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Movement Charter Drafting Committee

Looking over the current list of people applying to serve on the Movement Drafting Committee, I see that there isn't anyone yet whose home wiki is English Misplaced Pages applying. There's still plenty of time to apply - the deadline is September 1. In my opinion this work is one of the most important things that has ever happened in the Wikimedia movement. We don't just need good people, we need fantastic people serving on this committee because I think it's going to pretty substantially change how individual projects work and how projects interact with the Foundation. So this is my plea for the many fantastic people we have on this project to put their names forward. Misplaced Pages and Wikimedia needs you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:06, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

What exactly does this stuff mean? Maybe it's just me but a lot of the pages read really opaque. Is there a TLDR (Simple English-wiki style and no marketing speak) of the whole Movement Charter / Global Council / Drafting Groups / Interim Committees / Movement Strategy / etc stuff? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:14, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: this is an excellent point and one I have raised, several times, with the foundation. There is so much going on confusion is bound to happen. Let me try to do my simple explanation in the collapsed box below. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:08, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Barkeep49, this is helpful. I know it's not written yet, but as an example what kinds of things will be in this Magna Carta (separate from the enforcement portion of the UCoC)? At least to the extent that it will affect English Misplaced Pages. The meta page makes gives me ideas on how it might affect affiliates etc, but not much about what it would mean for this project. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

It is very open at this point. In any case, the charter must be drafted before the Global Council elections because it will specify what the authority of the Global Council is. It is difficult to predict how this is going to affect the individual project, UCoC may be or may not be part of it (my guess is that probably not), and I do not think it can specify anything which communities typically decide now on the global level (certainly not policies etc).--Ymblanter (talk) 09:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Kevin touches on some of how this could impact English Misplaced Pages below but I suspect we'll be told that we need to go through the global council for things like editors using the apps being unable to get notifications. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:43, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh I see. It sounds quite important then. Certainly I'd like to see the problems experienced by editors have more representation in technical decision-making and resource prioritisation beyond the current "make a phab request" and/or "use the annual community wishlist". Ditto for grant-making. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:02, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

One thing is that the requirements might be somewhat troublesome for some people who are thinking of applying. " Not be under active sanctions by any Wikimedia project or the Wikimedia Foundation, including events ban. "If that wording is taken literally, it would disqualify anyone under any sort of restriction, including interaction bans.( I have no clue what events ban means) Candidates also have to submit proof of real life identity. I hope that at least one non-admin community member and at least one well respected admin and/or functionary applies, so that ENWP gets representation on the committee. ( Note that if there are 20 or more applicants, there will be a popular election for 7 spots with no more than two members elected from each project.)Jackattack1597 (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Before the recent disaster, I considered applying (especially since I invested quite some time and effort to get this happened), but figured out that one of the requirements was being active in the governance of some sort of non-profit organization, and I decided not to bother.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:04, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ymblanter (and others) the only requirements are listed here. I think you're referencing the Candidate Profile which has a "no one can be all of these things" statement. I can say from my application to the UCoC enforcement committee there was a similar statement, I didn't meet all the profile statements and still got chosen. I would not let the non-profit governance statement deter you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:47, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Now I will not apply anyway, I have not yet fully recovered from the medical emergency. May be by the end of August I will be feeling better.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:49, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I want to +1 this – we absolutely need the best possible people we can find for this role. The Movement Charter probably has the most long-term importance out of all the strategy work that is happening now and is expected to do most or all of the following:

1. define community-WMF relations, and what the Wikimedia movement is (who it comprises)
2. decide how a Global Council should be composed and selected: e.g. election, appointment by WMF, affiliate selection, etc.
3. define the powers of the Global Council, which could likely include global policymaking authority, ability to represent the community to the WMF, some substantial budget (for staffing the Council and/or for grantmaking), appointment or advisory power over other committees or community bodies, and similar "community representative" functions.

Given that WMF is requiring the global community to adopt a Movement Charter, we really need to get it right. If you're reading this and thinking "ugh, I'd be good at that but I wish someone else does this instead", I hate to break it to you – you are exactly the kind of person we need on this committee. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:20, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

If anyone believes that the WMF will really take into consideration whatever this committee decides that could be disagreeing with what the WMF actually wants, then by all means apply. Judging from recent events (from the branding fiasco, passing by what they did with the input about the UCOC, to the current situation with the utter disrespect given to the community questions at the elections (first the community input was completely disregarded, then after much protest the community questions were appended to the bottom of the documentation, far removed from the WMF-approved questions), not to mention things like the IP masking situation), the presence of community members will only be used to claim that whatever they decide is "community-proposed" or "community-supported" and that no further discussion will be possible. Fram (talk) 10:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

As I understand it the election committee is responsible for that question debacle and that's a group of volunteers. And the UCoC text was written by a committee largely composed of volunteers. And I share your concern about how the global council could be used. Which is one reason I think it so important to get right. If the best people sit it out based on some sense of fatalism it definitely won't happen. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:40, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

At least the move to the bottom of documentation was done by a WMF staffer, not by a volunteer. To be precise, the "Movement Strategy & Governance Facilitator", who I guess will be involved with the Movement Charter draft. Fram (talk) 14:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Drafting is always done by the WMF staff, just because it can not be done by volunteers. (For example, it has to be approved by the legal). However, in the drafting I participated in we (volunteers) provided original ideas and then commented on the draft. The result was typically good. I guess Barkeep49 has more experience with the UCoC, but their experience are probably similar to mine. This is in a stark difference with the example the rebranding where volunteers were not asked to give input in any way (either as a selected organized team, or as a community), and this is why rebranding was such a disaster.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

In some previous rounds of the Movement Strategy discussions the drafting genuinely was done by committee members. But otherwise I agree with Ymblanter, the situation with the strategy process (and I believe the UCoC, though I wasn't involved in that myself) is very different to that with e.g. the branding debacle. (Disclaimer: I am now a candidate for the charter drafting group). The Land (talk) 16:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's a full picture to say the Election Committee is a group of volunteers. I mean it's true, and they're likely excellent volunteers, but it's an appointed body. Apologies for the slightly disrespectful analogy, but it's a bit like a dictator inhabiting the White House claiming to represent the American people because he's also an American... If a person isn't selected by the community, then he doesn't represent the community and isn't accountable to it. Compare the WMF ElectCom fiasco with English Misplaced Pages's Election Committee who are elected - I'd be very surprised if any of them ignored a serious question for seven weeks (and it appears the WMF ElectCom do not intend to answer it at all). Indeed, I remember our ElectCom being highly responsive in 2020, eg with this mess. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

This was a big deal of a discussion between many parties leading to this decision. I personally supported an concept of an appointed body, just because it will produce the charter faster, probably of the same quality, and the diversity can be adjusted. The only purpose of the body is to draft the chapter, not to make any decisions, and I do not think it has to be elected. There are different opinions of course, quite of few of us participated in the discussions.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

- As Ymblanter says, there was a significant disagreement on the makeup of the MCDC. Because framing is important, despite as aggressive a ratification method as I can get (whether in the MCDC or not), I was one of those on the opposite side of the "pure appointed" route - I wrote the most elected-heavy proposal for the drafting committee. Pharos wrote a more compromise one, and Quim (WMF) wrote the appointed one. He also wrote, the compromise solution that is very similar to the final form, and then a few tweaks were incorporated from feedback from others with an interest. I felt it was a good compromise - it was a huge shift from the WMF's original form, and so I backed it. I am also appalled with ElectCom's complete disregard to communicate - they need to be both elected, and there needs to be a community method to bring them to task for woeful and ongoing failures to communicate. As you say, en-wiki ARBCOM election commission is a less crucial, temporary, body, and is still more responsive. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

@Fram: Can you please elaborate on "passing by what they did with the input about the UCOC"? I'm having trouble parsing it. –MJL ‐Talk‐ 01:22, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I mean "ignoring", "not even mentioning" what they did. Probably some idiom I translated into English but which doesn't work in that language :-) "Don't get me started on what they did with..." would have been better I suppose. Fram (talk) 10:24, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

One of the problems with participating in drafting a Movement Charter is that one has to believe that there should be a Movement Charter and that this is a "movement." I'm one of those editors who is here to "build an encyclopedia," not to participate in a "free knowledge movement" or any other kind of "movement." Further, I think calling what we do a "movement," or calling any organized activity of people a "movement," equates it with real movements like the civil rights movement or women's rights movement, which is highly inappropriate (and frankly the kind of thing only a very white, very male group of people would do). So I hope anyone representing us on the Movement Charter Drafting Committee would raise the issue of "stop calling it a movement," but I think I'm in the minority when it comes to this viewpoint. Levivich 16:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Much as it may pain me to utter these words, I must say that I am in full agreement with Levivich here. This is an encyclopedia whose content is owned by its writers, not a "movement" owned by the WMF, which only exists to support the projects that have chosen to be hosted by it. This is just one more example of how Foundation employees seem to think that they own the encyclopedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm still not entirely sure what the Charter is going to govern. Will it have an impact on editorial decisions? Sourcing guidelines? Will it govern the creation of new projects? Is it going to advise the WMF on how best to grow the project in regions and languages where the encyclopedia is lacking in content? We already have a separate new "code of conduct" group, so I assume it's not doing that. And it certainly is not going to be filled with lawyers who would be wanting to comment on WMF legal recommendations. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:43, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

The charter is supposed to describe relations between different groups, such as the WMF, the affiliates, and the projects. It is not going to impact things like sourcing guidelines.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

If this charter is a "who we are, why we are here and what we are doing" document, I wish I could be part of the discussion, but it sounds like this is for foundation people?

Also, does Global Council = over-arching arbcom for all of wikimedia? - jc37 18:03, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

ArbCom is not a policy making body. The Global Council will (almost certainly) be a policy making body, though more at the level Ymblanter describes above in response to power. A global ArbCom is a possible outcome of the UCoC enforcement work. There will soon be a chance to give feedback on that very idea and if you have thoughts on whether there should or shouldn't be a global ArbCom I hope you participate in that process. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:31, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I know I'm one of those darned meta people, but to me this legitimately looks like an attempt by the WMF to involve the community more in issues of global governance. They could full well just continue to handle movement-wide issues on their end or with affiliates, but instead they're taking a committee of (elected) volunteer community members to write up a charter to handle global community issues. And, at the very least, the WMF has lately given a significant degree of freedom to the volunteers involved in these sort of committees. I don't really see sufficient reason for the end-of-the-world type ideas expressed in this section, and though the worst case scenario can definitely be quite bad for community independence, that seems quite unlikely considering the current documentation available on Meta-Wiki. Though perhaps I am too quick to assume good faith with the WMF. Best, Vermont (talk) 00:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Contingency plans

• I've been thinking this for a while, and maybe it's time to stick my head over the parapet and say it: We need an exit strategy. I mean, of course we all hope that the WMF's (many) new directions and initiatives are going to be inspiring and brilliant, but historically they haven't always been, and some of the more controlling aspects of their behaviour are starting to worry me (and others). I think it's only prudent for our community to have a backup plan. Which, to my poorly-IT-literate brain, probably means a fork?—S Marshall T/C 16:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  For reasons I discuss at my essay, Death of Misplaced Pages, I think a fork, even a really organized one that gets a lot of us that are most active, is doomed to fail. This new fork would have to operate for quite some time before it might start regularly appearing above Misplaced Pages in Google results or AI assisted searches. It would take a while for our readers to figure out that Misplaced Pages's quality has diminished. And, if I'm being particularly cynical or maybe just realistic, it's possible some of the readers would never figure out that the information they're getting isn't what it once was. I suspect that if there was a foundation based schism some people would just stop volunteering their time for encyclopedic work, while most of the people who kept volunteering their time would end up returning to Misplaced Pages. We need Misplaced Pages more than Misplaced Pages needs us. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  Even from the early aughts, WikiTheorists recognized that forking Misplaced Pages would be a non-trivial and likely futile task compared to other wikis and FOSS projects. See the discussion at meatball:WikiPediaIsNotTypical from around 2003 (dated by references to the rename of Phase III to MediaWiki which occurred in 2003) — Wug·a·po·des​ 17:25, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• The exit strategy isn't "fork," it's "revolution." Vote in the trustee elections for trustees who share your views. The community needs to maintain control over whomever owns the servers. If we find new server-operators to replace the WMF, we'll still need to control them, so there's not much point in doing it. Just exercise the control we already have (by voting for trustees who share our views). Levivich 17:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  We don't have that control over the WMF and never will. If the WMF serves us up a shit sandwich, our choices are to eat it and smile, to abandon encyclopaedia writing, or to fork.—S Marshall T/C 17:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  How do you reconcile that conclusion with the fact that we elect a majority of trustees? If the WMF serves up a shit sandwich, one choice we have is to put in different trustees who will serve us a better tasting sandwich. Levivich 17:44, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  The rebranding was an example of a shit sandwich, and I do not think we have eaten it.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:58, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  If they served up a particularly bad sandwich, we could just choose not to eat it and play chicken (game) with the WMF. Yes, they have the servers, but I image we've got the technical ability in the community to attempt some work-arounds with the software. Will WMF sink their flagship? I'm not so sure ... Hog Farm _Talk 18:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  North8000 (talk) 19:42, 6 August 2021 (UTC) That's putting it mildly. Misplaced Pages is more than WMF's flagship, it's the sole ship which supports them, their ivory tower, and all of their other hobbies.North8000 (talk) 11:55, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with this in theory. In reality the recent questions debacle shows the difficulties of even being able to figure out which trustees share views on issues we consider dealbreakers when it comes to voting. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  ...which, I say, is our fault and not the WMF's. It's a bit of an indictment of the health of community governance that the candidates themselves can't communicate their own positions to us effectively. Or that we don't have enough candidates who can. Fundamentally, we're not communicating well with our own representatives. There's very little participation in the process. But we have a deep well of potential trustee candidates, in my opinion. I would vote for literally every single editor in this thread to be trustee if they ran. But almost no one wants to run (including me). That's the fundamental problem. More heresy from Levivich: We should pay trustees; that will increase the candidate pool. Levivich 18:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  I'm concerned that only 5 (out of a total of 20) candidates decided to answer at least one community question. I have two possible explanations: 1) they either didn't know about them; or 2) they decided it wasn't important. Both, to me as a voter, indicate a serious communication concern incompatible with the position of community-elected trustee. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  I noticed some of the candidates addressed concerns raised in the community questions in their answers to the WMF-selected questions. Levivich 19:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  Levivich isn't wrong about this. There is a figure for which I'd do that job, but it is not zero.—S Marshall T/C 18:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

A strategy for Misplaced Pages to fire WMF might make WMF improve. Including changing the ridiculous by-laws which make the elections a "talk to the hand" situation. Imagine if the US Senate had supreme power over the US. And with a 51% vote they could rewrite the US constitution any way that they wanted. And they already decided that a big portion of the Senate is self-appointed by them, and they decide the election rules for joining their club. And with a 51% vote that coudl expell any Senator that they didn't like. Believe it or not, that is the fundamentally flawed structure of the WMF bylaws.North8000 (talk) 19:32, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

A thought

I look at this bureaucracy-building at the WMF level, and I'm trying to step back and see "why".

I could presume all sorts of wheel spinning, wool gathering, and people just doing "something" for "feel-good" reasons, or even just to say that they did "something".

But I think that this could possible be more than that. I think the universal CoC is the key to figuring this out.

I am not a lawyer, but I think, if we look undermeath, this may well be about fear of types of liability, legal or even really merely just perceived.

Things like the 230 debates, or that certain social media companies are adding commitees to review content and/or user interaction, in order to buffer against corporate liability, and so on.

But if so, in my opinion we already have oversighters and ombudsmen. Do we really need all this?

We are an encyclopedia project. It's starting to feel like someone out there thinks that we need to become the Federation of Planets. Jimbo Wales is not Hari Seldon, and we are not Terminus, starting the next Galactic Empire.

So what's going on? And is this what we want, much less need? I know I am just one small voice out in the wilderness, but where are we really going from here? - jc37 19:39, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I think that what is going on is that many people employed by the WMF think that they own a social media site, and are acting accordingly, rather than realise the reality that their job is to provide support to an encyclopedia that is owned by its writers. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

They do own a social media site. They're hosts for user-submitted content so they're subject to the same legal pressures as facebook et al.—S Marshall T/C 19:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

They are employees, not owners. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Who owns what is a really key point in all this. I will probably expand on this later but we lose sight of who owns the platform (the WMF), who owns the content (everyone), and who owns the distribution system that delivers the content from the platform to the readers (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.). Each is a separate and distinct role in the knowledge ecosystem (now I sound like I work for the WMF). Levivich 20:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Somehow I distrust any organization that raises the banner: a global structure that responds to the needs of our Movement rather than, say, the users or the needers—or peoples. – Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, him) 15:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

At least in terms of the UCOC, the staffers involved are very much well aware of their role, especially given that many were volunteers prior to becoming employees. Vermont (talk) 00:33, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

If you're looking at the Movement Charter and Global Council and wondering 'what is the point of these', allow me to summarise - as one of the people who wrote the recommendations that led to these.

Basically, the relationships between all different parts of Wikimedia are something of a mess. The WMF and project communities, including ours, have very different expectations about who is supposed to do what. Even where there is a shared understanding, it's rarely written down anywhere and is easily forgotten on one side or another. These conflicting expectations cause friction, arguments, and lack of trust. There are also not that many channels of communication between different parts of the movement. If the English Misplaced Pages and the WMF need to have a conversation, how does that conversation happen? Not very effectively at the moment. And this is just the English Misplaced Pages and the WMF! When you add the hundreds of other projects and dozens of other Wikimedia organisations, the levels of confusion, unclarity and mistrust grow even higher.

Hence the idea of a Movement Charter to document the constitution of the Wikimedia movement (so to speak), and a Global Council to provide a forum for structured discussions and accountability all round. I hope that helps... The Land (talk) 11:15, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages heirarchy differentiation

I believe Misplaced Pages will eventually surpass The Bible as the most-copied English-language text, both in frequency and duration. (4021 CE: Scholars confirm Levivich was right.) In thinking about how to preserve and sustain Misplaced Pages in the long term, it's important to understand the difference between the content, the platform, and the distribution. Like Misplaced Pages, the content of the Bible was written by many different people, copied onto many different platforms (papyrus, parchment, paper, hard drives), and distributed by different organizations and people (book stores, churches). With Misplaced Pages:

• The content of Misplaced Pages is the text that the reader reads, and it is what is copied by Misplaced Pages mirrors.
• The platform is MediaWiki, hosted on web servers controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation. In our case, MediaWiki is essentially the same platform that stores the "official copy" (the Misplaced Pages database), that we use to edit that official copy (editing user interfaces like Visual Editor), that we use to communicate with each other about changes to the official copy (talk pages), and that readers use to read the content (the website user interfaces). All of our wikitext, templates, modules, scripts, style sheets, etc., are part of the platform, not the content.
• The distribution – how readers access the content – is mostly via other entities such as Google, Apple (Siri), Amazon (Amazon Alexa), and other tech companies. (A minority of readers access the content via the platform directly, e.g. by visiting the main page at en.wikipedia.org and searching from there.)
• The content community of people who write the content is a self-governing, leaderless, autonomous collective that operates by consensus. This is the part that no one thought would actually work, but somehow it does.
• The content community puts the development, operation, and maintenance of the platform into the hands to the WMF, with results that many (most?) in the community are not satisfied with. The WMF also regulates how the content can be distributed from the platform by distributors like tech companies (e.g., m:Wikimedia Enterprise).
• When the WMF tries to govern the community, the community objects, because the community believes the WMF should serve the community, and that the community governs itself.

"Forking" means finding a new platform for the official copy of the content. And the key to that isn't the WMF or the trademark Misplaced Pages or the domain wikipedia.org or the servers or MediaWiki software, it's the distribution. The fork needs to work with Google, etc., in order for readers to be able to access the fork content. That is, the distributors need to know that the fork is the "official" copy. If Google switches from using wikipedia.org to using wikipedia-fork.org, then the fork will succeed. If not, then a fork will fail. One thing I think we should do for our long-term success is to split up the following, so it's not all under one organization's (the WMF) control: (1) control of donations, (2) control of the database that holds the official copy and regulates access to that official copy (e.g., dealing with distributors), (3) development and maintenance of user interfaces for reading/editing/communication, and (4) representing/supporting/growing the content community. Levivich 21:36, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I think you're largely right. But I also see no big incentive for Google to swap. I suppose Google would swap over to a fork if it turned out en.wikipedia.org had reliability issues to the point of making all those "This information is fetched from Misplaced Pages" boxes filled with inaccuracies, and if the vandal/legitimate edits ratio became > 1. There's also the widespread branding of the "Misplaced Pages" trademark, which itself draws contributions, and that would be hard to replace.

It's not exactly the same thing but see Wikitravel vis-a-vis Wikivoyage. It seems it takes a lot of time and energy to sink a ship even when the operator decides to run it into a rock. (that is, dissatisfaction related to long-standing discontent at poor hosting, poor site updates, and excessive monetization and advertising, and eventually, interference by Internet Brands in the community's activities in breach of prior agreements and understandings.) With Wikitravel, I believe the community migrated to Wikivoyage 9 years ago (not before some contributors were sued for "civil conspiracy") and now it's about even in Alexa pagerank. Wikitravel still has better ranking for keywords, especially for the more competitive ones.

Realistically, for a sustainable community-based fork to appear, the WMF would need to do a series of catastrophic failures in every department that led to a situation so awful that the silent majority of the community had no choice but to migrate. And then there would be a test of how long that energy (on a fork) can be retained. At any point a minor concession by the WMF would be likely to draw editors back. Still, the most realistic idea for a fork I saw was at User_talk:Iridescent/Archive_43#How_to_kill_a_wiki. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

LibreOffice managed this transition successfully when it forked off OpenOffice. The tech journalists reported the fork, because it was a big deal and it mattered, and the users soon cottoned on and adapted to the new name. And we have the tools to inform our readers of the switch.—S Marshall T/C 22:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Huh, I still know it as OpenOffice, I'd search for OpenOffice and I'd head to https://www.openoffice.org and use OpenOffice. The Audacity fork on the other hand.. ~TNT (she/her • talk) 22:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

An alternative arrangement might be to have a "Misplaced Pages Trust" that receives, maintains (invests), and spends donations, under legally-enforceable restrictions spelled out in its trust instrument. For example, the first XXX dollars might be earmarked for web hosting (cf. m:Wikimedia Endowment), and any surplus funds spent only by direction of a separate Editors Union that represents the interests of the content-creating community. The Union can have Working Groups that prepare Resolutions and present them for a vote of the Union membership. For example, Resolutions might authorize the Trust to spend money on short-term projects (like hosting a Wikimania) or long-term projects (establishment of a "Misplaced Pages Labs" that develops software). Under this structure, money would be spent on discrete projects with clear and finite budgets, and only after the community (via the Editors Union) approves it. Levivich 02:43, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• Out of curiosity, Levivich, how does your suggested "Editors Union" differ from the proposed Global Council? And do you really think that there's any real chance that a union membership of somewhere around 100,000 people is really an efficient or effective way of distributing funds? Will not the largest blocs of editors (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian projects) not wind up showing a degree of self-interest that pretty much replicates the inequities of the current process? Do you think that the vast majority of editors cares about most of this stuff? I mean...we have a hard enough time finding sufficient good candidates for Arbcom amongst 30,000 regular editors on this project, do you think we're going to be getting a lot of people "voting" on whether or not to invest in (for example) editor development in Kenya, or purchasing licenses to upgrade the Mailman system, or outreach to GLAM institutions in Southern India? Risker (talk) 06:01, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not sure why it matters if the Union is exactly like the Council or not at all similar or something in between. I doubt the Union would reach 100k voting members (we've never had that many people vote on anything), but there are international unions with 100 million members and they still function so I think we'll be able to manage enrollment. I don't think the vast majority of editors care to get involved in the details of this stuff, and I don't see the majority doing any of the specific things you list, but I do see ~10 editors who would want to join Working Groups that draft Resolutions to have the Trust fund a Kenya Project, a Mailman Project, and a GLAM Project, and I see ~1,000 editors who would want to vote on whether to ratify those Resolutions. Levivich 06:46, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

  So a bit like a Cooperative? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:05, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• Another aspect of forking is of course that there is a good reason why WMF exist. Even if the project gets forked, none of the users want to go to jail or be exposed to huge legal expenses, and this is why one needs legal. And then one figures out that legal costs money, and one suddenly needs a financial department and a funding department, and then soon we have the WMF 2.0. Even assuming most people who want to fork only want to fork the English Misplaced Pages, if we can not really built reasonable relations with the WMF 1.0 at the times which were favorable for creation of non-profits, why does anybody think the forked project will build thye WMF 2.0 more successfully? I have seen indeed some ideas how it could be done, but I do not think any of those I have seen was in any way realistic.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:52, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• My two cents:

1. It's natural for organizations to want to grow and expand based on whatever platforms they have, and that often leads them in unexpected directions. There are well known examples in both the OSS and the commercial worlds (Eclipse, Apache, Mozilla; and Nokia, AT&T and Samsung, respectively). Whether they turn into a bureaucracy or not depends mostly on how lean they keep their administration; indeed, a common metric for the efficiency of NGOs is how much they spend on administration and fundraising vs. on services and donations.
2. I may not relate to this expansion myself - I'd rather the WMF spent some time modernizing MW instead - but I do think it needs its mandate a redefined, given how "spread out" it has become and the potential conflicts it might have because of it.
3. Forking is not a viable option at the foreseeable future. Several initiatives have gone this route, and none is even close to replacing Misplaced Pages. The main hurdles are upkeep and traffic, and both translate to a huge initial investment (probably in the tens of millions of USD, but I'm no expert). Perhaps it would be a viable option in the future, but at the moment it isn't.
4. If you want to affect change in the WMF you indeed need to organized: contact the leadership of other wikipedias, define a common set of values and goals, then put people on the board (or committee, or whatever) that can affect it. You want those people to have managerial experience; being accomplished wikipedians is all swell, but lawyers, accountants, and experts in public administration are the ones who'll know how to turn your ideas into something actionable.

Cheers. François Robere (talk) 16:19, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Recent proxy blocks

As some folks may have noticed, there has been a major uptick in short open proxy blocks by ST47ProxyBot lately. Now that the block infrastructure is in place, it's time for some explanation. We have had a lot of issues lately with a type of proxy called a "peer-to-peer" or "residential" proxy. In short, unlike normal VPNs (where your internet traffic goes into a datacenter somewhere and is forwarded from there to its destination), peer-to-peer proxies route traffic through normal peoples' internet connections. Some of these are known to the person doing the proxying (for example, some services route traffic through all of their users) while others might not be (compromised devices or shady smartphone apps can turn you into an exit point). Since these exit points are mostly on residential networks, they tend to have rather dynamic IPs, so we can't always perform long blocks on them. A small group of editors has recently been given access to a data feed from Spur () that identifies IPs belonging to some peer-to-peer proxy services, and this data feed is being used to hardblock these proxies both on enwiki and globally. What you need to know:

• These proxies have been a huge issue. I don't want to go into too much detail here per WP:BEANS (though I'm happy to email trusted editors with additional details), but we have had a lot of issues with very nasty folks using these proxies. I have personally dealt with some of them editing as IPs, and I believe the checkuser team can confirm that they have seen abusive accounts using these services. Until now, we've always been reacting - blocking an IP after the fact. Now, we are able to block these IPs before they are abused.
• It's hard to identify these proxies. A lot of existing proxy detection tools won't be able to identify these endpoints as belonging to peer-to-peer proxy services. If you think that one of these blocks was made by mistake, contact a CheckUser or make a request at WP:WPOP (checkusers and several WPOP members have access to a service that can identify them), but we are very confident in our data source here.
• We trust the data. Some proxy-detection services are well-known at WP:WPOP for being questionably reliable. In this case, we have worked directly with Spur to develop a detection method and have spot-checked results ourselves.
• There will be teething issues. This has been a quick turnaround effort to deal with a major uptick in abuse. We've done a lot of monitoring and sanity checks, but nothing is perfect the first go-round. We will be actively keeping an eye on everything and fixing issues as they come up.
• There will be a lot of churn in these blocks. The nature of residential proxies means that devices will move around and dynamic IPs will be dynamic IPs. This means that the blocks will necessarily be short (though the bot can do escalating block durations when it sees proxies pop up on the same IP multiple times) and that something that was marked as a proxy one day might not be a proxy a couple days later.
• There will be some collateral damage. It's unfortunate, but it's true. Some people may not be aware they have one of these proxies running on their internet connection. Some Internet Service Providers use Carrier-grade_NAT (basically, multiple customers behind one IP), so if one customer on a given IP is running a peer-to-peer proxy, a block will affect everyone on that IP. This is nothing new - that's how blocks normally work - but given the scale of the blocks here, there will be an uptick in legitimate editors impacted by this. Editors who are trying to make accounts but are affected by this should be directed to WP:ACC, and existing editors who are affected should request WP:IPBE from the checkuser team (and probably m:GIPBE from the steward team). This will be the source of most "false positives".

Finally, I'd like to give out a lot of kudos. In no particular order: thanks to Blablubbs and MarioGom for getting this effort moving and getting us the data feed, ST47 for quickly integrating the data feed into their proxy-blocking bot, Tks4Fish for getting these blocks applied at the global level, and L235 and TheresNoTime for interfacing with the CheckUser team as we figure this out. I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank-you to the folks at Spur - we've worked closely with them throughout this process and they have provided amazing support. GeneralNotability (talk) 00:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• This is cool! I look forward to seeing how the partnership develops and thank everyone for their work on this. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• A wholehearted thank you to everyone involved in this mitigation process. Mz7 (talk) 04:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Many thanks all around! I was indeed wondering why there were suddenly proxy-blocks on so many IPs that have not been actively editing. DMacks (talk) 07:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Awesome work! These proxies have indeed been a huge issue, and I wholeheartedly look forward to seeing how this goes. Enterprisey (talk!) 09:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• I've spoken about residential proxies a bunch and if this works that's quite incredible, since residential proxies are usually considered a problem that can't really be dealt with. Nice work. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:45, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• There are times when I'm amazed to see what my colleagues are getting up to in the background. This is one of those times. This looks like it has taken a great deal of patient work by the people involved, and represents an important contribution to keeping this a safe space for our contributors. Thanks very much to everyone involved. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:12, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Good work everybody. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 10:40, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Sensational work, thanks to all those involved. Dealing with rubbish eventually wears out content creators and preventing abuse is very important. Johnuniq (talk) 10:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Good work Jeepday (talk) 11:45, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Kudos to all --S Philbrick(Talk) 11:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Thanks a lot. I have a technical question though I see that the bot blocked today 86.52.135.60 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), presumably one of the pool. I have this IP on my watchlist, because I had to protect in January Talk:Tbilisi against their disruptive edits. I see, however, that this IP was editing the same page previously, on the same day, as 77.213.98.123 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 47.37.142.213 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 86.52.171.194 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and 79.114.104.220 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). None of them is blocked. Does this mean that the same person was using in the same editing session an open proxy and a normal IP? I thought this is impossible.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:03, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• No, they were probably on proxies, although it is often very easy to switch between proxy and non-proxy. These particular types of proxy usually have a very short lifespan, sometimes just hours. You've just spotted one that is more persistent or recurrent than most. I think a lot of us are seeing these. The others will no longer be active. Also thanks everyone involved. -- zzuuzz 20:18, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  I see, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  I don't know the technical details of how the Proxy Whose Name We're Not Supposed To Utter does things, but switching IPs is, in general, pretty easy. I just made two edits to User:RoySmith/sandbox using different IPs. In my case, I just switched between using my cable modem WiFi and my phone hotspot. Just a couple of clicks in a control panel. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:33, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks. But five IPs would mean five wifi/cables, which seems to me a bit 2 much. However, if we do not need to block these Ips I am perfectly fine.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:38, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• Question: Are the block messages and templates clear enough about how a prospective or existing editor suffering from collateral damage can apply for an unblock or IPBE? Can you link to an example? Deryck C. 15:56, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

  These blocks use {{Blocked p2p proxy}}. MarioGom (talk) 20:55, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• Several Questions - Why are we using a third-party closed-source service instead of using the free tiers of residential VPNs and proxies to create our own published open data set? I did a quick search for residential VPN reviews and see that there are at least a dozen recommended by apparently neutral third parties, advertising ten to hundreds of millions of residential IPs (presumably their customers? Or contractors paid to run their proxy servers?) each. Apparently most of this use is to avoid geographic restrictions on video streaming services, but they also are used to avoid political repression, far more than block evasion as far as I can tell. I have no doubt that they are used for abuse, but I would like to know more about the extent of the "recent uptick" and again, I question using a closed-data vendor instead of the free (i.e., non streaming-level bandwidth, presumably) options to automatically scan the exit addresses for an open data set. Spur claims to track "over 25 proxy services," but what proportions of the hundreds of millions of exit addresses do they actually report? I have a hard time believing that this effort isn't just the latest round in an arms race aligning Misplaced Pages with the worst oppressive regimes. Are we paying Spur? If so how much and for how much coverage proportionally? Has a professional ethicist been consulted? If we actually attempt to block hundreds of millions of individual IP addresses, many of which are not going to be static, what is the load on the database? 107.242.121.39 (talk) 00:16, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Hello. Do you have any connection to Nrcprm2026/James Salsman? They have quite the history of logged-out socking on the (relatively narrow) range you're on, both here and on meta. In any case: Replies, with some questions bundled and in no particular order:
    • Obtaining data ourselves is very resource-intensive for technical reasons and would require a significant infrastructure investment because of the way these services function. The option has been explored, and proven to be infeasible. Shodan-esque bulk fingerprinting does not enable us to identify end nodes.
    • The extent of the recent uptick is large, and there are number of logged-in LTAs using these services as well.
    • It's true that people are using these services for legitimate purposes, but that also applies to things like TOR and non-P2P VPN services, which we also block. People with legitimate reasons for using anonymisers can apply for proxy IP block exemption.
    • We are not blocking hundreds of millions of addresses, we are blocking a tiny fraction of that – we are targeting specific services with an established history of severe abuse. The numbers are in the ten thousands.
    • I struggle to understand how any of this puts us in line with oppressive regimes, or why anyone would have to hire an ethicist; m:NOP and WP:NOP have been policy for a long time. The services we're blocking are functioning as open proxies.
    • There is internal agreement among the people working on the implementation that divulging the exact details of feed coverage and operation is counterproductive; this is in line with our handling of existing proxy-blocking mechanisms, such as the conventional open proxy blocks performed by ST47ProxyBot. The coverage is good enough to have made a noticeable difference since we've started this, and it will get better over time.
    • Our exact arrangement with Spur is currently being worked out. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

    I know Salsman, and recommend WP:DENY. I disagree with your opinion on the reasonableness of consulting an ethicist on these and larger issues, but I am relieved by the smaller magnitude of the problem. 107.242.121.31 (talk) 02:53, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

    For what it's worth: if someone is using a P2P proxy service in a country with significant repression associated to online surveillance, please, stop doing it right now. A P2P proxy service will inevitably convert your device into an exit node used for cybercrime, and that can put you at risk. Please, be safe, and use battle-tested solutions, be it shadowsocks, wireguard VPNs, Tor with private bridges, or whatever is considered a safer choice nowadays. MarioGom (talk) 12:21, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Name censoring

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Farsi wiki admin Persia and other Iranians keeps censoring the name of Imam Khamenei international convention center even though i keep providing them link to website isf-icc.ir https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Isfahan_international_convention_center&action=history bi (talk) 13:36, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Is this happening on the English Misplaced Pages? If so, please link to diffs showing the edits and notify the users involved. If these edits are happening on another Wiki, we can do nothing about it. - Donald Albury 13:49, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Isfahan_international_convention_center&diff=1037723745&oldid=1037723631 bi (talk) 13:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

"Censored name" is not a valid move rationale. Accusations of censorship are also unnecessary bad faith. If you think the current title is inadequate, and you have sources to back it up in light of our criteria for article titles, then you're free to start a regular requested move, as per the instructions on that page. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:58, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

you're not supposed to change the name bi (talk) 14:07, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

according to rules bi (talk) 14:08, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I haven't moved the article, only copy-edited the lead. ST47's suggestion to put it in title case seems more convincing, wherever this ultimately ends up. I've also put in a move protection request to prevent edit warring over this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:12, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Creating the "Chris Chan" article

Addendum: so User:Veverve/ChristineWC is all right, even if relies upon pretty much the same crappy sources as listed at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1074#Chris_Chan? --Calton | Talk 14:16, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I've deleted the page. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 14:19, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Jimi isn't dead, God just asked for guitar lessons. El_C 11:20, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I'll keep all y'all posted if additional drafts come through AfC. This is like the fourth since they were arrested. Bkissin (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Can monitor log of 1159 ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, I did check the log of that filter and it stopped an edit about Chris Chandler who is an article subject on Misplaced Pages. Maybe the filter can be tweaked as there are legitimate edits for someone with a similar name. Liz 03:10, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

while efforts could be made to decrease FPs, they may also miss legitimate cases. Since the filter is log only and likely temporary, it’s not really worth the effort IMO. Most entries caught by the filter were the subject (but are now removed from the log, either due to individual revdel or OS of the log entry). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:48, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Also note that the filter is logging-only. The "Chris Chandler" false positive did go through just fine. -- Tamzin (she/they) 15:52, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• It's pretty obvious that the only conceivable reason for creating an article about this subject is to further the trolling that has been ongoing for the last 14 years and made their life a misery, so why are those who wish do do so still able to edit Misplaced Pages? If anyone should be blocked or banned it is those people, and I only use the word "people" because to give them their true name would be a personal attack. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• I made this point on GorillaWarfare's talk page by pointing out that if I still had the tools, I would be treating this the same way any other admin would treat sustained harassment attempts - with blocks. We need to start doing this. If harassment isn't reason enough to block, then the egregious BLP issues are. —A little blue Bori v^_^v 22:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm ready to block as necessary (not that this is the most sympathetic subject ever), I've only become aware of this last week and it's somehow lowered my already depressed outlook on humanity all around. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:35, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Add me to that list of admins who will block first, ask questions later if I see more drafts on her. Enough is enough. RickinBaltimore (talk) 22:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Would it be acceptable to mark any article or draft we see about her for speedy as an attack page? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:44, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Considering the aim of any such page is harassment, I don't see why not. —A little blue Bori v^_^v 22:46, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, please do. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:44, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

For the sake of spreading awareness, since it may well be the case some people haven't read the original ANI, can an admin unsalt Chris Chan (salted since 2009 with a non-helpful summary) and resalt it with links to the ANIs in the log message? Likely someone trying to create this will see the log message on that page, at least. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that article specifically was about CWC, but rather someone legitimately named "Chris Chan". (The "Chan" here is a Japanese honorific and is correctly spelt hyphenated, i.e. "Chris-Chan".) —A little blue Bori v^_^v 00:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

One was some random person, and the other was the subject in question here. I'll take care of it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:39, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• Noting for the record that I've semi'd Texas Tech University for one month (diff) due to unspeakable horror. Admins: I urge you to not look at the revdel'd edits. Let me take the hit for you. That said, though I'm wary of speculating, the chances that this angle will end up blowing up so as to be covered by beyond-local mainstream sources seems considerable, probably more so than the CC matter in isolation (I wouldn't even bother writing this otherwise). That's as much as I'm prepared to speak about this at this time. Bleak times. El_C 01:59, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• You have my sympathy. I've heard some of the TTU related things and it's pretty soul crushing, to say the least. Other articles that may end up getting hit may be Ruckersville, Virginia, Rob Bell (Virginia politician), and Charlottesville, Virginia. Two out of the three have protections on the page already, but it's a semi-protection. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 02:12, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• Only as a comment, I think there is potential, pre-current events around Chan based on past sources, to have a neutral/BLP compliant article that would not be an attack article, but no way, no how would I be inclined to create it now or any time in the next two or three years, and if it were created, we'd need to have it under immediate full protection and talk page semi protection. The current actions above to seek and destroy any drafts created right now is 100% the right way to go simply because that article will be a honeypot for trolls that are looking at every angle to slander Chan and anyone associated with them while there's still new coverage based on the arrest. --Masem (t) 16:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
• This is not the first time that an article's creation protection (aka WP:SALTing) has been challenged, and there exists global consensus on Misplaced Pages about how to handle such challenges, which is documented at the WP:SALT section of the WP:PROTECT policy: Contributors wishing to re-create a salted title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator (preferably the protecting administrator), file a request at Misplaced Pages:Requests for page protection#Current requests for reduction in protection level, or use the deletion review process. To make a convincing case for re-creation, it is helpful to show a draft version of the intended article when filing a request. In this case, administrators have been contacted (via RFPP and several AN/ANI reports), and there is a clear and strong consensus of administrators to leave in place the creation-protection based on our WP:BLP and WP:NOT policies, and WP:N guideline. There is also a consensus of administrators to leave in place the creation-protection of drafts per WP:BLP. According to WP:SALT, anyone wanting to appeal that consensus has only one remaining avenue, and it's deletion review (WP:DRV). (I'd have closed this thread with this statement but I'm not an admin.) Levivich 16:39, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Help, in getting an editor to sign his/her posts correctly

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I need help here. Can an administrator help instruct @Beatrix TBS:, in how to sign his/her posts? GoodDay (talk) 21:56, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I tried. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:27, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Success! El_C 11:28, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

WP:3RR

An editor Special:Contributions/223.190.37.149 is consciously engaged in a deliberate edit war regarding the same content within the page Kashmir Premier League (Pakistan). Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty (talk) 08:28, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Kalu Dada from Thathri Kutty Edit warring may be reported to the edit warring noticeboard. 331dot (talk) 08:33, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Reinstate full editing benefits

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

Good afternoon. Last October my editing priviledges were limited on Misplaced Pages. The parameters of my priviledges were that I could only edit or create pages on subjects who were deceased or business or entities that were defunct. I have adhered to these guidelines since then and was hoping that I could now get my full priviledges to edit all Wikipeda subjects. I believe the original accusations may have been misguided, but I learned from the experience about possible COI and am ready to move forward in an unbiased manner. I love Misplaced Pages writing and would love to do more. Please let me know if this is possible.EllenZoe (talk) 20:34, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The restriction in place against EllenZoe is a prohibition on editing about any attention seeking entity - no BLPs, no companies, products, bands, non-profits, etc unless defunct. This was imposed as an unblock condition following a block for covert advertising. The administrator imposing the condition at the time stated that Because of this, the conditions of the conditional unblock have to be indefinite; you may be able to appeal at some point in the future, but only after demonstrating significant positive contributions within the parameters of the conditional unblock. Since then, they have written a few articles from scratch - I'm not sure I would classify it as "significant", but it doesn't seem to be UPE. Pinging @MER-C: and @Rosguill: as the administrators involved in the original block. ST47 (talk) 21:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

• This is a slightly odd combo - only 150 edits or so since the imposition, but 4 decent start-class articles. Hmm. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:15, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• Previous appeal: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive332#My block removed, please. Too soon since then in terms of contributions. MER-C 08:22, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

• Note - EllenZoe pinged admin Rosguill (who I won't ping again) here and they politely responded saying they didn't have on-WP time enough to review it themselves. They suggested coming here. But they were able to comment in the last thread linked to above. St★lwart 11:06, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• Maybe WP:ROPE is appropriate with a warning that anything that appears to be recidivism is unlikely to be AGF'd. —valereee (talk) 12:52, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Jay Edwards (politician)

Hello, I am requesting an administrator to evaluate the edits at Jay Edwards (politician) made by SE45701. The editor claims on my talk page to be Jay Edwards himself: (the editor has since removed the post here). Jerm (talk) 23:06, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm on my way to bed, but from a very quick skim, I think this needs careful evaluation. That the edits were made by someone purporting to be the subject is an issue; it is also an issue that much of the content they removed was added by an account called OppoResearcher, which edited exclusively political articles for a short space of time between August and October 2020. Something funny is going on. Girth Summit _(blether) 00:13, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Straight to 6-month AP2 ECP (logged). I've also asked OppoResearcher to disclose any conflict of interest with regards to their, erm, oppo research. El_C 11:41, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Neeraj Chopra

Three million views in a week. Cue caste-crusade! Please put it in your watchlists, and warn the editors who are violating WP:BLPRESTORE. Might help to have a message on the talk page that begins, "As an uninvolved administrator...", and possibly the BLP DS stuff? Thanks! Usedtobecool ☎️ 04:58, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Overlap 5! El_C 11:43, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I've extended the protection length (my own) of the page, from 2 weeks to 2 months, as I highly doubt another ten days will do it. Perhaps semi won't do it, either, but we'll cross that bridge when . El_C 11:54, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Heh! No duplication detector on RPP? Bishonen blocked two editors earlier, so I am expecting some peace until the socks get autoconfirmed. Usedtobecool ☎️ 13:40, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Coming soon, right after a Cow Man spam filter (gotta prioritize), but hey, you do get bonus points (in my mind) for any additional overlap # — until some rude admin ruins your streak, that is. El_C 13:47, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 13:53, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

You're on thin fucking ice! El_C 14:03, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Happiness is a zero-sum game!! Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:17, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Help cleaning up a block template, please

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Template:Uw-causeblock has a problem: it says the stuff about usernames such as "Sara Smith at XYZ Foundation" being permitted twice (as if the template wasn't long enough without repetitions). I just cleaned it up on a usertalk where I had placed it. But editing the template itself baffled me when I tried it. Somebody fix, please? Bishonen | tålk 12:58, 10 August 2021 (UTC).

I removed the redundant part but left the verbosity. I once tried to remove the pronunciation of "the 4400" but was reverted. On that day, I realized that it's pointless to try to improve the writing on Misplaced Pages. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:49, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Proposed text for Civility restriction

Over the many years that Misplaced Pages has been around, one thing we seem to have difficulty with is how to address experienced editors with civility issues.

Battleground mentality, harrassment, insults, various aggression, etc.

I don't think I need to list explicit examples here.

So I've been mulling over arbcom cases, AN/I threads and the like.

And it seems to me that what we are really talking about is the classic "wearing out the community's patience".

So if that's the case, the question becomes then what specifically are we talking about, and how can it be addressed.

Here on Misplaced Pages, while we do have Civility policies and guidelines, we tend to give editors rather broad leeway, with the idea that open, collegiate discussion, and even debate, is better for the development of this volunteer-created encyclopedia project.

We also have many dispute resolution fora available for editors: both content-related and behaviour-related.

When trying civility restrictions in the past, they have had varying degrees of success. For one thing, even with the exception listed at WP:BAN, often the restricted editor feels as if the application of the restriction (whether they are going to get blocked) is very subjective. (I've seem it expressed as 'living in fear'.) And other editors may try to use the restriction as a weapon to use against the restricted editor, and depending on the wording of the restriction, the restricted editor may have little or no recourse.

Now any civility restriction is going to be subjective. ("We know it when we see it".) But there seems a general want from the community for "something" to be done besides outright banning of otherwise good editors.

So here's what I suggest: We tighten the rules - reducing that amount of "leeway" that we usually give. So the restricted editor in question needs to go seek dispute resolution.

Yes, this will seem like in school - going to the teacher everytime someone says or does something that the restricted editor thinks needs to be addressed.

That's by design. after all, the reason that they are restricted is the community feels that they are not addressing such things civilly, themselves.

And I want to reiterate that this should be reserved only for experienced editors. people who know their way around Misplaced Pages, and should easily be able to find the alternate venues in question.

And we should try to keep the duration as short as possible, to allow for a "mending of their ways". If they get used to posittively following dispute resolution, maybe it will help towards a shift in behaviour. And I think we would agree that the goal is to give people every opportunity.

So anyway, I've been trying to think of how to phrase this in policy-like text, and assistance on phrasing would be most welcome, but anyway, here goes - jc37 15:44, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Civility restriction for experienced editors

Per WP:CIVIL - "Editors are expected to be reasonably cooperative, to refrain from making personal attacks, to work within the scope of policies, and to be responsive to good-faith questions."

"An uncivil remark can escalate spirited discussion into a personal argument that no longer focuses objectively on the problem at hand. Such exchanges waste our efforts and undermine a positive, productive working environment."

An experienced editor with a civility restriction no longer may talk about any other editor's behaviour except when posting to a Misplaced Pages dispute resolution venue for third party assessment. ("Discuss the content, not the contributor".)

Also, during the restriction, conduct policies such as WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, and WP:HARRASS will more strictly enforced for the civility restricted experienced editor. At an admin's discretion they may receive 1 warning or no warning before being sanctioned. ("Preventative, not punitive".) An editor under this restriction may be blocked for violating this restriction in excalating time frames, per the normal blocking policy.

This editing restriction is considered a type of WP:BAN, and falls under all the applicable rules and restrictions thereof.

This restriction may be applied in escalating durations of 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or indefinite. A restricted editor may appeal this restriction just as they might any ban.

The above restriction may be placed by community consensus or by Arbcom, with the restriction logged at Misplaced Pages:Editing restrictions.

Thoughts welcome. - jc37 15:44, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Added the addendum above. - jc37 19:52, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (editing restriction)

I think something like this could be very useful. I completely support this. Paul August ☎ 16:10, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I like the spirit of this. We can play around with the wording over time, but in general I support a more explicit civility policy. --Jayron32 16:13, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

The idea and the text look good, but the elephant of the room is how this restriction is going to be applied. If any administrator can apply it, we have a huge difference in perception of incivility. If it should be applied by consensus similar to how community bans are issued on ANI - this could be even worse, typically the incivility champions have a huge support crowd, and the incivility can be provoked.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:16, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I understand. I didn't write it above (and maybe I should have), but I was thinking that this would be just like the way we trust admins to apply discretionary sanctions - it's an already applied restriction, that the admin is just enforcing, and all such enforcements should be logged, just like ban violations are. I think that that transparency should "help" against overly subjective sanction. What do you think? - jc37 16:23, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Actually, with some help of ArbCom we could make it a discretionary sanction and then the AC/DS noticeboard would be the place to impose/remove the restriction. This does not removed the crowd problem - one of my favorite examples is when a statement (approximately) "I have never seen such an idiotic reasoning as yours" was tried at ANI and the conclusion was it is perfectly civil. However, it is better than nothing. Absent of the ArbCom decision, we can adopt community sanctions - then we do not have AC/DS, but we probably need this mechanism anyway, also for other sanctions.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:37, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Because of the restrictive-ness of this restriction, I'm not sure, but I don't think it should be something that a single editor can apply to another editor. Though I do understand your comments/concerns about an incivil editor's "supporters". But yes, I think this could be an option that the community or Arbcom could use. - jc37 16:43, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the community discussion is better than unilateral imposition of such restrictions.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:45, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, civility warriors. What would we do without them eh? -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 16:52, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

• It wasn't going to be my first note, but having read the above, this must not be something implacable by any individual admin, whether by default or part of a DS/GS equivalent (except, perhaps, as part of an unblock condition). It should be more like a TBAN. However, more generally, while I know this is trying to actually reduce the issue of unblockables, I would note it actually risks excabating it - in effect it will offer a mario-life for users who otherwise would receive indefs. In some cases that will be a positive and a feature, but in others it could be a negative. My third thought is that this is functionally specifically backing a different standard for experienced editors, which is a negative to me. Finally, given it's non-final form condition, this should be at WP:VPI, not AN. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:57, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

  I chose to ask for thoughts and suggestion here because those who would be the most likely to enforce this are (in my estimation) more likely to watch and contribute here, than elsewhere. This is the admin noticeboard, after all. - jc37 19:05, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

• If we had a rule that no one could accuse anyone else of intentional misconduct outside of a conduct report (ani, ae), and anyone doing so must retract (and go file a report if they want) or be indef blocked, that would probably end half of incivility episodes. And it'd be easy to enforce objectively. A "report it or keep quiet" rule for accusations of intentional misconduct. Levivich 20:21, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

  I can't imagine a faster way to never hear any reports about any wrong doing, ever. Punishing the victim for failure to follow some aggressive, zero-strikes procedure is a terrible plan and will solve exactly zero problems. Jorm (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

"An experienced editor with a civility restriction..." I know this is nit-picking, but is there a definition of an "experienced editor"? Is it time-based or edit based? Or indeed, both? Lugnuts 07:56, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

This has been discussed in wiki research by me and others with our research hat on. There's no agreed upon definition, and we might as well chose something. How about an editor who can edit in the 30/500 areae? IIRC that's any account with 500+ edits and 30+ days. Synergy with 500/30 gives it bonus points for consistency. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• Support, badly needed and reasonably worded. On a semi-relavant note: WP:PAIN. I could never understand why it failed (old wiki history from 2005-2007). Could it be revived? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:10, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
• I appreciate the sentiment, and I encourage further thinking along this line, but I don't think I can get behind this as policy. Similar to what GeneralNotability in an earlier thread, what the community needs is to move away from treating experienced editors as a superior class: everyone has rights. This policy implies that our fourth pillar does not apply to power users. While that may functionally be the case due to our collective failure, enshrining that failure into policy is counter productive. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:05, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Wugapodes But realistically, we have power users (heck, there is even academic research about this: ). In the ideal world, we wouldn't, but as we are human beings, there will be power differences between people, and even the most flat structure will develop a hierarchy and some people will be given more power and sometimes, abuse it or unduly benefit from it (see the iron law of oligarchy, for example). Everyone has rights, but some people's rights are more respected than others for various reasons, and we need to deal with this problem. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

  I don't need a 12-year-old study to tell me that power users exist, and I'm not huge on early 1900s German political theory given how that played out for the world. How you can read my comment and think I don't believe we need to deal with this is beyond me, but to reiterate, obviously we need to do something. The solution is not to tell power users that they get to be assholes until we place this civility restriction on them. The solution is to consistently enforce the rules which already apply to everyone, not create a new rule that will be exploited by the same community dynamics that already make consistent and equitable enforcement of our policies impossible. — Wug·a·po·des​ 16:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

  To me this isn't "Yes, even experienced users need to be civil and we hereby confirm they should be subject to enforcement of policy." I'm interpreting it more as, "Experienced users, being expected to have had plenty of opportunity to learn what our civility policies are, should be given very little wiggle room. Once someone has X edits over a period of Y years, incivility is no longer excusable for reasons of ignorance, and those users who haven't internalized it will receive an editing restriction that forces them to adhere very, very closely to policy." That means you can't call someone a troll or a liar, period. It means the 'sometimes telling someone to fuck off is okay' decision no longer applies to you. It means provocation does not excuse incivility. It means "they started it" is no longer an excuse. It's not treating experienced users as a superior class. It's requiring higher standards of behavior from them than we might let slide when users are new. —valereee (talk) 16:31, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

  It's actually simpler than that - I don't think this should be applied to newbies (trying to avoid biting them) because they might get lost trying to find Misplaced Pages's back-of-the-house processes. This has nothing to do with treating editors differently (We're all Wikipedians here), it's merely understanding that some editors have more experience with Misplaced Pages processes, and so that allows for a sanction option that might not be as possible to newbies. And this isn't about making a "policy", it's about adding a standardized tool to the toolbox - If you look at Editing restrictions, you may see all sorts of specialized "tools" created for various situations. - jc37 19:20, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• I agree that the upper class of editors getting a free pass to intimidate and bully newer users who may not know the system yet is a problem. However, Wugapodes has a point in that without dismantling the power structures that got us here, an extra rule will not be effective and simply be exploited in the same way existing rules are currently. I would instead support a system where the lower class of users is empowered to patrol, document, and report the conduct of power users in the same way that Misplaced Pages:Recent changes patrol has made Misplaced Pages robust against vandalism despite the common sense notion that it couldn't be done. MarshallKe (talk) 17:06, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

user:RTG

Is there some good reason talk page access was not removed after a community site-banned user wrote "I should not be allowed to edit this page. It is keeping me back from my therapy and tablets. Do you know how good tablets are these days? I could probably still get the really good ones you know,, Set me free again, thanks." ? All of the 5k of posts subsequent to the site ban are a violation of WP:SBAN. I can understand letting banned editors vent a bit, but he has now claimed it's bad for his health and it certainly appears to me that he wants his talk page access removed. Give him his wish and let's be done with this. Meters (talk) 20:46, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I have done this. El_C 21:06, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

A request to merge two categories

• @Davidgoodheart: In User talk:Anthony Appleyard#History Merge User:Davidgoodheart has asked me "Speaking of merging I think that the Category:Incidents of violence against girls and the Category:Incidents of violence against women should be merged into "Category:Incidents of violence against females". I have no idea how to do this, so could you please set it up for me. You can add this for me :Nominator's rationale: both girls and women are females so it makes sense to combine these categories. It will also make it easier to find information about violence against both girls and women as well. Davidgoodheart (talk) 19:27, 10 August 2021 (UTC)", but that would need editing the Category: line in hundreds of articles, and a job that size seems to need a bot. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:06, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  Usually we do this at Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Speedy, a justification is needed, but if it is valid and unopposed, the merge will be performed in 48h--Ymblanter (talk) 08:08, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Dealing with mobile editors who appear to be ignoring warnings/refusing to discuss

I'm seeing more and more complaints at ANI involving editors who are editing strictly via mobile and have never edited a talk page including their own. I suspect most of these editors don't know talk pages exist. These people look like they're simply ignoring warnings on their user talk and refusing to discuss, but most of them may be very well-intentioned and just have so far had zero opportunity to learn policy because they don't even know it's there. Notifying them of a discussion about them at ANI is pretty useless when they haven't even realized they've got a user talk.

But I'm thinking we need to come up with strategies for trying to get their attention when they're brought to AN/I.

• Obviously if they've got email enabled, consider emailing them a link to their user talk/the ANI section if you feel comfortable doing that.
• If they're using edit summaries, recommend the complainant open a discussion section at article talk and put a link to it in the edit summary when reverting a mobile editor.
• Try p-blocking from article space? I've been doing this when it's a mobile-only editor who has never edited a talk or their own user talk. No idea if it's been at all effective in helping them discover talk pages, I should start keeping track.

I just feel like this is an issue that is only going to increase in frequency. —valereee (talk) 12:39, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I've come across this recently; apparently mobile users don't get a notification saying they have a talk page message. A few years ago there was a discussion about introducing a 'soft block' forcing an editor to review their talk page; another option would be more technical, changing the code so that mobile editors receive the same 'you have a new message' notification as those on desktop. GiantSnowman 12:47, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman, a soft block helps them discover their talk? Or do you mean the same way a p-block from article space would -- by encouraging them to try to find help somewhere? —valereee (talk) 13:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, let me clarify - IIRC there was a proposal a few years ago to introduce a new type of block/blocking mechanism which basically forced editors to review their talk page before they were unblocked. Does that make sense? GiantSnowman 13:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it makes sense -- but it doesn't actually help them find it if they don't even know it exists? —valereee (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

@Valereee See Misplaced Pages:Village pump (WMF)#What we've got here is failure to communicate (some mobile editors you just can't reach). Nthep (talk) 12:52, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Nthep, I'll just collapse the extraneous stuff here, probably shouldn't have even brought it up. I really just more wanted to discuss what we should do here at ANI when these come up. —valereee (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• Does anyone know if a blocked mobile editor will see the block log message? That could be a way to communicate: we create something like {{Blocked proxy}} that tells them about talk pages. – Joe (talk) 13:25, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

In my experience, mentioning the talk page in the edit summary is the most efficient way to deal with the situation.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:31, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I wrote an edit filter to communicate with iOS app users. See 1139. It 'exploits' a bug in the iOS app that allows edit filter disallow message pagenames to be visible to the end user. I believe a similar approach with Android app users is now possible but I haven't gotten around to testing it yet (mainly because I've lost my Android device I used for testing). Articlespace blocks do not help, because the editors cannot see the block log messages (they will see "You have been blocked from editing" if on iOS; or "You have been blocked for vandalism ..." on Android, regardless of the block reason). As of the time I wrote the edit filter, that was the only possible way to deliver a message to the app users onwiki; that may have changed since, as I believe the WMF is working on some of the WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU bugs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  Let me try putting it a bit less technical... The effect of the filter is that, to a named editor, they will see this whenever they try to edit outside user talk. If there's a willing Android user we can test whether this concept works on Android, too. In theory a similar approach should since phab:T276139 is resolved. If both these work, admins should have an interim solution to communicate with app editors while the WMF works on proper fixes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  @ProcrastinatingReader: lets follow up at WP:EFN - but 1139 has bad ideas for production use. — xaosflux 15:58, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  ProcrastinatingReader, "They will see ... "You have been blocked for vandalism ..." on Android, regardless of the block reason" - WTF? Obviously an app can't violate policy (in this case, calling good faith edits vandalism without evidence is a personal attack) but that's completely unacceptable. I have already commented at the WMF village pump, and fully endorse Cullen328's view that the standard desktop site is perfectly usable on a smartphone or tablet and there is no requirement for these broken apps to exist. Ritchie333 17:31, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  It is possible there's been a fix recently (phab:T276139 and phab:T276147 are now marked as "Resolved") but I'm not sure if the version has been deployed to the Play Store yet. But the Misplaced Pages app has been in the iOS app store for 3 years now, and in the Android one for much longer. So probably this has went on undetected for years. God knows why the app team thought these were good assumptions to make, and it is one example of where better communication between development teams and community members would've led to better results. Perhaps these Movement Charter initiatives will be a step in that direction? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:43, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  Ugh, I've been using article space blocks, hoping it would at least make them more likely to investigate. Damn. —valereee (talk) 17:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I have & always will be hardcore when it comes to editors not having or refusing to create an account. As for mobile editors? IMHO they should be barred from editing Misplaced Pages, until the create an account. GoodDay (talk) 16:06, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  @GoodDay: this is not about unregistered editors; it's about registered editors using the mobile app, not getting notifications for new talk page messages. –FlyingAce 18:43, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I say if technically possible that we block clients that don't get talk page notifications from editing with an apology(Sorry your client is not supported for editing on Misplaced Pages, you are welcome to edit using a browser). Talk page usage is mandatory. The devs of these clients need a wake up call that this is core and mandatory functionality, not an optional feature. HighInBC 02:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

  This idea makes a lot of sense - if it can be done. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

  There is an edit filter to tag edits as "mobile", and edit filters can block editing. So I think it is possible to have edit filters react to useragents. HighInBC 00:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• Something similar to what GiantSnowman mentioned above already exists for AWB bots. Whenever the talk page of an actively running AWB bot is edited, it automatically shutsdown the bot. The operator then has to login from the bot account and visit the talk page, only then can the bot be run again. This does not add anything to the block log. Perhaps something similar can be done for mobile users? Like whenever there is a new message in their talk page, an edit filter prevents them from making any edits until they have seen it. The table at WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU shows custom edit filter message is the better communication medium available for now. Users can then be directed to the desktop site to view messages and continue editing. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 10:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• If technically feasible then that would be a superior solution to my idea. HighInBC 11:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I've had issues with/warned (multiple times) a user with this exact ongoing problem- AFAIK, nothing concrete was decided, other than that the user wouldn't be blocked as they don't receive any warnings/messages. Seems a bit dumb to me personally, as the use is still continuing with their minor edits and is persistently adding unsourced content/information. But basically, due to this issue, it seems like they won't be sanctioned/blocked from their disruptive minor edits/unsourced edits.

Either way, I'm mainly mentioning this because one of the threads regarding this user, this particular discussion from February/March 2021, might have some useful information regarding the issue. Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1061#Editor refuses to communicate, adds unverifiable information, falsely marks all edits as minor. Magitroopa (talk) 03:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Kailash29792 doing bizarre things with sock-drafts

I've tried to get a reasonable explanation from Kailash29792 for their actions regarding a bunch of sock-created drafts (see User talk:RoySmith#Deleted soundtracks and WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Satish Raman Nair) but they keep avoiding giving any useful answers. Reluctantly I now bring the case here where they will have a greater incentive to explain what they're doing. Kailash29792 has an exceptionally long editing history, so I'm willing to extend a fair bit of AGF to them, but there are limits. The gist is, they:

• Asked me on my talk page to restore a bunch of drafts I had G5'd, which I declined
• Found two more drafts which they claim (quite possibly correctly) were created by the same sock
• Copy-pasted the drafts to mainspace
• Nominated the drafts for deletion at MfD with the argument that they are block evasion
• After I deleted their mainspace copies, withdrew their nominations
• Proceeded to edit the drafts, arguing that this makes them G5-proof
• Made requests to investigate other editors as socks

I honestly don't think they're a sock, but what they're doing is bizarre and contrary to multiple policies. Despite repeated attempts by Robert McClenon, SmokeyJoe and myself to get them to slow down and explain what's going on, they just keep charging ahead in a befuddling case of WP:IDHT. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:36, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Maybe what they are trying to do is to be credited as the creator of the sock drafts. Would some sort of partial block, such as a block from any use of draft space, protect against mischief? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:29, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

No. Perhaps the only thing I can do is walk away from this. I don't want anything anymore except for the drafts to be accepted into the mainspace, especially Draft:Nadhigalile Neeradum Suriyan. I do not even want to be credited as the creator of those drafts; let Satish be. And whether you finally expose his latest IP is of least concern to me. Though Satish resorting to socking irks me like it does for many, he's a brilliant editor. And I was helping him all the while without knowing he was using a sock. But I apologise for everything that happened; all I wanted was to not get caught for abetting Satish without realising his socking, and became frightened when Roy deleted those other soundtrack articles because Satish created them. Kailash29792 (talk) 15:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I won't lie I'd done things in the past here which I thought were okay and then turned out not to be so I can sort of sympathise with Kailash.... I don't believe they're a sock either and I don't believe they were trying to do anything maliciously here - just maybe wanted to preserve and rewrite the articles but just went about it the completely wrong way. The SPI tho IMHO was OTT. –Davey2010 15:52, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
• I think that Kailash29792 was just trying to save the sock-created content like Draft:Nadhigalile Neeradum Suriyan because its too good to be discarded. The process of copy-pasting from the draft was definitely bizzare. As Kailash apologized for it, perhaps a promise can be taken from them not to repeat it again. -- Ab207 (talk) 18:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both for understanding me. Now I want nothing to do with Satish creating new articles via sock IPs. But if the draft he creates is too great, I cannot help but develop it further. Since Nadhigalile Neeradum Suriyan was retitled Vendhu Thanindhadhu Kaadu, I have moved it to that title (still in the draftspace), I hope it is accepted without taking into account that a sock created it, but because I substantially edited it. --Kailash29792 (talk) 03:58, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

User Cheezypeaz is vandalising the page; 'Welsh Not'

Cheezypeaz keeps removing large portions of the page Welsh Not, claiming that the contents are 'conspiracy theories', Iv'e asked the person to stop, but I hope someone may aid with the issue.

All the contents of the page is thoroughly researched, using credible sources, no part of the page has been manipulated nor distorted and there is no cause to mislead the readers.

The topic is a sore subject for Welsh culture so it may be targeted for multiple reasons, they may deny that such actions happened, they may have a political bias to hide that Westminster was involved, trolling or they have a personal vendetta.. either way, this needs to be looked at and addressed.

Preferably, it would be good if the page was given protection to curb future wrongful edits from occurring again..

Thank you for your time!. Hogyncymru (talk) 12:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I've re-added the above section because it was archived by the bot the instant it was added - seems there might be a bot bug that needs addressing? How does the bot handle edit conflicts? 192.76.8.91 (talk) 13:32, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

It seems that Cheezypeaz has a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, thus a content dispute. There is discussion at the talk page, which Cheezypeaz has participated in. If the disruption continues then a PBLOCK may be in order, but hopefully it won't come to that. Mjroots (talk) 17:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I have deleted 2 entries one is clearly factually incorrect the other is original research and Hogyncymru has clearly admitted it to be. I documented my reasons for the deletion on the talk page. I haven’t participated in any discussion. I’m surprised at the reply by Mjroots Cheezypeaz (talk) 17:19, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Cheezypeaz - you started talk:Welsh Not#Church of Wales conspiracy theory, that counts as participating. Suggest you see what WP:CONSENSUS develops there. I'm hopeful that no further action will need to be taken. Mjroots (talk) 17:24, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

It seems that Mjroots is quick to disparage fellow editors without bothering to understand what the issues are. I too am hopeful no further action will be needed. Cheezypeaz (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

If you're going to make comments like that, you'll very quickly find yourself blocked from editing. Consider this an only warning. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps The Blade of the Northern Lights could review my edits and provide critical feedback? Or any other admin? Cheezypeaz (talk) 11:21, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• This is most assuredly not WP:VANDALISM: they removed dubious content, while leaving an explanatory note on the article's talk page. I think that Cheezypeaz could have taken a slightly different tone in their comments here, but their concerns over the content question appear to be well-founded. Girth Summit _(blether) 11:34, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Request review of own IPBE

A while back, I was given IPBE rights as the internet security my work was using on our computers caused my traffic to be routed through various blocked IP addresses. We have since switched to a new security system for web browsing, so I don't know if the IPBE is necessary anymore. I also could find no explanation on WP:IPBE on how a user who already has IPBE can request a review of whether that permission will continue to be necessary, which would need to be done by a checkuser who can see what IP addresses I am editing from and whether they are blocked. I found how I can request IPBE in the first place, but that is not what I am trying to do. I would assume I should do something if I become aware the IPBE may no longer be necessary (and it might not be, but I honestly don't know, I'd need a CU to check) but it isn't entirely clear what. So I'm posting here, first, so that check can be done, and second, so the process can be clarified for the future. Thanks. Smartyllama (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@Smartyllama: well you don't have IPBE now - so if you can edit without issue on the networks you usually use, you should be fine. — xaosflux 17:46, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Gosh, has it been that long? I know it was granted for a year. My how time flies. But yeah, looks like you're right and it expired July 20, right after we switched to the new system. Timing worked out well I guess. Smartyllama (talk) 17:49, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Problem editing pattern by Kevin McE: part 2

A topic ban got imposed on User:Kevin McE (Let's start with a weird topic ban: Kevin McE, you are not to comment on anything related to Alica Schmidt or the editors whom you have chastised pertaining to that matter. That includes User:Schwede66, User:Maile66, and User:Joseph2302, and any other involved user, with or without numbers. In addition, it is clear that editors here are troubled by your tone, which (I agree) seems to betray a battleground attitude, and that may, if it continues, lead to a block. Thank you. Drmies) followed by a 60-hour block shortly thereafter. We wanted to leave the discussion open to see what happens when the block expires but it got archived. Well, the block has expired and Kevin McE is at it again. So it seems we need to continue with this discussion. Schwede66 21:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

And I might as well voice my opinion on the matter. The diff shows a clear breach of the topic ban and the appropriate response is an indef block. Given that, I see no need to also analyse the various accusations and poor conduct contained in that post. Schwede66 21:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure yet whether the TBan was enacted properly - I could easily have missed something, and have asked Drmies about it, but if it wasn't properly enacted then any breach isn't actionable. That's a bit of a side issue however, because the main issue is Kevin McE's uncollaborative battleground approach, which he seems unwilling to accept is an issue even after a block. I would support an indefinite block for threatening to repeat behaviour that is hostile, corrosive to the community, and ultimately disruptive. An alternative might be a TBan from main page related content, since that seems (at least in this instance) to be what he has got so angry about. Girth Summit _(blether) 21:52, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Paperwork or not, Girth Summit, this repetitive anger is too much. BTW, the paperwork isn't all that simple. There was broad agreement on the topic ban that I suggested (OK, imposed), but ANI threads tend to get archived, not closed. Anyway, "actionable" or not, the hits keep on coming. BTW, for anyone who hasn't looked at all the details, Kevin McE got blocked for a simple harassing edit, this one. Drmies (talk) 22:04, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Drmies, don't get me wrong - I think your block was necessary, and that another one probably is since he intends to keep right on doing the same stuff. I'm just saying that we should act on the underlying problem, not a breach of a ban that hasn't been logged. Girth Summit _(blether) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

No, I know, GS, I got you--I just wish we weren't dealing with an editor who makes it necessary to jump through all these hoops. I mean, apparently STOP IT isn't enough. Personally, I think the ongoing battleground problems and incivilities are enough for in indef block. Oh, Mackensen agreed with that, on my talk page, so we're at four now. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 22:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• Indef block - he still doesn't get it. We need to consider our vast and varied editing base. We have school children editing Misplaced Pages. We have university students who are taking it as a course - and not always getting everything perfect. Our encyclopedia is open to everybody in every part of the world, every age group, every learning step on how to do this, every demographic. On the talk page of Drmies, KevinE wrote, "I will not be tolerant of people trying to contribute to Misplaced Pages beyond their competence, and when they persist in erroneous and unencyclopaedic 'contributions', that can only be to the detriment of the project, I will not pussyfoot around telling them so: encouraging poor editors by kindness is not going to make Misplaced Pages better than it is, and taking fools lightly only make Misplaced Pages appear foolish." Based on Talk:Kalākaua coinage, I guess he means me and Wehwalt. And both of us admins, who went through a public assessment and vote by way of the required Request for Adminship. And may I say that nobody - absolutely nobody - has produced as many Featured articles as Wehwalt. That makes Wehwalt pick of the litter. Yet, KevinMcE couldn't even "tolerate" him. Kevin McE has been on Misplaced Pages 15 years. If he hasn't learned tolerance of other editors in that time, when will he? — Maile (talk) 01:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
• Pending - the editor in question edits later in the UTC day, but I would like them to provide their views on both the TBAN and why they shouldn't be indefinitely blocked for recurring negative behaviour. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:53, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I see that they're still throwing accusations at me and trying to discredit my edits on the page they're topic banned from. And mislabelling the sources there to do so (the source says she was selected for the relay, and is listed in the "FRAUEN"= women section, so clearly not saying she was ever in the mixed relay team), so the article was originally correct). I will not be tolerant of people trying to contribute to Misplaced Pages beyond their competence doesn't sound like someone who wants to work collaboratively on here, making accusations about editors who've had hundreds of articles on the front page. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• I'm happy for people (including native German speakers) to review Alica Schmidt and tell me if the sources don't match text (although I was given the source for that from a German speaker, and I believe from translation that it's all good). And if the user will actually adhere to the interaction/topic-ban, then I don't have a problem with them continuing to edit. But if they're going to continue to grind this axe about this article, then they're clearly not here to contribute positively. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:24, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I hope that comments here will not be taken as comprising a breach of topic ban: I am at a loss as to how I am considered to be given a chance to explain myself if I cannot refer to the things that might need explaining. And yet it seems that Drmies responded to my comments intended to be specifically to him not by responding to me, or making the correction I requested in article space, but by inviting a bunch of people to consider themselves offended by me.

I would have thought that trying to get articles to accurately represent the truth is precisely what all of us are here to do for the benefit of the encyclopaedia, and that seeking accuracy in article space should not be described as "grinding an axe". The Google translation of the article does not specify whether Schmidt was being considered for the women's relay or the mixed event, and unless you (Joseph) are confident that your ability to translate German is better than that of that software, then both your initial presumption that it was the women's 4x400 that she was selected for, and your reversion of my edit to the article, were, to your knowledge at least, unsourced. The source referred to by Joseph in this discussion is about selection for the European indoor championships that took place in Poland in March, and so is a total red herring as far as this discussion is concerned (Maybe Joseph will be willing to apologise for accusing me of mislabelling sources in that regard, and will apologise for introducing erroneous argument to this discussion).

I do not believe that I will ever consider it reasonable behaviour to make an accusation against someone without being willing to either defend that accusation or to retract it. I would hope that Misplaced Pages would want to hold its contributors to at least that standard of behaviour.

I would be intrigued to read how anyone considers Misplaced Pages to be improved by editors acting in areas that are beyond their competence, which seems to be defended here. I have certainly tried to ensure that I am informed as best I can be (in limited time) before I make any change to article space: I would hope and trust that all those involved in this discussion would want to say the same of themselves. Kevin McE (talk) 15:29, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Unless you (Joseph) are confident that your ability to translate German is better than that of that software Considering I was given the source by a German speaker, I trust it more than you or I using a translation tool. editors acting in areas that are beyond their competence this is the second time you've said this, with no evidence. This won't help your case. I'm happy for a native German speaker to review this source and tell me if I'm actually wrong, but I don't believe I am. And I'm certainly not "editing above my competency", whatever that means. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:46, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Now that you are aware that you referred to selection for the European Indoors as evidence of her selection for the Olympics, you may wish to reconsider that last statement. Kevin McE (talk) 15:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

No I didn't. They're two different competitions with two different sources, I never equated the two together- just because the 2 things were in the same paragraph, that doesn't mean they that one implies the other, this is the permlink that proves this. Your insistence on throwing shade on people rather than actually doing anything useful for the encyclopedia is tiresome. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:55, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I really cannot follow the reasoning of your last comment. As to your request that a competent German speaker review the source, I have asked @Gerda Arendt:, a Main Page stalwart who I presume is known to you, to look at the source in question.

In the meantime, do you have any evidence that at the time of your accusation (diff provided above) I had accused you of anything? Kevin McE (talk) 16:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Although Gerda has not yet replied, Jo-Jo Eumerus, who self identifies as a native German speaker, is active on MP discussions and is a sysop with nearly 80,000 edits has done so:"I don't see a clear indication on that page on whether it was mixed 4x400m or women's 4x400m. It says she qualified for the sprint, nothing about whether she would participate or not." Kevin McE (talk) 16:41, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I was the user who originally found that RBB24 source for Joseph2302. It says "the 400m runner Alica Schmidt qualified for the relay". The next sentence confirms that it was planned that she should run, because it says about someone else "she only participates as a substitute". There is no explicit clarification of which relay, other than that it is one involving 400m, but the standard assumption a German reader would make is that this is the 4x400m women's relay. —Kusma (talk) 16:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Is there any reason why a German reader would assume that it refers to being in the women's relay rather than one of the two women (plus a substitute) in the mixed relay? Kevin McE (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

It says "the relay", which defaults to the known relay event, not the new mixed one. Nothing specifically German about that, I admit. —Kusma (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I would have to consider that to be supposition rather than sourced. The contention that there is a source that says that she was due to compete in the women's relay seems unproven. Kevin McE (talk) 17:26, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't quite see why this matters so much. —Kusma (talk) 17:39, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Alica Schmidt should explain it. Does German lack a distinction between selection and qualification, because in the context of relay teams in Olympic athletics, nations qualify, and the national federation selects the runners. The idea that an athlete qualifies for a relay makes no sense, and (unless the language lacks the distinction) points to at best a lack of precision in that source. Kevin McE (talk) 18:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Nope. Hook that was reasonably correct was approved, got changed through the DYK process into something that was wrong. Happens all the time. Worst that happened to one of my hooks was that Lao She was presented as female after a good faith copyedit. It's a bit embarrassing, but the thing to do is make a quick correction via WP:ERRORS. Then the matter can be closed. —Kusma (talk) 18:30, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, the reply feature quietly edit-conflicted. "Nope" was my answer to "Talk:Alica Schmidt should explain it". As to the rest of your comment, I think "she qualified for the relay" can mean "she made the cut for the national selection". In German and in English. —Kusma (talk) 18:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Please allow me to provide some clarifications:

1. Kevin McE, you hoped that "comments here will not be taken as comprising a breach of topic ban". No, you are absolutely safe on that front. You are being discussed here and you need the ability to comment, respond, and put your case forward.
2. This ANI case is not about whether homepage content was wrong or whose responsibility it should have been to prevent this. The discussion on German sources and what it says in them is off-topic.
3. This ANI case is firstly about whether there was a topic and interaction ban in place (and from the brief discussion in the thread above, there appears to be consensus that this was not the case).
4. This ANI case is secondly about how Kevin McE's interacts with fellow editors.

I hope this will focus the discussion on the topics that are of relevance. Schwede66 18:48, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, but Joseph said that he would engage with me here about his accusation against me, and so far, despite specific invitation to do so, he has not. I believe that somebody who has been accused should have the right to demand that the accuser presents themselves as accountable for that.

Also, I had raised the matter of Drmies bringing others into the conversation rather than making the requested change to the Schmidt article, and not being permitted to discuss the necessary correction to that article anywhere else, I believe I have proved that the alterations are necessary for accuracy in the only place open to me to do so.

But with the proviso that somebody corrects the erroneous article and that Joseph either retracts or justifies his accusation, I am happy to move on. Kevin McE (talk) 19:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Comment I don't think that's the point. Accusing another editor of incompetence is a big deal. We've all met editors that fail WP:CIR, but they're usually newbies, people with language issues or persistent POV-warriors. Not experienced Wikipedians with thousands of positive contributions. Yet you did it originally in the lead up to your block (amongst other things), you then did it again on Drmies' talkpage, and you've done it again in this very thread. What on earth are you thinking? Black Kite (talk) 19:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Citing an article on selection for the European Indoor Championships as proof that an athlete was selected for a particular event in the Olympics 4 months later does not indicate... what shall I call it then? Adequate understanding of the subject matter? Does somebody disagree with that, or that that is what happened in this thread? Kevin McE (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

(EC) Maybe you don't appreciate the gravity of the situation, Kevin McE. You may as well move on from your content dispute. What we are all waiting for is some response on the underlying behavioural pattern variously described as "harassment", "intolerant", "recurring negative behaviour", "attacking", "abusive tone", "galling ... behavior", "hounding". In case this hasn't quite got through to you yet – there is an expectation by your fellow editors that your conduct is such that you could not possibly be described by those phrases. So you better give some clear commitment that you will change your behaviour for the better or failing that, I predict that "moving on from here" will happen in the form of an indef block. Schwede66 19:28, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

So I will repeat what I have already said:

That I consider those who have positioned themselves to edit the Main Page, the most visible portal of the project that is directly linked from every page, should be help responsible for the highest standards, concomitant with the mutual congratulations which they lavish upon each other;

That unresearched changes from an agreed main page text (a hook in this case) is not responsible use of the authority given to somebody operating at that stage of such a high profile project;

That edits made without an understanding of the subject matter (or of the English language, or of encyclopaedic form and tone) are not helpful and that there is little to be gained from acting as though they are;

That when an editorial sub-community closes ranks, they can become very aggressive, even if unintentionally so, to somebody challenging them to see the style of their processes from the point of view of an outsider;

That people who lack the humility to acknowledge an error has been made are not helpful for as long as they persist in that attitude.

And in relation to that last,yes, I was intemperate in my language, and regret that, but I had been frustrated several times in the preceding few days, in several issues, and in seeking to find out what had happened in this case, over the Main Page, which I occasionally visit and am frequently very disappointed at the content of. Kevin McE (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Citing an article on selection for the European Indoor Championships as proof that an athlete was selected for a particular event in the Olympics 4 months later does not indicate For the second time in this thread (and I think the fourth time in all discussions): I didn't use the European Indoor Championships source to assume anything. I used one source for that Championship, and one source for the Olympics. Cut the crap creating lies about me. Even if you were correct about the one thing you've spent hours arguing (the issue seems inconclusive on that though), the harassment of multiple users on their talkpages and multiple other threads is not acceptable. And using this AN thread to re-argue with me over one line of text, instead of actually reflecting on your own aggressive attitude just proves to me that you're not here to collaborate. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Kevin McE's lengthy comment here only strengthens me in my opinion. They filled up paragraphs and paragraphs about some translation matter (and unfortunately got Joseph2302 to respond, and got others dragged in as well), but none of that matters here. In fact, I hope some uninvolved admin will come along and hat all those comments. What's key here is this: "And yet it seems that Drmies responded to my comments intended to be specifically to him not by responding to me, or making the correction I requested in article space, but by inviting a bunch of people to consider themselves offended by me." The first part is, in a way, correct; I was not interested in Kevin McE responding to my request for others to weigh in, also because (and this thread proves it) they have a tendency to dig deeper when they're in a hole. But it was never about some "correction" someone requested, and saying that I invited others "to consider themselves offended" by him is just a ruse: I pinged a few admins who, perhaps in varying degrees, saw serious problems with McE's behavior. And it seems that they haven't changed their minds. Drmies (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

So if I am aware of an error in an article, and I am not permitted to edit that article, is it not the responsible thing to use the page I can edit to seek improvement of Misplaced Pages? It is not my fault if others appear more determined to defend what is there than to concede the fats of the matter. And Joseph had specifically identified this page as the one where he would engage with me, so why should I not take him up on that invitation? (even if he has not taken me up on mine). Kevin McE (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I find it worrying that the person who assumes the right to call judgement on an issue is "not interested" in the person being judged having any say over the matter. If I were accused of murder I would be more clearly invited to respond.

Looking again, I see that the "inviting others to consider themselves offended" was inappropriate, but I cannot believe that the inclusion of Schwede in that set of pings was a search for a disinterested party for an objective opinion. I should not have extended that to the rest of the pings, and for that I apologise. I do believe though that responding to me would be the appropriate response to my post to your page. Kevin McE (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Kevin McE, I haven't looked at any of the sourcing, and I don't speak German, but I'm going to do you the courtesy of assuming that you are 100% correct in everything you have said about the content and sourcing, and that everyone else was 100% wrong. Based on that assumption, it is nevertheless my view that your actions were completely out of line: you were condescending and arrogant, and accused your colleagues of either incompetence or a disregard for the quality of our content. That is unacceptable. Being collegiate =/= pussyfooting around. Being polite =/= suffering fools gladly.

This project is in dire need of good editors, but you seem to think either that insulting people will make them better editors, or that if you drive them away from a particular part of the project, they will be replaced by a ready supply of better editors. They won't: it will just leave fewer people working in that space, who will probably make more mistakes because of the increased workload. If you care about the quality of our content, you need to nurture people; give them constructive feedback in a positive way. That doesn't mean ignore their mistakes, it means bring problems to their attention, talk to them politely about how they could have acted differently, and encourage a positive environment that people might actually want to work in.

At this point, if you were to acknowledge some shortcomings in your conduct and convincingly commit to do better, I could see myself opposing sanctions: I respect the body of work you've done here, and I wouldn't throw that away lightly. However, if you're not able to see that there is a problem in the way that you approach people who you think have made a mistake, I genuinely think that a collaborative project like this is the wrong fit for you. Please reflect on that. Girth Summit _(blether) 23:00, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

If the user accepts actually following the topic and interaction ban, I would be willing to accept something less than an indef block for them. And that is despite their repeated personal attacks both previously and through lying about me multiple times on this thread. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Although considering that for the last week, all this editor has done is argue about this one sentence of text, I don't see how they're here to positively contribute to the encylopedia. In that time, despite my alleged inability to edit anything, I've managed to create 3 articles, despite this harassment. Really says something about which of us is a useful editor, and which of us is just grinding an axe..... Joseph2302 (talk) 00:17, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for crossing out what would have been another false accusation about me. As to my "lying about you several times", I will withdraw myself from Misplaced Pages and request a permablock if you can provide proof of my doing so, if, and only if, at the same time you can provide evidence of where, prior to your accusing me of doing so, I blamed you for the MP error. But if you cannot, I would consider this another false accusation against me, and I would ask you, as I have before, to retract it and apologise. Kevin McE (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• Girth Summit has it absolutely right. Kevin's been told he was bloody rude, and his response has essentially been "well, I was correct on the substance of the issue" which is a complete non-sequitur. A very large part of content work is reviewing stuff someone else has written; and most of us manage to provide such feedback on a regular basis without offending half a dozen people. If he's not willing to undertake to be more collegial, a block and/or a main-page TBAN might be indicated. Vanamonde (Talk) 08:13, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I hope I had made clear above, I accept that I responded intemperately, and I have recognised and apologised for my response to Drmies' pings (although I don't think he will persuade me that his response was the best one). I do believe that there is a problem with scrutiny of MP content: not that there are not several structures, but that there is a small group of editors there who are too willing to take each other's work on trust and permit changes outside of the system of checks and balances that does exist; I also believe that there is a culture there of piling on to anyone who is somewhat outside that trusted group suggesting that there is a problem there.

I do not accept that it is acceptable to make accusations and then refuse to back up said accusation.

And yes, I need to dial it back and not get affronted by errors in Misplaced Pages, however they were introduced, and so I need to moderate my form of addressing those who introduce errors. I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit. Kevin McE (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, that goes some way to addressing my concerns. I do not think I can support a block at this point. That said, I strongly suggest you stop making any reference to WP:CIR with respect to errors on the main page. It's bloody offensive. Aside from the fact that it's in no way a policy, CIR discusses editors who tend to be a net negative to the encyclopedia, despite good faith efforts to help. It isn't at all helpful with respect to occasional errors, or choices that were debatably errors, made by users with years of dedicated and helpful contributions. The WP:Anyone can edit philosophy might fairly be blamed for our neverending school-IP vandalism problem; it has nothing to do with who curates main-page content. Vanamonde (Talk) 09:52, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

But Vanamonde93, "I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit"--doesn't that suggest that Kevin McE's counterpart in that discussion was incompetent? It still spells "I was right". Drmies (talk) 16:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I have expressed an opinion about the overall operation of Misplaced Pages. I did not have any individual in mind in that comment. It is possible to attribute ill-will to almost any opinion that anyone ever expresses: I hope that such projection is not going to be a principle on which conclusions are to be reached here. Kevin McE (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• @Drmies: and others, the issue here is lack of basic civility towards other editors, regardless of the competence of other editors. That, and the unmitigated hubris of any editor who had led themself to believe that the end justifies the means. Misplaced Pages:Arbcom exists as a necessity because abusive editors who are technically correct on one thing or another, were overlooked on behavior until ... well, about where this is right now. Editors who mistreat others, who can't get through a discussion without laying aside civility, should not be excused. Eventually, that editor ends up at Arbcom, several times often. Once it starts to be Arbcom level, the offending editors are often ones who have been around long enough to have a sort of fan club of other editors who make excuses for that behavior. Once you start making excuses for behavior - because, after all, they were technically correct - where does it end? Nobody likes to be a doormat. And if this mistreatment of others is not resolved here, I can see this making it up to ARBCOM in one form or another, where it will drag on and on. Nip this behavior now, please.— Maile (talk) 17:06, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

"Eventually, that editor ends up at Arbcom, several times often. Once it starts to be Arbcom level, the offending editors are often ones who have been around long enough to have a sort of fan club of other editors who make excuses for that behavior." That is not the case with me. I hope that whatever conclusions are drawn here are to be drawn on the basis of what I have said and done, not some unspecified precedent that someone thinks I am following. Kevin McE (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

The opening comment says the editor had a topic ban imposed on them, followed by a 60 hour block (presumably for violating that ban). However, they don't appear to be subject to any bans at Misplaced Pages:Editing restrictions and the ANI discussion didn't have any closure, it seems? Is the editor actually subject to a TBAN or was that Drmies' advice/proposal because they seem to have issues in the area discussed? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:08, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I was still mostly at part 1 and Drmies' talk. I see Girth raised this above. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:11, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

""

Has anyone noticed that the "" link is now bigger in size and is now left-justified at the bottom of an unpatrolled page instead of right-justified? It looks like this change just happened. What got modified and where? Why? I liked where the link was before... ~Oshwah~ 21:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

You appear to have got off lightly - I had my entire skin replaced. It's WP:THURSDAY and mw:MediaWiki_1.37/wmf.18. Strange things usually happen on Thursdays, not all of which is planned or permanent. You might want to look into some CSS. -- zzuuzz 21:51, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Zzuuzz - Yeah... I figured that might be the case... Wait, you had your entire skin replaced? What skin are you using? ~Oshwah~ 22:01, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

It seems to depend on the day. No worries it was probably just a temporary thing. -- zzuuzz 22:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I would like to have my skin replaced, too, this one's all wrinkly. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:05, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

zzuuzz, is this some Kdaptist thing? Drmies (talk) 22:06, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Some of the stuff we have content about, and that people even know about, never ceases to amaze. -- zzuuzz 22:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I learned from the best. Drmies (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Larry Niven is so awesome that other awesome writers give his works a satire homage. And he's cool about it. Just re-read a Hebrew translation of Lucifer's Hammer last month. Had a great time (again). El_C 16:19, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Oshwah, I've noticed when going to a page, in this case, user talk pages, that haven't been created yet, there is a graphic in the lower right-hand corner and a statement welcoming me to edit. Not sure when that element started but it's not like WMF give a head's up when they make changes.

I also noticed the left-justified "Mark this page as patrolled" on User pages and that the message still appears on pages even after several editors have edited it. Liz 01:57, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Cewbot

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

Cewbot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Could an admin please block this bot? It has gone berserk. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:17, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I blocked the bot and reported the problem on the operator talk page; everybody may unblock once the problem is fixed or if it turns out that the bot was doing something I was not able to appreciate.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:27, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Much appreciated. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:29, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

FYI hijacked sites and citation bot

Just to let people know that numbers of sites that we have used for years, eg. leighrayment.com, have been taken over by gambling sites. Then user:citation bot has gone through and updated all the refs to contain the spam text. I have left a message with the bot owner about possible means to avoid this, though we are still going to have a whole lot of stuff to clean up. I have lodged a request to have the ref links nullified. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:08, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I know the site isn't considered a totally reliable source and had been dormant since Mr Rayment's death in 2019 but it does appear that the pages have been archived at http://ukelections.info/leigh_rayment/index.html. Nthep (talk) 13:13, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

FWIW a search of what we face https://global-search.toolforge.org/?q=%22Slots+Online%22 — billinghurst sDrewth 13:22, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Someone has blacklisted the domains. I'm sure this was done in good intention, but it's a bad idea for a couple reasons, and not how we normally handle hijacked domains. Because of the blacklist, my bot is unable to edit the articles to add |archive-url= and |url-status=usurped. This is how it's normally done. I'm ready to usurpify the domains, but the blacklist would need to be lifted. Ping if/when ready. -- GreenC 14:58, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

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