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Fixing your profile

Here is the newly edited version. Feel free to use it. " Auxiliary213 (talk) 15:06, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Just been blocked for abusing editing privileges. Doug Weller talk 15:30, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, no surprise. I was busy baking for friends who are coming for lunch, a much more rewarding exercise than trolling the noticeboards or dealing with them. Acroterion (talk) 15:43, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
Sounds good, what are you baking? Doug Weller talk 16:20, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
Just brownies, nothing complicated, but the kitchen smells great now. We're all going out for lunch and will come back here for dessert. Acroterion (talk) 16:27, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
Love brownies, but to be honest, I can't make them as good as Ghirardelli does. Doug Weller talk 16:37, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
These are Ghirardelli, I've long since given up doing anything else. You can get them in the UK? Acroterion (talk) 16:59, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
Yes/ Amazon. ebay but cheapest at Costco. Doug Weller talk 17:04, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2025

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2024).

Administrator changes

added Sennecaster
readded
removed

CheckUser changes

added
readded Worm That Turned
removed Ferret

Oversight changes

added
readded Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The Nuke feature also now provides links to the userpage of the user whose pages were deleted, and to the pages which were not selected for deletion, after page deletions are queued. This enables easier follow-up admin-actions.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:46, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

NMSU basketball

No idea how to put this gently, but the ongoings under Heiar and Moccia were serious and are common knowledge in the I-25 corridor. Three players sexually assaulted three other players and two student workers, and a UNM player was killed by a NMSU player. "Hazing" doesn't describe what happened at all. 67.209.213.65 (talk) 16:43, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

The references don't support your assertions. If you think it ought to be included, find explicit reliable sources. "Common knowledge" isn't admissible here, and the biographies of living persons policy applies. Don't report rumors or unsubstantiated assertions of serious criminal conduct. Acroterion (talk) 18:36, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but recent sources such as this and this are unambiguous, they use wordings like "sexual assault" and "sex abuse" for the happenings on the NMSU basketball team. KFIX and ESPN are mainstream news sources with no particular agenda. It's permitted to call a spade for what it is. 67.209.213.65 (talk) 20:10, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

To add to this: two of the men who were assaulted were paid 8 millions in restitution. If you can get that amount in a settlement you know the cSe had merit. 67.209.213.65 (talk) 20:15, 5 January 2025 (UTC)
Then don't call it "rape." And we don't infer from sources that anything "has merit" in that manner from a civil proceeding, that doesn't establish criminal culpability, only that there was a settlement. Yes, bad things happened, but we can only report on what reliable sources explicitly state. Inference is of no use here; stick to the sources and don't embellish or interpret. Acroterion (talk) 20:48, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

The report from NM DOJ does not mince words. The executive summary on pg 3 uses words like "sexualized hazing" and "sexual assault", and on page 10 the DOJ is explicit in stating that Heiar was terminated for cause shortly after the abuse was reported to police. That Moccia was terminated for cause is not disputed, that fact is widely reported in the news. "Scandal" is too mild a word for what went on at the institution.

As far as criminal proceedings go, two of the three suspects have pled guilty, and the third one is currently at trial and is looking at 5 years of prison. The complaint from the State is for "Criminal Sexual Penetration", "Criminal Sexual Conduct" and "Conspiracy to Commit Criminal Sexual Conduct", it's not great.

(Aside: US criminal law is a mess, many actions that ought to fall under criminal law are instead brought as civil actions, most infamously police misconduct. The public prosecution needs to stay in the good graces of the police, so the injured party brings a civil action and then settles before the case gets to a jury. At some point the "non-admission of liability" clause ends up being not really meaningful. Someone suffered injury, and they are awarded much money, and we can't call it for what it is. Suspicious people will say that was the intention all along.) 206.206.141.101 (talk) 19:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

We call it exactly what reliable sources say it is. The problem with the edits this weekend was with amplification beyond what the sources said. There is no bar to stating the issues (in accordance with the due emphasis guideline, and remembering the requirements of the biographies of living persons policy); we just need to stick to the references. All I want you to do is to stick to what reliable secondary sources say in accordance with policy, and we can talk about the problems with the program. We just have to do it with care and accuracy; this is the #7 website in the world, and we have a responsibility to get it right. No editorializing. Acroterion (talk) 22:52, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Block of User:Kelly Club NZ

This user made one edit, the creation of a promotional userpage, and was reported to UAA. Seeing the report, I deleted the page, and made a choice as an administrator to warn rather than go for the no-warning block.I made this clear at UAA.

I'm curious as to why you thought it was appropriate to override my decision an hour later, when they had made no further edits? I believe my choice was within the bounds of administrative discretion and should not have been overridden without good reason. Beeblebrox 00:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

We have different ideas of what constitutes a promotional-only account with username issues, I guess, it looked pretty clear-cut to me. I didn't think of it as overriding you, please don't take it that way, and honestly I didn't check to see who might have deleted the page; we shouldn't have to go walking on eggshells around certain administrators. We've all had occasions where we've taken a more gentle or lenient approach, or abstained entirely, and had another admin take a different action. This is the nature of our distributed administration of this website. I have a less optimistic idea of what demands a promotional account is likely to impose on our volunteers than you do, I guess.
However, I am happy to reverse the block, as always, if another admin disagrees. While you may not think so, my overall approach to spammish accounts is pretty close to yours, and I believe I've made that clear in the RFC. I have different reservations about promotional usernames than you do, and it bothers me that we tend to act more harshly on accounts that at least are being more honest with us (like this one) than somebody with a throwaway username that's doing the exact same thing. I don't have a wise solution, except that the editing interface for user page creation might offer better guidance that WP isn’t like Facebook, and if you’re looking to expand your social media presence, you’re in the wrong place. Acroterion (talk) 02:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
To be clear, I don't think anyone need walk on eggshells around me, but I do feel that any admins decision to take a particular course of action shouldn't overriden without a compelling reason. I see blocks I wouldn't have made all the time, but I don't just go undoing them unless they are truly egregious.
I think the thought of some sort of caution or warning when creating a user page/sandbox is a good one, and not an idea I believe I've seen before. We clearly have an issue where lots of people every day think this is the place to come to "get the word out" and something like that could help curb it at least a little bit, although knowing how the software is we'd want to make sure it actually works on the mobile apps as well.
As I recall, the community has asked in the past for something similar when usernames are created, that being the obvious other facet of this issue, but I don't think we ever actually got it. Beeblebrox 06:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
An absence of action isn't easily discernable here, and given the way the various queues and happenstance work it's not always the case that a deletion without a block indicates some kind of forbearance. However, I would have figured that out if I'd looked at the talkpage; most of the time it's just a speedy deletion flag, but sometimes not, as in this case. Keep in mind that those who patrol the edit filters look at the edit filter detail output, which is usually more diagnostic than what might have been successfully saved.
However, it was my impression that you were not particularly concerned with spam username/spam actions, but rather an apparently good-faith username with spammish content who might be brought around to being a contributor, and userspace deletions. There may be a unicorn out there who registers a promotional name and posts promotional content, who might be persuaded to be a contributor, but I haven't encountered one yet. I've nursed promotional editors along, and can't say that I've had any successes. I've had better luck with vandals, who aren't financially or ideologically committed to vandalism. We've got a recent serial sockpuppeteer who is somehow trying to edit on behalf of the UAE Federal Tax Authority, who is an example of the more extreme sort, who has rejected patient advice and who presumably has been commissioned to establish an FTA presence on all platforms no matter what.
Spambots are another matter, and we should show no mercy there. They're prohibited by the ToU, and should be treated as LTA block evaders. They're tailored to superficially look like good-faith accounts, and they've been running as long as I've been here. They're much less of a problem than they used to be.They're instantly recognizable once you've seen a few, and I always tag the deletions and blocks with custom summaries: "spambot."
As I've pointed out, my practice, and that of most admins, is to delete and warn for the promotional content without an accompanying promotional username, but the usernames that represent organizations pose a general username policy issue apart from promotion; it would be more of a question whether to softblock or hardblock in those cases. I would generally softblock if there was no accompanying promotion, or more likely just wait and see what they do (which is a standard answer at UAA), since a lot of those accounts have second thoughts and never edit. I'm not actually sure how the 499 edit filter interacts, I think it logs only and doesn't warn. There are a lot of false or ambiguous positives with 499 (as I said at the RFC, about half can be ignored), perhaps a more narrowly-tailored filter might target a smaller subset with a warning, but that's outside my skillset to construct or even propose in much detail. Perhaps 499 could be tailored for a fairly general reminder to not be promotional and to remind that WP isn't social media. I'd prefer proaction over reaction, which is the current state of affairs. Acroterion (talk) 12:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Draft:Milot Avdyli

Acroterion (I'm also tagging Liz in this request as a draft deleter who is), can you undo Draft:Milot Avdyli because the player is expected to debut (after being transferred in this transfer window) at Vorskla Poltava in the Ukrainian Premier League which according to Misplaced Pages is a fully professional league, and I believe that the draft can serve as a kind of starting point for the development of the article before its debut, which after its debut will be concretized into a full article. BalkanianActuality (talk) 01:54, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I'll wait for Liz, but as usual, I have no problem with undeleting these drafts so you can work on them. Let me know if you don't hear from her; weather depending, I may be away for a while tomorrow for some minor eye surgery. Acroterion (talk) 02:42, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Okay, if there's no reaction from Liz, then I'll let you know and wish you a speedy recovery. BalkanianActuality (talk) 02:46, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for returning the draft article! BalkanianActuality (talk) 00:36, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Acroterion. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. Gaismagorm (talk) 12:07, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Revdel request

Could I get a revdel for this please. Thank you. Tarlby 20:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

In general, pro forma racist vandalism isn't normally revdel'd, unless it concerns a specific individual or is particularly gross (i.e., "kill all ***). But they've earned themselves a week-long block and a place in my watchlist. Acroterion (talk) 20:19, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Got it 👍 Tarlby 20:21, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
An elaboration - the "grossly-insulting" modifier is important, as opposed to the obnoxious-racist-jackass-who'd-better-watch-their-damn-mouth-if-they-don't-want-to-spend-a-week-at-the-dentist stuff. Acroterion (talk) 20:25, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Okay, so I didn't make the request but I am a little confused. I was earlier told on a talk page to report an edit very similar to the one reported. Am I not supposed to request revdel these kind of stuff? Gaismagorm (talk) 20:30, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Well, going by the way I read the policy, it didn't rise to the level of grossness usually revdel'd. We get a lot of dumb nasty vandalism, and we don't need to scrub the histories of all of it; revdel should be employed somewhat sparingly. We remove things that can bring harm or express a desire to harm, are copyright violations, insult or degrade specific living individuals, are the products of sustained disruption campaigns. or reveal the identities of people who wish to remain anonymous. For stupid schoolboy vandalism like this, it can stay there as a monument to their ignorance. Your request above was similar to this one.in its level of obnoxious rather than gross. Other admins may have a somewhat lower threshold for removal from the history, but it has never been meant for all vandalism. There does seem to have been a trend to apply it more generally to ethnic slurs like this one, but it's not uiniversal. Acroterion (talk) 20:56, 6 January 2025 (UTC)