Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents: Difference between revisions

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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User:Fuzheado

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On 30th August, admin Fuzheado reinstated the ongoing COVID-19 ITN item on the main page [1] against what was pretty clear consensus. Soon after, admin Amakuru asked Fuzheado to reconsider [2]. Instead of reconsidering, Fuzheado accused the admin Spencer of having removed the ITN item in "poor faith" [3]. This was noticed by admin floquenbeam [4] but Fuzheado failed to correct/retract the "poor faith" accusation [5]. I noted in this discussion that I felt the pull was an abuse of admin privilege (going against consensus) [6]. The reinstatement by Fuzheado caused significant disruption to the discussion, other editors including WaltCip, noted that this was not the first time they had made a decision at ITN going against clear consensus [7]. The discussion was closed by Amakuru and can be read in full here. In the second discussion there was once again clear consensus for removal (despite some bludgeoning by one user of that discussion).

A discussion was opened by LaserLegs at Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#Rogue_admins. At the start of this discussion Fuzheado appeared to defend their actions here. However, even if Spencer's closure was premature, that does not justify Fuzheado reverting it after further discussion had taken place and consensus remained pretty clear. Regardless, we all make mistakes, even admins. That's fine. The issue here is Fuzheado appears to be unable to own and correct their mistake.

In the "Rogue admins" discussion, admin Black Kite pointed out that Fuzheado has made previous ill-considered admin actions at ITN, despite visiting infrequently. I copy their examples here: Pulling something that had obvious support, Wheel-warring whilst accusing another admin - who hadn't wheel-warred - of doing the same, Supervote and criticism of another admin, guess what the final result was. Black Kite suggested Fuzheado should - at the least - voluntarily step back from using their admin bit to impose their own opinions. Otherwise a discussion about a topic ban is clearly indicated.

Admin Spencer posted further evidence of poor admin judgement by Fuzheado which I copy below:

• Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/February_2020#(Pulled)_RD:_Orson_Bean - premature posting, pulled due to lack of citations
• Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/February_2022#(Posted)_Super_Bowl_LVI - premature posting of an article relying on primary sources with CN tags
• Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/April_2021#(Re-posted)_Tianhe_launch - premature posting, later pulled due to lack of citations, later re-posted after quality improved
• Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/April_2016 (multiple issues with postings, related to citations and another with an orange-tagged article, resulting in both to be pulled) see the sections related to "Kollam temple accident" and "Merle Haggard". This prompted users to comment, "I have no problem with the condition of the article now, but Fuzheado's posting (and re-posting in wheel war fashion) without attempting to form a consensus sets a very uncomfortable precedence here." and "Fuzheado this is the third time in a week or so that you've rushed into making bad decisions."
• Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/March_2016 "Zaha Hadid" prematurely posted, and pulled due to lack of citations
• Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/January_2021#(Pulled)_2021_Portuguese_presidential_election Prematurely posted, pulled due to quality issues.
• Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/March_2020#(Reposted)_Italian_lockdown Prematurely posted before consensus settled, pulled, later re-posted.
• Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/January_2017 RD nom for "Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani" - prematurely posted, pulled due to referencing issues as well as BLP issues ("This absolutely cannot be posted anywhere on the main page in its current state. Not only are there huge slabs of unreferenced text, but a number of BLP issues. Please don't do that folks")

After some discussion with Sean Heron it was clear that the "Rogue admins" discussion at the ITN talk page was not very fair on Fuzheado as it didn't really give them a fair chance to respond. In light of this I posted a notice on their talk page asking them to address the concerns about their use of admin tools per WP:ADMINACCT [8].

I received no reply from Fuzheado after 1 week. I asked at ITN talk what I should do and admin Bagumba suggested I leave a polite reminder, which I did. Over a week later Fuzheado has not responded to this reminder either. This is not what is expected per WP:ADMINACCT.

Only a few number of users at ITN have admin tools required to edit the main page. It is therefore important that any admin retains the trust of the community that they will use those tools responsibly. I believe that trust has been lost. It is very regrettable that I must bring this here, but Fuzheado will not engage in discussion.

Best wishes, Polyamorph (talk) 08:45, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

It's unfortunate that to date, Fuzheado has failed to respond promptly and civilly to queries, as per WP:ADMINACCT, prompting this noticeboard post. Still, I hope they can respond here.—Bagumba (talk) 08:56, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Note: Notification of this discussion has been left at the aforementioned thread Wikipedia talk:In the news § Rogue admins.—Bagumba (talk) 09:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment (I'm involved in this in a minor way and mentioned above) - I think on its own, the COVID ongoing removal incident could be excused - a lot of editors were unhappy with Spencer's early close of the debate, and we can debate whether reinstating it 24 hours later once a lot more consensus had developed was correct or not (I didn't think it was, hence why I asked Fuzheado to reconsider). Clearly the accusation of bad faith against Spencer was not acceptable, though - even though Spencer later apologised and said it would have been better to wait longer, their initial decision to pull was very clearly made in good faith (and indeed, that was the consensus outcome later, when all the dust had settled). WP:ADMINCOND mandates admins to be civil in their interactions with other editors, and the bad faith accusation was not that. So for this incident alone, I'd say a WP:TROUT is in order and nothing more. However, we also have to consider all the other incidents mentioned above - particularly the wheel warring and the bad-faith accusation that another editor wheel warred when they didn't, both of which are further breaches of WP:ADMINCOND - and I think with all that, it elevates to something more serious. If Fuzheado comes here with a full acknowledgement of where they went wrong in the above incidents, and promises to change, then we might possibly be able to move on with a warning, but failing that I think at the least a topic ban from ITN would be in order, which we could enforce here at ANI, and possibly elevating this to Arbcom to consider whether Fuzheado still enjoys the trust and confidence needed to be an admin. WP:WHEEL is supposed to be a bright-line rule, after all. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:00, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  I wouldn't say "possibly." An admin who was TBANned from any area raises grave concerns about their ability to use the tools wisely and well -- what are the odds that any tbanned editor could gain as much as 25% support at RfA? -- and a desysopping inquiry should be axiomatic for anything of the sort. And it's tough to make excuses for Fuzheado when a glance at their contribution list shows around 80 edits since Polyamorph first touched up his talk page. Ravenswing 10:23, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment (I am also mentioned above). I've complained before about Fuzheado's subpar decisions at ITN and I really think it's time it was addressed properly, as it's been going on for years as can be seen above. Making mistakes is one thing - I've posted ITN noms before and had them pulled because people pointed out things I hadn't noticed (one happened the other day in fact), and I'm sure that's happened to every regular ITN admin - but as can be seen from the examples above, this is a more basic problem of "I think this should be posted, so I'm posting it, regardless of consensus and/or quality, and I'm going to treat objections with bad faith". The Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani incident and the wheel-warring one were really not good at all. I'm ambivalent as to whether this rises to the level of whether Fuzheado should be an admin per se (I don't see any other tool issues and they don't use the tools much otherwise anyway), but I would definitely - as I've said before - suggest they give ITN a wide berth in future, hopefully voluntarily. Black Kite (talk) 10:32, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I agree that there is a problem with driveby impositions of admin will/supervoting and would like this to stop Bumbubookworm (talk) 05:39, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• WHEEL, INVOLVED comment The wheel-warring incident mentioned earlier (full thread here) is troubling. Fuzheado accused KTC of wheel-warring after KTC pulled the initial post. WP:WHEEL applies to undoing a reversal, not to the initial reversal: Do not repeat a reversed administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes. Clearly an unwarranted accusation. Fuzheado then re-posts, reversing KTC's pull; it's Fuzheado who actually wheel warred. Moreover, Fuzheado was already WP:INVOLVED in the discussion, having !voted support for the post at 21:26, 20 April 2021. It seems inconsistent that Fuzheado re-posted when the ITNC discussion had only been about an hour. Only a couple of weeks prior to that at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/April 2021 § (Posted as blurb) RD: Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Fuzheado pulled a blurb with the rationale of ...a rapid posting in an hour on the front page should only be done with little to no opposition, but that is not the case here...—Bagumba (talk) 11:25, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Holy moly That got my attention. @Fuzheado: This wheel warring thing is quite serious. Please deal with this quickly. I think the least remedy we can look forward to is a TBAN from ITN stuff.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 11:33, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  Sent Fuzheado an email in case they are not aware of this thread. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 11:41, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

• INVOLVED comment - Personally, I hope Fuzheado are able to engage with community concerns resulting in some lessons learned and we all move on. If however Fuzheado are unable or unwilling to do so however, then I share other editors concerns here about a pattern of behaviour which is non-ideal. -- KTC (talk) 11:56, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Sourcing comment From the links in the OP, Fuzheado has been overlooking sourcing deficiencies in their ITN posts since at least 2016, and the problem has continued. In one 2016 incident (here), they posted a blurb within a few hours after just one support !vote, which was then pulled due to BLP concerns. In another apparent WHEEL, Fuzheado unilaterally re-posts soon after without any new !votes at the time.—Bagumba (talk) 12:41, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

• Quick response (copied from User talk) - Consider the talk page note acknowledged and I have now seen this ANI thread. As you can see from my largely dormant on-wiki activity since September 1, I was away from the Internet for U.S. Labor Day weekend, involved with the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin for another five days, and then filled with work obligations ever since I've been back. I will respond when I get a chance, but with all respect, do understand that I consider a response to these is not the highest priority right now. Thanks for your patience. - Fuzheado | Talk 15:14, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Fuzheado: of course, people will have sympathy and give you some leeway if you have real-life commitments that mean your on-wiki time is limited. However, I would also point out that WP:ADMINACCT has a requirement that "Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrative actions, especially during community discussions on noticeboards or during Arbitration Committee proceedings". So while I imagine the community can be somewhat patient if you're busy, that won't be unlimited. And certainly when it comes to on-wiki activity, engaging with this discussion should be your highest priority at this time, if the community is to maintain its confidence in you and your accountability as an admin.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:22, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Fuzheado: thank you for your response. I appreciate you are busy and have other real life priorities, but you have been on-wiki since the note I left on your talk page and WP:ADMINACCT requires your prompt response. So please could you reconsider your priorities? Polyamorph (talk) 15:28, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  If you're going to be away from Wikipedia for a while, that is of course understandable. Please don't take any controversial admin actions on the day before you leave. Levivich (talk) 16:58, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with Levivich that if work and personal obligations are such that it is impossible to devote time to Wikipedia to answer to inquiries, then you should not be taking any admin actions that would indicate a heightened level of discretion and judgment being applied. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 17:59, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  Your mileage clearly varies, but personally if I was informed about a discussion that cast doubt on my ability to use the tools, I would be making sure that one of my very next edits was to at the least acknowledge it, as opposed to making 75 edits over a period of two weeks before even doing so (66 of those edits after a second reminder), and then that acknowledgement - by which time it's escalated to ANI - to say "yeah, whatever". Black Kite (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, I was thinking much the same. After Polyamorph's initial post to his talk page, Fuzheado found the time to tinker with the Don McMillan article on September 2nd, and make page moves on the Indira Lakshmanan article on September 6th. Afer Polyamorth's reminder post, Fuzheado found the time to put in a couple dozen edits on Wikipedia:GLAM and the Women's History Edit-a-Thon on the 13th, 14th and 15th, before segueing to a few dozen more edits and chiming in with an impassioned defense on an AfD.

  Fuzheado was quite accurate in stating that answering such questions is not high on his priority list. But they sure as hell should be higher on his list than random Wikitinkering, and he should well be aware that there will be scrutiny of how many edits he makes between now and when he next deigns to respond here. Ravenswing 19:00, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

  I agree as well as thinking that replying to the concerns of another editor whilst involved with an Edit-a-Thon would be a wonderful teaching moment and a great way of showing everyone how important consensus was. Even if the edit was done privately and it was just mentioned in passing conversations. Gusfriend (talk) 22:18, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment As someone who only witnessed the whole drama as lurker, I find the accusations against Fuzheado in the covid19 case quite ludicrous. The admin who initially removed covid19 from Ongoing acknowledged himself that his action had been premature and he should have let the discussion run for some more time, and there were many people that wanted the discussion to continue. Those unhappy with Fuzheado's decision started a thread on the Talk page entitled "Rogue Admins" - doesn't that say it all about the presumption of good faith in Fuzheado's actions? Khuft (talk) 15:44, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

This is not about Fuzheado's reversion of the COVID19 ongoing news removal, but his subsequent accusations of other admins acting in "poor faith", other ill-considered admin actions at ITN, and wheel warring. Regarding the "Rogue Admins" section, I had some discussions with several users, including Sean Heron (User_talk:Polyamorph#I'll_make_myself_more_clear_-_Re_engaging_with_ITN_admin_you_view_as_"rogue") and Bagumba at the ITN talk page about the title of the section (created by LaserLegs) and the neccessity of giving Fuzheado a fair chance to respond to the concerns. It is precisely for this reason that I initiated the User_talk:Fuzheado#ITN thread at Fuzheado's user talk page. I continue to wait and look forward to their response per WP:ADMINACCT. Polyamorph (talk) 16:04, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment is this about wheel warring or not? If it is then we shouldn't be listing a grab bag of complaints going back six years that have nothing to do with that. And what is a "premature posting"? Who decides whether it is premature and whether consensus has been achieved? It's a judgement call, not a vote, so those declarations of "premature posting" listed as misdeeds are just statements of opinion. If this really is about wheel warring, then those complaints should be struck. Gamaliel (talk) 00:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  They are a collection of their administrative actions at ITN. Admins are accountable for their judgements. —Bagumba (talk) 00:44, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  Per WP:ADMINACCT they demonstrate Repeated or consistent poor judgment. Note only admins can edit the main page and it's concerning if they consistently do so against consensus. There are four concerns I originally raised at Fuzheado's talk page: 1) pulling/reinstating items against consensus, 2) wheel warring, 3) unjustly accusing others of wheel warring, and 4) labelling another admin action as "poor faith" Polyamorph (talk) 04:36, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

  • Poor judgment in your opinion is not necessarily a policy violation. If people are going to conclude it's poor judgment they are going to need more than a declaration from an involved party that the judgment call was premature. Gamaliel (talk) 14:39, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

    er, wheel-warring is a policy violation and poor judgement. But that's why we are here. Also, admins are supposed to timely respond even if the person seeking a response is off-base. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 14:42, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

    • Sorry for not being clear, I was talking about the "premature posting" issue and how that is clearly a matter of opinion. The timely response issue has already been addressed, I believe. It is unfortunate timing, but the mop is a volunteer position and people should be given some reasonable leeway for real life circumstances. Gamaliel (talk) 14:45, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

      His "real life circumstances" did not prevent him from making several dozen Wikipedia edits in that time frame. I'm at a loss as to why you keep bringing up those "circumstances" while ignoring that, as well as ignoring the several editors and admins (this isn't just Polyamorph popping off) who have concerns in this matter that we are waiting for Fuzheado to deign to address.

      Beyond that, yes, the mop is a volunteer position: one which you have to seek out, undergo an exacting process to obtain -- requiring securing the community's trust to do so -- and carrying serious responsibilities in terms of conduct and communication. Meeting those responsibilities is not a matter of doing so only when you feel like it, or only when you can find the time. If Fuzheado does not have the time to explain his actions, he does not have the time to be using the tools. Ravenswing 15:02, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I take issue with your opening line when you say I acted "against what was pretty clear consensus." That is incorrect. I go into more detail in the extended response. If Spencer themselves says "I would additionally like to apologize to all for premature reading of consensus in the previous discussion; it was poor judgment on my part and muddied the discussion regarding the nomination," then it was not "pretty clear consensus" at all. Do you have a response to this? - Fuzheado | Talk 04:48, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Note I responded to this below, I agree this was my personal POV which was both shared and opposed by others at ITN. Apologies for not being clear in my OP. Polyamorph (talk) 09:02, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Comment: I'm confused why we're here. The proximate incident that prompted this discussion saw Fuzheado reverse a premature admin action, taken before consensus was established, by reinstating an item on T:ITN. These facts are clear—the admin who later reverted Fuzheado has said it was a "premature reading of consensus," and a brief look at the discussion reveals multiple editors who either opposed the item's removal or supported its reinstatement. Rather than being against any policy, Fuzheado's decision gave the discussion time to come to a consensus that the item should be removed. (The subsequent "poor faith" comment isn't laudable, but it also doesn't come close to violating the usual interpretations of our civility policy, so I'm unsure why that's being prominently cited above.)

So, let's look instead at the diffs cited above. Many, if not all of them, seem to refer to relatively minor issues/concerns and/or reasonable differences in admin judgement. For example, let's look at the Prince Philip ITN removal. Fuzheado reverted the addition to ITN because "a rapid posting in an hour on the front page should only be done with little to no opposition [and] that is not the case here." That ... sounds like an entirely reasonable reason to revert, slow down, and let the discussion continue to develop for more than 55 minutes. It does not sound like a problem requiring action at ANI, and similarly quick ITN postings for other/non-British royalty topics have been roundly criticized in the past.

So what's actually at the heart of the concerns laid out above? We could look to the relatively loose rules that govern ITN's discussions and posting, and find that we're here today because the significant room for interpretation has led to predictable disagreements. That's not a problem ANI can solve—that's something ITN has to address for itself. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:03, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

The reason we are here is because Fuzheado has not responded to attempts to discuss these legitimate concerns. There are a number of incorrect assessments in your comment above - no one reverted Fuzheado until after a second discussion. There were actually many more editors opposing the item's reinstatement. Fuzheado was given several opportunities to retract their "poor faith" comment, they declined to do so. I think I explained the situation as well as I could in my OP so I'm not going to keep repeating. Polyamorph (talk) 07:17, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I have now posted an extended reply addressing the "poor faith" comment - the user themselves said it was "poor judgment on my part and muddied the discussion regarding the nomination." So I don't know why it is so alarming when the same word is used in both instances. Regardless, please read the entire response for more context. Regards. - Fuzheado | Talk 04:44, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm confused why we're here: Because Fuzheado has not responded to prior queries on other talk pages. I'm more interested in first seeing their explanations for their administrative actions. Per WP:ADMINACCT:

...unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools. Subject only to the bounds of civility, avoiding personal attacks, and reasonable good faith, editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrative actions...

—Bagumba (talk) 07:53, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

@Polyamorph and Bagumba: "legitimate" is an interesting word to use there. First, judging consensus—or a lack thereof—is not vote counting. But even if we engage in that exercise to keep this comment shorter, counting the votes reveals a significant minority of editors that are against removing/for reinstating, all in a discussion that's gone on for less than 24 hours. So no, the most recent concerns are unobjectionably not "legitimate." As a result, we're now looking at an ANI that asks an admin to expedite an explanation for alleged issues that are at best seven months old, and that is in my view not appropriate. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:22, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Replying to the ping. I await a response from Fuzheado. The lack of a response has lead us here only after consulting with admins that is appropriate to do so. Polyamorph (talk) 16:32, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Fuzheado has already responded that they are in the midst of international travel, I believe. That is certainly an understandable reason why they have not provided an in-depth response to the current matter. There are also a grab bag of allegations going back to 2016 but I don't see any evidence presented that they historically have not responded to queries. Gamaliel (talk) 14:42, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

As others have opined above, an admin should not be taking controversial actions if they will not be available to explain those actions. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 15:17, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

A two-week international travel that allows them to do other edits but not deal with this? See this from BK. GiantSnowman 14:48, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Don't bother trying to convince Wikimedia DC Communications Committee and Fundraising Committe member Robert Fernandez (Gamaliel) that Wikimedia DC Communications Committee and Fundraising Committee member Andrew Lih (Fuzheado) might possibly have done anything wrong, the chances of that most toxic of chapters (together with Wikimedia UK probably) choosing reality over friendship is nil. Fram (talk) 15:04, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fram: Not saying there has been any, but in there event that there is any off-wiki communication/canvassing, should this be declared? Polyamorph (talk) 15:38, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

@Fram: Is that a conspiracy theory, a personal attack, a bad-faith comment, or all three? You should consider redacting your comment, especially as the outing part has already needed to be oversighted. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:22, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Note: The oversighter later restored the information.[9]—Bagumba (talk) 09:10, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

'Oversight??? Then perhaps someone should inform Gamaliel, self-declared Board member of Wikimedia DC[10], that Robert Fernandez, board member of Wikimedia DC, is impersonating Gamaliel in his Cv on the Wikimedia Dc page[11], including linking to his twitter account, "wikigamaliel". Speaking of conspiracy theories, that oversight is completely ridiculous, can you tell me who thought this a reasonable use of that extreme tool? Fram (talk) 17:33, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

@Ed17: perhaps you should also contact oversight forCommons and especially Wikidata [12], which was repeatedly edited by Gamaliel. Apology accepted. Fram (talk) 17:54, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

@The ed17: previous ping was incorrect. Fram (talk) 18:11, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Two WMF members turning up in this discussion is an interesting development. Polyamorph (talk) 16:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

@Polyamorph: This is not the first time someone has tried to intimidate me on-wiki based on my employment, and I'll tell you the same thing I have everyone else: I've been a community member for a lot longer than I've been with the WMF, and I have plenty of my own views that are separate from those of the organization. (Who even is the other WMF staff member in this discussion?) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:42, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I've done nothing of the sort! I just find it interesting. Any off-wiki communications with Fuzheado should be disclosed though, if they should occur. Polyamorph (talk) 16:46, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I would respectfully submit to all that we should focus on the matters at hand and arguments thereabout, rather than the identities of participants, or insinuations of improper behavior. Just a thought. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:53, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and no. I am not an admin or a WMF member, I am the least intimidating user here. We have a WP:COI policy in article space. Does that not also apply here? Eitherway, you're right. I apologise for any insinuations on my part. Polyamorph (talk) 16:58, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but it should first be made abundantly clear that nobody in this thread has attempted to intimidate Ed. Intimidation is a serious accusation, and it should not be made lightly. This thread is about concerns with the lack of accountability displayed by an admin who also happens to be a WMF staffer. When two other WMF staffers show up and dismiss the concerns expressed by numerous editors, they should expect that eyebrows will be raised. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 17:05, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Especially when neither is a regular at ANI, indeed Ed has not posted here since December 2020. Must be a coincidence, though. Black Kite (talk) 17:17, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

How did an outing not result in an immediate block? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:52, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps because it's not outing when the information has been revealed on-Wiki by the person "outed"? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:40, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

At the time of my comment that material was oversighted, so it appeared to be a legit outing. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:25, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: Who is outing who? Nythar^T.C 19:28, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Fram posted a comment mentioning Gamaliel's real name, and that was oversighted. It appears that was later restored, once it was established that Gamaliel linked had previously his account to his real name. With that resolved, we can move on from this tangent. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:54, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeesh, this place. Unless I've missed the news, Fuzheado is not a WMF staffer. Ditto Gamaliel. They are, unless I'm mistaken, volunteers who help out at WMDC. For anyone who may be confused/misled about what that means: For most affiliates, being on the board is basically someone telling you "hey, so I see you're pretty involved as a volunteer -- would you be willing to help out with writing annual reports and stuff, too?" Like writing articles, uploading photos, fighting vandalism, and copyediting, volunteering with an affiliate is one of many, many ways people support the project. I'm on the board of WMNYC, which I joined about a decade after I became a Wikipedian. If I were an admin/arb/whatever and a fellow board member found themselves in a sticky situation on-wiki, I certainly wouldn't take any formal admin/arb actions about them, but since we're ultimately just volunteers together, I'd expect to be able to have an opinion without a bunch of people insinuating some corruption either directly or by "just asking questions". YMMV. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:21, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely, but since the last time you posted at ANI was three days ago, as opposed to four months or nearly two years, I'd assume that you became aware of the discussion through your normal editing activity, as opposed to any other route. Black Kite (talk) 18:29, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Actually, after taking a second look, I'm not so sure as I initially was.

• Contrary to the OP, the Aug 30 reinstatement of the COVID ongoing was not "against consensus" in any way. Take a look at the thread at the time of reinstatement. The thread was posted at Aug 29 13:19 and ongoing was removed at 16:48; at that point it was a near-unanimous "support", but as everyone--including the admin who pulled it--now agrees, that was too soon, only a little more than three and a half hours. After the removal, the following !votes were much more mixed, almost half calling for reinstatement by my quick count. Not at all a clear consensus; if anything, it shifted far more towards "reinstate" after the removal than in the first three hours. Fuzheado reinstated it the next day 12:37 Aug 30. I think reinstatement was the right call: the initial removal was premature, and the "consensus" was split 50/50 at the time.
• The most-recent other instance of Fuzheado doing anything wrong provided in this thread goes back to April 2021. I initially misread that as April 2022.
• If the only time Fuzheado did anything wrong with his tools in the past year and a half was to not answer inquiries in response to the Aug 30 reinstatement... while he should have answered more promptly and fully, this is a nothingburger.

So are we seriously talking about one failure of adminacct in 18 months? Or is there anything else relevant that's happened this year? Levivich (talk) 15:14, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Please see the query I posted on Fuzheado's talk page. The Aug 30 reinstatement is not in itself what I asked Fuzheado to explain. This is what I asked

Only a small number of users at ITN have the elevated rights required to edit the main page. It is therefore important that any user using admin tools can retain the trust of the community that they will use those tools responsibly. After discussion with Sean Heron on my talk page, it is fair that you are provided with an opportunity to respond to the concerns per WP:ADMINACCT. These concerns are that you have historically made controversial admin actions at ITN, including pulling/reinstating items against consensus, wheel warring, and accusing others of wheel warring. Most recently you stated another admin (Spencer) of acting in "poor faith". I'd like you to consider whether this is something you would like to retract. Black Kite has suggested you might voluntarily refrain from using your administrator tools to impose your own opinions. Is this something that you would consider?

. Nearly three weeks later I am still awaiting their response. I would like to hear this.Polyamorph (talk) 15:25, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Given that the failure of adminacct is still ongoing, yes we are seriously talking about it. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 15:27, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

• Sigh ... look. No-one is asking for Fuzheado to stop editing Wikipedia, no-one is calling for him to resign the tools, no-one is shouting for them to be dragged off to ArbCom. All they are are saying is "look, there's a long history of you editing Template:In the News in a controversial way so perhaps you could, you know, stop doing that?" If Fuzheado gave that assurance and then returned to doing whatever they do at Wikipedia we could all go to the pub and close this. Black Kite (talk) 17:30, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Exactly this. Polyamorph (talk) 17:35, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Here here. One of the biggest criticisms of ANI is someone's friends coming out to bat for them. I hope that's not what is happening here. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:36, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

And now if we choose to TBAN Fuzheado from ITN, must we fear WMF retaliation? -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:38, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

All that is needed at this point is for Fuzheado to acknowledge and address our concerns. Just like any editor. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:39, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Comment I am not an admin and have only been here about a year but would like to say a few things:

• With great power comes great responsibility.
• As someone who has never been involved with ITN or heard of Fuzheado before I have appreciated the additional context that concerns about their previous actions provides.
• Consensus maters and part of that is explaining your reasoning. It may be an admin action or explaining why you declined an article at AfC as it had no references.
• Communication matters.
• The community matters.
• Whilst in no way indicating that this is the consensus of the community or starting a formal proposal, Fuzheado does not have my personal support for continued use of their admin tools at ITN

I admit that this is all way too early as we have yet to really hear from Fuzheado, but we have yet to really hear from Fuzheado. Apologies to all. Gusfriend (talk) 22:29, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you Gusfriend. Honestly I find the lack of any meaningful response from Fuzheado indicates (to me) contempt for the community daring to ask them to be accountable for their admin actions. Note Fuzheado has been active elsewhere on wikimedia but still cannot find the time to respond. Polyamorph (talk) 03:26, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  Fuzheado's been on Meta today, fixing a Wikimania volunteer page. Nythar^T.C 03:48, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  That's disappointing, because they are pages about Wikimania 2023, which isn't until next year. This seems more urgent. Levivich (talk) 18:39, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  I think you folks are not realistic enough about the attitudes of olden day admins, especially those who are not really here, but self-identify as 'intellectuals', 'strategic thinkers' or the like, but have a tendency to intervene sometimes to 'save' us plebs. Many of the ITN regulars who are rightfully not happy about what has happened will have had direct experience going back to the 2000s when there were some arbitrators got into power due to terra nullius but who were absent almost all the time and had the temerity to self-evaluate in semi-public forums that them and their factional colleagues were the 'foundation' or 'cornerstone' of WP or somesuch. Now, any competent POV-pusher or spammer knows that there is one WP for hat-collectors and pseudointellectuals who lie about their qualifications (typically people from a certain type of demographic background), and another where the POV-pusher/spammer can actually have their impact on washing whatever articles they need to, but the impact that the hat-collector and pseudo-intellectual has on the world of Wikipedia is a lot more limited than they think. There are a few amusing instances of old arbitrators delusionally running for re-election and being hauled out a la Marcos/Ceaucescu/Gaddafi etc Bumbubookworm (talk) 19:12, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

No response comment @Gamaliel: ...but I don't see any evidence presented that they historically have not responded to queries. (It was too unwieldy for an indented respone to your original comment above) There seems to be at least one prior incident of no response from Fuzheado during the wheel-warring over the George Floyd blurb, which also did not receive a response on their related user talk page thread.—Bagumba (talk) 10:06, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Also User talk:Fuzheado/Archive 18#Close at Talk:Warren Clinic shooting from June 2022. The more I look at this, the less I see it as a wheel warring or ITN issue, the more I see it as a chronic WP:ADMINACCT issue. Levivich (talk) 19:07, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Their lack of communication is strange. Nythar^T.C 19:15, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

At this point, it appears intentional. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:27, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

If they wait long enough, this section might be archived and forgotten without them responding to it. Nythar^T.C 20:38, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment It's three weeks since I first posted what was a very reasonable request, asking Fuzheado to consider some concerns about their admin actions at ITN. Its been two weeks since my reminder and it's been three days since I posted here. Fuzheado has still not responded. They have indicated this is not their priority. Two of their WMF friends have coincidently appeared in Fuzheado's defence to tell us there is no problem here. I am now kindly requesting some indication of what the next steps should be. We cannot wait forever and it's a waste of everyone's time - we also have priorities of our own! Best wishes Polyamorph (talk) 19:41, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Polyamorph: There seems to be some confusion: Fuzheado is not a WMF staff member. As far as I'm aware, the only volunteer here who is also staff is me. See also Rhododendrites's comment above. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:03, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• There is no confusion on my part. Polyamorph (talk) 04:40, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Polyamorph: Then who are these "WMF friends" you're referring to, and what exactly do you think led to me "coincidentally" appearing here? As I previously told you, your casual references to the position that pays my bills are inherently intimidating. I'd love to get direct answers from you so I can address any misconceptions and move on from this discussion. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:14, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• You don't have go be paid by the WMF to be associated with the WMF and have friends at the WMF. I have asked you to declare any off-wiki communication that might have brought you here, but that didn't get a response. I am not intimidating you in any way, that is a vert serious accusation. Polyamorph (talk) 05:26, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• Yes - with 30-odd edits to Meta in the 50+ hours since the above "not a priority" message it is effectively sticking a middle finger up at the enwiki community. I have no idea why some legacy admins, especially those with WMF links, appear to believe they are exempt from policies like WP:ADMINACCT (Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrative actions, especially during community discussions on noticeboards...). At this point, options appear to be (a) a discussion on a ban from using tools at ITN (which could be technically achieved with a partial block from the single page Template:In the news), and (b) a trip to ArbCom as a last resort. Black Kite (talk) 20:39, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  Please try assuming some good faith. I'm on the Wikimania organizing team and we had a deadline for volunteer sign ups that just concluded. As such, we need a clean ordering of sign ups in order to be ingested properly into our database or things don't work correctly. It is simple as that, which is why edits to meta are required to fix those problems. Now that the influx is over, and our systems are setup I can turn my attention to other things, such as the issues raised here. - Fuzheado | Talk 04:39, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

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

---

• Intention to enact a topic ban: Based on the multiple concerns raised by multiple people in this discussion, I intend to topic ban Fuzheado from T:ITN if they do not reply in this thread in the next 24 hours. That will have given them 4-1/2 days to respond in more detail to the concerns raised here (and 20 days to respond to the note on their talk page). If Fuzheado has more important things they are dealing with right now - which they very well may have, I know nothing about Wikimania's timetable - then such a topic ban will have no immediate effect on them, while it will temporarily solve the problem that multiple people have brought up here, without leaving this thread and everyone in it dangling, and getting more upset. Once Fuzheado has more time for en.wiki, if they want to edit T:ITN again, they can ask at WP:AN for the topic ban to be overturned, and we can have this discussion then. Since the problem seems to be that Fuzheado is busy, I won't enforce this with a partial block, but by closing this and leaving a note on their talk page. If 24 hours go by, and I haven't done anything, feel free to ping me. I'll notify Fuzheado of this on his talk page. if this doesn't seem fair to you, let me know here; I won't impose it in the face of reasonable opposition if I've misread the conversation so far. But this is not a unilateral decision, I believe some kind of action has consensus, based on the discussion so far, and this seems like a balanced response respecting both sides. (after edit conflict with User:Black Kite: if Black Kite thinks this is short-circuiting his suggestion, let me know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:43, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• No, that's fine - indeed it's exactly the same sort of thing I would have done myself had I not been involved in the issue. Black Kite (talk) 20:50, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

  This sounds sensible in the short-term. GiantSnowman 20:54, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

I haven't read this whole thread in detail but what I gather is a main concern is the admin conduct part, in addition to any concern over ITN. I think at this point in time since we haven't heard anything, a block from the whole en.wiki is appropriate. Once we get an explanation (even during the whole discussion phase) the site block should be removed pending community discussion. Admin conduct is something that is important and shows that users should not be blown off. We should show that violating that isn't acceptable. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:53, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse TBAN as proposed by Floq

-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 21:37, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

I will be replying in the next 24 hours. Thanks. - Fuzheado | Talk 22:00, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Support especially as one of their edits at Wikimania ([13]) was to request administrator and bureaucrat rights which has since been granted. Gusfriend (talk) 22:24, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Endorse Floq's proposal. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 00:35, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Reasonable plan, which also might prod an anticipated formal response as well. —Bagumba (talk) 01:10, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

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

Extended Response from User:Fuzheado

Response to User talk page message

This was originally drafted as a response to the User talk page message, so it is best read in that context as a preamble to the longer response.

Thanks, I welcome any and all civil conversation regarding any of my admin edits.

A quick comment on the idea that a user may act "against consensus." As seen in the COVID "Ongoing" discussion, many folks in that debate should re-evaluate their declaration of broad/wide "consensus."

The early removal of COVID from "Ongoing" went against a basic understanding of ITN customs, as was echoed in the many comments that followed. BilledMammal correctly pointed to the early close, and things happening so quickly, as being at odds with Wikipedia:Consensus#Levels_of_consensus:

"Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale."

It is a policy page, and not just a guideline or an essay. Logically, "premature reading of consensus" is not consensus. Those were Spencer's own words, and he later wrote:

"I would additionally like to apologize to all for premature reading of consensus in the previous discussion; it was poor judgment on my part and muddied the discussion regarding the nomination."

I appreciate the recognition of "poor judgment" here. 13

This is why I am confused why saying "poor faith" was problematic when Spencer themselves used the term "poor" to describe their actions. I have nothing personal against Spencer.

I employed the word "poor" very carefully to mean substandard. It was not an ad hominem attack, and was specifically chosen instead of a much stronger accusation of "bad faith," which is a serious term tied to intent. If that seemed too subtle, then for that I do apologize. If I really meant "bad faith," I would have said it, but I specifically did not. I believe we can all make unpopular debatable decisions and we don't rake people over the coals for it (see the irony). In this case, I reverted to the status quo that many others in the discussion were demanding and didn't make it a personal issue. Again, I apologize if it was seen as being too harsh, as the words were carefully chosen and that was not the intent. But I recognize that it was likely too subtle a distinction to lean on.

I will continue to participate at ITN and associated pages within community guidelines and accepted ITN customs. I am not reluctant to talk about any of these issues, but do understand that we are busy folks and that may affect my ability to respond immediately to all the concerns.

"You never know what someone is going through, so be kind." I hope folks take that to heart, in both directions.

- Fuzheado | Talk 04:32, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Fuzheado: Thank you Fuzheado for your response. I did not report you here because of the covid removal, but I added that information for context. I tried as well as I could to explain the context of what brought us here, but you're right the "against consensus" comment is my POV. Regarding your poor faith comment, I appreciate your apology and explanation. Regarding your activities at ITN, I believe the community would appreciate if you voluntarily commit to not using your admin tools to impose your own opinions. Please could you consider this? Polyamorph (talk) 05:01, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  If the request is to "commit to not using your admin tools to impose your own opinions" then I would certainly concur and agree with that. The tricky part is that evaluating consensus often requires judgment calls indistinguishable from opinion. However, I have been fine working with contemporary RD sourcing requirements and can aim to minimize the "opinion" as much as possible. - Fuzheado | Talk 05:21, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you Fuzheado! As far as I'm concerned that is a fair and reasonable response to my original request on your talk page, and this ANI thread should be closed as my initial concern is now resolved. Polyamorph (talk) 05:29, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks, very much appreciated. Be well! - Fuzheado | Talk 05:42, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• Bad faith is defined as "intent to deceive". Your choice to use "poor faith",[14] as opposed to poor decision, read as bad faith by Spencer, but comes off as bad faith on your part.—Bagumba (talk) 05:47, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  That's fair. As I said above, I chose "poor faith" because I didn't think it was even close to "bad faith." But I can understand how "poor faith" and "bad faith" could be seen as nearly synonymous, and I would avoid this risk in the future. That said, I most definitely did not intend to deceive. - Fuzheado | Talk 06:01, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• I am not reluctant to talk about any of these issues, but do understand that we are busy folks and that may affect my ability to respond immediately to all the concerns: The facts are that 17 days elapsed since a request was made on your talk page, with a courtesy reminder included, before you gave a cursory response after the ANI case was initiated. Your formal response followed 3 days later, coming soon after the topic ban was proposed. Can you see where that might appear to conflict with WP:ADMINACCT?—Bagumba (talk) 05:47, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I get why the delay could be seen that way. However, I've explained already the two week period was especially bad and if I had to do it over again, I'd at least leave a one-liner saying, "Acknowledged, will answer soon," even when on the run. My last note asked for patience, and my response was already 90% crafted when I was informed of the "topic ban proposal." Regards. - Fuzheado | Talk 06:06, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  Hiccups are generally excusable. However, there are at least two other cases listed earlier where you also seemed to not provide a response: 1) User_talk:Fuzheado/Archive_16#Wheel_war? 2) User_talk:Fuzheado/Archive_18#Close_at_Talk:Warren_Clinic_shooting.—Bagumba (talk) 06:16, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  You're right, characterizing the single action as wheel warring was in error and I apologize to KTC for the unnecessary fracas around that. For the Warren Clinic shooting question, although it was not an admin action, I could have elaborated better. The ensuing move discussion at Talk:2022_Tulsa_hospital_shooting had answered the questions around NOYEAR and historic perspective, but I could have responded directly as well. - Fuzheado | Talk 11:38, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

---

Response to ANI

Introduction

Thanks for being patient and waiting for a full fledged response. It wasn't easy given my schedule and obligations, and I wasn't expecting such a demand for my time with this matter. Let me elaborate.

I considered the proceedings at the very end of August at ITN about COVID in the "Ongoing" section as a settled matter.

The first "remove COVID from Ongoing" debate I was involved with was closed inconclusively (more elaboration below), and there was another fresh request for the removal of COVID from "Ongoing." The discussion went on for just over 24 hours, which I intentionally stayed away from to let it run its course. I saw it was closed as "remove" by Rockstone and removed.

I considered it as settled, and there to be no pending issues on my part, knowing I would be fully occupied for the next two weeks and more. (I find it puzzling someone implied I should not take "controverisal action" before leaving. The proceedings had all been closed by then and actions taken.)

Concerns

Let's turn to the concerns listed by Polyamorph in the ANI filing.

We don't get off to a good start. With all due respect, Polyamorph starts by saying I went "against what was pretty clear consensus." This is factually incorrect.

As stated previously, Spencer said, it was "premature reading of consensus in the previous discussion; it was poor judgment on my part..." So already, we are starting with an inaccurate portrayal of the situation. I'm not sure what "faith" to label this.

However, I'm going to take the high road and assume good faith and treat this selective telling of my ITN activities as a particular POV of the situation. It may be one person's version of what they see as the truth, but I will present another angle that I trust will give another perspective on the list of "rogue" actions given.

Even a small inspection beneath the surface provides a different context - in more than 150 edits I've made to ITN, the vast majority of those have been uncontroversial: adding blurbs, recent deaths, correcting grammar, updating stats, reformatting posts, adjusting images, collaborating on WP:ERRORS requests, et al. Additionally, many of the ones that are listed here as "poor admin judgment" had plenty of support from those involved with discussions, making the "rogue" label dubious, even while being repeated for effect. [15]

Let's start first with the premise of these proceedings, and the curious demand of an urgent response to this query and while analyzing all my on-wiki moves.

As mentioned above, I considered the "Ongoing COVID posting" a settled matter before I left for the U.S. Labor Day holiday period, a trip to the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin, and ensuing obligations related to work, an edit-a-thon, and the Wikimania volunteer deadline I was supporting. An inspection of my on-wiki edit history shows this unambiguously. (Some folks also want to hone in on a tiny sliver of editing on the run (a redirect, a page move, and one referenced statement) during that two week period. Very odd, but I'll take that in stride.)

The point here is that there was no evasion but simply a heavy set of obligations that had to take priority. and given the length of the response below you'll see why I needed a large chunk of uninterrupted time to prepare a response.

I'll address the issues brought up in order from the list that was quoted by Spencer, including the overall COVID Ongoing issue.

Ongoing: COVID

Without wanting to rehash this case, the actions at the first Ongoing debate were hardly rogue, as I was in full dialogue and explained my actions - many folks asked for and agreed with the revert to the status quo. I explained my actions, many others concurred, we talked policy, and discussed WP:CONLEVEL. ( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 )

Spencer's own words were:

"I would additionally like to apologize to all for premature reading of consensus in the previous discussion; it was poor judgment on my part and muddied the discussion regarding the nomination."

This is pretty clear that a reset was justified, and I hold nothing against any editors personally.

Orson Bean - February 2020

• Stated POV: "premature posting, pulled due to lack of citations"
• Response: Concur with pull, acknowledging ITN's RD norms

This is one of the scenarios where given the letter of ITN law, I concur with pulling the RD item that I posted, even though the rationale would strike outsiders as unintuitive. Why? In the ensuing discussion, nominator User:7&6=thirteen points out the flaw of ITN - the strict sourcing requirement on the '-ology/-ography' section of an artist creates a problem where highly notable celebrities with long careers never appear on Recent Deaths.

We've seen it with stars such as Alan Thicke, Norm Macdonald, Fred Willard, and Orson Bean who, counterintuitively, got left out of RD because while they were household names, and had a long resume, they did not have enough on-wiki enthusiasts to completely reference their extensive filmography/discology sections.

In our ITN discussions, folks have noted that even without an RD mention, traffic to these Wikipedia biography articles still sees a tremendous spike. (See the discussion with Merle Haggard referred to below, in a thread with Andrew Davidson). People are still organically visting these Wikipedia articles with the incompletely-sourced filmographies. The solution is not easy and merits a longer discussion, but the fact is today the Orson Bean article has the same unreferenced filmography it had 2.5 years ago. [16]

We work by consensus, so I respect this "Alan Thicke" filmography guideline as the custom at ITN since this case in 2020, and continue to do so. To the best of my recollection, I have not been engaged with any RD sourcing issues since then.

Super Bowl LVI - February 2022

• Stated POV: "premature posting of an article relying on primary sources with CN tags"
• Response: After my posting, there were three post-posting support votes and no pull !votes. Folks concerned about game recap "primary sources" or saying it was "premature" were in the minority.

This is a case of the Super Bowl being an WP:ITN/R, meaning it was set to be uncontroversially posted as a recurring event. Some users wanted to delay posting, debating what makes a game recap properly sourced, but the consensus was that the article had proper sourcing and was suitable for a blurb. Users such as Muboshgu, Masem, LaserLegs, Amakuru, and WaltCip supported its posting and had no problems with the sourcing/game recap issue. After it was posted, there were no requests to pull it, and it only got post-posting supports.

Tianhe (space station module) - April 2021

• Stated POV: "premature posting, later pulled due to lack of citations, later re-posted after quality improved"
• Response: I'll take the hit on this one, as there were still missing references at posting time.

Three consecutive "Support" commenters said it was in shape to be posted, and that the CN tags had been resolved. I take the blame in reviewing it quickly and not looking closely enough at the last section and it would have benefitted from some extra time for sourcing. It was pulled, but reposted after improvement.

April 2016

• Stated POV: snippet "(multiple issues with postings, related to citations and another with an orange-tagged article, resulting in both to be pulled) see the sections related to "Kollam temple accident" and "Merle Haggard"
• Response: Kollam temple accident (today Puttingal temple fire) was quickly sourced and reposted in 16 minutes and stayed up after that, but I would do it differently today.

The temple fire article was short, and sources were easily fixed before being reposted. In retrospect, to be consistent we should have waited longer for consensus, and I would do it differently today even if it was obvious this tragedy was a global front page story on every news outlet. This would be consistent with the standard discussed with Spencer, and the recent straw poll about the minimum time required for an ITN item to be open before posting. So for this, I regret the short period and would wait.

For the "Pfizer & Allergan merger called off" story, I'm not sure what to conclude. There were no opposes and five supports when I posted in less than 6 hours. One person voted to pull it two days later without any explanation. No one else had an issue. It stayed up.

For Merle Haggard, as stated previously, this dispute from 6 years ago predates the Orson Bean issue, and since 2020 I work with the "Alan Thicke" ITN RD guideline.

Zaha Hadid - March 2016

• Stated POV: "prematurely posted, and pulled due to lack of citations"
• Response: Concur, I respect the "Alan Thicke" ITN RD guideline for ITN.

As stated previously, this dispute from 6 years ago predates the Orson Bean issue, and since 2020 I work with the "Alan Thicke" ITN RD sourcing guideline.

Portugeuse presidential election - January 2021

• Stated POV: "Prematurely posted, pulled due to quality issues."
• Response: As an ITN/R item, there were 6 supports and 1 oppose, with tags all cleaned up when posted. Pulled with a questionable interpretation of guideline/policy around "quality issues."

While it was supported by six editors and opposed by an anon, this item was pulled because four editors said there is "no prose for the results." While this may be a format they prefer, it is not prescribed by the ITN posting guidelines and may be an interpretation of this:

"Articles which consist solely or mostly of lists and tables, with little narrative prose, are usually not acceptable for the main page, and prose should be in narrative style, not "proseline"-type writing." - Wikipedia:In_the_news

However, this was not the case with this article, which was full of prose and had a full narrative description at the top of the article including describing the results, such as, "President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was reelected as President by a landslide winning 60.7% of the votes. He won every district in country, all 308 municipalities..." If there is written documentation about the "Results" section requiring written prose, I'm open to its guidance.

Italian lockdown - March 2020

• Stated POV: "Prematurely posted before consensus settled, pulled, later re-posted."
• Response: After the pull, all eight !votes were support for reposting, with no opposes.

I'm not sure what "consensus settled" means here. After it was pulled, there was a steady set of support comments including:

• Support per above. Top of all news, article good. Kingsif
• Support as a significant development. Meets ITN criteria of updated, significant, and quality. Kees08
• Strong support - How has this not been reposted yet? Nice4What

It was eventually re-posted by Amakuru.

Summary

So in the end, where do we stand?

• The inaccurate opening line for the ANI, saying I acted "against what was pretty clear consensus," already gives me pause. It accuses me of being a policy violator when that was not the case. In fact the closer said, it was "premature reading of consensus in the previous discussion; it was poor judgment on my part..." Again, no hate or blame but the basis for initiating this case is in question.

• A series of "Recent Deaths" and biographies cases from 2016. The case of Orson Bean (more than 2.5 years ago) was the last time there was a disagreement about RD posting. Since then, I have followed the custom of ITN on RD sourcing putting the 2016 issues in the past.

• Puttingal temple fire from April 2016 - While it was posted and reposted for good after 16 minutes and no opposition, I would do things differently today and wait longer to be consistent with the WP:CONLEVEL policy as discussed in the recent COVID "Ongoing" case.

• Tianhe (space station module) from April 2021 - I will take the blame for posting this without noting the last section of the article was lacking references.

• Consensus for posting. The cases regarding the Super Bowl and the Italian lockdown had popular support and stayed up on ITN in the end.

• Inconsistent guideline interpretation. The Portugeuse presidential election was consistent with policy and had support votes but ended with a questionable pull.

This brings us to why this is at ANI, which is dedicated to "urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems." From this list, we are left with two main mea culpa cases from 2016 and 2021, and a concurrence on the Recent Deaths sourcing standard that hasn't been disputed since 2020.

I'm open to more discussion, but I am not clear whether ANI is the right place for it to persist. I am open to feedback on my admin actions, at ITN or anywhere else and welcome good faith dialogue. Thanks. - Fuzheado | Talk 04:32, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• I had hoped I was clear why I brought his to ANI. It was because your lack of response at the time was a violation of WP:ADMINACCT. I thank you for providing your explanations. Polyamorph (talk) 05:07, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for your thanks, and I do really mean that. It was not evasion on my part whatsoever, as this 2-3 week period was particularly challenging for the reasons listed and beyond. I look forward to continuing the dialogue. - Fuzheado | Talk 05:25, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• RD: Orange and red tags For the the Merle Haggard RD (at your #April 2016 above), you wrote ...since 2020 I work with the "Alan Thicke" ITN RD guideline. However, at the RD discussion, the objection by The Rambling Man was please either follow the instructions (Usually, orange and red level tags are generally considered major enough to block posting to ITN...) or seek to have them modified so we post items in such states. At the time of posting, the page had multiple orange tags, and many other unsourced lists weren't even tagged. AFAICS, the rule on orange and red tags existed before 2020. This does not appear to be a new standard that evolved in 2020.—Bagumba (talk) 11:33, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

  The point of that statement is that the Merle Haggard issue was from 2016, but since 2020, I've agreed to be consistent with the stricter sourcing standard before putting things on RD, whether that is unsourced discography, orange tags, citation needed, etc. Hopefully that sheds some light on that. - Fuzheado | Talk 19:46, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

An ANI manifesto of sorts

Sorry for the new section but I am not sure where the best place to include it would be. Whilst I can only say what I personally think, I believe that I am correct in saying that no-one who spends time at the ANI page wants any new items to be added here and would prefer that new items do not raise to this level. In fact I long for days when nothing new is here (as much as it can seem like a gladatorial arena sometimes). The people who comment here view it as part of giving back to the community to help with consensus making just like making comments at AfD, working at ITN, recommended merge discussions and the like and take it seriously especially considering the possible impact (I have seen about a half-dozen productive long term editors indef banned so far this year and each one stings even when there is consensus which you support). In the last couple of months we have seen at ANI more than a few users who required a block to get them to respond to concerns that have been raised here, also a stern measure to take. All of this happens with a heavy understanding of the glorious responsibility of the discussions taking place here.

As such, a comment from an administrator, do understand that I consider a response to these is not the highest priority right now, whilst a totally understandable response, and not necessarily inappropriate, does not match my understanding of the gravity due the locale. I am not arguing for a sanction nor am I saying that I believe that this discussion needs to keep going but I wanted to share my perspective, if only so it is here for an essay later on.

As always this is purely my perspective and apologies to those who feel differently. Gusfriend (talk) 08:07, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

As I have stated above, Fuzheado has now addressed my talk page request and I am satisfied with their response and how they intend to approach future controversy at ITN. Their WP:ADMINACCT obligations have been met. Fuzheado has indicated that in the future he will acknowledge any similar requests in a timely manner indicating that if he is unable to respond right away he will be providing a full response in due course. As far as I am concerned this matter is resolved. I think this also addresses their other past failures of WP:ADMINACCT and I don't think it is worthwhile to impose sanctions now for long past issues. I propose we move on and trust Fuzheado on his assurances. Polyamorph (talk) 08:41, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

"not the highest priority": Yes. Consider their previous response: I will respond when I get a chance, but with all respect, do understand that I consider a response to these is not the highest priority right now. I am still determining what was the intent of the underlined part, as "I will respond when I get a chance", alone, would have been understandable. Are they guilty only of being brutally honest, or were they being passive-aggressive about WP:ADMINACCT: Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrative actions...—Bagumba (talk) 08:53, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

That's an understandable comment and if what you say is true ("a half-dozen productive long term editors indef banned so far this year and each one stings") then I share your lament. As for the phrase I used, there really is no nefarious intent or passive-aggressiveness. It was meant to be taken at face value as life circumstances "priority," and not on-wiki "priority." My previous comments alluded to this:

• "You never know what someone is going through, so be kind." I hope folks take that to heart, in both directions.
• this 2-3 week period was particularly challenging for the reasons listed and beyond

The goal is not a pity party, so I'll leave it at that for now. Thanks. - Fuzheado | Talk 11:02, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this is really very complicated. If you take an admin action, and someone asks you about it on your talk page, respond. Don't let it sit for three weeks as you just did. Don't make us threaten sanctions at ANI to get your attention. Don't edit elsewhere while not responding to messages about admin actions on your talk page, and certainly not if there's a thread at ANI. And, again: if you're going to be away and unable to respond promptly, don't take admin actions right before you leave. Ok? Ok. Good talk. Levivich (talk) 15:52, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

That would make an excellent addition to an ANI related essay. Gusfriend (talk) 04:58, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

• Mmmm. I note there isn't a comment about the incident where Fuzheado wheel-warred whilst accusing another admin (who hadn't) of the same thing or the posting of a blatant BLP violation as an RD (section "Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani"). Perhaps they were a bit too tricky, but I'd liked to have seen them addressed. Black Kite (talk) 17:40, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Note Fuzheado apologised above (at the end of the "response to the user talk page message" section for the wheel warring error, in reply to Bagumba. Polyamorph (talk) 19:13, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Polyamorph, and I agree that in 2017 Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was posted in a substandard condition, something I would not do today. Thanks. - Fuzheado | Talk 19:53, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

But Fuzheado didn't directly address his own wheel warring in that incident. —Bagumba (talk) 01:22, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

For some case context: after the George Floyd case verdict was pulled, the immediate comment from Bongwarrior was, "There is already consensus," followed by two immediate support votes for reinstatement. After I re-posted the item, the next nine expressions of opinion were in support versus one to pull before the discussion concluded. There was clear consensus to post, as was noted in the close message. I hope that sheds some light on the fact that posting was supported by the vast majority of contributors and was not a rogue action.

That said, I do regret inaccurately calling the pull wheel warring and for causing an unnecessary fracas. I know KTC in real life and we have always interacted productively in Wikimedia event settings, so having this as an open wound is a bad state of affairs. Please accept my apologies for the mischaracterization KTC, and I hope our interactions are only good ones going forward. - Fuzheado | Talk 14:57, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I hope we don't have to end up here again. Black Kite (talk) 15:34, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your engagement here Fuzheado. We're fine. :-) -- KTC (talk) 16:30, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

With much thanks! :-) -- Fuzheado | Talk 16:57, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

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

Is this a legal threat?

Xuenkitze (talk · contribs) has been going through indigenous peoples articles adding "tribal" and "sovereign tribes" I believe inappropriately as not all tribes are sovereign in Central and South America nor are all indigenous people tribes, eg the Maya peoples. See for example the change in the short description at Indigenous peoples[17] and the edit summary "Some tribes are still sovereign why os sovereign tribes as a term being erased. Tribes is a term used in ancient Greece and Rome at the 1rst Century b.c.e. as sovereign city states. This is a violation of international law to not be acknowledged." They have also been adding original research, eg [18] where they change "the geographic region called the Darién Gap" to "the geographic region called the Darién Gap by foreigners]. I realise this is a different issue than the possible legal threat. I think this is a good faith editor trying to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Doug Weller talk 10:25, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

It's not clear to me, so I'll wait for Xuenkitze to explain the intent of their statement.—Bagumba (talk) 11:21, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe it's a legal threat, but a very weak and strange interpretation of international law which they seem to use in an attempt to justify their position. All of their edits appear to include a bit of PoV pushing, perhaps not with malicious intent, but probably detrimental to the purpose of the encyclopedia. Going by their own description and the edit summaries they drop around, they have "skin in the game", so to speak, and are editing articles about themselves. Ostalgia (talk) 12:07, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Ostalgia, not a legal threat but a possibly misguided statement about sovereignty under international law. CMD (talk) 12:24, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

So it appears this person is still editing profusely across several articles and seemingly has a fetish for the concept of "tribe". Their unsourced and unsupported edits most certainly fall under WP:RGW, and while I have no reason to assume bad faith, they're not useful, but quite the contrary, and given that they are are getting reverted left, right and centre, their persistence borders on vandalism. Perhaps a temporary block from articles related to the indigenous populatons of the Americas could force them to engage with fellow editors and understand the way to go about their business on Wikipedia? I wouldn't count on that, in all honesty, but I don't think their "misdeeds" justify taking stronger action at this point, nor do I believe they can be allowed to just edit articles to their liking. Ostalgia (talk) 21:50, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

This editor is not here.....time to go.....mass set a revets again today for sa me reasons.204.237.50.43 (talk) 04:12, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Wefa and nothere

After two attempts at subtle POV pushing on Talk:Libs of TikTok [19][20] they dropped all pretense of editing in good faith or respecting NPOV and posted this:

I have given up on this article. The discussion archived above has amply shown that the cognitive divide has reached such an extent that we seem to live in different universes. Apparently there exists a sizeable minority or even majority here who is complete unable to concede that the term "gender affirming care" (which includes not only primary sex surgery but also things like mastectomies and chemical castration (aka puberty Blockers) is an ugly euphemism for mutilation of children (which by definition is always involuntary since children can not possibly give informed consent to something destructive and far reaching like that). So while folks like me, who are disgusted and revolted by what these hospitals do to children, see LOT as a courageous whistleblower and critic, the above mentioned group sees her as a hatemonger and is motivated to paint her in the worst light possible. There is no middle ground here - "gender affirming care" is the new lobotomy craze, and its practitioners are the Mengeles of our time. You either get that or refuse to.

In such a situation, especially with the "paint in worst light" part, Wikipedia's policies just do not work. The admin-supported left wing rules by majority, even though there is no policy allowing such, NPOV on this particular topic is even hard to define, let alone implement, in such spirit, and this part of Wikipedia has essentially been captured as the left's propaganda arm. I came here with a good faith suggestion to make this article more NPOV, and that was roundly rejected. Now, given there is no consensus, I would have as much right to be bold and just change things as all the left wing "owners" of this article who do this all the time, but the practice is different. While non-consensus changes by me would, given enough persistence on my part, result in me getting banned, the exactly same actions by the lw majority would and constantly do have no such consequences. The mostly lefty administrators and the various informal councils make sure of that.

And that is that. We as Wikipedians collectively get the Encyclopedia we collectively deserve, and right now, that picture is less than pretty. All I can say on this point is good luck with this article. Wefa (talk) 14:03, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Which to me says that they're not just done editing that talk page but its time for them to say goodby to the project as a whole, I guess I would accept a topic ban from anything related to sexuality, gender, or politics but they appear to intend to disrupt more than just those topic areas. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:28, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

I have left a DS notice for WP:ARBGSDS. Not looked into the comment much more than to see it was under the scope of that DS. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 14:38, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

This person hasn't disrupted anything, and they're arguing for NPOV, so I don't see any reason to ban them from anything. Korny O'Near (talk) 18:34, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

That is not an argument for NPOV. In fact, it's the opposite, a call to slant the article towards the conspiracy theory. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:13, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

That is hardly evidence of anything. In my personal experience, no person who ever tried to go against NPOV in any serious capacity (i.e. not straight up vandalising) did so by openly stating that they have an axe to grind. Ostalgia (talk) 20:16, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

It's a poor look, IMHO, to hand someone a topic ban (or worse, an indef) for no other cause than that he's expressed sentiments on the talk page that you don't like. The best way to refute Wefa's belief that the Thought Police are running Wikipedia -- and seeking to suppress opinions they don't want anyone to hear -- is not to prove him right. Ravenswing 00:19, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

This is a fair point, and I am not sure I favor a ban, but when you start accusing your interlocutors of being in league with "Mengeles," to my mind it is something more than expressing a sentiment that people don't like. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 01:28, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Unless they set off carving a path of distuption across the encyclopedia, there doesn't seem to be any point blocking, and while they have been playing at the edge of stuff that can get users banned, they haven't gone there yet. Based on what they've said, they might have been NOTHERE (on that page anyway), but they apparently aren't there anymore anyway (i.e. they left). Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 06:03, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

That was yesterday and they didn't leave, they were removed[21]. Note User talk:Shibbolethink#you hid my talk page text on Libs of Tiktok where Wefa castigates @Shibbolethink: for removing their rant from the talk page. Also note they're now disrupting their own talk page, how is this not carving a path of disruption across the encyclopedia? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:26, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Treating them preferentially because they've invoked baseless conspiracy theories is a bad look, its effectively a get out of sanctions free card. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:29, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

They aren't commenting here but they don't seem all that worried about our enforcement action... From their talk page (emphasis added):

You are basically making my point. That article is constantly changed without consent, against the objections of a the conservative editors present, and no editor nor admin saw need to call out, let alone threaten, the editors doing that. AGF was immediately violated by other editors who called my position transphobic; "transphobic" itself is a left wing fighting term trying to pathologize dissent. There is no such phobia, conservatives simply recognize that there are men and women, and, if we ignore the extremely rare cases of biological nonbinaries, nothing else.

But as soon as I point out the discrepancy, as well as the fundamental problem with editing Wikipedia under such circumstances, several people jump at me, you with all your administrators might threaten me on my own talk page. Where was such threats/warnings for those who called all conservatives "transphobic"?

Yep. Thanks for making my point. Wefa (talk) 18:31, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Fringe editors who can't set aside their fringe beliefs have no business editing the encyclopedia because they are incapable of consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:26, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

If you're referring to this user's apparent belief that people with XY chromosomes are men and people with XX chromosomes are women, I don't think that can be called fringe for any standard definition of "fringe". Korny O'Near (talk) 16:57, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Generally wikipedia's definition of WP:FRINGE is things which aren't accepted by mainstream medicine, science, and/or academia. Such as the opinions you just elucidated. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:05, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Wew, you're just going for every checkbox on the "how do I get banned" bingo, aren't you? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:48, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Overall, I agree with editors here that Wefa's conduct is disruptive and pretty clearly not here to build consensus. It amounts to the my way or the highway style of argument. But I also agree that the best way to deal with this editor is to stop giving them what they want. This user engages in long drawn out time-wasting culture war arguments. So why don't we all stop engaging? Either they will run out of steam, or they'll edit article space against consensus or in a disruptive manner, thereby justifying their own WP:NOTHERE block. If they, instead, decide to edit more productive and less vitriolic areas of the encyclopedia, it's a win for everybody. To summarize: WP:DFTT. Honestly I would apply this same logic to several other users in the space as well. If they bludgeon, edit against consensus, or otherwise break rules, then that should be dealt with appropriately. If all they’re doing is spouting out loud culture war arguments in support of their conspiracy theory, then collapse, delete, or ignore.— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:44, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

you would be wrong in your assumption. My note on that talk page was to explain why I would refrain from further editing the article, and was prompted by someone else's comment on the talk page asking for my input. Unfortunately someone had deleted my comment from the talk page near instantly, so the majority of editors there probably did not even see it. Wefa (talk) 16:03, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I would agree that the best course of action is to just let it go. I'm not seeing anything particularly actionable. I just see an editor who is tired of being contested, which is fairly understandable. When you get into the weeds of controversial or political topics on WP it's hard to internalize that we aren't here to preach the truth, we're here to aggregate information from public sources. I think just letting them storm off is best for everyone. GabberFlasted (talk) 17:05, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

• @Wefa: It's best to just not make such editorializing comments on talk pages. Just state your opinion about the content dispute and move on. That's all you can do. If you continue to make such comments you will likely be topic banned rather soon. Iamreallygoodatcheckers^t@lk 01:49, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• that is basically clear to me, too. I just underestimated how fast the Wikipedia landscape on that matter had changed. Only a few years ago there was a consensus that mutilating children was completely out of question and unacceptable for the Trans community, but on the progressive side of things that seems to have changed 180 degrees. I explained here - clearly I think - why in the context of Wikipedia, its rules, and the people currently interpreting and enforcing those rules, editing under such circumstances leads nowhere. I originally came there to make a suggestion to improve NPOV, but went down in flames quickly.

BTW - thanks for the ping - I had missed this debate here completely. Wefa (talk) 16:03, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I think it's unfair to claim that Wefa is NOTHERE. They've done good work on a wide range of articles through the years. That doesn't mean that they aren't about one poorly-worded comment from a long-term DS block, though. Stop comparing other people to Nazis, take a break, edit articles that aren't going to raise your (and everyone else's) blood pressure, and keep being a valued member of the community. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

"There is no middle ground here - "gender affirming care" is the new lobotomy craze, and its practitioners are the Mengeles of our time. You either get that or refuse to."

That is one of many such comments, and though you do not say it explicitly, I would caution against seeing this as weighing their other "good work" to this disruption. The net positive fallacy is pervasive, and is unhelpful.

The comment, and others, aren't even an attempt to discuss what's supported by reliable sources, it's pure culture war soapboxing. It should be considered in the context of the harm caused, not in the context of their other work.

It's one thing to disagree on how we include reliable sources, it's another for Wefa to compare people to Nazis when they disagree with him. Accusing other editors of being part of "the left's propaganda arm" when consensus is against them, is also not constructive, nor are the many other implicit and explicit accusations of bad faith.

The trend here, i.e. Wefa's insistence that people either agree with him or are acting in bad faith, is not indicative of intent to contribute constructively to Wikipedia. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 17:29, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I don't weigh the other good work against the disruption. I just say that the other good work tends to invalidate the NOTHERE accusation. You can be HERE and disruptive at the same time. Wefa has been very thoroughly warned of the community expectations at this point: it's their choice if they're going to listen or if they need to be separated from the community for a time for the good of the encyclopedia. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:22, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Thats fair but someone can also be NOTHERE and have made productive contributions to the project. This isn't exactly new behavior though, two years ago they were at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard with a very similar rant about "The current debate climate is not conductive for a solution. For the time being we have to live with Wikipedia's erosion of NPOV, and see it slowly become Leftopedia on political matters. And that includes the constant low key disparaging of conservatives in their respective BLPs."[22] Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:36, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

2018 at Talk:Rape in Islamic law "the article goes to great lengths to 'not' spell out what Islamic Law thinks about the rape of slaves, even though we can guess it from peripheral parts. This is unencyclopedic"[23]. From what I'm seeing in their edit history the vast majority of their edits are not constructive at least from 2018 to the present. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:40, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• Support WP:NOTFORUM/WP:NOTSOAPBOX warning. Levivich (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
• Considering the message posted by Horse Eye's Back, and their decision to continue that kind of narrative here, a topic ban from gender and sexuality seems more appropriate. Isabelle ^🏳‍🌈 20:37, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed. I’m in support of a topic ban from gensex with a warning for wider soapbox issues. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 21:32, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• We have lots of editors in the GENSEX topic area, of all manner of POVs, who are good at separating strong private feelings from their encyclopedia editing. This does not strike me as such an editor, and an indef GENSEX TBAN under DS seems reasonable. I've been minimally involved (viz. I made two "gain consensus first" reverts) in a dispute over whether puberty blockers are chemical castration, so probably shouldn't be the one to impose that sanction, if only to avoid an appearance of impropriety; but if another admin wishes to do so, I think that would be in keeping with recent "jurisprudence" in the GENSEX area [24] [25]. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 22:11, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

User:Carpaniola and WP:NPA and WP:AGGRESSIVE

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

---

I'd like to voice my concern on Carpaniola (talk · contribs) beheviour, particularly [this] reply (breaking WP:NPA in my opinion) and in [this] edit (one of the instances breaking WP:AGGRESSION in my opinion). I would like an admin's opinion on this, and if needed the suitable sanction to be imposed. Best regards. Kluche (talk) 21:02, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Kluche, anybody who makes an accusation of sockpuppetry is expected to present solid evidence at the correct noticeboard, which is WP:SPI. This applies to you as well as the other editor. I will give you the same advice that I am giving the other editor: Do not conduct yourself like a nationalist POV pusher. This topic area is subject to discretionary sanctions, which you have already been informed of on 15 August 2022. You need to comply, in spirit as well as in the letter, with WP:MOSMAC and the Prespa agreement which underlies it. Quibbling about adjectival or noun formulations is inappropriate wikilawyering. Just recast the sentence to comply with the guideline. You need to edit in accordance with the neutral point of view which is a core content policy, and if you choose to conduct yourself as a non-neutral editor regarding Macedonia and North Macedonia broadly construed, your ability to edit in that topic area will be restricted. Everything that I have written here applies to Carpaniola as well. Cullen328 (talk) 03:55, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Cullen328 I do admit that is an oversight on my behalf, ableit I'm not accusing them of sockpuppetry here. I have also been suspected of sockpupeptry, without any report or evidence (to my knowledge) provided. You can freely check that on my talk page. I have no intent of being a nationalist POV-pusher. Even per WP:MOSMAC, and backed by a couple of editors - the adjectival form which can be used is 'Macedonian' (context is provided with the title and there is no issue with ambiguity). Even in MOSMAC, it says that the Prespa Agreement preffers 'Macedonian'. It's not broad construsion, nor a violation of NPOV. MOSMAC deals with the name of the country and the adjectival form seperatly. Anyhow, this is completly off from what I voiced by concern about - did Carpaniola (talk · contribs) break WP:NPA and WP:AGGRESSIVE? And if so, will they be suitably sanctioned? Kluche (talk) 05:12, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Kluche, are you willing to recast the sentence to remove the adjectival form and include the consensus formulation "North Macedonia" as described in the guideline, or will you continue to oppose it? You are asking for sanctions against an editor for personal attacks and aggressive editing, while it looks to me like you are engaging in personal attacks and aggressive editing yourself. Should I sanction you as well? Let me offer you another option. Correct your own behavior before asking for sanctions against your nationalistic opponents. This kind of behavior is precisely why discretionary sanctions exist in this topic area. You must be cautious. Cullen328 (talk) 05:44, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Cullen328 I think that it should be waited for a few more days in order to have more time for people to voice their opinion on this matter. If the consensus stays the same (albeit an argument can be made that the consensus is not so clear cut), I'll be willing to change the formulation of the sentence and I'll continue to modernize the article. I'd like to be pointed towards the personal attacks I have commited towards another editor in the talk/this discussion, since I sincerly fail to see them (again, I have no intention of being aggressive lr insultive). Best regards. Kluche (talk) 06:27, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Kluche, you wrote Carponiola, stop with the blatant false information and slander and then you wrote Your tone also borders passive-aggression and then you wrote I'm also worried that a 2 year-old account, with around 20 edits (even less prior to this whole ordeal) is a sockpuppet. Those are not the words of a blameless, neutral, collaborative editor but rather looks like me to be from someone who shows a lot of signs of pushing a nationalistic POV. You never filed a report at WP:SPI, did you? You just made unsubstantiated accusations that are simply not acceptable. Those are the kind of words that stoke nationalistic divisions. Can't you see this obvious reality? Cullen328 (talk) 06:53, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Cullen328 The first one I wrote on a basless accusation that I wanted to remove everything with 'North' infront of North Macedonia. I have never disputed the country name. The second one is a warning that I would report them if they continue with (in my opinion) passive aggression. The third one I admit - is made more from concern rather than anything else, which I do take resposibility for my wrondoing. That doesn't change the fact that I think that the points I've made on WP:NPA and WP:AGGRESSION stand. Kluche (talk) 07:08, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• Kluche you are in a page with a lot of experienced editors and you falsify WP:MOSMAC and the Prespa Agreement, like you do with the rest of editors. Instead of doing that, I would recommend you to read the Prespa Agreement which says that it applies only to official context. The Prespa Agreement does not recommend Macedonian, it only says that Macedonian may be used without saying North Macedonian cannot be used. Article 7 of the Prespa Agreement says that nothing changes for unofficial context, people can still call the country Macedonia etc, and common sense explains that, how could an agreement tell us what to do? In the disputed sentence of Gun law in North Macedonia, "North Macedonian law" is not an official organ and therefore the "Prespa Agreement" doesn't recommend any of "Macedonian law" or "North Macedonian law". For wikipedia, the names used in articles are a decision of its editors and reflected in WP:MOSMAC, and I recommend you to read WP:MOSMAC before you make your next edit. You keep saying Macedonian can be used, and nobody says it cannot, but MOSMAC suggests North Macedonian especially on first introducing the topic. You tend to interpret every sentence you own unique way. Carpaniola (talk) 06:08, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Carpaniola Again, me stating that per MOSMAC, the Prespa Agreement says that 'North Macedonian' should be generally avoided is not a falsification. I have said countless times - the topic is introduced by the title, something which has the backing of a couple of editors. Kluche (talk) 06:41, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Sorry but the claim is the title is enough is so silly that it doesn't even have really been considered in the guidance. Do you really need us to update the guidance to address such a ridiculous suggestion? Can you not just take it from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section which is clear that "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." and does not suggest in any shape or form that the lead does not need to repeat content already in the title. Or to put it a different way, are you really claiming when we say the lead should stand on its own, what we actually mean is it should stand along with the title and both are needed to understand the lead? Nil Einne (talk) 12:04, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Nil Einne I agree with your points. I would also like for the original subject matter of this talk to be answered - has or hasn't Carpaniola broken WP:NPA and WP:AGGRESSIVE, and if yes, will the needed sanctions be enforced by the administrators? Kluche (talk) 13:02, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

All I'm going to say here is that it seems the adjective form is being deliberately used, as there is some leeway in MOSMAC when doing so. However in this case even that is false, as the first use should be North Macedonian. MOSMAC is quite clear on that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:19, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

ActivelyDisintrested, MOSMAC stipulates that official institutions should be reffered to as "North Macedonian" and all other cases, in the absence of a consensus, the fuller form should be used. In this case consensus has not been fully established in my opinion, while context is not given by the title. Kluche (talk) 14:24, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

As I said at the article talk page, discussions around how MOSMAC should be interpreted are probably best held at a more central location than an article talk page. Either way it's not appropriate for ANI. That's my fault I should have left that part out of my reply.

Separately I believe the addition space between date and month in you signature is blocking the reply function from working. Could you fix that? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:01, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I do agree that it is not a subject appropriate for ANI. About the signiture - I think I fixed it. Kluche (talk) 14:29, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I have started a discussion about which adjective form should be used in the first sentence of an article at the MOSMAC talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:48, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I have started an SPI for this user and five likely sockpuppets. Please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pratishthana where the user has already admitted abuse. Thanks. --Local hero ^talk 13:59, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

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

User:D Pastor2014

D Pastor2014 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user, registered in 2015, exclusively edits the Darin Pastor article, but has denied being the article subject in an edit summary. [26] That in of itself is clearly problematic, per the Wikipedia:Username policy. Recently though, after appropriately sourced content was added to the Darin Pastor article concerning the subject's legal troubles, User:D Pastor2014 has taken to repeatedly removing said content without explanation. Something clearly needs to be done about this. I would suggest that at minimum, the user needs to be blocked from editing the article, and informed that they will either have to change their username, or give an honest answer regarding what appears to be a blatant conflict of interest, if they are to be permitted to edit Wikipedia at all. I generally have some sympathy for BLP subjects who find working within Wikipedia's strange ways difficult, but in the circumstances here, we clearly cannot continue with this charade indefinitely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:26, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked this SPA as not here to build an encyclopedia. Also, disruptive editing, edit warring, repeated removal of well referenced content, a username violation, and conflict of interest editing. Cullen328 (talk) 23:48, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

The indictment states that Pastor and Johnson maintained an online Wikipedia page for Pastor that misrepresented his net worth. Besides the D Pastor2014 account, there is at least one another SPA (Trigger449) involved in that page that claims his name is Darin Pastor, and that account has at least one edit ([27]) that appears to directly act as if it were D Pastor2014. If the indictment is correct, there should be at least one other account, associated with Johnson, that also has been editing that page. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 01:52, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Other than KCDPR, a long-dormant account that also belongs to D Pastor2014, I don't see any SPAs on that page. However, KCDPR, D Pastor2014, and Trigger449 among them dominated the editing of that page for many years. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 02:00, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Trigger449 has not edited in nearly seven years. Cullen328 (talk) 15:18, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I was a bit too concise in my comments. I'm not concerned about sock puppetry. What I am concerned about is that the press release by US DOJ makes it clear that they believe Wikipedia was an unwitting accomplice in the fraud. And the editing history shows clear COI editing from the very beginning until the news of the illegal activities broke. This is not a discussion for ANI, but, in my opinion, Wikipedia does an excellent job with highly trafficked pages, no matter how controversial they may be (e.g., COVID-19 related pages), but a poor job at less-trafficked pages. The current mechanisms for policing serious issues (such as biased editing, particularly associated with COI) do not work well for less-trafficked pages. There needs to be a serious look at what tools can help detect these issues (e.g., ability to screen for SPAs or screen for edits that have an unduly positive or negative tone). I'll stop here. As I said, this should be discussed in a better venue. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 17:23, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Request to revert a couple images to earlier revision

Hi, not sure where else to request this. Can someone please revert two non-free images to an older/original revision that is now hidden? In this case, two files are uploaded by a problematic user. One photo was AI-upscaled and the other (source) was badly edited to remove background. Neither edit is useful unrealistically manipulating a historic photo. I don't think this is controversial, but I don't have the rights to do it myself. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 11:14, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

It seems that a bot reduced the size of both images according to guidelines for non-free images. See the bot's talk page for more details. As for the one with a different background, the original versions are available at "source", lv:Attēls:IrbitisK.jpg, which you linked, if you wish to download from there, modify as needed, and re-upload here on en.wp. —Bagumba (talk) 11:38, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

@Bagumba: Yes, the bot reduced the images after the new uploads. I reuploaded File:Kārlis Irbītis.jpg (and the bot can reduce it again). But I don't have an obvious source for File:Mstislav Vsevolodovich Keldysh.jpg. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 12:00, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I reverted to the original version of File:Mstislav Vsevolodovich Keldysh.jpg. per your request. This is not an endorsement of that version, and any objections can be discussed at the talk page there. Regards. —Bagumba (talk) 12:34, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Help on article Comparison of EDA software

I would appreciate if somebody could give a look to the article Comparison of EDA software. Every little advancement requires an overwelming amount of effort, patience and dead-end discussions (not to say bullying and offenses). The atmosphere scares off anyone who seriously wants to contribute. In fact, Wikipedia just lost yet another valuable contribuer. Thanks, Goitseu (talk) 11:21, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

It is a content dispute around the requirement for packages to have their own article. An edit notice requires that, Goitseu is fighting that. The Banner talk 11:44, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

To throw a serious allegation such as bullying and offenses requires evidence; evidence which is missing from your filing as is. Please provide them in the form of diffs. Otherwise, content disputes are not adjudicated on ANI in any manner; we are only concerned about any violation of policy or guideline here, and you have not presented any evidence to suggest this. Please also be warned that actions that you have engaged with can mean you are sanctioned, and filing this does not give you immunity. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 11:48, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Forget bullying and offenses: they are hard to catch without following the full discussion. Focus on overwelming amount of effort, patience and dead-end discussions by checking the talk sections here and here. Read in particular which behaviour of user:The Banner caused a valuable editor already to quit Wikipedia. I'm interested if you consider this all fine. Thanks, Goitseu (talk) 12:23, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that this IP was a valuable editor? I see no evidence of that. The Banner talk 13:44, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

From the arguments he brought here and here for example he is in my opinion very competent. He has also been very proactive, constructive and willing to contribute. Do you have a different impression? Goitseu (talk) 14:55, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

@Goitseu: I'm not willing to comment on the value of an editor, but if an editor thinks an entry is notable or suitable for inclusion in a list just because it's in the package manager of a major *nix distribution they're definitely confused about our notability and list inclusion guidelines. Nil Einne (talk) 10:03, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Ow, and I suggested that he should start an RfC when he wants the edit notices removed. It is not so good that he is turning a content dispute into something personal, as Goitseu is doing now. The Banner talk 15:31, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Legal threat by 212.73.35.230

by 212.73.35.230 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) made on talk:Kundalini yoga left here on article talk page This article is directly related to current investigations into allegations of violating US law. Adakiko (talk) 11:35, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I might be wrong, but that doesn't read like a legal threat, rather a reason the article state is important to that editor. That said the edit appears rather non-sensical and also not really the 'pedias problem. --WhoIs 127.0.0.1 ping/loopback 11:39, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Also to note I have reverted to the version the IP dislikes. I'm not interested in any sort of battle but changes like 'Kundalini energy is technically explained as being sparked during yogic breathing' scream out WP:FRINGE and probably need a firm consensus to add, which is currently lacking. --WhoIs 127.0.0.1 ping/loopback 11:43, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I took that statement as a threat. 11:48, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

The IP was blocked with a reason of disruptive editing so this is really academic at this point, but This article is directly related to current investigations into allegations of violating US law. Anything that is not presented neutrally and/or objectively here may encourage other people to make further claims that are not neutral and objective is not any sort of threat. Rather it reads (at least to me) that negative coverage is going to result in more legal headaches for the user/the org so they would much rather it be whitewashed. 'I will sue you' vs 'More people are going to sue me/go to the cops'. --WhoIs 127.0.0.1 ping/loopback 11:57, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Blocked for a week by Malcolmxl5 Adakiko (talk) 11:49, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, blocked for disruptive editing. Edit warring, possible block evasion (note the IP 31.4.229.184 on the Kundalini and Kundalini yoga pages yesterday) and the nonsense on the talk pages. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 14:12, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

And they're back. User:212.73.35.194 blocked one week for block evasion. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:34, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

And again. User:212.73.35.177 blocked and Kundalini and Kundalini yoga protected for one week. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 09:00, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

And again. User:212.73.35.178 on the talk pages. Blocked and added a partial rangeblock from these articles and talk pages for one month. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 10:50, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Judging from the latest edits on Patanjali Project (talk · contribs)'s talk page, seems to be the same person. They have been blocked since the 14th, all these IPs were block evasion. MrOllie (talk) 15:21, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

User:Vipz

User:Vipz and I have a disagreement on the pages Tito and Josip Broz Tito but actually his behaviour is very similar to a stalker versus me and my edits: he reverts all my edits at sight on various articles. Regarding article of Broz Tito, I started a section in related talk and I stop to edit in page "Tito" but in other articles he always reverts my edits. In particular he pretends to put the term "dictator" near Benito Mussolini but not near "Josip Broz Tito": they both were dictators and statesmen but Vipz is tendentious with his definitions when he edits in related articles. User Vipz on "edit summary" of article "Benito Mussolini" writed calling name what a hypocrite versus me. Stalking reverts are these:

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Forza bruta (talk • contribs) 13:31, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
• 7 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Forza bruta (talk • contribs) 13:58, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
• 8

Furthermore user Vipz removed two reliable sources in article Italia Brigade (Yugoslavia) without his intervention in related talk page: this is a form of disruption and sources affirm crimes made by dictator Broz Tito against Italian citizen in foibe massacres. Disruption is this: blatant disruption for his personal political POV. --Forza bruta (talk) 13:15, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

If this is a dispute about Tito, why are you editing articles on Mussolini? Why aren't you doing what was suggested at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, [28] and discussing the issue on the talk page - or failing that, using dispute resolution? AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:26, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Behavior of user Vipz is different point: I don't make stalking versus nobody and user Vipz seems to find arguments calling name versus me. I never did personal attack in edit summary or in talk page.--Forza bruta (talk) 13:42, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Please answer the question I asked. Why, if this is a dispute about Tito, are you going around editing articles on Mussolini, changing the word 'dictator' to 'authoritarian leader', or 'duce'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:04, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I am here not for a dispute of article's content but for provoking actions of user Vipz versus me and my contibutions on this project: he calling bad name versus me in edit summary of article "Benito Mussolini". I did change regarding Mussolini writing motivation in edit summary: the definition "dictator" is not officially name of a stateman and, in particular case of Mussolini, his officially name was "duce" and you can see article Duce with image of Mussolini. In the same manner stateman Francisco Franco was named Generalissimo and he was "de facto" a dictator, but you never can read definition "dictator" in articles introductions of Encyclopædia Britannica because definition "dictator" is used by historians in their books. In fact I always report sources by books with definition "dictator" but in sections of related article about historical figure.--Forza bruta (talk) 16:54, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

The Encyclopædia Britannica describes Mussolini as "the first of 20th-century Europe’s fascist dictators" in their introduction. [29] So do many, many other sources. Wikipedia goes by what sources say , not by vacuous arguments about 'official names'. And frankly, looking at the sequence of events here, where you seem to be retaliating to not getting your way in the Tito article (having entirely failed to do as you were told and discuss the issue) by editing content on Mussolini. Under which circumstances, I'd have to suggest that Vipz's comment about you might well be seen as justified. If you aren't prepared to actually engage in discussions over disputed content, but instead resort to disruptive edits of unrelated articles, and to repeated personal attacks on contributors (not just here with "blatant disruption for his personal political POV" which is clearly nonsense, but in the NPOV noticeboard thread, where you accused another contributor of the same thing - again while failing to provide any sort of evidence that you had even attempted to discuss the content dispute) it isn't surprising that people react that way. Carry on like this, and I'd be very surprised if you don't end up getting blocked from editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyTheGrump (talk • contribs) 18:22, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I discussed and actually discuss in related talk page of article "Josip Broz Tito": you can read my first message of several messages to user Peacemaker during 2017 and I send various email to him but result was only few changes of introduction in focussed article. In my personal talk page, you can read a message of Peacemaker during 2020 and I don't make here all links of my interventions in talk page of focussed article because I have little time. Regarding "Encyclopædia Britannica", I have an edition of this encyclopædia where article of Benito Mussolini has no citation of definition "dictator" in article's introduction: attention only in lead or introduction but in article's sections, definition "dictator" is present too and same situation is valid for dictator Broz Tito too. I just find reliable sources on various books and report these sources in this project under wikipedia's rules but other users are in permanent violation of wikipedia's rules. Good bless you.--Forza bruta (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

You have provided precisely zero evidence of any rules being violated. The 2017 post you made on Peacemaker67's talk page contains nothing of substance that couldn't have been posted on the article talk page, and nobody is ever obliged to engage in email discussions regarding article content (Or anything else, for that matter). They don't belong there. Such discussions should be carried out on the relevant talk page, where others can see them, and participate. If such discussions cannot be satisfactorily resolved, we have multiple options for dispute resolution - as you have already been told. Use them. This is a content dispute, and you aren't going to win it by making repeated unsubstantiated claims of violations of policy. Carry on like that, and you may well find yourself blocked... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:09, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Done, I request and I will request opinions to my wikipedia's tutor.--Forza bruta (talk) 12:15, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

User:Brainyshark03 reported by User:Mvcg66b3r

Disruptive editing; reverting to previous logos; uploading duplicate logos [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] Mvcg66b3r (talk) 14:55, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

What has this editor done wrong that can't be resolved by a bit of help on the user talk page? There may be something, but it's certainly not shown by those diffs. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:44, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Vandalism and hoaxing

• Sythans27 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I don't have time to chase this down right now but it looks like Sythans27, a pageant SPA, has just relocated an event from one country to another as a hoax. [36] They are a mobile editor so I haven't bothered trying to contact them about it. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:41, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

The editor has not responded to an inquiry on their userpage and is making more disruptive edits like [37]. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:02, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Warned user. Let's see if the correct their course. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:09, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Ongoing harassment from User:HandThatFeeds

Last week, I started a discussion on Wikipedia talk:No Nazis, arguing that it was a poorly-written essay that, if taken literally, would mean that people with any other fringe belief, most obviously Communists, should be banned as well. Any discussion related to Nazis is of course bound to stir up a lot of emotions, and my comments generated a fair amount of response, which I welcomed (and still welcome). However, User:HandThatFeeds took the opportunity not to respond to my arguments but to repeatedly insult me, including accusing me of (I think) secretly being a Nazi. Examples: [38], [39], [40], [41] (here, they said I was advocating the "race and intelligence" argument, which as I noted in my response is false), [42], [43], [44]. (That last statement is probably the worst of them: Then I look forward to your eventual block when you let the mask fully slip. In other words, I'm a bigot and a liar.)

HandThatFeeds then responded in basically the same way to an unrelated statement I made on this very page: [45].

I went to this user's talk page, to ask them to stop harassing me. They responded with this: You are clearly here to argue on the side of far-right conspiracy theories and anti-LGBT groups/individuals. AGF is not a suicide pact, and I cannot ignore your behavior. Do not post on my talk page again. A personal attack, coupled with a clear indication that the harassment will not stop, capped off with something that sounds like a threat. It was at that point that I decided to bring the issue here. If HandThatFeeds thinks I have secret nefarious beliefs and should be banned for them, there are channels for requesting that, most obviously this page; but simply responding continuously to my comments with these accusations is, at the very least, totally unhelpful; at worst, direct personal attacks and harassment. Korny O'Near (talk) 17:49, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

With all due respect Korny O'Near, this appears to me to be pretty weak tea. I came here fully prepared to say HandThatFeeds should turn down the temperature, and I would agree that the "let the mask slip" comment is over the line. The rest strike me as within the normal sharp-elbowed debate and editing that occurs on Wikipedia. Moreover, I think there is something of a clean hands issue here, as you took to an essay's talk page in a deliberately WP:POINT-y manner. Now, I don't believe there should be any sanction for that, but it shouldn't be all that shocking when one does something deliberately provocative and someone is provoked. As I like to say, reasonable minds can differ, and sometimes even tolerate each other's existence. Cheers to all. Dumuzid (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Harassment? Are you sure? Have they ever engaged in classic components of harassment like unwanted talk page messages and opening spurious ANI cases or is it just whats in the diffs? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:30, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

You went in there sparing for a fight, and that was what you got. You have no grounds for complaint here whatsoever. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 18:38, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure that WP:POINT applies to talk pages, but leaving that aside: is it your view that, once someone posts something provocative on some talk page, they're fair game for personal attacks from that point on, indefinitely? Korny O'Near (talk) 18:43, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

One thing provocative? No, not necessarily. But continuing to argue and belabor your point resorting to whataboutism and moving the goalposts, borderlining on sealioning, yes, you expose yourself to the consequences of such behavior. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 19:03, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Nothing actionable here — I do however fully expect to see this editor back at ANI in due course. Perhaps leave each other alone until then? — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 18:41, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I think bigots are (and should be) allowed here, so... yes. I haven't just implied that, I've said it directly. - I think that speaks for itself and completely shatters any pretense you have. Stop the WP:POINTy comments. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 18:48, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to make a point. Bigots are indeed allowed on Wikipedia (there's no policy in place against them, as far as I know), and it's my belief that this policy, or lack of policy, should remain. Korny O'Near (talk) 18:57, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Whatever your intent, the fact that WP:POINT is repeatedly raised should give you pause. Might I respectfully suggest drafting your own essay might be a more worthwhile use of time than being confrontational on the talk page of one you don't like? Dumuzid (talk) 19:01, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I wanted to write on the WP:NONAZIS talk page because I think it's extremely misleading, whether on purpose or not. But maybe I should have avoided a "devil's advocate" sort of approach in my initial post (which I think is what people are getting at when they refer to WP:POINT, though that's not quite the same). I still don't think it's grounds for harassment - especially not implied future harassment - but we can all do better. Korny O'Near (talk) 19:12, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there are silent bigots on here, yes, but people have gotten banned for being racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. in the past. Your sidestepping of your problematic comments is unbecoming. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 19:12, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

• Both sides in this issue said things that were provoking and escalating. I think the best advice, which both @TNT and @HandThatFeeds suggested is to disengage and walk away. Coming here only serves to further escalate the situation. Civility is more than just words but also actions. Searching for and finding a controversial essay isn't hard but then to go and express your displeasure on it's talk page only serves one purpose whether that's the intention or not. Best case now is to let it go. --ARoseWolf 19:15, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
• Nothing actionable, and recommend closing this discussion. Korny, you and I have had some discussion in the past, and more recently, on your talk page. I really appreciate you giving me the space and time to try and flesh out some ideas, but our interaction was less than fruitful. You may have noticed that HandThatFeeds is coming away from these discussions with you in much the same way as many others. I myself was left having very similar feelings as HandThatFeeds, even though you were civil and polite in our interaction. I strongly disagree there is a both sides problem here. Viriditas (talk) 19:17, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you expected to happen when you acted, supposedly, as the devil's advocate for bigots. Isabelle ^🏳‍🌈 19:18, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I was acting as the devil's advocate for victims of Communism, I suppose. Korny O'Near (talk) 19:20, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

That is really a dead-end argument. These groups are not at all the same, as was explained many times before. Honestly I had attempted to suggest that you write your own essay, but really my goal was that you would start to write an essay... only to come to the realization that there was no case to be made. --Elephanthunter (talk) 19:23, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Korny, I mean this in good faith, but you are doing yourself no favors. Dumuzid (talk) 19:25, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Let it go, Korny. The victims of communism can look after themselves. It is not your job or Wikipedia's to seek redress. John (talk) 19:26, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I already said what I had to say on the topic, a week ago. I came here to try to get an editor to leave me alone, not to discuss the relative merits of different ideologies. Korny O'Near (talk) 19:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Just ignore such responses. A roar has no effect, if one chooses to ignore the roaring. GoodDay (talk) 19:32, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

You went to antagonize someone with a post that you knew wouldn't be well-received, and got some blowback in return. Consider this a life lesson and don't poke a bear in the future. ValarianB (talk) 19:38, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

I actually didn't know that my original talk page post would not be well received. And I never committed any of the "poking" examples mentioned in that essay, though ironically HandThatFeeds did. But it's good advice regardless. Korny O'Near (talk) 19:48, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Okay, lesson learned. Whataboutism is frowned upon when discussing Nazis. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 21:15, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Apparently. :) I don't think I did that, but it seems that anything that appears to come even remotely close to minimizing Nazism (again, not that I did that) rattles some people. Lesson learned indeed. Korny O'Near (talk) 15:03, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

I really don't have anything to add here, as most of what I was going to say is already covered by others. Korny has been deliberately provocative, and I gave back some heat. I'd already disengaged from the page for a short wikibreak, and only caught the notice about this ANI because I stopped by Wikipedia to look up a reference. Korny has been tip-toeing some rather uncomfortable lines, and I'm glad others recognize that. For the time being, I'm just going to take the rest of the week off Wikipedia and leave it be. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:54, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Disruptive edits by Local hero

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

---

In 2022 North Macedonia protests I made some edits that add "North Macedonian" in front of "Prime Minister" and "Foreign Minister" including additional amendments. Local hero reverted only those edits that add North Macedonian although the reason for my edits [was explained] Bulgarian and Albanian prime ministers are reported explicitly, the North Macedonian is not, causing confusion to the reader, I improve the text per MOSMAC: "in line with the reliable sources, adjectives may still be used when referring to such institutions in generic terms (e.g. the Greek and North Macedonian prime ministers), especially where the possessive form would be grammatically cumbersome or unnatural.", North Macedonian as natural and not cumbersome as Albanian and Bulgarian.

This change improved ambiguity as explained in the comment, it is according to WP:MOSMAC that suggests "North Macedonian" by giving "North Macedonian Prime Minister" as a concrete example. MOSMAC states: However, in line with the reliable sources, adjectives may still be used when referring to such institutions in generic terms (e.g. the Greek and North Macedonian prime ministers), especially where the possessive form would be grammatically cumbersome or unnatural..

The reason I used the adjective "North Macedonian" instead of "of North Macedonia" is because the same was used for the Albanian and Bulgarian Prime and Foreign Ministers. No reason to handle North Macedonian differently.

I left a message on Local hero's page and he reverted my edits again. I am really disappointed from the tolerance shown to Local hero and other users who violate MOSMAC every day. A few days ago, we had the same problem in Gun law in North Macedonia where Local hero and Kluche coordinate edits and form consensus, like they did in North Macedonian denar too.

Can someone help me in how to report Local hero and Kluche for sockpuppetry? Nikokiris (talk) 20:08, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

If you have a suspicion of socking (a legitimate one) take it to WP:SPI, but be warned, opening an SPI on someone who opened an SPI on you (something you admitted to, by the way) without any evidence is likely going to be seen as retaliatory. FrederalBacon (talk) 20:33, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

All the evidence is provided in the sockpuppet investigation you cited. I am very disappointed with the behaviour of Local hero and his friends and the tolerance shown to them. Thanks for the suggestion, I don't want anybody to see it as retaliatory. If some experienced editor wants to use the evidence, feel free to do the report for me. This is my last message on wikipedia. Thanks so much for you help (you and everyone who helped to avoid the disruptive edits of Local hero and Kluche). I cannot spend more energy in this place. Nikokiris (talk) 20:55, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

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

User with good intentions not listening to other editors (User:184.177.118.115)

184.177.118.115 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has good intentions of editing, but numerous editors have alerted them on their talk page about various edits (See User talk:184.177.118.115#September 2022). One of the talk page alerts was about using an edit summary, which this user has never done. A lot of their edits have either been reverted or still remain, however, almost all of them are unsourced additions. Recently, the edited, 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado, changing the wind speeds to 323 mph, instead of the range (301 +/- 22 mph). Those edits were reverted by myself, but that showed me they are not here to vandalize/harm Wikipedia. However, after so many edits without sources, and what seems to be a lack of response to editor alerts on their talk page and a lack of knowledge about edit summaries (mentioned on their talk page), an admin needs to step in. A ban is certainly not needed, but maybe some alert about citing information if changing numbers (Example: [46]), using the edit summary, and communicating with other editors. The main issue (from the numerous talk page alerts/warnings) is not citing information, which is why an admin is needed and why I am starting this AN/I. Elijahandskip (talk) 20:44, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Soapboxing on own talk page after block

2A02:C7E:3422:4200:D5D5:9C60:CB38:FE02 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) likely needs their talk page access revoked. See, for example, Special:Diff/1111791324 and Special:Diff/1111793301. Kleinpecan (talk) 23:50, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Kleinpecan, a little bit of user talk page venting is common after a block. I do not think that it yet rises to the level where revoking talk page access is needed, but other administrators may have a different view. Cullen328 (talk) 00:34, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

"Atul Kumar" disruption

• 206.84.235.170 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

This IP has been repeatedly disrupting random, and similarly titled, articles with content for what appears to be a non-notable subject. This is on top of multiple attempts to overwrite the Atul Kumar (actor) redirect with similar content. Templated warnings do not appear to go through to the anonymous user, and I don't think a genuine written warning will get them to stop either, as they also appear to never use a Talk page. This is beyond final warning at this point. Jalen Folf (talk) 04:09, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Multiple IPs have been doing this for a while, on (as Jalen Folf notes) a bunch of pages with similar names. I don't think it's random though: they're generally over-writing existing articles whose names match their bio subject. DMacks (talk) 04:56, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

IP blocked a week. I expect another will be along though. DMacks (talk) 21:11, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

Parga

I will appreciate your insight here on the article Parga. Despite expressing my opposition to the use of extremist source, Xhufi, an extremist far-right Albanian politician known for his extreme bias against foreign countries and nations and for his nationalist propaganda, editors keep edit warring to have that scholar used regardless of whether other editors have expressed their legitimate concerns about that particular source. Furthermore, they haven't waited for consensus on the talk page, and are quick into reinstating the disputed source to the article even though they were supposed to discuss, not brute-force their new source to the article. - ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 23:19, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

SilentResident. This is obviously a content dispute that is currently being discussed on the article talk page, as you know. ANI does not adjudicate content disputes. If edit warring is going on, file a report at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. If you believe that a work by Pëllumb Xhufi is not a reliable source, make your case at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. You also have various forms of Dispute resolution available to you. Cullen328 (talk) 00:41, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Cullen328: as an uninvolved admin, can you please tell SilentResident to stop calling Xhufi a "extremist far-right Albanian politician"? I am not involved in that content dispute and I would not prefer using Xhufi as a source, but calling a living notable person on Wikipedia that way is a breach of WP:BLP IMO. That part of the comment should probably be deleted. Xhufi does not belong to the far right and is not an "extremist" at all, whatever that term is supposed to mean here. Ktrimi991 (talk) 09:38, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

• SilentResident, weren't you going to do a report to determine that Xhufi is not a reliable author? Why do you expect users to be okay with the removal of his works when the report hasn't been made? Super Ψ Dro 12:03, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Third party academic scholars informed me that they are preparing a detailed analysis on Pëllumb Xhufi's reliability. That's why I am not rushing right away for the RSN because more material on the politician, can prove always helpful for Wikipedia to understand whether this person is reliable as a source. Not that the content and evidence found already thus far, isn't sufficing for the RSN to determine.

You stated "Why do you expect users to be okay with the removal of his works when the report hasn't been made?" but you are reminded that a growing number of WP:RS already disputed and challenged Xhufi's credibility but the users chose to ignore this, insisting -without presenting proof to Wikipedia- that Xhufi is reliable. How is Xhufi reliable when editors havent provided any WP:RS supporting Xhufi in face of the WP:RS that have discredited Xhufi's objectivity as a scholar? This is not okay I am afraid. Until the RSN concludes on Xhufi, the legitimate concerns over Xhufi's reliability may not be ignored and the legitimate concerns of editors are not less legitimate. There is no such guideline stating such a thing. In our case here the users wanting to use Xhufi's work, are fully aware about the WP:RS disputing Xhufi as a WP:RS and have two options: 1) to either provide WP:RS defending Xhufi as a reliale author, or 2) provide WP:RS debunking the other RSs discrediting Xhufi's reliability as an author. The users have done nothing of that. Instead, they chose editwarring to add Xhufi without wp:consensus to the articles and by ignoring the concerns of verification. The editors are reminded that WP:VERIFY is a core content policy in Wikipedia and when there is no consensus for using a particular source, then the editors are asked to provide independent third-party sources verifying that information provided by the extremist politician. This helps addressing any editorial concerns adequately IMO.

If it is wrong to have legitimate concerns over an author (whose credibility is questioned by other scholars) and to ask just for any third party independent RS, then please correct me because I have read again and again the Wikipedia's guidelines on WP:VERIFIABILITY and there is no such a thing as a guideline recommending that this Core Content Policy can be superseded by personal editorial POV(!) which can ignore the WP:RS(!) discrediting an extremist politician. This is just the pure definition of "not okay", if you ask me.--- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 12:51, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

 Comment: this is exactly what I am talking about when I say that this whole thing is worrisome: just now, at Parga, another Albanian account came from nowhere, from a different topic area and reinstated the new additions to the article they have never edited previously in their life, all this just to add Pëllumb Xhufi back to the article [47] through brute-forcing and without participating in the talk page nor providing any third-party reliable WP:RS. The fact that too many Albanian accounts are working together persistently to brute-force content while disregarding Wikipedia's WP:VERIFIABILITY and not working through WP:CONSENSUS-building at the talk page is exactly part of the broader issue of Albanian WP:TAGTEAM to which User:Coldtrack has pointed out recently [48] at the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 15:52, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Instead of talking about "tagteaming" and "Albanian accounts" here, try one of the dispute resolution ways. Cheers, Ktrimi991 (talk) 16:02, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

The dispute resolution is supposed to be followed by all editors, not edit war to brute force your unreliable sources instead of waiting for dispute resolution like how you did now. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 16:38, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

What? I am not involved in that content dispute and I did not revert you. It seems that you are very confused at this point. Ktrimi991 (talk) 16:47, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

You are. Sorry. Lack of direct editing on the specific article doesn't exactly make you any less involved. --- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 17:07, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

You must be kidding. I hope you are not blaming an "Albanian account" for the actions of another "Albanian account". In any case, it is not clear what you are trying to say and what do you seek here at ANI/I, and it is clear nobody will solve your content dispute here. Ktrimi991 (talk) 17:11, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Per the points raised here by SilentResident, I remind all editors who wish to include material originating from Xhufi that per WP:ONUS, "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content". It doesn't say force it on until a consensus disapprove of it. --Coldtrack (talk) 18:14, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

PS. As regards the denialism that Xhufi represents far-right extremist viewpoints, perhaps objectors could enlighten the community by distinguishing the views of far-right Albanians from the views of Xhufi, and where they are on record as opposing his works. --Coldtrack (talk) 18:16, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

SilentResident, perhaps you are correct and works by Pëllumb Xhufi should not be considered reliable. I do not know. But the place to make that determination is at WP:RSN as you know. Asserting over and over that he is unreliable without going to that noticeboard is not acceptable. So, either go to RSN or drop the subject. It is also not acceptable to belittle other editors for being Albanians. Do not ever imply that another editor should be disregarded simply because of their ethnicity. That is unseemly and disruptive. Cullen328 (talk) 18:28, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

P. Xhufi is quite active in local national rhetoric (in TV shows etc.). Statements such as this [[49]] show clearly that he is personally involved in promoting a national agenda: he does not hesitate to accuse the Greek government (since the creation of the Greek state) of anti-Albanian activity. Definitely this isn't the kind of neutral scholarship.Alexikoua (talk) 18:54, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Have you considered posting a RSN? Cullen literally said "the place to make that determination is at WP:RSN". Alltan (talk) 19:02, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Cullen328 Without prejudice over anybody's national identity, I have read every comment on this thread including the all-important original post. I infer that SilentResident was basically using this noticeboard to say, "the behaviour of numerous editors is unacceptable" and may have hoped that admins take a deeper look into who is doing what. Although conventionally it seems that this project page is normally focused on one accused person. This time he was saying that a team of about three are slithering their way across multiple articles and posting dubious material. To that end it is not an ANEW matter in the strictest sense, and with regards RS debate, it is definitely the case that no less than one person is violating ONUS as I stated above. So in SilentResident's situation, I'm not sure myself where to have gone to raise complaints about one cabal operating widely. --Coldtrack (talk) 19:07, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Cullen328 and Coldtrack:Thank you both very much. Now if you allow me, just for clarity: as soon as I get my hands on the new Autumn 2022 reports on Xhufi by Western scholars who view that politican as unreliable scholar, you have my word that I will make haste for the RSN. Just like how you said, there is no Wikipedia guideline suggesting that consensus is not necessary until the RSN. And to clarify that when I say "Albanian accounts": I am specifically talking about accounts focusing specifically on the two Albanian Topic Areas: Albania and Kosovo; It is important to make a clear distinction on what the term Albanian refers there. All the accounts involved into brute-forcing Xhufi into Wikipedia, share a common characteristic in the sense that they are mainly editing the 2 Albanian topic areas. Its important to make this clear because - my mistake- I assumed everybody would understand that, since obviously it makes no sense to refer to them as "Albanian accounts" in an ethnic sense - that makes no sense, since I can't verify the nationality of editors nor it matters for Wikipedia, nor I know anyone here caring at all about Ethnicities. But I am referring to these accounts in an Topic-Area context: it is a common characteristic of the WP:Balkans that accounts from one topic area, often share views and cooperate to this end, which, at first glance, is not harmful to Wikipedia, yes, but when a great deal of it involves ignoring WP:ONUS and WP:RELIABILITY, then it is worrisome and goes against the Wikipedia project's goal which is to steer away from nationalist authors and dubious sources. Next time I will use the term "Topic Area" to avoid any potential misunderstandings again, and will mention this again only if from a technical perspective (i.e. whether it is important for Admins to understand what is going on there). Good day.--- ❖ SilentResident ❖ ^{(talk ✉ | contribs ✎)} 19:09, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Coldtrack: There is large scale tendency to promote sources such as Xhufi, while on the other hand removing multiple academic publications that don't fit with Xhufi's POV. One example is the removal of published works by A. Spiro (linguist of the University of Tirana) with the excuse that he doesn't agree with the national POV as Ktrimi explained [[50]]. Removals&reverts are performed in wp:TAGTEAMING fashion, as shown here: [[51]]. Also several wp:RS have been removed due to the same as part of the same fashion (to name a view scholars: Skendi, Vakalopoulos, Hasiotis, Tsiknakis, Kofos) in favor to POV narratives by Xhufi. Those editors that insist on the removal of those authors never filled an RSN they just resort in TAGTEAMING.Alexikoua (talk) 00:52, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Wikilinks added to articles related to Nigeria

There are a number of editors editing articles relating to Nigeria to add internal links that at best seem pointless, and often go to wildly inappropriate articles. For some of the more egregious examples, see here, here, here, and here (I think that last one has been added more than once, and possibly by more than one account). Does anyone know what is going on here, or how to deal with it? I’m notifying the accounts I can remember, apologies if I miss any. Brunton (talk) 16:10, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Now that I try to notify them, I’ve only been able to find a couple of accounts doing this, I thought there were more. Brunton (talk) 16:18, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

That's completely disruptive. I have warned the accounts Gloria Lina (talk · contribs) and Gift Denison (talk · contribs) sharply. Also, the two accounts' edits are so similar that I suspect they're run by the same individual. Might a Checkuser care to take a look, please? Thanks for reporting, Brunton. Bishonen | tålk 20:19, 24 September 2022 (UTC).

 Unlikely bordering on definitely not, but geographically close enough that they may well know each other. --Yamla (talk) 20:24, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Just some friends trolling together on a weekend, I guess. Silverseren^C 20:29, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Thanks, Yamla. Yeah, I bet they're playing a game to see who can add the most unlikely link. Bishonen | tålk 20:32, 24 September 2022 (UTC).

I spot-checked a few of those links, and in each case, it's the first option in the drop-down after you select a word and click VisualEditor's "link" button. I wonder if this is an student assignment gone horribly wrong. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:37, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

That's interesting. Sorry to say the VisualEditor is a bit of a closed book to me. If that's it, I guess the assignment instructions must have been, well, quite unhelpful, especially since the modus operandi has included re-adding the same bad links over and over after being reverted. I have indeffed Gloria Lina, who kept right on after my warning. Perhaps that will get them to explain on their talkpage. Bishonen | tålk 08:12, 25 September 2022 (UTC).

2015 Canadian federal election

IP address. Most recent incident: 2015_Canadian_federal_election&oldid=1112085428 G. Timothy Walton (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

• 2015 Canadian federal election (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• 107.190.33.254 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

This appears to be a content dispute where an IP has removed content twice in four days. It should be discussed on the talk page (I gather there is already a consensus?) but the IP's conduct doesn't require the use of the admin toolset at this time imo. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:15, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, there is an editoral consensus on the page that's stood since the 2015 election. The anon's abusive language and attitude toward disagreement with his viewpoint strike me as justifying admin intervention but I'm not an admin and not accustomed to dealing with such matters.

I'll let other editors handle this in future so that I'm not subjected to further abuse for how I submit a report while dealing with severe pain. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 22:06, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

They have returned to the article. I have left them a message to take it to the article talk page. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:47, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

@G. Timothy Walton: Please note that you should have notified the principal IP address involved, 107.190.33.254 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), of this discussion, as the red notice both on top of this page and when editing to leave this filing clearly require. I have done so for you this time. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 11:10, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Keimzelle making personal attacks

Keimzelle (talk · contribs) has made personal attacks towards User:Onel5969, claiming that Onel5969 is a vandal. Onel5969 redirected their article, and Keimzelle reverted with an edit summary of "I'm not in a mood to tolerate vandalism, reverted". I asked them to withdraw their accusation, which they subsequently doubled down on. I think that Keimzelle needs a warning from an admin to not make personal attacks like this again. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 21:42, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Blocked for a week. The German username made me look up their dewiki block log and decide that a mere warning not to personally attack other editors isn't needed anymore. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:54, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Cyber Anakin and IP editor conduct

Cyber Anakin (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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

I was in two minds whether an ANI report, or a AN3 report for this was in order. While there is a 3RR violation to the Cyber Anakin article, as the IP editor has made four reverts in the last four hours ([52], [53], [54], [55]), there are also behavioural issues that go beyond this.

Brief timeline. Yesterday Softlemonades, over the course of three edits, removed content from the Cyber Anakin article. The IP editor restored the content, which I then removed again ([56]) citing WP:BLPRESTORE. The IP editor restored it a second time, for which I issued an edit war ([57]) notice to the IP, and the IP editor simultaneously issued a uw-disruptive1 notice to me ([58]). I then asked the IP editor to self-revert ([59])), which they agreed to at the time, while accusing Softlemonades of tendentious editing. Discussion then moved to the article's talk page. In that discussion, the IP editor again cast aspersions about editor conduct ([60]), to which I politely requested that the editor stop implying that content was removed in bad faith, and reminded them to assume good faith ([61]). Despite this, the IP editor continued with the aspersions saying a spade is a spade and then asserting that I should Drop the stick if any or all of the removals prove overzealous. ([62]).

Shortly after this, the IP editor used the {{please see}} template on the User talk pages of five editors (diffs: Cambial Yellowing, Deku-shrub, GorillaWarfare, Scope creep, and I dream of horses), who as far as I can tell have never edited that page. This was pointed out by I dream of horses on the article talk page ([63]) and discussed briefly on I dream of horses' talk page ([64]). Neither I dream of horses nor I are sure how or why those five editors were chosen.

Discussion continued between myself and the IP editor at the article talk page ([65]), where they accused me Wikilawyering over the various policy points that were raised at the discussion ([66]). My response was to direct the IP editor to this noticeboard if they felt as though either my or Softlemonades' conduct was an issue, making another request to cease making accusations of bad faith ([67]).

During this series of events, the IP editor has issued three warning templates on my talk page. uw-disruptive1 ([68])), uw-disruptive2 and uw-tempabuse1 ([69]). The use of these templates, when combined with the pointed commentary at the article talk page feels as though it is intended to produce a chilling effect, to discourage myself and potentially other editors from editing that article. This is not the first time I have faced such behaviour at that article, this AN3 report, as well as related discussions on that IPv6 editor's talk page ([70], [71], [72]) from June 2022 were also laden with commentary that I should leave the article be for a variety of reasons. I also suspect, though cannot decisively prove, that these two IP editors are one and the same, as they both have used the somewhat unusual phrase "don't whack a mountain out of a molehill" (IPv6 editor, IPv4 editor) instead of the far more common term "make a mountain out of a molehill", though I suppose the "whack" variant could be a cromulent variation. However even if they are not related, the chilling effect emanating from that article remains.

If there is an issue with my own conduct in this, I'll be happy to apologise and adjust how I approach these sorts of edits. Also while I will naturally notify the IPv4 editor of this thread per instructions, I'm not sure if I should also notify the five other editors who received a {{please see}} notice earlier directing them to the article talk page. I'd appreciate any clarification on this. Thanks. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:46, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

ANI notice to IP editor. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:48, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Instead of going through WP:DRN or WP:DRR first you went all the way up here. That says a lot about you.45.136.197.235 (talk) 23:29, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Alright, here's my statement. I have a bunch of pages regarding Ukraine since the start of the invasion on my feed, and that one is no exception. The reason why I restored the content after Softlemonades' removal is not just because it make those less interesting and more boring for readers, but because it would cause the article to become out-of-date particularly when Softlemonades removed sections describing the further implications of his hack and his later activity, for instance the passages regarding Distributed Denial of Secrets and his activities during the invasion, the latter of which I've since restored) as they are sourced by Taiwan News which is kind of like a USA Today in Taiwan and it was one of the largest newspaper over there. WP:BLPRESTORE provides that Material that has been repaired to address concerns should be judged on a case-by-case basis, rather than an all-out removal no matter the presence of parts worthy to be retained.

Even though there are small errors such as the use of primary sources and a preprint paper (which has since became an academic OUP entry), however the solution would be to remove those only. As for the rest, they also went into a nickel and dime territory where Sideswipe allege that tidbits like "the hacktivist wanting to be more like Justin Bieber" are unnecessary which is very much disputed given that IMO it's more like a MacGuffin for readers in terms of explaining the hacker's M.O. and the spurious allegation by Sideswipe that "Distributed Denial of Secrets group and Cyber Anakin was not made clear in that source" and "how or why it is in there is not made clear" which sounded more like nitpicking or "making a mountain out of a molehill"; the passage was meant to describe the lasting scope and effects of his data breach.

I saw the contributions of the original remover (Softlemonades) and feel that there's a wrong vibe given that he had engaged in other edge-case disruptive actions on other pages such as WikiLeaks; in fact it reeked of TenPoundHammer which was known to have engaged in far more disruptive and zealous removal actions until the point that he was topic banned.

Seeking to avoid WikiDrama and resolve it professionally, upon Sideswipe's advice I set up an ad hoc "third opinion" discussion on the talkspace and semi-randomly picked an admin based on past editing history of that page for him to preemptively break the deadlock provide feedback and to work on resolving the matter. Otherwise involving the original editors would risk running into loggerheads and become a disruptive drama.

I had let Sideswipe known about it and expected her to take the hint. She refused and put out an invite for Softlemonades, while pulling a lot of nickel and dime without any hint of how to progress and/or compromise on it. If she didn't appear like a ninja and interfere the page issues would have been fixed quickly or even by now without much fuss. Some would be re-phrased or rewritten, while non-salvageable contents would be removed.

In my experience of spectating editorial activities in Wikipedia, removals of well-written and sourced statement under spurious or pedantic grounds are at times viewed as disruptive and even vandalism; IMO they should have tagged the offending passages first and raise it at the talkspace, unless it's unambiguous vandalism, libel or doxxing. Instead of going through WP:DRN or WP:DRR first Sideswipe went all the way up, which is why we're here today. 45.136.197.235 (talk) 00:36, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

P.S. As soon as Sideswipe put a "Please see" notice on Softlemonades's talkspace there's the danger that it would come off as an unrepresentative or skewed consensus unless some people with experience in editing that article or BLPs in Internet culture in general are invited to have a say on it, so I invited about five people by random based on the article editing histories and involvement in relevant WikiProjects (Internet Culture and Cybersecurity in this case). That's all I've to say on that.45.136.197.235 (talk) 00:56, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

IP I don't think I can be bothered looking into this, but it's clearly not vandalism, and you suggesting it might be suggest is not helping your case. Indeed it can be construed as a personal attack which will lead to you being blocked. Also, there are various ways to seek additional feedback on a WP:content dispute but picking a specific editor/s even allegedly at random is not one of them, it's impossible to demonstrate you weren't WP:CANVASSING intentionally or not. If you need help from editors experience with BLP then WP:BLP/N is the way to go. If you feel editors from some Wikiproject can help, then post a neutral notice on their noticeboard asking for help. In the case of Wikiprojects, it's especially important that you put a notice on the article talk page that you did so, so all editors are aware of your request and can consider notifying other Wikiprojects if need be. BTW, especially in the case of BLPs, it is far more important that content is adequately sourced and does not violate any of our other policies and guidelines like WP:UNDUE, than it is up to date or not "boring for readers". Indeed an article being otherwise "boring for readers" is not a good reason to keep or add something, in any article, but it's an especially terrible reason on BLPs. I'd go so far to say that you should not be editing BLPs if you think it's an acceptable reason to add or keep content. Nil Einne (talk) 02:08, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Given my concerns over the IP reasoning and other things, I've brought the article up at BLPN. Nil Einne (talk) 02:18, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

The WikiProject noticeboards at times can be very stale, see here and this. Regardless, thanks for pointing out to the right direction, to the BLP noticeboard.45.136.197.235 (talk) 02:20, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

It's more important whether editors are paying attention then whether something is allegedly stale, and it's impossible to know the later without analysing whether posts on the noticeboard result in editor attention and even that will depend on the specific posts. In any case, if a Wikiproject is inactive then, an editor cannot be "involved" it in any meaningful way so it's especially silly to defend notifying editors based on their involvement in a Wikiproject when the Wikiproject is dead. The Wikiproject becomes irrelevant and you need to find other ways of looking for editors that does not violate WP:CANVASSING. Ultimately it's your responsibility to respect our guidelines and policies if you want to edit here. Nil Einne (talk) 02:27, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd also note that this dispute seems to be about 2 days old and is clearly something which isn't timely or important to resolve quickly. So it's entirely reasonable to ask for help on some noticeboard, and wait a week or more before deciding this isn't working and moving elsewhere. It's poor form to expect urgency from volunteers for something which is very far from urgent. Nil Einne (talk) 02:30, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

While this specific dispute is around 2 days old, as I stated above there is a longer standing underlying behavioural issue relating to comments made by at least one IP editor (two if the IPv4 and v6 editors are not the same person) that seem to be phrased in a manner to discourage others from editing that article. I've tried (I hope), to make my comments solely about editor conduct and not article content, as ANI is not the correct noticeboard for a content issue. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:45, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

For clarity, I have no comment on whether there are conduct issues beyond those I've mentioned (that the IP's notifications were inappropriate, that they should not be suggesting there was vandalism and that some of their stated reasons for adding or preserving content are wrong). My point on the urgency thing is that the IP seems to be justifying their canvassing based on the assumption they would not have received feedback if they've used appropriate noticeboards. But it's impossible to know this since they never tried, and even if they had tried, they did not leave enough time for their to be a response. Indeed, a big part of the current mess (whatever historic problems there have been) seem to be because the IP is in way too much of a rush to resolve this dispute which is a bad thing on this volunteer collaborative project of Wikipedia. Nil Einne (talk) 02:58, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Aaah, yeah that makes more sense. Sorry for the confusion! Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:00, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, there are significant fraction of editing community like me who leans onto WP:YESDEADLINE. 45.136.197.235 (talk) 03:20, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Regardless, if you expect volunteers editors need to drop everything and resolve a dispute within hours just because it's something you care about, your editing career is likely to last much longer. Nil Einne (talk) 08:52, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

• Yesterday Softlemonades, over the course of three edits, removed content from the Cyber Anakin article – For the record, that article needs a lot of content removed. EEng 07:19, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Except that, now the zeal looks no different that TenPoundHammer's as it starts to disrupt the narrative story flow of the article, like [this], especially the latter of the cause-and-effect aspects. This is fast degenerating into additionism/retentionism vs removalism which had happened perennially in this site as a whole, which to the best of my understanding has contributed to low editorial retention. From time to time bsolutist rationales and stances to justify deletion/noninclusion of contents and even whole pages, which had sometimes contributed to Systemic bias; one of the long string of latest examples being Donna Strickland. It's easy to just sit down at couch and say "I don't know anything of that or that or that, let's delete it!" about local people, politics, economics, religion, events, science, arts, literature, film, theater, food and drinking/restaurants, geography, astronomy, dance, music, sports, education and whatever all around the globe". It's also easy to remove "unimportant or irrelevant" information because of lack of familiarity or disinterest due to cultural differences. While you here might want a simplistic presentation, others like readers might want Wikipedia to be detailed and be like a Wiki rabbit hole.

To the best of my understanding, the German Wikipedia underwent similar craze and as a result lost financial donors and contributors due to "purging trolls" activity. Because of that their publications has regularly linked to English Wiki instead of their native version. Note that I'm not advocating for an radically unrestricted of anything into this encyclopedia because some may violate copyright laws or otherwise misinformation, but it's no good either if you take the other side to the extreme.

With the help of this word counter which I copied and pasted the text from the original version (before Softlemonades' removal), the word count stands at 1,321 words (including the section titles). This is far short of 6,000 to 10,000 words described in WP:SIZESPLIT which takes between 30 and 40 minutes to read at average speed.

In the end additionism/retentionism vs removalism is a zero sum game which not playing would be wise. One possible middle ground is to use only reliable sources with Taiwan News, VICE and Heise as a minimum, and move on after that.45.136.197.235 (talk) 16:09, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Disruption by Locke Cole

Editor Locke Cole is edit warring against consensus on multiple templates Template:Bit and byte prefixes Template:Quantities of bits Template:Quantities of bytes (including a possible 3RR violation [73] [74] [75]), disrupting talk pages (here’s one example [76]) and carrying out personal attacks [77] [78]. Some editors are trying to hold a discussion at Template_talk:Quantities_of_bits, but the discussion is continually disrupted by Locke Cole's edits. Can someone take a look? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:53, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

@Dondervogel 2: You have failed to notify Locke Cole of this ANI filing, as the red notice on top of this page and when editing clearly require. I have done so for you this time. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 00:15, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

@TheDragonFire300 He did notify Locke here, but was reverted here. ~~~~ ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 00:21, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I would like to apologise, in that case. I was going to check shortly after I made the comment and notice, but forgot to. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 01:35, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Without commenting on the possible edit warring and general discussions I find it odd that the discussion for Template:Quantities of bytes is being held at Template_talk:Quantities_of_bits#New_proposal:_Legacy as part of a proposal that appears to have gained consensus and been implemented in November 2021. The only reason that I was able to figure out to go there was the fact that there was a November 2021 message on the Quantities of bytes template Talk with a link. The same goes for Template_talk:Quantities_of_bytes (where the previous talk items date to 2015). This discussion appears to have been going on for multiple years in different forms both on individual pages and collectively. I also note that the templates link to Kilobyte and other pages where the nomenclature should align with what is in the templates otherwise it is going to get even messier and the discussion will migrate there or the Template discussion will be used to support viewpoints elsewhere.

With all of this I suggest that a formal proposal be started at the Wikipedia:Village pump with messages left on the template talk pages alerting people and whilst the discussion is being undertaken the templates should be left in a stable form. Apart from anything else:

1. That will gain a wider viewership and input than on a single page.
2. Changes based on consensus at the Village Pump are easier to support and require an equivalent level of consensus to change to something else.

Gusfriend (talk) 00:53, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, this should have been held at WT:MOSNUM, as one of the templates under discussion (Template:Bit and byte prefixes (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)) is transcluded at WP:COMPUNITS (part of WP:MOSNUM; thus making it a MOS change, not simply a template change). As to the November 2021 "consensus", the TL;dr version is, Dondervogel 2 drags out discussions, waits a month or longer to reply, apparently in an attempt to force their POV. It worked this time because I and other editors who would oppose it did not notice the "new" discussion (you can see I was heavily involved in other discussions in that main section; the proposal they made nearly two months after the last meaningful discussion in that sub-thread was quickly closed in only six days when they got what they wanted (with no attempt to ping or reach out to other editors they knew were heavily invested in the discussion)).

It is my intention to collect evidence of this disruptive behavior by Dondervogel 2 (back to when they edited as Thunderbird2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) which goes back literally over a decade, present it here, and suggest a WP:BOOMERANG wherein Dondervogel is restricted from editing pages in any namespace that have any relation with units of measure that involve computers or technology. If you want just one taste of how they treat this topic as a WP:BATTLEGROUND, look at the full edit history of User:Thunderbird2/The case against deprecation of IEC prefixes (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) which they have religiously updated for fourteen years. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:12, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment)If I'm reading correctly, a header at WT:MOSNUM indicates that this is under ArbCom discretionary sanctions, so any editors involved in a dispute about this topic should beware and tread lightly, yes? Elizium23 (talk) 06:27, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

In addition to Locke Cole's editing against consensus, disrupting the discussion chronology and edit warring, I'd like to direct attention to his severe lack of WP:AGF, frequent allegations of lying and generally rude tone at least bordering on harassment. A productive discussion is impossible. I'd seriously appreciate an admin calling him to order officially. --Zac67 (talk) 06:48, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

User: Eranshahr Eranshahr

Can someone from admins have a look to this case please, as far as I am concerned this user's behavior is not build for the Wikipedia and they are not being here to build an encyclopedia.

1. 25 September 2022 - Without looking to the details of the edits, the comment of the edit is worrying on its own heavily pov article. shushu city was never occupied by armenians, it was part of nkao unlike fascists claim. However, edit itself even more controversial. User removed relevant categories and added some unsourced material like : so-called Museum of History of Karabakh; the proposal was ignored by the Aliyev regime
2. 24 September 2022 - removes edit, where other used added relevant information about the notable person from the village, with following comment irrelevant propaganda information. And he revert that edit 3 times in the row.
3. 24 September 2022 - reverts additions of the sourced information with following comments Vandalism from Republic of Azerbaijan
4. 24 September 2022 - several times basically blanks the newly created article with following comment Irrelevant propaganda article, please propose for deletion
5. 24 September 2022 - removes sourced information questioning Where is source that he was Azerbaijani, although source is there and it directly supports material.
6. 24 September 2022 reaches to the talk page of the another user, who in few occasions reverted their controvertial edits, and asks him following Stop your Azerbaijani vandalism.

I am not sure if this user is sock, or not, but their edits definitely do not improve Wikipedia. A b r v a g l ^(PingMe) 07:09, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it's a sock. It's obvious if you look at the article history of Vedi, where two accounts are removing the same information. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:20, 25 September 2022 (UTC)