Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive351

• Totally agree. Some people - including some admins - appear to wish to enable obvious disruptive editors. I am unclear as to the reasons for that. Black Kite (talk) 20:34, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  +1. A decade ago, when I first dipped my toe into editing here, "involved" meant "invested in the article in question". Then it meant "invested in the article or editor in question." Then "invested in any way." Then "interested in any way." Then "has previously edited the article or spoken to the editor." Then "once commented on a thread about the article or editor." Now we're suddenly at "reverted what appears to be obvious vandalism by an uncommunicative editor and then blocked that editor." No comments on whether this was the correct course of action, just a belief that the very appearance of being "involved" is enough to condemn. Time to draw a line on this insane instruction creep. — Trey Maturin™ 20:46, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  I do not have your tenure, but I share your sentiment. DS should have sought redress at AIV. Or DS could have just blocked sooner and called it

  WP:DE (which it was). Or semi-protected the page. But because they reverted more than 3 times, we're here. EvergreenFir (talk)

  21:09, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  I agree. It would be nice to have a discussion about admin conduct in these situations but I don't think this thread was made in good faith. Philipnelson99 (talk) 21:11, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'd say more communication with the editor and more formal warnings at minimum. Without them, it looks more like a content dispute than addressing

  WP:DE. EvergreenFir (talk)

  21:23, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Absolutely. Philipnelson99 (talk) 21:24, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'm in this boat too. I revert tons of editors on AP, gensex, COVID, caste and other similar topics when I see the obvious removal of sourced, consensus text. If someone were removing far-right or spread COVID disinformation from an article where it is well sourced and obviously has at least implicit consensus with an edit summary like "removing untrue information from biased sources" is it really revert or block for an administrator? That type of summary is so common in vandalism it triggers edit filters. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:20, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Please look at that history again and change or remove your accusation. Undoing the Undo of my change is not "undo-reverting anyone who tries to make any change whatsoever". ClearConcise (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

They're completely correct. The only mistake that Discospinster made was letting you vandalise the article six times. You should have been blocked well before that. Black Kite (talk) 20:40, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I'll take another look.

• 21 March, 18:10-18:20 ([2]): You removed approximately 4,000 bytes of material you disagreed with, eventually the entire "accusations of bias" section and a portion of the "limitations" section, calling out the sources as opinion pieces. The opinions were notable opinions published in relevant reliable sources and were attributed either to those sources or to the individuals or organizations who originally stated them as opinions, per
  WP:OPINION
  . This was your first edit since September 2017, and your removal was reverted in parts by five two (corrected below) different editors over the next couple days.
• 22 March, 14:09 ([3]): you returned and again removed the entire "accusations of bias" section and the same section from "limitations". Thus, you undid any edit anyone had made in the interim.
• Over the next few minutes, Discospinster's first edits to the page again restored the reliably sourced sections, with explanation, and they began copyediting presumably to clarify your concerns. You reverted to restore your version within three minutes.
• You then began blanking the content with no explanation at all, and each one of your reverts is within one minute of the previous edit. This did not stop until you were blocked, and you did not attempt to discuss at all until 14 minutes after you were blocked from editing the article.

Allow me to also point out that

WP:BRD (and numerous other policies and guidelines) the onus is on you to explain why the information should be removed. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits

) 21:32, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I think this pretty much settles this entire issue. Philipnelson99 (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Also, I don't think anyone has yet observed that Discospinster part-blocked ClearConcise specifically from editing only the article, which I've also done to force an editor to engage rather than blocking them outright. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 22:32, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• I suppose I would ask the administrator why they choose to revert six times? Look, we don't edit war with vandals, we block and move on. The fact that they (Discospinster) continued to revert and not report or block implies to me they knew that this was not prima face vandalism, and means this falls on the side of being a content dispute. Does anyone looking at this edit history think that after Discospinster's fourth, putting their toe across the line, revert that ClearConcise would suddenly get the message and stop? Crazynas ^t 21:07, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  If they were seeing it as straight up vandalism, then yes. We extend a tremendous amount of rope to vandals. We extend a preposterous amount more to people who should know better. We extend an almost infinite amount to obvious trolls. The one edit warring here was the original troll, not the sysop. Perhaps the admin should've blocked the troll earlier/quicker rather than extending the rope the troll was dishing out for themselves (not an admin, but I would've blocked after the second revert), but that decision has to lie within the realm of admin discretion. — Trey Maturin™ 21:25, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  This is why I have stock in rope companies and

  glue factories EvergreenFir (talk)

  04:48, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Ivanvector, for me it's the so-many-reverts-so-fast of an edit that wasn't actually clear vandalism, then block that needs explaining. We can argue whether it was clear vandalism -- although in this case it doesn't actually look like it; the edit summary was "This is an opinion piece cited by biased unreliable sources. Are you going to post a summary of all "accusations" that are made by biased unreliable sources?" -- but certainly this removal wasn't anything that was urgent. This wasn't a BLPvio or anything close to egregious. It was content being disputed and removed because of a concern about sources. Why not instead of edit-warring, open a talk section and ping the other editor for an explanation? If there's no answer, revert again, and if they revert again without coming to talk, sure, p-block from that article to force them to the talk page.

  That said, I think this is an issue that just needs to be acknowledged and not repeated. I kind of feel like maybe DS got caught up in things. Valereee (talk) 13:10, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Some of this looks surreal. A two person clear cut edit war and a 3RR one, (BTW I would have agreed with DP in that content dispute) and one of the two users involved uses admin tools to block the other. And some are saying that there's no problem here. And not even a response from DP to the graceful easy way out suggested by Salvio? North8000 (talk) 20:50, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Agree with Black Kite here, and from the initial comments in this thread I did not have that view, but actually looking at the edits reverted I cant see them as good faith edits. Making some vague wave to a single source while deleting a whole chunk of material along with other sources is not a good faith edit. I think an involved block to stop the immediate edit-warring was fine, but it should have been brought for some review at AN3 or elsewhere shortly thereafter. nableezy - 21:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Yep, this is a very long thread considering we are clearly being trolled here. If I wasn't about to go to sleep, I'd seriously consider a block here. Someone else may want to consider that. Black Kite (talk) 21:06, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Not an admin (because why the fuck would I put myself through that hell in order to get more fucking hell all of the time) but yes, this is clear and outright trolling. Block the troll and then we can talk about whether the sysop actions in question need further consideration. But not until we block the troll. — Trey Maturin™ 21:14, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'm afraid I don't see the problems with the block that others do. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:03, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  What nableezy said. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Wait. Six other users reverted op? -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:07, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Actually, looking at it. It looks like one other editor reverted the removal prior to DS getting involved. [4]

  I might be missing something though. Philipnelson99 (talk) 22:16, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  No? Where would you even get that from? — DVRTed (Talk) 22:26, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  See the above comment by @Ivanvector: Numerous editors contributing to the section including the six who restored the content after you removed it are a good sign that it was your removal that was controversial, and per WP:EW and WP:BRD (and numerous other policies and guidelines) the onus is on you to explain why the information should be removed. Philipnelson99 (talk) 22:28, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) I counted five before DS restoring portions of the first removal, but I see now that I miscounted. The partial reverts that led to all of the removed content being restored were by LightNightLights ([5], [6]) and Félix An ([7]). Three other editors also edited different parts of the article before CC reverted again, and then DS reverted. So to be "fair" they were reverted by three editors, not six. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 22:31, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Also agree that ClearConcise's edits appear to be vandalism. look at the edits they were making yesterday before the edit war, e.g. claiming There is no article supporting this claim. while deleting a citation to an academic paper [8]. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 22:13, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

What I'm seeing here is an admin and a non-admin engaged in an edit war over POV, and the use of admin tools to win said edit war. Everyone agreed that it was clear-cut until a couple other admins arrived and tried to endorse the use of admin tools to win an edit war, using a blatant misinterpretation of

WP:BAIT OP. Thebiguglyalien (talk

) 22:31, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I think you may win the award for "worst take in the thread". 192.76.8.84 (talk) 22:40, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Seconded. From what I can tell, DS hadn't interacted with that article until now, so it seems a bold claim that he did it "to win an edit war". I tend not to care about edit wars on articles I'm not actively involved in. It also smells of not assuming good faith, which, I mean, would certainly match the OP's attitude. --Golbez (talk) 22:44, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

yeah, you clearly haven't read all of the comments here then... Philipnelson99 (talk) 22:49, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

+1. I'm glad somebody suggested OP to stop actively participating on this thread and they decided to do so because the attempts to bait the OP on this thread is painfully obvious. — DVRTed (Talk) 22:52, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

no I'm saying YOU haven't read all of the comments here. this situation is far more nuanced than your description suggests. Philipnelson99 (talk) 22:56, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

I wasn't responding to (You) nor was I questioning whatever you said (or didn't say). — DVRTed (Talk) 23:03, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Pardon my interruption, but I think your repeated comment that you clearly haven't read all of the comments here is discourteous and not conducive to a collegial atmosphere. In general the temperature in this thread is already far too high, and I don't think comments like these are helping much. Would you consider striking them? Shells-shells (talk) 23:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Hm. It's okay to use admin tools to win an editing dispute if the other bloke is a badwrong vandal type? I smell Boris Johnson level hypocrisy.—S Marshall T/C 23:54, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• For the record, I dont think DS was in an editing dispute, I think all their actions at that page were administrative in nature. Its not like DS had some past editing history showing that they really wanted this material in the article. So I dont think thats an accurate description of what happened. I was about ready to scream bloody murder after the start of this thread, but actually looking at the sequence I see legit nothing wrong here. nableezy - 00:07, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

If the "editing dispute" consists of a "vandal type" vandalising an article by repeatedly deleting massive chunks of sourced content giving explanations which are evidently false [9] then yes, it is acceptable to use admin tools. It is quite clearly spelled out in relevant policies (

WP:EW etc) that cleaning up after "vandal types" is an acceptable reason to overrule policy. 192.76.8.84 (talk

) 00:07, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

In addition see no evidence that there was an "editing dispute" in the first place. Discospinner did not contribute to the article text, was not involved in the editorial process at all, and their only involvement in the article was reverting the blanking and a block, both of which are administrative actions. The only edit they made was a trivial wording tweak [10], which in no way reaches the level required for

WP:INVOLVED to be an issue. 192.76.8.84 (talk

) 00:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

And yet no editing dispute has been presented. There was unproductive behavior and editing that an admin was correcting in an article they had no previous involvement with. The desire to stretch

WP:INVOLVED to encompass such activity is strange. At best, a criticism not reporting to AN for review by other admins is due. The idea that an admin should be admonished for attempting to resolve the issue through editing, instead of immediate page block is well... Backwards. Slywriter (talk

) 00:17, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I re-added the content on the

Snopes, which is a reliable source according to Wikipedia. Félix An (talk

) 02:34, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

No. I reject what Slywriter and 192.76.8.84 say. Once you've edited an article, you should not perform administrative interventions resulting from editor behaviour on that article. This is quite simple and easy to understand.—S Marshall T/C 08:32, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Except not that simple at all. Obviously, if you have been editing as a normal editor on an article, you should usually refrain from taking administrative action on it except in the most obvious of cases (and even then, not if you have been in dispute with the editor concerned). However, as in this case, if your interaction with the article has been limited to an administrative one (in this case reverting the repeated removal of sourced content with a fraudulent edit summary) then there is no issue. Black Kite (talk) 11:17, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I think reverting is an editorial action and not an administrative one. I think it's as clear as day that DS should have gone to AN3 about this. We need these rules about involvement because they (imperfectly, but importantly) help prevent various kinds of abuse.—S Marshall T/C 11:22, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

That's a ridiculously oversimplified way of looking at the issue. Whether reverting is an editorial or administrative action is context dependent. If someone replaces an article with profanity or deletes all it's content or replaces it with spam then reverting them is simple vandalism clean-up and is an administrative action, reverting becomes an editorial action when you revert someone in a good faith content dispute. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 11:50, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I think an administrative action is an action that you need administrator tools to perform, and an editorial action is one that any editor can perform. The only scope for complexity that I see is whether rollback is an administrative action; I don't think it is but you could defensibly argue the other side. Reverting without using rollback is normal editing that you don't need to pass RFA to perform and doesn't invoke WP:ADMINACCT. It's a pity because if DS had just used AN3, this would have been a straightforward case of RBI.—S Marshall T/C 13:54, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I think an administrative action is an action that you need administrator tools to perform, and an editorial action is one that any editor can perform. Bullshit. There's a whole range of administrative actions that do not not require administrator tools to perform. Closing a thread at

WP:AE is an administrative action, but only requires editing a page. Giving an editor a logged warning under the contentious topics regime does not require administrative tools, but is an administrative action. Closing a contentious XFD as "keep" does not require administrative tools, but is an administrative action. Closing a thread at AN/ANI with consensus to topic ban an editor does not involve the use of the tools, but is an an administrative action. Closing a contentious RFC does not require the use of the tools, but is an administrative action. You need to look at the context of what the admin was doing, not just the technical means used to do it. 192.76.8.84 (talk

) 17:19, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

If your position is that issuing a DS warning is an "administrative action", then I don't just disagree, I also don't understand how you can think that? A DS warning is a prerequisite for some kinds of administrative action but it's something any editor can do and is routinely done by involved parties. You also bring up discussion closes, and I agree that a discussion closer ought to be accountable for their close and WP:ADMINACCT applies, but, it's called a "non-admin close". The clue's in the name there, I would think.—S Marshall T/C 17:36, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

A logged CTOP warning goes in the AE log. It's an entirely different issue than issuing a DS alert, which any editor can do. An alert does not presume misconduct, whereas a logged warning is only given in response to such. Courcelles (talk) 18:26, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Did you actually read what I wrote? When I said "giving a logged warning" I meant "giving a logged warning", not "giving a contentious topic alert". I meant following the CT procedures, giving an official warning as a sanction and recording it in

WP:AE/Log

. That is an action restricted only to admins but no admin tools are required, you only need to be able to edit a semi-protected page.

Closing any kind of contentious or controversial discussion is an inappropriate thing for a non admin to do per

WP:BADNAC point 2. Closing those discussions is an action restricted to administrators, despite no admin tools being required. 192.76.8.84 (talk

) 18:38, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Agree with S Marshal. Editing an article is editing an article. Doing it as part of your recent changes patrolling does not "supercharge" your edits with a priori justifiableness, imbue your edits with an aura of indisputability etc. Recent changes patrolling is just why an editor arrived to a certain article, but once they have edited it, this editing is equally subject to the normal editorial process as any other editing of articles, and they've taken upon themselves to conduct themselves as a "normal editor". —Alalch E. 11:39, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Except that's not how it works in reality, otherwise an admin who had reverted, even once, a good-faith but disruptive edit would not be able to prevent an editor from continuing their disruption. And that's good-faith disruption; in this case there wasn't even the first tenet of that, IMO. Black Kite (talk) 11:53, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I think that's too black-and-white. For one thing, I really don't think we should be requiring admins to check the edit history to see if they've ever edited that article before they semi it for a few days. But even in cases where they have edited it heavily and/or recently, I don't have an objection to an admin doing what they believe any reasonable admin would do. Reporting something like obvious vandalism by multiple IPs because the subject is in the news just turns what could be a few seconds of one person's time into multiple minutes of two people's time, possibly significant time of the first admin because they may feel responsible for babysitting the article while waiting for help to arrive. Valereee (talk) 13:53, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• Discospinster does a lot of recent changes patrol. She had no connection to that article. She reverted a non constructive editor, warned, and then blocked them from the article. This is in no way inappropriate. And I will add that ClearConcise, on the other hand, does give the appearance of editing with an agenda. Perhaps someone should review their edits?-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:43, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
• I'm not happy with the precedent being set here. Essentially, if an editor removes (what they believe to be) inappropriate POV language, then anyone who "has no previous activity on the article" can come along and violate 3RR to put it back, but only the remover is at fault. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:04, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Correct, it is an unhappy precedent to give so much attention to this person who showed up today to revert sourced content six times without discussion, comes here, accuses an admin in long standing of bad faith while simultaneously they couldn't be arsed to do the bare minimum requirements for a post here, and their punishment was solely that they were blocked from the article that they were edit warring on without engaging in any discussion. Yes, it is an unhappy precedent that people pointing this out are accused of baiting and misrepresenting policy. --Golbez (talk) 04:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Reading through this entire discussion, my opinion has gone back and forth about this incident. But looking at Discospinster's recent contributions, they spend most of their time reverting vandalism and blocking disruptive editors. I think they just happened upon this article and had no involvement in it prior so this wasn't a content dispute. They might be chided at reverting an edit that many times but we are talking about an active administrator making an error, not a serious case of INVOLVED that needs to be pursued. I also might have brought the page block here to AN for discussion but we don't know what was going on with DS today, this could have happened in the middle of the night for them or they had other work to take care of. This is not making excuses, this is just an acknowledgement that this is a volunteer activity for all of us and we don't have to respond on other people's desired schedules. This is not the way that I would have handled this incident but, honestly, I don't deal with vandalism a lot and I try not to second-guess admins who focus on areas of the project I have less experience in. At this point, I just hope Discospinster returns to make a final comment after reading through these comments, not to make an abject apology but just to present their side of the story and most likely confirm what others have said here. Any way, I agree with a lot of what has been said but I also understand how editors in good faith could see this situation differently. I think it helps to look beyond this one article to look at the edit histories of those involved to put this dispute in some context. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:00, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I did make a couple of comments above that explained my intent. I've read through the comments here and really the only thing that stands out is to is the suggestion that I'm in the wrong because I should have blocked sooner. That's a new one for me. ... discospinster _talk 13:57, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

DS, I hate to pile on, but you wrote above (bolding where IMO you turned yourself into an editor having a content dispute): The editor continued to quickly revert even after I left a note on their talk page explaining the issue, with no response. Furthermore I changed the content to make it clear that the claims of bias were in fact claims (i.e. opinions). In my opinion, those further reverts were acts of vandalism and I was justified to make a partial block.

And, really, the other editor responded in two minutes to your post on their talk with an explanation of why they thought the removal was justified. I'm not sure why you're doubling down on this. We all have the experience of looking back and thinking, yeah, I could have handled that better. Valereee (talk) 14:45, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

@Discospinster: if the only thing that stands out is that you should've blocked sooner, then that's worrying; as multiple editors and admins have commented, you shouldn't have blocked at all. The chronology is a red herring. SN54129 15:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I think @

WP:INVOLVED

does not mean admins cannot used tools to stop disruption on articles they've ever edited before or on topics they have been involved in. It does mean you cannot use tools to "win" or to punish someone you disagree with. It also means you should refrain from using tools if there is an appearance of bias. But none of that is the case here with DS.

Despite what @

WP:DE. Note that the disruptive editor had been reverted by other users and had been engaging in the behavior at least a day beforehand. EvergreenFir (talk)

15:55, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, if you want to split hairs, EvergreenFir; the point is, they should not have got into an edit war at all, whether they wanted to block or not. SN54129 11:45, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

• That edit was obviously not vandalism, because it hits multiple criteria at
  WP:ADMINACCT issue due to lack of meaningful engagement here. Levivich (talk
  ) 14:03, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I agree wth all of that. I'm completely baffled by many of the posts in this thread. But that's nothing new. DeCausa (talk) 14:50, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  By my count, five or six admins have now demonstrated in this discussion that they misunderstand the WP:Vandalism, WP:Edit warring, and WP:Dispute resolution policies in a way that affects the use of admin tools. This was such a minor issue that could have been solved with a "whoops my bad", but now it's looking more like a systemic issue. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:16, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Lying in your edit summary while blanking material does not magically transform the vandalism of blanking reliably sourced material into something other than blanking reliably sourced material. Does anybody actually think that blanking was done in good faith? If not, an admin responded to disruptive editing the way disruptive editing is meant to be responded to. nableezy - 18:40, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I think lying is a very strong word here. To me this look like POV-pushing by someone who may sincerely believe the sources were unreliable. Don't get me wrong, I think CC is a problematic editor and I doubt they'll be here long if they don't straighten up and fly right, but can we really conclude they were intentionally lying? Valereee (talk) 18:51, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  The initial summary was All of the claims are unverifiable claims from sources that are themselves biased and/or opinion pieces. A, no they are all verifiable, and b, no the sources are not all biased or opinion pieces. Fine, maybe lie is too strong. How about making manifestly untrue claims that do not withstand even ten seconds of scrutiny? nableezy - 18:56, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Valereee How is this [11] anything other than lying? There is no article supporting this claim. they say, while deleting an academic paper that directly supports the claim. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 18:57, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  As usual, 192 nails the exact point. Black Kite (talk) 19:03, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I think I've unfortunately taken us on a tangent, but wrongheadedness is not the same as lying, and it doesn't constitute vandalism. Valereee (talk) 19:04, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know I thought the follow up edits removing things saying they were opinion pieces looked like bad faith removal of properly sourced content. I could be wrong though. Philipnelson99 (talk) 19:06, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Not sure I'm following, but absolutely agree if there were bad-faith edits that removed properly sourced content, that's absolutely a bad thing, and we need to deal with it. But it's still not necessarily vandalism that is an urgent issue that justifies 6 reverts in 9 minutes, an edit to try to deal with the complaints, and then a block. Valereee (talk) 19:13, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'm specifically talking about this edit. I'm honestly to the point where I don't know if DS's actions were justified. It certainly seems like edit warring, but I feel like I would've probably reverted the linked edit above. Philipnelson99 (talk) 19:19, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Valereee How is that edit "wrongheadedness"? They claimed that There is no article supporting this claim. while deleting the citation that directly supported the claim. They were flat out lying about content not being supported by citations. 192.76.8.84 (talk) 19:11, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  IP192, I have seen multiple well-intentioned editors who completely disagree on what a source says. I'm not actually sure this sheds any light on this issue, though: whether or not the editor was lying, it's still not vandalism. It still doesn't justify edit-warring. Valereee (talk) 19:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  The article

  Yet, research suggests that ChatGPT exhibits a pro-environmental, left-libertarian orientation when prompted to take a stance on political statements from two established voting advice applications.

  The source

  Prompting ChatGPT with 630 political statements from two leading voting advice applications and the nation-agnostic political compass test in three pre-registered experiments, we uncover ChatGPT's pro-environmental, left-libertarian ideology.

  I don't know how you could present that as the article not supporting the claim.

  it's still not vandalism Illegitimate blanking of encyclopaedic content is vandalism, it's litteraly listed at

  WP:Vand#Blanking. 192.76.8.84 (talk

  ) 19:26, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I would have asked if by "no article" he meant that it was a

  WP:PREPRINT and then agreed with the edit if no further publication info could be found. fiveby(zero

  ) 21:45, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  We appear to be disagreeing on what "where a non-frivolous explanation for the removal of apparently legitimate content is provided, linked to, or referenced in an edit summary" means. Which is fine, we can disagree, but at some point I think it would be valuable for experienced, well-intentioned editors, and especially administrators, agree on whether misinterpreting sources -- even intentionally -- constitutes clear vandalism and exempts one from 3RR and especially from INVOLVED once you yourself have edited the contested content. Valereee (talk) 12:06, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  It also hits multiple points at

  WP:VAND. Frankly though, if I'm seeing an editor with 40 edits reverting six times to remove a mostly RS-sourced section in an article, I'm going to assume that's disruptive, if not vandalism. I'm actually astonished at the number of people who think DS has done something wrong here, and am wondering why they are supporting an editor that is blatantly trolling us. Black Kite (talk)

  18:54, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I don't agree with the edit, I think CC is likely a net negative, but I do think DS overstepped, yes. As I said once above, as he appears to have seen this at recent changes, I don't think he's using admin tools to further his POV: but it's borderline enough that he should have sent this to AIV, or asked for independent review. This is not the standard I've seen applied to identify disruptive editors; ARBPIA and ARBIPA topics would be a lot quieter if admins editing them could do this sort of thing non-controversially. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:59, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I dont think that last part is true. It seems to me more about consternation about admins generally than the edit specifically. And I was on that side based on the description in the OP and the initial comments too, like wait what they reverted how many times and then blocked???? But all the reverts are straightforward vandalism patrol, and I put that in the administrative tasks bucket even if that is something that non-admins can do (like say close RM or RFC or AFDs, as keep at least). I dont get how anybody can actually look at the edits and find anything to blame DS on besides her not issuing the vandal warnings prior to p-blocking. nableezy - 19:00, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  Agree with Vandamonde. Valereee (talk) 19:06, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I give up. You're being trolled and there are loads of people who I actually respect criticising an admin for dealing correctly with a troll. That's the situation we're in now. Black Kite (talk) 19:18, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  But, BK, it doesn't actually matter whether in this case, this is someone who should be blocked. What matters is that we come to some agreement on how admins should arrive at that. Valereee (talk) 21:12, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  But the relevant rule here isn't even

  WP:3RRNO

  , which allows edit warring only over obvious vandalism (their emphasis), which is defined as edits that any well-intentioned user would agree constitute vandalism. There's a bunch of well-intentioned users here who don't agree it constitutes vandalism. So, that's it, Discospinster can't edit war over it.

  Also, obviously, once you're in an edit war you don't get to block your opponent for vandalism. I don't really care about Discospinster's motivations at that point: I accept that they had perfectly good intentions, but despite that, all of their actions in this situation were wrong.

  (Furthermore I really think Black Kite is misreading

  WP:VAND, because it gives wide latitude for any good faith reason for removing content, and the rest of the page is clear that mere "disruptive editing or stubbornness" is not vandalism.) Loki (talk

  ) 19:20, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  An edit summary that is a flat-out falsehood is not a good faith reason for removing content as has been pointed out multiple times above, most notably by the 192 IP. But, whatever. Black Kite (talk) 19:27, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  It's not a good reason for removing content, certainly. But that's not what "a good faith reason" means in this context. Even obviously disruptive reasons are good faith as long as they're not deliberately intended to harm the project. And I don't see any evidence that this was: it was an obviously bad edit but not a bad-faith edit and therefore not vandalism. Loki (talk) 20:53, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Discospinster, maybe there is a "middle of the road" was to resolve this. If this happenned again tomorrow, and that exact same full set of reverts had already occurred, what would you do? North8000 (talk) 19:15, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

That's a bit unfair, since if it happened tomorrow, this conversation has already happened, and could have a chilling effect. For example, I'd probably be less likely to do these actions, not because I disagree with them, but because of waves arms wildly at this trashcan of a thread. Not worth the hassle. --Golbez (talk) 20:03, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Of course this situation would influence it. I think that "guiding effect" would be a better term than "chilling". North8000 (talk) 20:26, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh, boy. I've been on Wikipedia maybe 5 days, but what the heck, I'm going to comment. I think that DS acted inappropriately, but that CC is legitimately wrong. I think that too many people are trying to figure out whether DS or CC is wrong, but the reality is that both wrong. I won't speak on the subject of what action to take, but let this be another opinion to consider. (I'm so probably going to regret this soon >-< SwampedEssayist (talk) 19:49, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• I think the core issue here is the conflicts that arrive when multiple levels of AGF begin to interfere with/reinforce each other. A clear example of the cascading effect is this: On the first level we have an AGF question, whether or not the edits were vandalism (the difference is of course intent)... On the second level we have another AGF question, given that the edits were reverted as obvious vandalism we would appear to be required to AGF that to Discospinster they did appear to be obvious vandalism (a question that is IMO completely independent of whether the edits actually were vandalism). On the third level we appear to have the question of whether this conflict was brought to this noticeboard in good faith, and in the ensuing conversation we seem to get into fourth and fifth layers even. To me AGF here means that we cut both of them a break and trust that both have learned their lesson, if in the future this becomes a pattern we can revisit the limits of AGF. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:51, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  While I'm a little more critical here, I agree the appropriate response on a practical level is "no action". Loki (talk) 20:55, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I think I agree with that sentiment. Philipnelson99 (talk) 20:56, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I support that. SwampedEssayist (talk) 21:13, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I broadly agree. AGF to me means that we should assume everyone thinks that they're doing the right thing, but not necessarily that they are. As far as a "solution", Floq solved the issue two hours after it started by unblocking and setting an expectation of no further edit warring. At this point, I'm much more worried about the fact that there's no agreement, even among admins, about the most basic readings of policies like WP:Vandalism and WP:Dispute resolution. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:08, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'm also somewhat concerned at how DS got drawn into edit war as an admin... SwampedEssayist (talk) 22:12, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• I've got no idea how to resolve the conflicting interpretations of whether this was a vandalism situation or an INVOLVED block. And let's face it, at this point we're not likely to resolve this to anyone's satisfaction. But I would like to point out that the OP's editing philosophy, as stated on his userpage, is as follows: Given the username, you should see I'm here to keep the internet clean and simplified. When you've removed all you can remove, what's left is beautiful. While their recent controversial edits may align well with their own editing philosophy, said philosophy does not align well with how we do this whole encyclopedia thing.
  LEPRICAVARK (talk
  ) 01:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. Philipnelson99 (talk) 01:56, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  Yes! Yes! Yes! -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:02, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  I think the best way to "solve" this is to carefully review some of these policies to be more in harmony and harder to bend toward one's own interpretation, as throughout the whole thing everyone has used the same policies against one another. Is there a way to reach a new consensus on WP policies? I'm not too good with the noticeboards yet. SwampedEssayist (talk) 02:01, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  While policies are technically subject to revision, the realistic answer is that we are not going to revise major policies such as INVOLVED and VANDALISM in the aftermath of a minor controversy that will be all-but-forgotten within a few days.

  LEPRICAVARK (talk

  ) 02:19, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  This is minor? >~< I'd hate to see a big one. SwampedEssayist (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

If I were trying to troll AN in to spending hours discussing edits that literally nobody thinks are good I could not have done it this well. Round of applause for the OP. nableezy - 02:56, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

• Well said, Nableezy. Also, I'm with Black Kite. These edits were vandalistic--they removed verified content with a false edit summary, and then they come here to hang DS out to dry? NOTHERE. Pity so many of us were biting. Drmies (talk) 03:04, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  Removing content sourced to a

  WP:PREPRINT is vandalism? Asking for a friend. fiveby(zero

  ) 04:23, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  No, but claiming all the sources are opinion pieces when the sources cited include this straight news and this straight news is. nableezy - 05:25, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  Some users cannot come to an agreement with others who are willing to talk to them about an editing issue, and repeatedly make changes against consensus. Edit warring is not vandalism and should not be dealt with as such. Dispute resolution may help. See also: Tendentious editing. Editors that do not understand this should refrain from editing until they read

  the relevant policy, and admins that do not understand this should have their user rights called into question. Thebiguglyalien (talk

  ) 05:45, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  How do you come to agreement on a lie? Those are not opinion pieces. Somebody is repeatedly removing something and claiming what they are removing is not what they are removing. And, since you missed the several times it was quoted from the relevant policy, Ill try to quote it again for you. Removing encyclopedic content without any reason, or replacing such content with nonsense. Content removal is not considered to be vandalism when the reason for the removal of the content is readily apparent by examination of the content itself, or where a non-frivolous explanation for the removal of apparently legitimate content is provided, linked to, or referenced in an edit summary. Yes, there was an edit summary. That edit summary was simply not true. Whether it was intentionally not true or unintentionally not true, it was not true. And literally nobody is defending the edit. But yet we are going on two days of this section lol. nableezy - 06:00, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  The fact that we disagree with the reason doesn't mean that there's no reason. That's the difference between vandalism and other types of disruptive editing, and it's an important difference when admin tools come into play. If it's unintentionally not true, then accusations of vandalism are not only incorrect, but actively disruptive. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:09, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  I am not saying I disagree with the reason. I am calling the reason a lie. The disruption is removing things with a lie as the reason why. Disruptive editing, and not just vandalism, is also revert-worth. And also block-worthy. nableezy - 06:12, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  I "bit", as Drmies would put it, because I think that WP:INVOLVED matters and I do not accept that reverting vandalism is an "administrative action". I have raised no objection to any proposal to block the OP, and in the circumstances I would not object. But we apparently do need to nail down what's an admin action and what isn't.—S Marshall T/C 08:56, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Drmies: Amen, brother. Amen! -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:58, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  There is clearly sincere disagreement, here, Drmies. Whether or not the OP was attempting to troll us, we clearly need to come to some agreement on whether an admin should be blocking even an editor who should be blocked after that admin has started editing the disputed content. It's not somehow taking the bait to be able to see that this is actually a point where experienced, well-intentioned editors are in sincere disagreement. Maybe we need to take the OP and DS out of the picture and just open a discussion about when and how an admin turns themselves into an editor. Valereee (talk) 11:18, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

  I strongly agree. SwampedEssayist (talk) 13:37, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

IMHO most people would identify the original edit as a problematic edit, not vandalism, that there was a two way edit war and a 3RR one, and that DP was wp:involved. And we have folks here trying to say that all three of those statements are false, and you need to determine that all three are false in order to determine that the block was OK. And worst case scenerio DP just needs a trout. We might be seeing a process problem here inherent to admins reviewing an admin action. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:04, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree. This is definitely revealing some problems with how WP cases are handled, because we're now at each other's heels over policy interpretations, was it "good faith", was it "vandalism", etc. before we can even move on to what should be dished out to the parties involved. This is highly inefficient handling of a case and we need to figure out a way to wrap this up soon in a way that everyone (quote unquote) can agree with. SwampedEssayist (talk) 13:37, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with N8 that no more than a trout is needed, but the need for even just a trout does first need to be acknowledged by DS. I'm going to share a blast from my own checkered past. Reasonably similar concern. Someone pointed the issue out to me, I said, "That's fair, it felt to me like [X] but I can understand how it didn't feel that way [to the other person]." That was the end of it. Not even sure I actually got a trout, IIRC. Valereee (talk) 13:41, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I am dissapointed noone noticed Cite arXiv, no damn clue if that is what the OP was saying, and probably doesn't matter. but that template should cause any editor to look twice. fiveby(zero) 13:56, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I guess so. I do want to emphasize that it's hard to be familiar with every discussion about every citation template especially ones from seven years ago. I'm not saying that excuses adding it back it or that there isn't an obligation on an editor restoring an arXiv citation to check to see if it is actually

WP:RS. Philipnelson99 (talk

) 14:11, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

additionally, if you didn't know that arXiv allows user uploaded content, it's actually kind of hard to tell that it's NOT published academic content and the edit summary There is no article supporting this claim. seems like an outright contradiction if working under that assumption. Philipnelson99 (talk) 14:14, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

It's a deceptive template, and almost all legitate usages should probably be turned into {{Cite journal}}. I have no idea when or if an admin stopping edit waring should look at the content. But i would expect that, when it did become a content question and editors felt confident enough to start throwing out 'troll', 'vandal', 'lying', etc., they would have exercised their due diligence. They didn't. arXiv should have been an immediate read flag. It might be a contributing factor nobody needs blamed or shamed over, just if admins are not aware of

WP:PREPRINT, they should be. fiveby(zero

) 14:59, 24 March 2023 (UTC)