Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the Wikipedia:Teahouse instead. Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead, follow the instructions on Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent. Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here. Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. If opening a close appeal, use {{RfC closure review}} When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) Start a new discussion

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Administrative discussions

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive366#IBAN_appeal

(Initiated 37 days ago on 18 October 2024) This shouldn't have been archived by a bot without closure. Heartfox (talk) 02:55, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@Heartfox: The page is archived by lowercase sigmabot III (talk · contribs), which gets its configuration frum the {{User:MiszaBot/config}} at the top of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Crucially, this has the parameter |algo=old(7d) which means that any thread with no comments for seven days is eligible for archiving. At the time that the IBAN appeal thread was archived, the time was 00:00, 2 November 2024 - seven days back from that is 00:00, 26 October 2024, and the most recent comment to the thread concerned was made at 22:50, 25 October 2024 (UTC). This was more than seven days earlier: the archiving was carried out correctly. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:16, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

There was no need for this because archived threads can be closed too. It is not necessary for them to remain on noticeboard. Capitals00 (talk) 03:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. It is back in the archive, and hopefully someone can close it there. Heartfox (talk) 05:23, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Talk:Memorial_Hall_(Harvard_University)#Rfc_on_use_of_"imposing"

(Initiated 101 days ago on 14 August 2024)

Coming up on two months since the last comment. Consensus seems pretty clear, but would like an uninvolved party to look it over. Seasider53 (talk) 23:13, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 456#RfC: using photos of record labels from Discogs?

(Initiated 56 days ago on 28 September 2024) Discussion has died down and last vote was over a week ago. CNC (talk) 17:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 20:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments

(Initiated 47 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Turkey#RfC_on_massacres_and_genocides_in_the_lead

(Initiated 46 days ago on 8 October 2024) Expired tag, no new comments in more than a week. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

 Note: This is a contentious topic and subject to general sanctions. Also see: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard topic. Bogazicili (talk) 17:26, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Administrator recall#RfC: Should we add text prescribing just signatures, no discussion?

(Initiated 21 days ago on 3 November 2024) The amount of no !votes relative to yes !votes coupled with the several comments arguing it's premature suggests this should probably be SNOW closed. Sincerely, Dilettante 16:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Total
CfD	0	0	0	5	5
TfD	0	0	0	11	11
MfD	0	0	0	3	3
FfD	0	0	0	7	7
RfD	0	0	0	24	24
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 November 8#Confederation of the Rhine

(Initiated 24 days ago on 31 October 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:15, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

 Relisted by ThadeusOfNazereth. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 15:12, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Feminist art movement#proposing merge of Feminist art into Feminist art movement

(Initiated 312 days ago on 16 January 2024) It would be helpful for an uninvolved editor to close this discussion on a merge from Feminist art to Feminist art movement; there have been no new comments in more than 2 months. Klbrain (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

 Doing... may take a crack at this close, if no one objects. Allan Nonymous (talk) 17:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:List of pholidotans#Merge to Manidae

(Initiated 24 days ago on 31 October 2024) Discussion only occurred on the day of proposal, and since then no further argument has been made. I don't think this discussion is going anywhere, so a close may be in order here. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 07:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to close this so soon. Merge proposals often drag on for months, and sometimes will receive comments from new participants only everything couple weeks. I think it's too early to say whether a consensus will emerge. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: OK, so what are you suggesting? Will the discussion remain open if no further comments are received in, say, two weeks? I also doubt that merge discussions take months to conclude. I think that such discussions should take no more than 20 days, unless it's of course, a very contentious topic, which is not the case here. Taken that you've shown interest in this request, you should be able to tell that no form of consensus has taken place, so I think you can let it sit for a while to see if additional comments come in before inevitably closing it. I mean, there is no use in continuing a discussion that hasn't progressed in weeks. Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 15:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Wolverine X-eye, I don't think thats what they are saying. Like RfC's, any proposals should be opened for more than 7 days. This one has only been open for 4 days. This doesn't give enough time to get enough WP:CONSENSUS on the merge, even if everyone agreed to it. Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 21:24, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@Cowboygilbert: So what should I do now? Wait until the discussion is a week old? Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 11:14, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@Wolverine X-eye:, Yes. Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 17:04, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@Cowboygilbert: It's now 7 days... Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 14:09, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: You still interested in closing this? Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 04:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a priority, given all the much older discussions here. I'll get to this eventually, or maybe someone else before me. In the meantime, please be patient. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 13:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: It's now been 7 days...I know this isn't a priority to you but can you at least take a look at it this week, even if it's not today? Thanks for your time, Wolverine X-eye ^{(talk to me)} 04:26, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh good, I was also going to make this request. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:36, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (32 out of 8872 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin User talk:AlwaysPutsMeFirst 2024-11-24 01:25 2025-11-24 01:25 create DatGuy Yoav Gallant 2024-11-24 01:14 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP Isabelle Belato Spore (2008 video game) 2024-11-23 18:48 2025-11-23 18:48 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Isabelle Belato Template:Like 2024-11-23 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2501 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Algeria 2024-11-23 17:07 2025-02-23 17:07 edit Persistent disruptive editing EdJohnston 2025 Indian Premier League 2024-11-23 07:51 2025-05-23 07:51 edit Persistent sockpuppetry: semi-protection expires tomorrow, and confirmed socks already found their way here Ymblanter Luca Allam 2024-11-23 07:41 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Liz User:CFA 2024-11-23 05:24 indefinite edit Page-move vandalism Reaper Eternal User talk:CFA 2024-11-23 05:16 2024-12-07 05:08 edit User talkpage under siege by LTA with any number of easily autoconfirmable sleepers Bishonen Human safari 2024-11-22 20:33 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case 2024 Kafr Kila clashes 2024-11-22 20:25 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Kushwaha 2024-11-22 20:14 indefinite edit Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:GS/CASTE Daniel Case Timeline of the Israel–Hamas war (17 October 2024 – present) 2024-11-22 20:03 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Karim Ahmad Khan 2024-11-22 19:47 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case ???-type Pokémon 2024-11-22 17:43 indefinite edit,move Blacklisted name, best to add some protection Anachronist Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 6 2024-11-22 12:03 2024-12-22 12:03 edit,move Persistent disruptive editing from (auto)confirmed accounts UtherSRG Pam Bondi 2024-11-22 00:39 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement Will log at AEL Ad Orientem State of Israel 2024-11-21 22:10 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement: WP:ARBPIA Ymblanter Hindko 2024-11-21 22:02 2025-05-21 22:02 edit Persistent disruptive editing: Regular semi-protection ineffective, persistent block evasion and additions of poorly sourced material. Yamaguchi先生 Oreshnik (missile) 2024-11-21 21:54 indefinite edit Community sanctions enforcement: per WP:RUSUKR Swatjester RS-26 Rubezh 2024-11-21 21:02 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case Karbi people 2024-11-21 20:49 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:GS/CASTE Daniel Case 1995 Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike 2024-11-21 19:17 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP Isabelle Belato International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli figures 2024-11-21 15:51 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement; requested at WP:RfPP Fathoms Below Cleveland School of Cannabis 2024-11-21 03:38 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Anachronist Sandeep Lamichhane 2024-11-20 21:52 2025-11-20 21:52 edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:BLPCT ToBeFree Draft:Vansh Sayani 2024-11-20 19:42 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Isabelle Belato Young SaceP 2024-11-20 13:52 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Pickersgill-Cunliffe Draft:RAGULVARMA PRABHU 2024-11-20 13:01 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated BusterD IFly.com 2024-11-20 05:46 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated: Created repeatedly at IFly Pro, moved to new name after that was create-protected Anachronist 2028 United States presidential election 2024-11-20 05:21 2025-11-20 05:21 edit,move requested at WP:RfPP Dr vulpes Template:United States Secretaries of State 2024-11-20 02:34 indefinite edit,move This only has 89 transclusions, that's a bit low for template-protection now that we can ECP due to risk level which wasn't allowed in 2016 Pppery

WP:AN/CXT

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is consensus to move forward with Mathglot's proposal (see #Proposal), which will cause a mass deletion of the pages on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review, with the option to save certain pages from deletion within a two-week window. As part of the proposal, there is also a consensus to amend WP:X2 in the manner S Marshall specifies in this edit.

Opposition to this change revolved around the argument that the articles which would qualify for mass deletion should be improved instead of deleted. Elinruby proposed alternatively that we should focus on recruiting editors fluent in foreign languages, Mathglot initially proposed to mass-draftify the articles instead of deleting, and Sam Walton argued that the articles contained valid content that didn't deserve mass deletion.

A majority of other editors, however, argued that many of the articles involved are poorly sourced BLPs that have the potential to harm their subjects if left unimproved. Given the large number of articles and low number of editors involved, it will likely be months before these articles are improved. Additionally, a user who is not fluent in both of the languages involved in a translation will not be able to adequately evaluate the validity of the machine-translated content; the article may appear unproblematic to such a user, but the content translation tool could have subtly altered the meaning of statements to something false.

In short, the consensus is that in the long run, the encyclopedia would be better off if these articles were mass deleted. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 23:22, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Addendum: The process for working out how to cause the mass deletion has been established. To mark an article for retention, please strike it out. To unambiguously identify an article for deletion, include the word "kill" in the same line as the article. The articles will be deleted on or after June 6, 2017. Thank you for your patience. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:16, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

---

Hi, Wikipedians. I wanted to give you an update on WP:AN/CXT. Since that discussion was closed about eight months or so ago, we've cleared out about 10% of the articles involved, which were the easiest 10%. The work is now slowing down as more careful examination is needed and as the number of editors drops off, and I'm sad to report that we're still finding BLP issues. The temporary speedy deletion criterion, X2, is of little use because it's phrased as a special case of WP:SNOW and I'm not being allowed to improve it. The "it's notable/AFD is not for cleanup" culture at AFD is making it hard for me to remove these articles as well, so I'm spending hours trying to get rid of material generated by a script in seconds. I'm sorry but I'm discouraged and I give up. Recommend the remainder are nuked to protect the encyclopaedia.—S Marshall T/C 23:15, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

For more context on this issue, please see Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#X2 revision. Cheers, Tazerdadog (talk) 23:33, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Update: This link is now located at .../Archive_61#X2 revision. Mathglot (talk) 01:10, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this, S Marshall, and I don't fault you for your choice. - Dank (push to talk) 19:49, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

• Isn't there some way to use the sortware to delete all of these in bulk, if only as a one-time thing? Seems like a huge waste of time if it's being done manually by hand. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 00:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• Easily doable as a batch-deletion. I could have it wrapped up in 15 minutes. Unfortunately community consensus did not lean towards approving that option. In fact, most CXT creations which have been reviewed needed cleanup but turned out to be acceptable articles. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:00, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I would support a nuke, a mass draftification, or some loosening of X2. The current situation is not really tenable due to the density of BLP violations. However, ultimately, the broader community needs to discuss what the appropriate action is under the assumption that we are not going to get much more volunteer time to manually check these articles. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:54, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• No, the broader community doesn't need to discuss that. It's completely needless and the community has had a huge discussion already. All that needs to happen is for WT:CSD to let me make one bold edit to a CSD that was badly-worded from the get-go, and we'll all be back on track. That's it. The only problem we have is that there are so many editors who want to tell me how to do it, and so few editors willing to get off their butts and do it.—S Marshall T/C 19:34, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Restored from archive, as it's unhelpful for this to remain unresolved.—S Marshall T/C 17:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support systematic nuke/ revision of X2 to enable this mess to be cleared up. It's not fair that @S Marshall: is being prevented from improving the encyclopedia like this. Amisom (talk) 15:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support @S Marshall:'s revision or a nuke from orbit. I wasn't active when this situation was being discussed originally, but having now read over the discourse on the matter, it is clear that our current approach isn't working. No one else is stepping up to help S Marshall do this absurd amount of reviewing, leaving us stuck with thousands of machine-translated BLP violations. It's all well and good to say that AfD isn't cleanup and deletion solves nothing and we should let articles flower patiently into beautiful gardens, but if no one's pulling the weeds and watering the sprouts, the garden isn't a garden, it's a weed-riddled disaster. Give the gardener a weed whacker already. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support the bold edit required to X2; it's true, of course, that AfD is not clean up- but neither should it be a barrier to clean up. In any case, moving a backlog from one place to another is hardly helpful. — O Fortuna! ^{Imperatrix mundi.} 09:39, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Question @Elinruby and Yngvadottir: As users who (from a quick glance) seem to have been active looking through these articles, do you think the quality is on average worse than a typical random encyclopedia article, and if so, bad enough that speedy deletion would be preferable to allowing them to be improved over time as with any other article? I don't mean to imply that this is necessarily the case, but I think it should be the bar for concluding whether mass speedy deletion is the correct answer. Sam Walton (talk) 11:22, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• (I wish I'd seen this earlier; thanks for the ping. I feel I have totally let down S Marshall; I just couldn't stand it any more.) On the whole ... yes. Support deletion of those remaining that have not been marked as ok/fixed. As I tried to explain in the initial discussion, the basic premise here is incorrect: as it states somewhere at Pages needing translation into English, a machine translation is worse than no article. It will almost always be either almost impossible to read, incorrect (for example, mistranslating names as ordinary nouns, or omitting negatives ...) or both. Some of these translations have been ok; many have been woefully incomplete (just the start of the lede), and they all require extremely careful checking. Yes, what lies in wait may include BLP violations. I sympathize with the article creators, and I am usually an inclusionist; I put hours of work into checking and improving some of these, and I'm not the only one. But please, enough. We'd wind up with decent articles faster if these were deleted, and the majority that are bad do a disservice to their topics. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• You haven't let me down. You've given me a truckload of support with this.—S Marshall T/C 13:47, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• Still oppose mass deletion -- @Sam Walton: What she said: Thank you the ping; this discussion was seeming a bit reiterative and I had mentally checked out. Like @Yngvadottir: I have put considerable effort into some of these articles. In fact, two or three of them are my own translations, which I would not have attempted without the translation tool, btw. Some are from my translations on French law, and I think 1) they cover important and previously missing topics and 2) they are high-quality technical translations. In most cases they speak for themselves. A couple are not perfect, reflecting the state of the French article, yes, and need work. But while these articles -- I am speaking here specifically of my own translations that appear on this list -- may be imperfect they are still reasonable stubs that can be built upon, and they also support more important articles by helping to prevent redlinks in some of the top-level articles on French law and also the French colonial legacy in Rwanda and the Congos etc. See Biens mal acquis for example. That was painful but I am proud of that translation. I have also encountered other people's translations on that list that made me proud of Wikipedia; the one on a cryptology algorithm for example comes to mind, or Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations. I am an inclusionist, I have to admit, and yes yes, great wrongs and all, but I do think it is important that (for example) articles on Congolese history mention that there have been civil wars (beyond "unrest", and no, I am not kidding). The worst BLP problems I am aware of are in the articles on Dilma Rousseff and I don't believe they are on this list or were created with the tool. Some of the worst PNT pages I have seen predate the translation tool, for instance Notre-Dame de la Garde, which took me years to finish, and Annees folles which is as we speak an incredible mess requiring research in addition to copy-editing and translation. Yngvadottir is correct in saying that inappropriately translated proper nouns is a frequent problem. I recall a Hubert de Garde de Vins who became "wine", and yes, this did reduce the sentence to gibberish. It's annoying enough to make me wanna regex. But. Not mass deletion. I suggest case-by-case intervention in the case of egregious problems with particular users. It's not as though more that a very few users even try to translate. Or perhaps we should revise the criteria for translation user privileges. But even there -- one of the people tagged as delete on sight has created a number of skeleton articles about Quebec. These articles should be be fleshed out not deleted; we should have articles about Quebec. Some of the authors are unquestionably notable, the equivalent in my small culture of Simone de Beauvoir or Colette or Andre Gide. It seems to me that an article that says: this author was born, drank coffee, won the Governor-General's award and wrote these books, is better than having nothing at all. The placeholder takes the topic from unknown unknown to known unknown, or little-known in this context, I guess. We do know a little more about the folk dances of Honduras because there is a very bad article, for which I have done what I could. There are many different problems with the articles on this list. Someone has created multiple articles about, apparently every madrassa in central Tunis. Who am I? Some of the articles I have rescued at PNT were about the medieval wines of Provence, which might seem equally trivial to some. Some of the important but very flawed articles I have noted maybe should not be in the article mainspace -- I am thinking of the ones about the Virgin of Guadeloupe, pretty much everything flagged Mexican historical documents, the Spanish procession of the flowers, etc)--but an interested Spanish speaker could build these out. These topics are unquestionably notable. We should have an article about the Virgin of Guadeloupe, really, people, we should. My suggestion would be recruiting. We desperately need a Portuguese speaker and additional help with Spanish. Some of the unreferenced BLPs sitting around appear to be very fine even though they are unreferenced, and may in fact veer into fluff. But they don't approach liability for libel if that's the concern. I avoid them, personally, because I have in the past deciphered Abidjan l33t about a beloved soccer player, only to be told that we don't as a matter of policy consider these leagues notable. Fine then, they should not be on the PNT to-do list. I'd love to see the translation workflow improved but we should be encouraging the people expanding our horizons is what I think. I am sorry for the very long answer but I appear to be a voice wailing in the desert on this topic and I have now said pretty much the above many times now. Nobody seems to care so oh well, it's not like I don't have other work I can do on the history of the Congo and figuring out what Dilma Rousseff had to say about her impeachment. Reliable sources say she was railroaded (NPR for one) and that is not included in the article at all right now. The articles on Congolese history airily write off genocide and slaughter as "some unrest". In a world where these things are true I really don't care whether on not we find a reference for that Eurovision winner. Someone who cares can do that and I think ethnocentrism is a bigger issue on Wikipedia that these translation attempts. Move the ones that don't meet a minimum standard to some draft space or something. Educate the people who are creating this articles instead of shaking your finger at them. The article creation process is daunting enough and I myself have had to explain to new page patrollers that this punk band is in fact seminal whether you have heard of them or not and whether or not they sing in a language that you can understand. But I have been here enough to do that and I assure you, most people will not. Wikipedia wants to know why its editors grow fewer cough cough wikipedia, lookee here. I will shortly wikilink some of the examples I mention above for easier show-and-tell, for the benefit of anyone who has read this far. Thanks. Elinruby (talk) 20:38, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support removal of these attempted articles (especially to avoid BLP problems laying around). Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:00, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support [1] I'd say "do a disservice to their topics" is a mild way of putting it. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose blanket deletion. Having just checked a bunch of the remaining articles I found plenty of perfectly reasonable, non-BLP articles here, and any bad articles I did find were certainly not in greater number than you would find by hitting Random Article, nor were they particularly awful; the worst offenses I found were poor but understandable English. There's a lot of valid content here, especially on non-English topics which we need to do a better job of writing about. FWIW I'll happily put some time into going through this list. Sam Walton (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Please take a look at the 20 articles I just reviewed here; none had any issues greater than needing a quick copyedit. Sam Walton (talk) 14:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
    • @Samwalton9: Thanks. It's been a long, hard slog. I appreciate it if any of these can be saved. However, did you check for accuracy? It's possible for a machine translation to be misleadingly wrong. And the miserable translation tool the WMF provides usually doesn't even attempt filmographies: look at that specific section of Asier Etxeandia. This is not acceptable in a BLP. Somebody who reads the original language (Spanish? Catalan?) needs to go through that article sentence by sentence and film by film. Unfortunately it's not a matter of notability (that's almost always attested to by the original article), it's a matter of whether we have time to save this article. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:27, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
      • That names of works likely don't get automatically translated properly is a good point that I hadn't considered, thanks for pointing that out. If that's one of the primary issues then I'd favour a semi-automated removal of "filmography" or similar sections, if possible. It just seems that there's a lot of perfectly good content in here. Sam Walton (talk) 15:47, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
        • I looked at the first one you listed, it is a mass of non-BLP compliant (non-neutral, no-inline source) material. Letting stuff like that hang around is not just bad for that BLP but as an example for other BLPs to be created and remain non-compliant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
          • Sam Walton, you didn't answer Yngvadottir's question. Can you speak the source languages? Remember that because of the defective way that software feature was implemented, you cannot assume that the translator speaks English and in many cases they obviously couldn't. (In practice the source language matters a lot because the software accuracy varies by the language pair. Indo-European languages are often but not always okay, and Spanish-English translations have particularly high accuracy, approaching 80%. Japanese-English, for example, has much, much lower accuracy.) So the correctness of the translation must be, and can only be, checked by someone with dual fluency in the source language and English.

            In the real world you can establish some rules-of-thumb. For example, you can quite safely assume that everything translated by Rosiestep is appropriate and can be retained. The editorial skills of the different translators varied very widely.

            All in all the best solution is for a human who's fluent in the source language and English to look at each of these articles and form an intelligent judgment. The thing that's preventing this solution is that, having looked at the content and formed the judgment, I can't then remove a defective article, because the defective wording in WP:CSD#X2 encourage sysops to decline the deletion unless it's a WP:SNOW case... so I've got to start a full AfD. Every. Single. Time. The effort for me to clean up is out of all proportion to the effort editors put into creating the damn things with a script.

            If you don't want the articles nuked (and that's a reasonable position), then please support the X2 revision I have proposed.—S Marshall T/C 17:37, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

When you say "the first one you listed" are you talking about Tomokazu Matsuyama? Yes, if so. it is indeed an unreferenced BLP but... I suspect five minutes of quality time with Google would take it out of that category, and it's essentially a resume, something like the placeholder articles I mentioned above. I think that perhaps we are better off knowing that this Japanese contemporary artist exists. Why not do a wikiproject to improve these like the one we just had on Africa top-level articles? It does seem to me that you could use a break from this wikitask and a little gamification might well get er done. I share your sentiment that in some ways we have our fingers in the dyke here, but the dyke does serve a purpose I think...In short I respectfully disagree with the current approach to these articles. Elinruby (talk) 21:05, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Break

@Alanscottwalker: I found a reference for his influences in less time than it took to add the ref code....Elinruby (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Elinruby: Did you mean to ping me back here, many days after I commented, to tell me you found a pretty crappy commercial source? When I looked at it awhile ago, the article was filled with non-npov/non-referenced/BLP violating text. It is, thus, no comfort that since I commented, awhile ago, someone has according to their edit 'removed the worst of the puffery', and you added that crappy commercial source - its still not policy compliant (even if it is marginally better, since I flagged it) Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker: I brought you back here to tell you that while it may be have been unsourced, fixing this is extremely trivial. I don't give a hoot about this particular article, but his gallery is not a "crappy commercial source" imho and if you want people to fix then article then you should enunciate your problem with it. Sorry if that doesn't fit your preconceptions Elinruby (talk) 00:51, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Adding a non-independent crappy commercial source is not fixing. It is selling. We are not in the business of selling. What you call "trivial" sourcing does nothing to fix just makes it worse - "trivial" should have tipped you off. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 08:25, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@AlanscottWalker: Um no.... I was using the term in its software development meaning. I apologize for picking the wrong dialect to make my point. I thought, since you were critiquing the software tool, you might know something about software even though you don't seem to be familiar with the features of this instance of it, or for that matter with a representative sample of its users. Commericial, hmm. The same could be said of my article about the thousand-year-old Papal vintages, you know. That vineyard is selling wine today. Is that article also commercial crap? Since it is a direct translation from French Wikipedia, are you saying that French Wikipedia is commercial crap? You really don't want to make me argue this point, seriously. Incidentally what is with the arbitrary insertion of a break in the discussion? Consider, for just a moment, that I might actually have a point. Entertain the notion for a minute. Why are you belittling my statement? Elinruby (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Critiquing software tool? No, I was clearly critiquing an article in English on the English Wikipedia. And I was referring to the crappy commercial source - you pinged me, remember, so that I would know you added it to the article. That was not done in French, it was done in English. As for break, that is your doing, why should I have any idea why you added the crappy source, and then wanted to tell me about it in this break. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker: Let me use small words. CTX is software. Bad translation can happen with or without software. Lack of sources can happen without software. In software development "trivial" means "easy". Do you see now? Be careful who you patronize next time. 01:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@S Marshall:I'd consider supporting your proposal, perhaps, once I have read it, but could you provide a link for we mere mortals who don't normally follow these proposals? I also disagree that all of these articles require a bilingual editor; some just need a few references and/or a copy edit. But you know I disagree at this point. And if you do, god help us, nuke all of these articles as opposed to one of the other courses of action I have (again) suggested above, please move mine to my draft space if you find them that objectionable. Some sort of clue as to what your issue is would also be nice. Elinruby (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

• The revision I want to make is this one. The intended effect is so that a human editor, who has reviewed the script-generated content and given it due consideration and exercise of judgment, can recommend the content for deletion and receive assistance rather than bureaucracy from our admin corps.

  The basic problem with these articles is that they are script generated and the scripts are unreliable. Exactly how unreliable they are varies according to the language pair, so for example Spanish-English translations are relatively good, while for example Japanese-English translations are relatively poor; and whether the articles contain specific grammatical constructions that the scripts have trouble with.

  You can test its accuracy, and I recommend you do. The script it used, during the problem period, was Google translate. I've just picked some sample text and run it through Google translate in various language pairs, first into a different language and then the translated text back into English, to see how it did. These were the results:-

Source text	Korean	Punjabi	Farsi
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition	Fourth and seventh years ago, our ancestors left the continent, a new country born in Liberty.	Four score and seven years on this continent, first our father a new nation, brought freedom and dedicated to the proposition	Four score and seven years ago our fathers on this continent, a new nation, the freedom brought, and dedicated to the proposition
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.	And when he saw the multitude, he went up to the mountain, and his disciples came, and opened his mouth, and taught him, saying, Blessed are the souls of the poor: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.	Jesus saw the crowds up on the mountain, and when he sat, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth, and the poor in spirit was teaching, that theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Yes: interestingly the algorithm interpolated "Jesus" into the text.)	And seeing the multitudes, he went to the mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for the kingdom of heaven.
Editors agree not to publish biographical material concerning living people unless it is accurate	The editors agree not to post electrical materials about living people unless they are the correct person.	To publish the biographical material about the editor, it is right to disagree,	Editors agree to publish biographies of living people, unless it is accurate.

I encourage you to try these and other examples with different language pairs. Can you see why you need to speak the original language in order to copyedit accurately?—S Marshall T/C 22:00, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

But that is not a fair test since it magnifies any word choice errors. There *will* be errors, yes. We clean them up at WP:PNT --- ALL THE TIME. And no, it is not necessary to speak the language always, though it certainly help. I really suggest that maybe you just need a wikibreak from this task. Bad english can mostly be fixed. There are the occasional mysteries, yes. There are colloquialisms, yes. This does not justify wholesale destruction of good content. I was just here to get the link as I mentioned your proposal to one of my PNT colleagues; I need to go but I'll look at your proposal the next time I log in Elinruby (talk) 00:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

The liquor was strong but the meat was rotten.

Translation wonks will recognize the (apocryphal) story behind the sentence above, concerning literal mistranslations exacerbated from there-and-back translation. (The story perhaps originated after the NY World's Fair of 1964, which had a computer translation exhibit in the Russian Pavilion.) In any case, I'm just getting up to speed on this topic and will comment in more detail later.

Briefly: yes, you definitely have to speak the language to copyedit accurately. I'm actually in favor of a modification to WP:MACHINETRANSLATION to make it stronger. I fully agree with the worse than nothing statement in the policy now, but I'd go one step further: the only thing worse than a machine translation in an encyclopedia, is a machine translation that has been copyedited by a capable and talented monolingual (even worse: by someone who knows a bit of the language and doesn't know what s/he doesn't know) so that the result is beautiful, grammatical, smooth, stylish, wonderful English prose. As a translator, puh-LEEZ leave the crappy, horrible, machine-gobbledygook so that a translator can spot it easily, and fix it accurately. Copyediting it into proper English makes our job much harder.

If it's too painful to leave it exposed in main space, perhaps moving to Draft space could be an alternative. In fact, rather than a mass-delete, why not a mass-Draft-ify? (Apologies if someone has already said this, I'm still reading the thread.) More later. Mathglot (talk) 01:31, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

mass-Draftify would work for me. And yeah I disagree with you too a little, but I knew that. My point is, we all agree that an issue exists so what do we do? I also have some more reading to do before I comment on what S Marshall (talk · contribs) is proposing. I have a story about the policy but I want to make sure it pertains to this discussion. Elinruby (talk) 22:03, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• Elinruby is certainly correct to say this "wasn't a fair test", because going through the algorithm twice doubles the error rate. But a lot of people reading this discussion will speak only English so this is the only way I can show them what the problem is ---- without that context, they may well find this, and the original discussion at WP:AN/CXT, rather impenetrable because they won't understand the gravity of the concerns.

  It was even more unfair because it was me who selected the examples and I don't like machine translations. In order to illustrate my point I went with non-European languages and convoluted sentence structures. If you tried the same exercise with a verse from "Green Eggs and Ham" then you'd get perfect translations 99% of the time. (It tripped me up with the Sermon on the Mount because quite clearly, the algorithm recognised that it was dealing with a Bible verse, which I found fascinating.)

  The script is particularly likely to do badly with double-negatives, not-unless constructions, adverbs of time ("since", "during", "for a hundred years"), and the present progressive tense, in some language pairs.

  It would certainly be possible to construct a fairer text using more random samples of language.—S Marshall T/C 10:27, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@S Marshall: alright, I grant you that there aren't many bilinguals here. This *is* the problem in my view. I'll also specify that I don't claim expertise outside the Romance languages, and very little for some of those. But allow me please, since I know you speak or at least read French, to propose a better example. There are common translation errors that can occur, depending on which tool exactly was used. The improperly-translated name (nom propre) problem was real but is now mostly fixed. The fact that a writer whose novels were written in French gave them titles in French should come as a shock to nobody. The correct format for a bibliography in such cases *is* title in the actual language of the words in the book, webpage or whatever. Translated title, if the title is not in English, goes in the optional trans-title (or is it trans_title?) field of the cite template. Language switch to be set if at all possible. If it is not, let me know, and I can reduce the number of foreign words that English wikipedia needs to look at. So. In all languages, pretty much, words like fire and sky and take tend to be both native to the original people and likely to carry additional meanings, as in take an oath, take a bus, take a break etc. On the other hand what the software tool does do extremely well is know the correct translation for arcane or specialized terms, often loanwords, like caravel or apse or stronghold. These words are in my recognition vocabulary not my working vocabulary and using the tool in certain instances saves many lookups. When there is a strong degree of ambiguity or divergence in meaning (like the example on my user page) then THEN yes a fluent or very advanced user is needed. There are known divergences that a bilingual would spot that an English speaker would not. Sure. "Je l'aime beaucoup, mon mari" is a good example. But the fact that this is true does not prove that every line of every one of these articles still needs to be checked before they can be permitted to continue to sully Wikipedia, or that each of these lines needs to be checked by you personally. If you feel overwhelmed, take a break. Elinruby (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• I speak English, French, German, Gibberish and Filth.  :) Joking aside -- I'm not concerned about noms propres. I'm concerned when the script perverts or even inverts the meaning of the source text. It's quite hard to give you an example because the examples I've discovered have all been deleted, and there's only the one non-English language we share, but perhaps an administrator will confirm for you the sorry history of Daphné Bürki. It was created as a machine translation of fr:Daphné Bürki and the en.wiki version said she was married to Sylvain Quimène, citing this source. Check it out; the source doesn't say that. In fact she was married to Travis Bürki, at least at one time (can't say whether she's still married to him). We had a biographical article where the subject was married to the wrong bloke. It's not okay to keep these around.

  Draftification is exactly the same as deleting them. Nobody is going to fix these up in draft space. The number of editors who're competent to fix them is small, and the amount of other translation work those editors have on their hands is very large, and it includes a lot of mainspace work that's more urgent than fixing raw machine translations in draft space, and it always will; we can get back to fixing draft space articles about individual artworks when every Leibniz-prizewinning scientist and every European politician with a seat on their national parliament has a biography. (We're on target never to achieve that. The democratic process means new politicians get elected and replaced faster than their biographies get translated from foreign-language wikipedias.)

  I don't object to draftifying these articles if that's the face-saving solution that lets us pretend we're being all inclusionist about it, but it would be more honest to nuke them all from orbit.—S Marshall T/C 00:51, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

• I am just coming back to this. I agree about the relatively few translators and the large amount of work, and yet, we so fundamentally disagree. Some of the designated articles do are, in my opinion, within the top percentiles in article quality. Others have in fact been fixed up. You and I consulted about one once. Others, yes, need work, and I at least do get to articles that I say I will get to. Slowly, at times, sure. I have no problem with articles that don't meet a certain standard not going to mainspace, but I don't see why you singly out the translation tool as your criterion. I mention noms propres because I have mentioned one above from Notre-Dame de la Garde where Commander de Vins came across as wine, and this did make the sentence gibberish. But that article did not come out of the CTX tool. Ihave no idea what the Leibniz prize is, but I am not sure it's more notable, in the abstract, than Marcel Proust, but fine. Work on that all you like, sure. But don't tell me it's more important that some mention in Congolese history that there have been civil wars, or I will just laugh at you. The sort of error you mention above with Daphné Büki -- I'll look at it myself shortly, if it's from French I don't need an admin -- can be made by anyone who knows less than they think they do. Automated translation not needed. Now, I propose that since we are talking about this we work out some sort of saner translation process. For instance, if African football leagues are by policy not notable, as someone once told me, fine then, the article should not be in the translation queue. Put something in there about a minimum number of references, require the use of trans-title in the references, whatever is agreed upon is ok with me. Your proposed change would preserve most of by not all of the articles that have been worked on, which is a slight improvement I guess, except you'll also nuke the 3-4 articles that needed nothing and a whole lot of biography that I've avoid because people tend to write me snooty messages to inform me that the person isn't notable, and why waste work when articles like History of Nicaragua are so lacking? Elinruby (talk) 01:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Proposal

Okay, I've gone through this and thought about it, and I'm conditionally a Yes on change to X2 and nuking the list, with an option to save certain files.

S Marshall, I take your point about draftification being pointless, as they'll just sit there with most of them never being edited ever.

I believe you've also persuaded me that the nuke is appropriate, given some conditions below. In order to keep Elinruby and Sam Walton (and me, and others) happy about not deleting certain files we are working on or wish to work on, I had an idea: what if we agree to allow a delay of two weeks to allow interested parties to go through and mark files in the list we want to keep so when the nuke-a-bot comes through, it can pass over the files thus marked. (I don't know if we can gin this up for two weeks from yesterday, but that would be auspicious.)

More specifically, to Elinruby's (22:03, 1 April) "So what do we do?" question, I think here's what we do:

• Those of us who want to retain files, mark them with {{bots|deny=X2-nukebot}} to vaccinate them against nuking.
• Change X2 accordingly
• Somebody develops the nuke script
• Nuke script should nuke "without prejudice" so that if someone changes their mind later and wants to recreate a file, it shouldn't be "salted" or require admin action to "undelete"; you just recreate it in the normal way you create any new file.
• If needed, we run a pre-nuke test against sandbox files, or can we just trust the vaccination will be respected?
• Start the script up and let 'er rip

Elinruby, if this proposal were accepted, would you change your no to X2 modif to a yes? Sam Walton, would you?

Naturally for this to have any value, we'd have to agree to not vaccinate the whole list, but just the ones we reasonably expect to work on, or judge worthy of keeping. If desired, I can envisage a way to greatly speed up the first step (vaccination) for all of us. Personally, I won't mark any file translated from a language I don't know well enough to evaluate the translation. But, going through all 3500 files is a burden, since there's no point my even clicking on the ones in languages I don't know. If I knew in advance which ones are from Spanish, French, etc., that would be a huge help. If you look at 1300-1350, you'll see that I've marked them with a language code (and a byte count; but that was for something else). I could commit to marking another 200 or 300 with the lang code, maybe more. If we could break up the work that way and everybody just mark the files for lang code, then once that's done, we could all go through the whole list much more quickly, to see which ones we wanted to evaluate for vaccination.

I really think this could be wrapped up in a couple of weeks, if we get agreement. Mathglot (talk) 18:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

• Entirely happy with this idea.—S Marshall T/C 19:33, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
• Agree. Amisom (talk) 11:31, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
• This is fine with me. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:03, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Are there any objections to moving forward with this? Tazerdadog (talk) 01:48, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Almost two weeks of SILENCE sounds like "go for it". Primefac (talk) 02:28, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm still good with this as proposer, of course, but just to reiterate: we'd still need a two-week moratorium *after acceptance* of the proposal before nuking, to allow interested parties to vaccinate such articles as they chose to. I assumed that was clear, but that "go for it" got me a little scared, so thought I'd better raise it again.

On Tazerdadog's point, what is the procedure for deciding when to go forward with a proposal? Are we there now? Whatever the procedure is, and whenever we deem "acceptance" to happen, can someone close it at that point and box it up like I see on Rfcs, so we can then start the two-week, innoculation period timer ticking without having more opinions straggle in after it's already been decided? Or what's the right way to do this? Mathglot (talk) 07:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Request formal close, per Mathglot. Do I need to post on ANRFC?—S Marshall T/C 18:40, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

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

X2-nuke interim period

Wow, cool! Glad we made some progress, and just trying to nail down the next steps to keep things moving smoothly. To recap my understanding:

• we are now in the "inoculation period" with a fortnight-timer which expires 23:22, 6 May 2017 (UTC) an interim period where we figure out how to implement this.
• during this period, anyone may tag articles in the list at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review with the proper tag to prevent nuking two weeks hence

A couple of questions:

• do we have to recruit someone to write a script to do the actual nuking?
• what form should the actual "vaccination" tag have? In the proposal above, I just kind of threw out that expression: {{bots|deny=X2-nukebot}} but I have no idea how we really need to tag the articles, and maybe that's a question for the script writer?
• will the bot also observe strikeout type as an indicator not to nuke? A possible issue is inconsistent usage among editors: for example, some editors have not used strikeout for articles they have reviewed and clearly wish to save (e.g. see #1601-1622)

As for me, I will continue to tag a couple hundred more articles with language-tags as I did previously in the 1301-1600 range, to make it easier for everyone to find articles translated from languages they are comfortable working with, and that they therefore might wish to tag. Mathglot (talk) 02:28, 23 April 2017 (UTC) Updated by Mathglot (talk) 09:02, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Let's make two lists, one of articles to delete and the other of articles to retain for the moment. I don't think that it will be necessary to formally request a bot. We have quite a few sysops who could clean them all out with or without scripted assistance.—S Marshall T/C 15:55, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

  I would implement it as a giant sortable wikitable - Something that looks like this:

Name	Language	Vaccinated	Notes
Jimbo Wales	es	Tazerdadog (talk)	Translation checked
Earth	ar	--	Probably Notable
My mother's garage band	fr	--	X2'd, not notable

Tazerdadog (talk) 17:17, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Isn't the current list easier to deal with than creating a new table, or two new ones? Can we just go based on strikeout type, or add some unambiguous token like, nuke=yes in the content of the items in the enumerated list that need to be deleted? I'm just trying to think what would be the least work to set up, and easiest to mark for those interested in vaccinating articles.

If we decide to go with a table, I might be able to use a fancy regex to create a table from the current bullet list. Although I definitely see why a table is easier to view and interpret once it's set up, I'm not (yet) persuaded that there's an advantage to setting one up in the first place. For one thing, it's harder to edit a table than a bullet list, because of the risk of screwing up cells or rows. Mathglot (talk) 18:59, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The real advantage of the table is the ability to sort by language. This way, if we have a volunteer who speaks (for example) only English and Spanish, they can just sort the table by language, and all of the Spanish articles will be shown together. It's harder to edit, but in my opinion, the ease of viewing and extracting the information far outweighs this.

I have created a list that removes all struck items at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review/Tazerdadog cleanup list. I'm currently working on getting rid of the redlinks as well. Once that is done, we can move to a vaccination model on the articles that have not been cleaned up in the articles thus far. The vaccination can take virtually any form as long as everyone agrees on what it is - I'd recommend that we vaccinate at the central list/table rather than on the article however. Once the two weeks expire, it's trivial to extract the unvaccinated articles and poke a sysop for deletion. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: This was posted over at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review as well but wanted to mention it here. Timotheus Canens has created a language-sortable table in their sandbox at User:Timotheus Canens/sandbox that I think is similar to what you were thinking. Mz7 (talk) 04:06, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

And we may have to recreate the table, as I didn't notice it and have been continuing to mark language codes on the main list (and shall continue to do so, unless someone yells "Stop!"). Also, not sure how trivial it is: given a full set of instructions what to do, then, yes, it's trivial, but this is not formatted data (yet) and there are all sorts of questions a sysop might have, such as, what to do with ones marked "moved", or "redirected", and other situations I've come across while going through the list that don't spring to mind. We don't want to burden the sysop with an illy-defined task, so all of those situations should be spelled out before we ask them to take their time to do it, as if there are too many questions, they'll either give up, or they'll do whatever they feel like. Mathglot (talk) 06:20, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

@Timotheus Canens: Tazerdadog (talk) 05:55, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

And am still doing so on the main page, and so have at least six others since the message just above this one was written. Mathglot (talk) 11:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

X2 countdown and vaccinate indicators

Floating a proposal to get the clock started on the two weeks. Any user can write "Vaccinated" (or anything equivalent , as long as the meaning is understood) on the list on the same line as the Strike out any article they want to vaccinate. I can then go through and use regex to remove the vaccinated articles line-by-line from the delete list. I will then separate out the articles with no substantive commentary attached (anything beyond a language or a byte count is substantive) for an admin to delete or draftify. Any article which has been individually substantively discussed will be evaluated independently. If this is OK, we can start the clock. Tazerdadog (talk) 22:23, 6 May 2017 (UTC) Updated Tazerdadog (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

People are already using strikeout type as the "vaccinate" flag so no additional method is needed though I see nothing wrong with using both, if someone has already started with the the other method. Mathglot (talk) 22:51, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, I have been placing substantive commentary on plenty of articles, with the intention of facilitating the work of the group as a whole, in order to aid people in deciding whether that article is worth their time to look at and evaluate. In my case at least, substantive commentary does not indicate a desire to save, and if you intend to use it that way in the general case, then you need to suggest another indication I can use as a "poison pill" indicator to ensure it is nuked despite the substantive commentary. Mathglot (talk) 23:31, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Strikeout works even better than my idea, as it is easier to write the regex for. I was figuring that substantive commentary at least deserved to be read before we nuked them, although unless a comment was actively positive on the article I would have sorted it as a delete. If you want every article you commented on to be deleted, I can use your signature as the poison pill. Otherwise, use what you want, just make sure it is clear what it is. Ideally, place it at the start of a line, so I don't have to think when writing the regex. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: If you need a tester, feel free to shoot me a pattern; I'm a bit of a regex wonk myself, plus I have a nice test app for it. Can't use my sig as poison pill, cuz often my commentary is unsigned cuz I did them 20 or 50 at a time, with the edit summary carefully explaining what was done, but no sig on the individual line items. Beyond that, quite a few have commentary by multiple people, so even if I did comment (and even sign) others may have, too. The only clear way to do this, afaics, is to have an unequivocal keep (or nuke) indicator (or more than one is okay, if you want to OR them) but anything judg-y like "substantive commentary" seems risky to me. In the latter case, we should just get everyone to review all their edits they forgot to strike, and strike them now, or forever hold their peace. In my own case, no matter how positive my comment, or how long, if there's no strike on the article title, it's a "nuke". It occurs to me we should poll everyone and get positive buy-in from all concerned that they understand the indicator system, to make sure everyone knows "strike" equals "keep" and anything else is nuke (or whatever we decide). It won't do to have 2,000 articles nuked, and then the day after, "Oh, but I thought..." Know what I mean?Mathglot (talk) 06:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I think the solution is to draftify until everyone agrees that no mistakes have been made, then delete. I'm happy to do the grunt work of the manual checking of longer entries, and I don't think it is particularly risky to do so. However, the vast majority are short, and can and should be handed with a little regex script. We do need to make sure that the expectation of strikeout = delete instead of strikeout = resolved was clear to all parties. As for a deleteword, literally anything will do if it is unique and impossible to misinterpret. I would recommend "kill" as this deleteword, as it is clear what the meaning is, possible to write the regex for, and currently has only a couple of false hits in the page that can be worked around easily. Does this work for you?

The reasoning for checking longer entries is to try to catch entries like this:

|Battle_of_Urica -seems fine, at least not a translation issueElinruby (talk) 19:14, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Tazerdadog (talk) 08:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: If by "draftify" you mean quarantine, i.e., staging/moving all the to-be-deleted files someplace prior to the hard delete, I totally agree. (Whether that should actually be the current Draft namespace is debatable, but might be the right solution.) As far as regexes, I count 738 <s> tags, 732 </s> tags, 587 keepers, and 2785 nukers as of May 7 ver. 779254187. Mathglot (talk) 22:40, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Ok, sounds good. By draftify, i meant "Move out of mainspace to a different namespace where the content is accessible for translators, but unlikely to be stumbled upon accidentally by someone who thins they are reading an actual encyclopedia article." it also should be noted that when any of these pages are deleted, it should be a WP:SOFTDELETE, i.e. if someone asks for a small number to be restored after they have been deleted so that they can work on them they can just ask any admin to do so. I think that's all that needs to be resolved for now, so I'm going to go ahead and start the two week countdown until someone yells at me to stop. Pinging some participants: @S Marshall:@Elinruby:@Yngvadottir: Tazerdadog (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

For clarity, the process is: At the deadline, June 6, 2017 all struck articles listed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review will be retained, and all unstruck articles will be deleted. Articles with significant commentary attached will have the commentary read before the deletion, but the default is the struck/unstruck status unless the commentary indicates clearly the opposite result is better. The work "kill" may be added to unambiguously mark an article for deletion. On or after June 6th, the regex nerds will compile a list of articles to delete and retain. The delete list will be moved to draft space (or subpages of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review), where it will be audited briefly just to make sure nobody made a systematic error, then deleted. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Per #deadline it's June 6. Your clarifications on "draftify" and the process all sound good, otherwise.
P.S. Note that one article matches /kill/i but none matches /\bkill\b/i. Mathglot (talk) 23:28, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Fixed, I was unaware of that discussion, thank you. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:34, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot and Tazerdog: so for purposes of making life easier I will strike what I think should be struck. At one point people were checking my work so I was rather tentative initially. I am following the regex discussion but haven't used it in a while so save me the trouble of looking this up -- did you conclude that "kill" would be useful, or not? Elinruby (talk) 00:58, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

@Elinruby: If the title is strikeout type, it will be kept; if it isn't, it won't. Placing "Kill" on an article has no effect at nuke time, but it does have a beneficial effect now:, i.e., it saves time for others. It lets others know that you have looked at this one and found it wanting, so they should save their breath and not even bother looking at it. For example: You marked #18 Stevia_cultivation_in_Paraguay "really, really bad". That was enough for me not to bother looking at it, so you saved me time, there. If you want to place "kill" on the non-deserving items you pass by, that will help everybody else. I may do the same. But in the end, on Nuke day, the "kill" markings won't have any effect. Make sense? Mathglot (talk) 01:20, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: yeah it does, thanks. And indeed I seem to be the most inclusionist in the discussion so if I think it's more work than it's worth I doubt that anyone else in the discussion would disagree. Elinruby (talk) 01:31, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Re-pinging@Tazerdadog: on Elinruby's behalf for confirmation. Due to the ping typo above, he may not have seen this, and it's really his call, not mine. Mathglot (talk) 01:35, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Mathglot's interpretation above is basically correct. Please do not duplicate work you've already done just to add the kill flag, but please strike entities that could be ambiguous (I will manually evaluate your intention based on comments that you left, but the default is the struck/unstruck status unless you are clear in your comments otherwise). Please do use these flags from now on, or on any where your intention is unclear. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:15, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Tazerdadog I'm looking at formation of the strikeout tags enclosing the linked titles, and found 43 anomalies that might trip up the nuke pattern. I'll probably starting fixing these tomorrow. Mathglot (talk) 09:44, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

assumption for User space items

@Tazerdadog: I notice that various contributors are strikeout-tagging Userspace items: see #14, 15, 691, and 695 for example. I have not been tagging any of them, my assumption being that all User space items will be kept automatically regardless of presence/absence of strikeout title (and ignoring any "kill"), and since it's trivial to skip over them with the regex it's not necessary to tag them. If you agree, please make a note at WT:CXT/PTR, or let me know and I will, so everyone can save their breath marking these. Mathglot (talk) 01:25, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

That was my assumption as well, all entries outside of mainspace should be fine. Tazerdadog (talk) 01:39, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

rescuing clobbers by CXT

@Tazerdadog: I just rescued #2611 Garbacz. This was a good stub created in 2008, then clobbered in 2016 by ContentTranslation tool, leaving a rubbish translation deserving of deletion. I just rescued it by reverting it back to the last good version before the clobber, and struck it as a keeper.

I'm concerned that there may be an unknown number of formerly good articles of long standing in the list that we don't want to delete, simply because they got clobbered by CXT at some point and thus ended up in the list, and time ran out before anybody got a chance to look at them. If I can get a list of potential clobbers in the next week, I will check them all out. (Am betting it's less than a couple hundred, total; but maybe S Marshall would help out, if it turns out to be more than that.) Shouldn't be too hard to create such a list:

pseudocode to generate a list of possible CXT clobbers

# Print out names of Titles in CXT/PTR that may be clobbers of good, older articles. # (Doesn't handle the case where oldest version is CXT, followed by user edits to make it good, # followed by 2nd cxt later which clobbers the good version; but that's probably rare.) # For each item in WP:CXT/PTR list do: $line = text from next <ol> item in list If the bracketed article title near the beginning of $line is within s-tags, next loop Extract $title from the $line If $title is not in article space, next loop Read Rev History of $title into array @RevHist Get $oldest_es = edit summary string of oldest version (last index in @RevHist) If 'ContentTranslation' is a substring of $oldest_es, next loop Pop @RevHist: drop oldest summary from @RevHist so it now contains all versions except the oldest one If 'ContentTranslation' is a substring of @RevHist viewed as a single string, do: Print "$title possibly clobbered by CXT" End For

Are you able to create a list like this, or do you know someone who could? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:56, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Why not just ask the deleting administrators to check the translation is the first revision before they push the button?—S Marshall T/C 23:32, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

That would be a shitton of work for the deleting admin. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:57, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

3.6 metric shit tonnes, to be exact. ;-) And thanks for the ping, Taz. Mathglot (talk) 01:56, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: I think I've maybe got your query: I see from Samtar's query that you use MySQL. If that's the case, then to do this, I think you can take Samtar's query 11275 exactly as it is, with one more WHERE clause, to exclude the oldest revision:

AND WHERE rev.date > @MIN_REV_DATE

where @MIN_REV_DATE is either separately selected and assigned to a variable [as there would be one min value per title, it would have to either be an array variable or more likely a 2-col temp table with title and MIN date, which could be joined to rev.] Edited by Mathglot (talk) 18:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC), or probably more efficiently, a subquery getting the oldest rev date for that page using standard "minimum value of a column" techniques. So the result will be a subset of Samtar's original query, limited to cases where ct_tag was equal to 'ContentTranslation' somewhere other than in the oldest revision for that page. (By the way, I don't have access to your file structure, so I have no idea if 'rev.date' really exists, but what I mean by that, is the TIMESTAMP of that particular revision, whatever the field is really called. Also, again depending on the file structure, you might need to use techqniques for groupwise minimum of a column to get the min rev date for each page.) Mathglot (talk) 03:09, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Unfortunately, I've never used MySQL before. I was hoping I could muddle through with some luck and googling, but I had no such luck. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:53, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: And I could totally do it if I had the file structure but I don't; but my strong hunch is that this is very easy, and needs one additional "WHERE" plus another query (probably the groupwise MIN thing) to grab the min value to exclude in the new WHERE. OTOH, if you have access to Quarry, shoot me your query by email if you want, and I'll fix it up, and you can take that and try again, and with several back-and-forths I bet we can get it. Or if you've got zip, I can try a few establishing queries for you to try, and then we can try to build the real one depending on the results you get from those. (Or, we can just wait for someone else to do it, if they will; it really should only take minutes.) Mathglot (talk) 05:11, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog and S Marshall: I don't think this is getting enough attention, and your previous request appears to have stalled at V Pump. This is not good. We need to get this list. Is there someone you can lean on, or request help from, to kick-start this? Alternatively, if someone will give me access to Quarry, a MySQL account permitting SELECT and CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE (or even better, MEMORY table) and a pointer to the file structure descriptions, I can do this myself and create a list to protect these articles. Mathglot (talk) 06:32, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

*Bump* Mathglot (talk) 18:19, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Cryptic for db report 19060. We now have the list of clobbers, and can attend to it. Please see WP:CXT/PTR/Clobbers. Mathglot (talk) 05:18, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Needing more than one to close RfC discussion at WT:V

The discussion "Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Recent changes to policy about verifiability as a reason for inclusion" started in April. Then the discussion got larger and larger, making the discussion very complex. I discussed it with the proposer S Marshall, who says that several closers are needed. I welcome at least two volunteers. --George Ho (talk) 14:33, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho:--I am willing to serve as a closer.Winged Blades ^Godric 09:06, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Godric, and I welcome that. I also need another or more closers for teamwork closure. --George Ho (talk) 15:07, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, I created the subsection Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#How to best close this discussion? for team closers to discuss preparing the closure. --George Ho (talk) 02:51, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: I am willing to serve as a closer as well, but I will defer to almost anyone else who wants to do it. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:28, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Tazerdadog. I notified the participants about this. --George Ho (talk) 02:35, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Godric: Tazerdadog will team with you on the closure. George Ho (talk) 03:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

If necessary, time for one or two more. George Ho (talk) 07:41, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I read a word that Primefac will be the third teammate. That should suffice, though I welcome more teammates if necessary. --George Ho (talk) 04:11, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Appeal my TBan

Half a year ago, I was TBanned from all deletion related processes. I have been told that I could apply to have my TBan lifted after 6 months, which is today. Ever since I was TBanned, I have focused my attention in improving voice actor articles by citing reliable sources, as well as placing a new template in them which encourages contributors to source their information. If I do succeed in lifting my current restrictions, I would still continue to contribute to Wikipedia by improving/writing voice actor articles (which can be viewed on my userpage), more often than AFD procedures as I believe that I am more capable in the former. I believe that I have proven that I could contribute to other areas in the encyclopedia, which was a concern when it was believed that I am too obsessed with the deletion process. I hope the community and admins will consider my appeal, and I look forward to continuing working with you all. Sk8erPrince (talk) 04:12, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Why do you want the topic ban lifted? What has it prevented you from doing that would have benefited Wikipedia? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:16, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

So that I may contest PRODs on articles that I care about and participate in AFD discussions, which are both currently undoable due to my TBan. Even though my main area of focus has shifted, I would still like to redeem the privileges that I once had. Sk8erPrince (talk) 05:22, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

• How do you expect to move forward without running into the same problems of a battleground attitude, mass nominations and rudeness [2] that got you the ban in the first place? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 09:39, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

As mentioned above, since my primary focus is no longer AFDing (and will no longer be if this appeal is approved), mass nominations won't be a problem as I will be spending most of my time here citing reliable sources on voice actor articles than nominating articles for deletion. I have no intention of being rude in AFDs ever again; rather, I would approach those discussions in a calmer, civil manner, I promise. This is how I plan to move forward. Sk8erPrince (talk) 10:25, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to support this appeal, backed up with a reminder that any resumption of the previous behaviour will quickly result in the TBAN being replaced, perhaps alongside a block for abusive behaviour. But, that's not a threat. I'd expect the same to be applied to me; if I started mass-nominating, I'd expect to be sanctioned. What tips it into 'support', for me, is that this user has hundreds of edits since the TBAN was placed, and no blocks. There was a concern in early January that maybe the editor had violated the TBAN. Rather than become combative, the user discussed the situation. And that was early in the ban. I would encourage the user (encourage, but not require, and not request a response about) to consider what steps they will take if they find themselves heading down the wrong road again. In my experience, it helps to have a plan ahead of time to avoid getting in trouble again. --Yamla (talk) 11:42, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• I'm tending to support too, partly because the appeal has been presented in a credible way, partly because of Yamla's reasoning, partly because I really do believe in second chances (unless it's obviously a bad idea), and partly because Sk8erPrince will be aware that any repetition of the problems that led to the ban is likely to result in its reinstatement with very little chance of being lifted again. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:50, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• Supporting purely out of benefit of the doubt and believing everyone deserves a 2nd chance. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:08, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per improvements and acknowledging that next time, the ban will be indefinite and appeal time will be 1 year or longer. Capitals00 (talk) 17:14, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - AGF regarding OP's improved attitude. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

• Sorry, OP blew it with their comment below. Deletion may be a necessary thing, but it's not something to celebrate. I guess their attitude hasn't really changed much at all. Thanks to TheGracefulSlick for point it out. Oppose. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:32, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

:::If my attitude hasn't changed, I would have said that it wasn't Grace's business (that was actually what I said in the Tban discussion). Instead, I calmly explained my reasoning for keeping such a list. I fail to see how listing articles that I have managed to delete has anything to do with a battleground attitude or general rudeness, which were concerns when I was Tbanned. Keeping personal records doesn't mean I'm celebrating, nor does it mean that I am gloating that I am very good at the process. Sk8erPrince (talk) 08:08, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm not entirely sure if I'm just making a big deal out of it but did anyone else notice Sk8er still has all the articles he has deleted listed on his userpage -- almost like they were points or victories? I think it is right to ask: Sk8erPrince why do you find it is neccessary to keep such a list of "successful" AfDs and CSDs? I'm willing to support you as long as you have the right attitude toward the deleting processes.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 02:14, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

I'll have a second go at answering that question. It's not necessary to keep that deletion list as long as there's viewable records of my AFD stats. I have removed it, so it no longer poses as a potential issue. Sk8erPrince (talk) 04:33, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

::The same could be asked for listing articles that I have tremendously improved, really. As long as it's a significant achievement, I'll list it in my userpage. Sk8erPrince (talk) 02:19, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Question: Would you please explain how these deleted articles are "a significant achievement", equal to that of articles you've "tremendously improved"? BlackcurrantTea (talk) 07:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

::::They're not equal achievements. They're entirely different processes; also, at present day, I think article expansion is more contributive (at least, I have been able to contribute more effectively in that area). However, the AFD process was what I had been doing before I started getting actively involved in article contribution. Since AFD was the only way for me to contribute (that's what I thought, at least), those were the only achievements I've made, and they were significant in my POV. It is simply a personal record, nothing more (so I don't forget what I did manage to achieve). Sk8erPrince (talk) 08:08, 17 June 2017 (UTC) *Clarification: I just found out that the TBan discussion had listed keeping my personal list of successful deletions as an issue when combined with other more immediate issues such as rudeness, combative, refusal to integrate into the community and having a battleground mentality (it should also be noted that the main concerns took up most of the OP's post and those that support placing a TBan on me, and that my personal list was only briefly mentioned in just a few sentences). I would like to take this opportunity, since Grace has pointed this out, to clarify the purpose of keeping a list. I don't deny that I was unpleasant back then, and that I was rather immature and inexperienced when dealing with AFD procedures (mass nominations without having conducted enough research is one of them). Despite that, I still managed to achieve something in the end, and keeping those AFDs as personal records helps me learn and move forward when looking back. It is part of the learning experience.Sk8erPrince (talk) 08:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• Guy, it's revealing of your mindset being unchanged, ESPECIALLY since you title it "Pages I've deleted myself [emphasis added]" --Calton | Talk 23:23, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Successful AFDs are "significant achievements"? If you had linked to the titles themselves -- perhaps as a watchlist against re-creation or as a guide for future re-creation if circumstances change -- I might have thought you had a point. But it's a list of links to the AFD pages, so serves no purpose other than that of a trophy list, like a fighter pilot painting his kills on his aircraft. --Calton | Talk 23:23, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
• Update: I just remembered that my personal AFD records could be viewed using the AFD stats tool, so I've removed the deletion list on my userpage. I don't want to give the wrong impression that I'm keeping victory lists. Sk8erPrince (talk) 01:48, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• So exactly the same attitude, just hiding it better? Not the winning rhetorical strategy you think it is.--Calton | Talk 08:14, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I have no opinion on the Tban but since I was aware of this discussion I was surprised to see Sk8erPrince add himself to the Active AfC reviewer list which I reverted [3] Keeping a list of AfD nominations is pretty silly. They are not trophies, just spam fighting. I can see, however, putting together a list to disprove accusations of making bad AfDs. I wish Sk8erPrince all the luck. Fighting spam attracts all kinds of unwanted attention. Legacypac (talk) 07:22, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. They are not trophies, so if keeping such a list attracts unwanted (negative) attention, I'd rather just delete it off of my userpage, which I did. I mean, there's other ways of viewing my AFD stats anyway, so it's not all that necessary to keep it.

"putting together a list to disprove accusations of making bad AfDs"

Thank you for understanding. That was actually another reason why I put together that list. Regardless, since the list has been removed, I think it would be for the best for all of us to not dwell on how it might be concerning. Sk8erPrince (talk) 09:05, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• Except that it's a list of the DISCUSSIONS, not the articles or topics, and he's labelled them "significant achievements": that's not "spamfighting" no matter how you parse it. --Calton | Talk 08:14, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

30 AfDs are not "significant achievements". I can do that many while bored in a board meeting. Get Twinkle, go to NPP feed, select Unreviewed Pages by New Editors and you can AfD all the junk you can stand to scan. Legacypac (talk) 08:47, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - Sorry Sk8er but that was not a response that would give me any confidence in seeing the Tban being lifted. With all the struck comments here, I feel you are just looking for a response that appeases editors instead of one that reflects upon your current mindset.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 14:03, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per Dennis Brown and Beyond My Ken. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 14:26, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• Just to be clear, I changed my !vote from "support" to "oppose". Given the discussion that's gone on since, I continue to think that change was the correct call. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

• I'm still willing to give them a chance. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:58, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

• "You're a better man than I am, Dennis Brown." - Rudyard Kipling. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

I doubt that. I'm just not afraid to be proven a fool. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:17, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support - per Dennis Brown.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 11:22, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support I think that we can give them another chance. SP has shown that they can work well with others, which was the point of the ban. --Adam in MO Talk 00:37, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
• Hopeful support I think it is time to extend the rope. But there should be an explicit understanding that there will be serious consequences if the behaviour for which the TBan was imposed is demonstrated again. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:00, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

User Roadcreature / Guido den Broeder

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

---

Some of you may remember User:Guido den Broeder. He was later renamed to User:Roadcreature. The userpage of the later says "Originally banned by the community on December 19, 2008. Unbanned by the Arbitration Committee on May 21, 2009. Re-banned by the Arbitration Committee on June 1, 2009." As late as November 2015h he was still socking here (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Roadcreature/Archive), confirmed both by checkuser and by editing behaviour (the user also was sockblocked at nlwiki, where the master account was also indef blocked a long time ago). One of thie discussions about the socks are Jolly Bard here, with the socks editing about Paraduin and Liberland. Note that at no point the socks have admitted being Guido den Broeder though.

I will not reiterate everything from 2008 or before, let me just point to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Guido den Broeder, a 2008 RfC about his extensive COI editing / self-promotion in mainspace, which only was closed without a formal summary because he was indef blocked anyway. Other evidence of the period can (by admins only) be seen at this page.

His original ban was based on an already extensive block log, including for making legal threats / taking legal action against other editors, edit warring, and conducting a rather disruoptive "social experiment" with enwiki. Arbcom tried an unblock with restrictions, which lasted from 21 May 2009 to 1 June 2009; 2 months later his email had to be disabled, 3 years later his talk page access, and another 3 years later we had the above socking.

Despite all this, ArbCom thought it wise to unblock him without consulting or even informing the community about this, on 23 April 2017.

Guido den Broeder has used his time since then to create an article about a non notable micro-nation Paraduin of which he is the founder and "prince", and which links to obviously primary sources but also to e.g. an article written by Guido den Broeder, and the main page of Wikisage, a partial wikipedia clone / substitute founded by Guido den Broeder, and supposedly the basic "economic" activity of Paraduin. Paraduin has supposedly also contributed to a movie with Kristina Pimenova, an 11-year old model sometimes described as "the most beautiful girl in the world" apparently, whose page has also been substantially edited by Den Broeder. One of the sources he added was again written by "Ogidius", i.e. himself. Another article he edited was Liberland, another micronation which claims the same bit of land Paraduin does (and which has received a lot of attention, contrary to Paraduin). There as well he added two sources by himself. Paraduin has already been submitted to prod, which Guido of course reverted, and most editors commenting at the page seem to agree that it is an utterly non notable topic. He is already edit warring to keep it in other lists and templates, see [4][5][6].

I don't know why Arbcom thought it wise to quietly unblock a long-term banned editor, who socked as recently as 2015 (and denied the socking, even though the evidence is extremely obvious); but since it turns out that his return is not to help Wikipedia, but to promote his own, well, let's call them "ideas" or "interests", I see no reason to let him continue editing, or to wait until all previous problems, not just the severe COI editing and the edit warring, reappear. There is no evidence that anything has changed since 2008 (or since 2015), so I suggest to simply reinstate the community ban. Fram (talk) 09:17, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

You write that he is currently banned since June 1, 2009 when a test run failed. So the previous ban was reinstated by ArbCom if I read the archives correctly. So what change are you actually requesting? Regards SoWhy 09:53, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

The text comes from User:Roadcreature. However, in April Arbcom silently unbanned User:Guido den Broeder. You can find the link in his block log (which ArbCom updated), not on his user page or talk page. So at the moment Guido den Broeder is no longer blocked or banned (though technically the community ban never was lifted I think, only the ArbCom ban was undone?). Fram (talk) 10:11, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Well it wasnt silent as such, he did lodge a formal request in public. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:28, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

And it is still on the talk page, see User talk:Guido den Broeder#Unbanned. Regards SoWhy 10:36, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Ah I see what happened. He logged it at requests, but it was closed less than 2 days later by a clerk (correctly) saying per WP:UNBAN it needs to be done via email. Which is probably why no one noticed it. (Since Arbcom bans are not subject to community involvement in lifting.) So not so much silent as 'working per the current written process'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:51, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

"Silent" as in not announced here, which is what usually happens when ArbCom unbans someone (an ArbCom announcement here and at their noticeboard, and a discussion if necessary at the talk page of the noticeboard). And that's not taking into account the fact that he was community banned in the first place of course. Fram (talk) 11:01, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Well unfortunately the unbanning process at the time for community imposed bans was... Arbcom. So cant do much about that. Banned by community, unbanned by Arbcom per the process at the time, rebanned by arbcom, unbanned by Arbcom per the current process. Granted from looking at this COI editing I'm with FPAS that he should probably be re-banned. (Pimenova has been on my watchlist since User:Lyrda was banned.) Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:07, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

In any case we shouldn't hold whether the unban was silent or not against Guido den Broeder, so I probably shouldn't have included that bit anyway. Fram (talk) 12:06, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

So is that whats behind the Kristina Pimenova stuff recently? If he is back to the same problems that got him banned in the first place, then thats probably the best option. (Original community ban here for reference.) Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:14, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Polling

• Support re-ban, this is pretty horrible COI editing, and if that's what he wants to be doing here, he should go. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:33, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support community ban, per FPaS. BTW, Paraduin is at AfD. [7]. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:59, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support ban Never should have been un-banned to begin with. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:16, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support re-ban. Been watching Kristina Pimenova for a while, and them being involved that article's COI-editing rings all sorts of alarm-bells. Lectonar (talk) 14:22, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support community ban - So that this can be over once for all again. Capitals00 (talk) 17:01, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support ban. Once again, Arbcom neglects transparency. If they had done their usual due diligence and posted a notification on WP:ACN, people may have been able to monitor this user and raise a red flag before this became an issue. Evidently we get notified of new clerk trainees, but not a long term community banned editor being unbanned. The user's conduct is clearly unacceptable for Wikipedia, whether in 2008 or 2017. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:04, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support re-ban - As you can see above, he still denies most of the socking, despite ArbCom/functionaries confirming that Guido den Broeder = Roadcreature = The Jolly Bard. This involved cross-wiki data (CUWiki). You can read my summary of the investigation. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:18, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support RE Lectonar and my previous comments above. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per above. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:30, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Please don't WP:bludgeon the polling. Since you insist on commenting on every vote, please do so here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:54, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

• (to Only in Death) At the time, some people misinterpreted an essay I wrote. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:27, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• (to Lectonar) I also uploaded the image, and my COI's are properly declared on my user page. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:12, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: Since there is no conflict, I suggest a normal evaluation of my edits after three months by User:Opabinia regalis. Guido den Broeder (talk) 14:39, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: For the record, I am not User:The Jolly Bard. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:09, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• (to Salvidrim) Well, you're a poor investigator, as really all you had to do to solve this was mail me. Regardless, he didn't create any problems either, and this was taken into consideration when the decision to unban me was made. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:32, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
• (to The Wordsmith) This shows exactly why you weren't notified, for what we have here is a lynch mob, while there is absolutely nothing to see. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:37, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: Again, for the record, I have never made a legal threat in my life. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: Nor do I editwar, despite being baited regularly including by several participants in this thread. I am always the one initiating discussion and trying to build consensus. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:50, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
•  Comment: In conclusion, I have yet to see a single diff of any wrongdoing on my part. The same was true in 2009. People just jumped on the bandwagon then, as you are doing now. Do I edit articles that I have a potential COI with? Yes. Is that a problem? No. It's normal. The difference is that I declare any COI, while other editors don't. Bottom line, the bulk of my edits stand, the articles are in much better shape than before and with far more consensus. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:02, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, this was decided on and closed quicker than any unban decision ArbCom ever made: high marks for efficiency. I could leave a note in response to Fram's comment on OR's talk page, but there's just too much righteous anger in that section, which I neither wish to endorse or counter. We decided to unblock Guido with some restrictions, yes--this is the thing ArbCom does. We all knew that Guido had a problematic past (and I knew this from the Dutch wiki too), yet we gave him a chance. I see comments in here that suggest the man is a nutcase, has always been a nutcase, and will always be a nutcase--I don't subscribe to such opinions, and I and others prefer to see the glass as half-full, and editors as being capable of improvement. If we had known he would go all Paraduin we wouldn't have unbanned him; that he did doesn't mean he shouldn't have been unbanned, it just means that he should have better used the opportunity, because now the likelihood of his ever returning to Wikipedia (legally) is pretty much zero. I'm not signing for the committee here, but as one who proposed unbanning him, and one who hoped at the time he would use the opportunity wisely. Drmies (talk) 20:28, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Was there any reason the unban wasn't announced on the Arbcom noticeboard? kcowolf (talk) 06:35, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

It's nice that you see editors as "being capable of improvement", but unbanning without any evidence of such improvement is foolish. I don't think anyone commented anything like "has always been a nutcase". However, he has been behaving more and more like one, from demanding that his wiki-history be removed from Google search results (as reported in the press in 2014) to his whole Paraduin fiasco (which ArbCom could have predicted if they had paid some attention to the edits by his socks). Instead of hoping for an improved editor, any decent check of his history since the original bans would have indicated an editor which we should be happy to have already ditched in 2008 and not later, as things only got worse, not better. Why anyone at ArbCom thought he could ever be a net positive here is beyond me, and why you of all people proposed the unban is staggering, as you could easily understand his history at nlwiki, or find and read his Paraduin pages. Fram (talk) 08:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

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

WP:ITNC

Currently five items ready to be posted at ITN. It's now becoming less "In The News" and more "Was In The News". The Rambling Man (talk) 19:33, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Is this thing on? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, I'm interested in helping build an encyclopedia and I don't see ITN as part of that goal --S Philbrick(Talk) 00:21, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

How helpful. Thanks for your response. Anyone else? The Rambling Man (talk) 07:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

If nobody has actioned this by the time I get home (in about ~7 hours), I'll take a look. Is there any documentation over what needs to be done? Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 01:26, 21 June 2017 (UTC).

Lankiveil, thanks for offering, but I think that the situation is under control (at the time of writing, at least!) Wikipedia:In the news/Administrator instructions is what you might be looking for. Bencherlite^Talk 08:59, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, glad someone was able to come to the rescue! Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:44, 21 June 2017 (UTC).

Thank you Lankiveil and Bencherlite for your interest and support. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:04, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

This is still problematic, particularly over the weekend... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:49, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Is this banner a violation of WP:CIVIL

Just a quick question:

• Please see the following banner from User:SkepticalRaptor's userpage:

Rules for this Talk Page DO NOT LEAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY ARTICLE OR ANY EDIT THAT I HAVE MADE. I watch all articles that I edit (and some that I haven't). If you have an issue, be mature and post it to the article's talk page, where all editors might participate. Violate this rule, and I just delete your complaints, rants, or even polite suggestions with no comment whatsoever. Deal with it. Do not come to this page to say hi, because no one is a friend of mine here–any attempt in being friendly is fairly annoying. If I want to drop by and be friendly, I have Twitter and Facebook that are part of my skeptical and personal life. I don't know any of you here, and I probably wouldn't want to know any of you. Nothing personal, but Wikipedia is not a social website (I believe that's a rule). Do not come here to criticize anything I've done, because I'm uninterested in anything but editing. Do not drop barnstars, pictures, or anything on this page, because those are just lame. Don't warn me about anything, because other than editing, I don't engage in any other discussions. Unless you're an official admin. Then I might listen, as long as I respect you. If you're a 15 year old, you don't deserve or warrant any respect whatsoever, even if you're an admin. Besides, any 15 year old wasting time as an admin, ought to go get exercise before you turn into a fat, diabetic, atherosclerotic 20 year old. Moreover, what can a snot nosed 15 year old teach me? How to play video games? Unless you're a Stephen Hawking prodigy, once again, go get some exercise. In other words, get off your lazy ass and leave Wikipedia to educated adults. Who am I kidding? Kids could care less what this old fart says. If you don't like my edits, revert them with a valid explanation, I'll probably fine tune it or move on. I have no emotional concern about any article, but if you do, I will enjoy making you appear to be the biggest ass and fool on Wikipedia. I've already done that recently. In conclusion, just stay away from my page, because I just am uninterested in engaging in conversation with anyone. Again, unless you're a mature, respectful admin. From my observation, that's about 10 of you.

Is this a violation of WP:CIVILITY and indicating WP:NOTHERE?

Thanks, Carl Fredrik ^talk 07:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Point 5 is certainly problematic. But why are you edit warring on Chronic Lyme disease? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:00, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

The argument put forth against inclusion of the term (a synonym) is that "it is not in common use" — but frankly that is irrelevant. I came to discuss the issue and found this banner – which at the very least dissuaded me from discussing the issue as I would have otherwise. If the issue persists I will go through ordinary channels to solve it, and I'm not really ready to call this minor dispute an edit-war. This post was not meant to be a way to WP:GAME in order to win that dispute. You are however correct that I should have been forthcoming that this was how I came across the banner — but I thought it would be clear to anyone who visited the talk-page, because of my post there.

To me, the reason why I saw the banner as problematic — and also why I did not want to post on the article talk page: the issue isn't about the article at all. It's about adhering to WP:MEDMOS — and discussion on user-talk-pages is often more amenable to such information that does not need to be discussed with all editors of an article. This is what I found to be WP:UNCIVIL, and if everyone behaved in this manner it would be very disruptive to the general editing process, because we could never gently inform editors of policy or guidelines. To ask for a unique process, where others must be involved even in issues where there is nothing but lack of knowledge of specific policies or guidelines — is disruptive and indicates WP:NOTHERE. Carl Fredrik ^talk 08:15, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

You are edit warring and the fact that you stopped at 3RR and did not exceed it, only mitigates slightly. I will have a word with SkepticalRaptor (as you could have done before coming here) and ask him/her to tone down that message and consider removing point 5 entirely. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:19, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Partially struck above as you only made two reverts. But the second revert was not a good idea. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:26, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit-wars are problematic, but this was very far from being one — and when some editors ardently defend their position, despite lack of policy or any other rationale to back their action — we can not simply concede. This is very often the case in medicine, where tempers run high, and there are many who know nothing of the field and just think they're right. Carl Fredrik ^talk 10:44, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Point 5 is just ignorable. Since many processes (that dont involve admins) require posting to their talkpage. Otherwise, since that banner clearly indicates they are not a nice person, why would you want to talk to them unless you are required to by process? If it bothers you, nominate it at MFD for being functionally incompatible with wikipedia's collaborative process. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:32, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

  We would not delete a user talk page so I am not sure I understand the purpose of MFD in this case. The best approach is to discuss with the user in question, followed by a discussion here if necessary. Both of these have now happened (though in the wrong order) so suggest waiting for response from SkepticalRaptor. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• MfD can also be used to delete part of a user talk page, so if someone objects to this sufficiently, nominating it at MfD is an option. Personally, I'd just ignore the entire box, as it's clearly not enforceable, and the editor is obviously an asshole. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• Ah, the top says 'userpage' rather than talk page. So yeah, MFDs probably not the best option. But generally if a user has on their talkpage a 'dont talk to me' notice, it gets ignored as unenforceable. If it makes them feel happy... The real problem with notices like that is that it may deter newer editors who dont know that it is complete rubbish. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:52, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Just ignore if it bothers you. You aren't going to change what they think or how they maintain their talk page. Does it really matter that they epressed a general opinion without any corresponding action? --DHeyward (talk) 09:02, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• I think that the box serves a very useful purpose in that it serves to illustrate that this is not a person worth interacting with if you can help it. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 09:42, 21 June 2017 (UTC).
• his ethnicity on his user page is more of a problem. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 12:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

So, they're definitely not Jewish and using the terms ironically? ;) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I have no idea.Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. No one does. Because no-one's asked. We have an article that might be relevant here: Reappropriation. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:33, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

For my money (which is not much!), I think anonymity is a wonderful thing and support it very much. But I also think it means you don't get to use the identity defense in situations like this, especially where the language is inflammatory. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 13:49, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Suggest immediate removal of point 5 per WP:NPA - clearly an attack on younger users. As for the others, well, they are still aggressive in tone, so they too should be deleted. A particular editor - naming no names - was recently criticised for saying "don't bother coming here if you want to throw a wobbler" on their talk page - this is much worse than that, so I am surprised at the laissez-faire attitude of a lot of people here. Patient Zero^talk 13:06, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• I find the whole thing abrasive, but I can't call it a personal attack because it isn't singling anyone out, so it isn't "personal". I suggest ignoring it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:09, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• "In conclusion, just stay away from my page, because I just am uninterested in engaging in conversation with anyone" Maybe I'm naive, or reading this wrong, but isn't this a violation WP:NOTHERE with Little or no interest in working collaboratively or Major or irreconcilable conflict of attitude or intention, Point #5 especially?
• (edit conflict) I do respect your opinion, Dennis - sometimes it is easier to simply ignore such comments, but quite frankly it is a grossly inappropriate statement - and as Sir Joseph said, questions need to be raised about the attack on Jewish individuals within his user page. I do think both of these need removing by an administrator, as, like I said previously, comments that were nowhere near as bad as this, made by other users, have had to be removed before. A warning on incivility is also in order. Patient Zero^talk 13:16, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Counteracted, however, by their perhaps somewhat emphatic insistence on taking discussions to article talk pages, which is very much what we advise. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:22, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• • I don't like it either, but I don't like lots of things here. He does say to leave discussions on the article talk page, which is the better way so everyone can participate, and frankly, you can ignore his banner and leave any template you want if it applies. His banner isn't enforceable. I'm not against trying to coax him into modifying 5, I'm just not comfortable sanctioning or forcing a change over it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:21, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• Notwthstanding the merits or otherwise of this banner, I do wish people would stop applying to NOTHERE their own idiosyncratic interpretation of what it actually says. It does not say 'An editor who says things I don't like' and does not apply here. This (~five years' tenure, >3.5K edits, no blocks) says they are very much WP:NOTNOTHERE. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:17, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Refusing to cooperate is very much [[WP:NOTHERE], see criteria: Little or no interest in working collaboratively. Carl Fredrik ^talk 10:44, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• I don't see this banner on his talk page currently, but as another edited above noted, he does have his ethnicity listed on his User page as kike and lox-eating big nose amongst other things, this should likely be actionable as unambiguous racial slurs deserve very little leniency. Seraphim System ^(talk) 13:21, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm guessing this is done as parody, given he also lists it as "Member of the Worldwide Conspiracy" and others. I'm more inclined to agree that this is a problem than the talk page header. I will go edit this myself. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

@Dennis Brown: Please see Reappropriation :) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:34, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Totally aware of that and understand, but this isn't really a Free Speech area. If someone self-identified as a nigger on their user page, people would be up in arms over it, and that is a very classic example of re-appropriation. There is a time and place for everything, but my opinion is that the consensus of editors do not believe Wikipedia is that place. Also, we can't verify that someone really is Jewish, or using that as a mask to put hateful words on a page. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Ha, at least he's honest about being obnoxious. GoodDay (talk) 13:29, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• MSGJ(Martin) has left a reasonable request on his page. I think that is probably all we need to get the process started. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:32, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• My thoughts can be succintly summarised as: there are better things to waste peoples' time with. Mr rnddude (talk) 13:55, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• Point #5 is definitely a violation of WP:CIVIL, and the whole thing seems jerkish. caknuck _° needs to be running more often 15:50, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• 15-year-olds are too stupid and don't know anything, eh? Well, then I guess the ones who are running websites using their own money are just getting lucky because they don't know anything. Please. I've seen 10-year-olds more mature doing adult-type stuff like coding websites and the like. May not be using their own money at that age, but that's beside the point. Amaury (talk | contribs) 15:58, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that 15 year olds are too stupid, but there are some things you get better at as you get older, like writing and how to evaluate and use secondary sources. You will get better at something after studying it for 15 years. Coding a website is not really comparable—it would take further years to begin to develop critical analysis—this is where maturity is an asset. We do need this as editors when using sources, because usually standards here are very high. We have to be able to distinguish between what is OR and evaluate what is due weight, and that can be challenging even for professions academics and PhDs. But there is no need to call other editors stupid, just because you are an adult does not necessarily mean you are better at these things. Some teenagers are very talented, and we don't pass these kinds of judgments on editors because of age, education, professional background—only quality of their edits, so I think it does cross the line. The best thing would be for the editor to follow community advice and moderate the tone of his comments. Seraphim System ^(talk) 16:21, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

That was basically my point. And just to be on the safe side, I should clarify that the first part of my comment was sarcasm. I can see, though, how it could be taken as me calling them stupid if read just the right way. I wasn't, though I'm not saying you were implying that, either. Amaury (talk | contribs) 16:39, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

• Eh. It pushes the envelope a bit, but in the end there is a line separating merely obnoxious from NPA. I don't think this crosses that line. Further I agree with some of the above comments that this serves a useful purpose in that it is like a giant flashing neon warning sign alerting anyone who might have stumbled onto the page that it is the home of a someone that pretty much any normal person is not going to want to interact with if avoidable. Beyond that, while it's not a guideline and therefor not actionable. I would point the user to WP:DICK. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Given the absurdly untrue personal attacks often made at ANi that are ignored or celebrated there is nothing actionable on that banner. Parts of it are even a good idea. I agree with him about 15 year olds. I remember being 15 a long time ago - it took me months beyond 15 to finish high school and start selling real estate. Legacypac (talk) 16:47, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I really don't think lecturing 15 year olds about their life style decisions and personal comments about weight/exercise are appropriate. Wikipedia is not an appropriate place for that, and I do think it crosses the line between the normal obnoxious comments that editors make to one another in the course of content disputes and ANI discussions, to something that is offensive and without any redeeming value. Seraphim System ^(talk) 17:03, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

There are also comments like this [8] [9] [10] [11] -basically calling others editors comments nts and edits "bullshit" regularly is not ok. This seems like a case of a competent editor who seems to believe he is within his rights to put down other editors. I know how frustrating editing can be, I have been frustrated many times myself, but there are certain standards of civility that all editors are expected to maintain. Seraphim System ^(talk) 17:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

There is absolutely no way I would sanction or even warn someone for those three year old diffs. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:48, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Are they that old? I didnt notice, thought it was within the last 1500 edits at most. I think have over 5,000 edits and I havent even been here a full year...seems peculiar.Seraphim System ^(talk) 17:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Even if they happened today, I wouldn't warn. We aren't school marms, we don't paddle people for saying "bullshit". It might be gruff, rough, crass, or however you want to phrase it, but we generally don't sanction for anything less than a flat out personal attack. Even then, we don't automatically sanction unless it is a pattern. People are people, they are blunt sometimes, they pop off sometimes. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:59, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

I didnt say anything about sanctioning him, but he should tone it down. The fact that you think something is bullshit or ridiculous does not mean you should say that, this is part of our WP:CIVIL policy and the fact that we often pretend violations of that are "generally ok" for seemingly arbitrary reasons usually ends with disputes escalating to a point where sanctions do become necessary. Sure, everyone should let it go, but the editors on the other end become frustrated too, and sometimes they are the ones who are sanctioned in the end, and we know that can be 1) bad for editor retention and 2)counterproductive. Seraphim System ^(talk) 18:20, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Even if item 5 were civil (it's not--we've had discussions about aspersions on groups of persons), there is also WP:SOAPBOX, and I might make the claim that he is soapboxing from a very tall soapbox in the item. --Izno (talk) 18:42, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Which subsection of WP:SOAPBOX are you referring to? He isn't promoting an idea, which is what that policy is about. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:58, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Out of the bulleted items, I would suggest #2. However, both the first sentence of that section (Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground [...]. This applies to [...] talk page discussions, [...] and user pages. as well as the final closing statement of the section (Non-disruptive statements of opinion on internal Wikipedia policies and guidelines may be made on user pages [...], as they are relevant to the current and future operation of the project. However, article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject (see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines).) indicate some intent that the template's bullet #5 is off the mark. My 2 cents. --Izno (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

He's not using his talk/user page as a platform for pushing a belief. He's saying "leave me the hell alone". Soapbox just doesn't apply here. Maybe civil does a little, but not soapbox. Maybe some other, but I've yet to see the policy it clearly violates. It isn't polemic either. Really, I still feel we just need to leave it alone. I did change his user page which did have some offending material, but this doesn't qualify for admin action. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• This is much ado about nothing. We don't need to police user talk page banners so strictly. As noted multiple times already, this banner serves to inform any visitor to the page that the editor in question is not worth their time and trouble. The condescending user page is similarly useful. We've already given this contemptuous, contemptible individual enough attention. Lepricavark (talk) 22:17, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• This has been a sore point since 2012 [12]. While I sympathise with the feelings, the tone does not support a collaborative environment. The same things could have been said without annoying other volunteers. And it is a given that we do expect people to be responsive to their talk pages, if not actually on their talk pages, regardless of how misanthropic they are, or wish to appear. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:59, 22 June 2017 (UTC).
  
• I would note that I DID change his user page over a day ago without a problem.[13] Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• The whole thing doesn't benefit a collaborative environment, but only point 5 is a serious issue. It should be removed or significantly refactored. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 10:53, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• I am with Rich Farmbrough on this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:59, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• I'm with Dennis here. Frankly, in the vernacular, this is a bloody storm in a teacup. Get over it. There are plenty of obnoxious little shits on WP. Choose American politics or the Balkans, and many other places too. Ignore them and don't feed the drama. When they ignore community norms in their editing behaviour (not their user pages), THEN we censure them. Sure, user pages aren't a blog, but if they show this level of disdain for others' views on their user page, surely they create enough drama elsewhere to block them for being WP:NOTHERE? I'm happy to do it, but show me the editing behaviour that violates our norms... Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:22, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Note: This user did not respond yet to my request at User talk:SkepticalRaptor#Your green box so I have removed the part of the message which many people believe violates the Wikipedia:Civility policy. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:05, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Closers needed for a very sensitive RfC.

In about a week the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy will close, and I would like to have at least two (three would be better) experienced administrators write up the closing comments and close the RfC.

This has a strong potential of becoming as controversial as superprotect was, so any closing admins need to be willing to take some heat.

So, any volunteers? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

(1) The consensus appears to be rather overwhelmingly in favor of the silent option. Why do you expect that this will be highly controversial? (2) The problem with superprotect was that it was imposed without community discussion, which obviously won't be the case if we send WMF a request and they fulfill it. Why do you say that it may well be just as controversial? (3) Therefore, did you accidentally link the wrong section? Nyttend (talk) 05:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I already requested a closure at WP:ANRFC, Nyttend. I think Guy Macon is requesting team closure because GLAM has been dependent on Wikipedia and the statistics coming from "en.wikipedia.org" itself. Also, the volunteers tried to convince those favoring "silent referrer" to reconsider, but the voters aren't well convinced. --George Ho (talk) 05:47, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

If we send WMF a request and they fulfill it, all will be well, but there is a distinct possibility that we will send the WMF a request and they will refuse to fulfill it.

I expect that this will be highly controversial because:

1. There is a high high probability that GLAM, having failed to get a consensus for sending referrer information, will attempt to persuade the WMF to ignore the consensus of the community.
2. The WMF imposed this on Wikipedia without consulting the community, and there is a high probability that now that I have consulted with the community, the WMF will take the position that they know what we need better than we do.
3. If we send the WMF a request and they refuse to fulfill it, this will almost certainly cause a storm of controversy centering on whether the Wikipedia community or the WMF is in charge of the content of Wikipedia, with side arguments about whether referrer information is content.

Perhaps this will go smoothly and none of the above problems will happen, in which case we will have wasted some time an effort. But if the above problems do happen, I want to avoid any accusations that the closing admin got it wrong. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:00, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Nyttend that there is a clear consensus evident in the RfC. If the WMF were to decline to respect our wishes, they would probably justify it by claiming that the participants in the RfC are not representative of the community as a whole. If that happened, it's possible we could override the WMF with a local technical solution, but then the WMF could override that as well.- MrX 14:44, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

As I said, I hope that this does not happen, but if it does it would make things a lot clearer if there were three expereienced administrators who agree on what the consensus is. I would also like to see three admins saying something along the lines either "Question X violates policy Y" or "Question X does not appear to violate any policy", just to handle the inevitable claims that the consensus should be discarded as being against policy.

As for us overriding the WMF with a local technical solution and then the WMF overriding that, that is exactly what happened with superprotect. I think that we all agree that we don't want to get into a fight like that again.

I hesitate to even bring this up, and I am assuming good faith and assuming that it isn't true, but the fact remains that several high-ranking members of the WMF have close ties to large silicon valley interests such as Google.[14][15] and may be tempted to -- consciously or unconsciously -- put the needs of facebook, google, etc. above the needs of the Wikipedia readers.

So, do we have any volunteers, or should I drop it? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:56, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

No, no, Guy Macon, don't drop it. Well, I requested teamwork closure because the proposer was unsure about how to request a closure and a few editors disagreed on whether a teamwork closure. Also, I did request a teamwork closure on another discussion, but just one volunteer stepped in and performed the closure. In other words, you can request a teamwork closure all you want, but I expect one or more can do the job. Regards, George Ho (talk) 16:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@Guy Macon:---Well, I'm willing to volunter.Winged Blades ^Godric 17:01, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Did I mention that anyone who volunteers to close this RfC will get twice the pay that Wikipedia administrators usually receive? Such a deal! --Guy Macon (talk) 17:06, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• If you need a closer, I'll volunteer.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:02, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

fwiw, if this is really anticipated to be extra sensitive, perhaps run it for an additional month? There is no deadline and the extra consideration will give it extra credibility, perhaps? Jytdog (talk) 18:42, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

That sounds like a great idea. Could someone uninvolved please do this? I don't want to because I am involved, and I don't want there to be any hint of me trying to bias the end result. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:19, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@Guy Macon, Jytdog, and Cyberpower678::--Well, I believe the RFC had enough people dwelling on it.(And may be more folks will give their valuable input in the next 7 days!)Thus, I would advice against a relist. Furthermore, if Jytdog is suggesting a relist to satisfy WMF that we got a consensus--I dare say, that hardly affects the prospects!Winged Blades ^Godric 03:42, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I am fine either way -- relisting or not relisting. Whatever the consensus here is, I support it. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:46, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I'll relist it when the expiration is nearing, Guy Macon. --George Ho (talk) 15:33, 23 June 2017 (UTC); see below, 17:54, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

On second thought, that depends in light of newer questions/proposals and votes. I counted carefully: I saw seven people favoring other options without counting more votes by similar people, while more than 40 favored "silent referrer" option. But I might relist if others implicitly opposing "silent referrer" if they continue to persist and more votes on any option other than "silent referrer" are produced. --George Ho (talk) 17:54, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho:--I certainly don't have any problem in that case.But please notify me before relisting.Thanks!Winged Blades ^Godric 02:45, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

• Honestly there is zero need for more than one editor to close this, let alone multiple admins. The consensus is clear *by any interpretation* of consensus you would like to use. That something is potentially 'sensitive' or may result in further problematic actions should not be a consideration of closing, otherwise you risk impairing your judgement. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:02, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Curious: how was the joint closure of NSPORTS "inclusivity" discussion at WP:VPP, Only in death? One person said the joint closure was unnecessary; other person said it might be needed. Do you think I should have requested such a joint closure on NSPORTS talk at WP:VPP? --George Ho (talk) 15:33, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Re: "further problematic actions", it is a rare RfC that by itself has zero effect on Wikipedia content or policy, cannot possibly result in anyone on Wikipedia either abiding by or refusing to abide by the result, but is instead a first step towards a discussion at another venue that we do not control. Given the fact that so many of those who oppose Wikipedia becoming a silent referrer work for the Wikimedia Foundation, I think that it would be wise to anticipate some of the possible problems ahead and prevent them with a well-thought out joint closing. To this end, I would like to see:

• Three admins certifying what the consensus is, to prevent claims that it was something else.
• Three admins certifying that they see no violation of any Wikipedia policy, to prevent claims that the outcome of the RfC should be thrown out as violating policy.
• Three admins adding a thoughtful joint statement regarding whether Wikipedia or the WMF controls Wikipedia content.

In my opinion, this will prevent a lot of conflict later on. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:15, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Like I said I offered to close, but I think I will wait until this thread is resolved.—CYBERPOWER (Message) 23:03, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

•  Note: Because the discussion had gotten so lengthy, I went ahead and moved it to a subpage of the village pump, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy, so that the village pump is more accessible. I apologize if any confusion resulted from this. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 04:01, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to topic ban Magioladitis from COSMETICBOT-related discussions

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

---

As a follow up to the ARBCOM case, the Bot Approvals Group (BAG), the bot operating community, and the larger Wikipedia community have made substantial efforts and progress on clarifying our bot policy, particularly clarifying WP:COSMETICBOT (see RFC) and how to deal with issues should they arise (WP:BOTISSUE).

In the wake of the ARBCOM case, Magioladitis (talk · contribs) has consistently and constantly tried to revisit, question, and weaken the current WP:COSMETICBOT policy, both at the village pump and on the policy pages, by making completely unsupported proposals, attempts to unilaterally change the substance of WP:COSMETICBOT, assertions without evidence that COSMETICBOT is problematic and that it doesn't have support/consensus, concerns that it harms theoretical bots that don't exist, assertions that many people want to change the policy, inventions of terminology such as "low volume edits" as an attempt to get around COSMETICBOT, and so on. The bot policy talk pages are being dominated by Magioladitis' constant tendentious editing and refusal to drop the stick.

Past threads include

• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 26#Defining cosmetic changes
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 26#RfC to add general fixes to existing bots
• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 137#Should bots perform secondary "cosmetic" tasks while making a primary task?

Right now, there are

• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Proposal for new requirement for AWB bots
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Should bots perform multiple edits in a page?
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Obvious mistake
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Replace cosmetic with a less misleading name (this subsection, particularly)

He was told to drop it several times, to no avail, and plans on creating further RFCs on the issue. Dealing with this is extremely taxing on BAG's limited ressources and the community's general patience. Some BAG members have stopped dealing with BAG duties entirely because of the negative atmosphere. I can't say I know for a fact that the community's patience has been exhausted with Magioladitis, but I do know for a fact that BAG's patience has been exhausted. I've checked with several (although not all) members of BAG on their support for the below wording, and the response has been unanimously in support of a topic ban. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:54, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Topic ban's scope

Magioladitis is topic banned from initiating or participating in discussions concerning the amendment, removal, or replacement of WP:COSMETICBOT, or the in discussions concerning the impact of WP:COSMETICBOT on other bot operators (such as whether or not bot operators are allowed, or should be required, to perform WP:GENFIXES with their own bots, or theoretical bots which may be developped in the future). As an exception to this ban, he may make a single !vote with a short (<300 words) rationale if the discussion calls for !voting, and give single short replies (<300 words) to other editors when directly asked a question (1 reply per direct question).

Magioladitis may, in good faith, seek specific clarifications on how to interpret COSMETICBOT for his own bots and projects he is involved with (such as WP:CHECKWIKI), but may only do so on his bots' talk page, at the relevant project's talk page (such as WT:CHECKWIKI or an appropriate subpage), or at WP:BOTN. In other words, asking questions like "When is CW Error #02 considered a cosmetic edit?" or "Should CW Error #02's priority be lowered to 'Medium' or 'Low' important?" is fine, asking/arguing "WP:COSMETICBOT hampers our ability to do WP:CHECKWIKI fixes, how can we ammend/fix/ignore WP:COSMETICBOT?" is not.

Discussion

Headbomb keeps changing the COSMETICBOT with or without dicussion. E.g. [16]. Moreover, the discussion about renaming the section did not start from me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:01, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I believe Headbomb meant to link to the sub-section, Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Maybe try a different approach?. Could you take a look, Headbomb? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

The links are a mixture of questions I asked before the ArbCom and bot policy dicussion. The Village pump was in fact a heads up for the bot policy. Not my fault that people keep commenting everywhere. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:07, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Just for everyone's reference, this is the change to COSMETICBOT that now appears to be central to the dispute there, with the discussion that led to that here. --MASEM (t) 13:55, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Just FYI, I saw on the Arb email list that someone mentioned this discussion, but it seems to me, and I think that was the tenor of that comment as well, that this is indeed a matter for the community (as is pointed out below) and I don't see any interest among the Arbs to get involved with this. Good luck y'all. Drmies (talk) 23:13, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Support

• Support as proposer. Also minor revisions to grammar and sentence flow is quite different from changing the substance of the policy. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• The June discussion is a continuation of the February discussion based on the fact that the dicussion did ot conclude. Moreover, I have stated that this discussion is merely to gather opinions than have a conrete proposal. The reason is that I am on favor of any solution but not with the statu quo in my opinion create dn inbalance. That you don't lik the discussion tht doe not mean the dicussion should not be done. When having bots that perform certain edits and have a policy against them is nonsense. Trying to make it as it is only a personal problem of me you don;t realise that you do not make a safe enviromnt for others to participate. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• I have probably been the BAG member that made the most effort to accommodate you, I tried to see your actions as done under WP:GOODFAITH, I always clarified your confusion with existing policy (although you never listened), I went out of my way to suggest you productive ways of putting your expertise to you (e.g. here), I've gone out of my way to clarify which of WP:CHECKWIKI fixes were high/medium/low priority, and which were cosmetic or not, for the direct purpose of helping YOU navigate this issue. The fact that I'm the one proposing to topic ban you say a lot of just how you've exhausted our collective patience. You were told to stop beating a WP:DEADHORSE, but it seems you just can't help yourself. The policy has wide support, and everyone but you seems to get it. If you feel this is an 'unsafe' environment for you to work in, consider the fact that I'm the one that extended the biggest olive branch out there, successfully argued to ARBCOM not to go for the nuclear option, tried to work with you, created a bunch of phabricator tickets to help you develop AWB in compliance with community expectations (both on your own, and to help you organize hackatons). This isn't about providing you a safe environment to work in. The only evidence you have against this being an 'unsafe' environment is that people were/are fed up with you incessant revisiting of issues long settled, no one harasses you, no one threatens you, no one is mean to you save for the occasional heated discussion when you keep bringing the same thing over and over. This is about providing the community an environment in which they can work, and not be distracted with pointless discussion about long-settled issues. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:37, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• I think you are aware of at least one specific editor we have lost over the carping about these policies. I believe that Magioladitis takes a fairly sanguine approach when things get out of hand, but he is also aware, as am I, from discussions both on wiki and off that people are scared to use tools to edit. I have considered you very supportive to a positive editing environment, and I think the point is that Magioladitis is also seeking the same thing.

Perhaps there are other approaches that can be perused to bring this about, but I don't think a T-ban is one of them. What is to happen when someone makes accusations of cosmetic editing either to Magioladitis or someone else? Is he to stand idly by while they are rail-roaded?

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:44, 23 June 2017 (UTC).

• Support I'm sad that it has come to this, but I completely agree that it's necessary at this point so we can stop having basically the same discussion over and over again. I only hope that this ban will be enough; I worry that he'll just find other ways to be disruptive in bot-related areas, such as flooding BRFA with requests or reporting minor occurrences as if they were major issues, and we'll wind up having to topic-ban him from bots entirely (or just outright ban him). Anomie⚔ 18:17, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Well it's not sad. It's the natural conclusion of a situation that goes for months. There were two ways to solve this: By finding a middle ground or kicking out the opponent. I did not expect you to understand. You think that I am doing this for personal motives while other have been kicked out from Wikipedia, I am still around. My responsibility is that I failed to protect some people more. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

No one has been kicked out of Wikipedia. Bgwhite left of his own accord, no one kicked him out. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:58, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Anomie maybe correct here. What about requesting a Arbcom case for this situation? Last time @Fram: did it,[17] and Magioladitis was warned again. Capitals00 (talk) 18:29, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Maybe this is a better solution. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Capitals00: Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy, arbitration is only used when the community cannot resolve the issue. The question to ask here is "Can the community stop this disruptive behavior?". If the topic ban is implemented and works, the answer would be yes, and we'd know in hindsight that arbitration wasn't needed. If it can't be implemented due to community indecisiveness or doesn't work, then maybe arbitration would be a good idea. I support this topic ban as something the community can do to try to end the disruption. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:39, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Recall that based on my comments Headbomb started a discussion called "WP:COSMETICBOT update" which resulted in the policy to change. So my actions did not weaken the policy but in fact encforced it. The new COSMETICBOT police is up less than 3 months now. Moreover, the discussion or even abandoning the name did not start from me. Saying that I dominate the discussion is not the truth. If all agreed to the previous versions why the policy changed? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• So the facts: I started a discussion in December 2016. Anomie wrote in 21 January 2017 a draft to summarise the comments from the discussion. In March 2017 Hedbomb started a dicussion WP:COSMETICBOT update. Discussion concluded in 18 May 2017. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I think my feelings on why Magioladitis isn't able to edit productively in this area are best summed up by the man himself a few lines up. He said that the supporters here are "kicking out the opponent". There are no opponents. I think I can safely speak for most BAG members when I say very few of us, if any, actually oppose general fixes as he claims we do. I certainly don't. We're merely enforcing the bot policy, but I've been unable to break through the "us vs. them" mentality that casts the BAG as the "enemy" or "opponent". The repeated process spam to try to push through his desired version of the bot policy is making it incredibly hard for us to do our job. I've spent more time dealing with discussions about myself and the bot policy than any other activity this week. For context, Magioladitis' actions toward me specifically have been rather extreme, with two discussions recently effectively closed telling him to stop harassing me. See Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Re-examination of BU Rob13's bot approval (again) and Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group#Wrong advice given by BAG member. This comes on the back of him openly speculating about my location multiple times on-wiki in the midst of disputes: [18] [19]. This needs to stop. I see this topic ban as a potentially effective manner to end at least some aspects of the disruption, so I'm all for trying it. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. This is all my opinion, but it seems every discussion involving Magioladitis ends up the same: going in circles, losing scope, and discouraging other editors from participating while Magioladitis comments ad nauseam with vague and round-about replies and cherry-picked "facts". I tried working with their BRFAs and some of the proposals and got nowhere. Others have and got nowhere. And this is just on bot-related pages. With the number of people already involved with dealing with one editor on one minor topic, I can't see any other recourse. I could understand someone being upset and heated for a discussion of two, but this is systematic. Either they are doing this deliberately or they just don't realize, despite being told so many times. Despite being asked to slow down, they keep WP:BLUDGEONing the process. I'm not liking commenting on this and I care little for on-Wiki politics and editors themselves, but this has become disruptive even to those who just wish to comment on the COSMETICBOT and related matters and could otherwise not get involved in extended back-and-forth. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:55, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support, unfortunately. It is my belief that Magioladitis erroneously views the underlying wikitext as our end product, rather than the output that follows post-processing. Accordingly, much of his energy is directed towards ensuring the wikitext is perfect, even to the detriment of the good functioning of the project (e.g. unnecessarily clogging watchlists with cosmetic or "low-volume" edits). –xeno^talk 18:59, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - As for those thinking about Arb, I would disagree. Arb is only for situations that the community can't deal with using existing mechanisms and this isn't one of those cases. Looking through the archives, it seems pretty obvious that a serious bludgeoning is going on and a lot of time wasting. If after the tban, it spreads to other bot related areas, a broader tban of *.bot.* can be considered. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:01, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - as per above. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:09, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• As I recall my ArbCom case saiid that the community is encourage to discuss these issues not just hide them under the carpet. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:05, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• And the community has: RFC on COSMETICBOT update, efforts at CHECKWIKI, bunch of AWB issues that would help with related issues). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:16, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support serious issues with not getting the idea. And they still are not getting it. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:19, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Headbomb True. CosmeticBot changed. AWB changed. Should the community encourage more edits to be done and in which way? This still has to be solved. The answer may be "no". But I am trying to propose things as I ve been doing for years. I created a bunch of similar (but not equal) questions. Some of the things you mention here were before the RfC and in fact thee RfC was the result of these questions. Now I seek answers to the BRFA process which may lead or may not lead to policy changes. Recall that other things I suggested in the past also seemed immature but finally were adopted by the community. (The ISBN fixes, the wikiproject name convetion, the hatnote standardsation, the removal of persondata, the infobox parameter standardisation are some examples) I have a double aim this time: If the community decides the edits should be done in bunches we then start decribing the edits that can be done in groups. If the community decides that all MoS edits can be done but seperatelly then we can to a dicussion whether the watchlist argument is corect or not. There are so many similar questions to solve here. In a fw days we moved from a chaotic question a made to a compalsory series of edits and then for a "nice reminder" for bot editors. These things are not equal things. The discussion keeps moving and progressing. I beleive I contributed in a positive way in these discussions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:27, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• After all these months and I still comments that mix AWB's general fixes, with Manual of Style changes, with CHECKWIKI, with html fixes and with template bypassing. This explains why the questions I pose seem like I keep askingg the same thing over and over while I don't. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• So in fact we have 2 "discussions" that I started that happened before the ArbCom and actually led to a discussion that actuall changed the policy. Still people believe I deserve a topic ban for that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:57, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Specific comments on HB's links:

• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 26#Defining cosmetic changes This discussion led to a draft rewrite and to an actual policy change
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy/Archive 26#RfC to add general fixes to existing bots Only a heeads up for the discussion below. No actual discussion'
• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 137#Should bots perform secondary "cosmetic" tasks while making a primary task? An initial discussion onbot editing with no concrete proposal. Let's call this Discussion #1
• Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Proposal for new requirement for AWB bots Again mrely a link to start a discussion in a other place
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Should bots perform multiple edits in a page? continuation to Discussion #1 with conrete proposals
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Obvious mistake different issue
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Replace cosmetic with a less misleading name not even started by me. Different issue anyway. Many people in favor of finding a differen nam for the section -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:04, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Let me dispel the notion that your comments somehow lead to change the wording on WP:COSMETICBOT. It's the ARBCOM mess that led to this, and your constant refusal to abide by the policy. It was recognized that the passage was pretty vague, and unhelpful in terms of actually defining what was meant in practice, so Anomie and I wrote the draft for the adopted language, with the input of several members from BAG and the bot community in general. While you were certainly part of those who commented on the draft, it would have happened regardless of if you commented on it or not, and I do not recall any specific changes on the substance of the draft as a result of your comments. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:45, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I've been watching this from afar, but it's clear that this is just going to keep repeating itself until a topic ban is enacted. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY ^[u+1F602] 20:54, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support. A perusal of the situation, and this very discussion itself, shows how serious Magioladiis' WP:IDHT proclivities are. I think this topic ban is necessary, and should be taken by him as a warning that the next step is likely to be a site ban: nobody, Magioladitis, is so essential to this project that we can't like without their contributions. We have limited time and resources to deal with such a recalcitrant editor who will not drop the stick and accept the consensus opinion of his own bot-operating compatriots. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:36, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• And would Magioladitis, who is an admin, and who has been on Wikipedia for going on 11 years, please,PLEASE, PLEASE, learn how to properly indent his comments in a discussion? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:44, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Beyond My Ken I suggest that we create a bot to auto-fix indent spaces :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:29, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• I suggest you respect community convention and do it yourself, by hand. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:40, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: I am not an admin, and I try not to get involved in block/ban/deletion discussions unless they are housekeeping-related, so I don't know what the precedent is here, but I have followed all of the linked discussions above with a mixture of compassion, sadness, and frustration. If it is as clear to the rest of you that Magioladitis has a terrible case of IDHT, along with some sort of inability to express himself clearly and consistently using the English language, that may make it fruitless to attempt to engage in rational, productive conversation. If you are frustrated, can't you all just ignore this editor who is clearly baiting you? Stop rising to the bait. If you must reply, perhaps respond with something like "Oppose. I have read this. Thank you for your passion/concern/incoherence." (Choose a noun appropriate to the situation.) And then move on. I now return you to your regularly scheduled chorus of "Support"s. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:06, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Jonesey95 I did not get the comment about "inability to express myself clearly". I 've seen comments that mix CHECKWIKI with general fixes and main/secondary tasks with "cosmetic changes". Maybe we need to create a dictionarry because it tuns not everyone cna distinguish between the various kinds of edits. So I am not sure why you think it's my "inability" while I have invested hours and hours exactly to distinguish all kinds of edits. On the other hand, the people who claim that bot editing hides valdalism never bother to present a comphrehesnive report on that other than sporadic comments and unverified claims. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:13, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
    • The defense rests. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
      • Thanks :) -- Magioladitis (talk)
        • Not at all related to the discussion above, but, Magioladitis could you please spend some extra time on ensuring your comments are a bit more comprehensible when writing them. I had to read your above response carefully, twice to get a coherent picture of what you were trying to say. I'll rewrite the comment with general fixes to show you how much you missed and how much is still missing from it; I did not get the comment about my "inability to express myself clearly". I've seen comments that mix up CHECKWIKI with general fixes (editor note; I didn't know there was a difference to be entirely honest) and main/secondary tasks with "cosmetic changes".{{unclear}} (reason; a task and a change are completely different things, it should not be possible to mix them up) Maybe we need to create a dictionary because it turns out that not everyone can distinguish between the various kinds of edits. So I am not sure why you think it's my "inability" (your inability to do what?) when I have invested hours and hours into trying to distinguish [distinguish is presumably meant to be; clarify the differences] between all of the various kinds of edits. On the other hand, the people who claim that bot editing hides [hides is presumably meant to be; serves only to hide/intended only to hide] vandalising edits never bother to present a comprehensive report on that (present a report on what? universal statistics about all bot edits? the function of bots? something else?) other than leaving sporadic comments and making unsubstantiated claims (again, about what?). To be clear, excluding typos which have no bearing on your English writing ability, that comment displays a writing at the En-2 level. You have a sizeable vocabulary and ok grammar, but, are missing vital information that would give the reader a clear picture of what you want to say. At En-4 the only issues you should have is with colloquialisms and cultural references. Meaning that I should be able to understand you just as easily as you would be able to understand me. I read several of your other comments here, you have a lot of typographical errors in your comments (which could be rectified by doing a copy-edit or two before posting) and some grammatical errors (probably due to being ESL (English Second Language) or ExL (English xth Language)). Mr rnddude (talk) 12:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, simply ignoring him or replying with a content-free oppose won't work. If we don't reply, he'd claim WP:SILENCE and/or he'd claim consensus based on what few other comments people post. If we post a content-free oppose, he'd WP:BLUDGEON each one then claim consensus on the basis of WP:!VOTE. And in either case we'd still have to read everything that gets posted in the discussion if we want to follow what's going on in bot-related discussion spaces. Anomie⚔ 11:35, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Ima not going to claim aything. I have respected consensus more than others in this process. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Comment: Do you know what initiated the recent discussion? Th fact that people claiming that some tasks are very minor to do in their own, when they had to chance to do thaat with a task that covers 200,000 pages they insstead procceded in allowing bots to do it without even bothering to ask whether more fixes could be done in the same pages. The same people who claimed that when a bot edits may cover vandalism. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:08, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support How long has this been going on for? How many times has Magioladitis been brought to ANI about this very issue? This is the very definition of WP:IDHT. If this was a non-admin, they would have been indef'd years ago. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 07:34, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Lugnuts what ths issue? Of my starting dicussions? I have never brought to ANI for that. Provide link or remove your comment. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:48, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • This comment shows exactly that some people supporting this santion did not even bother to rrad the discussions started. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:50, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support And if this doesnt work, the next step will no doubt be banning them from any and all bot-related editing. I will start the stopwatch now. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:53, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Only in death does duty end from bot activities? Why? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:59, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support I made a comment on the ArbCom case, I am a bot operator. Having read the summary and looking at the linked discussions I can come up with very few conclusions that do not lead to very unfortunate circumstances. The proposed restrictions above are the least measures that can be taken while at the same time allowing the community to get on with it's processes instead of having to revisit the same points when the consensus hasn't changed. I also note Mag's badgering of every oppose only reinforces my view that they cannot self restrict the concerning behavior. Hasteur (talk) 13:57, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support, although I fear that it won't be sufficient. Fram (talk) 14:09, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Please stop there is clearly no consensus. -- GreenC 20:15, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Green Cardamom I only started a single discussion in continuation to an older thread. There is no consensus to discuss? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:48, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

"I only started a single discussion". Is that true? I count multiple threads. Being "in continuation" isn't true because the threads are all active at the same time, you didn't close them out or redirect participants to a single location. You interleaved posts at bot policy and Village Pump as evidenced by time stamps. Furthermore, you keep changing the proposal wording so previous participants have to re !vote over and over again while watching multiple threads. You've stated (above) you won't stop until you reach a "middle ground" ie. get something into the policy. When I (and others) said you have no consensus, you don't recognize it apparently believing you can keep making proposals forever under the guise of mere "discussion". -- GreenC 14:17, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

• Based on the repeated failure to get the point at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy, it seems this is the only solution, so reluctantly support.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:12, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose
  • It's a shame that some people feel compelled to reply to every post Magioladitis makes on the subject - if you don't want to discuss the matter you don't have to.
  • The COSMETICBOT wording has come on considerably as a result of these discussions, if people don't think it's worth their time, then they needn't take part. I think it has been a valuable exercise.
  • There is no doubt that that there is a chilling effect on clean-up tasks, partly for fear of inadvertently failing to adhere to COSMETICBOT. Some are no doubt delighted, having an obsession with rules and the status quo. However as far as the encyclopaedia is concerned this is in general a bad thing. People should not be afraid to improve the encyclopaedia.
  • Some "usual suspects" accuse other editors of breaking COSMETICBOT, even when they don't understand the letter of the policy, let alone it's spirit. Closing down those who wish to support constructive editing furthers the agenda of these combative editors, and undermines the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:46, 22 June 2017 (UTC).

• Oppose as it is based on a false premise. Agathoclea (talk) 10:01, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

  Would you please explain which premise you believe is false? Anomie⚔ 11:35, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Some parts of the discussion I raised are not closely related to COSMETICBOT but are more of a bot strategy we would like to follow as community. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:42, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

    @Magioladitis: Unless Agathoclea is your sockpuppet (for the record, I don't believe that's the case), it's not helpful for you to try to answer for them. Anomie⚔ 15:02, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

    By the time I placed my "Oppose" the discussion had already shown that the listed "discussions" used as proof of a TB worthy behaviour are in fact red herrings. While the blocking of improvement of the wiki by a few powerful (or should I say vocal) people is usually the forte of deWiki, we should not let that happen here. Agathoclea (talk) 09:15, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose While there are a lot of people on the support side that have been dealing with this for awhile that I wouldn't like to subjugate to more, Rich's argument is convincing.--v/r - TP 12:24, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose While I'm not a bot-op, I've actually seen people comment multiple times that the rules for COSEMETICBOT are not well understood, in that case, why not make them better understood and clean up the stuff that doesn't need to be there. That's what Mags is trying to do.  Ҝ Ø Ƽ Ħ  13:21, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • @KoshVorlon: Months ago, WP:COSMETICBOT underwent a major re-write to make it clear as day. Please do read the text of it now to see how concrete it is. Even after this re-write (which Magioladitis took part in discussing and was aware of), the discussions persist – at least three this week – to outright get rid of it or otherwise encourage the changes covered by COSMETICBOT. Magioladitis is not trying to clarify existing policy. He's trying to change it entirely to be the opposite of what it is now. He's repeatedly received poor reception to his proposed changes and yet keeps advancing proposals at rates that reasonable editors cannot keep up with. This is the fundamental issue that a topic ban can solve. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:43, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Exactly because I am aware of the result I started the discussion to move the discussion a step further based on the new consensus. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:03, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
    • What do you mean further? There was a discussion confirming the contents of COSMETICBOT but adding some clarity. In that discussion, almost everyone supported the general spirit of the section. That's the same consensus there's always been, with new wording to make things clearer. What "new consensus"? I just shouldn't engage. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:10, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

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

Moving a draft to a redirect

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

---

Hello administrators, I have received a request to move an article to a redirect (I have added a rough translation of their original request). I am unsure and need a second opinion/suggestion here. Should the draft be moved? Thank you --Tito Dutta (talk) 19:08, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

As it's not totally obvious, the draft page is here. Primefac (talk) 19:13, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Primefac, yes, that's the draft page, do you think the article should be moved? Regards. --Tito Dutta (talk) 19:18, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm on the fence. There are two full sections that are unreferenced, but there are a fair number of sources in the bibliography. Personally I'd like to see some of those incorporated as footnotes; I know we don't have to go to WP:BLP-levels of inline citations, but a few in the body of the text would be nice.

In other words, I won't stop anyone from moving it, but I won't be doing it myself. Primefac (talk) 19:32, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

While the article could be improved, the request is fairly uncontroversial, so I've deleted the Orinoco Basin redirect to make way for Tito's move. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:35, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you. --Tito Dutta (talk) 19:44, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

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

Survey

Moved from WP:ANI. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:31, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Bonjour!

I am conducting a survey of administrators for my master's thesis in the sociology of TPA. Please could you indicate your intention to participate by responding to this thread appropriately and I will contact you individually, or if you have any further questions please do advise!

Merci for your time!

Mme. Duffy, student, Sorbonne. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.193.147.177 (talk) 18:26, 24 June 2017‎ (UTC) (on WP:AN)

You might want to read WP:Ethically researching Wikipedia and other related pages. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:42, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Merci beaucoup for your help. Vous est un real gentleman. 46.193.147.177 (talk) 10:09, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Trez beans mon ami!!!  ;) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 10:21, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Please block one of my alt accounts

I stopped using User:XBot22408 ages ago, and I have forgotten the password for it. It wasn't linked to an email AFAIK. Can an admin block it? Thanks –XboxGamer22408^talk 03:22, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• Sure. Technically, there is no way to be certain you are the same user as the one behind XBot22408, but considering you're an experienced user I think good faith is enough. Plus, the username by itself might have been enough for an impersonation block if it wasn't you. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 05:11, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

I think the user page of that account used to say that it was a bot operated by XboxGamer22408, however I never got around to confirming it, which I eventually did do for my public computer alt XboxGamer22408 (alt). Anyways, thanks. –XboxGamer22408^talk 06:38, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Next time just use "p@ssw0rd".[20] Nobody will ever guess that one. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:22, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

02:58, 18 March 2017 User account XBot22408 (talk | contribs | block) was created by XboxGamer22408 (talk | contribs | block) (Alternate bot account.) So yes, it is possible to be certain :-) Nyttend (talk) 11:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Yea, that's my bad. I checked the creation date in Special:ListUsers but not the actual user creation log. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:23, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit request at Cheri DiNovo

As Talk:Cheri DiNovo is currently semi-protected, I suppose this would be the best place to request an edit to the article. I'm hoping to have Category:LGBT Christian clergy replaced with Category:LGBT Protestant clergy. As an aside, I should note that I have reached out to the protecting administrator regarding unprotecting the article and its talk page. Thanks, 142.160.131.202 (talk) 05:56, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

 Done. In the future this request should be made at the article's talk page. —Guanaco 07:31, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Doh, just saw that it was the talk page you said was semi-protected. Sorry. The right place would actually be WP:RFPP. —Guanaco 10:33, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Request to remove invisible characters from pages

I would like to start removing invisible characters from pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Please provide a lot more details about this and why it is necessary. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:33, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

They can break links and citation templates, but I was sure that Yobot already did such a thing. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:58, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus True but I was asked to request re-approval. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:02, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Xaosflux Per CheckWiki documentation "This could be a problem inside an article.", per AutoEd documentation "These characters are hard to remove by hand because they all "invisible", but they can cause problems and unnecessarily increase the page's size.". Inside URLs, images they can break filenames and urls, etc. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Oppose in general. No opposition for fixing things that are broken (the URLs, broken images, etc.), but I would likely oppose removing an invisible character in some other random space that isn't causing a problem (unless accompanied by another substantive fix). Edits removing invisible characters that aren't breaking anything puts this in WP:CONTEXTBOT territory. This falls under WP:COSMETICBOT and I can think of no reason to override that here. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:18, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• Per a recent discussion, I would suggest we tread carefully due to a tban that is in place. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:32, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • @Dennis Brown: The topic ban specifically included an exemption to discuss whether COSMETICBOT applies to Magioladitis' own bots (so long as not excessive), so there's not much danger here. In any event, since he's seeking consensus, COSMETICBOT itself is not too relevant. It can be overridden by consensus. I'm just noting that I see no reason to make an exception here for cases where things aren't broken. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:34, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • My note was really a note to all of us more than him, to be careful so he isn't trapped into not being able to make a request. Maybe I'm over cautious. I agree, fixing things that really aren't broken seems to be unnecessary load. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:37, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • BU Rob13 This is CHECKWIKI related in case you missed that. In fact, this is CHECKWIKI error 16. I already noted that this is CHECKWIKI related in my reply above. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 15:54, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • I am recused from handling BAG actions related to CHECKWIKI because I anticipated drama if I were to do so. This is not BAG related and I am not commenting in my capacity as a BAG member. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Dennis Brown I plan to fix these pages in addition to other fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Dennis Brown There is no tban in place about this request. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:00, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• Is this a request to get approval to submit this as a BRFA, or just edit you want to make without a bot flag using your own account? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:17, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Xaosflux My own account. I don't need to come here for my bot acccount. I can just fill out a BRFA asaik. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

This is related to the ArbCom restriction requiring consensus to do purely cosmetic edits semi-automatically, for context. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• @Magioladitis: Thanks, do you have any estimate for how many of these there are and at what edit rate you plan to run? There seem to be recent concerns from other editors that you are flooding watchlists. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:13, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• Xaosflux Probably 3,000-4,000 pages since there are also bots that remove some of these. Moroever, this was one by Yobot for 7 years or so. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:18, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks, is there a reason this wouldn't be appropriate work for a bot to (to avoid lots of watchlist hits)? — xaosflux ^Talk 18:40, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Xaosflux Yes, it can be done by Yobot. Some cases need manual attention though when it comes to non-breaking spaces. I will agree this is is done by Yobot and leave less than 100 edits to be done manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:13, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • So why do you want to make these thousands of edits by hand, triggering watchlist notifications, instead of doing this with a bot account? I understand the minority that will need special editing, is the problem that they can't be filtered out? — xaosflux ^Talk 23:04, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
      • Xaosflux I can do them by bot if I asked. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
      • Xaosflux Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 55. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:25, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - I see no harm in Magioladitis performing the requested edits. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:12, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
• Tentative support these are often changes that won't make very much differences, and will often be de-facto WP:COSMETICBOT, but there is an argument to be made that invisible characters are extremely editor unfriendly, and create headaches for when you're trying to fix things. If this is BRFA'd, I'd want a complete list of such characters affected, likely with each characters tested individually (this might affect non-English languages more). I'd reserve my final opinion on whether or not this is something that's actually needed after seeing what the effects would be. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:51, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • The list Regex: \u200E|\uFEFF|\u200B|\u2028|\u202A|\u202C|\u202D|\u202E|\u00AD can be removed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:18, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Would those leave explicitely declared characters untouched, like in Zero-width space? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:00, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
      • Headbomb Yes. Anything given explicitelly (by visible text or by templates) won't be touched. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:45, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support. For one thing, they're not technically cosmetic, because when you're viewing the code, the end result is the same as what you started with. Moreover, we routinely have bots going around and doing this already at Commons (one of the more common ones is removing RTL markers from category texts), because as noted above, they can cause problems when editors don't realise that they're there. For example, run a search for "soft hyphen" at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 60. Or see the "Weird pipes display issue" section at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 102, which discusses the invisible Zero-width non-joiner character. And finally, the mere fact of Commons bots doing this long-term is a demonstration that a bot can do this; it's not a CONTEXTBOT situation. Nyttend (talk) 22:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • @Nyttend: Responding only to your first sentence, please read WP:COSMETICBOT. A cosmetics-only change is defined as one which does not affect the visually-rendered result of the page (and also doesn't affect accessibility issues). This is definitely a cosemtics-only change as defined by the policy. If the community wants to make an exception in this case, it can of course do that. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:48, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
    • This causes accessibility issues for everyone, as I explained in the rest of my sentences. Nyttend (talk) 05:06, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

• Without more detail on what is actually being proposed to be removed, and what the specific benefit is, I couldn't support. Hchc2009 (talk) 06:32, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Hchc2009: Invisible characters can cause unexpected issues. For instance, if you have a stray right-to-left marker, and you edit a page in AWB, if you press the right arrow to go right, you actually go left. But you don't know there's a right-to-left marker. Likewise, if you have a stray zero-width space, it can cause unwanted wordbreaks and copy-pasting issue. Nyttend's post above have more details on some of the specifics. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:33, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Is the argument here that invisible characters are already banned from the Wiki, and that this is simply a question of how they're removed, or that we're proposing to ban them? Or that the proposal is to remove some invisible character? Hchc2009 (talk) 16:41, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Hchc2009 If possible we should replace all by the visible counter-parts. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:09, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose If that many need to be done it can be done via a bot and BRFA. Otherwise any support will be used by mag to condone running a bot on his main account to make what may/or may not be purely cosmetic edits. Notice the caveats from the above editors 'can cause' not 'will cause'. Without a clearly defined list and the problems each edit causes, given his history, I suspect the reason this is here and not at BRFA is that a run removing thousands of invisible characters that may/may not cause problems would not pass. Send it to BRFA and let them decide. Its what its for. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:33, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Only in death: that... doesn't make sense. The point is to gauge the support for such a bot task. You can't say "I oppose, get bot approval" because bot approval is contingent on support for its task. Magioladitis is also required to advertise such tasks to AN when done semi-automatically. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:00, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

A BRFA (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 55) has been opened for this now. As mentioned above there may be edge cases that need manual editing, but if most edits can be done via a structured bot job that alleviates my excessive watchlist hits concern above. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:08, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Let me be blunter. BRFA is a venue specifically to vet large-scale edits that would be best suited to a BOT/Automated process. AN is a noticeboard that attracts a wide array of editors & admins who may not have knowledge of Mag's history, the contentiousness of edits like this, the 'fixes' mag is on a crusade to implement by any means possible. Any 'support' here is essentially (given Mag's unique interpretation of what is/is not allowed when making gen fixes) giving Mag carte blanche to make thousands of semi-automated (given the speed of his editing history, I heavily doubt the 'semi' there) edits of dubious usefulness from his main account. I would rather not open up the floodgates to someone who has multiple restrictions related to automated editing. So no, I oppose any attempt here to give him 'permission' to do something that would best be evaluated at BRFA. If he wants to run a bot, he can run a bot. If the condition/requirement of passing BRFA for the task is that he gain consensus here, then no, he has shown he has zero judgement in when to apply controversial edits like this, so it would still be oppose. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:10, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Only in death: BRFA is never where we assess consensus for a task. That is always kicked to another venue. In any event, this is getting a bit confused. Magioladitis, could you clarify whether you're seeking consensus for semi-automated or automated edits here? Those are rather different, and may elicit different levels of support. I'd be more likely to support a flagged bot doing this than semi-automated, although I don't know if I'd support either. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:10, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Sigh, if you want to be picky about the wording. BRFA is where you decide if a bot-task can go ahead. Which is the appropriate venue for this. If the decision to approve the task is reliant on the requester showing consensus exists to make the changes in the bot-task, and this is considered a valid place to gain that consensus, the answer would still be no from me as the above request is too vaguely worded and boils down to 'I want to remove invisible characters that may or may not affect the articles in some manner' and has not provided sufficient detail to show that a)they are needed, b)the articles in his list have been sufficiently identified to contain invisible characters that cause an actual problem. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:22, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Only in death: I think the main reason for this initially was that any semi-automated edit (bot account or main) needs to be approved via consensus here due to Magioladitis' ArbCom restriction. If you think that should be done at BRFA, you'd want to file at WP:ARCA, but the community has no direct control over venue on this. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Well in that case, if the scope of this request is to make semi-automated edits of no demonstrated need on his main account that affect thousands of articles... the answer is still no. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:29, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @BU Rob13: don't preclude that these could be done semi-automated, using a bot account - there is nothing wrong with that model in general and avoids flooding recent changes/watchlist. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:23, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

If the scope of a task was tailored to only fix invisible characters causing issues and was done semi-automated on a bot account, I would definitely support that. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Xaosflux I would like to do this in auatomated way but also use my account for some cases because I would like to check some edits to avoid any mistakes. For instance, AWB can't remove an inivible characters is this is the only edit done. I don't wish to reply to RU Rob13 because he already said he'll stay away from CHECKWIKI related tasks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:39, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

• Just for clarity (and I will not reply further on this topic), I recused from handling CHECKWIKI bot tasks as a BAG member while explicitly stating I may comment as a normal editor. I've never stated I would "stay away from CHECKWIKI related tasks". ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:28, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Community ban discussion (moved from WP:ANI)

In looking over WP:BLOCKBANDIFF and WP:BANREVERT, I believe it's necessary to propose a formal community ban for Stylized as "stylized" currently; formerly "stylizeD" (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).

The user appears to have been blocked since March 2016, and in looking through the sockpuppet case, created many sockpuppets from March through September of last year, disappeared for a while, then returned in May and has been active since then (These two cases are also mentioned on the user page, though I'm not exactly sure how they're connected). The user has also used many IP addresses for disruption; for example, see recent history of User talk:FlightTime and my talk page, in addition to the other edits coming from these IPs.

Edits coming from accounts and/or IPs of this user have been reverted, but what has driven me here is the user's decision to dispute this process and waste the time of an AGFing administrator attempting to assist the user with their editing, apparently unaware of the history of the account operator. Per WP:BANREVERT, even activity like this can be reverted without question, user talk page access can be immediately revoked from accounts/IPs, and this user can be prevented from wasting more editors' time than they already are. The fact that this user pulled an administrator that close to considering an unblock casts doubt on a "de facto" ban and therefore leads me to bring forward this proposal.

Proposal/polling

Proposal: User:Stylized as "stylized" currently; formerly "stylizeD" is formally banned from the Wikipedia community. Home Lander (talk) 19:33, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support - I'm not a big fan of random banning, but the serial nature of this person might make policing easier for reverters. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:44, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - They have exhausted any good faith about their edits a long time ago. --‖ Ebyabe ^talk - General Health ‖ 20:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support. A ban makes it easier to revert on sight. Nobody's going to unblock this user in the near future. --Yamla (talk) 13:23, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support. This person's blend of general disruption and WikiLawyering calls for a community ban. Favonian (talk) 16:04, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support about time, I originally tried to propose a ban last year but nothing really came out of that. Sro23 (talk) 02:55, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support This persons actions merit a ban. MarnetteD|Talk 03:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support Ban em. Blackmane (talk) 03:11, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

Not sure how quickly threads are archived here, so I figured I'd write something to give this more time for any others. Home Lander (talk) 19:49, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Question about discretionary sanctions

I'm lightly "involved" in the editing of mansplaining, a controversial article about gender-based condescension. I added a line of sourced content, reverted some obvious POV pushing/vandalism, and have been active on the talk page. I believe this article falls under the Gamergate discretionary sanctions as "any gender-related dispute or controversy". Can I add the talk page header or does that have to be done by an uninvolved admin? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:21, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

• I think adding the header isn't really an admin action. You wouldn't want to impose sanctions on the article, but I can't see any harm in adding the header simply notifying everyone that the article could by subject to discretionary sanctions by another, uninvolved admin. I could be wrong, but I think that determining what articles are and aren't under DS is an editor consensus thing, not admin decision. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • That sounds logical, but I'm not very familiar with the bureaucracy surrounding discretionary sanctions. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:48, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Reading the article, I'm not sure it completely fits under "any gender-related dispute or controversy". The article isn't about a particular controversy, or event. It is about a gender topic, but not sure that all gender related topics neatly fit into DS. Had I stumbled upon it, I would have not thought that the article automatically falls under it. That doesn't mean that there will never be NPOV edits and the like, but this strikes me as a bit too broad to be under the GamerGate/Gender controversy banner, as it is essentially an expanded definition of a somewhat popularly used neologism, and the amount of controversy surrounding it is rather tame and (according to the article) not drawn strictly around gender lines. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:20, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
      • Agree this isn't within that topic area, but to answer the broader question, anyone can apply the discretionary sanctions template to a talk page. That isn't an AE action; it's just a notice. Be careful not to apply any templates that actually set new sanctions (e.g. {{American politics AE}}), as that's something only an uninvolved admin can do. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:52, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
        • I think it does fall in the topic area. Especially when MRA's are involved. It's a controversial topic. But, regardless, I agree with Rob & Dennis that adding the template is not an admin action. Anyone can do it.--v/r - TP 03:35, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
          • I guess it depends on how broadly you construe "broadly construed". It seems a bit more controversial than I initially expected. I guess I could raise the issue at the talk page. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:19, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
            • Ultimately, it's the arbs' opinions that matter. Try WP:ARCA, NinjaRobotPirate. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 10:52, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

RFPP is backlogged

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I just filed a request at RFPP and found that there are about 45 unanswered requests. —MRD2014 01:41, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Seconded. I was wondering how long RPPs typically take to be answered, as I currently notice many requests have gone unanswered for at least 24 hours. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) 02:07, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

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ANI close review

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This is about Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive957#Disruptive_editing_by_user, and the close by User:Dennis Brown, in this diff.

I don't believe the close reflects the discussion. I discussed with Dennis at their talk page: User_talk:Dennis_Brown#Close.

My concern is that I brought up issues with respect to User:Joobo who was indeffed here about a year and a half ago, went to de-WP and got blocked 7 times over the course of a year, requested an unblock a while ago here without mentioning de-WP, and was unblocked with ROPE, and has disrupted the same areas here again in my view. Nothing about that in the close. I don't mind being spanked a bit in the close - am not disagreeing with that, but the silence on Joobo is hard to reckon and will just embolden Joobo, I believe. Jytdog (talk) 02:05, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

I think Dennis' close was a fair summary of the discussion. You certainly did raise concerns about Joobo's editing - but there was absolutely no appetite shown in that discussion to sanction them, or really even to censure them.

As to the substance of your concerns, I've spent two hours or so reading through the evidence you presented there; it all seems pretty thin to me, even bearing in mind their history. I've ignored things which you characterised as "all prior to their initial indef" or "mostly fussing with images" as I can't see their relevance. You claim that these diffs are "adding content about Muslim immigration". I can't see it. The first is reordering a list (in a way that's at least arguably helpful to the reader) and the second is adding sources to content that's already there. This is your prize diff at the AfD article; I'm not really seeing the massive POV in it. On Presidency of Donald Trump, I'm seeing a fairly neutral, sourced description of a Supreme Court ruling, adding a date to an image caption, removing images of Trump meeting the Pope from a section on foreign relations (arguable, I guess), removing an image of Trump meeting Jewish leaders from a section on Russian influence on the US election, removing a section on Trump's "authoritarian tendencies" (which, at least in some versions, contained gross BLP violations)... Your main beef with them, really, seems to be the Nationalism versus German Nationalism dispute, and I'd agree they were showing worrying signs of edit warring - except that you seem to have conceded in the course of the ANI report that here it was you who was editing against consensus established in an RfC. As for Talk:Melania Trump, while they haven't covered themselves in glory in that discussion, they're not the one arguing that reliable sources should be ignored because, well, Trump. I'm not that surprised no-one supported sanctions. GoldenRing (talk) 05:23, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

• I noticed the issue although without examining the details. The unfortunate situation is that Wikipedia and its processes cannot attain perfection. My experience tells me that whatever the dispute was, it is extremely likely that Jytdog was correct. The fact that an editor retired (and requested an indef) is regrettable but does nothing to change my assumption about which side was probably correct—if anything, it confirms it. However, it is just not worth digging up the ANI discussion. If there is a new problem, make a new report. If there is a not a new problem, there is no need to revisit the issue. Who cares if someone made a close that might have gone another way? Those who vigorously defend the encyclopedia attract an army of haters and associated misguided commentary, and there is no way to stop that derailing some ANI reports, sorry. Johnuniq (talk) 05:33, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Johnuniq and GoldenRing. I discussed all their edits so as to give the complete picture. A nasty thing that people do when they discuss others, is cherry pick. The intention was to show everything that Joobo has been doing since they were unblocked. I think the disruptive behavior at German nationalism and the AfD party are clear. Not horrible on their own, if that is all there was.

But really. How many users are indeffed, go and get blocked 7 times in the same topic area at another project over the course of the ensuing year, and then get unblocked here at all? The gift that was given to them was extraordinary, and we should have no tolerance for further disruption in the topic. Re-imposing the indef is not crazy; a topic ban is reasonable.. but I will settle for a warning. I anticipate they will continue doing exactly what they have been doing, and worse, if they are not topic-banned -- the community should warn them, at least. Just looking for this to be in the close. It is not unreasonable given the extraordinariness of the unblock. Jytdog (talk) 15:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

This is not the place to have this argument again. GoldenRing (talk) 15:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
"I noticed the issue although without examining the details". Perhaps, just perhaps, that is what you should have been doing before stating "it is extremely likely that Jytdog was correct". How can you say that if you apparently are not even familar with the details? Me, as well as the other editors who were bluntly accused of being a "gang" for no other reason than us being involved in one single (respectiveles two) article and having a different opinion. We merely had other views concerning certain aspects. If that is enough to make us a gang or giving us some sort of sanctions then WP is dead- not as you describe it User:Johnuniq. Jytdog still does not seem to understand that he is not the only one trying to bring this project forward. Merely if someone disagrees with him does not make him or her automatically a villain who needs to be equally "spanked". Till this day i do not believe that you Jytdog questioned one single thing you did concerning the AFD article or the German Nationalism article. And i am not even disagreeing with all you did there (eventhough i believe you do disagree with quite everything others did there). However some things were simply factualy incorrect. And if someone questions that or reverses that and points out to what is to some extend obviously incorrect- then that does not mean automatically POV- but is actually bringing the project forward. Till today I am still not sure if you genuinely understood the original and basic definition of G.Nationalism. Howbeit, the only thing here presented by Jytdog is a reference to another language Wiki (no influence here at all) and the former block of me in this Wiki. How and actually why I should be sanctioned for something from the past I really cannot see, as since the unblock I sticked to what I stated in my unblock appeal. Maybe all this long lasting quarrely finally eases, and as the closing admin said everyone takes a step back and reconsiders the own action.--Joobo (talk) 09:30, 27 June 2017 (UTC) Don't get me wrong, here, I'm not on either side. But this is your thread to lose. If you keep your mouth shut, it's likely to close as Dennis' original close was reasonable. If you open your mouth, you'll likely give them a new reason to close against you. Read WP:ANI advice.--v/r - TP 14:37, 27 June 2017 (UTC) And always remember that you can be wrong about anything. It might sound condescending, but a number of people have difficulty considering that possibility. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:13, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

• Now that this has played out a bit, Jytdog, the user that was most at risk of getting blocked in that discussion was you. You were warring against what appears to me be a clear consensus in an RFC. Frankly, I don't care how it is linked, but I do care about preserving the outcome of an RFC. My focus in that ANI report was to get you to agree to stop reverting until a new RFC could take place that showed a different outcome. Your argument centered on the claim that the link they talked about was in the infobox only, saying it should be linked differently in the article. That is absurd. The RFC demonstrated that the community wanted to link to "nationalism" not "German nationalism", and while it said infobox, common sense says it meant in the body as well. You came very close to getting blocked, I checked your block log, and put some effort into convincing you into backing down because I really didn't want to have to block you. No one formally challenged the RFC outcome or close, so I have no choice but to consider it consensus, and it was as plain as day on the talk page. You calling the report "pre-emptive" is meaningless. They filed a complaint that you were warring against consensus and the diffs clearly demonstrated that. That was cut and dry, just like the outcome of the RFC. Once it was clear you wouldn't war to change the wikilink, I closed the report, taking you 100% at your word. I see it as successful because no one was sanctioned and the warring stopped. If you want to file a separate report that isn't just muddying the waters in a clearly valid complaint, then do so. It had no place in that report because your violation was crystal clear to everyone, and if anything, I handled it rather gently. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:43, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I hear what you are saying, dirty hands and all. Well we will be revisiting the Joobo issue later, I am sure. So be it. Challenge failed, and withdrawn. Jytdog (talk) 03:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

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Discussion regarding help for IPs creating AfDs

Please come participate: WP:VPPOL#IPs nominating articles for deletion. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:37, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Tony Chang page history from Zhang Shang

• Main article page: Tony Chang

Summary: (History from Zhang Chang) --_> please merge into ---> Tony Chang.

Can an admin please merge into the page history for Tony Chang, the prior history from page Zhang Chang ?

Thank you !

Prior history [21] current page to merge other history into [22]. Sagecandor (talk) 19:40, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

 Not done @Sagecandor: please bring this up at the very busy Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tony Chang. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:43, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't seem the right place. It's a page polluted with discussion for a totally different purpose. I guess I could ask again, after that discussion there is closed later. Sagecandor (talk) 19:44, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

We don't generally do hist merges in the middle of AFDs, ugly or not. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Dennis Brown:Yeah I can understand that, it can certainly wait til afterwards, no problems. Thank you ! Sagecandor (talk) 20:07, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC at Wikipedia talk:Changing username

I invite you to an ongoing RFC discussion about allowing global stewards/renamers to process usurpation requests. Please comment there. Thanks. --George Ho (talk) 00:05, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Long-term rangeblock proposal: 163.232.0.0/16

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• 163.232.0.0/16 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial))

Through reverting vandalism and RC patrolling, I have come upon a ton of IPs within this range, most of them with a very long history of blocks and vandalism warnings. The WHOIS/geolocation says that it belongs to "Department of Finance - Western Australia" (which is very likely operated by a school system/district). All of the edits from this range can be found here and can be seen by date and time at the "Result by time" section. I have yet to find a recent constructive edit from this range at all... regards. 67.169.192.85 (talk) 04:07, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

163.232.200.0/22 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) appears to cover the range commonly used for vandalism. —Guanaco 05:57, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

I range blocked 163.232.200.0/22 for six months. Should give us a breather. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:23, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

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Backlog at AIV

There's a bit of a backlog at WP:AIV at the moment, over 20 pending requests. Thank you! –FlyingAce^✈hello 14:23, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Copy of old text of a previously-deleted page

Hoping I got the right place to post this, but referencing here where I originally asked the question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk#Recreation_of_a_Previously-Deleted_Page

I was looking up the musician Matt Lange, and noticed that he didn't have a page yet. I wanted to contribute by creating the page, but I noticed it had been previously deleted for non-credible citations. Is there any way I could get a copy of the deleted page (or at least, the sources they used) so that I can avoid making the same mistake?

Thanks! Vorsipellis (talk) 16:21, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

I copied it to User:Vorsipellis/sandbox. -- John Reaves 16:27, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

@John Reaves: by cut and pasting the article you've separated the content from the history. I'll deleted the subpage you created and then move the restored article to the sandbox.--Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 20:05, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

 Done.--Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 20:10, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

You guys are awesome, thanks a lot! Vorsipellis (talk) 23:22, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

User talk:Bgc7676

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Hi, Could an admin restore User talk:Bgc7676 please?, It was deleted as a result of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bgc7676 (2nd nomination) however as per WP:DELTALK talkpages should never be deleted,
I had asked the closing admin but they've not been on since 10/11pm so figured I'd try here,
Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 01:03, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

 Done. Primefac (talk) 01:08, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Primefac - much appreciated, –Davey2010^Talk 01:26, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

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Interaction Ban Proposal

There is a proposal for an interaction ban which may be of interest to some administrators who do not regularly patrol ANI. Please feel free to join in the discussion. Primefac (talk) 02:54, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Mass cat-a-lot reversion of User:Skr15081997 required

Skr15081997 (talk · contribs) has used Cat-a-lot to copy en mass a huge number of former British MPs from (e.g.) Category:UK MPs 1922–23 to the parent category Category:20th-century British politicians, against the requirements of Wikipedia:Categorization#Categorizing pages. Although he argues that the categorisation is correct, he has made no attempt to justify it, or discuss it anywhere before-hand as far as I can tell, and therefore I believe all the edits (which seems to be over 4,000 edits made in about an hour this morning) should be reverted. Do others agree that this is the case, and if so, are Cat-a-lot or any other tools suitable for carrying this out? I don't use cat-a-lot myself so I don't know what it's capable of. Optimist on the run (talk) 14:57, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Running at 1 edit per second for an hour is not an acceptable edit rate for non-bot flagged accounts making this type of edit. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:11, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Skr15081997 seems to understand articles belong in child categories, not parent categories but their actions run counter to that. This needs to stop. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:28, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Support reversion - unnecessary over-categorisation. PamD 16:54, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support reversion. This is clearly contrary to WP:SUBCAT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:00, 29 June 2017 (UTC)