RBI. Just send any new socks that come up to WP:AIV. --Nathan2055talk - contribs 04:00, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Okay Nathan says that a lot of the recent disruption has not been from CCCC but rather Jeffman12345, an LTA I had quite an ugly experience with a while back. I put the {{banned}} tag on his userpage for the same reason I put it on CCCC's page, WP:3X. funplussmart (talk) 02:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Speaking of CCCC, I would like to see an admin clean out the history of Cat Creek, Montana and remove the sock edits like what was done in 2013, per WP:DENY. funplussmart (talk) 11:57, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Revision deletion for File:Doria Ragland.png
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
On 27 May Beyond My Ken uploaded a new version of this file (https:/upwiki/wikipedia/en/archive/2/23/20180531193111%21Doria_Ragland.png) with the comment "Adjustments for visibility". This file is based on the original upload from Andrew Davidson which had too much compression. Her face is just a blur. Somehow Beyond My Ken managed to make this file worse by turning her from a black woman into a white one. That alone makes that revision a BLP violation.
This wouldn't be an issue, it's an old revision after all.. but unfortunately the file has been reverted to that rubbish version twice, once by Ribeiro2002Rafael (26 July) and a day or two ago by Andrew Davidson (who uploaded the initial version). So I suggest to delete/hide those three revisions so the file can't be reverted to that version anymore.
I know someone could just load the image in MS Paint and ruin it all over again. But having that rubbish revision with a "revert" link next to it is just a case of WP:BEANS. - Alexis Jazz 06:34, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Firstly, revdel requests don't go here, as it draws attention to the content. See WP:REVDEL for the proper processes for getting content removed by revdel. Secondly, how is brightening an image such a serious BLP violation that the content has to be hidden from non-admins? Iffy★Chat -- 10:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- @Iffy: drawing attention is no issue in this case. People looking at the old revision isn't really an issue. It only becomes a BLP violation if someone reverts the file to that version. Technically the revisions wouldn't even need to be deleted. If the "revert" link for them could be removed. I suspect that's not possible, but if it is, that'll be fine. If you insist, I could upload that worthless version as a separate file and link it in the description. It may end up getting deleted anyway because it's worthless, but if you insist I'll do it. - Alexis Jazz 11:43, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Actually if it's seemingly too much trouble I'll just hijack the file. Png is the wrong format anyway. - Alexis Jazz 12:28, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Seeking IBAN for KalHolmann with respect to Jess Wade
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- KalHolmann (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
- diff - disclosure of off-WP tweeting about Jess Wade at Talk:Jess Wade, which is a COATRACK for his criticism of her and an inappropriate use of an article Talk page; arguably a BLP violation and I have removed it. (Note that is linked from his userpage)
- edits to Jess Wade (which don't violate any content policies)
- diff, pinging the user Jess Wade in what is in my view a trolling/harassing manner
I don't know if notifications are logged and if so how to review them, and have not gone diff-searching to see if there are more of those kinds of trolling pings, but what is above appears to be gender-politics driven on-WP harassment; i have not gone and looked for the tweets about Jess Wade that KalHolmann says they sent. In my view KalHolmann should be TBANed and one-way IBANed with respect to Jess Wade.
Oh, and here he advocates for RT some more, as he did when he was pounding the table here at AN citing RT and Sputnik about the Philip Cross matter (and unsurprisingly, the RT interview discusses the Philip Cross matter extensively).
This is something that I normally would have first addressed by speaking with KalHolmann at their talk page, but given their extensive involvement in the Philip Cross matter they are very well aware of how the community thinks about editing here, editors here, and people in the real world. This is entirely knowing behavior.
I can't figure out what this person is here to do but it does not appear to be encyclopedia-building. Jytdog (talk) 13:54, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Comment For information, KalHolmann also wrote some now oversighted details on the talk page (Talk:Jess Wade), both attacking Jess Wade and disclosing personal information. Polyamorph (talk) 14:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Comment they also seem to have been involved in the Philip Cross kerfuffle. Simonm223 (talk) 14:39, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Comment I thought that Kal had been a longer term editor, but it seems he's only been editing around mid 2017. Given his strange behavior, I'm starting to wonder if WP:NOTHERE applies.💵Money💵emoji💵💸 14:55, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- I've also seen some pretty terrible comments, related to wikipedia, and a particular user in general, written on the twitter handle given on their user page - I'm not sure if this off-wiki behaviour is relevant here.Polyamorph (talk) 15:37, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- I just want to be clear as to "the argument" that KalHolmann has been making:
- Fact 1: WP has an issue with systemic bias, especially with regard to articles about women
- Fact 2: editors at WiR and others have been addressing it
- Fact 3: Jess Wade in particular has been prolific in creating bios of women scientists and has been praised for it in the real world
- Fact 4: WP had a draft article on a woman scientist that was rejected at AfC; that woman recently won a Nobel
- Fact 5: The editing community has been criticized internally and externally for 1 more fiercely in light of Fact 4.
- The "argument" is something like "how can people criticize WP for Fact 1 and Fact 4 when even the woman editor in Fact 3 didn't create the page on the eventual Nobel winner?"
- however there is Fact 6: We are volunteers here and a) nobody is required to do anything and b) nobody has time to do everything.
- The "argument" is
- a) speech intended to persuade with regard for truth in light of Fact 6 alone (and other levels); and
- b) pure trolling and sowing of discord, quite similar to the Russian efforts to mess with people in the West by multiplying inflammatory posts in social media on many sides of hot-button issues (ref); and
- c) dragging a living person who is also an editor into the trolling, mentioning her and pinging her which is harassment; and
- d) abusing the talk page of our article about that living person to do the trolling and harassment.
- There is nothing helpful, much Wikipedian, much less good or decent, in what KalHolmann has been doing on this issue.
- KalHolmann completely understands what they have been doing, given their involvement in the philip cross matter.
- We should indefinitely block KalHolmann. Jytdog (talk) 16:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Could an admin check and comment on the revdel'd content at Talk:Jess Wade from July 2018 (i.e. how bad was it)? I think it is regular revdel and not suppressed. The complaint seems overblown but I don't know why or to what extent KalHolmann has really been hassling Jess Wade. KalHolmann later posted at Talk:Jess Wade that he would stop editing the article due to COI from his twitter posts. Jytdog reverted that post as talk page abuse[17] but I don't think that reversion was needed. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 18:52, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
For what it's worth, he also takes to twitter to tell other people that I'm doing a rubbish job. I don't know what I've done to him, nor why it was my responsibility to identify a physicist in a different continent / discipline before she won a Nobel prize, but it's just bizarre. I'm just trying my hardest. Jesswade88 (talk) 19:11, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Jesswade88, yeah, it's odd. KalHolmann, I think it's best to stop trying to police Wikipedia for a while and just try to make positive contributions. I've now seen a snapshot of KalHolmann's revdel'd post, which might have been informed by KH's own earlier experiences in the Philip Cross arbitration. But the contexts were really quite a lot different. KH, if you need to have the difference explained to you, that means your understanding is not yet sufficient for you to be doing this stuff by yourself. Anyway, a formal IBAN might be going overboard, but please stop hassling Jess Wade. Pretty much everyone agrees you are barking up the wrong tree. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 19:49, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Nope, IP. The trolling is ugly enough but using someone -- someone who has worked hard to improve WP -- in the process of trolling, is completely unacceptable, not to mention the harassment. And if you can't see that, your understanding is not sufficient to be commenting here. There should be no "please stop" here. The appropriate response is, rather: "your editing privileges are yet further restricted or lost" Jytdog (talk) 20:32, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Block There has been on wiki and off-wiki sexist harrassment by this user. Agree with Jytdog that this user should be indefinitely blocked. They are not here to build an encyclopedia. Polyamorph (talk) 20:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
For the record, I deny harassing Dr Jess Wade either on or off-wiki. There is a difference between criticism and harassment. My criticisms of Dr Wade on this platform are substantive not sexist, as may be verified by fair reading of the relevant diffs. As for off-wiki, Dr Wade has never reported me to Twitter for targeted harassment, against which Twitter has strict rules that could result in indefinitely suspending my account. KalHolmann (talk) 20:37, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Your feelings about how another user spends their time editing have no place whatsoever on the talk page of the article about that editor. Your comment at the signpost was pure trolling. That you are denying these two blatant violations of the BLPCOI policy and the Harassment policy means you have no place in our community. I haven't looked at what you have written off WP but your claims about twitter dealing well with harassment are ludicrous. Jytdog (talk) 22:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- To add some context to the claims, Off-wiki sexist criticism (via your twitter account disclosed by yourself on your userpage) of a female wikipedia editor, including derogatory remarks about how they are dressed, is harrassment. As is the behaviour on-wiki highlighted by Jytdog. Polyamorph (talk) 22:12, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
KH, Wikipedia is not a place to criticize people, as opposed to edits. And your complaints about Jesswade88's editing have been rejected by other editors consistently enough that I think it's also time to leave that topic alone. And taking umbrage with her for not writing a biography of Donna Strickland is silly. I can't support the claims of sexism or NHBE that some people have made here, but I do see persistent WP:BATTLE editing and that's not good either. (I'd say the same to Jytdog). The revdel'd edit from July might have been blockable given KH's past history in the arb case (otherwise it might have rated "please be careful about personal info"), but it doesn't warrant action months after the fact.
KH, I hope you can chill out and assume that people here are mostly doing their best, and try to be decent. You make some good contributions but you're also in a pattern of conflicts that can eventually result in your getting blocked even if no single conflict is enough for that. So relax. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:01, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- It clearly seems KalHolmann is not intending to abide by his ArbCom restriction, and indeed seems determined to have a battlefield mentality. Overall, I find his editing incompatible with the goals of this project, and have blocked him indefinitely for this on and off-wiki behaviour towards Jess Wade, given I find he violated his Arbitration remedy in doing so, I have no hope a lesser sanction, like the proposed interaction ban, would be more than kicking the can down the road. Courcelles (talk) 23:05, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Support IBan
- Support per obvious on and off wiki harassment. I would support an indef, but let us see if they can/will abide by an IBan first. zchrykng (talk) 22:37, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Mrmph KH should stop interacting with JW but usually we don't do a formal IBAN until there has been reasonable informal effort to stop the conflict. I'd prefer an admonition about battleground editing but won't oppose IBAN if others think it's needed. If it matters, I haven't looked at the off wiki stuff. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:46, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, it matters. KalHolmann (talk) 22:51, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Oppose IBan
- Oppose The flimsy "evidence" cited above does not justify an IBan. KalHolmann (talk) 22:58, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Open Proxy noticeboard backlog
Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies/Requests has requests dating back 4 weeks. I'm not good with this stuff, but any admins who know how to check for open proxies, please pitch in and help clear the backlog. Thanks! --Jayron32 15:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Colorectal cancer - Lifestyle
Could someone please look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorectal_cancer#Lifestyle?
This all began when I fixed what I thought was a simple error, after I noticed a sentence did not agree with an existing reference:
Someone without explanation undid my change. But I was then able to make the change again by adding this comment: "World Cancer Research Fund International actually said it's "convincing", not even just "probable", in the cited report. The original sentence is wrong." I also noted on this person's Talk page.
But then, one user exhibited this behavior: (1) deleting existing reference(s) when the exiting reference(s) do not serve his biased view, (2) citing new reference(s) (which may be less accessible) only partially and/or misconstruing the partial cite, to serve his biased view, and (3) after the new reference(s) are more fully examined and no longer serves his biased view, he goes back to either (1) or (2).
(1) He deleted both existing references (one is from the WCRF, please note this for later).
(2) He cited one from the WHO. The WHO reference is harder to access, but it's actually the first link from Google search "World Cancer Report 2014 pdf". The WHO never said the evidence is "not strong". When I corrected his edit, I commented: "Rather, the WHO said "an inverse relation was seen". The EPIC study cited by the WHO said "strengthen the evidence", so it was made stronger. Stronger is very different from "not strong"."
He then did several things: https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Colorectal_cancer&type=revision&diff=865733039&oldid=865729356
In order of appearance:
(2) He added a citation from the Fruits section (the existing citation is from the Fiber section), but only did it partially, and misconstrued even the partial sentence. This was discussed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Colorectal_cancer#Fruits
(2) He added a new reference ("Ma and Zhou"). Here, the reference said 14% to 21% lower risk, but he only wrote 14%.
(2) He again misconstrued the citation from the Fiber section. When I corrected his edit, I commented: "The WHO did not say "unclear" nor "not ... benefit". The WHO cited the old study first, and the new study later. Please stop making up your own words with negative connotation, and switching the order of conclusion."
More specifically, the WHO's sentence referenced: "Year 2005 study [7], although year 2012 study [8]", as in: "Several large prospective cohort studies of dietary fibre and colon cancer risk have not supported an association [7], although an inverse relation was seen in the large European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study and a recent meta-analysis [8]."
But he change it to: "[8]. [Ma and Zhou]. Although [7]."
(1) He deleted the WHO reference.
(2) He added a new reference ("Song and Chan"). This reference is even less accessible, but it was found on Sci-Hub. He made the "Song and Chan" reference into two sentence. When I corrected the misleading sentences, I commented: "Fixing two sentences that made it look as if the "2018 review" is based on later evidence. In fact the quote (now more fully quoted) is from the same paragraph that ended with the 2017 conclusion."
Note that the 2017 conclusion is actually from the WCRF, which he had deleted earlier (albeit the WCRF's 2011 version). In Talk, he had said "The World Cancer Report [by the WHO] is a better source. A charity [WCRF noted above] is not the best source for medical content." But this is what happened: he deleted WCRF, added WHO, deleted WHO, added WCRF.
(2) He added a reference from the NCI, and the NCI cited a study from year 2000, about cancer recurrence (not new incidence).
Another user then added statements that are entirely made up. I corrected the errors, but he then undid my corrections, and "warned" me on my Talk page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:24.8.207.91
I admit I am not well versed in Wikipedia etiquette/conventions, but I think people generally can tell right from wrong.
His changes are more easily seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Colorectal_cancer&type=revision&diff=866160603&oldid=866137689
I also noted on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Colorectal_cancer#Simplify_paragraph_on_dietary_factors
Including the portion that he deleted:
This is before his deletion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk:Colorectal_cancer&oldid=866158329
The WHO said the animal studies suggested prospective studies, and yes there are challenges, and despite the challenges, the conclusions are based on the prospective studies. His "This was based on animal studies and retrospective observational studies." sentence is false. His next sentence is also entirely made up.
Also, the WHO said "several" studies, not "most" studies. The WHO said the benefit was seen in larger and recent studies, but he simply omitted that part. The WHO said the variations in findings need to be better understood, but he wrote "status of the science on remained unclear".
Please investigate what's going on, and please restore at least the two paragraphs to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Colorectal_cancer&oldid=866137689
Please also note that I have only focused on the diets/fiber section. I do not know what other changes the two users might have made on this page or other pages.
Thank you.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.207.91 (talk • contribs)
- Comment This is not the appropriate venue for a content dispute. I suggest you go to article talk and hash it out with them there. Simonm223 (talk) 19:06, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you for the response, I have tried to do that in Talk. One of the users mentioned above "warned" me and deleted my comment in Talk. I sincerely hope someone looks into this.
- This is more about the behavior by multiple users on a topic.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.207.91 (talk • contribs)
Proposed clarification of "controversial circumstances" at Wikipedia:Administrators#After voluntary removal
Following on from comments in a thread on the Bureaucrats' noticeboard about discrepancies between Wikipedia:Administrators and Wikipedia:Bureaucrats regarding when 'crats should not resysop an editor on request, I am proposing changing the former to match actual practice and at the same time remove a potential unrelated ambiguity/contradiction regarding administrators who voluntarily resign their tools and subsequently have an extended period of inactivity. Please discuss this at Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Clarifying "controversial circumstances". I have also advertised this discussion at WP:BN. Thryduulf (talk) 19:36, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
User:SineBot Not Working
Anyone know why User:Sinebot is not working anymore