Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard: Difference between revisions

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V	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Total
CfD	0	0	59	3	62
TfD	0	1	21	6	28
MfD	0	0	1	0	1
FfD	0	0	3	0	3
RfD	0	0	6	1	7
AfD	0	0	2	9	11

• 13 bot-reported usernames for administrator attention
• 8 user-reported usernames for administrator attention
• 0 bot-generated requests for intervention against vandalism
• 4 user-generated requests for intervention against vandalism
• 54 sockpuppet investigations
• 36 Candidates for speedy deletion
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• 9 Candidates for history merging
• 42 requests for RD1 redaction
• 168 elapsed requested moves
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• 36 requested closures
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Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

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Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (29 out of 11878 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin On conducting a special military operation 2025-06-09 16:51 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case 51st G7 summit 2025-06-09 13:01 2025-06-23 13:01 edit,move Persistent disruptive editing from (auto)confirmed accounts Chetsford Thom Yorke 2025-06-09 03:55 indefinite move Persistent disruptive editing: request at WP:RFPP Materialscientist QuoteWizard 2025-06-09 03:12 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Sohom Datta Arab Ba'ath 2025-06-08 21:03 indefinite move Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Ymblanter Template:Molecular formula index 2025-06-08 18:00 indefinite edit High-risk template or module: 2503 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Howtoreqphotoin 2025-06-08 18:00 indefinite edit High-risk template or module: 2507 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Mitzpe Shalem 2025-06-08 17:13 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1294590069#Mitzpe Shalem Newslinger 2024 Closure of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin 2025-06-08 17:12 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1294589839#2024 Closure of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin Newslinger September 2024 pro-Palestinian strike in Spain 2025-06-08 17:11 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1294397996#September 2024 pro-Palestinian strike in Spain Newslinger Peace discourse in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict 2025-06-08 17:10 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1294397759#Peace discourse in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Newslinger Popular Forces 2025-06-08 17:08 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1294397668#Popular Forces Newslinger Max Steinberg (soldier) 2025-06-08 17:08 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP: Special:Permalink/1294326957#Max Steinberg (soldier) Newslinger Draft:Battle of Ancedan 2025-06-08 04:09 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Sohom Datta Draft:Modern Era (2011-present) 2025-06-08 02:25 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Mz7 Template:Wikisource/Author 2025-06-07 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2879 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Chris Eubank 2025-06-07 00:06 indefinite move Downgrade to SP from ECC (block evasion/sock), as per Orangemike's consent at RFPP. Dennis Brown Yasser Abu Shabab 2025-06-06 21:35 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:ARBPIA Ymblanter Draft:Gani Gashi 2025-06-06 21:21 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated: see also Gani Gashi SuperMarioMan Cliff Cash 2025-06-06 15:55 indefinite move Persistent sockpuppetry: extending per recent sock activity Ohnoitsjamie User talk:119.206.20.161 2025-06-06 07:17 indefinite move Inappropriate use of user talk page while blocked DoubleGrazing Imane Khelif 2025-06-05 20:59 2025-12-11 02:23 edit About to be in the news; this is prophylactic Black Kite Tupolev Tu-160 2025-06-05 19:51 indefinite edit Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case Module:Ko-utils 2025-06-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 3015 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Module:Ko-translit/data 2025-06-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 3015 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Module:Ko-translit 2025-06-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 3011 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Infobox Korean name/auto/categories 2025-06-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2773 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Infobox Korean name/auto 2025-06-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2773 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Template:Infobox Chinese/Korean/auto 2025-06-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2892 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II

Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled

A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. If you are an administrator, you may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if an administrator wishes to self-assign they may do so now. When the change goes live, I will note it here. Additionally, there is some agreement among those discussing implementation to mass message admins a version of this message. I will be doing so soon and including a link to this thread for questions/discussion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:54, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:RIGHTS should probably be updated to reflect this change. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 20:32, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Well there's a page I didn't know existed. Looks like Joe has updated it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:08, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

For some reason, the notice that went out didn't have your username on it. So, I was left wondering who or what committee was sending out this news. But it directs people here so I found out. Looks like another discussion I heard about after it was over! This should probably be added to the next Admin's Newsletter for (oh, my) January. 2022, here already. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:13, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@Liz yeah I intentionally signed it with five tildes. That said, if you edit there is an html comment showing who sent an MMS if you're ever curious. As for the newsletter I believe someone Tol already took care of that. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:28, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I've been (re)-granted it at WP:PERM/A, there may be others like me who don't feel comfortable self-assigning, so I would recommend that that page be given a little extra attention as there may be an elevated volume of requests related to sysops. Unless, of course, there's not many besides me with qualms about self-assigning. Hog Farm _Talk 21:29, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I will note that I granted it to people on this list of admins who had autopatrol before +sysop who hadn't already self-granted. I figured you and Eddie would not be the only two reluctant to self-grant. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:10, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Personally I had no qualms at all about self-granting this, and I see that many others on my watchlist also did not. I'd imagine that most of us, and especially Hog Farm, are competent enough at writing articles that this really isn't controversial.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:59, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd also point out that for all current sysops, the community already considered and granted the flag as part of the toolkit, and the discussion doesn't show that the community has lost that trust. I view this change as similar to how we handle edit filter manager for sysops. It's a powerful tool that some people want and some people don't. Not granting by default but letting admins self-assign lets sysops customize their toolkit to fit their needs. If you think you need it, grant it, if you don't want it, don't; I don't think the considerations need to be more complicated than that. Fro myself, I plan to use it similar to a m:flood flag. If I'm going to be making a ton of project pages or doing a lot of housekeeping, I'll add autopatrolled so that I don't flood the NPQ with junk. But if I'm going to be creating a bunch of biography stubs or redirect, I would actually appreciate the second set of eyes as it could help point out areas for further improvement or catch silly mistakes I might have missed. I understand why some might be hesitant to self-grant, but if the community didn't trust admins to grant it, we wouldn't have kept self-assignment as an option. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:44, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Autopatrolled should exist solely to mitigate the impact of high-volume article creation on the NPP process, but there's been an unfortunate tendency to see it as just a badge of honour for "trusted" users. We constantly try to explain this to people at WP:PERM/A, but it has always felt a little hypocritical with it being automatically given to admins. So I'm glad that I no longer have autopatrolled, and while the vast majority of admins can of course be trusted with the right, if you choose not to give it to yourself, I think that sets a good example: having another person check your edits is normal in every other area of the project and nothing to worry about. Unless you're creating multiple articles a week or more, you will not have a noticeable effect on the size of the NPP backlog. – Joe (talk) 08:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. The opposite is true, of course, if you know that you do, in fact, make a lot of pages, it's a good example to have the perm. Whether you want another administrator to grant it, or self-assigning as if you are already an admin, then you have an RfA that suggests the community does agree with you having that perm. FWIW, I always thought autopatrolled isn't a big deal. It shines pretty brightly if an experienced editor that made admin would make poor creations, especially if they have been given a perm that shows we trust them to do exactly that. There is certainly admins that don't make articles, who wouldn't want the tool, which is fine. It's pretty dependant on how many you make, whether it makes sense to have it. Even experienced editors who make an article every blue moon is unlikely to need the perm. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:12, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

The standard for patrolled is just "It's not vandalism" and "It shouldn't be speedy deleted for some reason", right? It kinda shocks me that we can't trust administrators to be able to do this. Did the RFC introduce significant numbers of articles created by admins that should not have been considered to be patrolled? I've self-assigned the right. I don't see any reason that every admin shouldn't self-assign the right. --B (talk) 13:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@B: - IIRC, the two instances brought up were the Neelix situation with the thousands of useless redirects, and then the Carlossuarez46 arbcase, where an admin mass-created 10,000+ stubs based on a mistranslation of Iranian sources, suggested that there was nothing wrong with such behavior, and then rage quit and called everyone racist when a bulk-deletion request was opened at AN. Both are cases I guess where you could argue that being able to pull autopatrolled flag would have helped (it might have been able to defuse the Carlos situation before things wound up where they did), but you can probably also argue that both incidents indicated a temperament unsuited to adminship. Hog Farm _Talk 14:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the bar is a bit higher than that - it's expected that newly created articles will be referenced, categorized, MOS compliant etc. Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:44, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

The File:NPP_flowchart.svg that many of us NPPs follow includes CSD check, copyright check, notability check, duplicate article check, title fixing, adding categories or tagging {{uncategorized}} or {{improve categories}}, tagging as stub if needed, adding maintenance tags, and adding WikiProject rating tags. Some would argue that all NPPs and autopatrolled folks should be following this checklist when creating articles. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:20, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

If someone with autopatrol is needing to check their own work for COPYVIO or needing to apply tags then they're really not at a point where autopatrol is appropriate, in my opinion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:15, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Change implemented

This has now been implemented and unless an administrator has granted themselves autopatrol their new pages will need to be reviewed. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Coming up on 20 years as an admin

I just got my 20 year editor badge, and I'll be coming up on 20 years as an admin in Feb next year. I was one of the admins who just got appointed by Jimbo, there was no RFA process back then (RFA emerged around 2004), There were no admins before Feb 2002 because the software didn't support it. (If we needed to delete something, Tim Shell would write a SQL script against the database. It was a different time, that's for sure.) Anyway, you'd be surprised how little has changed - the software improved, procedures were tightened, but the arguing, the debates... yeah, all basically the same. Anyway, here's to another 20 years. Manning (talk) 23:01, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:11, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations from me as well.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:43, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

The arguments surely just had less policies being quoted! 20 years is ridiculous. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:05, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Congrats for the 20 years! — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 09:21, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Here's to the next twenty! ϢereSpielChequers 09:45, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations, and all the best.Keep up the good work :). Lectonar (talk) 09:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Congrats. --Venkat TL (talk) 11:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Congrats! Just out of curiosity, how did you learn about Wikipedia that early on? I had never even heard of it until several years later. (A now-banished former bureaucrat told me about some of the work he was doing on here.) --B (talk) 13:19, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Someone mentioned it on a Usenet group. (Kids, ask your parents about Usenet). Manning (talk) 21:31, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations! What will you do for your silver admin anniversary party in five years?

Indeed many arguments are very similar. The very old (2001) history of Wikipedia:Administrators already has debates on whether everybody sane ("one month and three good pages") should be an admin ([1]). I'm starting to wonder how many of us admins have been here forever (I'm at 17 years as editor, 15 years as admin myself). Is there something like the "seniority" graph at User:NoSeptember/The NoSeptember Admin Project anywhere just not twelve years out of date? —Kusma (talk) 13:23, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Kusma: Y'know what's crazy to think? There are some admins who've had the bit longer than some other admins have been alive. There's also people who've been admins more than half their lives but are still too young to become president. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 00:02, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Three more years for moi! El_C 14:10, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

18 more for me! Nosebagbear (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 15:04, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

• Congratulations, and thank you for your participation. 331dot (talk) 21:56, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Wow! 20 years! A very exclusive club. Congratulations! Cecropia (talk) 19:34, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

One has to wonder if you're the first to go 20 years; I don't know where one would find data on that. I'm at a measly coming-up-15 years myself. Congratulations and thanks, in any case. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:30, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

@Seraphimblade: I believe this is the closest thing we have to comprehensive data on that. Looks like, other than Jimbo, the longest-serving admin is probably Magnus Manske, Toby Bartels, The Cunctator, or AxelBoldt, the exact answer obscured by inaccurate "first edit" dates and unknown sysopping dates. (My favorite detail on that page is that we briefly had an IP admin, 61.9.128.xxx (talk · contribs).) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 01:01, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

@Seraphimblade: Damn it, you beat me by six months. But I did arrive here 2½ years earlier, so nyah.  — Scott • talk 20:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Congrats and I think we should definitely give you something special for your upcoming silver jubilee. VR _talk 01:44, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

  The first admins in Wikipedia! How happy is that, 20 years is a long time. Why old logs (before 2006) are rarely recorded accurately? Thingofme (talk) 09:14, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  Because I was still learning to type back then, so I may have stuffed up on occasion. Serious answer: There was a different software program that the wiki was based on back then, before MediaWiki software, and for some reason there are issues with contribs and logs from its earlier days. Maybe someone else can answer this more concisely? Mako001 (talk) 12:10, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Congrats —MdsShakil (talk) 13:38, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Close review of the latest RfC about Jacobin's reliability

As I wrote here at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, and as I was suggested to by Tayi Arajakate, I am asking with no prejudice that an admin review the RfC, and a close review for a reclose/amendment. As I wrote there, I am not sure that "[e]ditors achieved a strong consensus that Jacobin is no better than marginally reliable. [emphasis mine; strong consensus and successive close wording is bolded in original], and in general did not seem to account for Option 1 and/or Option 1/2 comments when stating that "there is strong consensus that Jacobin is no better than marginally reliable" — e.g. it appears to be there was no clear or strong consensus on whether it was 1 or 2, with a minority supporting 3. I think both sides gave good arguments for either 'green'-rating (with bias and attribution like The Intercept and Reason) and 'yellow'-rating (no consensus).

It is not so easy to tell which colour better reflects consensus, and if a review would change that; however, my main issue is with the closure's wording that should be revised and/or improved, and if so, also amend on the same grounds the current (RSP entry), which appears to be too wordy and could be further improved, perhaps due to the similarly too wordy closure that may be, at least in part, due to being closed by a non-admin. Thank you. Davide King (talk) 13:59, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

• I would support scrapping the close followed by a re-close preferable from an admin, especially after the closer's response at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § Jacobin (magazine). To start, the close is very long and quite hard to navigate. It consists of a lot of redundancies and over-emphasises particular arguments, some of which only had the support of one or two editors. On the other hand, it downplays and in some cases completely ignores other policy based arguments, including those that directly addressed the other set of arguments and enjoyed wider support. In the end, the close somehow ends up coming to a conclusion that is even harsher than most of the opinions expressed by Option 2 !voters and more in line with those expressed by Option 3 !voters. If the response to this is simply that the arguments were stronger, then this is a supervote and not an appropriate summarisation of the consensus. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 07:40, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

• Any updates? Davide King (talk) 11:28, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Not yet, it seems. Hopefully, others would eventually comment after looking into it. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 12:26, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Offer to "rent" admin account

Got a message through LinkedIn:

"Hi, Tim! My name is Anna and want to ask you about cooperation with your wiki account TimVickers. I can rent your wikipedia account or pay for some tasks"

(Redacted) Isolated incident that I should just ignore? Should I connect with the account and find out what they're trying to do, or just block them? Tim Vickers (talk) 14:17, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

How much is she offering? Perhaps you should get an agent.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:21, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

You could take this to the WMF. There's some evidence that higher wages can help reduce corruption. Whatever they're paying you admins, they should double it. Firefangledfeathers 14:27, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Chat copied from LinkedIn

Hi, Tim! My name is (Redacted) and want to ask you about cooperation with your wiki account TimVickers. I can rent your wikipedia account or pay for some tasks

Tim Vickers sent the following message at 8:43 AM

What do you need done?

<redacted> sent the following message at 8:46 AM

It can be some small edits, information update, article publication, removal discussion, article defense If you don't like the article on which I give the task, you can always refuse it)

Tim Vickers sent the following message at 8:50 AM

Article defence may need more than one account to close a discussion, are there any other accounts I can contact for help if I need somebody to back up a decision?

<redacted> sent the following message at 8:53 AM

For now there are not But it can be also tasks with edits or publication where you don't need other people

Tim Vickers sent the following message at 8:54 AM

What topics where you interested in? I'm a scientist, so that's most of what I edit.

<redacted> sent the following message at 8:55 AM

If you are interested in cooparation i'll form task on this week or next and let you know)

Tim Vickers sent the following message at 9:00 AM

Yes, please give me a list of what you're wanting done. All the best!

I guess assuming good faith she may just be confused about how wikipedia works, or needing things written in English (seems to be based in Ukraine) I'll see what comes out of this. OK, cheers! Tim Vickers (talk) 15:03, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

This is probably a part of the Russian-Ukrainian information war. I, however, can't find the (Redacted) among Ukranian names. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:23, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

My guess is probably not. Ukrainian government indeed expressed very explicit interest in re-writing Wikipedia, but we have so many users who would do it for free just to support the national idea (and in fact we have plenty of users who are only doing this and nothing else) that I do not see why paying for an admin account is needed. Seems more likely some commercial promotion, not necessarily Ukraine-related.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:28, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

(Redacted) is an undoubtedly Ukrainian name.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:29, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I have serious doubts that someone would want to have administrator privileges simply for promotional purposes. Let's see what happen. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:45, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

You never know, since autopatrolled (was) admin toolkit and NPR still is; could be used to slip spam through. I don't remember an incident involving an admin account being used for spamming, although I do remember a couple incidents involving autopatrolled/new page reviewer. Hog Farm _Talk 15:55, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I think they are most interested in AfD closing.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:00, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

They might not realise I'm an admin, they didn't mention using the tools in that chat discussion. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:10, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Following her links on that homepage, she seems to be part of https://www.linkedin.com/company/wikibusinescom/ Tim Vickers (talk) 15:31, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

The FAQ of that company is making steam come out of my ears. Bunch of @!#$%* underhanded parasites. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:43, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I got this request to "rent your wikipedia account" as well, sent by email earlier today. The initial request was more or less the same vague wording as Tim's - unsurprised to see I'm not the only one she approached, and I suspect it probably went out to quite a few people. I think the suggestion they want an admin account to close AFDs seems very plausible. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

If a good number of Admins have been approached, I have an idea for a fundraiser! :) Tim Vickers (talk) 16:25, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

How about adapting it into a Broadway musical?? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:31, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I almost feel left out that I haven't had the offer to have my account be in violation of the sockpuppetry policy.... Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 23:46, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Might be associated with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Bodiadub/Archive since they list Nova_Poshta as a client and that page was created by one of those sockpuppets. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:20, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Given the screenshot of a sock tag on https://www.wikibusines.com/en/news/tpost/heo7uydt41-lets-talk-about-paid-edits-on-wikipedia, fairly sure that's who we're dealing with. -- TNT (talk • she/they) 18:08, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Bodiadub is Wikibusines. It's great that they provided an official confirmation. See m:Wikiproject:Antispam/Archives/2021/Wikibusiness for more information. MarioGom (talk) 18:14, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Parimatch looks like one of theirs. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:03, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Did they mention how much they're willing to pay? Would they pay extra for +CU? Asking for a friend... ^{SubjectiveNotability} _{a GN franchise} (talk to the boss) 17:57, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

How much would you charge to block a few people I don't get on well with? Mr Ernie (talk) 20:53, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Surely the price will depend on whom... 😏 -- TNT (talk • she/they) 20:56, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Would anybody be surprised to discover that unblock.me is already registered? -- RoySmith (talk) 21:09, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

As a note, the company website claims that it works in "partnership" with Wikimedia Ukraine. Is this true? I'd be somewhat suspicious that the WMF would willingly allow for a group to use its trademarked logo in a manner that indicates an endorsement of the group's paid editing. — Mhawk10 (talk) 01:57, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

No, it is not true (and the claim that the owner is a Wikipedia "moderator" is not true, as he is globally banned), as the Meta links above explain.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:14, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if we may need to look at the sources a little more closely. They seem to imply they have some ways to increase coverage of their clients beyond Wikiepdia. Would it be worth while to see if there is a common source to the articles they write, either company or author? McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 23:33, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

FYI. Some of the promotional materials about them on UAnet (paid, of course)

• here you can see Bodiadub and co in the office
• here they are on the list of the most brave entrepreneurs in Kyiv (scroll to #26)
• proudly naming their clients

And they have regular vacancies like Lead Generator or Sales Manager ([2], 2, 3. They say manager needs to be stessresistant as you have to contact hundred of profiles to find one client.

Will be glad to tell more if you have any questions. --Anntinomy (talk) 20:31, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I also got one today via LinkedIn. Same format as Tim Vickers's post.

Hi, Andrew!

My name is Anna and want to ask you about cooperation with your wiki account OhanaUnited. I can pay for some tasks.

OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Ban Wikibusines and its affiliates

It appears that Wikibusines has no intent to follow community guidelines related to paid editing. Taking inspiration from the community response to Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia, I propose that the following be enacted:

Employees, contractors, owners, and any person or company who derives financial benefit from editing the English Wikipedia on behalf of Wikibusines, its founders, its subsidiaries, its successors, its parent corporation, or any employee, contractor, consultant, and/or sub-contractor thereof, are banned from editing the English Wikipedia. This ban has been enacted because Wikibusines has, as an organization, proven itself to be flagrantly unwilling to adhere to our basic community standards regarding paid editing.

This ban as a whole may be appealed at WP:AN at any time that Wikibuisines as an organization is willing to:

1. divulge a complete list of all past and current accounts that have been created and/or used to perform any edits on behalf of Wikibusines;
2. divulge a complete list of all articles that any employee, contractor, sub-contractor, owner, or other paid individual has edited on behalf of Wikibusines; and
3. pledge to, in the future, only edit with properly disclosed accounts and adhere as closely as they are able to all of Wikipedia’s content policies.

Individual accounts blocked under this ban may be unblocked by any uninvolved checkuser who believes that it is more likely than not that the individual account in question is not connected to Wikibusines.

— Mhawk10 (talk) 01:57, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion: Ban Wikibusines and its affiliates

• Support as proposer. Undisclosed paid editing cannot be tolerated and being so flagrant about their intent to do so makes a formal ban worthwhile. — Mhawk10 (talk) 02:01, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  Pretty sure they are banned, given that Wikiproject:Antispam/Archives/2021/Wikibusiness on Meta-Wiki says Ukrainian Wikipedia spamming company banned by the WMF? Pinging MarioGom who may have more info ✨ -- TNT (talk • she/they) 02:41, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  TIL of meta-wiki's anti-spam project. My reading of that page is that two accounts are banned by the WMF, though I'm not entirely sure of the extent of the WMF ban's scope. The text above is much broader than a narrowly tailored WMF ban, but a broad WMF ban that basically applies to the business would also serve the same purpose. I suppose a local ban would not hurt, unless the terms of the ban would allow for behavior that the WMF ban would not. — Mhawk10 (talk) 02:59, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks for the ping. See my comment below. MarioGom (talk) 11:13, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  This really shouldn't be necessary. Status Labs and Wiki-PR were/are rather exceptional cases of incredibly high profile TOU violators where formally banning the entire company was seen as a necessary action. I don't see Wikibusiness as being even close to where a ban wouldn't be an otherwise redundant step. Just my thoughts, though. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:37, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  Mhawk10, several problems with the wording. Employees, contractors, owners, and any person or company who derives financial benefit from editing the English Wikipedia on behalf of Wikibusines, its founders, its subsidiaries, its successors, its parent corporation, or any employee, contractor, consultant, and/or sub-contractor thereof, are banned from editing the English Wikipedia. can be shortened to "Anyone who intends to edit a Wikimedia project on behalf of or to the benefit of Wikibusines and/or any related organization is banned from editing the English Wikipedia." Clearer with less loopholes. This ban as a whole may be appealed...to all of Wikipedia’s content policies. can be replaced with "This ban may be appealed by contacting the volunteer response team with a non-confidential complete list of Wikimedia accounts and IP addresses used on behalf of or to the benefit of Wikibusines and/or any related organizations, and a pledge to follow English Wikipedia's policies to the letter whenever reasonably possible." I'm not interested in a list of articles, those can be extracted from an account list. "whenever reasonably possible" ensures we wouldn't block them for unknowingly violating some random obscure forgotten policy which is better than "adhere as closely as they are able to" because their abilities are questionable. The final line about checkusers should be redundant, that one applies always to any ban or block and should be part of a wider policy if it isn't already. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:32, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Alexis Jazz: I understand the desire to shorten it, but the shortened version actually is narrower than the current phrasing. Your proposed way to shorten it leaves out successor organizations, people who work for the founders of the organization in another capacity (for example, should the founders decide to create a new organization that is technically legally separate but does the same thing, this would ban them). The proposed change would open up a loophole that has been exploited before (i.e. Wiki-PR later became Status Labs, but the two businesses were legally separate. The process for appealing the ban is more or less taken from the Wiki-PR ban language. The final line about checkusers is not exactly redundant; it restricts the ability to unban to uninvolved checkusers. The reason for this is the higher standard of vetting; if the company is actively trying to obtain access administrative accounts, I would prefer a higher trust functionary be responsible for unblocks than an administrator who keeps their mop by making one edit and blocking one vandal IP for 31 hours every 364 days. — Mhawk10 (talk) 20:11, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Mhawk10: I added "and/or any related organization". Some issues with the original proposal: "on behalf of Wikibusines, its founders, its subsidiaries" means its founders are not necessarily affected by this ban because they don't edit on behalf of themselves. You also went through the trouble of naming "Wikibusines, its founders, its subsidiaries, its successors, its parent corporation" which is always a terrible idea. Just create a sister company, you didn't say anything about that! You listed "employee, contractor, consultant, and/or sub-contractor" so unpaid family members are okay. Contractors are out, but what if there's no contract, just a politically motivated troll? Also, I wouldn't go about blindly trusting a higher trust functionary as I learned the hard way they can hurt the community. Instead, go for numbers: require WP:AN consensus or similar. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:44, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  Mhawk10, even simpler:

  Anyone associated in any way with Wikibusines and/or any related organization is banned from editing the English Wikipedia. This ban has been enacted because they are flagrantly unwilling to comply with our paid editing policy. This ban may be appealed by contacting the volunteer response team with a non-confidential complete list of Wikimedia accounts and IP addresses used by anyone associated in any way with Wikibusines and/or any related organization, and a pledge to follow English Wikipedia's policies to the letter whenever reasonably possible. Individual accounts that were blocked under this ban may be unblocked if the block is suspected to be in error after consulting multiple admins on WP:AN.

  Also note that the suggestion in the original proposal to appeal on WP:AN is paradoxical, that's why I replaced that with the VRT. One could even argue that recently created unused accounts can't be banned on sight under your proposal as we wouldn't know if they were planning on appealing their ban. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:38, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support. This is partly redundant. Bodiadub (one of the early accounts) is globally banned by the WMF, it is effectively banned from English Wikipedia per WP:3X, and stewards globally lock socks on request. But enacting a clear and unambiguous ban for Wikibusines as a company can't hurt. I would call this a high profile case, considering the scale, as well as their involvement in Ukrainian politics. I don't think it's the most concerning ongoing UPE operation, but it would probably make it into a top 10, and it's one of the few active ones where we know the operating company. MarioGom (talk) 11:13, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support. As per MarioGom, clear and unambiguous ban can't hurt. --Yamla (talk) 11:15, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support I was wondering whether to bother since I think it's been made clear they are unwelcome here in numerous ways, given their non compliance. However reading the meta page and finding out their are blackmailing living people by asking for protection money and like most protection rackets, ensuring their victims got the message, well that pushed me over the edge. I don't know if this happened on the English Wikipedia but I don't care. I'm fine with sending whatever message we can that editors who engages in that behaviour are completely unwelcome here. Nil Einne (talk) 13:06, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support, for the avoidance of doubt. I wonder how much they will pay me to not edit for a while. MER-C 17:17, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support no harm making this de facto ban explicit & clear. GiantSnowman 17:19, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support per MarioGom - partly redundant, but sends a clear message -- TNT (talk • she/they) 20:18, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Aside from sending a message, this will give us something to point to when we're summarily nuking or reverting their contributions. A lack of a paper trail is often a detriment when it comes to actual ban enforcement. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 21:05, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Meh. I think folks here know how much I'm opposed to UPE, but I don't see a point in this - we already block and lock them on sight and can G5 anything they create. This is purely symbolic, and I don't think it's worth the time. The only thing I could see actually having any impact on these folks is if WMF were willing to take legal action, but there's a snowball's chance in hell of that in my experience. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:42, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support Ban, knowing that it is largely a pro forma measure. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:38, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support - Symbolic more than technical but moral support to help express community consensus that this is not acceptable, —PaleoNeonate – 14:57, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support gives the company a new award to add to their advertising brochures. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:09, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support to make it clear that the community has no tolerance for this kind of predatory behaviour towards articles and article subjects, and to encourage WMF and legal to take all possible steps to counter them.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:39, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support This feels semi-redundant, due to abuses being obviously bannable in their own right, but it does mean that it's easier to proactively ban accounts that are affiliated, rather than having to wait for an infraction/clear evidence of intention first. Theknightwho (talk) 16:09, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, mostly due to the paradoxical requirement to appeal their ban by violating it with a post on WP:AN. Also, while Wikibusines is very obviously wrong, we aren't without blame either. We made life for paid editors nigh-impossible with parts of WP:COI, particularly by forcing them through a backlogged AfC regardless of article quality. No client is likely to accept this so paid editing is de facto banned. We drove paid editing underground, that one's on us. Admittedly in this particular case, I doubt Wikibusines would follow the rules even if we made them reasonable, but their customer base would likely be much smaller if we hadn't driven any good paid editors away. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Reluctant support. I stand by what I said: the proposal is worded poorly and the paradoxical appeal clause should be removed. Difference is that I now know they tried to frame another editor, so I don't care anymore if the appeal process is a catch-22. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Due to their clear intent of breaking Wikipedia policies in any way possible. Tim Vickers (talk) 14:26, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Although I think Wikipedia brought this upon itself by WP:PAY. On the one hand, we block for COI, and on the other hand we authorize it as long as the editor discloses pertinent info. This current bunch seem like a natural result of our conflicting guidelines on when someone can step over the line as a paid editor. — Maile (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support per MarioGom. Giraffer ^{(talk·contribs)} 22:54, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support, but meh - formally banning them won't do any harm, but per GeneralNotability this won't actually give us any new tools to combat their abuses given that we can already G5 their creations. firefly ( t · c ) 09:28, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support symbolic or not, screw 'em. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 22:59, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support, no intention of complying with policy, and advertising themselves as able to violate policy as they please. An official block on their company might help to make it clear that it isn't so much Bodiadub that is blocked, but anyone from their company. Mako001 (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Update

This is what they want done Putting these articles on watchlists might catch a lot of sockpuppets. Tim Vickers (talk) 14:23, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi!

Here is a list of articles we would like to publish in English wikipedia. All of the are were created by our in-house editors in Ukrainian wikipedia: https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restream This page was created by my friends in Ukrainian wiki and then in English. but it got UPE tag in English. Can you please help to remove it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restream

Also would be glad if you help to translate this article into English wikipedia? https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%8E%D0%BA_%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80_%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87 it's famous Ukrainian stylist.

I can prepare more. Just not sure if you can handle with this. If you can, we can work more.

• I like the double agent thing! — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:39, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
  • It was too funny to be true. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• The Ukrainian article on Restream was created three years after the English one, and the edit summary says this is a translation of the English article. I am afraid they are just lying.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:42, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, and they tried to frame the author of that article, who is also the author of Volodymyr Tarasiuk, for spamming: m:Wikiproject:Antispam/Archives/2021/Wikibusiness#Investigation with Goo3 and Wikibusiness. Next time, if you want to run a sting operation, don't discuss it in public. MER-C 18:21, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Better yet, don't run sting operations. Try to beat a fool by indulging in his folly and thou shall become one.. Speaking from experience. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• The proper name of the other article would be Volodymyr Tarasiuk (though it might be created as Taraiuk Volodymyr, Tarasiuk Volodymyr Volodymyrovych, Vladimir Tarasyuk, Tarasyuk Vladimir and a lot of other combinations).--Ymblanter (talk) 15:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

(Presumably) Banned user Bodiadub trying to solicit admins to edit

I had a message on Twitter from a stranger in Ukraine asking if they could hire me to create an article. Um, no? Before responding I checked out their profile. The account stopped tweeting in 2019, appeared again this May, tweeted a handful of times, and vanished again in August. Patently a hacked account trying to look real. Anyway, I got them to tell me what they wanted, and they linked me to a Google Docs file with the text of an article about a business called Matterport. Turns out Matterport was an article deleted in October, created by a sockpuppet of someone from Ukraine called Bodiadub. They got the big prize for bad behavior last year, i.e. a WMF global ban. I told the stranger that no, I'd be doing no such thing, but thanks for the info. Oh and you're Bodiadub right? You're banned. Unsurprisingly they denied it - and claimed to be working for a PR agency. Mm-hmm. Tragically, I'd already hit the block button before I was able to compose any suitably punishing zingers for a reply. Anyway, I'm guessing that they found me via Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to provide copies of deleted articles. Dunno if there's anything else to do here but it seemed worth mentioning.  — Scott • talk 19:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

See #Offer to "rent" admin account above--Ymblanter (talk) 19:37, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Threads combined. MER-C 20:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks MER-C! Wow, so it is a real company. Amazing. Having now read the above, it was also "Anna" who wrote to me.  — Scott • talk 20:04, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Oxford High School shooting – discussion closure request

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Hi, can an uninvolved admin evaluate and close the discussion currently being held at Talk:Oxford High School shooting#Names_of_victims? We're looking to close it by December 16th at the earliest, with the qualification that if there appears to be constructive discussion still ongoing, the closure can be delayed to allow that to play out. Asking now so if an uninvolved admin wishes to get started reading the lengthy discussion they can get a headstart. Thank you! —Locke Cole • t • c 15:41, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

A reminder that this is a perennial problem. As I noted on my talk page yesterday (and the day before), it's pretty much the same debate with every mass shooting event: list the victims or not. To break this cycle of repetition, there needs to be a decision on what to do, a criteria, etc. (like updating WP:NOTAMEMORIAL, WP:BLP, or even a new policy/guideline). But most of the parties to these disputes are too entrenched in their positions, even though I do think there's a compromise to be found. Each camp even has its own essay on this: the exclusion side has Wikipedia:Victim lists and the inclusion one has Wikipedia:Casualty lists. What is needed most of all, then, are new participants who would be open to compromise, and then go from there. El_C 12:12, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

May be someone should open a RfC on whether (otherwise non-notable) victims of mass-murder events or catastrophes must be included or not and see what comes out of it.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:16, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Where would be a correct venue for such a discussion? --JBL (talk) 14:40, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Village pump (proposals) would be ideal, since it's a proposal and it's in a centralised location. CENT might be needed if there's a desire to draw in more neutral-minded folk. Primefac (talk) 14:47, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Please don't. There were a few discussions about this several years ago. There was no consensus to do anything different than the status quo: each individual article should be considered on its own merits, and that discussion should happen on article talk pages to reach consensus on whether to include it or not. See here and here. I doubt a new discussion would produce any new consensus. --Jayron32 14:54, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

"Several years," you say? That's... time. And a good time as any to give up, I suppose. I know I have. But, again, with some new blood maybe the cycle of repetition can be broken. I, for one, am a hopeless optimist (except when I'm not). El_C 15:05, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Sure, feel free. COnsensus can change. However, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I generally oppose creating sweeping rules designed to avoid consensus-building at the granular article level. Wikipedia works best when every article is allowed to reach its own best state without falling back on rules that may or may not be useful for that one article. --Jayron32 15:07, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, I'm not gonna do it. But viewing the continued repetition of these same arguments over and over and over again as some sort of positive page agency or whatever, I argue that this does not reflect the reality of what is actually happening. El_C 15:16, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, a simpler solution than amending NOTMEMORIAL, BLP, etc. would be to simply enforce NPOV's "not negotiable" provision (which is right at the top, before the TOC). We already have enough instruction creep which is why I'm reluctant to propose anything new/different, we just need editors to understand that NOTMEMORIAL does not apply to this situation, and that NPOV does. Simply following what our sources say should not be this complicated but I believe personal motivations are tainting these discussions. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:39, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

This should be at WP:CR not AN. Levivich 18:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree. @Locke Cole: would you consider posting at WP:CR and partially withdrawing your request here? This discussion has mostly focused on a broader question anyway. Firefangledfeathers 18:39, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:CR can be closed by any editor, as I indicated above, I'd like an uninvolved admin to close the discussion. If I'd wanted any editor, then yes, WP:CR would have been more appropriate. Thank you for your concern. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:16, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I suppose it's possible to qualify the ask, so requested at WP:CR. —Locke Cole • t • c 19:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Log redaction concern

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Hello. I recently encountered a few instances of log redaction. I have carefully reviewed the criteria for both revision deletion and oversight, and, given the type of log action and the field(s) redacted, I have come to the conclusion that these instances of log redaction were very likely inappropriate. I'm hesitant to mention exactly which logs I'm talking about, because I trust that the administrator or oversighter who did this did it for good reason (although I don't think it was within policy, I don't want to bring it to wider attention, particularly in case the redaction was appropriate). Is there somewhere I could request review of these redactions? Thanks, Tol (talk | contribs) @ 04:28, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Difficult to review such actions, if we don't know who did them. GoodDay (talk) 04:35, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Tol: I suggest you privately submit your concern to oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org; this will engage the oversight team to look in to the matter, this includes arbcom. Sometimes when performing a redaction or an suppression an error can be made, so checking in to it is worthwhile. Keep in mind, that with removed content - sometimes the details of why it was removed are unable to be shared. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:48, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, @Xaosflux. I'll write an email. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 04:50, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Actually, an earlier step you may take would be to privately contact the admin using wikimail and ask them directly (if you know who it is) - but the escalation from there would be best to to the private mailing list above. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Due to this being a log redaction, I'm not sure if it was RevDel or oversight, and I don't see anything obvious on the RevDel log. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 04:55, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Tol: understood, os's will be able to find it and may contact the acting admin or oversighter directly. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:57, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, revision deletions of log entries appear on Log Deletion log, not the Revision Deletion log (which is what you imply you looked at). —Cryptic 05:06, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Cryptic: Sorry! I did check the log deletion log, not the revision deletion log. I thought log deletions were also done by RevDel, and must have mixed them up. Thanks! Tol (talk | contribs) @ 05:12, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

I've sent an email to the oversight team. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 05:30, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• These look to be revdels so they're open for community review, which is why I'm commenting here, but they were privacy and harassment related so I don't really think having a big discussion about this at AN is a great idea. And Tol, sorry, but I'm going to push back on you for this — while admin accountability is important, asking questions about things that happened 4-5 years ago related to a user you don't appear to have ever interacted with isn't a great look. Anyway, my suggestion here is let sleeping dogs lie. I don't mean to be flippant about this, but I really don't like that there's a thread on AN about 4-5 year old revdels that don't appear to have any impact on the person starting the thread. You could have reached out to the relevant person directly, since you were able to piece it together, and I think that would be a much better approach than having a discussion on AN about this topic. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  And just so we're clear the logs themselves were revdelled by Oshwah who I will notify of this discussion. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:05, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  Agreed, thanks. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:06, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  @TonyBallioni: I think there was a misunderstanding — while I was able to figure out the hidden information, I looked in the log deletion log, and was not able to figure out who performed the log deletion. While the revdel wasn't related to me, I thought it looked highly concerning that they were redacted given the type of log and the context around the log. If you think the redaction was valid, then I won't question it further — I just wanted another person or two to review it. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 21:32, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  Fair enough. It being hard to figure out who did log redactions is accurate. But yes, my view is that given the circumstances surrounding them when they were done, they were valid, and I don't think we need to revisit, especially given how long ago we're talking about. Thanks for the gracious reply. My suggestion would be that a passing admin close this thread (unless you or someone else has more questions.) TonyBallioni (talk) 21:50, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × 3) If you trust that they did it for good reason, then what is the issue? There are many many possible variations of potentially problematic log events that are not envisioned in policy simply because the circumstances don't arise often enough; this is reflected by both the RevDel and OS criteria containing language stating that the criteria are not exhaustive. (RevDel: In general, only material that meets at least one of the criteria below should be deleted, emphasis added. OS: Suppression is a tool of first resort in removing [non-public personal] information, including (but not limited to) [list of reasons], ditto.) We elect admins and appoint OSes who we trust to use their judgment wisely in these situations. Absent clear guidance in policy as to whether a RevDel or OS was permissible, we should ask always whether it was in the best interest of the encyclopedia. I think it is in the best interest of the encyclopedia to shield users from harassment or, to take another case of IAR/discretionary log-deletion I've seen, to remove non-OSable PII from a log summary that was showing up to a large number of users. And these things are monitored, both actively (admins/OSes checking the logs) and passively (admins/OSes seeing the struckthrough entries). There was a case years ago where an admin log-deleted a block they'd made, and was immediately desysopped. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 18:08, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Tamzin: I understand your point. I was mainly interested in having a third party check that the deletion wasn't mistaken. My reasoning was summarised in Wikipedia:Revision deletion#Log redaction: "Log redaction (outside the limited scope of RD#2 for the creation, move, and delete logs) is only allowed for grossly improper content; it is not permitted for ordinary matters as the community needs to be able to review users' block logs and other logs, whether or not proper" (bolding in original). I don't think the logs in concern were "grossly improper", and they don't seem to fit any criteria. I also think IAR should be less applicable in more sensitive circumstances (such as log deletion, but also for checkusers, bureaucrats, and such). Tol (talk | contribs) @ 21:49, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• I do appreciate that someone may be concerned about a redaction and ask for a review. We can't deny that there have been some questionable uses in the past (apparently not here though). In future cases, in addition to the oversight option, or this noticeboard, it can pay to get to know some admins who may be knowledgeable about such things and whose opinion you can trust. Then ask them to review it as an initial step, probably by email. There's also CAT:REVDEL which seems to contain some reasonable people. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:46, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

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Spaming and citespam

Please check and revert the edits of this IP: 31.2.145.77. I went through the edits. They added a recently published article to multiple articles without paying attention to context. It is a clear WP:CITESPAM. Thanks Pirehelo (talk) 03:14, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

I have found and removed two other instances and Special:Contributions/5.123.46.75 and Special:Contributions/31.2.227.69 are also related. It indeed looks like promotional refspam but they appear to have stopped for now when warned two days ago... —PaleoNeonate – 12:09, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Donation

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I have already donated a few times and the last time was last week. I still get the message to donate every time. Can I just ignore it? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.37.113.222 (talk) 09:20, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Short answer, yes. Primefac (talk) 09:33, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

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Donation

I constantly donate when asked. Usually ten or twenty dollars. I donated $10 via PayPal two weeks ago yet I constantly get pop up’s telling me not to scroll by. How do I stop this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.82.29.219 (talk) 02:24, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello, IP editor. Register an account, go to your account preferences, disable the fundraising banners, and you will never see them again. Cullen328 (talk) 02:31, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Actually, whenever I view WP without logging in, the 1st thing I do is disable fucking Java Script. All of the bullshit disappears & I can read WP in peace. The navigation templates at the bottom of articles will always be expanded, but other than that most everything else works. IP, you are using Firefox, download the "Disable JavaScript" extension & enjoy life. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 14:01, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I was planning to donate but after the pushiness of the banner I am inclined not to. ALSO why is it so hard to link the ip address to whether or not someone donated? 2600:387:F:4713:0:0:0:C (talk) 17:59, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Donations are collected by the Foundation, not us here at Wikipedia. I think think it would violate privacy laws to connect donation records in that way. There is also no guarantee that the person sitting at the computer at any given moment is the person who donated. 331dot (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Linking donations and IP addresses would introduce numerous privacy issues and can't be done by the volunteers here at the English Wikipedia in any case (the Wikimedia Foundation handles donations). This sort of thing is usually handled by browser cookies, so if you clear your cookies or use a different device, you'll just keep seeing the banners. You can either ignore them or register an account as above. clpo13_(talk) 18:14, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I was planning to donate but after the pushiness of the banner I am inclined not to. I agree, and would not encourage you to donate. The readers benefit from more unpaid volunteers giving us their time—the people who actually write Wikipedia (and those responding to your comments here)—much moreso than from more money to the Wikimedia Foundation. ALSO why is it so hard to link the ip address to whether or not someone donated? To us, this is an unacceptable violation of privacy. Of course, to most for-profit websites, such things are not even a drop in the ocean of privacy violations they don't blink at. — Bilorv (talk) 17:42, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I do not know whether linking an IP address to the name of someone who donated (and storing this information) is a good idea for privacy reasons.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Proven socks belonging to a LTA

Hi, first of all I want to apologize if this is not the most appropriate place to open this thread. If it's not, I can move it to the most appropriate place. I'm here to ask the blocking of the following accounts: Bozs (talk · contribs · count), Sérgio Castelar (talk · contribs · count), O revolucionário aliado (talk · contribs · count) and Lentoster (talk · contribs · count). They are all proven socks of Pé Espalhado (talk · contribs · count), a WP:LTA mostly active in the pt.WP (their home wiki), but who also "spread" to other WMF projects, including the en.WP. The WP:SPI can be found here. If you need, I can open a new SPI here on Commons, but as the checkuser's results are valid in all the WMF projects I think it's unnecessary. Regards. Kacamata! ^Dimmi!!! 21:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, the venue is fine, the problem is that Pé Espalhado is not blocked here.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:06, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I believe that when Pé Espalhado's first socks were uncovered, back in 2012, nobody tried to block them here and, now, they are inactive for almost 10 years (so, I don't know if a block is still "warranted"). They are, however, a prolific sockmaster and one of biggest LTAs in pt.WP. Their last socks took years to be uncovered and some of them are active in several WMF. Kacamata! ^Dimmi!!! 22:14, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

With Pé Espalhado and I assume other accounts not being blocked, it's not clear to me these accounts are violating our sockpuppetry policy. There is some limited temporal overlap but it's fairly limited and I don't see any overlap in pages edited. So it's not that far off serial account creation. Serial account creation is generally controversial but not explicitly against our sockpuppetry policy. It could be considered avoiding scrutiny but especially without any sign they've been warned a few times, I think we're generally reluctant to call it that. One thing that could be a problem I see various accounts of theirs complaining about various other accounts socking or whatever. If the editors targetted are the same across account, this might be problematic. Nil Einne (talk) 12:41, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• If the disruption on ptwiki is as bad as you say, and has spread to other projects, your best bet is probably to request global locks from the stewards at m:SRG. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:00, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Belligerent editing/edit summaries on Miss Saigon

I have been involved in some recent edits with an anonymous IP address on the article Miss Saigon. Over the course of the dispute the editor has grown increasingly hostile and belligerent and has resorted to call me a "creep", stated that their opinion is more important than mine, called me "objectively a bad person" and an "evil bastard", and accused me of wanting to "kill Asian men". All this can be found in the edit summaries. Some of the sources the editor has provided are good, and I have attempted to include those in the article, only to have those edits reverted with little to no discussion. DragonFury (talk) 11:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@DragonFury: FWIW, I have left a only warning for a PA on their talk page. Wasell has also reverted the edits. LakesideMiners^{Come Talk To Me!} 15:21, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@DragonFury: @LakesideMiners: There's also been some questionable activity by this editor at Anti-Vietnamese sentiment. I'd appreciate if someone else would take a look at the latest ones. Fred Zepelin (talk) 14:33, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@DragonFury and Fred Zepelin:: Welp, they posted [[3]] to their userpage. LakesideMiners^{Come Talk To Me!} 11:55, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I guess that is as good as saying "block me because I will just keep on doing what I want otherwise"? Mako001 (talk) 12:50, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

UAA backlog

There are 10 bot-reported and 9 user-reported usernames at WP:UAA, and a couple of them are old. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 13:53, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

LaundryPizza03 Thanks, but that's fairly typical in my experience. 331dot (talk) 14:40, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

From my experience, there's almost always a high number of bots ones, because the bot is set super-sensitive, flagging, among other things, every username with "fc" in it. Hog Farm _Talk 14:42, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the bot does seem to produce a lot of false positives. Maybe they need to be checked, but it shouldn't take any admin more than a minute or two to reject a report that needs to be rejected. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:13, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Block appeal by User:Free1Soul

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

---

Copied from user talk as requested:

Over a year ago I fixed a few dozen errors in nationality. It is "a Jordanian", not "an Jordanian". It is "an Israeli" not "an Israelian" or "a Israeli". I fixed other errors, not just a and an, like: Iraqian to Iraqi ([4] [5]), Arabian to Saudi or Arab ([6] and then fixed [7] [8]), and Israelian ([9] [10])

My edits were already discussed at AN in this discussion. Consensus of the discussion was as put by User:Asartea: "A quick spot check of some of their contributions shows nothing indicating bad-faith in my opinion. Lots of gnomy edits which is probably why they were editing so fast but no POV pushing, vandalism or other bad behavior. Regarding but until they got over 500 they avoided virtually all articles relevant to ARBPIA considering in my vague memories that area is chockfull of warnings and ECP that isn't that abnormal".

Nothing wrong. These even aren't most of my edits. I have made hundreds of edits since, mostly to food articles. I made hundreds of edits before the nationality fixes, mostly to food articles.

I am also Israeli. I am interested in articles in the region.

Now over a year later, HJ Mitchell decided by himself that any editor that fixes this type of grammar error, a instead of an or the other way around, is 90% a sock.

This is against the discussion that already took place a year ago at AN, where such editing was considered natural and helpful.

Minor copyediting is also suggested in Wikipedia:Growth Team features#Newcomer tasks and this project.

I request that the previous discussion be upheld, that HJ Mitchell's action be overtured, and that my rights as an editor be restored.

Free1Soul (talk) 06:40, 15 December 2021 (UTC)}}

• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Icewhiz, for whoever wants to go into details.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:20, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I oppose an unblock. The behavior evidence provided at SPI is persuasive. Even if not a sock, this is an editor that made ~500 minor-ish edits and then dove into ARBPIA topics, an editing pattern that we can't allow to continue. Firefangledfeathers 18:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

This is a CU block yes? Can this even be discussed here? Valeince (talk) 18:16, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, no, but I do not see how this appeal can succeed nothwithstanding--Ymblanter (talk) 18:18, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I dont think this is a CU block, the CU declined to block and the block was behavioral based. User:Maxim could clarify. nableezy - 18:25, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

The technical relationship is is a  Possible. This means, based on the CU data alone, that the probability of this account being related to other Icewhiz is equal to that of the accounts being unrelated. The block here is HJ Mitchell's, and thus an ordinary sockpuppetry block, and while not trying to put words in his mouth, is most likely because the behavioural evidence is convincing enough for a block. Maxim_(talk) 20:59, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Personally I would simply block any account that games EC and then dives straight into any controversial area that requires EC to edit, but tht's just me. Black Kite (talk) 19:05, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Black Kite - It's a correct approach. - GizzyCatBella🍁 21:31, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

This does look a lot like gaming the system in order to gain EC to me. SQL^{Query Me!} 21:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Additional comment from Free1Soul:

Please copy over that this is my first and only account. I was at a Wikipedia workshop in my town over a year ago where the instructor was very angry at some Wikipedia editors but also brought up some useful editing tips. I do not know Yaniv or Icewhiz, I am not them, how can I prove to you I am not them? Those two editors did not edit food articles like I do. Free1Soul (talk) 18:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• I suggest to unblock with tban on Poland and I/P if it's really Icewhiz he cannot disrupt those areas and if isn't we will gain WP:GNOME editor --Shrike (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  If consensus forms around an unblock (which I still oppose), I agree with those two tbans being wise. I'd also suggest revocation of EC status. Firefangledfeathers 19:59, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Shrike and @Firefangledfeathers - No, that's a bad idea. I have no doubts (zero) that we are dealing with the abuse here. I illustrated that with pieces of evidence. The magnitude of the socking activities in those topic areas and the efforts these barred editors are willing to take to continue is incredible. They will sporadically edit different topics utilizing this account. When the time comes right, they'll appeal. No, there shouldn't be any gap left for potential later use. - GizzyCatBella🍁 22:21, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  I am inclined to trust your Icewhiz radar, and HJ Mitchell's. My point was: we should not unblock, but if we do, more than just the two tbans should be considered due to the gaming behavior. Firefangledfeathers 22:44, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Absolutely not; there are so many things wrong with that suggestion that I barely know where to begin. Icewhiz is subject to an ArbComBlock; we are not allowed to overturn that with a simple discussion here. You cannot say "if it's really Icewhiz and we let them back in, that's fine." Icewhiz was banned for extremely serious, sustained real-world harassment, and especially given the obsessive nature of his later behavior (coupled with his willingness to spend huge amounts of time on sleeper accounts), it is unreasonable to expect that he could be trusted in any topic area even if we were permitted to give him the chance you're asking for, which, again, we are not. Beyond that, the blatant way this editor gamed the 30/500 restriction makes it extremely hard to AGF or to trust that they would genuinely abide by the spirit of any further restrictions. Finally, given the extensive use of sleeper accounts, what happens if they behave for six months and then ask for the topic-ban to be removed, while still under suspicion of being Icewhiz? We know that Icewhiz can behave himself for months on end - after all, he nearly got admin status by doing so. --Aquillion (talk) 23:26, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Given the user gamed the 30/500 system, I'm not inclined to unblock. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:30, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
• Nope - as I understand it, it's a sock of Icewhiz. GoodDay (talk) 21:09, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
• To be honest I was never super convinced that this was Icewhiz, but there are definitely Icewhiz socks that would have had me thinking probably not. I think I have, despite my reputation, a fairly high standard for the amount of proof to block for sockpuppetry, and with all due respect to GizzyCatBella who has definitely been spot on with a whole host of socks, I'm not sure that the standard I have for sockpuppetry blocks has actually been met. I dont think the probability of this account being related to other Icewhiz is equal to that of the accounts being unrelated combined with the behavioral evidence is enough to block as Icewhiz. I do think the EC status was gamed, but Ive thought that about a bunch of accounts and been shot down when Ive questioned it before. If it were up to me, Id unblock and revoke EC status and let the editor make 500 substantive edits elsewhere to regain it. As far as topic bans, if it isnt Icewhiz or Yaniv there is no reason to t-ban the account. Right is right and fair is fair here, either this editor is blocked as a sock of a banned user or they are unblocked because they are not believed to be a sock of a banned user, and in the latter case they shouldnt be treated as though they still maybe kinda sorta might be with a topic ban. nableezy - 23:03, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Nableezy - Trust me. The current plea text is likely authored by Yaniv, but the account has been set up by Icewhiz. Don't feel bad about this one. I appreciate your integrity, by the way. - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:07, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Nableezy - Do you remember this of Yaniv?:

  please copy my appeal/review request over to AN -->[11]

  Do it for me, please..-->[12]

  And look at Free1Soul now:

  Copy my appeal to AN.. -->[13]

  Please, please, please someone copy to..-->[14]

  You copied Yaniv's appeal the last time around too -->[15] :-) GizzyCatBella🍁 02:05, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I've a very high regard for GizzyCatBella's sleuthing in this area. Nableezy's argument nonetheless is solid, and above all, fair. It's embarrassing the intensity of socking in this area from, it seems, three distinct but perhaps formally or informally connected persons or groups - as we are obliged to cope with that abuse, the impression, or collateral damage, is that fixing the problem creates an appearance of editors like us 'grouping' against the 'other side' mechanically, a kind of mirroring of the very practices we deplore. Nableezy's caution is in that sense obligatory. My only problem with it is that Free1Soul stated on his page that:-

I was at a Wikipedia workshop in my town over a year ago where the instructor was very angry at some Wikipedia editors but also brought up some useful editing tips.'

It is hard not to read that as an admission of a kind of socking, perhaps unwitting. We know since at least 2009/2011 that Israel or groups within the territories formally organizes 'workshops' designed to train people to push a national or settler agenda, and many people, since mostly blocked for poor practices, flowed in over the years. Free1Soul states that his mentor was upset at a group of wiki editors (probably the usual scoundrels among us denounced repeatedly on blogs and hate sites) and picked up a tip or two how to edit (the quick 'a=an' gambit to mechanize jumping over 500/30 qualification bar?) Aside from this disconcerting picture, forgivable for its naivity, that admission only makes one wonder about the 'instructor', a Yaniv or any number of instructors schooling people to defend their country or its perceived interests by teaching tricks. We certainly need capable Israeli editors (two at least are around who are brilliant, but undramatic - and what marks them out is that, while they may share some general patriotic values with socks, they are, and this is the difference, article builders, whose work shows detailed curiosity about history, and an intense willingness to read large amounts of material,(most of it unpolitical) to make constructive contributions regardless of the conflict. Nishidani (talk) 14:57, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, I must say; I would be extremely interested in hearing more about this "Wikipedia workshop"? Huldra (talk) 20:45, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I won't bore the page with a dozen articles I examined yonks ago, but at least this should be familiar. You must also remember an English Uni project asking editors like myself to fly over and discuss Wikipedia I/P editing for a research project conference. Potential coordinating abuse was obviously the risk, in getting to know fellow editors. I don't think anyone accepted that. I certainly did not. Not the place to discuss this here though. (Nishidani)

Indeed. It is just that Wikipedia (or rather: WMF?) often hold "work-shops" in various cities, or Museums, or whatnot; all in oder to recruit new editors. All quite legit. I have a suspicion though, that was not what Free1Soul attended. WP:MEAT comes to mind, Huldra (talk) 21:39, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, there's no end to my ignorance of the wider world of wikiculture. But if instructors at a WMF workshop could bring in politics, rather than technical advice, we may as well give up on this place. Ahimé.Nishidani (talk) 22:01, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

FWIW I would Oppose per GizzyCatBella above. Whilst this is not a CU block, it might as well be one. Icewhiz has a record of operating accounts which lie fairly low, acting as Gnomes and such, for potentially years. I would doubt that Free1Soul would immediately return to ARBPIA articles, rather in typical Icewhiz "upper tier" sock style, will behave themselves quite well for a while (whilst other lower tier throwaway accounts do all the harassing), and try to build a genuinely good reputation. After pulling what they did with Eostrix, it has become apparent that they are capable of making very high quality socks. Would it be an idea to run another CU and see if it can be upgraded to a CU block? Mako001 (talk) 13:19, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

The user has been globally locked, making moot any change here as best as I can read the organizational chart for blocks and bans. nableezy - 02:53, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Block appeal by Colman2000

• Colman2000 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

from UTRS appeal #50927

Hello. I believe my block should be lifted because I have learned that using ramblings, all caps, and exclamation points is unacceptable and makes it look like I am screaming or shouting. If I am unblocked, I promise that I will not get upset when an editor calls me "Coleman" on my talk page. I will look into changing my username, but if that is not good enough, I will do it immediately after I am unblocked. I will also edit mainspace articles more often than other editor's talk pages and only post on talk pages when I need to or have a question. My conduct is unacceptable and even I am kicking myself in the butt for it. Using the behavior I used, such as calling another editor "stuck up" and panicking is not acceptable at all. That's bully behavior. I have also learned that harassing someone, especially making a false claim against a person, is not only unacceptable, but is also a crime that could send me to jail. From now on, if I might as well have to get a one-way interaction ban from certain editors, I might as well. I will also not refactor other editors' comments as it is a violation of Wikipedia policy. I completely understand why I was blocked from editing Wikipedia (personal attacks/harassment) and I hope to be unblocked from editing soon, because I have a lot of stuff planned for editing. My enthusiasm gets the better of me sometimes, but then again, my behavior was combative, rude, insulting, and in some cases, vicious. I have already submitted an appeal to the Arbitration Committee and they have resolved my de facto ban to an ordinary block, as seen on my talk page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Colman2000#c-Maxim-2021-11-15T17%3A00%3A00.000Z-CU_block_downgraded

- Cabayi (talk) 19:50, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Need details about the "lot of stuff planned". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

(Is 331dot fine with re-enabling talk page access?) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:04, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

No objection. 331dot (talk) 21:52, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, talk page access restored.

Things I'd personally like to see before evaluating further: a) details about the "lot of stuff planned", b) a removal of the retirement template. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:05, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

In response to Special:Diff/1060478930/1060504344: Okay, thank you very much. It's been almost two years; no objections from my side. I'm not sure if I can commend the language of the unblock request in all parts, but I prefer its honesty to sugar-coated beating around the bush. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:27, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support unblock per WP:ROPE, WP:SO, etc. 3 years is a long time in Internet life, says all the right things as far as I am concerned, reblocking is cheap and easy. --Jayron32 16:08, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support unblock - The user seems to have truly understood why they got banned and they seem genuine in their remarks to not repeat these acts again. It's also been 3 years since their ban, which I believe is more than enough time for someone to change their behaviour. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 08:58, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support per WP:ROPE, and as the feller says, three years is a long time in hyperspace. Out of curiosity, I'd be interested to know why one would go mad at being called by one's username, but that's not particularly germane to this discussion since it has been addressed (or, at least, mentioned) in the preamble. ——Serial 09:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Best I can tell, it’s because their username isn’t “Coleman” it’s “Colman” ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:51, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Well spotted, ProcrastinatingReader, so it is; and not being bothered to get someone's name correct is lazy to say the least. ——Serial 17:06, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support decent appeal that seems to address the main issues with their pre-block behaviour without obfuscations etc. Trust that the editor knows how to avoid having the issues happen again. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:51, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Support' per WP:One last chance. The editor has described their plans to improve articles about unincorporated communities in Texas on their talk page. Let them get back to work. Cullen328 (talk) 18:06, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Keechant Sewell

{{Admin help}} Greetings. In a failed attempt to merge Keechant Sewell (stub) with into Keechant L. Sewell (complete with citations (10). Please investigate the error and compare the verified edits. and now information is missing Can we correct the merge? Thank you and Happy Holidays Jimgerbig (talk) 22:12, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Jimgerbig, by clicking on the timestamp of any revision at Special:PageHistory/Keechant Sewell and Special:PageHistory/Keechant L. Sewell, you can view the page as it looked at that time. You can then click "Edit" at the top of the page, copy any content you need, and paste it in the current article where needed. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:18, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Here, a history merge is probably needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Tough, with the interleaving/parallel history timestamps. I have provided the necessary attribution instead, which should hopefully suffice. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:22, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

That worked thank you.Jimgerbig (talk) 23:35, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for fixing the issue! ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:41, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:ACE2021 results

The results of the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections have been posted. Thank you to all of the candidates, voters, and the election team for your participation. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:34, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

To those who were chosen, a Gin Blossoms album comes to mind. RickinBaltimore (talk) 00:21, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I for one welcome our new pseudonymous overlords. —Floquenbeam (talk) 00:27, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

+1 Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:05, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Congratulations to all the successful candidates. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:36, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks to all the candidates for standing, bless and condole all those past the bar. Is it now proper to address those individuals as "my overlord"? BusterD (talk) 01:00, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

"His/Her Arbitrariness"? Enterprisey (talk!) 05:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I think it's "Your Most Arbitrary Highness" when being directly addressed and "Their Arbitrariness" when referred to thereafter. There was a successful motion to remove "by the Justice of Jimbo, Exalted Member of the Cabal, and Defender of the Wiki" from the official style as it was too wordy. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:53, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@BusterD Perhaps we should consider using a postnominal? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:07, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Commiseratulations to those elected, and seconding Buster's thanks to all who ran. --Dylan620 (he/him · talk · edits) 01:12, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

And I find that there is such a thing as candidate's remorse. - Donald Albury 02:03, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• I'll set up my suck ups early: I think the newly-elected/re-elected arbs are a good batch. I supported 8 candidates —this time including Beeblebrox whom I opposed back in 2019 on Bystander effect grounds— and opposed three. No neutral votes. Neutrality is for the weak. Once again, I angrily call voter fraud on Guerillero not making it. So I'm off to a random creek to investigate that bs. El_C 13:06, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  @El C: I accept my second Mailer diablo award with good spirits -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:38, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

  I heard on January 6 there's going to be a peaceful march on arbcom to express displeasure with the results. Perhaps you'd like to join? You might even have a chance to steal acquire NewYorkBrad's historic podium. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Not to worry, fellow patriots, I'll be bringing extra Confederate battle flags for the faithful! Martin Urbanec, I just need you to find me, like, 50 votes (if you know what's good for you). El_C 13:50, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I will sit this one out and work on an another FA review -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:55, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• Those of you trying to make nice-nice with the new arbs are never going to do better than this. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:20, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

• Brad, it is not often that we get to encounter Off2riorob's username these days. Cullen328 (talk) 04:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Attack, original research, and vandalizing situation

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

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Hello,

There is a user named Meng1x1 that is attacking a user named Xuxo. This user is also shouting in the edit summary box, and vandalizing Race and ethnicity in Brazil. His edits were clearly original research, in which he edit warred as well. Can someone help with this situation? Severestorm28 01:23, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Also, is this enough to warrant a block, since now (1:34, 15 December 2021) he hasn't been blocked. Severestorm28 01:34, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Regarding this article, I assume this edit is a block evasion done by User:Rizzer236. Govvy (talk) 10:39, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done--Ymblanter (talk) 10:46, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Block evasion by User:16ConcordeSSC

User:16ConcordeSSC, who was indefinitely blocked in July for persistent unconstructive editing, is now editing as IP users User:2600:1004:B11C:9276:B8D6:2D6C:486D:D84E and User:2600:1004:B11C:9276:B8D6:2D6C:486D:D84E. See User_talk:2600:1004:B164:7205:9411:5BD:E6BF:C05E and compare to User_talk:16ConcordeSSC. -Apocheir (talk) 23:51, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I was one of the users who initially engaged with this anonymous editor. Both 16ConcordeSSC and the IP identify themselves by the same real name, which makes this an open-and-shut case of block evasion. I was unaware of any connection until I saw a notice placed on the IP's talk page, which I had watchlisted. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:59, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Probably User:174.212.67.210 too. -Apocheir (talk) 22:24, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the right solution is to partially block the IP range (which is already partially blocked for an apparently unrelated reason) or to Semiprotect the articles this guy has an interest in. Blocking the IPv6 addresses won't do anything about the IPv4 address, though. -Apocheir (talk) 22:37, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Quite frankly, our block evader here is not very smart when it comes to editing. Semiprotecting a few articles for a month would hopefully be enough to dissuade him. The railroads seen in his last 100-150 or so contribs of 16ConcordeSSC are good candidates for semiprotection, in particular the Rutland Railroad and Adirondack Railroad where he has recently been editing. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:43, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Temporary blocks on his IP range would help as well. Hopefully he can be dissuaded from editing, he ragequit back in July after being banned but has mysteriously returned this week. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:48, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

After checking the Rutland Railroad article I've concluded that these ISPs belong to User:16ConcordeSSC. This is the same pattern of incremental non-sourced edits, belligerence, and harsh criticism of work of other editors, and demand for an arbitrator when questioned about some of his edits. As before, when an source is included it's just the main page of the historical society web site or the name of a book. This editor had also been User:DonPevsner who had edited since 2007! (Although that account is clearly discontinued.) This is no new editor. Despite his interest in railroads this appears to be a case of WP:NOTHERE: irreconcilable conflict of attitude, insisting on personal stance, and no interest in working collaboratively. Blue Riband► 03:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Request to have right removed

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

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I'd like to have my pending changes reviewer right removed. I don't find myself using it often at this point and, while I don't really see any systemic harm in keeping it, I also don't really see any need for me to have the permission now or for the next few months. I'd like to focus my reviewing-others'-contributions time more on WP:NPP and WP:AFC, where the backlogs are perennial, rather than by reviewing pending changes where backlogs tend to be much shorter. — Mhawk10 (talk) 03:13, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done -FASTILY 05:43, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Backlog at wp:rfpp

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

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I am posting this to bring attention that there is currently 35+ requests open at wp:rfpp. I requested for temporary protection of Omicron. 2402:3A80:6CA:2E99:5BD5:F22A:4AAB:D721 (talk) 14:30, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

OP blocked – pretty clearly Amkgp editing logged-out. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:54, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Template:Automotive industry in Brazil

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

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While editing on a mobile phone, I tried to put {{LR}} at Template:Automotive industry in Brazil, but it crashes my browser. Is there a forum to which I can post to get that done? --Jax 0677 (talk) 14:51, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jax 0677: you can place an edit request at Template talk:Automotive industry in Brazil, you can try to use a different browser, and you can discuss the technical challenges at WP:VPT - these won't require admins to do anything. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Disable MDanielsBot

Can someone disable MDanielsBot which is operated by Mdaniels5757? I don't know why WP:AIV is understaffed but I'd rather not keep wasting time reverting that bot when it removes reports of active vandals. 4 hours stale time is ridiculous. If you need a gadget to one-click decline reports just let me know. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:06, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: First, I don't see that you have attempted to contact the operator, or notified them that you have opened a WP:AN thread about them. Second, this doesn't seem to be a malfunction is it - the bot is approved to remove stale entries from AIV. It does appear to be publicly stoppable using this page: User:MDanielsBot/AIVStop, though I don't suggest doing that without further discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism and with the operator (unless they are completely unresponsive). — xaosflux ^Talk 16:15, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Xaosflux, I had started Wikipedia talk:Administrator intervention against vandalism but as the bot runs continuously and reverting it is prone to edit conflicts I'd rather see the bot disabled until the stale time is increased. Towards the future I'd suggest to leave it disabled and have admins actively reject reports. If you don't have a convenient one-click gadget to do that yet that could be arranged. This thread is about the bot, not the user, but I'll leave them a talk page message to be thorough. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:33, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Many admins patrol WP:AIV regularly; if a report sits for more than, 30 minutes without action, likely it's not the overt vandalism/spam that the board is intended for. If four hours pass and no admin has actioned a report, it should be removed by the bot as by that time many admins would have reviewed the edits and have chosen, for whatever reason, not to act on it. I would object to increasing the time beyond 4 hours as 5, 6 or 7 hours won't make the report any more appropriate for AIV.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 16:46, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Ponyo, if just one of those admins would press one button to decline the report, no others would have to review it. (if you don't have a gadget that does that yet, again, let me know) Ultimately you'll be saving time. Perhaps even more important: it sends a message to the reporter that yes, your reports aren't just being thrown away unread. Because if a reporter starts to think that they may no longer bother reporting and stick to edit warring with vandals to keep articles clean. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 17:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

A single admin choosing not to act on a report doesn't mean that no admin will act on it. There are some admins who just do a quick scan and block the most obvious vandals. Others will look a little deeper to detect socking and act on edge cases. If no admin has acted on or directly declined the report it is likely not an appropriate report or too complex for the vandalism board. No reports (or very very few) are being thrown away unread after 4 hours sitting at AIV, they're being correctly removed by the bot as stale and unactioned. -- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 18:08, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

• For IP-based editors, 4 hours is stale. Given the dynamic nature of many IP addresses today, if an IP address shows no obvious signs of multi-day use, a short spurt of vandalism followed by several hours of nothing is a clear sign that a block is not needed. I frequently decline IP address blocks that are that stale, and have for years. This bot is doing the Lord's work in keeping AIV clean of dead reports, and should not be impeded. --Jayron32 16:55, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  Jayron32, I don't think the bot considers the activity of the reported, only the date of the report. Special:Contributions/2A00:23C4:A2F:901:908B:4E34:79AD:B676 made an edit at 14:13, 17 December 2021 and the report was declined as "stale" at 15:40, 17 December 2021, just one and a half hour after the last contribution. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 17:06, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  I blocked that range, but I agree that the bot is needed. To be blunt, a large fraction of AIV reports is bad, but not necessarily easy to decline. If an IP shows up to fiddle with e.g. original airing dates of TV episodes that weren't sourced to being with, gets hit with a {{uw-vandalism4im}} (bonus points if there are multiple of those without any other attempts to communicate) and then reported with a comment like "vandalism-only account, LTA" or "repeatedly adding incorrect information after final warning", I have no way of telling whether there is actual disruption or bad-faith editing going on if I don't happen to be familiar with the topic area and don't want to go on a googling expedition. So I'm likely just going let it sit; if another admin does happen to be familiar and decides to block, cool. If not, the bot will take care of it at some point. Yes, occasionally that leads to good reports being buried, but the primary issue is with the general quality of reports (which makes many admins disinclined to staff AIV in the first place), not with bot removals. Disabling would just grow the pile of bad reports. --Blablubbs (talk) 17:47, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  Blablubbs, a helper script could also one-click move complex reports to WP:ANI, would that help? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 17:59, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Alexis Jazz: Misplaced reports are a problem, but they are usually not presented in a way that would make them actionable elsewhere – they might describe a behavioural issue more suited for ANI without any diffs for example. Something like User:MusikAnimal/responseHelper that is a little faster and resistant to edit conflicts might make people a little more inclined to actively decline stuff, but I'm afraid tooling would not really resolve the core issue. --Blablubbs (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

• If an AIV report sits there for four hours then it's almost certainly not going to result in a block no matter how long it's left there. AIV often gets reports where nobody is willing to block but where nobody is willing to decline either e.g. because it involves more detailed investigation than the board is designed for. The report linked here [16] says that the vandal's edits are "easy to spot if you’re in the know" (the reviewing admin probably isn't) and recommends a range block based on unspecified prior activity (requiring substantial investigation and technical knowledge). This means it isn't very suitable for AIV. If a report sits there that long without action then consider taking it to ANI or another venue. This bot is performing a useful service and shouldn't be disabled. Hut 8.5 17:42, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  Hut 8.5, a one-click move helper script to move the thread to WP:ANI shouldn't be an issue. At any rate, it would be good if an admin would leave any message, even if that message is just a templated "too complex, try ANI" so the reporter knows why no block was placed, what they should do if problems persist and that the report was actually seen by an admin. Getting zero response and seeing a bot procedurally removing your report is discouraging for anyone who went through the effort of reporting. Maybe a dozen admins reviewed that report, maybe they didn't, but for the reporter it's like they might as well shout into the void. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  Hut 8.5 The “easy to spot if you’re in the know” was reported by me and I apologise for not conveying what I meant… The valuable new information I take from reading this thread is that AIV is getting attention even when nothing appears to be “happening”; and if a report times out it’s typically for a reason. Maybe the rubric should explain this, with examples of what makes a report difficult to work from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nick Levine (talk • contribs)

  Without wanting to appear rude, there there are already instructions clearly posted at the top of WP:AIV. The edits of the reported user must be obvious vandalism or obvious spam. is literally the very first instruction. Bold is original. I'm not sure how to make that clearer. --Jayron32 18:50, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  I was reporting obvious vandalism (IP range was blocked) but nevertheless my request was seen as poor. If editors are (collectively) making repeated mistakes here, and not always communicating the way that admins would like, then how do we improve the situation? Nick Levine (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  I have no idea what you reported. Reports you maybe made or didn't and were responded to or not in whatever way they were had nothing to do with my answer, and are irrelevant. I was responding to your statement "Maybe the rubric should explain this, with examples of what makes a report difficult to work from?" The answer to that request is "It is already there." Mistakes are being made because people are already not reading it. Giving people more to read doesn't make them suddenly start following the instructions they already weren't reading. --Jayron32 19:36, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  While I suppose we could have something in the bot's edit summary linking to some explanatory text, it would have to largely duplicate the advice at the top of AIV anyway. Even declining a report, or moving it to ANI, still requires the admin to research the situation and come to some sort of conclusion. I regularly check AIV because I'm happy to spend a few minutes stopping some obvious vandal or spammer. That's what AIV is meant for. If a report asks me to do something else, e.g. research the habits of a sockmaster I've never heard of, or try to decide whether some edits are subtle vandalism or good faith, then I'm a lot less likely to spend time on it. Which doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad report, or that another admin wouldn't be prepared to block. Hut 8.5 19:40, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  I support keeping MDanielsBot, but it might be even more useful if it could understand rangeblocks. in User:Hut 8.5's example of a correctly-removed report, I notice that the 17:40 removal of the report happened after the /26 range had actually been rangeblocked for one month at 15:28 by a responding admin, User:Nick Moyes. MDanielsBot removed the report as stale since it did not notice that a rangeblock had already been applied. EdJohnston (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

  There are other bots which remove reports where the user has been blocked and they do understand rangeblocks. Not sure why they didn't pick up on that one. Hut 8.5 20:15, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Manually declining AIV reports is an unpleasant task.^[17][18][19] People project their unhappiness onto the declining editor even when that editor is a bot.^[20] ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:06, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

ToBeFree, that first case (first two links) should have been acted upon somehow. Possibly with a 24 hour block if that would have been needed to get the user's attention so they start to communicate. Begoon went too far, but not without reason. No wonder they got irritated. I also get DuncanHill's frustration from the third link. If you report something but the backlog or response time is so long it'll be completely irrelevant by the time it gets handled, why waste time reporting? (I'm not sure what the backlog currently or at that moment is/was, but I assume you would have mentioned it if their assessment was incorrect) The fourth link is rather unoriginal as you're just linking this discussion. You can't understand why people who take the effort to file reports (we're all unpaid here) get annoyed when their report gets thrown out by a seemingly overzealous bot without any indication that anyone ever looked at it? I wasn't unhappy because reports were declined, I was unhappy because reports were declined by a bot that couldn't have determined the merit of the request. If User:MusikAnimal/responseHelper is the best thing you have at least there's a lot of room for improvement. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 05:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

There are many AIV reports that describe actual issues that need to be acted upon, and especially since the first linked experience, I'm actually doing so very often. Instead of declining reports that should have been made at a different noticeboard, I usually deal with them as if they had been written on the correct page. Yet if a report is removed after hours of no reaction, the probability of multiple administrators having ignored the report is close to 100%. In most cases, you can see other reports being answered in the meantime. In your example, if I see correctly, this has happened as well ([21][22]). Removing a report from AIV after hours of no action is usually a correct "wrong noticeboard" response, and the unwillingness of individual administrators to make that decision is just as understandable as the frustration about the automated removal.

So to address the original request, four hours are usually fine and the bot shouldn't be deactivated. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 12:49, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

(e/c) ToBeFree Thanks for telling me that you were quoting me here. Oh, you didn't. I'd much rather Admins did explicitly decline reports of LTA and Block evasion, as you did, instead of leaving them for the bot to dump, as a couple of others do. There have been a couple of occasions where I've got a quicker response (or indeed the only response) by making a note on one of my subpages than by reporting at AIV. One suggestion I made to you in relation to that link was that if you didn't know, or weren't sure, what a report of LTA & block evasion was about, then you could try asking the reporting editor. I think I'm right in recalling that you thanked me for it. DuncanHill (talk) 12:55, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks for using me as an example on this board and not alerting me that you had done so too... On a positive note, if you have actually changed your approach on the strength of that then that is a good thing, I guess. It won't change the fact that your behaviour there (and the obnoxious, dismissive closure of that complaint by Bbb23) was a significant "straw breaking the camel's back" towards the fact that I haven't significantly edited since, but if it helps others then that might be nice in the long run. Begoon 13:32, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

OMG, a Begoon sighting! El_C 13:45, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

You just never know when I'm watching... :) Begoon 13:46, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I didn't want to drag you back into this, so I avoided pings and notifications. All I wanted to show is that declining AIV reports is an unpleasant task. That's subjective, of course, so I've provided links of situations that were unpleasant to me. These two came to mind immediately. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:50, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

The best way not to "drag me back into something" would have been not to mention it at all. That doesn't mean you can't, and if you thought it was a good example of what you did wrong in the past, and some shining light on your path to becoming a better admin, then that's cool - but I always prefer to be notified when I'm discussed, particularly in such a visible place, and even more particularly when it's self-evidently something I felt very strongly about - just for your future reference. Begoon 13:55, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Understandable; okay. As far as I remember, this was the only time I've pointed towards the 2019 discussion here, so you haven't missed similar discussions in the past. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:59, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad that's "understandable". I hope it can be yet another contribution I have made to your consideration of your future behaviour. You will, of course, receive no invoice for this freely offered guidance. :) Begoon 14:05, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

@ToBeFree: If you don't want to drag me back into something, don't come to this board and post an edit of mine as an example of something you don't like. If it's bad enough, in your opinion, to warrant mentioning here then notify me. If I'm not worth notifying, then don't post it. DuncanHill (talk) 16:03, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Amen. Begoon 16:06, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Set the bot at a 24-hr stale time. GoodDay (talk) 16:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Did you have some logic behind that recommendation, involving some analysis of what would be too long, or not long enough, or some other reason to suggest that specific number? Begoon 16:27, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Should give administrators enough time to go over IP vandalism reports. GoodDay (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, ok then, no logic or real basis, just what you think might be a good idea. You do seem to make a lot of these throwaway comments on noticeboards - don't you think they might be more valuable if more solidly based? Begoon 16:36, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Do it your way, then. My 24-hr suggestion, still stands. GoodDay (talk) 16:52, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Of course it does. Discussion is hard. Knee-jerk one-liners are easy, as you would know. Begoon 17:17, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

(QED: Declining AIV reports is an unpleasant task. Even discussing this issue leads to unnecessarily heated conversation.) ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:01, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

No. That's not what this discussion proves at all. Your self-serving "QED" is not a good look.

You've shown a glimmer of hope that you might understand the problem on some level. Don't spoil that impression now. Begoon 17:20, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I do not think this is a good idea, and I do not think we have consensus for 24h in this discussion.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:28, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

It was a suggestion. GoodDay (talk) 18:11, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

El Sandifer unbanned

The Arbitration Committee has accepted El Sandifer (talk · contribs)'s appeal of her ban imposed by motion of the Arbitration Committee (permalink). The Committee has determined that the ban is no longer necessary, and has accordingly resolved to grant the appeal.

Support: Barkeep49, Beeblebrox, CaptainEek, Casliber, Newyorkbrad, Primefac, SoWhy, Worm That Turned

Oppose: BDD, Bradv, David Fuchs, KrakatoaKatie, L235, Maxim

For the Arbitration Committee, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:17, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § El Sandifer unbanned

Inappropriate RM close on China COVID-19 cover-up

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

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

(Note: this is copied from ANI where I mistakenly posted it earlier and the only edit I made is replacing MR with RM. I am not requesting sanctions against other editors and I WP:AGF even when mistakes are made. This is not a clearcut WP:MR, because as described below, these blanking tactics have been used before as a way to censor content in this topic. Gimiv (talk) 22:28, 17 December 2021 (UTC))

Following a bizarre MfD back in June and a contentious Merge proposal in November, a request to move China COVID-19 cover-up to China COVID-19 cover-up allegations was filed on December 8 with NPOV concerns. I kept a careful eye on the ensuing RM discussion, concerned that certain editors who WP:BAR'd the COVID-19 lab leak theory and attempted to do the same with the DRASTIC page would try it again with this page (they even boasted about it in the precipitating NPOV/N discussion).

Following these lengthy MfD and Merge proposal discussions, I was pleased to see the unusually diverse group of editors participating in the MR discussion, as it's usually just familiar names recycling the same arguments. So I was shocked to see Sceptre's premature close with a WP:SUPERVOTE to Move the page, claiming that all opposing !votes were based on mere "personal opinions on China", overlooking all the high quality RS cited on the page and in the discussion [23] [24]. Sceptre then nominated the page for deletion as a WP:COATRACK, implying that they have a strong POV on the matter, making their close of the RM appear all the more inappropriate. Even more disturbingly, several senior editors participating in this new AfD (including one esteemed ArbCom member) are !voting to Redirect the page to COVID-19 misinformation by China, which would give no place for the allegedly alleged cover-up anywhere on Wikipedia. Besides for the obvious concern with these !votes per WP:IDONTLIKEIT, they appear to be part of a larger WP:GAME attempt to override the previous Merge discussion's consensus, which found that a cover-up is not the same thing as misinformation (WP:CONTENTSPLIT).

The closer of the Merge proposal was Szmenderowiecki, and the closer of the MfD prior to that was Zoozaz1, and I found their closes to be accurate summaries of those discussions. Per WP:CLOSE, I am requesting a review of this RM close and AfD nomination, in context of the previous MfD and the Merge proposal. Adoring nanny has already brought up this issue with Sceptre on their talk page, citing the Associated Press investigative report which provides the evidence that supports claim that China covered up the early outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, that was also aired in a 90 minute documentary by the BBC in the UK, and PBS in the US. I have never seen the fact-checking scruples of so many RS called into question over one claim, no matter how controversial. Gimiv (talk) 15:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

If there's anything that needs doing, it's investigating Gimiv, not reverting this closure. They're an obvious sockpuppet, was previously banned for sockpuppetry, and this is… the third venue that they're forum shopping on? Very suspicious… Sceptre (talk) 23:00, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

• Gimiv, I'm trying to actually engage in this, but your forum placement is really dubious. Firstly, you mixing up RM and MR was fundamental - I would never have engaged on ANI had it been done correctly. But putting aside that error, your reasoning is functionally dead-wrong on why not to use MR. Handle the move close review first, at the right forum. Then handle different ones. Putting it here, after you were told the correct location, makes it far harder for you to evade a charge of forum shopping. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:15, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Nosebagbear, Gimiv did exactly what the other editors said he should do and copy it here. I didn't know what the difference between RM and MR was myself a few hours ago and I don't think familiarity with policies should be required to report misconduct. I would like to see administrators respond to this complaint about senior editors targeting junior editors with stonewalling tactics and twisting policy. This is the third incident of this nature. Francesco espo (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Firstly, the person who closed the ANI discussion made it very clear that it should go to MR. Secondly, Gimiv is saying they don't want sanctions. At that point, the only thing on offer is to overturn a specific decision, which would make MR the forum. Otherwise all that is being offered by ANI is a rhetorical platform, and that, it does not exist to provide. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:10, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I did not request sanctions, but I did request a review that of more than what a WP:MR can provide. Because the RM discussion was closed against consensus, the AfD is duping editors into believing that the outbreak cover-up is unsubstantiated. The AP and CNN gave clear evidence of the outbreak cover-up and high quality RS like the BBC and Guardian reported it a cover-up in their own voice. Will a MR overturn the result of this AfD, and if so, can the AfD be closed once the MR is opened? If this is not the right forum to discuss this problem, then what is? Gimiv (talk) 00:37, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• This seems like forum shopping to me. The place to have a close decision reviewed, after discussing it with the closer, is Wikipedia:Move review. An ANI is clearly inappropriate, and was correctly closed with advice to go to Wikipedia:Move review. The argument made for why AN is appropriate is This is not a clearcut WP:MR, because as described below, these blanking tactics have been used before as a way to censor content in this topic. While, in theory, an AN discussion may be a more appropriate venue than MR where an RM closure is only one aspect of a series of connected problems that require administrative attention, this doesn't even nearly meet that bar. Based on the OP's editing history I'm personally inclined to make an AE report, as I don't really think the sum of their contributions suggest they're likely to be a constructive (or at least non-disruptive) influence in the COVID-19 editing area, and am not sure why TBF undid their block in the first place. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:21, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• The unblock of Gimiv was a clear error. If you look at the editing history, this is a single purpose account that does nothing but cause disruption, such as this forum shopping thread. The account should be blocked indefinitely. To avoid any more waffling, I will leave this comment here and see if others agree. Jehochman ^Talk 01:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

  The block reason was a suspicion I couldn't provide enough objective evidence for to keep up against opposing voices. There was no way to keep up the block in its original form; it would have been overturned here at AN eventually. I'm fine with others (re)blocking any single-purpose account in this topic area. I'm also fine with extended-confirmed protecting all the discussion pages in this area, but a majority of users prefers allowing new editors to jump into COVID-19-related discussions with four days of editing experience. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

  I thought something like that might have happened. Crowds don't always have wisdom. When blocking it is most effective to point out the account's own bad behavior. If there's no checkuser evidence of sock puppetry, nor WP:DUCK evidence, then don't mention it. I feel your pain. Jehochman ^Talk 02:24, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

  I'm sory to interrupt your private chat, but before Gimiv and his list, every new editor was persecuted as a member of a fictitious cabal. You ToBeFree blocked Gimiv as the leader of that cabal on a hunch, and you blocked other editors like Empiricus-sextus for violating WP:MEDRS which was also just your hunch. Alexbrn and his wikifriends made up this new policy that a notable topic (look again at Gimi's list) can't be covered unless there are review articles in MEDLINE indexed journals, so obviously this attracted attention from outsiders. When Alexbrn WP:BAR'd the lab leak page, you ToBeFree protected it, and when Peregrine Fisher tried to make it go through AfD procedure [25], you took it upon yourself to shoo him off [26]. When a hundred editors converged on the WP:BMI and WP:MEDRS RfCs to break the stonewall, you expressed surprise and unblocked Empiricus and then Gimiv, and then you apologized. Even ProcrastinatingReader explained that MEDRS is only used as a tool to keep out problematic editors, which means administrators were not enforcing policy, but acting as a *thought police thugs*. When the lab leak page finally went to AfD, over 80 editors unanimously voted to Keep [27], and that should have been the end of the story. But with your bans on CutePeach and NormChou have, the community has lost its institutional memory, and some editors are trying the same old tricks. DGG and Mr Ernie knows what is going on here, and now there are more victims of these WP:DENY and WP:STONEWALL tactics stepping forward, like Yleventa2 [28]. Instead of threatening Gimiv on his talk page and telling him to walk away, I would advise Jehochman to understand Gimiv's complaint, and answer their question. This AfD is a clear case of WP:GAME and even Alexbrn knew better than to participate. We must now know what to do with the AfD once a MR is opened. Francesco espo (talk) 03:32, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

  I think we discussed my comment at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Actual_examples? recently, where someone else brought it up in similar context. The short version is that's not a precisely accurate interpretation of my comment, which wasn't meant to be a generalised statement in any case, but I suppose for future reference I know I should begin comments with a list of disclaimers of context, statements of scope, and lists of exceptions before getting to the substance of my comment.

  As for the substance of your comment, as I see it here are your options:

  1. If you think individual editor sanctions (eg on CutePeach and Normchou) are incorrect, ask them to appeal at WP:AE or request Arbitration Committee review at WP:ARCA in line with Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Standard_provision:_appeals_and_modifications.
  2. If you think there is a general policy issue, visit WP:VPP, where I note a discussion is ongoing. There you can bring up the parts that relate to policy change or policy problems (I note the discussion that actually happened ended up somewhat unfocused).

  Persistently bringing up historical events and grievances regarding individual editors, some of whom no longer really edit in this topic area anymore, just comes across as WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour, especially if there's no direct relevance to the matter at hand, which in this case there doesn't seem to be. Food for thought is all. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

  • This editor doesn't even recorded 50 edits yet. I don't see any merit in the single-purpose argument, they have insufficient editing history to make that determination and COVID-19 is a topic with broad coverage and extremely widespread interest. It should not be considered unusual for any editor to focus on this topic area. On the one hand I see claims of "obvious sockpuppetry" but on the other hand this editor is still learning about the difference between requested move and move review and the purpose of the "incidents" page; I'd expect an experienced sock to know such things. Yes, their complaints have been a bit disruptive but blocking as an option should only come into play only if such disruption persists long after they've been around long enough to learn the ropes. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:27, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

    Seven months of single-purpose editing make a pretty good argument for "single-purpose account". ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:30, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

    Most accounts with under 50 edits do not manage to cause this much disruption. Managing to do that, especially in a hotbed area like COVID-19 lab leak theories, should really be treat as a negative point against the account's involvement, not a positive. As for your comment about the editor not knowing the difference between RM, MR and ANI: (1) even if we accept that's true, Jayron32 clearly told them that in the ANI close which they ignored; (2) I doubt their inexperience with venues is true, given that they've acquainted themselves with WP:AE and have over 30 diffs to present as evidence in a future AE case ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

    I often make over 50 edits in a single day. I got pinged into this today, I'm not keen on reengaging this rabbit hole which would distract me from my current project, which is single-handed clearing the links to incorrect names. I've cut the number of pages on that list in half but it's a long slog. I think I could be a single-purpose editor on that work queue for another month and still might not clear it all. I hear this guy's argument, it's not meritless. Just this evening I saw an eye-opening report on NBC Nightly News about some brave reporter who was jailed for reports some here deny the Chinese government is suppressing, and has apparently gone on a hunger strike in her jail cell. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2021 (UTC) That's Zhang Zhan, who I note is covered in this article. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:35, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• I propose closing this with no further action. If a second editor feels the move discussion was closed in error, they can take it to WP:MR. Jehochman ^Talk 04:03, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
  • I second the close with no further action. The move close is something that might benefit from a more focused discussion at WP:MR. I'm OK with the more conservative approach with China COVID-19 cover-up allegations, as these are allegations that China denies. I'd also be OK with Allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. More concerning to me is that content discussing the plight of a citizen journalist like Zhang Zhan might be redirected off of mainspace. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:35, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

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

Closure review: Portal links on the Main Page's top banner

Main discussion: WP:VPR § Removing links to portals from the Main Page's top banner

Closure challenge: User talk:The Gnome § Closure challenge

General debriefing with multiple editors: User talk:The Gnome § Main page closure

I am challenging The Gnome’s closure of WP:VPR § Removing links to portals from the Main Page's top banner as “no consensus”. I don’t want to add too much text to what has already been said, but I’m happy to expand if needed.

This was a proposal to remove links to portals from the Main Page’s top banner. It listed on T:CENT but not tagged as a RfC. It did not involve the application of a policy or a guideline, but essentially a judgment call by the community. Keeping in mind WP:NOVOTE, the numerical outcome was 30 “support” and 17 “oppose”.

The Gnome closed the discussion as no consensus. In brief, they noted that some support !votes also discussed the possibility of moving the links to another location on the main page, and that some support !votes revolve[d] around the general worthiness of portals. In their view, this lead to an an adulterated result and, therefore, no consensus.

I disagree, for two main reasons. First, I don’t think the proposal was as unclear as The Gnome makes it in their closing: it revolved around a single issue (portal links in the top banner), a point that was underlined shortly after the discussion began [29]. Second, I don’t think that the discussion of issues that were beside the proposal resulted in such a train wreck that the discussion yielded “no consensus”. People expressed their views on the main proposal, and also had discussions on other questions, and this should not affect the outcome.

My understanding of the consensus is as follows: there was consensus to remove portal links from the main page's top banner, but no consensus on whether they should be moved somewhere else. My suggested course of action is to take no action until this second question is discussed by the community through a second discussion or an RfC. JBchrch talk 15:31, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

• Though I 'voted' for the portals to remain on the Main Page, I've no objections to the closure, or any objections to it being challenged. GoodDay (talk) 15:50, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
• Greetings, all. My preliminary response to the objections to the closure has been posted here. -The Gnome (talk) 16:43, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
• I made my comments on The Gnome's talk page already. I will just reiterate that I strongly appreciate The Gnome explaining their rationale in detail - that's good and should be praised, despite / especially when it leads to pushback! Anyway, there may be reasons to close the discussion as "No Consensus", but I strongly disagree with The Gnome's claim that the discussion was "adulterated" or otherwise too much of a trainwreck. It really wasn't that complicated: most editors wanted to either remove, cut down, or move the links, all very similar proposals, and the rationales were largely shared among everyone. I recognize that this may not have been The Gnome's intent, but the implications from a close such as this are that future RFCs should be extremely blunt - that a proposal should be laid down and people have to vote it up or down with no changes, no clarifications, no rationales, no extra thoughts. A Wikipedia consensus process that worked that way would be a worse and weaker one than the sometimes messy soup we have now. Maybe the discussion should still be closed No Consensus if there's other problems afoot with a close of "remove" or "move", but I would prefer the stance that the "adulterations" were a problem be explicitly repudiated. SnowFire (talk) 17:29, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

UPE with autopatrolled and AfC reviewer rights

Just found another UPE and, yeah, @Hog Farm: was right on this thread. We've many more. Here is the one, User:Luciapop.
Seems like they have been hired by MTN Nigeria, so they created a whole bunch of articles on all of their managers and articles survived. See below ones (5 in total) and I am sure they are paid (MTN related):

• Ikenna Ikeme
• Omasan Ogisi
• Funso Aina
• Tobechukwu Okigbo
• Karl Toriola
  

After looking at above list, it looks like Wikipedia is on sale now. But, wait, there are some more and this user has avoided scrutiny for so long. Below is some more paid/spam articles:

• Tayo Amusan
• Rotimi Bankole
• Adeaga Bukunmi
• Kabiru Rabiu
  

and then there is an off-wiki evidence. He was hired to create Parsiq, after this UPE (User:Kpunttay) failed to do it properly, PARSIQ. Both were hired on this job post (another relevant link).
Then there is some deleted spam:

• Marco Canolintas
• Ken Dumbo (@Bbb23:: may know more as there are string of UPEs at work here, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ken Dumbo)
  

I am also suspicious that following are also paid, but not sure. Maybe an experienced person should have a look:

• James_Rochford
• Victory_Obasi
• SoftTalk_Messenger
• Judith_Balcazar
  

I highly suspect there many more accounts connected with them, and many more spam articles which they approved because of their AfC rights, so I request a checkuser on them. Sorry for bad formatting. Regards, 86.98.200.220 (talk) 18:15, 18 December 2021 (UTC)