I am challenging the close by Chetsford at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Government bio infoboxes, should they be decapitalized or not. Chetsford writes in their close: In the absence of a consensus, the status quo (capitalized titles) should be observed. I disagree that that was the status quo. To justify this, Chetsford writes: I believe the status quo is that job titles are capitalized. I base this on the construction of the RfC proposal. No editors objected to the formulation of the proposal ("keep the titles capitalized") which I construe to mean all editors agree that capitalized titles are the status quo. This is based on a non-neutral wording of the RfC, which I did, in fact, dispute during the RfC ([1], [2], [3]). The MoS is quite clear that job titles should be lowercase when modified by ordinals (MOS:JOBTITLE), and that sentence case is used in infoboxes (MOS:CAPS). There is nothing in the MoS that allows for the use of title case in infoboxes. Chetsford acknowledges that this is the case in their close: The second problem that will emerge with this close is a lack of clarity as to the status quo. The "pro de-capping" camp seems to be arguing that lowercase job titles are the statutory status quo, just not one we follow in practice. What we follow in practice is not relevant. There are a lot of users who try to force title case into articles because they don't understand that Wikipedia uses sentence case. What this close has done is create a glaring exception to Wikipedia's widespread, established use of sentence case. When a discussion is closed as WP:NOCONSENSUS, then that close must refer back to the established MoS, not override it with something completely new. Link to discussion with Chetsford prior to this challenge: User talk:Chetsford#Recent close. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 01:08, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• No consensus means we continue with the practice of capitalising in the bio infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 01:15, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thus seems like a somewhat silly proposed ground to overturn a carefully considered close. For one thing, the challenge assumes that the question should have been "is title case or sentence case to be used in infoboxes", but, like all other style guides, Wikipedia capitalizes proper nouns so, if a proper noun is included in an infobox entry, it should be capitalized whether the infobox entry itself is in title case or in sentence case. Therefore, Wikipedia's wiseapread, established use of sentence case is not endangered by the close.

What is more, the argument that the status quo should be "titles in lower case in infoboxes", when this is neither empirically true nor based on any explicit statement on policy, seems like an attempt to assume the thing to be proven. The question of the RfC was, should certain titles be capitalized in infoboxes, that is, does the community agree that the policy that some have argued should prohibit capitalization of these titles actually apply to those cases. There was no policy-based consensus on this question, but the fact that two-thirds of editors argued in one way or other than the interpretation of policy that would prevent capitalization was applying that policy outside its appropriate scope, should not simply be ignored. In fact, if anything I would think that the argument for limited scope is well-grounded in WP:CONSENSUS policy. Newimpartial (talk) 01:24, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Newimpartial, Wikipedia capitalizes proper nouns so, if a proper noun is included in an infobox entry, it should be capitalized whether the infobox entry itself is in title case or in sentence case. Yes, but it is an established guideline (MOS:JOBTITLE) that job titles are not proper nouns and should be lowercase when modified. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 01:27, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Newimpartial, The argument that the status quo should be "titles in lower case in infoboxes", when this is neither empirically true nor based on any explicit statement on policy. The closer themselves disagrees with you on this. From the close: The first problem that will emerge with this close is that the opposition to no caps consisted largely of WP:VAGUEWAVEs or non-policy arguments like "looks weird" while supporters of no caps consistently argued a guideline, MOS:JOBTITLE, and offered efficient surrebuttals to each rebuttal advanced. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 01:29, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I think Chetsford's RfC close is decent, and he is correct in stating that In this case we have one-thirds of editors arguing that MOS:JOBTITLE is controlling and... two-thirds... [arguing] that JOBTITLE is not controlling. Arguing the non-applicability of a policy is, in my opinion, equivalent to arguing for an alternate policy. A 'no consensus' close in this case means the titles should stay capitalized in the infoboxes (see the infoboxes for Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson etc. for example). (Note: I participated in the RfC.) Some1 (talk) 01:52, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: I think this is a GF request for review by Tartan357 and support uninvolved editors carefully reviewing the close and considering the points Tartan357 has made here. While I stand by the close, this was a difficult RfC and it's well within the realm of possibility I read it incorrectly. Chetsford (talk) 01:57, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Chestford, could you help us understand what tipped you over into 'no consensus'? Much of your closing statement uplifts the JOBTITLES argument and challenges the capitalization crew's points. Which pro-capitalization policy arguments were convincing to you? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:08, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Unless editors feel strongly otherwise, I'd prefer to let the closing statement stand on its own so that the review isn't muddied with what could be construed as after-the-fact rationalizations by me. I'm not sure it would be fair to Tartan357 if I started offering advanced explanations here and it's probably best if the close is reviewed as written, otherwise it's not really a review of the close. Again, though, if several editors feel strongly otherwise, I'll revisit this. Chetsford (talk) 02:24, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I am not ultra-familiar with the procedure here, having only read WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. Is it frowned upon to explain the closing statement?

  If so, I suppose an alternate framing of my question is: do you stand by a statement that summarizes the discussion by saying

  "opposition to no caps consisted largely of WP:VAGUEWAVEs or non-policy arguments like "looks weird" while supporters of no caps consistently argued a guideline, MOS:JOBTITLE, and offered efficient surrebuttals to each rebuttal advanced."

  but then decides on no consensus? It is difficult for uninvolved editors to understand what led to the tie when all the points are awarded to one side. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:30, 25 August 2021 (UTC) - partial strike 02:55, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Nothing is written in stone, however, I read the precept that close review is to review "the outcome stated by the closing editor" as meaning the purpose here is to review the outcome as stated in the close, which precludes after-the-fact corollaries or supplements. "It is difficult for uninvolved editors to understand what led to the tie when all the points are awarded to one side." In this case, I would think an uninvolved editor would want to !vote to overturn the close and relist. I will say one thing, however, which is that I think a "tie" is fundamentally different than "no consensus". A tie implies all things are equal while "no consensus", in my mind, recognizes that objections which are both widespread and legitimate will remain unaddressed if a definitive conclusion is applied. Chetsford (talk) 02:38, 25 August 2021 (UTC); edited 02:51, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I find that position to be rational, though personally frustrating. Thank you for your guidance. I'll think on it, and I hope to see some opinions from uninvolved editors/admins. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:46, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Responding to your point about my "tie" comment: I've struck that portion. I was using the language as a flippant analogy, and don't think it represents your close, or my own points, very well. Apologies. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:55, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the RFC question was quite clear. I'm no fortune teller, but I know of a lot of articles where local editors will fight against lowercasing in the infoboxes' of their respective country's political offices. Take a look around, the status quo in the infoboxes are clearly uppercasing with or without ordinals. GoodDay (talk) 02:14, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• There is a discretionary element to closing a discussion, when deciding: adherence to policy through the strength of arguments and, more tabouli, also numbers (shh, don't tell). Sometime, the situation calls for explaining one's reasoning for their close when challenged. Other times, simply letting the close stand in its own right in the course of a review, is a perfectly valid (and smart) thing to do. BTW, I tried reading the discussion, but my eyes glazed over. Couldn't really understand a lick of it. But I'm slow, so... El_C 03:10, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can sum it up: some like BIG letters and some like small, but everyone likes painting the bikeshed. Johnuniq (talk) 09:52, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Like. El_C 12:00, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My take: I have a very particular perspective here. Although I did not participate in the RFC, I am, on the one hand, a staunch defender of MOS:JOBTITLES (see my edit history) and think it is obvious that it requires infoboxes to be rendered in sentence case. In response to Chetsford's observation that In this case we have one-thirds of editors arguing that MOS:JOBTITLE is controlling and... two-thirds... [arguing] that JOBTITLE is not controlling, I would point out first, that in determining consensus, [t]he quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view, and second, that there is no cognizable argument that JOBTITLES permits infoboxes to be rendered in title case. All the arguments offered for that position in the RFC were in fact policy arguments. Tartan357 is therefore correct that the RFC ought to have been closed in favor of sentence casing infoboxes.

On the other hand, in spite of my unwavering allegiance to JOBTITLES, I think, as a matter of policy, that it is a bad idea to render infoboxes in sentence case. In other words, I agree with the policy arguments advanced by the pro-cap camp, even though I believe the anti-cap camp's arguments are actually controlling here. Because I believe the most desirable outcome is actually prohibited by JOBTITLES, I would suggest that an exception to JOBTITLES be established for infoboxes. Of course, any proposal for a modification to JOBTITLES is likely to be met with substantial resistance by editors who, like myself, feel that that guideline is constantly under attack and that without it, Wikipedia would read somewhat like a government press release or a corporate brochure. Editors seeking such an exception should therefore take care to define it narrowly to avoid setting off any slippery-slope alarm bells. Wallnot (talk) 12:31, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Months ago (can't remember where) as a warning, I predicted that (with WP:JOBTITLES as their excuse) an editor would start pushing for lowercasing in the infoboxes of political offices in bios. But few to none would believe me. At that time already, political offices in bio intros & bio sections & subsection, had been lower-cased. So now it's come to pass, with Tartan357 kicking it off at Joe Biden's article, where I reverted him, we had a little dispute on the talkpage, which led to my opening up the very RFC, that he's now challenging the closure & ruling of. If Chetsford's ruling is overturned? The article titles will be the next target for the lower-case pushers. We'll be seeing Prime Minister of Australia changed to Prime minister of Australia (for example). AFAIK, it's currently not possible to change it to prime minister of Australia, fortunately. GoodDay (talk) 14:04, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's not true, because JOBTITLES explicitly makes a distinction between "President of the United States" and "9th president of the United States", so those defending the application of JOBTITLES in infoboxes wouldn't suggest that change as their next target. No one has suggested lowercasing the first letter of article titles either. That slippery slope is not at all likely to happen, at least not from the same editors. —El Millo (talk) 16:24, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Write it down on a paper & save it. You'll see, I'm proven right. GoodDay (talk) 19:18, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Further proof, concerning article titles. See unilateral move of Deputy Prime Minister of Canada to Deputy prime minister of Canada, as an example. Indeed, it's already happening. GoodDay (talk) 19:31, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The requested move about changing it back to Deputy Prime Minister of Canada already has four Supports specifically citing JOBTITLES, while the only one that cited JOBTITLES to Oppose said he may have to rethink this and is suddenly not so sure. So your prediction is incorrect. If editors start moving these articles to lowercase it'll be against JOBTITLES, not in accordance with it. This is an RM you have participated it, so you must've noticed it. —El Millo (talk) 03:15, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That unilateral move, is a sign of things to come. If you get this RFC closure overturned in your favour. What are you going to do, when editors in their local political areas start fighting against lowercasing in the infoboxes? Report them all to ANI? All some of you are doing, is stirring up a hornet's nest, merely to get your own way. GoodDay (talk) 03:21, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Depends how they're "fighting". If they argue with policy-based arguments and logic, then great. That's all being asked here. If they argue with "looks weird", "I don't like it", etc., then they'll just not succeed. —El Millo (talk) 03:28, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There was no consensus to lowercase the political offices in the infoboxes, with or without ordinals. Thus RFC closure should stand. You few are only gonna cause a lot of disruption across hundreds of bios. GoodDay (talk) 03:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE as "the closure was not a reasonable summation of the discussion". Specifically, the close identified that one side had no policy argument, but then equated non-policy points with "arguing for an alternate policy". I find this to be ill-advised by guideline and best practice.
  In my view, Chetsford accurately analyzed the PAG arguments at play, saying:

  "opposition to no caps consisted largely of WP:VAGUEWAVEs or non-policy arguments like "looks weird" while supporters of no caps consistently argued a guideline, MOS:JOBTITLE, and offered efficient surrebuttals to each rebuttal advanced."

  Chetsford later describes the former group as making "no policy based argument at all." WP:DISCARD is clear about how to deal with the non-policy points: by "discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only...". Instead, Chetsford offers that "Arguing the non-applicability of a policy is, in my opinion, equivalent to arguing for an alternate policy."
  Why is that the case? On this one point rests the entirety of the no consensus close. If generalized, such a position would be damaging to the project. Can any well-reasoned policy argument be defeated by enough "I don't like it"s, simply because they will be construed by the closer as equivalent to policy arguments? This non-explanation of the heart of the close means that the discussion has been unreasonably summarized, and that we therefore have good reason to overturn. I also second Tartan357's points about 'no consensus' pointing in the wrong direction. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:59, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Uphold closure - The RFC's closure is quite accurate & correctly judged. The status quo among bios infoboxes of politicians, is capitalisation with or without ordinals. GoodDay (talk) 03:03, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the fact that there's disagreement over the closure, is itself proof of there being no consensus & thus we maintain the status-quo, -capitalisation-. GoodDay (talk) 03:59, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, why wasn't Template:Infobox office holder notified of the RFC-in-question's challenge? GoodDay (talk) 19:19, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn, echoing Firefangledfeathers. Contrary to what GoodDay says, the "status quo" is what the guideline tells us to do, and the guidelines are clear, despite longstanding practice: first, JOBTITLES is clear that a title preceded by an ordinal is rendered lowercase unless before a name, and headings in an infobox are sentence case, not title case. This is a clear case of if a then b plus if b then c leading to if a then c. Again, I say all this in spite of the fact that I think another RFC should take place in order to establish an exception to JOBTITLES for precisely this purpose. But as the guidelines currently stand, there can be no question that they require the lowercasing of these headings in infoboxes. Wallnot (talk) 21:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The status quo is capitalisation in those infoboxes. Must I present hundreds of political bios, to prove it? GoodDay (talk) 21:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Must I repeat myself? [T]he "status quo" is what the guideline tells us to do, and the guidelines are clear, despite longstanding practice.}

• Comment – I think the question to answer here is: what exactly is the status quo? Is it what the guideline says should be done, or is it what's usually done? —El Millo (talk) 22:00, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Many question whether or not the guideline calls for lower casing in the political infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 22:03, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I cite Wallnot above: JOBTITLES is clear that a title preceded by an ordinal is rendered lowercase unless before a name, and headings in an infobox are sentence case, not title case. This is a clear case of if a then b plus if b then c leading to if a then c. This is all included in the guidelines. There's no need for it to be explicitly stated that it applies to political infoboxes. It should be explicitly stated if political infoboxes were an exception to the rule. If you want for that to be explicitly stated, argue for it. —El Millo (talk) 22:21, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You (and a small number of editors) can't force the community to accept what you think is right. Drop the challenge to the RFC closure & move on. GoodDay (talk) 22:27, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Stop treating this as some kind of war. Just argue in favor of your position instead of trying to paint the other side as if they were "forcing" others to abide by their wishes. I still haven't made up my mind about whether the close was correct or not. The guideline says one thing, common practice in these articles isn't in line with the guideline. Which of these is the status quo, I'm not sure yet, until either side convinces me. —El Millo (talk) 22:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've contacted seven high profile bios, directing them to this discussion. It's best that some editors out there, know what could potentially happen to the bios they frequent, without their input. GoodDay (talk) 23:13, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Facu-el Millo: My attempt to convince you: the status quo must be what the guideline says to do, not what is commonly done despite what the guidelines say, because to do otherwise would be to make the guidelines meaningless. If the status quo were based on what is commonly done, then any editor who wants to avoid a guideline's application to a specific article could simply contest it and, when the parties failed to reach a consensus, the false "status quo" would remain in place. This is, incidentally, exactly what DuncanHill tried to do to me with an even more straightforward application of JOBTITLES to the Home Secretary article, apparently hoping that I'd go away or back down before a much more experienced editor. I raised that procedural point there, and I raise it again here, because to do otherwise allows small groups of editors to sabotage the application of clearly established guidelines simply by refusing to agree, even where (as here) they offer no real arguments in favor of their position.

Just as a side note, I believe the guidelines should actually be changed to reflect GoodDay's wishes, because a) it looks better and b) (and this is the dispositive factor, because so many argue (a) in favor of eliminating JOBTITLES altogether) contrary to the application of JOBTITLES elsewhere, capitalizing the headings in an infobox is not contrary to established practice in academia and journalism (capitalizing titles when they do not precede a title is contrary to that practice). I argue in favor of overturning the RFC result nonetheless because it is a bad idea to put in place a consensus that expressly contradicts a guideline without bothering to change that guideline. Wallnot (talk) 22:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse It's a bikeshed, as Johnuniq points out above, so we will almost never have true consensus on aesthetic choices. This is why MOS is a guideline. There was overwhelming support for capitalization, that simply cannot be ignored, and if this were a discussion on creating a new policy we would be on the verge of consensus. That said we already have a guideline stating the opposite, and participants in opposition point to it. While it is a prior consensus, consensus can change and a 28 to 14 margin is pretty good evidence that sentiments have shifted (this is what I understand Chetsford as meaning by "arguing for an alternate policy"). For various reason's it's not a good idea to rewrite guidelines based on a tangential discussion, and so given the combination of numerical support vs guideline-base opposition, no consensus was a good call. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:00, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Wugapodes, did you read my complaint? I didn't contest the no consensus close, I contested that no consensus close creating something new rather than referring back to the existing guideline. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 23:11, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  What they wrote seems to agree with you apart from that. Wallnot (talk) 23:13, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If anything I think Chetsford was too conservative, as I see consensus that MOS:JOBTITLE doesn't apply in this case. I assumed you don't want the outcome of this discussion to be "overturn to consensus to capitalize", so I was willing to accept the close as-is and let everyone fight it out another day. I still think that, and even if I were to buy into "no consensus" I still think the close is fine. "No consensus" means "no consensus", it doesn't mean the minority wins. You can't just ignore that editors disagree with your interpretation of policy by a 2:1 margin. It's a manual of style, not WP:V, so it's hard to believe that we should just ignore a supermajority of editors so that we can uphold a guideline that the same supermajority of editors don't think applies. Consensus is not a vote, but neither is it minority tyranny. Editors use capitals, many editors want to keep using capitals, the RfC was literally asking whether we should "keep using" capitals, it makes sense for the close to say we can keep using capitals. We shouldn't go rewriting policy based on the discussion, but clearly it's within reason for a closer to say "keep doing what the RfC presupposes you are already doing". — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:44, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Wugapodes, I objected to the "keep using" framing of the RfC question, upon which Chetsford based their close. I thought I made that clear in my complaint here. The status quo in the MoS is lowercase, and a no consensus close must default back to that. Otherwise, the whole consensus process is undermined. Wallnot put it well: If the status quo were based on what is commonly done, then any editor who wants to avoid a guideline's application to a specific article could simply contest it and, when the parties failed to reach a consensus, the false "status quo" would remain in place. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 00:51, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm aware. I suggest you read our policy on consensus particularly the sections on WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS, WP:CCC, and WP:NOCONSENSUS. Note that despite you saying we must do what you want, the actual policy on consensus only says "commonly", so even if I believed you were right (I don't) nothing says we have to do whatever the minority position wants in a no consensus discussion. Anyway, I'm not particularly worried about undermining the consensus process; I believe it is robust enough to withstand the repurcussions of wrongly capitalizing the word "president". — Wug·a·po·des​ 08:35, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  You can disagree with my conclusion, but please don't mischaracterize my position as we have to do whatever the minority position wants in a no consensus discussion. I'm saying that in this difficult choice between the de facto and MoS status quos, we should go with the MoS. Which Chetsford has agreed is a reasonable position to take, and one worthy of discussion, even though they chose not to take it themselves. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 20:48, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Did you read WP:EDITCONSENSUS and WP:CCC? — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:59, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I would add that the stakes here are not wrongly capitalizing the word "president"; unlike in other JOBTITLES contexts, here there is not really a right or wrong answer. The stakes are allowing a no-consensus RFC to revert to a status quo plainly contradicted by existing guidelines, rather than requiring the consensus for capitalizing infoboxes to go through the proper channel, i.e., amend the guideline. You yourself acknowledged the procedural issue here: For various reason's it's not a good idea to rewrite guidelines based on a tangential discussion[.] Wallnot (talk) 21:07, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  There's no consensus that the guideline applies that's literally what no consensus means The discussion was whether the guideline applies in this case, multiple editors made very clear arguments that it does not, there was no consensus that it applies, now you want us to enforce the claim that it does? Am I getting this all right? That's absurd. I'm quite tired of this. I've explained myself clearly and explicitly said I see consensus. A widely attended multi-week RfC on the talk page of the MOS in question is the proper channel to change a guideline and I regret trying to be diplomatic in my phrasing. One of the various reasons is that people will complain in a close review, but clearly we're past that point. The other is that "consensus to rewrite policy" and "consensus to do something" are different things. We do lots of stuff that's not in policy, and we do lots of stuff that's outright contradictory to policy (it's our fifth pillar in fact). If you insist that the only possible outcome of a no consensus close is to follow the MOS (a position which I've shown is inconsistent with the policy literally titled "Consensus"), I'll change my bolded opinion to "overturn to consensus to capitalize" since I've already explained that I personally see consensus. If however, you believe there are alternate possibilities, why am I still being badgered? I've explained quite clearly, with policy citations, why a close stating the status quo was capitalization is perfectly reasonable. If you disagree, then engage with my main points instead of just my last sentence. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:59, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm going to point out that a crux of this problem is that the {{Infobox officeholder}} is setup in a manner specifically to conflate the JOBTITLE problem - the |office= is a standalone parameter (lacking the ordinal number) indicating the office title and thus per JOBTITLE would be capitalized, but when |order= is added, that parameter value is added before the office title, and subsequently transforms (in the context of JOBTITLE) that title into just the office, and would be uncapitalized. It would be better if in the presentation of the infobox that the order param was placed after the office param (eg "President of the United States (42nd)") which would resolve nearly all of the issues raised in the RFC. But as it stands, given that the infobox documentation represents the practice, that is the status quo, and the close seems proper. I just think that there's a far simpler way of making everyone happy that could be done in exactly one edit. --Masem (t) 00:50, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. I have to agree with Tartan that MoS represents the status quo here. Personally, I have never been a fan of MOS:JOBTITLES, but it remains the community endorsed consensus here. Therefore, MOS:JOBTITLES should be controlling in this instance of a no-consensus close. Counterintuitively though, I think that if Chetsford simply said there was consensus for Option A, and that MOS:JOBTITLES would be amended to reflect that consensus, then there would probably be less of a problem. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:02, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If you go through all the political bios infoboxes with ordinals, you'll see that JOBTITLES definitely 'does not' represent the status quo. GoodDay (talk) 06:05, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, GoodDay, but this remains a non-point. The fact that we do something different from what the MOS says to do on one/some/many/most pages does not negate what the status quo of the MOS is. Chetsford found no consensus to change the MOS, so we should revert to the status quo of the MOS. That means: no exception for infoboxes, our Manual of Style applies everywhere (in article space), ergo modified jobs/titles should be lower case. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 09:57, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As you can tell, both 'here' & at the closed-RFC. There's obviously no consensus on whether or not infoboxes are exempted by the MoS-in-question. Thus the status quo remains - capitalized. Otherwise, why is the closure of the RFC being challenged? GoodDay (talk) 14:20, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Right, there's no consensus on whether or not infoboxes are exempted by the MoS-in-question. Thus, the status quo remains: uncapitalized. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 18:44, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's disagreement on what the status quo is. But, you're free to look around all the bios-in-question on this project, concerning this topic. GoodDay (talk) 18:52, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@GoodDay: I don't disagree with that. Just spot checking Ned Lamont shows that this is true. However, there is a difference between current practice and the policy status quo. When there is a conflict, the latter takes precedence even if we disagree with it. Mind you, I'm not going to go out of my way to enforce a consensus I disagree with, but I'm not going to stop someone else from doing it. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:16, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Uphold, or change to consensus in favour. The status quo is clearly that capital letters are used, a situation where tens of thousands of articles have to be changed is not a status quo. I also strongly disagree with the closer's comments, restated by some here, that expressing a stylistic preference is an invalid comment in an RfC about how to interpret the manual of style. There was a 2-1 weight against OP's position, enforcing it against the wishes of the community would simply result in a differently worded RfC with the same outcome. Ivar the Boneful (talk) 10:39, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - @Chetsford: What I'm getting out of the whole challenge thing, is that your closure message was 'confusing'. Are you stating that we lower case political offices with ordinals, in the infobox or are you saying that we keep them capitalized? GoodDay (talk) 14:32, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm saying there is no consensus, therefore, we continue with the status quo. In this case, it is unclear what the status quo is: a status quo of custom (capitalized) or a status quo of code (uncapitalized). Because the construction of the RfC ("keep" capitalized) was not widely objected by either side in the RfC, all sides effectively signaled their agreement that — regardless of outcome — the status quo was capitalization. Therefore, we should keep political offices with ordinals in infoboxes capitalized. Chetsford (talk) 15:53, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, that this entire topic is still being debated, reveals a disconnect in WP:JOBTITLES. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GoodDay (talk • contribs) 16:37, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is contentious enough that I have no problem with a long debate. I think this review is particularly well formulated as it generally agrees there is no consensus and hinges, instead, on what exactly the status quo is: code or custom. This was a question it took me about five minutes of staring at the screen to answer when I originally closed it and it was only the invocation of the word "keep" in the proposal, and the lack of widespread objection to that word's presence, that resulted in a finding of 'no consensus - capitalize' versus what was very nearly 'no consensus - don't capitalize'. That said, I am not enthusiastic about this close, though I don't think there's any possible close I would have been happy about. Chetsford (talk) 17:08, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I agree with the general principle that "no consensus" means "no change to the status quo", but ...

I don't think that "no consensus" is a valid outcome when - by the closer's own admission - one side of the argument (for caps) consisted largely of non-policy opinions, while the other side (no-caps) consisted of appeals to MOS guidelines. Surely by WP:NHC most of the caps arguments should have been discarded because they "contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only", which would have given a substantial majority to the no-caps argument.

The idea of closing with "no consensus, so just carry on ignoring MOS:JOBTITLES in a large number of articles" just strikes me as wrong. If JOBTITLES is "wrong" (in the sense that a large majority apparently disagree with it, or at least think it should not apply in these cases, and ignore it) then surely we should fix JOBTITLES. Perhaps one of the many people who apparantly think JOBTITLES is wrong, or needs clarifying to explicitly cover infoboxes, should raise a discussion on WT:MOSBIO to change JOBTITLES to more accurately reflect the apparent "status quo" in infoboxes. (I'm in the "no-caps" camp myself, so I'm not going to propose changing JOBTITLES.) Mitch Ames (talk) 03:02, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Such an RFC was already had at WT:MOSBIO. -- GoodDay (talk) 03:07, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding was that Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Government bio infoboxes, should they be decapitalized or not. (if you were referring to a different RFC, please link to it) was whether to change the infoboxes on article pages, not whether to change the guideline MOS:JOBTITLES. I'm suggesting that a discussion be had to explicitly change the wording of the guideline. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:23, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One specific reason as to why we might want to change the guideline is that MOS is where editors should be able to look to find out what the current rules are. In a few months time, editors are not going to hunt through talk pages and RFCs (nor should they have to do their own surveys of existing articles) to find out whether to capitalise something - they will (or should) look at MOS, in particular JOBTITLES to find out what the rule is. MOS should reflect the consensus of how we do things; if it does not, we should update it so it does. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:29, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion

Insofar as I can tell, 3-4 editors who were not involved in the original discussion, to varying degrees, support reopening the RfC while two uninvolved editors oppose reopening it. As the original closer, I would like to signal my support for the close to be reconsidered by a committee of three uninvolved editors who will examine it based on the disposition of !votes at the time of the original closing. This reconsideration could be (a) limited to an examination of what actually constitutes the status quo (caps or no caps), accepting the no consensus close, or, (b) unlimited. Chetsford (talk) 19:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There still is disagreement of what the status quo is. Some have argued that WP:JOBTITLES already calls for lower-casing (debatable) with ordinals in infoboxes. While others have argued that upper-casing with ordinals in infoboxes, is already (un-debatable) established throughout Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 19:23, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification: I plan to discretionarily self-revert the close shortly as implicitly permitted to the closer under WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. The above suggestion is what someone might request at WP:RFCLOSE if they were to so choose. (I think anything less than a committee closure at this point will be unsustainable.) Chetsford (talk) 22:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New close request posted in this section. I encourage involved/interested editors and admin to review my posting for neutrality. I am happy to tweak the listing as needed. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:36, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Another suggestion

Perhaps deleting the ordinals from these bio infoboxes, is the answer. It would certainly end this uppercase/lowercase argument. Would recommend inviting WikiProject country members to discuss this idea. GoodDay (talk) 19:31, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In December 2020 (Link to whole conversation), ClemRutter was indefinitely blocked by Diannaa for copyright violations per established practice, after having previously received five copyright warnings. Mike Peel objected to this at the time, calling it excessive and claimed it happened "without even a warning", despite indefinite blocks of those with several copyright warnings over a long period of time being longstanding practice. Two hours later, Mike Peel accepted Clemrutter's unblock request and unblocked them with the rationale "Unblocking based on the past trend of amicably resolving the issues, which I trust will also happen here, and than an indef block seems really excessive in this situation. Let's see what happens at CCI for the longer term issue." I saw this at the time and believed it was an WP:INVOLVED action that he should not have done, given his interactions and apparent friendship with Clemrutter. I didn't do anything at the time as I didn't want to step on Diannaa's toes and thought that things might blow over and be fine, despite most previous experiences suggesting otherwise. A Contributor copyright investigation was filed at the time and Mike Peel commented "Just to note that I have unblocked ClemRutter. The specific issue here seems to be with Thinking School, but I haven't checked past edits by the user. Thanks.", which worried me given the specific issue was not with Thinking School, and that he had not checked the user's past edits when unblocking. I opened the investigation (now at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210111) and me and Diannaa have found several more violations. Given the several book sources cited, many of which are offline and cannot be easily accessed for text comparison, the CCI will be very difficult to complete.

In July 2021 Clemrutter received another warning for copyright violations, this time on Integrated education. This was labeled as a final warning, and Clemrutter was again indefinitely blocked by Diannaa on 4 August 2021 for copyright violations on Northern Ireland Curriculum. The ~2000 edits since the December 2020 unblock have been added to the CCI and will also need to be reviewed for issues. Discussion is currently ongoing on how to appeal this block on their talk. Had they not been unblocked, the issue could have been resolved at the time, and the current situation and block would not have happened- the unblock set ClemRutter up to be blocked again.

After the block, I questioned Mike Peel on his talk with slightly altered version of what I wrote above. The resulting discussion can be seen here; I encourage any reading this to go and read it all. I was concerned with the involved unblock given his board candidacy, and I found his responses to me and later Diannaa and Ponyo to be very lacking, and repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding. Mike Peel repeatedly claimed that Diannaa should have not done the indef herself and she should have taken it to ANI or Arbcom- "My point is that Clem *shouldn't* be a special case - indef blocking is a big thing that should get ANI or arbcom support, unless it's clearly WP:SNOW and/or an intractable user problem.", which I thought was a problematic and incorrect interpretation of the blocking/reporting policy. Ponyo also noted issues as well, saying "Reading through this thread gives me the strong impression that you unblocked Clem because Diannaa didn't handle the blocking as you personally would have, not because there was anything procedurally incorrect with her block according to policy. There are many statements that you've made above that also lead me to believe that you are out of touch with how and when many active administrators on this project choose to use an indefinite block." Mike Peel responded to this with "Look at it another way: I believe my unblock following the unblock request was per policy. We're talking about the general issue in more detail in this discussion, and I'll happily admit that I'm expressing my opinions here rather than quoting policy. Thanks", and after a response from Diannaa, there have been no updates to the discussion for a week, even though there are still unaddressed concerns. I have pondered on whether or not I should bring this here, since I'm unsure what actions to take or if any action is needed, but I think this is something the community should know about given the current board elections and to have more eyes on the CCI and ClemRutter's situation. And as a reminder for other admins, please be careful when unblocking users for copyright violations. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 18:51, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I stand by my actions and my comments (but please read them in full and in context, which doesn't seem to be the case with the quotes here.). I'm interested to see what other admins think to this situation, and my actions. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:57, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

From a review of the (in full) talk page discussions linked above, I'd say Diannaa is essentially completely correct, and Mike is mostly wrong. Diannaa's first indef block was fine. Mike's unblock was technically within policy, but outside accepted practice (unilaterally, against the desire of the blocking admin, based on an incorrect assumption of a lack of warnings). Diannaa's second indef block is fine. Mike does not seem to have a good understanding of how blocking works, and shouldn't be telling other people what is required for blocking/unblocking until he re-educates himself. In particular, he is wrong that an admin should go to ANI or ArbCom before indef blocking someone. He is also wrong that Diannaa should have tried shorter blocks first. He is also wrong that Diannaa should have stepped aside and have some other admin take over. He is also wrong that CR was blocked without warnings. I will say that bringing up Mike's WMF board candidacy is probably a red herring. Finally, if Mike thinks Moneytrees' summary is inaccurate ("but please read them in full and in context, which doesn't seem to be the case with the quotes here"), he should say where. If it actually is in context, then claiming without evidence that it is inaccurate is unethical. As for what to do about it, I don't know, it depends on whether they take feedback here at AN onboard. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:51, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Floquenbeam: Thanks for the review. I'm listening. Some points in response: with ANI or ArbCom, my point with that comment was that admins shouldn't feel like they are going at it alone - if they're coming across problems like this, then it's worth getting other admins to have a look as well, both with the specific issue (to get more opinions on the case), and also generally (to get more admins involved in copyvio patrolling). Note the use of the word 'should', not 'must' - but on hindsight, using 'could' would have been better. With the quotes above, it was specifically with the last quote, where "... was per policy" and "... rather than quoting policy" both appear but were about separate things (first about the unblock; second about the extended comments), and I think quoting them together confuses the issue. thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this was a terrible unblock. Not only was it based on an incorrect understanding (that CR had not been sufficiently warned), but MP clearly misunderstood the reasons for the block (it wasn't about the Thinking School article) and even admitted that he "hadn't checked the user's other edits". Simply, like BLP issues, we don't mess about with copyright blocks after a user has been repeatedly warned, regardless of how prolific a contributor they are - they should be indefinite. I doubt if there's anything we can do about the original unblock eight months later, but what is very clear is that MP should certainly not be taking further administrative action regarding Clem Rutter, and probably needs to read up more clearly on the more complex areas (i.e. not simple vandalism etc.) of blocking and unblocking before taking any more actions. Black Kite (talk) 20:11, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Moneytrees and Black Kite: You keep saying 'it wasn't about the Thinking School article', but Diannaa specifically said the block was caused by that article. There's a wider issue, sure, but the first block was clearly linked to that article. I've already said that I don't plan to unblock Clem again as things stand, and have already been doing more background reading. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why doesn't it surprise me that this editor has been an administrator for 14 years? Isn't it time we took a bit more seriously suggestions of term limits for admins? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:15, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We have plenty of veteran admins who use their tools regularly and are very familiar with how to use them. The problem mostly comes with veteran admins who don't use the tools very often (Mike, for example, has used block/unblock precisely four times in the last ten years). We would be better off with an activity limit, rather than a term limit, but this has been rejected in the past as it's too easy to game. Black Kite (talk) 20:28, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with BK. Mike Peel has been very active, very productive, and very useful. This is not a case of legacy admins clinging to the bit. It's not about lack of activity overall, and not a case of someone being an admin too long. It's not even a matter of someone not using block/unblock much. It's a case of someone not using the block/unblock button much, and then using it in a situation where they didn't research the situation, and then lecturing an admin who is familiar with blocking/unblocking. It's not important that an admin be active in all areas, but it is important that an admin know what they don't know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:37, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Phil Bridger, Black Kite, and Floquenbeam: Just to point out that I regularly use the admin tools for things that aren't logged (e.g., I have a bot that creates Wikidata items for articles, and it's useful to go back and look at deleted articles to see what happened to help debug the bot), for editing protected pages (particularly in the template domain), and for deletion (although not as much as I would have liked, since I've mostly been working in other areas and have limited time/energy). I'm not too active with blocking/unblocking, I'm familiar with the technical tools but - clearly - not all aspects of the social side of it. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 06:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have not looked at the blocks/unblocks, and do not have time to do it right now, but if we managed to solve a similar problem with Elisa.rolle, may be we can solve the problem here without indefinite blocks? The user has 40+K edits, which are hopefully not all represent copyright violations.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can see by his talk page that ClemRutter cannot yet be unblocked even as of today, because as far as I can tell from his remarks there, he still doesn't understand why he was blocked or what he did wrong, and has an inadequate understanding of how copyright law applies to Wikipedia editing.— Diannaa (talk) 21:52, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since that editor was indefinitely blocked for an extended period of time, it may not be a good example of how to deal with the situation without an indefinite block. isaacl (talk) 21:54, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think what Ymblanter is referring to is User:Valereee/ER, the mentoring program headed by several experienced users that helped get Elisa unblocked. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 22:12, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, it could provide a path to end an indefinite block. Since there is already an indefinite block in place, though, the connotation of solving the problem without indefinite blocks is to lift it summarily, and it's a bit tricky to draw that conclusion from the example, which also had a failed appeal. I agree that it's always good to see editors willing to participate in learning initiatives, from both the teaching and learning sides. isaacl (talk) 22:43, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I've been aware of ClemRutter's latest block, and deeply saddened by it. I hadn't been aware of the earlier block, but reading through it, I can't fault either of the blocks, and I don't understand the December unblock. FWIW, I was lucky enough to 'meet' Clem last year, at an on-line London meetup on Zoom, and I don't for a second doubt his good faith, or his commitment to our project. He taught me a few things, and I was inspired by his passion. I can understand why MP might want to see CR unblocked (I do too), but that has to come on the back of some serious undertakings from CR to take the copyright policy seriously, and to take on board the feedback he's been given in the last few months. Girth Summit _(blether) 22:02, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, ClemRutter is clearly in good faith and does not strike me as someone who has intentionally done wrong, I would like to see them unblocked and not having issues with copyright for sure. What I would like to happen is: Mike Peel acknowledges the erroneous unblock and apologizes to Diannaa, ClemRutter is able to understand the copyright issues and gets unblocked, and the CCI gets all nice and cleaned up. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 22:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • At the moment I feel able to offer a limited (but not full - see below) apology to @Diannaa: I apologise for interfering in your workflow when dealing with CCI cases by making the unblock in this case.
      That said, I am generally disappointed that the conversation that I explicitly expected to see after the unblock did not happen. This is to both sides: I was expecting Clem to be much more proactive in figuring out what the problems were, and active in fixing them. I was also expecting Diannaa to follow up with the issues on Clem's talk page or at CCI. That seems to be happening now, after the second block, which is good to see (and this is part of why I don't personally plan to unblock them again). However, I still think this should have been able to happen without one party being blocked and having to have their answers copy-pasted to other pages when necessary. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 07:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      Diannaa Would there be a problem changing the block to a partial block from article space? That would allow CR to participate in discussions easily, without (I think?) any risk of his introducing more copyvios. Just a thought. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:59, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      Copyright violations on talk pages, drafts etc are still copyright violations. Hut 8.5 12:01, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      Oh, yes, totally - I'd like to hope though that CR would have the sense not to start putting copyvios on talk pages. At the moment people are having to copy/paste his comments into discussions, which seems unnecessary - it's not like he's a vandal who's going around abusing people on talk. Perhaps keep blocked from article/draft/file spaces, but allow engagement on talk until he's shown that he understands the concerns? Girth Summit _(blether) 12:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      Given that CR has already been indeffed once for copyright violations, and carried on anyway, I don't think that being blocked is going to get the message across by itself. Hut 8.5 12:30, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      Mentoring sounds like a good idea on paper, but so far I have not been getting through to him as to what he needs to do differently, so I may be the wrong person to do the mentoring? Or perhaps he believes he was right and I am wrong, and will suddenly see the light and unblock? See for example this post of August 20, where he misinterprets how much copying is allowed, states that the patrolling admin must get consensus on the talk page before removing violations of the copyright policy, and states that the violation that got him blocked was "so minor that it is beneath the threshold of concern". He has not yet posted an unblock request either. So there's no clear path forward at this point. I haven't formed an opinion of the usefulness of a partial unblock; so far I have copied two posts to file talk pages for two files I have nominated for deletion, that's not a big inconvenience (at this point, anyways). — Diannaa (talk) 14:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      Diannaa, OK, understood, it was just a thought. I feel very warmly about Clem following our face-to-face discussion last year, he is passionate about education and is very much aligned with our mission of disseminating information. His failure to take on board what you have been telling him about copyright violations is baffling to me however, and I can entirely understand your frustration with the situation - I think you have been very professional in how you are interacting with him, given the situation. Girth Summit _(blether) 17:08, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      Mike Peel, it doesn't seem realistic for you to expect that I would take over the task of mentoring after you unblocked after two hours without consulting me or even notifying me. I was angry and I walked away. I guess that was a mistake on my part; I didn't think it through that I would likely be the person who would end up cleaning up the resulting mess. I am still angry, too. Fact: Clem won't figure out what the problems were or be responsive to teaching until he admits there is a problem. That still hasn't happened. — Diannaa (talk) 14:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      @Diannaa: You already seemed to have taken on that job (not quite mentoring, but the role of correction) by warning + blocking them. My unblock shouldn't have changed that IMO - or at least that's what I expected. A clear message saying that you were walking away from it would have been useful. Sorry that you're angry - but that also isn't helpful here. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:58, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

      Mike Peel, If you step into a situation and overrule somebody by doing things your way, you should be prepared to own the issue from then on. If you don't believe me, try cleaning the company fridge wherever you work and see who ends up doing it next time. MrOllie (talk) 17:00, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Honestly that unblock is a slap in the face to editors who deal with copyright issues. Nobody should be unblocking someone with a history of copyright problems without first making very sure that there aren't going to be any problems in the future. The unblock happened after a mere two hours with no attempt to discuss with the blocking admin or anyone else apart from this, which erroneously claimed the user hadn't been warned (they'd been warned five times) and criticised the block for being indefinite (which is standard for copyright blocks). Now there are another 2,000 edits which need to be checked for copyright problems, which is probably one of the most tedious tasks on Wikipedia. Hut 8.5 12:01, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Obviously a bad unblock, and reading Mike, who has used the block button five times in the last 14 years, trying to lecture Dianaa (6301 blocks) and Moneytrees (278 blocks in 18 months) on the blocking policy and CCI is embarrassing. But the elephant in the room is why Mike decided to step in and make this, as far as I can tell, the first unblock request he has ever processed. There has recently been some discussion of whether there's a 'generational' difference in how strict admins are about WP:INVOLVED, but the idea that Mike is a purely disinterested party here just isn't credible. I wouldn't have thought that we'd have to have an explicit policy saying "don't use your admin tools to protect your wiki-friends", but maybe we do. – Joe (talk) 13:53, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• One concerning part of this, if my understanding is correct, is that there is an admin whose only unblock in 14 years was, by their own admission, of someone who they met at a wikimeetup and consider a wikifriend, without first investigating all the facts and based on a misapprehension of those facts, over the opposition of the blocking admin, and without consulting the community or any other admin (for a third opinion) first. But what is even more concerning than that is that 8 months later, MP still stands by his actions and comments. Levivich 14:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe we should normalize that, if you find out someone's blocked because you're watching their talk page, it shouldn't be you pushing the unblock button. —Cryptic 15:04, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    It would make sense to me, though it is probably impossible to enforce.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Not my only unblock, see my block log. It's rare, but I do unblock sometimes. (I actually thought I'd unblocked more than is on my unblock log here, but maybe that was on other wikis.) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Mike Peel: Your first time responding to an unblock request, though? Your other two unblocks were of bots without an explicit appeal and, since you bring it up, both were re-blocked shortly afterwards. But anyway, no response to my actual point, that you were obviously intervening in an area of admin work you normally have zero interest in, because you're friendly with ClemRutter? – Joe (talk) 08:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• In addition to the apparent bias, lack of pre-unblock research, and post unblock follow-up by Mike Peel (if you as an administrator think there needs to be follow up, don't blame others that it might not have occurred to your satisfaction, you do it). Mike Peel should understand that any "injury" runs not just to Diannaa, it runs to community, the copyright holders, and to the unblocked user, as copyright infringement has both ethical and legal dimensions. Administrators may not be able to stop a user from committing infringement elsewhere, but they can prevent a user from getting into that quagmire, here. Thus, the present limited apology to Diannaa (which even to a fellow administrator, seems decidedly weak, and goes on to blame) seems most unsatisfactory, and lacking in understanding. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • My follow-up has included following discussion on his talk page, and a few off-wiki chats. I can do more if needed, but right now it seems that would do more harm than good. In general, the time to discuss this was back in December when the unblocking was done - not 8 months later - but I guess the timing was to make a political point. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • You don't think the timing has anything to do with the recent re-block? You're confident that you're just a victim of political machinations here? Ugh. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:24, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not confident, it just seems odd timing. The unblock was 8 months ago, new block was 22 days ago now, the discussion on my talk page had run its course, and then this new conversation was started out of the blue yesterday. Happy if it's just a coincidence though - but since the poster specifically says "I think this is something the community should know about given the current board elections" ... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:38, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • Wait a minute. The second block, which more or less proved that your unblock was wrong, occurred on August 4. The discussion on your talk page started a week later on August 12 and continued through August 18. This thread was started a week later on August 25. Nothing was "out of the blue". You continue to stand by your actions, taking none of your colleagues' feedback on board. There are literally zero editors who have said they agree with your actions. You may yet become the subject of an arbcom case request asking for your administrator permissions to be reviewed. This is all definitely relevant to your candidacy for WMF trustee. I advise you to do or say something to fix this immediately; it will not go away on its own, it will only escalate unless you address it to the satisfaction of the community. Levivich 16:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

          Levivich basically has the timeline down, I'll add that I was on vacation when the second block happened and once I got home I tried getting to it as soon as I could. I should've been more clear about my concerns; one of the outgoing community elected board members faced COI allegations from the community that they helped get a user who had been targeting someone they were in a relationship with blocked (not that I necessarily believe those allegations but it was a community concern), and another one was sanctioned by Arbcom and later created a copyright-violating mirror to the disapproval of the community. So I think it should be more widely known going forward, because this is something the community cares quite a bit about. I don't really know Mike Peel outside of this, I haven't seen anything to suggest that he is a controversial editor outside of his admin actions. Discussion had ceased after a week and no one aside from Mike Peel seemed satisfied, which was one of the main reasons I brought this here. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 18:08, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• This is beyond absurd, admins have to do blocks as necessary and Diannaa's original block is per long standing practice. That one admin feels that it should instead be discussed at ANI or by ARBCOM indicates that Mike Peel needs to familiarize himself with our policies and practices first. And finally, an admin who unblocks unilaterally should take some ownership of the problem that follows rather than wash it away with a "had a conversation over tea and crumpets and didn't expect it to continue." —SpacemanSpiff 16:43, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I have some wishes. I wish Mike would stop telling Diannaa how to act. What really did he think would be accomplished by this piece of (what I find to be patronizing) advice he wrote after his limited apology to her? I wish Mike would accept responsibility for failing to follow policy around unblocks in 2 of his 3 uses of the tool ever [4] [5]. I wish Mike would realize that failing to follow written policy - namely Except in cases of unambiguous error or significant change in circumstances dealing with the reason for blocking, administrators should avoid unblocking users without first attempting to contact the blocking administrator to discuss the matter. - means that he does not know how to use the tool on enwiki. Especially because I have confidence Mike does understand the nuances of "should" judging by his explanation above of what he meant by saying someone should have gone to ANI/ARBCOM. Further, not consulting with the blocking admin isn't a social convention he violated - an example of a social convention violated would be his unblocking of a bloke he liked from a wikimeetup. I wish Mike would realize that this is coming up now because the reblock happened now. Finally I wish Mike the best of luck in his board candidacy - he would bring a lot of skills and experience to the position. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:53, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Barkeep49: Thanks, that's useful. I'm happy to stop Diannaa how to act (which was meant more to explain my thinking/viewpoint - but regardless). I'm happy to accept responsibility for my unblocks and any failings with policy that they have. I'm happy to commit to not unblocking users, if that would be helpful (perhaps to only unblock in the future *after* training/getting approval from an experienced unblocker). I'm also happy to acknowledge the perceived conflict of interest, and that I should have backed off this sooner (or ideally not started with it!). I'm happy to write off the timing as coincidence/due to the reblock. I'd also appreciate any other suggestions of things I can do now to make this right. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:11, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks for this @Mike Peel. It feels like the kind of message that could allow this issue to resolve and which I hadn't seen to date. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:08, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Note I reverted this close by Ched- while this is here I would like to see if any further assistance with ClemRutter and the CCI could be offered. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 19:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moneytrees - then you should have started a thread about ClemRutter. — Ched (talk) 20:18, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Ched, "another bad admin action" - Really? Me and Diannaa have not communicated if we were satisfied (I am still thinking on it and doing other things right now), and I really think keeping it open longer might end up helping someone. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 20:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    @Ched, reopening a discussion you think was closed too early isn't an admin action. MP's depth of misunderstanding of the seriousness of copyright issues, of what constitutes admin involvement, and of the value of indefinite blocks per the discussion on their talk is concernng, and while like Barkeep49 I think their final post yesterday is at least acknowledging that, it took forever to get us there. I don't think the closing was bad, but if the editors most affected by this issue think there's still productive discussion to be had, I think we should listen to them. @Moneytrees, what assistance w/ClemRutter and the CCI are you hoping someone might offer, and what kind of continuing discussion are you thinking might be helpful here? —valereee (talk) 14:16, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ClemRutter has asked that the following statement be copied here from his talk page:

Copied here by Diannaa.— Diannaa (talk) 20:39, 27 August 2021 (UTC) I have posted a response to Clem's message at his talk page, as it contains some incorrect information and misinterpretations of Wikipedia policy.— Diannaa (talk) 21:11, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• It's rather sad that we have an indefblocked user (whether or not he's figured it out and can mend his ways is a matter for another day) and I'm much more concerned about the one doing the unblock. The replies above amounts to a pretty clear non-apology, and that's highly concerning to someone working in copyright. We do the best we can with (very) limited manpower and if people are just going to unblock because they feel bad and like someone then we won't get anywhere. Someone like that running for Trustee is, frankly, scary. Wizardman 20:58, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Soggy that you're angry, Wizardman, but that also isn't helpful here! What, I said soggy, that's my appalling'y. AN: I SED STUP FLAMMING! if u do den ur a fuken prep! fangz 2 raven 4 da help n stuf. u rok! n ur nut a prep. El_C 05:18, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't understand why some people seem to think that it's difficult not to violate copyright when editing the text of articles. OK, understanding the finer points of the law in various jurisdictions may take some effort, but the basic principle is so simple that nearly every schoolchild in the world knows it. You simply don't copy things, but write them in your own words. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:59, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• This was a very ill-considered and disruptive unblock by Mike Peel, who I advise considering whether to resign the tools if this is the manner he intends to use them in. I'm very thankful to Diannaa, MER-C, Moneytrees and the other admins active in the copyright area. We may need to authorize a somewhat less discriminate use of the block and deletion tools to get rid of the CCI backlog. Sandstein 20:40, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Bad unblock by Mike Peel, who has conspicuously not offered to help clear the 2000 edits added to the CCI backlog, or otherwise help reduce it a similar amount. It seems their problem is that an ideological procedure is more important than preventing actual harm caused (which is the only point of a block, not to be "fair"). Unfortunately, their understanding of procedure is also incorrect, as they think the blocking admin's feedback can be unilaterally bypassed (by (a) not consulting them and (b) going against what they recommend). Due diligence involves far much more research than Mike Peel did here. Also, Sorry that you're angry - but that also isn't helpful here. What the fuck is that? Certainly not an apology for mansplaining over the people who actually do the SPI backlog you have just added dozens of hours of labour to. I thought Sandstein's recommendation of resignation above was a little over the top before reading more and finding it to be perfectly appropriate. — Bilorv (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Mike Peel, while I don't know all the ins and outs of blocking policy and conventions, an unblock request should at least be discussed with the blocking admin. There are some exceptions: blocking admin has resigned since placing the block, is inactive, on holiday or the block is clearly abusive. None of these exceptions apply here. If the blocking admin is unwilling to lift the block, it would be advisable to seek input from more admins or users who have interacted much (both positive and negative) with the blocked user. The conclusion could be to overrule the wishes of the blocking admin and grant the unblock, but going at it all alone is generally not a good idea. Even less so when there is a friendship between the blocked user and the unblocking admin. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 10:49, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• BTW, just voted for 18 out of 19 candidates — am I allowed to say that in this space? El_C 12:02, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We cannot sweep copyright issues under the rug any longer

Nah, because peoples attention are on this right now, so I really need to say something. We had a giant wind of users helping out with CCI earlier this year, but the backlog has only increased, now there's ~164k articles at CCI. 202 cases, 164456+ articles as of the time of me writing this! That's ridiculous! There's about ~25 or so users I could call up and rally for a case, and we would still barely make a dent in the overall backlog. The backlog just gets bigger and bigger as the years go on, and the issues becomes more and more serious. We have a CCI that just turned 11 years old at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Ardfern. As Mike says on his talk, it's so old the person it's on forgot it even existed! Earlier this year we accepted a CCI, Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Ruigeroeland, so huge it broke the CCI counter's page. It effects an entire massive topic area and the violations are innumerable; a massive community initiative will be needed to clean it up. I was writing one at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Ruigeroeland CCI cleanup, I said back on March 6 that I could "start a cleanup over the weekend" but I have a real life and I haven't been able to get to it. This year I have been really advancing in my career and college work, I simply can't spend as much time as I used to helping out with copyright violations, especially when incidents like this happen and I have to put the time and effort into pursing and resolving them. I don't want to put my foot in the door, I don't like doing it, but I simply don't have a choice. Because if I don't call this out, it'll be the next generation of editor's problem. And that's not going to work out.

Every "copyright admin" has a real life, we can't be here 24/7. Diannaa and MER-C have done so much work in the area for years and years, and it is completely unacceptable. Diannaa has been like Atlas holding up the clouds for so long, and it is not healthy. Dianna's done 87,609 reviews at Copypatrol, and several thousand other reviews off of various requests. She's been the go to person for copyright issues for so long, it's basically a policy to ask Diannaa about your copyright issues. There's so much shit going on, how is it even fair to expect Diannaa to keep up so extensively with a user who is not getting it? But don't worry, DanCherek can take Diannaa's place as the person who carries the massive weight of vetting current edits for copyright issues- he's done 1,275 reviews in the last 30 days. That's not fucking fair for him at all! We can't let this shit continue like that! If MER-C stops editing, the workflow at CCI will face serious issues, since he's the only one with access to the script that removes not copyright-able edits from the the contributor surveys- if he just stopped editing one day, what would we do? Other editors in the area- Hut 8.5, Sphilbrick, and Wizardman, just for example, have been around for over a decade, and despite the work they've done, it just doesn't end. If Any of the mentioned users stopped editing, there would be serious issues for the entire site. That sort of system does not fucking work!

But it's "another bad admin action" if I object to a close of this discussion because I don't think everything has been resolved. Please! I spent easily 400+ hours cleaning up Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Dr. Blofeld, one of the biggest and most controversial CCIs ever, and spent months worth of going to sleep late in order to make just a bit of a dent in it. Near the end of the CCI, when it mostly came down to me, I was spending 10 or so hours a day at the CCI, cleaning up as much as I could. I don't have the time for this, no one does! As Hut says above, cleaning out this stuff is incredibly tedious and takes thought and time- I am just a man, I cannot kill the backlog myself. I have so much regret for CCIs like Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20180325, I've put so much effort into helping out elsewhere that it got neglected, and SlimVirgin, who so kindly helped me with it, died before I could even really start on a serious effort to clean it up! That's real guilt, fuck! There's one CCI I can't even name because it involves oversight-able content, also involves someone who isn't around anymore, which I promised to complete- and I haven't been able to because there's just too much shit! This isn't healthy for me, and I do 1/20th of the work Diannaa does! So no, I find it just a little hard to just immediately accept an apology to someone who works so hard, and I find it even harder to accept when my work is insulted. The WMF doesn't help out (that needs to change, we are not equipped as volunteers to handle this and labor for them over it), and not enough of the user base does.

But Ched is not Mike Peel, so I forgive you Mike, I won't speak for Diannaa but I am happy that you are willing to help clean things up. As for helping out, if you could maybe advise ClemRutter further on what needs to be done to be unblocked and help identify issues, I would appreciate it very much. If you have further questions about helping out at the CCI, please ask I'd be happy to answer.

And now it's time to start cleaning all of this up. And by this I don't just mean the ClemRutter CCI, I mean all of CCI and all of our copyright issues. I want everyone reading this to help out at CCI or copypatrol right now, in some capacity, it does not matter. And I mean everyone, I don't care if you think you don't know anything about copyright, or you're not even involved in this dispute at all and are just some AN browser, read my guide at User:Moneytrees/CCI guide or ask me a question if you're confused. Every bit of help counts, because it is impossible to do this just as one or a few. The whole culture of sweeping copyright issues under the rug and letting them stagnate needs to end now, or it will hurt Wikipedia to an extreme extent. This can't be pushed away any longer, and I'm going to keep pushing this in everyone's face. It's not fucking working.

Valereee, I wanted to keep this open to say that (sorry for the delay) the ideal for this going forward is for someone to be able to help ClemRutter figure out how to reword their contributions and not be so reliant on their sources. We would need engagement and better understanding from them in that regard, and that may not happen. I think Ritchie333 has interacted with ClemRutter before any thoughts one what can be done here, Ritchie? I truly hope ClemRutter can be unblocked and understand copyright better, but I am stumped on what do and at this point I hope writing one of my (popular?) long form things like this can get some more eyes on the situation and help get a better resolution. Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 05:55, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I must say, as an admin who usually just writes and contributes to articles, that the instructions for how to help out are daunting to say the least.--Berig (talk) 06:10, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Berig, for what it’s worth, I thought so too until I had actually given it a go a couple of times and then it became much clearer. You could also try starting at Copypatrol (linked above I believe) which is effectively a RC filter for copyright issues with an in built iThenticate system to attempt to locate where content was copied from. firefly ( t · c ) 06:53, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Honest to god, for anyone looking at pitching in, CCI is not all that technically difficult, just tedious. My usual process is approximately this:

1. Open the diff and compare to the current wording in the article - is it still present?
2. If it's already gone, mark the diff as such and move on; if it remains, look to see if there's a source cited
3. If the source is accessible, visually compare the wording or use ctrl+F to find keywords (proper nouns are great for this as they won't change, and unusual words are telltale)
4. If you can't access the source but it looks suspicious based on unusual wording, either reword (if possible) or presumptively remove and note that in your edit summary
5. If there's no source but it looks sketchy anyway, run it through Earwig's Tool or try googling short phrases from the diff to see if anything comes up that predates the diff
6. If you find CV or extremely close paraphrasing at any point, remove it and note it as such in your edit summary
7. If you did all that and you're pretty confident it's not CV or really close paraphrasing, the diff is probably clear
8. Mark the diff in the CCI with your results - Y for copyvio found and removed, N for no issues.

On any given CCI, shorter diffs will be towards the end of a given page/later pages; those tend to be easier, so people newer to the process may want to start there. Even if all you do is mark stuff off that isn't CV, you will be slimming down the lists that the rest of us are dealing with, so that is still really helpful. If you encounter any issues or have questions, the CCI channel on Discord will be only delighted to help, or you can probably ask an experienced CCIer at their talk page - I for one am happy to answer questions on-wiki or on Discord. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:00, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am tempted to have a go at this, but honestly, ATM, I feel that fake referencing is just as big a threat to WP. Most people here probably don't have a clue about the amount of OR that is hidden in WP articles by using references that either say the oppposite of what they are supposed to say, or don't mention the topic at all.--Berig (talk) 07:54, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Moneytrees and Premeditated Chaos: Thanks for the info! I'll have to have a look into helping with this soon. I feel I owe it to check at least as many diffs as the extra you now have to check from Clem's edits - but would look at someone else's edits to avoid perceived COI. Also, as I offered before, if there's anything that can be automated, please let me know and I can code up a bot script to help. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 17:27, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for offering to help, Mike Peel. The third page of the ClemRutter CCI had Mike Peel 125 articles and 456 diffs at the point of its creation. There's also an unknown number of articles/diffs on page 1 and page 2 that were post-unblock, since Clem was unblocked on December 29 and the CCI was not created until January 12. Clem performed around 103 edits to articlespace in that period.— Diannaa (talk) 18:17, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Moneytrees, Clem is a real-life friend of mine and one of the few Wikipedians I would trust to look after my children. I haven't had time to digest this thread yet, and I'm rather upset to see Clem blocked at a time when he's got bigger problems to think about right now. From an outsider's point of view, I'm curious to why Diannaa seems to be the only admin looking at this - are we that short of admins specialising in copyvios these days? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:33, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie333, are we that short of admins specialising in copyvios these days? Yes, unfortunately. Only four admins regularly patrol copypatrol; out of those four, MER-C is only semi active and is usually preoccupied fighting spam and clerking copyright problems, Sphilbrick does not block, and Moneytrees (me) is not always around; these last few months I've been focusing on real life a lot and I was on vacation at the time the block occurred. That leaves responsibility of it to Diannaa... Moneytrees🏝️^{Talk/CCI guide} 04:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So because someone is a friend of yours, they must be treated differently than any other copyvio case? That stinks of corruption. The inability of the community to catch these problems when they occur before they have escalated to large CCI cases makes it all the more necessary to be firm when the cases to break - with blocks and presumptive deletions needed to protect the encyclopedia.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:09, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mildly, I think one point Moneytrees is making is there isn't "another admin" to "place the blocks and the warnings" because hardly anyone actually works on copyright issues. Also, while I wouldn't use strong language like "corruption" I do agree with Nigel Ish that there's nothing wrong with the same uninvolved admin issuing a warning to an editor and later blocking that same editor if they ignore the warning. If you feel this is harassment you'd need some more specific evidence than that. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:41, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

More I think about it the more this needs adding: as with others in this thread Ritchie333 you really do need to substantiate or withdraw your harassment allegation. If you're serious about the allegation then no doubt you have evidence to share: if you're not serious you should correct the record. Either option is better than just leaving this here as an unsupported accusation. -- Euryalus (talk) 03:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie333, From an actual outsider's point of view, you don't seem like an outsider. Your aspersion against Diannaa is troubling and I wish you'd retract it. El_C 10:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is was a reprehensible attack, Ritchie333, being so intimately involved with the blocked user as you claim, you can't speak as an "outsider". -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:55, 28 August 2021 (UTC) (I've struck though, in part, thank you, Ritchie333, for the retraction (although you should have used strike) -- I foresaw an Arbcom case, if this was not remedied, it was such a hurtful and serious thing for you to have done. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC))[reply]

Looks like Diannaa is gonna need more baby chipmunksupport before the day is done if this bizarre friend of nonsense is to somehow continue. El_C 11:20, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly the kind of attitude that makes it impossible to deal with serial copyright issues. People show up to wring their hands over their wikifriends getting warned or blocked for repeatedly violating copyright, but do absolutely nothing to help remove the CV or mentor the person in question. People see how copyright admins get treated and steer clear of the area - who'd want to get involved if it brings this kind of response down on their heads? I too would like to see Ritchie retract this ridiculous aspersion against Dianaa. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:04, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lest anyone else think this was "hounding" (??), here are the links to the relevant CopyPatrol reports that Diannaa handled: 1 2 3 4 5. Here's how to interpret them: These five bot reports, where a bot flagged ClemRutter's edit as a potential copyright violation, make up 0.000057 percent of the reports that Diannaa has handled over the past five years. All of her actions (warnings/blocks) happened after she reviewed one of these reports; none of them resulted from what Ritchie333 is implying. Probably because she's busy going through 87,000 other reports to clean up copyright violations. Sorry, but that accusation is baseless and hurtful. I echo Moneytrees' invitation for anyone to help out with copyright cleanup, even if it's just a little bit — it may seem daunting but it definitely gets easier with experience. DanCherek (talk) 11:36, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know Clem well but judging from the passion of his friends, I'm guessing he's a great person and one who is committed to what we're trying to do here. It makes me sad that someone who is thought of so highly and who is committed to Wikipedia would end up indefinitely blocked, especially at what seems like a difficult time in their life based on what Ritchie has said. But I also wonder where his friends were in all this. Were they helping him behind the scenes after his December unblock or perhaps after the new set of warnings began in July? I don't know whether or not this happened and I hope it did, but if not it strikes me a shortcoming I see in our social fabric at times. To me one of the great virtues of having Wikifriends are having people I trust to nudge me before I wander too far off the path and who can count on me to do the same for them. But this doesn't seem to be how all friend groups operate. I see people who so evidently have so much to contribute but who wear out the community's patience for them and end up indeffed or desyopped and wonder if some earlier efforts from friends couldn't have stopped that sad outcome. As to the matter at hand, I hope Clem is receiving help now from the people who care about him. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:49, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ritchie333, you know how much I respect you, and I'd urge you to look at this exchange and in particular this response. That is not "an acceptable paraphrase", as CR is calling it. He is trying to argue there is no alternative to using certain terms (which isn't even true, I can think of alternatives to most of the ones he calls out) and that because of that, the entire thing is okay. He's ignoring the fact the paragraph structure is identical, down to asking rhetorical questions. Clearly this was cut-pasted and a few words changed. It's very troubling, especially because he is defending it as an acceptable paraphrase, and then later in the exchange he's talking as if everything's been worked out when it clearly hadn't. —valereee (talk) 17:07, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie333, I agree with the editors in this thread who characterize your comment as "stinking of corruption", "troubling aspersions" and a "reprehensible attack". It represents one of the worst problems of Wikipedia - veteran editors reflexively defending their friends even if they're clearly in the wrong. That's how we get the unblockables. As admins, we owe it to the community to do what's best for the encyclopedia, rather than for any one editor. Please draw the appropriate consequences from this feedback. Sandstein 20:47, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

+1 to DanCherek, Barkeep49, valereee and Sandstein (or should that be +4?). — Bilorv (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie333, with this edit, you removed the part of your comment at issue in which you wrote "the actions of Diannaa look like hounding - another admin could have placed the block and the warnings", and replaced it with other text. As an administrator, you must know that WP:REDACT directs: "if anyone has already replied to or quoted your original comment, changing your comment may deprive any replies of their original context, and this should be avoided". To me, this looks like you seek to avoid taking responsibility for your poor conduct in this thread. Please amend your edit to re-insert the removed text, and apologize to Diannaa. Sandstein 08:34, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein, I apologise to any offence caused, as none was ever intended. I do not have any more time to deal with this today, sorry. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• With so few editors who really understand the CCI process, other admins may not tend to take this seriously. I think if the admins and editors who are involved in this process are telling us they need help, we need to listen.

In general I feel if there aren't enough volunteers to do a job, it's either not worth doing, or it's worth paying to have done. This problem is actually one WMF does care about, and there's plenty of money. —valereee (talk) 11:24, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very good point - some of the very large CCIs are too big for the small portion of the volunteer community that is active in the area to deal with in a reasonable time, or is reliant on checking off-line sources that are not necessarily easily available. Some sort of full time support with access to big public libraries and the like would be of benefit for these large cases.Nigel Ish (talk) 12:05, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The W?F cannot help directly because that would expose them to legal liability. The W?F can invest in software that isn't shit so that our workflows are faster, our bots are better and copyvio users don't create sockpuppets, and reduce or stop growth rates in certain parts of the world that have a general disrespect for copyright laws.

On our end, it is long-established policy that major contributions of copyright violators can be removed indiscriminately (or deleted through Wikipedia:Copyright problems if it's the entire article). We don't use this policy enough. Sockpuppets? Presumptive deletion. Promotion, original research, BLP issues or other content problems? Presumptive deletion. Difficult to verify offline sources? Presumptive deletion. Remove first, rewrites can wait. Five warnings? No, one is enough, then an indefinite block. No communication? Block.

We are also losing the battle against spammers, for the exact same reason. MER-C 15:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No books are fabulous. Not everything is online, often the best stuff isn't. Secretlondon (talk) 16:15, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

They can be great sources but are difficult to access and verify any infringement. That's the problem. It takes too much time. MER-C 17:01, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also against POV pushers.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:16, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We desperately need more editors from many regions of the world. The solution is to better help new editors understand how importantly we take copyright issues, not to reduce or stop growth rates in certain parts of the world. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:04, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, we can't even do that, again thanks to the W?F. MER-C 19:16, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a go and its a horribly convoluted process going through someone's entire edit history. There has to be a better way than this - picking through ancient diffs. Secretlondon (talk) 16:43, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The diffs wouldn't be that old if we were serious about copyright infringement. MER-C 17:01, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One obvious point - why are you going through things on commons? That's up to commons, which has its own processes. Secretlondon (talk) 17:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

because commons cares about copyright more than here. The images need to be cleaned up too. The admins have been generally appreciative of the cci work and we take it through commons deletion processes. It's just like crosswiki spam and abuse. You follow the processes. Sennecaster (Chat) 17:50, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie, my respect for you is greatly diminished. To be a copyright editor is to walk through brambles, as this thread shows. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 13:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to reducing the CCI backlog, you guys might want to look into doing a backlog drive. This has worked well for some WikiProjects I've been involved with. You pick a month, you announce/market the backlog drive to folks (via mass message sending, noticeboard posts, watchlist message, etc.), then folks work on reducing the backlog for a month. You make sure there is a leaderboard so that people can see who is being most productive (the competition aspect is motivating). At the end of the drive, you give out barnstars depending on what numerical targets people hit. Sounds dumb, but it creates focus and motivation, which really boosts productivity. I've seen stubborn backlogs completely cleared via a backlog drive. Could organize it via a WikiProject such as Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:51, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie333, you've been asked by at least two editors to retract your slur against Diannaa, but I don't see any acknowledgement that you've even seen those requests. In case it's not obvious to you, a statement that "Clem is a real-life friend of mine and one of the few Wikipedians I would trust to look after my children" could reasonably be followed by something like "so I can't make any comment here", or perhaps "so I'll try to help him to understand the problems with his edits", but not by any kind of innuendo against the admin who's been trying to make sure that Rutter understands and follows one of our most important policies. Please strike that unacceptable remark. In case others are not aware: Diannaa is not the only admin who works on copyright (my thanks to the others, you know who you are), but she carries a massive load with exemplary fairness and reasonableness; she deserves our thanks, not a stab in the back.

On the wider issue: this is the second time in a few weeks that a legacy admin (thanks to them for long service!) has come out of the woodwork to unblock without consultation with the blocking admin. Would it be worth a reminder in the next admin newsletter that this is not current practice? And perhaps also that it is not acceptable to unblock any user that you know personally? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:11, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Justlettersandnumbers, Good idea. Please, something in the newsletter (no idea how that is done); it's not a panacea, but it would be something worthwhile to come out of this. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:30, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have long thought that Diannaa and Moneytrees are two of the three biggest saints on this website, and I have no idea how they do it. (And I extend this to anyone else who's a regular at CCI but who I may not have bumped into as much.) CCI is the worst embarrassment of the project, but it is not because of the people who work there, but the people who don't. This essay by Moneytrees is actually quite tame IMO when you actually consider the burden that has been placed on them and how much of an amazing job they have been doing, with no complaints, kind words and a smile at least 99% of the time.

If you're looking for a way forwards, Moneytrees, I'm not sure whether you've seen the recent AFC Backlog Drive but in June AFC was our third-worst embarrassment of the project and the backlog was completely wiped, even though the backlog was (being brutally honest) planned ad hoc and the programming behind it was not present until late in the drive. Now, I think that's way, way more than you could get from a CCI Backlog, but it proves that backlogs can succeed beyond your highest expectations, and it's worth having a go even if you don't have a perfect plan right from the start. (And upon edit conflicting I notice Novem Linguae has brazenly beaten me to the suggestion of a backlog.) — Bilorv (talk) 21:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried CCI in the past, and I've got one point that I get hung up on that I would really like some advice on. The CCI is Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20190125, and primarily involves an editor that copy and pasted material from unreliable sources in what is one of my prime areas of interest (Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War). Most articles also have copy-and-paste of PD sources in there. It doesn't feel right butchering the articles to leave only the PD material with gaps, but the sources used are so bad that it also doesn't feel write "using" them to rewrite the content. For the most part, I don't have access to replacement sources. I would be doing more there, but I just can't get past how to handle this point without leaving either half-articles or using horrible sourcing. Hog Farm _Talk 04:05, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It really sucks, but sometimes, if you're unwilling or unable to rewrite, you just have to gut an article of the CV and leave the wreckage. And I mean that goes for lots of areas, not just CCI - if you encountered these terrible sources in a MilHist article outside of a CCI, would you feel guilty stripping the content out, knowing that it was likely to have errors or inaccuracies? If better sources exist but are not accessible to you, maybe someone at RSX or MilHist could help you get them. If that's not plausible, you could leave talk page notes, or invisible comments in the parts you removed so later editors can see what you did and why. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:59, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The core of the problem is people adding material to articles without sources. Unsourced material is worse than none at all. It's worse than vandalism, because vandalism can be quickly removed. If the source is provided, then the facts can be verified. If it's not, we cannot be sure. (It also opens us up to citogenesis.) I am often relieved to find that material has been copypasted from a PD site. (This happened to me yesterday.) Otherwise, even when I know what it says to be true, I am forced to rewrite because I cannot be certain it is not a copvio. We need admins to take unsourced additions as seriously as vandalism. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:23, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced statements are Wikipedia's #1 problem.^{[citation needed]} Levivich 06:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I would say that more than half of CV diffs that I encounter actually cite the source. That's not to say that unsourced edits are not problematic, but I would strongly disagree that unsourced edits are the core of the copyright violation problem. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:31, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Premeditated Chaos, In the case of the Edelmand CCI I mentioned below, the copyvios cited an offline source, that I only spotted because I have the same book, so the plagiarism sat in Wikipedia for years and years. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 07:33, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Right, but they did cite a source. In my experience a lot of people doing serial CV are acting in good faith and literally have no idea that copy-pasting (or, yes, laboriously retyping from a book) content into Wikipedia is wrong. They cite their sources because they think that makes the direct copying okay. On the one hand it does make it easier to check for violations because you have something to check against, but you're right that when it's a book source it is harder because books are often less accessible. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When I remove a large block of copyvio from a draft, I'll usually replace it with {{expand section}}. That might be a good solution in some cases. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:32, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have not had a chance to look at this thread before now, as I was out working (and hence off-wiki) yesterday from about midday to 2am. Anyway, I have reworded the above comment to better express what I meant, and would suggest that people consider that I might just not have expressed myself as well as I could because I was online for about ten minutes yesterday. The main point stands - as I consider Clem a friend, I do not feel I can offer any meaningful views on sanctions for them as I don't have a neutral view on the subject.

Of the more general issue, copyvios are one of the most misunderstood parts of the project. Most of the time, from my experience at working at AfC, is that close paraphrasing and plagiarism is added by new or inexperienced users, which is why I ended up writing User:Ritchie333/Plain and simple guide to copyvios after people got annoyed that I refused to restore articles or drafts that I'd deleted as WP:G12. Admins working in copyvios are as rare as hen's teeth and we need more Diannaas and Moneytrees working on the project. Personally, I've chipped away at the odd CCI case such as Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Edelmand but I just find it tedious - I can cope with reviewing ten articles, but five hundred is just too much. If we got more people helping out, then we might be able to make a dent in the backlog. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 07:30, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie333, I believe what you meant to do was strike what you wrote rather than delete it after others have replied to it and commented on it. 28bytes (talk) 08:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No doubt. This is too strange. An inappropriate removal rather than a strikethrough (what?) coupled with a the main point stands follow up (again, what?). Ritchie333, I dislike a pile on and forced apologies almost in equal measures, but your initial accusation and your latest follow up suck, well, almost in equal measures. You fire-and-forget some accusatory nonsense, hurtful nonsense, without basis, and now this? What is happening? El_C 08:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with El_C. Ritchie333 you've been an admin for six years, you must be aware of the need to substantiate allegations of harassment and to follow WP:TPG. Not the end of the world but you dropped the ball on both of these in this thread. Gratuitous and unintentionally patronising advice: do better next time. And with that, enough said. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I got more too say. Sandstein, I apologise to any offence caused, as none was ever intended — I'm sure that makes any offense feel better. Sheesh. El_C 10:29, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• It's hard but can brook no excuse. Let's not forget to stress why copyright issues strike at the heart of what this project is; we, Wikipedia, warrant our encyclopedia is freely licensed to copy (apart from NFCC) -- that's a trust we each take on, and cannot shirk. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Every editor has a responsibility to uphold the integrity of this project with every edit they submit. We preach to stop POV and RS and other issues, we have noticeboards for edit warring and neutrality issues. The copyright cleanup project is dead, the Copyright Problems is a "noticeboard" but is more of a dumping ground and a non intuitive design. CCI isn't a noticeboard. WP:MCQ is the closest we have to a true noticeboard on copyright, and this covers filespace only. There are hundreds of images needing a copyright confirmation alone, with most of them unsourced! There isn't enough people or time anywhere.

  We don't have time to slow down, to unblock people without proof of change, to open more CCIs on 30k+ edits. We're spread too thin. I've spent almost from the day I joined working on Copyright, with now more time spent on Ardfern than anything. I know that case better than I know GNG at this point! Fuck, this is so bad that I was forced to open a case on an entire wikiproject. I can't even begin to work on it, there's older cases with more blatant violations. The lack of care of both copyright and how serious this issue permeates every sphere and every editor. Even with new people, none of us "vets" can take a break. There's so much more to be done. This is barely the start.

  I'm cynical this AN will change anything; this work is hard and very few actually stick around and grind the case out to the end. After people do a few, will they continue to stay and continually help out? We relied on MoonRiddenGirl in the early days, now it's Diannaa we rely on. This isn't sustainable. We need admins, but every time someone runs for copyright it's harrowing and every other admin is too hesitant. We can't afford to be more careful, work slower, we can't be afraid to remove content wholesale. Moreso, we are expected to be accurate. We cannot make mistakes, it's drilled into our heads from the start. Moneytrees is right. This cannot be swept under the rug any longer. We are beholden to uphold the integrity of the encyclopedia as editors, and for too long we've let that slip with CCI. Sennecaster (Chat) 14:51, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Not a subject I'd typically comment on, having far less experience with it than many others here, but a thought on the subject of everything that comes before a CCI and the framing of CCI:
  The thing which IMO should most contribute to a decision to indef/ban a user for copyright reasons isn't having made the mistakes (even over a long period of time, even prolifically), but refusing to put in the effort to learn where they went wrong and then clean it up themselves. I don't know why we would allow someone to continue being an editor in good standing if they create a massive backlog for other people to go through and don't spend as much of their volunteer time as possible cleaning it up.
  And a big reason, as I see it, why someone might not want to do this is if they feel humiliated by the process or otherwise feel like it's something being done to them rather than with them. The way it's set up, as a formal "investigation" that often involves posts about the person on noticeboards, seems like a law enforcement/suspect relationship whereby someone is expected to sit back and watch the gears of justice (even if they're invited to help, by that time they may feel sufficiently stigmatized to have difficulty doing so). Of course, by the time a CCI is filed, presumably people have received several warnings with clear examples and instructions and have either failed to clean up or continued to add violations, but it seems worth reiterating that the top priority should be retaining the copyright violators to get them to clean up their own stuff, thus avoiding the giant backlog to begin with (to whatever extent possible). Maybe there's a special mentorship sort of program that would be useful to precede any formal investigation and keep the user involved without attaching their name to an investigation. That would require volunteer time, too, but perhaps less? For those active in the area, is this too optimistic? Are we only really talking about backlogs caused by the worst offenders who contributed maliciously and/or have no interest in being an editor in good standing? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:28, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  The CCI backlog runs the full gamut between good faith editors to those banned by the W?F. Serial copyright violators with a complete lack of communication occur far too often, where the only remedy is the banhammer. MER-C 17:05, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  This is my experience as well. Established editors especially will always pull rank, unless their name is Rodw. We are not taken seriously. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 18:22, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I was going to suggest very much the same approach as @Rhododendrites, at least as far as Good Faith editors with a serious blind spot on copyright violations go, like Clem. So finding a way to guide and encourage them to come back and continue editing, and to recognise and address the problems they hadn’t even realised they”d created seems a win-win, if we can manage it. Sadly, like most people, I have little interest in many topics where copyvios occur, but presumably the offending AGF editor does? I would far rather check and mark their revised work than do that work for them. So finding a way to support and rehabilitate certain types of cv offenders so that they feel they can return and address the work they’ve created seems a worthwhile goal - assuming we can find a way to achieve it without shaming them into disappearing forever. Nick Moyes (talk) 07:37, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh, by the way, it's worse than this. I also maintain the contribution surveyor, the tool that generates the CCI listings (we had a contribution surveyor before then, but it was authored and maintained by someone who got banned by the W?F). And then there's the whole other existential fight, the one against UPE spamming. MER-C 16:15, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @MER-C: Not to turn this ANI thread into "people with no experience in CCI make suggestions about CCI", but... have you tried taking the output of your tool and having a bot spam the talk pages of the affected articles with a notice along the lines of "Due to [link to CCI page] the following edits may have introduced copyright violations into this article: [diffs from CCI listing]. For instructions on how to investigate and repair the problem, [link to instructions]"? I just looked at a couple of the open cases in my areas of editing interest and found articles I've edited or have on my watchlist, but would never have known to look for possible old copyvio in them. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:40, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd support this, but be prepared for people to not like the explosion in their watchlists. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 07:05, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • This does have the advantage of possibly reaching people who may have access to offline sources who have the articles watched. It will reduce the problem of the first thing people know about an article having possible problematic content is when the article is deleted. More communications with Wikiprojects would be good as well where they are active - again if we can engage with editors who have knowledge of the subject and have access to sources, then there is more of a chance of saving the articles.Nigel Ish (talk) 08:34, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, some editors could find explosions on their watchlists if it spammed all talk pages for a given CCI at once, and the potential violations were all in one or two areas of interest. Would be great if such a bot could work through multiple CCIs but each in small chunks. NebY (talk) 17:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I support this proposal; it allows us to leverage the capacity of editors who already know the articles at issue and are best placed to fix existing problems. Sandstein 08:50, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I also think this is a great idea, assuming it's practicable to automatically template the relevant articles. I see no problem if people's watchlists are hit with such notifications. If, as has been highlighted, we have a desperate backlog of unresolved and unaddressed copyvios in articles, we need to mark all these articles for editor attention. Simples. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:16, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of the symptoms of having insufficient administrators. This problem continues to get worse. The solution isn't finding more people to process the CCI investigations. The solution has to involve preventing them from happening in the first place. The project is failing. It's never going to fail with a bang, but with a whimper. Each day forward, it whimpers a bit more. Like lobsters in the slowing boiling pot, nobody really notices. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bull. The project, Wikipedia, is not failing. Main problems I pick up on is that "Wikimedia" editors are spread too thin among too many projects and would be nice if many of them focused on Wikipedia again (always remember, Wikimedia was set up to aid and uphold Wikipedia, if there are signs of thinning-herd failure look at project distribution), some very good editors have been blocked or banned (a "day of forgiveness" would be nice for long-time editors and controversial blocks, Jimbo can do that with a wave of his arm onto a keyboard), and not enough emphasis on getting more professional writers and researchers to come on board (via media interviews, talk show appearances, talks to professional groups at their conventions etc.). Just some quick ideas. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:09, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The long term trend of administrator decline (now well over 10 years) has seen many attempts at reversal. Nothing has worked. A year ago this day, we had 517 active admins. Now we have 469, a 9.3% drop in the active admin corps. This is unsustainable. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:25, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Which of course must be reversed. Maybe a "Class of September '21" with nomination of 21 new admins (many long term editors who've expressed interest, and re-nom many who failed before at admin admittance). Jimbo will save us (of course) if he uses some of those magic-wand powers that he has - maybe we can come up with a list of ten suggestions that he can act on as long as he's still active and has some good level-10 powers. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:49, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This idea will go about as well as introducing a handful of sodium into a fish tank. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely oppose this. This mindset, the "day of mercy" as you call it, is why we are in this situation. This is yet more sweeping under the rug of our problems, especially incivility and copyright violations. Blocks such as Clemrutter's don't come out of nowhere. Neither do community bans, which I think we should consider for Clemrutter. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That really seems unnecessary. This was a productive and committed editor who has certainly had a serious blindspot regarding close paraphrasing and copyright, and that is unacceptable. But if we can get that addressed -and if they'd also be willing to help resolve it, I see no reason to community ban them in the way you suggest. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:32, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to facilitate speedy deletion of unprocessed CCI entries

The above discussion shows that the amount of material at WP:CCI exceeds our ability, as a volunteer community, to process it in a timely manner. I therefore propose adding something like the following as a new speedy deletion criterium:

G15. Unprocessed possible copyright violations

This applies to pages that meet the following criteria:

• they have been listed as possible copyright violations at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations for at least a year, and
• they have not been marked as processed by an editor to indicate that any copyright violations have been removed.

If feasible, it is preferable to remedy the possible copyright violation by removing the content that was added in possible violation of copyright, but administrators are not required to attempt to do so. Pages deleted according to this provision will be restored to draft space on the request of any editor who credibly represents to Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion that they will promptly check for and remove any copyright violations, after which the pages may be restored to their original location.

Any suggestions or comments? If people like this, we could make a formal RfC proposal out of it. Sandstein 11:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This should probably be crossreferenced to WT:CSD. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:56, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Many things listed at CCI are not wholesale violations, they are articles where at some point large pieces of copyrighted text were added. I do not think deleting them is such a good idea, as opposed to deletion of articles with the foundational copyvio and hardly anything else.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:01, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ymblanter, for the latter case we already have WP:G12. But if nobody is willing to do the CCI work and untangle the copyvio from the good content then in my view we are required to delete the whole article, unless we want to violate our foundational commitment to free content and be complicit in ongoing copyright violations. Sandstein 12:19, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I would say if we go for this solution it must be a revert to the pre-copyvio case (possibly followed by a revision-deletion), not the deletion. Imagine I die tomorrow and someone adds copyvio to Krasnoborsky District, I am not around to remove it and nobody else cares - should the article be deleted then?--Ymblanter (talk) 12:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Perhaps it's better to restrict wholesale deletion to instances where the suspected edits include the page creation. And to use reversion+revdel if not. I note that WP:CCI does say If insufficient volunteers are available to manage clean-up, presumptive wholesale removal is allowed. but apparently that's not enough. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We already have this process - I'd push the deletions through Wikipedia:Copyright problems. These listings are not onerous to process - check history of each article in a batch to see if the copyvio editor is the main contributor and the page cannot be reverted (if it can reasonably be reverted, it can be done so on the spot), then Twinkle batch delete. It takes about five minutes per 20 articles. I deleted over 500 of Billy Hathorn's articles via this method last year. MER-C 14:17, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need something like this, but that the specifics should originate from discussion among those who work most in CCI/copyright and therefore know what will most help them. (Not a comment on Sandstein as I've no idea how much copyright experience they have.) — Bilorv (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Don't think this would be particularly helpful. Most CCI entries aren't pages which were created by the subject but pages which they edited, so if necessary content added by that person can be removed. Presumptively deleting every page edited by a CCI subject would be extremely damaging as there are about 164,000 of them and the vast majority are clean. Policy does already allow for the presumptive removal of content added by someone with a history of copyright problems. Hut 8.5 12:28, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. Presumptive deletion would make only ~5% of the backlog go away faster. MER-C 17:23, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. If it can be resolved by indiscriminate reversion, then do that and revdel the intermediate diffs. Otherwise, G12 applies. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: This is what WP:CP is for. What we require is more admins to delete articles and revisions, and not-admins to write replacements. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 06:00, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - seems to be overkill. WP:CP functions for presumptive deletion if needed. I know from my experience that the CCI I've worked on there's a lot of ones that are actually copied from PD sources or just aren't copyvios or are only an easily-removable or rewritable single sentence or two of violation . This seems like too blunt a weapon to handle the situation. Hog Farm _Talk 06:07, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose That's what wp:CP is for, like Vami said. With this proposed speedy deletion a lot of good articles could get deleted because of easily fixed problems. Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(Talk) (Contributions)} 00:09, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved. Girth Summit _(blether) 22:52, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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

---

Resolved

Unsure if this should go here, or WP:ANI. Can't indef IPs, but this is a clear legal threat.

• Charlesmm2021 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is one in a series of throwaway accounts editing Lime (band) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), which has a complicated and bizarre history. Others:
• 67.49.64.93 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2607:FA49:CB3E:3900:E836:5F26:964C:913C (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Robb Cooper (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Robfromlime (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Denyse Le Page (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Skyguyfla (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• DUDES FLL (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Robbcoop (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• TheRealLime (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• LIME MANAGER (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I tried to clean it up and (correctly) predicted I'd regret it. Apparently the only thing all editors agree on is the founders, but who may or may not have succeeded them as band members and reliable sourcing as to the "impostors" is non existent although one edit claims a trademark. I protected it to stop the BLP issues, which led to the above legal threat, but any longterm solutions? Star Mississippi 18:56, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy @CaptainEek: who protected this a year ago almost exactly. Star Mississippi 18:58, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've given the IP a week-long "break from editing" for the legal threat and doxxing threat. Hog Farm _Talk 19:00, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• In terms of long-term solutions - AfD looks like a possibility. I skimmed the sources in the article, and all the ones I looked at give the subject negligible coverage - the better ones are about other artists covering their work. I'm not an expert on notability in pop bands, but from a non-expert perspective it's looking quite ropey, and deletion would stop the disruption... Girth Summit _(blether) 22:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be kept. They had a gold record which reached #1 on the Billboard dance charts, so they meet WP:NBAND. Pawnkingthree (talk) 22:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pawnkingthree, again, I'm very out of my comfort zone with pop bands, but that assertion has a 'citation needed' tag, and I'm not seeing it supported in any of the sources in the article. The article has long been subject to dubious editing - are we confident that assertion is verifiable? Girth Summit _(blether) 23:08, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately much of Billboard's website is subscriber only. This source seems to support the claim. Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:23, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks both. Pawnkingthree since you're more well versed in music, what do you think about stubbing it even further than I did to incorporate the dance #1 with your citation and then strip everything else out. While notability is not temporary, it didn't appear anything subsequent to that merits inclusion in an article about BLPs and since the membership doesn't appear to have attracted reliable source coverage, I don't think it's something we need to include. Tempted for long term EC protection but would love to be sure any problematic content is gone first. Thoughts? Star Mississippi 00:40, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I added that source and trimmed some other stuff. I can't really evaluate the quality of the offline sources though. It does look like long-term EC protection may be necessary. Pawnkingthree (talk) 01:50, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I've extended it and I think we can consider this resolved for now. Star Mississippi 21:31, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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

Firstly, I hope this query isn't too out of place; I stopped by WP:HD and WP:RD, and both seemed more wrong than this page. And this is more of a query, because I just don't understand it, than a problem report. I also have not notified the IP users involved.

Someone adds a few links to a page, then immediately reverts themself. To what end?

At Backpack, "different" IPs (all resolving to Hong Kong) add 5 YouTube links to the EL section (20 June 2021 [w/ 7 links], 1 July 2021, 6 July 2021, 7 August 2021, 26 August 2021) then, a minute later, revert. The YouTube links appear to never repeat themselves. None of these IPs have made any other edits. Is this some sort of Google-gaming? Who knows what it is? — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 09:46, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We've sometimes seen people doing this so they can show others the permalink, but I don't think that's the case here. If you look closely at the range contribs for the past year,(eg) you can see them doing this elsewhere, eg, Special:Contributions/219.73.14.6. Looking at the target articles as well as the channels being linked, my guess is that it's a very young human being. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am usually deep down in the mines digging for information to improve articles with, so I may have missed this topic being discussed here. I frequently come across OR, or POV-pushing where the sources referred to either don't contain the information at all, or actually say the opposite of what they are claimed to say. I am getting more and more concerned by this and I wonder what kind of administrative sanctions that would be suitable for editors who are caught adding fake references or change referenced information in non-trivial ways.--Berig (talk) 08:04, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Fictitious references suggests that users found to be deliberately adding false citations should be warned suitably and blocked if the behaviour persists. I agree with that approach; the {{uw-error1}} series of warning templates seems to cover this. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 08:10, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!--Berig (talk) 08:11, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I personally have very little patience with users who falsify content or lie about citations. Unlike obvious "lol penis lol" vandalism, this has the potential for lasting harm, and blocks should be made quickly. —Kusma (talk) 08:35, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I am tempted to just give these editors indefinite blocks.--Berig (talk) 08:37, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see no point in warning a user that intentionally corrupting articles with false references is wrong, this is something people already know is wrong. I do see the need to determine if it was intentional though. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 09:26, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Tend to agree. An immediate indef seems more appropriate. If some kind of "good reason" exists, this can then be used for an unblock. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:18, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there was recently such an incident where I could assume good faith due to the circumstances involved.--Berig (talk) 10:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Berig, can you elaborate? I believe you, I just can't myself come up with a scenario under which deliberately adding information not included in the source could be good faith. I can see misinterpreting, but that wouldn't fall under 'deliberate'. —valereee (talk) 13:14, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Valereee:, in this case, it was a long time editor in good standing who tried to fix a few broken references, believing they were from a particular source that was already in the bibliography, and there were other issues about it. The result was unfortunate, but it is fixed now with the intervention of other editors. I think the editor who did it is embarrassed about it, and I am certain it will not be repeated.--Berig (talk) 13:28, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is edits like these that make me really concerned. The last source doesn't even mention the topic.--Berig (talk) 13:42, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I see -- so certainly not deliberate falsification, just a misstep anyone could make. And, yes, it's often nationalistic POV-pushing where I see this, and it's especially difficult when the source is in another language and isn't available online in a translatable form. I've definitely had occasion where AGF seemed like it might just be credulousness. —valereee (talk) 14:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:HOAX may be relevant and is an actual guideline. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 10:56, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I try to be fairly tough regarding warning and blocking editors who falsify references. Wikipedia is built around principles based on trust and honesty such as WP:AGF and WP:V, and people who make stuff up in the hope of tricking readers and other editors have no place here. Nick-D (talk) 11:20, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be OK with an immediate indef if you were certain that the person was doing it intentionally. I was trying imagine situations where it could be done inadvertently, when a warning might be more appropriate - say someone finds a bit of information in one article with a source, and ports it over to another article, citing the same source but not actually checking it. That's bad practice, but it's not intentional deception if it later turned out that the source was a dud. Similarly, if someone read something in the Daily Mail, which referenced some bit of scientific research, I could imagine them repeating whatever the DM said about it, but citing the original source without reading it - again, bad practice, but not intentional deception. But yeah - if they've set out to deceive, they have no business editing here. Girth Summit _(blether) 18:42, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's also more than possible for someone to read one source in a series of citations,^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]} verify that it contains some other bit of info they're seeking for some other article, and then accidentally Ctrl-C on the wrong cite in the series. Reyk _YO! 09:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This happens all the time in articles that are of interest to children. IP editors, mostly. Basically, they use citations as decorative elements to give their edits more credibility. What sometimes happens is that a reliable source says that a cartoon first aired in 2018. Our IP editor knows this is untrue because they clearly remember watching that cartoon in 2017. However, they're savvy enough to know that someone using Huggle will insta-revert them if they change the date without a citation. So, they replace the existing source with some random citation, preferably one that goes to a paywalled website. Voila! The correct information is now on Wikipedia, and it's even sourced. Outright vandalism is rarer in my experience, but it definitely happens. I tend to range block those as I find them. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:08, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Let me give an example of a prolific editor (whom I'll notify directly) who does this (the mild version). User:LouisAlain translates biographies from German (dewiki). In the past, they also translated unsourced BLPs, which got them into trouble. They then started adding "random" sources at the end of paragraphs: sometimes about the subject of the article (but not the paragraph), sometimes not even that. I repeatedly warned them about this in January[9] and again[10], with many examples. To no avail, as a few weeks later the same happened again[11]. When I look at their creations now, I see Thorsten Pech, which had only a few refs in the original German article. LouisAlain adds some to his translation, but again uses random refs in random places, with this to source a biographical paragraph, and this Reddit discussion of a Youtube video to source a further biographical paragraph. At least in this case, both sources are about the same person, not some random namesake, but the end result remains: unacceptable "fake" referencing, to give the impression that all paragraphs are sourced when in reality they aren't. Fram (talk) 15:48, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I regularly improve new translations by LouisAlain which show up on my watch list, and have not noticed what you call "fake referencing" recently, examples Leo Kestenberg (there was a long passage without refs, now commented out, - please look in the history if you can help sourcing it) and Josef Friedrich Doppelbauer which came with few references. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are also articles that are at best lazily translated without checking the sources. Roman Sadnik (from 2021-09-01): second ref, although claimed to have been accessed on the same day, does not mention the article subject. (If you accessed the page, why did you not read it?) Third ref: dead link, marked as dead on dewiki more than two years ago. LouisAlain, I am shocked to see that you have been here 10 years and have 60000 edits but still make this kind of mistakes: why would you ever cite an irretrievably dead link with no known archive, and not even tell people that you know the link is dead? —Kusma (talk) 23:31, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

File:Logo of the International Practical Shooting Confederation.png

Please hide/delete the file revision from 10:07, 27 August 2021. Leave the initial revision from 17:17, 23 August 2021 alone. I'm not sure what would happen if a bot processed this or someone tried to remove the missing revision, that's why I'm asking here. See phab:T124101#7314455 for details. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done--Ymblanter (talk) 16:11, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An unusually large volume of bot reports came in today — there are now 25 usernames for administrator attention. Most of the new bot reports are likely false positives, but an admin will need to check each and every user's contributions to decide if the name blocks UP. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:13, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I know nobody wants to close this, but would a kind admin please take on the job? I know it will go to DRV no matter how it is closed, but it needs to be closed. I would do it but I participated.

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Normchou/Essays/Does common sense point to a lab leak origin?

HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 13:07, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I'll have look. El_C 14:00, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I did the thing. El_C 14:15, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 23:01, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Legend has it that if you say DRV 5 times in front of a mirror, your soul gets overturned. El_C 02:37, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Forget you all, then! I'm moving to Commons (again), where my brand of stupid is still a novelty. And where I'm extra-beloved. El_C 11:41, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As can be seen in the abuse filter set up after the last AN discussion, there seems to be an uptick in #WPWP. Captions have not been improved. Having checked multiple editors, many seem to be literally copying the file name as captions, even if the file name is a French description. (This is explicitly outside of the rules at meta:Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos 2021, for what it's worth.) I am not sure if significant action could be taken at this point, as the contest supposedly ends on the 31st, but at the very least there should be a default message template explaining the need for appropriate images with good captions that could be placed on participants' talkpages. Would anyone have placed similar messages in the past which could serve as a base? CMD (talk) 15:31, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We throttle entries but I'm convinced many people aren't even reading the throttle message anyway, as they keep trying to make edits even though they're being disallowed with a message saying you can't make more edits. Eg here or here. So I'm not convinced talk messages will work. Still, I wrote up something at MediaWiki:Abusefilter-disallowed-WPWP for the abusefilter message that could perhaps be useful as a base for a talk page message template.

Solution 2.1 is difficult to do well with the current way the filter works (won't bore you with the technical details), but a small technical change to the AbuseFilter extension could make it easier to implement elegantly for next year. Other than that, I don't really see what else we can do. Personally I'd say enwiki is a work in progress and some imperfect changes being added, that can later be iteratively improved by other edits (and repeat), is (to some degree) how this project works. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:49, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If there's such opposition to this, why not simply ban it and block editors who violate? GiantSnowman 17:02, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Um, looking at technical contributors here, could we block any edits with a edit summary containing one of a defined set of hastags? Since the contests uses those for tracking it should A) get rid of most of them, and B) remove any incentive to circumvent it (since it wouldn't count). -- Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 17:42, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is not the technical part that's a problem. Technically it is trivial to block. The dispute in the original discussion was whether we should block. It doesn't really matter this year since the contest ends in two days anyway. If work is done with the coordinators and perhaps with the devs, we could perhaps figure out alternate solutions for next year, if the community does feel like there is still a problem. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:50, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the contributions from specific editors were valid additions/made in good faith/showed understanding of image rules. We don't want to discourage those, but we do need to handle those editors that added images without considering all factors that go into that. I think we need to make sure that the contest, if run again, includes warnings to all uses that there are image use polices on en.wiki that must be followed, that en.wiki admins will likely be watching for activity in that area, and editors participating that are routinely failing to follow the policies (rather than the one or two missteps) will likely be blocked because of this monitoring. If necessary, we can develop a standard warning for the contest (or tiers thereof) that tells editors that may be making missteps of our policies of what to do and not to do when they participate. --Masem (t) 20:28, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ProcrastinatingReader Given that the co-ordinator at Meta is a banned editor on en.wp, the ddiscussion certainly won't take place here ... Black Kite (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is the throttling actually working? This filter, which has the throttle applied, has far fewer edits matching than this filter, which is tracking WPWP edits but isn't throttling them. There's certainly far more entries matching that filter than the 25 per day set as the throttle. Hut 8.5 20:09, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Won't the throttling filter only show the ones after the 25 limit (i.e. the ones that are disallowed)? One would therefore expect it to have a lot fewer hits. Black Kite (talk) 20:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, this editor has worked their way around the throttle by lower-casing the hashtag. Black Kite (talk) 20:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The filters use irlike when checking for string inclusion, which is case insensitive so the fact they're using lower case hastags doesn't matter. I suspect this is a bug in the abuse filter extension, probably something to do with caching at a guess, there have been similar problems in the past (see e.g. Phab:T240951, which is still unsolved). It might be worth opening a phab ticket. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Black Kite is right about the mechanics of a throttle filter (it'll only show the hits that were throttled). Re the lower-casing issue; as the IP mentions, the filter is irlike so it should be fine with any case variant. I tried using the editor's edit summary at testwiki (filter is identical to enwiki's, but with a lower throttle quantity there) and they were correctly logged in the filter. So I suspect the IP is right about a caching problem with the throttle. Perhaps Daimona Eaytoy can confirm if this is related. Like the filter in the phab ticket though, this also works over a 24 hour period. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@ProcrastinatingReader Hey, I'm writing here, because I saw phab:T240951#7317222. Note that the current filter #1158 is set to throttle by both username and IP address. That means users on highly dynamic ranges will never get the throttle. That is the case for at least one of the users who appear to bypass the throttling filter.

The obvious fix would be to just remove ip throttling, but...unfortunately, as https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/extensions/AbuseFilter/+/691e47a4a6c83ecc3213991a89ad83f145dec9aa/includes/Consequences/Consequence/Throttle.php#170 says, setting throttle only to user will give you only one throttle counter shared for all IP addresses. Not sure if that's intentional (maybe not?), but given this campaign is targeted at logged-in editors, it might not matter for this case. Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:47, 29 August 2021 (UTC)Edited --Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:55, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Martin Urbanec. I thought IP would've been blank for logged-in editors (thus only throttling by user, for logged-in editors). It seems looking at the code snippet, even for them it will still correspond to their underlying IP address? That behaviour doesn't seem ideal? From an abusefilter perspective, I'm not sure it makes sense as I don't see why the underlying IP a user account is connecting from should ever matter, but I may be missing a use case? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Another thought, why can't the user identifier just be by the username? Here is a change by an IP, and here is one by an account, with user_name filled in appropriately. Similar design can be used here? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:19, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@ProcrastinatingReader If you remove ip from the list of throttle rules, it will work (approximately) that way. Correct solution would be to change getId (which returns same value for all anonymous users) with getName (which returns username/IP address) in the user throttle mode, but that's a breaking change. See phab:T289954, where I suggested exactly that. Martin Urbanec (talk) 22:41, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Martin Urbanec: I already made the change for the filter here per your original comment; I was more referring to why the filter extension behaves like that in the first place, which will remain a problem for other (non-WPWP) filters, though I guess that's better off at VPT or phab (phab:T289954 sounds like a good change). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:43, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have adjusted ProcrastinatingReader's MediaWiki:Abusefilter-disallowed-WPWP into a shorter message at User:Chipmunkdavis/WPWP. Please feel free to adjust/use. CMD (talk) 13:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Chipmunkdavis: Not sure about that message. I think that any warning needs to clearly explain that the rate at which they can add images to articles has been limited, otherwise it's going to really confuse people when this message starts showing up and they find they can't edit anymore. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 14:14, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the assumption that they automatically see the Abusefilter message if they are going at too high a rate? I am trying to create something that can be easily dropped on talkpages, rather than editors having to type out a new message each time. If others feel it needs to be sterner I would not object to a change. CMD (talk) 16:03, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Chipmunkdavis: Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were trying to make a friendlier message for use in the edit filter. 192.76.8.74 (talk) 16:16, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Regarding next year, the WMF Growth Team is currently working on an "Add an image" structured task, where they have been quite good about collaborating with us and trying to avoid the pitfalls of WPWP (see the mw talk page). I hope that by next year, the feature will be live, and any campaign will be run through that rather than whatever the current tool is. Hopefully that will minimize problems. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:31, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a request to review the close at What is the Indian Medical Association's position on Ayurveda?. The issue the closer was to decide was, "What is the IMA saying about Ayurveda?" with focus around whether they consider only some ayurvedic practitioners as quacks based on certain qualifying criteria, or all ayurvedic practitioners as quacks. This has been a contentious topic with previous talk page discussions [12][13][14][15][16][17] and more that led to the opening of the RfC. The last vote on the RfC was one week before the closure, and the phrasing of the statement per the cited source continues to be contested even after the closure. The discussion with the closing editor can be found here. In the closure they applied guideline WP:FRINGE over wiki policy WP:NOR because they think the former was mentioned far more, even though that does not appear to be correct. Their close was based on some editors saying that the IMA's position is informed not only by the way that Ayurveda is practiced in India but also by the Indian legal environment without considering whether such a reasoning was backed by secondary WP:RS. Even if their assessment of predominance is assumed correct, core non-negotiable WP:NOR should have still been considered in assessment of all the arguments to correctly reflect IMA's stance with regards to qualifying their position. Furthermore, WP:FRINGE is not intended to decide on issues of what an association is saying, but only to establish if its position is not scientifically mainstream and may therefore be (re)moved from the lede or even the article. But the close does not contain any such conclusion either. -Wikihc (talk) 13:48, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting that, contrary to the huge yellow edit notice, Wikihc did not notify me of this. All of the above has been said already in the referenced talk page and they are attempting to re-litigate that discussion. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon for having an emergency in real life which precluded me from dropping an immediate notice on your talk page. Also, I find it strange that you accuse me for posting on AN per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE as you yourself recommended, since the issue was unresolved after talk with you (closer). -Wikihc (talk) 22:40, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New user has listed about 30 pages for protection. Page needs to be cleaned up. Thanx, - FlightTime (open channel) 22:22, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be already handled, new user turned out to be a sock. –FlyingAce^✈hello 22:44, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

K (lol) Thanx, - FlightTime (open channel) 22:49, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

SkylerLovefist has in the last 24 hours added a remark on his user page that I believe is in violation of WP:POLEMIC. It is a generalised attack on WP users seen here. While user names are not used this is aimed at me, but I am not complaining about that. The complaint is the general conduct in violation of the policy linked. It should be removed in my opinion. Addicted4517 (talk) 08:55, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The statement was unacceptable commentary about other contributors. I've removed it and asked the user not to reinstate it. Best Girth Summit _(blether) 10:45, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A less inflammatory alternative would be to express that you are frustrated with other editors: "I feel frustrated that they would use source A instead of source B", but asking questions about policy and talking about content rather than editors is best MarshallKe (talk) 11:52, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that Addicted4517 has neglected to mention his own behaviour which includes provoking an edit war, misquoting Wikipedia Policies, intentionally overwriting another valid source and proceeding to use a source which literally quoted the Twitter account he claimed wasn't an accurate source. Perhaps this user would like to learn to work with others before saying other users need to work on their behaviour. SkylerLovefist (talk) 16:59, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

SkylerLovefist, the statement on your userpage wasn't acceptable, regardless of other editors' behaviour. That said, provided you don't reinstate it, I'd say that matter is resolved. If there's anything that you think needs looking at urgently, you are at liberty to report it. Girth Summit _(blether) 17:25, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Girth SummitIf I was aware of how to do that, I would. And I'm not going to reinstate anything, I'd just like to see him being pulled up on what he did wrong instead of feeling like I'm being ganged up on when Addicted4517 was in the wrong with his edits to start with, and was clearly trying to undermine every edit I made. SkylerLovefist (talk) 17:27, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1. Wikipedia:General sanctions/Units in the United Kingdom was authorised in 2014 and has had exactly zero logged actions in 7 years.
2. Wikipedia:General sanctions/Professional wrestling was authorised in 2018 and has had one TBAN and a couple of page protections, all were 3 years ago.

I'm proposing revoking the authorisation for both these general sanctions. The log evidences that these general sanctions are unused and unnecessary, and we shouldn't have permanent authorisations of unnecessary sanctions. Regular administrative processes could handle any future disruption that arises, as they do for most topic areas. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:49, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Removal of Wikipedia:General sanctions/Units in the United Kingdom was proposed on this noticeboard in April 2020 and the discussion closed as "At this time there is no consensus to lift these sanctions, with a majority opposed. People are concerned that disputes might flare up again if sanctions are removed: Give them an inch and they will take a kilometer ." The effectiveness of the existence of WP:GS/UKU doesn't justify abolition. NebY (talk) 17:45, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Proc, just a suggestion, perhaps this should be broken into two subheaders, one for each GS, that way it will be easier to tally the outcome. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:58, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

to this board which I think is a waste of time, but I don't want to be perfunctory. It feels wrong to not bring it here, but Skiyomi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log). I keep vacillating. The further I get drafting the thing, the dumber I feel. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 20:39, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For this user? Don't waste your time. I HIGHLY doubt the community will welcome them back. RickinBaltimore (talk) 22:30, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good WP:NOTHERE block. Miniapolis 22:44, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is zero chance of an unblock in this case due to the massive abuse heaped on Wikipedians from this former editor. Posting an appeal would just be a waste of everyone's time and feed in to Skiyomi's need for attention.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 22:46, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks y'all. I feel the same way. Anyone with a positive outlook, please share, but I think I see a consensus forming. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:06, 2 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]