Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

(Writing so thread doesn't get archived tomorrow). --HistoryofIran (talk) 19:35, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal

• Proposal:
  WP:KURDS
  articles.

As LouisAragon rightly put it, the

I concur with HistoryofIran that there are too many

WP:KURDS) and that something needs to be done to address this. Aside from the LTA HistoryofIran mentioned above, there are 2 additional LTAs (1 & 2) whose socks I must report at least once or twice each month. It's extremely rare for a new account or IP in AA2 to make a helpful edit; instead, 99% of the time, they only do so to vandalise or promote a POV. I think the requirement of 500 edits and 30 days (which could possibly be lowered to 200-300 edits and 15 days) is a good idea to address this problem, so I support it. — Golden ^{call me maybe?} 10:44, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

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

  Take a look at this edit I reverted just now. They're even disrupting article not related to

  WP:KURDS. Let's at least ECP articles directly related to that topic area. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 22:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Only if you're brave enough for the

  WP:GS/RUSUKR. HTH. El_C 23:03, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  @El C: I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand. Are there even more steps required to go through with this? Weren't we only supposed to vote for it? --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @

  general sanction. That would not require ArbCom action, if I'm understanding correctly. @HistoryofIran: I recommend posting at Wikipedia:Closure requests. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:04, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  I'm not sure why you'd think that, Kevin, when the proposal plainly says: WP:ARBECR [...] over WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS. Now, asking the Committee at ARCA to consider doing that, as is the intent here, ought to be relatively straight forward when such overwhelming consensus has been gathered. Had I not been so lazy (I mean, the ARCA template isn't that hard) and likewise anyone else bothering, RUSUKR probably would have passed by motion as +ARBEE. The overall trend has been to streamline (subsume), like with

  WP:ARBIRP

  ; and so on.

  To me, personally, it's more or less all the same (even when inelegant), but beyond that, I think it would make sense to have something along the line of clerks assisting users, who, like in this instance, were able to accomplish community consensus for their proposal to add/adjust an existing ArbCom sanctions regimes. To help them file the paperwork, as it were. Because the less of an access ceiling, the better, I'm sure you'd agree. And all of this as we are in

  flux. El_C 01:54, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  The confusion about this proposal may be my fault. Before

  WP:ECR, which describes more nuances and implementing rules. My thought was that the community would implement the restriction itself, not that it would ask ArbCom to do so. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 14:55, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Sorry, I'm not following. What I quoted (the proposal: WP:ARBECR [...] over WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS) was from Nov 1; your comment to whch you link is from Nov 11. The two Arbcom sanctions regimes mentioned in the proposal,

  WP:ACDS? Would it not make more sense to just amend AA2/KURDS, instead of overcomplicating everything with a new log, new alerts and page notices, new thing to remember? Thwink about it! El_C 16:42, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Sorry guys, but I am even more lost now. Is there a tutorial somewhere for dummies that I can follow? I wanna proceed as soon as possible, especially since the numbers of socks are slowly ramping up. --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:23, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  That's exactly what I've been trying to work towards in my comments above (and elsewhere), HistoryofIran. I wish Kevin would have addressed my point about this access ceiling. Oh well, maybe next time. El_C 23:28, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  El C, the original proposal was for a 500 edits/30 days restriction, as seen in this diff provided by Kevin. This was overwritten later, following Kevin's comment. Can we please get the administrative and bureaucratic eccentricities out of the way, and have some sort of action on the problem? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:56, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not preventing you from doing anything, least of all read what I had written. El_C 13:36, 22 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support because of constant sockpuppeting. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 11:32, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose even though I know that this isn't going to have an effect. When I created what would become ECP in 2015, it was meant to be a last-ditch creative effort to stop the highest-level of disruption on the project. I feel that this proposal rolls it out to a far too broad array of articles while lesser remedies have yet to be tried. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 20:55, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Guerillero and my comments at
  WP:ARCA. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:27, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support. Nominator has given definitive proof that too many IPs and accounts have disrupted Kurdish-related articles for many years. Some personal experience at Southern Kurdish. ~~lol1VNIO⁠🎌 (I made a mistake? talk to me) 07:50, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Potential oppose, potential support - I am reticent to support an automatic major restriction on such a scale as the entire (amended as of 2013) AA2 scope. I'm aware, of course, of the gaming risk, but I don't think we'd ever endorse such an action were there (say) a dispute nexus between the US and UK. I would support this restriction on the conflict between the two countries (broadly construed, by all means), but opppose a restriction on the individual countries and their topics. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:27, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose applying restrictions on the entire AA2 scope, per statistics below. Undecided on narrower restrictions, and restrictions on
  WP:KURDS. BilledMammal (talk) 02:25, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose general ECP. When we're ECPing an area, we should be doing so only if it is a narrowly-tailored way to prevent future disruption. The arguments above note that the locus of the disruption is threefold: the first is that there are a number of disruptive IPs, the second is that there is general problems newer editors and the third is that there is socking going on. For the first issue, semi-protection would solve this quite easily; we don't need ECP to protect a topic area from disruptive IP editors. For the second, if the concern is new (canvassed) editors, then ECP isn't required to weed them out; semi-protection would likely serve as enough of a barrier to disruption that people would not be able to enter the topic spontaneously and begin to disrupt articles. For the third case, I do not see substantial evidence that long-term persistent sockmasters are deterred by ECP requirements; IceWhiz, NoCal100, and יניב הורון all still sock in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict area, and frankly I don't see why this is going to be different. That being said, semi-protection would well-address most forms of disruption in this area, and I might be able to get behind a 1-year semi-protection in the area. To paraphrase El_C's close of this 2021 discussion, I'm not seeing the reasons for why ECP should supersede a testing-the-waters semi-protection in this topic area, especially when the majority of the complaints are about IP editors doing the disruption. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 06:17, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Oppose I can see the merits of both arguments. I think semi-protection is likely the better option; if the socks are that determined, they'll simply stick around for the 30 days/500 edit requirements before starting again. Semi-protection works best in my mind and tends to prevent these "hit and run" vandalism efforts where they only change a few words here and there rather than substantially blanking/re-writing sections in an article. Oaktree b (talk) 19:57, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At ARCA

Might as well do myself, or it probably just won't happen. I requested ArbCom to amend

I've listed this at

WP:CENT in case that helps move things forward. Levivich (talk) 21:48, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Articles were determined by looking at articles within the scope of the relevant wikiprojects; WP:WikiProject Armenia, WP:WikiProject Azerbaijan, and WP:WikiProject Kurdistan. BilledMammal (talk) 14:24, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is useful. Can you clarify if "non-EC" editors includes IP/non-confirmed editors? If so, can you give statistics for non-EC editors who are autoconfirmed?

For comparion, could we get the revert rate in non-ECR hot-bed topics like American Politics?

Did you do this programmatically or did you select a sample of articles? (

talk) 01:51, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

"non-EC" editors include non-confirmed editors, but not IP editors. I've added the requested statistics, as well as few others. I've also attempted to include the revert rate in AP2, but I'm not certain I have properly identified the area; I used Category:American_politics_task_force_articles and it includes articles on American politics not covered by AP2 (the AP2 template is only used on a ~200 articles, so isn't useful here).

I did this with Quarry; see Edit count Armenia or Azerbaijan articles, Edit count American politics articles, Edit count Kurdistan articles, Edit count Armenia and Azerbaijan articles, and Reversions by editor. Reversion by editor only looks at November 2022; the rest look at all of 2022. They also don't account for the increase in edit count since making the relevant edits; if an editor has EC now, it assumes they had it when they made the edit. BilledMammal (talk) 02:22, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have noticed the recent proliferation of a number of user accounts where the user self-describes as the "Wikimedian In Residence" at some institution, then lists a set of "interests"; what caught my eye is the repetition in form from these supposedly unrelated accounts, such as:

User:VidEwan: Hi, my name is Ewan and I work at the University of Edinburgh as the Wikimedian in Residence. I'm interested in writing articles about film, Scotland and the suffragettes. Resolved as ok. BD2412 T 14:39, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

User:Vaishnodevimandir: Hi, my name is Elly and I work at the University of Texas at Austin as the Wikimedian in Residence. I'm interested in writing articles about film, Scotland, Activists and the suffragettes.

User:Skmagar1500: Hi my name is ewan and i study at the University of Edinburgh as the wikimedian in residence. I am intrested in writing articles about film,Scotland and the suffragettes.

User:Fightersword: Hi, my name is Tom Peter and I work at the University of Edinburgh as the Wikimedian in Residence. I'm interested in writing articles about film, Scotland, Activists and the suffragettes.

User:DonJovanie: Hi, my name is Don and I work at the University of San Diego as the Wikimedian in Residence. I'm interesting in writing articles about musician, film, and the suffragettes.

User:Hiteshsagarjatav: Hi, my name is Hitesh Sagar Jatav. I am working at Bloomberg as the Wikimedian in Residence. I am interested to writing articles in technology, religion, music and India.

User:Sayeedsam1234: Hi My Name Is Sahim Haneef And I Work At Digital Company As The Wikimedian In Residence I'm Interested In Writing Articles About Film, Graphic, Animation & Photoshop Tricks.

Unless there is some training program for Wikimedians In Residence that instructs editors to introduce themselves in this way, I think we're looking at some kind of account farm. Also, that's an unusual amount of interest in "the suffragettes". BD2412 T 15:42, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Stinglehammer: As you appear to be (or have been) a legitimate Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh, can you speak to the three accounts claiming that role above? Cheers! BD2412 T 15:48, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I ran a quick check (I have to run, so I can't do as much digging as I'd like to right now). Vaishnodevimandir and Fightersword are  Confirmed to each other, and Vaishnodevimandir's creations look a lot like UPE. Blocked those two. --Blablubbs (talk) 15:59, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The others haven't edited in 2-4 years, so there's no rush in dealing with them. At this point, I'd guess they're 99% likely to be the same person (or using the same tactic). Good catch, BD2412. But what did you mean about a "recent proliferation"? All but the two blocked accounts are years old. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:04, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  First impression - the two new ones were the first two that I came across. BD2412 T 16:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Someone experienced in UPE might want to look at active editor User:Scoffworld, who has a few similarities of user page, and has recreated at least one article that shows up in the deleted contribs of one or two of the accounts above. Image in the article is claimed to have been taken by Scoffworld. I'll notify them after I save this edit. Floquenbeam (talk) 16:19, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for flagging this. My main account is User:Stinglehammer but I have other training accounts User:EMcAndrew and User:VidEwan for when I am creating video tutorials. So VidEwan is one of my accounts. I'll add some text to make that clearer. The other ones are interesting/problematic. During training, I do advise to add an introductory sentence of text to a) make sure we have content to turn the user page into a blue clickable link b) to provide transparency about someone's affiliations/motives for editing and any potential COI and c) I also demo how to create a short bullet pointed list of approx 2-3 things they are interested in editing about again for transparency. What's striking is that we have obviously written about Scotland and the Scottish suffragettes at the University of Edinburgh during my tenure to date and I do use my own userpage as a base exemplar. But they are instructed not to replicate but make their own. Clearly one or two here have just copied my base userpage too literally. which is obviously problematic. Can we ask them to remove clearly misleading/factually incorrect info or am I legitimated to edit these userpages in this case? not sure how active they are for instance and I don't want too many of these existing and causing confusion. Stinglehammer (talk) 17:01, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

NB: looks like they are replicating what I demo in a 2018 video tutorial. I can mothball/archive that video tutorial if it is causing issues as we have newer video resources now which might be better in any case. Stinglehammer (talk) 17:09, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Stinglehammer: Thanks for the clarification on that point. When I see a number of accounts created following a pattern such as this, my mind jumps to bots, an unfortunate effect of the times we live in. BD2412 T 14:41, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Having been a proper WiR in the past (Royal Society and Cancer Research UK), one problem is that there is no real control over the title. At WMUK some 10 years ago there were discussions about trying to at least assert an "official" status for the ones WMUK supported and usually paid (or the host institution or a charity did). But it was decided not to do this, so in effect anyone can claim the title - I don't think there is any legal restriction on doing so, just in terms of using the name. You can see from User:Pigsonthewing's (Andy Mabbett) user page that he has done a number of these, some paid some not, without asking anyone's permission first (and without causing significant problems afaik). Johnbod (talk) 17:20, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm still struggling to understand the difference between my Wikimedian residences and being "a proper WiR", I can state categorically that I have never claimed to be a Wikimedian in Residence at any institution without first gaining the appropriate permission to do so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:51, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My recollection from when I was on the WMUK board is that we only heard of some of yours when you announced them. Who did you get "the appropriate permission" from? Johnbod (talk) 04:45, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The meta:Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network is the peer to peer regulatory organization, to the extent that any standards exist. There are no formal processes there but sometimes organizations write in asking for guidance about whether a user is in good standing to be hired as a Wikimedian in Residence, or for information about recruiting one. The majority of active Wikimedians in Residence have participated in the activities of that organization, and it is the only organization with any standing to speak for the community. I posted notice of this on the talk page there. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:16, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • WREN is not a regulatory organization, has no authority to act as a regulatory organization, and nor does its page on meta make any claims to that effect. On that page, the section "Mission and Goals" says in full:
    "The Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network advocates for Wikimedia community members in professional or volunteer roles at institutions.
    "Goals of the organization include defining and protecting the common elements of the Wikimedian in Residence role, creating a peer support network which invites new and experienced Wikimedians in Residence to find each other for collaboration, and to encourage a global professional environment which inspires institutions to offer appointments to persons to engage with Wikimedia projects.". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:08, 11 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Over the last few days on my watchlist I have noticed a number of editors, majority brand new, adding IPA audio files to articles, particularly those involving African BLPs - see 1, 2, 3, 4.

Is this another one of those ill-thought out and only vaguely official competitions/campaigns that we see every so often with photos? GiantSnowman 18:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see any problem with this. These seem to be Nigerian editors fluent in Nigerian languages recording pronunciations of Nigerian names. Why do you think that it is ill-thought out? Cullen328 (talk) 19:38, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any evidence that these good-faith contributions are "ill-thought out"? What administrative action do you think is required? Have you told the editors concerned that you are discussing their work here? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:43, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I do not say this is ill thought out. GiantSnowman 09:39, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, you chose to insinuate it on an administrative noticeboard. Such conduct is unbecoming of an administrator. I ask again: Have you told the editors concerned that you are discussing their work here? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:42, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are the pronunciations incorrect? If they're not, then this instant jump to AN seems like

WP:BITEy. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 19:56, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Three of the four editors have been active for several months. Cullen328 (talk) 20:00, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea - do you? Like Trey Maturin says below, how do we verify this? GiantSnowman 09:40, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Verify what exactly? These audios were recorded and uploaded by the users who added them to articles here. Did you bother to ask any of these users before hopping to ANI to fill a report? Or at least ask any of the dozens of active Nigerian editors here? Shoerack (talk) 09:57, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Whether the pronunciation is correct or not. This is not ANI. I was asking the community, rather than being seen to be BITEy by targeting individual editors. Why have a number of editors all decided to suddenly start recording and uploading these audio files? GiantSnowman 10:49, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's AN or ANI is not relevant. The tone of your report does not indicate that of someone who is simply asking a question. It was worded in a manner that suggested that they were causing problems (which was not the case). Shoerack (talk) 11:32, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, it did not - I asked if it was a campaign (it is, nobody knew), I did not say there were issues, and I have not challenged or reverted. Stop being so defensive. GiantSnowman 11:06, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not to speak for GiantSnowman, but we are all aware that these types of files are unsourced (or if they are sourced, there's no easy way I can find to find out the source from the article itself: I assume I can go into the history, find the editor who added it, see if they were the one who uploaded it, visit their contributions page, find the upload, see what they wrote on the upload page that might be on a different project... and no reasonable reader is going to do that)? That's a vector of abuse that would worry me, regardless of the likely good faith of the contributors. — Trey Maturin has spoken 20:24, 2 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The basic principle is that we should

Assume good faith unless we have evidence to the contrary. The three national languages of Nigeria are Hausa language, Yoruba language and Igbo language, each with tens of millions of speakers. And we have plenty of Nigerian editors. Has anyone knowledgeable complained about the quality of these pronunciations? Cullen328 (talk) 00:13, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Nobody seems to have noticed. GiantSnowman 09:40, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Noticed what? Please AGF. Shoerack (talk) 09:57, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• These pronunciations are correct. If there is anything that is "ill-thought out", it is this nonsensical false alarm or report. Shoerack (talk) 09:57, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Who says they are correct? Who says it is ill-thought out? GiantSnowman 10:50, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The wording of your report suggested that, and I am not the only one on this thread who interpreted the wording that way. Shoerack (talk) 11:47, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not sure you read the whole question. The first part said "Who says they are correct?" - and I don't see where you answered that? I have no opinion on how "well thought-out" it might have been, but if the answer to "Who says they are correct?" is "some wikipedia user called Shoerack" then that's perhaps not the level of reliable sourcing we'd usually like to see... Can you, please, provide something more reliable and authoritative than "because I said so"? Thanks. Begoon 14:58, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This one linked above by GS was uploaded to Commons by User:Frankincense Diala and according to their userpage, they are from Imo State, a state in Nigeria where the native language is Igbo and the official language is English. "Onuachu" in Paul Onuachu is an Igbo name. It is strange to think that a native speaker of a language would not be able to pronounce their native name. It's like saying a native speaker of English in the U.S or UK cannot correctly prounounce "Paul". Perhaps you are looking for a verifiable published source? Shoerack (talk) 15:48, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The grant page (linked below) says: The audio will be inspected to ensure it is of good quality and accurate pronunciation after which it will be linked to its corresponding article on Wikipedia.

While I don't particularly doubt that this entry is accurate how would I go about confirming that? Is there a record of this "inspection" being done before the file was linked?

It should, in general, be possible to confirm the accuracy of information in wikipedia articles, so yes, a "verifiable published source" would be ideal, but failing that some way to look at the "audit trail" might help.

The grant mentions that "mispronunciation is often considered a micr[o]agression" so it would seem useful to have more to go on than: "user says on user page that they come from a place where this language is spoken", in my humble opinion... Begoon 22:37, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While verifying the pronunciations is a laudable aim and something mentioned in the grant, I don’t think there’s any local policy or guideline they requires it, or any sourcing requirements (which is not to say there shouldn't be, though I wonder how practical that would be). For example, there's nothing that I can see in wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Pronunciation task force that mentions any verification or sourcing requirement. –xeno^talk 23:41, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It appears these users are using the c:commons:Spell4Wiki app after receiving training funded via m:Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Say-It-Right:Wikipedia as a tool for preventing mispronunciation of names (ID: 21930417). I don't think this is the correct venue to discuss whether the grant itself or its aims are "ill-thought out"; and absent any particularized belief that the edits themselves are problematic, this thread should be closed. –xeno^talk 16:10, 3 December 2022 (UTC) Fix erroneous ping.[reply]

  Pinging grant participants (OtuNwachinemere—Hesyomi—Timzy D'Great—Accuratecy051—Albertoblaq) Sorry for the mistaken ping to Abubakr1111 and Anasskoko. –xeno^talk 16:28, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you @Xeno for the ping. Unfortunately, if @GiantSnowman had messaged any of the editors directly ab initio, they would've gotten adequate information and there wouldn't have been need for this post.

  I believe all discussants can now refer to the project grant documentation for all other information.

  Many thanks to you also @Shoerack, i and my team appreciate. OtuNwachinemere (talk) 19:36, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Of particular relevace is this section of the grant application:

Deliberate names mispronunciation is often considered a micr[o]agression.

• https://pavementpieces.com/african-students-says-mispronouncing-their-names-is-a-form-of-racism/
• https://metro.co.uk/2021/02/05/the-mispronunciation-of-african-names-can-cause-lasting-damage-13999360/
• https://standard.asl.org/18485/features/name-pronunciations-leave-lasting-impact-on-individuals/

-- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:53, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why is it relevant? @

☖ 00:09, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

• When we have a question about an editor's edits, the best move is to first ask the editor rather than first asking other editors. It's not "bitey" to ask, it's "bitey" to not ask and instead start discussing it in public with others (without even notifying the editors involved). It was a bad idea to post at AN before asking any of the editors involved, especially with a loaded question like "Is this another one of those ill-thought out and only vaguely official competitions/campaigns that we see every so often with photos?" We should treat new editors with respect not suspicion. Respect means talking to them directly, not talking about them with fellow admins. Levivich (talk) 16:31, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, in my opinion there is already a problem with people adding unsourced IPA pronunciations in articles. It's impossible for anyone to judge whether such information is correct, whether it has been vandalized, what dialect or accent it reflects, etc. (I am less bothered by the audio files, which are more clearly just some person saying the word.) --100.36.106.199 (talk) 17:04, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's not impossible to judge whether an IPA is correct. All you need is a

WP:V. (And that's true in any language.) Levivich (talk) 17:14, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Well, not everyone. :) Although I have a PhD in Linguistics, I am not fluent in IPA, and my hearing has deteriorated quite a bit. There is also the problem of which pronunciation to use. See Talk:Miami/Archive 1#Pronunciation of "Miami" in lead (from 2007), for example. I have since stayed away from discussions about pronunciation. Donald Albury 17:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Accepting “All you need is a WP:RS that has audio” arguendo, I doubt very much that most IPA pronunciations on WP are supported by any source at all, let alone this particular kind. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 02:35, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In my immediate family of 5 we have 2/3 different ways of pronouncing most words... GiantSnowman 20:54, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I have been reviewing the subpages of

User:331dot asked me to post a notice about this since previously it was usually done by admins. I became interested in this task as it is somewhat related to MalnadachBot task 13 (approved following this) which is to blank warnings and other stale message from inactive IP talkpages. If there is no objections, I will continue with blanking and marking historical. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 10:38, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me. Thanks for performing this type of maintenance tasks in general. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 11:39, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

LGTM as well. I have no concerns. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 18:09, 26 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rescued from archive

The above may be OK, but is not ideal. The blanking of LTA pages should be done with visibility at WP:SPI. Ideally, clerking of LTA subpages should be done by accredited SPI clerks. If you are interested in clerking LTA subpages, why not get experienced and accredited at SPI? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As an SPI clerk, I have no interest in maintaining LTA subpages and don't particularly care about what happens to them. I suspect most other clerks and CUs feel the same way, which is why there is no policy or guideline about this. I wasn't aware we were accredited, by the way. How much do I have to pay to renew my SPI clerk license? Spicy (talk) 02:33, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your accreditation, trainee and promotion, are recorded in the history of [[

WP:LTA and this supports the option to shut it down completely. SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:18, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

LTA subpages have been occasionally helpful to identify some behavior, but I have no strong opinion on them. I think they should generally not be created in the first place, except in cases where it is useful to admins dealing with them. I have checked the list of LTA subpages marked as historical... none of them ring a bell, so I guess there are not relevant to current activity we see at SPI. MarioGom (talk) 09:00, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For transparency, here is a list of LTA pages I have blanked. I am not interested in becoming an SPI clerk for a one time sweep. LTA pages, unlike SPI archives, can be created by anyone, so I don't think editing it should be restricted only to them. Any editor in good standing should be able to edit LTA pages and blank inactive ones. It is questionable whether some of them should even exist. Take for example Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/貴花 which was recently created by someone in their very first edit. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 10:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The lack of interest in clerking LTA, beyond sporadic driveby blanking of its inappropriate content, is a reason to shut LTA down. The creation of a new LTA page by the drive-by SPA is another reason. It is quite concerning, was it created in a WP:game to harass? How would anyone know. If a user’s LTAbuse doesn’t involve any sock puppetry, then why not use their user_talk page? Shut down LTA. SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:25, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The disinterest of SPI clerks in LTA pages says nothing about the usefulness of these pages to the rest of us poor benighted souls who don't have advanced permissions and wish to find out about these people when we come across misbehavior. The pages are there for the community, not for the very small number of SPI clerks who, if they're not availing themselves of this information, are only hobbling themselves (and perhaps hurting valid SPI cases).

As for the deletion of these pages, I don't understand the purpose - are we running out of storage space? I suggest that the pages already deleted be restored, and if a culling needs to take place, which I doubt, it be done by an admin with more experience. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:29, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, SPI clerks know a lot and stuff, and are good at finding out who to ask, but it's the other people in the trenches who usually know about this stuff. I've been seeing the blanking, and haven't seen anything to complain about. LTAs have a coloured history at MfD, so it may be worth consulting before MfDing any more of them. One of us competent rouge admins might just speedy it. I do think these pages should probably remain categorised under LTA, so we can properly clean them up at some point. Blank uncategorised pages are not a lot of good. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:42, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When I first saw this come up in the original thread I thought exactly what BMK has written: what on earth is the benefit in blanking these pages? I assumed there's some issue that I was unaware of that everyone knew about, that meant that blanking these pages was a good thing. It seems blanking is (a) pointless (b) takes away potentially useful information from the community. I second BMK's suggestion pages already blanked be restored. DeCausa (talk) 18:59, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is I think a persuasive argument that too many pages only serve to glorify or inspire copycats (see

WP:DENY). I've seen several LTAs who literally run through the lists joe-jobbing as many old MOs as they can. These pages should be considered a working tool, and if they're no longer useful we may as well get rid. Sometimes vandals do actually go away. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:07, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

And sometimes they come back. Do joe-jobbers prefer MO's that appear dormant rather than active? That seems doubtful. Those all seem arguments for not having LTA pages at all rather than blanking older ones. There may be some validity for that but I'm very doubtful that they negate the usefulness of those pages on a day-to-day basis. DeCausa (talk) 19:15, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We should only keep pages which are useful, and some of them are useful. I'd encourage a look through the list which was blanked, and ask if they're still around. It's notable (to me at least) in all the ones which were skipped. It seems to have been a well-performed exercise. And yes, on a broad scale, we still get WoW and Grawp copycats to this day, along with some others. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:23, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

LTAs that fall in the category of often-copied should have a warning on them to look out for copycats and joe jobs - but it's not possible to disseminate such warnings if there's no page to put it on. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:51, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Just as a curious aside I can't quite get my head around Spicy's earlier comments that they (and none of the SPI clerks) have any interest in the LTA pages and, more surprisingly, the sarcasm around being "accredited" given what it says in Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks. Could they clarify? DeCausa (talk) 00:38, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Accredited" seems like a slightly pompous term for an informal volunteer position on a website. In case it's not clear, the point of my comment was that I don't agree with SmokeyJoe's idea that clerks/CUs should have authority over the community at large in regard to LTA pages. LTA pages were not a part of my clerk training and I'm not aware of any other clerk who uses them on more than a very occasional basis (in my experience, the SPI case archives are usually much more useful). That's all the more reason for these pages to be managed by the community. Spicy (talk) 01:47, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have now reviewed all subpages, haven't blanked any that remotely look useful or active. no page to put it on is misleading, they are not deleted and removed completely, only blanked and can be restored if necessary. Of the two joe job targets mentioned above, Grawp is not blanked and Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Willy on Wheels was deleted 12 years ago and salted. The only MFD I have started is for a completely useless page Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Kiyanu Kim. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 04:15, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• LTA is mostly a moribund process; the information there has mostly been subsumed by SPI reports. It feels like LTA was once a more active area of Wikipedia, but it has basically fallen into disuse as any purpose it served has been taken up by other processes. There's a few of the pages I use from time to time mostly for tagging block summaries so any reviewing admin will know the background (such as
  WP:LTA/VXFC), but otherwise I'd be mostly OK with merging and/or redirecting LTA pages to SPI pages, since that's where most of the active work in the area tends to happen. --Jayron32 14:38, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• I've never known it to be a "process", since there was no desired immediate outcome to the creation of an LTA page. I've always seen it as informational and educational, for those editors interested in that corner of the community. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:45, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The problem is that, in order to be such, it needs to be actively updated. Otherwise, it's just a memorial to trolls, something
  WP:LTA/VXFC, which is a banned user which has been active as recently as the past week and which has never not been active, has an LTA page which was last updated once in 2021, and 3 times in 2022. Being that it's only seen 4 substantive edits in basically 3 years, it's not really serving its purpose of tracking ongoing long-term abuse. It's just a memorial to VXFC. --Jayron32 13:01, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  I agree, moribund, not functional, despite some wishful thinking. I think that virtually all long term abuse worth central tracking involves sockpuppettry or editing abusively while logged out while blocked, and so it has negligible scope outside SPI.

  WP:SPI in impressively professional-like and well functioning, and no one at SPI seems able to say that LTA has any known value. LTA is moribund, and we see it being a place of trolling. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:59, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  "we see it being a place of trolling" Who is "we"? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:45, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Incidentally, "X is moribund, therefore delete it" is an interesting philosophy. Generally, if there are things on Wikipedia which need to be updated, we -- you know -- update them, we don't "tsk-tsk" and delete them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:50, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe I said we should remove all information entirely. I've said we should move the pages to relevant SPI pages, and house it there instead. It's redundant with SPI, and no one is using it. Imagining that some day, some time in the future, someone may use it is not a useful way to run things. We have a way to track long-term trolls that is currently being used many times per day. It's called SPI. Let's just merge the content of the LTA pages with the SPI pages, and get rid of the LTA process as historical. There are many things we used to do at Wikipedia that we have shut down and don't do anymore. That you claim such a thing is so novel as to be confusing to you is beyond-the-pale, given that you've been here as long as as have, if not longer. We shut things down at Wikipedia often enough. For example, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, Wikipedia:Mediation Committee, Wikipedia:Association of Members' Advocates. All of these were shut down and marked "historical" or "closed" and we now direct users to other processes instead of trying to use them. My suggestion is we do the same with Wikipedia:Long-term abuse. We mark it historical, merge any relevant cases to SPI, etc. --Jayron32 17:51, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Marking something as ""historical" is not what was being discussed - at least, that's not how I understood it. It's deletion I'm opposed to. (About the same, incidentally, first edit with an account: 26 June 2005). Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:29, 8 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you don't have a problem with what I proposed, why did you spend so much energy telling me I was wrong. If you have a problem with deletion, then find the person that proposed deletion and tell that person they are wrong. I proposed merging with SPI and marking LTA as historical. If that's not what you disagree with, then don't argue with me!!! --Jayron32 13:21, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Woah, hold on a bit. I'm allowed to disagree with you, I'm even allowed to disagree with what I thought you were saying, and I'm allowed to change directions once I understand what your argument actually is in fact, but chastising me for disagreeing with what the general thrust of the conversation was (exclusive of your contributions) doesn't seem very productive. I did misunderstand you, and I apologize for that. I'm certain if there was ever a real effort to deal with LTAs in connection with SPI you and I could probably agree on some procedure that preserved information in one form or another, but since it seems unlikely that that is going to happen, I don't see much point in expending energy over it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:54, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The problem is both

  WP:BEANS problem). That being said, some LTA pages of prolific sockmaster who have been active in recent years are sometimes useful. Not every day, but occasionally they are. MarioGom (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Prolific sockmaster? Why is not covered by SPI? SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:14, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  DENY is not working well if it leads to regular editors losing useful info. The practice of not tagging sock accounts already leads to issues in gaining a good understanding of any particular case, deleting LTA pages would make that task even more inaccessible. CMD (talk) 13:10, 10 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Am I still topic banned. Arif80s (talk) 05:40, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, unless you appealed it successfully (you would certainly know of the appeal, and should be able to find it, if this is the case). The discussion you linked to doesn't state the ban is temporary, which makes it indefinite (appealable, but forever unless successfully appealed). Your ban is also listed at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions Animal lover |666| 05:56, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Respected, I am not happy with this decision. In my view, this decision is contrary to Wikipedia's policies. This decision of the English Wikipedia will hurt the trust of users. Since we are from a country where most of its users do not have much understanding of the English Wikipedia's rules and policies, I am of the opinion that the English Wikipedia should not make such tough decisions and lift my ban soon as possible. thanks Arif80s (talk) 06:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What decision? Your indefinite topic ban is over 4.5 years old so it's well past time to get over any unhappiness with it. The fact that an indefinite topic ban lasts until it is successfully appealed is something that in some ways predates Wikipedia and isn't even really a 'decision' more a matter of definitions. I'd note that the 3 months minimum before any appeals is over 4 years past so you can appeal at anytime. However you will need to convince the community that 4.5 years later you now understand our policies and guidelines and whatever problems that got you topic banned are unlikely to reoccur. A good way to demostrate this to the community is simply via your editing. Again, it's been over 4.5 years. And the scope of your topic was very narrow, there was nothing stopping you creating well sourced and overall excellent articles that are basically FA quality, related to Pakistan or whatever, even with the topic ban in place. If you have done so, it would like make your appeal very simple. If you haven't, I'm not sure why the community is at fault for that, since your topic ban shouldn't have stopped you. Nil Einne (talk) 12:11, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. For clarity I'm not saying you must write FAs for an appeal to succeed. I'm saying that it would definitely help, and more importantly although you seem to be presenting our restrictions on you as some make unfairness and loss to Wikipedia they are actually very limited. And they should not be stopping you making some of the best contributions any editor can make to Wikipedia even when it comes to your country. Indeed the loss to us from restricting you in that way even if it's no longer needed is surely very limited (which doesn't mean we should continue them if it's not) and the loss to you should really be seen that way too. Nil Einne (talk) 12:24, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It has certainly been long enough to allow an appeal. I'd recommend that you look over your behavior leading up to the ban, and write a convincing statement why the ban is no longer necessary. If it succeeds, then an admin will officially unban you. If it's unsuccessful, read the opposing comments and figure out how to fix your own behavior over the next few months to increase your chances of success next time. Animal lover |666| 14:01, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Did you take my opinion before making a decision? Don't you see the bias of the few users? Was it a big enough deal to ban on me and 3 other users?--Arif80s (talk) 06:12, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't make the decision. It was made in the discussion you linked to. I'm simply following it. And 4 years after it was closed you can't claim the closure was incorrect. Animal lover |666| 06:57, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Animal lover. I am addressing to administrators of Eng Wiki not you. Arif80s (talk) 07:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This was not a decision of an individual admin (by the way, the closing admin left Wikipedia 4 months after that discussion). It was concensus of all the users who participated in that discussion. You will need to convince enough users to establish a consensus that it's no longer needed. Animal lover |666| 08:18, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Neither will I appeal nor will I work on the English wiki. You are reducing your users. Congratulations. Arif80s (talk) 10:19, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given that you've made only a sporadic handful of edits in the years since that topic ban (including a couple after you said you would no longer work on the English Wikipedia), and just a few hundred before then, I expect we'll manage. What would genuinely "hurt the trust of users" would be to have policies we did not enforce. Editors are just as bound by Wikipedia's policies and rules as visitors to your own country are bound by those laws, however strange they may be to foreigners. (I don't expect, for example, that your country would waive its blasphemy laws for my benefit, however much the criminalization of blasphemy is a strange and deplorable concept to Americans.) Ravenswing 17:32, 11 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Александр Мотин (talk · contribs)
• PlanespotterA320 (talk · contribs)

Thanks! AlPaD (talk) 13:27, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Please see
  WP:INDEFRIGHTS. Did either of these users engage in any sort of deception to get these rights? For Planespotter, at least, my understanding is the answer is "no"; she got autopatrolled fair and square, and only started socking after her initial indef. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 13:32, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  Hi Tamzin, I have a genuine question. Why do we need to keep advanced rights for indefed users. There must be some good reason why a person with advanced rights already will be indefed, and if such person ever returns, they can just reapply. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 13:35, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  We will often clean these up in batches, as the users end up being locally inactive. As far as that specific question: "global" sanctions are reversible (and sometimes in opposition with the desires of the local community), so unless there was also a local issue that actually needed dealing with we don't usually need to spend time on it. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:45, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I went right away to a maintenance category and with assistance from "mark user rights", and "strike blocked user" scripts, I found User:A1Cafel for example, who was CU blocked back in October 2019, and is still a file mover, pending changes reviewer, and rollbacker. There are several more of them, this was just the first such result in Category:Wikipedia page movers. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 13:52, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @CX Zoom: Personally I'd actually be fine with removing all rights from sitebanned users. But the community reäffirmed its objection to doing so as recently as 2019. As Xaos says, some rights nonetheless get pulled for inactivity; and others get pulled at time of indef if the blocking admin feels that they were gained deceptively or that the user lacks the required level of trust. Perhaps there should just be a universal 5-year inactivity cutoff for all rights except confirmed and extendedconfirmed (as a backstop to shorter cutoffs already in place for most)? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 14:04, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  If we have consensus to delete stale drafts in just 6 months in order to cleanup Wikipedia, it is beyond me why we do not have consensus to remove permissions from users who are never coming back for just the same reason. If I were a new user searching for page movers, for example, I would not want to bump into an indefed user who left 3+ years ago. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 14:29, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The issue is in the other direction: If a user is indeffed; there is no point in removing rights they have no chance to use while indeffed. What's the point? If you believe they aren't coming back, then it is pointless paper-pushing to flip some switch for a right they can't even use while blocked. If you want the right removed as a condition of unblocking for a specific case, then we can have that discussion when we as a community deal with their being unblocked. But pre-emptively removing user rights from accounts is a pointless exercise in bureaucracy. --Jayron32 14:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The only exception to this I think is sysop and edit filter manager/helper, which I believe are currently the only three groups where a user can use some subset of their advanced groups (although the edit filter manager/helper think might actually already be fixed; can't find the phab task this second) -- Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 07:30, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  That's true, but in a practical sense, if a blocked admin started using their admin tools while blocked, within a very short time period, ArbCom would institute an emergency desysop. It's a rare enough event that it doesn't require a formal process to enshrine at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 12:53, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  One of the few things a blocked admin can still do is view private edit filters Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 49#Stephen - case request [20]. I AGF you're correct that there is a log of such views, but are you certain anyone is paying enough attention to notice? I don't think it's logged anywhere that anyone just checking out what the blocked admin is up to is likely to notice so it would have to be someone viewing the private edit filter view log who happens to notice that one of the viewers is a blocked admin. Remembering that until and unless the WMF fix the bug, this could be up to 5 years later or whatever the inactivity standards are when people may barely remember the case (depending on how high profile it and the admin was). Nil Einne (talk) 10:42, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I should clarify that I don't think there's need for a formal process. Where I differ is the reasons. There isn't a need because thankfully arbcom does recognise this isn't an area we should be reactive in. I see no realistic chance an admin will keep their tools for 5 years while blocked all that time. If arbcom really did allow such an untenable situation to continue then, yes we will need a formal process. This is simply an area where it's unacceptable to be long term reactive, and if administrators aren't willing to accept that then sorry not sorry. Even if the WMF fix that edit filter bug, considering there's always a risk of future bugs, editors should not be allowed to keep such high level permissions long term when they have completely lost the trust of the community in general. I'd add that block editors may be less likely to maintain their account security properly. Nil Einne (talk) 11:05, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  One of the few things a blocked admin can still do is view private edit filters based on my reading of the phab ticket that should have been fixed already, so it should no longer be an issue. This leaves of course the fact that a blocked admin can still block whoever blocked them, so its probably still the only userright we should pull -- Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 18:20, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've pulled autopatrolled from PlanespotterA320 because the original reason for the block was pushing a genocide denialist POV, so in the unlikely even that she's ever unblocked, her creations definitely need to be reviewed. That was her only advanced right. Courtesy ping @TonyBallioni: who originally granted it. – Joe (talk) 11:29, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please move

WP:RM/CM. Iffy★Chat -- 21:10, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

WP:IDHT). ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:52, 8 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

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

---

User:Surtsicna has opened a malformed and misleading rfc to clarify their position on the right to continue their edits on the same type of subject in the same vein. This is a blatant attempt to gain authority to push their agenda, by quashing any opposition from other editors by referring to the rfc as such authority. Further they have used canvassing techniques to at least two favourable users. The rfc omits that the user is deleting supplemental information that is not in the main table, claiming it is a duplicate or available in the main table, this is not the case in the most part at all, the user does not or refuses to recognise this. Usually in the subsequent, secondary or supplemental table and accompanying effective prose, within a section named "Listing of the Living xxx", includes some items including DOB, age, first to die in office, last to die in office, sometime more, sometimes less, whereas the main tables rarely (I have found none) include any of this information. This I believe goes against the grain and purpose of wiki, to build the base of knowledge and by inference information. Their excuse does not stand up, their reasoning on the initial deletion, on the many reverts as editors revert the user deletes and re-reverts amount to, it is available on the main table when it is demonstrable not. While I am not saying the user is in breach of the 3RR, I believe they are sailing close to the wind on this and are certainly in breach of the spirit of the 3RR if not technically.
Having a small section that details who the oldest living ex-PM is, who first dies in office, none of which is usually available in the main table is good for the new or average reader, this user saying well place the DOB and age in the main table to some of his many, many critics that attempt to undo this poor approach is insufficient and onerous on other users and in the case of very long table, hardly fair. This mass deletion has been ongoing for sometime and they obviously do not review the exact details, their poor excuses, to a poorly thought out, illogical approach, that belittles other user efforts, negates other users work, totally goes against many of the pillars of wiki and the purpose of wiki and detracts from all.
I can back up all of the above, in detail, with further information and revision histories (including the 2 canvassed users) and provide example of the near edit-wars, the table and prose deleted etc. etc. and will gladly do so on any request, from any admin.
I propose a solution, that is:

• 1. This editor stops these actions immediately and refrains from any of a similar nature going forward, including any reverts, re-reverts on these type of articles and matters etc.
• 2. This editor attempt to undo their edits of this nature over the next 28 days.
• 3. This editor withdraws the malformed and misleading RFC, and by inference to one above, does not reformat and try to gain such authority again via an new RFC or any other means.
• 4. This editor is given a dispensation for these matters only and alone, over the next 28 days, from the 3RR to correct their poorly thought out and removal of this highly useful supplementary information not available anywhere else on wiki without comparing and contrasting many different articles.

2404:4408:638C:5E00:E41C:B4B2:FB86:9A61 (talk) 17:36, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The audacity to lay so many accusations without even attempting to provide evidence for anything is impressive. Otherwise, this made me cringe more than anything in my 14 years on this project. Surtsicna (talk) 17:51, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just so you're aware

WP:APPNOTEs, and RFCs are the appropriate way to gain consensus (authority) for content changes. Without additional evidence of behavioral issues supported by diffs this isn't going anywhere. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 20:35, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

There's nothing wrong with the RFC. IMHO, the mobile editor is attempting to stop it, because it's not going their way. Side-note: I'm concerned about the mobile editor's apparent knowledge of Wikipedia, even though they only joined a mere day or two, ago. GoodDay (talk) 17:57, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is no way to tell how long someone has been editing Wikipedia based on their IP's contributions. A brand-new user could edit from an IP that someone else has used going back 20 years. An unregistered user with multiple FAs could edit from a new connection and appear to have never edited before. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 18:05, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Having been an IP editor previously I was going to say the same. But someone who had an account [until earlier this year], and created something so massively pointy as this draft, before just happening to come to that RFC is straining credulity. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:33, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, I'm not expressing any opinion on the overall issue here. I just get sick of the "new IP" line that seems to come up about once a week at AN(I). There's no such thing as a "new IP user" (at least, not that can be inferred by looking at contribs). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:39, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@GoodDay: odd from looking this over I drew almost the opposite conclusion, the content of their post suggests a user who is both unfamiliar with the cultural norms of the noticeboards specifically, and lacks a firm grasp of the nuances of many internal protocols more generally. Moreover, a true noticeboard pedant would've posted this at ANI instead of AN. That aside, I see no reason to doubt their claim of being around since 2014, many casual or purely exopedian editors can go years without so much as a single projectspace contribution. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 20:42, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BTW - The title of this report is malformed. It's "RFC", not "RC". GoodDay (talk) 18:42, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:52, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Break

I apologies for my genuine mistake over canvassing, I was never shamelessly lying as the subject of this matter asserts.
For those above doubting anything about what I said and as an example spirit of 3RR violations include this for Alaska [[21]] and just about every other position, state, region and country, this user to me seemed to be bordering on and almost edit warring with multiple others who all disagree with the user and the users approach. The user also accused me of hostility when none was shown, the user seemed to take it as a personal affront that anyone could disagree with them, and many have via the multiple reverts, to which the user sometimes also gets quite short with. I did not expect fellow contributors to dedicate the time to conduct their own full-investigation, I anticipated admins would have some extraction tools to quickly review the bulk of these edit and contributions and or ask me to provide such details that I had as per my original post. To ActivelyDisinterested, I was attempting to review Russian trolls, creating disharmony, subtly removing or editing articles to suit pro-Putin views and I created that draft as a counter to what I viewed as misleading Nazi Canadian and US article that were, at that time, as biased, or more so, than my draft, I then followed some of the users involved and came across these bulk deletes. And lastly I still believe this is a complete waste of resources to delete information that is not available on most of the main tables, and a waste of the other editors time to revert, and a waste of the user that was the subject of this matters time both in the first place and to then to re-revert and to defend such actions, when much better things could be being achieved by all parties.
I thank those that added anything constructive.21:32, 6 December 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2404:4408:638C:5E00:E41C:B4B2:FB86:9A61 (talk)

" I did not expect fellow contributors to dedicate the time to conduct their own full-investigation, I anticipated admins would have some extraction tools" As admins are fellow contributors and no, we don't have magic tools that can figure out what you're talking about, so yes, you were expecting fellow contributors to put in the time and effort that you weren't willing to. We shouldn't have to ask for details from an accuser. They should be offered willingly, otherwise the accusation is completely empty. --Golbez (talk) 22:52, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

↑ this

WP:WALLOFTEXT

and subsequently investigate the edit histories of everyone involved on their own, it's just not reasonable.

Example of what evidence might look like

Brief overview of the circumstances (What is the urgent incident or chronic intractable behavioral problem involving Example that needs to be addressed?) [22], [23], [24], edit-wars against multiple users [25], [26], [27], engages in personal attacks [28], [29], [30], and disruptive POV pushing They've ignored all warnings and requests to stop so I'm bringing this here. ~~~~ more diffs is better to a point but don't overdo it

Do not insinuate that editors you're in conflict with are Russian trolls without evidence in the form of diffs; see

WP:ASPERSIONS. Continuing to do so will eventually result in sanctions, and I suggest you strike the offending phrase with <s>...</s>, (see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Editing own comments). 74.73.224.126 (talk) 04:34, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Ima just take this moment to point out that this editor is demanding we give them good faith (why else mention that they used to have an account, and have never had a ban, without telling us who they were) without offering the same for others (for example, I was not canvassed, I am an actual participant in this topic and have been for fifteen years). They may be apologizing but that just means that they have demanded good faith, squandered it, and offered nothing in return; we have no reason to believe this apology is genuine, and I have no reason to believe that anything will come of this. They have provided no diffs, no reason beyond "i want it," and have been rude and accusatory. I have no interest in continuing to interact with this person. --Golbez (talk) 22:52, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This IP user has declined to participate in a level-headed fashion and has been

etiquette guidelines. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:37, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

I apologised for the canvassing, end.

I did not insinuate anything about any of the users here or on the rfc, I explained my draft and how I got to the the rfc, I will not strike anything out, if you want to misread what I wrote to a specific poster that is up to you.

I provide one edit history to show what I was talking about, and to answer critics and insinuation that I deliberately, carelessly and shamelessly lied for any ulterior motive, not as evidence to continue this, so no further example, guide or coaching was or is needed.

None of the additions, since my close offered anything constructive or applied any good faith, which I did not by insinuation or otherwise demand, it is however wiki policy, so no demand or other should be necessary.

Hence when I effectively closed this and thanked the user that gave any due care and consideration, i.e. those that did not start throwing accusation and threats around, I thought this was at an end.

Re

WP:BLUDGEON

I made OP and one close, bring it on.

Re ANI or AN as this is on the latter, bring on either, regarding the rest of your comments, advice and threats please review my 2nd close below.

So to close again, any of the subsequent posts and posters that threatened, that rehashed closed items, that place words into my mouth, that demeaned me, and offered other slanted and pointed advice please look at your own actions and words with regard to all of these matters, some assumed I was a banned user, some assumed I was new or fake, some stalked and your specific threats, actions, behavior and lack of good faith during this and post the close and ask yourself is this how you would want to be addressed and treated, I have replied at all times politely and in a very restrained way, no threatening, no assertions, no implying anthing or any other bad-faith actions, as I feel I have been subject to balatantly.
2404:4408:638C:5E00:F1B8:4D:6290:8EE7 (talk) 08:23, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Close

Recommend this report be closed, as it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. GoodDay (talk) 16:37, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please pause any close for now, I may have one other item to add in the next day or so, thank you. 2404:4408:638C:5E00:ED45:2BCA:48B2:EEFD (talk) 17:49, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I came here because my name was mentioned. I notice that the thread does not begin by mentioning what the RfC is, what is wrong with it or provide a link. The thread has now become hopelessly long and should therefore be closed without prejudice, i.e., allowing the IP editor to come back with a concised complaint.

The purpose of this noticeboard is to alert administrators that an administrative action is required, in this case presumably an administrative close of the RfC. But non-administrators also participate. TFD (talk) 22:53, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Moved from

WP:ANI

Moved from

WP:ANI

 – ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:11, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Original heading: "RFC that is malformed and misleading" ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:11, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I reference my badly formed original post here [[31]]. I now provide this post and move to the correct noticeboard, this evidence of this users chronic, intractable behavior and disregard for other users thoughts on these matter as an example of such behavior and actions.
Regarding a discussion that evolved into several discussions on the Mass removal of Prime Ministers, Governors etc. all during Aug 2021 which were held on this matter at [[32]] which was moved to [[33]] which was moved to [[34]] the same three individuals voted for removal on all three discussions, namely User:Surtsicna, User:GoodDay, User:Golbez While Surtsicna acknowledged direct redundancy was a good guide to judge use of delete and Golbez added a caveat for the US POTUS only, Golbez otherwise noted oh my god i am so happy right now'.

Those that objected in some manner to this approach, either Totally or as a on a Case-by-case or on a Direct redundancy basis including User:Skyring, User:Reywas92, User:Newyorkbrad, User:NebY and Surtsicna (before changed approach)

While User:JackofOz left a pertinent comment, but did not clarify his end position.
While User:The Four Deuces left a comment I have no idea about [[35]]

Although none of these were structured in an effective and clean RFC they provide some guidance in that:
6 users including myself believe at the barest minimum a case-by-case approach and a direct redundancy must be established.
1 user wants to nuke everything and does not know or read Australian history and still attempted to forcefully express his opinion anyway.
1 user believes it should only count for the US, otherwise fine to remove all and so happy.
2 users for now abstain.
I note one user (Surtsicna) has now changed their approach and is now not checking for any direct redundancy and overriding objections and other editors.
If this mock RFC ended at this point and the discussion was not rehashed and Surtsicna actions in this manner ceased there would be no issues.

However, this core group of User:Surtsicna, User:GoodDay, User:Golbez can be met on various user and article talk pages, project pages and the RFC in question, each supporting each other views in almost 100% of matters, similarly to supporting the delete discussions above, however, I found one curious example of cross-editing, I place little relevance on this. I think the above and the timing of the first edit on the RFC in question by GoodDay places Surtsicna defence [[36]] of not canvassing, into a questionable frame or it could be termed coordination or other less favourable terms .

With regard to 3RR violation this [[37]] is shocking and this [[38]] is probably as bad, to not take anything to the talk page to seek consensus to again try to dictate to all other users and by inference all of wiki it must be my way cannot be acceptable and again explanations in edit summaries are misleading at best. Engaged in support mode, GoodDay joins in here [[39]] with the edit summary including i'll join in and nuke this, when there's an rfc we can calm, although probably a bit late to save the violation of the 3RR in this instance.

So if we add all users, whom were the reverter's, IP or registered user, of the Surtsicna and GoodDay deletes, 1st, 2nd or 3rd or more reverts, and many many other not detailed here from this same coordinated group and include, even a very, very small percentage of these, into the numbers above (in this new section only) the values change and I think we would have an overwhelming consensus to ensure at the barest minimum a case-by-case approach and direct redundancy must be established.

I cannot for the life of me think of any good reason to structure the RFC so badly by such an experienced user, omitting mentioning all of the lack of direct redundancy items, other than an attempt to gain such authority.
I cannot for the life of me think of any good reason why do any of this in the first place, there is so much more that can be done, that actually adds something, anything to wiki.
I would like the user to explain for what purpose and reason they have, that overrides actually improving any part of wiki, although they are not obliged to.

To close this OP out, I do not want to draw attention to the the lack of good faith, the threats and other poor behaviours exhibited in the first instance of this matter on the AN, however, it needs be mentioned and not repeated here and we can leave all aspersions and allegations aside and try to deal with this constructively for the good of the project, if you do not agree, that is your call.2404:4408:638C:5E00:ED45:2BCA:48B2:EEFD (talk) 21:53, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing wrong with the RFC & I never was canvassed. TBH, I've little clue as to what is (figuratively) ailing the mobile editor. Will be happy, if folks smarter then me, can clarify all of this. GoodDay (talk) 22:00, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This has stopped being funny. Your walls of lies and delusion are now disturbing as well as disruptive. Surtsicna (talk) 22:03, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Surtsicna, that's not really an appropriate thing to say about another editor on-wiki, irregardless of their conduct. casualdejekyll 23:38, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

nah I'll back 'em up on this. This sealion has been harping on how they deserve good faith when they have failed to give it to others, consistently. Nothing Surtsicna just said is out of line. A little irked that after the half-page screed slyly accusing long-standing editors of sockpuppeting and misrepresenting everything we say, but what really grinds your gears is a mild insult. --Golbez (talk) 23:48, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have read through the latest post above, time I will not get back, and I am not able to work out what the problem is, or what the OP is asking us to do about it. This needs some serious condensing. Girth Summit _(blether) 22:15, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi User:Girth Summit this type of action [[40]] and how it affects other users is the problem. 2404:4408:638C:5E00:ED45:2BCA:48B2:EEFD (talk) 00:06, 8 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am none the wiser as to what the problem is, or how you want us to deal with it. Girth Summit _(blether) 00:09, 8 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As an uninvolved editor, I propose OP be

WP:AGF. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 22:20, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Of course you are entitled to your opinion, however, everything I have done is in good faith, I sincerely believe this user has disrupted wiki, removed information and upset multiple users for no good purpose. Further, none of the other items you suggest are valid, I am trying to stop this destructive editing and edit warring and seek to use all of these wasted energies and time in building wiki. I apologised for a mistake, which I now retract, as per my referenced items in the first post on ANI. I was not aware of the forum shopping rule and when I uncovered the their aged knowledge of each other and thier 100% agreement between these parties I placed on ANI as this is serious ongoing and chronic issue affecting large amount of editors and pages. No lies, no delusions, the evidence items above prove this is ongoing and consistent and upsetting multiple other users. 2404:4408:638C:5E00:ED45:2BCA:48B2:EEFD (talk) 23:35, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

lol --Golbez (talk) 23:45, 7 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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