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Help cleaning up bot-mangled citations

This came up last month, but there hasn't been much movement on it since, and I'm not sure where else I can raise a signal about it. Use of the ReferenceExpander bot without manually checking its output has led to references being contracted instead. For example, the bot sometimes follows a link that now redirects to a new, uninformative place, but since the link technically "works" the auto-generated citation omits the archive-URL and creates a footnote that is nicely templated but completely useless. It also removes all sorts of ancillary information included in manually-formatted citations, like quotations. If multiple citations were gathered into the same footnote, it creates a replacement based on only the first of them. It can see a citation to a chapter in an edited collection and replace the authors' names with the editors of the volume. It can see a URL for a news story and create a {{cite web}} footnote that omits the byline which had been manually included. A list of potentially affected pages is available here.

It's frankly a slog to deal with, and there doesn't seem to be any other option than manually looking at each item.

(Per the big orange box, I have notified the editor whose actions prompted all this, but they are both retired and indeffed.) XOR'easter (talk) 02:13, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Hey @XOR'easter sorry. I was going to try working through at least a few of these a bit at a time, but I've been busy with a lot of other stuff. Is anyone here interested in gathering together a crew to tackle some of these as a group? It feels pretty daunting for just a few people. –jacobolus (t) 02:43, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I can help. --JBL (talk) 18:35, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I started reviewing the list, and fyi, in the 1853 or so citations affected here , I noticed https urls were occasionally converted to http. Beccaynr (talk) 03:08, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Wow, I hadn't even thought to check for that. XOR'easter (talk) 04:46, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Have you asked the WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors for help? They are also having a copy-editing drive this month, and maybe something like this could be added to that project. Beccaynr (talk) 05:05, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

I did ask, as it happens; apparently it's not in their wheelhouse. XOR'easter (talk) 16:44, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

WikiFaerie are not as well-organized, so I am not sure how to conduct outreach, but I will try to work through the list you have developed when possible. Thank you for calling attention to this. Beccaynr (talk) 17:48, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: Perhaps WP:WikiProject Citation cleanup? Not the most active of projects, I think, though. AddWittyNameHere 21:41, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion; I've commented over there. What gets me is that these are not all obscure pages. DNA, for example, is a Featured Article with almost 2,000 watchers, and yet nobody seems to have noticed when citations were modified to have a last name "Bank", first name "RCSB Protein Data". XOR'easter (talk) 00:10, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

There are so many bots and bot-like gnomes running around making so many hundreds of thousands of minor cleanups to citations on articles, 99% of which are fine, that it makes it very tiresome to consistently check all edits appearing on one's watchlist and notice the thousands of edits that fall into the 1% of cases where the software totally screws up the citation. And yet, these supposed cleanups happen so often and so repetitively to the same articles that it seems that, eventually, all citations will be garbaged by bots. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:44, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

I've been very slowly working my way through one of the more severely damaged articles, Falun Gong (a CTOP I've never edited before). Out of the numerous affected references, I have yet to see the ReferenceExpander script suggest a correct citation. 04:43, 20 May 2023 (UTC) Updating to add that I have now found a correct citation produced by this tool, giving a success rate in my sample around 10%. Even ignoring the information lost from the manually formatted references that are not converted into the cite templates, I'm seeing the tool assign incorrect titles and incorrect dates, leave out authors when a byline is clearly evident at the top of the article, confuse archives with live urls, and associated basic errors.At this point I'm extremely suspect of any edits performed using this script, since its parsing both of the existing reference and of retrieved webpages is, in the general case, objectively inadequate. It might be faster to batch undo as many of these edits as is technically feasible, and I'm sadly wondering if we should formally encourage the maintainer to disable the script pending improvement. Courtesy ping User:BrandonXLF. Folly Mox (talk) 03:29, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Yesterday I found that the ReferenceExpander script also removed Template:pd-notice from every article it had touched in Category:Human trafficking by country, which all incorporate text in the public domain in the US. Not sure how big a problem regarding copyright and attribution that is, but it's definitely an unwanted behaviour. The query User:XOR'easter and them ran back in April returned over 2600 rows. It's dog's work fixing these, but if people could just scroll around a bit and find a couple articles that interest them, we could repair the damage a lot quicklier. The bottom tables, where the script has added in byte size, seem to be pretty low hanging fruit, since action is not always needed. Folly Mox (talk) 13:57, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Seconding this: it's very much at the stage where having a bunch of people click on five random links and fix or mark as ok the obvious easy ones would be a huge help. --JBL (talk) 18:34, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I've come across ReferenceExpander in a few of the articles I watch and similarly find it to have an extraordinarily low rate of success. If it's to remain available its users must not only check the output very carefully indeed but also actually understand how our citation templates work. XAM2175  16:54, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I finally found one that wasn't a problem! This edit to Penguin looks fine. XOR'easter (talk) 15:00, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Nope. Both citations had archive URLs that were deleted by the script leaving only a dead URL in the new cite, and in the first one the script also commits the grossly stupid error of cramming two different corporate publishers into a single set of |first= and |last= fields. XAM2175  15:19, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Wow. OK, back to 0% success in those I've examined, then. XOR'easter (talk) 16:15, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I started checking History of Misplaced Pages and just had to give up. Lost content restored up through line 108, but I need to lie down now. XOR'easter (talk) 23:00, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Fair. I've definitely had two or three repairs that took me multiple hours of work and required a break or a night's sleep. For a single diff. Smh. Folly Mox (talk) 03:55, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

It has to get easier after Zionism, right? Right? XOR'easter (talk) 18:55, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I've mostly been backing out of the articles where the size has been reduced by multiple kilobytes unless I have a whole day available to devote to reference repair, and I appreciate that you've been tackling the top of the list while I've been scrolling arbitrarily and repairing whatever.

Perhaps the most egregious behaviour I saw yesterday was at Mead, where ReferenceExpander took a properly formatted book citation, already in a template, and discarded the page= parameter. I cannot pretend to understand why this functionality would be programmed in. Folly Mox (talk) 12:13, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Having been on Sub-Saharan Africa for the past few days, I can safely say: Prolly not. ~Judy _{(job requests)} 15:40, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I am having to take Left-libertarianism in tiny morsels. XOR'easter (talk) 19:18, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

I checked several diffs; will try to check more later. The edit to Toki Pona seems to have been good, as far as how it formatted the reference, although the entire reference was subsequently removed for being a random youtube video. -sche (talk) 19:25, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Here's an odd one: as far as I can tell, everything here was fine except that it dropped a space which was present between two of the words in the title, smooshing them together. (Am I missing any other issues?) I'm surprised a script that causes as many problems as have been discussed here, and as many different kinds of problems, doesn't seem(?) to have been disabled yet. -sche (talk) 22:23, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Would it be improper (or even possible) to propose that it be disabled by community consensus? XAM2175  22:47, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Is there a bot? Philoserf (talk · contribs) is indefinitely blocked. Is any other user running User:BrandonXLF/ReferenceExpander in a problematic way? If ReferenceExpander is thought to have problems, BrandonXLF can be asked for a fix but there would need to be a list of, say, five examples of a problem with a brief explanation. If the script produces more problems than it solves, it could easily be disabled. Johnuniq (talk) 01:17, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

There are definitely other users running it, but not on anywhere near the same scale. Their edits typically have the same kinds of issues, but they are more likely to self-censor the most egregious ones. In my opinion the script creates a lot of big problems and doesn't really solve anything at all. YMMV. –jacobolus (t) 04:06, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

The script seems to run as intended if the source is the New York Times or if it has a doi number. I've also seen it take a bare url reference and create a citation that was pretty good except for one field filled out naively but not incorrectly. For online news sources, it tends not to make things worse, although it sometimes does.Edits from users other than Philoserf are consistently less worse, because they look at the proposed output and choose not to apply the obviously incorrect updates, but the script has so many problems (way more than five) and gets so many different things wrong and discards so much information present in existing citations that I would never feel comfortable not double checking an edit made using it.Having looked briefly at the code, I think the bugs might actually be upstream in dependency libraries, but disabling the interface is probably the safest move. BrandonXLF has added a warning that editors are responsible for edits made using the script, but has otherwise been silent on the issue. I suppose we could take it to MfD. Folly Mox (talk) 11:08, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

I went ahead and nominated it. — SamX  20:04, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

• More than 450 edits have been checked, reverted, or repaired; that's still less than 20% of the total. Let me again suggest to people who like gnoming that a lot of this is pretty straightforward (one or two references per edit to check to make sure no information was lost) and that's just a matter of hands on deck. --JBL (talk) 17:46, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  People will want to click through to the target page to ensure the script hasn't – for example – credited editors as authors or put the name of the author or website into the title= parameter. I usually go in with the goal of making the citation reasonably complete, since I'm checking it anyway, which often involves adding parameters like author and publication date, but the tactic of making sure the reference is not worse than before the script touched it is also viable. It is indeed reasonably straightforward, and one hardly ever needs to assess source quality, relevance, or whether it supports the prose. It's easy enough that it's what I've been doing when my brain is done for the day. There's just a lot. Folly Mox (talk) 08:46, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  Is there any reason to retain the other 1800+ edits while they're being checked? I'm not familiar with this tool at all, but it sounds as if the bot's edits are detrimental, and the project would be better off if we just reverted en masse. Is that correct, or is it better to check before reverting the bot? Nyttend (talk) 21:08, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  @Nyttend: I'm not a technically apt editor and I haven't done as much repairing as some others so I might not be the best person to answer this question, but I'll share my two cents here anyway. It's impossible to revert many of the edits using Undo, Twinkle, etc. because most were several months ago, and multiple edits to many of the pages have occurred since then. A minority of the citations, particularly to the New York Times, were actually improved by ReferenceExpander. Some of them aren't too bad, and only require something straightforward like adding |archive-url=, |archive-date=, and url-status= to the citation templates or correcting the author paramaters. Some of them are in pretty bad shape, but were already poorly formatted before ReferenceExpander and require quite a bit more work. Most of them can be manually reverted by copying and pasting the wikitext of the citations from the pre-ReferenceExpander revision, although creating a new citation template from scratch is often an improvement over the old revision. There are enough weird behaviors and edge cases that simply reverting them all with a bot or script probably wouldn't be a good option IMO, but others may disagree with me on that point. — SamX  04:32, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

  User:Nyttend, when I come across edits that are the most recent revision during the cleanup, typically I'll straight revert them (sometimes I'll improve them; it depends on how sleepy and grumpy I'm feeling), and I see other editors contributing to this task doing the same, but usually there are intervening edits. If we had a query of all the ReferenceExpander edits where they were the most recent revision, I feel it would be safe to bulk revert the lot and then go back and unrevert any that were genuine improvements, which do occur.Based on my experience with the cleanup, possibly between 10 and 20 per cent of ReferenceExpander edits are net-zero or net-positive, to give a very rough estimate. We've been prioritising the more damaged articles, but the edits which increase the byte size are usually much less worse. The issue, for my brain anyway, is that they're still mostly incomplete and naive, so if I'm in there anyway I'll try to leave it better than ReferenceExpander found it. Folly Mox (talk) 20:37, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Also it might be good to run the same query for older edits. I think the ReferenceExpander script has been around for a while and I would expect it probably had roughly similar behavior through its life. There are probably at least some older ones that should be checked/fixed (though hopefully not nearly so many). –jacobolus (t) 04:56, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. If we do that, I think we should also run a query if the script is deleted or disabled after the MFD is closed. — SamX  18:59, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

It is probably safest to check every edit ever committed using this tool. Something that worries me is that the entire core functionality seems to hinge on a function in mediawiki's own Citoid.js library, and I happened upon some citations earlier today or yesterday, not created by ReferenceExpander, that had publication dates in the author-first= field. I'm not sure how many scripts will take anything other than a bare URL as input before creating a citation, which is by far the biggest problem with the ReferenceExpander edits, but once this cleanup is a bit more buttoned up it might be wise to find out which team is responsible for maintaining Citoid.js and see if we can't get them to implement some improvements and add warning messages to editors that the output may not be correct and double checking should be performed. Folly Mox (talk) 20:44, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

For those keeping score at home, we recently passed 25% completion (by number of edits): about 650 out of 2500 have been checked or corrected. The most recent one I fixed was a real doozie. --JBL (talk) 00:27, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Requesting lift of Topic Ban on Sports Articles from NicholasHui

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

I will like to have this Topic Ban on Sports Articles lifted since my editing over the last two years has been unprobmetic. In the future if I edited NHL Hockey Articles, I will avoid using unreliable sources and use reliable source when editing player stats in NHL season articles. I shown that I had been editing positively and constructively in different topics such as Transportation Infrastructure and Movie films. I am willing to answer any questions related to the Topic Ban and the current topics I edit on. Thanks. NicholasHui (talk) 00:05, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I've no objections to lifting the t-ban. GoodDay (talk) 00:25, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to lifting his t-ban. Xolkan (talk) 15:30, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Oppose until at least July 1, 2023. It is very strange that the editor decided to request a lift on topic ban right before the Stanley Cup Finals. I am not convinced that this editor has changed its editing ways. What led to topic ban was the addition of inaccurate player statistics, which the editor used to "calculate himself" instead of using official NHL sources (sometimes it was done during games and then quickly inserted after they were over), which led to multiple edit wars with other editors. I am also listing two discussions that would give a better view to other editors who might consider supporting or opposing this request:

• The editor has previously edited as Portmannfire (talk · contribs) (until that account's block) and has also used various IPs for making edits as seen at User talk:Portmannfire#User Contributions Notice (and who knows how many more IPs were used).
• Here is a link to last request on lifting the topic ban.

I hope other editors will review this and decide if NicholasHui has really learned from his mistakes. – sbaio 16:58, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Here are some diffs previously as evidence that I used to have done , , , since I thought manually calculating the stats was the proper procedure without knowing how it will lead to mistakes. But after taking a long time off away from Sports Articles, I am aware that the proper procedure means that the nhl player stats should updated after at least 5 games by using an NHL Official source and not every single game since it is proven to lead to more mistakes. NicholasHui (talk) 20:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Support on basis ban has been for 2 years, and editor will likely be under close scrutiny for any bad behaviour and unlikely to revert to bad behaviour Jack4576 (talk) 10:43, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support, with brief probation - per the primary comments above. The user was TBANNED for a mix of competence, over-enthusiasm, and mishandling of consensus. Actions taken are at least indicative of giving them a chance. The Finals highlighted by Portmannfire may well be the reason for them bringing it up now. But that would only be of real concern to me if they had a history of wilful mis-editing. Still, I suggest removing the TBAN but any admin may re-implement it as a community sanction within the next 3 months. I would also highly advise OP stick to a firm WP:1RR voluntary policy in this field. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support It's been over four years - give them some rope. I'm surprised by the one oppose that implies 4 years and 8 weeks is not enough, but is happy with 4 years and 13 weeks. Nfitz (talk) 07:07, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support The issues brought up by Sbaio are, respectively, 4 years and 3 years old. At this point, WP:SO is more than met, I fully support lifting the topic ban. The user seems to have learned in the intervening time, and i have no problems with lifting the ban. If the old problems return, I expect re-instituting the ban to be rather easy as well. Let them see how long the run with the WP:ROPE. --Jayron32 17:18, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support per Jayron32. Plus the Stanley Cup Finals would be a good litmus test for a change in behaviour. starship.paint (exalt) 10:13, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions at WP:ITN

• Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Long_Term_pattern_of_violations_of_WP:CIVIL_by_The_Rambling_Man
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#Oh_joy,_an_out_of_control_ANI_discussion

So several hours ago I read the above thread here at WP:AN, and went to AN/I to see what was going on.

At that point I very nearly shut the whole thing down. I don't think I'd need to explain to any admin why. I think if anyone read the AN/I thread at that point, the reasons would be obvious. (Hence placing the warning there, today.)

But at that time, I decided that a.) "many eyes" were on this and none had yet done so (and I'm a firm believer in "many eyes"). b.) at that point the site ban had been self-closed and the topic ban was about split vote-wise (though, I wouldn't call it a consensus by any stretch of the imagination), but I thought that maybe letting the community continue to discuss, something productive might appear. and c.) with apologies to everyone for whom this is important, I decided some sleep was a better use of my time at that point...

So I come back today, and the vitriol has become worse. And it's devolving into a political fight, rather than an assessment of editor behaviour.

And it seems to me now that I've had some sleep and have re-read all of this, setting aside the questions about the editor in question, that something User:Masem said in the WP:AN/I discussion about a broader issue seems to potentially be informative here. - "We all know at ITN that when the subject of a shooting in the US comes up, things get heated really fast, and yes, no one should be dragging US politics into the mix; I've called for such concerns on the talk page many times. But TRM is not the first, not the last, to be doing that. I'm all for ANI-based caution, but again, civility without being directed any any specific editor is near impossible to enforce or we have to enforce it across the entire board, and I'm pretty sure that will not happen."

Actually - We have Misplaced Pages:Contentious topics all set up for such things. And when I look at the list at Misplaced Pages:General sanctions it seems to me that Misplaced Pages:In the news is just naturally a hub for where these and many other topics are just likely to come up.

Now, per Misplaced Pages:Contentious topics#Contentious topic restrictions, as an uninvolved admin, I could right now go and apply the restrictions. But as any admin is trusted to apply these, I think it would be interesting to hear what other admins think. So I think I'd like to hear from other admins first, to see if we can look at the options listed with the "standard set", and agree on something that will work for WP:ITN, but to try to not get too much in the way of the work being done there.

Or in other words, to look at what we can do to reduce disruption, while trying to minimize any disruption such sanctions could potentially cause.

I look forward to your (plural) thoughts. - jc37 19:55, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

As an admin who gets WP:INVOLVED in those U.S. mass shooting nominations Masem was referring to, I 100% support applying discretionary sanctions against users who make uncivil comments there. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:34, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

This would apply it to the page, and so would affect all editors there. It's intended as a (hopefully) preventative measure. - jc37 20:37, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

That's why I support it. We should all be held to account for our behavior and hopefully this will succeed at prevention of bad behavior. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:03, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

per Misplaced Pages:Contentious topics#Contentious topic restrictions, as an uninvolved admin, I could right now go and apply the restrictions is not correct: ITN as a whole does not fall within any of the areas for which these restrictions have been authorized. Now, we as a community could certainly decide to put ITN under general sanctions (although I don't have a strong opinion about whether that's a good idea, it's at least an option), but individual admins definitely don't have the ability to do that unilaterally. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Arguably there are topics at ITN that fall under various ARBCOM GS and DS, and we had discussed a few months ago the idea of tagging the page with the appropriate notices, but without any closure. This would be a similar idea. Masem (t) 20:47, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Query from not an admin, and although a long-time editor, I really just don't understand how contentious topics and arb enforcement and the like work, so apply a big grain of salt to my feedback. But an observation about WP:ARBMED; unnecessary discretionary sanctions were applied in this case (evidenced by the fact they have not been invoked once, and the problem completely resolved itself by the removal of a few problematic editors from the topic of drug pricing). Is it really necessary to apply discretionary sanctions to an entire area, until/unless/while problematic behaviors from individuals are in the process of being addressed? It seems to me that some of the alarms going off about the thread that started this are only serving to obscure the issues; why not wait 'til that is settled ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:54, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't know about the specific example you note, but sometimes, just applying the sanctions can help act as a preventative. - jc37 20:57, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

In that case, three (maybe four, memory fails) editors were seeking to install a fait accompli re WP:NOTPRICE. Discretionary sanctions were applied to the entire area, rather than deal with those editors. In this case, a couple of editors made really unnecessary and unhelpful posts at the beginning of the thread; is not this yet another distraction from the matter at hand, and should we not let it work itself out first? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:59, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Even if the community decides to remove one particular editor from the equation; per what we're seeing at AN/I and a perusal of ITN discussions in general, suggests that perhaps this is still not "working itself out", and seems likely to continue. So, seeing if we can act as a preventative, would seem like something worth discussing. - jc37 21:13, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I concur with jc37. We've had years for ITN's problems to "work itself out". It hasn't. There have been several proposals made to tone down the battleground rhetoric and the forum-like discourse, and they've gone nowhere. People still engage in it, because they don't fear any consequences from administrators. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 19:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• Speaking as an admin who has done a fair bit of CT/DS work; I recognize the need for a more civil atmosphere at ITN, and perhaps CT restrictions will help, but it's procedurally a little messier than is suggested above. ITN as a whole cannot be placed under CT restrictions; as ExtraordinaryWrit points out, it's out of scope, and I don't know what page-level sanctions would be useful anyway. However, both US politics and gun control already are designated as contentious topics, and uninvolved admins may unilaterally sanction users who have been made aware of the CT restrictions. As such, I think it likely that ITN will benefit from administrators watching the rather frequent discussions about mass shootings in the US, making users who stray from the straight and narrow aware of the CT restrictions, and imposing sanctions if they become needed. This is something we can already do, however; no community consensus is necessary. If we wish to place ITN as a whole under general sanctions that would need a proposal at AN, and I'm not sure I would support that, as I don't see ITN as a whole being disrupted any more frequently than the rest of the encyclopedia. And if you want to use CT restrictions specifically on ITN as a whole, you would need authorization from ARBCOM, and I don't see ARBCOM accepting a case about ITN as a whole. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:32, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  (ec) Thank you, I very much appreciate the clarification. - jc37 21:41, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  So could someone give the first CT alert to those misbehaving at ANI and at ITN now? (I can't post at one of the user talk pages, and the CT alert would carry more weight from an admin anyway.) I'm asking because I'm all in favor of avoiding an arbcase if there are other things that can be tried. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:39, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  Someone whose misconduct is relevant to AmPol or Gun control should receive an alert if they haven't already. I will not personally be leaving any, and with respect to TRM specifically I'm INVOLVED. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:21, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• I have stated my recommendation at WP:ANI once, and have stated it here at WP:AN above, which is that ArbCom should be asked to deal with The Rambling Man. I don't expect anyone to jump up and write an RFAR, so if this drags on without any resolution, I will write an RFAR, but probably not this month. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
• Question - Can an uninvolved admin topic-ban The Rambling Man from gun control and American politics? That would deal with one area of incivility, and would allow us at least to think that we have accomplished something. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

  As a procedural note, I can find a diff showing awareness of Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation, at Special:AbuseLog/13823181. Has this editor 3ver been formally made aware of AP2, or GC? Noting I’ve not done any deeper checks than just looking through their talk page filter log. Courcelles (talk) 00:48, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• (non-admin comment) I've been one of the louder voices for reform at WP:ITN. I wrote about the issue at WP:VPP#Misplaced Pages guidelines and In the news, but the gist of it is that there's virtually no guidance for what's "significant" enough to post, and editors are asked to debate their own subjective opinions and engage in original research. This facilitates arguments more than anything, and I don't believe the issue will go away until this is addressed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:02, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  Interesting thread; we have editors at VPP saying on May 15 there is no problem at ITN, and we have lots of editors at ANI saying two weeks later there are big problems at ITN. You already started a VPP thread, and I'm not yet seeing how this is a matter for ArbCom, so ... back to CT warnings? Is there a precedent of ArbCom having to look at an entire content area (I recall the Cyclone/Hurricane/Discord matter-- unsure if similar)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:13, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

  The closest I can think of is probably WP:ARBGGTF that imposed Discretionary Sanctions on the Gender Gap Task Force. There's also WP:ARBDEL which had a lot of discussion about ARS, but no real remedies for the area as a whole. The Wordsmith 01:42, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• (non-admin comment) In the interest of contributing to the discussion and providing a reference case (possibly the only existing reference case), please find a AE Case relating to the usage of DS/CT restrictions at ITN which directly resulted in sanctions. The case relates to myself, and my posting the case here should not be construed as commentary on the case itself. Carter00000 (talk) 04:45, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• I could get behind community-imposed General Sanctions on the ITN-related project pages. The current Arbcom CT restrictions seem like they're built more for article topic areas, though. I think WP:ARBPIA-style restrictions (which have been used by the community many times before with success) might be more effective. An example of the wording would be at WP:GS/Crypto#GS. We could cut out the part about page restrictions unless things like edit wars are an actual problem on ITN pages, but from what I see the problem is mostly civility. The Wordsmith 01:50, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Challenge to non-admin closure of RfC at BLP article Victor Salva

Please review the decision on Talk:Victor_Salva#Request_for_comment which seems like a bad joke. 13 users were in favor of including the photo in some form, only 3 were against it (not even 4 like stated in the closure note), yet somehow the closing user came to the decision that the picture should not be included at all. I'm requesting someone with more experience to review the decision. Thanks --FMSky (talk) 01:05, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

The question in the RfC was specifically about including the mugshots in the infobox. Several of the 13 you mention supported including it elsewhere in the article instead, where it now is (although arguably still in contravention of WP:MUG). – bradv 01:28, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't really call the close a "bad joke". The opposition had several policy-based arguments, including WP:UNDUE and WP:MUG, which are part of the NPOV and BLP policies respectively. I agree with the closer that there was no consensus to include the image in the infobox. Maddy from Celeste's close doesn't specifically state whether there is consensus to include the images elsewhere in the article, though I believe there is sufficient consensus for this. (also, please remember to notify users when posting to AN or ANI; I've done this for you.) — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 01:31, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

thanks a lot. i thought that was only needed when the discussion was specifically about the user ---FMSky (talk) 01:32, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to comment, as someone who !vote'd in the RfC to include the picture, that I think the closer did an excellent job. The especially did an excellent job even noting that that closer explicitly said they were counting my vote with less priority due to the nature of my arguments. This is exemplary behavior on the part of the closer, and exactly what a closer should be doing. Fieari (talk) 07:38, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

That looks like an excellent close to me. Black Kite (talk) 08:41, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

yes its especially excellent how the "oppose" votes were miscounted --FMSky (talk) 15:50, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

@FMSky: Closers should not solely take a look at vote counts. See WP:NOTVOTE.
While it may be true that, generally, when a majority of users are on one side of an issue; that is generally where the close should land. However, it is not the sole factor for determining consensus. This is for a variety of reasons including: polling is not a substitute for discussion, a local consensus can't override a global one, or a close shouldn't normally contradict policy.
If you understood these principles, then you wouldn't really be arguing for the close to be overturned. –MJL ‐Talk‐ 18:30, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• I voted to support the image being included in the infobox before changing my vote based on some well reasoned arguments. I believe the closer adequately evaluated the discussion and it's a good close. It's hyperbolic to describe the close "a bad joke." I'd urge FMky, to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric. This is isn't the first time..- Nemov (talk) 20:39, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• I also think this was a good close, although it didn't go according to my recommendation. Also, it should be noted that the page was changed on May 30 to include the image on the page anyway, one day after the closure on May 29. Qflib, aka KeeYou Flib (talk) 20:01, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Requesting lifting of one-account restriction

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

I would like to request my one-account restriction logged here be lifted. I have stuck to this account since the sanction, logged as a temporary restriction "until MaranoFan are (sic) demonstrate good editing history", was placed. I am now a user in good standing and have been contributing constructively for several years now, as documented on my user page. There is no preventitive benefit to keeping this sanction since I am not abusing multiple accounts, making it redundant. Thanks.--NØ 10:19, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

@MaranoFan: Do you have a need to use multiple accounts, such as editing through a public device or in a place with unsecure internet? Nythar (💬-🍀) 10:23, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd use one like any other user uses them, which would include the reasons you've listed, like editing at my uni library or Internet cafes. But I would also like the sanction lifted because it is redundant and unnecessary, and was meant to be temporary to begin with.--NØ 10:30, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I believe that's sufficient reason for an unban. The unblock discussion closer stated "as the length of the restriction has not been discussed thoroughly, it will be tentatively indefinite until MaranoFan are demonstrate good editing history after being unblocked, to convince the community to lift the restriction altogether." Since your editing is good, this should likely be an uncontroversial request. Nythar (💬-🍀) 10:40, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• I would also be good with lifting the restriction, with the caveat that multiple accounts are publicly linked on each-other's user pages, which is not normally a rule, but is best practice, per WP:MULTIPLE, to wit "It is recommended that multiple accounts be identified as such on their user pages" --Jayron32 12:28, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support with Jayron's caveat. Which is entirely within best practices for the requested use cases of alts, anyway. Courcelles (talk) 13:01, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support per Jayron and Courcelles. Mackensen (talk) 13:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support - I don't particularly mind either way on the caveat, but should specifically note that if we are including it without giving them a way to move out of it, it should be clarified as not a sanction or a impairment to good standing Nosebagbear (talk) 14:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I notice there's also a two-way interaction ban between MaranoFan and Winkelvi still in effect, but given that Winkelvi was blocked several years ago, that's moot. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:07, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support with Jayron's caveat. Indeed whilst not normal practice in this specific case given the issues I think it would be a good idea. –Davey2010 16:10, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support with Jayron's caveat. starship.paint (exalt) 05:08, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Multiple IP addresses making rapid threats on a user’s talk page

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

Please see the revision history for User talk:Zzuuzz. Thanks, Dylan | ✉ | ✓  22:42, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Well that's one way to route out a ton of proxies. I've protected for a bit.-- Ponyo 22:45, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Backlog at AfD

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Old has discussions that are overdue closing by more than a week. – Joe (talk) 05:43, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

3RR and the definition of a "revert"

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

Hello. There is a user I have butted heads with several times now around the exact definition of 3RR, and so I'd like some feedback.

The situation always plays out like this: the user adds new material to an article. They are reverted. They then proceed to re-add the material 3 more times. So, 4 edits within a 24-hour period. I have always considered this a 3RR violation.

The user in question does not believe they have broken 3RR, as the first edit technically wasn't a revert. It was one initial edit followed by 3 reverts.

Ignoring the fact that you can still be blocked for edit warring even if you haven't broken 3RR, which is the correct definition of 3RR? Also asked at Misplaced Pages talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring — Czello 06:23, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Their counting is correct. Their first edit is not a revert. However, consistently going right up to the line of 3RR before stopping is still edit-warring. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:18, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. — Czello 07:21, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

New WMF Moderator Tools project: Automoderator - input requested!

Hi - my team (Moderator Tools) is exploring a project to build an automated anti-vandalism tool next year. This would enable admins to configure automated reversion of bad edits, based on new machine learning models (think ClueBot NG). This is still in a very early phase so we have a lot of questions about how this could work. Please see Moderator Tools/Automoderator and let us know what you think on that talk page or here! I'm especially interested in your experiences of how ClueBot NG functions - how valuable do you find it, what kinds of vandalism does it commonly miss, what feature improvements could you imagine for it? Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 11:00, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Unblock appeal by HugoAcosta9

HugoAcosta9 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is requesting to have their indefinite block listed. He was initially blocked for disruption surrounding AfDs and personal attacks, and then engaged in sockpuppetry and block evasion after being indefinitely blocked. That said, there was certainly a fair amount of constructive editing before things came to that point as well, and there is at least some support for the position that HugoAcosta9 did have a point about what was going on, even if it wasn't expressed in an appropriate way. Given the various factors involved here, I think it should be discussed by the community whether this editor should be unblocked, and if so what, if any, restrictions should be applied. Quoted text of the appeal follows below. Seraphimblade 01:12, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I am writing to request an appeal of my block that was imposed in October of 2022. I was wrong and had been uploading disruptive edits, including personal attacks, disruption at AfDs - doubles down at thread brought by user to ANI. This behavior ultimately led to my block from Misplaced Pages. I acknowledge that I was frequently advised to stop, but I chose to ignore the warnings and continued my actions, which resulted in my block. At that time, I frequently added disruptive edits to discussions, including sockpuppettering six months ago despite editors' instructions that I do not do so. I disregarded their warnings and persisted in my irresponsible behavior. After I was blocked, instead of taking time off to do other things, I was deceitful and frequently engaged in Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppetry, originally using the IPs. I also utilized a wide range of various IP addresses. In December 2022, I was not aware that I had engaged in sockpuppetry and believed that I was able to request a standard offer (SO) in good faith. I now understand that my actions were inappropriate and have since learned more about Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. While I recognize that this does not excuse my behavior, it does help explain why I have kept coming back to the site. I want to emphasize that I did not have any malicious intent and did not intend to violate any of Misplaced Pages's rules. I am a passionate supporter of Misplaced Pages and deeply regret any harm that my actions may have caused to the community. Since my account was banned, I have taken steps to educate myself about Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines, and I have stayed away from the site for over six months. I am eager to return to the community and make meaningful contributions. And for over six months, I have been editing at Spanish Misplaced Pages, making positive contributions like creating new articles. I feel that it could benefit my contributions to Misplaced Pages, especially with football articles. I realize that my past behavior was unacceptable and violated Misplaced Pages's policies. However, I am deeply remorseful for my actions and am committed to making positive contributions to the community. I want to prove that I can continue to contribute to Misplaced Pages in a responsible and productive manner. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 22:14, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

• For ease, copying my Undeniably involved comment, I do somewhat agree with @Nfitz: above that "the AFD system completely failed", which was a big part of what led to Hugo's frustration. I was the closer of some of the original AfDs and ultimately ended up agreeing with them being relisted/restored once the full picture became more clear. Courtesy links: Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2022 October 19, Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1112#Concerns_about_articles_nominated_for_deletion. I'm not going to take action and have not reviewed the Spanish edits they refer to above, but I do thank them for their clear & direct request above. comment from their Talk. Star Mississippi 01:36, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
• I remember the ANI thread that led to their block. The OP was upset that a number of their articles had been nominated for deletion and started throwing around personal attacks, accusations of racism, etc. That's not good of course, but later in the thread there was a clear consensus that the deletion nominations were inappropriate - so inappropriate, in fact, that the editor who initiated them was topic-banned from AfD. It's understandable that someone might become frustrated after being carpet-bombed with meritless AfDs, and aside from this incident the editor's history seems mostly uneventful and productive. I would support an unblock assuming that there is no evidence of recent block evasion. Spicy (talk) 01:56, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Request an Admin

Hello. It seems to me that User:Raven is engaging in disruptive editing at this time at this subsection of an ANI .It is OK to comment, of course. But the amount of text they keep adding after my post seems to be dominating this subsection of the ANI. I have no other way to describe it. I'm wondering if an Admin could discourage this behavior somehow - or put a stop to it - if that is the appropriate action. Anyway, please take a look. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 06:21, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I addressed each of the four specific claims you made about "tendentious editing" by Randy Kryn. In our last exchange, you insisted you had not cited WP:TRIVIAL, and I quoted your "Here User:Nyxaros edits out trivial images"  . This you bring to WP:AN? – .Raven  08:28, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Did you know that people can use the word "trivial" without it having anything to do with WP:TRIVIAL? JoelleJay (talk) 08:39, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Then where's the policy mandating the "edit  out   trivial images"? – .Raven  08:50, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Nyxaros reverts pointing out that trivial images contravene WP:IMGDD, "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative." IMGDD draws directly from the WP:image use policy and WP:NOTGALLERY. JoelleJay (talk) 09:13, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

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