In September after some talk page conversations ([1]) I boldly split off the page Haskell Manufacturing Company Building from the GA article Haskell Manufacturing Company. On 16 October User:Doug Coldwell made a cut and paste page move to Haskelite Building without attribution and with other issues. I left a note on his talk page [2], reverted the redirect and tagged it for speed deletion (G6) and started a page move discussion [3].

On 16 October Doug Coldwell expressed support for the move [4] and then made another 8 posts in support of the renaming. The move was closed as supported and actioned about 12 hours ago [5] then less than hour later Doug Coldwell created a new page called 801 N. Rowe Street [6] about the same building and added a merge template from the Haskelite Building to the new page.

I would normally have skipped ANI and left a note on his talk page about it being a duplicate page and either merged the new information into the existing page or suggesting that they do it except for the following timeline:

• The page was starting to be worked on by 18 October [7]
• There is a note indicating that he was planning to create a new page with a merge request since at least 18 October (see top of [8]) whilst the recommended move discussion was still underway.
• The page 801 N. Rowe Street is a cut and paste creation from the sandbox of their alternate account [9] and has no attribution for any information. I believe that at least some of the information comes from other Wikipedia pages.
• He is arguing that the current name, Haskelite Building would not be appropriate [10] when he said the opposite during the move discussion which was open until 1 hour previously to him making that statement.

Happy to provide additional context if required. Gusfriend (talk) 06:06, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• True - The section Haskell building of Haskell Manufacturing Company was my work in the first place. Yes, that is correct Gusfriend then started a new article of Haskell Manufacturing Company Building from my work. True, I created new work on October 16 about the Haskelite Building which was an improvement on my previous work Haskell building. As you can see in "History" in the "Page statistics" that I have 56.1% authorship. Gusfriend has 27.6% authorship because that represents what he had taken of my work of Haskell building section of Haskell Manufacturing Company. Since the majority of the work (basically all) of Haskelite Building is my work, then what I am doing is improving on my work with 801 N. Rowe Street. You can see that Haskelite Building is my work from the very start because on 17 May 2016 I added the four pictures of the 3 story brick building. Those pictures I took and uploaded to Commons on May 16, 2016. The article Haskell Manufacturing Company I created on May 15, 2016. So you can see it is ALL my work and all I am doing is improving on my work. Yes, that is true 801 N. Rowe Street I created and is all my work (100% authorship). What I am doing is improving with this article the work I originally did 17 May 2016 from the article I created on May 15, 2016. Any information of 801 N. Rowe Street is only information from Haskelite Building, which is information from Haskell Manufacturing Company, which is the information from my work of Haskell building from the article I created on Haskell Manufacturing Company on May 15, 2016. So all I am doing is improving on my own work. I would think it would be correct to improve on my own work. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 08:45, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've redirected the new article to the older one, as its creation was a WP:POINT violation with severe WP:OWN issues, as highlighted in their above comment. Fram (talk) 10:39, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• True, with the creation of Haskell Manufacturing Company Building that Gusfriend did on 22 September 2022 he used all my references I already had in the article 1 May 2020. So all he did is took all my work I did on Haskell building section of Haskell Manufacturing Company including pictures and references. In the process of doing this he made the mistake of saying the building was made for the Mendelson Manufacturing Company was in 1982. If you will notice that in the section I wrote in Haskell building the correct date should be 1892. Notice also he said the company went out of business in 1984 which again is wrong - the company went out of business in 1894. Gusfriend made these mistakes since he did NOT do the research in the first place. He was just taking my research work and attempting to make it look like he had done the work. I corrected the dates when I made improvements the article. So all I am doing is improving on my own work. It would be a major improvement if Haskelite Building were to be merged into 801 N Rowe Street. I would know how to make the merge since I did most of the work in the first place and all of the research on these two articles. There is an ongoing discussion with merging Haskelite Building into 801 N. Rowe Street which User:Fram just redirected into Haskelite Building. That should NOT be done with an ongoing discussion about the merge.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, he wrote 1984 instead of 1894. That's a clear typo, and not an error in research. Andrew Jameson (talk · contribs) corrected it almost immediately, over a month ago. This is trivial and irrelevant.

  I'm much more concerned about what you write here: So all he did is took all my work I did on Haskell building section of Haskell Manufacturing Company including pictures and references. Doug, you were nearly blocked indefinitely a month ago over self-promotion and ownership concerns. The content split is correctly attributed on Talk:Haskelite Building (something you have not done when you do copy/paste moves). Gusfriend is not claiming credit or ownership for the work you did. That's not how any of this works. Mackensen (talk) 11:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Some of Doug’s comments are bordering on personal attacks. Accusing Gusfriend of stealing his work is an outrageous comment, especially considering the amount of time and effort Gus has spent trying to repair Doug’s articles. 2604:2D80:6A8D:E200:7056:59B4:45AA:64BC (talk) 12:34, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I still remember when you accused me last month of starting an ANI thread about you out of "jealousy" over your articles (as if I could ever be "jealous" over articles full of copyright violations and factual errors). Here you go again throwing out unsubstantiated allegations against other editors. Your remaining time on this website will be very short if you continue down this path. You are demonstrating an inability to work collaboratively with other editors, which is a vital part of editing Wikipedia. This has all happened because you are so upset that another editor tried to fix your copyright violations and nonsensical page creations, you made a fork to try and make the article entirely your own writing again. You seem more concerned with who "owns" content than with building an encyclopedia, which is what we are here to do, not boost our own egos. You are already on a very thin leash, Doug. This could easily escalate to you being blocked indefinitely. If I were you, I'd be changing my tune right now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• User:Fram removed the merge to and merge from templates of 801 N. Rowe Street and Haskelite Building. Whatever happened to discussing the merge before anyone does anything. I believe an administrator should look at this.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:54, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You created a content fork and it was boldly redirected. If you think the article should be at a different name then you should request a move. Creating a copy of the article and then proposing a merge with the original article is disruptive and not how our processes work. I see nothing controversial about how Fram handled this. Mackensen (talk) 12:01, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• INDEFed, which arguably could/should have happened last time. There is no indication Coldwell has learnt from or will change his behavior. Star Mississippi 18:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Coldwell has a secondary account here, which remains unblocked CiphriusKane (talk) 10:49, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Good block. Doug has been given multiple chances and far more leeway than most editors would get and he hasn't shown the slightest indication he is willing to edit collaboratively or address the issues with his conduct. It's a shame he decided to go out this way, but the blame is on nobody but him. You'd think after having a proposal to indefinitely block you narrowly defeated, one would change their behavior. I hope Gusfriend will continue to clean up Doug's articles. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:36, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I was hoping that it wouldn't have to come to this point, especially after the indefinite block proposal last month. It's unfortunate that Doug had to go out this way, but with his unchanged behavior after his hiatus, a block was sure to come at one point or another. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 16:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Very good block. There was no indication last month either that DC felt the slightest degree of remorse or resolve to do better, but the apologists were out in droves all the same, making excuses for him all the same. I suppose we should count ourselves fortunate that it only took him several extra weeks to flame out, instead of several more years. Ravenswing 06:44, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Special:Contributions/Douglas_Coldwell needs to be blocked as well. I echo everyone else's sadness. Most of me feels sorry for DC, but his steadfast IDHT leaves no way out. Since the last ANI thread I've had some further encounters with his articles, and things are definitely as bad, and probably worse, than it seemed at ANI: non-RS sources; sources abused for purposes they can't possibly serve; rampant OR; misinterpretation of sources leading to the assertion of ridiculous things; discursions into random miscellany apparently thrown in because they popped up in a keyword search of old newspapers; sources from 100 years ago used to make assertions about the state of the world today; and, of course, blatant copyvios.

DC shows, and has shown, absolutely zero understanding of any of these problems, much less of how serious they are. He just keeps plowing forward like nothing happened. Even how he's been fiddling with his talk page to brag about how 97% of his articles became DYKs, how he's got 500 550 DYKs, and how he set the record for quickest time from article creation to DYK appearance [11] (36 hours). One fucking thing Doug Coldwell should not be bragging about is how fast he's been able to shovel crappy articles onto the main page. It's like when old-time surgeons used to pride themselves on amputating a leg in 45 seconds -- no thanks, Doc. EEng 21:35, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked secondary account. Apologies for missing your first note @CiphriusKane Star Mississippi 00:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I too am sad that it ended up like this as I do not like seeing any long term editor blocked but unfortunately I think that there was no other option. I will be leaving the Haskelite Building page to other editors for a while to avoid any perception of ownership of the page but I will be working on some of his other articles where I see something to be improved upon. For example, GA that says longest and heaviest grain-laden train ever put together which is supported by a reference from 1898. In fact a couple of minutes of searching found an article from 2020 about a 3km grain train called the longest ever. Gusfriend (talk) 05:23, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FTR, do you have a diff or link for the "biggest plywood sheet" goof? EEng 09:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@EEng It's still in the lead of Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation. In the body of the article it's sourced to a book from 1918. 163.1.15.238 (talk) 12:25, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, mysterious IP editor! I feel I should add the following, for the record in case years later someone can't understand why all this happened. Bluntly, it's the only thing you need to know to understand why Doug Coldwell simply cannot be a productive editor here until he allows himself to be tutored in the proper use of sources. On May 31, 2016, he added the following to the article Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation [12]:

The largest plywood panels ever made were manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation

This is cited [13] to an article published in 1918 and written by a Haskelite employee [14]. What's going on here is wrong on so, so many levels:

• Even if the claim was "As of 1918, the largest plywood panels ever made had been manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation", we wouldn't accept that with a source written by the manufacturer itself -- we'd need a reliable and independent source.
• But the statement made in the article, in Wikipedia's voice, is that Haskelite made the largest plywood panels ever made, period. And it's cited to something more from more than 100 years ago. This is so monumentally stupid that even my very substantial powers of invective cannot do it justice.
• And to add the cherry on top, the cited article isn't talking about the largest plywood panels ever made -- it's talking about the largest waterproof plywood panels ever made. That qualifier just got left out.

It's just hopeless, and it's not occasional -- it's typical of DC's work. I'm really beginning to think we need a special process to deal with the stupefying amounts of crap he's woven into the fabric of the English Wikipedia -- a sort of nuke-on-sight authorization for deleting his articles, or reducing them to harmless stubs, without the usual ponderous processes. We did something like this, IIRC, in the Neelix situation. EEng 15:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would absolutely support this. We have to go through over 200 GAs and look for issues like this; doing it the standard way will take years. We need an expedited process where if we find one or two glaring errors like this (or copyvio) the article is summarily delisted from GA status. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GA delisting isn't enough. Really, GA-or-not-GA is a relatively minor issue. The real issue is the misinformation and copyvios in the articles themselves. To address that we need a process like you describe, except it ends with the article being stubified (or, in some cases) deleted. Arid Desiccant, thou art wise -- can you suggest a rough outline of how such a process might work? EEng 21:42, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@EEng; depending on how much copyvio we find and how little interest the community takes in crawling through every single one of DC's major contributions, we could probably apply WP:PDEL; there's a significant amount of pure copyvio mixed in with PD copying that merely needs to be attributed though. CCI uses a nuke-on-sight principle on about ~4-5 cases off the top of my head, and that is after over a decade of having the case open. If we do something like this for DC, the community's most likely going to get pissed at us for the collateral. I think we'd need some kind of community consensus to actually do this; similar to the case that resulted in the mass bot blanking of pages back in 2010. Sennecaster (Chat) 23:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At least for the rail transport related DC articles, I'd be happy with committing to rewriting them from scratch if that will make people happy that we aren't "losing" anything (except for copyvio, of course). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:41, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Belated comment that this is a good block, and that it really should have happened earlier. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Perhaps, similarly to Neelix, we need a list of articles to deal with, so it can be worked through in a similar manner. Having "good" articles which include total garbage is a serious issue, and needs to be dealt with ASAP (before the next slow news day). Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 11:30, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Absolutely. If the powers that be would prefer this be discussed somewhere besides ANI, we can start a discussion elsewhere specifically on this question. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:42, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  There's a list over at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210315 of a mix of his old contributions and some newer ones that MER-C grabbed during the September thread. We could expand that list (and the CCI size), or grab a query of every article DC's sent to DYK or GAN and create a checkpage elsewhere if people want to assess the articles out of what CCI normally does. We end up having to handle neutrality, verification, and copyright issues anyways fwiw. Sennecaster (Chat) 15:26, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would support a specialised process to deal with this. Based on what I have seen so far I believe that the majority of his GAs have enough issues to start a GAR which could easily overload the GA pages. Gusfriend (talk) 08:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• He has requested an unblock, which @Yamla: has declined. I'm obviously going to stay away from it and defer to any admin to take whichever action they deem appropriate, but based on the content, he still does not understand why he was blocked going back to the original discussion that quantity of DYKs etc. is irrelevant. Star Mississippi 10:43, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  After reading his unblock request I will be doing my best to avoid any of the articles that he has had a significant contribution to for the next 4 weeks in order to allow time for things to settle down as I do not want to complicate (or be seen to complicate) matters further. Gusfriend (talk) 11:01, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Where to now?

So to recap, we now have a giant mess of copyright violations, improperly attributed sourcing, dodgy sources which don't properly verify claims, and outright tripe to clean up, and need to figure out how that will be done. That isn't exactly within the scope of ANI. So, the question now is, where does that discussion happen? Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 12:00, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What about @Sennecaster's suggestion of the open CCI, or the Talk thereof? Star Mississippi 13:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer for discussion to be on the talk page of the CCI, or on WT:CCI or WT:CP even. Putting it on the CCI itself would be cluttering. CCI usually ends up cleaning serious verification and sourcing issues while also checking for copyvio, so if the community wants to look at other things or set up a space to check everything over, there's going to be anywhere from mild to serious redundancy. Sennecaster (Chat) 15:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is NOT just about copyright problems. Somewhere in VP is probably a better venue. EEng 01:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Over 90% of my issues with their pages are not CV related and are based on:

• incorrect information
• poor use of sources
• mismatch between information on 2 related pages
• Some poor prose (which I actually suspect comes from CV issues)
• incomplete information in GAs
• DYK statements not supported by information included in articles (sometimes the issue is the DYK and sometimes it is the article)
• OR and irrelevant information to meet a specific narrative

Even just somewhere to list the discussions like Talk:SS John Sherman/GA2 and Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_26#GAR_for_multiple_interlinked_articles

would be appreciated. Gusfriend (talk) 06:22, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@EEng: I presume by VP, you meant Village pump, but I'm just not sure where on Village Pump you had in mind? Or were you thinking of a new subpage or something? Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 07:34, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I meant Kamala Harris should handle it. EEng 11:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Then it might do to let Joe know that he'll need to find a stand-in VP for a few months. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 23:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also pinging others who've participated above: @Trainsandotherthings, @Fram, @Mackensen, @CiphriusKane, @XtraJovial, @Ravenswing, @Beyond My Ken. Any input would be welcome. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 08:01, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure of the best way to handle this. As others have noted, it's not just copyright issues. Any article to which he was a major contributor needs to go through a thorough reassessment. Mackensen (talk) 11:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We need a process that has authority to go through his articles with a chainsaw and cut out copyvios and factual errors with extreme prejudice. It's the only way this gets resolved in anything resembling a timely manner. I've brought a handful of his articles to GAR, and one was delisted the other day, but that's a slow process and doing all his articles that way would take a very long time. Not to mention the other issues beyond GA status that EEng mentioned. We need to compile a list of his articles and go through them one by one looking for issues. As much as I'd like to just wave a wand and say delist every GA he did, at least a few are likely ok. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I might start something up myself, a list of every GA will be a start, plus all the DYKs, as there is a greater incentive to misuse sources to get a catchy hook. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 13:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sca (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) recently added a comment [15] at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates on a thread concerning the Chinese election that I believe used the racist stereotype that East Asians, when speaking English, confuse /l/ and /r/. I removed the comment, he restored it again, I re-removed it and left a note on his talk that I would block him if he restored it again. He is now asking that I apologise as it was a "joke", it wasn't racist and even that he had a friend that was Japanese-American so he can't be racist. Given that I'm one of the admins that regularly patrols the WP:ITN queue, where Sca contributes almost exclusively and often excessively, it's inevitable that I have to read his commentary whenever I'm here. I'd like an opinion on whether I'm being too sensitive. He refuses to discuss the topic on his talk page, and has moved the discussion repeatedly to mine. Stephen 22:52, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's offensive. Restoring it after it was removed is bad judgement. Schazjmd (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"I'm not racist, I even have black friends!" Yeah, that's a stereotype and a very bad joke to make. The fact it was restored, I almost would say was worthy of a block. You certainly do not need to apologize. RickinBaltimore (talk) 23:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly and certainly. Why didn't they just think about it after Stephen reverted the comment? Sarrail (talk) 23:05, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Seconding the discussion above - It's a blatantly offensive comment, the restoration was bad judgement, and doubling down afterwards is even worse. Worthy of a temp block IMO. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 23:09, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Can I ask Sca to explain further his claim that using "erection" "erected" instead of "election" "elected" was a play on words, but one that didn't play into that stereotype? Like, can he rationally explain how else to interpret it? Why the word erection? Or would that just be me disingenuously forcing him to dig a deeper hole when we all know he is lying? I find one of the most inexplicable things about the post-2016 world is that people no longer feel the need to figure out a plausible lie; any non-plausible lie is apparently sufficient. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:43, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Purely a joke related to a discussion about whether "elected" was a valid verb in describing a totalitarian leader whose third term had been meticulously pre-planned. No thought whatsoever in my part of any "racist stereotype," nor of any prurient innuendo re "erection," which I see now was an unfortunate word choice. -- Sca (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  At the risk of tarnishing my bleeding heart credentials - because I think I'm in the minority on this these days - I'm not sure "racist" is the best term to use; I've always felt that term should have a more specific, narrow meaning. "Mocking ethnic stereotypes" is maybe more accurate? Perhaps Sca would be willing to cop to that? Maybe he's just hung up on the word "racist", and being more accurate would give him a chance to think in a less reflexive way about what he said and realize he is in the wrong here? --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:01, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah, we wouldn't want to offend Sca by using the wrong word... Levivich (talk) 00:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Whereas Levivich wants to burnish his.--Floquenbeam (talk) 00:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Say it loud and say it proud! Levivich (talk) 00:09, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It's certainly true that Sca's contributions at ITN are excessive. He has a scarcely believable 9498 edits to WP:ITN/C, an awful lot of them jokes and asides in small text that don't add much to the discussion. I can't say that I've noticed him say anything that could be called racist before, although like Floq it's hard for me to understand what the joke would be if it was not the pronunciation stereotype. Perhaps a temporary partial block from Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates would give him time to reflect and go do something more productive. Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• You're not being too sensitive. Sca's explanation that it was intended as a run-of-the-mill boner joke and not a racist joke playing on the stereotype of Asians' pronunciation of l's as r's strains WP:AGF to its limit, but AGFing it's true, now that it's been pointed out, any reasonable person would've apologized for inadvertently making a racist joke. This is block-worthy. Levivich (talk) 23:58, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Whether he meant it as an Asian l/r pronunciation joke or as a boner joke, it's inappropriate either way. In no way does that edit improve the project. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Purely a joke related to a discussion about whether "elected" was a valid verb in describing a totalitarian leader whose third term had been meticulously pre-planned. No thought whatsoever in my part of any "racist stereotype," nor of any prurient innuendo re "erection," which I see now was an unfortunate word choice. -- Sca (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You've made me realize I typed incorrectly in my comment above. It was "erected", not "erection". "Erected" makes zero sense as a phallic joke of any kind. This is not plausible as a phallic joke. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you. -- Sca (talk) 16:30, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• So, "erected" can mean "put in power", per Wiktionary, and so if I crank my AGF meter all the way to 11 I can see this as a comment about the lack of democracy in China, as Sca claims it was. That said, making political remarks at ITN/C at all is against Wikipedia's purpose (although Sca's far from the only ITN/C regular to run afoul of that), and restoring the comment after it was challenged shows particularly poor judgment. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 00:40, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I think your AGF meter is miscalibrated; this is at least a 23. Sca is not using the word archaically. I'll stop harping on this now, though. It's just so annoying someone can blatantly tell an impossible lie and we're supposed to grit our teeth and chant AGF, AGF. Although looking ahead a few weeks, and a couple of years, I suppose I should just get used to it. OK, now I'll stop harping on it. Floquenbeam (talk) 00:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  No, harp away. I despise that it's become part of our cultural zeitgeist that as long as someone Denies! Denies! Denies! at the top of their lungs -- never wavering -- they can never be called on their bullshit, they're immunized against wrongdoing, and the rest of us are enjoined to bow our heads and mumble apologies for having doubted their inner good nature. AGF is not a suicide pact, and treating it as such only enables the edgelords in their bad faith. Ravenswing 01:19, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• For the record, here's how DYK's acknowledged greatest hooker handles erection humor:
  • [16] ... that Edwin Stevens, while in a missionary position, said that erections indicated apprehension and penetration was difficult?
  • [17] ... that erection engineer Mark Barr had a business making rubbers, said bicycles stimulated ball development, and was elected to the screw committee?

EEng 01:25, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• after reviewing their comment, their ridiculous defense of it, and the fact that they were already p-blocked once before for using ITNC as a venue for idiotic humor, I've partially blocked them from Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates indefinitely. We don't need to decide here whether this meets the textbook definition of racism or is more of an ethnic slur as project pages are not for either of those things. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Good block. Awful comment. Pathetic defense of it. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Good block, per Vanamonde93. The "jokes" and ongoing political commentary have got to be dealt with. Jusdafax (talk) 03:27, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Good block. WP:NOTSUICIDE. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 03:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I can't say that I'm in a much better position than Sca as I have contributed heavily to ITN as well, at times not with the best decorum, but I agree that this was inevitable. Good block. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:32, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Response – Yesterday (10/25) I posted a reply to part of the relevant discussion on Stephen's talk page:

Your "joke" was based on the racist stereotype that East Asians, when speaking English, confuse /l/ and /r/. Stephen 23:38, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not at all! That was your interpretation of it, not my intention or motivation. It was simply a play on a word to substitute for "elected" – which Xi wasn't, not really. (And BTW, one of my closest friends from junior high through college and beyond was a second-generation Japanese-American whose last name was Ujifusa, and whose parents were interned during WWII.) I never dreamed that anyone would interpret my comment as a racial slur.
I still think you owe me an apology. – Sca (talk) 11:56, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am absolutely flabbergasted, and offended, that anyone would term me racist or view my purely joking post as a racist comment. Please note that Stephen specifically accused me of employing a "racist stereotype," which wasn't the case at all. In 16 years on Wiki no one has ever accused me of 'racism.' (Please note that my user page has long included a photo – by me – of this statue of Anne Frank at the Idaho Human Rights Memorial. Also, I'm a former employee of the Idaho Human Rights Commission.)

• Racism aside; if one accepts the argument that the comment was not racist, it has no place here. It was deliberate vandalism either way, it is NOTHERE behavior. We don't need this editor, editors who behave this way keep good editors away. — Jacona (talk) 13:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Never has Stephen offered an apology for his aggressive attack on me over what was a very small and insignificant post, not intended to engender controversy of any kind. Nor has he made any effort toward conciliation and mutual understanding. Instead, he responded with a threat to have me blocked, and has filed this spurious, nonsensical complaint at ANI, where no one ever has filed a complaint against me before.

Furthermore – and I'm reluctant to raise this point as I don't want to spawn some new proceeding – I've gotten the impression that Stephen may harbor some personal dislike for me, as he has opposed my comments many times over an extended period. Note that he claims I contribute "excessively" at ITN/C. My only motive in contributing there is to offer information, mainly story links, or observations intended to help make ITN blurbs clear, accurate and reasonably concise.

I view Wikipedia as a tremendously positive player in the realm of information presentation, and I appreciate the opportunity it offers volunteer editors like me to participate in this important work. (I say this as a former [retired] newspaper reporter, editor and copy editor.)

In view of what has transpired, I hereby withdraw my request for an apology, as none seems likely to be forthcoming. However, I wish to state that I remain open to any effort on Stephen's part toward conciliation. – Sca (talk) 15:54, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of justification here - You're essentially saying "I can't possibly have had the impact you're saying I did, because I am exceptionally well qualified and know better than you." If you were formerly employed by the Idaho Human Rights Commission (an honorable career), then you should know that intent is not necessarily important - As multiple editors have explained above, it's a comment that can clearly be easily interpreted in a racist way. I really encourage you to take Levivich's words above, that any reasonable person would've apologized for inadvertently making a racist joke to heart. A simple "I'm sorry that my comment was interpreted that way and I'll try and be more intentional with my language moving forward" would go a long way here. Instead, it seems you're intent on doubling-down. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 16:46, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Where can I see the decision in this case? -- Sca (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This isn't a "case," and you can see Beeblebrox's reasoning above in this very thread. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I wish to appeal my block, but can't figure out from the guidance where one files an appeal. – Sca (talk) 16:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's on your talk page. Just post {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}} at your talk page and someone will review your block. I strongly suggest internalising some of the comments made here before doing so, if you wish it to be successful. FWIW I think the block was reasonable, given the behaviour and your response to it, but good luck anyway. John (talk) 17:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I have declined the unblock request, in part because of the comments on this thread. Thryduulf (talk) 11:20, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The cluelessness and doubling down on poor decisions continues on my talk page. I closed a duplicate discussion there, and Sca kept posting about it anyway [18] [19] and when I closed that discussion with an edit summary of please stop they just kept posting in it anyway [20]. I'm not asking for further action at this time as I've issued a warning to them already about this, just wanted it recorded ion this thread if and when this issue comes back here later. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I noticed that Sca seems to have removed the declined unblock request from their talk page in the name of archiving. I'm not entirely sure if WP:KEEPDECLINEDUNBLOCK applies here given that it is merely a block for editing certain pages rather than wikiwide, so I figured I'd report it here rather than restore it against their wishes if this is indeed permitted. Zapientus (talk) 13:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  By the letter of that guideline the notice should remain, however given the language has been unchanged since before partial blocks were enabled on the English Wikipedia it's clear that full blocks are what it is intended to refer to - and indeed that is still by far the most common usage of the unblock request template (Sca's case is the only time I've seen it used for a partial block). Guidelines explicitly note that exceptions may apply, and I think its fair for the appeal of a block from a single page to be one such exception. Ideally though the notice should have been properly archived rather than removed. Thryduulf (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I became aware of User:Aarp65 just a few minutes ago when they added "Category:Surnames of Vanuatuan origin" to Jimmy. I noticed that this category page was also added to David (surname) and John (surname) which are of biblical origin, and George (surname) which states that it has many origins, none of them Vanuatuan.

I then noticed that Aarp65 had put "Category:Surnames of Marshall Islands origin" on Joseph (surname), Peter (surname), Philip and Samuel (name).

The next thing I noticed is that for the past two months, User talk:Aarp65's talkspace is filled with at least 25 mostly successful speedy deletion nominations for creating categories and other pages. More pages have been moved to draftspace as suitable and several disrupted editing warnings posted by User:Uricdivine, User:Leschnei, User:Joy, User:Pppery and especially User: Liz.

As far as I can tell, Aarp65 does not state reasons or cite sources for the creation of so many of these pages. Probably because they are factually incorrect. In my opinion, this user is WP:NOTHERE to create an encyclopedia. Warnings have already been given, so if the consensus agrees, I propose a discussion about the possibility of a WP:TBAN on creating categories and pages having to do with names and surnames, etc. for this user. The exact topic could be decided later. I hope this makes sense. I'm open to suggestions. Thanks. Kire1975 (talk) 17:39, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly, Aarp65 knows a lot about this topic and most of their contributions are very productive. I take back my WP:NOTHERE accusation but these categories and 25 warnings in 2 months are genuinely concerning. I'm going to try to talk to them more about it in their talkspace. Nothing urgent needs to be immediately addressed by others here, but I don't think it should be closed until a response can be had. Again, suggestions welcome. Thanks. Kire1975 (talk) 18:27, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(non-admin comment) Jimmy is a DAB page. Regardless of the merits or otherwise of adding such a category to surname pages, it should not be added to a DAB page per WP:DBC. Narky Blert (talk) 02:09, 27 October 2022 (UTC) It's either too late or too early. Origin-type categories are fine (indeed, recommended) on DAB pages also categorised as surname or given name pages. Narky Blert (talk) 02:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted a whole bunch of their recent edits, as they were indeed bizarre and non-constructive. Things like this, this, this, or this are just some samples of the type of edits. If they don't or inadequately reply, a topic ban from categorisation (or name categorisation) may be needed. I mean, on a long disambig where none of the entries are for Samoans, they still proclaiml that the name "Meredith" is of Samoan origin.[21]... Fram (talk) 09:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that this is continuing while this section is open, with Raisi (disambiguation) created today and added to e.g. Category:Zimbabwean surnames despite nothing on that page relating to Zimbabwe; can please some action be taken? Letting someone continue to add such fake information to Wikipedia while this iss being discussed at ANI doesn't look good (on us, and even less on them). Fram (talk) 14:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've DABified Raisi (disambiguation) (which was a needed page) and deleted the Zimbabwean category as unsupported. Narky Blert (talk) 15:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Any suggestions on how to avoid or minimize further such issues? The editor involved seems unwilling to join any discussion about it, giving little hope of improvemeñt. Fram (talk) 15:16, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For a specific problem like this, the time-honoured solution is digging through contribs, and if necessary following the usual escalation procedures aimed at persuading or forcing nuisances to stop. I have no solution to the more general one of under-, excessive, or over-precise categorisation of DAB-with-surname and surname pages other gnomishly than fix when found. (A moderately common case of over-precision is labelling a Germanic surname as specifically Jewish/Yiddish when it is not specific to that community. Bernstein and Kahn (an unusual case with two distinct etymologies) are models of how it should be done.) Narky Blert (talk) 05:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another strange DAB creation: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wodarz&oldid=1118543166 (current version) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:48, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That was a weird one; notably in the mismatch between title (Wodarz) and lede (Holetschek). It has already, and correctly, been WP:BLARed into an {{R from surname}} page. Holetschek exists, and is another recent creation by Aarp65; a good one, which I've minorly tweaked. Narky Blert (talk) 05:36, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just added a Level 3 warning before I noticed Fram's proposal below. He's definitely been warned. Kire1975 (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And another bizarre edit: Ranseier was redirected to Karl Ranseier, which itself is a redirect to RTL Samstag Nacht. No reasons given. Kire1975 (talk) 08:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And this: why does "Category:Malagasy given names" exist? Even if it had more than one entry, Aarp65 should at least give a reason for it? Every new page gets added to his impressive list of "Written pages" created on his username. Kire1975 (talk) 08:59, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It looks like User:Joe Roe granted Aarp65 the autopatrolled status. And a quick review of Joe's talk page, it looks like he has a history of ignoring ANI discussions as the discussion on his talk page from 18 days ago indicated. There is an active ANI discussion right now that has User:Bishonen pinging Joe Roe to find out why he hasn't responded. Perhaps we should be exploring possibility of removing Joe's ability to grant autopatrol status. Kire1975 (talk) 11:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Kire1975: A "history"? Please don't be ridiculous. I am one of the most active admins at WP:PERM/A (at times I've been the only person responding to request there), and I've granted autopatrolled to about 100 editors. As far as I know, the three incidents you mentioned are the only problems that have arisen. I participated fully in the first ANI thread. I had no way of knowing about this one, since I wasn't pinged and I don't have ANI on my watchlist. The third thread, below, was started on Saturday evening in my timezone, and autopatrolled was pulled by Sunday morning (also when Bish pinged me). I have no problem with that "error rate", and in any case, I can only grant or refuse to grant autopatrolled based on the criteria agreed by the community, which I have been trying to get tightened for years. – Joe (talk) 12:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: topic ban (user:Aarp65)

I propose that Aarp65 is topic banned from all name-related pages (articles, categories, templates...) broadly construed. Their recently granted autopatrolled right should also be removed again. They have been warned about their problematic edits in the past. During the above discussion, they created Lipovsky (disambiguation), with 4 completely unsupported categories, created multiple unnecessary name disambiguation pages (with only one bluelink), added name categories unrelated to the contents of the page they were placed on ([22]), and so on. They show no indication of changing their approach or participating in this (or any) discussion. Expecting other editors to check all their edits and revert this many of them is not useful. Fram (talk) 08:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Their recently granted autopatrolled right was removed once before? I'm not sure what that is or where to find evidence of that. Can you put that in the discussion please? Thanks. Kire1975 (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, originally they (like everyone else) didn't have it, it was granted in June or so, and should now be removed again. Fram (talk) 12:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The "again" is the problem, it suggests that it has been removed before. 66.44.22.126 (talk) 12:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's a colloquialism in some American regional dialects. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I know -- Kire1975 misunderstood Fram, and Fram didn't understand the nature of the misunderstanding, but at this point I'm pretty sure everyone understands everyone else or doesn't care. 128.164.177.55 (talk) 19:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Aarp65 does seem to have some expertise in the field, or at least a lot of experience working on this topic, but the prominence of the multiple "Veteran Editor" badges in their infobox makes me think they might be just trying to create so many tiny little name pages and DAP's so they can bulk up their numbers to increase their "rank" like this is a video game. Of course, all we can do is speculate on what they're doing because they are ignoring so many warnings and invitations to participate in this ANI discussion. I don't want them to be TBAN'd but what else is there left to do? It's disruptive, not productive and makes a lot of work for other editors to fix. Kire1975 (talk) 14:06, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BilledMammal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has unilaterally decided to mass merge and redirect hundreds (perhaps thousands) of articles on insect species and genera to higher level ranks (i.e. genera and tribes) without discussion. Admittedly there are a lot of insect species stubs with very little content, but a mass action like this should have been discussed beforehand to gain consensus for it prior to implementation. This has been previously discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Ongoing_disaster:_a_heads-up Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:51, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I have rolled back the lot as a highly disruptive and ill-advised (or rather, non-advised) mass change against established and well-known consensus. Not sure we need any ANI action here as the damage is undone and I assume BilledMammal will agree to discuss this kind of thing henceforward. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:10, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Most or at least a lot of them seem to be sourced (only?) to Bezark, Larry G. A Photographic Catalog of the Cerambycidae of the World, which is now a deadlink. Is it considered unreliable? Mccapra (talk) 17:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No discussion at WikiProject insects that I can see. Mccapra (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

None at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Beetles either. Bezark is an academic entomologist [23], so I would think he is reliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Larry Bezark migrated the entirety of his site to a different URL ([24]), but it is all still online, and all very authoritative. The dead URL is part of the text of several thousand articles, changing them all will take a very long time. Dyanega (talk) 18:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Larry Bezark's site was used for long-horned beetle articles and I updated the refs for many of them when I went through them systematically earlier this year. Loopy30 (talk) 18:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If there's a systematic correspondence between the two sets of urls Wikipedia:Link_rot/URL_change_requests, can probably use a bot to fix all the links. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:33, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I will point out that BilledMammal has participated at an Arbcom sanctioned discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale, but that is still open as best I can tell, so any implication of taking mass action from that is not appropriate. I know there was a recent discussion on some page (can't find but was within last 2 months) about the mass creation of fish species articles which was pointing away from mass creation of similar articles (minimal facts, sourced to the same source), but I don't BilledMammal participated in that. --Masem (t) 18:12, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion Masem refers to was on village pump (linked here). That discussion was instigated by BilledMammal when they had suggested that a user "request permission" to continue their low rate production of stub fish articles (all notable species). Loopy30 (talk) 18:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• (edit conflict)Two things 1) Someone doesn't need permission to follow guidance we already give in our WP:PAGs. Non-notable topics with closely related notable articles or lists are often merged into those pages or If a page is very short (consisting of perhaps only one or two sentences) and is, in your opinion as editor, unlikely to be expanded within a "reasonable" (unspecified) amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it into a page on a broader topic. but "upmerging a bunch of stubby articles into a list" is quite literally the guidance we give people as part of normal editing practices. 2) The OP is being a bit disingenuous when they say "this has been previously discussed". That thread was started less than 30 minutes before this one. That is not "has been previously discussed". Given that no attempt has been made to reach a consensus on this one way or another, and that the user being dragged here is quite literally doing what guidance tells us to do. So given that A) No real attempt has been made to have a discussion and B) The user is LITERALLY DOING what the rules tell them to do, I am at a loss as to why you want to see them blocked, banned, or whatever. --Jayron32 18:17, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It was my understanding that an article for a species was, by definition, notable, no matter how short. Species articles include unique features - especially categories they belong to - that are lost if they are merged. Dyanega (talk) 18:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Consider just one example of one of the pages this user deleted: Berosus undatus. It contains references, wikidata links, taxonomic synonyms, and categories, all of which should be maintained but would not appear in the genus-rank article. Dyanega (talk) 18:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not according to WP:NSPECIES. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Today I learnt Their names and at least a brief description must have been published in a reliable academic publication to be recognized as correct or valid. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not only does WP:NSPECIES state that species articles are "generally" kept at AfD, in actual practice "all" (yes, 100% in the last 6.5 yrs) of the valid species articles nominated for deletion have been kept (see here). Loopy30 (talk) 19:21, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is this meant as a reply to me? I don't see the relevance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:48, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, it was a response to Gråbergs Gråa Sångn, whose addition to Dyanega's comment seemed ambiguous, if not the inverse of what they might have intended to convey. Not sure of the connection of your original comment though, unless you are just trying to support the notability of all species articles based on what you have "just learnt today. Loopy30 (talk) 20:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I meant nothing more or less than I said. Best way to avoid confusion is to reply to the right comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:07, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Loopy30 ...actually, I know of at least one beetle species article that was deleted 6 years ago (Syagrus atricolor, if you must know), but it was not listed on the Organisms deletion sorting archive but only on the Animal deletion sorting archive. Not sure if this might be an exception to the rule or not though. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:52, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. The original description appears to have not been subsequently recognised by any other authority after Pic (self-) published it. As such, it was effectively not a valid species and not covered by NSPECIES. Even if it was kept, it is likely to have been synonymized with another species eventually and them turned into a redirect. (As an aside, this shows the value of sourcing to a taxonomic database that has sorted out what is recognised as valid or not.) Loopy30 (talk) 20:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And in 2019, Zoia finally published his revision of African Eumolpinae which reclassified Syagrus atricolor as Afroeurydemus atricollis, facts that are now reflected in Wikipedia. Loopy30 (talk) 21:04, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting as that may be (I don't want to go on a tangent), my point was that AddWittyNameHere (unless I am mistaken) appeared to have overlooked that the Animal archive has pages not covered by the Organisms archive ...and this may also be true for plants, bacteria and other organisms if they have their own separate deletion sorting archives. That's something to look through to confirm if species articles truly have a ~100% keep rate as per WP:NSPECIES. Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, accurate stats over a wide range of kingdoms/phyla would be beneficial to inform other editors of the rate at which species articles are kept. (Sorry for going down the Syagrus sp. tangent, I find Wikipedia is full of such hidden rabbit holes.) Loopy30 (talk) 22:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(No worries, I would have loved to talk a bit on it too, but then I remembered this was not the place for it) Monster Iestyn (talk) 00:17, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is an essay, not a guideline. If the various species projects want it to be a guideline, they should make an RfC on it. JoelleJay (talk) 21:03, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given that WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES has been treated as a de facto guideline encouraging the creation of individual articles for all recent species for at least a decade (probably further back) - this was an obviously controversial mass change. I don't advocate any action against BilledMammal but that was a dumb move that had no chance of going unchallenged and shouldn't have been implemented at this scale. For further attempts, get consensus. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:31, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, when I suggested a block, I meant as a temporary measure to prevent ongoing merges until someone got their attention. Dyanega (talk) 18:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There wasn't ongoing merges at the time that this was discovered by Elmidae. BilledMammal had stopped editing close to 6 hours ago. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OUTCOMES is absolutely not an allowance to create article on the belief they will be kept. OUTCOMES allows for existing article to be kept but still allows merges and AFD to be performed. Masem (t) 19:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The rate at which this was done is impressive - for example, at 01:57 at 28 October 2022 they redirected 25 articles in one minute, or one every ~2.5 seconds. Is this an unauthorized bot run? Spicy (talk) 20:10, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is no record of 01:57 at 28 October. Perhaps you meant 01:37? — Nythar (💬-🎃) 20:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's correct, sorry. Spicy (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What you don't see is the time to set up those redirects before I press "publish changes" in rapid sequence. Entirely manually. BilledMammal (talk) 20:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OUTCOMES in not a policy or guideline, it's just an observation of happenings at AFD. And such a summary is generally for individually created articles. Mass-creation or mass major modification of articles certainly needs prior discussion as a minimum. North8000 (talk) 20:26, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

These mergers were appropriate per WP:MERGEREASON. Look at the last five articles I redirected (four created between 00:40, 3 May 2014‎ and 00:43, 3 May 2014‎, the other created at 22:58, 2 May 2014), for the reason Duplicates content at Cotyclytus:

1. Cotyclytus scenicus
2. Cotyclytus sobrinus
3. Cotyclytus regularis
4. Cotyclytus stillatus
5. Cotyclytus suturalis

The only information these give is the name, that it was a species of beetle in the family Cerambycidae, and who by and when it was described. The same information that is given at Cotyclytus. How is removing the duplication of information controversial?

The mergers are similar. The last five articles I merged (created between 23:30, 1 May 2014‎ and 23:34, 1 May 2014‎) are:

1. Sphallotrichus spadiceus
2. Sphallotrichus setosus
3. Sphallotrichus sericeotomentosus
4. Sphallotrichus sculpticolle
5. Sphallotrichus puncticolle

These give the name, that it was a species of beetle in the family Cerambycidae, who by and when it was described, the range, and in one case a list of subspecies. The first three were already available at Sphallotrichus, and I created a table to contain the rest. How is replacing boilerplate micro-stubs with a table containing all of the same information controversial?

BilledMammal (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because the merge destroys unique species-specific information that is not being exported to the genus page. For your last set of species, for example, for Sphallotrichus puncticolle you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q16758751 and Category:Beetles described in 1870; for Sphallotrichus sculpticolle you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q14718823 and Category:Beetles described in 1852; for Sphallotrichus sericeotomentosus you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q14718824 and Category:Beetles described in 1995; for Sphallotrichus setosus you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q14718821 and Category:Beetles described in 1824; for Sphallotrichus spadiceus you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q14718818 and Category:Beetles described in 1892. By merging articles you are removing links to Wikidata, and wiping out members of viable categories. For other articles your bulk edits merged, you deleted lists of synonyms, you deleted categories defined by geographic distributions, and categories linked to authorships. In addition to removing synonyms, you also removed the parentheses around authors' names that indicate that a species was described originally in a different genus. That's a lot of valuable information being lost to your arbitrary merges. Please stop. Dyanega (talk) 20:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Other information removed included images of the the article subjects. Examples at Ochraethes viridiventris, Coleoxestia sanguinipes, Ochraethes palmeri, Ochraethes brevicornis Criodion tomentosum, Ochraethes citrinus, Ochraethes obliquus, Ochraethes pollinosus, Ochraethes tulensis, Ochraethes z-littera, Chlorida festiva and Criodion angustatum) Loopy30 (talk) 22:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Valuable to species project editors and...who else? Wikipedia is not a directory/database, and even less so a meta-directory. JoelleJay (talk) 21:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's valuable to the kind of people who would be looking up articles in the topic area. What more justification do we need? XOR'easter (talk) 13:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Working through that list:

• parentheses around authors' names that indicate that a species was described originally in a different genus - I wasn't aware that was deliberate. They can easily be preserved in the merged articles.
• wiping out members of viable categories - The categories could be left in the redirects
• Taxonbar - Wikidata is not permitted in article text, and we are writing for the reader, who isn't going to benefit from having to go microstub by microstub to look at all species within a genus just so that we can include a few external links.
• lists of synonyms - Can be included in the merged article.

I've done these for Sphallotrichus; given your concerns can easily be addressed, I believe the correct response would have been to ask me to address them, rather than misusing rollback and dragging me to ANI. BilledMammal (talk) 21:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, the correct thing would be for you to discuss this sort of bulk editing and achieve consensus from - for example - the Wikiproject Tree of Life people whose hard work you're deleting, BEFORE you go deleting it. Again, all species articles are considered notable, by definition. You'd find little support, as noted above, given several existing policies. Additionally, your tabular format only works when ALL of the species in a genus have limited amounts of information, including limited lists of synonyms. Look at Sternotomis pulchra for an example of just how impractical that sort of "one size fits all" approach is likely to get. Dyanega (talk) 21:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't merge that article? No one is suggesting that every article on a species should be merged into its genus.

I'm also not deleting anyone's hard work; the information is being kept? BilledMammal (talk) 21:28, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You don't think it is a lot of work to find and attach the correct Wikidata links to articles? You don't think it's hard work to create redirects for long lists of synonymic names? One of the articles you merged had a pile of species-level redirects that suddenly pointed to a genus article instead of a species article (e.g. [25]). That's not trivial, and you STILL seem to be avoiding taking the responsible step and discussing this approach with the editors who are most directly involved and getting consensus that your approach is an improvement. Dyanega (talk) 22:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Given that it took the creator approximately one minute to create each of these articles, no, I don't think it is a lot of work. And we don't create articles just so that we can create redirects to them. BilledMammal (talk) 22:05, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When did I say I was talking about the creator? I'm talking about all the editors who worked to improve these crappy stubs AFTER they were created. A high proportion of the articles you merged were created by a single user, Wilhelmina Wil, who probably shouldn't have done bulk stub creation on that scale. But, instead of merging/deleting those stubs, many editors took the time and energy to do things like adding Wikidata links and lists of synonyms, and adding categories, and fixing spelling, and all sorts of other labor that you're wiping clean (e.g, [26]). If these had been articles created and never improved after their creation, maybe you could claim that no one's work was being lost, but that's simply not true for many of these articles at this stage of the game. Dyanega (talk) 22:24, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We've already established that we can keep all of that except the Wikidata, due to there being a consensus against including it, so what is your point?

Also, the amount of effort that went into creating an article, regardless of whether you think it is a lot of work or not, is irrelevant to whether it should exist as a stand-alone article. BilledMammal (talk) 22:28, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, we haven't, and you haven't - you ignored Loopy30's very valid point about losing species images when you merged pages containing them. I'm sure we can find other editor-added content that is being lost by bulk merges. Dyanega (talk) 22:36, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please WP:AGF. I missed Loopy30's point because they posted it out of order; I didn't ignore it. And we don't keep standalone articles to give us a place to use images any more than we keep articles to give us a place to include external links.

In addition, only a small minority of articles I merged include pictures; that argument cannot be used to suggest my up-merger of the rest, such as Cotyclytus scenicus, was inappropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@BilledMammal I just wanted to add that I think you are underestimating the value of the wikidata in the taxonbar. They provide links to many different good external sites, such as GBIF or iNaturalist (many people, such as myself, use iNaturalist for taking pictures of animals they find). Those sites can provide more detailed range maps, for example, as well. And I guess I just don't understand the problem with having species stub articles. What is the harm? Cougroyalty (talk) 21:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

underestimating the value of the wikidata - that's a separate discussion about the use of wikidata generally.

What is the harm? - Because our goal is to benefit the reader. The reader receives more benefit from data being easily accessible by being up-merged rather than having to look at dozens of micro-stubs to gain the same understanding. This isn't controversial per WP:MERGEREASON, particularly for the articles that currently only duplicate the content of the list. BilledMammal (talk) 21:43, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't we just have both? Your "merged" genus-level articles are fine. But can't we keep the species-level stubs as well? Cougroyalty (talk) 21:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When they are stubs I normally do keep them, as they normally contain information that cannot be merged into the genus level article, but for the sub-stubs like the ones I linked above, which duplicate the content either already or after the merge then Wikipedia:Content forking tells us not to do that. BilledMammal (talk) 21:51, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Taking the first in your list, if someone were to do the work of looking in the Biodiversity Heritage Library for the reference Pascoe 1866, maybe they could add a redirect neoclytus scenicus, write the Peter Bouchard article [27], expand Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe and end up with a bit of article prose and a figure. From seeing various Afd's this work looks sometimes pretty difficult and the existence of the species article might help. fiveby(zero) 22:13, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is an incorrect understanding of that RFC, the intent of which allows Wikidata for authority control, taxon bar, and similar, as well as infoboxes and a few other places (Template:Official as an example). What it bans is the use in article text-proper and I think it's been reasonably interpreted to list articles automatically updated by Wikidata changes (though I recall no direct RFC on that point). --IznoPublic (talk) 23:56, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant list of edits is here. Now, BilledMammal, what you wrote above looks like the sort of proposal you could have put forward to the relevant wikiproject to see if there'd be consensus for it. Personally, I don't think there would be, and such a project would be impractical for a number of reasons (some of which have been listed in the two threads so far). All that is a content matter though, and what gets discussed in this board is instead behaviour. I join those above who have expressed the view that no sanctions are necessary, but it would really help if you could appreciate the reasons why what you did was a misstep. I'll just point out one thing. There's a stark contrast between, on one hand, your stance in the recent fish species discussion, where you demanded that one editor get community approval first before going back to creating 3-4 articles per day, and, on the other hand, your decision here to unilaterally redirect 459 articles in the space of 25 hours. – Uanfala (talk) 22:05, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. The relevant wikiproject has no bearing on whether this is appropriate. Further, the difference between the fish species discussion is the existence of the policy WP:MASSCREATE, which requires consensus to exist for their mass creation. BilledMammal (talk) 22:07, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So in your view, the bot policy, which you've just linked, prohibits one editor from making 5 article creations a day, but somehow also allows another editor, you, to remove 500 articles in the same period? I don't want to belabour the obvious anymore, but you really need to grasp the (very obvious) thing that you got wrong here. – Uanfala (talk) 22:32, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

the (very obvious) thing that you got wrong here - Given that no-one took the creator of these articles to ANI when they created 201 sub-stubs in one day, I'm assuming that what I did wrong was to clean up a mess, rather than create one. BilledMammal (talk) 22:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Seems like normal editing to me. Hundreds of bold edits were reverted; per WP:BRD they should be discussed before being reinstated. This is not ANI- or sanction-worthy. Also, editors who start ANI threads shouldn't advertise them off-wiki. Levivich (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing "normal" about this. I've been around WP a long time, and as far as I'm aware the wholesale merging of several hundred articles on valid species has never happened before. Again, there is a vast community of people who work on taxonomic articles in WP, and none of this was ever discussed with any of them before the merges commenced. Dyanega (talk) 23:00, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This was done during the late 2000s to topics of fictional nature. It was somewhat controversial then but a decade later and consensus is basically that the choice there was correct in the general. It took a particularly determined editor to see those changes through but I think that editor was vindicated by current attitudes.

Species are not all that dissimilar, and the path taken here was one prompted by actual guidelines on the point.

Anyway, the general discussion is soon to be had, but don't think species are special. IznoPublic (talk) 00:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Basically, this is not difficult. If you're going to start bot-like editing on large number of articles, it is always a good idea to gain consensus for those edits first. Otherwise, you may end up causing a problem, like we see here. I have no view on whether BM's edits were useful or not, but it is the concept of mass editing that is the issue. Black Kite (talk) 23:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree completely with Black Kite. How can one go ahead and make so many edits that one could realize would not go unchallenged, without even trying to sense whether the community would agree with them? It just goes against the very spirit of everything. Drmies (talk) 03:16, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • The information was retained, in a format that is much more convenient for readers. I genuinely thought this wouldn’t be controversial - and looking at the AFD’s, where no one has objected on the grounds that it is not an improvement (except for one editor who has made the bizarre claim that a 6000 byte article is too long) I still don’t understand why it is, although I recognise that it is. BilledMammal (talk) 03:48, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

      You're experienced enough that you should have known that not everybody was going to be happy with 500 articles being turned into redirects. I hope that moving forward you'll start discussions with others in relevant WikiProjects prior to these types of mass changes. We're a collaborative effort and discussions help to bring out alternative points of view that others may not have considered. The longer I'm on Wikipedia the more I'm realizing just how useful starting discussions in the proper places can be in helping to guide what large scale changes I make or don't make. Hey man im josh (talk) 04:11, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It looks like BilledMammal has now gone ahead and nominated all the species articles for deletion at AfD. Cougroyalty (talk) 00:36, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  That is very much POINTy given they are involved in this conversation. Masem (t) 00:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Ive opened two AFD’s, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalbus. Given that this isn’t a content discussion, and editors are saying I should get consensus before repeating those edits, I don’t see opening them as pointy or in any way disruptive? BilledMammal (talk) 00:53, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Nominating these for deletion looks pointy and, without a link to this discussion where the consensus is running against a merge, a lot like forum shopping. Jahaza (talk) 01:07, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:POINT applies to "making edits with which they do not actually agree", not edits with which they agree, and sending a page to AfD after a bold redirection was rejected is the regular process at work, not forum shopping. Avilich (talk) 01:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Making an AFD when there is a large number of complains about previous merges (read: keeping the status quo until a discussion can be had) is definitely making such edits. Its clear the proper action is to open a discussion about how to handle these articles. I mean, I agree on the principle of merging, but WP:FAIT is also required. Masem (t) 01:28, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  'Its clear the proper action is to open a discussion about how to handle these articles'... which is exactly what he did? Avilich (talk) 01:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Except that there were already two ongoing discussions, here and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life going on about how to handle these articles. Since a merge discussion doesn't require posting to AFD (which is, in fact, not called "articles for discussion"), bypassing those discussions and creating two new ones without, initially, referring to either of them is WP:FORUMSHOP. Jahaza (talk) 01:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  WP Tree of Life can’t come a consensus on this, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and ANI only discusses behaviour, not content. BilledMammal (talk) 01:54, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  There's nothing at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that says that a merger discussion can't take place on a project notice board. The point is that a local consensus after a discussion at a project noticeboard can't overrule a consensus established project wide. In the absence of a project-level consensus on these though, there was no need to create another discussion and if you did want to create one, there were more appropriate venues. And per WP:PROPMERGE, you should have notified interested wikiprojects (rather than accusing them of canvassing when they self-notified!). Jahaza (talk) 02:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The notification posted at TOL was not neutral. BilledMammal (talk) 02:08, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It's not the regular process when you don't tell people that there's an extensive conversation about the topic going on somewhere else. And your reading of WP:POINT needs additional subtlety. WP:POINT specifically says that it's edits with which the person does not agree "as a rule," which means "usually, but not always."[28] Jahaza (talk) 01:29, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• POINTy actions like the AfD nominations do seem like they can and should have an actionable response at ANI. Silverseren^C 01:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I have no dog in this fight but nominating an article for deletion and proposing a merge, after a bold redirection was reverted, is the right and proper course of action. It's not POINTy at all. It's the legitimate next step to gain consensus for a controversial change. Mackensen (talk) 01:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Not really, because while a merger can be an outcome at AFD, nominating dozens of articles for deletion isn't the right way to propose a merger. Proposing a merger is described at WP:AFD as an alternative to listing at AFD and the instructions say "Use Wikipedia:Proposed mergers for discussion of mergers." Jahaza (talk) 01:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• For those who say "this is just normal editing", what would you say if someone did this for all species articles? Or every stub across the project that has a clear parent article? Just "normal editing"? The rate/quantity does matter. BilledMammal is one of the more active participants in the ongoing discussions about the rate of article creation. With so much of that predicated on when permission/discussion needs to happen before taking some sort of mass action, it's ... weird ... to see BM mass redirecting subjects (species) that have among the strongest consensus of any subject for having stand-alone articles. That's not to say that species articles can never be merged up, or even that these shouldn't (I'm not weighing in on that), but the number combined with absence of discussion does matter.
  It makes me feel old that I'm starting to feel like there's a relatively small but growing and very active group of people who are primarily here to cleanse Wikipedia of stubs and anything without inline cites. They used to call me a deletionist; maybe being around a while makes you a bit softer (or just me)... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:11, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see a difference between the two; WP:MASSCREATE doesn’t apply here, and my actions don’t create a WP:FAIT situation as evidenced by the fact they have been reversed.

that have among the strongest consensus of any subject for having stand-alone articles. I would be interested to see if that was true; I would suggest TOL draft an SNG saying that species should almost always have a standalone article, and see if there is a consensus for it. BilledMammal (talk) 02:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Posh. Your redirects were reverted, then after you saw the concerns laid out here at AN/I, you tempted WP:FAIT by going ahead and nominating some 30 of those stubs for deletion. gobonobo ^{+ c} 04:11, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really think there was any risk of WP:FAIT here. Those articles were not going to change by AfD for at least a week, and it would notify lots of different people to its existence. BilledMammal was right in saying elsewhere in the discussion that the post to WT:TOL was not neutral. AfD is probably the most appropriate place for these kind of content discussions.

Whether BilledMammal should stir the pot while there is an ANI thread open, well, that's a different conversation. EDIT: Not to imply that creating upset was intentional: just that it is a bit escalatory and they could have maybe waited longer. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 10:25, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I think we would be well served by finally holding a general RfC that develops WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES into a solid SNG, which may well turn out to be more restrictive than the current interpretation. As long as there is no more than a vague observation of "this is what usually happens with species articles" we will keep getting these issues (which admittedly don't normally extend to such an ...unwise 500-article chainsaw approach.) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:07, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm still very new to Wikipedia and basically only interact with parts related to taxonomy, and I think what Elmidae suggests would be very useful. Certainly there's a lot of "implied knowledge" when it comes to interpreting WP:NSPECIES. It is a very short essay based on observation that is brought into AfD conversations as de-facto policy and it would be a great idea to hash out where everyone stands on the issue. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 10:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm in agreement with Elmidae. We need more solid footing, even if it changes the scope of allowability. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:23, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  How would this address the current situation. I don't think that BM has actually asserted that lack of notability was the reason of these merges., Codifying long standing consensus, while possibly useful for other reasons, wouldn't do anything to prevent merges on the same basis BM based these on. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• These merges were legitimate BOLD edits and the use of rollback was inappropriate. AfD is a normal next step after a redirect is challenged. Tree of Life project participants are reminded that there is no requirement to consult Wikiprojects before making changes; disciplinary and anti-vandalism processes should not be misused to challenge edits that one disagrees with; and editors are expected to participate in content discussions in good faith without accusing others of misconduct. –dlthewave ☎ 17:59, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Where do you draw the line though? What is the upper limit on the number of established notable articles that an editor is free to boldly redirect each day without seeking consensus? – Uanfala (talk) 18:29, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Same as the number of articles an editor is free to boldly create each day without seeking consensus. Levivich (talk) 18:32, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Isn't the entire point of the ArbCom discussion going on now about how there should be consensus made in both cases and trying to remove or create a large amount of articles without some form of community approval beforehand is disruptive? Silverseren^C 18:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

        And notice how that's not getting consensus in the ongoing discussion. The entire point is: anyone can make as many articles as they like as long as the articles are policy-compliant without having to ask permission first. There is no rate limit, nor is there consensus to implement one. Similarly, anyone can merge as many article as they like without having to ask permission first, as long as the merges are policy-compliant. Similarly, anyone can revert BOLD mergers without any rate limit. Similarly, anyone can nominate as many articles as they like for AFD with no rate limit, again, as long as it's all policy-compliant. This is normal editing, and people do it all the time (mass creations, mass moves, mass mergers, mass category changes, mass AFDs, mass this and mass that and mass everything else too), and they've been doing it for decades. We have no rule against it. We should, but there isn't consensus for it. This isn't directed at you, silver, but I notice that WikiProjects cheer and celebrate when someone mass-creates articles in-scope, then those same projects recoils in horror when anyone else mass-nominates them for AFD or mass-merges them, etc. This notion that, once created, a mainspace page is somehow "sacred" or "protected" from being "destroyed" by deletion or merger -- see above and in the WT:TOL discussion, how people are talking about information being "lost," "hidden," or "destroyed," as if content curation isn't a part of encyclopedia building -- has no basis in global consensus. In fact, global consensus is the opposite, per WP:PAGEDECIDE and WP:NOTEVERYTHING. WP:BEBOLD doesn't just apply to content creation, it also applies to content curation. Levivich (talk) 20:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Further action needed? I was just alerted to the carnage disrutption through the AfD alerts, and seriously? What sort of WP:HERE editor would even think this kind of behavior is ok on a mass scale?

The mass redirects without any discussion when such structure is the norm was already bad enough. It's not quite the volume as when we had mass disruption of insect articles by Mishae when I had to go back and fix 10k insect talk pages (something about insects sure attracts this behavior), but this is affecting actual mainspace. Elmidae, as someone who's had to do similar cleanup after mass disruption like that kudos to you. BilledMammal should have known better at that point, but doubling down with the mass AfD is definitely getting in to WP:POINT territory. They were already warned that species articles are inherently notable (not to mention guidance we have like WP:MONOTYPICTAXON), and instead they're trying to wikilawyer about it. It looks like BilledMammal is also harassing editors like Hey man im josh commenting on this ANI too.

I'm not very familiar with BM, but given that they're causing major disruption in taxonomy articles, is that what a potential topic ban needs to be tailored towards? Based on the attitude and "warnings" they are giving out now, it's like they're just itching for a block they narrowly avoiding when they stopped making mainspace edits. Not sure on what action is best at this very moment, but hopefully this nth whack BilledMammal's noggin that they are on ridiculously thin ice sticks. I'm not up to speed on the ArbCom case, but usually continuing disputes related to the locus of the case are expressly forbidden during a case. Someone more familiar with it would know how/if clerks need to be involved. KoA (talk) 22:09, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

were already warned that species articles are inherently notable There is no guideline that says that, and in any case not every notable topic warrants an article, per WP:PAGEDECIDE.

It looks like BilledMammal is also harassing editors like Hey man im josh commenting on this ANI too. That was related to them going through my contributions to find all the AfD's I had recently opened to oppose them, including those unrelated to species. I believe the warning about WP:HOUNDING was appropriate. The fact that they ignored the warning and instead used rollback to remove it was less appropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 22:13, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars. I did not respond to you because I did not believe it would be a constructive conversation given how you've been combative against others during this process. That was related to them going through my contributions to find all the AfD's I voted in two additional AfDs (this and this). Given the nature of your two species related AfD nominations, it's not inappropriate to question if there were other inappropriate nominations.

I used rollback as, per WP:ROLLBACKUSE point #2, the edit was in my userspace and the reason for reverting I felt to be clear (point #1). The warning was retaliation and inappropriate. If you feel my behaviour was as well, then I do encourage you to open up an ANI because, while I believe my actions were not inappropriate, I'd adjust and learn from it others believed they were. But that should be its own discussion. To be honest this is why I usually don't participate in ANI, I'd rather be a no drama llama. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

None of the nominations were inappropriate; you can disagree with them, but that doesn't make them inappropriate. However, if you had stuck to the species nominations I wouldn't have objected; they are sufficiently related that I can see the argument that they are an appropriate use of an editors contribution history. What crossed over into hounding is when you used my contribution history to follow me into unrelated discussions and oppose my position there. BilledMammal (talk) 21:46, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For those following along on the "none of the nominations were inappropriate" comment , this is part of the major problem with the disruption BM caused despite multiple cautions. They are basically ignoring their own behavior. They made mass nominations without following WP:BEFORE, namely that they didn't try to improve content themselves even though the articles had sourcing to expand the articles when their complaint was that they were too short (not a reason for AfD), nor were they at individual talk pages trying to work details out or going to relevant Wikiprojects that BEFORE advises before even getting to the last step of doing merges/redirects. The mass article disruption only compounds that. To ignore that is clearly showing WP:NOTHERE behavior (extreme lack of self correction in this subject).

BM, you need to take your behavior seriously here. While it may be a red herring if you are going to make accusations against Hey man im josh, you need diffs. I don't see anything obvious in your interactions that would be to follow me into unrelated discussions and oppose my position there. If there is, you really need a diff at this point that actually shows it. If not, that is a WP:ASPERSION and is just giving the community another reason to block you. That is why I'm saying you need to take this seriously because it really comes across as you trying to escalate things more and more as we try to work with your behavior here. KoA (talk) 00:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The section of WP:BEFORE that recommends improving content through normal editing links WP:ATD. One of the recommended ways to improve content is merging; when the redirect aspect of the bold merge was rejected the appropriate action, per WP:ATD-R and WP:CONRED #4, is to open an AfD. You also misrepresent my nomination, which was on the grounds of WP:PAGEDECIDE, WP:CONTENTFORK, and WP:RF.

Hey man im josh !voted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila at 03:23, 29 October 2022. Two minutes later, they !voted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalbus. I consider both of these votes to be appropriate.

What was inappropriate and a violation of WP:HOUNDING is that they then went through my contributions to find and oppose other unrelated nominations which they did at 03:38, 29 October 2022 and 03:39, 29 October 2022. BilledMammal (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BM, you're talking past again and ignoring what you're actually doing in your edits, that's becoming disrutpive. You're just ignoring what multiple people have told you should have done in terms of process and that ATD directly points you to and are instead cherrypicking. Not to mention you're edit warring at Bothriospilini to add to your issues. This is not the time to joke around like that.

For for your actions with Hey man im josh, that's hardly harassment. When you had issues with disruptive use of AfD, of course someone is going to look in on other cases and comment independently if they notice something. In that case though, you aren't mentioned at all, and they are just reflecting what the rest of community is also saying at the AfDs. You on the other hand are adding to the case that you are treating AfD like a battleground the more you link to these interactions. KoA (talk) 04:24, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can we assume good faith, please? I doubt BilledMammal has bad-faith intentions, and it doesn't appear to be good-faith disruption either. Okay, maybe it wasn't a great idea to unilaterally redirect hundreds of articles without prior consensus and many of you disagreed with the deletion nominations, but I don't see disruption or sanctionable behavior on BilledMammal's part. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 22:23, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I don't think their original edits to turn the pages into redirects were in bad faith. I just think they should have known better given their experience. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:12, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When someone is engaging in patently disruptive behavior, especially given the battleground attitude they are injecting, we call a WP:SPADE a spade, so it's rather oblivious to just reduce it down to name-dropping good-faith. That happens all too often with tendentious editing like this. Either way, it looks like ArbCom doesn't have an active case that would involve BM like I assumed from previous comments. Some have commenting on solidfying some taxonomy standards in guidelines, etc. to avoid wikilawyering that's going on, but that also seems somewhat independent of BM's attitude.

Given the ongoing pointy attitude I'm seeing on comments from BM though, it is increasingly looking like a sanction will be needed to prevent disruption at some point. Especially given the cluelessness above in their harassing of Hey man im josh above, it's really coming across as a how dare you clean up after my mess mentality while trying to use WP:HOUND as a get of out jail free card as we commonly see with tendentious editors. They've been around long enough to know better. As I linked above, that's the opposite of WP:HERE when someone's behavior issues are brought up, so I'm increasingly convinced sanctions will be needed to curb disruption BM is injecting into the taxonomy subject. KoA (talk) 20:56, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing is closed and BilledMammal was not a party. There's currently a related ongoing RfC but creation/deletion tasks are continuing as usual. –dlthewave ☎ 22:32, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. Looks like this would be the appropriate venue then. KoA (talk) 20:58, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm back and have a little time, so I have a number of things to point out, please bear with me. (1) BilledMammal accused me of canvassing. I originally posted to exactly one page - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. Why? Because all of the merged/altered articles affected were WP:TOL pages, and because WP:TOL has, within it, space EXPRESSLY DEVOTED to such changes as proposed merges, and to which BilledMammal did not submit any such proposals. (2) Given that WP:TOL does, in fact, have space dedicated to approving/rejecting merge proposals, I think it is entirely understandable that I would be under the impression that the WikiProject does, in fact, have an established policy and legitimate claim to authority over such actions, and I acted accordingly, reacting to what I saw as a massive and unprecedented policy breach. Being accused by BilledMammal of acting in a non-neutral manner is predicated on his actions NOT being a breach of policy, and WP:TOL having no authority at all, and all the evidence I had in front of me is that it WAS a breach of policy. Others here and elsewhere have stated that WikiProject policies have no authority or enforceability at all, and I find this surprising, and apologize if I assumed too much. (3) Likewise, BilledMammal accused me of not assuming his actions were in good faith, but breaches of policy such as not getting approval for article merges, especially when they delete unique content do not appear to be good faith actions, unless an editor is acting in complete ignorance of policy. An editor acting in good faith who is bulk-deleting content, especially when all of that content is flagged as belonging to a specific WikiProject, should be consulting with that WikiProject in advance. Just because an edit is bold doesn't mean it isn't genuinely destructive, and I would argue that demonstrably destructive edits should be rolled back until they have been discussed and approved. (4) Policy and rules aside, BilledMammal admitted, directly, that they did not know what content in the articles being merged was or was not valuable, as well as admitting, directly, that they did not look at each such article to assess whether there WAS any unique content that would be lost. That sort of bulk editing, when you don't understand what you're causing to be lost, is not just bold, it's reckless. If there's a fire, you don't adopt a neutral stance and wait to see if it will go out on its own; you call the fire department. (5) When it was pointed out what deleted content was valuable, and what was unique, BilledMammal dismissed the point, saying that once he was made aware of the problem, some of it could be salvaged, and the rest, like taxonbars with Wikidata links, was not worth salvaging. Again, the time to learn what content needs to be maintained is BEFORE one removes that content, not after. Second, despite attempts to dismiss things like Wikidata links as not worth salvaging, I would argue that for many of these articles the Wikidata links are the single most important and unique source of information in the article, and - most importantly - ONLY Wikipedia species-level articles contain and make use of the full cross-referencing capacity of Wikidata. (6) Consider just one of the articles BilledMammal has proposed deleting; Knulliana, containing only a single species. The taxonbar was added by an editor after the article was created, and via Wikidata it links this record to Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, BioLib, BugGuide, CoL, EoL, EPPO, GBIF, iNaturalist, IRMNG, ITIS, and NCBI. Not a single one of those linked sources crossreferences to the others. For that matter, Wikidata records themselves do not cross-reference to other Wikidata records; you cannot look at a species entry in Wikidata and determine from that how many species are in the same genus, or what family it is in. ONLY Wikipedia species articles serve to provide a reader with all of the information available for a species, and the information available through the Wikidata crossreferences is VAST - it includes not just the taxonomic information, but the geographic distributions, phenologies, host associations, biological notes, photographs, and records of actual physical specimens and their data. Just go to that Knulliana article and click on those Wikidata links to see how much information is contained there - all of it lost if the article is deleted. It is precisely this information that BilledMammal has specifically stated is not worth including in Wikipedia, at the same time complaining about how these stubs contain nothing useful or unique. Wikipedia species articles that contain a Wikidata linked taxonbar do NOT simply "duplicate the content" of a genus-level article (because the genus-level articles do not contain those Wikidata links), and they contain far more than just what is immediately visible in the text of the article. Despite comments I've seen some people post, species-level articles do NOT simply duplicate or mirror what is found in Wikispecies, they do MUCH more, because they contain a Wikidata link, while Wikispecies cross-references to almost nothing, not to Wikidata, and not even to Wikipedia. (7) As others have noted, deleting or merging articles not only does nothing to improve them, but it makes it harder for anyone else to improve them, just like deleting the brackets from a redlink makes it harder for anyone to know that an article needs to be created. All existing redirects pointing to species articles will no longer have a proper target, because you can't target individual entries in a table. (8) Designing a table format that can accommodate for all the possible permutations is not practical; BilledMammal's initial attempt had only three fields - species name, "first described", and range. If you wanted to have an actual table that could accommodate existing species article stub content, it would contain (a) present species name, (b) past names/spelling variants/synonyms (of which there can be be 50 or more), (c) authorships and years for all these names, (d) the geographic distributions, (e) host associations, (f) existence of subspecies, (g) images, (h) descriptive notes, and (i) references, at a bare minimum (i.e., without having to omit existing content of merged/deleted stubs). Even for a small genus, nine columns, and the possible amount of content in some of them (especially considering how many would have to be left blank) would be unwieldy enough, but for groups like beetles, there are some genera with over 3000 valid species! Those genus articles are bad enough as just lists, they will become impossible to use if they are converted into tables, and the unfortunate truth is that all but a literal handful of the species articles for those enormous genera are stubs. We are MUCH better off with 3000 individual articles than a gargantuan table. (9) Something else that is overlooked is HOW DO MOST USERS ARRIVE AT WIKIPEDIA? To continue the example above, if you google "Knulliana" the #1 Google hit is the Wikipedia article - the same article that BilledMammal has just proposed to delete. Call me crazy, but you shouldn't go around deleting the #1 source of information on an organism on the entire internet just because you assert that species stubs are wasteful and inefficient. (10) For me, the bottom line is this: once a species article referring to an actual valid taxonomic entity has been created and crossreferenced, it should not be subject to arbitrary decisions to merge or delete it. If the name is synonymized, then it should immediately be changed into a redirect to the valid taxon name, but that's about the only way a species article should ever be made to disappear. BilledMammal has not engaged with the relevant Wikiproject, and has dismissed the concerns about the effort of editors who have helped to improve a page, as being irrelevant to whether a page should be maintained. Well, Wikipedia is a community effort, for one thing, and the community should have a say in the matter. The other side of this is that an editor who does not understand what the content is that they're removing should not be making such a decision unilaterally, especially when there are editors who DO understand what the content is, and how valuable it is. (11) I will echo the calls by others to establish, once and for all, an explicit AND OBJECTIVE policy regarding species articles, however high up it needs to go in the WP administrative hierarchy to make it enforceable. It is hard enough to keep the existing articles organized and curated without some existential threat that if an article does not have some arbitrary amount of arbitrarily-defined improvement by some arbitrary deadline, it can be wiped away by anyone who feels so inclined, without discussing the matter in advance. That's a recipe for disaster, and I don't regret categorizing it as such. Dyanega (talk) 22:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is a little difficult to read, but three points:

1. I accused you of canvassing because you posted a non-neutral message at ToL directing editors to the AfDs.
2. The only content whose value I missed was that parenthesis around authors' names had a specific meaning, a mistake that was easily corrected.
3. I did look at every article I redirected to see what content needed to be preserved.

BilledMammal (talk) 22:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, you missed images, you missed synonyms, and you missed wikidata links - all were excluded from the genus/tribe articles you merged to. These are all important, you apparently still don't accept that Wikidata links are important. Dyanega (talk) 22:56, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You admitted that you did not look to see if an article had images, nor did you look for synonyms, until after it was pointed out that these were important. Dyanega (talk)

Please provide diffs for these admissions. BilledMammal (talk) 23:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your pre-rollback edit of Bothriopsilini is this one: [29] showing that you imported no images, synonyms, or taxonbars, in addition to not importing the properly-formatted authorships, or recognizing that authorship is not at all the same thing as "first described". As for your comment admitting that you didn't pay attention to whether or not there were images, it was here: [30]. If your comment means that you noticed that there were images, but decided not to use them, then that's effectively the same thing, if not worse. You continue to trivialize things that are not at all trivial. You even said that Wikipedia had no responsibility for giving external links a home, which ignores that the crossreferenced sets of links in a taxonbar can't be found anywhere else. Dyanega (talk) 23:39, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Escalation and edit-warring by BilledMammal

Despite warnings above, we're getting more pointy behavior by BilledMammal at Bothriospilini. Without using the talk page at all until just a few minutes ago, they've tried to insert their preferred version three times now over a few days.[31][32][33] They're basically trying to partially start the merge they're proposing in the AfD ahead of time. One diff is particularly odd where they try to reverse the burden for consensus: Restore content while AfD is ongoing, to prevent disruption and confusion. If the AfD closes as "no consensus" or "keep", then please reinstate your reversion and I will open an RfC on the preferred content.[34] Basically, they're trying to edit war in the new content for the page and trying to justify it because it would complicate their AfD if it wasn't there in some strange circular reasoning. More on that at the talk page.[35]

This attitude is clearly wasting time at this point, so this is partly a request for admins to monitor for future edit warring, but to also indicate we're still dealing with timesink behavior issues even after the mass redirects stopped above. Too much battleground mentality being projected from this editor. KoA (talk) 05:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

try to reverse the burden for consensus - I asked you to delay your edit a few days, in order to avoid disrupting an ongoing AfD whose debate is related to the existence of the content you removed. That isn't an attempt to reverse the burden for consensus.

I also find it surprising that you're accusing me of edit warring. While I have reverted twice, it was across several days, and the first was to restore content that appeared to have been unintentionally caught up in the rollback. Meanwhile, you've reverted twice in a single hour.

Finally, while I didn't use the article talk page until after you opened a discussion there, I did try to open a discussion on your talk page; rather than engage with it, you removed it. BilledMammal (talk) 05:23, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

KoA, could you explain how adding species tables to an article is WP:POINTy? Such tables appear to be a standard practice (eg. Ibis). CMD (talk) 07:15, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's not really an accurate description just saying it's tables. For the article itself, BM has been repeatedly told that the species articles already handle the information they are trying to insert, and that sections like this were not helpful in terms of structure and prose. If they had simply engaged on the talk page and stopped edit warring from the start, that part of the behavior would not have been as pointy.

I already mentioned it above, but repeatedly restoring disputed content is what is also pointy, especially when they are trying to edit war in the content merge they're trying to accomplish at the AfD before the close. It should be self-apparent when reading their edit summary I quoted or their comment just above this how much they are doubling down on abusing the process they've been blocked for before.[36] It is literally wiki-lawyering to not get consensus on something only to start an AfD and accuse others of disrupting the AfD because those other editors won't let BM edit war in content they actively chose not to get consensus for. The short of it is that BM is just inflaming the topic independent of content that could be worked on and sucking time away from editors trying hold their behavior issues at bay. KoA (talk) 13:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How would you describe it? It appears to be tables, or where the table would be one row, text that covers the same material. On disputed content, until now there has been no indication that the Bothriospilini content was disputed. The version you have chosen is literally a single sentence, I do not understand how that is an improvement. CMD (talk) 14:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That is not addressing the behavior issues. KoA (talk) 14:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That may be so, it would nonetheless be helpful to get answers to my questions to understand what you feel is pointy (to be specific, disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point). I have asked because in the situation you raise I see one editor expanding an article and one reducing it back to a single sentence. An explanation for how the reduction is helpful to that article remains outstanding. CMD (talk) 15:00, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are welcome to read this ANI and the relevant AfDs you're already at for that, but the disruption doesn't change based on what someone thinks of the content question, and that's really a subject for the other venues. BM was already alerted multiple times the content belongs at the species pages, not the tribe, and BM was well are of their approach to trying to merge that content in was disputed. You don't just keep charging ahead with edits then. Avoiding relevant talk pages and their onus to get consensus for the content even when pinged[37] is already disruptive. Trying to do the mass merge through an AfD is one thing (not to mention the many comments on procedural issues with their nomination there), but then insisting they get to start that merge ahead of time at the target articles and act like those trying to deal with BM avoiding getting consensus are somehow disrupting the AfD is just plain escalating and projecting. It's disruptive WP:GAMING no matter how you cut it and why we are here rather than solely dealing with the content in the other venues. If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't see the basic non-responses like at Talk:Bothriospilini when we finally got them to comment at an article talk page only yesterday.

At this point I'm spending time on this because whenever it looks like there might be a little reprieve, BM has another stunt that comes up, and that's reviewing what I've seen even before I stepped in here too. Given past ANIs and blocks on BM, it's clear that trend is just continuing even in their most recent comments. That's why we now have a section on escalation and starting to queue up preventative measures. We do have to respect the community that shouldn't have to deal with the behavior time-sink at some point. KoA (talk) 16:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Having read the ANI and relevant AfDs, it is not explained anywhere how reducing Bothriospilini to a single sentence benefits any particular editor, the relevant Wikiprojects, the reader, or Wikipedia. Given you also do not appear inclined to explain it here after being asked directly, I do not think your AN/I case on pointy editing will get very far. CMD (talk) 02:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi CMD, the reason that the Bothriospilini article was a single sentence is that often very little of the literature is written at that taxonomic level (tribe), and this is reflected on WP where we generally have articles at the species, genus, family, order, class (and higher) ranks, but not at any of the many "in between" ranks. Where these articles do exist, they are often placeholders to assist in navigation through very large taxonomic trees.

KoA did not "reduce" the article to a single sentence, so much as to restore it to its pre-edit warring and pre-AfD launching state. Although BilledMammal failed to follow the prescribed sequence of gaining consensus for obviously contested moves (obvious to them because they had participated/instigated the fish stub "mass" creation discussion and recent RfC on the mass creation), they instead tried to back-door the process by filing two AfDs (one of which would have been enough for a test case) by requesting a merge as an alternative to deletion as a goal of AfD. Rather than wait for the AfD closing result, they then started their intended merge by moving material up to the desired target page and claiming that their AfD goal (ATD-M) was correct based on a supposed WP:CONTENTFORK, a duplication of material that was both their own creation and against consensus. This gaming of WP procedures without engaging other involved WP editors is neither collegial nor helpful to the encyclopedia. Seems POINTy enough to me. Loopy30 (talk) 02:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Articles should not exist to serve as categories, that's what categories are for. At any rate, this continues to not explain how having more detail on the members on the tribe page is bad for that article. The pointy edit here appears to be the blocking of the improvement of an article (in a way that reflects many other articles) because of an AfD for other articles. CMD (talk) 03:25, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Tribes are less notable than genera. If low-notability taxonomy stubs are going to being merged, tribes would be better candidates than genera (in this paticular case, the next level up, Cerambycinae, has well over 600 genera, so there are some practical reasons for keeping tribe stubs). Plantdrew (talk) 16:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is also a good point for a potential SNG. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 18:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On disputed content, until now there has been no indication that the Bothriospilini content was disputed. KoA, can you explain why you believe the content was disputed before your revert? This question is prompted by your recent revert at Bimiini where your edit summary indicates that you also believe that content was disputed.

If you are referring to the rollback, the summary was focused on the redirects, and I don't think it is unreasonable to believe that it was not disputing the content at the target articles. BilledMammal (talk) 01:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You've already been made aware you're making false statements. Elmidae reverted the entirety, not just the part you mentioned before I did the same at both articles. You knew it was disputed. Trying to wikilawyer basically saying you're sure they didn't mean to revert it all in order to say you should be able to edit war is just indicating you're trying to be disruptive at this point. You seriously need to step back from taxonomy articles if you intend to double down on tendentious editing like this at ANI of all places. Otherwise the community will be forced to do that for you at the rate you are going. KoA (talk) 01:33, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen species lists routinely included in the article about the genus that contains those species (the next level up the taxonomic hierarchy), and, much less commonly, at higher taxonomic levels (like Ibis). I do not recall ever seeing a species list, certainly not at a higher taxonomic level, that attempted to give more data than the name of individual species; in almost all cases, such a list or table would grow unmanageably large as it was filled out with information. To give an example, if someone created List of communities in New Jersey and started filling it with short entries about individual communities, we would (I hope) recognize that the article was too broadly scoped, and disperse it into sections of articles on individual counties, or narrower standalone lists like List of municipalities in Sussex County, New Jersey. This would be true even if many of the communities were deemed non-notable or at least not worthy of having a separate article.

My general impression of the situation, from the Village Pump discussion of fish stubs and the subsequent mass article creation RfC, is that BilledMammal favors a fairly aggressive upmerging of taxonomic stubs into larger higher-level articles. This is a defensible position, but has not yet obtained consensus and is a reasonably WP:BOLD action, insofar as it prescribes a different interpretation of policy than has been conventionally accepted in this area, as described by WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES. Again, re-examining these conventions is a legitimate activity (cf. NSPORTS), but I think they've shown increasingly poor judgment in how they approached it. I think we've reached the point where it would be better to see what position can gain consensus by discussing it with people familiar with this content (e.g., at the Tree of Life project) rather than by filing more AfDs and trying to judge the consensus position based on (possibly conflicting) outcomes there. Choess (talk) 17:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Restricting notability consensus discussions to wikiprojects is exactly what caused all the problems with NSPORT, trains, GEOLAND, porn, etc. Notability/article creation conventions should reflect global community consensus, not LOCALCON. JoelleJay (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

JoelleJay, you had a clear chip on your shoulder attitude the way you came charging into those AfDs, but you need to slow down to avoid mistakes as I've repeatedly told you. No one is talking about restricting discussions to wikiprojects, but avoiding subject-matter experts entirely as has happened results in even more problems. Choess had a very even-handed summary, and launching into hyperbole after that isn't helpful. WP:BEFORE was very clear to do things like fix the articles yourself, use article talk pages, and consult with relevant Wikiprojects to get an understanding of how the nuances of a specific subject works rather than trying to steamroll the community. That didn't happen, which is largely in part due to the behavior issues we're focusing on at this ANI. KoA (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My comment was only in response to the suggestion to gain consensus at, e.g., the Tree of Life project. SCHOOLOUTCOMES, NSPORT, NPORN, NTRAINSTATION, etc. demonstrate the global community should decide consensus on inclusion criteria because subject matter experts/enthusiasts tend to develop walled gardens that contravene our broader P&Gs, in particular WP:NOT and WP:OR. JoelleJay (talk) 20:59, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Choess: Here is one, Panthera, where the table gives images, names, scientific names, synonyms, authority and dating of scientific name, similar info on subspecies, and ranges. The table for extinct taxa even has a notes section. CMD (talk) 03:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The genus Panthera is vastly smaller than the majority of insect taxa, and given that the big cats draw much more interest and editorial attention, as well as being more taxonomically stable, the table there is easy. Comparing Panthera to insect taxa is apples and oranges. SilverTiger12 (talk) 15:12, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the particular insect taxa case in question, some of the genera were monotypic, so much smaller than Panthera. At any rate, it is merely an example of practice; there are many more. CMD (talk) 16:16, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree the prior AFD after the ANI thread was started dies fall into pointy behavior, this expansion of the lists to include relevant information pulled from the species articles seems wholly appropriate, regardless if the species pages are kept or not individually. I would expect a hierarchical list article like this to help guide me on going down the list in more than just name. That right now it seems to be repeating everything found on the species pages is a fault of the species pages being only stubs and not full articles. Masem (t) 21:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Masem and Chipmunkdavis: My perception of a modal species list is still "simple list in genus article", but paddling around a bit in mammals suggests that more complex lists are more common there (and I assume also in birds and some other charismatic and well-documented taxa), which I hadn't realized until now. I don't think species lists have to be bare lists of names, but I'd point out (from experience dealing with some articles in another content area) that the more material you add to these lists, the more maintenance burden you create to keep them synchronized with standalone articles. If someone cruises by and adds a newly published paper that updates the distribution of a species, they won't necessarily think to update summaries in articles two levels of taxonomy up. That's not to say that we can't have more expansive species lists–we are here to help the reader–but adding more information to the lists is not incontrovertibly a good thing. Plantdrew made a fairly succinct case on Talk:Bothriospilini for why these actions were mildly disruptive, so I'll refrain from belaboring the point here. I do appreciate your bringing the more expansive lists in mammals, etc. to my attention. Choess (talk) 02:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When vertebrate genus articles include tables, existing species pages are kept, not merged - as such, these are much more obvious targets for criticism under anti-forking policies than articles that simply offer lists of species names. I have yet to see a single article anywhere within the WP:TOL sphere that has a genus-level article with a table containing multiple species all of which are only linked via redirects. Also, as noted earlier, much of the species-specific information linked to by the taxonbars is not duplicated in the genus articles with tables. That includes comprehensive geographic distribution data, host associations, phenology data, potentially hundreds of photographs, and up to several thousands of specimen records in museums, all linked to individual species and accessible only on the kinds of species pages BilledMammal has been trying to convert to redirects or calling to delete entirely. The accepted practice is to redirect only when a genus is monotypic (or a synonym), and then the general practice is to redirect to the species. The comments above about certain ranks (species, genus, family, order) being treated preferentially is also true: if a tribe contains only one genus, the redirect is to the genus article. If a subfamily contains one tribe with one genus, the redirect is to the genus. If a superfamily contains one family, the redirect is to the family, unless that family is monotypic (see, e.g. Rhinorhipus) and so forth. In other words, monotypic taxon redirects generally go down, rather than up. In the specific case BilledMammal has put up in the AfD, the tribal article is the one that contains the least information, and would, push comes to shove, be first to get deleted rather than adding genus and species article content to it and then deleting the sources of that content, as BilledMammal was trying to do. It is this behavior - taking articles that had no content forking and turning them into content forks - that BilledMammal has been engaged in, and which is the biggest concern. Take a look at the Knulliana article, in the version immediately prior to his first attempted merge: [38]. Now, take a look at the Bothriospilini article, the version immediately prior to his first attempted merge: [39]. There is almost nothing in those two articles that was duplicated or redundant, and these articles were perfectly fine before he tried to merge them. One other thing that would have come up, had BilledMammal ever sought consensus over at WP:TOL, is that tribal ranks are probably the least stable of the well-known taxonomic ranks; they are the most prone to being created, sunk, or redefined. As a general practice, then, most of us who are taxonomists avoid creating tribal articles entirely, because they will - over time - generally require more maintenance than they are worth, and almost never contain any content other than a simple list of constituent genera, so it makes more sense to let them linger as redlinks in automated taxoboxes, and not even include them in manual taxoboxes at all. Case in point, the subfamily Cerambycinae, to which Bothriospilini belongs, contains over 110 tribes at present. That number is in constant flux, with many of those tribes only having been established as tribes within the past decade or two. You'll note that many of them are redlinks, even though in a few cases one or more of their constituent genera have articles. Despite this, editors who work within WP:TOL will almost never delete or redirect an article once it has been created, until and unless it has been brought up on the project page. Dyanega (talk) 16:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that BilledMammal's actions were harmful and not in good faith. He should at the very least get a formal warning, or if enough people agree be taken to ANI. Ortizesp (talk) 20:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Ortizesp: This is ANI. Levivich (talk) 21:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This isANIBurma-shave — rsjaffe 🗣️ 21:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've read through this discussion and I fail to see why taking this matter to ANI was appropriate. The (very) bold merges have been reverted, and the discussions have been started. ANI doesn't need to be involved in this issue. --Spekkios (talk) 01:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You literally were just at an AfD where more disruption had to be cleaned up. [40]

• Still continuing. Now BM has taken to edit warring at their AfDs to violate WP:TALK#REVISE related to the edit warring that started this subsection. Editors were already complaining about their links misleading readers.[41] We seem to be in a cycle of someone commenting at ANI that there's nothing to see here while practically each day we have a new issue with BM that just continues WP:TEND behavior. KoA (talk) 13:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Revising the comment of someone who you're already in disagreement with seems like something that is only ever going to get a hostile reaction. Not commenting on the appropriateness of the edit, just that is hardly surprising that it wasn't warmly received. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:12, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  For anyone's reference this appears to be BilledMammal original edit that modified the link. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I think everyone should take some steps back and do something else for a while. Nobody in this dispute looks very good in the above diff. Being right is not worth a WP:BOOMERANG. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 17:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  BM already established they're acting tendentious in most interactions, so it's also no surprise they'd act this way regardless. I think we need to be careful about the lashing out at those actual trying to hold BM's disruption at bay though. BM was the first one to modify the comment well after the start, and other editors including myself were simply restoring to the original due to complaints of BM actively misleading editors.

  A few of us editors were alerted to issues with BM through this ANI, so while we're trying, we still need help given the constant doubling down on BM being disruptive. Until that happens, it's going to be the same trend of BM lashing out at whoever tries to deal with their tendentious behavior that day though, so all that us non-admins can do is try to clean up and report. It's a drain on the community when those reports aren't taken seriously and BM still thinks it's perfectly ok to ignore all the warnings they've been getting in the past few days about their behavior. The more editors try to stop disruption, the more BM escalates, which is why we're still at ANI asking for admin help. KoA (talk) 18:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  KoA, what exception under WP:TPO do you claim as justification for repeatedly editing my comments? My justification for editing my own comment is to preserve context, by ensuring that the link continued to point at the same content. BilledMammal (talk) 18:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Updating a link in one's own post in this fashion is not disruptive. Blowing it out of proportion, edit warring on that basis, and then coming back to ANI in a hyperbolic fashion with statements like actively misleading editors might be, though. Please consider the damage you are doing to your own cause. MrOllie (talk) 18:32, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  While the repeated reversion of Billed Mammals post is not great, I've never seen linking to old versions done in deletion nominations. It goes against what people generally expect to be happening in a deletion discussion, which has to do with the current state of the article, its potential for improvement, and whether it should be deleted. (Which is, I guess, yet another problem with misusing AFD to propose a merge.) This editing is, at best, very strange and unexpected, which is generally not a good way to handle a public process. I don't see what it overtly accomplishes that a comment wouldn't have done better. Jahaza (talk) 19:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Indeed, BM had actually been warned at the Bothriospilini talk page about misleading at the AfD already, so it was very odd that they'd double down on it by changing the target to their diff. Plantdrew already summarized that well It is disrupting the AfD, in that the AfD is predicated only on WP:CONTENTFORK. But I've never seen another AfD predicated on CONTENTFORK, where the content forking was performed by the AfD nominator shortly before opening the AfD. Nobody in the AfD has yet brought up the fact that the nominator did the forking (I plan to do so; I had started writing my !vote, but it referred to BilledMammal's version of this article, so now I need to rework it (but I don't mind the disruption)). Performing a content fork and then arguing for AfD based on the content being forked is an...interesting tactic. That context mattered a lot in how pointy the later AfD changes were and really came across as thumbing their nose at any cautions about behavior they were getting.

  I still don't see any real acknowledgement of the problems they cause, just lashing out like above. BM had also been repeatedly warned that is was inappropriate to claim WP:TPO to avoid scrutiny on this to violate the rest of the WP:TPG, namely WP:TALK#REVISE. It's pretty standard to undo a major change like that to an active process like an RfC and pretty strange to see hyperbole calling it hyperbole. They had the option of outright saying, "Hey, here's a version I'd prefer" in a separate comment and being upfront about it, but BM should have known better to continue masking the state of the actual target considering the warning Plantdrew gave on the talk page about "tactics" shortly after the edit warring there. KoA (talk) 21:47, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This ANI thread, much like that AfD, is a mess that is unlikely to achieve any consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, I was. That's how I found this. I don't see how that edit is disruptive; I would consider the constant interference with another user's comments to be more disruptive. I also don't see where users are being confused by the change in link targets. I strongly agree with NRBP when they say to take a step back for a while. From my reading, there are about 2-3 users who very strongly disagree with BM's conduct in this matter, and it's fine that they do, but I don't see any behaviour that requires ANI to be involved. It seems like BM is more than willing to follow the WP:CYCLE, and it's time to move on to more productive things and let this matter go. --Spekkios (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  +1 Levivich (talk) 20:55, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  +1 –dlthewave ☎ 03:12, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  +1 JoelleJay (talk) 03:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Move to content discussion?<ec> I was going to suggest that given BM's recent declaration that they had ceased edit-warring on Bothriospilini (here) and their willingness to now engage in discussion on the WP:TOL project page to achieve consensus before continuing with any further merges of taxonomic articles (here), that this is becoming less of a conduct issue and more of a content issue that could possibly be resolved outside of ANI. Or maybe not... Loopy30 (talk)

I would agree. There isn't any need for this to be at ANI any more. ANI is for urgent issues, and chronic and intractable behaviour problems. None of those apply here. --Spekkios (talk) 20:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We've been discussing intractable behavior by BM throughout all the problems that came up, and most of those haven't been resolved, just us trying to hold the line against them. It's not helpful to just declare nothing to see here when we just had more edit warring break out yesterday. KoA (talk) 21:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Which problems haven't been resolved? The bold edits have been reverted and discussion is taking place. The only possible issue I see at the moment is that BM and users who have very strong opinions on this matter are modifying BM's comment. --Spekkios (talk) 22:52, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That was my hope originally, but the edit warring that revived this broke out just yesterday at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalbus happened after that dicussion on El C's page. That's just to clarify compared to the earlier edit warring you mentioned at Bothriospilini since it's easy to get lost in which was which. I'm hoping they knock it off and use talk pages collaboratively now. That said, I'm worried by the lack of self-examination and trajectory of ignoring cautions when editors have tried to work with them on behavior. A warning would help, but if there are future issues, it might help to summarize what happened above:

1. Mass redirects of beetle articles without discussion that had to be restored.
2. Followed by mass AfDs Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalbus to perform the redirects without following WP:BEFORE (all the numbers before #5 WP:CONRED) by consulting on relevant talk pages or Wikiprojects
3. Edit warring at Bothriospilini and Bimiini described at the top of this subsection. They continued edit warring the content in despite multiple editors disputing it and didn't come to the talk page until well after.[42] As part of this, BM insisted on focusing that they came to my talk page to discuss the content, but ignored cautions that it needed to be at a central location so those involved could comment. Little interaction at that talk page by BM.
4. Again at Bothriospilini, editors noticed that the edit-warred content above was WP:CONTENTFORK that had been inserted just prior to the AfDs, AfDs that were predicated on the idea that redirects should happened because of the articles had content fork material (see comment at a talk page for more). In short, multiple complaints about that edit-warred material misleading editors at the AfD.
5. BM then changes the target link at their AfDs[43][44] well after they had started in violation of WP:TALK#REVISE and the expectation that you don't substantially change an RfC, AfD, etc. part way through, especially without notification.
6. Multiple editors tried to correct the violation and notify respondents at the AfD[45][46][47], resulting in BM edit warring at AfDs[48][49][50][51] to restore the WP:TALK#REVISE violation and point editors solely at their preferred version rather than the current state of the articles. BM also tried to justify their reverts by claiming WP:TPO excludes anyone from correcting the WP:TALK#REVISE violation.

That's the overall summary of what has happened and been linked/diffed at this ANI so far. Hopefully that finally gets BM to review what they were doing and we can move on, but if the same issues continue in the future, we at least have a summary here on top of BM's last block for disrupting wiki-process. It seems like we have the mass revert/noms somewhat under control now, so if the edit-warring and wikilawyering, etc. stop where they actually pay attention to issues brought up on talk pages to the point they self-correct blatant instances of ignoring guidelines, there may be potential we don't have to come back here at a later date. KoA (talk) 21:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Then put forward a proposal on what should happen and see if there is an appetite for it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:23, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, I suggest reading what I said at the end. It was an opportunity to move on if no further disruption continued as long as we had a summary of what happened so far. KoA (talk) 22:52, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with almost all of this, for reasons already expressed elsewhere, but I want to point out that any accusation of edit warring at Bothriospila, Adalbus, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalbus, is at best hypocritical; see my response to your post at EW3 for a fuller explanation. Further, while WP:TALK#REVISE was not breached, due to my edits being to preserve context, WP:TPO was, per your failure to provide a justification under the listed exceptions. BilledMammal (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is the example of wikilawyering I was getting to. You're still trying to fight tooth an nail about WP:GAMING that AfD when you are not allowed to change your comments like that when editors had already substantially commented. Full stop. You were directing editors to an entirely different version of the article with that, and "preserving" it would continue the disruption discussed on the Bothriospilini talk page. That's the tangled web you put together even if unintentionally. The correct thing to do at the AfD would have been to link correctly to the target articles, and then say in a later dated comment with the diff "Here's a version I want to see, but I haven't gotten consensus on the talk pages yet."

So again BilledMammal, please step back from the brink, take a breath, and sincerely review what issues you were causing instead of denying and lashing out. This is an opportunity to move on, and your opportunity to show you can self-correct through reflection. KoA (talk) 22:52, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think BM has handled all this the best way, but I agree with them and several other people here, that you shouldn't have edited their comment. What exception at WP:TPO do you claim justifying those edits? Not only BM has handled this poorly. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What you're proposing is WP:GAMING, which is encouraging disruptive editing. If someone decides to violate WP:TALK#REVISE, especially at a wiki-process like RfC, AfD, etc. anyone can undo the disruption, and multiple editors have made it clear it was misleading and that the restoration of the original AfDs were needed. TPO is not a protection against that. In practice, it's fairly common to restore the original version when someone does this on talk pages. Otherwise I could pointily alter any RfC, etc. I start and just claim TPO if someone rightfully cleaned up after my disruption in that example. KoA (talk) 04:38, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Close as No Action

ANI is for cases where our normal discussion and dispute resolution processes have proven unsuccessful. Although the actions of several editors have been less than ideal, the conduct and content issues raised here are being resolved through discussion and there is no need to continue the play-by-play narrative that has emerged. Gentle reminder for all involved to focus on content and avoid personal attacks. –dlthewave ☎ 03:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per my comments above. There is no further need for this to be discussed here. --Spekkios (talk) 05:03, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. I think this is going to close without any additional action as long as editors actually let the process wrap up, but we do need to be careful about wording the proposal as if there haven't been ongoing issues this whole time (and still are unfortunately in the section below). The main thing is to formally summarize the issues with BM's behavior in a no action close, and I took a stab at covering things the closer could choose to weigh in on in the section above with those 6 bullets.[52] In multiple attempts from editors, much of the underlying behavior wasn't really resolved, but the one area there was progress is that BM will at least avoid mass redirects and use the relevant talk pages.

The remaining attitude issues still leave major concerns about how behavior will be at talk pages for me though. That's why I'm hoping a decent summary close will get across to BM (the real purpose of a warning) so they can self correct rather than embolden them. Those of us who tried to stem some of the issues with BM put up with a lot of flak here, so if we can do our best to make sure BM gets that guidance with a close, that would go a long way to keeping them away from ANI again. KoA (talk) 06:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, the section below concerns a different editor and does not show ongoing disruption by BilledMammal. –dlthewave ☎ 12:33, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. There is a clear consensus here that BM's actions have not been appropriate, and these actions have apparently not yet stopped, so "no action" is very much the wrong outcome here. Whether this needs to close with a warning or something stronger is not yet clear (to me at least) but it definitely needs at least a warning. Thryduulf (talk) 10:03, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Edit warring by Avilich

I thought editors were going to try to move on until I saw the pings and literally facepalmed, but now Avilich has resumed the edit warring at the two AfDs again[53][54] As already addressed above, it's a violation of WP:TALK#REVISE to alter those comments from the originals.[55][56] I don't know what's gotten in people's heads thinking it's ok it edit war at AfDs or alter them partway through.

It's probably best if an admin restores the original proposals of both AfDs since editors are being attacked for trying to clean up that up. I'd also just prefer to call it moot instead considering the status and time left of the AfDs, but I'm just astounded by the pointiness of other editors restarting at about the same time as Dlthewave's section above. There's just a cycle going on of someone at ANI saying nothing is going on and close this followed by another dispute being restarted shortly after. KoA (talk) 05:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Adding oldids to links is not a violation of WP:REDACT. While not always used, such links do the opposite of "deprive any replies of their original context". Much like returning Bothriospilini to a single sentence, raising the use of oldids as an issue is not helping the behavioural case you are trying to make. CMD (talk) 05:32, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You keep repeating that, but adding the oldids changed the meaning of the proposal from the actual target Bothriospilini (more than just a single sentence) to presenting something entirely different in the middle of the AfD while making comments as if their version was the established version. The background on that was pretty unanimous,[57] and it doesn't help BM to encourage them that this was ok. The advice BM was already given would apply to you to. If someone wants to make a change to their comments, but WP:TALK#REVISE prevents it (i.e., you want to make a change to an already commented on AfD), make a new dated comment that says, "Here's a version of the page I would like to see, but I haven't gained consensus on the talk pages for it." You don't go back and alter comments like that to make it seem like that version is the actual target.

Anyways, the point here in this section is that someone else has started up edit warring again away from what the original proposal was. If it's something to take action on is for someone else to decide, so I suggest dropping the WP:STICK as myself and others have been trying to do so this can wrap up. KoA (talk) 06:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What am I repeating and from where? CMD (talk) 09:40, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just noticed the "more than just a single sentence" remark. For the record, it here is where it was turned back into a single sentence, a nice example of the value of oldids. It is good that someone has taken the initiative to add more content to it since then, a positive content outcome to the dispute that had seemed at risk. Some small expansions have also been made to other articles involved in this, which has also been positive and seems an optimal result for such disputes going forward. CMD (talk) 10:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have made your position on that already quite clear. --Spekkios (talk) 07:35, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I went ahead and notified Avilich of this discussion. KoA, I think you've accidentally posted two copies of the same diff. Another editor repeating the disputed edit is not edit warring; has anyone reached out to the editor to try to resolve the dispute before bringing it to ANI? –dlthewave ☎ 12:25, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• The discussion isn't deprived of context because the article is still linked (if anything, whoever changed the article after the AfD started has altered the context); the idea proposed in the AfD remains the same regardless of the diff displayed. Avilich (talk) 13:25, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

I have come across this user's articles and they are horrendously written. The English is awful and completely broken. I am unable to even attempt to make corrections to some of these articles. Sure English isn't everyone's native language, but this user for some reason has auto patrolled rights, meaning the articles he's creating are not even being checked or reviewed properly. How Wikipedia can allow this is astounding, there should be a basic level of English required before such articles are published. Two examples of poorly written articles that I cannot even attempt to try and fix: David Mark Hill and Samuel Hartsel. The Hill article did not even correctly name the execution method which I had to correct: [58]. There are many more. Please can an admin review. Inexpiable (talk) 20:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• FYI, you need to post a notice on a user's talk page when starting a discussion about them at ANI. I've posted the notice on MATF's talk page. Levivich (talk) 20:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I usually find that the non-native English users are better than the native editors whose English is just bad. The former are usually happy to be corrected but the latter often take great offence at anything that could be construed as criticism of their writing. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:25, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Those are indeed practically unreadable and would definitely have benefitted from an NPPer tagging them with the copyedit template. JoelleJay (talk) 20:30, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that their prose is atrocious, and that their autopatrolled status should be revoked. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - WP:CIR. Very inappropriate for them to be an auto-patroller. DeCausa (talk) 20:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Joe Roe gave the user the AP right last year. I'm reluctant to revoke the right without Joe's views.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:52, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Folks, before we discuss removing perms or any sanction, perhaps we could give our colleague the opportunity to respond first? AFAIK, this ANI thread is the first time these problems have been raised? It's kind of rude to jump straight to talk of sanctions without even talking to the user first, particularly when it's someone who has donated thousands of hours here. Before any of the rest of us give our opinion, shouldn't we hear what MATF has to say first? Levivich (talk) 21:27, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Three comments. First, we should definitely allow MATF to respond before any further steps are discussed. Second, please remember that the AP flag isn't really a right; while some stigma likely attaches to its removal, fundamentally it exists to benefit reviewers and readers, and has no benefit to the holder. Third, I would like to hear from MATF whether they have used machine translation to assist them at any point; some of the phraseology strikes me as similar to the meaninglessness that google sometimes produces. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:37, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree that hearing from the editor for clarification is a good idea, but I also agree that revoking their autopatrolled status is called for and shouldn't be dependent on it. First stop the problem, then discuss with the editor. Their status can easily be changed back if it appears to be warranted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:58, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• MATF has created 1,152 articles. I just spent a half-hour 45 minutes fixing a relatively simple one, John Harllee (admiral). If that's typical, we're talking about volunteers spending something like 500 800 hours cleaning up after their mess. That's a problem that's significant enough to warrant acting first, and listening to explanations later. Please, would some admin remove their autopatrolled flag? Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:30, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  There appear to be some major content issues here. For example, the article Talmadge L. Heflin states

  In 1983, Heflin won the election for the 149th district of the Texas House of Representatives. He was honored by the Alief Independent School District which it was renamed as the Talmadge L. Heflin Elementary School.

  The source [59] however states

  Mr. Heflin served on the Board of Trustees of the Alief Independent School District from 1973 to 1980. In 1982, the district honored his service to the area with the opening of Talmadge L. Heflin Elementary School.

  The article implies that he was honoured for winning the election, rather than because he served on the board of trustees, falsely states that something was "renamed" when it was actually a new school being opened, implies the school naming occurred after the election in 1983 when it actually took place in 1982 and it confusingly suggests that the school district turned into a elementary school somehow. There are other examples of exceptionally poor writing,

  In 1980, Heflin was apart of an election, in which it had involved being unsuccessful against Georgia's United States senator Mack Mattingly.

  Is an extremely convoluted and confused way of saying he lost an election, which somehow avoids actually telling us what the election was. The article is also full of grammatical errors and nonsensical sentences, MOS issues ("politician" and "business" should not be linked), and a plethora of categories that are not verified in the article text - the article contains no information on his involvement in the energy business, his religious beliefs or his non-fiction writing.

  @Beyond My Ken perhaps it would looking into running a bot to unpatrol their article creations after they were granted the right? 192.76.8.88 (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm continuing to look to their articles, and indeed you are correct that grammar and construction errors are the least of the problems; the information itself has in many cases been corrupted. I would suggest that all of their articles be moved to draftspace, where they can be worked on without being generally accessible to the public. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:40, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Beyond My Ken: Are they actively creating bad articles without responding here? If not, removal isn't urgent, though I agree it's likely to be warranted. AP removal isn't retroactive; any articles they've created would still need to be manually reviewed. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:50, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

They don't seem to have edited since last night. I understand the principal of not acting unless there is a need to stop ongoing activity, but I think the need here is obvious enough (as I continue to review their articles) that lifting the flag is warranted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:53, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with the editors above that the issues here go beyond spelling and grammar errors. I attempted to copyedit David Mark Hill before giving up in frustration. At the time I found it, the article stated He had his own The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church. This was sourced to [60], which says The Hills' Mormon church helped pay their mortgage, utilities and groceries - obviously that doesn't mean that he ran a church!
  The next paragraph is extremely convoluted, difficult to understand and leaves out important context: Hill had began to act as a spree killer after receiving a notice from his wife to file a divorce against him. He was involved in some murders which had resulted three people being killed, in which he was suspected that Hill was the murderer since he had visited a department of social office. It was stated that he also assaulted a person which was his daughter. He killed them since it was for taking his children away from him, in which there was a restraining order against Hill. The actual story, from [61], is Hill went on the shooting spree in North Augusta after his wife asked for a divorce and a social worker accused him of molesting a child. He lost custody of his children and blamed state workers. Killed were case worker Jimmy Riddle, 52; Josie Curry, 35; and Michael Gregory, 30.
  I can understand why autopatrolled was granted because many of their articles are brief stubs where these issues with writing coherently aren't as apparent (e.g. Nicolas Becker (sound engineer), Andy Lewis (screenwriter)). However, considering the factual errors and general incomprehensiblity of their longer creations I don't think it is appropriate for them to hold this right. Spicy (talk) 00:21, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Did the admin who granted them this permission actually review any of their work? Every single article I’ve checked so far has been plagued with the above mentioned content issues. Now I’m seeing that they’ve created over 1000 articles? This has the potential to be a massive problem. 2604:2D80:6A8D:E200:FC3F:FA47:1CA0:2CF8 (talk) 00:02, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I thought the same, but then looking at their page creations before they were granted the autopatrolled right, a lot were stubs with short sentences or lists of films/shows obscuring their language deficiencies. So if Joe just looked at a handful of the stubs on Academy Award winners he wouldn't have noticed anything egregious. The typos and sentence construction chaos are only really apparent when MATF attempts to expand beyond a stub. Perhaps in the case of serial (notable, sourced) stub creators AP grantors should look for any larger page creations/expansions by the user to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. JoelleJay (talk) 00:26, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Remove the user right. There is sufficient evidence presented here. Additionally require that all future articles from this editor are created as a draft. Per Beyond My Ken: First stop the problem, then discuss with the editor. Donating thousands of hours here has never been a hurdle to stripping of special rights if the content quality is a serious problem and creating unnecessary work for others. Furthermore, autopatrolled is the one right that accords absolutely no benefits to the user whatsoever other than giving them another hat to wear. NPP has been acutely aware of the abuse of the auto patrolled right for a very long time. Their best suggestion to date is to deprecate this user right which having become a contentious issue has already been recently removed from the sysop bundle. To suggest that it would increase the workload of the reviewers (the usual contra argument) would be a straw man - articles of the quality expected by auto patrolled users only take a second or two to review. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:25, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with removal of AP as the first step. Per WP:AUTOPAT, "Autopatrolled is a user right given to prolific creators of clean articles". It's quite clear that this editor is not producing "clean articles". I just spot-checked six very quickly and could not identify any major problem without comparing them with the sources. But 5/6 need a copyedit cleanup minimally, with things like Born in Bentonville, Arkansas. (The sixth was a two-line stub). MB 01:14, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

According the autopatrolled right based on a random look at a few stubs (if that's what happened) is not the best way to go. Stubs, however clean they might be, are not sufficient to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the requirements for producing a fully fleshed out article. I do recall that mass creating stubs to obtain the autopatrolled right has been deliberately used in the past by users with a specific agenda. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If there's an agenda here, I haven't glommed on to it yet. The articles I've reviewed and fixed so far are about minor politicians and officials, both Democrat and Republican; the encyclopedia would not be affected in any significant way if they were all moved to draft to be worked on.

The problems I've seen are misrepresentation of what sources say (apparently because of misunderstanding), stilted writing, incorrect use of idiomatic constructions (especially in the use of prepositions), convoluted and awkward phrasings, use of infobox parameters that don't exist, nonsensical facts (such as a legislator being suceeded by three people), categorization not supported by text in the article (almost as if MATF has personal knowledge they're using), inclusion of unnecessary information, failure to update information from more recent sources (a person is reported to have 4 brothers, but a correction in the same newspaper changes it to 3 brothers; both sources are cited, but the article still said 4 brothers until I corrected it), etc., all of which are, I think, neither deliberate nor malign, but nevertheless result in sloppy articles that are well below the expected standard. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:43, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

They're also creating these articles pretty quickly - 7 articles yesterday, 10 articles on the 16th, 11 articles on the 15th. No indication of automation or anything like that, but from the results, they don't seem to be spending any significant amount of time crafting them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:20, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So, is everybody waiting for the user and/or Joe Roe to weigh in here..? I've removed the autopatrolled right. Bishonen | tålk 08:14, 30 October 2022 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you. I hope we'll hear from the editor soon. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:24, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are two active ANI discussions right now regarding users granted autopatrol rights by User:Joe Roe making bizarre and disruptive edits. It also appears in his talk page from 18 days ago that he intends to ignore ANI discussions? Looks like he had a spot of trouble regarding a third autopatrolled user here. Kire1975 (talk) 11:58, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am not "ignoring ANI discussions". I haven't been editing for a few days, and by the time I saw the pings in this thread, it had already run its course and I didn't have anything to add. WP:AGF, please. – Joe (talk) 12:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Going to weigh in here briefly on some of the articles; I'm the one that's moved a few articles of MATF from a temp page to mainspace. However, I don't have AP, so all of those pages went through NPP regardless of MATF having AP at the time. The work I've seen from MATF is rewriting bad Billy Hathorn content; crap that's already got a plethora of issues beyond just copyright, and how copyright rewrites are usually done is by simply taking the content and rewriting it, not remaking an article entirely from scratch. We usually only check for copyright issues; we're not NPP 2.0. Regardless, I find the other problems troubling, but I don't think that we should be jumping to sanctions beyond AP revoking just yet. Sennecaster (Chat) 19:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I know this is late but this is the evidence that I will provide: For Vanamonde's third comment, I write the articles in my own words and I don't use a machine translation unless I have to which I would use it for the articles that's in other different Wikipedia languages that included Àngel Casas. I would say that with my writing, I would change up my words with searching up another word to "insert word here" in a website, where I would use that word instead. With the Talmadge L. Heflin, I didn't mean that the school was renamed after him when he won the election but I don't know since like sometimes I don't notice. I didn't see anything wrong with my writing. The article Talmadge L. Heflin was a rewrite to get rid of Billy Hathorn's copyright version along with Teel Bivins and Flip Mark. You'll notice when I create them rewrites, I put recreated without copyright and what I do is I copy the categories from the archive version of Hathorn's to make it easier. Then I write it with using the cited sources in my own words. If I'm not editing in like a Saturday or for a few days then I'm like away from the computer since like I'm in somewhere else and while I'm away, I write articles in my Google Docs and then when I finally come home, I would copy-paste then fix it and then make some changes but this is how I write and with Hathorn's writing I use them but I avoid its copyright and make it my own words, but I will mention that I am a Spanish speaker but I do better in English.

With the David Mark Hill edit with the church removal I saw, it had said The Hills Mormon Church which would have meant he had his own church and with the Mormon church link it had redirected to the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints article, in which its also known as Mormon church. With the sentence in the Talmadge F. Heflin article, "In 1980, Heflin was apart of an election, in which it had involved being unsuccessful against Georgia's United States senator Mack Mattingly" (which is already removed), well I didn't know what election it was but I included it since it was sourced but I don't entirely have access to newspapers.com articles but just stuff that's already clipped, like I clip another thing since there is something clipped in the article and so on, I only have the free version of it. That newspaper article came up while I searched up Talmadge Heflin and it had mentioned the surname Heflin and I just took it as a ref. I didn't mean to cause disruption with my writing but if the community says there are issues with my articles then I would like to fix it if the community gives me a chance to improve it and see what they think. I just include info that's already sourced and just add them, which I saw with the Sally Wheeler article.

With the Neil Haven Klock article, I’m gonna revert some stuff until consensus is made because according to the Louisiana House Members source it says who preceded, served alongside and succeeded him but Beyond My Ken goes along with the obituary, but the Louisiana House Members verifies that he served as a member of the legislative with other info too. It didn't say he left office during 1942 other than the obituary, since it says his term ended in 1944 and the legislative keeps the correct track of the members and years when I see it and it's verifiable. Klock was succeeded by three people according to the Louisiana House Members pdf, even in the archive version of the article, it says that he was succeeded by three people and it was sourced so I added it and just went along with verifiable Louisiana Members pdf, this is an answer to the nonsensical facts thing that has "such as a legislator being suceeded by three people". With T. J. Hooks, I’m gonna revert more stuff too until consensus is made since Hooks served along with E. A. Wilson for which they had both represented Lake. He and Wilson were succeeded by two people, according to the Florida House Membership. The one that Beyond My Ken decided that could stay is William A. Hocker, a politician who has a blue link and was succeeded by Hooker. Also there is this reason that they said was "They're also creating these articles pretty quickly - 7 articles yesterday, 10 articles on the 16th, 11 articles on the 15th. No indication of automation or anything like that.", well those articles were created normally, since it was because I created them in google docs when I didn't edit for a week so I copy-pasted them and made them into Wikipedia articles when I came back and had lots I made in google docs and I still have some leftovers that includes Donald Jonas, Vernon Peeples, Bob Terhune and many others too.

Well now I see Beyond My Ken states that "I created seven articles yesterday" which was the (27th-28th), well the first two were from Google Docs, the third-fifth were Billy hathorn's rewrites since I was gonna be gone and I took my time into writing them and the Georgia's politicians stubs were created easily since I couldn’t find anything else but I found information in the pdf so I used it since it was SOURCED. Then I left to go somewhere else. The 16th had ten articles they say and most of them were from my Google Docs and some like Barry Oringer and William Wood (screenwriter) were created instantly. The article Taky Marie-Divine Kouamé was created when I woke up, since she won a medal in a notable event and had coverage too. The article Bo Callaway was recreated since it was gonna remove lot of stuff except the beginning so I rewrote it without copyright, that I'm adding more info. The 15th is when I came back, since I started off with Andy Detwiler who I written in my google docs and then the rest I wrote in google docs mostly. This is all I could say if it makes sense. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 19:47, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I really hate to say it, but WP:Competence is required, and MaTF's long comment above speaks volumes about their lack of competence in writing acceptable English (as well as some basic misunderstandings about American electoral procedures); I won't embarrass them by pointing out the many basic errors it contains.

I believe that it is necessary for the following actions to be taken:

1. Move all the articles listed here to draft space. Editors who have fixed any of MaTF's creations can move them back into article space, and reviewers can whittle away at the rest of the list over time.

2. Topic ban MaTF from creating articles more complex than the most basic stub (their stub articles seem to be OK) or extensively re-writing existing articles. I'm not quite sure how such a TB would be phrased, but I do think it's necessary. They can continue to do other non-textual work around Wikipedia - there's plenty of that to be done that doesn't require extensive ability to write acceptable English. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:58, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

But can I try improving my articles like I've seen many copyedits in my articles, but can I get a chance to fix them and then see what the community thinks. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 20:06, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• MATF, that manner of paraphrasing sources is completely inappropriate. You need to understand what the source has said, and construct your own sentences summarizing that material. If you carry out word-for-word replacements, you're going to alter the meaning of the text and produce incomprehensible content, and you're also not avoiding copyright issues at all. If you're not using machine translation, and English is your native language, I'm sorry to say I don't know what advice to offer you; but you need to be able to understand the sources you're using, and if you lack the ability to do Wikipedia isn't the best hobby for you.
  I don't think a TBAN will achieve anything here: the issue appears to be with any non-trivial content. Either MATF can fix this approach; possibly be reducing the speed at which they work, and by taking the time to understand what they're reading and writing; or they can't, in which case, what are they doing on Wikipedia? I would suggest that MATF be required to work on and fix any five articles of their choosing from among their creations, and if they can address the issues here, we can work out a system of probation. If they're unwilling or unable to do so, we need to consider a site-ban. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care about the AP role but I just want to still create articles, but I need to improve the others first. Can someone check how I did with James Sturch. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 20:36, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@MoviesandTelevisionFan: Your changes to James Sturch were improvements as far as they went, but another user (Larry Hockett) still had to make further changes, correcting some pretty basic errors in English phrasing. It doesn't speak well to your ability to fix the problems with the articles you created. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:22, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@MoviesandTelevisionFan: If you'd like, take a look at the list on my talk page of your articles which I have worked on. While not perfect, they may give you more of an idea where your mistakes lie if you compare their condition now to how they looked when you stepped away from them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:25, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I will do that, thank you. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I moved Nick Mackey to draft as some content was unintelligible, user has made numerous efforts to improve this with zero success “resigned for which he was probed from a reason" “"he was resigned due to being investigated from some issues” ”he was resigned from his duty due to being investigated from his fabricating hours" now “In 2003, he was resigned.” WP:CIR is appropriate. Theroadislong (talk) 21:05, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That article has been worked on by several editors and is now fine. I've moved it back into mainspace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a situation where, rather than a TBAN, having a mandatory AfC draft submission for all their articles would be appropriate instead? Silverseren^C 21:56, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As a reasonably active AFC reviewer, our workload is heavy enough without having more than the few mandatory AFC users we have already. All this would achieve is moving the problem around the various willing horses. Mentorship, assuming that still exists, would be a more immediate feedback and education loop. AFC has a large backlog and our role is to accept drafts that have a better than 50% chance of surviving an immediate deletion process. We are not meant to strive for perfection, though some reviewers do. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 22:07, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I've indefinitely blocked the user from article space. Frankly, I don't think that's sufficient because they will just create work editing badly in draft space. I would prefer a topic ban from article creation in any space, and if my prediction is valid, I can also add draft space to the pblock.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Bbb23, I'm not sure there's consensus here for such a drastic action. Also, it does seem both unnecessary (given that the editor has accepted the criticisms here) and counterproductive (given that they've expressed the intention to go back and correct problems with their articles). – Uanfala (talk) 08:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Admins can take actions on their own discretion, which I assume was the case here. As for MaTF's intention to fix the problems with their articles, given the nature of their comments here, I do not believe that the editor is capable of correcting the type of mistakes their articles are replete with. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I want to get the attention of what I'm gonna say. In my opinion, I think that I should create articles in draftspace that way it could be reviewed by AFC reviewers. I will read the guideline correctly and take my time into creating articles in draftspace. I'm just asking for a second chance from the community and this will be all I will say. I will mention that I should get access to edit namespace again but I would mainly just edit a bit and also add refs. I would still like to improve my articles in namespaces so I can fix it, but I didn't mean to cause disruption. I'm gonna stay back and come back for a few days to see what happens. Thank you! Please ping me if necessary. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 23:14, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@MoviesandTelevisionFan: Is English your first language? If not, how would you rate your proficiency in English? — Trey Maturin has spoken 23:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

English is my first language. This is how I write in English. I apologize if I'm not intelligent at it, but this is my English. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 23:46, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well then that is a very serious problem for us. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe English is MATF's native tongue. Sorry but... Just got through cleaning up some of their articles. I came across Eloise Hardt on my own. The others I sought out. I will clean up/clear up as many as I can. A list of articles MATF created or worked on is here. MurrayGreshler (talk) 19:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@MoviesandTelevisionFan (Non-administrator comment) Hi! I wanted to give a few suggestions to you since I was at one point in your boat with regards to newer articles. Firstly, I will not be making any comment about age or grade level but if you are under 18/21, I suggest you read WP:YOUNG, it has a bit of guidance aimed at those under 18/21. Secondly, if you say that there are problems with your English, I'd suggest you find a wikitask that you can do that does not require making your own prose (like typo fixing or anti-vandalism work). If you are not comprehending a source then you should not be adding the content from that source. Some sources use extremely specialist terms that only a handful of people (like doctors, mathematicians, historians, etc.) understand, and no amount of reading those sources will make you suddenly understand them. Lastly, it is important that you understand your limits. From WP:CIR: Everyone has a limited sphere of competence. For example, someone may be competent in nuclear physics but incompetent in ballet dancing or vice versa. Some otherwise competent people may lack the skills necessary to edit Wikipedia. If one specific task you are doing is causing problems to the project, then you should cease such task and select another task that you would be able to help with. If you are unable to do that, I am afraid admins may come in and place sitewide blocks and bans. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 18:47, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus for mass move to draftspace?

• Request - We've had numerous editors here examine MaTF's articles, and the consensus seems to be that, other than very basic stubs, their articles are in need of serious attention. Could an admin or page mover who has the ability to do bulk moves please move this list of articles to draft space? I am a page mover but I don't have the automation or semi-automation capability to do such a mass move. After it's done, I will move the 15 or so articles I worked on back to article space, and I hope other editors who fixed MaTF's articles will do the same.
  (If there's another method of accomplishing the same thing, then that's fine too.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Beyond My Ken there are userscripts to do mass moves. Wikipedia:User_scripts/List#Moving_and_merging. – robertsky (talk) 02:59, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks, I'll take a look tomorrow. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't see any consensus for a mass move to Draft. Your list has over 1,000 articles going back over a year. MB 14:35, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  So it would be your preferred course to leave 1,000+ badly written and sometimes inaccurate articles (less those fixed by other editors already) in the encyclopedia, in the hope that editors will fix them randomly, as opposed to moving them to draft where editors actively vet possibly problematic articles? That hardly seems helpful to the project. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Moving the articles to draft space to allow active editors to triage them seems sensible given the level of incompetence demonstrated in the creation of the articles. There are a number of editors currently working on mitigating the damage done and if moving them to draft space helps those editors willing to put in the hard work then I support the move. Not everything has to be complicated and bogged down in process, especially when the ultimate result will be better (comprehensible) articles for our readers. -- Ponyo^{bons mots} 22:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  BMK, with respect (I mean that), I don't think you need to be so hot and heavy with MB. A mass move of over 1000 articles needs a clear consensus - it's fine for someone to question whether that consensus is there yet. I looked at one of the articles today myself, and did some copy editing, which essentially involved restructuring every sentence. I agree that draftifying is probably a good idea. Let's just try to avoid snarling at each other while we discuss what the best course of action is. Girth Summit _(blether) 22:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I think perhaps you read more into my comment than I intended, or I did not express myself well. If MB took offense at it, I apologize. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:22, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I've now hived off this section of the discussion to serve as a formal discussion of whether there is a consensus for a mass move of MaTF's un-fixed articles to draftspace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• To help coordinate efforts to improve MaTF's articles, I've created User:Beyond My Ken/MaTF-created articles. Editors are encouraged to delete from the list any articles they have worked on which are of sufficient quality that they do not need to be moved to Draftspace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Larry Hockett, Brunton, Teblick, MurrayGreshler, Spicy, and Girth Summit: Please see my previous comment on this thread. Apologies to other editors whose efforts I missed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ping. I removed an article that I rewrote. If possible, it may be a good idea to introduce a length-based cutoff - I haven't seen any evidence that there's anything wrong with all of the basic substubs in the format "[X] was an American [occupation]. He won an Academy Award for [Y]." Spicy (talk) 01:06, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the sub-stubs I've seen have been fine. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:08, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Urgh - I just looked at Nate Monaster, and it's not just poorly written, but it seems to be full of factual inaccuracies as well. The second sentence runs as follows: He was nominated for an Academy Award for Lover Come Back and That Touch of Mink and a win for Pillow Talk, and Mink won him the Writers Guild of America Award win for Best Written American Comedy, which he shared with his partner Stanley Shapiro. At first, I thought this would just be a copy-editing job, but then I checked the sources - as far as I can make out, he didn't write on Lover Come Back or on Pillow Talk. I can't read all of the sources, but the ones I can see only mention the nomination for That Touch of Mink. In short - put me down as supporting a mass move to draft space. Girth Summit _(blether) 09:41, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose strongly moving these articles to draft. NPP is the first port of call for every new article. The fact that this has been subverted by a holder of the AP right means that they should first be marked 'unreviewed' and put back in the NewPagesFeed where they will receive the appropriate first attention by vetted New Page Reviewers. Their triage will ensure their future destiny be it Draft, or any one of our deletion processes. Contrary to what is often misunderstood (including by the WMF to whom I had to explain this yesterday in a planning meeting with them), moving to draft does not automatically increase the workload at AfC; that only happens when the creator submits the draft. Beyond My Ken's work on this delicate issue - where the creator should never have been accoderd AP - has been excellent, but mass moving to draft is not the immediate solution. With their backlock at an astounding low of around 500, the NPPers have more than enough time to process a 1,000 stubs and other inappropriate articles. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• @Kudpung: Thanks for that information. Can articles be mass-marked "un-reviewed" or does it have to be done one by one? Beyond My Ken (talk)

@Beyond My Ken: unless a bot or a script could do it, it would need to be done one-by-one. I know this means seeing the pages twice but it's the proper way to go and would avoid inviting any new precedents that we might regret later. So proper in fact, that I don't mind doing some of it myself. The NPPers could take care of the reviewing or I could even do that on the fly too while marking them ureviewed but the New Pages Feed has to the the first logical stop in the correct workflow. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:15, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Beyond My Ken: It's worth noting that Moving to draft will not give MTF the benefit of any doubt because he is blocked anyway. There is the possibility of a little known system at NPPNE. If nothing comes of that, the articles can then be PRODed along with any other unsuitable ones. That would give them 7 days exposure to the wider community which they wouldn't get as drafts, and after that they would be deleted. That would also ward off any accusations that NPPers are using draft as a backdoor route to deletion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:28, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Does the article space block extend to drafts? If not, or if there was a way to make it so that it doesn’t, then moving the articles to draft would enable MTF to carry on working on them. Brunton (talk) 09:38, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I want to apologise for my English. It's not my mother tongue so I hope I can explain myself here. There is an editor called MrsSnoozyTurtle who nominate for deletion the article of the Paraguayan Football Association. Despite several users had explain to her that the article was relevant (you can see that in the deletion discussion and in the edit history), she started an editing war by deleting almost everything of the article and then suggested that it should be removed from Wikipedia. The reason she states is an extreme interpretation of Wikipedia policies (i.e. that she considers the sources are not good), but with her attitude of deleting instead of improving the article she is also breaching another principle of Wikipedia which is to do positive things, to be helpful and try to do the best for this marvelous encyclopedia. When this happens, I started to see how this user behaves in Wikipedia and what she did in the Paraguayan Football Association article is her modus operandi. Instead of improving articles that need work, she move them to drafts or ask for deletion. She also accuses the editors of those articles of having interests on those articles (as long as I see, most of us edit articles about things we consider interesting) and sees conflicts of interest everywhere. As she's been in Wikipedia for many years and has permissions and a deep knowledge of Wikipedia, she takes advantage of that and instead of being helpful with non experiment users, she destroys everything. It is very difficult to have a deep understanding of Wikipedia and it's a lot of work to write article right, so it is very sad to see how an editor instead of giving help, erases everything. The community should not allow this kind of abuse and I believe that should do something to avoid this kind of behaviour, How can be possible that one editor can take on her own the decision to delete, undo or move to draft an article? In other words, how can one user decide is an article is relevant or not? How can is possible to let her do that even when there are several users that are saying that she is not right? It's like she is more worried about respecting in an extreme way the policies of Wikipedia (because all she does is according to her sustained by a Wikipedia policy) -which are important-, instead of improving the articles and having more contents in Wikipedia. I hope the community can analyze this case and do something, but I believe this kind of behaviour doesn't help to make Wikipedia better. Many thanks.--Lizkin (talk) 16:45, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that someone has nominated an article for deletion is not a good reason to make a complaint about them on this page, especially when the article you mention is already under discussion and the consensus is to keep it. If you think that this user has done something else wrong, please give clear examples with diffs. Deb (talk) 16:52, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there has to be a point at which nominating an article for deletion is disruptive. I'll also note that MrsSnoozyTurtle edit-warred rather than post anything at Talk:Paraguayan Football Association. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It was a ridiculous AfD nomination and it has been closed as a Keep already. I have no idea what MrsSnoozyTurtle (who is usually a sensible editor) thought they were doing here. Black Kite (talk) 18:43, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is not about the Paraguayan Football Association article but her kind of contributions. If you see her contributions Special:Contributions/MrsSnoozyTurtle all you can see are nominations for deletion,moving to drafts, unilateral reversions... There are very few improvements and creation of article. In my opinion, this kind of behavior is disruptive and in some cases very near to what can be considered WikiBullyng.-- --Lizkin (talk)

Sorry, that's incorrect. I have looked at her previous AfD nominations and the vast majority appear to be completely reasonable, so would take this particular one as being an aberration. Black Kite (talk) 20:19, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've had some issues with move to draft from MrsSnoozyTurtle in the past. They're fairly deletion-friendly but I wouldn't say more so than the average NPPer who deals with articles on companies. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with @Phil Bridger. Furthermore as a relatively inexperienced editor - I'd like to support @Lizkin as have experienced similar with the same user, over the article Explorer (film). She draftified it with no attempt to improve it or clearly articulate reasons on the talk page - even though film clearly achieves WP:GNG via numerous WP:RS. Following successful AFC - she then eviscerated the article reducing a start-class to a stub with this diff: [[62]]. She made no attempt to improve, and then edit warred when I reverted her edits so I could improve the article. Requests for clear clarification on the talk page went unanswered. If this is indeed indicative of wider behaviour, particularly when interacting with newer and relatively inexperienced users, then there is some concern.ResonantDistortion (talk) 19:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It does have a slightly promotional feel but I'm not seeing why it needed moving to draft nor tagging for notability; the film has clearly received independent coverage from respectable national newspapers et al. and much of the plot summary that MrsSnoozyTurtle appears to have objected to is present in the review from The Guardian. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Interested in what folk think of Draft:Pankaj Choudhary (professor); moved to draft after Explicit declined G5 and I declined A7. Given the creator is blocked this is tantamount to deletion, but with no oversight. It's not the best article and would probably not survive AfD but I'm not personally comfortable with such an overt delete-by-draftifying approach. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:10, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also Draft:Joseph S. Coselli, which is not great, but the subject I think is probably notable under WP:PROF as the Cullen Foundation Endowed Chair at the Baylor College of Medicine. And Draft:Elissa Altman, possibly notable author with a book that was a finalist in the 32nd Lambda Literary Awards, and from last month Draft:Javier García Martinez, another one certainly notable under WP:PROF as president of IUPAC and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry & the American Chemical Society. It's hard to deal with undisclosed paid and COI accusations but Martinez is clearly notable under PROF and I think unlikely to be deleted at AfD. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I do wonder if this is the stuff of ANI? The editors working NPP make a lot of difficult, close calls. Dragging them to ANI over each of those calls seems unreasonable to me. That there Pankaj Choudhry article was indeed created by a blocked sock (although I note the contribution of others blows the G5 rationale) and is indeed promotional/COI stuff. The subject is not notable and I'd AfD it, personally. Joseph S. Coselli and Elissa Altman are both, IMHO, poorly sourced and arguably not WP:GNG or at very best borderline and in need of work - a move to draft is again, IMHO, appropriate. But this is really not "urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems" - this discussion, if it must be had at all (and I do wonder about that), should surely be at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers??? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 05:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's not particularly urgent, no, but it may speak to a pattern of behaviour that is at least not optimal in a fairly prolific patroller. Assuming Coselli falls under PROF the lack of GNG is not a problem and for Altman what's needed are book reviews. This would have been pointed out if either of them had been AfD'd. Martinez is notable, and needs cleaning up, but the accusation of COI & paid stultify anyone else doing so and taking responsibility for it. (And it seems a great deal more important than say someone complaining about someone else fixing their lint errors...) Espresso Addict (talk) 05:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Espresso Addict, I'm sorry, but who is the patroller that you're referencing in this case? I feel it important to point out that MrsSnoozyTurtle does not have NPP rights.

As for the articles you're referencing;

• Draft:Pankaj Choudhary (professor) - Marked as reviewed by NPP member Onel5969. Later nominated for deletion by myself, based on it being from a now banned editor. This was declined, which was understandable and I left it alone. It was later moved by MrsSnoozyTurtle.
• Draft:Joseph S. Coselli - Marked as reviewed by NPP member Kj cheetham. It was later moved by MrsSnoozyTurtle.
• Draft:Elissa Altman - Does not appear to have been reviewed by a member of the NPP team. It was moved by MrsSnoozyTurtle.
• Draft:Javier García Martinez - Marked as reviewed by NPP member Kj cheetham. It was later moved by MrsSnoozyTurtle.

The NPP team marked 3 of the articles as reviewed and 1 was apparently unreviewed. MrsSnoozyTurtle's behaviour in draftifying articles is not associated with any NPP activity. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:28, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification, Hey man im josh. I tend to use "patroller" generally to apply to anyone who gatekeeps based on the new articles feeds, with or without the NPP right. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha, thanks for the explanation, I was a little worried since I was a patroller in one of those action logs haha. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:49, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I stand by my original comments. For an editor (Lizkin) who's made fewer than 20 edits altogether to use a single example of silliness to make a whole list of accusations suggesting a general "abuse" of Wikipedia guidelines is bizarre. By all means look into MrsSnoozyTurtle's record, but the eagerness to "pile" on in support of this report is rather surprising to me. Deb (talk) 08:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I started working on Draft:Elissa Altman, and after my initial review to remove BLP issues, promotional sources, apparent original research, and copyvio, the promotional tone still needs work. Beccaynr (talk) 18:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I have encountered similar problems in the past with MrsSnoozyTurtle draftifying obviously-notable biographies including Gerceida E. Adams-Jones (February 25) and Keiko Devaux (April 2022). In the February case I had to remind MrsSnoozyTurtle not to repeatedly draftify the same article and not to draftify articles that obviously met WP:PROF notability criteria [63]. She claimed to have been unaware of those guidelines [64] but as I wrote at the time "It is difficult to tell what you might be aware of because of your habit of removing past warnings to pay more attention to the draftification guidelines such as the one at [65]". I am disheartened to see that these bad draftifications have continued and that in the recent cases of Joseph S. Coselli and Javier García Martinez, MrsSnoozyTurtle has apparently forgotten what she was told about academic notability. Given that this is a long-term pattern, should MrsSnoozyTurtle perhaps be discouraged more strongly from draftification altogether? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I would like to hear from MrsSnoozyTurtle and other New Page Patrollers, and in the meantime, I revised and expanded the Elissa Altman article from what it was at the time of draftification [66] and moved it to mainspace. Beccaynr (talk) 03:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd like to point out that MrsSnoozyTurtle does not have NPP rights. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The core part of the article wasn't sourced and there was no attempt to source it, even though there was numerous updates. Also a lot of references are absolutly routine coverage, copied and pasted, typical of a fan article, they are mostly primary. But they are not all primary. As a national organisation clearly named, I wouldn't have sent it to Afd but I would have probably copyedited it quite heavily. scope_creep^Talk 05:12, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The existence of some references to routine and primary sources in new articles is absolutely not a problem, and not cause for draftifying anything, as long as "they are not all primary". They do not contribute notability but they can and often do contribute verifiability. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree with that, absolutely. scope_creep^Talk 16:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sheep8144402 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Has been making changes to my signature without my permission. The editor did it twice HERE and HERE. I left a message at Sheep8144402's talk page asking that editor to not make changes to my comments or signature again. That request was ignored and he again made changes to my signature HERE and HERE.

Sheep8144402 uses the guideline WP:SIGFONT as justification for these changes. This section clearly states that When support is finally dropped, the tags will be ignored in all signatures; any properties such as color and font family will revert to their default values.. This implies that the support for the signature I am using has not been dropped and I am still allowed to use this signature as I see fit. But nowhere does it state editors have the right to make unilateral changes to other peoples signatures.

I will also like to point out This WikiMedia "Proposal" which is the genesis of WP:SIGFONT which clearly states under the section titled Impact: Effects of changes: that Any existing signatures that would become invalid under the new rules are still allowed (grandfathered in) and also under the section Font Tags: Specifically, obsolete HTML tags like ‎"tt"...‎"/tt" and ‎"font"...‎"/font" will not be banned at this time.

There was no justification for User Sheep8144402 to make any changes to my signature whosoever and especially after I asked that user to not change my signature again in the future, which he ignored. JOJ ^Hutton 20:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• @Jojhutton: There is a very reasonable message at User talk:Jojhutton#Your signature and linter errors which provides the solution. If you want technical advice regarding the change, ask at WP:VPT. This noticeboard aims to reduce disruption and the simple procedure for that would be for you follow the advice given. Johnuniq (talk) 22:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  There is also the fact that the signature is not banned. If there was actual harm to Wikipedia then I ask that the evidence be presented. All I see is a guideline that allows me to use this signature and an editor who makes changes to other peoples posts, which is a violation of Wikipedia guidelines.--JOJ ^Hutton 22:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Jojhutton, your signature displays the same before and after the change. Your version is not compliant with current standards, Sheep8144402's version of your signature is. Please change the code of your signature as proposed (which will not change your signature's display at all) so it does not cause error messages. If you don't change the code, your signature will continue to be fixed by other users (we even have some approved bots that fix signatures). So to prevent these edits (and to prevent stuff like this page that stopped working after a software change), just use the correct and modern code for your signature. —Kusma (talk) 23:13, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Can you please link the policy that allows other users to make the changes to my signature without my consent. The guideline only says that once the signature format is obsolete, then the signature will revert to its default status. I'll deal with it then. in the meantime I kindly ask that users not change my signature unless there is a rule specifically stating that they can. If there is, then link it here for all to see.JOJ ^Hutton 23:27, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  See WP:SIGFONT Moreover, refactoring old signatures from you and other users (including in archive pages) by changing <font> tags to <span> tags can help prepare the project for this eventual loss of support.. Note the policy suggests changing the tags in other users’ signatures. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 23:38, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Well good luck with that then. My current signature is well within the current guidelines and is "grandfathered in" according to the Media Wiki proposal and is still allowed.--JOJ ^Hutton 23:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Then random users and bots will change it when they see it. If you don’t have a problem with your sig causing accessibility errors, then you won’t have a problem with this happening, making this entire thread moot. — Trey Maturin has spoken 23:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The guideline that allows this is WP:TPG#Examples of appropriately editing others' comments (and, more and more, WP:DE). Behavior indistinguishable from yours recently contributed to the banning of a much more prolific editor than yourself. Look. The people fixing your sig are trying to help you. The font tag isn't just obsolescent, but actually obsolete. When the last vestiges of support for it are dropped from MediaWiki, your sig will display like this: <font color="#A81933">JOJ</font> <font color="#CC9900">^Hutton</font>. Meanwhile, you're making life harder for the people who - for reasons I can't personally fathom - choose to spend their time going through the four million page backlog at Special:LintErrors so that sigs like yours don't look silly when the tag isn't grandfathered anymore. —Cryptic 23:55, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• JOJHutton, could you explain why you don't want to make this change to your sig? I can't figure it out. There would be zero change to the appearance of your signature, and it would take about 45 seconds. While I'm not sure changing other editors' old signatures is the best use of someone's time, I don't understand the reluctance even more. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:52, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Jojhutton, can you please explain why you insist on continuing to create linter errors for other people to fix, when both the problem with your signature has been explained to you, and a simple solution has been handed to you on a platter? This is collaborative project, after all. Cullen328 (talk) 23:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  What guideline am I not following? Nobody asked anyone to fix anything for me--JOJ ^Hutton 23:59, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I haven't done anything to you. Could you do me the courtesy of answering my question? --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Jojhutton: WP:SIGFONT, a guideline, has already been pointed out to you: <font>...</font> tags were deprecated in HTML4 and are entirely obsolete in HTML5. This means that the popular browsers may drop support for them at some point. [...] When support is finally dropped, the tags will be ignored in all signatures; any properties such as color and font family will revert to their default values. For this reason, it is recommended that you use <span>...</span> tags and CSS properties instead. There is no reason for you not to fix this. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:08, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Why? Because according to the proposal, it can't be changed back and undone once it's changed. I'd just rather wait. It's proper under the guidelines.--JOJ ^Hutton 00:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think you're understanding what we, or that proposal, are saying. First of all, I'm not sure where you're getting "can't be changed back or undone", but any language to that effect in the proposal you've linked is talking about a software change, not anything you change in your signature. Any change you make to your signature right now can be undone, and you can go back to your old signature if you notice a difference (you won't, because the signatures are identical in appearance; the only difference is that the new signature doesn't cause HTML errors). Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:23, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I know exactly what it means. I also know that I'm allowed to keep my current format and that doing so does not violate any policy or guideline.--JOJ ^Hutton 00:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  If you insist, but then you don't get to complain when it gets fixed. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 01:02, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• You don't have to use HTML5 in your sig if you don't want to, but there's no reason to complain about other people updating the HTML. Literally, no reason has been given. So, let people use old (but still supported) HTML if they want to, and let people update HTML if they want to. It's a free encyclopedia, after all. Levivich (talk) 00:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Sheep8144402, changing the sig in this discussion is needlessly provocative. Don't be a jerk about it. Levivich (talk) 00:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually, I don't agree; fixing obsolete HTML tags is a (very minor) net positive. It's pointed, for sure, but not point-y, imo. There's no reason for Jojhutton to take umbrage at this, but if they do, they know how to fix it: fix their signature's HTML. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal WP:Trout slaps all around. There's no purpose to introducing additional lint errors that will just have to be fixed someday. At the same time, there's no point in fixing this user's lint errors against his preference when there's a bazillion other gnome backlog tasks to do. Jahaza (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support trouting. Also if Sheep8144402 is concerned with signatures then he should consider taking into account WP:SIGAPP, in particular note 4 and use one of the colours that can be found in MOS:ONWHITE rather than the current one which does not meet the desired contrast ratio. Gusfriend (talk) 05:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason to trout someone for carrying out a maintenance task so innocuous we literally have bots programmed to do it. Someone running through lint errors should not have to check the individual preferences of each user whose signatures they fix. I doubt the bots do. CMD (talk) 06:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since we don't have any consensus to force User:Jojhutton to change their signature at this time, it's probably best to just allow them to keep using it. However as others have said, if they are going to do so, they need to accept after they've posted with an error in their signature, it will be corrected at any time including right now and they are not allowed to reverse these corrections as that's disruptive and something which may require sanction. Nor can they demand that editors do not correct the errors they make every time they sign, as others have said, that's unreasonable, it's too difficult and frankly just silly for editors or bots to need to work out an editor wants to continue to post with errors before they correct these errors. So unless some editor is going around WP:HOUNDING them fixing their signature and only their signature, there is no problem that needs ANI or trouting, so if Jojhutton wants to continue to use their signature, they need to refrain from opening dumb threads like this. If they do so in the future then again they're getting into an area which may require sanction of them. Nil Einne (talk) 06:50, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The only one deserving a trout here is Jojhutton due to their insistence in using signatures with broken html, leaving pages in error categories wherever they sign. Deliberately using signatures that cause accessibility problems shows their contempt towards other users, especially when they have been provided alternatives and it takes just a minute to replace it in their preferences. Sheep is doing valuable work fixing Lint errors should be commended for it. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 10:02, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jojhutton: You're bordering on disruptive editing. This is a collaborative project. You've been asked nicely to make a very small change that makes no difference to your editing and been shown how to do it. While Sheep8144402's conduct is possibly slightly discourteous, your refusal makes you look unreasonable. Please just make the change. Otherwise you might be accused of exhausting the community's patience. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing low-priority linter errors is not really valuable work, or work at all, it doesn't even need to be done. That's why they're low priority. I've long felt that making multiple edits per page to do "fix" low-priority errors is disruptive: it needlessly spams watchlists and the edits database. Just one edit per page for all of these low-priority errors, if we do it at all. It's truly unnecessary for user talk page archives and other obscure places. "Fixing" it multiple times in this thread, like by making an edit after every time that someone posts, is way too close to hounding IMO. But let's not pretend that fixing low priority lint errors is necessary or valuable work. And there is nothing disruptive about using a font tag or a center tag. These low-priority lint errors don't actually cause any problem, and "fixing" then is just busy work. Levivich (talk) 14:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The needless watchlist spamming is caused by those adding lint errors that need to be fixed. Directly changing sigs in this discussion is poor decision making, but the general idea of preventing this is valuable. CMD (talk) 02:07, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, preventing that is valuable, but that is an example of a missing-end-tag error, which isn't the kind of lint error at issue here. That error was fixed by adding the missing end tag, in this edit. The kind of error at issue here, by contrast, is obsolete-tag, and the help page says Since it is unclear to us at this time how far we want to push this goal of HTML5 compliance, this category is marked low priority.

ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (Malnadach) runs MalnadachBot, which "fixes" these "obsolete tag" errors. The bot made 13 separate edits to that page and you can check for yourself whether any one of those edits actually changed what you see on the screen (not for me, my browser still supports HTML4, as does every other browser AFAIK).

My point is: these obsolete-tag "fixes" are unnecessary. If people want to make the fixes, they should be able to, because they don't cause any harm, but it's really not accurate to say that these are "broken" html, or that they cause accessibility problems, or to suggest that fixing them is necessary or crucial maintenance work. Certainly, using HTML4 is not disruptive nor does it show contempt towards others.

This is all a big overreaction about using HTML4 v. HTML5. Trouts all around sounds right to me. Levivich (talk) 02:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well Jojhutton has made it clear they are not going to change it themselves. Everyone else has made it clear its going to get changed regardless. Why not just wait until the bots start hitting every page Jojhutton edits. Then we can have this discussion again. I am sure Jojhutton will enjoy reverting automated bots constantly. Should be interesting to see if they change their mind. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have already cleared their old sig using bot 9 months ago. Number 31 in User:MalnadachBot/Task 12/1-50. They can continue using signature with font tags, it's only a matter of time before it gets replaced. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 16:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Should just make it required to have a signature using the correct tags if you want a custom signature. Problem solved. Hey look, somebody asked me to fix mine three years ago. I did it in three minutes. nableezy - 15:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, signatures in active use should be changed to not cause lint errors. While the problems caused by obsolete font tags are currently tiny, there is no good justification for causing this tiny problem every time you sign a page. —Kusma (talk) 19:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If we are going to be talking about signatures, can we talk about how Sheep8144402's signature is nearly unreadable? Bright and light green on a white background actually hurts my eyes to look at. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh god... I didn't even realize my sig was hard to read until this message came up. Hopefully its better now bc green is honestly one of my favorite colours in my life. Sheep (talk) 20:05, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for quickly fixing that! The contrast was 1.37:1 and is now over 15:1, which is great. See https://accessibleweb.com/color-contrast-checker/. The second part of JOJhutton's signature fails accessibility testing, with a contrast of 2.58:1. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 20:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Sheep8144402 Several signatures, like Sheep's, are nearly invisible on a dark background, but that is something I can live with. I don't expect anyone to change their sig for that reason-- I forget how I got a dark background, but it might be a beta or unsupported option in Android Chrome. Just in case anyone was wondering about other backgrounds... And I can always work out the sig if I need to! David10244 (talk) 08:36, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• While this is a collaborative project, we extend a great deal of deference to participants, such as choosing what to work on and, within reason, how we present ourselves. Fixing linter errors is fine; introducing them is not. @Jojhutton:, you were asked to change the HTML of your signature (not even altering its appearance) and you declined. That's your right, but it makes for an unfortunate impression and you should reconsider. Mackensen (talk) 21:16, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to raise an issue with user 81.104.95.127.. This user - using a wide variety or user numbers - is repeatedly and deliberately breaching Wikipedia's house style albeit in small ways. For example, in the article on Yell (company) they are repeatedly changing UK to United Kingdom, even though Wikipedia's house style makes it clear that UK is fine and United Kingdom not needed.

In itself, this is a minor point but when they have been repeatedly asked not do so and keep ignoring those requests, it almost amounts to vandalism. Moreover, their other edits continually damage articles. Among the edits they repeatedly make, they:

• repeatedly change straight (') apostrophes to curly ones, again in breach of house style and despite numerous editors requesting they stop or pointing out the error
• insert unnecessary and/or irrelevant detail
• repeatedly changing numerals above 10 to words, when Wikipedia's house style says both are fine
• repeatedly putting words, especially but not only company names, into italics and/or bold for no clear reason
• add redundant or superfluous words ('until' becomes 'up until', 'released becomes 'first released', even when there was no second release)
• incorrectly change the case of initials
• inserting completely unnecessary/incorrect/illogical paragraph breaks
• change good, idiomatic English to unidiomatic wording
• add multiple references to sentences, that almost always have no relevance to the claim supposedly being referenced
• insist on adding in the season when something happened, eg "in the spring of" or "in the summer of" when it adds nothing to the article
• Repeatedly remove hyphens where they are grammatically correct and, indeed, necessary (for example, they turn words like re-ordered into re ordered).

These are just some examples of their tedious, annoying and disruptive behaviour. It seems that this has been going on daily for at least five years, and several editors have left comments they have ignored. However, they have no Wikipedia account (which, after at least five years, is very suspicious in my view). Instead, they change their user number usually every one-three days, making it hard to take action against them. They can easily be traced, however, by the articles they keep re-editing and the types of changes they make. I can also supply many of their numbers if required.

I really hope something can be done to prevent them, as correcting their disruptive, if possibly well-meant, editing, is tedious and time-wasting. If I need to post this in a different section, please let me know (I've never reported anyone before so apologies if this is the wrong page).

I have notified them of this report.Neilinabbey (talk) 18:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Neilinabbey, this looks like a mild content dispute that could have been resolved by you first raising your concerns to the IP editor directly and in detail. Please note that their edits (a total of 12 over the course of 3 days, which isn't that many) were not "vandalism" (see WP:NOTVANDALISM). And also, not edit warring (see WP:EW), because the IP did not revert back to their edits even once.

Now, you've warned this IP editor (diff), though note that it's Manual of Style, not "house style" — however, you then immediately erased that warning 2 minutes later with the notification to this ANI complaint (diff). As a result, they likely didn't even see it to begin with.

Furthermore, you're expected to at least give two warnings (i.e. {{uw-mos1}} then escalate that to {{uw-mos2}} or {{uw-mos3}}), if not three or four. This noticeboard is for intractable issues, so that falls short communication-wise, if such warnings would even be due, which as mentioned, may well not be so. Generally, please make sure you treat IP editors as you would any named accounts, by explaining yourself with enough detail prior to jumping the gun with enforcement requests here. P.S. I've linked to the IP's contributions in your OP for convenience. HTH. Thank you. El_C 08:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Strike that, on closer look, I see that they have used multiple IPs for these pages. I'll re-examine. El_C 08:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Neilinabbey, I'm having a difficult time seeing what the problem was, for example, with their edit to Skapocalypse Now! Their addition of initally seems tentatively okay. But regardless if in error or not, you should not be responding with an edit summary that reads: STOP YOUR IDIOTIC ADDITIONS OF TAUTOLOGOUS WORDS (diff). Anyway, that's just a random example I sampled from some earlier edits/IPs (Sept), so hopefully, the rest are not like that. I have to get going now, but hopefully, I'll get a chance to revisit this matter later in the day. El_C 08:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

They've literally used dozens of IPs over several years, changing every 1-3 days. I have complained directly to them, as have other editors over the years. This is not a one-off, mild issue, it is ongoing and repeat offending.Neilinabbey (talk) 10:10, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide a list of the IPs they have used (it doesn't have to be exhaustive, but a representative sample), and some explanation of how you know they are the same person? Girth Summit _(blether) 10:15, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here are just some you can check:

81.104.95.127

86.2.120.14

86.1.31.56

81.104.95.127

86.7.38.32

81.103.30.186

86.5.23.191

86.7.38.32

86.6.237.104

86.4.156.202

80.0.138.190

86.7.38.32

86.4.167.159

That's just in the last 10 days! I admit some of my comments to them have been intemperate, but they repeatedly ignore standard messages/polite requests and they have been pursuing this behaviour for at least five years, so patience is wearing thin. Neilinabbey (talk) 10:19, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, this crossed with your last message. I am certain they are the same person because they frequently return to edit the same pages or make the same changes on a page (eg, changing UK to United Kingdom or changing the apostrophes to curly ones). In some cases, they've been editing the same pages for years, and they are often relatively obscure pages/subjects that not many people would visit. Also, the types of changes they make (including an obsession with adding months, sometimes misleadingly) are too similar for this to be different people. Neilinabbey (talk) 10:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.s., their edit of Skapocalypse Now! is an example of a pointless edit. They added that the recording was released "in the autumn". This is a little vague and adds nothing to the article, and in any case it had already been stated (in what is a very short article) that it was released in October. This is, I agree, a very small thing, but when they repeatedly over several years keep adding tautologous information like this, it it amounts to poor and unhelpful editing. The article already states the information, it does not need stating again. Neilinabbey (talk) 10:27, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

From a few spot-checks, these are all Virgin Media IPs, mostly in Blackburn. I can understand the frustration - if someone is repeatedly making the same small-but-unhelpful edits to the same pages, ignores requests that they stop and refuses to discuss the matter, I can see how that would get exasperating. (Particularly the curly apostrophes - argh, my eyes!) We can't implement a range-block wide enough to prevent them, so it would have to be dealt with via long-term semi protection on the effected articles. El C, do you think that would be warranted, or is it overkill? Girth Summit _(blether) 10:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for understanding and appreciating the issue. Yes, I feared a block might be impractical. TBH, I'm not sure semi protection would help, as there are just so many articles involved. Perhaps a block on the current IP as a sort of warning that their edits are unhelpful? It might (but probably won't!) encourage them to rethink their editing. Neilinabbey (talk) 10:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Briefly, because I'm writing in haste: I did look at WP:SEMI as an option when glancing at the revision history of some of these pages, but the activity seemed way too sparse for that. I then considered applying WP:PC en masse, but wanted to examine at least a few of the edits closely first. But once I encountered the addition of initially by the IP, which again nominally seemed fine, followed by Neilinabbey's IDIOTIC [etc.] edit summary (diff again), I was no longer sure what's what. And I already had reservations after seeing Neilinabbey erase their warning 2 min after posting it, replacing it with the ANI notice for this report (diff again), which seemed a bit sketchy tbh. Then I had to step out, so I had no time to look any further. Anyway, unfortunately, I gotta step out again, so I'll just leave it with you, GS. But to reiterate, I did not see a single candidate for semi (in the usual sense), only pc. Quick correction, though: I didn't actually choose Skapocalypse Now! at random — I chose it because it's a cool title! El_C 11:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I erased the initial warning as it one I wrote myself (I'm new to reporting, so wasn't fully aware of the procedure). I then found there is a standard wording, so replaced my wording with that. The activity only seems sparse because that's one IP address. When you add it to 13 others in 10 days, and then multiply that for five years, it's a rather bigger issue!Neilinabbey (talk) 11:14, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've popped the last dozen articles edited on my watchlist. If there are others, let me know (not all of them, just enough to alert me to their presence). -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:14, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And I've applied some long-term PC protection to a bunch of articles that they've edited recently. If you notice them editing again, let me know and I will try my best to reason with them, and failing that we can do the whack-a-mole blocking game, I suppose. Girth Summit _(blether) 12:16, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much, and to Malcolmxl5 too. In response to Malcolmxl5, here are a few examples of other pages they repeatedly (mis)edit:

Cathedral City Cheddar

Saputo Dairy UK

Giraffe World Kitchen

Opel Grandland

The Mall Blackburn

Bumper Films

SP Manweb

Asda Mobile

1992 Manchester bombing

I could go on for ages, but that's probably enough for now!Neilinabbey (talk) 12:23, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I’ve added those. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:46, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, appreciated. Hopefully they'll get the message!Neilinabbey (talk) 12:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, they are back again, this time as 86.4.170.56. The usual daily four edits, three of which I've reverted (Irish car of the year, Tiger Tiger (nightclub) and Sin-Jin Smyth.

Given this almost constant changing of IP addresses and their refusal to engage, I'm not sure we're going to be able to stop them, unless they eventually get fed up with 95% of their edits being reverted within minutes!Neilinabbey (talk) 15:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Neilinabbey. Have a look at this: Special:Contributions/86.4.170.0/24. Is this mostly their work? Back to September? -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 15:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Malcolmxl5, yep, that's them alright. I'd be happy to explain why I think their edits here are unhelpful, if needed.Neilinabbey (talk) 16:06, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's OK. In fact, their edits go back to 2017, I think. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 16:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that tallies with what I've found. Looks like I'm far from the only editor who's been reverting their edits! It's an odd one, as for the most part I don't think their edits are malicious, they just have certain very fixed views and obsessions, and won't take no to imposing them even where they contradict Wikipedia's house style. I do find the constant changing of IP addresses and the four-edits-a-day thing a bit curious, too.Neilinabbey (talk) 16:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I’m going to collate some data to get a handle on the picture here. It may take some time so let’s move this conversation to my talk page. Let me know if you see them again. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 16:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, will do. Neilinabbey (talk) 16:59, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see this got sorted while I was away for the day. El_C 09:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This section on User:Pedant’s page caught my eye a few years ago because it struck me as blatant 9/11 Truther conspiracy theorizing. I’m now wondering if that’s a violation of userspace policy as an off-topic rant and a more general violation of Wikipedia’s stance on not unduly promoting fringe theory. I attempted to discuss this with the user but as you can see I received no straight answers. Dronebogus (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On the one hand, yes it's polemic (and dumb). On the other hand, I'm pretty tired of Dronebogus wandering around hunting for stuff to be outraged about. Any way we can delete the user page section and ban DB from ANI? --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

“Dronebogus is right, so ban them”? How does that make sense? In fact when was the last time I started a thread here? Dronebogus (talk) 18:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, "Dronbogus is shit-stirring, so ban them". I would support banning you if you were wrong, too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just going to point out that there IS precedent for banning someone from ANI for chronic shit-stirring. WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive603#concerns about too much of user:Mythdon on AN/I. And yes, it was decided in that discussion that although the user's issues weren't necessarily off-base, the community was served better by removing the shit-stirrer. 184.14.205.143 (talk) 19:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I’m somewhat confused why an IP with two edits is both getting involved here and showing intricate knowledge of ANI history. Dronebogus (talk) 20:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

WP:IPSPA may help get rid of the confusion 166.198.198.1 (talk) 21:27, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

After I pointed out that IP editors are often experienced, why did you post a new editor template to this temporary IP address? Did you really think I was aware of policy on IP editing, but also needed a new user template? 166.198.198.1 (talk) 21:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn’t thank you so it was a courtesy re-welcome Dronebogus (talk) 22:00, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, I apologize for misinterpreting the templating, and you are welcome 166.198.198.1 (talk) 22:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Floquenbeam: I think the section is a violation of WP:BLPTALK and should be removed. RAN1 (talk) 22:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to report User:Dronebogus for having WP:POLEMIC content on their user page! But jokes aside, it might help resolve situations like this if there was a guideline for what to do when you see WP:UPNOT material. Right now, the way it's set up seems almost to encourage users to take every single instance here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:10, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. We don't really have a guideline on things like this, and it leads to these exact situations! — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We should, just like how we nominate articles for speedy deletion if they violate certain guidelines. Imagine having to go over to ANI every time you saw an unacceptable page. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 02:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe there should be a minor incidents noticeboard? Dronebogus (talk) 03:29, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see that dumb stuff deleted, but if we start doing that we'll just be enabling a worse behavior which is seeking out dumb stuff on user pages and taking it to ANI, which is also a great way to hound editors. North8000 (talk) 19:39, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Warn Pedant and more quietly tell Dronebogus to not worry so much about other people's user pages. That's my take on this before we get Pedant's input. I don't think we have enough cause here to ban Dronebogus from ANI. Sections like this probably shouldn't be on user pages, but I don't think it's at the level of banning Pedant either. Re: Dronebogus: As far as I can tell, they're not posting here more frequently than 2-3x per year anyway. That's hardly a massive drain on editor resources/time.

The april thread on this topic for Dronebogus was regarding subpages and simply requested they attempt to discuss it with the user first before bringing it so quickly to ANI and be less-confrontational. As far as I can ascertain, that's exactly what they've done in this case. If we want, we could warn Dronebogus to not bring any user page-based complaints here, at all. But I actually completely disagree with that, since most, if not all, of the claims they've brought here have had some merit! What kind of message are we sending if we punish people for doing the right thing, in the right order? (Edited to add clarity 11:28, 1 November 2022 (UTC)) — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That argument would hold more weight if Dronebogus's actions in the space of user page complaints were not so overtly partisan. The vast majority of his complaints both on ANI and MfD have been against right-wing viewpoints, and he hasn't been shy about his disdain against the political right. That's the issue. I don't see altruism in his approach. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 23:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That’s your perception. It’s cherry-picking and seems to deliberately avoid mentioning that I’ve nominated left wing and neutral userboxes as well. Dronebogus (talk) 00:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't need to cherry-pick when you come out with stuff like this. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 00:34, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn’t prove anything. It’s a statement of bias. So yes I’m biased against conservatism but I don’t think I unduly target it at MfD, let alone ANI. In fact you’re the one targeting me over politics here. Dronebogus (talk) 00:36, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Shibbolethink:: Your estimate is low by more than an order of magnitude: since last September, they have opened no less than 38 separate AN/I threads. jp×g 00:14, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There have been two since may. Dronebogus (talk) 00:34, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd support banning Drone from ANI, or at least from having any opinions on anyone else's user pages. He did ask the user on his talk page about the section, which is a marginal improvement from the last time we talked about his actions... but then he went ahead and removed it anyhow as if there was some ticking clock that this material had to get removed immediately. They could be doing anything more productive with their time on Wikipedia, like actually editing and improving articles. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 00:12, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  A marginal improvement is still an improvement. Topic bans are not punitive, they’re preventative. You’re implying you feel I am incapable of taking advice because I made an error in judgment while being overall right in both assessment and process. Dronebogus (talk) 00:33, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  David Fuchs, 1 month is not "immediate." If something violates WP:SOAPBOX and the warned user doesn't reply, it can be removed. There doesn't have to be a ticking clock, especially because of the content's nature -- a bizarre conspiracy theory about 9/11. Also, Dronebogus doesn't have to "be doing anything more productive with their time on Wikipedia"; we don't ban users because they didn't do what we think they should've done. If only we had the ability to resolve complaints faster... — Nythar (💬-🎃) 00:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @David Fuchs: I know Dronebogus didn't bring it up, but WP:BLPRS and WP:BLPTALK apply here. RAN1 (talk) 04:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the noted subpage is probably a violation of WP:POLEMIC, and I think banning Dronebogus is not warranted at this time. I think I would advise them to not go "hunting for problems", that is to search through trying to find problems to bring to ANI. I am bothered by editors who think it is their job to play detective. HOWEVER, that being said, this is certainly not to the "ban them from ANI" phase. Honest to goodness, I'm ANI daily, and you'd think I'd recognize Dronebogus if they were a major drain on the resources of this page. I had never heard of them before this day. With the amount of time I'm around here, if I'd not heard of them, they probably aren't a problem. If I have been blind to the issue, I invite Floq and the others supporting such a proposal to build a case by showing diffs and establishing this is a pattern of behavior that needs stopping. I'm not comfortable banning someone without at least that courtesy to those of us unfamiliar with them. --Jayron32 18:20, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Most of the incidents involving me are months old at the newest. It would take some digging to find them, which I think discredits any accusations of an “ongoing problem” at ANI. Dronebogus (talk) 18:29, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't think Dronebogus should be banned from here. The user page section has been deleted. Hopefully this section can be closed shortly. Thank you, --Malerooster (talk) 00:52, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It should be closed. I’ve done nothing (significantly) wrong, and the section was rightly removed by an uninvolved, respected editor and consensus is clearly against allowing it. Pedant should consider this an informal warning. No further action should be taken here. If he insists on restoring patently inappropriate content the proper venue is MfD as an abuse of userspace. Dronebogus (talk) 04:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I think that Dronebogus should be prohibited from policing other editors' userspace, in general. Since last September, they have opened a whopping 38 AN/I threads, of which a very large amount have been requests to censure people for political content in their userspace. Quoting from the closing statement of a Dronebogus AN/I thread from April, where commenters unanimously supported a warning (and many expressed a desire for more than a warning): "Dronebogus is warned that their actions regarding user subpages have been disruptive and have wasted other editors' time for minimal benefit". Numerous people here noted extreme unease with their "apparent self-appointment as Wikipedia's witchfinder general", et cetera. Yes, it's certainly true that at least some of these threads involved people whose userpages really did have offensive content on them: the issue is that someone is spending inordinate amounts of time creating huge AN/I threads in an attempt to have people dramatically censured for things which have little to do with editing encyclopedia articles. It is also rather concerning that they are doing so selectively according to a political agenda. This is harmful to the project, and it wouldn't be "cancelled out" by having somebody with the opposite agenda do it in the other direction -- it would just give us twice as many pointless AN/I threads. jp×g 23:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, with respect to this specific thread, it should be noted that the polemic tract in question was from 2007, and the user's last 500 contributions go back to 2008, raising the question of how it was even possible to find this without a large amount of deliberate effort. jp×g 00:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I already said it was years ago that I noticed it. I don’t even remember how. Dronebogus (talk) 00:35, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You’re using ludicrous personal attacks like “witchfinder general” as an argument? And since when is controlling racism in userspace a “political agenda”? Dronebogus (talk) 00:37, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure I understand what you are saying in this comment -- the quoted phrase is itself a quotation from User:Dumuzid in the April thread that I linked (in which, as far as I can tell, nobody claimed it to be a personal attack). My argument is not that it is objectively correct, but that fifteen people expressed sentiments of this general nature. As for the other part of what you said, I am also somewhat confused: is your claim here that race relations in the United States is not a political topic? jp×g 01:18, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn’t saying that race relations isn’t political, I was saying that racism is banned by the WM code of conduct so it shouldn’t be considered “political” and therefore untouchable. Dronebogus (talk) 01:57, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was invoked, and so here I am. I had to look back at that comment, and I think I was quite transparent in it. This is the sort of thing that elicits a visceral reaction in me, and it probably was over the top to phrase it that way--for which I apologize--but it was simply because I lacked the right vocabulary to say the same thing with a lesser moral dimension. Dronebogus, I suspect you and I would agree substantively on most everything, and I wish you no ill will. But please try to take on board what people are telling you. It feels like you are saying that anything is fine until it leads to formal, logged sanctions. I think we can do better. That said, I sincerely wish you all the best and a Happy Friday to everyone. Dumuzid (talk) 12:45, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also note a bunch of those threads were misplaced vandalism reports and general user disruption complaints that had nothing to with politics. Dronebogus (talk) 00:41, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or the big WP:ANI fiasco that had nothing to do with the warning against me. You can’t sanction someone over a number. Dronebogus (talk) 00:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FreshMorphleMemePedia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
This user has been blocked, but I need an admin to revoke their talk page access. Thanks. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 07:18, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Materialscientist: I pinged you on their talk page. Could you please? Nythar (💬-🎃) 07:56, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

TPA revoked. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 07:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Last topic: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1105#User:Aigurland_:_edit-warring_academic_boosterism_for_Paris_1_Sorbonne

Aigurland has been doing advertisement for Paris 1 (for example: [67] ), and is doing the same again: [68] The same on the webpage on Collège de droit, which he said he won’t edit again in the last topic, but still removes information and sources this time.

--Ransouk (talk) 09:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I am shocked to see that Ransouk is still on this page, even though he never answers me when I try to talk to him. I implore an administrator who has the time to come and look into Ransouk's case as it is a clear case of POV pushing. I am at your disposal on my talk. I feel very bad about the way Ransouk never replies to me and undo all my changes, trying to pass himself off as the victim... I really wish an administrator would intervene, please. Aigurland (talk) 21:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Aigurland, at a glance, your edits appear excessively promotional (WP:PROMO). I suggest you try to gain WP:CONSENSUS for your changes on the article talk page. The WP:ONUS to do so is really on you, and this should be mainly attempted on the article talk page rather than on user talk pages, as the former is more visible to interested editors. If somehow you reach an impasse there, you can then try seeking a 3rd opinion or even go for a Request for comment. Finally, if there is bias elsewhere, then you are encouraged to fix that page or pages directly, but neither WP:FALSEBALANCE nor WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS are a viable approach. Thanks and good luck. El_C 09:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Now, Aigurland is making free personal attacks on talk pages: [69]

[70] --Ransouk (talk) 14:18, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Those are not personal attacks, Ransouk. And now is Nov 2, Nov 1 was the day before. El_C 15:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much El_C for noticing this. You are the first outsider to come between Ransouk and me and you have no idea how much it relieves me to be less alone. Aigurland (talk) 17:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

About personal attacks: [71]

El_C: I’m happy to answer anything, but if I have a serious idea to answer. I just have to deal with a user, making obvious promotional edits on one page ( [72] [73]), making long comments about me in several talk pages at the same time, and how other pages where they try to delete sources are supposed to be promotional. I am short in my texts, because the substance of their comment is very short too. You are an admin, so it is your function to tell them how to use wikipedia properly, but I guess you will agree that it is not mine, nor the place in talk pages. It is precisely why I opened this discussion here. For some admin to interact with them. --Ransouk (talk) 18:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ransouk Ransouk (I'm talking to you here since there will at least be witnesses) why don't you ever respond to my requests on the substance? Aigurland (talk) 18:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ransouk, let me get it right, you're saying that the comment on my talk page that I just responded to contains a personal attack? That's... interesting. Maybe quote what you contend is a personal attack rather than simply posting diffs, leaving us to guess...? Also, can you please wrap your bare urls so they don't take up extra space for naught? I keep doing it for you, but it's very easy to do. Anyway, at this point, you two should try to minimize interacting with one another and seek outside input, as suggested above. El_C 18:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

El_C: Not at all, I tried to keep it short because I thought it was obvious. I meant that you noticed that some comments of Aigurland about me were improper, and some people could see that as personal attacks. I was NOT saying at all that you made personal attacks against me. ----Ransouk (talk) 18:56, 2 November 2022

Aigurland, maybe because you keep writing at great length...? Please try to condense better. Brevity is the soul of wit, and so on. El_C 18:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ransouk, it is everybody's (and nobody's) responsibity to tell people how to use Wikipedia properly. We are all, including admins, volunteers. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank you. --Ransouk (talk) 19:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You are right (I would point out that since Ransouk's last comment on the "College de Droit in France" talk, our relations seem to be more courteous :) Aigurland (talk) 18:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Aigurland, what is this indent? Who are you replying to? Which comment? El_C 19:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ransouk, I understand you didn't say that I attacked you. Above, I said the comment on my talk page that I just responded to — that comment was by Aigurland (that I responded to), imlpying that I missed it in my response. If I did somehow miss it, please point it out with a quote. The point is that you keep citing diffs of what you claim are personal attacks "leaving us to guess" what exactly these are. So, next time you make a claim of a personal attack, you'll need to attach a quote of it alongside the diff. The diff by itself is not enough. El_C 19:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I meant what you mention of of how they write to me in your comments. But whatever, at this point, it is not very important. What I meant is that they should do exactly what you recommend, I happened to call that "personal attacks", that’s it. Ransouk (talk) 19:19, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Fair enough, but in the future, keep in mind that, on Wikipedia, the term personal attack has well-defined meaning as outlined in its policy page: Wikipedia:No personal attacks. El_C 19:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2A00:23C5:980:B601:7DB2:A065:A969:71D (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Previously on AN/I: [74]

Following the end of their one-week block (see above), this IP editor has kept editing in the very same disruptive manner as they used to do before, i.e. changing sourced GDP figures with no explanation whatsoever: [75][76][77][78][79][80] (the last one was done in spite of a level 4 warning). I think a longer block is necessary, as they don't appear to have learned anything from the first one. BilletsMauves^€500 10:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked for two weeks this time. Acroterion (talk) 12:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

IP editor User talk:86.188.161.99 has had more than 30 warnings for vandalism and disruptive editing, yet vandalised the Enigma machine this morning. Can somebody please take a look. scope_creep^Talk 12:24, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Back to another 3 year school block. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:34, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Zhomron (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Not capable of observing WP:BRD, WP:CIVIL or even WP:V. Chooses to attack capable and seasoned editors such as myself about my allegedly deficient language skills, rather than address the sourceability of facts in articles.

Elizium23 (talk) 23:43, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It is interesting to see you try and argue WP:CIVIL when you tell me to "fuck off" while attempting to undo your violation of WP:BLANKING Zhomron (talk) 23:47, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Users blanking their own talk pages is not a violation. See WP:NOTWALLOFSHAME. And why did you tell Elizium23 to piss off? Sarrail (talk) 23:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because they have consistently disregarded basic etiquette, excessively tagged ubiquitous information as lacking or needing citations, and even went as far as rashly accusing me of being a sockpuppet master for random IP editors simply because they also reverted their edits. Case-and-point, as soon as things don't immediately fall into line for them, I'm here on the noticeboard. Likewise, WP:REMOVE provides a clear (and bolded) stipulation of what should not be removed from a user's talk page. Zhomron (talk) 23:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and nothing Elizium23 removed from their own talk page is against WP:REMOVE. They can remove templates put on their page if they like, such as the disruptive one you placed, that's perfectly fine. Can you point out what they violated by removing your templating of their talk page? Canterbury Tail talk 00:07, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally there is zero wrong with tagging non-English translations as requiring citations. Canterbury Tail talk 00:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have opened Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Zhomron as related activity to this dispute has crossed my watchlist. Elizium23 (talk) 00:08, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

CheckUsers cannot link accounts to IPs, per the privacy policy. It is most likely to be declined, as per one archived discussion. Sarrail (talk) 00:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. However the edit interaction between Zhomron and that IP is blindingly obviously the same person. Canterbury Tail talk 00:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, but WP:BADSOCK indicates that users with accounts must not edit whilst logged out to avoid scrutiny or sanctions. CheckUsers can use behavioral evidence to draw the conclusion that is not permitted by their technical tools, and it would be a blockable offense to do this sort of editing while embroiled in an edit-warring, incivil dispute. Elizium23 (talk) 00:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dang, almost certainly looks like it. Looks like a false accusation or WP:DENY. Sarrail (talk) 00:18, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It also would not be out of reach to identify active sanctions from WP:ARBCOM in various places Zhomron has chosen to dispute WP:V. Elizium23 (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think I can contribute here as an editor familiar with the underlying facts. None of these are "translations", but rather original words or spellings of which the English word exists to function as a direct translation or transliteration. It is genuinely unnecessary and counterproductive to require messy citations in the lede for information available in any Biblical dictionary or edition of the Hebrew Bible, in the same way that every page whose title is an indigenous English word doesn't need to cite a dictionary entry for its spelling. There are thousands of pages about Biblical names and terms, many of which I have written or edited, and I have never seen a citation which specifically sources the spelling. In cases where the spelling is disputed or multiple spellings exist (and Zhomron and I have discussed several examples), detailed information is always noteworthy enough to feature on the page, with citations, but this is extremely rare and does not apply to any of the pages being discussed.

At the same time, the etymology section of the Shabbat page is a different story and Elizium23 was correct to tag it. And I can't defend Zhomron's attitude toward other editors, about which I have also warned him in the past. GordonGlottal (talk) 00:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For what its worth you (both) might benefit from just taking a deep breath, and try to de-escalate your relationship with each other. Neither of you are being civil to each other, You're chucking WP:DENY around which does anything BUT deny recognition since you're addressing it directly. You've opened at least 3 SPIs involving Zhomron in about the past month's time, and even though it looks like the latest may be true, I don't see much evidence of a particularly WP:BADSOCK. And now you've raised talk of finding ARBCOM sanctions to throw at Zhomron, instead of just doing it. All of this because of a content dispute with 2 diffs with debatably nastygram summaries. Have either of you actually tried discussing this? Talk Page? User Talk? Don't discount the fundamentals of WP conflict resolution. GabberFlasted (talk) 11:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I have discussed, yes, I have followed WP:BRD, and it doesn't get traction with someone who will edit-war and then edit-war some more from an IP and then make WP:POINTy edits on my watchlist while logged out to evade scrutiny. I won't be abused and insulted by a condescending editor who can't even grasp WP:V, that is why we're here and not on user talk, and that's why their IP is blocked for a month. Elizium23 (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Found this nugget on en.wiktionary: 00:45, 28 November 2020 Chuck Entz talk contribs blocked Zhomron talk contribs with an expiration time of infinite (account creation disabled, autoblock disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (Abusing multiple accounts/block evasion)

@GabberFlasted: nah, I don't AGF, nor do I attempt to reason, with sockpuppets. Elizium23 (talk) 01:08, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I had removed what was unsourced and FICTREFed from the page Philippine Independent Church.

The user Nuwordlife0rder proceeded to add those information back (some of which are OR), sometimes by sourcing them properly, other times by not sourcing them, most of the time by sourcing them with new FICTREFs. I then rolled back to the version I had made, and the user added the same information with the same problems again.

I then attempted to Talk:Philippine Independent Church#Violating WP:BURDEN, adding FICTREFs, OR discuss with the user at the talk page, but it was to no avail: the user kept the unsourced and FICTREFed data, and said done. Veverve (talk) 10:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I had responded accordingly. The sources that "I added" are not WP:FICTREFs as those are legit. The fict links the user is referring to are previous links by other users in the past which I tried to restore but I already removed them as requested since I fully agree and understand this user's point. I responded "done" as I have complied with his request. This user seems to be violating WP:OWN and I have no intention to disrupt the page. Everything was done in WP:GOODFAITH as a Wikipedia editor. I have no intention of WP:WAR as I believe that Wikipedia is WP:NOTBATTLE and everyone are welcome to edit. Thank you. Nuwordlife0rder (talk) 10:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The sources that "I added" are not WP:FICTREFs as those are legit: I strongly disagree, the user has added numerous FICTREFs, and has kept them.

The user has now accused me of bullying, stating asking for BURDEN to be respected and FICTREFs to be removed was a form of bullying.

The user has added recently: Original research (OR) and Refimprove tags were already added. I humbly believe that a revert is not required. Thanks again. Thus, the user clearly assumes breaking the BURDEN rule. Veverve (talk) 11:35, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

Without any prior discussion, User:Micga moved Special member state territories and the European Union to Special territories of states participating in the European integration. (Just now, I have moved it again temporarily to Special territories of members of the European Economic Area, to at least mitigate the damage.) This user has done extensive edits to this, to European integration and to European Union that at least appear to be wp:advocacy for pan-Europeanism. They do not appear to have taken on board the words of caution on their talk page from User:Tunakanski and User:Subtropical-man. The article as it stood was meaningful in the real world, to change it to drag in the EFTA countries is unhelpful and just looks like POV-pushing.

I am not at this stage requesting that Micga be subjected to any sanctions, though others may take a different view. This request is only that this move (diff [ 05:26, 2 November 2022‎ Micga talk contribs‎ m 120,882 bytes 0‎ Micga moved page Special member state territories and the European Union to Special territories of states participating in the European integration] (and my subsequent mitigation move) be reverted to the status quo ante. All edits by Micga dated since 04:32 UTC on 2 November (that are based on their reframed scope) should be reverted pending discussion and consensus for change. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:20, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be a content matter. 𝕁𝕄𝔽, can you elaborate on why you took it to ANI? Your edits to the article on 2 November between 10:41 and 11:05 have been contested, see Talk:Special territories of members of the European Economic Area#Renaming of the article and change of content. 77.188.28.121 (talk) 21:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]