User talk:TonyBallioni/Archive 40

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Deleted article LiveWorkPlay

Apologies, I have had a Wikipedia account for about 20 minutes, I am trying to navigate my way to an undeletion for article LiveWorkPlay, I did find my way to the talk page about it, and I am confident I can fix it up with proper citations. I asked for undeletion and was told to contact you as the administrator who oversaw that process. I regret taking the page for granted, but I thought it was just fine, it was very well used (I have had many people over the years say that they found our organization or me via Wikipedia) I have certainly seen the page, although it was probably more than two years since I looked at it directly, and to me it was accurate and well written by several authors. I take it a lot of the citations had expired or just weren't up to the standards, and I respect that, I think I can fix that with proper citations, or change the content if there are no proper citations available. Thank you for your help. Iamthekanadian (talk) 23:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi Iamthekanadian, I'd recommend starting a new draft of it at Draft:LiveWorkPlay and submitting it through the WP:AFC process. The deleted article was pretty spammy, so I don't really want to restore it. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you TonyBallioni it doesn't seem like it's very easy to get a page undeleted, so I set aside 5 hours or so and took at shot at starting a new one. I found it quite overwhelming so I would be very grateful if you would be able to review my work. I am not sure how to to share it but maybe this works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:LiveWorkPlay any suggestions appreciated. Iamthekanadian (talk) 03:21, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

SPI closure

Hi,

I am concerned about the closure of this SPI, because of the comment made by another admin that "Other checkusers may wish to refer to my post to CU-L with respect to this SPI" and that same admin's comment at the OP's talk page where they basically dismiss the evidence as inconsequential and coming from the OP's "issues". I would like to confirm that the evidence presented there, including mine, was thoroughly reviewed and not dismissed quickly as a result of that other admin's views. I can confirm that the most of the evidence presented by the OP was in fact from Flyer22. Crossroads -talk- 03:02, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

@Crossroads: The evidence was reviewed by several checkusers who all came to the same conclusion --Guerillero Parlez Moi 03:17, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
A second opinion was sought on checkuser-l. I reviewed the technical evidence independently, and determined that given the specifics of the two accounts, it was extremely unlikely for them to be the same person. Risker and I get along very well, but my conclusion on the technical evidence here was more conclusively "different person" than hers, so no, her views did not impact my assessment of the case. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:24, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
The technical evidence was not meant to be a factor, though. It was opened without asking for CheckUser for a reason and he explained why. Tech-savvy people can easily use proxies and the like to fool CheckUser. What I was concerned about was a careful review of the behavioral evidence painstakingly laid out. Crossroads -talk- 04:38, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
There was nothing to indicate any attempt to fool CheckUser, and there was nothing in the behaviour that suggests CheckUser got this wrong. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:53, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Invitation for Functionary consultation 2021

Greetings,

I'm letting you know in advance about a meeting I'd like to invite you to regarding the Universal Code of Conduct and the community's ownership of its future enforcement. I'm still in the process of putting together the details, but I wanted to share the date with you: 27 June, 2021. I do not have a time on this date yet, but I will let you soon. We have created a meta page with basic information. Please take a look at the meta page and sign up your name under the appropriate section.

Thank you for your time.--BAnand (WMF) 15:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Tony, Thanks for your essay on WP:CITEBITE

It gave birth and was a source of inspiration for WP:NANE, an essay I just created. Celestina007 (talk) 02:19, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Still following User:TonyBallioni/Initial Poland 500/30?

Hey Tony,

Are you still following User:TonyBallioni/Initial Poland 500/30? If not, should I copy it to my namespace for future changes?

Cheers. François Robere (talk) 20:46, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2021).

Administrator changes

added Ashleyyoursmile • Less Unless
removed Husond • MattWade • MJCdetroit • Carioca • Vague Rant • Kingboyk • Thunderboltz • Gwen Gale • AniMate • SlimVirgin (deceased)

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • Wikimedia previously used the IRC network Freenode. However, due to changes over who controlled the network with reports of a forceful takeover by several ex-staff members, the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts decided to move to the new Libera Chat network. It has been reported that Wikimedia related channels on Freenode have been forcibly taken over if they pointed members to Libera. There is a migration guide and Wikimedia discussions about this.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:46, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Invitation to Outing

Hi, Alas I was not aware of the RfC about alternative accounts until I saw your revision of WP:SOCKPUPPETRY. I am extremely concerned that your changes will be taken as an invitation to OUT people who have a legitimate reason for an anonymous account in addition to the account they have in their real name. This could have serious real-life consequences. Zerotalk 05:53, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

That was already allowed and we wouldn't suppress. WP:CLEANSTART was the closest thing we had to a policy on this, and it made it clear that accounts could be connected. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:54, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) They're not (only) Tony's changes, since they reflect the consensus of a well-attended RfC. The reason that RfC was started, I believe, and the thrust of a substantial amount of the discussion from functionaries who have dealt with these cases before, is that there always has been a substantial risk that people with legitimate privacy accounts will be outed, and absolutely nothing we can do to stop that or erase it after the fact. That indeed has serious real-life consequences and the previous wording did a poor job of warning people of that. – Joe (talk) 16:46, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd add to what Joe said: there are areas of this project where if you edit you could have a danger in real life. My suggestion to people if they are concerned about that is not to edit those areas. Just like my advice to people who have a real name account is to abandon it and have a clean start if they have privacy concerns. That might sound a bit harsh, but that's really the only way to be secure if you have RL identity concerns. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:10, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

GAN Backlog Drive - July 2021

Good article nominations | July 2021 Backlog Drive
July 2021 Backlog Drive:
  • This Thursday, July 1, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number, length, and age, of articles reviewed.
  • Interested in taking part? You can sign up here.
Other ways to participate:
You're receiving this message because you have conducted 10+ good article reviews or participated in the March backlog drive.

Click here to opt out of any future messages.

--Usernameunique

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:31, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2021).

Guideline and policy news

  • Consensus has been reached to delete all books in the book namespace. There was rough consensus that the deleted books should still be available on request at WP:REFUND even after the namespace is removed.
  • An RfC is open to discuss the next steps following a trial which automatically applied pending changes to TFAs.

Technical news

  • IP addresses of unregistered users are to be hidden from everyone. There is a rough draft of how IP addresses may be shown to users who need to see them. This currently details allowing administrators, checkusers, stewards and those with a new usergroup to view the full IP address of unregistered users. Editors with at least 500 edits and an account over a year old will be able to see all but the end of the IP address in the proposal. The ability to see the IP addresses hidden behind the mask would be dependent on agreeing to not share the parts of the IP address they can see with those who do not have access to the same information. Accessing part of or the full IP address of a masked editor would also be logged. Comments on the draft are being welcomed at the talk page.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:27, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Page mover

Hi, Why you don't see my Page Mover request ? Please check my request.(Fade258 (talk) 04:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC))

I go through the ones I can easily approve and leave ones that I'm not sure of for others since my activity is much more sporadic these days. Basically if I'm unsure, I let someone who is more likely to reply in a timely manner review. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:24, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Suspicious new user

This new user began editing on May 29th, and jumped headfirst into AIV and RFPP. User:Bbb23 noticed the same thing, but was not answered. I pose the question here because you blocked a prolific vandalism patroller awhile back for abusing multiple accounts; it wouldn't surprise me if that user had trouble "staying away" during their block; that user's last edit to their talk page was May 27th, two days before this new user began editing. Like that blocked user, this new user has made some questionable AIV reports. OhNoitsJamie Talk 15:36, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Ohnoitsjamie, I saw your comments at AIV. Regardless of whether Di is a sock, I've been in favor of an indefinite block of the user for quite some time, but I've been in a bit of a tussle with ToBeFree, at whose Talk page I just posted a message, because TBF has been more patient/lenient/whatever. Sure would make it easier, though, if we could block for socking, but I don't even know who Jamie is referring to for a behavioral comparison.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:42, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
(talk page watcher) Second edit: setting twinkle options, sixth edit importing a script?! Look out for Redwarn... ——Serial 15:45, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
I guess there's no point to me being vague and opaque about my specific suspicion: [1]. It could be someone else, but that's my first gut instinct. OhNoitsJamie Talk 15:50, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
@Ohnoitsjamie, I think it is better to be vague about it on-wiki or speak boldly about it privately or take it to the appropriate venue. You never know who is shadow marking you and diff collecting on you whilst trying to build a “futile ABF case/evidence against you”. Rahh to hell with that! I’m in agreement with you! Something is off with that account. Celestina007 (talk) 16:28, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm not an expert on CLCStudent, but I'm dubious that Di is the same person for a few reasons. First, you mention the timing, but Di was created a couple of days after CLC stopped editing his Talk page, not particularly close to the time he was blocked in February. Second, if I understand Tony's block, CLC did not sock with named accounts but with IPs. Third, CLC made a rather large number of edits to the project. Wasn't he better at counter-vandalism than Di? I realize that he could be trying to mask his competence and appear somewhat different, but it's pretty tough to pull off. Finally, what about the Nazi issues? Has Di behaved in any way similar to CLC in that area? That said, I still think Di is likely a sock, but probably of someone else; whether there's technical evidence to prove that is hard to know.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:35, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) Filtering out the non-article-space edits, this comparison does rather support the idea. Favonian (talk) 17:48, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree that the timing of the account creation isn't particularly damning; it's more the prolificness of the AIV and RFPP reports, and the haphazard nature of some of them I'm noticing with DI. CLCStudent also created a large volume of reports; many of them were good, but their were a fair amount of questionable ones that were rejected; this edit war with someone trying to add a NYT source is what made me think of CLCStudent). I don't recall ever getting a sense of ideology from CLCStudent's contributions; the Nazi-defending stuff seemed to be primarily from the IP edits. In any case, I wouldn't be shocked it if turned out to be a different user, but it's almost certainly someone who's edited before under a different account. Interesting that DI requested their vector.js pages be deleted not long after they created it, almost as if they realized it was suspicious). OhNoitsJamie Talk 18:01, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Whoa! I meant to do that but then got distracted. Thanks, Favonian.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:03, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Regarding the interaction analysis, these might be less meaningful than they seem when comparing recent changes patrollers. Example... ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:51, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Does this mean that ToBeFree and CLCStudent are socks of each other? After all, they both have the letters "t" and "e" in their usernames. :P This just shows you why admins should not congregate; it leads to nothing but confusion.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:07, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
😄 ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:09, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
I suppose the most suspicious evidence I have is this request to revoke talk page access (and knowing the acronym TPA and under what circumstances you would remove access after a few weeks' tenure) on my talk page. I'm not the sort of admin who gets involved in that sort of thing, and indeed I was in the process of improving an article to GA when the request came in, so why they chose me to contact is somewhat bizarre. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:52, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Drill it has now been globally locked as a long-term abuse case. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:27, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: Why do you think that Di is a sock of ItsLassieTime?--Bbb23 (talk) 19:13, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
It's got the same behaviour as RandNetter96, another ILT sock, amongst others. This includes going after IPs, excessive templating and usage of noticeboards, little hand-written communication. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:19, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
Does anyone think a checkuser is merited? ILT may be too stale; CLSStudent goes back to March I think. OhNoitsJamie Talk 22:46, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
Not CLCStudent. Based on the log I think its Elkivis. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:54, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
I looked up Elkivis and found no such user. Do you mean Evlekis? aeschylus (talk) 02:21, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I must have copied and pasted a typo from a block log somewhere. That's the one. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:57, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested block

Hello, could you go ahead and block this user? I put a report on WP:AIV a while ago, but they're still going.

Thanks Loafiewa (talk) 23:00, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Who? TonyBallioni (talk) 23:01, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
My mistake, 2600:1000:B015:B377:A2D6:B932:AB5D:B369 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). This is the 3rd IP they've used today, so a wider rangeblock might be necessary. Loafiewa (talk) 23:02, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't see a reason to block anyone on that /43 (Verizon so /64 isn't really applicable.) TonyBallioni (talk) 23:04, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Stuart Snyder

Hello. If possible, could you please restore this page's history and move the page to my userspace? I'd like to draft a better version if possible.--Enigma4221 (talk) 06:58, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Phil A. Fry. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:48, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
Every.single.time.-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 17:36, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
Ponyo, if you were a sock of a prolific sockmaster who was editing logged out all the time, would you file an ArbCom case? TonyBallioni (talk) 04:03, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
See, common sense would dictate a resounding "no". However, these gaffes are so common that I've come to believe that I must be missing a trick. -- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 21:39, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
People sometimes ask me what I've learned by editing WP, and I mostly say "how to recognize when a dumb person is trying to outsmart intelligent people," and this is exactly the sort of thing I'm referring to when I say that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:53, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
Just in! Second edit 11th edit.-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 23:06, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Articles for Creation July 2021 Backlog Elimination Drive

Hello TonyBallioni:

WikiProject Articles for creation is holding a month long Backlog Drive!
The goal of this drive is to eliminate the backlog of unreviewed articles. The drive is running until 31 July 2021.

Barnstars will be given out as awards at the end of the drive.
There is currently a backlog of over 2400 articles, so start reviewing articles. We're looking forward to your help!

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for Creation at 21:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC). If you do not wish to recieve future notification, please remove your name from the mailing list.

Precious anniversary

Precious
Four years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:48, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Take a look?

Hi, Tony, I hope you are well? If you have time: I see that you were active here, wondered if you had any thoughts on whether this should be merged into it? I can email you some reasons if necessary. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:41, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi Justlettersandnumbers, looks like Vito has locked them globally as the it.wiki case name for Lascava, so I think we can go ahead and merge the cases here. This LTA is more active on it.wiki than here, so I'll defer to the Italians. cc: Mz7. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:40, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Tony! At first I couldn't satisfy myself that Lascava was necessarily the same as the it.wp master, but think that's established now. Lacutengoduva is neither blocked nor locked at present. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:54, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

YGM

Hi Tony - just letting you know I've sent you an email. Best, Patient Zerotalk 02:28, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Editor MjolnirPants civility at Andy Ngo

TonyBallioni, I'm hoping you might tell MjolnirPants to chill with the accusations of lying etc at Andy Ngo. The Ngo article is subject to discretionary sanctions. The issue relates to this discussion [[2]]. MjPants has repeatedly accused me a lying (see the material collapsed by another editor [[3]]). I'm pinging you because you recently unblocked them and in hopes that you can kindly tell MjPants to knock it off. Thank you. Springee (talk) 17:00, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll stop accusing you of lying the moment you stop telling blatant lies, Springee. You repeatedly claimed that the sourced text "...and provokes them so that he can broadcast the result." and " that provoke antifa into the very fights Ngo then films." doesn't support the claim that Ngo provokes people to film the results. You know damn well that it does, and you're lying through your teeth to facilitate obvious POV pushing on that page. If you don't like being called out on that: DON'T LIE THROUGH YOUR FUCKING TEETH TO ENGAGE IN POV PUSHING. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:37, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm intentionally staying out of user conduct disputes these days between long-term contributors: they're draining as an admin and I don't like playing referee between people who have been here forever. With my real world commitments these days, its just not something I want to get involved in during my spare time. I unblocked MjolnirPants because his initial block was an {{OversightBlock}} in unique circumstances and the consensus of the oversight team and (Ivanvector, who placed the original block that I took over as an OS block was to unblock. If you think MPants has done something sanctionable, WP:AE or WP:ANI would be my suggestion. Mpants, I will add as a request that on my talk page you don't get as heated since it's my talk page, but I'm also loathe to play the civility police when I haven't looked into the background here. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure if Tony pinged me here as part of a thought that he didn't finish, but yes, I pushed strongly for MjolnirPants' reinstatement on the functionaries list, symbolically, as the incident that led to their block was an obvious false flag operation: the troll responsible bragged about it afterwards, but it had been taken over by oversight by then and I am not an oversighter. The way they've behaved since being unblocked has led me to regret supporting their unblock, frankly.
Like Tony, I've also mostly given up on trying to mediate content disputes between long-term contributors, but not necessarily because they're draining, more like it's akin to herding cats: when you're dealing with deeply entrenched personal disputes among people who are supposed to have learned how to do better by now, but have instead just had their poor behaviour repeatedly reinforced by the community, there is no possible constructive resolution. It's like battling the hydra: if I were to lay a block here for yelling at another contributor in bolded all-caps (very clearly a violation of WP:CIVIL) ten of that editor's friends would show up on my talk page and at ANI calling for me to be defrocked for daring to challenge a "valuable contributor". So, you know what? You have a problem with another editor? Tough shit. Chickens coming home to roost, or something.
Here's my challenge to the two of you, Springee and MjolnirPants: you are both ostensibly mature adults, and you are contributing on a project which has a policy forbidding treating your fellow contributors like flaming piles of dog shit. Next time you have an issue with each other, handle it yourselves like ostensibly mature adults: discuss, debate, resolve, start an RFC, treat every other editor as a real person, walk away if you have to. If the two of you get into one of these stupid childish schoolyard slap fights again, I'll block you both for wasting everyone's time. WP:DE and WP:BATTLEGROUND would cover that, or WP:NOTTHERAPY would work too. Just try acting like mature adults for once, instead of your school bully bullshit. If it's actually something that needs to be reported, someone else will do it. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:07, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
Well, let's just say it wasn't me who said "Making accusations isn't uncivil, in fact lying is the uncivil behavior we should be looking into here."
One can make a valid point about unnecessary bolding and capitalization, or about intemperate language, and I won't even argue about it. In fact, I've already said on multiple occasions thatI'd taken that point to heart. But I think the fact that you seem to want to pay lip service to civility while ignoring the calls from something like 8 or 9 editors at ANI (ranging from an IP to one of our most respected admins) to do something about an editor blatantly misrepresenting sources in order to WP:GAME a 1RR restriction, and doing so in a way that's blatantly disrespectful to another editor really makes me wonder whether it's a legitimate concern for civility and the good of this project, or a desire to make life easier on one's self.
Your point about about herding cats, above would seem to provide a relatively clear answer to that, though it's an answer I find more than a little disheartening. I'd rather hear that I'm wrong about this, but I tend to believe actions more than words. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
You say that you've taken that point to heart, yet here we are, again, with what should probably be a very simple POV pushing and restriction-gaming sanction completely blown up into a 15,000-word ANI free-for-all for really no reason at all other than that you just can't resist mouthing off when someone crosses you. It's the entire and sole reason a troll found it so easy to push your buttons in just the right ways that you talked yourself into an indefinite block, even though many editors were begging you to stop (just as they've begged you to stop in this dispute). That point just will not stick with you, that it's your attitude that causes these problems. I also believe actions speak louder than words, and yours are like a fucking LRAD. You didn't learn a damn thing in your two year absence. So you're right: I don't care. I am not interested one bit in expending my limited energy trying to resolve any dispute that you've put yourself in, because you refuse to take any advice (even when you think you do) and you will just end up blowing up some other simple dispute. And you are absolutely right that this is purely self-interest, but you're wrong about concern for the project, I just don't think there's anything to gain by trying to help you. You are a lost cause. Others reading this might think I'm being harsh but you won't hear what I'm saying anyway, so fuck it.
Tony, sorry for all the notifications about this. I've said all I care to say here. If you have to mention me with respect to that oversight situation again I would appreciate if you would use {{noping}}. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 01:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2021).

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC is open to add a delay of one week from nomination to deletion for G13 speedy deletions.

Technical news

  • Last week all wikis were very slow or not accessible for 30 minutes. This was due to server lag caused by regenerating dynamic lists on the Russian Wikinews after a large bulk import. (T287380)

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:19, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2021).

Administrator changes

readded Jake Wartenberg
removed Emperor • Viridian Bovary
renamed Ashleyyoursmile → Viridian Bovary

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:46, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you!

A big hug! 😊 Betty (talk) 05:09, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

"Album - Blueprints ( Wage War )" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Album - Blueprints ( Wage War ). The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 September 13#Album - Blueprints ( Wage War ) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Regards, SONIC678 03:23, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

New Page Patrol newsletter September 2021

New Page Review queue September 2021

Hello TonyBallioni,

Please join this discussion - there is increase in the abuse of Wikipedia and its processes by POV pushers, Paid Editors, and by holders of various user rights including Autopatrolled. Even our review systems themselves at AfC and NPR have been infiltrated. The good news is that detection is improving, but the downside is that it creates the need for a huge clean up - which of course adds to backlogs.

Copyright violations are also a serious issue. Most non-regular contributors do not understand why, and most of our Reviewers are not experts on copyright law - and can't be expected to be, but there is excellent, easy-to-follow advice on COPYVIO detection here.

At the time of the last newsletter (#25, December 2020) the backlog was only just over 2,000 articles. New Page Review is an official system. It's the only firewall against the inclusion of new, improper pages.

There are currently 706 New Page Reviewers plus a further 1,080 admins, but as much as nearly 90% of the patrolling is still being done by around only the 20 or so most regular patrollers.

If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be part of the New Page Reviewer user group, please consider asking any admin to remove you from the list. This will enable NPP to have a better overview of its performance and what improvements need to be made to the process or its software.

Various awards are due to be allocated by the end of the year and barnstars are overdue. If you would like to manage this, please let us know. Indeed, if you are interested in coordinating NPR, it does not involve much time and the tasks are described here.

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here. Sent to 827 users. 04:33, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for looking into the case objectively and thoroughly. I don't know why that person chose my former user name other than it was just after I requested the change and they needed a new one to evade any block. The depth of their intent to impersonate never really came to fruition because Ritchie blocked them as soon as they were notified. Very few things cause me anxiety. I'm just not that type of person. The copy and use of my mothers name, while partly my fault for using it in the first place, is something that I thought about during the investigation of the LTA. I've rarely been bothered by anything here for more than a day but that bothered me for weeks after. I wanted to respond back then and maybe it would have cleared everything up had I but my better judgement told me that it would get worked out and it did. Thank you for taking on the enormous responsibilities here that you have and thank you for the timely response to the case being filed. --ARoseWolf 11:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

@ARoseWolf: no worries. I get why someone would look at the similar username thing, but I have enough experience with that LTA to rule someone out as not being them within a few seconds. You don't have an obsession with harassing other users who have a different view on diacritics in the Italian language. You're not them. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't harass other users on anything, especially not languages, although my brothers would agree I harass them in other languages. I think the complexities of the various languages are beautiful, each like a strand of notes in a symphony. I definitely do not blame EnPassant. They are doing their part to ensure the integrity of the encyclopedia. I do think had they done a little more investigation they could have pieced together everything any of you did but that's neither here nor there. It's settled and so much so the better. Thank you for responding. --ARoseWolf 14:36, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Ponyo

You seem to be around a little more lately, so I wondered if you knew why Ponyo has been absent for almost three weeks. Usually, if she's going to be on an extended vacation, she says so on her Talk page. I know I could e-mail her, but based on past experience, if she's away from Wikipedia, she also doesn't check her Wikipedia e-mail. Mildly concerned.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:53, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

@Bbb23: An oddly not busy month for me, soon to change, unfortunately. I have not heard from her. I do know that she and I both have been a bit tired of the internal politics of the project (I'm sure you can sympathize), so I might chalk it up to disengaging for a bit. Hopefully everything is okay. If she hasn't been around again before October, I might email. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:39, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2021).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Arbitration

  • A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
  • Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
  • The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.

Miscellaneous

  • Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
  • The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:05, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Happy First Edit Day!

Have a very happy first edit anniversary!

From the Birthday Committee, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 16:50, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Wishing TonyBallioni a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Birthday Committee! Best wishes! CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 03:07, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Sockpuppet

Hello.

According to the checkuser investigation in UkWiki the account RogueRickC137 (talk · contribs) belongs to the indefinitely blocked user in EnWiki Piznajko (talk · contribs). Please, take appropriate admin actions. --Mykola7 (talk) 20:18, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

 Done based on the uk.wiki results. The CU log here is  Possible, but given the timing difference and that the confidence on uk.wiki seems to be pretty conclusive, I'm comfortable admin blocking and letting others decide on appeal. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:16, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

November 2021 backlog drive

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(t · c) buidhe 01:59, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Relisting query

Hi Tony. Not sure if you saw my ping at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ASumaila a few weeks ago; I gather you've been busy. Seeing that you've been active a bit the past few days, I just wanted to check in to see if you'd object to me relisting, based on the evidence I've presented there. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 02:49, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi Tamzin, yes, I've been busy. Oddly, more busy now than I was a month ago, but I came back on to check an RM or two that I thought highlighted some of Wikipedia's inherent limitations, and got commenting on other things :).
It's been a while and a half on that one, but looking back through what I was doing at the time, I still wouldn't check. Look at the history of this page. That's the editing behaviour of different people. Socks typically don't make non-contentious edits to the same page consecutively: there's absolutely no motivation to do so, and if the technical evidence suggested they were related, I'd actually consider that page strong evidence that they were people at a school or user group working together on a project.
The other thing to consider here is what CheckUser evidence would gain. They edit Nigerian topics, which typically means they're from Nigeria, or at least it would be a reasonable guess to assume so. I haven't checked, so no revealing anything here. As a CheckUser, I'm not likely to check anything that's likely from Nigeria without knowing what I'm looking at. It'd be a waste of 30 minutes of CheckUser time to come up  Inconclusive. This is especially the case when the plausible explanation of people working on something together is the suggested by the edit history, because there is a history in African regions of CUs blocking university students and the like because of the internet infrastructure there. There's also a history of sockmasters going to university events so as to hide that they're socking.
Tl;dr: there's fairly strong behavioural evidence (in my opinion) that they're different people working together. There's fairly strong behavioural evidence they're from Nigeria. CU has a bad history in Nigeria, and when there's good reason to believe that it's more likely to be people working together than the same person, I'm not going to touch it. Even if just from a practical perspective, it's extremely unlikely I'd be able to confirm anything that you couldn't tell from looking at their edit history—they probably at least know each other and are probably in the same country. Both of those also explain the linguistic similarities you found, by the way. Outreach groups in developing regions tend to teach canned/uniform edit summaries to new editors.
Sorry if it's not the answer you were looking for, but this has all the signs of people at a local school/university working together on some outreach effort to promote underrepresented regions, and that's an area where CU has historically not done well. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:14, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
That makes sense. The ESes still feel a bit too close for comfort for me, and I've run into several cases lately where we did have multiple sox making non-contentious edits to the same articles, but I'll defer to your expertise here. :) I'll just give them all {{uw-agf-assign}} and call it a day, I think. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she/they) 06:44, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm huge on edit summaries. Usually my go to on behaviour. But at some point I realized all the university/community/outreach/real life people taught everyone who went to their events the same exact edit summaries as defaults and that in regions where there's historically been false positives and where there's a strong community outreach presence (i.e. Africa) it isn't as useful as you'd find in say... AP2 (or is it AP3 now? Idk, I don't arbcom anymore.) TonyBallioni (talk) 06:48, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Greeting Carolinan human!

I didn't check in for a while. This is to wish good health and good halloween 👻! @Praxidicae, Drmies, and GeneralNotability: Your friend, --ㄒ. 乃卂ㄥ口几乇ㄚ (talk) 21:35, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Happy halloween Arturo! GeneralNotability (talk) 22:08, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
<3 Miss you, my friend. PRAXIDICAE🌈 15:40, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Boo!

Happy Halloween!
Hello TonyBallioni:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 22:18, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2021).

Guideline and policy news

  • Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

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Blocked user

Hello. I see you blocked a user I recently had some contentious edit disagreements with (Nevgerid). I've not explored the blocking topic before, and am curious if there is a way to see the reason. Anything I look at seems to be a dead-end in that regard. Thanks! Rp2006 (talk) 17:21, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh, and since I'm here, can you take a look at my addition to the article (which Negerid had a problem with) on Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (adding "controversial" to the short description and lead per its appearance in the criticism section of the article) and let me know what you think. Thanks! Rp2006 (talk) 17:25, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Rp2006, I CU blocked them as a long term abuser. Basically it means they've been blocked 1000 or so times before and they came up in a check on another blocked account. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:27, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://mdwiki.org/wiki/User_talk:TonyBallioni/Archive_40"