Misplaced Pages

Endorse close Yes, I'm probably not the most neutral party here, however this close was what I was getting at originally. This fiasco has gone on far too long; multiple closures reaching the same conclusion should say something.Let's move on, and look back at this in the future if consensus gets clearer. --Mdann52talk to me! 16:49, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Mdann, I agree that the previously overturned close does say something. This RfC has attracted closers with strong minority views. In the review of your close I deliberately left out diffs that you were opposed to the original RfC result (not a participant, but you opposed that consensus), and you supported the development of Superprotect. I took the high road and kept my mouth shut, because I could win the review without the drama. Alsee (talk) 17:15, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

"I could win the review"??? sounds like WP:BATTLE to me. In any case, when I make a closure, I approach it from the evidence and arguments provided, as opposed to my personal views on the situation, which have always sat in the "meh, not bothered" region. My main reason for supporting superprotect was not that I agreed with it, but as it was a good temporary solution to stop an edit war and get back to discussion. --Mdann52talk to me! 17:20, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

By "win the review" I meant "overturn an improper close". I would not challenge a close if I did not have a good-faith belief that there was a problem with it. Alsee (talk) 20:11, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• Overturn close. It is nice that the closing rationale in this case (Special:Diff/637404322) is far more detailed than the previous one. That is definitely good. Unfortunately, the details seem to be of the kind that shouldn't have been there... There is a list of discounted arguments (that is good): "The large majority of supports for turning off the feature were either regarding issues addressed by subsequent improvements, expressing disappointment at the version of media viewer first deployed, frustration at the subsequent events, anger at the WMF, or did not provide a rationale. As such, those did not contribute to the result, neither did arguments regarding exceptions to consensus, speculation on the WMF response, or personal feelings on either side.". But I do not see such arguments in the discussion (certainly not a majority). What were those "issues addressed by subsequent improvements"? Whose argument was "anger at the WMF"? How does an argument "personal feelings on either side" even look like? Actually, something was explained in the talk page (Special:Diff/638110026). That is nice, but it is hard to see how numbers are supposed to add up to that "majority" that was promised (19 out of 75 have been listed; also 4 out of 36 "opposes").

Not that such weights are fully justifiable: for example, many "Votes only expressing dissatisfaction at WMF or personal feelings" seem to be simply relevant opinions.

Then the closer proceeds to weighting of the arguments. Unfortunately, it is hard to see how that weighting takes opinions expressed in the discussion into account. For there were certain indicators which arguments had more weight - for example, those same "per X votes". They were ignored. Instead, arguments were dismissed or claimed to have been supported with something like "The argument that the media viewer does not show licensing information sufficiently compared to file pages is unsupported, since on file pages this information is below the image and in their overwhelming majority, readers will not scroll down to it and look at it since they already have what they're looking for, so file pages aren't that much of an opportunity to educate them."... That could be suitable for a "vote", but is it suitable for the close?

Also, the closer introduces a distinction between logged in and non-logged in users ("First off, it is crucial to make a distinction between logged in and logged out users, as most commentators agree, but such separation was not preserved in the format from the previous RFC.") for little reason. It was not in the discussion.

Then, the closer has simply claimed that "The media viewer has also been considerably revamped since then, so the issue being commented on is very different, and the community has a very different take on the situation, meaning the previous RFC result has become irrelevant (but I did consider the still relevant comments from there).", although there were arguments to the contrary in the discussion. No answer or reason why they were ignored was given.

Finally, it is strange to see something like " As noted, there is no consensus for either of the two main outcomes, but there is consensus for requesting several modifications to the media viewer, in order to address several points of enduring concern, expressed on both sides, which need to be resolved as soon as possible, though the implementation of each can be discussed further if needed", followed by 8 points "with consensus", that were not even discussed as such... That does look like a list of things the closer would personally support... But, once again, the closer shouldn't just throw out all discussion and simply declare that things he wants have "consensus". Therefore, I would say that this close should be overturned. -Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:18, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding your first point, if I had gone into details in the closing statement, the length of it would have been really excessive, but as I said I can develop more now. Beware that I listed on my talk page the votes which did not contribute to the analysis of arguments, while I listed in my closing statement the comments that ended up not affecting the final result after weighing of arguments, and those are very different things, although there is some overlap. (And I stand by my comment on a majority for the later, which I've never suggested for the former.) As I said above, a "per x" vote is indisputably not an argument in itself and therefore there's no way it can contribute to the analysis of arguments, but again, they were considered when weighing arguments. The votes complaining of issues addressed by newer media viewer versions were definitely not straight discounted, but they couldn't pass muster after weighing of arguments. I will need some specifics about how a single sentence rant against the WMF can be construed as a relevant argument in this RFC. Arguments regarding exceptions to consensus and WMF response did not contribute in the end because the conclusion was reached without them needing to be considered.

Regarding the issue of copyright, I am baffled that you throw out an accusation of supervote, which only shows that you did not even attempt a good faith effort to find the counter argument I was referring to. You really didn't have to look far, it was the second oppose vote, and a powerful rebuttal to the arguments made in the support section (not the only one though), I had no choice but to acknowledge this.

As pointed out already most voters argued on the underlying issue (media viewer), so it was de facto (if not de jure) an extension of the previous RFC, and it is apparent that the state of consensus on the underlying issue changed. Implicitly or explicitly, the determining factor for voters was the underlying issue itself, so in order to determine consensus in this RFC it was necessary to determine consensus on the underlying issue, which as noted above changed. Of this it follows that the distinction between logged in and logged out users had to be made in order to gauge consensus on the underlying issue. Voters did so explicitly, such as when distinguishing editors from readers, or implicitly, such as when referencing the previous RFC in which the distinction was formalized in structure. In response to the blunt "It was not in the discussion.", I'll reiterate my disappointment at the lack of even a small attempt to review the discussion; there were several patently obvious explicit references such as in supports 26 and 46, in opposes 6, 11, 15, and several others that I'll leave out cause I've more than done my part.

Regarding you penultimate paragraph, I've addressed this extensively above and in my previous answers (to sum up, for voters the determining factor was the underlying issue itself and it became obvious that the community's take on it had massively evolved).

All of the points that I mentioned at the end gained consensus either in this RFC (ex: make it easier to turn it off, easier to edit the file description, remaining technical issues, and need for another survey - if you don't mind I'll leave it to you to find the specific comments), or in linked discussions (customization and featured pictures). I gave a few examples of possible implementations but only for illustrative and clarity purposes, and I expressly invited further discussion on those points.

Finally I will emphasize that in a close review the burden of proof is on the challengers, so I would appreciate arguments backed up by actual evidence. Cenarium (talk) 23:55, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

If the community's position had "massively evolved" you wouldn't be casting a supervote against more than 2-to-1 support, trying to vacate a consensus you don't like. Alsee (talk) 10:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

"Regarding your first point, if I had gone into details in the closing statement, the length of it would have been really excessive" - well, I guess I cannot object to excessive length. My statement (and this response) are not very short either...

"Beware that I listed on my talk page the votes which did not contribute to the analysis of arguments, while I listed in my closing statement the comments that ended up not affecting the final result after weighing of arguments, and those are very different things, although there is some overlap." - I see. That's clearer.

"And I stand by my comment on a majority for the later, which I've never suggested for the former." - so, could you, please, make a list, so that we could check?

"The votes complaining of issues addressed by newer media viewer versions were definitely not straight discounted, but they couldn't pass muster after weighing of arguments." - so, what issues (or what "votes") are that?

"I will need some specifics about how a single sentence rant against the WMF can be construed as a relevant argument in this RFC.". First of all, the RFC was asking if we should drop the issue. One of possible reasons to choose is quality of the software in question, but, contrary to your view, it is not the only reason. It is also legitimate to consider the relationship with WMF in long term. If you do not discount opinion that we should not fight WMF (let's say, oppose 25 - "Confronting WMF is unproductive, unhelpful and unnecessary."), it is only fair to refuse to discount opinion that confronting WMF on this issue is a good idea. But let's look at specific "votes". You have listed five opinions classified like that: "31,40,41,45,73". I don't think it is right to consider that as basis for 31 (you could have classified it as one of "Votes with no rationale"). 40 is "Especially the brutal force to implement such a buggy, unwanted bling-thing was absolutely disgusting." - at the very least, "buggy" is also somewhat relevant if you ignore the "long-term view". 41 ("Never have so many been so upset at so few, but in this process - which I'm sure will ultimately be devoutly ignored - we have a chance to right a wrong, and maybe, just maybe, get back to the way things were: happy editors, happy readers, and happy fact checkers for articles and images") - well, what about those fact checkers? The description of the image is not really that visible in Media Viewer... 71 ("Moving from neutral to support, per 98.207.91.246's links under Neutral that show many disgruntled readers and very shaky evidence that Media Viewer is beneficial. I also think it's pretty impressive that someone began editing Misplaced Pages for the express purpose of protesting Media Viewer. Separately, considering some of the feedback left by readers, this feels like yet another case of releasing buggy software to the public and explaining away the detriment to readers and/or new editors by saying it will be fixed. Finally, there was already an RFC on this and the overwhelming consensus was to disable it. What's the holdup?") - can't think of anything wrong with it. Actually, it counts as a very good response to your "The arguments that the media viewer is closer to the needs of readers compared to a classic file page are well supported". Unfortunately, you ignored it...

"Regarding the issue of copyright, I am baffled that you throw out an accusation of supervote, which only shows that you did not even attempt a good faith effort to find the counter argument I was referring to. You really didn't have to look far, it was the second oppose vote, and a powerful rebuttal to the arguments made in the support section (not the only one though), I had no choice but to acknowledge this." - first of all, please, calm down. I do not say that you acted in bad faith and would appreciate that you would also respond likewise. So, now that that's dealt with, let's proceed. Yes, I have seen that argument. It is, at the very least, less developed than yours. And if you wanted to specify that you felt it was "a powerful rebuttal to the arguments made in the support section", you could have said so in the close (let's say, "I think arguments about copyright information have been answered by oppose 2."). It would have been shorter and clearer. Anyway, your evaluation does seem to ignore the point made in support 3 (difficult cases) and strong support of the argument (supports 3, 35, 36, 47, 59, 74, "per X votes" 6, 32, 60, 66, 67 vs. the oppose 2). And I don't think the oppose 2 is very strong (I hope we won't need to discuss that any further).

"Implicitly or explicitly, the determining factor for voters was the underlying issue itself, so in order to determine consensus in this RFC it was necessary to determine consensus on the underlying issue, which as noted above changed." - as I said, it was one possible reason to choose one option or another, but not the only one. You just mistakenly decided to ignore the others.

"In response to the blunt "It was not in the discussion.", I'll reiterate my disappointment at the lack of even a small attempt to review the discussion; there were several patently obvious explicit references such as in supports 26 and 46, in opposes 6, 11, 15, and several others that I'll leave out cause I've more than done my part." - first of all, I am afraid that 5 "votes" do not justify such distinction, when it was not really discussed by the rest of participants. Second, well, do you seriously claim that support 26 ("Awful tool, unwanted, unwarranted and a technically backwards step that worsens the experience for editors, whether logged in or not."), support 46 ("keeping Media Viewer disabled by default for both registered and unregistered editors.") or even oppose 6 ("It's long past time to deploy this improved file-page interface, especially for non-logged-in readers who likely don't care about the cruft that we editors do.") justify such distinction? In no "vote" that you mention was any different approach to logged-in and not-logged-in users proposed or advocated!

"All of the points that I mentioned at the end gained consensus either in this RFC (ex: make it easier to turn it off, easier to edit the file description, remaining technical issues, and need for another survey - if you don't mind I'll leave it to you to find the specific comments)" - sorry, but just because something was tangentially proposed in the discussion does not mean that it has consensus. There might have been users who do not agree, but avoided things that were "offtopic". Therefore, I do not find your approach suitable for closing discussions.

"Finally I will emphasize that in a close review the burden of proof is on the challengers, so I would appreciate arguments backed up by actual evidence." - I do happen to think that I have offered some. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:09, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The length of a comment doesn't make its strength, its substance does.

I didn't discount votes about what you call long term relationship with WMF, or dynamics between the community and the WMF, for example I counted support #68 and the second part of support #65, among others. What I discounted are comments which didn't contribute to the formation of consensus, because they didn't bring any reasoned argument to the discussion (which includes dismissive or angry comments when their arguments (if any) are expressed elsewhere in a reasoned way). Regarding support #71, you got the number wrong, it was support #73, but since you mentioned it, the view of a single IP should be considered, but it is insufficient on its own to ascertain reader satisfaction.

The weighing of arguments with respect to copyright also included the comments made in the previous RFC, so it was about more than just oppose #2 (some of them address the "complex cases argument", essentially that it's primarily a TLDR issue that isn't germane to media viewer).

Those voters would not have made a distinction between unregistered and registered users if they didn't think it was warranted, and there has been explicit criticism of the RFC format as well.

The points I mentioned were concerns recognized on both sides, or noncontroversial (e.g. featured pictures) so didn't need loads of discussions to get consensus.

I will gladly provide a more detailed list of arguments with their weighing if it is requested by uninvolved users. Cenarium (talk) 14:11, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

"The length of a comment doesn't make its strength, its substance does." - sure. Did anyone claim otherwise?

"I didn't discount votes about what you call long term relationship with WMF, or dynamics between the community and the WMF" - OK, that's a bit clearer, although it would be far more clear after seeing a list.

"the view of a single IP should be considered, but it is insufficient on its own to ascertain reader satisfaction." - yet it was enough to make a participant change his mind. It counts more than your personal view about needs of readers (which, by the way, should have no weight at all). And it is not merely opinion of one IP, but a pattern of reader feedback, with a challenge of evidence used to claim that "Media Viewer is useful to readers.". It shows that this claim is not as uncontroversial, as you claim in the closing statement. And if you have ignored that much of this "vote", that does make me question the rest of your work (that hasn't been presented for us to check). Also, since that claim was so important to your close, mishandling of this "vote" alone can call the whole close into question.

"The weighing of arguments with respect to copyright also included the comments made in the previous RFC" - so, you took one discussion with a rather clear consensus to one side, added another discussion (with a lower weight) that had simply overwhelming consensus to the same side, and got no consensus? Sorry, but it doesn't look very believable. Something must have gone wrong.

"Those voters would not have made a distinction between unregistered and registered users if they didn't think it was warranted, and there has been explicit criticism of the RFC format as well." - but they didn't make a distinction.

"The points I mentioned were concerns recognized on both sides, or noncontroversial (e.g. featured pictures) so didn't need loads of discussions to get consensus." - they still need discussion about them, even if it is just "I propose X." followed by silence.

"I will gladly provide a more detailed list of arguments with their weighing if it is requested by uninvolved users." - why only by uninvolved users? And why in plural? It shouldn't be much of an effort, as you must have made the list while closing the discussion. You just create an impression (hopefully, wrong) that there is something worth hiding there... It is very easy to demonstrate that it is wrong. Just upload the file with it and give a link here. It is not like closer doesn't have to defend his own close, when it is, at least, counterintuitive.

And there is still that part about issues (or "votes") that were discounted, because of changed situation. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 01:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Nope, you are trying to re-debate the issue, as evidenced by your belief that I somehow provided my opinion when I only analyzed the debate, which isn't the purpose of a close review. I'm not your "opponent". If there are legitimate concerns on my close, then uninvolved users will no doubt point them out and I'll provide more justification if necessary, but I've already thoroughly justified almost every aspect of it. The way it's headed, you and Aslee are just trying to win the argument by attrition, and I'm not going to play along. You are asking me to invest exponentially increasing amount of times, always finding a new "issue". It may look like the easy way when a dozen of actively involved users face a single or a handful of uninvolved admins, but it's a tactic that is well known and won't work around here. Misplaced Pages is already plagued enough as it is by contentious discussions which can't get any closer for weeks or months. Cenarium (talk) 19:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

"Nope, you are trying to re-debate the issue, as evidenced by your belief that I somehow provided my opinion when I only analyzed the debate, which isn't the purpose of a close review." - um, that would only be true if you did the close well. That hasn't been demonstrated.

"If there are legitimate concerns on my close, then uninvolved users will no doubt point them out and I'll provide more justification if necessary" - why specifically "uninvolved"?

"I've already thoroughly justified almost every aspect of it." - not in the least. As you have wrote yourself, "The length of a comment doesn't make its strength, its substance does.".

"You are asking me to invest exponentially increasing amount of times, always finding a new "issue"." - no, I am asking you to do a very simple thing: upload the list of arguments or "votes" (with weights) that you have made while closing the discussion. If you closed the discussion properly, you simply had to make a spreadsheet or text file like with such list, for there were too many arguments and names to remember. Thus if you closed the discussion properly, then now the work you have to do would be less hard than writing this response to me.

Of course, if you did not close the discussion properly and just declared that you saw a "majority" because you felt like doing so (and, for all the length of your explanations, it looks like you still haven't given any conclusive evidence that you didn't do so), making a list will be hard. But then, defending a bad close should be very hard. And if you find it too hard, you are always free to give up.

"Misplaced Pages is already plagued enough as it is by contentious discussions which can't get any closer for weeks or months." - sorry, but I think that is still much better than bad closes. And if you think I should do something about that, I did write a "user essay" with a "checklist" for closing discussions (User:Martynas Patasius/Things to check while closing discussions - which, by the way, includes making lists). --Martynas Patasius (talk) 02:05, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Uninvolved because I want to be certain that it is a legitimate concern on the close as opposed to a rehashing of the debate. I'm not going to give out a list when the only effect will be to give you as many reasons as there are entries for pointlessly rehashing the debate. Cenarium (talk) 15:33, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

In other words, you think that those entries are not exactly perfectly obvious..? That they are, um, debatable..? And you do not want to publish them, because that would hurt your case..? Well, thank you - I don't think it is reasonable to expect you to admit that the reasoning supporting your close is weak in any stronger way.

Although I have to admit that I do not really understand what exactly do you mean by "rehashing the debate"... We have a discussion about weight of arguments concerning situation with Media Viewer, and it does seem to be different from RFC itself. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 20:22, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

If you admit that you are going to debate for hours every single minor point that isn't "exactly perfectly obvious", then I think you could not prove my point in any stronger way. I don't have such a written list anyway, I happen to have a good memory but I would still need to go through the discussion to get the exact references, I'm not going to do so just to satisfy your desire for pointless arguing. As for my case, it looks pretty good and I'm very much satisfied, thanks for asking. There's a whole lot of WP shortcuts I could throw out at this point but I'll refrain. You just spent the last several months focused on debating media viewer, don't you have other things to do ? I have. Cenarium (talk) 23:27, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I guess there is no reason to expect much progress at this moment, if you are not even willing to "throw out WP shortcuts"...

Anyway, the positions are clear. You think that we should just trust you - not merely your good will or judgement, but also your memory and mathematical ability. I think that we shouldn't have to do that and that the reasoning behind the close should be explained in such detail that it wouldn't be necessary...

I would say that my position is more in line with Misplaced Pages:Closing discussions (Special:Diff/630391195 - "A good admin will transparently explain how the decision was reached.") and corresponds to other policies (for example, we do not just "trust" someone's expertise without sources)... You obviously disagree... I guess someone who closes this discussion will have to decide which arguments are better... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 04:26, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I just wanted to point out that the only uninvolved users are Hobit and Sladen (all others either commented in the RFC, or for Mdann52, closed it previously), and neither Hobit nor Sladen asked for an overturn. I will also point out that the previous close review was advertized in a non-neutral way at village pump (proposals) in a new section. While this didn't affect the previous close review, for which agreement was wide, the users who commented there were subsequently individually notified about the present close review. Although the individual notifications were neutral, this may affect the present close review since the individuals notified were from a group biased by the previous non-neutral advertizing. Only two users who commented here were not notified in this way, they are Fluffernutter and Sladen, none of them asked for an overturn. Cenarium (talk) 19:11, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

You are right about the several involved but the review closer usually discounts those. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:43, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, but I thought I would share my findings since I had checked myself. Cenarium (talk) 20:40, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Does this ad hominem (and yes, it is ad hominem - you argue that arguments should be ignored because of who their authors are) mean that you do not really have a good answer to the arguments themselves (for example, the ones I have given)..?

But let's look at the opinions of users whom you consider to be uninvolved. Both Hobit and Sladen indicated that they do not really care that much (as one might suspect, that often explains why uninvolved users are uninvolved). They didn't say they want the close to be overturned, but they didn't say they endorse it either. Fluffernutter is oppose 5.

Furthermore, one can construct other similar arguments. For example, "One of two users whose opinion started with 'endorse close' is oppose 11, another one is the previous closer, who closed in the same way.". What does that tell us? Only that ad hominem is not a strong argument... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 18:39, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

You may want to review the definition of ad hominem, which consists in commenting on the character of a person, not quite the same thing as noting that several commentators participated in the RFC whose close is being reviewed. I stated in my edit summary that I would reply later (I'm taking a Christmas break), but this won't take long as your answer is essentially an annotated list of long quotations. Contrary to your suggestion, I didn't single out the commentators based on their vote. Cenarium (talk) 20:40, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

"I stated in my edit summary that I would reply later (I'm taking a Christmas break), but this won't take long as your answer is essentially an annotated list of long quotations." - I am happy to hear that. Oh, and, since you gave me an excuse - merry Christmas (to you and to other participants)!

"Contrary to your suggestion, I didn't single out the commentators based on their vote." - I don't see where I suggested that. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 20:51, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, Martinyas Pastasius, your arguments cite no policy, so your arguments are not good. You also point to factually unsupported arguments - such arguments are not good. Your arguments are also contrary to CONLIMITED, NOVOTE, IDONTLIKEIT, and the instructions at VPT, not to mention CONEXCEPT. There is no ad hominem -- the involved arguments, such as you and I and Alsee, et al., in review, are generally discounted. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:37, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

So, I guess you are not actually quoting my arguments and policy, because you expect that the closer will ignore your arguments anyway? As you wish... Although I do hope that your arguments (or lack of them, if you do not want to present them) will be taken into account. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 02:36, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

It's just that arguing and arguing and arguing until you impose the close you want is seen through - as will be that you have no policy nor facts. You dislike it, that's already well understood. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:11, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

The "close we want" is one that resembles the outcome. Alsee (talk) 05:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Comment: Panel of 3 After the original (overturned) close, at least four people called for a panel of three to close this. It's seriously needed here. Alsee (talk) 11:29, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

That would have been nice, but it didn't happen. Given the associated drama with this RFC, it's now unlikely to ever happen, even if we did overturn this close. Maybe we could get that if we held a new RFC in a few months. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 12:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirate, if it is reopened, is that a support or oppose for panel of 3 on a reclose? Alsee (talk) 17:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Legal threat

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

User:Helloaryan needs blocking. See Talk:Satyananda_Saraswati#Legal_Implication_of_Adding_Controversy.2FControversies_section. Admin, kindly semi protect the Talk:Satyananda_Saraswati page also, it is attracting lot of sock puppet/meat-puppet accounts.--Vigyani_talk 05:23, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

These three edits and this one are Helloaryan's only edits to this talk page, and he's never edited the article. I don't see a legal threat, even after looking at it multiple times and reading through the linked news story; the situation makes me think that he's more giving a caution, basically "Be more careful or you'll risk getting sued by Saraswati's associates", but not "Be more careful or you'll risk getting sued by me". Nyttend (talk) 05:43, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

PS, semiprotected for a week. Thank you for providing the Facebook link at this talk page, or I wouldn't have seen enough reason to protect it in any way. Nyttend (talk) 05:46, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for semi. But the meat accounts have become smarter, accumulating auto confirmed status before coming to this article's talk page. Can we file meat-puppetry report at WP:SPI ?--Vigyani_talk 06:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

You can, but you're convinced that they're meat puppets, don't bother filing a checkuser request — checkusers can only determine people's physical locations and networks, and if one is hundreds of kilometres away from one's meatpuppet friend, the checkuser won't find a thing. Just ask them to make a determination based on behavior. Nyttend (talk) 06:07, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Topic ban proposal for Royroydeb

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

A number of editors have raised concerns on my talk page about Royroydeb (talk · contribs)'s BLP creations. The articles he is starting about BLPs are simply poorly or incorrectly sourced, and others are just plain non-notable. Numerous editors have raised this issue with him before (see e.g. here and here) and he has also been recently warned here - all with no response or acknowledgment, and all with no change in behavior. This mass creation of inadequately sourced BLPs (recent example here) is disruptive and there is a competence issue here, for both BLP policy and notability requirements. I therefore propose that Royroydeb is indefinitely topic banned from creating BLPs. GiantSnowman 11:16, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support, but for six months - Royroydeb has created quite a lot of BLPs that blatantly fail both WP:GNG and WP:NFOOTY; many of which are just one-liners. In my opinion, the worst ones were Sheyi Ojo and Oluwaseyi Ojo; although you could argue that he is at least marginally notable, those two names are different names for the same player. The articles even use the exact same source. Royroydeb has shown absolutely no signs of discussing their actions whatsoever, but I don't think jumping straight on an indefinite topic ban is necessarily the best solution; six months seems better, with an indefinite one to follow if things do not improve. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support - by giving the user an indef ban, we are telling he that (s)he can't do it ever unless (s)he is willing to discuss issues with us. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:31, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. A few months ago, he accurately explained the footballer notability guideline to another editor, and HERE, he proposed for deletion an article about a footballer who is an under-age international for his country and has never played first-team football. Two hours later, he created the Sheyi Oyo articles, one straight after the other, articles about a footballer who is an under-age international for his country and has never played first-team football...
• At GiantSnowman's talk page, I mentioned three not particularly recent instances of the editor's attitude to sourcing of BLPs but didn't add any evidence, so I'd better do so here. In Oct 2013, he posted a news item to a self-publishing website under his own name and then cited it in a BLP. In May 2014, he used a dead foreign-language reference copied from another article as a source for this BLP: confirmation HERE, just below where he agrees to train a newcomer in good article reviewing... And in Aug 2014, at this BLP, he added content citing a page from someone's online FM2014 game story; I commented at his talk page HERE.
• Unfortunately, I think the editor has been getting away with so much for so long that the only way he can be reined in is to do something he can't ignore. But "indefinite" doesn't mean "infinite". If removing his ability to create BPLs makes him realise that if he wants to stay here, he has to respect our norms and policies – communication, sourcing...  – over a decent length of time, perhaps at least six months, then there's no reason why the ban can't be lifted. Let's hope a topic ban doesn't mean he devotes more of his time to adding unsourced or poorly sourced content. He is a very prolific editor... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:16, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Does not communicate with nobody and still does not improve in his creations. MYS77 15:21, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. As well explained above, the BLP creations has several issues with notability and sourcing. QED237 (talk) 15:41, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support - It's articles like Esteban Becker that make me support this Topic ban... JMHamo (talk) 16:22, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support topic ban. It seems reasonable to keep this user away from the area they are being disruptive in. Chillum 19:16, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support: I personally don't know what went wrong, when he first started he was great to have on board and his edits really did help (plus he communicated) but now it seems like he just does things for the sake of doing things. An indefinite ban is, in my opinion, the correct course of action. If, after a while, he can come back and finally explain his actions then I would not mind him regaining the right to create articles again and do everything else he does. Cheers. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 20:02, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Appeal: I admit that I have created articles in a rush, but I have never let articles in that mess. But I would like to apologise for the Oji articles mess up. Finally, I firmly believe that my action is misinterpreted of disruptive creation of BLP. Thanks ! :-) RRD13 (talk) 11:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Sorry, but this is a blatant lie. Some of your articles (I mean the vast majority of them) are not a mess due to other people's work. If you're creating articles in this type of rush, better not to do this. Thanks, MYS77 11:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment - I'm not sure a topic ban is the way to go here. There are obviously notability concerns, they are secondary in my opinion to the concerns about this editor's attitude toward sourcing. The comments concerning the length of his creations (or lack thereof) are a bit of an overreaction. It's perfectly reasonable to leave something unfinished if you know it's going to improved upon. As Struway rightly points out, the proposed topic ban does little to address the primary issue. Under the circumstances, I think a medium length block (say for a week or two) and stern warning that he may blocked for much longer if the issues persist would be a better course of action. Sir Sputnik (talk) 05:31, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Had that been the proposal, I'd have supported that as well. Whatever action that engages the editor's attention enough to make him accept the need for change... And if it doesn't, especially re demonstrating an understanding of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:BLP, I'd expect a good-length block to swiftly follow.
  • I think the creation issue is the latest illustration of a growing attitude problem. In the past, he'd wait for a subject to pass WP:NFOOTY before creating a stub, and although he'd start with just a few words, he'd expand it himself, at the time, with infobox and inline refs: see the history of e.g. Koby Arthur or Demarai Gray. Now, he pre-empts notability, as with the Oyos and numerous now-deleted pages, or makes no attempt to indicate why the subject might be notable, as with the unimproved version of Becker. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• Sir Sputnik, whilst I understand your position, I don't agree with it. I don't see any way of justifying the creation of one-line BLPs in mainspace that make no attempt to establish notability, given that RRD is far from a rookie and is well aware of the minimum requirements for notability as per NFOOTY. Also, if this user is being so lazy as to not fact-check what they're doing, as they did by creating two identical articles for the same player under different names, then a topic ban is far more helpful than a simple block. After all, a TBAN encourages them to be productive elsewhere, rather than just cutting off everything for two weeks, after which point they'd be free to do as they pleased (in theory). Struway2's assessment hits the nail on the head, I feel, in explaining the issue. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:56, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'm agreeing with Luke on this, the guy only improved his last pages because we were complaining about it. If not, I doubt that any improvements would ever exist (from him, of course). His attitude towards many people also justifies the topic ban. MYS77 13:09, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• The point I'm trying to make is that length in and of itself, is not an issue. Take his article on Federico Dimarco as an example. The article provides enough context to identify the subject and why he's notable, and what little information there is in the article is adequately sourced. While a more detailed article would of course be infinitely preferable, creations like this are and must be permissible. The length of his articles only ever becomes a problem if there is also an issue with notability or verifiability. While the notability issue is obviously problematic from an editor as experienced as him, most of his non-notable creations seem to be borderline cases. (Luke is arguing Sheyi Ojo meets WP:GNG, Anthony Kalik has played for an FPL club against a non-FPL club etc.) I disagree with Roy's assessment of notability in these cases, but it tends be close enough to at least be a defensible position. In that context, the creations are not disruptive without presence of bad faith or in much larger numbers. In contrast, his attitude to verifiability is indefensible. This is the issue we should be focusing on in my opinion, and it is not limited to new creations. This is why I think a block is preferable to topic ban. It's not that I think a that topic ban won't be helpful, I just don't think it's commensurate to the problem. Sir Sputnik (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• If the user were new, then yes, I'd be inclined to agree with you that the Federico Dimarco was an OK start. But RRD is not new, and is well aware of NFOOTY and GNG; as such, they'll know that the article doesn't remotely hint that the player passes either guideline. Sure, the source shows that he does meet NFOOTY (if barely), but RRD has freely admitted that they "have created articles in a rush", which is unacceptable. It seems they care more about being FIRST!!!oneelventy!! than actually writing a policy/guideline-compliant article. Their attitude has changed since this ANI was filed, but as has been shown before, this user will simply lapse into their laziness again (after all, they started out OK, and then started spamming one-liners) the moment the heat is off them. My biggest concern is that RRD is actually an autopatrolled user; I believe this userright should be removed as a minimum. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 01:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Still agreeing with Luke, the guy is not new here, and he's only creating pages with some decent content because of this ANI. RRD didn't write a single word to many people in the past, and is still not writing it much (again, only changed his attitude because of this ANI). MYS77 02:01, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with Sir Sputnik: his attitude to verifiability is indefensible, and hasn't changed since this ANI began. Yesterday, at Alessio Cerci, he removed a goal.com ref for the player signing for AC Milan from the infobox, where it rightly didn't belong, and added a sentence about Cerci signing an 18-month loan deal (DIFF) but instead of using the goal.com ref out of the infobox, he "sourced" his sentence to a picture on AC Milan's Twitter which carried no words about loan or length of contract. Competence is required. Struway2 (talk) 10:28, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Can someone act on this please? Consensus is pretty evident at this point, and it wouldn't help anyone if this were to archive without any action taken. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 00:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'm also thinking that someone needs to do something... He's still creating pages (now with content, only because of this ANI, but they're still very poor anyway) and not helping much at all. The guy is not a newbie in WP, so he should have known the rules. Cheers, MYS77 15:56, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• We just need an uninvolved admin to review and take any appropriate action. GiantSnowman 16:07, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Ban Block appeal

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

Copied from : NE Ent 17:36, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Appeal

I hereby appeal this ban. If I am unbanned, then going forward, I promise to:

• 1. Always keep in mind that my actions here must be in alignment with the goals of Misplaced Pages.
• 2. In pursuit of 1., to use my powers of persuasion rather than insults to convince others that my arguments are the best arguments.
• 3. If 2. fails, to drop any particular issue if an uninvolved Misplaced Pages administrator gives me an explicit instruction to do so.

To prevent any wasted time on either side, then per CBAN and because of the reasons for the ban, this appeal is made on the following assumptions:

• Comments from involved and uninvolved users should be clearly separated. I would think a reasonable definition of involved here is if they opposed me in an AFD. If anyone disagrees with this, I expect them to clear up the issue before they comment.
• Comments shall be carefully scrutinised for personal attacks or other prohibited behaviour, especially misrepresentation. Interpreting facts is fine, inventing or selectively presenting facts in order to suit an interpretation is not.
• I will not agree to refrain from checking the edits of, or interacting with, Davey2010, as long as while doing so I am complying with the relevant rules of conduct. The area I could be of most use to Misplaced Pages is buses and bus transport, specifically in the UK, and Davey2010 is heavily active in this area, therefore I couldn't possibly hope to avoid him even if I was trying to (a quick check of 6 random articles in List of bus operators of the United Kingdom revealed he's previously editted 4 of them). Notforlackofeffort (talk

Discussion

• This isn't an appeal, it's an attempt to stake out conditions for doing what we're all supposed to do unconditionally: to fully comply with Misplaced Pages's policies. An appeal should be granted if and only if the banned editor agrees to comply with all of Misplaced Pages's policies and to avoid a future repetition of the conditions that got them banned. In this instance, as a minimum I'd expect to see a solemn promise to completely and permanently cease all contact with the editor who was harassed. Looking at the editing history, I'm not persuaded that they're here to contribute, because the vast majority of all their edits are comments on deletion discussions. --TS 18:55, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Too little time has passed. The community just banned you. I suggest you try asking for the standard offer in 6 months. One of the best ways to demonstrate your willingness and ability to contribute here is to edit another project in the meantime. Chillum 19:13, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Agree with both comments above. BMK (talk) 21:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• Standard offer. This appeal comes far too soon. It's not required, but as per Chillum, editing another Wikimedia project in the meantime might demonstrate that you may be able to conduct yourself in a civil and collegial manner here if allowed back in 6 months. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
• I should note that the community voted to indefinitely block this user, not to ban them. The blocking admin got their terminology wrong, and hasn't helped matters by using both ban and block in their commentary. Regardless, the "terms of unblock" here are wholly inappropriate and show a pretty poor understanding of what got them blocked in the first place. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 00:34, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• I agree with Luke's assessment. To reiterate: the user was not banned by the community. We have blocks, and we have bans. Two very different things. The "grey area" is often less murky once one understands the actual difference. And, of course, the "terms" offered here are unacceptable. But he still is not banned by the community. A de facto ban for an indeffed editor traditionally comes after additional disruption (e.g. egregious socking) leads to a real, formal community ban proposal. Doc talk 02:39, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Agree with the above. Furthermore, the last bit basically says "I won't stay away from the areas where I got into most trouble last time", which is usually not a good sign in an appeal. Blackmane (talk) 05:52, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• I have disclosed my thoughts on the ban/block situation on my talk page. Essentially I consider a indef block implemented as a result of community consensus to be a ban, following my interpretation of the rather vague explanation on WP:CBAN. I don't believe a block following community consensus should be revoked unilaterally by an admin, without discussion, using the normal unblocking process. That being said, I don't have a strong opinion on this given situation at all, so if it is the community's wish that this be treated as a normal indef block, then so be it. I do however concede that I should be more careful with my wording in the future to prevent any confusion. —Dark 11:00, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• I would definitely agree with you that one lone admin should not revert a community indef block without very good reasons for doing so. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 01:21, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Requesting consensus review/input on dispute at WP:WikiCup

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

I realize that isn't typical AN stuff, but there doesn't really seem to be a better place to post it...

Each year after the WikiCup finishes there is a period of time where people discuss possible ways to improve the contest (mostly by re-balancing the point system): WT:WikiCup/Scoring. The judges (this year Sturmvogel 66, Figureskatingfan, and Miyagawa) then assess the consensus and implement any changes before the next cup starts. This year, the decisions were not announced until the eve of the new contest and some unintuitive readings of the discussions were implemented. Specifically:

• Featured articles were raised from 100 to 200 points
• Featured pictures were reduced from 35 to 20 points, but a bonus of up to 15 points can now be earned (as opposed to 0 bonus previously)
• The bonus system for articles was overhauled.

These changes have led to a good deal of frustration from several people, as can be seen at WT:WikiCup. After a little prodding, the judges posted a statement saying they ran simulations to find ways to balance the contest and came up with those numbers. Now, it may well be a good idea to run such simulations, but such simulations should not be used in lieu of the discussion based consensus. While it is true that one concern is balancing points so all contestants have a fair chance, it is also true that the tradition balance also takes into account how important given content is to Misplaced Pages. The original bonus system was implemented to encourage work on high-importance articles, not necessarily to give more points for harder work (althoguh there is some overlap). Additionally, the amount of featured pictures (FPs) contributors is very low, so determining what a "normal" FP contributor can earn is not really possible. Thus any model is guess work and should not replace human judgement, and especially should not override individual discussions that involved several experienced editors.

Last year, the contest was won by Godot13 who concentrated mostly on featured pictures. As a result, there was a lot of heated discussion on FPs. After much effort, a number of us (myself, Godot13, Nergaal, Adam Cuerden, and Crisco 1492) on both sides of the debate came up with a compromise solution suggested by TownCows whereby the base value of FPs would be reduced, but a bonus system similar to that in place for articles would be added. The spirit of the compromise was that most FPs would be worth slightly less than before, but especially important ones would be able to earn more points than before. The implemented change, however, reduces the points such that the max possible is the same as the normal before (35) and the vast majority of FPs will earn significantly less points (20). It should be noted that numerically, there were more people against any reduction at all than in favor of one.

Exasperating the frustration of FP contributors is that FAs were simultaneously increased from 100 points to 200. While there was broad consensus to increase the FA score, the only numbers actually suggested were 125 and 150. The 200 appears to be an invention of the judges.

A somewhat mitigating factor was that the article bonus structure was overhauled to prevent extremely high multipliers. Unfortunately, there was very little discussion on changing the bonus system, and absolutely none on the drastic change implemented. Thus, it is very hard to justify the changes based on consensus.

Overall, the changes implemented may or may not make the contest better. That isn't the issue. The problem is they were implemented not by consensus, but rather based on a simulation created by the judges and not discussed by the WikiCup community. This is not the right way to do things. The judges have said they are open to making changes. Thus, my hope by posting this here more people will read the previous discussions to better determine what consensus based changes should be implemented. --ThaddeusB (talk) 06:36, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Seconded -Adam Cuerden 06:48, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Aye - Godot13 (talk) 17:22, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

• Completely uninvolved perspective: I've never been involved with the WikiCup, but I have the page on my watchlist because as a past FAC coordinator, I wanted a heads-up for when the influx of nominations would be coming. I have been watching this unfurl with some bemusement, to say the least. Without being too verbose, I'd say it's clear that the current judges have made some unilateral decisions about the scoring system that mostly impact FP contributors. I looked over most of the scoring debates and don't see anything resembling consensus for the current numbers, or in some cases anyone even suggesting the current numbers. To be clear, I have no doubt that the judges have been genuine about their reasons for adjusting the scores as such and that they are acting in good faith, but I can also empathize with the folks who earn their WikiCup points with FPs.

This was a massive thing to roll out right before the contest started, and done in such a way that participants didn't have time to digest it let alone comment on it or strategize for how they want to earn points. I know there was a changing of the guard and maybe things got disorganized, so we have to have some empathy for the new judges as well.

As for the way forward, I don't see that there's much anyone can do other than dropping out of the WikiCup if they don't agree with the scoring system. Changing it now would be unfair to anyone participating under the guise of the current point values. Maybe someone decided to start the cup by working on an FA instead of a FP because of the point values. You would be screwing them over by changing it now. --Laser brain (talk) 02:12, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Abolish it (Wikicup). Misplaced Pages is supposed to collaborative, not competitive. WP:WIKICUP states "The purpose of the Cup is to encourage content improvement and make editing on Misplaced Pages more fun" (emphasis mine). Last year ended with a stupid pissing contest regarding the cup --see ANI thread; now it's only January 4th and there's already a AN thread... admin wiki-time is a limited resource and should be expended on important things that affect mainspace. If a group of editors voluntarily wishes to create a project to motivate themselves to improve the encyclopedia, that's a good thing, if and only if they are able to manage themselves with causing disputes that consume community time. NE Ent 02:29, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I've asked several times but I got no answer, are there prizes? --AmaryllisGardener 02:33, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

The only prizes are Barnstar-like awards. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:05, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I heard something about Amazon Vouchers before. I was going to say they shouldn't have prizes. Not having actual prizes makes it even harder to believe how editors get so torn up about it. --AmaryllisGardener 03:25, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I once tried to get them to give out T shirts ("I entered Wikicup and all I got was this stupid T shirt") but no luck. Some other language Wikis have similar contests that do give out prizes, so you could try improving your German. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:49, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

The stub contest gave away Amazon vouchers to the winners, I guess that's what you were thinking of. Sam Walton (talk) 08:45, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Abolish the Wikicup, per NE Ent. It has become way too ugly. Cullen Let's discuss it 02:48, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• According to the page: "The 2015 WikiCup began on January 1" So, doing anything now besides either just living with the rules or scrapping the whole thing is bad form. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:00, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• The fact that people are this angry about the most trivial details of an already-niche contest brings to mind a certain bike shed. It's a game, people. You do it for fun. It's not nuclear science and the fate of the world doesn't rest on how many points a picture gets versus a GA. If the game isn't fun anymore because you find the rules so horrible? Don't play it. If you philosophically disagree with the idea of the game? Don't play it. If you want it done differently than everyone else? Fork to an alternative contest or, you know, just don't play this year. If both sides are seriously so entrenched that "just don't play" doesn't seem like a viable option, then what's left to you is either to ask for topic bans to keep disruptive non-players out, or to disband the contest because it's not fun for anyone anymore. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 03:09, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment It's a game, people. You do it for fun... It didn't looked like much fun, so far, Fluffernutter... Hafspajen (talk) 10:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• At least for me, the issue isn't so much the changes implemented (I don't normally work on FPs), but rather that consensus appears to have been ignored. WikiCup may be just for fun, but ignoring consensus anywhere is a serious problem, IMO. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:46, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

  The only good solution to the problem of ignoring the consensus that came out of those discussions IMO is to make sure the same judges don't judge next year. The competition's already started, changing the rules would = chaos. --AmaryllisGardener 03:50, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

  • Just to be clear, the rules have already changed once when it was pointed out that not only was the one FP per article idea a bad idea, it was also completely and totally unworkable and unthought through. There can't be a block on changing rules when the rules are already changing. If they didn't want rules changed during the competition, they should have put them up a month ahead of time. A lack of planning on their part does not mean that they should be allowed to destroy the competition. Adam Cuerden 12:47, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• While I don't suppose it would be nice to ban or abolish a process that exists ostensibly to improve the content, this is a little too close to the funny little clubs that sprung up on Misplaced Pages around ten years ago, which I recall we had to kill with fire in the end. Meanwhile I suggest that the best survival strategy may be to avoid cluttering up Misplaced Pages noticeboards and trying to get administrator attention by advertising your internal squabbles. Either quietly improve the encyclopaedia in a harmonious way, or start the countdown to extinction. --TS 03:25, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Yup. WikiCup is straight up social networking dressed up as Serious Editing Business, but the costume is no longer fooling people. The noticeboards should not be expected to waste time helping gamers sort out their personal disputes over who gets a meaningless site trophy. Townlake (talk) 04:02, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Per User:Fluffernutter, it's a game, it's for fun. Consensus is not required. Proposed changes should be addressed to the organizers for action in November 2015. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:49, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Since when is consensus not required for anything content-related on Misplaced Pages? There were some places where they tried instituting such a system... and the leaders were called dictators. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 19:05, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Wind this up, per NE Ent. Such an organisation as this has no place here. RGloucester — ☎ 04:53, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Agree with the above, there is no need discussion consensus for a project that shouldn't be competitive, either agree with the organisers or the project should be scrapped for being disruptive. Avono (talk) 14:16, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• The WikiCup serves as a powerful motivator to content contributors, and has encouraged the improvement of, and creation of, a wide range of content on the encyclopaedia. If people do not agree with such a competition, or the rules within it, then they are not required to participate in it. The disputes around the subject would not have existed if some editors didn't stir the pot. Last year's disputes, and this current one, would not have occurred if editors did not value competition above collaboration. Yet again, this is shown on the WikiCup talk page, with one editor making a storm in a teacup because the rules happen to be less in their favour this year. The rules often change significantly, so competitors need to take the rough with the smooth, or else, as Fluffernutter suggested, find a different competition or start their own. The competition element of the WikiCup acts as a motivator, and when combined with Misplaced Pages's goals of collaboration, should result in the improvement of the encyclopaedia. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 17:53, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• Maybe trouble-makers can be banned from the WikiCup, or maybe I'm insane. --AmaryllisGardener 17:55, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
• The judges exhibited extremely poor judgement in unilaterally changing the rules. All three are experienced with the cup, and I remember Sturm participated in the discussion which led to the consensus. They know how hot the issue was, and yet they still chose to ignore what hard-fought consensus there was. This does not bode well. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 19:05, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'm seeing two types of comments here: comments from people who seem to be involved in the cup complaining about these actions, and comments from people who don't seem to be involved trying to indicate to them that they don't see this as a serious concern and if they don't like it they should just not play. Unfortunately the cup participants seem to not be receptive to that message.

What seems to be getting lost here is this simple fact: to users who do not particpate in the cup (i.e. the vast majority of users overall) this is a complete non-issue. The reason no admins are jumping in to assist with a review of these actions is that this is not a good use of admin time. While it is a content-based contest, its rules do not directly impact content. Content is kind of the point of this whole endeavor, not winning a contest that gives you an award to display on your user page. Both Fluffernutter and Townlake make excellent points about this. If you don't like it, don't play it. The rest of us are not really concerned with rule changes to this sideshow. If it keep causing disruption outside of its own areas, prepare to see it go away altogether.

We could close this thread right now or leave it open for another month and none of these facts would change. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:24, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

+1 Also, you left out the third type, me, the involved user that doesn't care and agrees with Fluffy and Townlake. I say if you don't like it, don't participate in it. --AmaryllisGardener 19:28, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• I am a novice here at AN, so forgive any blatant errors on my part. I don’t think the wikicup should be abolished. The competition was able to successfully resolve internal differences and come to a Misplaced Pages:Consensus. This consensus, the result of months of discussion, was discarded (without any discussion) less than three hours before the 2015 Wikicup began.

I understand that you (AN) don’t want to deal with this. I don’t want to deal with this. Could you please let me know who is supposed to deal with this? For me, on a personal level, this is not about scoring points, it’s about being told that one of my categories of contribution to Misplaced Pages, the one I spend a great deal of time pursuing, is worth (educationally) significantly less than others. Passing the buck only serves to validate what feels like a resounding “Fu*k you” by the “judges” to those who specialize in Featured Pictures (and anyone else who took the time and effort to reach a consensus). Do you think that this will encourage others to participate in FP? How about the time and effort it takes to venture inside museum and/or library collections for rare art or historical documents not generally available to the public? I’m not talking about the Wikicup, but for Misplaced Pages in general. I have no motivation to explore the Smithsonian’s other collections for WP if the educational value of images can be undermined, and the forum responsible for providing governance turns a blind eye.

Regarding the issue to Misplaced Pages at large, I guess the validity of this appeal is based on whether WP:Consensus applies to all of Misplaced Pages, or only to “important things that affect mainspace.” I don’t have the stats, but more than a few FA/FL/GA/FP have been promoted by efforts associated with the Wikicup. Are these not a benefit to Misplaced Pages? The suggestions to abolish the cup altogether, accept the rules as they are or don’t participate, and wait until next year all seem (not really democratic) to fall on extreme ends of a spectrum without considering any middle ground. Changing the current rules (which do not reflect a consensus) six days into the competition will not result in chaos. In fact some rules have been changed. These comments are not self-serving – you do not see me signed up to defend my 2014 win. --Godot13 (talk) 05:28, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

The general statement being made here is that the WikiCup is supposed to deal with this, internally. If it can't moderate itself without disputes spilling into other areas, someone is going to end up nominating it for deletion, same as has what's happened with other problematic internal projects in the past. No one at the WikiCup should be having an effect on what you believe the educational value of your photographs is. --Laser brain (talk) 13:26, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I think something Godot13 says here might hit the nail on the head for both why Wikicuppers are so angry, and why non-Wikicuppers in this thread are sort of boggled at this dispute: "it’s about being told that one of my categories of contribution to Misplaced Pages, the one I spend a great deal of time pursuing, is worth (educationally) significantly less than others" From the outside, it seems obvious that how many points the Wikicup gives you for doing X has no bearing at all on whether X is a worthwhile contribution to Misplaced Pages - or at least, that while worthwhile contributions might also get points, the absence of points doesn't mean something isn't worthwhile. Many of us non-cuppers do X every day, get no points for it, and are perfectly happy. But within the Wikicup community, there seems to be a feeling that one's contributions are only worthwhile if you get a lot of "points" for them. It strikes me as a pretty toxic effect of the contest that people would be convinced of that, and I suspect I'm not the only one here looking askance at it.

If the choices are "attempt to arbitrate a dispute about how much worth each person's contribution has, so they can be ranked for no particular reason" or "refuse to arbitrate a dispute about made-up points that have no actual bearing on whether anyone's contributions are worthwhile", I'm going to go for option 2 every time. To paraphrase a TV show, the Wikicup scoring system is a place where "everything's made up and the points don't matter". If you're doing it for fun and bragging rights, cool, maybe this year you'll win, next year someone else will, and we'll all have fun; if you're doing it because you genuinely feel that your contributions (or you) don't have value unless you land at the top of a necessarily-arbitrary scoring rubric (because there cannot actually be a platonic ideal of "how many 'points' a picture upload is worth," because these 'points' are imaginary in the first place, believe it or not!), the best thing we can do for the people engaged in this dispute is not to arbitrate who lands at the top of the list, but to recommend they reconsider how they derive value from what they do here. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 14:43, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

A fluffernutter is a sandwich! - I may not have been clear in my comment - my overarching reason for supporting AN action is to correct the violation of consensus that has taken place. As I have no intent to participate (even though I would stand a fair chance of winning again with the current rules) my interest here is to avoid seeing a precedent set which allows for editor usurpation of powers beyond what is given. I'm not sure how a three-editor tribunal (who have no elected administrative powers) can overturn a consensus, or how it doesn't warrant corrective action. Saying it is not your problem (AN) seems to invite further disregard for WP policy.--Godot13 (talk) 17:15, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that ANI is not the "forum for governance". The issue is that a consensus was disregarded in what amounts to a supervote. Following on, there is a consensus that the judge's decision was wrong. Therefore the only way that this can be solved is either (1) revert to the original consensus or (2) come up with a new consensus. Neither of these can be forced on the Wikicup entrants by admins. Blackmane (talk) 05:44, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• Close the WikiCup It's time for the grown-ups to put an end to this inanity. It is not within the admins' ambit to enforce rules for a voluntary game, but it is within their ambit to take decisive action on pages that are causing non-project-related interpersonal troubles within the community. (The WikiCup is defined by its scoring system, and the points themselves do not make the project better.) I don't think WikiCup should go through a normal MFD process, since I can't imagine the game participants would allow a consensus for deletion to emerge. On the other hand, I do think consensus among admins to end this contest would provide a sufficient basis to take action. Townlake (talk) 16:21, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Townlake: "I can't imagine the game participants would allow a consensus for deletion to emerge", that's right. Even harder to imagine is the outrage of most of the 102 participants is you closed/deleted the WikiCup without even notifying them. Most of the participants don't even know about this discussion, and deleting/closing the WikiCup without their knowing would not go very well. --AmaryllisGardener 17:14, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

We must do what is good for the project, and that's to close this farce down. It is exactly what Misplaced Pages is not. RGloucester — ☎ 17:24, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• So, The Bathrobe Cabal has survived an MfD (fine by me) because it mentions Misplaced Pages, but the WikiCup is what Misplaced Pages is not? --AmaryllisGardener 17:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• Um, one admin duty is assess consensus (technically anyone can, but admin usually close the hard ones), which is all that was asked. I apologize if this was seen as a waste of admin time due to the nature of the project the discussion took place at. However, it is definitely not an admin ability to decide things on behalf of the community. If you want the contest gone, you'll have to use MfD or an RfC. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:31, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I thought about it a little more, and now I think you're right. I'll probably take WikiCup to MFD over the weekend unless someone beats me to it. Townlake (talk) 02:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• For those who are complaining - please quote the precise part of current WP:Policy which you think anyone can do anything about - there is no contest rules section in WP:Consensus, and you picked these "judges". They made decisions you don't like? Well, that is what it means to have judges. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

This. Alan hits the nail on the head. There is no site policy for these competitions, they make their own rules. Therefore any request for admin intervention is going to fall flat, as this one clearly is. Fix it, or walk away. Those are the options. There will not be any admin intervention here. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:45, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I very much want to understand how this works. Respectfully, Alan, participants in the WikiCup did not pick the "judges" they were appointed. We don’t always like our appointed (or elected) representatives, so there are mechanisms in place to appeal their decisions if they are perceived to have overstepped their bounds (in this case by ignoring established community principles) in discharging their duties. However, this leads to the point by Beeblebrox. Also with respect, because there is no site policy specifically for a competition, Administrators should then ignore a request for help (enforcing a core policy), or else destroy the entity? You say that they make their own rules, but these rules are not subject to any oversight? It seems fairly clear that the Administrators who have weighed in will only get involved to destroy the WikiCup, not preserve it. It is very unfortunate that this should occur because the current "judges" have made a mistake (albeit one they have not corrected). I have no interest in stirring the pot, I will not post again on this thread unless someone choses to address these concerns. --Godot13 (talk) 04:50, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

As a compromise, perhaps a request for mediation could be raised, albeit an unusual one. Blackmane (talk) 01:00, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

What happened to Template:RMassist?

• I obey many move requests that need an admin. Until a day or so ago, Template:RMassist, when used in Misplaced Pages:Requested moves/Technical requests, inserted a "please move page" entry which contained a place to click to make the move, which automatically set up the page move dialog box including in the move comment a link to the edit of Misplaced Pages:Requested moves/Technical requests where the request was inserted, to let people trace easily who made the move request. This was very useful. Now, that place to click has gone, and only the "click here to discuss" remains. That makes obeying each move request take much longer, and there is no info link in the move comment. Please put Template:RMassist (or whatever changed template that Template:RMassist calls) back to how it was before. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

@Anthony Appleyard: It appears that the user (User:Ikhtiar H) that placed the move request that you completed did not use {{RMassist}}. They put a move request on the talk page of the article that they wanted moved, and then copied the text that the RMCD bot put at WP:Requested moves/Current discussions to the Misplaced Pages:Requested moves/Technical requests area. -Niceguyedc 07:42, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. And if you click on the "discuss" link in that diff, you'll see that the {{Requested move}} that Ikhtiar H submitted still has not been formally closed. Also, they have populated Category:Fulfilled page move requests with other similar copy-controversial–paste-technical requests. I'll leave a note on this relatively new editor's talk page. Wbm1058 (talk) 11:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Guidance sought re corporate smear and antismear promotional commentary at Talk:Solar Roadways

Thread: Talk:Solar_Roadways#Where_is_costs_that_Solar_Roadways_promised_to_release_in_July_2014?

Problem: From my NPOV perspective, there appears to be a smear and anti-smear campaign unrelated to the purpose of article talk pages set forth in the WP:TPG.

• Diff 1: Under the TPG I redacted what I thought were trolls by Editor A unrelated to article improvement
• Diff 2: Under the TPG I redacted what I thought was PROMO by Editor B unrelated to article improvement. (Truth in advertising - the TPG says we can delete other's "prohibited material" and then provides a "such as" list. Prior to today our "anti-promotional" policy was not explicitly listed. I added it myself as a result of this circumstance.
• Diff 3: Diff 2 was restored by the original author, Editor B, who said this at his talk page, which to me confirms it isn't about improving the article but about doing damage control ("promo").
• Diff 4: I re-redacted part of Diff 2 and kept part. Edit summary says POV - Earlier I redacted smears; now I am redacting smear damage control. TPG says we should talk about improvements to the article
• Diff 5: A third party, Editor C, reverted Diff 4 saying What the hell is this? * * * Telling people where they can probably get information to clarify something, is not PROMO. * * *

My Critique

• A Diff 4 has nothing whatsoever to do with article improvement.
• B The purpose of the TPG does not include "Telling people where they can probably get information to clarify something" but rather it is for NPOV RS-based article improvement, nothing more or less. Simply telling people how to contact the marketing and PR wing of a corporate entity - even if we think their notional product is intriguing - is not what article talk pages are for. Is it?

Am I totally off my *bleeping* rocker? Can some admin suggest a way to make sensible collaborative progress? I have already requested THIRD or MEDIATION participation from Editor A and Editor B.

Help please?

The three effected editors are

• Sbmeirow (talk · contribs)
• Green Cardamom (talk · contribs)
• Dream Focus (talk · contribs)
• Notice posted at article talk thread

"Editor B" here. What NewsAndEventsGuy neglected to mention is that there has been a long (and valid) debate over the inclusion of prototypes and costs in the article. And that NewsAndEventsGuy personally removed the discussion of prototypes from the article. So of course he doesn't like to see a talk page discussion about prototypes and appears to be micro-managing the talk page by deleting people's posts on grounds it doesn't improve the article (of course not since NewsAndEventsGuy doesn't think it should be included or even discussed, apparently). Suggest NewsAndEventsGuy take care of himself and not control others by way of ANI and heavy handed talk page deletions. -- GreenC 21:02, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Don't misrepresent. Talk page has abundant comment by me (example that goes with GC's diff above) to effect that the prototype is still under wraps and so the proposed sources (either blogs or the corp website mostly) contain nothing but speculation and PR dept material. If the RSs say when info about the prototype will be made public we can report that. Once that happens, there will be many tangible RSs both pro and con, and we can report that. In the meantime we have assassins and cheerleaders wanting to yank the article their way. We should report neither, and the talk page is not an appropriate WP:BATTLEGROUND for their dispute. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:13, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment NewsAndEventsGuy should not be redacting people's comments because of a 'corporate smear'. There is no such thing going on the talk page. What I do see however is NewsAndEventsGuy wanting to remove bits of other people's comments because it's not what he wants to see on the talk page. This is ownership behavior of the worst, since the talk page is meant for the discussion of possible inclusions into the article--and is meant for questioning on whether it should be in the article. Removing someone's comments on a 'prototype'; when you yourself removed that section of the article is unacceptable and a violation of the talk page guidelines. Specifically, the guideline about others' comments. If editors wish to post a primary source about an update on the campaign, with the wording to 'look out for secondary sources so we could possibly add this to the article' sort of thing, then that's allowed. OP should not be removing others' comments unless they are blatant personal attacks, soapboxing, or BLP violations. Note that corporations do not have the same protections as BLPs, because corporations are not people. Tutelary (talk) 22:06, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Re Tutelary's comment, First, the "corp smear" language I used is about the BIG PICTURE. Technically, Diff 1 is about NPA. The TPG explicitly allows removal of others' comments of various types. It says, Removing harmful posts, including personal attacks. In Diff 1, I left the request for updated sources, but redacted the personal attack characterizing some of last summer's partisans as "lots of rabid believers" bold in original. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Outsider's view None of those comments should have been removed and all should be restored. POV and Spam are not valid reasons to remove someone's talk page comment. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 23:39, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Re Oiyarbepsy's comment, the TPG explicitly allows removal of others' comments of various types. It says, in part Removing prohibited material such as..... A list beginning with "such as" is a non-exclusive list. With no cards up my sleeve, I have already stated above that I added an the "anti-promotional" wikilink to the list. No one has reverted that change to the TPG, and of course anyone who wishes to attempt such a reversion will have a hard time explaining why we should keep PROMO and SPAM commentary. The corporate PROMO text in Diff 4 reads They apparently just moved into a new facility and hired staff and are in meetings with potential customers. For information on the costs contact them. The information may or may not be public. If your a potential customer you may have a better chance of obtaining cost information depending on your application. It's normal for R&D companies not to release costs at early stages in development, for many good reasons. On a talk page intended for discussion article improvement, why are we steering "customers" to the corp HQ to seek propietary information? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Note that no one diving into the drama has attempted to provide an RS to answer the original request to update the article, which is really what we're supposed to be talking about.... isn't it? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:32, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Eh. This wasn't promotional. Please don't go about redacting/removing/modifying other comments, NewsAndEventsGuy. There is minimal leeway for modifying talk page comments, and while spamming can be construed as a legitimate reason, the citations you provided doesn't really make it seem overly promotional. There is bigger fish to fry; talk page comments is not one of them. seicer | talk | contribs 02:08, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• I agree with Seicer. It's not damage control , nor a smear, but the first two look more like WP:FORUM type of discussions, and those are usually collapsed and hidden rather than removed. The remaining diffs talk about events that are "supposed" to be happening, and violate either WP:FORUM or Crystalball, so those could realistically be archived (collapsed ) as well. Doesn't look like a 3RR exemption tho. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 11:51, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Those two comments have to be seen in context of previous discussions as they are related ultimately to the issue of inclusion of certain material in the article. It isn't just casual discussion about the company unrelated to Misplaced Pages, though I guess it may appear that way without a history. -- GreenC 12:36, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Adam (band)

Moved to Misplaced Pages:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Speedy deletion of Adam (band)

Self-admitted sock puppet accounts

• 750editsstrong (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wikia6969 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Thewhitebox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Rumpsenate2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - new
• Rumpsenate (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - new

OK, this perhaps does need admin attention. According to their home page, 750editsstrong, this is a sock puppet account, one of three run by this individual listed above. There's a link to WP:VALIDALT but I don't see a valid criteria there for these accounts. And although I can see no evidence of actually socking, e.g. using two accounts to look like two people in the same discussion/at the same venue, given this user's pointy shouty behaviour it does perhaps warrant further investigation.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 00:52, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

They didn't use any of the accounts concurrently (though there is 4 minutes between the first edit of 750 and the last edit of Wikia), so while it may not fall under WP:VALIDALT, it doesn't fall afoul of WP:ILLEGIT either, especially because they're disclosed. HOWEVER, since they claim in their RfC thingy that they've edited for 12 years, there's probably a separate, undisclosed master account - and given how they've gone about here I wouldn't be surprised if that account had issues. ansh666 02:02, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

A checkuser may come in handy, especially if the master account is blocked. However, we should not WP:BITE, even to an older user, until violations are confirmed. I will be keeping an eye on them. -- Orduin 02:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

The editor refers to Misplaced Pages:Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion, and evidently thinks of himself or herself as doing a one-person re-run of the experiment. There was an enormous amount of criticism of the experiment, and a clear consensus emerged that the project was a mistake, with many editors thinking it amounted to disrupting Misplaced Pages to prove a point. To ignore that consensus, and unilaterally do a re-run is unacceptable, and I have told the editor so. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:54, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Found two more self declared: Rumpsenate2 and Rumpsenate. They could be incorrect, i.e. claimed but not true, except there's also overlapping contributions and the fact there are two suggests the user is already familiar with running multiple accounts.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 06:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Backlog at UTRS/Looking for new tool administrator

Hello admins,

Currently at the time of writing this message we have a backlog of ~40 unblock appeals at UTRS. That is not including the ones awaiting user response. The development team is working on two upgrades to limit the number of excessive appeals made to UTRS. (, ) If we could please get some extra eyes over there, it would be appreciated. We are also looking to publicly post the number of awaiting appeals soon.

The development team is also interested in gaining a new tool administrator to help deal with administrative tasks within the interface, encourage lower backlogs, and to manage new admin approvals. If you are interested and are an administrator, please submit a nomination statement to the developers. Our email is at the bottom of each interface page. Feel free to {{ping}} me if you have questions.

-- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't be easier to stop removing talk page access from blocked editors? Simple, straightforward (almost everyone knows how to use a talk page), less bureaucratic, more transparent. NE Ent 00:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I wish we could leave a user indef-blocked and temporarily remove talk page access. I'm also, at times, unsure that UTRS serves a truly useful purpose (although I have, in fact, had a handful of tickets which were closed with success). That being said, Delta Quad, let me know if you think I can be of assistance. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 04:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Update: We're down to 8 open requests, but they're doozies. NE Ent, the majority of requests that come through UTRS have nothing to do with talk page access being revoked. Many are from editors blocked for promotional usernames looking for guidance, socking issues, or autoblock situations wherein the privacy of UTRS is helpful. In cases where the blocked user is appealing due to talk page access being revoked it's generally because they have had multiple successive declined appeals on wiki and the access is revoked as the continued use of the unblock template becomes disruptive. --Jezebel's Ponyo 21:54, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Protected duplicate images

Hello.This duplicate protected images.I hope delete one of the two images --ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 11:10, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fæ

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

The Fæ case is amended to add Remedy 2.1 as follows: "Notwithstanding remedy 2, Fæ is permitted to operate bot accounts, edits from which are only to be made in accordance with Bot Approvals Group approved tasks, or an authorised trial of one."

For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:30, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Discuss this

2015 shooting at Charlie Hebdo

I created an edit notice for the 2015 shooting at Charlie Hebdo page by using {{blp}}. The problem is that the edit notice states that the template is misplaced and belongs on the talk page. I specifically wanted editors to be reminded that the need to conform to BLP when the opened up the edit window. BLPO also applies, but that is a lesser concern. Does anyone have any ideas of a better way to achieve this aim? Mjroots (talk) 13:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

@Mjroots: would {{BLP editintro}} do the trick? --Mdann52talk to me! 13:33, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've changed it to {{BLP editintro}}. -- KTC (talk) 13:33, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Someone has arbitrarily and without discussion changed the article title, breaking the link from ITN on the Main Page. Admin help is urgently needed to fix this. Please see Talk:Charlie Hebdo massacre#Article title. Prioryman (talk) 14:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

This was done at 14:08 . –xeno 14:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks all, I'll remember that one. Mjroots (talk) 15:48, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Help with throttling, please

I'm running a training course on IP: 135.196.89.95 and my trainees are seeing "Action Throttled" messages. Can anyone help, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:42, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

You might be more likely to get an answer to Village pump (technical). Robert McClenon (talk) 21:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

This may be of help. However you might run into resistance getting an IP edit rate removed. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing - understandbly, it is impossible to grant user-rights to IPs that would allow them to bypass ratelimits. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, all. I'll be running many more training events at that location, where I'm Wikimedian in Residence, over the coming weeks and months. "it is impossible to grant user-rights to IPs that would allow them to bypass ratelimits" - even temporarily, when Wikimedians in Residence in good standing are running training events at reputable organisations? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

You don't get it: it is literally impossible to grant user rights to IP addresses. Unfeasible. It would be technicaly possible for accounts but would, once again, require careful÷ consideration. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

There might be a miscommunication here that could make it less hopeless. Andy, there are actually no significant edits or logged actions directly from the IP address you reference above (see Special:Contributions/135.196.89.95). Are these users running into this message while they're editing with accounts but from the same IP address? What action are they trying to do that is getting throttled? Is each user trying to do whatever it is so often that the account is getting throttled on its own, or does this seem to be a cumulative trigger (question for someone else: is that even possible?) This technical understanding of what is going on is needed first, before any further discussion/request/decision can be had. As mentioned above, you might have more success if you first provide more info and ask for help at WP:VPT instead of here; only after a clear picture of what is going on emerges can anyone figure out if there's some solution. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:18, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

This happens when multiple accounts on the same IP address try to do certain things, like add external links. Andy I'm afraid there's nothing local admins can do about it; it might even require sysadmin intervention. I'd recommend emailing somebody at the WMF to see if anything can be done about it for that particular IP address. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

HJ, if we knew the account names, and knew more details about what was being throttled, isn't it possible a local admin could give the accounts a temporary user right that would over-ride the throttle? As a practical matter, asking on AN probably wouldn't work well, and maybe there are other reasons not to (we wouldn't know until we had more info) but as long as things were arranged ahead of time, it seems like it might not be impossible. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:37, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Good point Floq, confirming some of the accounts should solve (or at least mitigate) the problem. Andy has my phone number and email address if he'd rather do things privately. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:45, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Category:AfC submissions with missing AfC template

I was going through AfC when I discovered almost all of the 2,320 pages in this category should be speedily deleted per WP:G13 as almost all of them are long abandoned subpar submissions which don't even need articles on Misplaced Pages. So what is the best way to go about deleting those? There may have already been a discussion on this, I couldn't find one though. EoRdE6 23:12, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

There has to be a way to curate the 2,320 articles and produce a list of those with no edits in the last 6 months, which an admin would then be able to del-batch as G13. WP:BOTREQ might be if assistance. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

@Salvidrim!: I am meeting some resistance from the bot operator whose bot placed them in this category. He seems to believe that because his bot edited the pages to place them in the category, that they are no longer abandoned and should therefore be kept (which I definitely disagree with). The discussion is on my talk page if you're interested. Thanks! EoRdE6 01:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

On the first part, these pages are eligible for G13 if not edited for 6 months. G13's exact wording (and I remember the long discussions), include all WP:AFC/ & WT:AFC/ drafts (tagged with an AfC template or not), in addition to userspace/Draftspace drafts (but only if tagged with an AfC template). As to whether the bot edit makes them ineligible for G13.... that's a good point, and IMO there is a case for minor/bot edits to be discounted (perhaps change the wording from "have not been edited" to "have not been worked on"?), but in its current form, the G13 criteria does indicate these are not eligible for deletion until 6 months after the latest edit altogether. To change that practice consensus at WT:CSD will be required. I'm pinging Hasteur since you have mentioned them on an administrative noticeboard. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Not sure if I'm allowed to butt in - I am willing to tag them manually if an agreement cannot be reached with the bot owner. I am also sure that the G13 criteria may need revising, as I come across articles constantly whose last two edits have been the six month postponements... six months apart, and if I attempt to tag for G13 they are reverted. --TKK! bark with me! 02:40, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

@Tikuko: I was tagging them manually, but he went through and reverted them telling me that his bot counted as an edit in the past 6 months. Even posted a warning on my talk page. EoRdE6 02:56, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

1. EoRdE6's actions have been to nominate these articles for G13 out of order. The page had been edited less than 7 days before they went on a wild spree of nominating when the pages were missing a AfC submission banner. We can't operate on the way that we'd like the processes to operate when there is an established consensus already in place regarding how these work.
2. After the user was called out on an improper CSD:G13 (as the page had been edited less than 7 days ago) I offered my advice as the prime expert on G13. I told them that any edit resets the clock as that is the way it has been explained to me and how many administrators have been using it for over 2 years and was agreed to at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_48#Proposed_new_criterion:_abandoned_article_drafts where it recieved community support.
3. After the user refused to accept consensus, I brought it to Wikiproject AFC as the reasonable place for discussing if there's a change in consensus as the project would be the defacto place to discuss how a CSD rule to be used on AFC submissions should be interperted (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation#Lecturing_to_the_choir_regarding_G13_and_Category:AfC_submissions_with_missing_AfC_template).
4. When it was pointed out that the usage was invalid by an as of yet uninvolved in the dispute, EoRdE6 decided that they didn't want to participate in the discussion at AFC because they were not winning the fight.
5. They then ratcheted up the drama by bringing it to WP:AN, in which many rubbernekers cause more problems than solve.
6. They also opened a paralell discussion at Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(policy)#Minor_Change_to_CSD:G13 to try and change the interpertation by WP:FORUMSHOPing to find people who will support their POV.

Therefore I suggest that this discussion (and the one at Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(policy)#Minor_Change_to_CSD:G13) be closed with prejudice and referred back to first establish if consensus has changed by discussing at the WT:AFC page prior to bringing to the larger community. Hasteur (talk) 03:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Furthermore, the user refuses to understand the purpose of the category at the top. The category's purpose is to identify pages that are in the Prefix Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for Creation/ that are missing a AfC submission header. Typically these are pages where the AfC header has been removed either intentionally (to de-enroll them from the rolling G13 sweeps) or accidentally. A bot can determine if a page exists that is not a redirect in that prefix and it can see if there's at least one AFC submission template on it (so we can say that either yes we did review it or the author has forgotten about it). The bot adds the maintenance category so that a experienced editor can look at the page in question to determine if the page should be submitted for review, have a AFC submission template restored, put the page in draft mode (which indicates that the user wants to work on it some more), nominate it for MfD, or to apply one of the non-G13 CSD to it. It's not to identify pages that are G13-able when the last edit was 7 days ago. Hasteur (talk) 03:49, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Can the "prime expert in G13" put his weiner back in his pants and lower himself to the level of us peasants for the duration of this discussion? It is a reasonable idea that bot edits should not count as resetting the G13 counter (even if you disagree), and while I agree with you that this is not the proper forum (that'd be WT:CSD), dismissing the suggestion entirely with the back of your hand only makes you seem more arrogant. I believe EoRdE6's point to be worth discussing, at the very least. I also believe your own behaviour, Hasteur, to be worthy of discussion, but that's not the point. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 03:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• A quick glance a page histories would show that All of my discussions were created before you made yours so don't call me forumshopping or tell me I took it elsewhere "because I was losing". Look at the diffs My post here at AN (23:12 January 7), my post at village pump (01:10 January 8), then Hastuer's post (01:19 January 8). EoRdE6 04:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Salvidrim, Can we not agree that G13 is about Articles for Creation? Can we not agree that the best place to talk about Articles for creation is at the Articles for Creation project page? Can we not agree that trying to forum shop to the CSD talk page and here after getting told off at WT:AFC and on their talk page is out of order? Can we not agree that during the establishment of G13, several people asked this exact question about what level of an edit is enough to restart the clock and it was consensus that any edit which changes the "Page last edited" is the gold standard for determining G13? Can we not agree that multiple editors have written tools (such as the bot and the on wiki templates) to obey that standard? I only get riled up when people display their ignorance and continue in their obstinant ignorance when shown exactly where the the established consensus/precedent are located. Furthermore, we don't create good consensus when there's a Fait Acompli gun pointed at our heads. and Salv, care to show some GF to me as well? Hasteur (talk) 04:11, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• The only place changes to CSD criteria should be discussed is WT:CSD. WT:AFC is not the proper venue to establish consensus about deletion criteria. We can agree than G13 is primarily about abandoned drafts. I do not agree that starting a discussion at the appropriate venue (after a discussion on the wrong page, a user talk page discussion, and an AN discussion) is out of order. I agree that this was discussed in some manner of detail when G13 was first established, but that wasn't a week or two ago, and a new discussion can never hurt. I strongly object to your characterization of views different from your own as "ignorance", and it does not inspire me to extend to you the courtesy of assuming you're acting in Misplaced Pages's best interest. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 04:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) A wikiproject cannot set policy in a way that overrules general community consensus. So generally if you want to change or clarify a policy, you'd discuss it at the relevant community venue (WT:CSD, off the top of my head), not on the talk page of a wikiproject. Especially in the case of AfC, which has had drama in the past about where "Wikiproject:AfC wants to X" meets "The community wants to Y", it would behoove AfC members to consider the wishes of the community in this.

  That all said, I'm pretty much with Salvidrim on this: EoRdE6's interpretation of policy is not unreasonable, and is in fact how I would have expected the policy to be applied according to common sense; Hasteur's interpretation of policy is also not unreasonable, as it seems consistent with the letter of the policy; and Hasteur's approaching this matter with dismissiveness is really not helpful to resolving what would otherwise be a perfectly normal "where is the line of policy drawn in this gray area?" conversation. So my suggestion is this: this argument is about a CSD criterion. WT:CSD is thataway. EoRdE6, please pause in your tagging if you haven't already, and open a discussion there about whether to modify/clarify G13 to match your interpretation. Hasteur, please pause in your reverting if you haven't already, and go join the discussion EoRdE6 is going to open on WT:CSD. Everyone else, please also hop over there and offer your opinions on whether to tweak the policy wording. Now, everybody take some deep breaths, have a nice cup of tea, and hopefully we'll get through this with a minimum of grenade-throwing. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 04:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• While it's true that a Wikiproject can't overrule the community about deletion policy, thank heaven that Hasteur posted at WP:AFC so that at least the members there were informed about this discussion. I have worked extensively with pages in this category, and I disagree that they should be deleted as a batch. I found that there are many reasons why the templates are missing, including many which were deleted accidentally, leaving the inexperienced editors with no way to submit their work, and a large number that were copy-pasted into mainspace, some of which should be history-merged. Some are also copyvios and should be deleted, but under G12. With the abandoned submissions that do have templates, the bot notifies the draft creators, then waits a month or so before nominating them for deletion. That gives time for the creators to start editing again. After that the drafts are marked as G13 eligible, but there is a time delay before they are nominated. During that time delay. editors like me who like working with drafts go through the list, deleting any copyvios, performing or requesting history merges, etc., and picking out ones that show promise, improving them and submitting them. Why shouldn't the ones with missing templates get the same consideration? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:59, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Please move your discussion to the newly created conversation at WT:CSD as requested above. Thanks!

Open proxy

This domain should be blocked for 1 year or something like that, because it is open proxy provided by Avast SecureLine. 77.234.43.180 (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

You may want to report it to WP:OP#Reporting.- MrX 00:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Callanecc beat me to the /24 range block. Mike V • Talk 01:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposing community ban for Wiki-star/Dragonron

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

I would like to propose a community ban on Dragonron (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and any sock thereof based on the extreme disruption and harassment from his previous contribution history. Based on this SPI investigation, he has created over at least 37 confirmed socks and three suspected ones since his indef block in 2013. A few days ago, he came back as Tintor14 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and harassed me on my talk page and in the edit summary of his edit to List of Naruto characters as well as Tintor2 (talk · contribs), who was a frequent target (). Therefore, I would like to propose that he be banned for disruptive editing and harassment. Thank you. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support as nominator. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• WHY!? - User already indef-blocked, and adding a ban won't change a damn thing when it comes to enforcement of the socking policies. No unblock request will be accepted for a long time. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
  • So, even if he is indefinitely blocked and no administrator is willing to unblock him, should we just consider him de-facto banned in this case? If he is de-jure banned, however, all of his edits will have to be reverted immune to 3RR. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
    • @Sjones23: WP:3RRNO states that Reverting actions performed by ... sockpuppets of banned or blocked users are immune from 3RR, so as far as the 3RR exemption is concerned it doesn't matter if they are banned or blocked, a sock is a sock. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 02:21, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Edits of blocked or banned editors made before such action are not reverted. Edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted, but the reverter must take responsibility for the content. NE Ent 03:13, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
      • Oh, gotcha. I was under the impression that he was de facto banned, that's all. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Dragonron is so obvious and so disruptive that no admin in their right mind would block somebody for 3RR for reverting him. Besides, enough and are familiar with him that he'll be blocked quickly, even if he's not block for common-au-garden vandalism. He's banned in all but name, so let's just WP:DENY. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:02, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Just yesterday we formally banned an editor who no admin "in their right mind" would ever unblock, Notforlackofeffort (talk · contribs). How is this case any different? Better yet: why should there be discouragement in banning an editor who's actively socking and harassing users, when the case I highlight was indeffed and then banned in record time after no additional disruption? Doc talk 03:42, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Are you serioues? Notforlackofeffort (talk · contribs) was indef-blocked as a result of the ban discussion. He was not indef-blocked before the ban discussion started. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 10:50 pm, Today (UTC−5)

Propose Lord Sjones23 be banned from making further community ban requests

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

• I'm not joking. --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:17, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. NE Ent 03:20, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Sure! ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 03:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Seems a good idea!. –Davey2010 03:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support - No idea what this guy is actually attempting to establish by proposing these nonsensical bans. If you remember that category user.. err.. Censoredscribe, he has not socked since that same month. He's actually banned after only 6 socking sessions, makes us think "Was it even necessary?" Bladesmulti (talk) 04:03, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment - I have dealt with other sock puppeteers and several other banned users in the past. However, when I see some disruption of other users, there are times when some community bans are proposed as necessary when extreme disruption is still going on. However, after looking at the above discussion, I think that this particular ban proposal is really unnecessary on my part since Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy and some users are in fact de facto banned. Having been involved with the project for at least 8 years, I'm well aware of all the Misplaced Pages policies especially WP:BAN as well as WP:SOCK when considering a ban proposal for some disruptive users. Regarding the CensoredScribe ban discussion, I felt that it was necessary to prevent further disruption for Misplaced Pages; in this case, it is not punitive, but for preventative measures. If I caused any unintentional drama on my part, then I apologize as it was not intention to violate Misplaced Pages policy and protocol in doing so. As such, I would like to make a request that I withdraw my community ban request for Wiki-star/Dragonron at this time and that the discussions should be closed in order to stop creating more drama. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• The ban proposal you submitted to AN has been closed as withdrawn. This here discussion will continue. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 05:02, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks. As for the recently closed failed community ban proposals that I did, I admit that I unintentionally stirred up some drama for some. Even though I assumed good faith as a user for over 8 years, I'm aware that my ban proposal indirectly caused this discussion. My reasoning behind proposing some of these bans is that I was under the impression that as per WP:CBAN, "If an editor has proven to be repeatedly disruptive in one or more areas of Misplaced Pages, the community may engage in a discussion to site ban, topic ban, or place an interaction ban or editing restriction via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute." When I propose community bans, I usually consider all of the policies and can take whatever steps as necessary, but as for my withdrawn proposal that led to this discussion, I was hoping for it to be a positive resolution, but it only seemed to cause trouble since Wiki-star is indefinitely blocked and no one is willing to unblock him. I would like to apologize if my actions caused any undue stress to anyone. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 05:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment User:Sjones23 You have made some 23 edits in the past hour or so to this page correcting and changing what you have said, just chill out and maybe use the preview button. My poor watchlist is just this. :) EoRdE6 05:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks, and my apologies. Those edits were copyediting parts of my comments before someone else responds, and I am allowed to do that. I am calm as a feather, but a little desperate that's all. I wanted to explain my actions and I believe that I was acting in good faith in doing so. I will try to be more careful when considering a community ban proposal next time. :) Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 05:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Conditional Support provided that Sjones has been warned about this in the past. — Ched :  ?  12:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose such a strict action already:

1. Sjones is a good editor in good standing in the community. I believe if he's asked to stop, and/or formally warned, he'll stop.
2. Its too harsh considering the problem seems to be more along the lines of "redundancy" than actually making bad judgement calls.
3. As far as I'm aware (and I'm usually pretty up on my Misplaced Pages alphabet soup), there's really no real policy/guideline/anything to reference that what he's doing is really against anything. Until some sort of WP:DONTPROPOSEBANSONTHEINDEFFED exists, he's not really doing anything wrong.

In general, I think we all get burned out dealing with obstinate vandals and POV-pushers,and forget that sometimes, all that's really necessary is a request or a warning, nothing so formal as this. Sergecross73 msg me 13:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose as per WP:POINT. Sergecross hits the nail on the head. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 14:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. I might have supported this had the problem been Sjones23 proposing community bans on users in good standing who clearly ought not to be banned. In this case the ban proposal by Sjones23 was on an indefinitely blocked user who clearly wasn't in good standing, and who clearly should not be editing. Was the proposal redundant and unnecessary? Yes. Is it something that damages Misplaced Pages to such a degree that it is grounds for sanctioning the proposer? No. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:42, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose for Sergecross73's rationale and Sjakkalle's rationale. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 16:54, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per Sjakkale, Sergecross73, and to some extent, Ched. Anyway Floquenbeam, I do wish you were more tactful. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:29, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose As I understand it, the users that Sjones23 has been trying to get banned are users who deserve to be banned. He may be overdoing it slightly, but I think a formal sanction is premature. However, Sjones23 would be wise to voluntarily avoid this type of thing for a while. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 18:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• I've left a comment on his talk page suggesting that as well, and also offered my ear to future discussions on blocking socks as to not exhaust the community's patience here at AN. Sergecross73 msg me 18:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose If there is a greater pattern then it has not been made evident. I see nothing presented that justifies any action against this user in good standing from December of 2006 Not the time for boomerang. Chillum 18:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment I didn't propose this ban because Sjones23 is harassing people by proposing they be banned. I proposed it because over the years he has continually disrupted WP:AN by proposing many community bans only for editors that are already indef blocked, and who are never going to be unblocked by any admin, usually with something akin to "we must demonstrate to this person that the Misplaced Pages community rejects his behavior", or some such. His proposals, even if they were supported, do not achieve any benefit at all, and a growing number of editors have told him this every time he makes such a proposal. If you want to say "don't ban him from doing this now, warn him and see if he listens", that's your right, but be aware that many editors in response to his previous ban proposals have been telling him this for a while now, and he hasn't listened. If my proposal doesn't pass, I'm hoping that he will at least realize that if he keeps doing it, he will soon be banned from doing so in the future. This might cause him to finally consider this feedback, and if it does, I'll be happy. But it is certainly not true that he hasn't received this feedback before. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• What is going on here, for real? There are several, it seems to me, vocal admins who seem to object on principal to community ban proposals - it actually seems to ruffle there feathers if not make them angry - their response generally goes something like: 'What? No one will unblock that stupid user, you idiot' (Which seems odd. If true, why don't they just say: 'Fine, no one is going to unblock them anyway' or like the rest of us ignore the proposal). Community ban proposals are a thing in policy, are they not? Which means they can be proposed and disposed of one way or the other. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:05, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  Alan, no one objects on principal to all community ban proposals. I have supported several in my time. I object to repeatedly making pointless community ban proposals of already indef-blocked editors, when there is zero benefit - zero - to the discussion. I went into more detail about this (in response to another community ban proposal by Sjones23 in March 2013) here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:18, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, but..that doesn't seem to be all that frequent. Was the last time you had to deal with this really almost 2 years ago? Is it really that frequent that bogging things down to the point of being disruptive? Is your userspace essay really enough to justify a topic ban? Sergecross73 msg me 19:31, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

No, March 2013 was certainly not the last time he's done this, it's when the straw broke the camel's back for the first time, and I wrote it all down in one place. I'd estimate at least a dozen times, and probably more. And it's not really fair to say I'm trying to use a userspace essay to justify a topic ban; I proposed the topic ban to prevent further disruption to the project, the essay is simply to further explain how the repeated proposals are disruptive. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I apologize, I did not mean to imply that you were trying to be out of line with your use of your essay, I was just touching on that again because of point #3 of my initial "oppose" concerns, that your stance on indef blocks and bans, while legitimate, isn't wildly recognized and supported with any sort of policy or project-wide consensus yet, which makes it hard for me to support something as formal as a ban. Sergecross73 msg me 19:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Withdrawn for now (as far as I'm concerned, at least; I know I can't speak for others who supported.) Upon re-reading Sjones23's comment below just now (in the edit window while composing the comment above), I realize he said specifically "With that, I would like to publicly apologize to all involved and will make sure to avoid causing issues like this in the future."; I had missed that specific promise the first time I read it. If he's taken this feedback to heart, then I withdraw the topic ban proposal. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Floq. I read your page and I for the record I oppose. "Community" means it's about community governance. The community usurps the admin function of deciding the indef block. These would be uncontroversial, if a few people would just respond: 'fine, no one is going to unblock them anyway' and then it's done. As for useless, well the unkept secret is basically all blocks/bans on this site are pretty useless for the really determined - and the only way to meet that is admins who decide to be really determined back (but that's up to the individual admin, of course) -- on the other hand, I don't mind having a formal mechanism, to call the question (such as a ban discussion) to implore admins to be determined - perhaps they can even be a guiding discussion for admins over time. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:48, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement

First of all, as explained above, the whole thing seems to have been blown out of control. I have already admitted that I was wrong in my approach to filing a ban proposal on an indefinitely-blocked user unless they cause further disruption. Wiki-star is blocked and no one is willing to reverse it, so I think we should just deny recognition and move on. I should not have proposed the community ban in the first place, and for that I regret it. I really should be more careful and not take any aggressive measures when dealing with blocked users in the future. With that, I would like to publicly apologize to all involved and will make sure to avoid causing issues like this in the future. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 13:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x3 (as expected) Sjones, I respect your comment above; however, I recall some years ago your penchant for having users blocked and/or banned. It seems to be an ongoing goal of yours, and I don't feel that it's a primary goal of this project. Yes, there are editors and accounts which are disruptive and need to be removed, and those do come to light all too often. If this current situation was a one-off proposal, then I doubt the sanction of you would be being discussed. Perhaps if you volunteered to refrain from proposing blocks and bans, then others may reconsider not making this a formal community sanction. I don't know, but it is a thought. Either way, I strongly suggest you find another goal to focus on rather than searching for people to block and/or ban. Also, please do try using the preview button before making a dozen posts for one comment. Just a suggestion. — Ched :  ?  13:22, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand your concerns, Ched, but my concerns are that disruptive users get blocked or banned to prevent future problems on Misplaced Pages and help the community. Some view my ban proposals as excessive, despite their good intentions. Regardless, I don't think this truly warrants a ban on myself as it is a little too much, and with respect to Misplaced Pages policies, I am not intending to be punitive in doing so. I proposed this community ban because I thought such matters involving indefinite blocked users being banned were done by community consensus. However, I am allowed to copyedit my own comments. As I explained above, I am a productive, good-faith editor in good standing with a history of numerous contributions as people have been kind enough to acknowledge here, I managed to improve Misplaced Pages significantly so far. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 13:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I was trying to give you a graceful exit from this, but hey, it's your call. — Ched :  ?  13:41, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I know. I'm just doing what I know is right. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 13:46, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Self Removal of speedy deletion tag

User:Olsen1599 has removed speedy deletion tag of Like mine venners profilbillede på facebook page means Like my friend's profile picture on facebook with a link of a Facebook page.Clubjustin4 (talk) 15:18, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

@Clubjustin4: There's a user warning for that: {{uw-speedy}}. Doesn't need to be brought to this noticeboard. WikiDan61_ReadMe!! 18:22, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Probably could have been dealt with at WP:AIV, but repeatedly created + spamming the same thing on their user talk page = WP:NOTHERE. Blocked indefinitely. --Kinu /_c 18:25, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Like_mine_venners_profilbillede_på_facebook&diff=641580957&oldid=641558132

User:Composemi

This user has uploaded copyrighted images of Maithripala Sirisena six times in one month despite warning on his talk page.--obi2canibe 19:06, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I have left a note on his talk page and will watch -- Diannaa (talk) 20:12, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Unable to change password and therefore login

WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION Error Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes.

If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:ChangePassword, from 10.128.0.118 via cp1055 cp1055 (:3128), Varnish XID 246463075 Forwarded for: 138.130.106.27, 10.128.0.116, 10.128.0.116, 10.128.0.118 Error: 503, Service Unavailable at Fri, 09 Jan 2015 03:40:54 GMT

138.130.106.27 (talk) 03:42, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Template:Florida Basketball Association

Can I get an admin to look at Template:Florida Basketball Association? TheScottDL (talk · contribs) keeps declining my {{Db-g8}} without giving an explanation. The page obviously meets the G8 criterion of "page dependent on a nonexistant or deleted page", so can someone just speedy it before an edit war starts? Ten Pound Hammer • 03:54, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

TFD discussion closed per obvious outcome and template deleted. Bencherlite 11:49, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Amend unblock restrictions effective Jan 2014

I would like to request that my unblock restrictions be amended. I am currently limited to uploading files through the Files for upload process, however would like this restored/lifted. The original conditions imposed through my unblock appeal can be viewed here here. I was advised to use this process by Bidgee. The person who originally granted my unblock in January 2014 was Yunshui. Ashton 29 (talk) 11:23, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support lifting the restriction. Ashton 29 has only had one image (out of a great many) declined due to a copyvio in the last six months, and that one (Flickr entry) was due to a good-faith misunderstanding that even an experienced user could have easily made. I am satisfied that Ashton 29 now has a sufficient understanding of image copyright to be allowed to upload files directly. Yunshui _水 11:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC) Clarification: this applies only to the use of the FFU process, I offer no opinion regarding the other two restrictions. Yunshui _水 11:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Backlog at UAA

There's a huge backlog at UAA, majority bot-contributed but it has from users as well. Time to take up the mop maybe? Ethically 11:57, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

On that note, if anyone thinks that certain filters aren't useful we've been discussing removing some at this discussion. Sam Walton (talk) 13:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)