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Query re possible clean start for a blocked user who hasn't edited in 14 years

Hi admins and friends, once again, I don't know if this is the best forum for this question so redirect me if it isn't. I came across a {{helpme}} request from @TheAmazingCoffeeMan who wanted to appeal a block on his old account @GageCSayre, which he can't log in to because he's lost the password and email address. Given that the block was imposed 14 years ago and he apparently hasn't tried to edit in the interim, would he be a candidate for a clean start? If so, would it be enough to declare this on both user pages? Or does the 14-year-old block prevent a clean start? ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · contribs · email) 23:44, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Non-administrator comment) Well, technically it wouldn't be a clean start because those don't apply to people who have active sanctions (including blocks), but this is a fairly normal place for an unblock request, and if they were literally only blocked because of one day of vandalism 14 years ago I wouldn't expect there would be any issue with one. Alpha3031 (t • c) 00:58, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:QUIETRETURN. If he returns and start editing in new areas, there's no need for a helpme request. Ahri Boy (talk) 01:07, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would be sock puppetry. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:22, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can only speak as one member of the community, but I have no issue whatsoever with this user participating with the new account, and I certainly don't think TheAmazingCoffeeMan should be forced to jump through too many hoops simply for trying to do this properly instead of quietly editing. If we have to WP:BURO this, then I suppose they can just post a quick unblock request wherever an admin sees fit? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:38, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree, although it would've been better if they'd just not said anything about the old account, it looks a fairly ruitine block and would likely merit a WP:ROPE unblock, which I will just go aherad and do so as to put the matter to rest. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 02:04, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will, as I do every time one of these threads pops up, plug my user essay User:Tamzin/Adverse possession unblock. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 02:07, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nice.I appreciate an essay that is blunt and honest about the sausage factory. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 03:00, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just thinking out loud, Taz, is it worth linking WP:LTA in second bullet point If there is a history of sockpuppetry, it is not particularly extensive or disruptive? Excessive SPIs on the same menace tend to equal LTAs, in my experience, but hey, you’ve been Wikipedia-ing a lot more than I have, so I can be wrong. MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 12:11, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would narrow my meaning more than I intend. There's lots of socking that falls short of LTA but would definitely disqualify someone from the benefits of this unwritten rule. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 16:04, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More input?

It was brought up on my talk page that when this user filed an unblock request, they admitted to a few other socks, and one of them was blocked as a sock of a long-gone vandal with a large sockfarm. It's a fair concern and I asked TheAmazingCoffeeMan to address it. Here is their response:

I looked through the sock puppet investigations archive for Alexcas11, and I read some about the editing patterns of the sock puppet accounts alongside the IP addresses used, and I can say those accounts (besides RoyalRumble24) don't belong to me. I also looked at the IP addresses used, and I can safely say none of them track to my location (I live in the United States, but that's as specific as I'll get). Moreover, the account Alexcas11 and its sock puppets appear to have been active and subsequently blocked before I even started vandalizing Wikipedia and got blocked for it. Additionally, the way I went about vandalizing articles mostly involved falsifying dates, and the only article about a made-up topic I ever created was an imagined 2011 remake of Home Alone. All the other articles deemed inappropriate for inclusion I wrote as RoyalRumble24 were about people deemed ineligible for Wikipedia's notability criteria.

I would take this as a "no" to the question of if they were the person operating the account, and it is still my inclination to just hand out some rope and see what happens, but thought I'd run it by this board in case others feel differently. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 05:36, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If there are no other issues, I'd go for it. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 12:24, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator recall policy adopted

After a request for comments, Wikipedia:Administrator recall is now a policy. The procedure is as adopted by the 2024 RfA review. Some questions remain, which may be discussed at the policy's talk page. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 16:03, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your well-reasoned and diplomatic close of this discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:15, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a surprise to me. How many attempts to do this over the years have failed? This will take some mental readjustment. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 08:14, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I had no idea this was going on either, as I don't remember seeing any notices. On paper, it looks interesting, but I haven't examined it close enough to have an opinion yet. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 08:17, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I had no idea this was going on either, Ditto. Where was this promoted? MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 10:52, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It was borne out of one of many proposals at WP:RFA2024. I don't think there was any mention of "recall" on Template:Centralized discussion until after the conclusion of RFA2024 Phase I, by which point it had already been decided that the community wanted a recall process. The Phase II discussion (to hash out specifics) treated the Phase I consensus as immutable – wrongly, in my view, given my point about T:CD. The drive to create WP:AR should have been spun out of RFA2024 at the first stage and linked separately to get broader input, given the far-reaching potential of this process. Had that happened, the Phase I and II consensuses might have been very different. That RFA2024 has succeeded in producing a desysopping-style policy where other attempts failed is due to the fact that the Phase I recall proposal was a rider and inadequately publicised. SuperMarioMan (Talk) 11:52, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I echo the sentiments above - this should have been much more widely advertised. Giant Snowman 11:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The whole RfA 2024 review process, including this aspect of it, was notified to virtually all noticeboards, T:CENT, watchpage notices, discussed in The Signpost, etc. If you missed that there was a discussion about reforming the RfA process and adopting recall, it's not because there was a lack of notice. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:24, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above would suggest otherwise. Giant Snowman 13:28, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Copying @isaacl's list from the RfC that was just closed:

Regarding notifications about the second phase of discussion: a watchlist message was posted, the centralized discussion notice box was updated, and a link was posted to the Administrators' noticeboard (there was also a link present in the announcement of the closure of phase 1). A mass message was sent to what I believe is a list of participants in phase 1.

Unless by lack of notice you mean that a courier didn't personally deliver a letter to you informing you of these discussions, I'm not sure how much more notice was needed. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:33, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, this very RfC that was just closed was at the very least advertised at T:CENT. So it's frankly flat-out untrue that none of these discussions were advertised. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:38, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anyone claiming that "none of these discussions were advertised". What I see, based on the links, is that there was no centralized notification specifically about the new AR process until Phase I of WP:RFA2024 was over and it had already been decided there would be such a process. It seems no one realised its implications during Phase I and acted to make them clear to the wider community. AR is big – right next door to a WP:RFDA process, and arguably the biggest change to administrator policy since WP:INACTIVITY was introduced. The proposal for a whole new policy shouldn't have been packaged in a round of RFA reform ideas, because that will have limited the Phase I discussion to regular RFA reformers and WT:RFA commentators. So in terms of procedure and notifications, there were mistakes. SuperMarioMan (Talk) 16:53, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's tricky. The RFA 2024 review process was sprawling, with many discussions over many months. People have a limited amount of time to follow all of that. I was aware that such discussions were taking place. I was not aware that there was a specific policy proposal to adopt recall, though in general I'm not opposed to the idea. Whether the policy actually enjoys consensus will be determined the first time it's used. Mackensen (talk) 15:37, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It does have consensus, with the phase 2 RFC and then this recent RFC confirmed it. Both pretty well advertised and attended. PackMecEng (talk) 15:59, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I came across this very messy RfC by accident when it was almost over. Only 25 EC names on a petition are needed to force an admin to jump through hoops and they don't have to give reasons. There is no provision for anyone to object to the petition (even if the admin did none of things they are charged with). In particular, the admin cannot formally respond to the petition. So: write some polemic about an admin you don't like and advertise it in a few places. Some of the 25 names will come from people who have been sanctioned by the admin and didn't like it, and the rest from people who never heard of the admin before but are disturbed by the allegations. Then the admin has to go through an onerous re-admission process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zero0000 (talk • contribs) 13:29, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing prohibiting an admin from responding. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:36, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've been aware of this proposal from the beginning, but chose not to participate in the second phase. While I am a bit uneasy about some of the details, I think we need to see how it goes. If the process is used abusively, or turns out to be disruptive for the community, we can take steps to fix it. Donald Albury 14:43, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Donald. We might learn from early uses of the procedure that changes are required, and that's fine. Being a policy does not mean it's set in stone. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:49, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is more or less my thinking as well, if it does turn out to be a vector for abuse I am confident that the community will address that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm for the process, even as I expect it to fail in it's current form. It is open for abuse and I expect that we see petitions for all the usual suspects so disliked by sockpuppets, LTAs, and POV pushers. But what they will show is how to reform the process.

Some form of admin recall has been asked for for years, and each attempt to try and implement something has failed to even make it this far. There comes a point where you just implement something, anything, and see how to make it work as you go. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:16, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The very limited number of responses to the RfC does appear to suggest it was poorly advertised. Unless I'm missing something, one place it doesn't appear to have been properly advertised is, ironically, here (it does appear as a single line in the Admin Newsletter, but that's easy to miss) which one would have expected to be the first place for notification. Black Kite (talk) 15:21, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Zero0000, I agree. Also, if the first attempt at a petition fails, not to worry – the filer just needs to wait six months, then try again. And all it takes to start a petition, leaving Admin X or Y in limbo for the next 30-40 days, is one person deciding that Admin X or Y "has lost the trust of the community". SuperMarioMan (Talk) 17:06, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Will be interesting to see how it pans out. GoodDay (talk) 15:31, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I continue to be surprised 1) that this RFDA-in-all-but-name process originated from attempts to reform RFA, the exact opposite; and 2) why a lot people seem to regard this new process as no big deal. It's a well of negativity that makes Wikipedia as a whole an even more negative place. I pity whichever sysop has to run the gauntlet first, because the specifics at WP:AR look pretty shaky to me. SuperMarioMan (Talk) 16:53, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that didn't take long... SuperMarioMan (Talk) 20:48, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to humbly advise any editors with concerns about the suitability of the process through which this policy was adopted to refer to the RfC linked in my first post, which was dedicated to that matter. It resulted in a consensus that the process was sufficient and no further ratification step is required. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 17:15, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A petition has been started (see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#A_recall_petition_for_Graham87_has_been_initiated). Any minor issues that arise will hopefully be resolved through the course of the next month. To those claiming it didn't have enough advertisement, I'll reiterate what's been said above: the third RFC was posted on CENT and sought to address that question. Sincerely, Dilettante 18:59, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How did this policy sneak into effect with something like 25 votes? That's ridiculous. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:06, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A look at the example WP:Administrator recall/Graham87 shows how we are doing so far. There are 5 "signatures" in favor of recall, some accompanied by to-and-fro with other editors. There are also 15–16 editors (hard to count) who oppose the recall. However, under this policy opposition to the recall doesn't count at all, so those 15–16 editors are wasting their finger muscles. I'm wondering what other formal decision processes we have on Wikipedia for which only opinions in one direction are considered significant. Zero^talk 04:40, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would have been better to do administrator recall as a trial period, with an expiration date of some kind. This is how some of the other big changes in WP:RFA2024 were handled, such as administrator elections and 2 days of no voting at RFA.
Also, wasn't the goal of RFA2024 to make everything related to adminship less toxic so we could attract more admins? Making admins go through 30 days of drama for incidents that are too minor for arbcom doesn't seem like a great way to reduce toxicity... –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:35, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
IMO it's complicated. I think it's well recognised especially by non-admins is that one reason why RfA is such a problem is because adminship is generally a wikilife-long thing with it very very hard for admins to lose the tools. And it's also historically been basically impossible to even sanction an admin the way an ordinary editor would be. While there's some aspect of WP:unblockables involved, the nature of adminship has generally meant admins are protected from any real sanction until and unless they lose their tools.
So while admins are supposed to demonstrate a higher level of commitment to our policies and guidelines and be less likely to make personal attacks, edit war etc; and many do, there's been a feeling that some don't and yet have never really been properly challenged over it in part because they are admins. I.E. they're getting away with stuff it's really unlikely a regular editor would get away with. And when it comes to questionable use of the tools, it has to be extremely egregious for anything to happen although an ordinary editor similar misusing something (whether tools or just general editing) would long ago have been stopped from doing that.
Things have changed a bit in recent years with arbcom seeming to be more willing to take cases and perhaps more willing to remove the tools, and even just more willing to take cases has meant some it's been easier to lose the tools since admins have either formally resigned them or effectively done so by leaving Wikipedia rather than participate in the case. Also there's at least one high profile case where an admin was cbanned without regard for the tools.
Still I think many of us plebs still regard admins as having a special level of protection that normal editors don't and therefore we treat RfAs as a much bigger deal than they arguably need to be. I.E. Yes adminship might just be a few tools, but you pretty much get to get keep those tools unless you misuse them very very badly, and you also get to do stuff few other editors would even putting aside the tools.
So while making it easier to remove admins does have the unfortunate effect of "increasing toxicity" when we have these recalls, there's a hope it will make adminship less of a big deal and make RfAs less toxic since we don't have to be so worried about the consequences of making a wrong decision. Whether it will be better or worse in the long run with recalls, I don't know. Note I say this as someone who can I think count on one hand or at least two hands the number of RfAs they've participated in but who did support recalls in the first RfC.
Nil Einne (talk) 09:32, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. In fairness, I will also acknowledge that admins generally also have to put up with abuse that isn't so accepted when directed at us plebs. Nil Einne (talk) 09:35, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who IIRC supported recalls in the first RfC and didn't participate in the second or drafting of the rules and didn't really participate in the final one I do feel that this has been way messier than it should have been. In particular, whatever was said in the first and second, I'm unconvinced it was ever wise to treat this as a policy that could go into effect without a final confirmation RfC especially without a formal trial period. I always expected there would be a final confirmation RfC with a specific developed policy in place.
And I don't feel the final RfC was really that since at least at the beginning the details still weren't quite sorted and it wasn't even really worded as "This is our policy on recalls, should we go ahead with recalls with this specific policy? As always on Wikipedia changes are always possible, but this should be considered the policy which will be implemented if you support it." or something along those lines. Instead it was IMO fairly unclear that the final RfC was even going to be a final RfC or IMO even what the third RfC was hoping to establish.
For further clarity, I was aware of that final RfC but I didn't participate in part because I felt it a mess. I expected even with that RfC we'd still have to end up with yet another confirmation RfC once the tinkering finished, and I expressed concern that it was therefore a waste of time early on (to the editor who started it). I did watch it slightly and was aware it seemed to be developing into a final RfC before it closed but I still didn't participate in part because I didn't care but also because I was still unsure if it would really be the final RfC given the messy start and low participation. I can't help thinking there were others who read about it and saw how messy it was at the start and thought, we'll we're never going to get a consensus for recalls from this so not worth my time. I'll wait until the final RfC when everything is clear.
I'm not saying the closer was wrong, but I do think the whole process was way messier than it should have been and this is probably part of why we're we are now without editors surprised we actually have a policy for recalls now in place.
And I have to say, it's unclear to me if this is even definitely resolved. The first recall, the admin doesn't seem to be challenging the process. But what happens if an admin does especially when the first recall petition succeeds? Have the bureaucrats even said they will remove adminship since they accept that there has been clear consensus for this? I do think those supporting the first recall have done the process no favours either but that's more of an aside.
Nil Einne (talk) 09:27, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, there's just a lot of hiccups coming from way too many sources that have made this process messy. In an ideal world, I'd like the third RFC on Village Pump amended to my wording choice too. But unlike the ideal world, Wikipedia often has "Everyone wants this discussion but nobody wants to start it" happening. While it was not my preferred 3rd RFC, I respect Barkeep for starting the RFC when he did. And for better or worse, nobody else amended it or tried to establish a need for 4th RFC after that.

A running theme I am noticing in a lot of this thread is people were personally not aware of this process. I don't think consensus can wait for everyone like that. That way, we keep relitigating things over and over in the name of WP:CCC.

I completely agree that Recall should not be considered unchangably set in stone, and there's been more messiness during the process than any of us would like. I just also believe that the central idea still has value (even if many details differed from my preference). And I hope community members attempt to fix the process in whatever direction they prefer, instead of shuttering the entire process prematurely. Soni (talk) 12:03, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think many people (myself included) were waiting for the talk page discussions to reach a settled proposed text before starting a clear and final "do you want this?" RfC, but this was cut off by BK's RfC. – Joe (talk) 19:22, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So as the person who closed the phase I discussion (that found consensus to develop some form of recall procedure) and followed everything since with increasing exasperation, I will just say that this is a shining example of how not to build consensus for a new process. The discussions were convoluted, bureaucratic and under-advertised at every step of the way. At no point was the community clearly asked "do you want to adopt <specific proposal> as a policy?" and yet, now we apparently have a new policy with a specific procedure. I hope we can draw a line under it and move forward with normal, open, consensus-based improvements to the new process. – Joe (talk) 11:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Under advertised? They were on CENT, in the admin newsletter, at the pump, and on a watchlist notice. And the third RFC was the point at which the community was asked "so you want this as a policy." That third RFC was at the pump, on CENT, and in the admin newsletter. Can we not spread misinformation about "under-advertised"? What more advertisement could we possibly have done? Come on. Levivich (talk) 14:15, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And the third RFC was the point at which the community was asked "so you want this as a policy" – it should have been, but the question actually posed was not "do you want this as a policy?" but the utterly bizarre "is there already a consensus for this?". This is to my knowledge the first time we've ever used an RfC to (re)close another RfC and the result was predictably chaotic. Most people did not really understand what was being asked and those that did understandably didn't take time to read the sprawling preceding discussions to understand why the consensus was under question. And now somehow we have a "policy" out of this mess. That by the way is what I mean by under-advertised (not unadvertised): these discussions were mentioned, but the questions were posed in such a weird, orthogonal way that many people did not understand that the result would be a new administrator recall policy. – Joe (talk) 18:13, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's possible to make any major change to Wikipedia without people complaining that it was underadvertised. Fair enough to call the discussions convoluted and bureaucratic, but they certainly weren't hidden. -- asilvering (talk) 18:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

the third RFC was the point at which the community was asked "so you want this as a policy." Wasn't the third RFC a close challenge type RFC rather than a fresh polling of consensus? I thought it was a close challenge type RFC, so I did not participate in it. I feel like in a close challenge type RFC I am supposed to read the old RFC and make a judgment about whether the closer got it right or not, and there is no opportunity to inject my own opinion about the issues at hand. The exact third RFC question was Is there consensus to have administrator recall based on the consensus reached during Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review? –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:52, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Closer here. The way I viewed it was neither as a "do we want this" RfC or a close challenge RfC, but a "do we need another RfC" RfC. Personally, I would not be surprised if, after choosing to not participate in a "do we need another RfC" RfC in favour of waiting for the next RfC, the noes prevail and we don't have another RfC. RfC RfC RfC RfC RfC. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 18:56, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW as someone who views the third/final RfC in a, I think, similar way to Novem Linguae I can accept that by not participating in the RfC I risked the outcome being what it was and so it's not something I can really complain about although I do feel it's fine to comment on how I feel the process has been a mess.
My view is undoubtedly affected by the fact I did and do support a recall process so that was also part of the reason I didn't care. Also I had read it again perhaps a week or two before closing so I did recognise that despite my misgivings, it was looking like this could be interpreted as a final RfC resulting in implementation. (I did see the suggestion by the Barkeep it could be closed, but I felt it had been too long for it to be a good idea especially with the level of support.) So I can understand why those for which neither of these apply might be much more unsettled by what happened with the third/final RfC.
One thing I didn't maybe make clear in my lengthy above statement. My initial and main concern was that we'd actually get a non consensus or even consensus against and then opponents will say well that's it let's end this no point going further, and supporters would say that's not fair the RfC was partly based on an incomplete still be worked on draft.
While this wasn't what happened part of my concerns IMO still plays out but in a different way. Given how messy this has been, there is a risky it's all going to just fall through and recall will be destined to be something that became 'tried that, never again'. Or alternatively as a I highlighted above, when an admin recalled actually opposes the process it's all going to break apart and either end up at arbcom or with some nasty mess if they aren't de-admined due to uncertainty by bureaucrats.
However you can also say I'm part of the problem, I supported recalls in the first RfC but didn't care enough to actual helped draft a procedure or anything like that. And while part of the reason is because I don't care that much, I recognise that if we don't have a good procedure it's more likely to fall apart because others especially potentially affected admins will care.
Nil Einne (talk) 11:50, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm thinking about proposing some changes in light of what's going down at Graham's petition. First of all, 30 days is just way too long. Should be shortened to 10, maybe 7 or 14 days. Second, maybe there should be some 'crat ability to implement a SNOW close for especially spurious petitions. Anyone have thoughts on that? Probably going to propose those at the village pump later today. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 15:19, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- There is a related thread at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#Avoiding_a_long_month_of_drama. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 15:22, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  If it's going to be retained - and at this early stage I see no benefit to it at all - then it needs to work significantly better. Giant Snowman 19:12, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It passed because of the structure of the discussion – which was "do you want a recall policy" rather than "do you want this recall policy". Discussion of the particulars was then dragged out for months so that only the few most dedicated people stuck the course.
I predict it'll be revoked in 6-12 months. Stifle (talk) 09:06, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My involvement with ARBPIA

Nableezy recently requested that I not close any more discussions relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly construed, citing my engagement with the content. The only example he provided was my starting this discussion, although I'm sure we can both think of a handful of others. (I know I've participated in one other discussion involving Al-Jazeera's reliability, made this edit to 2024 Lebanon pager explosions, and made a handful of prose edits to Israel-Hamas war; I've probably made a few other edits in the area, but I don't remember any.) I don't think this constitutes a reasonable basis to assert involvement with the whole topic area and said as much; Nableezy responded simply that he would raise the issue here (or somewhere similar) when I next close a discussion in the area. I'd rather not have that threat hanging over my head, so I'll ask for wider community input now. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:43, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Have to say I am not impressed about that thread at RSN. Nor was I terribly enthused about your deciding to open yourself, this follow up RM.

There are plenty of discussions elsewhere, perhaps best to pass on the AI related ones. Selfstudier (talk) 17:51, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not generally a big fan of broadly construing involvement across entire topic areas, at least for RfC closers. WP:INVOLVED itself speaks of disputes and not of topic areas. I'm also generally of the opinion that closures should be evaluated on their merits and not factors concerning the closer's person. As long as you don't close discussions on questions on which you have commented before, I don't think there is a problem. Otherwise, we'd be disqualifying closers for some unreasonably vague feeling they may be biased more than anything else. Speaking from experience, I've closed a few PIA RfCs with no complaints so far, even though looking at my user page it should not be difficult to infer what general opinions I hold on that topic. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 17:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It’s not a threat, but until it’s an issue I don’t plan on engaging in this here. But if there are future closes by an involved editor I’ll try to demonstrate that their closes have historically shown a propensity for taking a certain consistent position in favor of one bias that aligns with the arguments they’ve made in content related discussions. nableezy - 18:07, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

taking a certain consistent position in favor of one bias that aligns with the arguments they’ve made in content related discussions – Is there any way to determine whether this applies that isn't just casting aspersions? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:49, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By going through the closes and the content related edits? That is a general statement about any involved editor, so I don’t know how that could possibly be "casting aspersions". nableezy - 18:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like you're withholding evidence against Compassionate727 until such time that it suits you, while simultaneously attempting to pressure them into behaving how you'd like them to. Please just lay it out now like they've asked; how is Compassionate727 WP:INVOLVED? ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk) 19:47, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nableezy has indicated that they do not presently think there is an issue, and that they therefore prefer not to engage with this question. So why are you actively trying to stir up conflict? If you have input on Compassionate's query, by all means give it, but don't stir shit for the sake of shit-stirring. --JBL (talk) 20:04, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I saw what I felt like to be the latest example of Compassionate727 showing that they have both contributed to content, and have a position in that content, and to closing discussions in the topic. I have previously asked editors that I have varying feelings about, including ones I think highly of, to not close discussions in the topic area when I feel they have crossed the threshold into "editor". So I politely asked that they no longer close discussions. They declined. As there presently isn’t an issue, and I didn’t intend to spend my Sunday afternoon digging up the diffs from past closes and positions that I think disqualifies them from playing the closer role, that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned. If and when there is an issue then I’ll spend that time. But right now I’m going back to the game I’d rather focus on. Bear Down. nableezy - 21:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Editors closing discussions they haven't been involved in should be fine, it's difficult enough finding editors who will close RFCs. If an editor has made, or makes, bad closes that show their bias then it should be brought up here. But I'm against discouraging editors from making closes simply because they may have a bias, as there is no editor without bias. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:58, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

agree with maddy and activelydisinterested that until more evidence shows up, we should not consider every editor automatically involved because they had some prior engagement with the topic.

also think we have ways to deal with bad closures anyways. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 22:39, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Editors closing discussions they haven't been involved in should be fine" is much too weak and allows for easy abuse. At a minimum, it should be "Editors closing discussions unrelated to topics they have been involved in should be fine". Zero^talk 02:46, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This presupposes that the close will be bad or biased, and that an editor with bias can never make a neutral close. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:40, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, it presupposes that some things might happen that for sure will actually happen. Under your proposal, someone with a strong POV about an RfC could just refrain from participating and instead close it to their preference. This would subvert the whole idea of an RfC. Zero^talk 11:25, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It supposes that editors with a bias (all of them) would only ever make closes in favour of their biases. Past events do not back this up. There have absolutely been instances were editors sat out RFC and then closed them as per their preference, they were overturned using the pre-existing procedures for doing so. Acting in that way isn't just a bias or POV but deliberate and malicious. So you point is correct if you expect editors with a bias or POV to behave maliciously. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:17, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most bad closes are not overturned. In contentious topics there are always lots of socks, off-wiki coordination, and other stuff going on. We can't stop it, but we can try to mitigate the damage by adopting policies that reduce it. One example is to have a strict policy on involvement, for both administrators and ordinary editors. Zero^talk 12:52, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If closes are not overturned how are you judging that they are bad closes? WP:SPI is one way and WP:ARB is another. Assuming good faith, even from those we disagree with, is generally the best way. The idea that INVOLVED is as broad as you interpret it isn't universally accepted. If you have a proposal for definitely making it that broad you should make it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:59, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most socks are not detected and hardly any off-wiki coordination is suppressed. It's nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing. If everybody behaved properly all the time, we wouldn't need rules. But they don't. You are also incorrect that editors with bias would only apply that bias to a close if they were being deliberately malicious. Bias doesn't work that way. People with bias believe they are being even-handed when they aren't. Zero^talk 13:14, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And the rules are what they are, if you have a proposal to change them you should make it. Separately as I said all editors have bias, the believe that bias alone would always make a close bad would therefore mean that no editor could make a close. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:03, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, my view is that AGF is not generally the best way, it is generally the worst way, maybe one of Wikipedia's most counterproductive policies when applied to the PIA topic area. And the notion that "universally accepted" things will be optimal solutions for PIA is going to be wrong in most cases. I think starting this discussion should constitute a reasonable basis to assert involvement with the whole topic area. I think this is probably the kind of simple strictness that a test for 'involvement' in the topic area should have. In my view, efforts should be made to minimize or eliminate faith-based assumptions about anything or anyone in the topic area. Good or bad faith-based assumptions about any account that does anything in the topic are equally bad, especially when it comes to things that people are very bad at doing in an environment like PIA like modeling intent or trying to predict future behavior. Regardless, any system used in PIA, even a very strict involvement test, will be gamed by someone at some point. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:21, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You can decide to not follow WP:AGF it is only a guideline, I think that is a mistake that only adds to mistrust of Wikipedia. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can't disagree more with this anti-wiki sentiment. AGF is a key pillar. Andre🚐 20:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Come on man, it's not an anti-wiki sentiment. It is a pro-wiki sentiment. It is an anti-overconfidence, pro-rationality sentiment. I already use an assume nothing approach because the error rate is lower than an assume something approach when interacting with actors in the topic area. It works fine, it reduces the chance of conflict with both familiar and unfamiliar accounts. It means I don't have to think about intent, pro-this or anti-that categorization or pay any attention to the biased voice in my brain feeding me disinformation and pattern matching nonsense. It keeps my eye on the ball, what people actually say and do, not what the stack of unreliable heuristics in my dopey primate brain make up to model a person. The fact is that there is already mistrust. Denying that is just silly and will result in errors. AGF is largely inauthentic theater in PIA, one more thing that is exploited and weaponized by partisan actors. I think AGF can work well and be useful when editors already have a lot of information about each other and become overconfident about their theory of mind abilities, after they have had many, many interactions, as a reminder that while you may think you know this person, and you think they are up to no good, you should think about the counterfactuals and consider that there is a decent chance that you are wrong because you are not as smart as you think. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:51, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's not what AGF is. AGF is the idea that when you meet an unknown editor you should try to charitably interpret their actions to put them in the best light. It doesn't mean discard rationality or ignore evidence. It means that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, you should not jump to negative conclusions. I really shouldn't have to explain AGF to an editor with over 30k edits since 2007. AGF is largely inauthentic theater in PIA If true, explains a lot of the problem. Andre🚐 04:02, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This might be an example of overconfidence and the errors we make when modeling other people. Of course, I know what AGF says, including that its scope is not limited to unknown actors. And obviously as an editor with over 30k edits since 2007, I've had the opportunity to observe thousands of instances of the actual features and effects of rule as it is deployed in the field by editors and admins in a very diverse set of contexts. There is misalignment, as usual. I prefer an empirical approach when it comes to understanding what Wikipedia's rules mean to people and how they work in practice. The inauthentic theater feature is just one of several inauthenticity related features of the PIA system. Inauthentic civility is another (something I support by the way, not because I care about civility, but because it increases the signal to noise ratio of discussions). Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:50, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Signal to noise ratio of discussions is a good heuristic. But AGF is more than inauthentic theater. And yes, it's not limited to unknown actors, but there are limits of good faith. Ironically, the example you gave of modelling a person you know well is when I think it's hardest to AGF. If you already understand where someone is coming from it will heavily color your expectations because you do have a model of that person. You do also need to AGF someone you know, but there will necessarily be a conflict in situations of dispute with someone you already know or, especially, when you have people who have made mistakes known to you or disagreements that are on a low burn. Regardless, though, the purpose of AGF as a ceremonial aspect of communication is related to the concept of steelmanning and there is a rational reason for this. Now, we don't have thoughtcrimes. You can privately suspect that every new motivated account that seems somewhat good at doing stuff is a sock even though you might rationally know that Wikipedia is a website used by thousands of people and is frequently visited by entirely new users. Just don't say it in public when you're forming that suspicion because it's a violation of good faith and once that cracks and we allow bad faith in, it poisons the discourse. You can still collect evidence and find a sock and maybe be right a lot of the time, or maybe the system isn't giving you good feedback about whether you are right or wrong. Still, AGF means you should default to assuming good faith at least in public because to do otherwise is insulting due to its insinuation of low expectation and making a negative conclusion about someone based on where they seem to be coming from before they've even done anything wrong. Andre🚐 04:58, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If small edits make an editor involved, we should follow that. If they don't, they don't. This standard has been unevenly applied. I previously accused someone of being involved based on small edits, and there was not a consensus that they were involved. I'm not sure what the precedent should be, but we should apply it consistently and not haphazardly. Andre🚐 20:54, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think these sorts of edits have made you broadly WP:INVOLVED in the area. Your closures seem fine. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:39, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An administrator recall petition for Graham87 has been initiated

There is currently a petition at Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Graham87 for Graham87 to initiate a re-request for adminship (RRfA). If the petition reaches 25 supports from extended confirmed users, an RRfA is required for him to maintain his toolkit. For further information, please consult the administrator recall policy.

I request that anyone wanting to comment keeps discussion on the petition and its talk. Sincerely, Dilettante 18:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that this petition has been withdrawn/closed. Primefac (talk) 16:02, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've reopened, since there were more signatures than the OP. Besides, we need to let the procedure run, so we know if we need to fix it.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:14, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As much as I dislike the ugliness going on there, and totally apreciate the OP trying to acknowledge the obvious, the close was out of process.

There's clearly some issues with this process that need fixing, or at least clarification, I think we can all see that. The thirty-days-to-certify aspect in particular needs adressing, but also the fact that a petition to open a recall process was being treated like the process itself, and there's really nobody with any clear authority to address issues as they arise. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 17:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do wonder if we should even have Discussion sections in these petitions. Since it just causes a lot of fighting and arguing. When the whole point of the petition is are there 25 established editors that indicate lack of confidence in the person as an admin. It's basically just a binary question in that regard. Silver seren^C 17:42, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After about a day, I have several takeaways about the recall process in general based on the discussion so far:

There should be a process to snow close petitions. It's clear that barring some major bombshell, nothing will come of this one. Withdrawal was likely the correct response, but it's WP:BURO'd back into existence.
Several people didn't comment on the actual issue at hand. Graham87 spent years blocking newbie accounts that had made only minor mistakes and frequently told them some variation of "you are not welcome here". This was written off as being kind of mean every once in a while. It seems several participants didn't bother to read the ANI discussions.
A huge swelling of admins immediately came out to oppose. Almost all of the early opposition that built up inertia against the petition was from admins. I can't help but think there's a perverse incentive here from several admins who expect to see themselves at the other end of this.
Some people used the petition as a place to express general displeasure with the process. Several people failed to participate in multiple widely advertised discussions and then took out their frustration with WP:POINT behavior.
It would help if there were a baseline "arguments to avoid". A few examples:
- Appealing to due process implies that being an administrator is a right or an entitlement. Someone should only be an admin if they maintain the trust of the community, so arguments about whether it's fair to the admin aren't helpful. The admin serves the community, not the other way around.
- Since the point of recall is for long-term patterns where no individual problem rises to Arbcom, it's not reasonable to argue that "if this was serious it would be taken to Arbcom".
- Similarly, "this was discussed at ANI" should be a prerequisite to recall, not an argument against it.

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:56, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the impression that RFA2024 was meant to make the admin process less toxic. It seems odd, then, that we've introduced a process that makes de-adminship more toxic. Some people don't seem to understand there's a human being on the other end of this shambles. Black Kite (talk) 19:13, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm completely confused on the whole process. What is it? People just have a place to voice support for the petition and others can provide feedback. What's the result supposed to be? A !vote if enough people sign on (like many petitions)? Are they de-admined immediately? Who decides? What's the threshold? Seems pretty vague to me. Buffs (talk) 21:27, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Administrator recall holds the answers to all of your questions. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 21:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it doesn't.

A petition is closed after thirty days. If it gains at least twenty-five valid signatures within that period, the administrator is required to make a re-request for adminship or be a candidate in an administrator election.

It doesn't state that the WPian is desysoped, it just says that they are required to make a re-request for adminship. If it fails, are they desysoped? While it's ongoing, do they retain the tools. It also doesn't define what the options are for an outcome. Can they just be suspended for a while? Etc. Buffs (talk) 04:32, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The page says that if they do not start the re-request for adminship within a reasonable timeframe, [a bureaucrat] may remove the administrator privileges at their discretion. Implicitly, then, the recalled admin retains the bit until either they choose not to RRfA or have their RRfA rejected. It also says that if the admin passes the RRfA they retain the bit; therefore if they do not pass they do not retain the bit.

Given the page says nothing about suspensions then no, this process does not allow for a suspension of the rights. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone interested in this process more generally should probably watchlist Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Current. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 14:14, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

User Report: Niasoh - Repeated Vandalism and Harassment

= User Report: Niasoh== NoorBD (talk) 11:39, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Right off the bat, I see that you have been edit warring, breaking the 3 revert rule on the first article you edited. Please read WP:Vandalism and understand what is and is not vandalism before you start throwing accusations around. Donald Albury 12:33, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OP’s Talk Page should set any mop up nicely for a WP:CIR or WP:NOTHERE WP:BOOMERANG. Not sure which. MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 14:10, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I went with DE, but yes all would apply. NoorBD is now INDEFfed. Star Mississippi 17:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is WP:RECALL a policy?

In her otherwise decent close of Special:PermanentLink/1253547916#Administrator Recall, Maddy from Celeste specified that Wikipedia:Administrator recall shall be marked as a policy and then did so. The problem is that the RfC did not ask if the page should be upgraded to a policy nor did anyone in the discussion subsequently propose it, making this aspect of the close a supervote. This perhaps happened because Maddy mistook the discussion for a change to an existing policy (On the English Wikipedia, there are no formal requirements for policy changes [...] this RfC is a valid way of figuring out where we want to set the threshold for this particular policy amendment) and/or, as they acknowledged when I asked about it on their talk page, because they forgot that we have an explicit process for proposing new policies. Nevertheless Maddy has said that given the significant developments these last two days, [they] do not feel comfortable making any unilateral changes [to the close] at this point.

So as a partial challenge of that close, I'm asking: is Wikipedia:Administrator recall a policy page? – Joe (talk) 19:14, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are misrepresenting what I wrote. I refer to my comments on my talk page. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:20, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, the third (for now) active discussion about RECALL live at AN - shows that it's totally not a controversial idea at all! Giant Snowman 19:23, 28 October 2024 (UTC) [reply]

I am currently running a pool on when RECALL will be brought to ArbCom. Squares are filling up fast. Contact me for information on how to bet, and how to send me the money for safekeeping in the mean time. Floquenbeam (talk) 19:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC) [reply]

Per WP:POLICIES, "Policies have wide acceptance among editors". It seems clear to me that this is not the case with this recall process. Sandstein 19:40, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's probably no one who argued more strongly than me against making this trainwreck into a policy. But Maddy correctly read the consensus as saying that this should be adopted and put into effect (and not simply as a trial). So if the community has reached a consensus to put something into effect, that can lead to a desysop, I cannot see how that would be anything other than a policy. If other editors are just now waking up to the fact that they should have joined me in speaking up earlier, well, it's too late now. At some point, we will have to have an RfC to revoke this policy, but for the time being, it's a policy. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This should be adopted and put into effect – I agree with that, it's the "policy" designation that seems unwarranted, given the lack of an explicit proposal to adopt it as one. I want to avoid on the one hand watering down the definition of a policy as those guidelines and processes which have the highest level of consensus on the project (because come on, this is clearly not that!) and on the other making it harder to improve the current process through normal editing and consensus-building. Pretty much everyone seems to agree that this process needs amendment, but usually the way to make non-trivial amendments to a policy is through an RfC, and pretty much everyone also agrees that we don't want more RfCs on this... – Joe (talk) 20:06, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see that distinction as wikilawyering. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:10, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We would have done if we had been aware of it! (see previous section re:lack of notice). Giant Snowman 20:42, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's an issue. But the people who pushed this through insisted that they did everything required in order to publicize the discussions, and they have a point. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Does it matter if it's a policy vs. a procedure? Is RFA a policy? ~~ Jessintime (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, in practice it's considerably harder to change a page tagged as a policy; and nope. – Joe (talk) 20:33, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a process (or policy) it's far from ready, as the Graham87 petition and all the various discussions around the project-space are showing. It's not a case of ironing out small details; the very fundamentals are being questioned and challenged. More workshopping is needed. WP:AR should be returned to draft policy status and discussion centralised on its talk page. SuperMarioMan (Talk) 20:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What parts are far from ready? What aspects of admin recall that haven't already been discussed during phases I and II of the RfA 2024 discussion and subsequently still need to be hashed out? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:24, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, within the last 48 hours alone, questions posed on WT:AR have included timing of petition closures, the structure of the petition page and naming of its sections, the maximum runtime for petitions, early closure rules (or lack thereof), and the applicability of WP:SNOW (now at WP:VPP). Valid, key questions. I think a large part of why they're being asked now is because up until now, no one had much idea of how the policy/process would actually work in practice. As currently presented, the content of WP:AR feels scant, hardly a solid foundation for launching petitions. And the attempted early close and subsequent re-opening of the Graham87 petition further damage the process's credibility. SuperMarioMan (Talk) 22:42, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Policies have wide acceptance among editors". This policy/procedure does not have that level of support, as has been evident over the past 48 hours. Per SuperMarioMan above, this policy/procedure should be temporarily put on hold and then workshopped extensively to make it better. Daniel (talk) 20:17, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with this take, assuming it can even be made better, which I'm not sold on. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 22:06, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Opposition largely seems to be coming from admins, which makes sense but is hardly representative of editors at large. I would advise admins to take a step back and accept the wider community's opinion here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:46, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I kind of have to agree? I know it's a surprise that the policy made it through but it appears to have done so on a legitimate basis? To those folks challenging the close, is there any example of irregularity or a flawed read of consensus? Andre🚐 20:52, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While it is true that because this involves admins and thus admins shouldn't try to discourage the process, it still is a matter that this recall process will need to be managed by admins and thus has to confirm within the framework of other processes across the board, and that's where the debate seems to be happening, that as currently written and executed, it leaves a lot of missteps that need to be addressed with the help of admins to make sure the process is able to actually work. I don't see this as admins opposing any recall process, just that this one does not have the rigor thst admins experienced in P&G writing can bring to tighten it up and avoid the pitfalls happening now. — Masem (t) 13:33, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, process not policy. The original proposal didn't include listing it as a policy, most of the !voters didn't opine on whether it should be a policy, and similar pages like WP:RFA are not policies. The policy is Wikipedia:Administrators, which links to WP:RECALL. That's all we need. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:59, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adding: This isn't to say it shouldn't have the same "force" as WP:RFA. And regarding notice, being an RfC at VPP and linked from CENT checks enough boxes. IMO the RfC was presented in a confusing way (consensus-for-consensus with a handful of lengthy, fragmented discussions summarized in the background section), but that might just be me, and neither I nor others adequately objected on "this is confusing" grounds to constitute a real obstacle to consensus [about consensus] forming. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:16, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
+1 to both of these comments by Rhododendrites. -- asilvering (talk) 19:04, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Who's going to be the first non-admin blocked for the lèse-majesté of seeking to recall an admin, per this policy? Andy Dingley (talk) 21:02, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For those editors who say that they didn't know that this was being discussed, I expressed my concerns to theleekycauldron, the admin who oversaw the process, months ago, and you can see that discussion here: link. Here's a link to a discussion where I tried to get a better process for deciding whether or not it would be policy: link. At that time, I think editors really were looking to conduct the decision process more carefully. But that got short-circuited by the RfC here: link, which established the present consensus (however one wants to characterize that). You will see me arguing strenuously, but to little effect, that this was going to go badly. I and others argued that it was premature to hold that RfC, but Barkeep49 insisted that the time was right. That discussion was at Village pump (policy), and was advertised on CENT, so I really do think editors should have been aware of this earlier. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- CENT is a bit useless, though. If it had been advertised via a watchlist notice I think there would have been far more participation. Black Kite (talk) 21:17, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  CENT is at the top of this page, right under "Open tasks". Why do we put a useless box at the top of AN and other noticeboards? voorts (talk/contributions) 21:21, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  - Except it isn't very visible, because the AN templates at the top and the TOC pushes it way down below the fold. I tend to notice Watchlist and Sitenotice messages, but not CENT ones. It would probably be useful to transclude CENT to watchlists. Black Kite (talk) 21:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    +1 to adding it to the top of watchlists (or at least someone creating a userscript that does that). voorts (talk/contributions) 21:36, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was aware of RFC3 thanks to T:CENT, but the wording of the question in RFC3 was confusing to me, and led me not to comment. I thought it wanted me to read an old RFC and summarize what the consensus was in that, rather than coming to a fresh consensus. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:07, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe Maddy's closure was appropriate. However, the first application of the policy left a lot to be desired. I would like to see the normal editing called out in the close to refine the policy become a lot more vigorous as a result. In particular, we need to decide if petitions are allowed to devolve into a RRFA prequel (in which case 30 days is ridiculous) or if they are not (in which case stricter guidance on commentary and discussion is sorely missing).Tazerdadog (talk) 21:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: If editors believe that admin recall should not have the force of policy, at this point there are two options as I see it: close review of the RfC or start a new RfC seeking to strip admin recall of its status. Demanding that the policy status of admin recall be immediately stripped and that it be sent back to the drawing board is not how we establish and maintain consensus. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:20, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's what this is. A close review. – Joe (talk) 07:35, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If only people read a little past the heading before commenting. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 08:50, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oops. My bad. Self-trout. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:28, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CONLEVEL is pretty clear that Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. It's overwhelmingly clear from the response to the recall attempt on Graham that there's not actually a favorable community consensus on a wider scale than the couple of dozen editors who happened to respond to that not-particularly well-publicized RFC. Instead of demanding that we force through a bad process, perhaps consider that the original close was not reflective of what the broader community actually feels about this. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 22:33, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You're conflating two different things; I oppose the recall attempt but generally support the process, even though it's not perfect. (I haven't reviewed the discussion and don't have an opinion on the policy or not question yet.) Legoktm (talk) 23:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who also opposes the specific recall, I'll add my much more noncommittal +1 to that. I don't really care too much about the specifics of the process and I'm supportive of considering it much more fluid and amendable than typical until a few months and/or recall petitions have passed, but I am overall supportive of having a process even if it's one that needs to be worked on (and even if I do believe we have another community initiated process that's sufficient, albeit only as a side effect and with likely a much higher... "activation energy", so to speak). Alpha3031 (t • c) 06:06, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This (and a bunch of other comments here) seem to be a back-channel way to revert the consensus process rather than any of the official ways to revert an RFC. Everyone agrees that this has been an incredibly rocky start for the process, other people are trying to fix it. But a bunch of editors suddenly complaining about the process, no matter how respected, does not suddenly revert consensus. In these three threads, editors who have concerns about this project are (rightfully) way more likely to comment now than the editors who already agree with calling it a policy. I encourage the former to follow the proper way instead of claiming lack of consensus without proof. Soni (talk) 02:45, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It was well advertised, I was aware of it but didn't comment or read much of it. If a well-publicised well-attended RfC closed less than a week ago is 'limited consensus at one place and time' then I have no clue what the wider community consensus ever could be.

If you didn't participate in an RfC for whatever reason and disagree with the result there are ways to go about it, citing CONLEVEL isn't one of them. Traumnovelle (talk) 05:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The distinction between policy and procedure in this case may well be worth diggin into, but the idea that this has to stop because "admins didn't know about it" is the fault of those admins, as it was on CENT and in the last issue of the admin newsletter, and the overall RFA 2024 process has been going on for.... I dunno feels like forever. I didn't think it would pass, and I think this first attempt at using it has thrown some serious issues with it into the public eye, but this wasn't snuck in any back door. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 02:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is policy and enjoys consensus. The whole process was well advertised and had a lot of participation. Could it of been more? Sure, but it was sufficient. There are things that can be worked out with the process as shown, but there is no question that there is consensus to have a process. So basically, since this is a close review, Endorse the close. PackMecEng (talk) 13:16, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The policy modified is primarily Wikipedia:Administrators, WP:RECALL is really just the procedures for how to follow the policy. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:31, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fourth time is the charm huh? Yes, it is a policy. How many times do we need to ask this question before we accept it as such? fanfanboy (~~block~~ talk) 13:54, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This question has not been asked before. Please read the top of the section if you have not already. – Joe (talk) 18:44, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the actual question Joe is asking, namely "should WP:RECALL have a {{policy}} tag, my response is that I don't especially care one way or the other; the tag at the top of the page doesn't change what actually matters, which is that the process has teeth (i.e. if an RRFA is failed, a bureaucrat will actually desysop the admin in question). But since at least Joe cares, sure, remove the tag, it was never authorized to be there. Mach61 14:43, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maddy's close was correct. I happen to think it's more process than policy because it's a process Admin X goes through to keep or lose their Admin flag. It's not a policy because there's no clear X/Y outcome. It's petition pass/fail, RRFA pass/fail. As both of those are subjective, it is not a policy situation. However it is a policy in that (using the current example) Graham cannot close Diletantte's petition because they filed it per the framework established. It has bugs as any new process does. Let it run and sort it out before the next. Disclosure, current petition opposer but not involved in RFCs as far as I can recall Star Mississippi 15:39, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is WP:RFA a policy? No. Is WP:ADMINELECT a policy? No. Is WP:RECALL a policy? Also no. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:43, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, admin recall is a policy: it has wide acceptance ("global consensus") and was thoroughly vetted by the community. Three separate RFCs over the course of a year, with over 100 editors participating, advertised at the Village Pump, AN, CENT, the Admin Newsletter, user talk page notices, and watchlist notices. If that doesn't count as thorough vetting and wide acceptance, then nothing will. Admin recall is a standard that must be followed (subject to IAR)--bureaucrats shall desysop following a successful recall--so it's not like a guideline or essay. And anyway, the mechanism by which advanced permissions like sysop are added and removed obviously must be done by policy and not by any lower level of consensus. The reason WP:RECALL should have a {{policy}} tag is because it's the page that documents the policy. To the extent this is a close review (I'm not sure about that), endorse and (involved). Levivich (talk) 16:32, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another reason it's policy: the third RFC was held at VPP, which is the page for changing policies. AFAIK nobody at any point suggested this was the wrong page. Levivich (talk) 19:18, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not a policy This is blatantly obvious. The RfC that was concluded indicating it is a policy did NOT include any mention whatsoever of asking if it should be policy. None. Nada. Zip. Nothing. In fact, several people who commented on the RfC noted that details of the policy still needed to be hashed out. The fact is, there was no vote to make this policy. User:Maddy from Celeste, I appreciate the effort you put into making this close, but this close is a mistake in making this a policy. The question was whether the recall process has consensus, NOT if the recall process should be policy. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:30, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really mind whether the contents of WP:RRfA are moved into WP:ADMIN instead, but that particular sub-section I think has the status of a procedural policy. I also don't feel all policies have the same barrier to change, if that's the main concern. Changing a fundamental part of WP:NPOV requires a very different level of consensus compared to a policy with 15 talk page watchers. There are things with admin recall that will likely need tweaking; I think reasonably advertised talk page discussion has the ability to make such change. Re procedure: I don't think procedural policies need an explicit vote to that effect. Many current procedural policies didn't, eg AFAICT WP:File mover was promoted after xaosflux noticed felt it shouldn't be tagged as an essay, and nobody objected. Ditto with WP:IPBE per [1][2].
Ultimately, WP:RRFA details procedure on a process that many in the community likely care about the details of, and said thing is built up by defined rules approved by consensus, as opposed to fuzzy conventions built up over time by trial-and-error. I think these are the some of the hallmarks of procedural policy. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:11, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:File mover was promoted after xaosflux noticed felt it shouldn't be tagged as an essay, and nobody objected. WP:FMR appears to still be an essay. If you read the box at the top of the page carefully, I don't think it's claiming to be a policy or guideline. Instead, someone wrote a custom ombox that seems to be rather unclear, instead of using the standard {{Information page}} tag. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:32, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's categorised under Category:Wikipedia procedural policies and listed at Wikipedia:List_of_policies#Procedural. In any case, there's WP:IPBE and these are just the first two I checked. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:12, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect all the userright procedural policies fall under the same bucket. The RfC behind them usually just asked if such a userright should be created / unbundled. The creation of a procedural policy page was either done by a single editor, or said by the closer to be done as in page mover's case, but was not the RfC question explicitly, and until the closer mentioned it, nobody else did afaict. My point being, I suspect very few of the current procedural policies had explicit confirmation votes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've started Wikipedia_talk:File_mover#Is_this_page_a_policy? to work on fixing these odd pages that have a policy category but no policy template and little original talk page discussion about promoting them to policies. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a rule, but it's not ready to be policy yet. Let the procedure evolve into a more final form and let the naysayers finish processing their defeat. Then hold a RfC about promoting it to policy.—S Marshall T/C 16:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving aside the questions of whether it has consensus or not (I personally think the final version of the procedure should have been put to an up or down discussion rather than having a weird RfC to determine if a previous RfC had consensus, which would’ve avoided the issues we have now), I don’t see how we can ask crats to desysop admins under this procedure without it having the force of policy. Galobtter (talk) 20:34, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very good, and important, point. If, hypothetically, an admin has a petition that reaches the required number, and either refuses to engage in a new RfA or fails to pass it, there could be a real question as to whether any bureaucrat has the authority to take action. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:46, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the RfC wasn't worded to ask to make it policy, the answer is no. There is no policy that supports a bureaucrat having the authority to remove the flag based on this procedure. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:51, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's a nonsense! Giant Snowman 21:30, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked the 'crats. Levivich (talk) 21:32, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I guess that will be up to the crats. One of their roles is to provide a final sanity check on sysops/desysops, so I don't think it's a bad thing to allow them some discretion during the first few runs of this new process. – Joe (talk) 07:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Remove the "policy" designation I think that the close was a pretty good one for it's narrow scope in the chain of events that led to this, albeit requiring some expert derivation because the question was not clearly in the RFC making it what I would call an edge case regarding being the right close. But in the big picture (including that chain of events), a high impact policy should be something which had every sentence in it carefully reviewed, has been optimized, and has had wide advertisement/participation to adopt it, and where considering it to be policy a clear part of the question. IMO none or hardly none of those criteria has been satisfied. Further, the initial general decision (in essence saying that there shall be a recall process) was only the starting point of what should have been a thorough process that included all of the above and which in my opinion it wasn't and didn't include all of the above. Let's just take a little extra time to do all of the above instead of having this cloud eternally hanging over the recall process. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:32, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The ship has been launched, so let it sail for a whole year. Than review it. GoodDay (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fingers crossed there's an iceberg soon... Giant Snowman 21:53, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the current petition could well be described that way. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:30, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What an interesting mixed metaphor ... * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:41, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You volunteering as Captain Smith, GiantSnowman :D (Orig. sig: User:Serial Number 54129, 19:25, 31 October 2024 (UTC)) SerialNumber54129 14:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A question from a very active editor

What should I do if I just-so-happen to be someone who is mildly-to-very famous, and/or is siblings with someone like that? Like, ultra-famous?

I've helped with plenty of stuff on WP:COIN before, but I have no idea how to proceed in this scenario. I trust that people will know that I am telling the truth about this, as I have over 15,000 edits on this site.

Can my publicist make disclosed COI edits on my behalf (using their own account- not mine)?

How do I verify to administrators that I am who I say I am? I don't really want this username to become publicly tied to me, for the sole and only reason that legions of fans might descend upon my talk page, wreaking havok.

Again, I'm not going to say who I am.

Not asking on anyone else's behalf, by the way.

Live long and prosper. TheAwesome Hwyh 22:25, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your editing and the editing of someone you hire relating to you as a person outside of Wikipedia are two separate things, in my view. As long as the two never cross paths, there's no reason you need to dox yourself to anyone. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The easiest approach is for you to simply not perform any edits in your conflict of interest. Then, there's no need for you to disclose. Your publicist, on their own account, could disclose (WP:DISCLOSE) their own conflict and simply not mention your account. For example, let's say you are Liv Tyler (for example, you obviously aren't). Don't edit Liv Tyler, don't edit about your family or your movies or anything else for which you have a conflict. Your publicist discloses that they are Liv Tyler's publicist, without mentioning TheAwesomeHwyh at all. They are then free to edit within the normal bounds (which, frankly, means they probably should only be suggesting edits on article talk pages, making clear it's a COI edit request). If you want to be extra careful, ensure you and your publicist don't communicate over Wikipedia (and... why on earth would you) and don't connect from the same IP address (WP:CHECKUSER). You may wish to privately disclose your own conflict to WP:ARBCOM (others will correct me if I'm pointing you in the wrong direction there), noting your publicist's account too and indicating you'll avoid COI edits. Now, you can validate that you are Liv Tyler (for example). We sometimes require that when people pick a username of a famous person. But, I don't think that's something you want or need to do here. Far better to keep this account anonymous and simply avoid the whole mess, yes? --Yamla (talk) 22:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those are precisely my thoughts, stated much more thoroughly. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:39, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I won't even mention this account to my publicist. TheAwesome Hwyh 22:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Liv, can you get me tickets to the Captain America:Brave New World premiere? ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 23:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

TheAwesomeHwyh, a potential pitfall of your plan is Meatpuppetry. You can orient your publicist to Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines, and let them know that you would like the Wikipedia article about you to be improved. You need to emphasize to the publicist that they must make the Paid contributionsdisclosure. But if you give them a specific list of things you want added, removed or changed, then that would be a policy violation, so be cautious. Cullen328 (talk) 00:42, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

if you give them a specific list of things you want added, removed or changed, then that would be a policy violation, so be cautious. Meatpuppetry is defined as having another editor make the same arguments as you in a content debate; it is unrelated to hiring a paid editor. Generally, when you hire someone to write for you, you tell them what you want and they try to do it. For example, MrBeast could decide to hire a paid editor and instruct that editor to propose a much shorter version of the controversies section that downplays all allegations. That paid editor could then draft a new section and attempt to argue that it's actually more due and balanced than the current article version. Meatpuppetry would be if MrBeast proposes those changes himself and then secretly persuades 100 established editors to support him in an RfC. The former follows our COI policy, the latter does not. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:19, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree. If there's no deceptive or disruptive use, I don't think it should be considered an issue. To be honest, as long as their main account avoids the same topic area or any projectspace discussions (except those that directly affect the account), my reading of the socking policy (not that I have any particular expertise in this regard) is that they are even permitted (even if it's not necessarily recommended) to create a separate account under their real name (though, the policy comes at it from the opposite direction, where the main account is under the real name and the alternate is a pseudonym). The security of said alternate accounts of course, is the editor's individual responsibility. Alpha3031 (t • c) 06:28, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"don't connect from the same IP address" -- I thought checkusers can only access data from actual edits made through an account? Not from just logging in. Nythar (💬-🍀) 00:49, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Nythar: Not any more. For better or worse, this whole situation will remind too many people of the Lourdes saga. At least, compared to that account's first edit, we know for a fact that the OP is not a blue-and-yellow macaw. :-) Graham87 (talk) 03:08, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing at all similar to Lourdes and any comparisons should be dismissed out of hand. Hwyh did the right thing asking and there's literally no policy that prohibits an existing editor from hiring a paid editor to do things that they can't because they have a COI. That's the whole point of the COI policy. If a famous person wants to edit Wikipedia unrelated to their own life, they should be allowed to do so without creating a real name alt and making their own COI edits. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:49, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, all! Due to the fact that there seems to be a bit of controversy as to how to proceed with this, I decided that I will disclose that this is my account, eventually. I'm waiting for something important to happen in real life (which still might not happen) before I disclose this.

I also have a separate, slight conflict of interest with basically everything to do with the LISP programming language. I actually recently acquired one of the companies that used to make Common Lisp software so I felt like I should disclose that. That's a separate WP:COI, though.

I will also disclose that I used to edit under User:TraderCharlotte as I had briefly forgotten the password to TheAwesomeHwyh. I no longer go by "Charlotte", though.

Second star to the right, and straight on 'till morning! TheAwesome Hwyh 18:29, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I probably won't post any more comments on this thread as I actually haven't asked my publicist if they're okay with me posting this stuff on this public noticeboard. Whoops...

Ad astra per aspera. TheAwesome Hwyh 18:38, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there is an established system of verification of famous people mentioned under the real names section of the username policy. Verification in this case is done by sending an email to the volunteer response team (VRT) and quoting the resulting ticket number if needed. Graham87 (talk) 03:18, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unmerge my enwiki account from global

Please switch all of my rights (extended confirmed, reviewer, comfirmed user) into the account TienMinh-mun6xnChing, I'm no longer use this main account for contributing, thanks. ☀DefenderTienMinh⛤☯☽ (talk) 11:34, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This will not "unmerge" anything (we don't do that), but sure I've moved your account flags. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:35, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

unblock request

I made an edit request that conformed to the WP template and guidelines. Multiple users vandalized my edit request by deleting it. I was blocked for reverting that vandalism.

I know the rules of edit requests and I understand and respect why they are what they are. Mikewem (talk) 18:10, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This matter is being dealt with at the editor's talk page. Selfstudier (talk) 18:23, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Request for a general look-in on Talk:Tony Hinchcliffe

Posting here to suggest an admin take a look at Talk:Tony Hinchcliffe. Looks to be spiralling into various policy infractions and misuse of the page as a forum. Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:38, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I collapsed an unconstructive thread. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:51, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rambling Rambler any particular things you want to highlight? There's a lot to read there EvergreenFir (talk) 19:53, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@EvergreenFir to me skimming through it I got a general sense it was devolving into Not A Forum discussions more about their views on the comedian and cancel culture rather than actually discussing the article proper. Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:57, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@EvergreenFir if asked to be more specific I'd say the dispute over the neutrality of the lead seems to have in particular descended into people's views on the comedian and their brand of humour rather than the actual neutrality of the lead. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:03, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is what we've experienced on the talk pages of Trump and RFK Jr. for long beyond my recollection. It will likely continue for Hinchcliffe until his 15 minutes from the MSG rally are up. We can observe and interject when things get too far FORUM-y. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:14, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2024 Trump rally at Madison Square Garden has also come close to derailing with a number of editors who definitely have never participated in AfD, but this seems to be status quo for any American politics article or discussion lately (those of you moderating and closing these discussions right now; you're doing good work). Nate • (chatter) 23:43, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The AFD is now closed with keep. Frankly, even the talk pages aren't quite as bad as they were before and the activity level isn't that high on them although it does also seem there are some inexperienced editors and few experienced ones. Nil Einne (talk) 10:42, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Authenticity regarding citation needed spam.

Hello there.

I've discovered IP User 50.102.149.14 seems to have a knack for contributing on many articles (such as this) where instead of contributing constructively or providing sources, the user finds any paragraph that contains a statement without a source, and marks it as {cn}. That'd be constructive and helpful, were it not done to the extent the user is doing it. There's a balanced argument of 'is this constructive editing' that, judging on their talk page, I am not the only one questioning.

This is a sticky situation that peaks my interest. Does this classify as disruptive editing, or is {cn} working as intended to bother people into providing sources for their statements? Synorem (talk) 01:33, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In this case talking to the IP editor appears to be working. In the general case, I believe indiscriminately adding cn's can easily be disruptive, even for completely unreferenced material. The tag is only helpful if applied sparingly to indicate an absolute requirement for an inline source to comply with referencing policy, ie "for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations". Espresso Addict (talk) 01:50, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Conversely, the most constructive way to object to a {{cn}} tag is to add a source. That way everybody wins. – Joe (talk) 08:24, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Counter-conversely, it's far better to add a source than a cn tag. Cn is for where the contested statement is doubtful or controversial and the disputing editor has made a good faith effort to source it, can't, but also can't justify removing the contested statement. Those should be rare circumstances. Adding cn tags indiscriminately is a low-effort way to contribute and it's a smash-and-grab raid on our volunteer time because it fills already-unmanageably-large queues with low-priority tasks.—S Marshall T/C 11:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Synorem, thanks so much for bringing this up and asking, rather than just dumping some warning templates on their talk page and leaving! It looks like you've found a motivated new editor who loves Wikipedia and wanted to do whatever they could to help. The best kind! Now we just need to do what we can to keep them. :) -- asilvering (talk) 15:58, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AIV backlog

Hi. There's a heavy backlog at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. A^♭m ^(Ring!) _(Notes) 07:51, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lifting my limited topic ban and my mentorship

Clear consensus to lift the topic ban. House Blaster (talk • he/they) 22:45, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

I, Davidbena (talk · contribs · WHOIS), after successfully appealing my AE Topic ban on 16 May 2023, was appointed a mentor to counsel and assist me in my edits in the ARBPIA area (see here). After editing under this capacity for more than a year, I wish now to appeal my long-standing limited topic ban that was made some years earlier (which you can see here). Having the liimited ban lifted will enable me to return to editing in the ARBPIA area without limitations.

For a record of my past offenses, here is a list of former discussions which ended in either a block or a topic-ban:

2 August 2018 "frivolous ANI report"
13 August 2018 (topic ban)
23 February 2019: topic ban lifted
6 May 2019 (new topic ban).
21 November 2019: appeal to rescind the ban was unsuccessful
18 August 2020 (placed under narrow topic ban)
2 September 2021 (one-month block for canvassing)
29 January 2022 (broad topic ban), which ban was lifted on 16 May 2023 (as shown here) when I was assigned a mentor in the ARBPIA area, but leaving in place my narrow topic ban.

I am fully aware that my history of punitive measures taken against me by the community was started by my own short-sightedness in being quick to jump to judgment against my fellow co-editors in the ARBPIA area, whom I accused at first of "stalking". These accusations, as they later came to show, were proven inaccurate. I have since worked with the same editors on improving a number of articles in the ARBPIA area. Moreover, I am now fully aware that all edits made by the general consensus of all editors, especially of those holding different political views and who belong to different political spectrums, contribute to the overall uncensored preservation of history and of general knowledge. This is my honest view. I have worked in the past year with Wikipedia editor Nableezy who has opened my eyes to this realization, even though we hold different political views. I assure my fellow Wikipedia editors and those here arbitrating this case that I will continue to consult the views of others before posting a controversial edit in the ARBPIA area.

For the record, my statement to the Wikipedia editor, Huldra (see diff), who has borne with me patiently throughout all my shortcomings and my personal attacks has been this: "I have since learned that every person who contributes anything in this world, especially on Wikipedia, is on a special mission sent by God. It doesn't matter who we are, or what religion or ethnicity we belong to. In Israeli/Palestinian issues, it is all one continuous history, interlocked. That is my honest view. I appreciate your work in the Palestinian issues, just as I appreciate my own work in Israeli history, both old and new. Everything has its place. I have learnt on Wikipedia to appreciate other views and to be more open to them, even when I disagree. I will not force my own view upon others. That much I can assure you" (End Quote). The same assurances I give to those who arbitrate my case. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 01:17, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support per David and this discussion on Nableezy's talk. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:59, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support Andre🚐 02:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support A^♭m ^(Ring!) _(Notes) 08:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Nableezy’s cool with it, as per the linked from Voorts. was started by my own short-sightedness in being quick to jump to judgment against my fellow co-editors in the ARBPIA area gives me a “is he a hothead?” pause for thought. (Not saying I think he is. I haven’t run into Bena outside of this ANI Report), but that’s all it gave. Pause. No actual concern that can be pieced together. If Aspersions are the worst worry, but not even a worry, then that’s easy for the Arbs to reinstate if my pause turns out justified. WP:ROPE should be given. MM (Give me info.) ^(Victories) 09:36, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support - per my talk page. nableezy - 10:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support if Nableezy is good with this, then I don't see why not. RickinBaltimore (talk) 11:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support -- as one of the admins who applied a topic ban, no concerns at all in it being lifted. -- Euryalus (talk) 12:21, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support per RickinBaltimore. starship.paint (talk / cont) 14:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support OK following mentorship. Selfstudier (talk) 14:57, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support appears to be an example of how a productive return to editing should go. Nableezy's support as an involved (real world, not wiki sense) party makes it a firmer yes for me. Star Mississippi 17:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support This the right thing to do for the right reasons at the right point in time. Cullen328 (talk) 05:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

User:NormalTADC

They are working towards making a long list of articles on non-notable topics to do with characters from mini-games in Roblox They have already moved their first rejected draft into the main space at Looky (Rainbow Friends) and have another rejected draft draft at Draft:Talking Shark where they are currently warring over the rejection notice. I think they may just need a 24 block until they have some time to read the policies and guidelines. I would have tagged the first article as A7 but unfortunately I don't think it actually fits into that criteria and felt an AFD is a waste of time on such a obvious throw away. McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 02:12, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just ran across this a few minutes ago. I would support the words of McMatter above, as both these articles are problematic to say the least. LizardJr8 (talk) 02:20, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Mcmatter, I've given them a 24-hour timeout, but please note that you were also edit-warring. It is inappropriate to put a WP:PROD tag back on after it has been removed, even if it was the article creator who removed it. -- asilvering (talk) 02:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yea I did over step a bit, I apologize I was more undoing it to also restore the maintenance templates they kept removing I should have just restored them but we would still be at the same place as we are now. McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 02:32, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, and sorry, my message came out a little colder than I intended it to. Next time this happens to you (and it will, that's AfC for you), you can go to WP:ANEW with it. -- asilvering (talk) 02:35, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FYI once a PROD tag is removed – for any (or no) reason – it has to go through AfD. Repeatedly readding it isn't helping. C F A 💬 02:30, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They just submitted Draft:Jax_(The_Amazing_Digital_Circus) which is an unsourced character article. Qcne (talk) 12:41, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what they're doing now...

@NormalTADC please explain? Qcne (talk) 12:55, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They have been blocked. Suggest extension if the poor behavior continues when unblocked. Star Mississippi 18:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RFPP backlog

There's a major backlog over at RFPP. Could someone look into that? - Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 06:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Article name change request

Recently the name of Abdul Malek Ukil Medical College has been changed to Noakhali Medical College. So transfer it to the new name. 09:37, 31 October 2024 (UTC) ~ Nahian ^Talk 09:37, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:COMMONNAME. If you think that is the most commonly used name to refer to this college, please go to requested moves. 331dot (talk) 09:41, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Disruption, edit warring, OR

I'd like for an admin to have a look at the work of an IP editor, 77.44.48.159 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), who is edit warring and righting wrongs, it seems to me, in Masoretic Text and other articles. I'm particularly bothered by this, "I firmly suspect that the administration of Wikipedia has been infiltrated by bad actors at a very high level, who are able to surreptitiously block IP addresses from editing articles and talk pages, editing articles under the guise of supposed "bots", and manipulating the timestamping of such edits." I reverted the editor once or twice, here but particularly here, and so perhaps someone from outside my cabal of "bad actors at a very high level" (User:Ohnoitsjamie, I don't know if you're in that cabal--haven't updated the membership list) can assess their understanding of Wikipedia. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 14:52, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also reverted at Masoretic Text. This IP insists on describing this primary source of Judaism as "unreliable" in wikivoice in the first sentence, and shows no sign of giving up this quest. This shows ignorance or disdain for the need to attribute opinions, ignorance of the purpose of the lead, and profound ignorance of the subject. If this was the only problem, semi-protection would solve it, but as Drmies says a poke around its other contributions might indicate a different solution. Zero^talk 15:17, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Any editor who insists that Wikipedia denounce any specific ancient biblical text such as the Masoretic text as "unreliable" (or endorse it as reliable) in Wikipedia's voice has a deeply ingrained point of view incompatible with editing a neutrally written encyclopedia. Wikipedia must be rigorously neutral in all such disputes among serious scholars of comparative religion, while rejecting the multitude of fringe and crank sources that are based on original research which is simply not permitted on Wikipedia. Our articles reflect and summarize the range of mainstream reliable sources and we do not apologize for that. Cullen328 (talk) 06:42, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cullen328: Daniel Quinlan blocked for 24 hours and semi-protected for a week but whether this will stop someone who has now added the same unacceptable material 6 times over 10 days remains to be seen. Can you please at least remove that material from the article? It is embarrassing as it is now but I'm reluctant to revert again. After the semi-prot expires, I'll monitor the article to see if the IP gives up. Zero^talk 00:50, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Restored the version without the description in question. Andre🚐 00:58, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reporting Dhwani221

The user uploaded a bulk of copyright violations on Commons yesterday which I deleted there in two batches. Others, I filed a DR at c:Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Dhwani221. They have returned to en-wiki, and re-uploaded some of the copy-vios here such as File:Sunayanafozdar.jpg despite their claims like "Can uunblock me? I was unaware of the copyright claim" and "I can't chat with you over there (Commons). I can txt here only. As said earlier, was unaware of the copyright issue." This message of their came a several minutes before their recent two copyvio uploads. It doesn't appear they are here to build. _Regards,Aafi ^(talk) 06:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

JJMC89: This might interest you. _Regards,Aafi ^(talk) 06:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have p-blocked the editor from the file space. It's quite clear they do not understand copyright policy. -- Whpq (talk) 13:45, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you @Whpq! _Regards,Aafi ^(talk) 14:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Whpq: Edits like this suggest that the user is seriously obsessed with their behavior and not in a mood to rectify. _Regards,Aafi ^(talk) 17:08, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unblock Request

Sorry guys i did a horrible mistake in Wikipedia for misuse my power as an editor and I truly regret what happened , I know my mistake and i sincerely feel sorry for my wrongdoing , hope you all may give me a second chance in Wikipedia. Thanks a lot. Mat Rempit (talk) 07:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You should follow the advice that Yamla gave you in the unblock request on your talk page as that is the approach that may give you another chance at editing. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 07:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You have the luck of only being blocked from the article space. This allows you to actually prove yourself to know what's an appropriate edit by making edit requests on articles' talk pages, and allowing the community to see what percentage are actually approved and how bad the rejected edits actually are. This should make it easier than users who get fully blocked from the site. Animal lover |666| 04:40, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

RfC regarding recall

I have started an RfC about how long a recall petition should take here. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Min968 unban request

UNBANNED

It has been three days with no serious objections. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 21:46, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

By request, I'm posting Min968's request for WP:UNBAN here. As a WP:CHECKUSER, I see no evidence of recent block evasion. Min968 was originally blocked as Ylogm (see below) and was de-facto banned under WP:3X. I'm also reposting a follow-up question and response. --Yamla (talk) 22:05, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I, Min968 (Ylogm), would like to request a reconsideration of my block. I now understand the importance of collaborating with other members and how crucial it is to work together to develop Wikipedia. I am an introverted person and not good at handling conflicts, which unfortunately led to a heated argument with @LlywelynII and subsequently being banned without being able to defend myself. I then used a sock account to continue editing, which was a sign of my helplessness and lack of knowledge on how to handle the situation. I acknowledge that it was wrong, and I am committed to permanently stopping using sock accounts and contributing positively, while also respecting the opinions of other members and collaborating with them to further develop Wikipedia. Blocks are not punitive. I believe I need to be given an opportunity to correct my mistakes, a chance to contribute to the community.

My 5-year plan if the ban is lifted:

Rewrite articles about the Ming emperors
Improve and write new articles related to the Ming dynasty (my main area of interest)
Enhance some content related to the history of Vietnam and Korea
Correct mistakes and develop projects related to Chinese eras (a project I have started and also where I have made mistakes and stumbled)

My behavior on Wikipedia:

Adhere to maintaining neutrality and not obstructing the project.
Interact with members in a polite and respectful manner. We are all anonymous, somewhere in this world, and we are all here with the common goal of developing Wikipedia. Sometimes there may be mistakes, but we need to maintain good intentions, keep a cool head, and respect each other. All members are human, even those who have made mistakes.
Follow all of Wikipedia's rules. However, I do not believe that all rules are useful. Instead, I will lean towards resolving issues through discussion.

Why I chose English Wikipedia and requested to be unblocked: I chose English Wikipedia simply because it is a large project, widely popular globally, and accessed and used by many people for information. I want to contribute and improve content related to Chinese history, specifically the Ming dynasty, and bring it to a wider readership around the world. Unfortunately, the content related to Chinese history is not well developed and lacks information. I myself have waited for almost 5 years to read articles about Ming emperors, but they have not improved during that time. Therefore, instead of waiting, I want to take action. Min968 (talk) 11:35, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a reason you are not appealing this block from the Ylogm account? That will definitely be asked when this appeal is taken to WP:AN. House Blaster (talk • he/they) 01:23, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When I was blocked before, I didn't know what to do or how to explain things. Usually, I just create a new account to continue editing. When I created this account, I wanted to start fresh with a more positive attitude. And when I was banned on this account, I received positive and enthusiastic guidance from @Remsense, so I chose to stick with it instead of Ylogm. Min968 (talk) 03:15, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I spoke at greater length six months ago on their talk page, so I'll try to be briefer here. If anyone has any further questions for me, let me know.

Firstly, Ylogm has a track record of worthwhile constructive editing in a highly important topic area (early modern Chinese monarchs) that can particularly benefit from additional motivated contributors. In the time I've been here, Ylogm was the only consistent contributor to many of these articles. In itself, that does not justify being unbanned. However, when they say they have learned from their mistakes and want to continue editing and making contributions here, I do believe them. I support unbanning them.

Ylogm was originally INDEF'd for disruptive behavior, namely a lack of adequate communication while undoing edits and otherwise ignoring the editorial concerns of others on articles they were working on. To be clear, I do not think anyone but Ylogm did anything wrong here, but is worth noting that the original ANI report was very brief, and the volume of prior communication concerning their conduct was limited—if normally sufficient as fair warning. They did not seem to understand why they had been blocked, which is on them. They then made this situation much worse by socking for a prolonged period, and rightfully earned this community ban. However, I do believe this to be the result of previous negligence, and not malice: if one accepts that they did not understand the social context, their attempted contributions consistently show a clear intention to be constructive during this time.

I am not aware that anyone engaged in direct conversation with them about their conduct until March, when I made an attempt to reach out to them on their sock Min968, after initially coming to this conclusion. As they didn't seem to understand, I attempted to explain their situation one-on-one, and they were immediately receptive to this. Their reaction reinforced my belief, and I felt I should be an advocate for their case. Then and now, I would like for them to continue making substantial contributions, if they prove capable of doing so constructively. It shouldn't be surprising then that I was acutely frustrated when it became apparent they did not immediately stop socking following my initial black-and-white dialogue with them at this time—given I had made this an explicit condition of my advocacy for them. If this appeal is not successful, I think this will be the most compelling reason why.

Even so, after being told they would would have to wait six months before their ban would be reconsidered, I believed them when they said they would do so. Given the comparatively compressed timeline of events where an apparent total lack of understanding had to be rectified, I find it plausible that they were caught in the process of recognizing the full extent of their mistakes for the first time in March. That is a confusing situation coming after months of previous confusions. I can't imagine everyone will come away with this conclusion, but I can only be honest in saying I remain convinced of Ylogm's unalloyed good faith. Now that the previous contingencies have passed, I also believe that they adequately recognize the how and why of their mistakes, and will behave competently in accordance with site policy going forward. Remsense ‥ 论 23:22, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support per Remsense. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:45, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support Given the explicit support of Remsense, the moral support of LlywelynII, the constructive continued editing at Chinese Wikipedia, and the fact that they\ underlying issues were merely disruptive, not dangerous, I think it's fair to extend another chance. The one thing I would ask -- though my support is not conditional on it -- is that Min968 voluntarily agree to a one-account restriction from here on out, as I think it would be beneficial for all parties, including Min968. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 00:57, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support unban. We could definitely use this editor in the Ming dynasty space. Last year I stopped reporting their socks because the contributions were constructive. The request is accurate: no one is improving these articles. Let's allow Ylogm / Min968 to help. Folly Mox (talk) 01:25, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment As blocking admin of the Min968 sock (not the master), I'm staying neutral here. They absolutely had socked in the past, but if the community thinks that there's merit to allowing this user to participate again under the WP:STANDARDOFFER I'm fine with that. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 05:49, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support unban It seems that this editor misunderstood several important aspects of Wikipedia editing when they first began, and that was probably exacerbated by lack of deep fluency in the English language at that time. I think that the editor has made great progress since then, and has indicated a genuine seriousness of purpose regarding improving articles about the Ming dynasty and a commitment to follow policies and guidelines. The only recommendation that I would make is that the editor also focus on the preceeding Yuan dynasty and following Qing dynasty to help place that Ming history into a broader context for students of Chinese history in the past 800 years. Cullen328 (talk) 07:13, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The difference here is that our Yuan and Qing articles have seen relatively more development and improvement by other editors; our Ming dynasty coverage is particularly weak, possibly the weakest of any dynastic period (haven't compared exhaustively: this is my impression).

As an aside, since periodisation by dynasty has been so universal in Chinese historiography, and the political situation tended to change dramatically between dynasties (with some exceptions), it is common for people to have subject area expertise in a single dynasty while remaining largely novices in chronologically adjacent dynasties. Folly Mox (talk) 14:41, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Follow all of Wikipedia's rules. However, I do not believe that all rules are useful. Instead, I will lean towards resolving issues through discussion. I find that a pretty suboptimal declaration in an unban request; we don't pick and choose which policies are followed based on our personal opinions about their usefulness, especially in terms of "resolving issues". Grandpallama (talk) 17:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good point. @Min968, I want to stress a distinction here: the rules that are there in policy are basically the result of tested best common practices, and while dogmatically adhering to their letter is counterproductive, that's not the same thing as "they're not useful". Remsense ‥ 论 18:26, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a translation issue. I'd posit that the intent behind this statement is valuing discussion over mere rules adherence to prevent conflict (otherwise, Instead is non sequitur, and Follow all... rules immediately disclaimed). I would be interested in hearing Min968's clarifications on this at their usertalk. Folly Mox (talk) 00:44, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Min968 has responded to this subthread on their talkpage in three diffs. Folly Mox (talk) 02:55, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support UnBan The request seems reasonable and I don't see any malicious behavior in their past editing. If this proves to be a mistake, correcting it takes three clicks and about six seconds. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:02, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support - See no reason against this request. Capitals00 (talk) 00:42, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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

Given the result above, would it be possible for an admin to undelete the articles created by Min968 accounts that were deleted per WP:G5? Remsense ‥ 论 21:51, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Theparties unban request

Theparties (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
23prootie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

By request, I'm posting Theparties's request for WP:UNBAN here. As a WP:CHECKUSER, I see no evidence of recent block evasion. Theparties was originally blocked as 23prootie and claims to no longer have access to that account. They were banned via Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive203#Ban_on_23prootie. --Yamla (talk) 22:15, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I would like to ask administrator to put forward my request to the Administrators' noticeboard for unblock, according to WP:Standard offer. I have been contributing to other Wikimedia projects meanwhile as is recommended for users at unblock requests.

I learned my lesson. I know I should not evade a ban. And I promise that I would not do that again. I can pprove this by showing that the last time I have been caught, I actually volunteered to be caught. I did not have to admit to be a sockpuppet of 23prootie. But I admitted it showing my sincerity in turning a new leaf. I know it must be difficult to believe me but by showing that I have not ban evaded in the past few months shows that truly my intention is to follow the rules. I have been editing in the Simple English Wikipedia for the time being. Working on election articles for the Philippines. Please give me another chance. Please truly allow me to become a better editor. I also want to add tat I cannot use my original username 23prootie because I forgot the password and I do not have an email to connect it with. May this username be my reincarnation for a new and better opportunity to prove myself.

I request that a WP:Topic Ban on Philippines-related articles be instated for me in exchange of being able to edit again on unrelated articles.

(Rename/usurp request snipped by me, Yamla, see talk page. The reason given by Theparties was "Reason: Forgot the password. No access to email.")

Theparties (talk) 05:32, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: The blocking admin for Theparties and the blocking admin for 23prootie are both no longer active. I did not notify them. --Yamla (talk) 22:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Has realized the mistakes and accepted a topic ban from anything related to the Philippines. That is more than enough. Capitals00 (talk) 00:45, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Per above. As long they edit unrelated articles for too long, they might appeal topic ban in the future. Welcome back. Ahri Boy (talk) 11:09, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RMTR backlog

At WP:RMTR there are unresolved requests from two days ago. The oldest uncontested request is for RSM-56 Bulava, for which a new user attempted a unilateral cut-and-paste move. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 06:20, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AI generated "Proposal For Greater Vellore City Municipal Corporation"

Noticed this on the page Melvisharam, pasted in from a 50 edit user Venki12sta.Today, an IP attempted to copy paste this on to multiple other pages such as here [3]. Is there any shred of truth to this? A quick search provides nothing about such a project .
Posting it here because I'm not exactly sure where this belongs. Fantastic Mr. Fox (talk) 11:05, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would say Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AI Cleanup is a good place if you encounter future situations like this one. Whether there is a shred of truth behind this addition, the WP:ONUS is on the person copy-pasting the text to provide (non-hallucinated) sources, and, in the meantime, it can be safely removed (and a {{uw-ai2}} given to the user). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:20, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Provision of Rev-Deleted content

I cant find a policy that addresses it so figured would come here to gather consensus.

There's a set of edits that Ive been contacted through email from the Wikipedia email function requesting that a copy of an edit to a user talk page that was deleted be provided to the user. I cant find anything in the policies regarding revision deletion about provision of deleted content. If the content had been deleted under a page deletion then there's probably flexibility in the policy for deletion to provide a copy of it but this is a single edit rather than a page so its not clear enough for me to be making that decision on my own.

Thoughts, suggestions, precedent that I've overlooked. Amortias (T)(C) 00:06, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Non-administrator comment) The closest thing my naive search finds is Wikipedia talk:Revision deletion § Process for requesting revision undeletion (April 2024), which seems to indicate that the RD criterion is an important factor, but admin discretion heavily applies. Folly Mox (talk) 16:57, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think you can apply the same good judgement as you'd apply to regular 'email-a-copy' undeletion, but context is everything. Rather than consider the criterion I'd be looking at the content. So here I'm going to speculate.. Being user talk it's probably RD2/3 (offensive or abusive). If it's too harmful or too offensive then I might be tempted to provide a summary or excerpts instead, as an initial response, depending on both the user and the content. Sometimes however, we remove content not to protect the target users, but to clean up the general editing atmosphere for others, where an email copy of the content will not cause any problems. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:16, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Request for attention regarding Disruptive Editor

This entry is to request for administrative attention regarding User:WaterMirror17.

They have been observed making edits to several pages such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Malvar-class_frigate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Navy_HDP-2200_Future_Offshore_Patrol_Vessel

...which I believe qualify under the disruptive editing criteria.

Specifically they keep adding 'original research' and commentary that is unverifiable and uncited.

Furthermore, they constantly add these in the form of extensive notes in info boxes which break the rule of conciseness and put pages out of line with common formatting practice as seen in other similar pages.

I have tried to talk them out of this on both their user page and the talk pages on the articles, citing the way in which their edits have been in violation of Wikipedia rules and practices, but they just seem to either not understand or are intentionally not acknowledging the issues with their edits. It is like talking to a brick wall.

They had already previously been warned by other users against edit warring in other pages, but they persist in trying to get their way with regard to putting their edits on pages. It is getting tiring trying to clean up after them. Girder2139 (talk) 07:04, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – November 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2024).

Administrator changes

Crisco 1492

CheckUser changes

Maxim

Oversighter changes

Maxim

Guideline and policy news

Following a discussion, the discussion-only period proposal that went for a trial to refine the requests for adminship (RfA) process has been discontinued.
Following a request for comment, Administrator recall is adopted as a policy.

Technical news

Mass deletions done with the Nuke tool now have the 'Nuke' tag. This change will make reviewing and analyzing deletions performed with the tool easier. T366068

Arbitration

RoySmith, Barkeep49 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2024 Arbitration Committee Elections. ThadeusOfNazereth and Dr vulpes are reserve commissioners.
Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate from 3 November 2024 until 12 November 2024 to stand in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections.
The Arbitration Committee is seeking volunteers for roles such as clerks, access to the COI queue, checkuser, and oversight.

Miscellaneous

An unreferenced articles backlog drive is happening in November 2024 to reduce the backlog of articles tagged with {{Unreferenced}}. You can help reduce the backlog by adding citations to these articles. Sign up to participate!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:22, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Self-nominations for the Arbitration Committee open

The self-nomination period of the Arbitration Committee elections is now open. The deadline for submitting a candidacy is 23:59, 12 November 2024 (UTC). Barkeep49 (talk) 20:54, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Request Admin Close

There is a merge discussion taking place at ~~Talk:Wikipedia and antisemitism#Requested move 3 November 2024~~ Talk:Wikipedia and antisemitism#Proposal to merge to Criticism of Wikipedia. I was about to close it myself, but controversial subjects should have an admin close and I think Wikipedia and antisemitism would probably be seen as suitably controversial. Would an admin here be kind enough to close that discussion? Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:16, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is also an AfD now, which I would argue is more appropriate since the action being considered is more of of a deletion in spirit / in effect (discussed a bit here). To me the merge was starting to look like a backdoor deletion without AfD's policy rigor. The initial proposer of the merge seemed on board with holding an AfD. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 21:29, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Background. The proposer closed the Merge discussion on Oct 31st, saying they'd undo Merge if anyone objected and propose AfD. I requested that the Merge be kept open and more time be given for improvements. On Oct 31, the proposer agreed and stated in the edit summary: "Unclosing discussion. I will AfD the article in 4 days." Those four days would end tomorrow, Monday, at 22:38 pm Eastern. Fwiw, the original merge discussion had most comments before Oct 31. Since that time, there have been ~ 145 edits by 12 users, including substantive additions based on added IMO reliable sources. Also, a different editor proposed an AfD today, prior to closing the Merge. Thanks to @Sirfurboy and @XDanielx for addressing this. ProfGray (talk) 22:29, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Might it be wise to cross-post this at WP:RFCLOSE? You might be able to better alert the class of editors that likes to make uninvolved closes if you post there. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:21, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was specifically looking for an admin close, because the out of process AfD needs fixing too, but I see from WP:MERGE that you are correct. Admin closes are still requested there. I have posted there now, thanks.

It's not really out of process because one possible outcome of a deletion discussion is to merge, so there is no contradiction. The mistake here, if one can call it that, was not taking it to AfD in the first place. Selfstudier (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly a mistake, but we are where we are. There is a merge in which 25+ editors have expressed an opinion. Those opinions should be considered, and that consideration should happen before any other discussions. Consider the case that the merge has a very clear consensus for x, but AfD finds against x and closes as y instead, with a different set of editors. Then all those opinions for x have been ignored. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:45, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I entirely agree that the merge discussion should be closed before the AfD. Selfstudier (talk) 17:49, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An administrator recall petition has been initiated for Fastily

There is currently a petition at Wikipedia:Administrator recall/Fastily for Fastily to initiate a re-request for adminship (RRfA). If the petition reaches 25 supports from extended confirmed users, an RRfA is required for them to maintain their toolkit. For further information, please consult the administrator recall policy. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 12:40, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Odd behaviour at AfD

Not sure what exactly is going on at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DYXX-TV (3rd nomination) but I think it could use an admins attention. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:09, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The close on the AFD has been undone by @Donald Albury. DYXX-TV has been deleted several times and, to me, this latest AFD looks like an attempt by two newish accounts to ensure the latest incarnation is not deleted. The opening statement is a rationale to keep, not to delete. I've haven't had time to look at previous versions to see if this is a G4 case or not, but I think that is what they are trying to sidestep by starting (and closing) an AFD. Nthep (talk) 18:00, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Any time Smileyface143 and Smileyface143 II take part in the same discussion, and Smikelyface 143 says Like DZBB-TV, this article has been restoring as per Smileyface143 II's summary. it probably needs a quick gander by a CU. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:05, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DYSS-TV (3rd nomination). They either have no clue how WP works, or they are trying to prevent their new articles from going to AfD. Donald Albury 18:15, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I was in the process of adding User:One at Heart 2002 to the list, but I see they all have been blocked. Donald Albury 18:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) It's nice to have a refreshingly simple CU case for a change. I've indeffed three accounts and closed the AfD; I considered deleting it but I didn't know if that would mess the bots up in the future. There's still some CU due diligence to be done, which I'll complete when I have a moment. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:29, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Attention to Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Pokémon test

There is a deletion discussion in progress at MFD that is becoming unpleasant, and I am asking for an admin to come and issue a caution, warning, or admonition. The essay Wikipedia:Pokémon test, which is already marked as historical, has been nominated for deletion. On the one hand, the nominator, User: Zxcvbnm, is bludgeoning the discussion. That isn't uncommon (although it should be). On the other hand, the nominator is being subjected to personal attacks, including allegations of bad faith. Can someone please remind the editors that civility is the fourth pillar of Wikipedia? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:09, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Saying there is bludgeoning occurring from my end is simply not true at all in the slightest. I was accused of bludgeoning without merit by an opposing !voter, but was backed up by multiple other editors that I never did such a thing. I only responded to about half of the participants in the discussion, most of the responses were a couple of sentences, a couple of which was to agree with them and support a potential alternate solution like userfication or moving to a historical archive.

I cannot fathom why an ANI thread is needed in this case, when the admins who are literally participating in the discussion did not see cause for alarm. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:51, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Admins who are particpating in a discussion cannot at the same time act as admins, they are just people commenting. I, however, have nothing to do with this and as an uninvlved admin have dropped an admin note reminding everyone that the discussion is supposed to be about the essay and not about the participants. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:27, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've now closed it early as it was obvious it was not going to be deleted. Discussion of other options as put forth in the MFD can continue on the essay's talk page. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 23:50, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Odder behavior at AfD

For those not following AfD closely, a look at the participants the AfD for Peanut (squirrel) would be instructive. Qwirkle (talk) 20:09, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, this is your third attempt at posting this topic here - in none of them do you link to the AFD in question. I'll do that for you - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peanut (squirrel).

Secondly, you're going to have to help us out her buddy - who is 'odd' and why? What action needs to be taken?

Please answer carefully, lest this topic gets closed down again. Giant Snowman 20:35, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are we seeing a lot of people using ChatGPT in AfD lately or something? Simonm223 (talk) 20:36, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will admit that "a single squirrel getting killed in upstate New York becomes a last minute campaign issue for Trumpers" was not on my utter batshit bingo card, but without specifics as to what admin action is needed, I doubt this will go anywhere, I'm not gonna read all that to try and parse it out. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:38, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm understanding the... all that... sufficiently it kind of looks like ChatGPT may be being deployed by a bunch of sock / meat puppets or canvassed editors in order to flood AfD and create the artificial perspective of a snow close on what is, honestly, an article of very marginal notability per WP:10YT but a lot of short-term utility for mobilizing weirdos in the upcoming US election. Simonm223 (talk) 20:54, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The AfD has been closed as Keep. Colbmizer, a four-year old account who posted there (in a way I have no complaint about) is definitely altogether behaving in an... hmmm... unusual way. All their 15 edits except two from 2022 concern Peanut the squirrel. I have reverted their additions to Pine City, New York (all about Peanut) and warned them about (twice) adding, wait for it, Category:People from Chemung County, New York to Peanut (squirrel). Bishonen | tålk 21:02, 4 November 2024 (UTC).[reply]

It shouldn't have been a snow close, the keep arguments are just ridiculous. If we claim AfD is not a vote, how can any weight be given to keep arguments consisting solely of comments such as "Justice for peanut. #SquirrelLivesMatter" and "May well get more write-in votes for president at this point than some third-party candidates." WP:NOTNEWS and WP:10YT are apparently meaningless now. AusLondonder (talk) 21:08, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The ten-year test doesn't apply to standard notability. Notability is explicitly not temporary. There is certainly significant coverage. I suppose one could argue in the spirit of BIO1E, though a squirrel wouldn't usually be considered a "person". A lot of !votes on both sides were very weak. C F A 💬 23:13, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The point is that primary sources are irrelevant to notability, and all the news reports are necessarily primary sources: they date from the time of the event that they are reporting. (See [4] for a good explanation.) We need secondary sources, which are written later and rely on the primary sources. This isn't some extraordinary event, such as the September 11 attacks, nor a routine event of a sort that always gets covered in secondary sources, such as today's election. Will this make it into secondary sources? WP:BALL says we mustn't speculate. BIO1E succeeds in deleting articles about individuals who aren't notable because they don't get any secondary-source coverage, since everything dates from a single point in time when the person was active; it wouldn't apply to someone, say, who was the focus of secondary coverage long after his death. Nyttend (talk) 03:57, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right. A subject has to be either supported directly by good secondary sources, or so blindingly, obviously momentous that we can safely bet it will be, barring the sun exploding or such.

Dead squirrel, not so much.

More importantly here we have an AfD which was almost completely populated by people who literally aren’t here to build an encyclopedia. One can argue the merits of cryptocurrency, and some people argue the merits of Trump, but Wiki isn’t supposed to be a megaphone for fans of either, and that is exactly the point of that AfD. (Well, I suppose there were some squirrophiles and squirrerasts, too, but let’s leave that well enough alone.) If you take out the socks, meat puppets, and canvased newbies, that bloated AfD mess could be buried in a shoebox.

Instead, we have the damned squirrel up on the Dead o’ the Day, where Quincy Jones should be. Qwirkle (talk) 05:05, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Request to create draft article

Hi, still quite new to creating articles and hope this isn't the wrong page but was told to come here. I'm trying to create a draft page for a Boards of Canada 12" single that was released in 2013, titled "------ / ------ / ------ / XXXXXX / ------ / ------". It was blocked because the title blacklist "Disallows six consecutive characters that are not letters (in any script), numbers, or spaces". While the title of the 12" is long, that's it's name. Would an administrator be able to create a draft of this article for me to start editing? Thanks. Beachweak (talk) 20:32, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[[Draft:------ / ------ / ------ / XXXXXX / ------ / ------]] created. Amortias (T)(C) 20:44, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I spent a couple hours writing the draft, would it be possible for you or another admin to move it to mainspace as well? I'm unable to do so because of the title once again. Beachweak (talk) 22:04, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done, moved to mainspace. C F A 💬 23:17, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism prevention of major political candidate BLPs

Kicking off this thread as a question of whether we have policies in place to try to prevent vandalism of major political candidates ahead of a major election?

There was some major vandalism at Tim Walz, the vice presidential candidate for the Democratic party, over the past 4 days and the page is just semi-protected, which wasn't enough to prevent the vandalism that happened, which included page blanking and moving around of the page.

I feel like given the magnitude of some elections, a policy of preventative ECP under WP:AMPOL or the likes for the major candidates BLPs feels warranted to prevent random accounts from being able to disrupt pages like these, especially a day before an election. I feel like this is the kind of vandalism that could make national news.

Might be something for an RfC maybe? Raladic (talk) 03:11, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like major candidates should've been ECP'd ages ago. Also, trust me, that won't prevent vandalism, just slow it down. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 03:26, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Move protection seems to be a lot less contentious than edit protection, probably since very prominent people almost never need to have their articles moved. I've just move-protected Walz and his opponent Vance; Harris and Trump were already move-protected, or I would have done the same with them. Vance, Harris, and Trump were already at ECP, and apparently ECP requires a demonstration that semiprotection is ineffective (I've literally never imposed ECP before, so I'm not sure), so this incident tells me that it's warranted. I've imposed ECP on this article, but if I shouldn't have, anyone's free to revert to semiprotection. Nyttend (talk) 04:06, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as "major political candidate" and "major candidate", I don't see how an RFC could nail down a definition. It's easy to define "major" for any given country, but how are you going to decide which kinds of positions are "major", or which countries are "major"? Presidential elections in Germany or Ireland probably aren't "major" because the president doesn't have much power, but presidential elections in Brazil probably are. Even if we limit our scope to anglophone countries, I really don't think we ought to impose the same standard on candidates for President of Liberia or Prime Minister of Fiji, simply because the countries aren't large, and their leaders' articles don't get a lot of vandalism because the countries are poorer (and thus have fewer people with Internet access) and have larger percentages of residents who don't speak English. Better to go without a worldwide standard and instead go with case-by-case protection, unless we're in an AMPOL situation, where a single country is so contentious that it gets its own standards for protection. Nyttend (talk) 04:14, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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