Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive354

This section was originally posted by a fairly new editor at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), but that is clearly not the best place for it, so I am copying it here.

Hello, I'm not sure whether this is the right place to ask. According to the block log, the IP range 2401:4900::/32 appears to have been blocked from Wikipedia, with account creation also blocked. According to the WHOIS info and APNIC info, this range is allocated to Airtel India, which is India's 2nd largest mobile ISP with more than 300 million subscribers.

A huge /32 range has been blocked in this case. According to IPv6_address#General_allocation,

Each RIR can divide each of its multiple /23 blocks into 512 /32 blocks, typically one for each ISP [...]

This source [1] also seems to show that the 2401:4900::/32 range is essentially the entirety of Airtel's IPv6 range. I was also able to anecdotally confirm this as I had addresses in this range (and was blocked from IP editing) in two cities separated by over 1,600 km in the last week.

Is this massive block really what was intended?

Thanks. NS-Merni (talk) 14:33, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

First of all, NS-Merni, I would have thought that the administrators' noticeboard would be a more appropriate venue for this, as what you are questioning is an administrative action, not a technical issue. Secondly, if you think an administrative action is questionable, almost always the best first step is to consult the administrator in question. Very often the issue can be resolved very easily that way. Thirdly, if, whether for good reasons or not, you do decide to question an administrative action on a noticeboard without consulting the administrator in question then you must at least inform that administrator, which you didn't do. Certes informed me of you post here (for which I am grateful) no doubt because my name appears on the block log as the last administrator to make a change to the block. However, my contribution was just to remove talk page access; apart from that, the present block was imposed by Ad Orientem, and later extended in scope by Drmies, and they need to know about this post. Also, previous blocks on the same IP range had been imposed by the following administrators, who may wish to express opinions: NinjaRobotPirate, Favonian, Daniel Case, Malcolmxl5, and Materialscientist.

As I said, my own contribution was just removal of talk page access, which was because of persistent misuse of talk page editing. A few examples are [2], [3], and [4]]. I think it quite likely that leaving the talk page block in place for a little while and then removing it may well be enough, in the hope that it will be enough to get the disruptive editor in question to stop, and I had that in mind when I removed talk page access.

It is not for me to defend, justify, or explain any other aspect of the block, for which I am not responsible, but I will make a few observations. The scope of this block is certainly unusually large, and I would be very hesitant to impose one like this. However, there certainly has been a considerable amount of unconstructive editing, even via anonymous editing, and from what has been said in the block log it looks as though there has been more via accounts, which is visible only to CheckUsers. The fact that so many different administrators have all thought so wide a block reasonable does suggest that this may be one of the rare occasions when such a large block is justified.

On the general question of anon-only IP range blocks causing collateral damage, as opposed to this particular case, I sincerely have 100% sympathy with innocent editors affected in this way, because way back in the early days of my time as as a Wikipedia editor it happened to me. It was frustrating; it prevented me from doing any editing for a while, until I had got an account. However, I accepted that it was unfortunately made necessary to prevent damage caused by other people, and that sometimes, unfortunately, causing that kind of inconvenience for some legitimate editors is the lesser of two evils. JBW (talk) 16:34, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello JBW,

As you might see, I have a total of around 30 edits. I have absolutely no idea as to where the proper location for this kind of discussion might be. I was initially planning to post it at

Wikipedia:Helpdesk

, but decided on posting here as it seemed to be related to "technical" issues. I hope the community will not judge my concern on my procedural mistakes.

I don't know what information administrators or check-users might have with them. But isn't it the case that an IP range of a whole ISP, used by 300 million+ people (even if some of those are companies or duplicate subscribers, say 100 million) would be likely to have hundreds of disruptive editors in any case? If blocking a whole ISP is the only way to resolve this, then why allow IP editing at all?

Please advise me on how to move this discussion to a proper location -- whether that might be one of several admins' talk-pages, or the Administrators Noticeboard.

Thanks. NS-Merni (talk) 17:03, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

@NS-Merni: I see now that you started your post by saying "I'm not sure whether this is the right place to ask". I must have seen that before, but it didn't register on me. Yes of course when we start editing none of us really know our way round Wikipedia, and no new editor can reasonably be blamed for not knowing the best way to do things. Rereading my comments above, I see that the way I expressed myself may have come across as critical, which wasn't what I intended, so I apologise for that. JBW (talk) 17:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Glad that you raised this. My state has 10 crore (100 million) residents as of 2011 census, and my home & college are almost at the two extremes of the state. No matter what network I use (

BSNL)), and no matter what device I use (mobile, tablet, laptop; mine or family members'), I always end up in a range that is blocked, sometimes even from account creation. Probabilty says that the vast majority cannot edit Wikipedia from at least my state, unless they had an account before the blocks. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X}

}) 17:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Most of what I did was 1) a hard partial block to stop one sock puppet from editing a specific series of pages, or 2) trying to limit collateral damage caused by other admins. I eventually gave up on both. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:55, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Any registered account caught behind that range is free to go to

WP:IPECPROXY

and follow those directions to request IPBE by email, as I have advised hundreds of people over the last year or so requesting unblock for exactly this reason.

We do not do a great job communicating this, however. It boggles me why we don't put this in the message those users see when they try to edit ... it would save a lot of needless work explaining this to everyone who uses the on-wiki unblock process. Daniel Case (talk) 17:58, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

That is not always possible. On 6 July, I was in the range Special:Contribs/2401:4900:0:0:0:0:0:0/32, which blocked me from even requesting a password reset (VPT discussion). Since account creation is blocked, it is difficult to create an account. Although, my current range is different (on same ISP, same device), it doesn't have account creation restrictions, but is blocked from several namespaces anyway. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

You can request IPBE by email through the instructions at the link. You can also request an account be created for you. Daniel Case (talk) 19:57, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I may be missing something, but I don't see how IPBE would be of any use here. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

For registered users, it would be. We get many unblock requests of this type. Daniel Case (talk) 22:17, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

1500 entries in the CU log since February 2021--I don't think I've ever seen a range that has caused us so much work. Drmies (talk) 18:56, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll say this: I didn't need to look anything up before posting this, I recognise that range strait off the bat because it so frequently crops up in cases of abuse. I'm not saying that I endorse the block, exactly - I haven't looked into the specifics - but it might well deserve the award for the most often-abused range in the world. Girth Summit _(blether) 20:28, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

If NS-merni is correct that it represents the entire Airtel IP range, then huge abuse is expectable, because Airtel is the 2nd largest internet provider in India, which is now the most populous country of the world. Not that I blame admins for this, I myself have led to the block of some Indian ranges due to persistent abuse. Just that better technical solutions will be appreciable. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 20:53, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

From your lips to

God's ears. The Admin corp and CU team would love something other than blunt and broken cudgels to curb abuse.-- Ponyo^{bons mots}

22:05, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

If only Airtel would split that range up into chunks. It's not completely unique, but you don't see very many ranges as wide as that one that just bounce users around randomly across the entire range. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:09, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

What all data is collected from users besides IP? Any sort of device data? So, blocks can be applied on a per device basis rather than on an entire range with several users. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 17:02, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

We do not have the ability to narrow down blocks based on device data.-- Ponyo^{bons mots} 17:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

And I can see why it would not be a good idea. It would mean either having to have all admins sign an NDA (which means identifying themselves to the Foundation) in which they agree to keep confidential all those fields (and whether that work is uncertain; a few dozen or so Checkusers can keep that secret but can a few hundred admins?) or resigning ourselves to letting it become public knowledge and making it at least a little easier for determined sockmasters to evade (granted, in that case they get so confident that the behavioral evidence usually makes up for their technical prowess). I could *see* perhaps limiting this ability to Checkusers, but we'd probably have to take on more.

There has been some discussion of allowing the same sort of screening adjustments in blocking IPs/ranges that we currently allow in protection, i.e., hardblocks that would allow autoconfirmed, or extended confirmed, accounts through if desired. Something to take up at the next Community Wishlist Survey on Meta. Daniel Case (talk) 22:31, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

If device data were/is collected, there could be some automated process that filters a blocked IP range's edit by devices, visible to CUs, but not admins or others. If most disruptive edits emanate from one or two devices, they could apply a device-block on them leaving the rest of range open to editing. To the public, the device can be identified by a set of random letters, which is something, I believe, the WMF is working on. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 22:42, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

That information is confidential for what should be obvious reasons. Daniel Case (talk) 22:18, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• I am not unsympathetic to the inconvenience being caused by such a wide-ranging block. However, I am at loss as to how else to curb what appears to be a shocking level of disruption all emanating from the range. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:08, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
• It would be very helpful if the ISP were to suballocate into smaller ranges, but we can't exactly control that decision, and it's actually probably not a bad design decisions as far as user privacy is concerned. That being said, while we're not blocking the ISP in its entirety with the block mentioned above, and while the ISP also owns other large ranges, it doesn't look like many of those ranges are actually used for IPv6 traffic. For example,
  WP:T-MOBILE indicates that they can be gamed), because T-mobile is more or less providing all of its users with a proxy service. We're not dealing with a proxy provider here, but if the IPs are dynamic enough, I don't exactly see anything different in terms of how that would hamper our ability to identify individuals who are conducting abuse.

  We've had issues where we've had entire countries coming through very narrow ranges (or even single IPs, such as Qatar). We generally handled Qatar with short-duration (1 day or so) blocks whenever vandalism was getting really bad, but that had much less traffic than does this /32. Given some LTA(s) within the /32's propensity for spam and mass account creation, I don't think we can treat this range like we did the entire country of Qatar; we'd be opening up windows for account creation shortly after each block expires, and we'd need to block the range much more frequently.

  Obviously, we're going to have to accept a large amount of abuse if we're dealing with a range that has 300 million+ people randomly bouncing around it (the range would likely have nearly the same spam/LTA/vandalism output as the entire United States due to sheer size). The whole range having been checked 1500 times in the past 2.5 years means that it was checked (on average) about 1.7 times per day. And if/when IP masking happens, this is going to be infinitely harder and more time-consuming to deal with should the range be unblocked.

  Has anybody considered asking the WMF to try to get into contact with Airtel India about this issue of ongoing abuse? This seems like a problem that Mediawiki doesn't give us a good solution for, but I imagine the ISP could identify and nip the spammers/LTAs in the bud if they wanted to. It might be worth looking into if our only other feasible option is to resort to blocking the range from making accounts and/or editing anonymously.

  — Red-tailed hawk _(nest)
  15:30, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

In that case I will contact the Arbcom as soon as I am able to do so. As mentioned on this page, my alternative account already redirects to my main account. I have used it for no more than two edits in the past and I do not intent to use it in the future. I will also contact the Wikipedia Library Project as mentioned earlier, I sorry @Samwalton9 (WMF): I completely missed your comment. Vlaemink (talk) 20:13, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Can someone please merge the articles that were proposed? It’s been a while since closed and none actioned so far.108.58.27.76 (talk) 23:00, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Anyone can merge the articles, ideally some of the people who took part in the discussion. It's not something that requires an administrator. There is quite a backlog of articles to be merged, so it may be a while before someone else can take care of it. Joyous! Noise! 20:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• MKL123 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Problematic user? I don't know but this user in his edits tends to add stats on stats and interviews on interviews. This is not a website stats and an interview website either, rather a simple Encyclopedia. Plus, he tends to add <ref> link </ref>. This is not how it should be. Island92 (talk) 04:21, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

@

diffs. Both of these things are noted in the bright orange editnotice when you notice this page.

Now, as to the merits (based on what I can see in MKL's contribs, since you've not pointed to any particular edits) your concerns seem to be regular content/style concerns. Bare-link references are discouraged but not on their own disruptive. Whether information like this merits inclusion is subjective, and should be discussed on talkpages.

On the other hand, MKL has made over 3,000 edits and literally never edited their talkpage. In fact, they've only made 63 edits outside of mainspace. So that's not great, and maybe, once you notify MKL as required, they can address that apparent communication issue. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed}

] (she|they|xe) 04:44, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicktoons_(European_TV_channel)

65.92.90.228 (talk) 23:39, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

how would yoy like it restructured? Anyone can edit Wikipedia, so please feel free to be bold and make the changes yourself! Or you can suggest changes on the article talk page. MarchOfTheGreyhounds (talk) 00:16, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

124.168.45.118 has made a series of stats changes citing a website. The url leads just to a download I did not complete. Unsure what this is, but thought I'd raise here in case it should be revdelled. CMD (talk) 02:31, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Non-admin comment: It's just a mostly empty html file. It has php code in it, but I guess their server isn't setup correctly, so it's not working. Currently, it's not harmful, but could be if they fix it.

Closhund/talk/

06:37, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I did find this page at the site, which is what I think the IP was trying to cite, although that page does not have any statistics by country. I was unable to locate any other pages at that site (none of the presumed links work). It appears to be a blog, and the comments on that page are eleven years old. Obviously not an RS. - Donald Albury 17:25, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• Mmd1193 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Not sure how this noticeboard thing works quite yet, but can we please have a look at this user? He/She keeps removing sourced content from articles mainly

Blocked by Materialscientist today for 24 hours for harassment. I think this should stay open, however, since harassment and a block that is about to expire do not address Completely Random Guy's concerns. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:51, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't know. This case is complicated by the fact despite Completely Random Guy saying "I have warned them multiple times now about removing or changing sourced content and they keep changing it", this never actually happened. There have been no talk page posts related to this dispute either on Mmd1193's talk page or the article talk pages by Completely Random Guy related to these disputes. I'm not counting edit summaries which it's well accepted is a way to offer a brief explanation of your edits, but is not a way to talk to another editor. The first person to actually warn Mdm1193 was Untamed1910 after this thread had started [15], probably partly in response to this thread since Untamed1910 also gave them the compulsory notification that Completely Random Guy failed to give [16]. Of course Mdm1193's response to someone finally actually warning them was completely inappropriate [17] but they've been blocked for that. While the response also makes one wonder if they will actually change their behaviour, perhaps the block will be enough to convince them they need to change. Either way, I think this is an important reminder that edit summaries is not the way you warn or talk to another editor. Nil Einne (talk) 08:02, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Hey sorry for the delay in getting back, through edit summaries of my reverts I warned the user many times about removing unsourced content. I didn't realize it should be a talk page discussion rather than an edit summary. I apologize! Completely Random Guy (talk) 18:25, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I've extended the block to indefinite. I don't think anyone who attempts to make an edit like this will be a productive contributor. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 16:06, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Odds of productivity after that is about zero. Courcelles (talk) 16:16, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Due to personal issues, I do not appear to be active on Wikipedia this year as much as in previous years. So, could an administrator please remove all of my user rights except for extendedconfirmed? Also, please remove my username from

Done for the rights. Thanks for your diligence. Courcelles (talk) 17:20, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

My username is still listed at the

 Done. Deor (talk) 18:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

For the Arbitration Committee, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 17:03, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding Paradise Chronicle

I've been talking to Global Salmon Initiative on their talk page. Obviously the username is an issue, but that appears to be heading for a resolution. As I've talked to them about COI I've realized that, while I do not have a direct COI myself here, as an Alaskan I have pretty strong feelings about farmed -vs- wild caught salmon. I feel like everything I've said to them so far was within reason but I don't want my judgement to be clouded by my personal feelings as I feel like I'm probably talking to a

<To the tune of 'Big Bad John'> 🎶 "...Big Sal—mon... Big Bad Salmon!" 🎵 SN54129 16:48, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Incredibly helpful response. Non-Admin comment, clearly. Good grief. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 17:15, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Swastika image being used on Childish Gambino's redbone single page 124.254.96.90 (talk) 03:12, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Some troll is adding swastikas to various articles and user pages using a variety of IP addresses. I got a swastika link on my talk page a few minutes ago. Cullen328 (talk) 03:17, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Nazi flag. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 03:30, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee is pleased to announce that ToBeFree (talk · contribs) has been appointed a full clerk, effective immediately, concluding his successful traineeship.

The arbitration clerk team is often in need of new members, and any editor who would like to join the clerk team is welcome to apply by e-mail to clerks-llists.wikimedia.org.

For the Arbitration Committee, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § ToBeFree promoted to full clerk

This talk page, where non-admin closures at

It has come to my attention today that I was the subject of a post on this notice board on July 21 [20]. I would like clarifications on policies.

1. Is WikiProject the correct place to reverse longstanding consensus rather than article talk page? Is it acceptable to "sneak through" a new consensus on a WikiProject with no note, no notification, no reminder on article talk pages that said discussion is secretly taking place on WikiProject? Shouldn't the point of Wikipedia:Consensus be allowing as many lay editors to participate as possible rather than being held in virtual smoke-filled room? Are all of these behaviors above-board or violations of Wikipedia:Canvassing and Wikipedia:Tag team? I earnestly raised all these questions in my last edit [21] on WikiProject:Golf, but no one has given an answer to this day and instead I was arbitrarily blocked. As I wrote in WikiProject: Golf, it isn't a requirement to join WikiProject:Golf to be allowed to edit golf-related articles, but how are lay editors like myself supposed to participate in consensus-building if they're all done in WikiProject rather than the broad daylight of article talk pages? I wouldn't have even responded on WikiProject:Golf that day if I weren't tagged because I wouldn't know a discussion about myself was taking place. In fact, I wouldn't even be writing on this board if I didn't get a notification when I logged in.

2. I was arbitrarily blocked for 48 hours while I was away, despite another administrator

3. User:Girth Summit posted on my personal talk page that someone (not her) falsely accused me of being a sockpuppet and having links with the late Muammar Gaddafi. This is beyond the pale and flat-out bullying. They are trying to throw the book at me for daring to question their golf WikiProject and see what sticks. From what I can gather, User:IceFrappe, User:Skitash, among others have contributed to many articles on Arab nationalism and the Maghreb in the year of 2023. I assume they are also Arab like myself. However, it is irresponsible and frankly reeks of racism to accuse all of us being the same person.

I must apology in advance for the awkward English; it is not my primary language. Jamahiriya (talk) 07:44, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

With respect to my use of rollback, see

WP:ROLLBACKUSE #5. _wjemather^{please leave a message...}

08:32, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, inflammatory comments on article talk pages are not an invitation to collegial discussion. They were also inaccurate as it was User:Nigej who did most of the work in originally removing these tables in accordance with the consensus established and reaffirmed through several discussions. As you were advised, one individual does not get to unilaterally overturn consensus (without discussion) just because they don't like it and reject the centralised venue (a perfectly normal process when dozens of articles are involved) where discussions were held. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:05, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Just to confirm that it was me that deleted most of the "past champions" sections. See eg

WT:GOLF that they should be deleted. Nigej (talk

) 19:30, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

On point 3, this is my post on the OP's talk, I make no mention of links to Gaddafi. I left it with regard to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/IceFrappe. No further comment on this from me, aside from the comments I made in that SPI case. Girth Summit _(blether) 09:50, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Nor does the SPI accuse Jamahiriya (or IceFrappe) of having links to Gaddafi. It notes that both have created articles on cousins of Gaddafi, which is objectively true, and states that they have both edited Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, which is also objectively true and easily verifiable by the diffs included in the SPI report. Unless we are suggesting that "edited articles related to the Gaddafi family" is "links to Gaddafi", there is no accusation of links to Gaddafi that I can see in the SPI report. (Nor, so far as I can see, is there any accusation in GS's talkpage post or the SPI case that Skitash has any connection to either Jamahiriya or IceFrappe) Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I was arbitrarily blocked for 48 hours while I was away, despite another administrator User:SarekOfVulcan wanting to hear from me before any action was taken. This is misleading. The ANI discussion can be found here. The sequence of events is: Jamarihiya reported for edit warring; Star Mississippi pblocks them for 48 hours from article space and says they will take no further action; SarekOfVulcan replies to Star Mississippi saying that they "suggest no further action be taken until we get a response from Jamahiriya". Contrary to the impression that Jamahiriya gives in this AN post, Star Mississippi's block was not going against SarekOfVulcan's suggestion; SOV's suggestion was regarding any action further to SM's block. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:07, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Your reading of

have authority over articles. There's debate over whether selective WikiProject notifications amount to canvassing, and it largely depends on context. But you were not blocked arbitrarily, you were blocked for WP:edit warring. Your messages were also hostile and accusatory, so it's not surprising if someone chose not to respond. I probably wouldn't have responded to your talk page posts either. Thebiguglyalien (talk

) 20:03, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

As regards point 1, it seems to me that where an issue covers many hundreds or thousands of articles it is impractical to discuss them individually on talk pages. They needs to be some central place for these issues to be discussed. In this case there is a long-standing consensus that WP:GOLF is a suitable place. The idea that this is some sort of secret place where such issues are decided, is complete nonsense. Every article here is part of WP:GOLF. Nigej (talk) 20:04, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

As noted above, WikiProjects do not have authority over articles. You can discuss things there, and then apply bold changes based on what's discussed. But ultimately, people not involved in the project and contributors to individual articles have a voice too and if there is disagreement over issues at any individual article then those must be resolved at the talk page, there's no magic trump card to apply a WikiProject rule there.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't believe anyone is claiming wikiproject superpowers. All that is being said is that WT:GOLF was, and remains, the logical venue for a centralised discussion impacting a large number of closely related golf tournament articles. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 00:51, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

No one's claiming some sort of veto for WikiProjects, just that it's a sensible place for discussions for issues relating to multiple articles. There was no attempt here to contravene any Wikipedia policy or guideline, just an issue of whether certain content was suitable or not. In this case I accept that my edit summary: "remove champions in the field section" was not the best, I should have mentioned the discussion at WT:GOLF. In theory it would be possible to add talk page sections linking to WT:GOLF discussions but where there are hundreds/thousands of articles my experience is that this is rarely done. Nigej (talk) 06:56, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

That can be an appropriate place to hold an RfC, if it was tagged as an RfC and the talkpages of affected articles were notified. Otherwise, people who work on a few articles but aren't involved in the wikiproject in general would have no way of knowing that it was even happening. A discussion taking place on

WT:GOLF that lasts less than 22 hours with 4 participants is not a valid consensus to enforce on hundreds of articles like that. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me}

15:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, when so little time is given to participate in such a discussion, it results in a lot of potential problems with articles where good faith edits from anonymous or newer contributors can be

batted down through a localized consensus. I've seen multiple times when Wikiproject users use "we discussed it, we reached a consensus, it's not our fault you didn't participate" as a justification for doing so, and it's rubbish. Many contributors don't know what Wikiprojects are or what purpose they serve, nor do they always have time to go out of their way and seek them out. I agree that the talkpages of the relevant articles need to be pinged. Cheerio, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk

) 23:08, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

However the issue here is that these sections were all added without discussions, they were then all deleted (albeit many years later). Per

WP:BRD another discussion might well have been in order but User:Jamahiriya simply embarked on a mass revert of the deletions without any attempt at any discussion on the issue anywhere. His only edits to talk pages were to complain about 3RR infringements. Nigej (talk

) 06:46, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

That sort of behavior certainly isn't meritorious either, but remember that here at AN, or at ANI, the conduct of all parties involved are observed. There is nothing wrong with looking at ways to improve the process and editing atmosphere in addition to correcting the problems caused by a user that engages in edit wars. Just as

WP:CONLEVEL need to be observed. You are not required to start an RfC each time you're trying to reach a consensus on a particular matter affecting multiple articles, but you do need to at a minimum loop in the talkpages of those articles affected. Cheerio, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk

) 19:56, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

The biography for Juan Branco has been plagued by mass changes, sockpuppets, and single purpose editors over the last month. I came to the article via RfC, but it's been super difficult to keep things under control. Any assistance to help with the disruptions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 15:42, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, please! Nemov and me disagree and I totally would like more users to intervene so that I can let this article alone. Delfield (talk) 16:15, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2023).

Administrator changes

Firefangledfeathers

• AlisonW
• Amberrock
• Closedmouth
• Scottywong

Interface administrator changes

Novem Linguae

Technical news

• The tag filter on Special:NewPages and revision history pages can now be inverted. This allows hiding edits made by automated tools. (T334338)
• Special:BlockedExternalDomains is a new tool that allows easier blocking of plain domains (and their subdomains). This is more easily searchable and is faster for the software to use than the existing MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. It does not support regex (for complex cases), URL path-matching, or the MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. (T337431)

Arbitration

• The arbitration cases named Scottywong and AlisonW closed 10 July and 16 July respectively.
• The SmallCat dispute arbitration case is in the workshop phase.

Hello, I want to file a report on User:Kshatriya Yoddha, who apparently called me a racial slur on his talkpage. Apparently I was in an edit war with the user before, but today was the day where they took the situation very far.

This is the comment the user made to me: "Cope harder sub-narmada pajeet... and sulk when you see a tall, fair, handsome north-Indian munda flex his muscles infront of mallu and tulu chicks... should i send u a fair&lovely... will help u :)"

This is the link to the user's talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kshatriya_Yoddha

The link to the comment is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kshatriya_Yoddha&diff=prev&oldid=1169306784 and I believe this is the current version of their talkpage. In case they made have edited it, this link will provide the evidence.

If this issue doesn't concern you, I would like to know who may it concern so I can proceed with my report. No2WesternImperialism (talk) 19:14, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

• The user has been blocked indefinitely. Black Kite (talk) 19:15, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Per the Global bans policy, I’m informing the project of this request for comment: RfC/Global ban for Бучач-Львів. --Jphwra (talk) 17:04, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Looking for an administrator to take a look at

• It seems that the draft for the correct capitalization,
  Draft:Lil Tay
  has been indefinitely set to requiring administrator privileges to create. Due to the recent news, should this be lifted to allow for this page to be moved to its correct capitalization? Is this page allowed to be created at all, or is it considered a bypass of the administrator lock? Hopefully an administrator can look into this ASAP and see what can be done from here.

B3251 (talk) 20:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I've moved the draft to the correct capitalization, and reduced the creation protection on Lil Tay to extended-confirmed instead of sysop. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 20:51, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. B3251 (talk) 20:52, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

A new source says the story is unconfirmed, so we need to take very good care on this and wait for a proper authority to confirm details; right now the history reads like a BLP minefield (and the subject's age is also in dispute between each source). Nate • (chatter) 23:33, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Additionally Twitter is definitely not a source, but are some posts saying the statement 'confirming' the story and the death statement was sourced through an AI tool. We may need to move to RFP with this. Nate • (chatter) 23:52, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

User is making changes to Aileen Cannon's page that have not been agreed to by Consensus. Warned him numeous times to wait till consensus. 2600:8805:C980:9400:651E:9482:536D:FE66 (talk) 21:40, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

• The article has been extended-protected by Courcelles, and I've blocked the /64 range of the IP, which has been blocked many times in the past, for six months (same duration as the block in 2022).--Bbb23 (talk) 21:54, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks. Andre🚐 01:00, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

The following images were used to vandalize several pages:

--Leonidlednev (T, C, L) 22:18, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

• Comment This is already up at MediaWiki talk: Bad image list#Multiple files. Nate • (chatter) 02:28, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

  That wasn't responded to in a while, so I posted that request here. --Leonidlednev (T, C, L) 09:07, 10 August 2023 (UTC)