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

At various articles, especially medical articles, and especially with regard to the leads, IiKkEe makes unnecessary stylistic changes that often leave the text in a less accurate, simply inaccurate, and/or sloppy state. It's not unusual for these edits to not align with Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. It's not unusual for IiKkEe to change the context and/or meaning of things, and to give WP:Undue weight to things. And this includes articles that are of WP:Good or WP:Featured status. The editor can make many edits in a row, which, in addition to usually needing to be reverted or tweaked, can take up a lot of time when reviewing the changes. And the editor's content is sometimes unsourced. As seen here, here and here, the editor has also been known to edit war just to retain their edits. The editor has gotten a bit better about this over time, being more willing to go to the talk page to discuss, but it's not enough. Discussion can consist of the editor wanting their way, and then editing the article in some other problematic fashion if they don't get their way.

To get right into this matter, see the examples below.

There are a lot of other examples of IiKkEe's changes that leave articles in compromised states, but I focused on the examples I reviewed and some that are mentioned on IiKkEe's talk page. This Potassium article example is another from IiKkEe's talk page. IiKkEe can be polite enough when interacting with editors, but being polite isn't enough to negate editing/competence issues. Furthermore, as indicated by this section on IiKkEe's talk page, IiKkEe has a tendency to thank editors via WP:Echo and go right back to editing disruptively. I've experienced this with regard to IiKkEe and other editors whose edits were riddled with issues. It can have the effect of seeming antagonistic even when it's not meant to be.

IiKkE's editing reminds me Anthony22's editing, except that Anthony22's problematic stylistic changes mainly concerned biographies. He was recently "indefinitely topic banned by the community from making stylistic and grammatical changes, broadly construed, to any article on English Wikipedia." Original thread on that is seen here. I'm not sure what the best remedy should be in IiKkEe's case, but if the community decides that he should refrain from editing medical articles, this should be broadly construed to include anatomy and sexuality articles since they often overlap and IiKkEe has edited problematically at some anatomy articles (such as Nephron) and questionably at a few sexual topic articles thus far. I just know that something needs to be done. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:38, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Like Flyer22 Reborn said, there are many more examples of this behavior. Here are just a few that I've seen over the last 2 weeks:

• Here they changed "usually involves" to "is" purely for being "more direct", but had to be reverted because it ignored that sources vary.
• Here they removed "typically" in the 1st sentence, which caused it to be only about the female genitalia and making it contradict the 3rd sentence about the anus.
• Here at Oral sex they changed the 1st sentence significantly by changing "or" to "and". It went from saying "(including the lips, tongue, or teeth) or throat" to "including the lips, tongue, and teeth; and the throat".
• At the same article, they changed "female genitals" to "vulva", which had to be changed to "vulva or vagina".
• IiKkEe then, because they wanted the terminology to be "comparable", changed the sentence from "Cunnilingus is oral sex performed on the vulva or vagina, while fellatio is oral sex performed on the penis" to "Cunnilingus is oral sex performed on the female genitalia - the vulva and vagina - while fellatio is oral sex performed on the male genitalia - the penis and scrotum". Thus, they again made up their own definition for fellatio. They were rightly reverted. I also replied to them on the talk page.

Again, these are just a few very recent examples from just a few articles that IiKkEe has edited. This editor seems to put their own subjective and often poor style opinions ahead of sourcing and common usage. This results in problems, as explained by Flyer22 Reborn.

As shown by her examples, this appears to be an ongoing problem over many years. IiKkEe should have learned better by now. -Crossroads- (talk) 17:58, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• User:Flyer22 Reborn thanks for raising this. I share your concerns. It is not clear if IiKkEe actually reads the sources in question or simple changes text to what they personally feel is better.
• In this edit[1] they changed correct text to first "a Glasgow Coma Scale score of 13 to 15 (under 13 is interpreted as no traumatic brain injury(TBI) and over 15 as moderate or severe TBI)."
• Than in this edit they changed it further[2] "a Glasgow Coma Scale score of 13 to 15 (over 15 is interpreted as no traumatic brain injury(TBI), 9-12 as moderate TBI, under 9 as severe TBI)."
• There is NO such thing as a GCS of greater than 15. Gah. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:48, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

They are one of a certain type of difficult editor, who just tinkers carelessly or beyond their capacity. They have been around since 2014, very rarely engaging on their talk page. This pattern suggests English language competence may be a factor here. A widescreen topic ban may well be the only remedy. Johnbod (talk) 14:04, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I was mixed up with the Anthony22 issue a month or so ago and I agree that it's a big issue. In this case, it is even worse since he is making a flurry of small but significant changes to articles that alter the meaning (often making them inaccurate). This type of edit is hard for a user who is not a subject matter expert (e.g. someone like Doc James) to patrol since it is not overtly vandalism. It wouldn't be a big deal if this user was responsive on the talk page but he isn't -- like Anthony he just does whatever he wants and leaves it up to others to clean up after him. If this user is willing to be more responsive and to stop making such changes without discussion, I would be OK with letting it go but so far he hasn't been. 73.128.16.15 (talk) 19:58, 26 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Since the editor continues to edit articles while making no response to the complaint here, I've blocked them for 48 hours. Any admin can lift this block if they become convinced that User:IiKkEe can and will change their editing behavior to answer these concerns. EdJohnston (talk) 18:15, 27 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for assessing this, EdJohnston. I wouldn't state that IiKkEe is as unresponsive as Anthony22 usually is, considering that IiKkEe is significantly more open to responding on his (or her) talk page, but I don't see that IiKkEe's behavior will change at all. Like you noted on IiKkEe's talk page, they continued editing while concerns were being expressed in this thread. And IiKkEe's response indicates that IiKkEe still isn't willing to comment in this thread. IiKkEe stated, "Who are you? Who do I discuss this with? I assume with an objective administrator assigned to look into the accusations, not one of my accusers. I am not familiar with this process." So IiKkEe appears to be stating that this case is in administrators' hands alone. Also, one does not need to be familiar with the process to take the time to respond in an ANI thread about their problematic behavior. Once the 48 hour block expires, IiKkEe will keep on editing the way they have before. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:40, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• After a discussion at User talk:IiKkEe#ANI, I unblocked IiKkEe so they could respond to the issues raised here. I suggested focusing on a small number of key points. IiKkEe has asked for "a few days" which seems excessive to me, however, there should be a response before further editing occurs. Johnuniq (talk) 22:20, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that threads on ANI are archived after a certain timeframe, IiKkEe's responses should come before this thread is set to archive. Either that, or it will continue to need a new comment to keep it from archiving or it should be tagged with User:DoNotArchiveUntil. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:10, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Added DNAU template to keep this alive until discussion takes place. If there is no response from the user within a week, then we should probably move on to an indef. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My reply. I may not be able to complete this in one sitting. Please allow me to finish before responding.

Based on the above criticisms, I will take the following actions:

First, I volunteer to stop editing WP for 3 months ie until February 1, 2020.

Second, I propose the following for any of my future edits: 1) I will not edit any article that Flyer22 Reborn has edited. 2) I will place a notice on the Talk page of any article I plan to edit, which will include which one paragraph or section I plan to edit, and will invite scrutiny of my edits. I will also notify any major active contributor(s) at that site. 3) I will accept any reversions of my edits and discuss them on the Talk page if I have questions. 4) I will make no more than 10 edits per day to any Article. 5) I will add a reference to any edit which changes the meaning of that already referenced sentence.

Third, I will respond to the speculation that I am not fluent in English, and that I am not qualified to edit the articles I have chosen to edit. I was born and have always lived in the United States; I am fluent in English. I graduated from Rice University with a BS in Biology. Undergraduate courses included physics, general chemistry, quantitative chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, geology, anthropology, comparative anatomy, physiology, histology, and electrical engineering. I am a physician, a graduate of an American medical school, Board certified in Internal Medicine, and an Assistant Professor at an American Health Science Center. I lecture to second year medical students in my area of expertise. I have reviewed articles submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine for accuracy and format. I have participated in clinical research published in peer reviewed medical journals. I have published a single-authored textbook of Internal Medicine purchased and used by thousands of medical students.

Next, I will respond to Flyer22 Reborn's criticism of my editing based on direct interactions with me plus a reading of my Talk page. I believe there are fourteen articles/edits discussed. I suggest that these are not representative of my total work product at WP: I have been editing for 5 1/2 years; my guess is that I have submitted around 17,000 edits to around 500-700 articles, and interacted civilly, amicably, and productively with around 1000 fellow editors. Most have shown appreciation for my edits either at my Talk page, clicking "Thank you", or by giving tacit approval by reading my edits and not reverting or modifying them. I would guess that over 90 per cent of my 17,000 edits still stand as written today. However, I have run up against about a dozen editors over the years who verbalize outright scorn for my edits, reverting them in toto. My reaction to this is to move on to some other article.

Next, I will address the allusion to edit warring. It is correct that twice I have been *accused* of edit warring. But I have never been turned in for or investigated for that allegation. When I asked for details of at which edits exactly I had done this, none were provided. Perhaps on two occasions I was *perceived* as edit warring.

Next, I will address my relationship with Doc James as I see it. [I have been interrupted by the duties of the day. I will return shortly. Again, please do not respond until I have had a chance to finish. Thanks.] IiKkEe (talk) 15:11, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Just noting that it has been more than two days since IiKkEe said they would "return shortly." WMSR (talk) 01:54, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• TFBCT1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• List of the oldest living people (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Oldest people (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Editor TFBCT1 has for years been knowingly and flagrantly using unreliable sources or sources deemed inadequate by the community for inclusion (from before 110th birthday, over 1 year old, no specific date of birth) at List of the oldest living people, Oldest people, and elsewhere. This has been explained to them many times, but they refuse to change their behavior, which has flared up again in the last few days as is seen in the first three difs.

1 They re-added using Find-a-grave an entry that was removed for lacking a specific birthdate, when that's obviously not a reliable source.

2 Their original addition of this entry.

3 Adding two invalid entries. The source for Eugenia Zuniga Jeldres was from before she turned 110, which the community has long deemed invalid as proof of being a supercentenarian, and Maria Vivaldelli was added with a link to a longevity fan website.

4 Here they re-added a removed entry with a source pre-dating 110th birthday and launched a personal attack against me.

5 Here they removed, for the fifth time, someone else's entry of a woman with a source pre-dating her 110th birthday at List of American supercentenarians, which shows they know such entries should not be included.

6 A thread about their inclusion of an entry whose only source was an image randomly uploaded to an image upload website, where it took three editors and a trip to RSN to get them to stop trying to add the entry with this source.

7 A long thread under "Major issues with Japanese supercentenarians" where they edit warred and launched personal attacks because long-standing consensus was being enforced, which they didn't like, yet they didn't do anything constructive to solve the problem.

8 Where they re-added two invalid entries to Oldest people based on hearsay and a Japanese report they had never seen.

9 My well reasoned statement and work was met with this 10 unconstructive, and absurd response for an experienced editor.

It's clear from years of evidence that TFBCT1 has no interest in changing their behavior and will continue to flagrantly ignore Wikipedia polices, such as WP:V, and long-established consensus in their pursuit of including any entry they want listed. They will also continue their personal attacks (the latest saying I have OCD) and habitual habit of making maintaining these lists far harder then it needs to be for other editors. Newshunter12 (talk) 15:53, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm obviously involved in this, and I will second Newshunter12's take above. These lists have enough trouble as it is with people adding random "I heard it somewhere" names, and this makes it even more difficult to keep things in order. That last diff in particular is a nice example of a personal attack, and one that has no place anywhere but especially in a contentious topic; this topic area is finally a little calmer, trying to reignite the powder keg is a terrible move. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:56, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It has come to my attention that they have re-added the entry for a third time stating the sourcing is fine and there is a YouTube video of her to. This was reverted by an imposter account (pretending to be me using a similar username) belonging to an IP editor who has been stalking me for nearly a year, sending death threats to me and other longevity editors, and trying to get me blocked. Please be forewarned they may try to further troll this complaint. Newshunter12 (talk) 16:38, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You have to admit, there's a kind of poetry in sending death threats to a longevity editor. EEng 09:41, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All issues identified by Newshunter12 were except the few current ones on the List of the oldest living people summarily closed without incident or cause. He is trying to re-hash old occurrences that have no current relevance. I'm going to be very specific as to the current situation. In the past Newshunter12 had been the one to add new individuals to the List of oldest living people. In recent months he stopped doing this, so I put my time and efforts into taking up this task. I added nearly 25 entries in recent weeks. Newshunter12 showed back up again after a long absence and removed seven entries from this list. This resulted in a bout of edit warring on the page due to dissent with his decisions(which I was not a part of). Of the seven removed four had been added by me. (2) of the cases were "good faith errors" on my part. Newshunter12 then proceeded to open a talk page discussion entitled "sourcing issues" which the main purpose was to defame and attack me and accuse me of doing something deliberate. The posting was so inflammatory that another editor warned me via my talk page that I was being threatened by Newshunter12. So I proceeded to respond. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TFBCT1 (talk • contribs) 17:44, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have never done anything knowingly, deliberately, or maliciously to undermine Wikipedia. I have been tirelessly editing the longevity pages for over 15 years probably with more dedication than any other editor. I feel very disrespected by Newshunter12. I do make mistakes, but no editor should be attacked in this manner especially when investing substantial amounts of their time and energy. Newshunter12 and I do have different visions of Wikipedia, he sees things more in "black and white," I like other editors see some areas open for interpretation. He is rarely willing to compromise and not just with me, but with any editor. This idea of "always having to be right" does not work well on Wikipedia.

One last note, I find it very inappropriate for Newshunter12 to incessantly mention the "constant death threats" he receives on Wikipedia, not only on talk pages, but also, within page histories. And to accuse this person or that person of being the certain "troll" perpetuating these threats. This type of personal drama has no place on Wikipedia.

I'm sorry I'm not able to provide you with specific links, diffs etc.. I'm not a young person and I'm not computer savvy. I just wanted to be able to paint a clear picture of what's going on. TFBCT1 (talk) 17:44, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My above difs and statements speak for themselves about what the truth is and isn't, but I think it's worth mentioning that, "The posting was so inflammatory that another editor warned me via my talk page that I was being threatened by Newshunter12" was done by the very IP troll who has been stalking me since last year, not some concerned onlooker horrified by horrible Newshunter12's actions. So much for drama has no place on Wikipedia, TFBCT1, and I apologize that I don't appreciate someone repeatedly talking about beating me to death with a hammer and some such because of my longevity edits. Newshunter12 (talk) 18:07, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Point in case. Newshunter12's response is purely reactionary, defensive. Nothing constructive. Nothing cooperative. Maybe it's just a matter of maturity.TFBCT1 (talk) 18:21, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for adding a new way of referring to me as a child to your vocabulary. "Childish","Infantile", "Manic", and "you are about 12 years old" were getting old. Newshunter12 (talk) 18:35, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Once again. Reactionary. Defensive. Attacking. Non constructive.TFBCT1 (talk) 19:06, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the one who's deleted most of the threats against Newshunter12, and I can understand if you didn't see what was going on at the time, but acting now as said notification was a good faith note of concern is just feeding the troll. And if you think this is blown out of proportion, I've gotten a few myself (I personally prefer leaving those out for others to see, but understandably most people would rather not). This certainly isn't to accuse you of being behind it or anything, but it is a genuine, serious issue. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:39, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And how is this appropriate for inclusion in “talk pages” and “page histories?” And why should Newhunter12 be able to lash out at one arbitrary IP address and then another as the likely “death threat” perpetrators on public page histories? It is clearly not appropriate. And I strongly admonish you not to insinuate that I have any involvement. When in fact, I received a message from a Newshunter14 on 4 July 2019 on my talk page accusing me of being the one leaving threatening messages on his talk page and threatening to have me banned. Followed by a message from Newshunter12 stating that was an “imposter” account and he had nothing to do with it. I find everything about Newshunter12 to be untrustworthy.TFBCT1 (talk) 18:58, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As should be clear, and as was explained at the time in a couple places, the Newshunter14 account (as with the one which popped up today) was an obvious impersonator. I blocked the account for exactly that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:26, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect when I’ve been persistently attacked by Newshunter12 in situations which no other editor has identified, and go away when he disappears why should anything be clear to me?TFBCT1 (talk) 19:41, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@TFBCT1: Please post diffs of these attacks. Tiderolls 20:45, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As I said previously, I’m not young, nor computer savvy and I don’t know how to post diffs. The last (2) times I felt attacked by Newshunter12 were 3 July 2019 when I received a threatening message on my talk page regarding the removal of a deceased Italian supercentenarian where sourcing had already been established on another page. It is very out of character for one editor to confront another editor in this manner in such a minor situation. The second instance occurred on the talk page for List of living supercentenarians on 3 November 2019 under heading “sourcing issues” where Newshunter12 proceeded to attack and threaten me as the main topic of the discussion which was just not justified. I was notified on my talk page by another editor that I was being threatened by Newshunter12. I also want to clarify that all this talk about me adding someone prior to their 110th birthday (and doing this knowingly). Yes, I read the date in reverse mm/dd/yyyy, instead of dd/mm/yyyy and I made a “good faith” error. Nothing deliberate. About a year ago, Newshunter12 added four individuals to this list with incorrect birth years. Instead of making a big deal about it, I just went in and corrected the mistake. Isn’t that how most adults would handle the situation?TFBCT1 (talk) 21:49, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I see no attacks at the places you mentioned. That's where diffs can make a difference. You would be able to point us to specific posts; see Help:Diff. Tiderolls 22:38, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve done my best and I’m not sure what more I could provide, at both those locations he threatens me with no just cause, in my book that’s attacking. And I’m not sure what you’re really seeing. I made a couple “good faith” errors when filling in for another editor’s absence, was unjustly ridiculed for it on a talk page, notified by another editor that I was being threatened via my talk page, defended myself there, and ended up at ANI.TFBCT1 (talk) 22:55, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@TFBCT1: If you can't provide a diff (here is a how-to), could you at least provide a quote (and page location) of specific threats and attacks? — MarkH21 (talk) 23:11, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The main threat is the entire section added “sourcing issues” to the talk page List of the Oldest Living People. This section was not added to discuss “sourcing issues,” but to bash me. It’s clearly identified in the opening comments where I’m identified directly. Then in Newshunter12’s second comment he veers the attention back to ridiculing me unsolicited. This is not the intended purpose of a talk page and was inflammatory enough for another editor to warn me I was being threatened on my talk page. I also don’t know what the collusion between Newshunter12 and The Blade of Northern Lights is, but if you notice every time Newshunter12 posts, The Blade posts 2-3 minutes later with some affirmative response. I don’t know this second editor, nor have I ever worked with him. I am confused why he would say he is “obviously involved.” His mention of adding random “I heard it somewhere names” has absolutely nothing to do with me or this case. And finally I never said Newshunter12 had OCD. I stated he demonstrated an OCD nature which is quite different. So this characterization is also false.TFBCT1 (talk) 23:33, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, the reason you can't provide any evidence of my "personal attacks" at your talk page and elsewhere is because there were no personal attacks save the difs I posted of your personal attacks on me. Secondly, the person who "warned" you about me on your talk page is just the IP troll who has been stalking me since last year and who has a long history of screwing with other people to cause strife between me and those people in an attempt to get ME blocked, so please stop acting like it was Paul Revere or Sybil Ludington riding into the night to warn you of how Newshunter12 is out to get you. No one is out to get you, only hold you accountable for your own actions. Thirdly, it's false that you didn't make a big deal out of a one character error I made five times in a hidden section as this shows you used the tiny error I had previously made in an attempt to discredit me in a separate discussion.

Fourthly, the difs in my opening statement demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt your misbehavior has been ongoing for years, not some one off mistake. Fifthly, how is an explicitly general statement that any editor may be taken to ANI a personal attack on you? Sixthly, you have a history of pretending fewer people have problems with your edits then really do as the thread in my sixth dif above shows and again in the most recent dispute over invalid entries. DerbyCountyinNZ, LuK3, Georgia guy, CommanderLinx and even the troll for a moment have all helped remove these invalid entries or expressed support for my side of the argument, while only the troll has been on your side there, yet you pretend it's just mean Newshunter12 picking on you.

Seventhly, TBOTNL and I are not engaged in some conspiracy against you. Eighthly, how is "Newshunter12 has a habit of making up his own rules as part of his OCD nature" a hypothetical condition I might have? It's clear as day you are saying I have OCD, just as you have called me childish, manic, infantile and a 12-year-old. Newshunter12 (talk) 06:51, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the personal attacks against Newshunter12 are unacceptable. Calling him a child, obsessive-compulsive, manic, blaming him for the actions of an impostor, calling him reactionary when he tries to defend himself, then feigning technological incompetence when asked for diffs is just gamesmanship and I think most people can see that. Reyk _YO! 10:00, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. I will just stop contributing to Wikipedia altogether. Let’s see if the longevity pages are better without any of my contributions or daily updating for the past 15 years. This is causing me too much stress and I clearly have no advocates.TFBCT1 (talk) 10:24, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, drama quitting is one way to go. Or you could just issue a mea culpa, work to address the problematic behavior being pointed out, and acknowledge the importance of WP:AGF. I'll never understand editors who would rather scream about their victimhood than just say "Eh, you're right that I probably should have handled that better, and I shouldn't be getting personal with people with whom I disagree." And then, you know, just go back to editing having learned a little bit about how to be more effective as a member of the community. Grandpallama (talk) 15:08, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

TFBCT1, WP:FLOUNCE Guy (help!) 10:47, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I will take the advice of the last editor. I apologize for the “OCD nature” comment. I have already apologized for other comments that surfaced which are quite old. I will be more careful when editing and try to avoid errors and not take on additional responsibilities because of other editors absences. I still may take a break from editing altogether because I am not “feigning” being old and this stress is not good for my hypertension.TFBCT1 (talk) 17:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I support topic-banning any editor who has no mainspace contributions outside topic of claims of extreme age. This has been a festering sore on the project for years. Both of the OP and the respondent fall into this category. Virtually nothing has changed since Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Longevity, IMO. The entire area is a constant battleground, prone to dodgy claims and in some cases spam. Guy (help!) 10:58, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have over 23,000 edits on Wikipedia. Ranging from interests in population statistics, tennis, papal history, longevity, and climate, but thanks for the input.TFBCT1 (talk) 15:17, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have done extensive editing with interests ranging from portal cleanup, comics, animals, and general AfD. Longevity is only one small piece of my editing history, one which I hadn't touched in months before a few days ago. TFBCT1 is not a longevity SPA and neither am I. They have made many valuable contributions to this topic for over a decade and it's a shame their misbehavior is intractable as far as I can tell. The same stuff for years. Newshunter12 (talk) 04:40, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't go that far, there has been a lot of progress in the last year and change. And both editors you reference have done plenty outside this topic (Newshunter12 only just recently returned to it at all, he's been hard at work handling the fallout from the portal fiasco); though I've had my disagreements with TFBCT1, he's certainly not in the same category of the 110 Club fanboys. And there's no equivalent to JJB in this area anymore, mercifully. No comment on a topic ban would be appropriate for anyone, but I'd be remiss not to give an inside perspective. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:22, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I think st this stage, we should accept TFBCT1’s statement to be a lot more careful when editing, and adhere to PAG (which several of his edits quoted in this thread squarely violate), on good faith. We should also accept The Blade of the Northern Lights’s observation that things have improved materially in this area from the past. If things escalate again, then more decisive action can be considered; all should note that the community seems to have a shorter fuse in this area given the history. I suggest we close this at this stage. Britishfinance (talk) 10:39, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• GergisBaki (talk · contribs)
• Ashkenazi Jews (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Genetic studies on Jews (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Continuing on several articles today, deleting sourced content. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 20:02, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I boldly deleted and haven't re-deleted. The text I deleted is obscuring the plain fact that DNA studies indicate Ashkenazi Jews are overwhelmingly European on the matrilineal side. (The paragraph misleadingly conflated studies describing an original Middle Eastern ancestor with studies concerning the total percentage of Middle Eastern ancestry.) GergisBaki (talk) 20:05, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Where are the diffs? There is no discussion in Gergis talk page, you cant just send a warning and then report him.--SharabSalam (talk) 20:15, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Will provide diffs. And yes, given a lengthy edit history, multiple warnings and a block. See user's talk page. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 20:17, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Links to most recent deletions above. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 20:19, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For good measure, there's

• White Americans (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

GergisBaki has indeed been edit warring on White Americans. Check the page history starting on October 29th. [3] They have been edit warring, using their own preferred definitions rather than going by the sources, and making false statements about what is in the sources. And some of this was after being warned on the article talk page. [4] And there has been a whole litany of issues with them as seen by their user talk page. -Crossroads- (talk) 04:05, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Tatzref (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• User_talk:El_C#Your_block_of_Tatzref

More than 14 (full 2 weeks ago) ago Tatzref (talk · contribs) received an indef block from User:El C following a report here. Tatzref requested an unblock on his talk page (User_talk:Tatzref#ANI) shortly after, but so far it has not been reviewed (besides me only two other non-admins commented in the relevant discussions, as well as El C who declined to take any further action). I think it is quite unfair to leave an editor dangling for that long; either tell him he is not welcome here for the rest of his life or unblock him. As far as I can tell, Tatzref was accusing of violating WP:OUTING, but while I cannot access the revdel versions, he states that he only suggested that another editor name should have been revealed in a newspaper article (which already named three other Wikipedians, all of them however disclosed their identity publicly). He did not post any name or other private information on Wikipedia or anywhere else, and he did not even speculate about what it may be, he just said that it should be disclosed. El C noted in his reply that Tatzref posted some urls that "seemed highly suspicious at the time and [were] factored into the block" but "on closer examinations [are] actually fine". I do not believe that Tatzref did anything that warrants more than a warning; suggesting that someone's identity should be revealed is in bad taste but it is not OUTING (we don't penalize thoughtcrime, right?). Further mitigating circumstances to consider are the fact that the editor Taztref was referring to has been himself indef blocked by ArbCom for off wiki harassment, of which Tatzref might have been a victim off (I am not sure about that) and regardless of any connection here that Tatzref himself was recently subject to pretty nasty off wiki harassment which he documents on his talk page. So if he lost his nerves a bit, it is somewhat understandable. In either case, in his unblock request Taztref apologized and promised to be careful in the future: "If I did contravene the Wikipedia policy in any way it was unintentional, as the policy does not address this situation, and I apologize for having done so. Had I received a warning, which I believe would have been the appropriate course of action, I would have taken heed. If I am unblocked, I undertake not to discuss the matter further.". Given that per WP:INDEF "Indefinite blocks are usually applied when there is significant disruption or threats of disruption, or major breaches of policy... As with all blocks, it is not a punishment. It is designed to prevent further disruption, and the desired outcome is a commitment to observe Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and to stop problematic conduct in future." think that Tatzref should be unblocked, since he clearly promised to be careful in areas related to OUTING in the future. At least, assuming there is any shred of truth behind it when we say that blocks and such are preventative, not punitive. Seriously, if he did out someone, saying sorry may not cut it, but saying that someone should be outed and apologizing for it later is hardly an indication of hardcore vandal deserving an instant ban... Thoughts? Endorse indef, shorten, unblock, issue any further warning? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:10, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Piotrus, did you ask El C? Guy (help!) 09:36, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User_talk:El_C#Your_block_of_Tatzref. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Added to the head of this request. Guy (help!) 10:05, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd be inclined to endorse the block, but unblock on the basis of "time served" given that the events were highly charged and the issue is now largely moot. Guy (help!) 10:11, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Uninvolved editors should not be posting requests to review unblocks here. There are many blocked editors who have been waiting in the queue for a while. Asking admins to handle some random person's request is not fair to the other editors. Someone will eventually get around to the unblock request. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:47, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Letting potentially unjustly blocked editors languish indefinitely isn't fair either. Tatzref has been blocked for two weeks, and you're saying there's people who've had their unblock requests left sitting for even longer than that. I think that's not a satisfactory situation, so maybe periodic reminders that the unblock request backlog is kinda long would be a good thing. Reyk _YO! 11:34, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I had a quick look and Tatzref's unblock request does seem to be at the long end although I was hampered by below. Most others with longer requests either seemed to be the sort of insane requests where the editor had made many unblock requests and I guess no one could be bothered working out if they should kill talk page access do they just let it languish. Quite a few of the long ones also looked like they were socking cases so may require CU comment, or at least may require significant work (if the editor denied socking). Nil Einne (talk) 12:07, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Someone changed my subthread into a thread. I don't really mind since it's 50/50 whether it should be a subthread (it arises out of this, but it's only very minorly related), but to be clear when I said below I mean #Username change and unblock request. Nil Einne (talk) 13:00, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  NinjaRobotPirate, meh, no biggie I reckon. This is not a third party unblock request, after all, and people are allowed to have mates on Wiki. Guy (help!) 14:11, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Piotrus, a thought stays in someone's head. A call to out an editor's real-life identity is not a "thought" —it is an outing effort— so the notion of a thought crime somehow having been enforced in this case seems rather spurious. As for the unblock request, as stated, I'd rather someone else attends to it as they see fit. El_C 16:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• El_C A public suggestion to act against a policy is not a policy violation, and is justifiable by WP:IAR. In response, we can tell people that violating policy is a bad idea. But blocking them for a suggestion is not far from thoughtcrime. If I were to say 'I think we should vandalize an article if we feel stressed', that would be a pretty stupid idea, but would you block me for saying this in a discussion? OUTING clearly states "Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person has voluntarily posted their own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia ... attempted outing is sufficient grounds for an immediate block." It does not state that suggesting such an action should be taken is a policy violation. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:19, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• That is a stretch. Policies are not created equal and this isn't a philosophical debate — on the contrary, it involves the lives of real people. At any case, vandalism is something that can be quickly corrected, but being outed could have permanent lasting effects. And they were not arguing to change the policy on outing, in general. Rather, they identified a particular individual as a target for outing. Painting that attempt as some harmless, fleeting thought is a distortion. El_C 17:11, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I think this is an issue worth raising at WT:OUTING. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't understand why you would split the discussion. El_C 03:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Because WP:FORUMSHOPPING. He raised it twice here, once on Tatzref's TP and once on yours. I won't be surprised if we next see it on the Signpost: "Honest editor suggests Jewish conspiracy and paid editing, blocked by stray admin. Appeal to ArbCom ongoing." François Robere (talk) 13:31, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I also encourage the reviewing admin (and all other admins, as well) to read closely the redacted edits here and here, especially in regards to Tatzref's claim of an "Israeli/Jewish POV network." El_C 16:59, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Since I receive a copy of the redacted edits, I've reviewed this, and what I see is a statement that "there is a far stronger case for the existence of an Israeli/Jewish POV network than a Polish one" [in reference to the newspaper article covered in recen Signpost issue which makes a claim that a Polish one exists]. Shrug. His view is debatable, WP:NOTAFORUM might be invoked and discussion closed if it is irrelevant for encyclopedia building, but how does it relate to indef block I have not a faintest clue. PS. Come to think of it, since no public information was revealed, I am not sure if said redacted edits should have been or should stay redacted at all. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:19, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I operate under the notion that we have a low tolerance toward depictions which resemble Jewish conspiracies. What is even a "POV network" (how is that even established?) and why single out an "Israeli/Jewish" one vis-a-vis a Polish one? Obviously, there are two sides to Antisemitism in Poland debate, but a POV network? Really? Anyway, any admin is free to un-revdelete those revisions at any time, I have no objection. But as already mentioned, I'd rather not involve myself further in this unless directly queried. El_C 17:11, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Before being unblocked, shouldn't an editor's unblock request comply with WP:GAB? Most of Tatzref's unblock request continues the battleground behavior by blaming the editor who was outed, claiming it wasn't outing, saying the policy isn't clear, etc. – Levivich 19:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "blaming the editor who was outed". No editor Tazref mentions was outed. Tatzref mentions Icewhiz, who was blocked for off wiki harassment. Not sure which part of his request is 'blaming him'? And what battleground mentality? It's pretty clear that Tazref apologized and promises not to act in such a way again. That's battleground mentality for you? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:19, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Few things to note:

1. Tatzref was warned against making such comments at least twice before,[5][6] but didn't seem to mind.[7][8]
2. He has repeatedly cast aspersions on his fellow editors, even when those were clearly false (see here for three such occasions). He had repeatedly claimed, without proof, that some editors are being paid for their work.
3. He has repeatedly invoked antisemitic sources, such as Marek Jan Chodakiewicz,[9] "Mark Paul"[10] and Gilad Atzmon[11] (his first and last edits, respectively). In one case, in order to circumvent a ban on a source, he copied the source's references and tried to retrace its work.[12] He has repeatedly distorted sources, in one case

Tatzref is not WP:here to build an encyclopedia. Don't let him back in. François Robere (talk) 01:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is worth noting that you, in tandem with the now-indef banned Icewhiz, had criticized Tatzref time and again, including presenting extensive "evidence" about his purported bad edits and attitude, and workshop related proposals, during Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland. ArbCom chose to disregard all of your claims and made no finding concerning Tatzref, choosing instead to topic ban Icewhiz. One could assume that if Tatzref was indeed here not to build an encyclopedia, ArbCom would at the very least issue a remedy concerning him. Of particular relevance in said ArbCom, in addition to findings related to bad faith and battleground mentality, is the BLP violation one, where ArbCom noted that is inadvisable, to say the least, to make "negative claims or speculations about living scholars". Such as accusing them of antisemitism (see diffs linked in the finding). I'd suggest you take heed of what ArbCom wrote, assume good faith about others, and stop making inappropriate claims about BLPs. Tazref is here to build an encyclopedia just as you are. That his POV may differ is irrelevant. People who disagree with you are to be reasoned with, not banned. Wikipedia thrives on the multitude of voices, not on creating walled gardens by banning everyone who may have a different view. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:42, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

1. Actually it's at least four editors who have independently raised issues regarding Tatzref's editing (see here and here as well).
2. You already made the point on ArbCom, and I already replied: ArbCom ignored all evidence that wasn't directly about the parties - multiple editors', yourself included. They haven't rejected any particular claim about Tatzref or anyone else. You participated in the discussion on Jimbo's TP where their considerations were explained.[13]
3. I assume you refer to Chodakiewicz, as "Mark Paul" is a pseudonym and Atzmon isn't a scholar. Jan T. Gross said that that Ch. is antisemitic, Piotr Wróbel said he "doesn't like the Jews", Joanna Michlic suggested he's prejudicial towards Jews and minorities, Laurence Weinbaum implied that he comes close to justifying anti-Jewish violence, and Andrzej Żbikowski wrote that he does indeed justify, and that he "lacks empathy" towards Jewish victims.
4. And then there's Ewa Kurek, and the dozens of references to the Polish-Canadian Congress Toronto Branch's website - a non-RS that's unfortunately headed by a man who thinks Jews are trying to take over Poland economically.[14] I think that's enough. François Robere (talk) 13:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• The block was good (I agree that we should err on the side of caution for anything related to outing), but I'd be inclined to conditionally unblock if the user accepts a ban from discussing Icewhiz and the Haaretz article going forward, and provides an assurance to refrain from personal commentary in general. This would seem to satisfy the issues raised by the block. This is a block for a specific offense (and a debatable one at that), and I don't think it's legitimate to retroactively revise it as a NOTHERE block. @François Robere: If you want to topic or site ban the user for general misconduct, I would say compose a sanction proposal. Do it here or at AN, with a separate heading, and I will hold off moving forward with the unblock. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 19:39, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Can someone deal with User talk:Pynf6PLq*8bl? I'm fairly sure that's breaking the bot for User:Cyberbot I/Requests for unblock report. (I've reported the possible problem to User talk:cyberpower678.) To be clear, I have no opinion on whether the editor should be unblocked. Nil Einne (talk) 11:54, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Actually just noticed it's also a request for a username change. Nil Einne (talk) 12:02, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For clarity since someone changed my subthread into a thread, this arises out of the discussion above #Unblock request now at two+ weeks, editor apologized, seems simple enough? as I noticed it when researching the above. It's very loosely related since it's making it more difficult to assess what's going on, although I'm not sure it matters much. Nil Einne (talk) 13:02, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Nil Einne, Bobby Tables? Guy (help!) 14:10, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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

User:Boinelomatlapeng has uploaded four images that mask copyvio/licence laundering status by linking to non-existent webpages. One of them has stock photo watermarks. ミラP 15:58, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Miraclepine, please provide links to the images in question. I went through the user's file edit history, re-tagged the fair use criteria for three, and marked a fourth for deletion based on very questionable license claims, but you should always provide links. Also, note to admins: Boinelomatlapeng tried to remove this report, so I'm not feeling the good faith here. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 18:07, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Creffett: Here they are:

File:Kanaueda.jpg

File:Nozomu-sasaki.jpg

File:Koichi Yamadera.jpg

File:Mori Katsuji.jpg

ミラP 18:08, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Miraclepine, I don't think you have posted a notice of this ANI to Boinelomatlapeng's talk page, thanks. ?

Sorry, forgot. I'll do it. ミラP 23:57, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I warned WoodElf (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and revdel'd two edits on Trump–Ukraine scandal (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), but I am disturbed by this, which argues that Breitbart is credible (Washington Examiner was among the cources cited here). Guy (help!) 17:17, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A supposed name has been added to the article, removed, and revdel'ed three times in the last two days. As a result I have imposed extended-confirmed protection. Snow consensus at the talk page is that we should NOT list any suggested or proposed or alleged identity for the whistleblower. At least not now while Reliable Sources are not doing so. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:27, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment There was a graphical source chart that, reasonably well, illustrated the degree to which a source was reliable, credible, and objective (possibly on Wikipedia); however, I can't recall its location. Personally, I would say the Washington Examiner is akin to the New York Post, so if that's a credible source, then it too is. It's got some issues with bias, but as to reliability, I think it's met. As for Breitbart, as I recall, it was regarded as more biased and less credible than Fox News but the graphical chart (which, as I say, was on Wikipedia or linked to from Wikipedia) still regarded it as "reliable"—if not somewhat questionable. I would equate it slightly less credible than Axios, and roughly the same as HuffPost. If HuffPo is not regarded by Wikipedia as reliable, then Breitbart would not be. Ideally, these sort of sources (HuffPo, Qz, Breitbart, et al.) should be cited by one other (and preferably two other) reliable source(s), I think. InfoWars, by contrast, is wholly not reliable.Doug Mehus (talk) 17:34, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)A good cheat sheet on reliability is WP:RSP. Which of course every source is to be examined on a case by case basis but this is a good summary of past consensus and discussion. I do not think either of those sources are good enough for naming the person yet. Unless, as MelanieN says, stronger sources are doing it. PackMecEng (talk) 17:38, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

PackMecEng, That's not the chart I was thinking of, but am pleased to see that BuzzFeed News is not considered reliable; I personally think either Breitbart should be a yellow caution/warning or BuzzFeed should be a grey/no. What's the policy on yellow/warning sources? As I said above...get it cited by one, ideally two, other green sources? Doug Mehus (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the source, the list only summarizes past discussions on Wiki about those sources. It is hard to say what it would take, if a few really strong sources mentioned them and not in passing it might be worth talking about. PackMecEng (talk) 17:46, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The other issue is that even the dubious (W/E, Spectator) sources refer to him as the "alleged" whistleblower. They don't state it as fact. Black Kite (talk) 18:23, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dmehus, https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ Guy (help!) 17:39, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

JzG, Thanks! That's the one I was thinking of! At any rate, The Washington Examiner may be a yellow/warning source, so it would count as one potentially reliable source but we'd want to get confirmation from a green source (including a primary source), I think?--Doug Mehus (talk) 17:48, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dmehus, it's a very bad source for politics, it's extremely biased. Guy (help!) 19:39, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

JzG, True...I just hope we're not counting HuffPo's original content as a reliable source, especially for politics. Their syndicated CP and AP content is fine.--Doug Mehus (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dmehus, I'm not, for sure. Guy (help!) 22:22, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Neither BB, IW, WE or NYP are RS, though WE and NYP aren't quite as low as the other two.

Not that I disagree, but what is the Policy or TOS rationale for censoring the whistleblower name? François Robere (talk) 17:42, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BLP, obviously--Ymblanter (talk) 17:44, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ymblanter, But does the whistleblower have a Wikipedia page? It's not clear to me how this policy applies here—unless it's libelous or the policy allows the subject to request deletion of their own Wikipedia policy?--Doug Mehus (talk) 17:48, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The policy is not about individual Wikipedia pages, it is about information added to any Wikimedia projects. If someone writes the name here in this discussion, the edit will have to be oversighted.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:53, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BLP? You should know that.--Jorm (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

François Robere, Agreed. Unless it's classified, and I'm not sure it is, and unless it's libelous, which it isn't, I see no reason against publicizing the name. Doug Mehus (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dmehus, WP:BLPNAME. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:15, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically WP:BLPNAME. PackMecEng (talk) 17:48, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BLPNAME would be applicable, except that this article is based almost entirely upon the allegations of the whistleblower, therefore alleged identities of said whistleblower very much constitute part of the scope of the article. In this case, since the allegation is widely reported, I would advocate for its inclusion. As previously mentioned by another user, this does not constitute slander or state secrets. User:WoodElf 18:21, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@WoodElf:, they aren't using the whistleblower's report any more because of all of the on-the-record testimony that made it irrelevant. That affirms that the identify of the whistleblower is irrelevant to us. BLPNAME is clear. I have RevDel'd the addition of the name of the alleged whistleblower a few times myself and will continue to if necessary. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:14, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This was a bit of a trick question: BLPNAME is only marginally applicable here - the part that is relevant to this case is so vaguely phrased, that one could easily argue for inclusion using other policy rationales. More convincing reasons AFAIC would be TOS-related (if that was against the law at some locale the WMF operates from) or extra-policy - and here I agree with K.e.coffman (see below): the main reason to exclude is that it might place that individual in serious personal danger, that is unjustified by any other Wiki-related consideration. To that I will add that Wikipedia, as a semi-journalistic pursuit, has an innate interest in the free flow of information, and exposing a legitimate whistleblower would undermine the very foundations of this enterprise. François Robere (talk) 20:40, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am quoting a conversation that occurred between the admin and I on User_talk:JzG#Re:_BLP_violation_warning, defending my actions:

• @WoodElf: You cannot be serious. This is not a matter of "censorship". It's about Wikipedia being used (by you) as an extenstion of a harassment capmaign that targets a purported whislblower. Disclosing the name will place that individual and their family at risk of serious harm. Wikipedia should not be participating in this. --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:16, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understand your concerns, but again, I haven't delved into some fringe conspiracy website for this information. The allegations have been published on multiple websites and social media. The disclosure has already occurred. I take offense to the implication that I am a part of a "harassment campaign". I am simply reporting after the fact. User:WoodElf 18:28, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BLP demands much more than that. Publishing somebody's name on the Internet and reporting on that name in the context of a rumor is far from the BLP requirement that multiple reliable sources with a reputation for fact-checking have definitively stated that the person is who they are rumored to be. See the case of Richard Jewell. Acroterion (talk) 18:35, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Acroterion, That's a good point, but also a point of how the so-called reliable source media got things terribly wrong.--Doug Mehus (talk) 19:42, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and it's one reason why the same media sources are vastly more cautious nowadays. And that was before the Internet was widespread. Acroterion (talk) 22:07, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree with others that this should clearly be kept out: the whistleblower is a low-profile individual who has taken steps to keep their identity private. Stating the name doesn't serve any encyclopedic purpose and carries a substantial risk of harm to a living person. Reliable media sources (which generally have somewhat more relaxed standards than Wikipedia when it comes to this sort of thing) have mostly declined to publicize the name for precisely that reason. Even Facebook is deleting this, and I'd like to think we're at least slightly more careful than they are at this point. Nblund ^talk 18:51, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Filter

• There is a significant amount of media coverage regarding this name, including more reliable sources that are bringing up the name. I don't want to link said articles as it could theoretically be argued that posting such would be a WP:BLP violation, even though I don't subscribe to that belief. I will still call for an abundance of caution regarding this subject, for obvious reasons. I believe there should be a healthy discussion regarding the theoretical creation of this article, given the increasing media coverage--a trend that I believe will continue. This issue should be solved with collaboration by certain editors, and community consensus, not consistently revdeleting/stifling any discussion of it. I believe it should -eventually- become an article. Tutelary (talk) 02:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I would also add the following caution. Sometimes the media gets it wrong. Sometimes law enforcement and prosecutors get it wrong. See Richard Jewell, Yoshiyuki Kōno, Duke lacrosse case, and McMartin preschool trial. There is a real possibility that the name being bandied about is the wrong person. So how do we deal with the possibility of sources getting it wrong? Two ways. First, don't accuse living people of things without solid sources, and in particular, if an otherwise reliable source reports that Captain Jason McCord was a deserter and the source has no possible way of knowing whether or not that claim is true we should not consider that source to be reliable on the topic of McCord's guilt no matter how reliable it is in general. Second, when we do report such things, it should always be with attribution; Not "Jason McCord was a deserter" but rather "Wyoming Territorial Enterprise reporter Ned Travis called Jason McCord a 'deserter'." --Guy Macon (talk) 03:24, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Tutelary, we all know that when the most powerful man in the world is determined to get a name out, even when that would be a gross breach of both ethical norms and the law, then it will happen. Wikipedia is not going to be part of blazing that trail. The filter can be disabled when there is consensus it's no longer needed, which IMO would be after it is in at least two reliable mainstream sources with sufficient context to avoid violating WP:BLP.

  We are certainly not at that stage now.

  Analogy: publication of the name is like mobsters trying to smear the guy who pulled the fire alarm for claimed links with the fire department benevolent fund, and asserting that this somehow invalidates not just any investigation of the fire but also the finding that the burned out building is full of gas cans and match books with the mob boss's fingerprints all over them. Guy (help!) 11:41, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • This phrase "blazing the trail" keeps getting mentioned here. I contend that Wikipedia will not be blazing a trail by mentioning the whistleblower's name. His name has already been mentioned in multiple articles in RealClearPolitics, Washington Examiner and Heavy.com as well as many other smaller websites. I ask that my fellow editors understand that Wikipedia can, and should, update the article to reflect coverage. User:WoodElf 12:45, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Many other smaller websites" is generally a clear indication of BLP violation. If Fox News (for example) starts broadcasting the name with regularity, let's think again. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:13, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I can understand the BLP concerns for the Wikipedia page. I did not mention the name under discussion in this thread out of the same consideration. But going so far as to delete links to legitimate news websites which I cited in my defense on this thread?? Orwellian much? Besides which the alleged whistleblower's name was already in the news a couple of years earlier: (Redacted) User:WoodElf 13:32, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • You're deliberately trying to skirt the rules, and the last who did that (Wumbolo) was indeffed for it... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 13:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • As discussed here, I will add details to the article in good faith, based on reliable sources, without contravening the clauses of BLP. User:WoodElf 14:56, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

            WoodElf, that would be an extremely bad idea, given your idiosyncratic view of what constitutes a reliable source (e.g. Breitbart, as per your request at the spam blacklist). Guy (help!) 17:32, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

            WoodElf, do not add the name. Adding the name contravenes WP:BLPNAME. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

zzuuzz, can we get this permutation added to the filter? – Muboshgu (talk) 22:56, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WoodElf and RS

WoodElf has edited only intermittently since 2007 and appears not to be heeding advice about what constitutes reliable sourcing for information about living people. In addition to the now-suppressed edits relating to the whistleblower, he has proposed Breitbart as a reliable source], used the Washington Examiner as a source for the whistleblower's identity, used Fox News as a source for details about the Trump administration's attempts to out the whistleblower, and a source of no clear relaibility as a source for a statement of fact regarding the legality or otherwise of that act. Set agaionst that, this edit is decently sourced.

I am concerned as to whether, based on this and the redaction and statement above, WoodElf is acting in good faith in this topic and should perhaps be topic banned, at least until we are no longer in a position where we are not having to control abuse by conservative activists looking to use Wikipedia to propagate this information. At the very least after making two edits that have had to be suppressed for the same reason, WoodElf should be aware that even one more such edit will undoubtedly result in a block or ban. Guy (help!) 17:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Mate, check the edit history. I didn't add the Fox news citation, MelanieN (talk · contribs) did, take it up with them. Leaving aside the fact that you have an objection to Fox News, which is considered a reliable source on Wikipedia, you also removed two citations I had added from the BBC and Reuters in your reverting zeal. I have already raised concerns about your objectivity. Labeling editors arbitrarily as conservative activists without a shred of evidence seems to confirm it.User:WoodElf 17:55, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• A conversation with JzG (talk · contribs) on my page. I find his behavior troubling to say the least. Can an admin arbitrarily choose what constitutes a reliable source or not? I defer to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources.

I await a full retraction and apology from the posting admin.

WoodElf, Already checked, corrected and noted on your talk. I remain convinced that your return form hiatus, along with two suppressed edits outing the WB, is a very bad sign. Guy (help!) 18:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Mate, just call it an honest mistake and move on. I didn't sign up for this drama. User:WoodElf 19:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:WoodElf 18:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Guy: It’s true that the Fox News reference that you object to was not added by WoodElf. It was added by me. It appeared to be neutral and factual, as Fox News (the News division) usually is. (See WP:Perennial sources.) WoodElf simply moved it to another location in the article. On a related issue, please see my message on your talk page. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Given the attempted outing of the purported whistleblower by WoodElf, as well as advocacy of Breitbart, I believe that a topic ban from Trump-Ukraine scandal, broadly construed, is appropriate at this point. --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:28, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Can you please address my concerns which I have raised on the unfair, seemingly politically motivated attacks by JzG? Thanks. User:WoodElf 18:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WoodElf, the only motivation here is WP:BLP. Your editing has been sporadic for over a decade, I am not sure you've fully understood Wikipedia's developing consensus on sourcing around living people, or around specific sources in politics. You also don't seem to be an especially fast learner, given the suppressed edit you made to this page. It's not clear what political motivation there would be for excluding the three sources you name. I work on the "media boas chart", largely, which ranks sources by accuracy and bias. For this article we should stick with sources that have high accuracy and low bias, and exclude all others regardless of alignment. It may also not be a great idea for someone with an average of 20 edits per month to lay down the law about source reliability. Guy (help!) 18:47, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Your charge to topic ban me (current discussion) is based on your own misunderstanding of the timeline of events. As such, I'd expect you to do the honorable thing and strikeout your latest allegations. As I have already mentioned, I referred to Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources/Perennial sources. If you object to users citing from this list, please look into it. Until such time, I will not expect any objections. User:WoodElf 18:49, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

MelanieN, as noted, yes, sorry, I corrected that already. Guy (help!) 18:40, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bussy4life, now reappearing as IloveCLCstudent, is both a quite determined vandal, and seems keen to harass those trying to clean up their vandalism. This seems like a job for WP:AN/I. -- The Anome (talk) 17:56, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is now a third one, Candycreamqq. All three are currently blocked. I will file an SPI report - unless someone here wants to tackle the situation? The vandalism is severe, with rapid-fire posting of obscene pictures in the sandbox and on their own talk page, as well as attacking users who cross them. I suspect they will keep it up with additional socks. Checkusers, are you able to do a rangeblock on users as well as on IPs? -- MelanieN (talk) 18:31, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And now resurfaced at Candycreamqq. Their main interest seems to be vandalizing the sandbox with sexual images. -- The Anome (talk) 18:30, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I believe a CU has taken a look and possibly done a thing. No guarantees for this one.. for future reference, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Yourname. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:37, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Their signature move seems to be continual reverts of attempts to remove their vandalism. Would it be possible to use the edit filter to prevent multiple rapid-fire reverts by non-autoconfirmed accounts using the rate limit options in that filter? -- The Anome (talk) 18:41, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The short answer is yes, a filter could reduce the disruption. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:23, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lazy-restless caught my attention after he had made this comment, and his history on Wikipedia shows that he has been trying to push a WP:FRINGE theory, which claims that Muhammad is a messiah of Hinduism. So far it is clear that Lazy-restless has no idea what is WP:RS, WP:SPS, WP:FRINGE and WP:BATTLE.

Until now, Lazy-restless has created:-

• Kalki Avtar aur Muhammad sahib (book) (deleted after this Afd)
• Kalki Avatar and Muhammad (book) (deleted after this Afd, also look at the DRV initiated by him)
• Muhammad and the Hindu scriptures by moving a faulty draft to main page

After the issue was raised on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Muhammad and the Hindu scriptures, he was quick to start canvassing other users,[20] and displayed further WP:IDHT. Bharatiya29 18:17, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I just looked a bit more through their editing history. That, and their latest edits/comments suggest someone clueless about the Vedas, when Bhagavat Purana was written, etc. That is not the problem here though, as we don't expect editors to be experts in the subject or field they are contributing. The problem is the repeated disregard for our content guidelines, repeated use of questionable and fringe sources in topic areas that are sensitive/controversial/provocative. Possibly a WP:NOTHERE who should move their attention to subjects/topics other than Indian religions, broadly construed. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:07, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

On 22:30, 6 November 2019 an edit was suppressed by Diannaa ( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Pete_Buttigieg ) despite the fact that I very carefully paraphrased, neither copying nor violating WP:Synthesis, in my 05:38, 6 November 2019 edit. I asked for logs showing this was a copyright issue and this editor was not able to provide logs indicating this was the case, instead arguing the material should be deleted. While I disagree the information should be deleted, that can be a discussion. However, edit suppression on the grounds of copyright infringement, when there was no copyright infringement, is a breach of admin duty. DouggCousins (talk) 20:38, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can't tell what the problem with NYTimes is as I've used up the monthly articles (Link), but the problem I see for the Vox article is that except from some synonyms and shifting sentence fragments around the verbiage is still fairly similar in the source: A city-commissioned study on racial inequalities in the city from 2017 found the black population in South Bend has higher levels of poverty and unemployment than the country. About 40 percent of black residents are living below the poverty line, and there’s an 11 percent unemployment rate in that community. in Vox article while A 2017 study commissioned by the city on racial inequality in South Bend found the black population there has higher levels of poverty and unemployment than the country. The unemployment rate in the black community’s at 11 percent there, and about 40 percent of black people are living below the poverty line is our article. This raises close paraphrasing concerns. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:55, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Beyond the close paraphrasing concerns, there's also the issue of this editor's POV pushing verging into the disruptive. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:59, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I'm subscribed to NYT, and the close paraphrasing is immediately apparent upon even an initial look. For example: Reports of violent crime increased nearly 18 percent during the first seven months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. The number of people being shot has also risen markedly this year, after dropping last year. The city’s violent crime rate is double the average for American cities its size. (NYT quote), Violent crime increased nearly 18 percent according to reporting during the first seven months of 2019 in comparison to the first seven months of 2018. There were also a greater number of people being shot this year, after that number dropped last year. The violent crime rate in South Bend is twice the average for American cities of its size. (article edit). That's an extremely close paraphrase and for all intents and purposes is saying the exact same thing in the same way with only a few words changed. I would agree with this revision deletion, and would caution DouggCousins to avoid paraphrasing so closely going forward. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:36, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I too looked at the NYT page, and found the same – a few words had been changed or shuffled about, but the text was recognisably the same and the sequence of the material was identical. Removal and revdeletion was entirely appropriate. The content in revisions 924254173 and 924469334, on the other hand, was copy-pasted verbatim from the sources. DouggCousins, any further copyright violation on your part is likely to result in loss of editing privileges. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:00, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Tiger versus lion might be one of the most tedious walls of text I've witnessed on Wikipedia. In recent days the article and talkpage have become a free-fire zone that has led me to fully protect the article for a day just to stop the rapid-fire reverts and arguing. I've blocked one two editors for attempted outing and aspersions - and the editor who is the target of the aspersions and outing used to be named "Eichman Heydrich" ... Little of this behavior is new to the article, it's been like this for its entire history, and it's probably the biggest original research offender in the encyclopedia. Short of blocking everybody who's edited the article for the last week for edit-warring, I'm at a loss about what to do with the article and the editing environment. Suggestions are welcome, up to and including nuking it all from orbit. Acroterion (talk) 02:58, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, I just scanned the talk page and immediately ran headfirst into a wall. Plus, one of the accounts outed the other there, too, in several places. So more rev/deletion, and perhaps an indef block. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 03:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• It's a significant undertaking just tracking down all the outing amid the wordwall. I've warned a longtime editor on that page for that - at least I'm confident that they're sticking to one account. Acroterion (talk) 03:15, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Its the worst article and equally worst talk page on Wikipedia. It’s survived multiple AfDs by some miracle. The solution to this article and its problems is deletion. For those who don’t feel like reading it, it’s basically big cat fans arguing over which is better. Both the article and the talk. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:16, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks to be Deftred's contributions just this evening. A limited number, so it isn't too hard to find the outings. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 03:18, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think I've gotten it - both Deftred and what I take to be his sock are blocked.When I'm feeling less exasperated, I might work on an AfD propsal. Acroterion (talk) 03:25, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Somehow, Acroterion, and not for lack of effort on your part, some of the outing is still encased in a rant there. These guys know a lot about lions and tigers, fighting. Now I'm off to draft a piece on scorpions and tarantulas. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 03:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • You're right, got it. Thanks for checking. Acroterion (talk) 03:34, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Please AfD it again. BTW, a Google search on [ Ducks vs. Penguins ] turns up "About 42,600,000 results"... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 03:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Seconding AfD. This article serves no encyclopedic value. 50.35.82.234 (talk) 03:49, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • At least they're both in the same league. Tigers and Lions are in different sports. Acroterion (talk) 03:47, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • I propose we change the article to say

                Based on extensive scientific analysis, it has been proven beyond and shred of doubt that in any hypothetical or real fight between a tiger and a lion, the tiger will win. This applies even if it is a badly injured and starving tiger cub the size of a domestic cat and the biggest most dangerous lion that has ever existed. In fact, it has been demonstrated that even a single such tiger cub will be able to defeat the 100 most dangerous lions cooperating in a reasonable fashion. (Not in the "Mook Chivalry" style of fighting made famous as a TV trope where a group will generally engage with a single person one at a time.)

                We then ask the WMF to permanently superprotect the article and talk page and archives, and for good measure add an edit filter forbidding any edit mentioning tiger and lion in the same edit. Problem solved! Nil Einne (talk) 10:06, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                • @Nil Einne: but what of lions and tigers and bears (oh my)? Thryduulf (talk) 11:23, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Just realised I typoed "any" as "and". Luckily my proposal wasn't already implemented and we're now stuck with the typo forever. Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• The article's a complete joke, a mess of bulletlists of random stuff. Here's an excerpt:

  According to the Gettysburg Compiler and The Baltimore Sun (1899), towards the end of the 19th century in India, the Gaekwad of Baroda, that is Sayajirao III,[76][77] arranged a fight in an amphitheater, between a Barbary lion called 'Atlas', from the Atlas Mountains between Algeria and Morocco, and a man-eating Bengal tiger from the Indian region of Shimla, both large and hungry (with their diets reduced before the fight), before an audience of thousands, instead of between an Indian lion and the tiger, as Indian lions were believed to be no match for Bengal tigers.[b] The tiger was more than 10 feet (3.0 metres) long, over 4 feet (120 centimetres) feet at the shoulder, had strong shoulders and long teeth and claws, and was agile. The lion looked taller at the head than the tiger, and had a large mane, legs and paws. The tiger was seen as "the personification of graceful strength and supple energy," whereas the lion was seen as the "embodiment of massive power and adamantine muscle".[64] In the fight, both cats sustained injuries, and although the tiger sometimes retreated from Atlas, it would come back to fight it, and in the end, managed to scratch Atlas to death, though Atlas pushed it off in one final move before dying. The Gaekwad agreed to pay 37,000 rupees, accepted that the tiger was the "King of the Cat Family," decreed that Atlas' body be given a Royal burial, and that the tiger should have a "cage of honour" in the menagerie of Baroda, and decided to prepare the tiger for a battle with a Sierran grizzly bear weighing more than 1,500 lb (680 kilograms). The battle was to happen after the tiger recovered from its wounds.

That the article's authors are able pass such nonsense on to our readers with a straight face implies a possible CIR problem. We even have an article Atlas_the_Barbary_lion_versus_the_Bengal_tiger_of_Simla reporting this idiocy as straight fact. EEng 11:19, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• It seems completely plausible to me. Do you have some proof that this was a newspaper hoax?--Auric talk 14:49, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

At some point soon we need administration to step up and get a handle on your colleagues.Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Transport.--Moxy 🍁 07:19, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Despite all of the one-sided personal attacks, WP:HOUNDING, badgering and bad faith that has been occurring against me in the discussion, I have remained calm and civil throughout. There's not much I can do about what another user chooses to type. Not sure why the above is phrased in plural form using the word "colleagues", as I have not engaged in any personal attacks, hounding, badgering or name-calling whatsoever that require "getting a handle on". Hopefully the user who has solely been engaging in these activities against me will calm down. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is it okay for someone to call someone else a liar and an idiot? That seems like a PA to me. 50.35.82.234 (talk) 10:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is a PA and definitely not ok @anon. Someone needs to muzzle BHG since she's clearly not going to abide by WP:NPA. AryaTargaryen (talk) 10:54, 10 November 2019 (UTC)AryaTargaryen[reply]

Muzzle is not the right word. But I agree, something should be done. The question is will anyone have the gumption to do it. 50.35.82.234 (talk) 11:01, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It will end when both admins are topic banned from portals. This is absurd. Mr Ernie (talk) 11:05, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I urge anyone interested to actually read Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Transport.

The problem there is that User:Northamerica1000 is engaged in a sustained exercise of gaming the system, which includes:

• systematic and repeated misrepresentation of other editors
• repeatedly citing as guidance a page which they themselves asked not be a guideline
• using sneaky and stealthy editing techniques to hide severe POV-pushing
• refusing offers to collaborate on RFCs to resolve susbstantive issues
• repeatedly posting demonstrable falsehoods across multiple discussions (the most of extreme of which led me finally decided to call a spade a spade, and explicitly call them "either a liar or an idiot")

That MFD is yet another venue for a sustained baiting exercise by NA1K, who has deployed similar techniques many times before. The pattern is that NA1K engages in a sustained pattern of verbosely posting faleshoods, deceptions and failures of reasoning; and then howls "personal attack! hounding!" when called out on their lies and idiocy.

I stand by my description of NA1K as either a liar or an idiot, or both.

I have never before seen on Wikipedia any admin attempt to game system as brazenly as NA1K has here:

1. call for a Wikipedia guideline to be delisted, and downgraded to a failed proposal
2. then cite that same failed proposal in defence of POV-pushing, ... and when challenged on that duplicity, dig deeper trying pompous word-play to create a synonym for "guideline": schema for advisement

This is not social media. We are here to build an encyclopedia. That is an intellectual process which requires both honesty and integrity, and the ability to engage in rational discussion. NA1K's conduct repeatedly reveals some sort of severe deficiency of that combination, and it reached its peak at the Transport MFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:23, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please justify the above personal attacks of calling them an idiot and a liar. 50.35.82.234 (talk) 14:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As seen above we really need a stop to the harassment and attacks. Hard for the rest of us to move forward when we have an admin going out of there way to be disputive and block any conversation about the topic.--Moxy 🍁 15:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Moxy, the admin going out of there way to be disputive and block any conversation about the topic is NA1K.

NA1K has repeatedly refused my requests to collaborate on RFCs to resolve the issues. That's the only blocking of any conversation.

The disruption is NA1K's attempts to game the system, which includes: their sneaky list additions, their stealthy conversions of portals to a "black box" format, their persistent failure to consult or even notify WikiProjects, their creation of massively POV lists, ... and most brazenly, their attempt to cite as a guideline a page which they themself had demanded by de-listed as a guideline. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above response makes it clear to me BHG has no intention of stopping the personal attacks, so long as they believe that they are justified in their position. WaltCip (talk) 15:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned Brown is not aware of what others are seeing for the past few months. There have been numerous RFC attempts to help to define portals and there content by third parties all ending because of Brown's involvement. In many cases out right attacks on the proposers based on Brown's POV of a perceived bias of the questions being discussed.--Moxy 🍁 16:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, like that RFC where Moxy made a thoroughly bad faith proposal to delete all portals, knowing that such a crude binary would be rejected, all just so they could claim misrepresent it as the community deciding not to delete portals?

Of course I denounced Moxy for that attempt to game the system. It was a shabby stunt, which rightly failed. WP:RFC says that RFCs should be framed around a neutral question, preferably agreed by both sides ... and the portal crew has doe far too much of these pointy RFCs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Isn't this, this, and this WP:HARASS? It seems that way and it is unbelievable that an admin can be this disrespectful of their peers. AmericanAir88^(talk) 19:00, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Topic/interaction ban proposal

I propose the following, which in my view recognises both the scale and disruption of the problem and the sincerity of those involved:

1. BrownHairedGirl topic banned from portals for six months for battleground behaviour and incivility.
2. Northamerica1000 topic banned from portals for six months for battleground behaviour and gaming the system.
3. BrownHairedGirl and Northamerica1000 interaction banned for one year.
4. A central RfC to decide the objective criteria for closure of moribund or dormant portals and setting clear expectations for the level of activity required to keep a portal alive, allowing for removal of cruft with less drama and forestalling third-party gaming.
   1. Addendum: Also a process for gaining consensus before creating a new portal, as uncontrolled creation seems to have been a large part of the root cause.
5. A moratorium on portal deletions pending the central RfC.

I think we've all had enough by now. For the avoidance of doubt, the topic ban would also cover the RfC. Guy (help!) 11:33, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lemme try to get this clear, Guy. Are you proposing a topic ban on me because I have been "uncivil" to an admin who has been, as you acknowledge, gaming the system, and who has repeatedly refused my requests to collaborate on opening RFCs to resolve the issues? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:42, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, I am applying the standard admin technique of dragging the warring parties apart and trying to impose some order. Please don't go WP:NOTTHEM on us, that is never a good look. Guy (help!) 13:55, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Guy, it is never a good look to create a false equivalence between an editor who is sytematically gaming the system, and the editor who challenges the misconduct. That approach stacks the field in favour of the gamer.

Note that in this case, as in previous encounters with NA!K, I gave them ample opportunity to stop their gaming. I have also proposed RFCs to resolve the substantive issues, which NA1K has repeatedly refused. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about false equivalence. But your behaviour has been horrible from the tiny amount I've seen when it's made it to ANI. I mean saying Northamerica1000 has "low intelligence" is just one example of how terrible your behaviour has been. Nothing that Northamerica1000 has done can justify your behaviour. Nor can anything you, or anyone else has done, justify their behaviour of course but you can't defend your terrible behaviour just by saying the other side has been worse. If you don't want people to support a topic ban of you for your terrible behaviour, don't behave so poorly. Nil Einne (talk) 15:35, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Nil Einne, there is a real, substantive problem here: NA1K's sustained Dunning–Kruger effect conduct. If we are actually here to build an encyclopedia, we need to find ways of dealing with that, and stopping the damage which it causes, rather than just expressing outrage at possibly excessive directness in noting it as they try to deal with the problems which it causes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:45, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even if your incivility towards NA1k is acceptable, which it isn't, you've been extremely uncivil to many other editors, including myself. I couldn't possibly care if people agree with you on what to do with portals. Hell, I probably agree with you on most of it. This is about your behavior, which is entirely unacceptable and demonstrates a strong lack of compliance with community civility and conduct standards, both for editors and administrators, and your failure to recognize that you are at fault worries me. This is not to say that NA1k is faultless; there are also issues with his conduct, hence why I support all proposals by JzG, but you need to recognize that incivility is not a proper response to perceived "gaming the system", especially as your immaturity and improper commentary causes constructive and good-faith editors unnecessary distress while attempting to contribute to the encyclopedia. Your constant harsh hostility towards editors who disagree with you is not a trait of someone I trust as an administrator, and as there is no community desysop procedure on this project (even if there were, there likely isn't consensus to reshelf your mop) I believe a topic ban is the next best thing. Regards, Vermont (talk) 19:13, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Any proposal that wants a moratorium on portal deletions should also be have a moratorium on portal creations. I'll look over this never-ending portal nightmare in terms of ongoing editor behaviour later Nosebagbear (talk) 12:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Nosebagbear, I think we can only ask for status quo ante but I agree we should look at the issue of whether there should be a bar to creations. Guy (help!) 13:58, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• If this proposal isn't enacted (and I'm not sure it goes far enough in terms of either number of editors or response to their behaviour, but it's a start) the whole mess needs taking to arbcom. I allowed myself to get bullied out of most portal discussions months ago and absolutely nothing about the behaviour of the usual suspects seems to have improved since. Thryduulf (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you want an extreme example of bad behaviour, one of the best examples was Thryduulf's sustained efforts to demand one-by-scrutiny of the 4,200 spam portals created by TTH and his acolytes. That was a blatant attempt to rig the system in favour of spam, by demanding that the commmunity put in far more time deleting the spam than TTH put into creating it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:55, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    BrownHairedGirl, Question What constitutes a "spam" portal exactly? Portals are meant to be navigation aids, as I understand it. Thus, even niche fiction portals have their place, regardless of them seemingly being fan cruft. Doug Mehus T·C 19:24, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • @Dmehus: by "spam" portal" I mean: the navbox-cloned automated portals created en masse by TTH + acolytes, which added no value over the navboxes from which they were derived.

TTH created them at sustained speeds of up to one per minute, some of them just for the heck of it, and lamented their inability to produce them faster. Most of this portalspam was deleted in April in two mass deletions of similar portals (one, and two), with overwhelming consensus of a very high turnout. The rest were deleted in a series of follow-up nominations,and the template used to ceate them was deleted at TFD Oct 25. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:34, 10 November 2019 (UTC)\[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, Ah, okay, I don't necessarily agree that navbox contents can't make a portal, but we need to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis, I think. Some obvious navboxes related to companies should be just that: template navboxes. Others, it is less clear.--Doug Mehus T·C 19:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment For those who've not being following this (such as myself), please could you link to the relevant previous discussions for context/clarity? Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 14:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support #1 let's see what the community can acomplish when we are free to have productive talks. Let's see if we can stop the loss of cotent editors for a few months see if it improves moving forward on a scope of an RFC on portals.--Moxy 🍁 15:24, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support all (including the single addendum) Maybe other editors need to be sanctioned as well, but I just had to look at this thread and the one above to be reminded that it's reasonable to sanction those 2 editors. Nil Einne (talk) 15:39, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Reluctant support I'm not convinced this is fair (I think the problem is that there is bullying on the playground, and this proposal solves this by sending the bully and one of their victims away from the playground), but it would work for the moment, and is better than the inaction we had in the last couple of rounds of discussing these editors. I'd suggest to start the ArbCom case once the next ArbCom is up and running. —Kusma (t·c) 15:49, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support #1 - I have noticed in particular the battleground behavior by BrownHairedGirl which include edits like: [23] Moxy, as usual you are wrong on nearly every point., [24] As KK87 knows, [25] you and other portal fans have made that argument before. It is focused more on the editor implying that they should know by now that .... whatever, I am frankly shocked by the conduct. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:36, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Reluctant support of all: As Kusma says, I can't help but feel that this is better than no action, but it's not ideal, either. Let us not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: it's time to put this matter to bed, and, absent ArbCom action, let's see what the community can do. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 17:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Strongest possible oppose: There are many, many, many other people involved in the "portal wars", and silencing just two prominent users? This will only further escalate the conflict. ToThAc (talk) 15:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have supported having an RfC, but Guy's proposal regarding the individual editors is a bit involved. I think that aspect is primed to go to WP:ARBCOM. bd2412 T 15:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• I support this (or any) effort to lay down some specific rules governing how and when these processes should be carried out. Right now it is more or less the wild west in terms of portals, with arbitrary and ad hoc reasoning going into arguments both for and against them. I think part of the problem is that MfD is a little-attended forum relative to other XfD namespaces, so perhaps portal deletion discussions should be moved to AfD. I was involved in the creation of MfD, and it was originally intended for things in project space and user space, not for reader-facing content. All that said, there are unquestionably some very poorly conceived portals that should be deleted, but perhaps that task should be temporarily put in the hands of a different slice of the community. bd2412 T 15:26, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@BD2412: I wouldn't be opposed to that, either. ToThAc (talk) 15:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Support the idea of taking this to ARBCOM: I've been watching this unfold since around the end of August and it has devolved to a point where I'm almost certain that writing each act of incivility on the same Word document would end up with a several thousand word essay. -Yeetcetera _{@me bro} 15:39, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support the idea of taking this to ARBCOM ...lets get other admins involved in a wider tlak. Because the integrity of admiship is being questioned at this point. --Moxy 🍁 15:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support taking this to arbcom. Its clear that the community has repeatedly failed to resolve this matter. I don't know whether it can wait until January (as suggested somewhere) though, I'd prefer to take it there before it degenerates further. Thryduulf (talk) 16:02, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support JzG's proposal to take this to ArbCom. Question: So, basically, can ArbCom be used to take any proposal that repeatedly fails to gain consensus? I thought they only dealt with editor discipline. I think Wikipedia needs some adult supervision, so this is encouraging. I'd even support giving bureaucrats and ArbCom Clerks expanded powers of veto to override consensus where it's clear so-called "school war" voting blocks are stymieing otherwise sound, rationale, policy- and circumstance-based arguments. Doug Mehus T·C 16:25, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• They'll only look at the user-conduct side; they have the authority to decide that one or more of the parties is acting unreasonably and have the authority to topic-ban them, but they have no authority to determine content so can't rule on whether portals are a good thing or how the creation and deletion processes should work. To act as a final binding decision-maker primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve is the official definition of their scope if you want chapter-and-verse. ‑ Iridescent 16:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Iridescent, Ah, that's too bad. I wonder if there would be community consensus for expanded powers for ArbCom—to determine consensus on its own in a very limited set of contingent circumstances? Doug Mehus T·C 17:01, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I think there would, rightly, be strong oppposition to ArbCom's remit being extended to make content decisions. (As an aside, ArbCom can't "determine consensus on its own" by definition, because a unilateral decision by ArbCom would not be consensus). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Boing! said Zebedee, So I'm confused then, why is JzG proposing an RfC agenda to take to ArbCom to have approved? If not what he's proposing, what is he proposing? Certainly he's not proposing to take Northamerica1000 to ArbCom for sanction is he, particularly in light of the compelling diffs Northamerica1000 posted showing admin BrownHairedGirl apparently engaging in both bad faith and personal attacks against NA1K? I have to say, this ANI troubles me greatly...I always held administrators in such high regard, as all-knowing, impartial, and above-the-fray, but these events seem to demonstrate to me that they, at times, engage in the same sort of shenanigans of editors brought to ANI. Doug Mehus T·C 17:17, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• There are two separate things being proposed here, an RfC for community discussion and consensus, and a referral to ArbCom to examine the bahaviour of the combatants. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:24, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Dmehus, I'm not. People have replied in the wrong section and messed it all up... Guy (help!) 17:25, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment from Northamerica1000 (talk · contribs) – I want to be crystal clear here, so I encourage all to please consider the timeline below and check the links.

• At the MfD discussion for the Transport portal, BrownHairedGirl (talk · contribs) has accused me of gaming the system, stating in part, "NA1K is wholly unrepentant about continuing to relay for guidance on a former guideline WP:POG which was delisted with their support; and now seeks discussions to "update" a page whose status is solely a "failed proposal". This is one of the worst case I have seen of trying to gaming the system".
• Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but my intention in stating that discussion could occur at the POG talk page was that potential future portal criteria could be discussed there. Another option that I didn't mention would be to discuss potential portal criteria matters at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals.
• In the thread above on this noticeboard titled "When will it end", Moxy posted a link to the Transport portal MfD discussion.
• The proposal here written by JzG regarding potential sanctions against me appears to be based upon BHG's proclamation at the Transport portal MfD discussion, or at last it did before others chimed in after JzG posted it, while I was typing this out in the meantime.
• First and foremost, at the MfD discussion, I have not engaged in any personal attacks, hounding, badgering or name-calling whatsoever. Rather, I have remained calm and civil throughout the discussion. I have also not engaged in any gaming. Meantime, on this very ANI page, BHG has continued their personal attacks against me, stating in the "When will it end" section, "I stand by my description of NA1K as either a liar or an idiot, or both." (diff). This is a reprehensible personal attack, right on this ANI page.
• BHG has repeatedly engaged in the exact same highly similar behaviors that they so vehemently oppose at the Transport portal MfD discussion, over a significant period of time. Ironically, BHG themself has set a precedent for referral to the former Portal/Guidelines (WP:POG) page, now a failed proposal page, at various MfD discussions. I certainly have not engaged in any gaming; the user and other users have routinely refer to POG in MfD discussions, after it was downgraded from the status of being a guideline page. Very importantly, note that the commentary listed below occurred after POG was downgraded. BHG's comments denoted below all occurred in October-November 2019.

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Karachi – BHG stated: "The portal was never properly built, and it has basically been abandoned since construction was halted. It has only 15 selected articles (and no separate set of biogs), which is less than even the risibly low bare minimum of 20 set by the former guideline WP:POG. All those pages were created in 2008, since when they have had only trivial technical changes, such as punctuation and disambiguation."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bremen – BHG stated: "The set of only 9 articles is less than half the risibly low minimum of 20 set by the former guideline WP:POG. It includes no recognised content (i.e. FA-class or GA-class), and there is little scope for doing so because few such articles exist."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Paralympic Games – BHG stated: "So after 9 years, this portal has only 8 articles, which is a trivially small set, less than half of the risibly small minimum of 20 which set by the former guideline WP:POG. And all of them are abandoned. There is no sign of nay maintainer, let alone the multiple maintainers needed to avoid the "key man" risk."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Islamabad – BHG stated: "WP:POG was right about some things, including that portals need both multiple maintainers and supporting WikiProjects. In this case we have only one inexperienced editor interested in maintenance, and WP:WikiProject Islamabad is inactive. That's a recipe for continued failure."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Washington (state) – BHG stated: "A mere 11 selected articles+bogs is a pathetically small set, barely half the risibly low minimum of 20 set by the former guideline WP:POG, and nowhere remotely near big enough to provide a decent sample of the topic."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:1940s – BHG stated: "The portal was created[1] in September 2016‎ with only selected article and one biog. More were added in 2017, bring to the tally to 5 articles plus 5 biogs. That total of ten is only half the risibly low minimum of twenty set in the former guideline WP:POG. The selection is also grossly unbalanced: all 5 topics listed in Portal:1940s/Selected article are military, and 3 of the 5 are predominantly about the United States ."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:South Carolina – BHG stated: "Two articles and two biogs is Perfectly good portal?????? Really??? Am I missing some sort of sarcasm or comedy here? Even POG set a minimum of twenty articles, which itself was risibly low."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:North Carolina – BHG stated: "A mere one selected article makes a Perfectly good portal?????? Really??? Am I missing some sort of sarcasm or comedy here? Even POG set a minimum of twenty articles, which itself was risibly low."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Statistics – BHG stated: "This total of 13 topics is little over half the risibly low bare minimum of 20 recommended by the former guideline WP:POG, which has now been downgraded to an information page." and "Since late 2006, WP:POG had warned editors "Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create", but that warning was not heeded here."
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Elbe–Weser triangle – BHG stated: "WP:POG has been downgraded to an info page, but its guidance in this respect was excellent: "the portal should be associated with a WikiProject (or have editors with sufficient interest) to help ensure a supply of new material for the portal and maintain the portal". This portal lacks both the supply and the maintainers."

• Furthermore, of note is that Robert McClenon (talk · contribs), who appears to be a wiki-friend of BHG's, has also engaged in the same behaviors in various MfD discussions, using a copy-paste rationale that synthesizes aspects of POG relative to WP:COMMONSENSE, after POG was downgraded from being a guideline page, which is quoted below with diffs. It is alarming and hypocritical that BHG has not criticized this user whatsoever about this, only me.

• diff, diff, diff, diff, diff and diff – "The intended Portal Guidelines were never approved by a consensus of the Wikipedia community, and we have never had real portal guidelines. We should therefore use common sense, which is discussed in Wikipedia in the essay section Use Common Sense and in the article common sense. The portal guidelines were an effort to codify common sense about portals, and we should still use common sense. It is still a matter of common sense that portals should be about broad subject areas that will attract large numbers of viewers and will attract portal maintainers. (There never was an actual guideline referring to broad subject areas, and the abstract argument that a topic is a broad subject area is both a handwave and meaningless.) Common sense imposes at least a three-part test for portals to satisfy common sense: (1) a broad subject area, demonstrated a posteriori by a breadth of selected articles (not only by an a priori claim that a topic is broad) (the number of articles in appropriate categories is an indication of potential breadth of coverage, but actual breadth of coverage should be required); (2) a large number of viewers, preferably at least 100 a day, but any portal with fewer than 25 a day can be considered to have failed; (3) portal maintenance, (a) with at least two maintainers to provide backup, with a maintenance plan indicating how the portal will be maintained (b) the absence of any errors indicating lack of maintenance (including failure to list dates of death in biographies). Some indication of how any selected articles were selected (e.g., Featured Article or Good Article status, selection by categories, etc.) is also desirable. Any portal that does not pass these common-sense tests is not useful as a navigation tool, for showcasing, or otherwise"

• As I have stated above, BHG and others have engaged in the exact same highly similar behaviors that BHG has so vehemently opposed at the Transport portal discussion. The user is not holding themself to the same standards that they impose on others; rather, they are applying double standards based upon their own selective and subjective criteria. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:40, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Reply That long charge-sheet against me by NA1K is simply more evidence that NA1K is either incompetent or mendacious, or both:

In each of the instances which NA1K sets out, I noted that POG is a former guideline. I did not seek to uphold it as guide to ongoing conduct; on the contrary, I repeatedly and explicitly described it as risible.

By contrast, what NA1K did was to repeatedly justify their actions as being in accordance with POG, ... and did so to justify their creation of a massively POV list. In other words, NA1K used a non-guideline as their shield again breaching a core policy.

Why sort of person tries to claim that these are the same thing? Is NA1K too incompetent to distinguish between those two uses? Or are they consciously lying?

Whatever reasons applies, NA1K's statement that BHG engaged in the exact same behaviors is completely false. How on earth can we build an enclyopedia when discussions are repeatedly polluted with such counter-factual nonsense? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:07, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Northamerica1000, My proposal was based on the current dispute, not any one person's version of it. The fact that both of you think I am siding with the other is pretty clear evidence of this. I'm siding with neither, I am just sick of the drama and looking for a way to advance it that doesn't end up in desysopping and bans for people whose work I admire in every other area. Guy (help!) 17:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

JzG, I support Guy's comment above. Both are otherwise great admins. It seems the crux of the matter is one's view of Portals and the other's, which views them less favourably. I personally think Portals are a great idea, but am confident they're under-utilized because they're so hard to find. We just deleted a Star Trek portal for Pete's sake—despite there being a lot of Star Trek articles.Doug Mehus T·C 17:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Some questions for JzG – Since you have devised your proposal based upon the MfD discussion for Portal:Transport, relative to the information I posted in my comment above, do you still feel that I have somehow gamed the system, or is your proposal simply based upon BHG having proclaimed it as their opinion at the discussion? I have not engaged in any gaming whatsoever, and as I have stated, others, including BHG themself, have engaged in the exact same highly similar behaviors of referring to POG in MfD discussion in various manners after it was demoted from being a guideline page. Nobody else at the discussion has agreed with BHG's viewpoint of gaming, and most are in agreement with my contention that the portal should be retained and improved.

Also, I have not engaged in any battleground behavior there whatsoever. After being continuously personally attacked there, I never responded in kind. I have posted no personal attacks and have harassed nobody there. Rather, I have calmly and civilly presented my point of views in a functional, collegial manner. Also, notice how I posted my comments in a manner to separate myself from BHG, because it is clear that they were angry, and it is not my intention to provoke them. Could you please cite any specific commentary there that I have posted that you perceive as battleground behavior, since you are basing your proposal upon the discussion? When a user is constantly personally attacked in a discussion, should they just not respond, or should they defend their honor and reputation, and try to better explain their position using civil, calm commentary as I have done? In my view, people have a right to stand up for themselves in a civil manner. I worry that any sort of response to BHG's anger, regardless of how civil and well-intended, could be misinterpreted as battleground behavior when it is not, particularly when users may skim the discussion, rather than reading it in-depth. Conversely to the barrage of attacks that have been posted against me at the discussion, I have remained on-topic about the portal and its content there, and have not personalized the discussion in a negative manner whatsoever.

Please don't take this the wrong way, and I am aware that you are not siding with anybody, but some specific examples from the MfD discussion would be helpful in terms of qualifying your proposed sanctions against me, since it is what the proposal is based upon. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• More lies from NA1K. No, I did not engage in the exact same behaviors. Please do try to stop repeated your habitual lying. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:40, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Addendum: I have struck part of my commentary above, replacing with "highly similar". North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC))[reply]

• More reality inversion from NA1K. Mo, it was not highly similar. It was the complete opposite.

1. I repeatedly referred to a former guideline as risible.
2. NA1K cited a failed proposal as a schema for advisement which justified their breach of the core policy of NPOV.

I repeat my earlier observation that only an idiot or a liar would try to equate those opposite actions. This little exchange is an excellent example of why NA1K's conduct is so toxic. NA1K repeats and repeats a patently false assertion which smears another editor and then whines at huge length that they are being bullied and badgered by requests that they desist from the absurd smears and reconnect to reality.

NA1K continues to turn themselves into poster-child for the Dunning–Kruger effect. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:05, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Oppose per Northamerica1000 above. I've never found NA1K to be anything but impartial and objective. I don't know the whole story, but this seems like too soon. Doug Mehus T·C 17:05, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Dmehus, do you not watch this page? It's been going on for at least six months. Guy (help!) 17:28, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  JzG, No, sorry, I've only recently started following WP:ANI and, to be honest, I don't like that I see here, by admins and editors alike. I think I should unfollow this page. It's almost as bad as the RfA/RfB "ritual hazings" to which S Marshall so aptly and concisely put it.--Doug Mehus T·C 17:35, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Procedural Note: There's too many edit conflicts...but can someone move this my struck vote above and the next three support votes at the same hierarchical level above NA1K's comment, so his comment is back together again? Doug Mehus T·C 18:01, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Support #1 – This has been a one-sided matter, in which BHG has engaged in an ongoing smear campaign against me and other users over months of time, intentionally working to malign my character and reputation and that of others on English Wikipedia.

• BHG has also attacked me again very recently, both directly here on this ANI page on 10 November 2019 (UTC) (diff – "I stand by my description of NA1K as either a liar or an idiot, or both.") and on 10 November 2019 (UTC) (diff – "'NA1K=Liar".)
• I urge others to please refer to and read pages from the extensive list of links provided at Administrators' noticeboard/Archive311 § Civility issues with User:BrownHairedGirl (from August 2019), where Vermont took the time to provide many diffs that demonstrate BHG's ongoing pattern of the performance of hounding, bullying, personal attacks, name calling and harassment. This serves to provide additional context demonstrating that BHG's poor conduct has been an ongoing matter. In addition to Vermont's links posted at that discussion, below are more links from that discussion that I posted there, to serve as an addendum, further establishing the pattern that BHG has been exhibiting:

• User talk:BrownHairedGirl/Archive/Archive 047 § Discussions about portals – 12 April 2019: BHG shames me, and then pings me to the discussion afterward. I replied, and also requested at that time that they "please at least consider toning down on the "us versus them" stances (e.g. above: "shamefully... (et al.), "you portal defenders", etc.) and try to understand that Wikipedia consists of many diverse individuals that have many diverse viewpoints."
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Archive 9 § Collaboration – Country and major geographical Portals - 28 April 2019: I posted a good faith request for some portal improvements at the portal Wikiproject, a project "dedicated to developing and maintaining portals and portal tools." BHG then proceeded to take over the thread in a barrage of shaming and blaming against me, to the point of preventing anyone from potentially responding. Now, BHG could have brought their concerns to my talk page, but instead, chose to engage in smearing my reputation. Furthermore, there is no shame in seeking collaboration to improve Wikipedia content, nor should there be.
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals § Request for improvement: Portal:Northern Ireland – 1 August 2019: Another good faith request seeking improvements, which has realized some positive responses, is met with long tirades of anger and shaming toward me and other users by BHG. It appears that any discussion about portals outside of MfD is considered by the user to be gaming the system somehow. Portals can be discussed outside of MfD.
• Diff – 1 August 2019: A user asks BHG on their talk page to tone down their personal attacks against me. Diff - BHG then replies with more personal attacks against me. Diff - Then, another user also states that BHG should attempt to tone matters down.
• Diff – 14 August, 2019, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals: Same pattern, another long wall of text that in part attacks and smears me personally on a public noticeboard.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Vermont – my simple !vote is met with long walls of criticizing text. Another user is also unnecessarily berated.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Evolutionary biology - BHG attacks again, yet doesn't attack another !voter who uses a very similar rationale, that the topic is broad enough to qualify for a portal. They only attack me.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Colorado – BHG attacks me, in part stating that my suggestion is in "bad faith", and also attacks another user in the discussion.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Biochemistry – BHG attacks again. For example, see their "Reply to the liar Northamerica1000"...(et al.).
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Seventh-day Adventist Church – More huge walls of personal attacks and battleground behavior against me.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Wyoming – Another copy/paste rant of personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Wisconsin – Another copy/paste personal attack
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:New Mexico – Another copy/paste personal attack
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Climbing (2nd nomination) – More of the same. Attacks another user there as well.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Royal Australian Navy (2nd nomination) – Attacks me and another user, in a discussion I did not even participate in.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Grenada – Attacks anyone who may potentially discuss the portal in a manner contrary to their opinion. See "Expect portalista opposition."...(et al.). I have not contributed to this discussion.
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Armenia – Intense badgering against myself and others

– I have attempted at times to discuss matters with BHG in a functional manner in various discussions, but the user has continued to attack for months, often responding with great walls of badgering, hurtful and angry text, against myself and many other users. Despite all of this, I have remained calm, civil and objective, and have never posted personal attacks. I have also performed absolutely no gaming of the system anywhere. I have done no wrong. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:47, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Reply. There isn't a venue where all those discussions can be examined properly, but I stand what I wrote in those discussions. They all show variants on the same pattern of NA1K engaging in mendacious and/or incompetent conduct, and then whining about being called out on it.

The problem is that NA1K is fundamentally well-intentioned, but is either incapable of conducting rational discussions, or unwilling to do so. They repeatedly post the same falsehoods, and are impervious to reason. That is why I assert that they are either a liar or incompetent, or both.

Two examples (I don't have time for diff-farming now):

• Across multiple discussions, NA1K repeatedly, cited an incomplete sentence from POG, snipping off the part of the sentence which contradicted their case. The full sentence, with a strikeout through the art which NA!K systematically omitted is "Please bear in mind that portals should be about broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers".
  NA1K persisted in doing so even when they were pointed to the full sentence. That is deceptive and dishonest behaviour, which NA1K repeated across multiple discussions. It is one of the reasons why I call NA1K mendacious, but I also accept the possibility of an alternative explanation: that NA1K is too stupid to recognise the dishonesty involved.
• In discussions about pageviews of portals, every other editor posted daily averages. NA1K repeatedly replied with a higher number, which was the total pageviews for a different timefame, creating an apples-and-oranges comparison. This was mendacious use of statistics.
  Subsequent discussion revealed that NA!K was actually substantively incompetent, and made absurd claims such as that an average is a statistic whereas the addition of data across a timeframe is not a statistic. After much discussion, NA1K did eventually agree to stop using simple statistics in this misleading way, but a huge amount of drama was created through their stupidity.

NA!K's contributions to portal debates have been full of this sort of mix of stupidity and mendacity. That is a large part of why portals debates have become so antagonistic, because challenging the stupidity and mendacity inevitably involves personal criticism of NA1K.

These problems with NA1K are longstanding, and were noted at NA1K's two RFAs, e.g.

• Candidates need to demonstrate that they have that particular brand of clue that is required of administrators
• in my experience this user doesn't deal well with disagreements. He just talks over the top of people and doesn't listen to them. -- which is exactly what NA1K has done at multiple portal MFDs
• When we tried to explain notability guidelines, deletion policy, and WP:NOT then he changed his focus to telling others why we were wrong instead of addressing us and discussing it. He doesn't listen. Then when we had the discussion about canvassing at ARS, he was doing the same thing. He didn't want to understand canvassing policy, he wanted to exonerate ARS. This "I want to win" behavior is dangerous to Wikipedia and certainly not helpful in an admin
• I do not believe that NA is a proper reader of consensus. Tparis points out lawyering, canvassing, and not listening, and that is my experience also
• ... suggests that you aren't so much interested in administering Wikipedia's policies and guidelines as you are in saving articles -- exatly the smare issue as at poratl MFDs
• Tactics as a member of ARS were highly questionable, inluding canvassing and dumping long lists of useless sources which he clearly did not take the time to read or evaluate -- again, similar to NA1K's conduct with portals, where they have made long indiscriminate lists. See e.g. my analysis at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Transport and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ghana.
• What I've seen from them in article space is impressive in terms of zeal and sheer number of edits, but I am less than impressed with their judgment in the matter of evaluating sources--for instance -- the same lack of judgement has been displayed ven in the simper task of their creation of article lists for portals
• Issue with judgement are clear here
• Judgement is clearly an issue, reflected in the huge number of edits as well as elsewhere, as is the possibility of hat collecting
• Like other opposes, I am concerned with Northamerica1000's judgment.
• the concerns about judgment ring true to me
• past behavior has led me to have serious concerns about NA1k's judgment, especially w/r/t deletion related issues

The core problem here is that in the case of NA1K, the community has failed to act on long-standing concerns about their lack of competence. This has led NA1K to repeatedly extend themselves well beyond their very limited competence, which has exacerbated the Dunning–Kruger effect demonstrated by NA1K's repeated inability or unwillingness to abandon even simple falsehoods and follies.

This has created the cycle seen at numerous MFDs, where NA1K repeated posts half-truths or outright falsehoods, is incapable of engaging rationally with the replies, and then plays the victim card by crying "badgering!" "hounding!" etc. This is all inevitable, as described by Ehrliger et al in 2008: poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Support for Guy's #3-5 of amended, clarified proposal; call it reluctant support for #1-2. Doug Mehus T·C 17:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Support for #1 BHG is violating WP:HARASS through examples like: this, this, and this. What is even more concerning is that BHG is an admin, a privilege that is meant to be a role model for examplar Wikipedia behavior. NA1K is a victim of harassment from someone who does not learn from their previous mistakes. It is unbelievable that an admin can be this disrespectful of their peers. AmericanAir88^(talk) 19:06, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• If the harassment escalates further, it may become a case I suggest where BHG receives a review for the possible removal of adminship through the proper process. (WP:DESYS). AmericanAir88^(talk) 19:16, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• This from an editor with "Northamerica1000 is such a fantastic editor and my Wiki-Idol." on their userpage. Well, thanks for your input. Black Kite (talk) 19:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I put that on my userpage back when NorthA was considering retirement. I wanted to remind the public of the good and benefit they are to encyclopedia. It is not bias, it is the truth. Also why did you leave out "Please do not retire, we as a community support you"? Are you trying to shorten it to make me look worse? I am clearly stating my opinion based on the evidence and sides given. I am not a yes-man to NA1K, I am an individual human who wants to improve the encyclopedia and stand for what is right. AmericanAir88^(talk) 19:23, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• While this can be seen as a potential WP:COI or w/e the reasoning, the provided diffs with things such as NA1K is either an idiot or a liar or both is concerning. This is focusing on the editor rather than the debate. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:25, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• AmericanAir88, Agree completely. That's what troubles me the most is the harassment and incivility of another administrator. I thought admins were supposed to be above this sort of thing. That does not mean they are not infallible, but BHG's apparent reluctance to see where she erred is what troubles me most. Someone said above there is no consensus as to desysoping procedures, which is also problematic if ArbCom is the only solution. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the Bureaucrats have discretionary authority to desysop an admin under limited circumstances. Doug Mehus T·C 19:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete all portals and topic-ban all Wikipedia editors from ever discussing portals again. It's the only way to be sure. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC) (Not entirely serious, but it would be an improvement over this continued warring.)[reply]
• Support #1 I've had enough. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 19:37, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support 2 way iban Support Guy's proposals #3,#4 & #5 - most especially proposal 3, which I'd ideally like to be a no fault iban. While on a much bigger scale, this reminds me of the feud between Dream & Hijiri88 – both excellent editors in different ways, but months of drama followed once they began interacting. The iban they had in Jan seems to have been effective in ending the feud. It was later clarified that both could continue to post in project spaces like ARS, both could post on AFDs etc, they just needed to not talk about each other. Hence Im not sure we need to ban either of them from Portals at this stage, and Id prefer the ban to be no fault. FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support #1. As an involved editor my opinion may be predictable, but BHG's behaviour is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue. The diffs quoted clearly show which contributors are conducting themselves in a civil manner, and that this is not a symmetrical dispute with both sides equally at fault. It would be very unfair to also sanction an editor whose only crime is to be selected repeatedly as a target for abuse. Certes (talk) 22:40, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Example RfC agenda

1. As a matter of policy, what is the project-focused goal of portals?
2. Should portals be required to be active?
   1. If so, what should be the criteria that define an active portal
      1. Miniumum number of active editors?
      2. Minimum number of edits per month?
      3. Update frequency (i.e. number of updates rather than number of edits per update)?
      4. Article updates?
      5. Page views?
         1. Absolute or relative to something else (e.g. main topic page)?
3. Should we have an anti-gaming criterion?
   1. Updates by editors who do little other than portal updates across multiple topics?
   2. Updates by editors new to the portal, that a reasonable person would perceive as gaming (WP:CLUE)?
4. What should be the removal process?
   1. XfD, PROD, CSD?
   2. How to prevent "school wars" style voting blocks?
   3. Are there any arguments (other than activity) that are or are not normally relevant to whether a portal should or should not be deleted?
5. Should there be a bar to creation?
   1. Should there be a review period for newly related portals, e.g. after 12 months, with a low-bureaucracy removal period if they have not survived the initial enthusiasm?
6. Should there be a bar to nomination for deletion?
   1. Nominations by editors who do little to no constructive work on portals?
   2. Nominations by editors who do little to no work in the topic area?
   3. Nominations by editors who have nominated this or similar portals before?
   4. Nominations who are engaged in a dispute about the contents of the portal?
   5. Nominations by editors who have made significant changes to the portal recently?
      1. What does "recently" mean?
   6. Repeated nominations of the same portal?
   7. Number of concurrent nominations?
7. Should deletion nominations that fail to advance a reason specific to the individual portal(s) nominated be speedily kept?

Feel free to add / amend. Guy (help!) 14:06, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I've added and amended. Thryduulf (talk) 14:25, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow! Thryduulf's proposals are yet another attempt to game the system

No other XFD venue has any restrictions on who can nominate pages for deletion. No other namespace or type of page has such restrictions.

Thryduulf is quite blatantly trying to rig the system in favour of the portal fans. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:35, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the assumption of bad faith. These are simply questions that should be answered by the RfC, I fully expect that the answer to many of them will be that the restriction is not needed but it is important that comparable restrictions for both sides are discussed by the community. Thryduulf (talk) 14:56, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thryduulf, the bad faith did not need to be assumed. It is structurally bound into your suggestion that only the creators of a particular type of page should be allowed to propose its deletion, because that rigs the field in favour of the creators. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:13, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for confirming you are approaching this topic area with a battleground attitude. Thryduulf (talk) 15:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You're projecting, Thryduulf. The battleground attitude is your attempt to exclude those who disagree with you with portal deletion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:13, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, Wow. You're an administrator as is Thryduulf. My mind is blown. I've never seen an admin assume bad faith about another admin. Doug Mehus T·C 16:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, in order to keep the process fair, there should be no bar to asking a question, even when the answer is obviously "no". Guy (help!) 17:23, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I fully support Guy's proposal. I'm sick and tired of... well, this. At this point, anyone looking for proof that the portal crusade has gotten out of hand in terms of incivility and bad faith need only look up. WaltCip (talk) 15:07, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Previous portal discussions

• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals (April-May 2018)
• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 157#Hiatus on mass creation of Portals (February-March 2019)
• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 158#Proposal: Halt the mass deletion of non-spam portals and focus on achieving consensus on portal guidelines (14-27 April 2019)
• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 160#RfC: Ending the system of portals take 2 (19 June 22 September 2019)
• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 162#Proposal to delete Portal space (September-October 2019)
• Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#RFC: Purposes of Portals (19 July 2019)
• Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#RFC: Formalize Standing of Portal Guidelines as a Guideline (18 July 2019)
• Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 152#Portal Guidelines (16-19 July 2019)]]
• Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 151#RFC: Portals and Project Sponsorship (30 March - 1 May 2019)
• #When will it end (currently open)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1020#Disrutive editing and personal attack by User:Tisquesusa (13 October)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1020#Portal updates reverted (12-16 October)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1007#Northamerica1000 at MfD (4-8 April 2019)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1007#Legacypac and portals (22-28 March 2019)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1007#Proposal: Discretionary sanctions for all discussions about portals (4-15 April 2019)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive308#Portal deletion at MfD and G6 tagging and deletion of portal subpages (11-18 April 2019)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive311#Civility issues with User:BrownHairedGirl (14-15 August 2019)
• Wikipedia talk:User access levels/Archive 4#Request for comment: Require that users be autocofirmed before they can create pages in the Portal: space (11-28 April 2019)

This is almost certainly incomplete, please expand it with any I've missed, and possible improve the order - I've run out of time. Thryduulf (talk) 14:54, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for posting these Thryduulf. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 18:58, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The original AN portal discussion

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive307#Thousands_of_Portals

Declined ArbCom Case

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=890921122#Portal_Issues

Misconceived RFC proposals

The problem with the RFC proposals above is that they try resolving a problem by focusing on its symptoms rather than its causes.

The underlying causes of the problems with portals are fairly simple:

1. WikiPortals are functionally redundant to head articles, cross-linking, navboxes, and search. Readers don't need them and don't use them. (even the 8 portals linked from the prime place on the mainapge are massively underused compared to other mainpage items)
2. Nearly all WikiProjects have rationally abandoned the portals within their scope (thanks to User:Britishfinance for identifying this problem)
3. Most content-creating editors have also rationally abandoned portals for similar reasons.
4. Despite the evident functional redundancy and lack of reader interest, the community has declined either to delete all portals, or to lay down conditions for their existence.
5. That leaves most portals without wider scrutiny, and all of them without any guidelines
6. Some portals are developed or maintained by lone editors who bring demonstrable skill (e.g. Portal:Law/BD2412)
7. Most of the rest have become a playground in which portal enthusiasts with low general skills and no demonstrable expertise in a topic can make huge changes without scrutiny.
8. Portals do not require the normal intellectually-taxing editing process of discussing how to use which sources, which has left portalspace dominated by such low-skill editors. Some have technical expertise in tasks such as coding, but nearly all lack experience and skill with actual content, and lack skill both in applying policies and in discussing disagreements to reach consensus.
9. This low-skill group has found a comfortable niche in the vacuum created by the rational abandonment of portals by readers and content-creating editors. Portals are the only part of Wikipedia where they can design and maintain large reader-facing pages, with almost free rein on the content, because what little scrutiny is applied usually only comes only from within the low-skill group.
   • For example, Portal:Transport was one of dozens of portals rebuilt by a highly energetic but massively incompetent and serially mendacious editor, who built a hugely POV article list for the portal by a) maximising the number of articles with no regard to bias, even tho a smaller set could have been less biased; b) working off the assessment lists of only one Wikiproject, even tho there are 22 WikiProjects within the field. This level of stupidity doesn't last long in article space, where it is outnumbered by skilled editors, but it has flourished in the under-scrutinised portal space.
10. This low skill base of the portal crew as a whole is long-standing, and is evident in multiple ways: e.g. the failure to establish and sustain community consensus for guidelines on the nature of portals; the extraordinary flakiness of the former featured portals process, which conducted assessments with no checklist of criteria and focused overwhelmingly on presentation rather than on substantive content; the systemic failure of the portals project to assess the quality and importance of portals (most are unassassed); the ease with which they were lured into support/acquiescence with TTH's automation spree, and then for his spam; the persistence of
11. As has happens with content areas of Wikipedia which have become dsyfuctional walled gardens (e.g. longevity and its piles of GRG-cruft, or various types of fiction which became filled with fancruft), the portalspam episode triggered scrutiny by outsiders who have tried to trim the low quality cruft. This outside involvement has been bitterly resented by the portal fans, many of whom lack skills which would be transferable to actual encyclopedic content. For some of them, the low-quality magazine-style portals are the only area of Wikipeda where they can thrive, and they are understandably frightened and threatened by the squeeze on their ecosystem. They have responded with rage, low quality dissembling and deceptions, and with demands to exclude no-fans from scrutiny of portals.

This can be resolved only by the community resolving the core issues, roughly in this order:

1. Why keep portals when readers don't use them?
2. What precise purpose is supposed to be fulfilled by portals? These are pages which consist of a one-at-a-time display of articles from a non-prominent list of articles with no stated clear criteria. What exactly does this offer which is so important that we should keep it even thou readers don't want it?
3. To what extent do any portals actually fulfil that purpose?
4. How can a topic-based portal be sustained when the editors and WikiProjects who work on that topic have no interest in the portal?
5. Apart from deletion, how can we prevent under-scrutinised portals being effectively captured by incompetrent editors, as happened e.g. to Portal:Transport and Portal:Ghana, Portal:Chad

--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:16, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose because this doesn't seem to address the core problem or, more accurately, question, either, which is why users aren't using portals. To me, they're not prominently placed on the homepage. Instead the homepage is cluttered up with useless "featured articles," "did you know" and "on this day" factoids, and featured photos. The sister projects and other areas of Wikipedia links are useful, but they're all located "below the fold." To me, the DYKs and FAs are useless wiki puffery in which editors clamour for getting their articles featured on the homepage. We waste TOO much time on DYK and FA voting instead of improving Wikipedia. The homepage should be, fundamentally, a navigation aid; not a collection of daily-changing article links. Doug Mehus T·C 17:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dmehus, getting content on the Main Page is a fun little game that encourages some people to write better articles. It is not clear that taking away the motivation of seeing your article on the Main Page would make people volunteer more in other areas. As for your proposal of turning the Main Page into a navigation aid: we have Portal:Contents which tries that but doesn't do it well. —Kusma (t·c) 19:36, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Kusma, I agree with your comments on Portal:Contents not doing it well; it's too text heavy. I'm just saying, to me anyway, I find the Wikipedia homepage wholly irrelevant. Rarely does an interesting topic get featured I look it. In fact, of late, I've been accessing Wikipedia via the first article page that comes up (usually Canadian Tire Services or Motusbank, both now redirects to other pages). From there, I check my "Watchlist" and then check on a few WikiProjects; hence my thinking to making the Portals figure more prominently and have the FAs and DYKs take up much less "screen real estate." Doug Mehus T·C 19:40, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• @Dmehus: The en.wp main page gets an average of about ~16 million hits per day. The 8 highest-level portals are linked from the absolutely prime real estate on that page, but get only ~1500 hits per day each.

So even if we make the absurdly generous assumption assume that every hit for those portals comes from a mainpage link, that leaves us with less than one in every thousand visitors to the main page using even one of those very prominent portals.

Readers are voting with their feet, and shunning WikiPortals just as they shunned webportals as soon as better navigation tools became available in the late 1990s (powerful search, and massive cross-linking facilitated by CMSes). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed: take this to Arbcom

But first, please read this: [26]

I propose that this be taken to Arbcom on the basis of it being a dispute that the community is clearly unable to resolve.

I further propose that one of you who is into this sort of thing post a draft Arbcom request in your userspace and invite your opponents to comment/edit, with the goal of having an Arbcom request that is endorsed by at least some of the major players. The main request should be a NPOV question; you can lobby for what you want done in your Arbcom comment section. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:37, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Guy Macon, the problem is that ArbCom can't take on the core issue, which is: do portals have a purpose, and if so, what criteria, if any, should govern their creation, maintenance, and deletion. A bit like infoboxes, where the finding was "meh" on whether to have them or not but beatings for everyone who warred over them. Guy (help!) 17:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Arbcom was able to help resolve some of the intractable problems re:infoboxes; surely a case is worth considering re:portals. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 18:01, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. All we are going to get from an RfC is the usual characters having the same argument again (as you can see from the "Support #1" votes above from the Portal supporters). This needs to go to ArbCom who can look at the behaviour of all parties dispassionately. Black Kite (talk) 18:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Diannaa as well. While Arbcom won't say yay or nay to having a portal, it can address the behavior issues within the battle. — Ched (talk) 18:13, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I know! We can have the WMF Trust & Safety Team solve this!! (Guy Macon runs for cover as everyone throws things at him...) --Guy Macon (talk) 18:26, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Support taking this to ARBCOM. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:22, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Arbcom declined a case on this topic already in March 2019: here— Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 18:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your thinking - and perhaps right at the moment isn't best, but once ACE2019 has been resolved, I think the ripeness of it may have turned. — Ched (talk) 19:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support on the grounds this thread is way too long; it's becoming hard to reply to. The parties involved need to be separated. I prefer JzG's proposal, but would support Guy M's proposal of having some editor/admin create a draft userspace ArbCom proposal on which we could comment Doug Mehus T·C 19:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Support taking to Arbcom. This has degenerated into both sides getting into escalating beligerance, and multiple attempts by the community have failed to resolve it. There's very poor behaviour on both sides that needs to be examined. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:19, 10 November 2019 (UTC) (moved from above. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:15, 10 November 2019 (UTC))[reply]
• Oppose Per Guy's argument above, and per there still being reason to think a community solution would work. There's a huge amount of history and context here. Lets not take up the Arbs time & energy on this until we've at least tried a simple iban. FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - the monumental list of portal discussions above is somewhat damming - obviously a couple were on the underlying thoughts but a number are about how the dispute has been waged and we've not resolved the problem yet. Pending ARBCOM making superceding temporary injunctions, I do still think that a 2-way IBAN and temporary TBANs for both parties to avoid first-mover advantage from the IBAN. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:00, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support sending to ArbCom, but I will note that an extended discussion of portals that began on 1 March 2019 was closed on 11 April 2019 with no consensus except for the view of many editors that the community was too divided to resolve the matter and that it should be sent to ArbCom. A case request was filed to send the issue to ArbCom, and it was declined. I said at the time that the idea that the community was a few weeks away from resolving the issue was too optimistic. The community did not resolve portal issues within a few weeks or a few months. I still think that this will have to be resolved by ArbCom, because I don't have the faith that ArbCom had in April that the community would be able to resolve the matter. But that is only my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:27, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Abolish Portals, please

If only the community would've followed through at Village Pump & chosen to abolish all portals :( GoodDay (talk) 19:29, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't helpful, we have already had two lengthy discussions with a clear community consensus not to abolish all of the portals. At this point its a WP:DEADHORSE. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:32, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

GoodDay, I like the idea of Portals, so wouldn't support such a proposal. In fact, see above, where I've argued for featuring the portals more prominently on the homepage instead of useless (in my view) FAs and DYKs. ;) Doug Mehus T·C 19:42, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Best to abolish them, as they're more a negative asset, then a positive. I've never seen the value of portals, on Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 19:45, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, such proposals are in WP:DROPTHESTICK territory. bd2412 T 19:55, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly.... nobody at the moment wants another lengthy debate on the matter. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:56, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Agree not the time but also agree they don't work as we though they would....be it because of lack of accessibility due to mobile view limitations or the labour intensity of the old style portals making them outdated. If a few are to stick around I belive Portal:Canada can server as an example of what a portal can provide....being a showcase for featured and vital content while providing a navigation aid (cotents) and introduction to the backside of Wikipedia by way of project introduction - Wikipedia:Portal#Purposes of portals.--Moxy 🍁 20:01, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with portals is that their very low utility and very low readership means that most of them have been rationally abandoned by the more skilled editors who might have built them into something which adds a little more value. For similar reasons, they have also been abandoned by most active WikiProjects.

As a result, most (tho not all) portals have become the playground of

• those who like creating Rube Goldberg machines: vast forests of templates, Lua modules and sub-pages just to display an excerpt which is only marginally better than the excerpts built into the Wikimedia software. Most portals are basically just an absurdly baroque wrapper round a short list of articles which could be displayed in a few lines of [[Article1]] * [[Article2]] etc
• very low-competence editors such as Moxy and esp NA1K. NA1K charges around a vast range of topic areas in which they have no demonstrable expertise or skill, making lists without clear criteria which would enable other editors to examine why those articles have been chosen over others. NA!K's competence levels are so abysmally low that they are either unable or unwilling even to acknowledge that there is a serious problem in their choice to crate a list of massive bias even on the broad topic of transport, where they populated the portal with a list where of 50% of the geographically-tied articles relate to their own country.

Even in that extreme case, when NA1K was challenged about it, they failed to do what any honest and competent editor would do: promptly acknowledge that they had screwed up really badly, and that some wholly different approach was needed.

Most of the antagonism over portals derives from their collapse into this status of a playground for the incompetent, who bitterly resent being challenged about the abysmal quality of what they create with their low skills, and are frightened that their playground is shrinking.

This structural problem could be resolved either by deleting all portals, or by the wider community making a much firmer grip of how portals should be designed and built. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:12, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Propose immediate block for yet another personal attack by BrownHairedGirl against NA1k and Moxy, just above. I'm too involved in the portal dispute to do it myself, but I can't understand how this harassment and bullying has been tolerated for so long, and BHG now continues to attack and bully other editors in a thread started because she has been bullying and harassing other editors. Is the WMF right and we are a pro-bullying pro-harassment website that can't get its house in order? Even if BHG were right about portals, I can't see any excuse for this anymore. —Kusma (t·c) 20:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is the problem we keep running into....an administrator not willing to engage others with any respect.--Moxy 🍁 20:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Moxy, I show great respect to editors who try to work in good faith within their skill zone. Those like you who repeatedly demonstrate bad faith and refuse to recognise your own imitations get less respect from me.

As one example, it's only a few days since you engaged in sustained bullying of me at MFD:Portal:Lighthouses because I refused to accede to your repeated insistence that I should abuse tools such as AWB in pursuit of your desire to circumvent long-stranding aspects of interface design. You were especially outraged that I insisted that I would have no part of that unless there was a clear community consensus to do so.

I do not express respect for an editor engaging in that sort of bullying and contempt for consensus ... and I have no respect at all for your blatant hypocrisy in behaving like that and then calling me all sorts of names . --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Not sure what your linking to when it comes to a personal attack on you at that page. But it is odd that after that talk you changed some inline-portal templates limiting accessibility for 50 percent of our readers. You can see how time and time again many are not convinced your edits related to portals are made with our readers in mind and has lead to numerous complaints about edits and behavior.--Moxy 🍁 21:36, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, if you truly believe that NA1k and Moxy are too incompetent to edit here, you should either start attempts to ban them (I guess you know where to find the ArbCom), or you should rejoice that they spend so much time on niche low-viewership things like portals instead of in places where they could do more serious damage. It is quite difficult to disrupt the encyclopaedia using portals (again, pageviews and number of editors involved are not huge), but you have succeeded many times to blow the issue up to epic proportions by focusing on contributors instead of content. Bullying is bad and the ends do not justify the means. —Kusma (t·c) 21:06, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Kusma: I recoil at the bureaucracy of an ArbCom case. Months of diff-farming does my head in. After The Troubles case ~12 years ago, I vowed never again if I could avoid it. And my experience of ANI is that is good at simple, immediate issues, but very poor at handling cases involving prolonged issues with several people, esp if the miscreants have a vocal fan club. (Part of the flaw is structural: non-admins get equal voice in the decision-making, so its not really an admin board).

So I hoped that progress could still be made without bans, by enough outside editors getting involved to outweigh the vocal-but-incompetents. Most of the time this has worked well, but every now and then it all flares up, as it has just done over transport, or as Moxy tried to do with P:Lighthouses.

If you actually look across the range of MFDs, you can see that I have tried v hard to focus on content. I spend a lot of time researching and writing detailed researched, rationales (to the portal crew has denounced me for that: it's "intimidation", they said, because they prefer ilikeit debates).

The problems arise when the likes of NA1K arrive and post nonsense. Moxy mostly just posts garbled hot air, but NA1K specialisses in truthiness: well-written nonsense which is structured like reason, but littered with non-sequiturs and falsehoods and half-truth. A debate/discusison format is ill-equipped to deal with sustained half-truths like that, so things can kick off as NA1K responds with verbose scattergun nonsnense. You can see an example of it further up this page, where NA1K accused me of doing "exactly the same thing" as they dis, even tho I had done the exact opposite. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:36, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Kusma: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.

We are here to build that enyclopedia.

Building an encyclopedia requires skills.

Editors who lack the skills to contribute effectively in a given area are expected to have the self-awareness to recognise their limitations and find other way of contributing. Failure to do so is disruptive.

Massive disruption has been caused, and is being caused on an ongoing basis, by the failure of those editors to work within the limits of their own competence.

There is now a persistent problem that those who challenge this disruption caused by this incompetence are accused of all sorts of wickdeness for pointing to the emperor's nakedness.

If the solution is to silence the critics, then the problem will not be resolved. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, That's true...I do agree with this, "Massive disruption has been caused, and is being caused on an ongoing basis, by the failure of those editors to work within the limits of their own competence." I try and limit my editing to Canadian politics, corporations, and North American radio and television stations. I wonder if part of the problem may be the country-specific WikiProjects whereby editor-members are editing, on a mass scale, on topics which they have little knowledge but are colocated based on their being in the same country? Perhaps we need a re-think of WikiProjects such that we eliminate country- and geographic-specific WikiProjects? Doug Mehus T·C 20:58, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just country-specific portals that are the problem—it's just that you're seeing those because they're the ones that are potentially viable and have consequently survived deletion. TTH's portal-creation script was based on search terms and was very scattergun, and we ended up with things like Jannie de Beer in Portal:Alcoholic drinks. (I have no idea if that was a real example or not—that's just one I made up to illustrate the issue—but anyone who was there can confirm that I'm not being unfair.) ‑ Iridescent 21:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Iridescent, True, and I don't disagree with you. I didn't realize editors were creating portals via script'. I assumed most were created manually. Excuse my Pollyanna syndrome. What I meant was the WikiProjects (not Portals) contributing to the perceived, if not real, problem of editors editing beyond their topical competence. The Canada Portal is a good example of a portal (but so was the now-deleted Star Trek one). The real problem, I think, is the country WikiProjects (i.e., WikiProject Canada; WikiProject United States of America, etc.). Doug Mehus T·C 21:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dmehus, the main problem with country WikiProjects is that they tend to be too large to have much coherence. I don't quite see how WikiProjects cause people to edit outside of their competence. Most people tend to edit topics they are interested in, and from my own experience trying to cheerlead the Germany project I can tell you it is rather hard to find people who will help with some "important" topic that they don't enjoy editing. YMMV of course. Anyway, this is off-topic and might be better at the idea lab. —Kusma (t·c) 21:34, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In 2018, a script was used to assist in creating portals, all or almost all of which have been deleted. The script has been blanked and the templates which it used have been deleted. Certes (talk) 21:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Thanks, Dmehus. I try to limit my editing in similar ways. My topics are politics and modern history in Ireland and the UK.

However, this has almost nothing to do with WikiProjects, which have largely abandoned portals. Most Wikiprojects as less tha active, but insofar as they are still functioning, WikiProjects do prvide a forum for steering editors away from damage.

This is about portals, where NA1K in particular has charged in and rebuilt many dozens of portals on a vast range of topics. At one stage they had even listed themself as the "maintainer" of over 42 portals, including Ghana, Free software, Guatemala, Biochemistry, Money, Djiboti, Tanks, Moldova. After repeated criticism, they removed themself as maintainer, but went on to sneakily rebuild dozens more portals on topics where they have with no demonstrable expertise. Every one of those which I have examined in detail was very poor quality work.

This is the Dunning–Kruger effect on steroids. NA1K has some bizarre delusion that the have some magic skill which gives them expertise in all these diverse topics, and doesn't learn to change course when the evidence is set out that they have screwed up yet again. Part of the reason this continues is the portal fan club, in which low-skill editors are dominant. None of them as severely deluded as NA1K, but they cheer on NA1K against what they say are the bad nasty people who "bully" NA1K by challenging the failings. So NA1K continues in a bubble. It's a dystopian group version of Randy in Boise, with lots of Randys. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:41, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous60987766 (talk · contribs) has removed referenced content and made substantial unsourced changes to multiple articles. The only explanation so far has been this [27]. Suggesting a user block, with attention from editors knowledgeable in the subject, as to whether any edits are acceptable. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 13:41, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• This [28] confirms the problem. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 13:53, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The removal of this report by the subject of the report was obviously a very dubious act. I'd be grateful if the IP editor could provide specific diffs to the removals that are a cause for concern, so that we can assess those without trawling through all their contribs. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, Girth Summit. [29]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33]; [34]; [35]; [36]. These are, in terms of volume, the prominent deletions. Many of the smaller edits are to infoboxes, changing gods' 'affiliations', which has an effect similar to genre warring in music articles--all unsourced and all done with a sense of unquestioned authority. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 17:41, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Per my inclusion of this diff above [37], it's never a good sign when someone goes through numerous articles deleting and changing content on nothing more substantial than Actually, I removed it intentionally because of the distorted content which I felt shouldn't be there but if you choose to keep it the same way, then it's your wish. It's better to remove something than to let it be there even if it's distorted. There is a limit to adding distorted information but I've got fewer fucks to give. If you don't know about something then you shouldn't interrupt. Anyway, if not you, someone else would have done it. That doesn't mean I agree with the shit written here though but anyway, thanks for your concern Mr. I know wikipedia isn't my father's property and that's why anyone can come here and write BS. The attitude speaks for itself. At this point, my question is whether any of the edits ought to be preserved. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 17:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks you, IP editor. This is certainly concerning - the diffs presented show a pattern of removing sourced content, and their response quoted above indicates a pretty poor attitude with regard to collaboration. Perhaps Anonymous60987766 would be prepared to attempt to explain their conduct before we decide the best way forward. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:02, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Many of his edits seem sensible de-cluttering, but with a tendency to go too far. The "sourcing" on many articles on Hindu deities is to very-much-not-RS Hindu sites. This series (almost immediately reverted) starts off well, but imo seems to go too far by the lower bits. Johnbod (talk) 18:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Johnbod. It would be good to get a handle on the validity of their edits, since they're not inclined to account for them or leave edit summaries explaining the strength of a source....or what sources they're relying on. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 18:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

He never seems to add sources, and most of his edits are net removals, but that is often not a bad thing on these pages. I don't like this group on Krishna so much - again reverted immediately. But this is a sensible link correction (apart from missing a "). Johnbod (talk) 18:31, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

대한민국 헌법 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This user persistently removes chunks of infomation from articles with no explantion at all in the respective edit summaries. Examples of this include: [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43],[44], [45], [46], [47], [48].

This user has been warned about disruptive editing on multiple occasions including:[49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57],[58], [59], [60], [61] or can be more simply seen by looking the user's talk page in full here:[62]. Yet the user still continues to remove infomation from pages with no reasoning given on their Edit summaries  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 14:47, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Catitude98 (talk · contribs) is constantly adding unsourced and promotional content to Tracy Byrd, and seems unresponsive to requests to adhere to a more neutral tone. I even cited on their talk page a more neutral way to rephrase the content, but the user was unresponsive and restored the exact same content. I would like to believe the editor is editing in good faith, but the utter lack of responsiveness and persistent re-adding despite more than one warning is troubling. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:44, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I really think they're close to meriting a block. Also wonder if WP:COI is relevant. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 18:40, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I believe my last edit followed the rules. I did include a phrase that you (ten pound hammer) suggested, "several of Byrd's hit singles" which an anonymous user then edited out, and I think complained about. I am trying to go by the rules here, I'm definately not intending to do what's being suggested of me. My original edits were written after a style that I have seen on the page, which I now realize were cited published remarks, and mine were merely my opinion. I now understand the difference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Catitude98 (talk • contribs) 19:13, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• RobloxCount999 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I first noticed this user's behavior after they added unsourced material (possibly false information) to 2022 FIFA World Cup. Since then, I've noticed some other shady behavior of theirs, including promotion of their supposed business, overlinking, unnecessary changing of links, and more of the same unsourced changes on other articles. They have also created articles of what seem to be random trivia, some of which have already been deleted as test pages or duplicates of other articles. I do not believe a message that isn't templated is going to get them to change their ways either. Jalen Folf (talk) 20:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would support this user being banned from wikipediado to creations of bad quality articles as well as a possiblility of being a child likely a teenager due to username and topics edited — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.254.9.244 (talk) 22:56, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]