This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I'm not overly surprised to see them blocked for NPA. They raised hell at TFD some months ago, throwing around insults and the like. Being old doesn't give someone a license to be overtly crotchety. Primefac (talk) 17:04, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
I would have thought the same -no, higher- level of insult by an admin might conceivably be seen as worse, kinda, somehow. Anmccaff (talk) 17:14, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Yup, good block. effectively banned from Wiki for calling a flibbertigibbet a third his age girlie could politely be described as selective quotation; this is the actual diff, and it was one of many. Incidentally, who is the admin you're accusing of the same -no, higher- level of insult who was only admonished? Looking over the last couple of ANI archives I can't see any relevant cases. ‑ Iridescent17:19, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
I just noticed that, assuming the Rapture doesn't intervene, ANI will get its 1,000,000th edit sometime in the next few months. I think this should be recognized in some way -- maybe a prize for the lucky editor who makes that historic edit? EEng02:59, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
We should have a giant commemorative debate, invoking as many subtle personal attacks and accusations as possible, before ultimately resolving the issue by throwing a BOOMERANG at the person who opened the request in good faith in the first place. A true ANI-worthy celebration :-) -- Ajraddatz (talk) 03:05, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Ajraddatz has the right idea, though they left out the obligatory after-party in which the boomeranged editor gets caught socking around the block, the SPI turns up a whole laundry bin of existing and new socks by that editor including at least one admin account, and five different long-term editors post endlessly to various Admins' talk pages about how they should all turn in their own mops because that original ANI post was in good faith.
Or, we could go with EEng's idea and give them a prize. Personally, I think being crowned "Queen of the Drama, Defender of the Sockfarm and Lady Protrectress of the butthurt" would be a great prize. I can make a crown template for their userpage and everything. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.12:42, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
We could probably just start a discussion about what to do regarding the millionth edit. By the time we got done arguing we'd be at 1.1mil. Primefac (talk) 12:54, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that people would discuss what to do about the millionth edit? No, we're Wikipedians. We only care about improving articles. We don't fart around on the backend arguing about pointless-yet-amusing things. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.13:10, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Just let me know when I should swoop in without having participated in the discussion at all and block someone for typing the word "fart", and then leave for 6 weeks. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:25, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I like arbitrary number related celebrations! Some 'prizes' for consideration (I find the suggestions so far a little conservative):
Immunity from PA blocks (as long as the PAs are delivered in the form of a haiku). Is allowed to add a 6th pillar of their choosing (as long as it is written in the form of a haiku). Gains / loses admin rights. Gains / loses Arbcom seat. Is indef blocked by Jimbo. Is indef restricted to only being allowed to post on Jimbo's talk page. Has their user name / block log / contribution history switched with an editor of their choosing. Gets to write an un-sourced biography of themselves that will be hosted on the main page for a day. Scribolt (talk) 13:28, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
@Ivanvector: You have to be sure to get the details right; the block should be an indef, and in the block log it should say something completely unrelated and inscrutable like "WP:FORUMSHOPPING", and you can't disappear until you've answered the first inevitable "WTF?!" question with something dismissive like "MPants is clearly WP:NOTHERE; typing "fart" on a discussion page is something like 99% of their edits." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.14:05, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I renamed a user with 90,000 edits the other day, and it caused ~45 seconds of lag. Assuming that deleting ANI would hang up the servers at the same flat rate, and that the connection of the steward deleting the page didn't time out (which it certainly would), I estimate 8 minutes and 15 seconds lag time from deleting the page. But I certainly won't be the one to test it! (Edit: Upon reflection, deleting a page with many revisions is more server intensive than a rename with a lot of edits. So much for that thought exercise.) -- Ajraddatz (talk) 20:46, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
@Primefac: Nah. See, if we do it right after the one million mark, then several people will claim it and none of them will be able to prove it. Then our first thread on AN Second Edition can be who should get blocked for falsely claiming to have made the millionth. SeraphimbladeTalk to me22:05, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
Based on the above two data points I calculate a projected date of 13 December UTC. Slowdown during U.S. Thanksgiving (23 Nov) holiday may push that back a day or two. ―Mandruss☎04:52, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
@Mandruss: Based on the numbers contributed by User:MPants at work I get a date rather earlier than that, 26 November (at roughly 10AM UTC). The relationship appears to be pretty nearly linear, and I make it 5,066 edits over 34.32 days, or 148 edits per day on average over that time. As the last data point leaves 4,015 edits until the 1,000,000th, that's 27 days to go, giving a time some time on the 26th of next month. Have I gone wrong in my math somewhere? GoldenRing (talk) 11:41, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
@GoldenRing: Wow, there is more than one numbers geek reading this page. My calculation was: 4 Oct − 25 Sep = 9 days (991,961 − 990,919) / 9 = 115 per day (1,000,000 − 991,961) / 115 = 70 days 4 Oct + 70 days = 13 Dec Using the latest numbers: 30 Oct − 25 Sep = 35 days (995,985 − 990,919) / 35 = 144 per day (1,000,000 − 995,985) / 144 = 28 days 30 Oct + 28 days = 27 Nov The one-day difference is the result of minor differences in the way we calculated, but is well within the margin of error. Obviously the 26–27 Nov projection is the more reliable of the two, due to the much larger sample size. I make the rates for the 4 periods to be 115, 163, 140, and 158, not very linear at all. ―Mandruss☎12:29, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Plot of the number of edits at AN/I on English Wikipedia during september and october 2017.@Mandruss: I plotted the numbers against dates and saw roughly what you describe - the period at the end of September / first few days of October is somewhat slower than the other periods, but the average of the first two periods represents about the same rate as the overall rate. Ie. in the plot at right, the second sample appears as the only one not on (approximately) the same line as the others. GoldenRing (talk) 13:04, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
@GoldenRing: Ok, it looks fairly linear on a graph. Maybe you should calculate a standard deviation for us. The important thing is to keep ANI at 144–148 so we can meet the target. On slow days I can do a bunch of self-reverts or something; on fast days it may be necessary for you to temp-block one or two of the heavier users. ―Mandruss☎13:34, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
@Mandruss: I'm tempted to attempt a script that plots a graph at the top of AN/I with a big target on it. The hard part is where to get the data from - AFAICT the only option in the API for counting the number of edits at a particular date is to retrieve all of them and count them (in fact this seems to be the only option for counting edits full stop). Since AN/I causes X!Tools' page history thingy to HTTP-500 due to an SQL error I haven't bothered to look at, I'm guessing doing this on the client side is not going to user-friendly. GoldenRing (talk) 15:01, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
I feel that we should take this opportunity to reinforce the "administrators'" part of Administrator's Noticeboard/Incidents; we should punish the author if they're not an admin and reward them if they are. I propose that, if the author of the millionth edit is not an admin, we immediately desysop them, and if they are, then they get immediately rewarded with a sysop bit. Writ Keeper⚇♔15:05, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
I've been posting the edit counts. In User:EEng/common.js there's some code that adds edit counts and some other stuff to the top of every page you access -- handy sometimes. EEng15:28, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Pictured here, several tons of fish gathered in anticipation of the celebration
New overall rate: 152.7. New ETA: 24 November. Give or take, that is. EEng helpfully keeps taking counts at very different times of day and I'm not calculating to hour precision. Anyway, somewhere near the latter part of this month. ―Mandruss☎02:40, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Dash it all, what's happening to standards around here? If there's any chance I'm going to get hit with a barrel of trout, I'd like some actual trout, please, none of this salt-water fish nonsense. GoldenRing (talk) 13:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
Maghasito's pseudoscientific political activity in Turanism article
Despite Maghasito was warned by admins, he removed modern English language references and replaced them with obsolete Hungarian nationalist interwar period tales and references. It is not metapedia.--Filederchest (talk) 22:38, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia's Policy on Whistleblowing
Dear Sir,
I am a Wikipedia editor (not admin) with years of experience but sadly I am having to use a different account to write this. I have encountered and witnessed, and investigated some wrongdoings by a certain Wikimedia Foundation employee that I want to report. I will not leave details here, but to whom do I contact to report my concerns?
After trying to explain what is going on, I wake up to this:
Screenshot
I am now going to the media, and I am contacting CNN, MSNBC, BBC and other news sources as Wikipedia is trying to cover up it's cover up. --Wisel-Blooe (talk) 15:06, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Wisel-Blooe, you're very quickly going from innocent whistle-blower to a troll. If you're going to make a report to ArbCom, do it, but there's no further point in commenting here. Primefac (talk) 15:10, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
If you have a genuine complaint, contact Wikimedia here [2]. This would be a Wikimedia issue, not Wikipedia. EEng15:14, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Oh, how I love it, the self-sealing argument: “Wikimedia policy is controlled by a secret group; any evidence to the contrary is the result of their propaganda.” Rhadow (talk) 15:58, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Disappearing discussion
I recently reported Jasonanaggie for some blatant tendentious POV pushing, which I would call vandalism. The discussion, such as it was, largely involved me trying in earnest to highlight his behaviour and Jason trying in various ways to deflect the issue, with Cullen328, an admin who had previously warned Jason, confirming what I had said and stating, "I am not sure of the best course of action, other than to say that this behavior cannot be allowed to continue." I had then suggested that Jason be topic banned.
Today I see that the discussion has been archived without any resolution or even a single comment by uninvolved editors. I'd stopped frequenting the discussion myself as I was just repeating myself, but I expected that at the very least it would garner some sort of closing comment. Instead, there was nothing. It's just gone.
Since I'm unfamiliar with the sanctions process I'd like to know if I was overzealous. Was I in error trying to bring Jason's behaviour to wider attention? Was Cullen328's comment notwithstanding? In all honesty I'm baffled. Perhaps next time I see an editor making a multitude of bad edits I should do nothing, rather than tidying up after them, so that at the very least they can be made to clean up their own mess. I'm annoyed that I wasted at least 2 hours of my own time trying to rectify things while Jason is free to continue doing what he does. nagualdesign21:06, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
After reading that discussion, the issue got a fair hearing, and there was clearly no consensus to (or perhaps consensus against) imposing sanctions. When the result of a discussion is clear to the participants, a formal close is usually unnecessary. However, if you'd like me to apply a formal close to the discussion to that effect, I'd be happy to do so. Indeed, the editor who came closest to being sanctioned in that discussion was probably you. Tazerdadog (talk) 01:44, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
You were being a bit overzealous there. You were still probably OK, but that discussion was quickly devolving into an argument without the possibility of useful sanctions, and with all kinds of potential for someone to say something regrettable and get blocked. The other editors that did comment were pretty clear about a lack of sanctions being appropriate. Advice for the future - if you ever have to drag someone to the dramahboards again, make one post that lays out your argument with diffs as briefly as is practical, and then walk away from the discussion. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:18, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Okay, I take that on board. Thank you for explaining. In the 10 years or so I've been editing (longer than I've had an account) this is the first time I've brought anyone's behaviour to ANI, so obviously I'm not familiar with how things work, nor do I wish to spend a lot of time learning since it's only useful once in a decade. The only reason I wanted to highlight Jason's behaviour is because I thought it would be an open and shut case. I had no idea that I would have to become the accuser and do a lot of legwork trying to point out what I thought would have been obvious, and possibly face sanctions myself for putting a foot wrong. I think in future I'll just try and turn the other cheek instead.
As for other editors, Kralizec! said, "I could not in clear conscience block Jasonanaggie for vandalism after seeing that he had self reverted many of his questionable edits after his discussion with User:Cullen328 on the matter", which seems like he didn't realize that Jason had made further edits (the ones that I was reporting) after his self-reverting. And Cullen328 said, "I am very disappointed that this editor has continued their tendentious and obvious POV pushing. Perhaps I overemphasized BLP policy since it should be obvious that this style of editing is completely unacceptable on all articles, not just BLPs. I am not sure of the best course of action, other than to say that this behavior cannot be allowed to continue."
If my naivety during the ANI discussion detracted from what Cullen328 was also saying then I'm disappointed. It's a shame I only spotted Cullen328's previous interactions with Jason during the ANI discussion. If I'd spotted it before I could have just told him and let him handle the entire thing. You live and learn, I suppose.
Perhaps next time someone takes something to ANI who doesn't really know what they're doing, those of you that frequent the page might offer a little more guidance instead of a wall of silence. Not a complaint, I might add, just a suggestion. Regards, nagualdesign16:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
ANI Experiences survey
Beginning on November 28, 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) will be conducting a survey to en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.
The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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.
Hi, I would like to propose that BOOMERANGS are no longer permitted at ANI. That is not to say that reporting user's edits should not be taken into account, but it should only be on the specific instance that matches with what is being reported. In other words, we don't go looking through history or edits to BOOMERANG. If A reports B for behavior issues, then we can BOOMERANG to A if A's edits show that A is bulling B or harassing B or stalking B, but we don't need to then look back at history and see what else A is doing, with B or C or D. We should focus ANI reports somewhat similar to a case with a clearly defined scope. I and I imagine many others often times don't report things to ANI for fear of what is hidden in our closets. That in turn allows misbehavior and vandalism to sometimes go unchecked. Sir Joseph(talk)15:45, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
So you're saying SJ deserves a boomerang? Seriously: If you come to ANI and make the argument that "XYZ constitutes harassment", and you've done XYZ yourself in the past, then that's relevant to your complaint. If your behavior is in the distant past ("hidden in our closets") then it's unlikely to result in action against you, but it's still relevant. EEng16:04, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps true, but it routinely goes beyond such relevance into general attacks on credibility, using whatever useful things one can find in their opponent's history. Whether or not it "result[s] in action against [them]", it is quite the effective tool for throwing smoke to divert attention from the complaint, and that's why it's used so often. I'm not suggesting that anything can be done about it under the current system of self-selected self-governance; I'm merely stating my largely pointless view that it's unethical and bad faith behavior. ―Mandruss☎17:21, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
A rose boomerang by any other name would smell as sweet come back and hit you in the face. Attempting to use a boomerang in bad faith is also grounds for a boomerang.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 17:44, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Nice theory, but I much prefer reality. Can you show me a couple of cases where said grounds have in fact resulted in a sanction? ―Mandruss☎17:47, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
I think there is a difference between relevancy and how it's often used now. In addition, if A brings a claim on B about stalking, and A also stalks, then that should result in an ANI report. The scope of an individual report should be on what was reported. If the action is due to the behavior of the reporting party, then that should be taken into account, but the case should usually not result in us looking at other people if it's not directly involved in the report. To add to Eeng's comment, if I report someone for harassment, and I have in the past harassed people, how is that relevant to this specific case? Two wrongs don't make a right, whether I was sanctioned or not for harassment doesn't take away that right now the report is on someone else harassing me. If it's a current issue, then feel free to report me to ANI for harassment but it should not be in the same case as what is reported. Sir Joseph(talk)17:58, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
There shouldn't be a blanket prohibition on bringing up past behavior IFF it's both relevant and timely. For example, if the issue raised is repeated WP:IDHT on washing machine articles, bringing up an example from several months ago from Equine Medicine articles where they were warned for similar behavior is both relevant and timely. Bringing up the same behavior from several years ago with nothing to indicate issues since then is relevant, but probably not timely. Trying to poison the well by bringing up 3RR blocks from a year ago is probably not relevant (this isn't about edit-warring) nor timely. There was something a few weeks ago where someone tried to poison the well with something that happened 8+ years ago and they did get slapped down for it. That's what is really needed, the willingness for admins to identify information that is not relevant and/or timely and take action, such as redacting, warning the editor or stronger if it's repeated. Personally, if something happened more than a year ago and hasn't been repeated since then, it's not timely anymore and should not be brought up. Ravensfire (talk) 19:18, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
No. If you are afraid to report disruption because you are yourself too disruptive to avoid a boomerang, then stop being so disruptive. Problem solved. GMGtalk18:04, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
If both or either editor is causing enough active damage to the project that sanctions are preventative, then sanctions are beneficial to the project. Full stop. We don't make a special exception for whomever happens to be the first to file an ANI report, and neither should we or will we. If you are insecure about someone scrutinizing your behavior, then behave differently. We're not changing policy on account of it. GMGtalk18:27, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
As I said, relevant behavior should be scrutinized, to an extent, but if I bring a case today, my edits from a year ago, or even from a few months ago should not be part of a current ANI report. Sir Joseph(talk)18:41, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
If you're not causing active disruption that would warrant sanctions, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about. GMGtalk18:48, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Disagree if for no other reason that simple expediency. When there's a bad situation, sometimes it is the truly disruptive editor that the first person to file a complaint. The boomerang allows ANI to use one discussion to review the situation and determine the response. If the filer is immune to sanctions on that complaint, that means someone will have to create a new complaint, copying darn near everything from the first complaint, focusing on the other editor. That's just crazy. Review the situation, determine what needs to be done, regardless of who filed or even they were actually involved in the original situation (thinking of someone being disruptive in the ANI discussion) and handle it there. Ravensfire (talk) 18:19, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Years ago there was a Village Pump discussion about ANI reforms or some such. I was young and idealistic then, and I proposed removing the linkage of opposing editors' behavior, per that silly principle some of us were taught by our parents, "two wrongs don't make a right". Most participating editors weren't taught that by their parents, or see it as childishly simplistic, and the proposal was roundly defeated; as I recall, I got one support, consisting of one short sentence, from a relatively inexperienced editor. The culture has not changed since then. ANI discussions are debates about whose behavior was worse; that both parties could be worthy of sanction is impossible to conceive. ―Mandruss☎18:21, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Question What percentage of editors are afraid to go to ANI for fear of a boomerang? What percentage of "boomerangs" would lead to any reasonable person to be puzzled as to why a boomerang was used. Can you even highlight one case where a boomerang was used and any generic reasonable person would be confused as to why?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 18:42, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
That's not a good question at all. That question doesn't account for any justifiable boomerangs. Can you again point out any boomerang that is unjustifiable. A "boomerang" can't actually be considered an issue unless people are being banned or blocked unjustifiably.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 18:48, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
No, it should be considered even without action. If I bring an ANI and then I have to defend myself against a boomerang, even if it's not actionable, I still have to spend time defending myself against the boomerang. Sir Joseph(talk)19:00, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
It still shouldn't be considered. It should be narrowed to how many frivolous calls for a boomerang are made or how many unjustified calls for a boomerang are made. There is nothing wrong with a good call. Have you been banned by a unjustifiable boomerang, specifically have you been banned for something that would puzzle a reasonable person?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 19:31, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
If he had, he would be roundly criticized for starting this discussion and directed to the proper way to appeal a sanction. ―Mandruss☎19:42, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Fine, then ask for examples that didn't involve him. I read the first person in his comment above as a rhetorical "I", and hypothetical. ―Mandruss☎20:02, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
It's the chilling effect, if we allow boomerangs, whether they are ultimately actioned upon or not is the issue. Current ANI has one BOOMERANG request, the last archive has a few boomerang requests and boomerang blocks. And again, because of the boomerang factor I don't bring people to ANI. I didn't do anything wrong, but who knows how far back someone might go into my history, propose a boomerang and now, rather than deal with current issue, I also have to defend myself against a boomerang. It defeats the purpose of ANI and goes against what we are trying to do here at Wikipedia.Sir Joseph(talk)20:11, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Look, most things are two-sided coins and double-edged swords. Always make an effort to see the flip side and the other edge. In this case, it's the removal of any possible consequence for bringing a bad-faith complaint. ―Mandruss☎20:16, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
It would be a chilling effect to bar anyone from reviewing anyones recent prior behavior to call in question their complaint. You wish to martyr yourself here but you haven't even provided any situations where a boomerang has been questionably called against you. The one boomerang at ANI isn't actually unreasonable. I would personally vote against it but I'm not seeing a real issue there in. You are here advocating that there is an issue but other than commentary you aren't providing anything. Is the current system flawed? Certainly! But this is not a solution, it's sour grapes.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 20:30, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
...this is actually serious? Wow. If you suggest that the activity of somebody who files a complaint about ANI, with regards to their conduct in the situation being brought to ANI, should be forbidden from scruitny, then that's the next thing to simply nominating the board itself for deletion as pointless. What this is proposing is that, for instance, if a troll repeatedly vandalises a BLP, gets reverted by a good-faith editor over and over, and then runs to ANI and reports the good-faith editor for "edit-warring on a BLP", they would have to be allowed to get away scot free, as any action against them would be an evil, evil boomerang. My summation is this: if you have consistently edited in good faith, past indiscretions will only be scrutinized by bad-faith actors, and will be discounted accordingly by the administrators handling the case. And I will even go as far to say that if you are being stopped from reporting someone to ANI because of concern about getting boomeranged, that probably should say something to you about the validity of the report you're considering. - The BushrangerOne ping only02:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
This proposal sounds beyond ludicrous. It sounds like the OP is proposing that a "first mover advantage" be implemented at ANI, which is just stupid. When two people are behaving badly, we're really supposed to give the person who happens to get to ANI first a free pass for bad behavior. Just no. Per Bushranger, ANI is not about winning battles against opponents, and disruptive behavior will be dealt with whenever it is discovered, regardless of when and where it is discovered. --Jayron3202:55, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
This has to be the most stupidest things I've read this year and I've read some pretty stupid shit!, If editor A reports editor B for harassment but editor A is also harassing then editor A deserves to be BOOMERANGED (with editor B also being blocked), You don't get to be a dick and then get a free pass, SJ deserve blocking for this moronic proposal alone. –Davey2010Talk03:03, 8 December 2017 (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.
Julia Mora article-why hasn't it been redirected yet?
for about 2 weeks there has been a discussion going on.
there was a previous incident on the noticeboard but it was closed.
there is a edit war going on with user softlavender.
when will the article actually get redirected or deleted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daquan7474 (talk • contribs) 10:49, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
When an uninvolved admin evaluates the consensus they will implement it on the article. It looks like a fairly contentious discussion so it may take a little bit to happen. There is no deadline to do anything here on Wikipedia. ~ GB fan11:09, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
I started a thread on ANI, it's gotten some responses but no administrator action or consensus against it. Meanwhile, it's been archived by the bot, twice. Given the heavy activity on this page, the fact that many threads are put in closure boxes once resolved, and the heavy use of OneClickArchiver, I'm feeling it's not worth having the bot perform archiving automatically on AN/I? – Train2104 (t • c) 21:32, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
In the future, you can add a ping at the end of the thread to prevent its being archived, but really, if it hasn't attracted attention then your real job is not just to ping, but explain that the disruption is continuing or whatever. If you have nothing to say along those lines, then probably the thread should die anyway. EEng00:49, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
No, absolutely not. ANI fills up so fast that the number of threads overwhelm the ability of administators to weed through them and find the ones that need attention or closing. Train2104, if your thread keeps getting auto-archived without what you consider appropriate administrator action or closing, then create a subthread (with three equals signs on either side of the subheader) inside the thread titled something like "Administrative attention/close needed here". That way an admin can see that in the table of contents. Please do not abuse that, and only do it when you are absolutely confident you have an actionable case. If you merely want to prolong your thread's life at ANI (to see if it gets any further input), simply add a new post to it (and sign it), and the thread will stay live three more days due to the new timestamp. Softlavender (talk) 00:49, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
If a thread at ANI is autoarchived without action, that should ordinarily be taken as a sign that no action is needed. If you are confident it requires admin intervention, then I would suggest following one of Softlavender's suggestions. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:52, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
By opening an ANI you are asking the community to resolve a situation or bringing attention to a situation. Inaction is just as much an action as a ban, block, warning, or etc. Softlavender and TonyBalloni make great points above but let me note that sometimes you also may just have to drop the stick and walk away because the community won't take any action at ANI. The reasons will vary but they are not limited to the community not seeing an issue with the matter you highlight.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 03:35, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Here is the thread in question: [3]. Unfortunately, I think the main reason it didn't garner adequate participation is because of the large distracting image EEng Atsme posted right away on it (which lessened its credibility right away) -- and I'm not sure that EEng realizes that effect) and the snarky comment he made that threw the conversation off-course. Also, no actual subthread called "Proposal" was created so that people could !vote on whether to, for instance, block or topic ban the editor. Softlavender (talk) 04:40, 13 December 2017 (UTC); edited 06:04, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
I didn't add the image, and my comments made a completely serious point: if the articles omitted the fancrufty content, which they should, the whole dispute would be moot. EEng18:00, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
You're right, you didn't add the image, Atsme did [4], less than 24 hours after the thread was opened, and it threw the whole thread off and made it more of a laughingstock than anything. Softlavender (talk) 00:59, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Train2104, in case you aren't following this discussion, the reason your ANI tanked (twice) was because of the image someone added to it shortly after it was opened. If that happens in the future, feel free to comment out the image using <!-- --> codes. If the issue you posted about is still an issue or recurs, and you can't resolve it, feel free to post about it again at ANI (in a new thread, with new wording). Softlavender (talk) 09:57, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Can't help noticing that this is the second time in a very brief period that the rather WP:FORUM approach of User:EEng has contributed to difficulties. (I don't mean just the deliberately over-long talk page apparently intended for humor purposes, but also the meandering conversations unabashedly unrelated to encyclopedia improvement that provided the circumstances for that block.) Thank you for slightly trimming the talk page, EEng, but a refocusing of approaches might be a good idea also. MPS1992 (talk) 15:40, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
No-one is insisting on anything. But your reaction towards honestly expressed concerns is noted, in case of further problems in addition to these two incidents this week -- no matter what "Great men of all nations" may "hang out" on your talkpage. MPS1992 (talk) 00:17, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
You mean your honestly expressed concern that others should stop doing something that's harmless, promotes good cheer and camaraderie within the project, and is none of your business? I sure hope you did note my reaction, yeah. EEng03:57, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
When it approaches being potentially disruptive, it becomes other editors' business -- not just that of your self-declared "Great men". MPS1992 (talk) 04:15, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Looking to great men for insight and inspiration doesn't mean one fancies himself a great man, Einstein. And as for, "When it approaches being potentially disruptive ..." – yeah, sounds like a real problem. When you've more experience here than just than reverting vandals and welcoming people, c'mon back and we'll talk about what actually makes the project tick. Or if you like, come to my talk page and exercise your intellectual faculties (though it's admittedly not the most strenuous such exercise around). EEng05:53, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
I think I'll give that a miss -- and I think I'll look elsewhere for any insight into "what actually makes the project tick", despite your doubtless huge expertise in it. MPS1992 (talk) 10:02, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Wow. I only just spotted this discussion and in some small part it appears to involve me: ..the meandering conversations unabashedly unrelated to encyclopedia improvement that provided the circumstances for that block. Assuming that you mean my block, that had nothing to do with EEng. He never invited me to his talk page, in fact as far as I'm aware we've never interacted before I took it upon myself to post on his talk page. It's pretty dumb to equate the content of his talk page with 'providing the circumstances' for my block. I'm entirely culpable for my own actions. Since EEng was quite vocal in my defense here (and I'll take the opportunity to say thank you for that, EEng) I'm starting to see perhaps why you, MPS1992, became so pissy. Anyway, let's not all file into our respective cliques. I really can't stand that sort of bullshit. Let's just make amends here and now. MPS1992, you really ought to stalk that talk page from time to time, even if you don't feel like posting. A bit of a giggle might do you a world of good. Failing that, get a bit of Frank Zappa in your life. Sincerely, nagualdesign11:42, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
...Haha! I see that you spotted my copyright violation. Thank you for that. Where would we be without you, eh? I really should have thought it through before posting. I'd still like to encourage you to listen to that album though, or maybe just try to work on your sense of humour and focus less on being a jobsworth. I'm sorry if I wasted your time, having to go searching for a policy-based reason to snub me. Now you can get back to the important stuff. See you next time, buddy. nagualdesign12:38, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
User:Denniss abused his rollback privileges here to make unwanted changes to my user page. This is not the first time Denniss abused his privileges (see also the link in this section).
Please explain to Denniss that granted privileges should not be abused.
As i stated on the Seth Rich talk page, the reference listed did not show that law enforcement debunked the conspiracy theory. Clearly this statement upsets you, I am not sure why. The police stated that these claims are unfounded. That means that there is no evidence to support these claims. Debunked means its not true. No one knows why Seth Rich was murdered. Clearly wikipedia doesn't care that the article here reflects that though. 2600:8800:1800:E970:8AC:B8DA:F739:5508 (talk) 22:00, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Wise choice to protect the article due to a persistent sock puppet attack. However, I've actually started a discussion related to myself and what happened on Talk:Absolute value, and I can't properly carry on the discussion from my own perspective due to this.
What I want to add, under "Frequent WP:NPA violations, etc.":
Thanks for telling me about WP:BATTLEGROUND. I know I was being a bit... harsh in my tone of voice there. As I've said, I'm never justifying myself, since I didn't know if I am in the wrong. Even if I was, however, I'm willing to learn from my own mistakes.
Let me just point out; I couldn't really discuss anything related to the article, itself, since it would get interpreted as not really being related to the article's content. Seriously, now, people seem to have trouble telling a difference between an aside comment and one that's making an attack towards the others. As what can be seen on my own talk page, back when I was still violating WP:BATTLEGROUND, I've said I had a genuine reason to call the others "fools", but I held back; this was interpreted as as an indirect attack by someone, even though it's not meant to be such. (Look, I know how derogative that phrase really is, but it doesn't change the fact that it's meant to be an explanation instead.)
And then there's the fact that it seems the others had unilaterally agreed that my own grammar is bad and that their own grammar is the best. Read "Since you've asked..." under that article, for instance. (And then, there goes my tendency to misread everything, causing misunderstandings interpreted as a personal attack, making me no different than those who accuse me of such.)
I also wasn't planning on editing that article for a while due to these issues. You are right, I am inexperienced. But, there's nothing wrong with me gaining that experience on the go, learning from my mistakes, no matter how costly. --Karjam, AKA KarjamP (talk) 04:34, 3 January 2018 (UTC) Karjam, AKA KarjamP (talk) 04:34, 3 January 2018 (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.
Nice, Wikipedia. What a wonderful place you are. I just wanted to state that a certain country has won its 7th gold medal in a certain sport [5] based on verified IOC (International Olympic Committee) sources [6] and Wikipedia article (Ice hockey at the Olympic Games#Statistics (brief summary of our conversation: [7]). After that I was accused of being a "puppet" and an administator who had reverted this [8] edit ignored (and deleted [9]) all my questions. Good job. History: here (I'm not related to previous editors)— Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.170.75.238 (talk) 17:16, 15 January 2018 (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.
Not an issue for Administrators' noticeboard. Referred elsewhere.
Twice today he vandalized article.
I suggest to block him and to lock atricle and related articles (Great power,Power and Regional power)for long time.
I suppose he is (he vandalized Italy article too with brazilian nationalism ;the iP is brazilian)B777-300ER.He should be detected.
Thank you.LittleOx (talk) 20:08, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
Per the advice Sro23 gave me a few days ago, I've switched the settings for ANI protection to indef ECP to throw off the LTA that has been socking and causing damage there. They basically are just waiting to the set expiration time and starting again. This is not actually intended as being infinite, but have set it as indef so that it will throw them off. Any admin may reduce my protection at any time when they feel it is no longer needed. TonyBallioni (talk) 12:04, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Request for creating user page
Not an issue for Administrators' noticeboard. Referred elsewhere.
Hi, I'm new to Wikipedia. I had a userpage. At first, the userpage was created by one of my friends, Siddiqsazzad001. And then my userpage started facing speedy deletion problem. I asked Siddiqsazzad001] to delete my page. He deleted it and again I created it so I would not face any kind of problem. But I was still having the problem. So I myself deleted it and then created it, for a several times not to get the notice. But again. I faced the problem. Once again I requested to delete my userpage. And then it was permanently deleted.
The reason was that I was self-promoting. I understand. Then I mentioned social network links. So now I understand these things and now I want any administrator to create my userpage again. And then will be highly appreciated. I will not mention social network links or self promote. I pardon for my mistakes. AhmedLutfeInam 08:29, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
Hi. I understand there are times when further discussion provides more heat than light and a thread can use {{archive top}} and bottom. However, is it really needed everytime? Even if it doesn't look like more discussion will happen? It certainly seems off-putting. Of course, this is an issue seen more broadly around projectspace and talk pages rather than specifically at AN, though the two diffs I cite are from the current live page. Killiondude (talk) 18:33, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't remember where it was at (it may have been here), but no, there was a lengthy thread five or six months ago and a general feeling that threads don't need to really be closed unless the closure serves some sort of purpose (like preventing it from spiraling into useless argument, or meandering into unproductive banter). GMGtalk18:39, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that discussion was here. The reason (I believe) that discussions were hatted quickly was so that it would keep clutter off the noticeboard(s). Those two discussions, for example, don't need to sit on AN for two weeks until a bot archives them, and by hatting them it allows someone to use one-click on 'em. I don't particularly have a preference either way (for a while I was using {{resolved}} to show resolved issues, but that seems to have died off). Primefac (talk) 19:21, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
FWIW I close discussions so that editors know what needs to be tended to and what doesn't, Personally I think closing them's helpful as A) like Primefac says it stops unnecessary commenting and B) Editors can venture to threads that still need attention --–Davey2010Talk19:28, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
I prefer {{resolved}} for most of the boring/easy stuff, and typically think that closing all the stuff that doesn't need to be closed is a waste of time and also makes the noticeboard difficult to read. The only time I use a formal close template is if it seems likely that the discussion is going to attract unneeded or off-topic comments and bring more heat than light. This is of course, different than a close that is an assessment of consensus, which of course needs a formal close. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:33, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
I close with {{archive top}} or something similar for the same reasons as Davey2010 has suggested. I personally dislike {{resolved}}: I like being able to see quickly while scrolling the page that things are finished (that have a shaded background) while placing a comparatively tiny note at the top of a long thread really doesn't accomplish that purpose. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:50, 31 January 2018 (UTC)
Before formal closes got so in vogue, we used to use
Resolved
for things that were, you know, resolved but did not require a formal closure. Just slap that baby on top of the thread and it’s just as easily identifiable as a non-urgent matter, doesn’t require any sort of closing statement, and leaves discussion open on the offchance that it isn’t as resolved as it looked. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:36, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
I don't know, B--if there's long discussions, with subthreads and stuff, that one little tag doesn't do it for me. You're still young, you have your looks and your sharp eyes. Drmies (talk) 18:38, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
It is usually used for the small stuff, the really long discussion probably do benefit more froma formal close. Also {{NOTHERE}}, which I used in the section right above this one, is good for letting people know they are in the wrong place. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:40, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
I don't mind the archive boxes, though I much prefer the resolved tag unless immediate archiving is desired. My main beef is with premature use of the archive box. As Beeblebrox notes, the resolved tag allows for additional input after an over-enthusiastic close. --Jezebel's Ponyobons mots18:44, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
I find the archiving with the purple box quite helpful.
On more than one occasion, I started reading a longish issue and tried to read it in the context of planning to be helpful. That means I might make mental notes on important points and possible responses. If I get to the end and find out the issue has been resolved, but the threat is not yet been archived it's frustrating waste of time. That's not to say I don't read the archived threads, sometimes I do but I can read them differently. I can start with how it was closed which might tip me off that I don't need to read it at all, or I can see that an important issue was discussed and I can read it in the context of how it played out without having to make mental notes about how I might respond.
When I come to one of these threads with plenty of time (which is rare) I can take the time to read everything but in the more likely case that I have to pick and choose what to read, it is very helpful to see an archive threads which may still need some further discussion as well as archive threads which will need further discussion but might deserve reading for background reasons.
Closing the threads changes the background color of it and gives it a border and a new header. This has the effect of immediately making it clear that the discussion either came to a conclusion or needs to stop. This helps people looking to help clean up ANI and AN when things get busy; in a pinch, every closed discussion can be archived. It also quickly tells editors planning on commenting in a thread whether their comments will be useful or not.
The point I think Killiondude was making that perhaps not every single thread needs the {{atop}}, not that it serves no purpose. Threads here, at ANI, and (far too) many places get long and having the color helps to just mentally skip if you have no desire to spend 10-20 minutes reading everyone's issues on something that's done. Having a specially-colored notice saying "Discussion is closed do not participate" discourages conversation or even reading, and I much prefer a simple {{done}} or {{resolved}} for the quick, littler things. The full closures should be reserved for actual closures. ~ Amory(u • t • c)19:55, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
If the problem you guys have is that you feel the archive template gives an unwelcoming vibe, I would be more than happy to create a new template that says something much more genial, like "This situation has been resolved." Of course, we would still want to use the original archive template for discussions that are shut down specifically to put an end to the discussion (the ones that usually have a summary of "this is generating more heat than light" or something to that effect). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it.20:13, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Seems reasonable, but I don't think we need another template; we already have {{Archive top green}} (and of course, the red and yellow variants). Maybe if something is resolved, we just use the green one? Probably would want {{atopgreen}} or {{atopg}} to be created for ease of typing. Primefac (talk) 15:06, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
Closing threads with the purple boxes is fairly important, in my experience. When AN/I gets excessively long, I've gone down the board and formally closed every possible discussion. The immediate result is very noticeable and very positive. When all resolved discussions are purple-boxed, there's an obvious visual aid that acts as a filter to unresolved threads. This encourages input in the threads that actually need it. Having a wall of open threads has the opposite affect: Threads that need obvious action go unattended, while resolved threads sit unarchived due to unnecessary singular comments by random non-admins, leading to the wall of text growing bigger and bigger, until there are more than 30 or 40 open threads, whereas maybe 5-10 are actually in need of attention. Also—closing prevents the aforementioned straggler comments which prevent automated archiving, therefore, purple-boxing noticeably and quickly shrinks the number of threads on the board. Since AN/I watchers are not distracted by an overwhelming number of open threads, new reports receive swift action and resolution. Lastly, by closing discussions after they have been answered by admins, unnecessary commentary from the peanut gallery is vastly reduced. This remedies the longstanding and toxic "drama board" culture that makes AN/I so infamous. The purported downsides to closing discussions are simply not believable. The notion that the purple boxes are "unwelcoming" is ridiculous. This is AN/I. There's nothing welcoming about it. At least the purple boxes indicate that discussions are being formally actioned, as opposed to the "wild west" vibe alternative. Perhaps @Softlavender: could add something, I've seen her encourage this in the archives. However I strongly encourage all admins and non-admins to assist in closing discussions, because the benefits will be noticeable. Swarm♠05:04, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
I think it's a common mistake to think that because an admin has taken action the issue is resolved and there is nothing more to do. Sometimes they are even closed without necessary action. The past several threads that have caught my attention have involved me doing more cleaning up after it's closed, including range blocks, lifting blocks, adjusting blocks, deleting pages, protecting pages, reverting edits, watchlisting pages (thankfully), blocking vandals, using checkuser, and spotting edit filter adjustments to be made. It's probably fortunate that I managed to see them before they're archived, but of course none of this extra action or additional information gets documented if a discussion is closed. This is the core issue really, how do you know for sure that there's nothing more to add, and if you can't be sure then why should you prohibit further discussion? -- zzuuzz(talk)08:37, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
As I said last time round, to another editor (particularly one who feels they have a genuine grievance that isn't being taken seriously, as is often the case at AN and ANI), "this thread is closed, the opinion of anyone who hasn't commented isn't wanted" is just as aggressive as as straightforward "fuck off". Yes, there are occasions when visible closure or premature archiving is necessary, either to cool an escalating situation before someone says something they'll regret or to shut down a thread that's become a long back-and-forth between two users that would be better placed on a talk page, but those situations are rare. The issue isn't with closing threads that are genuinely resolved to make it easier for people scanning the page to know what to ignore, it's with the tendency of a lot of people to unilaterally decide "I don't think anyone else should be allowed to comment" and slap a threatening warning template on it regardless of whether the matter in question is actually resolved.
@Swarm, if you honestly feel that "The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion." isn't "unwelcoming" to someone who has something to contribute to the discussion in question, particularly the often-inexperienced users who end up at ANI who don't realise that these warnings are advisory and not mandatory and that they can still comment on a closed discussion by commenting below the box, then I'd suggest that your attitude is a driver of the longstanding and toxic "drama board" culture that makes AN/I so infamous, not the cure. ‑ Iridescent09:05, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
The issue is that {{atop}} is being misused for a purpose for which it was never intended, rather than that its wording is incorrect. The actual, and much-disregarded, instructions for closing a discussion are here; it was intended for the closure of genuinely stale discussions that have been open for at least a week, not as a weaponised mechanism for forcing discussions to stop when a passer-by deems them "unproductive". ‑ Iridescent09:39, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
(drive-by non-admin comment) Has anybody considered creating a new template-pair for this purpose with a kinder, gentler, less-unwelcoming notice? ―Mandruss☎09:51, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
This was mooted above. It seems like quite a sensible suggestion to me - a sort of 'soft-close' with a shaded background (for those who like them) and nothing to prevent further comments (for those who dislike that). {{Archive top green}} was suggested, but that still has the objectionable wording. Perhaps there could be an additional parameter to {{archive top}}. I won't deny there might be some difficulty getting it adopted, but everything on Wikipedia starts with a single step and this seems like a good one. -- zzuuzz(talk)12:38, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
The notion that the purple boxes are "unwelcoming" is ridiculous. This is AN/I. There's nothing welcoming about it. I'm sure you ironically hit the nail on the head with that one. Nihlus09:35, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
@Zzuuzz: Obviously if someone is inappropriately closing reports prematurely, that should be handled directly with the editor at fault, on a case by case basis. Obviously I'm not advocating for incompetent closes of unresolved threads. However, if we're talking about a situation in which a discussion needs to be re-opened, or the closing statement needs to be amended or updated, or a new discussion about the same topic started, nothing, in theory or in practice, prevents any of this. @Iridescent: thanks for the completely unnecessary insult, but I'd still disagree. Closed discussions are not supposed to be "welcoming". They're supposed to be over. Any user who disagrees with a close can simply contact the closing admin if additional followup is needed, though it's not an issue with the overwhelming majority of AN/I reports. If it does come up, any discussions can and should be reopened as needed. I think the notion that closing discussions makes AN/I more unwelcoming than it otherwise would be is fairly unconvincing. If for no other reason, the wall of open reports results in users not getting help. Don't get me wrong. Closing, as well as archiving, should be done appropriately, and on a case by case basis. Not casually, not arbitrarily, not too quickly, and not if there may be some reason for further discussion. But most AN/I reports are genuinely closable at some point, and by closing the ones that are, we benefit the ones that actually need to remain open. I've gone through every thread at AN/I when it's at a bloated 45 open discussions in order to make sure they all got attended to. Did I see any inappropriately closed discussions that still needed action? Nope. Didn't even encounter it. But I did see plenty of cut and dry reports going neglected after days, for no other reason than that they were buried amongst the dozens of open threads. Once I closed every discussion I could? Not a single new thread went unattended. That is, until someone archives all the purple boxes manually, and we're back to nothing but open threads. And just like that, we go back to the culture of an overwhelmingly-bloated AN/I in which reports remain unnecessarily stalled from being archived due to unnecessary commentary by uninvolved non-admins, the number of threads on the board keeps growing indefinitely, and the number of threads that go without needed attention increases accordingly. No one's saying there isn't a potential for problems arising as a result of overzealous closing, and if any such problems are to ever arise, they should be sincerely dealt with in good faith. However, the practice of formally closing and/or archiving discussions is well-established. I've never heard of any complaints about such an act being inherently negative, if done appropriately, and I've never encountered any problems closing discussions at AN/I. Obviously I'm not arguing that anybody should inappropriately close discussions for any reason. But I've noticed clear and unquestionable benefits from clerking AN/I in this manner, as I've already detailed. Swarm♠09:53, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
I find that compelling. But I avoid ANI these days, so my only strong opinion is that this should be RfCed if there is no clear consensus here within, say, a week. This is not an agree-to-disagree situation. ―Mandruss☎10:18, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, but I don't get your statement that we can't disagree about this. Obviously, people have been disagreeing with it, and it hasn't been an issue either way. It seems a little extreme to suggest that disagreement cannot be tolerated regarding such a minor thing and we need to solve this ASAP. Let me be extremely clear. I was simply under the impression that this is just an informal conversation in which we're exchanging opinions in good faith. As of right now, I have not proposed anything, and I certainly did not mean to give the impression that I wanted my position encouraging closing formally endorsed by the community as a matter of procedure. I would not even begin to think that that would be reasonable or enforceable. Just as I don't think some sort of blanket ban on performing closes or other clerking at ANI would be reasonable or plausible in a million years. And I'm not under the impression that either extreme is being proposed. In fact, I'd go so far as to strongly oppose any attempt at altering the existing procedure on closing discussions, even to formally encourage closing discussions. I do not agree with applying unique behavioral or procedural rules for admins at AN/I. Ultimately, both sides of the disagreement deserve to retain their administrative discretion when actioning reports on our own noticeboard. Discretion is key to the role of an administrator, I couldn't fathom taking it away at the most central location for administrative work. I was literally just trying to convey my experience that responsible clerking has positive results. Swarm♠11:30, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Just that there's no real gain without clear consensus. Even if you sway a couple of admins here, most of the problem you describe remains. As it appears my mind isn't wired correctly for such a discussion, I'll bow out. Sorry for the interruption. ―Mandruss☎12:09, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Yeah. I'm in agreement actually. But, like I said, I wouldn't seek to formally impose this as a matter of procedure. I don't think that's realistic. I'm just sharing my thoughts. I don't honestly expect to bring about sweeping change by doing so. Just sharing my relevant experiences. Swarm♠12:54, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
There are 3 good reasons to close. 1. It needs a formal summary of consensus - such as enacting a ban/block/overturning a decision etc. 2. Cleanup - ANI can get very full and waiting for them to drop off is not always efficient. The closure where NFA is required or there is unlikely to be further movement means it will disappear quicker. 3. For the editor's own good, where a discussion goes rapidly downhill or gets bogged in issues that are not ANI issue (mostly content problems). Sometimes telling people 'Really think about this before you open a discussion next time' with a closure is the best option. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:46, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
The main problem (that I personally have) with that (and there is one editor who does this a lot) is that instant archive with no closing effectively disppears the thread immediately. ATOP at least gives editors the option of re-opening it in a short window if necessary. Its not a huge difference, but its a reasonable one. -edit- I would prefer it if there was another template with less restrictive wording but performed the same function. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:55, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Yup. Closing allows at least some time for review. Archiving without closing is rarely more appropriate. It can be done sometimes, but it's not as versatile of an option as closing. Swarm♠13:10, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Closing discussions is just another way of archiving—either can be undone or continued. At least by leaving it on the board, further review ex post facto is encouraged. Plenty of people hang out at AN/I...the archives, not so much. Swarm♠18:53, 19 February 2018 (UTC)
Results from research about Administrators' Noticeboard Incidents
Hello all,
Last fall, as part of the Community Health initiative, a number of experienced En.WP editors took a survey capturing their opinions on the AN/I noticeboard. They recorded where they thought the board working well, where it didn’t, and suggested improvements. The results of this survey are now up; these have been supplemented by some interesting data points about the process in general. Please join us for a discussion on the results.
Results from research about Administrators' Noticeboard Incidents
Hello all,
Last fall, as part of the Community Health initiative, a number of experienced En.WP editors took a survey capturing their opinions on the AN/I noticeboard. They recorded where they thought the board working well, where it didn’t, and suggested improvements. The results of this survey are now up; these have been supplemented by some interesting data points about the process in general. Please join us for a discussion on the results.
We need someone to help, there is a very heated Discussion going on a bunch of 3RR Broken, and no conclusion to the discussion I have left a notice on the bored and I request assistance TheKinkdomMan (talk) 02:03, 9 March 2018 (UTC) TheKinkdomMan (talk) 02:03, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
Deleted page
Recently I've been expanding the Arthur Thomas Hatto page. His father was named Thomas Hatto, and I see a page in his name was deleted in 2008. Could anyone check to see if the deleted page was relevant to this person (he was a solicitor’s clerk, and later became the Assistant Chief Solicitor in the British Transport Commission legal service), and if so whether there was anything interesting or useful there? Also, is there a way to check this without being an admin? Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 03:39, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
Posts restored - You should've waited for the admin to reply before coming here.... - If any admin wants to remove this I have no objections. –Davey2010Talk20:28, 22 March 2018 (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.
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:Rcomm1's unsubstantiated edits and personal attacks
ANI seems to be chockablock with proposals for "1-way IBANs" and "2-way IBANs" at the moment, with a lower and lower threshold. Why is this?
Do we want to keep progressing this way, with an ever-increasing cohort of editors proscribed and protected from interactions with various others to save them having to develop empathy, thicker skin, and the ability to communicate, until Wikipedia editing becomes like making a seating plan at a wedding? Fish+Karate15:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
I guess the salient question becomes "despite asking for them, are the IBANs actually receiving support?" People are allowed to ask for an IBAN, but there's nothing saying that we are obligated to grant a certain number of them (they could all be rejected). I do agree, though, that simply saying "they annoy me so please make them stop" is a bit petulant, and people should grow thicker skin. Of the few IBANs I've seen enacted recently, they were definitely necessary for ongoing harassment and hounding purposes. Primefac (talk) 15:16, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Feel free to start a proposal to modify banning policy, but this is the wrong venue for that. I'm not sure where you're getting the notion that we're starting to overdo it though. There aren't that many IBANs and it's pretty rare to see them proposed, much less passed. Swarm♠15:18, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Tony. I do know that. This is just a musing. And Swarm I don't want to change the banning policy, but there's definitely an increase. There are three interaction ban requests right now on ANI. I get that they likely won't go through, that's not my concern, and my concern isn't whether we should or should not have interaction bans, either. it just seems to be proposed a lot more frequently recently and I'm curious if anyone has thoughts as to why. Fish+Karate15:42, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Right, I'm sorry if that came off as snarky (I realized after I posted it that it could come off the same way). I share your frustration on them, as I think they rarely accomplish anything and are often used for We're in a content dispute and have two equally valid views but won't budge an inch! which is a net negative. IMO, the best way to deal with it is to oppose them when they come up if they aren't justified. Eventually people get the message that the community is tired of the frivolous IBAN requests. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:45, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
If anything needs looked at here I'd say it's a revamp of DRN, which is sufficiently ArbCom-esque cumbersome to use I personally don't even bother pointing people there and haven't for a long time. GMGtalk15:51, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
You know, because half the disputes that end up at ANI, at least one party has less than the basically bare minimum couple thousand edits it takes just to figure out how half the wikitext markup works, and when a newish editor is in a heated dispute, they're definitely in the mood to figure out how to fill out their forms in triplicate. GMGtalk16:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
All sarcasm aside, I do think many of these can be solved by a disinterested and patient third or fourth parties if they have a way to catch it before it gets ANI sized, and there's three and a half hours of required reading just to figure out what's going on in any detail (the spat yesterday here for example, seems to have taken less than a dozen comments to resolve). People at ANI predictably rely on the available tools, of which IBANS and TBANS are a significant part, and many weigh in without the time to take three and half hours to figure out in detail what's going on. If you want a real solution, it's to make it easier to preempt ANI rather than change it IMO. GMGtalk22:31, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Is it worth starting an RFC requesting guidance in the policy about when an IBAN does (not) work? It might reduce the calls for them and enshrine some consensus about their value. --Izno (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
RfCs only achieve anything when you already know what the outcome will be before you open them. They solidify existing consensus, but are pretty ineffective for finding new solutions. If there is a consensus here that IBANs are being overproposed, and there is a clear policy change that most people agree would help, it might be worth having an RfC. Otherwise, I think the best way to go about it is through the labour of simply shooting down the frivolous requests until people start seeing they aren't being granted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyBallioni (talk • contribs)
I'm not entirely sure I agree with "only achieve something" since I wouldn't be attempting to achieve something (where "achieve something" is defined as PAG change) :) --in my mind, it would be an RFC simply to gather comments from editors (literally the name, as they have the flexibility to be employed). Then, we could get along to crafting language to whatever comes out of that discussion. Alternatively, a normal editing discussion could be had on WT:BAN, without the RFC tag, since I would guess most persons interested in the policy already watch the page in question. --Izno (talk) 17:19, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
@Izno: I think such guidance would be useful. Let me know if you care to draft some sort of rfc or proposal and want some input. — Godsy (TALKCONT)19:07, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
We fundamentally do not have methods to mandate editors to having to develop empathy, thicker skin, and the ability to communicate other than blocking them when they do something we don't want them to do. Hence IBANs. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:16, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Everything is cyclic. I suggest ignoring the trend and just participate with the individual cases where it makes sense to. Dennis Brown - 2¢00:53, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
How can the Interaction Timeline be useful in reporting to noticeboards?
We built the Interaction Timeline to make it easier to understand how two people interact and converse across multiple pages on a wiki. The tool shows a chronological list of edits made by two users, only on pages where they have both made edits within the provided time range.
Thank you for looking into this. It is just unfair that a private business owner has a direct link on Wiki to a fake website that promotes his businesses and income above those of anyone else on the island. That is not what Wikipedia is supposed to be all about. At least not what they told us in our classes at OSU last semester.
Nyttend Wrote
BeachBunnyGirl recently asked me for assistance in de-blacklisting an article, since I'd been involved in the article in the past. In short, several years ago there was a rash of spamming in our article about a lake resort town, Put-in-Bay, Ohio, and several of the links ended up being blacklisted. One of them, the useful website of the village's chamber of commerce, was used in the infobox: there being no official website for the village, those of us discussing the situation at talk chose to use the CofC site in its stead. However, someone's since replaced the CofC site with spam, and as the CofC site is blacklisted (on Meta, not here), it can't be put it back without de-blacklisting. Since it's on the Meta blacklist, and since it's not likely to be useful anywhere except this individual en:wp article, I left a note at the Meta admin noticeboard requesting whitelisting assistance, but I was told that I needed to add it to MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist here at en:wp.
Nyttend Wrote
Well, the person who is referenced in the Talk section of that Wiki at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Put-in-Bay,_Ohio#4_years_of_Edgewater_Investment_Group_(Ohio)_spam_on_Wikipedia has now gone in and started doing the same thing again to the link at the bottom of the page for the fake Convention Bureau. There is no Bureau on the island. The only thing close is the Chamber of Commerce which helps all visitors to the island, regardless of who you are. And no, I am not a shill for the CoC nor this business person, just an average citizen.
Just as an FYI, the NEW CoC website is visitputinbay.com and is in use because this business owner took the .org version for his own use. Thus, it should not be cause by the blacklist since it does not start with "putinbay".
Whitelisting - part 3
Sorry for the above, I don't know why it got brok up into 3 sections, trying again...
Thank you for looking into this. It is just unfair that a private business owner has a direct link on Wiki to a fake website that promotes his businesses and income above those of anyone else on the island. That is not what Wikipedia is supposed to be all about. At least not what they told us in our classes at OSU last semester.
-- Nyttend Wrote --
BeachBunnyGirl recently asked me for assistance in de-blacklisting an article, since I'd been involved in the article in the past. In short, several years ago there was a rash of spamming in our article about a lake resort town, Put-in-Bay, Ohio, and several of the links ended up being blacklisted. One of them, the useful website of the village's chamber of commerce, was used in the infobox: there being no official website for the village, those of us discussing the situation at talk chose to use the CofC site in its stead. However, someone's since replaced the CofC site with spam, and as the CofC site is blacklisted (on Meta, not here), it can't be put it back without de-blacklisting. Since it's on the Meta blacklist, and since it's not likely to be useful anywhere except this individual en:wp article, I left a note at the Meta admin noticeboard requesting whitelisting assistance, but I was told that I needed to add it to MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist here at en:wp.
-- Nyttend Wrote --
Well, the person who is referenced in the Talk section of that Wiki at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Put-in-Bay,_Ohio#4_years_of_Edgewater_Investment_Group_(Ohio)_spam_on_Wikipedia has now gone in and started doing the same thing again to the link at the bottom of the page for the fake Convention Bureau. There is no Bureau on the island. The only thing close is the Chamber of Commerce which helps all visitors to the island, regardless of who you are.
ALSO, you will see that this user has been making changes to the wiki using the username PutinBayRealEstate.
And no, I am not a shill for the CoC nor this business person, just an average citizen.
Just as an FYI, the NEW CoC website is visitputinbay.com and is in use because this business owner took the .org version for his own use. Thus, it should not be cause by the blacklist since it does not start with "putinbay". They also use the domain name put-in-bay.com which should work ok. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeachBunnyGirl (talk • contribs) 17:23, 16 June 2018 (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.
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.
A user should be blocked
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.
This User:Pedrojohan14 should be blocked for his disruptive behavior in this article European Cup and UEFA Champions League records and statistics, you can read the talk section and edit history of the article to see how I afford him assistance to solve the issues of unsourced content but he kept reverting the edits over and over and over and over ... again ! I wonder what the admins are doing to allow such madness to occur.
I kindly ask to block this user for good, because he refuses to cooperate and keeps spamming the article by deleting sourced content with his own info. 110.163.134.17 (talk) 16:07, 1 August 2018 (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.
Requesting administrator's help (closed)
Can you help me understand how to move along the posting at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Ad hominem by Expectant of Light regarding personal attacks, attacks on people because of their nationality/heritage, and lastly questioning being blocked on Persian Wikipedia for having said something about someone's homosexuality?
EEng You use images very skillfully to convey messages. Did you, by chance, post the anagram above as a kind of answer to this post? It was made just a few minutes after I posted this, so I'm just wondering.–CaroleHenson (talk) 02:56, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
No, not at all. I've had it up my sleeve for a while and finally got around to posting it here – nothing to do with anything in particular. Remember, anagrams are a somewhat restrictive mode of expression so don't read too much into it. My more effective efforts include
If no-one has responded within a week. Its almost always indicative that no one thinks its worth responding to. The last diff you reported was from the 2nd August. Its now the 20th. There hasnt been any discussion on the article talkpage either for 20 days. By any standard this is a stale issue that has resolved itself. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:40, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
This needs the attention of the wider community
This talk page is not the page to report problems to administrators, or discuss administrative issues.(also, I cast intimidate with this close!) Galobtter (pingó mió) 19:45, 19 August 2018 (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.
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.
Would anybody object to the Template:aan header being on archives? The search engine is so useless that I often look for old discussions by going to an archive from around the time a discussion happened, and word-searching, and then manually going to archives before and after until i find what I am looking for. Having archive headers would make that more efficient, instead of changing the archive number in the URL which is what i have to do now... I would be willing to do the work of adding the template to old ones. And could we set the archiving bot to include it? Jytdog (talk) 20:06, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
My goodness, emotions seem to be running high in those areas. Calls for blocks & bans, keep showing up every few months. GoodDay (talk) 15:30, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
I found a page, where in its history there is a edit that has a bad statement about the president of the United States. Does this count as a reason for deleting that edit from the page's history? If so, is this the AIND the right place to post the incident? If not then where should it be placed? Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 05:21, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Okay fine, I understand if you want to block me on Commons and maybe I haven't realised how serious it is that I haven't exactly contacted the owner of some photos. But I still like editing and helping articles, I will explain what I edit more often from now on. I will also stop with Commons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keditz (talk • contribs) 20:53, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Restored. The bot archives any thread which has not been edited in three days. If you want to keep a thread active, edit it, and add your signature -- in fact, asking for administrative review or close helps. I've done that. Softlavender (talk) 12:33, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
That only makes sense if we disable unregistered editing entirely, which, regardless of its merits, is never going to happen. Otherwise, IP editors are editors no different than the rest of us, and need places to report abuse. Writ Keeper⚇♔15:29, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Personally, I agree with you that people should have to register to edit. But, that's not the way it works. IP editing has always been allowed, as a fundamental policy, and that's unlikely to ever change. On the other hand, anybody is welcome to download the WikiMedia software, set up their own site, and disable IP editing there. -- RoySmith(talk)03:20, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
Are non-adminsallowed to vote here over discussions?
Are non-admins like me allowed to say "Oppose" or "Support", for any discussions that are taking place, that do not relate in anyway to me? Or are only those non-admins that are related to the discussion are allowed to pitch in? Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 02:12, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
@Aceing Winter Snows Harsh Cold:, Yes of course! This is just a place for things that are particularly of interest/relevance to sysops by the nature of the toolset, but anyone with anything productive to add is more than welcome! ~ Amory(u • t • c)02:17, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
EveryonesFAVORITE*toy is including false genre's in the XXXTentacion article, with sources not properly cited for some but instead just the website stated. They are ruining the page by making up genre's that don't exist on Wikpedia e.g 'punk rap’ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keditz (talk • contribs) 23:28, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
ok, thats cool, i just wanted him to know punk rap exists, all he had to say was THAT source is unreliable, instead (this is referring to the page we edited on), he removes multiple genres that i add with reliable sources, and changes the genre disregarding the source attached to it(which came from the “unreliable sources” i provide). i know this seems like a “but he did this” situation, but i just wanted to point that out.
Uh, @EveryonesFAVORITE*toy: while we're here we need to talk about that signature. I don't know if you're doing that manually ever time you sign or using a script but either ay it's not ok to sign with a different name every single time you post, and obviously "bill cosby's cell mate" is something we would block if it were your actual username. So, I'd like some assurance that that practice is stopped dead as of right now. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:03, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
aw i actually cant do that? you guys are no fun :((
After yet more drama regarding what is perceived as too quick a rush for judgment: perhaps the best way to prevent discussions from degrading into votes for sanctions too quickly is to force them onto a separate noticeboard. Suggested rules:
Discussions must be open on WP:AN or WP:ANI regarding a person's actions for at least 24 hours before sanctions can be proposed.
Sanction discussions must be open at least 24 hours, and should be open 72 hours unless the vote is nearly unanimous.
Community bans, topic bans, and interaction bans must be approved at this new board, not on AN/ANI.
Admins can still unilaterally block people based on AN/ANI discussions if justified, as they can now.
It's a bit of bureaucracy, but if we want to ever prevent an early rush to voting / closing votes too quickly, we're going to need some amount of bureaucracy. "Votes for sanctions" may be a bit too honest a name, perhaps "Sanctions discussions" would be less harsh. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:56, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
While I agree the number of sanctions discussions at AN and ANI have probably gotten out of hand, I'm wary of creating a new process that could easily turn into a repeat of WP:RFC/U. The discussion that led to its closure is a good read for anyone evaluating this proposal. Bradv🍁 17:43, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Bit of history. The Community Sanctions noticeboard was opened in February 2007, and shut down in October of the same year. My recollection was that it was decided that community sanctions required more eyes, and that the separate noticeboard was bringing far too little light on the discussions. I'm being charitable in my recollection. Having said that, I'm not in a position to do a lot of research on this (not at my desktop) and I'd suggest the OP do this now before moving too far on it. Risker (talk) 18:29, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
The only obvious conclusion is that this would have to be transcluded on WP:AN, which may make a separate page futile. Beyond that, many of the old discussions are of the form "community ban a troll with 12 socks" and not particularly useful, the others suffer from the exact same problems that current discussions have. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:11, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
I think transclusion would be a perfect way to do it, at least initially: it saves the watchlist and "changes since" for folks interested in core WP:AN material, while still making it easy to keep abreast of anything in the sanctions arena worth looking into. ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:18, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Personally, I think it's much easier to followup on the history when both the user's actions and sanctions are discussed in one place. Besides, AN kind of already serves the same function as being proposed here where their actions have been discussed X amount of times at ANI. Although I do support (to some degree) suggested rules #1 and #2 requiring discussions to remain open for so long, I don't support having a separate noticeboard because that should be treated with common sense. Excessive/premature sanction discussions can always be treated accordingly by the community/closing administrator, just like they are now. Perhaps a repurposing of this discussion (either at RFC or the village pump) is the way to go.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 18:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
As I understand it, you're virtually looking for the re-establishment of RFC/U. I opposed its abolishment in 2014, but TBH the RFC/U was a rough place to go through. Mostly biased editors would show up to kick you when you were down. GoodDay (talk) 18:50, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Sanctions are often proposed (correctly) in the opening post. This would set up a system where you have to make a complaint without a proposed solution and then everyone can beat on the "guilty" party for 24 hours before anyone can suggest a solution, followed by another 24 hours or so of debate over the sanctions. Sounds like an increase to the pain inflicted in the case of obvious wrong doingHowever as someone falsely accused of wrong doing at ANi, I can see the benefit of a cooling off period and chance for the accused to marshall a defence before a rush to sentencing. Legacypac (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
If anything like this goes forward, it definitely needs to lose the "Votes" part of the name. We have enough problems with cliques of editors dragging their wiki-enemies to AN/ANI and then commenting in favour of bans en masse without them believing it's some sort of vote that they can win through weight of numbers. That way chaos lies. Black Kite (talk)19:26, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
This is basically my dream for WP:AN. I think AN is currently backwards; it should be a place for information and issues of interest for sysops, but it has also been shoehorned into a place for the community to be made aware of and discuss sanctions. While I'm not wildly familiar with the past attempts, it seems to me that a community sanctions board is not what AN is intended for. ANI is for urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, the latter of which sounds more appropriate for these conversations. Truth be told, though, these aren't really discussions for administrators, but rather the community as a whole. Sysops may carry out the consensus if need be, but there's no reason the admin corps in toto should care about any given editor's civility issues or topic ban. Discussion of sanctions is drowning out the other information. As AFAICT, the only reason for the current system is eyeballs; other places don't draw the attention of participants, so it's not a fair hearing. Transclusion, like the Requests for Closure, would be one way of bridging the gap. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Sanctions would be sufficient. ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:16, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
With ANI being for "urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems", isn't it already a perfect place for discussions of problem editors? Natureium (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Indeed, it certainly sounds more appropriate for these conversations, I'd agree. I always thought the original intent of ANI was to be a kind of rapid-response board, but the presence of these conversations is the main reason I don't watch it. The problem is that information and issues of interest, urgent incidents, and chronic,intractable behavioral problems are all three separate categories of things. Perhaps AIV, RfPP, and UAA are enough such that we don't need AN plus two boards (one for urgent incidents and one for chronic,intractable behavioral problems), but at the very least, I don't think discussions of sanctions need to be on WP:AN. The main reason they are, of course, is eyeballs, which is why ArbCom sanctions may be appealed at AN, and so on. ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:51, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm not averse to moving complex discussions here, wherever they start, but more process is not needed IMO. The only thing I would say is that even if a sanction is enacted rapidly per WP:SNOW, the thread should be left to run for a full 7 days and consensus reassessed before archival, to make sure we don't succumb to mob justice. Guy (Help!) 20:42, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
@JzG:@Amorymeltzer:When I read your two recent comments above, and the edit summary of Tarage for the undo edit removing my WikiLove on his talk page, I realized something. The views that admins have compared to the views that non-admins have over voting over sanctions are very different, however at the same time the non-admins can sometimes even have a more lenient view sometimes compared to admin. For example Tarage stated on his undo edit summary that it was basically one user and a IP that opposed the topic ban. Both of which were not Admins, the user supporting the WP:trout that another user asked on a vote for. Admins (are forced theoretically) know more about the rules and try to stick to them, however the non-admins are theoretically only suggested to know the rules. Because of this some non-admins that do not know much about the rules try to vote with the majority at the time of the edit, just so that they stand out. Some non-admins don't do that and read the reasons for the votes that the admins stated, and restate them and vote along side with the admins. The there are the rest of the non-admins that know the rules and actually make good thoughtful votes like the IP and the user did. My suggestion: Make two other pages called community voting for AN topics and community voting for ANI topics, where all non-admins vote. Non-admins would not be allowed to vote at AN/ANI, thus leading to a more clearer admin consensus. The admin consensus would also factor in how the community is reacting at the other pages over the topic and think about whether to factor it in as well into the consensus. This would lead to a much better closure and finishing judgment. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 01:00, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
Aceing Winter Snows Harsh Cold, This does not sound like a good idea. There is no rule that admins know more than regular editors, and admins do not try to "stick to the rules" any more than other people. If someone makes a bad suggestion, anyone is free to ignore it. Natureium (talk) 01:07, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
NatureiumThe actual reason why I suggested the above was to make any users who are being referenced over at ANI for anything about them would feel better, and feel a lot less like as if the community does not want them. You are right about the fact that "admins don't stick to the rules anymore than other people." However there is the fact that , "not all users stick to the rules equally". Im not trying to pick on Tarage, but he could be considered as a perfect example to what I am trying to explain. For when he voted on KidAd's topic ban appeal section over at AN. Many users found his response to it as wrong. In all honesty I do not think I ever seen any admin on ANI or AN that talks the same way Tarage did, probably because admins risk their admin rights if they did. On the other hand regular users only risk getting a topic ban from the notice board. Basically my idea would actually make the user in question feel a lot more calm as they would be seeing more mature users voting at AN/ANI where in the other two suggested pages would probably have the mob ("the mob effect that caused Tarage to feel bad"). If Tarage was here I would have suggested him to talk at sections over at village pump or tea house, where there is a lot less of a mob effect. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 01:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
Aceing Winter Snows Harsh Cold, I suggest you get more familiar with the administrators here. Just like editors, some are polite and professional, while some are aggressively critical. Adminship is very hard to lose around here, and speaking harshly to editors is not a reason for removal of admin rights, so there is no additional incentive for admins to be nice. The village pump and tea house are not appropriate places for discussions on the topics addressed here. Natureium (talk) 01:31, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
In fact, Admins benefit from the Super Mario Effect - they can misbehave without much threat of sanctions or criticism. It is the way it is and experienced non-Admin users try to keep some balance to the situation. All users should be free to vote and participate alongside Admins. User:Tarage was not the subject of a mob - he managed to independently over time convince nearly everyone that his participation at AN(i) was a net negative, so when the topic was brought to the board many editors spoke up. His edits after the thread started only dug him in deeper and sealed his Topic Ban. Legacypac (talk) 01:43, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
This is a hard "no" from me based simply on voting. Wikipedia is a cluocracy, not a democracy. Votes for banning is generally recognised yo be a terrible idea. Guy (Help!) 15:15, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
I fail to see how this addresses what some (concretely I think) see as "contextual" bias in the system that protects some users whilst see's others blocked almost on a whim. We need a change in attitudes, not just another forum to put no sales signs up. Yes I think much of the issue is caused by the fact once an admin always an admin. Hell look at one recent drama (the one I thought we were talking about, it appears I was wrong) were there was a blatant abuse (maybe by more then one) admin of their privileges (it was all a bit silly and unnecessary from both sides), and others actaully came forward to (in effect) defend their actions and turn a blind eye to some (to my mined) rather blatant"But it was not me it was "everyoneelseism"Slatersteven (talk) 17:30, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
Suggestion about the project page.
RESOLVED
BMK archived the section.
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 suggest that the [16] and [17] sections get archived as soon as possible. These two sections are the biggest sections on the page that are in a closed state. The archiving of these two sections would make the page a lot less cluttered. Consensus and closing of these two sections have already been made. It is unlikely that these two sections would go thru a unclosure anytime very soon, or even at all. Thus the archiving I think would not hurt or harm the noticeboard community. Sincerely, Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 01:23, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
Update - The ban appeal section I see has been archived already so disregard the second link. As for the Tarage issue, it is unclear when that is going to end. How ever once the issue officially comes to a close following all policies, I suggest it immediately gets archived 24 hours after close. This is because the Tarage subject on that page is one of the multiple sections that is taking a very large portion of the large page size. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 23:11, 6 December 2018 (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.
The last two cases I brought here (some time ago) were clearly personal attacks in my opinion, and all those who commented agreed on that, but they were archived without admin comment let alone action. (I've only just discovered Template:Do not archive until and will use it in future.) Subsequently another editor described NPA as aspirational (diff available if curious) and nobody challenged this.
It seems to me that NPA is extreme and, while commonsense is needed there as everywhere, many cases that come here would be more easily resolved (and perhaps would not come here at all) if everyone were to be strongly encouraged to stick to it in both letter and spirit. Admins included. And it's not just about civility although the two are obviously connected. And I'm not talking about sanctions, see User:Andrewa/Rules, rules, rules and User:Andrewa/gentle editor. Andrewa (talk) 18:45, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
The discussion that led to this question has now closed with no comment here. As someone above has now has now pointed me to the dnau template, I'll give it a go here. Feel free to remove it if you feel this discussion should be archived... but it would be good to give a reason here for doing so.
Please explain why you believe that your comments should not be archived if nobody responses while everyone else's comments are treated differently. Do you think that this is fair to the other contributors to this page? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:10, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
I've removed the obvious abuse of the {{Do not archive until}} template from your initial comment. If you genuinely feel you're So Damn Important that your comments need to remain unarchived for ten years, the onus is on you to explain why your opinions are so much more important than those of the 47,653,139 other editors on Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent11:34, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
Same level of protection for AN and ANI?
Hey, a few days back NinjaRobotPirate (talk·contribs) indef semi-protected ANI because it was vandalized a bunch of times by what looks like (I haven't looked into it, as it's peripheral to my concern) a really obsessed editor with no qualms creating a half-dozen sock accounts in a 20-minute period to make one post. I would call the indef protection excessive given that the vandalism in question took place over twenty minutes, but then I remembered an incident a few years back when AN but not ANI was under indefinite (I think...? Don't know how to check...) semi-protection, and another editor deliberately opened a thread about me on AN rather than ANI to either force me to log in (off-wiki harassment -- don't ask) or prevent me from responding.
Upon remembering this I decided that having the same level of protection for both pages at all times (except, obviously, if said level of protection was "none" and one of them was being vandalized) would be a good idea. But then I checked and apparently at some point in the last four years AN's protection settings were changed. So I'm guessing the default for both is that they are not protected?
@NinjaRobotPirate: Shit, you're right. I guess I missed the set expiry date in your edit summary for the "(indefinite)" at the end -- I guess that must be some kind of bug or something, but given that I'm not an admin I'm not really in a position to talk about that. That being said, I do wonder if I was right to think AN was under indefinite semi-protection back in 2014, and if there's any way for me to check that without going back through the whole edit history. A "page protection log" or the like? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:18, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! I'm sure I've seen it hundreds of times but never clicked it which has caused me to subconsciously gloss over it every time. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:02, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
While at first it seems like NOTFORUM applies, I think this topic is worth discussing. We should verify that the archive bots, templates, etc are fine with 4-digit archive numbers, seeing as (at least I think) no other page has ever reached that milestone. Further, this page is a fine place to talk about it, seeing as how WT:ANI redirects here. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:27, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Sigh... A professional software development effort would already have easily-found published results of various edge case tests, and those tests would include pages with large numbers of archives. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:43, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
We could have a problem when the ANI archive rolls over from 999 to 1000. When I tested, one-click archiver seemed to send threads to 999 despite 1000 existing. I think this tool uses the same logic as the bots do. The bot template allows for a number of leading zeroes, so I suppose we could move the pages:
1–9 to 00001–00009
10–99 to 00010–00099
100–999 to 00100–00999
1000 etc. to 01000 etc.
Then set the template to expect 2 leading zeroes while we're on 999, knocking it down to 1 when we move onto archive 1000. AGK ■13:29, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
I think the only effect will be that the index box will show fewer archives, eventually falling to 16 from the current 20—an extremely minor problem. Or, it will continue to show 20 and become one line longer, another extremely minor problem. ―Mandruss☎10:13, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
This user has removed multiple times my very basic factual and evidence-based decent edits on Global Compact for Migration based on his post-modern globalist liberal-leftist bias and has baselessly and misleadingly reported me on Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents page. I tried to reason and have discussion with Tornado chaser but, he continues to refuse that he has such bias. It is obvious that this user is incapable of recognizing his biases and should not be editing political articles. Pooyatavakkoli (talk) 22:29, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
If we told anyone who asked why something was revision deleted or suppressed it would would defeat the purpose of having done so. Beeblebrox (talk) 05:02, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Just for my information, what was the reason behind the massive revdel edits over at WP:ANI? Here is a link to its history page, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&offset=&limit=500&action=history . I have no problem of the massive revdel happening if it was a case of vandalism. But it can leavw an impact on the users that were not involved at all with any vandalism or anything that was the reason for the massive revdel. Take my contribution page for example (as of currently when I have posted this new section), just look at the way the revdel edits show. There should be someway to do such massive revdel to not affect uninvolved users. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 23:11, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Aceing Winter Snows Harsh Cold - All that can be said about it is that edit(s) were made to the page containing content that required redaction and suppression under the Oversight policy. Since the content that required suppression was added more than a week prior and not properly and fully redacted and removed until just earlier today, each revision of the page between the addition and the removal requires suppression from view. I unfortunately cannot go into any further detail, because it would be a violation of the oversight policy, Wikimedia's privacy policy, the access to nonpublic personal data policy, and my formal agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation stating that I would obey and comply with the access to nonpublic personal data policy and not violate it. In order words, I'd be in deep shit. ;-) ~Oshwah~(talk)(contribs)23:17, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
That's not true at all! Before I became an admin, I primarily patrolled recent changes, reverted disruption, tagged page creation vandalism for deletion, and responded to messages that wound up being redactedall the time. Your contributions are not ruined or destroyed, and the fact that some of them are suppressed is not instantly viewed as a "black mark" on your record and your service to the project - there are much better logs that one could fill up that would. ;-) Redactions and suppressions often have to involve edits and revisions made by other users and for reasons beyond their control; it would be ridiculous if we held that against you in the future... :-) ~Oshwah~(talk)(contribs)00:12, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
That is somewhat the point of suppression. If you have concerns over its use, the Arbitration Committee is responsible for audit of oversighters, but suppression is a tool of first resort per the oversight policy, which means oversighters are encouraged to suppress content first and then seek peer review. It is handled in this way because the material is specifically not supposed to be available for the community or other administrators to review, so basically asking for that here is very unlikely to happen. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:55, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Aceing Winter Snows Harsh Cold - Unfortunately, I cannot. I'll refer to that list of policies I gave in my first response here - I'd be violating four policies and my legally-binding agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation if I disclosed any details or information. Not only would I completely ruin my 12 years of service to Wikipedia and be stripped completely naked of every single user right that I have, I could be in much more trouble with the foundation. Aside from all that, though... It's just not the right thing to do. I'm sorry that the suppression has left you feeling frustrated, but it does not impact your overall contribution and service to the project and your participation on the noticeboard; they're still on your contribution history and the community still knows that you made them. Redaction and suppression simply makes it so that those revisions can't be viewed individually. ~Oshwah~(talk)(contribs)00:08, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
This is a new reason I hadn't thought of before that would support my perennial proposal to make each new AN/ANI report into a separate subpage, like AFD. Then only the history of that one subpage would need scrubbing. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:20, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Also, AWSHC, that affects your contrib history a lot because you post to ANI a lot. That sure is a high ratio of ANI posts to other posts. Might want to scale back. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:22, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
The suppression is appropriate. I know what it’s about. I like the idea of making a subpage for each thread and transcluding them into a single page. This would be much more manageable. JehochmanTalk00:23, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
There would be thousands of pages and people wouldn't see the changes unless they watch each individual page. I'm not in favor of this idea. Natureium (talk) 00:27, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
The ANI and AN would have a page called WP:ANI and WP:AN like now however, the those pages will have links to pages containing the actuall content of the discussions. Next to the page link would state the Username of the editor that made the most recent edit on that page. Aceing_Winter_Snows_Harsh_Cold (talk) 01:29, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Well, then you'd need a bot to perform each transclusion to the "main page" automatically, things might not transclude and caches update right away for urgent matters, users would frequently make mistakes and mess it up, I can think of many reasons why (while this sounds like a silver bullet solution on paper) this would make matters more complicated, not less. And we're talking about resolving one issue, which is the situation where redaction or suppression is needed and visibility changes have to occasionally spill into other contributions. How often does this really happen and at this magnitude? Rarely. :-) ~Oshwah~(talk)(contribs)00:31, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Pulling up redacted diffs
Question Sorry for bringing this up, but I am new to the WP:Oversight business. If for any reason, there is a dispute between the edits in that dif, would we be able to ask an Oversight user for help? Or is it a thing we just are not allowed to talk about that diff period. There is nothing in the Meta:Oversight policy that addresses this unlikely scenario, but I suppose it is because it did not account for a situation when an entire week's edits needed to be suppressed on such an active page. Thank you. ―Matthew J. Long-Talk-☖18:34, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
I suppose it depends on why you want the removed content from that diff. If I say "User:Example is Jane Doe, and her address is...", there's no reason to give anyone that information after it's been removed. If you're talking about a situation where "I edited in the span of time between when User:Example added redacted content and it was removed, and now I want the contents of that diff", well, your content wouldn't have been likely to been removed, so use the best permalink and just link to the section. If you really need the content of a specific diff that is now unavailable because it took so long that perhaps it got archived (which again, you could just link to the archive) then yes, an OSer should be able to help. Primefac (talk) 14:05, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Also also, if there are overlapping archives, the real issue is either in the participants or the closer, not the template color ~ Amory(u • t • c)11:02, 23 February 2019 (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.
Also, the option already exists but nobody does it 'cause it looks bad (in a vaguely 60s kind of way) ~ Amory(u • t • c)11:02, 23 February 2019 (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.
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 saw this, and I have to wonder if we should not standardize the colors of closures insides closures. Does this bother ANYONE else besides me? I will drop this discussion forever if no one else thinks that using {{atop}} on top of {{atop}} looks absurdly bad. Thank you all! ―Matthew J. Long-Talk-☖03:15, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Have to agree with Tony, this ought to be very low on the list of concerns plaguing the encyclopedia. In that particular case having the sub-discussions blocked in a different colour would be unsightly, IMO. Unless doing this one way or another poses an WP:ACCESS issue (i.e. MOS:COLOUR) we can probably leave this alone. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:57, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Generally, use of color that doesn't signify anything specific to the people who encounter it (either culturally, or through learning in a particular context, like important icons in a video game) isn't a good idea. It's just confusing visual noise. I'm seriously skeptical that our wide range of ANI participants are going to memorize these colors, and nested closes are neither common enough nor densely packed enough where they occur that they're a parsablilty problem for those looking at them, so trying to differentiate them by color is a solution in search of a problem. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 14:52, 3 March 2019 (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.
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.
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.
Given the length of the Incidents noticeboard, might it be prudent to add a link to the bottom of the page that links back to the top? it's getting tiring scrolling from the bottom all the way to the top. Jeb3Talk at me here21:43, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
And in many browsers, just press Home or End to jump to the top or bottom. The focus has to be on the main window for that to work, so you might have to click somewhere in the text first, but not on a link. Johnuniq (talk) 22:56, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
Incredible as it may seem, on most devices clicking the time-of-day at the top of the window takes you to the top of the page. EEng19:10, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
ANI header revision: the RevDel conundrum
Folks keep coming to ANI (a very public and trafficked page) to ask for RevDels. While the first line of the ANI header already says Do not report breaches of privacy, outing, etc. and then includes the oversighter link, this doesn't seem to stop folks asking for RevDels. Perhaps the wording could be more clear/add something about how this is not the page to seek RevDels? Or include a link to the RevDel page so that folks can IRC/email an admin? Captain EekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓08:07, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Often RevDel requests are about a behavior problems that needs addressing. They are actioned so fast will casual observers even be exposed to the info? Wikipedia is hardly the go to place to gather scraps of personal info (social media) or racist insult ideas (Youtube, Reddit) Legacypac (talk) 08:20, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Part of it is. Part of it's because mobile users are crippled and aren't shown the editnotice. Part of it's instruction creep: measured in screenspace, the "You must notify whoever you're talking about!" etiquette box is roughly ten times as important, and the "Other noticeboards" box about twenty times as important as the unemphasized "Don't post revdel requests here" header. (Yes, I know it's bolded. So is most everything else in the header.) —Cryptic16:23, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
IMHO ANI would benefit if the entire top banner were revised. Maybe start with a stop sign and a "stop – read this first before posting", and then a clearer flowchart of options than the one that's there–one that even a first-day new user could understand–followed by instructions for putting together a good ANI report (including diffs). I think a visual change to the header would catch everybody's attention and get people to read it, and a better header would better serve editors going forward. If there's any interest in this, I'm happy to sandbox a mockup and post a link here. Levivich14:35, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
I'd go a step further. Revdel and emergencies are really the only things that are actually harmful to post on ANI, as opposed to just irritating-for-the-regulars, so they should be the only things emphasized at all. I envision something like:
Emergencies
If you are reporting a serious threat of violence, suicide or death threat, bomb threat, etc., please email emergencywikimedia.org with the relevant diffs. See the full instructions at Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm.
Oversight & Revision Deletion
If the issue concerns a privacy-related matter, or potential libel/defamation, do not post it here. If you need an edit or log entry to be deleted or suppressed (oversighted), or for any privacy-related matter, please e-mail the relevant diffs via this form or to oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org. If a suppression action is pending, consider asking an administratorprivately to delete the revision in the meantime. Revision deletion may also be requested privately via IRC: #wikipedia-en-revdelconnect
Are you in the right place?
This page is for discussion of urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems.
Do not report breaches of privacy, outing, etc. on this highly visible page – instead click here.
To report a threat of violence, suicide, etc., click here.
If you're just plain confused, ask at the Teahouse.
To report persistent vandalism or spamming, click here.
Include diffs demonstrating the problem and be brief; concise reports get faster responses.
If you cannot edit this page because it is protected, click here.
Closed discussions should not usually be archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer.
CaptainEek, How about an edit filter that warns users mentioning revdel at AN/I? That would be easy enough to implement. You'd obviously want to exempt admins (so they can say the've revdeled X). But a filter would be an easy technical solution to the problem. ∰Bellezzasolo✡Discuss10:18, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure I like that idea, I think my approach is what most admins do, go ahead and handle the request, but remove the thread, and maybe gently remind the user not to point to problematic material. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:30, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
This mock-up is longer, but perhaps "newbie-friendlier"? (Thanks to Capt. Eek for his help with this.)
Emergency matters and requests for content removal should not be posted here, as doing so will only draw more attention to them. Content disputes, sockpuppets, edit warring, vandalism, and conflicts of interest should not be reported here. Instead, follow the instructions on the pages listed below.
For help with...
Follow the instructions at...
Threats of self-harm (suicide threats), violence (death threats, bomb threats), etc.
This page is for discussion of urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems. If you need help that is not urgent or chronic, and none of the pages listed above apply, please ask at the WP:Teahouse. If you have an urgent or chronic problem, and none of the page listed above apply, file a report here by following these steps:
If at all possible, first attempt to resolve the situation on the editor's or article's talk page, and:
My eye skipped right over the dark red header on my first reading, despite the stop icon, probably because it looks like a window title bar.
Pointing people to WP:REVDEL when they need something revdelled is useless. That's a policy page, unfit for specific revdel requests, and arguably worse than ANI - less visible, but likely to hang around for longer.
In terms of clarity, this is at least better than the current ANI header (emergency/oversight are listed first instead of hidden in the middle, though they're no more prominent compared to the other entries on either) but worse than the current editnotice (which, while it puts emergency/oversight dead last, at least makes them very visible).
This is a page and half long at 1080p, and more than six pages long on my tablet. The current ANI header is three and a half, and its editnotice is two. When you have a problem with people not reading the instructions, making the instructions longer doesn't help. —Cryptic01:32, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
I was just coming here to post about this. The recent Arbcom principle was about admin discussions, but the principle seems to apply here too. This doesn't feel like the right thread to have turned into a joke. EEng got it exactly right with "JESUS CHRIST, JOSEPH, MARY AND ALL THE SAINTS AND APOSTLES, Walter shouldn't have templated a regular (even if it's an IP regular), and he should have realized that, at latest, when SN 4129 removed the message. But after Walter restored the message, SN54129 probably should have left it be (possibly adding a soothing counter-message of his own). So everybody did something inadvisable. OK? Now stop it." There was some conduct which was not great, we don't need to go on at length about it, but can acknowledge that and all move on. I don't blame Swarm for feeling the the multiple closes which failed to acknowledge that basic reality meant that the conversation was being terminated early. It needn't be any big thing but there is still a way to close which acknowledges what happens and gets us back to improving the world's knowledge without further rancor. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:13, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
Once again I object to the implication that WP:DTR is a policy whole WP:TTR is not. In my opinion, TTR makes a better argument, but neither should be treated as if everybody agrees with them. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:49, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
Not sure if anyone was referring to my wrap close of that thread, which I think was the fifth (there was a sixth after mine), but I've reverted (the sixth already had been). I apologize for the poor attempt at humour, particularly to Swarm, and to everyone involved as well. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 22:40, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ivanvector: On the contrary, there's absolutely nothing wrong with diffusing a tense situation with humor, and I could not appreciate your attempt to do so more. This is hilarious, and I appreciate you and GoldenRing taking my snarky comment that the discussion needed additional closure and running with it. One cannot deny the absurdity of the whole situation, from beginning to end. The report's a supposed non-issue, and we're not taking it too seriously, so therefore we're force-closing it, then force-closing any complaints about the force-closure (something I've truly never even witnessed). But the second people seize upon the humor of this absurdly-escalated situation, and attempt to make light of it, people start complaining about the harmless jokes being made (special thanks to the non-admins who bravely took up the role of humor police). If this was actually a serious issue, then fine, I could understand that. But the entire premise of the whole damn thing was that it was a non-issue that nobody cares about. So I have to note with bemusement that a staggering 15 uninvolved users diverted their attention from everything else in life, to involve themselves in this "complete waste of time", while both the reported and reporting users, presumably, just sat back and watched the shitshow in bewilderment. You can't make this up. I haven't seen anything this ridiculous at AN/I since that time we legitimately resolved every report, and our having eliminated the backlog caused a major controversy, for no other reason than that the board was too empty. In other words, we've actually eliminated every "waste of time" from AN/I, and people proceeded to waste their time complaining about how they had nothing to waste their time on. That happened. AN/I is a strange, strange place. ~Swarm~{talk}01:45, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
As tempted as I am to hat this comment with a statement in sonnet form, or possibly a Horatian ode, given the sentiment expressed I think probably the right thing is to propose a TBAN for you from AN/I. I'll add that to my list of priorities, just below "catalogue all manhole covers in England and Wales" and just above "learn to Morris dance." GoldenRing (talk) 09:28, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Per the warning I've already given to one of the closers (in that particular editor's case it came on top of a whole bunch of more significant disruption), and the formal warnings I've given in the past to some of the former serial offenders like EEng and Newyorkbrad, I entirely disagree with the "we should lighten things up with jokes" sentiment. Even when people's complaints appear spurious to us, the overwhelming majority of people bringing complaints to admin noticeboards have a genuine complaint from their perspective when they come here, and dismissing them with a heap of locker-room banter and in-jokes is incivility in pretty much its purest form.
Remember, even if you're familiar with the participants in a particular thread and think they're the kind of people who won't see this as bullying, these threads are also read by hundreds of other people who pick up the idea that this is an acceptable way to behave on Wikipedia. (We've literally just come off the back of topic-banning a long-standing editor because their incivility and negative conduct is causing other editors to believe that this kind of behavior is allowed and considered part of the norm; you might not consider yourselves role models, but if you're a name that new editors see repeatedly you almost certainly are.)
There's a difference, though, between appropriate and inappropriate humor–between laughing at someone and laughing with them–and the "good" kind of humor can be very effective in diffusing a tense situation. It's almost impossible for a human to be upset or angry while laughing. Laughter can dispel negative emotions very quickly. I guess it's a philosophical difference. To my mind, the force-closures of this thread were way worse than the jokes in terms of being off-putting. If ANI were "the gallows", where everything was taken very seriously, I don't think that would make it more likely for new users to come there seeking help. If nothing has changed for six years, then maybe it's time to try something different? Perhaps there should be a discussion at ANI about humor at ANI; I'd be curious what the community at large thinks. Levivich14:42, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
The problem with humour is that real life humour often relies on non-textual information such as tone or facial expression that doesn't exist in online communication, as well as on shared idioms that not everybody on a global encyclopedia project is aware of. Thus, a statement you intend to be humorous can easily be taken as offensive/insulting by someone else. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:33, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
You hear this all the time, and it's nonsense. There was written humor long before the internet. EEng22:09, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
Humor can easily offend in real life, too, such as when people laugh at an inappropriate moment. If ANI were a physical room instead of a web page, there would be much more inappropriate laughter. And pointing. (That was a joke, did you get it over text?) It's true that you have to be careful to make sure the meaning carries over in text, but I don't see difficulty as a reason not to try. Humor shouldn't be discouraged just because it requires careful use of text; building an encyclopedia also requires careful use of text. Levivich15:52, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
@Iridescent: I don't think anyone would disagree that we should not encourage the toxic "lads-club" culture that reduces treats serious issues as a joke and encourages bullying. But you seem to be implying that the humor in this case is a symptom of this problem you describe. In this scenario, there was indeed both humor and aggressive hostility directed at a legitimate complainant. Contrary to your implication, though, the aggressive hostility did not have anything to do with the humor whatsoever. The aggressive hostility was directed at the complainant (who was essentially reporting bullying behavior in the first place), for no other reason than that their complaint was "not serious enough", and it was subsequently extended to an administrator who tried to speak out against the way they were being treated. The humor, on the other hand, was not mean spirited, nor directed at the complainant. The humor was the only innocuous aspect of the whole situation. So, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but if you're implying that my defense of humor is part of the problem, then I would respectfully suggest that you have it completely backwards. The toxic "lads-club" environment that encourages the aggressive bullying of good faith AN/I complainants was playing out right in that thread, right in front of our eyes, but it was not masquerading as "humor", and it most certainly was not funny. ~Swarm~{talk}19:22, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
To the original comment: yes, that thread had, I think, 8 or 9 total, but the one above also had 7, and none of them were humorous. Sometimes people just need to be reminded to shut up...but it shouldn't be done too quickly. ansh66618:19, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
MrOllie batch deletions of on-point citations to widely cited academic work; refusal to discuss edits on substance; outing efforts; citations to off-wiki personal attacks
I made several edits to articles about mortgage securitization, the GSEs, and the subprime mortgage crisis, including substantive edits that improved the accuracy and content of wikipedia articles. Specifically, I added more on-topic reliable sources, including citations to an award-winning (see also here), widely-cited, widely-read academic journal article by a tenured professor at a leading research university with relevant expertise.
″Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. . . . Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses. . . . One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received in citation indexes.″
Thus, the source cited is among the most reliable sources under Wikipedia's definition of reliable sources.
Please note that news articles in journals with an ideological valence, think tank reports and other materials are considered less reliable sources than academic research. See Biased or Opinionated Sources Many of the other sources in the article are editorials and think tank reports, not academic articles, and the inclusion of more high quality and up-to-date academic articles would therefore improve the article.
Many of the other sources in the mortgage articles I edited are think tank reports written by organizations that receive financial sponsorship from private lenders and therefore have an interest in portraying the financial crisis as having been caused by government policies rather than by private financial institutions.
I've attempted to engage MrOllie on the substance of edits I made and on wikipedia policies regarding reliable sources. I attempted to contact him through both his talk page and on the talk pages of the wikipedia pages I've edited.
MrOllie has refused to engage on substance, and instead blanket reverted every edit I made without any substantive explanation, has attempted to ascertain my identity, and has apparently filed a conflict of interest grievance against a particular professor who he dislikes.
MrOllie also cites to self-published material [[18]]. Indeed, the author of the post MrOllie cited acknowledged "that this post might be construed as an “off-wiki attack” ... that Wikipedians may perceive as harmful to their community." It may be helpful to understand the context of this post. The blogger apparently posted this criticism as a form of revenge for having been made to appear foolish for making substantive mistakes about legal education and student loans <ref>{{cite news |title=Repetitive (and avoidable) mistakes |url=https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2013/07/repetitive-and-avoidable-mistakes.html |publisher=Brian Leiter's Law School Reports |date=July 28, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Simkovic & McIntyre's "The Economic Value of a Law Degree"... |url=https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2014/11/simkovic-mcintyres-the-economic-value-of-a-law-degree.html|publisher=Brian Leiter's Law School Reports |date=Simkovic & McIntyre's "The Economic Value of a Law Degree"...}}</ref> --subjects about which the blogger purports to be an expert--even in a publication to which he has contributed.<ref>{{cite news |title="Million Dollar Degree" Authors Answer Harper, Leichter |url=https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/almID/1202617450833/?slreturn=20190231121410 |publisher=The American Lawyer |date=August 30, 2013}}</ref>
I've asked Mr. Ollie about the specific substantive reason for each of the deletions to my edits he made as it pertains to the particular article, source, and context, over the last 2 hours, and how he believes that he is improving the quality of the underlying article by making those deletions.
I also pointed out that his actions--targeting a particular individual based on something that is irrelevant to whether edits are improving wikipedia articles under wikipedia policies and attempting to out editors--could constitute Wikipedia:Harassment under Wikipedia's policies. See here
Instead of responding on substance, MrOllie filed a grievance on the conflict of interest board and is apparently attempting to get every single citation to a particular author deleted whether or not those edits substantively improve the quality of sources cited on Wikipedia.
Rather than waiting to reach consensus, he has proceeded without further explanation to delete every citation to this particular academic's work that he can find on any Wikipedia article.
I've attempted multiple times to warn him that his actions could constitute harassment and edit warring, but he is undeterred and continues to batch delete citations to well cited academic work published in well-regarded journals.
I've tried to resolve this amicably through talk pages, but MrOllie repeatedly insisted that I should file a Harassment report if I believe that his actions are inappropriate.
In particular, the harassment policy provides that:
"Harassment is a pattern of repeated offensive behavior that appears to a reasonable observer to intentionally target a specific person or persons. Usually (but not always), the purpose is to make the target feel threatened or intimidated, and the outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine, frighten, or discourage them from editing.
Wikipedia must never be misused to harass anyone, whether or not the subject of the harassment is an editor here. Edits constituting harassment will be reverted, deleted, or suppressed, as appropriate, and editors who engage in harassment are subject to blocking.
Harassment can include actions calculated to be noticed by the target and clearly suggestive of targeting them, where no direct communication takes place.
Harassment, including threats, intimidation, repeated annoying and unwanted contact or attention, and repeated personal attacks may reduce an editor's enjoyment of Wikipedia and thus cause disruption to the project.
The prohibition against harassment applies equally to all Wikipedians. It is as unacceptable to harass a user with a history of inept or disruptive behavior as it is to harass any other user. Wikipedia encourages a civil community: people make mistakes, but they are encouraged to learn from them and change their ways. Harassment is contrary to this spirit and damaging to the work of building an encyclopedia.
Hounding on Wikipedia (or "wikihounding") is the singling out of one or more editors, joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance or distress to the other editor. Hounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia.
Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done carefully, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight.
Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person has voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia. Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, other contact information, or photograph, whether such information is accurate or not. Posting such information about another editor is an unjustifiable and uninvited invasion of privacy and may place that editor at risk of harm outside their activities on Wikipedia. Unless unintentional and non-malicious (for example, where Wikipedians know each other off-site and may inadvertently post personal information, such as using the other person's real name in discussions), attempted outing is sufficient grounds for an immediate block. This applies to the personal information of both editors and non-editors.
Any edit that "outs" someone must be reverted promptly, followed by a request for oversight to delete that edit from Wikipedia permanently. Any administrator may redact it pending oversight, even when the administrator is involved. If an editor has previously posted their own personal information but later redacted it, it should not be repeated on Wikipedia, although references to still-existing, self-disclosed information are not considered outing. If the previously posted information has been removed by oversight, then repeating it on Wikipedia is considered outing.
If you see an editor post personal information about another person, do not confirm or deny the accuracy of the information. Doing so would give the person posting the information, and anyone else who saw the page, feedback on the accuracy of the material. For the same reason, do not treat incorrect attempts at outing any differently from correct attempts. When reporting an attempted outing take care not to comment on the accuracy of the information. Outing should usually be described as "an attempted outing" or similar, to make it clear that the information may or may not be true, and it should be made clear to the users blocked for outing that the block log and notice does not confirm the information.
The fact that an editor has posted personal information or edits under their own name, making them easily identifiable through online searches, is not an excuse to post the results of "opposition research". Dredging up their off-site opinions to repeatedly challenge their edits can be a form of harassment, just as doing so regarding their past edits on other Wikipedia articles may be. Threats to out an editor will be treated as a personal attack and are prohibited.
Nothing in this policy prohibits the emailing of personal information about editors to individual administrators, functionaries, or arbitrators, or to the Wikimedia Foundation, when doing so is necessary to report violations of confidentiality-sensitive policies (such as conflict of interest or paid editing, harassment, or violations of the child-protection policy). Only the minimum information necessary should be conveyed and the minimum number of people contacted. Editors are warned, however, that the community has rejected the idea that editors should "investigate" each other. Posting such information on Wikipedia violates this policy.
Posting links to other accounts on other websites is allowable in specific situations (but see also Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment). There are job posting sites where employers publicly post advertisements to recruit paid Wikipedia editors. Linking to such an ad in a forum such as the Conflict of interest noticeboard is not a violation of this policy. Also, if individuals have identified themselves without redacting or having it oversighted, such information can be used for discussions of conflict of interest (COI) in appropriate forums. If redacted or oversighted personally identifying material is important to the COI discussion, then it should be emailed privately to an administrator or arbitrator—but not repeated on Wikipedia: it will be sufficient to say that the editor in question has a COI and the information has been emailed to the appropriate administrative authority. Issues involving private personal information (of anyone) could also be referred by email to a member of the functionaries team. To combat impersonation (an editor claiming falsely to be a particular person), it is permissible to post or link to disavowals from that person, provided that the person has explicitly and in good faith given their consent, and provided that there is a high degree of confidence in the authenticity of the source.
If you have accidentally posted anything that might lead to your being outed (including but not limited to inadvertently editing while logged out, which reveals your IP address, and thus, your approximate location), it is important that you act promptly to have the edit(s) oversighted. Do not otherwise draw attention to the information. Referring to still-existing, self-disclosed posted information is not considered outing, and so the failure of an editor to have the information redacted in a timely manner may remove it from protection by this policy. Further information about protecting private information is at Personal security practices, On privacy, and How to not get outed on Wikipedia. Mbs6446 (talk) 19:06, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, there is no way I'm even reading that two thousand word screed, let alone cross-posting it to AN/I. Brevity is the soul of wit, and also of successful AN/I discussions. GoldenRing (talk) 07:55, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. SamSailor15:23, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
How about we just split the difference and say 1) stop posting sprawling screeds on multiple talk pages, 2) stop spamming links to this author, and 3) otherwise there doesn't seem to be very much reason to expect that you being here is a net positive to the project. You have wasted an order of magnitude more community time on talk page debate than you have remotely contributed in your 12 spam edits to mainspace, and the community is under no obligation to entertain you any further. GMGtalk15:56, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
IP user wrongly giving me ⚠warnings
88.217.115.130 is giving me warnings while stating that I'm assuming the ownership of the article. [19] to [20]. This IP is removing content from the article Chandigarh citing Advertisement. I always edit with references and as per WP norms. I also doubt this user is using two different IP's and he seems much familiar with WP that new person can't be. I request Admin to please intervene in this matter.
I'll be grateful there will be admin intervention.
649pardeep (talk) 13:00, 14 April 2019 (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.
Suggestion: the the wait times before Lowercase Sigmabot III archives WP:AN and/or WP:ANI be shortened.
Currently, AN is archived after 6 days, and ANI is archived after 3 days. After the last time ANI was archived (Special:Permalink/894020576, at 02:47, 25 April 2019 (UTC)), 13 different sections remained that were closed/resolved/hatted, including a few closed on 22 and 23 April. After the last time AN was archived (Special:Permalink/894020597, at 02:47, 25 April 2019 (UTC)), 6 different sections remained that were closed/resolved/hatted, including multiple from 22 and 23 April. Given how highly trafficked the pages are, I didn't think it wise to be bold and unilaterally reduce the wait times. I suggest changing it from 6 days & 3 days to 5 days & 2 days.
I note that, currently, users sometimes manually archive discussions before the bot would. Looking through the last 1000 edits to ANI, I count 25 instances of manual archiving. At AN, I count 17 such edits. Reducing the bot's wait time might reduce this. Thoughts? --DannyS712 (talk) 06:56, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Strongly oppose. If anything, the archive times should be lengthened and we should clamp down more strongly on those people who take it on themselves to "reduce clutter" by removing threads. A significant number of Wikipedia editors only edit for one or two days a week (generally at weekends), and this fetish for early archiving means they regularly miss important announcements or developments. ‑ Iridescent07:01, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestion, DannyS712. We currently have a good amount of time to review thread closures. Let's not upset that balance. Not all closures are accurate; a small amount are actually disruptive. AGK ■07:43, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
Per Iridescent. I have the opposite situation; I almost never edit at weekends. Shortening three days to two would mean I miss anything closed at AN after close of business on a Friday. GoldenRing (talk) 08:56, 25 April 2019 (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.
I recently wrote a script called User:SD0001/find-archived-section that makes it easy to find an archived discussion whose link (link before archival, I mean) you followed. Since archiving occurs quite fast for AN/ANI threads, thought I should post here as it'd be useful for the regulars here... SD0001 (talk) 06:27, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Short description
The short description for this page currently reads:
"Listing of articles that need investigation for copyright issues"
That is clearly far too narrow a definition to describe this page. I tried to change the short description to: "Notices of interest to administrators", and indeed the edit history shows that I did so yet the original remains. It must be protected in some way. Can some higher authority please correct the short description?
Cheers, Captainllama (talk) 10:52, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
Well this is bizarre. I thought "cache! Of course!" (stupid me, thank you). I refreshed, I cleared my cache. Nope. Switched browser (Firefox to Safari). Signed out, cleared cache, signed in, nope. Restarted browser, cleared cache, opened private window, signed in and purged Wikipedia's server cache. The short description still reads (for me) "Listing of articles that need investigation for copyright issues". What's going on? Captainllama (talk) 12:52, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
[edit] Looking at the revision history, I see that whereas I replaced "Listing of articles that need investigation for copyright issues" the history documents the change as being from "Page for requests and notifications to non-specific administrators" -text that was not apparent previously. Curiouser and curiouser. Captainllama (talk) 12:52, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
It seems that you used the Shortdesc helper gadget when you edited the description, and even though you edited the actual wikitext, the description you saw in the gadget was not in the wikitext. The local description is shown in the page information and indeed it is "Listing of articles that need investigation for copyright issues" (unless other people see something else?). This description somehow overrides the description that is in the wikitext. If you scroll down on the information page, you see that Wikipedia:Copyright problems is transcluded on the AN page. Maybe that has something to do with it? -kyykaarme (talk) 11:32, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
Seems to be via the {{Admin tasks}} template, which also has the local description of "Listing of articles that need investigation for copyright issues". The relevant piece of code in the template seems to be {{#invoke:String|count|{{#invoke:Page|getContent|Wikipedia:Copyright problems|as=expand}}|
*%*[^*:]|plain=false}}, but I have no idea how any of that carries the local description through. It may be overriding the {{Short description}} template on WP:AN simply because it occurs later in the text. Modulus12 (talk) 21:16, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
I don't see the Requests for Closure at WP:AN. Either they have become invisible to an editor using Firefox and Windows 10, or the transclude was accidentally deleted. If the transclude was accidentally deleted, can someone please restore it? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:06, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Au20 republican attempted to sideline this very crucial discussion and I will revive it. While we and many others have heard what au20 has to say, and also my position is well known, I think it is just as crucial to get others’ opinion on the issue. I request the following other editors on the Asia countries page to state their opinions;
- BushelCandle
- Matthew hk
- Resnjari
- Myasuda
- LightandDark2000 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lo meiin (talk • contribs) 2019-08-06T22:00:04 (UTC)
@Lo meiin, for the record, I did not "sideline the discussion" as you accuse me of having done. The reason why the prior discussion no longer appears on the noticeboard is that, after like a week in which no one (including you) commented on your complaint, the discussion was archived (not by me, but by whomever monitors the noticeboard and archives dead discussions). If you want to accuse someone of "sidelining the discussion," I welcome you to search the edit history of the noticeboard and find out who archived the discussion and lob your ridiculous accusations his or her way, although I'm pretty sure that it wasn't someone trying to silence your quest to present the State of Palestine as something that it is not. Oh, and when someone automatically signs your prior edit for you (which you forgot to sign), that wasn't me either.
You say that "many" have heard what I have to say regarding this discussion, and that may be true, but given that the prior discussion was archived after no one showed any interest on it for about a week, I am forced, at the very least, to describe what I wrote that no longer is there for all to see. For one thing, I had to defend myself from your defamatory accusation that I "depicted Palestinians are [sic] a mindless, anti Semitic, radical and insolent people"--several times I have demanded that you apologize for your blatant lie and cowardly insult, but so far you have refused to do so (and your reaction has been to disappear from Wikipedia for seven days and then, in your return, accuse me of having "sidelined" the earlier discussion).
I also presented my arguments as to why the Asia country page should not be edited to group the State of Palestine with Malaysia and Qatar (as if it were a generally recognized sovereign state) or to group Taiwan with Northern Cyprus or South Ossetia (as if it were a state with little or no international recognition), and explained that the determination that Palestine and Taiwan (plus Kosovo and Western Sahara) should be grouped together as de facto sovereign states with substantial, but not generalized, international recognition was made by consensus a couple of years ago as a compromise that sought to avoid improper POV. I won't resubmit my full arguments at thus time, but will do so if editors so request or if other arguments are added to this noticeboard discussion. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 00:13, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
Hello wiki community,
I deeply regret that a wiki editor recently had be temporarily blocked for obvious reasons but yet again this cowardly move will not stop me from pursuing an end to this perennial debate in a more civil manner than previous sock puppets. I would also like to reiterate and strongly emphasize that I am neither pro/anti Israeli, pro/anti arab countries, and, only for the sake of Wikipedia NPOV, pro/anti Taiwan. Once again, I invite the following editors of Asia country page ( or anyone OTHER than Au20 ) to provide their opinions on whether Palestine should or should not be grouped with the recognized states of Asia, which is the int community’s opinion and the consensus of Wikipedia
Lo meiin, this page is for discussion of the workings of WP:AN and WP:ANI. If you have a complaint, it goes at ANI. However, you're going to need to provide evidence in the form of DIFFs and links to the specific policy violated. Also, be brief. John from Idegon (talk) 21:47, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
(Non-administrator comment) I don't know why I am pinged, but firstly I am busy. Busy with my private life and may be editing 2019 Hong Kong protests and may be Italian football. Secondly, please remember Wikipedia is a tertiary source that summarized secondary source. Lastly remember 5 pillars of Wikipedia and considered to solve dispute on article talk page and may be using RFC and dispute resolution chamber or edit war notice board. Matthew hk (talk) 02:07, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
My apologies guys I will therefore take this to WP:AN thanks for the kind reminder
This exceptionally useful tool works fine at ANI, but breaks down at AN. Does someone more technically capable have any explanation as to why that is? Is it fixable? Vanamonde (Talk)03:37, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
If you check the history of a recent archive file of WP:AN, you will see many successful uses of the OneClickArchiver in the last 50 edits. So it has worked recently. For example, it worked on 31 July, 2 August and 12 August. We also have a bot doing regular archiving. User:Lowercase sigmabot III is faithfully doing its duty between midnight and 0300 every night, so it may not be essential to use the OneClickArchiver. (The bot is set to archive each thread 48 hours six days after its last update). Some AN threads contain the Template:Do not archive until so that might be a factor. EdJohnston (talk) 15:05, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
@EEng: Well, I just tested it on a closed discussion at ANI, and it worked fine; but at AN I got the popup message "No archive counter was detected on this page, so archiving was aborted. See User:Equazcion/OneClickArchiver for details." EdJohnston is correct in saying that Lowercase sigmabot is doing its job, but the fact is that AN and ANI get too long to be easily navigable quite often, and archiving newer, but resolved, discussions can help. Vanamonde (Talk)15:36, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, that seems to have fixed it, thanks a lot. I still find it curious, but haven't the technical knowhow to figure out why one script would work and the other wouldn't...and if there's a workaround, why bother? Thanks again, Vanamonde (Talk)23:54, 13 August 2019 (UTC)
Equazcion's version uses a regex that looks like this: '\\|counter ?= ?(\\d+)' while T13's looks like this: '\\| *counter *= *(\\d+)'. It's the stars instead of the ? marks that makes it work.--Jorm (talk) 00:10, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
I am wrong there; it's not the stars/questions. It's the opening bit, which expects "|counter" in Equazcion's. T13's allows for "|(anything)counter", and the page's config has a space there ("| counter"). Removing the space on the config will fix it.--Jorm (talk) 00:19, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
User:Jorm, thanks for fixing the header of WP:AN. I did another trial of Technical 13's version of OCA on one thread of WP:AN and it still works. Since User:Equazcion is no longer active, not much point in notifying them, but per this 2017 edit there is some sentiment that people ought to switch to Technical 13's version. I'll notify User:TheDJ who left that comment, as well as User:Wbm1058 who also touched the script. Who wants to take over as maintainer of the script? Jorm clearly has some relevant knowledge :-) EdJohnston (talk) 01:23, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
On my personal to-do list is to work through the freeCodeCamp Javascript courses (when I can make myself take a break from Wikipedia tasks); then I would really be able to help in this area. I understand that T-13 made some desired enhancements, but he also made a change or two I didn't like, so I still use User:Equazcion/OneClickArchiver.js which I'm happy with. I did recently need to make this edit to get that to work on a particular talk page. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:56, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
It is rarely appropriate for inexperienced users to open new threads here
For years I've been confused by this notice. Why do we say this for AN? It's particularly a problem when users try to create blacklisted titles, since the blacklist notice tells them to go to AN, and then they come here and get told that it's rarely appropriate for them to post here. Nyttend (talk) 05:02, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
I guess the ANI has an overload issue, but I agree that it should be clarified when the ANI might be appropriate, rather than only specifying when it is not. There is rarely any page describing when the ANI should be used (it seems most pages are focused on describing what to use instead of ANI, but so ANI seems like a blurry defined area). --Signimu (talk) 18:06, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
How to deal with Disruptive Editing by a Wikilawyer?
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'm not ready to file an action yet, but I would like some guidance from experts in dispute resolution with how to proceed with a general problem. I have a problem with a small handful of editors who I believe pretty strongly to be WP:DISRUPTive. The problem is that these users are very experienced Wikipedia editors and are intimately familiar with all of the rules and thus are very good at WP:GAMING. This puts me in a position where I cannot point to any single action and say, "see, they violated rule X", but if you look at their actions in aggregate over a large enough period of time (the problem has been going on for years) and across a large enough cross section of articles (dozens if not hundreds of articles) it becomes clear that they are not adhering to the core principals and ethos of Wikipedia.
I have read over the advice on WP:DDE, but my concern is that since the problem is an aggregate problem, an ANI report will require administrators who are reviewing it to dig through a massive amount of data. I can try to aggregate it for them to make it easy to browse, but I don't think it is possible to condense it down to the 500 words required for arbitration (should it come to that). The summary is simple, but the proof is complex and nuanced.
Another problem is that since the primary offender is very good at WP:LAWYERING, it is easy for them to get unwitting participants to support their overarching goal of disruption. For example, they revert something, I undo the revert, they post elsewhere for "outside assistance", an uninvolved editor shows up and "follows the rules" that the WP:LAWYER has laid out and reverts again not realizing that this revert is part of an overarching theme of disruption. They also have, over the course of several years, driven away most editors who are interested in improving these articles. Everyone gets exhausted and just walks away and stops watching the page. This means it is difficult to rally support since the the disruptive editors have effectively setup a situation where they are the only ones who actually participate in discussions and editing anymore. These two problems combine to mean that I cannot "take over" the page via brute force as suggested in WP:DDE (which, by the way, feels like a dysfunctional policy) without resorting to what is essentially brigading (enlisting a bunch of people to come in and follow my lead with reverts) which I don't have any desire to do.
If I am truly wrong about their disruptive behavior I am interested in being educated and shown how it is not disruptive and is in fact in alignment with Wikipedia's policies, but I'm very concerned that due to the amount of context required to assess the situation, getting administrators to take the time necessary to address the issue will prove incredibly difficult. Even if I can distill out one or two specifically egregious issues, any action against those individual issues is unlikely to have a significant impact on the greater problem, since they'll just slightly tune their WP:LAWYERING strategy.
Having moderated various open systems in the past myself I recognize how complex and difficult this problem can be to address, and I do not envy administrators who have to deal with this class of problem as they are incredibly hard to deal with while remaining legitimate in the eyes of other participants in the system. However, I do think there is value in somehow getting this class of issues addressed since if left unchecked it can grow over time (e.g., reinforcing WP:GAMING behavior by showing that if you are good enough at it, you can get away with it).
I can get small uncontroversial edits through with a massive amount of work (usually iterating over many edits and reversions until I find the magic set of words that is beyond reproach). This is part of the core problem, anything that is above all possible reproach gets through, but the amount of effort required to get such content through is massive and demoralizing. Usually on Wikipedia, an editor is able to make a good faith edit and then it is iterated on over time to be improved until it is above reproach. However, in the case of articles that are under the thumb of this group, I have to start with beyond reproach. There is no opportunity to iterate toward a high quality article. Micah Zoltu (talk) 15:23, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
Or you could consider explaining what it is you are talking about: that was 650 words of, essentially, nothing. Other than, of course, the unstated premise that you're right and everyone else is wrong. Also, that you -- a brand-new editor -- are the only one acting in good faith and everyone else is acting in bad faith. Or that you appear to believe that Wikipedia is some sort of rigid rule-based construct and if you can only unlock the secret code you can out-maneuver your enemies. That you don't understand that Wikipedia works by consensus, instead.
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.
―Mandruss ☎ 13:34, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Not done His privileges have been revoked. JTP (talk • contribs) 23:21, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Not an issue for Administrators' noticeboard. Referred elsewhere.
Resolved
Moved to WP:AN
Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Sam Sailor 15:23, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
Thank you --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:38, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
![[1]](http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55e515e8bd86ef14008b7278-734-165/screen%20shot%202015-08-31%20at%2011.04.40%20pm.png){kind=link}