Wikipedia:Administrative action review/Archive 3

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

April 2025 Decline of AWB Request. by Pppery

Latest comment: 7 months ago24 comments8 people in discussion

Withdrawn by filer following unanimous endorsement. Thryduulf (talk) 21:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diffs/logs: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/AutoWikiBrowser&oldid=1286578105 and past on.

User: Pppery (talk · contribs · logs) (prior discussion)

The Admin Pppery is being Bias to me due to the fact of I notified admins of the request and the backlog, but the admins never asked me to stop, and now mentioning discussions that have happened awhile ago, and I have provided a valid rationale, but Pppery refuses to re-review.
~~~~ Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:33, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

This is only making you look more and more like a fool. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:37, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Please follow Wikipedia:HUSH... Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:40, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Um, what? That shortcut links to WP:Harassment#User space harassment. I haven't done anything whatsoever to your user space or your user talk space. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:42, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant Wikipedia:PA Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:44, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Nothing I have said is a personal attack on you. On the contrary you're the one personally attacking me by groundlessly accusing me of being biased. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

You have said this makes me look more like a Fool. which can be classified as Offensive. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Pppery's explanation for refusing the permission at this time makes sense, especially considering that Valorrr's account is barely a month old. I think it's significant that Ppppery had to repair the report here so that it would display properly, since Valorrr had troubles with the format (which is also an indicator that maybe advanced tools aren't right for this editor yet). Schazjmd (talk) 20:40, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I clicked the button as it stated, and it said just to fill it out, I was going to fix it by the edit history though. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:41, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Endorse no one has a right to get AWB access granted, and Pppery's reasons for declining the request make sense. You need to slow down and gain a better understanding of community norms, and you now filing this request only makes that clearer. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:45, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
I understand that no one has the Right, but I have provided valid rationale if you looked are more recent comments... Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse Pppery is in my opinion in the right to decide to A) decline this and B) not to continue discussing this with the user. Exactly what Valorrr expected to come from them essentially "digging up dirt" on Pppery with talk page warnings from 9 years ago, I've no idea, but it does demonstrate why I would also hesitate to grant them extra tools at this stage of their nascent editing career. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 20:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
Pppery has also "digging up the dirt on me", from several discussions I have resolved. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:48, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
That's what he's supposed to do when considering whether to grant advanced permissions. Schazjmd (talk) 20:50, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
And also, I have said he/she is biased as he/she has declined my request as I "bugged them" to approve requests when others have such as Special:PermanentLink/1284353951#User:OpalYosutebito, but got approved. I provided rationale that it should be approved as that request bugged them, but failed to decline it, as I went to the First admin that reviewed my request the first time, he said he preferred not to do re-do's of requests, and when he said that, I went to Pppery, as per my contributions. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:53, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I looked at the comments that were currently on your talk page. That's not even remotely comparable to looking back nine years into my talk page history. Yes, I behaved stupidly in 2016, and in hindsight should have been blocked (I said as much in my RfA). I was granted my first advanced permission in 2018 - if you come back in 2027 with two years of editing at a rate equal to or higher than that which I edited between 2016 and 2018 then I will have no qualms looking past any mistakes you may have made today, so there's no hypocrisy here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
But you were granted permissions of a template-editor, which is way more powerful (can't find a proper word), than AWB which is automated edits. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 20:59, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I was tempted earlier today to ask if Valorrr wanted to ask about adoption, as I thought they could do with edting advice going forward. I'm not sure if that would still be suitable. Knitsey (talk) 21:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
I am not going to say no, to helping other editors but I do sometimes have a problem with interactions/communication as I have Autism, so I interact differently and I don't understand social cues, I understand that isn't no excuse, but I prefer not to list it on my user-page for harassment reasons, I've had some issues telling that before. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 21:04, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Endorse per above. Filer continues to offer examples of why the decline was the right thing to do.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 20:56, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
May I please get the "examples", as I clearly don't understand. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 21:00, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
I wish to Withdraw my Review, I have acted wrong and I realize that @Pppery was acting right, I do have Autism, which impacts how I interact socially, and I do understand my actions may of caused Pppery a lot of distress, mentally and physically, I wish to offer my apology. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 21:06, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
@Pppery: Just letting ya close it. Valorrr ^{(lets chat)} 21:07, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User: David Eppstein using rollback to mass revert edits that were not vandalism

Latest comment: 7 months ago75 comments17 people in discussion

Withdrawn by OP. The use of rollback here was generally "endorsed", as the reasons for the reverts were explained, albeit not in the edit summaries. Who is "right" is not a topic for this page. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

David Eppstein does not like some infoboxes, but I didn't agree. I reverted his bold edit, restoring images and information that was accurate, I also started a discussion at David's talk page.[1] David mass reverted my revert of his bold edit using the rollback tool - i.e. marked as minor, no edit summary. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Andre🚐 21:47, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Endorse As a matter of rollback policy, this falls within point 5 or WP:ROLLBACKUSE. The rest is a content dispute. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:50, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

revert widespread edits (by a misguided editor or malfunctioning bot) unhelpful to the encyclopedia, explain? How were my edits unhelpful? Andre🚐 21:51, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) David Eppstein clearly believed they were. And that belief is at least per se reasonable, which is all that should be required as that procedural policy should be interpreted in the mind of the executor. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

But he did not provide the needed explanation, and the explanations on his talk are wanting. He also doubled down on a bold change. He is not following point 5. Andre🚐 21:55, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I provided the explanation in the ongoing discussion in my talk page, as a direct reply to you, prior to taking these actions. As I already said. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:58, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

But you still have not answered the question, and you mass reverted as a substitute for discussion. That is tantamount to editwarring and using the admin tools to do it. Andre🚐 21:59, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

"The question" being how your edits were unhelpful? I have answered that multiple times both here and on my talk. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Your edits are the ones disimproving the encyclopedia. You first incorrectly cited BLP on a number of dead people. Then you claimed that the 2018 RFC supported your position when it fact it says the opposite. Andre🚐 22:07, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Responding to Pppery's procedural explanation of his endorsement, this is Wikipedia. The tests here are whether people are communicating appropriately, assuming good faith, following consensus and precedent, avoiding edit warring and following ADMINACCT. That is a fail on all counts in my view. We have high standards for admins. Andre🚐 22:10, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

@Pppery: Could you clarify: When someone makes mass actions, and someone reverts them using rollback that can make sense under point 5. Then if someone reinstates their mass action, using rollback, that's really still point 5? Presumably the two can just go back and forth forever and it's still an acceptable use of rollback until 3RR is breached? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:48, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Well, no, it's edit warring, and misconduct for that reason alone (you don't have to breach 3RR to be sanctioned for edit warring). The use of rollback doesn't add any additional misconduct compared to if the same dispute had taken place using undo, though.

The purpose of rollback policy, as I read it, is to make sure people are aware of why their edit is rolled back if doing so isn't completely obvious, so that's satisfied here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

If David Eppstein was edit warring (I already wrote below that I can't really characterize his edits as edit warring, but let's say that he was), then using rollback is using an advanced permission to make your edit warring quicker and smoother. It's like using a car to rob a bank. You can rob a bank without a car, but a car makes it more convenient. The car will be subject to forfeiture. Society endorses use of motor vehicles but it does not endorse using one to rob a bank. So maybe, if editors believe that David Eppstein was edit warring, it wouldn't be quite right for this XRV's outcome to be "endorsed". —Alalch E. 16:04, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

If the response is "wrong venue" or "this isn't really about rollback", I agree. But then what action are you endorsing? I don't understand "endorse" to mean "procedural objection". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:19, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The reply to the question of whether use of [rollback] is consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (see the top of the page) can be "yes it was consistent", in which case the outcome is "endorsed" and !votes with a boldfaced "endorse" signify support for that outcome, and it can be "no, it was not consistent", in which case the outcome is "not endorsed", and !votes with a boldfaced "do not endorse" (or similar) signify support for that outcome. If you think that David Eppstein was edit warring, you should IMO !vote "do not endorse" because one cannot, in my interpretation of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, including the guideline specifically about rollback, use rollback while edit warring and have that use of rollback be a fine use of an advanced permission, that is by itself consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. This is why I disagree with you that this can be a wrong venue. It's a perfectly usable venue for this situation, and if people really think that D. E. was edit warring they should produce the outcome of "not endorsed"(—do not use rollback when edit warring, even if the edit warring is not sanctionable as edit warring [it isn't in this case]). —Alalch E. 16:40, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

This is off-topic here as I have not taken any administrative action. Meanwhile Andre has triple-reverted many of my actions, which were only to remove infoboxes whose content was entirely drawn from Wikidata. I do not object to many of these infoboxes in principle (although some were in other ways a total waste of reader eyeballs), but if we are to have those infoboxes I insist that they consist only of content and sourcing local to this Wikipedia. As for the use of rollback vs the use of undo: that was purely a matter of convenience as I had already replied on my talk, stating my intention to undo and assumed that Andre would see that reply as an explanation for my undos rather than requiring me to copy and paste the same explanation as an edit summary for each one of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:51, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I have not triple reverted anything? Cite a diff? Andre🚐 21:51, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps I misread my notifications. After your second round of reverts and my (first) round of restoring my removals, I saw many notifications saying my edits had been undone by you, but perhaps those were left over from your second round of reverts. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Your actions are extremely inappropriate. You are removing accurate content and then making inaccurate accusations. Andre🚐 21:55, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not rely on accuracy of content; it relies on published reliable sources. Wikidata has different standards. My experience with Wikidata is that if a claim there is inaccurate, but based on some other large database, attempting to remove it will be reverted in order to maintain consistency with that other database. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

That is an issue for discussion at your talk page or at the MOS where I also started a discussion. But your threats of 3RR warring, false accusation that I made 2 reverts, and your use of rollback to edit war are WP:ADMINACCT issues. Andre🚐 22:03, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The use of rollback without further explanation in an edit summary or elsewhere can be problematic. It is false that I did not provide the required explanation. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:05, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Cite one example of an inaccuracy in the infoboxes I restored. Andre🚐 22:06, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Why? The relevant question is whether there are unsourced claims in the infoboxes you restored. And look: the very first one I tried reexamining to respond here, Dmitrii Sinstov [13] has both two unsourced claims (his alma mater and his employment dates) and one inaccuracy (the employer was not renamed to the name stated in the infobox until over 50 years after his death). In fact, except for the image (which does not need to be in an infobox), it consists entirely of content that is either inaccurate or unsourced. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:18, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

That is not correct. Those claims are sourced in Wikidata. 21 reference for the first one.[14], [15] 2 for the 2nd, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. And the post-Soviet "inaccuracy" thing is a technicality at best.Andre🚐 22:20, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

You should know that the way the infobox template works is, it does not import things from Wikidata that do not have sources. Andre🚐 22:25, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The sources were not imported to the infobox. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:27, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, it doesn't do that. That would be cool. But the point is, it is accurate. And you did not examine the infobox you removed or recreate it. And you could just click through to Wikidata and see the source for yourself to verify the information. More to the point, you have no reason to believe the material is inaccurate to challenge it. And you are not giving anyone a chance to verify it either. Just mass reverting away an image and accurate (more or less, naming technicality nonwithstanding) info. Andre🚐 22:29, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I did not make 2 rounds of reverts, either. Andre🚐 21:57, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Now you are editing your message after I already responded to it? Please provide a diff for your threat.[16] I reverted your edits exactly once each. Andre🚐 21:53, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

There was no threat. I certainly have no intention of taking administrative action against you; that would violate WP:INVOLVED. I merely wanted to make sure you were aware of 3RR. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:55, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

That is a threat. You should be aware that you are in serious danger of violating WP:3RR. Am I in danger? Or is that a baseless aspersion? Andre🚐 21:56, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

You have not violated it yet, to my knowledge. But your escalation of this disupte to here does not reassure me of your continued behavior. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:00, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Do you disagree that I made exactly 1 revert per your change? Where was the case that I made 2 reverts? And I am not allowed to ask for review of your actions? Andre🚐 22:00, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

You're allowed to, but it's an editorial dispute and the actions were equivalent to non-rollback undos because they were explained in advance and were performed with a substantive rationale in good faith, and it doesn't matter who's right in the dispute when determining if the rollbacks were improper use of above-standard permissions or not. —Alalch E. 22:48, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

So in your view, rollback may be used by admins to edit war? Andre🚐 22:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

In my view, both the use of rollback and David Eppstein's admin status are irrelevant tangents, and this should be treated the same way as any other content dispute or edit warring accusation. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:04, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

So are you saying this complaint is at the wrong venue? Andre🚐 23:07, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Only the narrow question of "was the use of rollback appropriate" is within the scope of this board. And I think it is (for reasons I explained above). But your concern seems to have far more to do with other issues which have nothing to do with that question, and for which this is the wrong venue. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:17, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it is related because it is the use of an advanced permission alongside an ADMINACCT issue. If you believe the use of rollback is appropriate you are entitled to that opinion I guess. In the past, my understanding was that rollback was not appropriate for the use of edit war, and is revoked from non-admins who have it when they use it to edit war (or not granted) Andre🚐 23:20, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I would agree that using rollback to make your edit warring just that little bit easier means that it was not a good use of rollback (even if the use was technically near-indistinguishable from editing without using rollback), and that such a use should not be endorsed here, and therefore I don't think that ROLLBACKUSE can be cleanly separated from a question of edit warring. But I can't characterize Dave Eppstein's edits as edit warring. Yes, he did revert a revert, but he was somewhere in the fuzzy area between "BRD is optional" (see WP:BRR) and "must not edit war". Didn't quite rise to edit warring. The situation was on the brink of an edit war, so to speak. —Alalch E. 12:37, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

David Eppstein was acting in a general capacity of an editor, not as an admin. If in this capacity he had used advanced permissions to give himself an upper hand in the dispute, i.e. mixed the roles of an admin and editor-as-an-editor in an improper, essentially corrupt, way, there'd be a case, but he did not do that. He used an advanced permission, but the manner in which he did it is not distinguishable from him not using it and only using the buttons afforded to the standard group. This is because he provided an explanation in advance, provided an editorially meaningful reasoning (for you and everyone else to agree or disagree with), and acted in good faith. —Alalch E. 23:08, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I would ask anyone else reviewing this to consider whether this statement is true, whether David is indeed acting with the collegiality, respect, and engagement that is expected, or if he mass reverted my edits as vandalism, made false accusations, and threatened me. Andre🚐 23:12, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Where did he say your edits are vandalism? Sorry if I missed something. —Alalch E. 23:15, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Traditionally, a minor edit using rollback with no edit summary is treating my edits as vandalism. That is a long-time held Wikipedia norm. Andre🚐 23:21, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

He didn't revert your edits as vandalism, he just reverted your edits using rollback, and as a side-effect of that the edit was marked as minor. It is suboptimal that these edits were marked as minor but an edit being marked as minor that should not have been and treating something as vandalism which was not vandalism are different things. —Alalch E. 23:26, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I would be happy if all rollbacks were marked as non-minor. Even when rollbacks are used to undo vandalism I don't think they are minor. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:47, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The point is you used rollback to carry out a dispute and then falsely accused me of making 2 and 3 reverts, and you still have not even apologized. Also you have been quite rude as well. Andre🚐 23:50, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Wrong venue Rollback is not an administrator-exclusive tool. Mind you, I don't think you're going to get a more favorable answer anywhere else, but I'd not call this in scope. Jclemens (talk) 21:58, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
Regarding venue, I considered a different part of AN, but since this is using rollback to edit war a content issue, would it not be appropriate for here? Andre🚐 21:59, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
I was reverting my own edit when you replied. You're correct. Jclemens (talk) 22:00, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be an administrator-exclusive tool for the venue to be competent. —Alalch E. 22:21, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

This is the correct venue as this regards advanced permissions. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 00:01, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussions that led to the creation of this venue had more in mind than just administrator tools. This venue is also meant to cover any advanced permission, I think, including rollback. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:48, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

We've reviewed use of rollback here before, so this is the correct venue. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 13:51, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse. An explanation was provided before the rolling back was done. The actions were roughly in line with WP:ROLLBACKUSE.—Alalch E. 22:18, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse Actions were consistent with WP:ROLLBACKUSE. I do not know why rollbacks are automatically marked as a "minor edit", but that is a software issue. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:56, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Probably because reverting vandalism is usually a minor edit in the sense that it doesn't need careful scrutiny. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:47, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse per above. consistent with WP:ROLLBACKUSE. explanation was provided.---- Deepfriedokra (talk) 01:10, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse. Also, as an aside, I endorse the rationale. -- asilvering (talk) 02:44, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse Wikipedia is not a game of gotcha. An explanation was clearly provided (example: diff "Remove wikidata-only WP:DISINFOBOX. We should not be importing data from other projects with different sourcing standards for BLPs than ours."). Infoboxes are controversial. Wikidata is controversial. Dubiously sourced information in BLPs is controversial. Has there been a central discussion showing consensus for BLP wikidata infoboxes? Rollback can be used for non-vandalism edits provided an explanation has been provided. It has been. Johnuniq (talk) 03:04, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
None of the reverts were BLPs, though. Andre🚐 03:07, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
That's misleading. The edit summary Johnuniq quoted was applied to BLPs as well as some non-BLP articles. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:10, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
No, you are being misleading. There were 2 BLPs, and all of the revert diffs I linked in this report were not BLPs, and I did not revert any of the BLP ones. Andre🚐 04:26, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Going to multiple articles just to add or remove an infobox is highly controversial around these parts. When that addition or removal is challenged, going back to those articles and doing exactly the same thing again is the kind of stuff that gets people (well, newbies, at least) hauled to ANI. I don't really care about use of rollback, but it's completely inappropriate to edit war across multiple articles to force one's own preference about infoboxes. That said, it's not an administrative action. Best course of action here: close this as wrong venue, David undoes the last round of edits and finds consensus to remove those infoboxes (or a clearer consensus that Wikidata is never allowed in infoboxes). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:03, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse. While I haven't checked if those infoboxes comply with the 2018 RfC, the use of rollback seems to acceptable based on WP:ROLLBACKUSE. Nobody (talk) 05:27, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
~~Procedural close~~ Rollback is not an adminitrative tool, and not subject to review here. Take it up an WP:AN or WP:ANI if there is still a problem.—Bagumba (talk) 08:50, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Given that we use administrator tools or other advanced permissions on the top of this page, I don't think review here is wrong. Nobody (talk) 08:59, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The original RFC proposal clearly indicates this is for all actions done with advanced permissions (which to me means anything beyond what you get for being extended confirmed).

And also, just because rollback isn't exclusive to admins, does not make it not an administrative tool. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 09:00, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

My bad. Seems there should be an asterisk, e.g. Wikipedia:Administrative* action review LOL.—Bagumba (talk) 14:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Rollback is just a method of revert, albeit one which tends to include or justify giving less of an explanation. There was no clear violation regarding that, but probably regular reverts and giving more explanation(s) would have been a better way to do it. But 80% of this isn't about rollback per se, and this is the wrong venue for the 80%. North8000 (talk) 13:50, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
anybody want to guess (without checking first!) how many words are in this thread so far? —Floquenbeam (talk) 14:09, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
No — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Yeah I mean look, everyone is endorsing so if you want to close this go ahead. Personally I believe that Wikipedia processes are not supposed to hinge on procedural technicalities but to focus on outcomes and that admins have a responsibility to explain their actions without rudeness or defensiveness, and that these actions were at least wrong according to the spirit if not the letter, but clearly I am in the minority here, so if someone wants to close this go ahead. Andre🚐 17:03, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

April 2025 Edit-warring at Gracie Films and block of PEPSI697 by Ritchie333

Latest comment: 7 months ago9 comments6 people in discussion

Endorsed * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:36, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diffs/logs: [17] [18]

User: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs · logs) (No discussion yet, this thread is to start that)

I am self-reporting this recent block, and I'll try and be brief.

I saw a report at WP:AN3 for Gracie Films, checked the history and immediately saw multiple editors undoing each other with no discussion, and decided full-protecting the article would work. I then investigated a bit further and found a number of other problems, causing me to reverse the protection as premature.

Firstly, I saw that PEPSI697 had previously been warned for reverting IPs edits without discussion, regardless of merits, and given there appeared to be potential disruption over multiple articles, I thought a short attention-grabbing block would be a suitable course correction - the block is sitewide rather than page specific because of the previous warning in an unrelated article (There's a declined unblock request on their talk page now).

Secondly, I thought (and openly said) the IPs edits removed what I thought was a large amount of unsourced text written in a Simpsons' fan point of view, and they had been attempting to discuss the issue at WP:AN3, explaining why they made the edit and why nobody else was discussing it. So I haven't blocked them yet because out of the involved parties, they're the only one to actually talk about the content (albeit in the wrong place).

Thirdly, I strongly suspect the IP is the Best Known For IP and will get blocked anyway (I've submitted a sockpuppetry report for that). I've put this shibboleth on their talk page to see if they respond, and if they start ranting about I created the casepage for the Best Known For IP (despite being endorsed by the Wikipedia community in general) then I'll have a cast iron reason to sitewide block them for sockpuppetry.

So, all said and done, were my administrative actions reasonable, and could things have been done better? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:46, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me Other's mileage may vary.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:10, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
To editor Ritchie333: -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:11, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
PS. I miss my synthesizer. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:15, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Also, what HJ said. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 14:30, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse block. Clearly counts as preventative. I also think that PEPSI697's edits to Gracie Films as well as their unblock request show a clear lack of good faith toward the IP and Ritchie. Nobody (talk) 12:21, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse. It's possible that a warning might have had the desired effect but a block is well within admin discretion as Pepsi went straight over 3RR without any exemption. More importantly, they were reverting without actually looking at the edit, nor communicating meaningfully, which tends to suggest that the reverting would have continued until it was forcibly stopped. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:15, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse, which I arguably already did in a more substantive fashion by declining the ANEW case against the IP as stale. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 14:35, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

April 20th, 2025 Block by Valereee

Latest comment: 7 months ago25 comments11 people in discussion

Unanimously endorsed. Leaving this open risks a further sanction on the OP. That is not what this page is for. It is only about endorsing/undoing an admin action, and we should be vigilant against mission creep. They can still be unblocked through the usual mechanism on their talk page. An admin can still tban them from PIA if they want. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:31, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diffs/logs: [19]

User: Valereee (talk · contribs · logs) (prior discussion 1, prior discussion 2)

I respectfully request a reconsideration of my indefinite block, which I believe was based on a significant misunderstanding rather than intentional disruption.

The initial issue arose from an edit I made to Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war, where I added a sourced sentence from journalist Ian Black. While I believed the quote was historically accurate and supported by other reliable sources, I now understand that even well-sourced content must be discussed first on the talk page in contentious topic areas as they can be seen as distruptive.

Following that, Valereee suggested adding a placeholder Latin phrase ("Lorem ipsum...") to illustrate how to structure a proposed change. Not recognizing it as dummy text, I misunderstood the suggestion and, in good faith, opened a talk page request to add the “Neque porro” quote found on the Wikipedia page for “Lorem ipsum.”

This was misinterpreted as sarcasm or provocation, which was absolutely not my intent. I’ve been on Wikipedia for 19 years and have made over 1,500 edits — it wouldn’t make sense for me to risk all that over a sarcastic post.

This was a genuine misunderstanding. I was simply unfamiliar with the concept of dummy text. I now understand that it's used in web development, but that’s not my field. I work in engineering and tend to take things very literally. I should also mention that I’m slightly on the autism spectrum — it doesn’t stop me from editing Wikipedia, but it might explain some of the confusion. This situation may seem strange, but that’s the honest truth.

After my explanation, I was offered a 90-day topic ban plus 500 edits, which I declined, believing it disproportionate given the nature of the mistake.

I ask for a second chance to demonstrate that I can contribute constructively.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Michael Boutboul (talk) 08:06, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Endorse: In most areas, the placeholder text snafu would be simply odd and the overaggressive edit to Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war would be small potatoes, but in what is arguably the most sensitive area on Wikipedia these days, coming immediately after a trip to AE about conduct in this topic, the caution here on Valereee's part is easily justified. The offered topic ban is a minor one, a short-term block from a problematic CTOP that is one of the millions of topics available. These actions were well within Valereee's discretion and I see no reason overturn this. I'm sorry, Michael, if you only have come to the understanding now after 19 years that discussion in a sensitive area is important, the short-term topic ban is to your benefit as well as Wikipedia's. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 09:37, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
Valereee wrote to me, I'd be willing to go with appealing at AN or AE after three months and 500 productive non-gaming edits outside the topic. As you pointed out, what I did would not have been an issue outside CTOP (simply odd/small potatoes), so there is no reason to require 500 additional edits unless it is intended as a form of punishment. I fully understand that I made a mistake, but where in the CTOP guidelines does it say that an administrator can compel someone to make 500 edits as a form of punishment? Where in the Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct does it say that an administrator can require a user to make 500 edits as a condition for appeal or as a sanction? Michael Boutboul (talk) 16:07, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
Offering condition(s) for being unblocked is up to the discretion of the administrator and reviewed by the community and the CoC has nothing to do with this. You're not compelled to do anything; you are perfectly free to turn down the unblock conditions and remain blocked until such time a different administrator is willing to unblock you with conditions you're willing to accept. The next administrator might not offer you conditions as mild as Valereee did. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 02:40, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

@Boutboul, it's not a punishment. It's to ensure you get more experience before editing in PIA, which you've been having lots of problems editing in unproblematically. If you'd continued doing the things you were doing in PIA, someone else would have come along and indefinitely tbanned you, which would have come with a strong expectation that you wait at minimum six months before appealing, and which a lot of people would consider even too rushed at six months and prefer to see a year. There is another editor right now in this convo suggesting exactly such a tban.

Clearly I'm completely involved here, so I won't suggest it myself, but please go ask any experienced editor you trust whether you should consider withdrawing this before it's closed. My concern is that it could end with you in a worse situation than you are. Valereee (talk) 16:04, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse concur with CoffeeCrumbs. Following the AE discussion, there's an immediate return to POV editing. However one interprets the subsequent "Lorem ipsum..." episode, the exchange on Valereee's talk page demonstrates poor understanding of the use of sourcing and it's not unreasonable now to expect a demonstration of proper use of sources in other areas. In asserting that ASD affects their ability to interpret the literalness of some instructions, I would encourage them to leave a message on their user and talk pages explaining the circumstance and requesting editors not communicate with them by use of analogy. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 13:00, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi, Boutboul. In your unblock request on your page, you appear to state that you did understand that Lorem ipsum is a dummy text before you suggested adding the “Neque porro” quote. You say there "I didn’t recognize the sentence, so I researched it and found out it is a dummy Latin text used in the printing and web design industries. I was confused about the suggestion, but since it came from an administrator, I tried to find a logical reason. I discovered that the phrase is loosely based on a sentence by Cicero. So I attempted to link the section with a philosophical reflection from Cicero and used the original Latin sentence." But in your request above, you say "Not recognizing it as dummy text, I misunderstood the suggestion and, in good faith, opened a talk page request to add the "Neque porro" quote found on the Wikipedia page for "Lorem ipsum." So did you, or did you not, recognize it as a dummy text before making the "Neque porro" suggestion? Please resolve this apparent contradiction. Secondly, you don't provide any diff for your (very worrying) "Neque porro" stuff. People here should be able to see it; here it is. Also, I have a third question: you've been here for 19 years. Have you ever mentioned before on Wikipedia that you're on the autism spectrum, or even that you tend to take things very literally? If you have, I think it would somewhat strengthen your case. If you haven't, well... only mentioning it now seems a little late. Bishonen | tålk 13:08, 27 April 2025 (UTC).

Thanks for your clarification requests:

Recognized/Did not recognize: I did not recognize the sentence (because I was not familiar with it) as dummy text meant to be used as a placeholder for "type your text here." When I checked the Wikipedia article, it was mentioned as a placeholder for the print or web industries, not for other uses.
Autism: No, I never had the opportunity to mention that I am slightly on the autism spectrum. This is not something I easily talk about but very common in the engineering field.
take things very literally: Not directly but I have one exemple where Valereee said why are so many people [...] willing to not address concerns expressed [20] and I answered might I suggest adding a question mark next time to make that clearer [21]. I have another example where she used a word that was not in the dictionary, and I had difficulty addressing it.
Neque porro: The diff regarding "Neque porro" was provided in the diffs/logs above: [19]

Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:06, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

I believe the requirement for me to make 500 edits as a condition for being unblocked constitutes an abuse of power by the Wikipedia administrators. This is a violation of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Code of Conduct, specifically section 3.2 – Abuse of power, privilege, or influence.

How can I contact the Wikimedia Foundation to report this? Michael Boutboul (talk) 17:02, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Aside I have an Asperger's user box on my userpage. Also, many of us here are neurodivergent. I find it useful for repetitive tasks. Aware of my neurodivergence, I take steps to modify my responses. Best-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:42, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
I suggest you reconsider taking the 90-day topic ban with 500 edits.—S Marshall T/C 14:14, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse, with a strong recommendation to take the temporary restriction. I believe (or perhaps hope) that this was entirely unintentional, a result of somewhat common miscommunication. You might also recall that I assisted with multiple of the issues you encountered, including with communication, at the recent AE filing against you. @Boutboul, having said that, blocks (and other sanctions) on Wikipedia are preventative, not punitive. The purpose of that restriction is to allow you to gain the necessary experience to understand English Wikipedia policies and unwritten customs in topic areas where an “oops” type of issue is a lot less harmful than within ARBPIA. I’m sure there are a plethora of topics of interest to you that could use 500 edits worth of improvements; national and academic topics of interest (or maybe some of your hobbies/special interests) might be a good place to start. FortunateSons (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
Endorse Valereee's actions throughout this process. Indeed after reading the discussions at AE and their their talkpage, I see Valereee putting significant effort to be helpful, communicative and fair. And seeing Boutboul comments at those venues, at the article talkpage, and their own talkpage, I believe an indef WP:PIA topic ban would be the ideal outcome here because, whether intentional or not, their actions have been significantly disruptive, and burdensome to other editors/admins involved in a highly contentious area. PS: I know that a 500 edits/90 days TBAN is on offer but personally I am not a fan of such self-terminating TBANs in circumstances such as these; won't object to their use though since admin experience and philosophies differ, and the exact choice is well within admin discretion. Abecedare (talk) 19:12, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
Minor bit of clarity: the conditional unblock offer was appealing at AN or AE after three months and 500 productive non-gaming edits outside the topic. Not time-limited, which I'm not a fan of either. I just wanted to be clear that an appeal in only three months/500 edits wouldn't be considered by me as being too soon to be able to assess progress made by this editor. Valereee (talk) 23:48, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
You're right. My (now struck) quibble was based on a misread, which only strengthens my endorsement. :) Abecedare (talk) 00:19, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

I believe the requirement for me to make 500 edits as a condition for being unblocked constitutes an abuse of power by the Wikipedia administrators. This is a violation of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Code of Conduct, specifically section 3.2 – Abuse of power, privilege, or influence.

How can I contact the Wikimedia Foundation to report this? Michael Boutboul (talk) 17:01, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
It’s really not, and I encourage you to drop this FortunateSons (talk) 17:02, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
You can email ca@wikimedia.org, which is Trust & Safety (the department that would review abuse of administrator power).—S Marshall T/C 17:09, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
@S Marshall That's not really true though? Reviewing admin abuse is not part of TnS's workflow. After WP:FRAM, the Foundation won't touch admins with a ten foot pole. For Michael's enlightenment, you would need to thoroughly exhaust community appeal routes first, namely your talk page, appealing on WP:UTRS, appealing to the community, appealing to WP:ARBCOM. There are many layers of community review that exist; the Foundation is not a part of the regular block workflow by design. TnS handles the legal threats and pedos, not admins who made a marginal call. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 03:32, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
The question was clear and specific. That's the answer. It won't do what this user wants, but it's the answer. We ought to close this, as we've done all we can.—S Marshall T/C 08:23, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Hear him! Hear him! -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 11:36, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

You're literally at one of the places that would address that. Wikipedia is ruled by consensus, and the consensus is clearly that there was nothing wrong with Valereee's actions. You're certainly free to push this matter further, but it appears you've already talked yourself from Valereee's voluntary, milder topic ban to an involuntary, more stringent one. You still have the ability to stop digging, before you lose your shovel. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 20:04, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
Michael's Babel boxes indicate he's not a native English speaker, and so as absurd as it seems, it's possible that he really didn't understand what Lorem Ipsum is. Either way, he's got egg on his face and looks rather dense. But we can save a bunch of time and cut to the chase here by lifting the block and substituting a standard PIA topic ban, which was the outcome this was trending towards anyways. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:22, 28 April 2025 (UTC)
Yes, I must admit that my mistake was ridiculous. I understand you as an administrator have the right to topic ban me, but why do you need to say I “look rather dense”?

This is hateful content and poor conduct of an administrator. Michael Boutboul (talk) 15:12, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

May 2025 Moved article to draft by Asilvering

Latest comment: 6 months ago24 comments13 people in discussion

ENDORSED

This discussion has been running for a while and is not expecting additional replies. While one editor expressed concern for whether the action was justified if it was made in conjunction with the AfD close, I have not seen a strong opposition to the original action. With some support for the justification for the draftification, what to do next seems beyond the scope of this page. Therefore I am closing this as a rough consensus to endorse the original action. beef [talk] 03:24, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diffs/logs: 1

User: Asilvering (talk · contribs · logs) (prior discussion)

Draft: Aramean people used to be a article, rated B-class and was subject to a dispute, it was nominated at AfD which closed as no consensus, Asilvering still moved the draft from mainspace and locked it as a draft for indefinite. Wlaak (talk) 22:57, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Wrong venue. WP:DRV is the place for this. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:18, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

No, what's at stake here is the page move and protection. WP:DRV, at least in my expectation, would simply be to contest the no-consensus close. If one of these two venues had to be picked, I think Wlaak has picked the correct one. You'll notice from the discussion linked as "prior discussion", above, that I did not think either was a tremendously good idea. -- asilvering (talk) 23:21, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Nevermind. I see asilvering told you to bring this particular issue here. I agree with their advice that you should drop this and focus on building consensus instead of trying to win a battle. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:23, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

consensus is all i have been trying. but my part of the consensus is constantly overlooked and dismissed. i have come here regarding a move done to Draft: Aramean people Wlaak (talk) 23:31, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Agreed... and Arameans exists, so why are we here? I think there's a stick to be dropped. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Arameans exists as a extinct people with zero coverage on history post Arabization and modern identity. I realized it would take days of reading the entire dispute to understand what is being talked about here, asilvering knows all of it which perhaps is why asilvering is the most fitting admin for this.

Regardless, it is the move I am discussing, why was it moved with no consensus when it had passed as a article. Wlaak (talk) 23:30, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Arameans is about ancient Arameans, but contains these two paragraphs at the end of the article:

In modern times, an Aramean identity is held mainly by a number of Syriac Christian groups, predominantly from southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria. Aramean identity is most predominant among ethnic Assyrians, and as such, is most often used in the Assyrian diaspora, especially in Germany and Sweden. However, other groups such as Maronites, Arab Christians, and the Arameans of Maaloula and Jubb'adin may also identify strongly under the label.
In 2014, Israel officially recognised Arameans as a distinctive minority. Questions related to the minority rights of Arameans in some other countries were also brought to international attention.

The Assyrian People speaks of an ethnic group with shared descent. That is, the group is ethnically defined. In Akopian, A. (2014) Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies Gorgias Press, the "Assyrian idea" is discussed in chapter 23 and confirms the ethnic definition by descent, whilst being sceptical of it. Ethnic groups may also be linguistically defined as a linguistic diaspora or across a dialect continuum, and the borders of these groups rarely map neatly with other ideas. The argument that our coverage is completed by an article on ancient Arameans and modern Assyrian people, therefore, seems incorrect. Somewhat analogous (but all analogies leak) would be how we have Celts (the ancient Celtic peoples) and Celts (modern) - the modern linguistically defined Celtic fringe. These in addition to other ethnicities (e.g Irish people). There are sources that suggest that there is a greyer Aramean diaspora that extends beyond those who identify as Assyrian.

Is the page that was draftified the page that describes this? I think not. Not in the form it is in. But it is not wrong by design. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:44, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Wlaak has been topic-banned from this topic (after the AARV was started, to be clear). I've told them that they should NOT participate here ~~unless and until the admin who enacted the topic ban says they can, but~~, and that has been confirmed by the admin who enacted the topic ban, so that will explain any lack of further communication from them. ~~If they are, as I suspect,~~ Since they are frozen out of this discussion, and no one else seems to think that this move to draft space was wrong, then this can probably be closed. If is stays open, out of fairness, I think it would be best if Wlaak not be discussed, since they cannot respond. --Floquenbeam (talk) ~~00:38, 14 May 2025 (UTC)~~ modified : 00:46, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Endorse. Seeing the AfD discussion, Wlaaks topic ban and the proposal for community sanctions in this topic. I think asilvering's actions are alright. Nobody (talk) 05:17, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Comment I am not ready to suggest any kind of overturn here, because draftifying that article is not necessarily a bad thing. There is a clear case it was not ready for mainspace in that form. I suppose my concern here is that draftification now prevents the do-over AfD that was proposed by the speedy close arguments. The AFD was a disaster. Over 8,000 words when I found it, there was very considerable bludgeoning even after a plea to keep things brief. Also some SPAs had been inconsistently marked, so I marked all the other non EC SPAs and that was nearly everyone. There was a proposal for conducting a new AfD under controlled and enforced terms, but you can't take a draft to AFD. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:02, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
I suppose WP:MFD would serve. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 09:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
I doubt it would have the necessary visibility at MFD. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:18, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

MfD isn't really ideal, as we wouldn't be discussing the suitability of the page as a draft, but as an article. Moving it back to mainspace and starting another AfD could be a solution, but, given that the scope of the dispute is bigger than the existence of a single page (and pertains to how we should refer to these people in general), a sui generis solution seems necessary here. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:35, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
What would be the purpose of taking it to MFD? What would be the value of arguing over whether to delete the draft? I accepted the draft into article space based on a mistaken good-faith assumption that a deletion discussion could resolve the content dispute over whether Aramean people are a distinct group from Assyrian people. A deletion discussion about the draft would only decide whether to throw the draft into a memory hole. At this point, what is needed is to finalize the general sanctions, topic-ban any other disruptive editors, and impose whatever restrictions are in order. A draft deletion discussion at this point would be a genuinely terrible idea. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:38, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree with CE here. Very early in the dispute (as in, in March), AfD looked like it might be one way to deal with this content dispute, but I warned Wlaak against forcing it at that time as I strongly suspected it would result in the content dispute "settling" the same way it has every single time previously, and thus re-inscribing consensus against the standalone Aramean page and making the overall issue even harder to make headway on. I don't think AfD is the right place for this broader discussion, because AfD is often very bad at handling actual WP:PAGEDECIDE issues, which is what this is, instead focusing quite narrowly on notability. I suspect that the way to a neutral and informative set of articles on this topic will be something like a main article about the dispute itself, and not-exactly-spin-out articles on the culture, self-definition, etc, of each group. But that's just a suspicion, based on how editorial conflicts work out on Wikipedia, and at present I think there are zero editors working in the topic area who see that as the ideal outcome. However it goes forward, it's clear to me that any change to the current status quo will impact much more than just a single article, so AfD doesn't really have any hope of solving this one. Sui generis indeed. -- asilvering (talk) 19:43, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Was the result of the AfD "no consensus" or was it "draftify"? No consensus doesn't typically lead to draftification, so is that considered a separate act made as an editor, or an administrative act as closer of the discussion (or a subsequent administrative act to protect a page from disruption)? That AfD looks like a big mess, and I won't pretend to understand such that I have an opinion on what to do with the article -- I'm just not a fan of forced draftifications of articles that had been in mainspace. Either it can hang in mainspace (no consensus at AfD means it sticks around), or there's consensus to do something else with it. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:25, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
It was in mainspace for three days. The status quo ante is draftspace. I think in this case draftifying was prudent given the shitshow over this topic area. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
That's not how draftification or AfD work, though? When a draft author wants to move it to mainspace even though there are problems, they risk it being sent to AfD. Then, a "no consensus" outcome at AfD is the same as any other no consensus outcome at AfD - it's not "no consensus to move out of draftspace", it's "no consensus to delete". Sometimes if there's consensus to delete we draftify as a way to make improvements, but no consensus at AfD absolutely does not lead to moving back to draftspace unless there's consensus to draftify at AfD. Draftification is a separate decision after a no consensus closure. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
WP:NOCON says an article is normally kept, not always. I think there's some wiggle room. Even if there isn't, I think draftifying to prevent further disruption was reasonable in the circumstances. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:18, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
There's a real risk of crystallizing this in its current, very unsatisfactory state. No challenger to this admin action remains standing, so we can and should close this AARV without further ado, but that's not a sufficient resolution.
What needs to happen now is that we as a community need to have a discussion in which we decide if modern-day Arameans are an encyclopaedic topic or not. AFD and MFD are unsatisfactory venues for that discussion, for the reasons we've already explored above, so I would suggest that the discussion takes place at an RFC, and also that the RFC should be pre-emptively EC protected. I know we don't normally do that, but still.—S Marshall T/C 23:43, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
@S Marshall, I don't think that's a good idea (yet), especially now that the main recent proponent of the "Aramean side" has now been tbanned. (Luckily or unluckily for us, that makes this two-decade-long simmering dispute no longer so urgent.) I think an RfC would work best once other methods of solving the content issue, which are currently in the works, have advanced (or failed). More context on that in the prior discussion link above and on @Chaotic Enby's talk page. In short, I don't think "should this article exist or not" is a useful question at this stage. We need to start much earlier: for example, what are the most elementary facts pertaining to this topic, about which all participants agree? Trying to sort this out with an AfD, an RfC, or our other formalized methods is basically the dispute resolution version of writing an article WP:BACKWARDS. -- asilvering (talk) 23:59, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
As you know, although not everyone reading this discussion knows: the question of whether this is an encyclopaedic topic reduces to "are there scholarly sources that treat modern-day Arameans as a distinct population". That's not a backwards question at all. It's the first question, and this dispute will simmer on until it's answered. I do very much recommend a structured discussion with an agreed end date to establish this.—S Marshall T/C 01:26, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

May 2025 Topic ban for Wlaak by Hammersoft

Latest comment: 5 months ago28 comments12 people in discussion

This has been open for a month and a half and while people aren't exactly happy with what transpired here there clearly isn't a strong enough consensus here to overturn the topic ban and one forming does not seem likely, so it is endorsed * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:56, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diffs/logs: ANI Discussion [22]

User: Hammersoft (talk · contribs · logs) (prior discussion)

Requesting a review of this discussion close, and either re-open for further discussion, or a re-close. My concern is that although this looks like a straightforward community imposed TBAN, I think that the discussion lacked depth and breadth owing to the lack of input from experience and uninvolved editors. Most of the editors arguing to TBAN this relatively new and inexperienced editor were editors with a rival POV, who had recently piled in to a rightly aborted AfD discussion. There were, I think, only three clearly experienced and uninvolved editors who participated in the discussion, and of these three, two stipulated that they would only support a topic ban if it were reciprocal on one of the opposing POV editors. Like most editors, I don't watch ANI most of the time, and had I known this discussion was there, I would have argued that we try other methods first, before dishing out topic bans to editors who are clearly knowledgeable on an area that is contentious, but in need of knowledgeable opinions. There is a move to subject the topic area to AE enforcement, but that has not happened yet. Topic banning the only editor who has shown deep knowledge of the sourcing on one side of the question is unfortunate, albeit that editor needs to be given some clear advice on how to conduct themself, particularly as and when the AE enforcement comes into effect. Noting that although the ANI discussion had become stale, that we provide much less time to review these quite important decisions than we do for, say, AfD discussions. A deeper look at this would perhaps pay dividends for the encyclopaedia. Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:42, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I know Hammersoft gave you the go-ahead to post here, but this is not the proper forum. Wlaak can appeal to ArbCom per WP:UNBAN: "if there are serious questions about the validity of the ban discussion or its closure, a community ban may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee, by filing a case request" (emphasis added). voorts (talk/contributions) 14:22, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Voorts, this isn't a community ban as in banned from the community but a topic ban. Escalating this to WP:ARBCOM is a dramatic escalation, and I think unnecessary. The very top of this page says that this page may be used to request review of an administrator action. I think it's perfectly in line to make this request here. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:54, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

This is a community ban, albeit limited to a particular topic. The instructions that an editor should file at ARCA if they're able to wouldn't make sense if this only applied to indefs. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:15, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't like disagreeing with you Sirfurboy—ever—but it's a tricky one. I agree there's a curious number (three, four?) or editors of only a few months tenure, but as you say there were still experienced editors e.g. KhndzorUtogh, Shmayo, RobertMcClenon and of course the OP, Asilvering, and isn't it usually taken as the case that a strong nomination statement, combined with a relatively simple case, is less likely to result in (or need?) complex discussion? However, good point that the discussion has to be open for 24 hours; this was open for nearly a week, and I agree with you that "of these three, two stipulated that they would only support a topic ban if it were reciprocal" (had I seen the discussion, that would probably have been my decision too). But a closing admin can only follow consensus, and if there was no consensus for t-bans for the others, what was Hammersoft to do? Would leaving it open another six days have changed the discussion’s direction? Possibly. But this close was, I think, within the closer's discretion and certainly within custom. However, I also agree with you that the discussion itself was weaker than would be liked, But there's no quorum for ban discussions is there (unless that's a WP:PERENNIAL, it might be worth proposing, after all, if few editors speak out, few editors see a major problem). Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 14:48, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I think that I may be one of the two clearly experienced and uninvolved editors who participated in the discussion, and of those three, two stipulated that they would only support a topic ban if it were reciprocal. So I don't think that there was community consensus to impose the topic ban. I don't know what the least bad action by the community is at this point. It appears that all efforts by the community to resolve this are making it worse. Is the least bad resolution at this point to ask ArbCom to hold a full evidentiary case? I don't know. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:56, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

To be fair, I did bestow upon you the coveted title of still experienced editor :) Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 15:03, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I considered your comments in closing the request. I took note that you had struck your opposition. I viewed this was a discretionary range type of close, and I did feel that the topic ban was a "least bad" sort of solution. Had you not struck your opposition, I probably would not have enacted the topic ban. I grant this is a grey area decision. There was a lot to consider, including those involved in the dispute having less (if any) weight. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:48, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

This page is for reviewing administrative actions performed by a user acting in a role designated by holding advanced permissions. The evaluation of consensus at the incidents' noticeboard can be done by any experienced user. Thus review of this topic ban should take place in another venue such as the administrators' noticeboard. isaacl (talk) 15:55, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you Isaacl. However, two things; (1) I specifically informed the OP that bringing it here would be ok [23] and (2) I've been heavily chastised in the past for differentiating between admin and non-admin functions. While it is technically true that the action I took is not an administrative action and anyone could have done it, a non-admin taking the action would certainly have been looked down upon. My action doesn't have any more authority because I'm an admin, but had I not been an admin and took the action there likely would have been considerably greater vocalization about it. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

What Hammersoft did is, in fact, an admin action. Quoting from WP:CBAN: If the discussion appears to have reached a consensus for a particular sanction, an uninvolved administrator closes the discussion, notifies the subject accordingly, and enacts any blocks called for. Only admins can close community-imposed TBAN discussions and impose the TBAN--that's what makes closing a TBAN discussion an admin action. If someone wants to appeal the TBAN, they can do it to the community (or to arbcom); but if someone wants to review the validity of the close (clearly what Sirfurboy is seeking, per the first line of the OP), which is an admin action, this is the right place to do it, and Hammersoft was right to send him here. Levivich (talk) 19:48, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

No administrative action is required to impose a topic ban, as there is no technical means for enforcing one. English Wikipedia tradition is for consensus to be evaluated by administrators when the result has to be implemented through the use of administrative privileges, but is flexible when it does not. isaacl (talk) 08:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Nevertheless we are here. The closing admin is happy to abide by the decision here, and Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Could we amicably review whether we think the case is made for the topic ban (endorse), or whether a little more discussion would have been beneficial, without the arbitrary cut off imposed by ANI's aggressive archiving (relist) or whether the topic ban should be rescinded (overturn). An alternative to relist would be to reclose, but on reflection, I don't think that is sensible. I think Hammersoft made the best close on the available evidence - I just remain concerned that most of the supports for the ban came from inexperienced editors and/or editors on the opposing side of the argument. My own view is that relist would be wise, as we would now have more eyes on the discussion, and a broader community consensus could be found. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:39, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Sirfurboy, I like that suggestion. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 10:14, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

My concern is not for this individual case, but the precedent. This venue was set up as a place to review the decisions made by users holding advanced permissions to use or not use their additional abilities. It was not set up as a place to review the evaluation of community consensus. Given the potential for many more discussions to be included in a broader scope, I think the community should make such an expansion knowingly. isaacl (talk) 15:08, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

@Sirfurboy, I can assure you that other methods have first been attempted. The first time Wlaak came to ANI was, iirc, in March. Since the "Aramean side" of this content dispute is almost entirely composed of SPAs that have a habit of nearly immediately getting themselves blocked as WP:NOTHERE, Wlaak is something of a rarity, and I have been taking great pains to try to ensure that he manages to build the experience required to participate seriously in this content dispute without falling to the same fate. The topic ban proposal was my last-ditch attempt to get him out of the line of fire. Since the entire topic area appears to be a mess, I subsequently started the GS proposal at VPT.

Having not realized that Robert McClenon had struck his opposition, I had come to assume that this topic ban proposal (the second!) would also fail, and was thinking my way through a sort of "brokered ceasefire" proposal for all relevant participants, which would be somewhat softer than a true tban, and which I would have proposed under the remit of GS once that discussion concluded. I did come to prefer that hypothetical outcome to a community-placed tban at ANI. But then Wlaak drew additional attention to himself (see above), and, well, here we are. He has since also requested that I refrain from taking further administrative action in this dispute because he perceives that I am biased against him (see [24]). (It is my great failing that I continue to believe in my heart, all evidence to the contrary, that it is possible to save a person from themselves.)

I think Hammersoft's conduct and judgement in this matter has been exemplary. It is my hope that, for the next six months, Wlaak's is too, and that he will successfully appeal the ban and help work towards a resolution of this decades-long content dispute. -- asilvering (talk) 20:24, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm mostly watching this discussion rather than contributing, to see what other editors feel. I will, however, post this to say I agree that Hammersoft's behaviour here has been exemplary, and whatever we decide, there should be neither criticism nor hard feelings towards them. That does not preclude that we might, on reflection, consider whether there is merit in revisiting the decision. Just as you were second guessing yourself, so too this decision is not an easy one in determining what is best for the encyclopaedia. Where a decision is borderline, there is no criticism for falling one way, but a small reconsideration may cause us to fall another. If a brokered ceasefire is possible, perhaps TBANS can be avoided. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:05, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Overturn the topic ban, per the nom and Robert McClenon's point above. It's clear that of the experienced users, the majority only supported enacting the topic ban if it was a reciprocal one. The now t-banned editor is clearly someone knowledgeable and probably editing in good faith, but with a POV; as is the other party who was mentioned in the dispute. T-banning one but not the other risks tipping the subject matter in a particular direction favoured by the party who escaped a t-ban. This was an understandable close by Hammersmith, attempting to resolve a discussion that was going stale, but I think the close risks doing more harm than good in this case, and should be overturned given the lack of strong consensus based on participation by experienced editors. — Amakuru (talk) 12:16, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
@Amakuru, I think the question of whether another editor should also be tbanned is out of scope for this board (and looks like Hammersoft's recent comment means I don't need to explain why anymore). Just to add about the "risks flipping the subject matter" bit, though - the general context here is that Wlaak is on the "change things" side, largely in opposition to a "keep things the same as they have been for the past two decades" side. Which is to say that there is very little to "flip". The editor who didn't receive a tban in Hammersoft's close was doing some changes, but I believe that has stopped. If I'm wrong on that, well, the community sanctions discussion will have consensus soon enough. -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

There might be a systemic component to this, one that I raised about a week ago at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 17#Is this really an "all or nothing" situation regarding admin analysis & input?. In short, on simple short ANI's the admin's judgement is often the main or only criteria. Once there are more comments, I think that there is an unsolved question as to, if an admin closes it, whether or not they should or allowed to use admin discretion in the close vs saying that that they are a mere-closer where any such discretion would be considered a supervote. I think that when this occurs most admins take the safer "mere closer" route. I didn't analyze this situation in depth, but this does appear that Hammersoft operated in the "mere closer" role, and did so properly. In short, Hammersoft did was procedurally safe (and thus not incorrect) on an edge case situation but the net result of the system is in question at best. While this could make it arguable whether this is the right venue, my thought would be to tell Hammersoft thanks for doing a great job, and to reopen or restart the discussion and make the decision after further discussion. North8000 (talk) 14:26, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

North8000; that's a good analysis. I did operate in the 'mere closer' role, as I think an administrator acting in a supervote role is inappropriate. This is why I did not consider alternatives to a topic ban for just Wlaak. The only issue on the table was a topic ban for Wlaak, not anyone else. Commenters did make suggestions that others should be topic banned in concert with Wlaak, and I agree there might be grounds for that. But, to make that decision was outside of the scope of the request. Wlaak asked for it to be set to a specific date, which I did not acquiesce to because that's not what the request was for. My job, such as it is, was to evaluate if consensus existed to apply the topic ban as described. I felt it did, and implemented.

I don't think that re-opening it for more discussion would be illuminating. By the time I'd closed the discussion, no one had commented about the topic ban for 4 days. Given it was stale, I doubt re-opening it would shift the needle much if at all.

There's also an issue in re-opening the discussion. What do we do with the topic ban in the meantime? Suspend it? Override the consensus? Certainly consensus can change. However, given the events that have happened since the topic ban was applied (Wlaak has violated it no less than 8 times since it was applied ([25], even making violations after self acknowledging he was violating it [26]), the topic ban seems highly appropriate. I don't believe in the idea of convicting (if you will) and then finding proof it was necessary. But, Wlaak's actions since the topic ban were applied demonstrate very clearly there is a serious issue here that needs to be addressed. Setting aside the topic ban pending a potential change in consensus would, I think, be a very bad idea in light of events.

_IF_ we re-open the topic ban discussion, then one or more parallel consensus discussions need to be started regarding topic bans for other invested parties, rather than continue to muddy the picture vis-a-vis Wlaak. If all we do is set aside the topic ban and re-open, then we're back to square 1 and this dispute erupts again. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:34, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

You have in-depth knowledge of this situation and I don't. Also, due to the "mere closer" role, I did not know your own thoughts. Based on your post I withdraw my idea. North8000 (talk) 15:41, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Just to be structurally clear, the close was a topic ban on one person with no comment or finding on a topic ban on anyone else (so it's not a decision to not impose one on them). There's no strong argument here against the close which means it's a good close at best and a close call at worst. And people making a decision on a close call is something we also need to support. So IMO the best choice is to that there is no overturn. This leaves open the possibility of pursuing a topic ban on other editor(s); there was no decision in the close regarding those. North8000 (talk) 19:33, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

I forgot to also say what I was implying. The3re is nothing wrong with how Hammersoft handled this. And a thank-you to them for handling this close. North8000 (talk) 18:00, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify that this page is not a second chance topic ban discussion; it is not intended to appeal or overturn a topic ban. This page is to discuss whether I acted properly in assessing and applying consensus. That might seem like a small difference, but it is important to understand it. Crucial to this; the audience here is narrow. If one or more people wish to overturn the topic ban, the best course of action is to start a new thread at WP:AN/I. The audience there is much larger and more suitable for such a discussion. I'm not trying to dissuade people; in fact posting to WP:AN/I has a better chance of getting it over turned than attempting it here would. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:48, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Endorse Hammersoft's evaluation of consensus The best way to cut to the chase is to cut to the chase. Asilvering proposed a specific action. There were several, though possibly not as many as ideal, editors who discussed the proposed action based on policy. There was no voice against the proposal other than the editor in question. As I see it, Hammersoft correctly evaluated the consensus. If this was the wrong venue for the discussion, then it makes sense to simply address the issue and move on and do better next time rather than going in circles about endless questions on venue. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 00:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
Endorse, but... I think OP and others make some good points above. The thing is, we have no quorum requirement for ban discussions, neither by number of editors nor experience. I think we probably should have a quorum requirement for bans, probably also suffrage requirements (eg minimum experience, uninvolved), and the arguments made in this discussion about the importance of having enough experienced editors are sound, but we don't have any such requirements as of now, and for that reason, I see no error in this close (and generally agree with the endorse analyses above, eg CC's). So endorsed under current policy though I think the policy should probably be changed. Levivich (talk) 03:40, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

2 June 2025 Deleting speedy deletion tag, discretionary interpretation of Wikipedia rules by Extraordinary Writ

Latest comment: 6 months ago6 comments6 people in discussion

ENDORSED

WP:SNOW closing this, no other result possible. --Goldsztajn (talk) 10:33, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diffs/logs: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Artur_Mija&diff=1293532997&oldid=1293523112

User: Extraordinary Writ (talk · contribs · logs) ([discussion])

I believe this action should be reviewed since: 1) plain suppression of speedy deletion tag does not comply with Wikipedia rules (as per explanations and arguments exchanged on the talk page of the admin/editor, 2) the admin/editor interprets Wikipedia rules at her/his own discretion, 3) the admin/editor did not provide analysis when was provided exact Wikipedia rules violated and did not clearly indicate how to appeal of her/his decision, nor which other deletion tag should be placed. Aviapassion (talk) 10:16, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Endorse. Clearly justified removal of an invalid CSD tag. dbeef [talk] 10:21, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Endorse & Speedy close Perfectly valid response to an utterly meritless speedy request ("no societal importance / no notability"). --DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Endorse. That action is perfectly in line with the speedy deletion policy, as ExtraordinaryWrit explained to you on their talk page. Any user (other than, in some cases, the article creator) may (and indeed should) remove a speedy deletion tag from a page when that page does not meet the referenced speedy deletion criterion. Pages that do not meet any speedy deletion criterion may not be speedily deleted, but may be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Additionally, speedy deletion criteria apply only when the page uncontroversially meets the letter and spirit of the criterion, when an experienced editor in good standing removes a speedy deletion tag that is almost always evidence that deletion would not be uncontroversial and so speedy deletion cannot apply. Thryduulf (talk) 10:25, 2 June 2025 (UTC)
Endorse Not actually a use of advanced permissions; speedy deletion tags can be removed by almost any user. Lectonar (talk) 10:29, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

My user page removed for being used as a webhost

Latest comment: 5 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion

WRONG VENUE

Complaint concerns deletion. It may be possible to discuss the issue with the user on their talk page.—Alalch E. 15:57, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hello. My user page was removed with the reason that it was used as a webhost. It wasn't, it was a single sentence. When discussing it with the admin he said that he didn't like a swear word I had in it. First of all, that's bot using it as a webhost like the removal reason states. And second, using a swear word on your user page is not against any rules. The admin is non-responsive and looking at his user page he has several other controversial removals of pages, including sandbox pages. Dino42 (talk) 15:08, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Proper venue is Wikipedia:Deletion review, but since the entire content was "sup fuckers d-dawg42 here with some bitchin edits. hit me up", it's not worth moving there. —Cryptic 15:19, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

This is a public forum, equivalent to a street corner, this is not a bar. Why do you want your introduction to the Wikipedia community to contain words generally considered offensive? 331dot (talk) 15:23, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

UtherSRG and INVOLVED edit warring block

Latest comment: 4 months ago16 comments13 people in discussion

NOT ENDORSED

The block was unanimously not endorsed and has been overturned. UtherSRG has acknowledged the block was not "the best action on [their] part" so there is nothing more to do at this venue. Discussion can continue on UtherSRG's talk page or at AN if anyone thinks that would be productive. Thryduulf (talk) 23:45, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

UtherSRG (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te · taiv)}

Yesterday, new editor SilverzCreations created the page Melissodes ablusus. While apparently patrolling new species articles, as UtherSRG does, he decided to make several edits to the article, including changing the short description removing a section Special:Diff/1301969644 about the taxonomy of bees in general, noting that there's not much clarity when it comes to differentiating species in the Eucerini tribe, of which M. ablusus is a member. (Just explaining the underlying content dispute). From then on, the situation progresses as so: First revert cycle:

Special:Diff/1301970676 SilverzCreations adds the content back & explains they think it provides necessary context for the reader
Special:Diff/1301971253 UtherSRG reverts them, saying to Take it to the talk page

Second revert cycle:

Special:Diff/1301972170 SilverzCreations reverts and makes a near-simultaneous post to the talk page[27] explaining why they think this section should be included. They make a similar post to UtherSRG's talkpage Special:Diff/1301971690
Special:Diff/1301975808 Uther SRG makes a post to the talkpage, telling the new editor Please learn that this is an encyclopedia and then explaining why he thinks the information shouldn't be included. He then reverts again Special:Diff/1301975887, pointing to his post on the talkpage.

Third revert cycle:

Special:Diff/1301976103 SilverzCreations responds to the talkpage point, pointing to other articles they feel have the same information. UtherSRG responds (Special:Diff/1301976387 That's how we work here), but SC reverts again Special:Diff/1301975887 and accuse UtherSRG of vandalism, which is not correct but newbies often don't know how to use the term vandalism correctly. They have now breached 3RR.
Special:Diff/1301976682 UtherSRG reverts again, this time with no edit summary. Both editors have now breached 3RR.

Then, and this is why we're at AARV instead of ANEW, UtherSRG gives SilverzCreations a 72 hour block for edit warring with him.[28] I queried this on his talkpage (Special:Diff/1301978064), asking him to self-revert and take it to another admin. UtherSRG agreed that he was WP:Involved, but stood by the block because the policy page says "In general", and because the editor was new and he felt they were displaying ownership behaviour. Special:Diff/1302119810. I am referring this for community review. In my view, this was a straightforward INVOLVED block of an editor by an admin who got into an edit war with them. Again, both parties breached 3RR. GreenLipstickLesbian 💌🦋 15:12, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Overturn block I don't have anything more to say here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:15, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Overturn block and block UtherSRG for his 3RR violation for 72 hours. As admins, we should know and act better, and I would expect someone to block me for violating 3RR. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:17, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Overturn block, too long and involved. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:04, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Overturn block - Very innappropriate block and certainly very WP:BITEy. Sophisticatedevening^(talk) 16:17, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Overturn as obviously INVOLVED with an apology to the new editor, who we should be treating more rather less carefully. Rusalkii (talk) 16:57, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Overturn block quickly. If this isn't involved then the word is meaningless. --tony 17:29, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Overturn. INVOLVED aside, the the block was contrary to the blocking policy as the issue was not nearly such disruption that would merit a block. SilverzCreations is a new user who was competently creating AfC-passing articles, adding sourced content, using edit summaries, and using the talk page. That is very promising and it's a great shame to shrink the potential of getting a functioning editor out of the box with a day 3 block. The user was only told about consensus in the welcome message on their talk page, and had yet to encounter what consensus means in a live setting, in addition to ONUS, BRD, dispute resolution and edit warring. BLOCKPOL says Administrators should take special care when dealing with new users. Beginning editors are often unfamiliar with Wikipedia policy and convention, and so their behavior may initially appear to be disruptive. Responding to these new users with excessive force can discourage them from editing in the future (see Wikipedia:Do not bite the newcomers). That exists in the policy precisely to address a case such as this. This was a good opportunity to provide guidance to a new editor who's already doing okay. —Alalch E. 17:30, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I've unblocked SilverzCreations. I certainly hope that, on reflection, UtherSRG realizes what a shitty block that was. I don't think reblocking, or blocking UtherSRG, would be productive right now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:40, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I acknowledge this isn't the best action on my part. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:45, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
@UtherSRG, that's... good... but going by further developments on your talk page you still appear to have an eccentric understanding of WP:INVOLVED. Can you commit to not taking administrative action against someone you've been in a content dispute with? -- asilvering (talk) 21:16, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
I can, though I may do so by pinging you or other admins, vice using a board. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:40, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Support Floquenbeam's overturn, but given that both users only made 3 reverts (Uther arguably went to 4 if you count their first edit as a revert, but I wouldn't), I don't agree that there's a brightline breach of 3RR here (which requires users to go up past 3). That doesn't rule out an edit-warring block or warning, of course, but I did want to say that I think that interpretation of 3RR isn't quite accurate. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:34, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
We really gotta rename it 4RR. or 3+RR. -- asilvering (talk) 21:59, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
Motion to close as "speedily overturned". The purpose of this forum respecting this request for review has been exhausted with the block being undone and the admin admitting that the action wasn't the best action. It's snowing too.—Alalch E. 22:05, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

September 2020 to Present Using a talk page as a forum by Guy Macon

Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion

The edit is five years old and the user is not an administrator. Mackensen (talk) 21:01, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diffs/logs: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Alex_Jones&diff=prev&oldid=979561734

User: Guy Macon (talk · contribs · logs) ([discussion])

Retired Administrator using a talk page as a WP:FORUM, comment appears to be protected from auto-archiving. Using the talk page to make a general comment/rant about the subject of the article in a rant form, not discussing how to improve the page as is intended for a talk page. I raised the issue on the talk page and another retired administrator arrived, appearing to make the claim that it was not a rant, and was not a misuse of the talk page. This goes against all prior experience on Wikipedia where this kind of rant on a talk page would be removed and chastised as WP:FORUM breach, therefore I believe this must be an instance of an Administrator using their power to bend the rules, and/or summon other retired administrators to back them up on their rule breach. JabbaBanana (talk) 20:54, 20 August 2025 (UTC) — JabbaBanana (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Why are you bringing up an edit from 2020?!? I recommend we speedily close this report. --Yamla (talk) 20:56, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Yes, this should just be closed. The edit also was not an administrative action, as the editor is not an administrator. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:58, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Account Creation Error - IP Address partially Blocked by No account. I was blocked from creating one.

Latest comment: 3 months ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Wrong venue. Dealt with on admin;s talk page. Whpq (talk) 13:00, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diffs/logs: None. No past history.

User: No account. I was blocked from creating one. (talk · contribs · logs) (prior discussion)

I was blocked from creating an account without cause. I don't have any history with Wikipedia. 2601:645:C47F:8F50:7DC5:6259:8DFA:E3EA (talk) 08:09, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

This isn't the proper forum; you've already asked the blocking admin about this. If they don't reply, you should go to WP:AN. 331dot (talk) 08:34, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

This seems to have been resolved on User talk:HJ Mitchell. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:05, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Improper use of admin powers

Latest comment: 2 months ago20 comments11 people in discussion

Closing as withdrawn given the request below ("this report can be discarded"). Separately, Dino42 has been blocked by Star Mississippi. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:11, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I want to report the administrator "311dot" for pressuring me to not appeal the removal of my user page. My userpage was removed and I wanted to appeal it, so I went to do that through the official means. I put it in the wrong place by accident and was told where to properly appeal the removal. But before I could do that, the administrator "311dot" came to my userpage and started an argument with me. He told me straight up to not appeal it, and then banned me when I wouldn't agree with him. When I requested to be unblocked, he literally said that one condition of unblock is to not appeal the removal. This is wrong behavior because as a user, I of course have the right to appeal a removal of my content. It can be denied in that process, I shouldn't be told by an admin that I will be banned if I go through the official procedure.

It took 3 days before another admin finally said that the whole thing is ridiculous and unbanned me with no conditions. For a full picture of the issue, you should read the entire user page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dino42

Here's the part where 311dot starts arguing with me and then bans me after I disagree with him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dino42#c-Dino42-20250717194300-Alalch_E.-20250717155400 (I was banned after that discussion with him, for seemingly no reason other than that I disagreed with him)

Here is the part where 311dot tells me that he will only unblock me if I agree to not request an undelete of the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dino42#c-331dot-20250717223400-Dino42-20250717222000

I have a right as a user to go through the procedures that Wikipedia has set up for us. An administrator should not block a user for saying that they might want to go through such a procedure.

This was a while ago, and I've been thinking about whether I want to report this. I now chose to do that, because this whole incident has made me not want to be on Wikipedia at all. I think that my contributions are valuable even if they are small, and I should not be blocked because I won't agree to not officially request a review of a deletion. Dino42 (talk) 16:52, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Needless to say, a rather one-sided account of things, and IMO completely frivolous thing to bring here. (Also, I don't believe 331dot has been notified, as required.) -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:03, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

331dot is aware of this discussion [29]. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:27, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

So you think a userpage with "sup fuckers d-dawg42 here with some bitchin edits. hit me up" is appropriate? Really? You already complained about your userpage being deleted back in July, and were told it wasn't appropriate. You attempted to get it undeleted at WP:RFU, and were denied. Here we are three months later, and you're still fighting for it to be restored? Really? You were told by admin asilvering back in August [30],"My advice to you, nevertheless, is to drop it. It's simply the smallest possible potatoes. The WP:LAMEest dispute to ever occur, anywhere. Absolutely nothing good would come of escalating this anywhere at all." You even agreed with that advice [31], "Thanks a lot for your reply and your great advice. I agree with everything you said." Enough time has been spent on this. asilvering told you "volunteer time is our most precious resource". Yet, here we are, months later, and you're still trying to get...what, justice? What, precisely, do you hope to achieve with this review request? --Hammersoft (talk) 17:33, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
No, it's not necessarily approrpiate. But it should be denied in the official process. I should not be banned for wanting to go through the official process. I'm not arguing for the page here. Dino42 (talk) 06:11, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

And no, I'm not trying to get it undeleted. I've said several times I'm fine with it being deleted. Please re-read what it is I'm actually complaining about. Dino42 (talk) 06:13, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
121 edits, 17 to articlespace and the rest complaining about your userpage and wasting everyone's time. To be honest, I'd drop it now before someone decides we really can't be bothered with you any more. Black Kite (talk) 17:37, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
It's inappropriate to ban someone for saying that they want to appeal a decision. I'm not arguing for the page. My number of edits is irrelevant. Dino42 (talk) 06:13, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Yeah came here to say the same thing clear case of WP:NOTHERE. Dr vulpes (Talk) 19:16, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've got to ask why you'd want the content from that page restored in the first place. If you think it's suitable material, maybe an admin will question your competency. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:38, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Would anyone object if I were to propose moving this to WP:ANI and asking for a community ban for Dino42, on the basis that it is a ridiculous waste of everyone's time, and that anyone incapable of understanding that clearly lacks the skills necessary to be involved in a collaborative project? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:40, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Second AndyTheGrump's proposal. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:46, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

It's not an admin's job to question anyone's competency. That is the community's prerogative. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:48, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

To clarify, the question of competence for filer is not sufficiently clear for an admin to decide to block unilaterally. It would require a community discussion. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 21:12, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Andy, I would object at least until they continue editing after this advice I just gave them. Hopefully they take it to heart. I concur with Black Kite, but maybe I'm too much of a softy hoping we can get a productive editor out of this. I don't know. Hopefully they choose well. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:51, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

From a procedural perspective, I don't think this thread should be moved. This page is for no-fault reviews of administrative actions, for both parties. Just start a proposal on another page, if you wish. isaacl (talk) 21:43, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked Dino as Not Here as an uninvolved admin action. I do not think we need to waste community time looking for a C-BAN, but am not opposed if folks feel we need to go that route. Star Mississippi 21:02, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I thought that this was handled by higher-ups, not the same kind of incompetent administrators that I'm complaining about in the first place. Because of this, this report can be discarded. Dino42 (talk) 07:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Dino42: as it says on top of this page, this process involves "community review". There is arguably no higher 'higher-up' than the community.

Insulting anyone, even admins, won't do you any favours. I would retract that, if I were you. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:27, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

13 September 2025 ECP indef protection at Antechinus by Jimfbleak

Latest comment: 1 month ago60 comments15 people in discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I see rough consensus that ECP was not the ideal solution in this case. There was no clear consensus on which alternative solution would have been best: opinions were divided between semi-protection, full-protection, and blocking both editors.

As an individual admin action, and not in my capacity as closer, I will also remove the indefinite extended confirmed protection from Antechinus, as it seems that the edit-warring is over, the IP editor has indicated they are disengaging from this dispute [32], and a rough talk page consensus exists. Toadspike [Talk] 14:14, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

Diffs/logs: Page log

User: Jimfbleak (talk · contribs · logs) ([[[33]|prior discussion]])

I have now been directed to this venue after being told at RfPP that ANI was correct and at ANI that AARV was correct. Policy should be adhered to when applying page protection. This has a very simple and obvious fix, but nobody seems to want to actually apply it. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 23:27, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

So you attempted to edit war out a passage from this article [34][35][36], weren't happy with this discussion about including the material, saw the article get protected, didn't like the answer you got when you reported Elmidae to WP:AN, didn't like the answer jimfbleak gave you, weren't happy with the answer you got when you reported Jimfbleak to WP:AN/I, and now you're here to achieve....what? This has been going on for weeks now. I'm curious when you might consider dropping the stick and backing away? --Hammersoft (talk) 23:59, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Please stick to topic and discuss whether the protection was in line with policy. Thank you. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 00:12, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I suspect that the gist of all the other discussions you have raised over this was that, "yes the protection was in line with policy." -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:14, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

This was the recommended venue for that discussion. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 00:16, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Protection was correctly applied to prevent continuation of an edit war. Rather than more posts to AN, ANI, AARV, perhaps continue to discuss the disputed content on the article talkpage with alternative wording that better elucidates the source. You might also consider mechanisms like WP:3O to get more eyes on the topic. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:18, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I would prefer that protection be correctly applied so that other users can edit that article again at some point. Thank you. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 00:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Will you agree to stop edit warring and instead to continue to discuss changes on its talkpage so a consensus can be reached? That's the quickest way for the protection to be lifted. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:58, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

The IP editor is probably right that indefinite ECP protection is probably not needed at this article. Since the recent disruption is coming from a single IP range, the IP range should be blocked from the article instead. MrOllie (talk) 00:25, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm afraid I need to agree with Euryalus. You were told that the page would be unprotected when you 2 came to a consensus on the content dispute. Perhaps you should concentrate your efforts as has been suggested above. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:25, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@MrOllie: we don't like to block only one participant in a content dispute, however I think that your suggestion has merit. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:27, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra: Especially in the era of partial blocks so the IP can be only blocked from the article, I fail to see how it's in any way better to give one editor in this dispute the ability to continue to edit war if they wish to, but deny that to the other editor; and also deny every single other editor who is not extended confirmed the ability to edit the article. Blocking IPs can sometimes be ineffective so I can perhaps seen an argument semi-protection is warranted to force the IP to register if they want to continue to edit and that way if they both continue to edit war, they can both be blocked. But IMO and I've said this before, it never makes much sense that we say we don't want to block only one party or side but then protect in such a way that does actually give advantage to one side. I guess if you protect without paying any attention to which WP:wrong version it currently is and warn that anyone who reverts again after you protection no matter what will be blocked, maybe that is fair but it's not clear to me that happened here and I'm sure that I've actually seen a lot of cases where the article is protected in some way which gives advantage to one side. And if it's not currently on the version preferred by that side, they're allowed to revert back to their version with no consequence. Nil Einne (talk) 12:02, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

BTW personally on the content issue I agree with Elmidae and frankly I feel the IP was maybe in the greater wrong given the content was both sources and had been there for a while. Although we're generally reluctant to take sides even there, I wouldn't personally mind if the IP was partially blocked from the article to force them to come to some consensus rather than just edit-warring even if this means taking Elmidae's "side" but my point is, if we are going to do that we should be explicit about it and do it in the fairest way which would surely be partially blocking the IP or rather the /64 instead of stopping everyone else who isn't extended confirmed from editing. Heck I wouldn't necessarily mind if it was semi-protection under the untested assumption partially blocking the /64 wouldn't work if it was explicitly done for that reason (I'd normally partially block the IP but fear they'll just use another). But the point is we either take a side or we don't. If we don't want to take a side than we shouldn't take a side but say we're not. Nil Einne (talk) 12:09, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: You've stumbled onto my dirty little secret. This is why I hate doing page protections. Much better to WP:PARTIALBLOCK the edit warriors from the article so the rest of us can get on with our lives. Now that you've hit me at a weak moment, I'll go on to @Jimfbleak: at this point I recommend removing the ECP, waiting to see, and then partial blocking any edit warriors that emerge. While I see the ECP as the solution at that time, it's time to see if that time has passed. And i agree (this can be the hard part) that we must avoid giving anyone an advantage by removing their "opponent" from the "struggle". Wikipedia should not be made into a battle field with opponents and struggles. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:20, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

That would give me the power to indefinitely keep this article from being edited by non-autoconfirmed users by simply not engaging in further discussion. This would give IP users a very easy tool to remove articles from general participation. (Can I have a "goddamn, they're right" at this point?) 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 00:31, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

No, you're just manufacturing argumentation at this point. Acroterion (talk) 00:36, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Concur with Acroterion. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C, this isn't going anywhere. I encourage you to return to the discussion about the material. There isn't anything wrong per se with getting WP:3O, but given how many times this has been rejected I think that won't help you achieve what you're hoping to achieve. The article isn't permanently protected. It's indefinitely protected until an agreement is reached about the material or an agreement is reached to stop edit warring about it. There's a big difference between permanent and indefinite. I might not have used the level of protection that Jimfbleak used, but it's well within purview to do so. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:48, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Hammersoft: Policy states:

In addition, administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages that are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy (such as Wikipedia's biographies of living persons or neutral point of view policies).

Furthermore, ECP should be used in the following cases:

escalation from semi-protection (there was none), contentious topics (hardly), ArbCom sanctions, high risk templates and page creation.

None of this applies here. Indef ECP is for Arab-Israeli conflict level stuff, not for a simple scenario where not even 3RR was reached. What I'm trying to argue here is that policy exists because it contains the accumulated wisdom of generations of sysops. In all but the most unusual cases, policy should be adhered to. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 01:03, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

(apologies to Euryalus) Will you agree to stop edit warring and instead to continue to discuss changes on its talkpage so a consensus can be reached? That's the quickest way for the protection to be lifted. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:04, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Euryalus and Hammersoft: No, I have no particular interest in Antechinus. It is clear there is an entrenched position, and as far as I can see, no further progress can be made. The incorrect application of protection is a far more serious issue, which is what I have come here to discuss. I don't know why everybody is hedging their bets on me showing up to that article again. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 01:14, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Then you don't understand the difference between indefinite and permanent. Indefinite assumes that at some point it can be withdrawn or reduced, when the disruption stops or when an agreement is found in the content dispute. If you wish to argue process ad infinitum, we don't have much patience for that, we're here trying to write an encyclopedia, not eternally litigate. Acroterion (talk) 01:20, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

And I too would have used indefinite semi-protection rather than ECP, but either way you can't edit the article until you settle your dispute concerning content. Acroterion (talk) 01:27, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

If it were me, I would have used semi-protection. But not every admin is the same, and does exactly the same thing in every situation. User:Jimfbleak might be amenable to reducing the ECP to indefinite semi-protection. You've never asked Jimfbleak to do that. But even if they did do that, you still wouldn't be able to edit the article. So, we'd still be at the same place, editing wise. So I ask the question that I originally asked; what is it you are wanting to achieve here? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:19, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Correct application of protection policy, as I have consistently stated throughout this excessively long process, including in my message to Jimfbleak, linked above. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 01:21, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

So would you be happy if it was reduced to indefinite semi-protection? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:22, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Me being happy is not the issue here. There is no net value to pacifying one person who persisted against the odds to see a situation fixed. Net value comes from consistently appreciating the input from IP editors fairly and on equal footing, and renewed focus on the value of policy and granting due process. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 01:26, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

And so we're back to what is it you are wanting to achieve? What does "fixing" the situation look like to you? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:27, 6 October 2025 (UTC)\

Okay, let's assume you're asking my advice rather than what makes me happy (because I don't think you should, as stated above). If you were asking my advice, I'd say, lift it since it's been a while, or if you feel you must keep it up, apply semi for not more than another month. Anything beyond that would be excessive. Put it on watchlist to cover your back. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 01:33, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Again, indefinite <> permanent. It's only in place until the two of you (and any others that wish to participate in the discussion) come to an agreement or the two of you agree to stop edit warring over it. Nobody needs to watchlist this if that can be done. I do feel it's necessary to keep the protection since neither of you appears to have agreed to do this. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:37, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

You feel it's appropriate to keep ECP indef? Just checking. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 01:39, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I feel it's appropriate for you tell me what it is you hope to achieve. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:44, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I've answered that question. What was missing? 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 01:46, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

<yoda> Going in circles, we appear to be </yoda> Will you agree to stop edit warring and instead to continue to discuss changes on its talkpage so a consensus can be reached? --Hammersoft (talk) 01:49, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm really trying to wrap my head around why anybody would set up this one particular trigger (me continuing some particular pre-existing discussion) to (1) bring something back in line with policy in some weird way, and (2) without having any certainty that this trigger will, excuse me, get triggered. What's stopping you from just fixing it now? I see your Yoda and raise you the whole cast of Monty Python. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 01:59, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

What's stopping you from resolving your disagreement concerning the article, which is the whole reason protection, of whatever character and length, was instituted.? That's the whole point of protection - it goes away once the unsatisfactory editorial content is corrected by consensus. Protection is a tool to urge editors to improve the encyclopedia, nothing more. Acroterion (talk) 02:14, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

That is not the issue here. The issue is whether the out-of-policy protection will be allowed to persist. We all know (well, those who've actually read and internalised the policy) that an ArbCom-level protection is really for ArbCom sanctions and a few other isolated cases. What will it take to remedy this bad precedent? 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 02:33, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

With respect, nobody is agreeing with you. See below. It's time to move on. Please. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:35, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I disagree on your "time to move on" notion. What seems to be happening is nothing but reinforcing a bad precedent, and is still awaiting adjustment. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 02:42, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Nobody is agreeing with you that it is a bad precedent. 3 admins and 3 non-admins have all endorsed the ECP. After a careful examination of the biological vitals, evidence appears to conclude the horse is still dead. I'm not going to respond any further. I'm sorry you won't accept this outcome, but it is what it is. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:48, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Hammersoft's "happy" is rhetorical. You haven't answered the question, you've published a position statement. Acroterion (talk) 01:30, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

With respect, it isn't rhetorical. I'm trying to get an understanding of what the IP is wanting to happen. "Correct application of protection policy" is the answer, but it's unclear what that means to the IP. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:31, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Please note this venue is just to review the administrative action in question. I suggest discussing further actions by the filer somewhere else, such as on their talk page. isaacl (talk) 03:45, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Endorse ECP. TarnishedPath^talk 01:05, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

*Endorse ECP. While I generally prefer partial blocks, I think in this instance ECP was the better choice. persuaded by Nil einne's and Extraordinary Writ's and Left guide's eloquence. ---- Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:46, 6 October 2025 (UTC) ---- Deepfriedokra (talk) 01:27, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra: Your statement: "I think in this instance ECP was the better choice." Which offending registered user was prevented from continuing to offend by the use of ECP rather than semi? 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 02:15, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

That's easy. By now any user who was not auto confirmed then now is. So any disruptive user who was not yet auto confirmed is now prevented from being disruptive by the extended confirmed protection. Semi confirm protection would have been an advantage to any semi confirmed user over any anonymous user, which is explicitly against protection policy. And again, I probably would have partially blocked individuals instead of protecting the article. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 07:23, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Aha! Just read Hammersoft and JClemens below. I heartily agree. this is as good a time as any to apologize for any typos I missed that were caused by my stupid voice to text, which likes to put words in my mouth that I did not say. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 07:27, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

No violation In order for there to have been a violation, the variance from policy must have contributed to an actual problem. No such problem has been articulated, nor has any benefit to the proposed solution (revert to semi protection) been articulated. We don't do "make someone follow the rules for the rules' sake" on Wikipedia; we will absolutely consider admin misconduct, but by definition misconduct requires a situation that is at a minimum unfair to a particular editor in an articulable way. Jclemens (talk) 01:51, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

@Jclemens: The benefit is that people, including those unrelated to any conflict, can edit, which is what this whole project is about. I will take no position as to the merit of the requested edit on the talk page, but will note that there has been one. 2A02:8071:184:4E80:0:0:0:934C (talk) 02:02, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you thought I was in any way interested in, or would be responsive to, your attempt at bludgeoning the process by replying to me. I'm not. Jclemens (talk) 05:11, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Endorse ECP. Whether or not it was the optimal choice, it was a reasonable option to take, and perfectly within Jimfbleak's discretion to choose. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 01:53, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
Endorse ECP. I've been going around in circles with the IP, but it's really getting nowhere. I've spent the last ~2 hours trying to untangle this, but to no avail. I don't want to spend another 2 hours on this. I would have used semi-protection in this case rather than ECP, but the use of ECP wasn't out of line. Arguing about the level of protection is rather pointless. The edit warring was stopped. That's the point. Barring consensus by both parties or an agreement by one of the other to stop edit warring, I don't see any reason to lift the indefinite ECP at this time. I'm sure Jimfbleak will continue to monitor. It's time to move on. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:22, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
Endorse I would have used semi, and indefinite-until-the issue-is-resolved, but nobody needs to devote so much time to pseudo-legalistic argument over something so inconsequential as this. We all have other fish to fry. This isn't really an IPs are humans argument, this is more like an autoconfirmed accounts are humans argument, which is a new one. As admin discretionary items go, this is about as inconsequential as they come. Acroterion (talk) 02:28, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

And as others have mentioned here, this discussion stems from a perennial conundrum faced by administrators who do not wish to endorse one side or another in an edit war. Acroterion (talk) 12:24, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

Overturn. If this was a good-faith content dispute (as Jimfbleak said here), the right solution would be short-term full protection, since policy is that ECP shouldn't be used to "privilege extended confirmed users over unregistered/new users in valid content disputes". If the IP was just being disruptive, a block or semi-protection would be the right answer, since policy is that ECP should be used as an escalation from semi-protection rather than pre-emptively. ECP just doesn't make sense. Just because the IP is being obnoxious (likely to the point of being blockable) doesn't mean they don't have a point. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:50, 6 October 2025 (UTC)+

Comment as the protecting admin, I have no problem if the level of protection is reduced one level, but since the editwarring ip is unwilling to talk to other participants, I can't see how the edit warring could be allowed to continue Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:24, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
I don't really see how Talk:Antechinus#Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution indicates an unwillingness to talk. Basically as very often the case, I see limited discussion with neither side really agreeing with each other so there isn't any actual consensus and the most we have to fall back on is WP:STATUSQUO which to be fair does favour Elmidae & no real attempt by either party to use some form of WP:dispute resolution to resolve the dispute. As I noted above I do fairly favour Elmidae both for status quo reasons but also because the text the IP is disputing is sourced as even the IP seems to agree they just feel it's insufficiently clear which would be a reason to reword and not remove. So if we really wanted to take Elmidae's side fine I guess. But if the problem is the IP then the solution is to block them. I mean heck even a full block of the /64 seems better than the current solution although also unnecessary. And if we decide this gets too much into taking one side in a content dispute then we have to consider Elmidae is equally in the wrong for edit warring with that limited discussion which didn't achieve consensus. So there's no reason to protect in such a way that ensure they "win" the dispute. Nil Einne (talk) 13:08, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
Remove protection or change to full protection: A good-faith content dispute between an IP and an EC editor should not be resolved with EC protection. Protection policy at WP:ECP is clear that:
Extended confirmed protection should not be used…to privilege extended confirmed users over unregistered/new users in valid content disputes
If the IP was unambiguously on the "wrong side" from a content standpoint (i.e. vandalism), they would've been blocked and that has not occurred AFAIK. Left guide (talk) 08:29, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
Remove protection or change to full protection or partially block one or both parties: I'm largely with Extraordinary Writ and Left guide here as I said in my comment above before I read what they said. I won't repeat it all, but suffice to say it makes no sense to say we are protecting so we don't take one side over the other when we clearly have. Either Elmidae is enough in the right that it's fine to partial block the /64 or they're not. If they're not then we either need to fully protect or better, partially block both Elmidae and the /64. There's no real reason to doubt partial blocking the /64 would work here but even if it fails, the solution would be to semi protect and block any autoconfirmed socks that appear. If it gets too much of a whackamole then we can ECP. I might have sympathy to the current solution if Jimbleak had protected without paying any attention to the wrongversion and made it clear anyone to revert further in that dispute without consensus would be blocked but this didn't happen so it's too late now. In practice & this gets to the heart of why I hate the way we handle this so much, probably 99% of the time despite supposedly us doing this because we don't want to take sides, what happens is we semi or ECP protect, and if it doesn't happen to be the right wrong version then the confirmed or extended confirmed editors are allowed to revert back to their wrong version without consequence. So we've actually decided the confirmed or extended confirmed editors are in the right but for some reason are going to punish all non confirmed (really mostly IPs or I guess temp accounts soon) or extended confirmed editors even those uninvolved in the dispute just because we want to pretend we're not taking a side so cannot block only one side. To be clear, I was extended confirmed long before I began to realise how unfair this all was, I met the requirements way before the arbcom case which lead to it. So this is never something which affected me. And while this annoys me no end & I've said that before to some admins, it's not really the fault of any particular admin since way way way too many do that and as this discussion shows even the community generally tolerates it. But if it comes up for discussion I am going to push back on it. Nil Einne (talk) 12:52, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.