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Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).

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Other areas tracking old discussions

Administrative discussions

User:Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist and User:Licks-rocks civility concerns

(Initiated 8 days ago on 17 May 2024) – This discussion just got auto-archived at ANI before anyone got around to closing it, but there was a topic ban proposal in there with a decent number of votes. Could someone take a look at this? --Licks-rocks (talk) 09:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Place new administrative discussions above this line using a level 3 heading

Requests for comment

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 71 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

new closer needed

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Before I try to close this I wanted to see if any editors believed I am WP:INVOLVED. I have no opinions on the broader topic, but I have previously participated in a single RfC on whether a specific article should include an infobox. I don't believe this makes me involved, as my participation was limited and on a very specific question, which is usually insufficient to establish an editor as involved on the broader topic, but given the strength of opinion on various sides I expect that any result will be controversial, so I wanted to raise the question here first.

If editors present reasonable objections within the next few days I won't close; otherwise, unless another editor gets to it first, I will do so. BilledMammal (talk) 04:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am involved in the underlying RfC, but my opinion on the issue is not particularly strong and I am putting on my closer hat now. Per WP:INVOLVED, "[i]nvolvement is construed broadly by the community". In the Rod Steiger RfC, you stated: [T]o the best of my knowledge (although I have not been involved in these discussions before) every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive. Although the underlying RfC was on a very specific question, your statement touches on the broader question of whether editors should be allowed to contest including an infobox in a particular article, a practice that you said risks becoming disruptive because the topic is settled. That makes you involved—construing the term broadly—because answering this RfC in the affirmative would significantly shift the burden against those contesting infoboxes in future discussions. That said, if you can put aside your earlier assessment of consensus and only look at the arguments in this RfC, I don't see an issue with you closing. It wouldn't be a bad idea to disclose this at the RfC itself, and make sure that nobody there has any objections. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:43, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @BilledMammal. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

if you can put aside your earlier assessment of consensus and only look at the arguments in this RfC, I don't see an issue with you closing; per WP:LOCALCON, I don't see lower level discussions as having any relevance to assessing the consensus of higher level discussions, so I can easily do so - consistent results at a lower level can indicate a WP:IDHT issue, but it can also indicate that a local consensus is out of step with broader community consensus. Either way, additional local discussions are unlikely to be productive, but a broader discussion might be.

Per your suggestion I'll leave a note at the RfC, and see if there are objections presented there or here. BilledMammal (talk) 02:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think that !voting in an RfC necessarily equates to being too involved, but in this case, the nature of your !vote in the Steiger RfC was concerning enough to be a red flag. Is it still your contention that “every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive”? That was wrong (and rather chilling) when you wrote it and is still wrong (and still chilling) now, as the current RfC makes rather clear. - SchroCat (talk) 03:30, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is it still your contention that “every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful. From this it is clear that the topic is settled, and insisting on RfC's for every article risks becoming disruptive”? No. I've only skimmed the RfC, but I see that while a majority have been successful a non-trivial number have not been - and the percentage that have not been has increased recently. BilledMammal (talk) 04:13, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Part of my problem is that you said it in the first place. It was incorrect when you first said it and it comes across as an attempt to shut down those who hold a differing opinion. As you're not an Admin, I'm also not sure that you can avoid WP:NACPIT and WP:BADNAC, both of which seem to suggest that controversial or non-obvious discussions are best left to Admins to close. - SchroCat (talk) 06:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In general, any concern that WP:IDHT behavior is going on could be seen as an attempt to shut down those who hold a differing opinion. I won't close this discussion, though generally I don't think that raising concerns about conduct make an editor involved regarding content.

However, I reject BADNAC as an issue, both here and generally - I won't go into details in this discussion to keep matters on topic, but if you want to discuss please come to my talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 07:53, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There was no IDHT behaviour, which was the huge flaw in your comment. You presumed that "every recent RfC on including an infobox has been successful", which was the flawed basis from which to make a judgement about thinking people were being disruptive. Your opinion that there was IDHT behaviour which was disruptive is digging the hole further: stop digging is my advice, as is your rejection of WP:BADNAC ("(especially where there are several valid outcomes) or likely to be controversial"), but thank you for saying you won't be closing the discussion. - SchroCat (talk) 08:10, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League

(Initiated 49 days ago on 7 April 2024) Three related RFCs in a trench coat. I personally think the consensus is fairly clear here, but it should definitely be an admin close. Loki (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators

(Initiated 48 days ago on 8 April 2024) Discussion appears to have died down almost a month after this RfC opened. Would like to see a formal close of Q1 and Q2. Awesome Aasim 00:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Brothers of Italy#RfC on neo-fascism in info box 3 (Effectively option 4 from RfC2)

(Initiated 48 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The RfC tag was removed the same day it was started. This should be closed as a discussion, not an RfC. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:03, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Mukokuseki#RfC on using the wording "stereotypically Western characteristics" in the lead

(Initiated 45 days ago on 11 April 2024) ☆SuperNinja2☆ TALK! 09:41, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Mukokuseki#Close Plz 5/21/2024 Orchastrattor (talk) 20:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:SpaceX Starship flight tests#RfC: Should we list IFT mission outcome alongside launch outcome?

(Initiated 35 days ago on 20 April 2024) An involved user has repeatedly attempted to close this after adding their arguments. It's a divisive topic and a close would stop back and forth edits. DerVolkssport11 (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, the RfC was closed in this dif, and an IP editor unclosed it, with this statement: "involved and pushing"

In just over an hour, the above editor voiced support for the proposal.

I reclosed it, and the same IP opened the RfC again, with this message: "pushing by involved users so ask for more comments".

I reclosed once more. And then the editor who opened this requests opened it. To avoid violated WP:3RR, I have not reclosed it, instead messaging the original closer to notify them.

The proposal itself was an edit request that I rejected. The IP who made the request reopened the request, which I rejected once more. They then proceeded to open an RfC. Redacted II (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Hunter Biden#RfC: Washington Post report concerning emails

(Initiated 32 days ago on 24 April 2024) There's been no comments in 5 days. TarnishedPath^talk 03:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Place new discussions concerning RfCs above this line using a level 3 heading

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog
V	Apr	May	Total
CfD	10	30	40
TfD	0	3	3
MfD	0	2	2
FfD	0	6	6
RfD	4	23	27
AfD	0	9	9

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 27#Category:Unrecognized tribes in the United States

(Initiated 49 days ago on 7 April 2024) This one has been mentioned in a news outlet, so a close would ideally make sense to the outside world. House Blaster (talk · he/him) 13:56, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Stress marks in East Slavic words

(Initiated 20 days ago on 6 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Amina Hassan Sheikh

(Initiated 19 days ago on 6 May 2024) If the consensus is to do the selective histmerge I'm willing to use my own admin tools to push the button and do it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Place new discussions concerning XfDs above this line using a level 3 heading

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 40 days ago on 16 April 2024) - Discussion on a talkpage template, Last comment 6 days ago, 10 comments, 4 people in discussion. Not unanimous, but perhaps there is consensus-ish or strength of argument-ish closure possible. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem to me that there is a consensus here to do anything, with most editors couching their statements as why it might (or might not) be done rather than why it should (or should not). I will opine that I'm not aware there's any precedent to exclude {{Press}} for any reason and that it would be very unusual, but I don't think that's good enough reason to just overrule Hipal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 May#Multiple page move of David articles

(Initiated 25 days ago on 1 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Press_Your_Luck_scandal#Separate_articles

(Initiated 24 days ago on 2 May 2024) Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Agroforestry#Merge_proposal

(Initiated 23 days ago on 3 May 2024) As the proposer I presume I cannot close this. It was started more than a week ago and opinions differed somewhat. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 May#2018–2019 Gaza border protests

(Initiated 17 days ago on 9 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Place new discussions concerning other types of closing requests above this line using a level 3 heading

Pages recently put under Extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (26 out of 7744 total) ^(Purge) WATCH
Page	Protected	Expiry	Type	Summary	Admin
Wars of the Deccan Sultanates	2024-05-26 14:11	indefinite	move	Move warring	Ivanvector
Meritt North	2024-05-26 14:00	2024-06-02 14:00	edit,move	persistent removal of AFD template while AFD discussion is open	Bearcat
User talk:46.35.177.94	2024-05-26 13:51	2026-03-29 00:00	edit,move	Persistent block evasion: requested at WP:RFPP	Favonian
User talk:87.209.46.135	2024-05-25 18:46	2024-06-24 00:00	edit,move	Persistent block evasion: requested at WP:RFPP	Favonian
Kourage Beatz	2024-05-25 17:47	indefinite	create	Repeatedly recreated: Repeatedly recreated under a variety of different names	Liz
Kaimla	2024-05-25 16:04	2024-06-25 16:04	edit	Persistent vandalism	Star Mississippi
Stew Peters	2024-05-25 07:24	indefinite	edit,move	Arbitration enforcement: WP:COVIDCT, WP:ARBPS, WP:AP2, WP:PIA, WP:ARBEE, et cetera, etc.	El C
Burnout Revenge	2024-05-25 04:52	2024-05-28 04:52	edit,move	Addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content: straight to WP:ECP due to involvement also of several confirmed accounts	El C
Evil Morty	2024-05-25 02:21	indefinite	create	Repeatedly recreated	NinjaRobotPirate
Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine	2024-05-24 22:56	indefinite	edit,move	Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP	Daniel Case
Combat Vehicle 90	2024-05-24 22:49	indefinite	edit,move	Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR	Daniel Case
Dada AsTra	2024-05-24 21:55	indefinite	create	Repeatedly recreated	Liz
Ralston College	2024-05-24 21:42	2025-05-24 21:42	edit,move	Persistent disruptive editing	RegentsPark
FC Barcelona	2024-05-24 21:23	indefinite	edit	Persistent sockpuppetry: request at WP:RFPP	Ymblanter
User talk:Favonian/Archive 58	2024-05-24 18:14	indefinite	edit,move		Favonian
User talk:Favonian/Archive 57	2024-05-24 18:13	indefinite	edit,move		Favonian
President of Ukraine	2024-05-24 12:26	indefinite	edit,move	Contentious topic restriction	Lectonar
User:Aviram7~alt	2024-05-24 12:18	indefinite	create	user request	UtherSRG
User talk:Aviram7~alt	2024-05-24 12:18	indefinite	edit,move	user request	UtherSRG
Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel	2024-05-23 22:04	indefinite	edit,move	Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA	Daniel Case
Safia Khairi	2024-05-23 21:06	indefinite	create	Repeatedly recreated: per RFPP	Daniel Case
Conservatism in Israel	2024-05-23 20:37	indefinite	edit,move	Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA	Daniel Case
Draft:Xxx	2024-05-23 20:31	indefinite	create	Repeatedly recreated	Justlettersandnumbers
Future of Honor	2024-05-23 03:55	2025-05-23 03:54	edit,move	restore ECP	Daniel Case
Israel-related animal conspiracy theories	2024-05-23 03:51	indefinite	edit,move	Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA	Daniel Case
Justin Stebbing	2024-05-22 22:39	indefinite	edit,move	Persistent disruptive editing: Substantive COI editing - propose changes on the talk page	Anachronist

Administrator Log

Thank you for your updates, for now further updates will just be in the general section below. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:05, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

The following administrators have recently applied ECP following the close of the new community standards, but may not yet have completed the policy requirement related to notification is to be posted in a subsection of AN for review. Please post your information below. Please also note, there is already a discussion about this requirement and its mechanisms below (Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#ECP_postings_to_AN). Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 10:49, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Deb
- I've amended the protection level on the 3 articles involved. I don't really understand the new policy and, frankly, I can't remember why I set that particular level in each case, but I believe it was because they were being repeatedly recreated by the same user who was already autoconfirmed. Deb (talk) 11:02, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:David Gerard
- I SALTed perennially-recreated spam magnets at that level to avoid full protection. Should I just fully protect those articles instead? Seems worse - David Gerard (talk) 11:09, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:CorbieVreccan
- OK, I'm a bit confused by this. I think the ECP option, along with template editor, was rolled in when I wasn't paying close enough attention. I can put the articles back to semi, but it seemed a better option for tendentious edit-warring where a new account that had racked up a great number of edits in a short period of time was involved. As that user is now blocked, normal semi would probably be fine. I need to go read the new policies and will amend if needed. Thanks. - CorbieV ^☊ ☼ 15:25, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Content translator tool creating nonsense pages

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review

Machine translation gadget

There is currently a gadget called GoogleTrans which allows the straight dropping of google translate into the content translation tool. (See here). I just did a test, and I was able to produce a machine translated article into english without leaving wikipedia using this gadget. Pinging the creator of the gadget: @Endo999:. I do not think this gadget should be present on the English wikipedia, and certainly not when it seems to explicitly endorse machine translations. Fortunately, it doesn't get around the edit filter, but it still sends a terrible message. Tazerdadog (talk) 09:02, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I didn't remember about that gadget; I surely can make good use of it. That's the kind of tools that may be invaluable time savers in the hands of us who know how to use them, making the difference between translating a stub right now when you first stumble upon it (thanks to the kick-start of having part of the work already done), or leaving it for another day (and never coming back to it).

Given that the CTX tool has been restricted to experienced editors, and that the GoogleTrans gadget needs to be explicitly activated, the combination of the two won't be at the hands unexperienced newbies in the way that created the current backlog. The GoogleTrans doesn't insert translated content into text fields, it merely shows the translation in a pop-up; so I don't agree that it "explicitly endorses machine translations". Any editor with your experience should know better than copy-paste machine translated text unedited into an article. Diego (talk) 10:39, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am the creator of the GoogleTrans gadget and it does do Machine Translation Under The HTML Markup when used in the Content Translation system. I have used this to translate 226 articles from the frwiki to the enwiki and got all of them reviewed okay. The Machine Translation is a starting point. You still have to manually change each and every sentence to get the grammar and meaning right. It's not very sensible to ban it because, without human followup, it produces a bad article. The point is that it is a tool to quicken the translation of easy to medium difficulty articles, especially for good language pairs like English-French. Wikipedia, itself, uses both Apertium and Yandex translation engines to do machine translation and these have been used to good effect in the Catalan and Spanish wikipedias. GoogleTrans does the same thing as Apertium in the Content Translation system, except it uses Google Translate, which most people feel is a better translation engine. As Diego says this needs to be explicitly turned on, so it tends to restrict usage to competent editors. To stress the point, Machine Translation, as done by GoogleTrans gadget, is a starting point, it is not the end product. Human intervention is required to massage the MT into decent destination language text and grammar, but Machine Translation can help start the translation quite a bit. Wikipedia feels that Machine Translation is worth doing, because it has it as a feature (using both Yandex and Apertium machine translation engines) Endo999 (talk) 11:45, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Except that we have a policy against machine translation on en.wikipedia, because the requirements for correcting its output are far higher than users tend to realise; in fact it is easier and faster to translate from scratch than to spend the necessary time and effort comparing the original with the translation to find the errors. Hence the whole long discussion above and the agreement that machine translations can be deleted as such. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:13, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is no policy against Machine Translation on the enwiki. That would have to be posted on the Content Translation blog, and it isn't. I've done 226 of these articles successfully and I can tell you there is more editing for non text issues, like links around dates coming from the frwiki, editing getting references right, manual changing of TAGS because their parameter headings are in the origin language. The actual translation work postprocessing, when polished up by a person competent in the destination language is far less than you say. But style differences between the wikis take more of the editors time. Endo999 (talk) 19:44, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The policy is at WP:MACHINETRANSLATION, and has been in force for a decade. ‑ Iridescent 19:49, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The policy is against unedited machine translation. It doesn't apply to using machine translation as a starting point to be cleaned up by hand. Diego (talk) 20:12, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

MACHINETRANSLATION isn't a policy. It isn't even a guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have never claimed that Machine Translation first drafts are good enough for articles on the enwiki. They aren't, but responsible use of Machine Translation, as a first draft, that is then worked on to become readable and accurate in the destination language is quite okay and even helpful. Endo999 (talk) 20:40, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus is pretty clear that unless you are translating at a professional level, machine translation is a trap. It looks good at first glance, but often introduces bad and difficult to detect errors, such as missed negations or cultural differences. Even if a human caught 9 out of 10 of these errors, the translation would be grossly unacceptable and inaccurate. I'd request that this gadget be disabled, or at minimum, de-integrated from the content translation tool. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:33, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well. I'm pretty far from being a fan of machine translations, but it's always been possible to copy/paste from Google Translate. Anyone autoconfirmed can do that without going to all the trouble of finding and enabling this gadget. The problem is fundamentally behavioural rather than technological. The specific problem behaviour is putting incomprehensible or misleading information in the mainspace. Over-reliance on machine translation is a cause of this, but we can't prevent or disable machine translation entirely, and there's not much point trying. I think the position we should adopt is that it is okay to use machine-aided translations provided you don't put them in the mainspace until they've been thoroughly checked by someone who reads the source language and writes the target language fluently. I suggest the approach we take to Endo999's tool is to add some warnings and instructions rather than try to disable it.—S Marshall T/C 23:51, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget that the use of Machine Translation in the Content Translation system is expanding all the time, and I'm am pretty much the only regular user of my GoogleTrans gadget for translation purposes. Why is the gadget being singled out? Yandex machine translation is being turned on by the Content Translation people all the time for various languages, like Ukranian and Russian. The Catalan and Spanish wikipedias are at the forefront of machine translation for article creation and they are not being flamed like this. I reiterate that the majority of edits per my frwiki-to-enwiki articles are over differences in the frwiki for an article than for articles in the enwiki. The treatment of dates and athletic times is one such difference. You need to do postediting after the document has been published in order to please the editors of the destination wiki. This usually has nothing to do with the translated text but is actually the treatment of links, the treatment of dates, the removal of underlines in links, the adding of categories, the transfer of infoboxes, the addition of references (the fiwiki is particularly good for references of track and field athletes), and other wiki standards (that are different from the origin wiki). There's always going to be some postediting of translated articles because of these nontranslation specific items. It's just inherent in wiki to wiki article movement. Endo999 (talk) 00:24, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We don't care about what happens on other wikipedia language versions, basically. Some are happy to have 99% bot-created articles, some hate bot-created articles. Some are happy with machine-translated articles, some don't. It may be true that "the use of Machine Translation in the Content Translation system is expanding all the time", but at enwiki, such a recent "expansion" started all this as the results were mostly dreadful. "Why is the gadget being singled out? Yandex machine translation is being turned on by the Content Translation people all the time for various languages, like Ukranian and Russian." Your gadget is in use on enwiki, what gadgets they use on ruwiki or the like is of no concern to us. We "single out" tools in use on enwiki, since this is an enwiki-only discussion. And this discussion is not about the long list of more cosmetic things you give at the end (or else I would start a rant about your many faux-bluelinks to frwiki articles in enwiki articles, a practice I truly dislike), it is (mostly) about quality of translation, comprehensability and accuracy. Yours are a lot better than most articles created with ContentTranslation, luckily. Fram (talk) 07:07, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Endo999: I just happened to check Odette Ducas, one of your translations from French. You had Lille piped to read "Little". This is a good illustration of how easy it is to miss errors, and it's not fair, in fact counterproductive, to encourage machine-based translation and depend on other editors to do the necessary painstaking checking. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:20, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for catching that error (Lille translated at Little). I had seen and corrected that problem in a later article on a french female track athlete from Lille, but didn't correct the earlier translated article. Don't forget that Wikipedia is about ordinary people creating Wikipedia articles and through the ARGUS (many eyes) phenonmenon having many people correct articles so they become good articles. This is one example of that. Wikipedia is not about translation being restricted to language experts or simply experts for article creation. Your argument does tend towards that line of thought. Endo999 (talk) 18:56, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it does (for one thing, all you can know of my level of expertise is what I demonstrate). The wiki method is about trusting the wisdom of the crowd: this tool hoodwinks people. It's led you to make a silly error you wouldn't have otherwise made, and it's led to at least one eager new editor being indeffed on en.wikipedia. It rests on condescending assumptions that the editing community can't be left to decide what to work on, in what order. (Not to mention the assumptions about how other Wikipedias must be delighted to get imported content just because.) Yngvadottir (talk) 19:04, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'ld like to retract my compliment about Endo999's use of his translation tool. I have just speedy deleted his machine translation of Fatima Yvelain, which was poorly written (machine translation) and a serious BLP violation. Fram (talk) 08:01, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Almost everyone of the articles I have translated, using the GoogleTrans gadget, has already been reviewed by other editors and passed. I can only translate the existing French, which is sometimes not well written. In Fatima Yvelain's case I transferred over all the sources from the frwiki article. Can you tell me which reference didn't work out. You've deleted the article, without the ordinary seven day deletion period, so you deleted the article without any challenges. Are you and a few other reviewers systematically going through every article I have translated looking for things to criticize? Endo999 (talk) 01:54, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's how Wikipedia rolls; it's the easiest way to demonstrate supposed incompetence, and since incompetence on the part of the creator reflects on the tool, it is therefore the easiest way in which to get the tool removed (along with phrases such as "I'd like to retract my compliment", which I hate as much as Fram hates faux-bluelinks). Simples. jcc (tea and biscuits) 11:00, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having just checked the article for myself, if it was really "reviewed by other editors and passed" it reflects just as badly on those other editors as it does on you, given that it contained an entire paragraph of grossly libellous comments sourced entirely to an alleged reference which is on a completely unrelated topic and doesn't mention the subject once. (The fr-wikipedia article still contains the same paragraph, complete with fake reference.) Checking the review log for the page in question, I see no evidence that the claim that anyone else reviewed it is actually true. ‑ Iridescent 15:46, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I realise this isn't a vote, but I agree with Tazerdadog that having such a tool easily available is sending the wrong message. It needs to be restricted to experienced users, with plenty of warnings around it. Deb (talk) 13:28, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are all panicking. There's nothing wrong with using the GoogleTrans gadget with the Content Translation system if the appropriate editing happens alongside it. The ordinary review process can uncover articles that are not translated well enought. I'm being punished for showing ingenuity here. Punishing innovation is a modern trait I find. Endo999 (talk) 07:31, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, our reveiw processes are not adequate for this. Both the problems with translated articles, and the unrelated but similar problems with tool created articles (now discussed at WP:ANI show the problems we have in detecting articles which superficially look allright (certainly when made by editors with already some edits) but which are severely deficient nevertheless, and in both cases the problems were worse because tools made the mass creation of low quality articles much easier. While this is the responsability of the editors, not the tools, it makes sense to dismiss tools which encourage such creations. Fram (talk) 09:19, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Fram per "We don't care about what happens on other wikipedia language versions" please speak only for yourself. Some of us care deeply what happens in other language version of Wikipedia. User:Endo999 tool is not a real big issue. It does appear that the Fatima Yvelain needs to have its references checked / improved before translation. And of course the big thing with translation is to end up with good content you need to start with good content. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:41, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We, on enwiki, don't care about what happens at other language versions: such discussions belong either at that specific language or at a general site (Wikimedia). These may involve the same people of course. 19:45, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Do people feel that a RFC on this topic would be appropriate/helpful? The discussion seems to have fixated on minute analyses of Endo999's editing, which is not the point. The discussion should be on whether the presence of the gadget is an implicit endorsement of machine translated materials, and whether its continued presence sends the wrong message. Tazerdadog (talk) 22:33, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I believe an RfC would be helpful assuming it is well prepared.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:49, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The GoogleTrans gadget has been running on the enwiki for the last 7 years and has 29,000 people who load the gadget when they sign into Wikipedia. It's quite a successful gadget and certainly, wiki to wiki translators have concentrated on the gadget because while they may know English (when they are translating articles between the enwiki and their home wikis) they like to get the translation of a word every once in a while. Endo999 (talk) 17:05, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion on this matter seems to have mostly died down, but I was unaware of this discussion until now and I feel the need to speak up on behalf of translation tools. I don't believe the tool being discussed here is the one I am using, since *it* does not provide a machine translation into english. However. I do put english into French based on the machine translation. I repeat, *based on*. Many of my edits to date have been translation and cleanup after translation, so I am probably close to an ideal use case. The tool, Yandex.Translate, appeared on my French wikipedia account and I do find it useful, although it produces text that needs to be gone over 4-5 times, as, yes, it sometimes creates inappropriate wikilinks, often in the case where a word can mean a couple of different things and the tool picks the wrong one. And it consistently translates word by word. I have submitted a feature request for implementation of some basic rules -- for example in German the verb is always the last word in the sentence and in French the word order is almost always "dress blue" not "blue dress". But there are many many MANY articles with word order problems on Wikipedia; it's just usually more subtle that that when the originating editor was human but not a native English speaker. So it's a little like fixing up the stilted unreferenced prose of someone who can't write but yea verily does know MUCH more about the topic than I do. And has produced a set of ideas, possibly inelegantly expressed, I would not have conceived of. The inelegant writing is why we have all this text in a *wiki*

For the record, I agree that machine-translated text is an anathema and have spent way too many hours rescuing articles from its weirdnesses, such as "altar" coming through as "furnace branch" in Notre-Dame de la Garde. BUT. Used properly, machine translation is useful. For one thing it is often correct about the translation for specific obscure words. I deeply appreciated this when, for example, I was doing English into French on a bio of a marauding Ottoman corsair who, at one point or another, invaded most of the Mediterranean. I am an English speaker who was educated in French and has spent years operating in French, but the equivalent terms for galleon, caravel, Papal States, apse and nave, for example, not to mention Crusader castles and Aegean islands, weren't at the tip of my tongue. Its suggestions needed to be verified, but so do Google Search results. I could look these words up, sure, and do anyway, but Yandex gives my carpal tendons a break, in that I can do one thing at a time, ie translate a bit of text like "he said" then check to make sure that wikilink is correct, move down to the next paragraph and do some other simple task like correcting word order while I mull why it is that the suggested translation sounds awkward, walk away and come back... All of this is possible without the tool, but more difficult, and takes much longer. I have translated more articles in the past month, at least to a 0.95 version, that I had in the entire previous several years I've been editing wikipedia. Since the tool suggests articles that exist on one wikipedia but not the other, I am also embarking on translations I otherwise would not, because of length or sheer number of lookups needed to refresh my memory on French names for 16th-century Turkish or Albanian settlements or for product differentiation or demand curve or whatever. Or simply because while the topic may be important it's fundamentally tedious and needs to be taken in small doses, like some of the stuff I've been doing with French jurisprudence and which is carefully labeled, btw, as a translation in progress on those published articles that are still approaching completion.

I agree that such tools should not be available to people who don't have the vocabulary to use them. I don't really have suggestions as to what the criteria should be, but there is a good use for them. They -- or at least this tool -- do however make it possible to publish a fully-formed article, which reduces the odds of cranky people doing a speedy delete while you are pondering French template syntax for {{cn}} or whatever. This has happened to me. The tool is all still kinda beta and the algorithm does ignore special characters, which I hope they remedy soon. (In other words ê becomes e and ç becomes c etc.) Also, template syntax differs from one wiki to another so infoboxes and references often error out when the article is first published. Rule of thumb, possibly: don't publish until you can spend the hour or so chasing this sort of thing down down. And the second draft is usually still a bit stilted and in need of an edit for idiom. But the flip side of that is that until you do publish, the tool keeps your work safe from cranky people and in one place, as opposed to having to reinvent the version management wheel or wonder whether the draft is in Documents or on the desktop. Some people complain within 3 minutes of publication that the article has no references without taking the time to realize that the article is a translation of text that has no references. As the other editor said above, translation tools aren't magic and won't provide a reference that isn't there or fix a slightly editorial or GUIDEBOOK tang to language -- this needs to come next as a separate step. When references are present the results are uneven, but I understand that this issue *is* on the other hand on the to-do list. Anyway, these are my thoughts on the subject; as you can see I have thunk quite a few of them and incidentally have reported more than one bug. But we are all better off if people like me do have these tools, assuming that there is value in French wikipedia finding out about trade theory and ottoman naval campaigns, and English wikipedia learning about the French court system. Elinruby (talk) 08:39, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Articles created by block-evading sock using the WMF translation tool

My attention was drawn at a site I should not link to and therefore will not name (however, the thread title is "The WMF gives volunteers another 100K articles to check") to the fact that Duckduckstop created several articles using the WMF translation tool. They were blocked on 5 April as a sock of a blocked user, and their edits are thus revertable. I checked one translated article as a test, John of Neumarkt, and I've seen worse, but it is clearly based on a machine translation and contains at least one inaccurate and potentially misleading passage: "Auch in Olmütz hielt sich Johannes nur selten auf" does not mean "Also in Olomouc, John held only rarely"; it means he rarely spent any time there, but a reader might either not understand that or think it meant he rarely claimed the title. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review contains thousands of pages, the vast majority still to be checked. Only a few of us are working there. I feel guilty having taken a few days off to write 2 new articles. I haven't looked through Duckduckstop's page creations to see what proportion were created with the translation tool, but that one has not been substantially edited by anyone else. I suggest that in this emergency situation, it and others that fall into both categories—translation tool, and no substantial improvements by other editors—be deleted under the provision for creations by a blocked/banned user. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:42, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. I have had a look today at that list, but haven't really been posting comments since as far as I could see nobody else has been there in several days. I do not know what happened with duckduckstop but as to the articles on the list

- I do not understand why an article about a French general who invaded several countries under Napoleon is nominated for deletion as far as I can tell solely on based on authorship? Do we not trust the content because of the person who wrote it? Can someone explain this to me? I glanced at the article quickly and the English seems fine. This is a serious question; I don't get it. Also, why did we delete Genocide in Guatemala? It was already redlinked when I noticed it, but unless the article was truly astonishing bad, I would have made an effort to clean that one up. Personally. Considering that some of the stuff that's been on the "cleanup after translation" list the past few years --- we have had articles on individual addresses in Paris. We have lists of say, songs on a 1990s album in Indonesian, sheriffs of individual municipalities in Wales (one list per century), and government hierarchies in well, pretty much everywhere.

- I have a suggestion: The person who decides that we need a set of articles for each madrasa in Tunis, water tower in Holland or mountain in Corsica is responsible for finishing the work on the articles in the set to a certain standard. Which can be quite low, incidentally. I have no objection to some of the association football and track and field articles that are being nominated for deletion. They may not be sparking entralling prose but they are there and tell you, should you want to know, who that person is. Similarly the articles about figures in the literature of Quebec, while only placeholders, do contain information and are preferable to nothing. Although I don't see machine translation as the huge problem some people apparently do, the translation tool also does need work. It might be nice if it sent articles to user space by default, and the articles could then be published from there there after polishing. Elinruby (talk) 14:26, 8 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Guatemalan genocide was redirected, not deleted, for being a very poor translation, resulting in sentences like this (one sentence!): "The perpetración of systematic massacres in Guatemala arose of the prolonged civil war of this country centroamericano, where the violence against the citizenship, native mayas of the rural communities of the country in his majority, has defined in level extensivo like genocide -of agreement to the Commission for the Esclarecimiento Historical- according to the crimes continued against the minoritary group maya ixil settled between 1981 and 1983 in the northern demarcation of the department of The Quiché, in the oil region of the north Transversal Band, with the implication of extermination in front of the low demographic density of the etnia -since it #finish to begin to populate the region hardly from the decade of 1960- and the migration forced of complete communities to the border region in search of asylum in Chiapas, Mexico , desarraigadas by the persecution; in addition to becoming like procedure of tactical State of earth arrasada, tortures, disappearances, «poles of development» -euphemism for fields of concentration- and recurrent outrages against the women and girls ixiles, many of them dying by this cause, crimes of lesa humanity against of all the international orders of Human rights." Fram (talk) 08:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. That's not unusual. But see there *is* an article, which was my primary concern. I should have checked before using it as an example. Here is the point I was trying to make. Since apparently I didn't, let me spell it out. -- I have put in a considerable amount of time on the "cleanup after translation" list so yes, I absolutely agree that horrible machine translations exist. I have cleaned many of them up. But. Many of the articles we keep are extremely trivial. Many get deleted that seem somewhat important, actually, just not to the particular person who AfD's them. I have seen articles on US topics get kept because of a link to Zazzle. (!) Perhaps my POV is warped by the current mess I am trying to straighten out in the articles on the French court system, but it seems to me that the english wiki is rather dismissive of other cultures. (Cour d'assises != Assizes, just saying; this is what we call a cognate.) That is all; just something that has been bothering me. Elinruby (talk) 05:59, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The interim period ends today

But most articles have not been reviewed--it will apparently take many months. Of the ones still on the list that I have reviewed, I am able to find at least one-third which are worth rescuing and which I am able to rescue. We need a long continuation.If this is not agreed here, we will need to discuss it on WP:ANB. I would call the discussion "Emergency postponement of CSD X2" DGG ( talk ) 04:15, 6 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding was that we were still working out how to begin the vaccination process. I'm happy if we simply moved to draft space instead of deleting at the end of the two weeks, but I'm not sure if that would address your concern. Tazerdadog (talk) 22:15, 6 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@S Marshall, Elinruby, Cryptic, No such user, Atlantic306, DGG, Acer, Graeme Bartlett, Mortee, Xaosflux, HyperGaruda, Ymblanter, BrightR, and Tazerdadog:

I call "reltime" on the section title! ;-) But seriously, it does end in a few days, and although I've been active in pushing to stick with the current date (June 6) to finalize this, so I almost hate to say this, but I'd like to ask for a short postponement, for good cause. This is due to two different things that have happened in the last few days, that materially change the picture, imho:

CXT Overwrites - this issue about CXT clobbering good articles of long-standing, was raised some time ago, and languished, but has been revived recently, and we now (finally!) have the list of overwrites we were looking for in order to attack this problem: around 200 of them. All that remains to completely solve this for good, is to go through the list, and if the entry also appears in WP:CXT/PTR, strike it. See WP:CXT/PTR/Clobbers for details.
Asian language review - this was stalled for lack of skilled translator/proofreaders in these and other languages. In response to a suggestion by Elinruby, I made an overture a few days ago about starting a recruitment effort. Since time is so short, rather than wait for a response, I went ahead and started one at WP:CXT/PTR/By language. In just three days^[a] this has started to bear fruit, with editors working on articles in Gujarati, Hindi, Hungarian, Farsi, Romanian and Arabic; with over 50 or 60 analyzed. I'm ready to ramp up the recruitment effort on Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and more European languages (hopefully with the help of others here) but this does need some time as it's only got started literally in the last few days.

A postponement would give us the time to save all the clobbers, and make a significant dent in the articles from Asian and other languages for which we don't have a lot of expertise. Mathglot (talk) 06:19, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notes

^ That is to say, four days less than it took Dr. Frank-N-Furter to make Rocky a man.

My understanding is that the clobbers have all been taken care of. This leaves the Asian language articles. I'm sure that if someone with the needed language skills comes along in the future, admins would be more than happy to mass-undelete the drafts so that they could be reviewed. However, I don't see a reason to postpone in the hope that this will occur. Tazerdadog (talk) 18:45, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Clobbers *are* taken care of, because we (two of us) have been taking care of them. Asian (and other) languages have plenty of translators td.hat could take care of them, it's not a matter of "hoping" for anything in the future, they exist now, so all we have to do is continue the effort begun only a few (5) days ago here. Going forward, this should be even more efficient, now we have the results of Cryptic's queries 19218 and 19243 created only today, and wikified here: WT:CXT/PTR/By language. We have editors working on Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali, Arabic, Romanian, and Hungarian, with more in the pipeline. This is a ton of progress in five days, and I wish it had been thought of a month ago, but it wasn't, and we are where we are. A postponement will simply allow ongoing evaluations by editors recruited less than a week ago and are delivering fast results, to continue instead of being cut off, and additional languages to be handled. Go look at WP:CXT/PTR/By language to see what has been accomplished so far, and at what speed. @Cryptic and Elinruby:. Mathglot (talk) 07:52, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Still need to recruit de, bg and ru. Also still very distracted by real life -- I have had one parent die and another go into hospice in the course of this project, and we have still gotten all this done, so it's not like we are dragging this out into never-never land. A majority of these articles are rescuable, esp as we bring in new editors who are not burned out by re-arranging the word order of the sentences for the 10,000 time. I think the really stellar articles have all been flagged now, but we have still found some very recently and I have said this before. Beyond the really stellar though are the many many not-bad articles and the more mediocre ones that are nonetheless easier to fix than to do over.I am in favor of an extension, personally, though as we all know I would not have started this at all if it were up to me. Many of the really bad articles were already at PNT.

I will be flying almost all day today but will check into wikipedia tonight. Elinruby (talk) 16:19, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm involved in many other things, and get here as I can, and each time I do, I find more than can and should be rescued. There are whole classes of articles, like those of small towns or sports stadiums, which have merely been assumed to be of secondary importance and not actually looked at. If we delete now, we will be judging article by the title. It is very tempting to easily remove all the junk by removing everything, but that;'s the opposite of sensibler ,and the opposite of WP:PRESERVE/ DGG ( talk ) 09:45, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I found a couple today that kind of amazed me, they were so good. But let's play out the chinese fire drill. I'm afraid we're going to find out that we've all done a huge amount of work to delete 30 articles that need to be deleted and 350 whose authors will will not contribute again. Anyway. I have not touched stadiums, personally, because I suspect they will be deleted for notability so why? Ditto all these people with Olympic gold medals because I already have plenty to do without getting involved with articles that are certain to be deleted, not to mention all the argentinian actresses and whatnot.... grumble. Gonna go recruit some chinese and norwegians, because the articles are just going into some other namespace we can still send links to right? Elinruby (talk) 02:14, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The plan is to draftify the articles prior to deletion, but I think deletion can be postponed basically indefinitely once they are draftified Tazerdadog (talk) 02:31, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tazerdadog: I'd like to be sure of that. This is why you lose editors, wikipedia... anyway. Am cranky at the moment. Let me get done what I can with this and then I'll have some things to say. Hopefully some intelligent and civil things. Are we really getting articles from PootisHeavy still? Elinruby (talk) 02:46, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Elinruby: Fixing pings like you just did doesn't work. Pings only work if you sign your post in the same edit and do nothing but add content. Ppp ery 02:49, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Elinruby: The second part statement I made above is a departure from the established consensus as I understand it. The plan which achieved consensus was to draftify, hold in draft for just long enough to check for massive clerical errors, and then delete. I floated the above statement to try to gain consensus to hold the articles in draft space for longer (or indefinitely). While it is important to get potential BLP violations and gross inaccuracies out of mainspace in a timely manner, i don't think it is nearly so important to delete the drafts, especially if salvageable to good articles are regularly being pulled out of them. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:06, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Tazerdadog: Thanks for the suggestion. I think that would help limit the potential for damage and it would alleviate some of my concerns. My assessment differs widely from what I keep reading on this board, but, hey. If anyone cares I would say that 10% of these articles are stellar and very advanced and sophisticated translations. Don't need a thing. Another 10% are full or partial translations, quite correct, of articles that do not meet en.wiki standards for references or tone but do faithfully reflect the translated article. Many of these are extremely boring unless you are doing nitty-gritty research into something like energy policy in Equatorial Guinea, but they then become important... About another 5% I cannot read at all and let's say another 10% are heavy going and require referencing one or more equivalent articles in other languages. Say 5% if anyone ever gets around to dealing with PootisHeavy. The rest are... sloppy english but accurate, unclear but wikilinked, or some other intermediate or mixed level. This has not, in my opinion, been a good use of my time and I have stopped doing any translations, personally, until we get some sanity here. The whole process, it seems to me, simultaneously assumes that translation is easy and also that it is of no value. If wikipedia does not value translation then -- argh. It just makes me to see a good organization eat its own foot this way, is all. Off to see if I can catch us a nepali speaker ;) Elinruby (talk) 03:26, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Elinruby: No Nepali speakers needed, there are no Nepali articles in the batch, afaict. Also, Pootis stopped translating following a March 23 addition to his talk page, currently at #53 on the page.

@Tazerdadog: Whatever kind of draft/quarantine/hyperspace button you press, I plan to carry on with some of the Asian and other languages recruitment which we only recently got started on (which is going great, btw, and we could use some more help over at there if anyone wants to volunteer). I'll want to modify the editor recruitment template so that it can blue-link articles in whatever new location they reside in, so hopefully it will be a nice, systematic mapping of some sort so a dumb template can easily be coded to figure out the new location, given the old one. Just wanted to mention that, so that you can keep it in mind when you come up with the move schema. Naturally, if it's just a move to Draft namespace, then it will be an easy fix to the template.

There is one article in Nepali. I have not invited anyone for it yet, though I did do some of the less populated languages like latvian, indonesian and polish. I have several answers (da, es, pt as I recall) and most articles passed. I will put translated templates and strike those articles shortly. And yes, I just now struck one today. Anything about 3-d modeling is notable imho and I will work on it as long as I can read it at all. Also some of the bad translations about historical documents may be fixable given the response we are getting. If either of you gets enough help/time there are quite a few es/pt/de articles that I did that I believe to be correct but cannot myself certify in terms of the translated template Elinruby (talk) 00:29, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DGG: I withdraw my aspersions on the section title name. This offer valid for twenty-four hours. Mathglot (talk) 08:24, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do not understandd what you mean by this. I assume you mean you are withdrawing the attempt to start mass deletions immediately. If not, please let me know--for I will then proceed to do what I can to prevent them--and , if possible to try to change policy so that no X- speedy criteria can ever again be suggested. The more of these translations I look at, them ore I find that should be rescued. DGG ( talk ) 23:59, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Review of RfC on the classification of Jews on Template talk:Ethnic slurs

CLOSURE ENDORSED

After hatting the extraneous commentary attempting to go over all the arguments again, it's clear that the remaining participants endorse Deryck's closure of the RFC. Consensus certainly can change, but I'll remind those who were on the opposing side that repeated RFCs over the same issue can be considered tendentious. Katie^talk 20:15, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Hello all. Last week I closed this RfC on Template talk:Ethnic slurs. The debate concerned how ethnic slurs relating to Jews should be classified on {{Ethnic slurs}} - whether they should be a subset of Asians, Europeans, or a standalone category.

I have closed with the decision to classify them "standalone", in other words not as a subgroup of any continent-based ethnic groups on the template. I was an WP:ANRFC admin and was not involved in the debate before RfC closure. I closed the discussion based on my best-effort assessment of the arguments presented in the discussion.

Shortly after the RfC was closed, a long discussion Template talk:Ethnic slurs and emerged on my user talk page concerning the RfC outcome. I suggested that WP:DRN look at the issue but it was declined (my bad) as wrong forum. So I'm bringing the issue to AN for wider scrutiny. Deryck C. 14:29, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Participant summaries from WP:DRN#Template talk:Ethnic slurs

Extended content

Summary of dispute by ChronoFrog

Please keep it brief - less than 2000 characters if possible, it helps us help you quicker.

I guess I'll begin by explaining why I am concerned about the outcome of the RfC. It is mostly a copy/paste of what I wrote on Deryck's page, but I am on my way out the door so I don't have enough time to craft anything original.

To recap, the dispute was about whether or not Jews should remain in the West Asian/Middle Eastern category, where they had been for the past 3-4 years at least. A number of editors rejected this categorization on the grounds that A) Jews accept converts/newcomers, B) most Jews have lived in diaspora for centuries and C) genetic admixture with non-Jewish populations. Others argued that, based on WP:RS affirming that Jews are an ethnic/national group with collective descent (as determined by countless genetic studies) from Israel, in addition to the anthropological criteria (notably UN criteria/Martinez-Cobo) utilized in every other case like this (see also: List of indigenous peoples), Jews should remain under West Asian. In addition, points A, B, and C were contested on the grounds that A) all nations accept and integrate outsiders to varying degrees, and Jews are no different, B) living somewhere else, no matter how long, does not make someone indigenous to a particular territory (since this would mean that all colonial groups would eventually become indigenous); per Martinez-Cobo, indigeneity is defined through ethnogenesis, not longstanding presence and C) every nation/ethnic group has mingled with other ethnicities to some degree, including Jews.

During the RfC, none of these concerns were addressed in any meaningful way, if at all. Instead, the discussion petered out after a few weeks, seemingly with a consensus that the template was fine as it was (with Jews and Arabs both having their own categories under the larger West Asian umbrella) with no counter-response or RS beyond A ) a non-RS blog (which had immediately been called out as such, with no response) and B ) repeated assertions of earlier arguments (which, again, had been promptly called out with the same counter-points/sources as before, and again, no response). I took it off my watchlist until I found that a final decision had been made seemingly based on majority vote. I went to Deryck's page to see what his reasoning was, but another heated argument with Electoralist ensued soon afterwards. I pulled up a list of RS that Human Trumpet Solo posted (with a few additions of my own) which had seemingly gone ignored in the initial RfC (see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Deryck_Chan#Challenging_RfC_closure_on_Template:_Ethnic_slurs). He asked me to verify the sources, so I linked him to the article they originally came from. None of the sources provided by Electoralist in justifying his proposal for change were sufficient enough for WP:DUE. One was a genetic study which examined the mtDNA line of Ashkenazi Jews, which I responded to by pointing out that mtDNA is only half of the equation. Y-DNA, in contrast, is overwhelmingly Semitic. Further, I provided a few links to autosomal and Y-DNA studies, as well as Harry Ostrer's book on Jewish genetics.

His other source was a JVL article which only had one citation: JewFAQ (an independent, non-RS). I answered him by pointing this out. Overall, I believe the decision made to be a case of WP:NOTDEMOCRACY and WP:UNDUE, ignoring the abundance of WP:RS provided in the course of the RfC arguing against removing Jews from West Asian. ChronoFrog (talk) 23:40, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Summary of dispute by Jeffgr9

Please keep it brief - less than 2000 characters if possible, it helps us help you quicker.

Summary of dispute by Electoralist

Please keep it brief - less than 2000 characters if possible, it helps us help you quicker.

This matter has been discussed at length and I believe at this point we are just seeing WP:FORUMSHOPPING and I don't see how, given that there has been an RFC that has been closed with a finding of consensus, it is necessary to bring it up again here nor is this the appropriate forum. As far as I can see, the criteria for reconsidering the closure set out at Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#Challenging_other_closures have not been met. User:Cunard has questioned the decision to reopen the DRN here. I'll also add that the small subgroup of editors who have been listed for this discussion lends itself to confirmation bias as it is simply the list User:ChronoFrog chose to notify of the original DRN discussion with Deryck Chan added on.

As has been discussed ad nauseum, Jews as a people have a complex ethnic and genetic history and it is incorrect to say they are a "West Asian" or for that matter European group due to the degree of admixutures. User:ChronoFrog refers to genetic evidence that Askhenazi Jews (who constitute over 75% of the world Jewish population) are matrilineally descended from four European ancestors as "only half the picture" yet his solution completely ignores that half of the picture. A layperson's explanation of Ashkenazi genetics can be found in this LiveScience article Surprise: Ashkenazi Jews Are Genetically European and scholarly sources can be found in this article from the European Journal of Human Genetics "MtDNA evidence for a genetic bottleneck in the early history of the Ashkenazi Jewish population", a peer reviewed article which Google Scholar states has been cited by 78 other scholarly articles, as well as "Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora" a peer reviewed article cited by 87 other scholarly articles. As has been exhaustively both in the orpginal Talk page discussion as well as the Deryck Chan's talk page, there are several Jewish ethnic groups - Ashkenazi (European) Jews, Shephardic (Spanish/North African) Jews, Mizrachi (Arab or Middle Eastern) Jews (often conflated with Shephardic Jews), as well as Ethiopian Jews (and other sub-Saharan Jews) Desi Jews, Chinese Jews and others whose skin colour are white, brown, black, "yellow", etc. To say Jews are simply "West Asian" looks, to revisit User:ChronoFrog's quote at "only half the picture" as much as saying Ashkenazi Jews are European looks at only half the picture, let alone South Asian, Chinese, and Black Jews. Therefore, listing Jews as a standalone category in the template makes more sense rather than trying to shoehorn them into a particular ethnic subcategory (West Asian, European, or African) particularly when one considers that as a religion, Jews have accepted converts for millenia and will continue to do so meaning that admixturing will continue. While there is no such thing as a 'pure' ethnicity and all ethnic groups experience admixture, the composition of the Jewish people as a religion as well as a culture and ethnicity amplified by the Jewish history of disperal (diaspora) throughout the world means that admixturing has occured to a much greater degree and makes it impossible to simplistically place Jews under a single ethnic category. Electoralist (talk) 01:25, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to User:Musashiaharon who states that many of the slurs involved support his claim that Jews can singularly be declared Middle Eastern - most of the slurs are actually aimed specifically at Ashkenazi Jews, one is aimed at Ethiopian Jews, one is aimed at Shephardic Jews who have converted to Christianity etc. Musashiaharon also argues that genetics is only one aspect of ethnicity. Culture, language and customs, indeed, are very important elements however there is no single Jewish culture or even language. Ashkenazi culture is distinct from Shephardic culture and the former is traditionally built around the Yiddish language (hence the term Yiddishkeit) which is a Germanic language with Hebrew influences and Slavic elements (depending on what part of Europe its speakers were in) has never been spoken by Shephardic, Mizrachi, South Asian or other Jewish populations. Similarly, Shephardic Jews have their own language traditionally, Ladino, which is derived from Spanish, and their own customs, cultural and even liturgical traditions and the other Jewish populations I mention all have their own distinct cultures and customs and speak different languages. There are overlaps and shared elements, of course, but the distinctions are enough to make it impossible to classify all the different varients of Jews as a singular, West Asian, ethnic group. Electoralist (talk) 01:52, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Summary of dispute by Musashiaharon

This dispute has been continuing for over a month and is still quite active. The core question is how to categorize Jews among the other ethnic groups in the template. Before the dispute began on June 25, Jews were placed next to Arabs under [West] Asians, and had been categorized as such for several years. Currently the choices are to put Jews in a standalone category, or to group them as a Middle Eastern or West Asian ethnicity. (It was previously attempted to categorize them as White/European. This was quickly dismissed, because A) a large proportion of Jews are not Ashkenazic, and B) the beginnings of Jewish ethnicity, regardless the subgroup, are traceable to the Middle East, which still bears obvious influence on their internal and external associations and current way of life.)

Before I state my opinion, I'll describe my criteria. An ethnicity is "a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like." It makes sense therefore, to categorize ethnicities by the origins of these defining elements. Because of this, I am in favor of categorizing Jews in general as a Middle Eastern or [West] Asian ethnicity, being that each of these defining elements is traceable to the Middle East. This is verified in linguistics (eg. Gersenius' Hebrew Grammar), historical writings (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews), Jewish philosophical writings (Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, and The Kuzari), and in Rabbinical writings on ritual law (Berachot 30a, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Agriculture: Terumot), as well as the Torah itself (Genesis 12, et al.).

Genetics is a topic of secondary importance to ethnographers, who are mostly concerned with culture. Yet there too, clear genetic markers link Jews from all over the world to the Middle East (NCBI: Abraham's Children in the Genome Era). Some admixture with the local populations is present, as with any other ethnic group. However, given the overwhelming influence of cultural factors, this can hardly be said to negate or weaken the existence of the Jewish ethnicity in any clear or specific way. Such converts were considered fully Jewish by other Jews around the world, and were more often than not persecuted and ostracized from their previous social circles (eg. Lord George Gordon).

Germane to this particular template of Ethnic slurs, the slurs themselves give further support to categorizing Jews as Middle Eastern. In particular, "Christ-killer" shows that Europeans positively identified their local Jews to be one and the same as the people who killed their god in the Land of Israel. Similarly, the term "Yid" developed from the High German "jüdisch," etc., which came from the Hebrew "Yehudi," or Judean, after Judah, the pre-eminent, royal tribe among the Jews in their own land (Online Etymology Dictionary: Yid). Parenthetically, Jews at large already had come to be called by that same term ("Yehudi", Judean) thousands of years earlier, regardless their tribal affiliation (eg. Mordecai the Benjaminite in Esther 2:5). Ultimately, "Judean" came to be shortened to "Jew," (Online Etymology Dictionary: Jew) and so even in the slurs themselves, Jews are acknowledged to be a Middle Eastern people. Musashiaharon (talk) 01:53, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rebuttal to Electoralist

The term "Christ killer" was not limited to the Jews in Europe, but also extended at the very least to the Jews in the Holy Land, Ashkenazic or not. During the Crusades, the crusaders massacred and enslaved Jews alongside Muslims in Jerusalem. They saw no difference between the Jews in the Holy Land and those Jews in Europe, and both communities suffered terrible bloodbaths throughout (E. Judaica: Christian-Jewish Relations: The Crusades).

The distinctions between Ashkenazic, Sephardic, Polish, Yemenite, Moroccan, Chinese and other Jews are actually quite minor. They all observe the Sabbath starting Friday at sunset until Saturday nightfall. They all avoid mixing dairy with meat. They all observe Passover, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. They all wear Tefillin. They all wear the Tallit. They all put Mezuzot on their doorposts. They all pray the Amidah and say the Shema in the morning and the evening. The differences are only in details, like the direction they wrap the straps of the Tefillin, the pattern of stripes on the Tallit, small stylistic differences in the writing of the Mezuzot, and so on. In this template, splitting hairs like this is not useful and is WP: UNDUE.

More importantly, all these Jewish communities consider each other part of their own people. For example, the Italian Jews gave refuge to and redeemed Jewish captives the crusaders brought back from the Holy Land, see above from E. Judaica. The Rambam gave instruction to Yemenite Jews via correspondence from Egypt. Ashkenazic Jews today study the Italian Bartenura's commentary on the Mishna and Yalkut Meam Loez, a Midrashic work originally written in Ladino. The Sephardi Halachic authority Rabbi Joseph Caro wrote the Shulchan Aruch, on which the Ashkenazic sage Rabbi Moses Isserles of Poland wrote his notes and commentary, HaMapah. Similarly, in Avkat Rachel, Caro expresses his esteem for the Rambam the customs of the Yemenite community and urges his student to not interfere with their customs. The unity of the Jewish community despite their geographical distance is exceptional. Musashiaharon (talk) 01:33, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Endorse Closure of RFC Jews are a unique subset of people and in terms of slurs, should not be placed under a specific category, be it Asian or Black or African. They are Jews. When a slur is hurled at a Jew, it is not because of them being Asian or African, it is because of them being Jewish. That is quite different than when a slur is hurled at an Asian, etc. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:48, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add, that there is a distinction between the slurs. I am an American, I can be called a Fat American and I can be called a Jewish slur, same as with a African-American. If the slur is based on the color or religion, then it's not an American slur, but if it's based on where they live then of course it is. In the case of Jews, it is because of their religion, not the history of where they might have come from 1,000 years ago. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:01, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse - Outcome was reasonable given the arguments (and relative strength of) presented. Personally I think anyone who seriously thinks Jewish ethnic slurs should be categorized as 'Asian' despite a significant amount of both Jews AND the people who started/currently using the ethnic slurs not being in fact, anywhere near Asia, needs a break. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Only in death With all due respect, this makes no sense. Since when does residing in diaspora (Jews outside of Israel are called diaspora Jews for a reason) negate an ethnic group's identity?ChronoFrog (talk) 20:40, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse numbers and strength of arguments make this a reasonable close. Both Arabs and Jews are standalone and for similar reasons. Other than grouping them together (middle easterners?) nothing other than standalone really makes sense and the discussion more-or-less reached that conclusion. A "no consensus" close would also have been possible, but not useful. Hobit (talk) 15:13, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

They were, in fact, both grouped as Middle Easterners before Electoralist went on his crusade.ChronoFrog (talk) 20:48, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And I'd be fine with that too (personally) but it's reasonable to read the discussion to have consensus on the side of "stand alone". Though "no consensus to change" would also have been a reasonable close. Sometimes it comes down to admin discreteness. I don't think "Asian" was a possible reading of that discussion though. Hobit (talk) 21:38, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User: Hobit I agree with classifying them both as Middle Eastern. I would recommend changing your vote to reflect that if this is something you would truly back.ChronoFrog (talk) 22:06, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's something I'd be happy with personally, but the question at hand is if the close reflected the consensus of the discussion. I think there were two possible closes that would be within discretion, "no consensus" and "standalone". The closer went with "standalone" which is, IMO, a reasonable reading of the discussion, so I must endorse. Hobit (talk) 08:54, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There was no overwhelming consensus either way. There isn't one here either.ChronoFrog (talk) 11:25, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse It seems the most reasonable outcome. Slurs against Jews are based on their religion. Doug Weller talk 16:15, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Doug WellerA great number of those slurs were ethnic in nature, so this is not true. Also, as the sheer volume of RS raised in previous discussions demonstrates, Jews are an ethnic/nation group, not a faith. One can be an atheist, an agnostic, or even a Buddhist and still be recognized as a Jew.ChronoFrog (talk) 20:40, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse. I participated in the RfC after seeing the RfC notice, but I was not previously involved in the template page. I participated in the RfC over some time, responding to questions from other editors and also making some template edits that I hoped had been helpful and leaving a few unrelated suggestions on the talk page. I then took it off my watchlist, and was pinged to be aware of this discussion at AN. So that's my prior involvement. I observed that there was a real problem with the editing environment at the template page, and I ended up deciding that I should walk away because the editing environment was simply not worth my trouble (and I'm hardly an editor who shrinks from difficult editing topics!). The problem is that there is a very aggressive group of good-faith but inflexible editors who have extremely strong personal feelings about how the Jewish people should be classified, derived from their personal understandings of their own Jewish faith, and they are convinced that they are correct and that there must be no compromise over what is, in effect, divinely determined. When I came freshly to the RfC, my opinion was that the correct determination was what the close ended up being. And most of the other editors who came to the template page from the RfC notice as I did, also came to that conclusion. So that really was the consensus of editors who came to the RfC (as opposed to the editors who were already in the discussion before the RfC). But we were filibustered by editors who were convinced that they were right, based on things like their views that all Jews are really like citizens of Israel no matter where they reside, and should therefore all be classified as coming ultimately from West Asia. Just look at User talk:Deryck Chan to see what those arguments, and their verbosity, look like. The close was a good one. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:21, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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One aspect you are ignoring is that one side (the side arguing in favor of Asian categorization) provided reliable sources. A ton of them, in fact. The other side posted a blog and not much else. I am hardly what you'd call inflexible, even on issues that directly impact me (like this one). My problem is that the arguments presented were weak and, in terms of the sources he did bring forth, WP:UNDUE. I also think you are ignoring the content of the arguments being made, which is part of the reason I brought this up with Deryck in the first place. So your characterization of those arguing in favor of Asian as intractable is highly unfair (especially in light of Electoralist's recalcitrance and immaturity throughout the whole ordeal). ChronoFrog (talk) 20:40, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Electoralist (talk) 5:55 pm, Today (UTC−7)

You really should take your own advice before hurling that accusation in my direction.ChronoFrog (talk) 6:12 pm, Today (UTC−7)

Ultimately, this is why I took it off my watchlist. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:49, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Tryptofish Well, you did seemingly disparage our arguments ("but we were filibustered by editors who were convinced that they were right, based on things like their views that all Jews are really like citizens of Israel no matter where they reside, and should therefore all be classified as coming ultimately from West Asia. Just look at User talk:Deryck Chan to see what those arguments, and their verbosity, look like.") without offering any substantive reasons as to why they are wrong, or unencyclopedic, or not consistent with Wikipedia policy (it also seems as though you thought only one side was overzealous, which I find curious). My view is that if one does not wish to actually participate in the discussion and help us arrive at an agreement, they should stay out of it and not post drive-by "votes".ChronoFrog (talk) 21:58, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse - While there are 1 or 2 very loud voices among the minority who have pursued this on Deryck's talk page and at DRN in what I view as an attempt at WP:FORUMSHOPPING the criteria at Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#Challenging_other_closures for challenging the closure have not been met. The closure and consensus determination were sound and all we've seen since the closure is a rehash of the same arguments over and over again. Electoralist (talk) 16:47, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

I see that User:ChronoFrog (below) is again trying to reargue the RFC and is claiming the consesnsus has a lack of WP:RS in support. As has been discussed ad nauseum, Jews as a people have a complex ethnic and genetic history and it is incorrect to say they are a "West Asian" or for that matter European group due to the degree of admixutures. User:ChronoFrog refers to genetic evidence that Askhenazi Jews (who constitute over 75% of the world Jewish population) are matrilineally descended from four European ancestors as "only half the picture" yet his solution completely ignores that half of the picture. A layperson's explanation of Ashkenazi genetics can be found in this LiveScience article Surprise: Ashkenazi Jews Are Genetically European and scholarly sources can be found in this article from the European Journal of Human Genetics "MtDNA evidence for a genetic bottleneck in the early history of the Ashkenazi Jewish population", a peer reviewed article which Google Scholar states has been cited by 78 other scholarly articles, as well as "Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora" a peer reviewed article cited by 87 other scholarly articles. As has been exhaustively both in the orpginal Talk page discussion as well as the Deryck Chan's talk page, there are several Jewish ethnic groups - Ashkenazi (European) Jews, Sephardic (Spanish/North African) Jews, Mizrachi (Arab or Middle Eastern) Jews (often conflated with Sephardic Jews), as well as Ethiopian Jews (and other sub-Saharan Jews) Desi Jews, Chinese Jews and others whose skin colour are white, brown, black, "yellow", etc. To say Jews are simply "West Asian" looks, to revisit User:ChronoFrog's quote at "only half the picture" as much as saying Ashkenazi Jews are European looks at only half the picture, let alone South Asian, Chinese, and Black Jews. Therefore, listing Jews as a standalone category in the template makes more sense rather than trying to shoehorn them into a particular ethnic subcategory (West Asian, European, or African) particularly when one considers that as a religion, Jews have accepted converts for millenia and will continue to do so meaning that admixturing will continue. While there is no such thing as a 'pure' ethnicity and all ethnic groups experience admixture, the composition of the Jewish people as a religion as well as a culture and ethnicity amplified by the Jewish history of disperal (diaspora) throughout the world means that admixturing has occured to a much greater degree and makes it impossible to simplistically place Jews under a single ethnic category.

Culture, language and customs, indeed, are very important elements however there is no single Jewish culture or even language. Ashkenazi culture is distinct from Shephardic culture and the former is traditionally built around the Yiddish language (hence the term Yiddishkeit) which is a Germanic language with Hebrew influences and Slavic elements (depending on what part of Europe its speakers were in) has never been spoken by Shephardic, Mizrachi, South Asian or other Jewish populations. Similarly, Shephardic Jews have their own language traditionally, Ladino, which is derived from Spanish, and their own customs, cultural and even liturgical traditions and the other Jewish populations I mention all have their own distinct cultures and customs and speak different languages. There are overlaps and shared elements, of course, but the distinctions are enough to make it impossible to classify all the different varients of Jews as a singular, West Asian, ethnic group. Electoralist (talk) 21:20, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful that you (conveniently) ignored my responses to those same exact points. Here's a refresher: "The title of that article ("Surprise, Jews are Genetically European") is highly misleading since the study it cites deals only with mtDNA, which is about half of the equation (and allegedly harder to pin down than Y-DNA). Y-DNA of Ashkenazim is almost entirely Semitic/Levantine. Autosomal studies show them to be about half-half, with the European side being largely Greek/Roman. "The contemporary Ashkenazi Jewish population, as characterised by several recent genetic studies, is approximately 600 to 800 years old and is probably the result of the fusion of ancestral European and Middle-Eastern populations, according to research published this week in Nature Communications. These previous studies have described Ashkenazi Jewish individuals as a genetically distinct population, close to other Jewish populations, as well as to present-day Middle-Eastern and European people. As is common in distinct populations, they demonstrate distinctive genetic characteristics including a high prevalence of genetic diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, and breast and ovarian cancer. The authors also produced a model that indicates that the formation of the contemporary Ashkenazi Jewish population occurred 600 to 800 years ago (close to the time of the population bottleneck) with the fusion of two ancestral populations: ancestral European and ancestral Middle-Eastern. They also find that the ancestral European population went through a founding bottleneck when diverging from ancestral Middle Easterners 20.4 to 22.1 thousand years ago, around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum. The ancestors of both of these populations underwent another bottleneck, probably corresponding to an Out-of-Africa event." http://www.natureasia.com/en/research/highlight/9440

Additionally, this study shows that Ashkenazim and other diaspora groups are closer to Samaritans on the Y-DNA line than Palestinian Arabs. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/humu.20077/abstract;jsessionid=10F76852AD872606B6B2DA06BF5C221E.f03t02

This one is even more direct. According to Behar, the most parsimonious explanation for this shared Middle Eastern ancestry is that it is "consistent with the historical formulation of the Jewish people as descending from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents of the Levant" and "the dispersion of the people of ancient Israel throughout the Old World". http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7303/full/nature09103.html

Lastly, nobody is claiming that Ashkenazim have no European mixture, or cultural influences. The point is that it's irrelevant. For one thing, this discussion is about Jews as a whole, not just Ashkenazim. Second, admixture or cultural influences obtained in diaspora (there's that word again) does not change or negate the ethnic identity of a people. Native Americans have European ancestry too; I don't see anyone arguing that they should no longer be classified as aboriginal North Americans (to use one example). Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrahim, Bene Israel, and so on are diaspora subgroups, not ethnicities in and of themselves. But while we're on that subject, according to DNA studies Ethiopian, Chinese, and Indian Jews have Israelite descent as well (albeit to an obviously lesser degree).ChronoFrog (talk) 21:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise, your skin color argument is equally silly, since there are many Ashkenazic Jews who have brown skin and Sephardim/Mizrahim who have white skin. The overlap is significant, as has been mentioned countless times. Indian, Ethiopian, and East Asian Jews more closely resemble their host populations because they assimilated to a much greater degree, but they have Israelite descent as well.ChronoFrog (talk) 21:46, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Admixturing is not irrelevent (nor is the fact that Jews accept converts and there have been a steady stream of converts from other ethnicities for centuries) it is the reason why there are numerous ethnocultural groups within the Jewish people and the reason it is difficult to classify Jews ethnically. Jews are a complex ethno-cultural-religious population. Ashkenazi Jews are predominantly matrilineally descended from Europeans and patrilineally from Middle Easterners, moreover they are or were located in Europe for close to 2,000 years and were influneced linguistically (hence the Yiddish language and culturually. As ethnography is also a matter of language, culture, and customs this is hardly irrelevent. Nor are the language, culture, and customs of Sephardic Jews that are distinct from those of Askhenazi, those of Ethiopian Jews (who are Black), South Asian Desi Jews (who appear South Asian) etc. To shoehorn all Jews under the category of "West Asian" is simplistic and negates half the picture. In any case, you are attempting to reargue the RFC once again and are veering into WP:FORUMSHOPPING and have identified no valid reasons for reopening the RFC. Electoralist (talk) 21:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Again, this has been addressed. Every population has absorbed foreign admixture to varying degrees, so to make genetic purity into a prerequisite for inclusion under a particular category is ludicrous. There is no such thing as a genetically pure population, especially when it comes to ethnoreligious/national groups (as defined by the RS that you keep ignoring) such as Jews. So yes, it is irrelevant. As to your other argument, I already addressed that. Ashkenazim, Ethiopian Jews, Desi Jews, etc are diaspora subpopulations of Jews, not separate ethnicities (again, I refer you back to the RS).ChronoFrog (talk) 22:17, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add that in Template_talk:Ethnic slurs you made it quite clear after the RFC closed that ~~you intend "to keep it going until the template [is] to your liking" and that~~ you are "going to challenge this decision until an appropriate change is made" which supports my belief that you are WP:FORUMSHOPPING and intend to just keep rehashing the same arguments over and over again. I think you need to stop now. Electoralist (talk) 22:01, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, THIS is what I said. "I rejected it because I was exhausted and had no interest in perpetuating a discussion that had clearly run out of steam, and it was obvious (at least to me) that you intended to keep it going until the template was to your liking." Not that I'm surprised that you would take my quote out of context.ChronoFrog (talk) 22:17, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, my apologies in my haste just now I misread my comment (quoting you) on the talk page which was actually a response to what you've just reposted above and I forgot the context of the first quote (though not the second). My reply to the original comment you've just reposted was: "The irony of your statement is that it is you who are attempting "to keep it going until the template [is] to your liking". You even said earlier today "I'm going to challenge this decision until an appropriate change is made" Electoralist (talk) 00:09, 5 August 2016 (UTC) and, indeed, this comment has proven to be correct. Electoralist (talk)

And I responded with this. I'm not interested in keeping the discussion going. As far as I'm concerned, it died down weeks ago as it should have. I'm petitioning for a change that more closely adheres to Wiki policy and takes our concerns into account.ChronoFrog (talk) 12:35, 5 August 2016 (UTC) ChronoFrog (talk) 22:54, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - After the RfC closed, I noticed a number of policy related errors (notably WP:RS, WP:UNDUE, WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, etc) with the final decision. I went through the proper channels to see what could be done about it, and this led me to contacting Deryck who set up a DRN yesterday, although it was locked after only an hour due to it being in the wrong forum. We were instructed to bring this to AN, so here we are. The reason I am writing this is because I want to preempt any accusations of WP:FORUMSHOPPING so that we may focus our attention on the underlying dispute.

To recap, the dispute itself was about whether or not Jews should be categorized as West Asian/Middle Eastern, as they had been for several years. A number of editors rejected this categorization on the grounds that A) Jews accept converts/newcomers, B) most Jews have lived in diaspora for centuries (primarily the result of displacement via foreign colonialism) and C) genetic admixture with non-Jewish populations. Others argued that, based on WP:RS affirming that Jews are a West Asian national group with ethnic ties/collective descent (as determined by countless genetic studies) from Israel, in addition to the anthropological criteria (notably UN criteria/Martinez-Cobo) utilized in every other case like this (see also: List of indigenous peoples), Jews belong under West Asian. In addition, points A, B, and C were contested on the grounds that A) all nations accept and integrate outsiders to varying degrees, and Jews are no different, B) living somewhere else, no matter how long, does not make someone indigenous to a particular territory (as this would mean that all colonial groups would eventually become indigenous); per Martinez-Cobo, indigeneity is defined through ethnogenesis, not longstanding presence and C) every nation/ethnic group has mingled with other ethnicities to some degree, and Jews are no exception.

None of these concerns were addressed in any meaningful way, if at all. Instead, the discussion petered out after a few weeks, seemingly with a consensus that the template was fine as it is (with Jews and Arabs both having their own categories under the larger West Asian umbrella) with no counter-response or RS beyond A ) a non-RS blog (which had immediately been called out as such, with no response) and B ) repeated assertions of earlier arguments (which, again, had been promptly called out with the same counter-points/sources as before, and again, no response). It also seemed as though many of the responses came from editors without much in the way of prior exposure to this topic, since there were a few editors who appeared to have backtracked on their initial support for the proposal as discussion wore on. I took it off my watchlist until I found that a final decision had been made seemingly based on majority vote.ChronoFrog (talk) 20:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

This has nothing to do with the ancient origin of the Jews, which then may be classified as Asian, this has to do with categorization of slurs as it stands with Jews. Jews today are not Asian, they are Jews. Some are Asian, some are African, many are American. I am Jewish but I am not Asian. It does not make sense to categorize Jewish with regards to slurs as Asian. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:49, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So you're saying that being Asian requires actually living there? If that were the case, no Asian diaspora would fit in that category.ChronoFrog (talk) 20:53, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, that's not what I'm saying. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:55, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument is that Jews are no longer a West Asian ethnic group because they left (or rather, were forcibly displaced) the Middle East. So at least from my vantage point, that seems to be precisely what you are saying.ChronoFrog (talk) 20:58, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If that's not what you're saying, then what *are* you saying?ChronoFrog (talk) 21:11, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Even if your argument was not ridiculous on the face of it, per commong naming, it would result in 'Arab' and 'Jew' being grouped under 'Middle East' rather than 'West Asian' (which is generally used only historically). I can see that going down well. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:23, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Only in death You call my argument ridiculous (despite the heaps of RS provided to back it up, on the template and Deryck's page, but I can post them here too) without articulating how or why. It would be helpful if you could at least elaborate. Also, I am not opposed at all to placing Jews and Arabs under Middle Eastern (or Asian). They had been grouped together on that template for the past 4 years, with no issue.ChronoFrog (talk) 21:27, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose One of the main concepts that those who "Endorse" do not seem to realize remains that Judaism does not solely describe the Jewish "religion," but a Semitic Peoplehood, Tribe, Ethnoreligious group, and in some aspects a "Race;" but even being a "Race" would not mean that Jews did not originate as one people within the Southwest Levant; in fact, it would support Judaism's ethnogenesis within that region. Look at the culture, philosophies, phenotypical and genetic features that Jews have carried throughout the ages since their formation in the Land of Canaan. Look at Jews' relations to other Semitic peoples: Example 1, Example 2. Look at our languages and the various derivations as well as amalgamations to other languages (Yiddish, Ladino, etc.), we are a united people with core, root, Semitic/Afro-Asiatic, Ethnocultural beliefs (like Tzedakah, Tikkun Olam, and Torah) and yet different/intersecting branches that have branched out due to Diaspora, enslavement, intermarriage, etc. (One prominent example being in 70 CE when Titus besieged Jerusalem. Such variations occur within all Peoples, but every People has their own Peoplehood, even if they have mixed with other Peoples. Therefore, all ethnic groups within the ethnic slur chart should either be separated without umbrella ethnographic groups involved (e.g. not categorized by Asian (East, Central, South, etc.), African, European, etc.), OR Jews, Arabs, and other Afro-Asiatic Peoples should share an ethnographic umbrella of West Asians/North Africans, especially given the fact that Israel is a central part of what it means to be a Jew, whether by genetics, or sociopolitical affiliation (e.g. joining the Tribe, converting, etc.); on a related note, Israel is also located on the African Plate, so please also take that into consideration. Todah Rabah, and talk with you soon! Jeffgr9 (talk) 21:15, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, by not including West Asians/North Africans, the editors here exclude all Semitic/Afro-Asiatic peoples from having an ethnographic base for their ethnic slurs on the chart. Seriously, it would be omitting West Asian/North African/Middle Eastern as a possible region toward which people directed slurs (i.e. the term "Philistine," to connote Jews' longtime rival neighbor and for which their land was renamed by Romans after besieging Jerusalem; and the basis for the term "Anti-Semitism," coined by Wilhelm Marr, which should not mean to suggest Jews are not Semites, but rather, that Jews should not be negatively spurned for being Semitic. The Nazis'/Europeans' negative use for "Semite" and their negative attribution to Jews' Semitic origins, probably contributed a great deal to the miscommunication/miseducation that many of our people suffer today in terms of figuring out how to ethnically/racially describe our people). Again, Todah Rabah. Jeffgr9 (talk) 21:31, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And another point, in case anyone is confused, "ethnicity" and "race" are not solely defined by skin tone. Again, Diaspora. Please make a West Asian/North African (Afro-Asiatic/Middle Eastern) umbrella category within the template for peoples like Jews, Arabs, Samaritans, Yazidis, Kurds, Druze, Bahá'í, etc. Jeffgr9 (talk) 22:49, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Per Jeffgr9 and ChronoFrog.The Human Trumpet Solo (talk) 21:52, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse without bringing any new arguments in, as many opposers here are doing, the closure was reasonable for what was typed there. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:56, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Graeme Bartlett These are the same arguments that appeared in the RfC (same sources, too).ChronoFrog (talk) 22:00, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, you are simply rehashing the same arguments over and over again in the hopes that if you repeat yourself enough you will wear everyone else down. That's precisely why you have no valid reason to reopen the RFC. Electoralist (talk) 22:10, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone had responded to (let alone debunked) the RS and arguments the first time, I would have no need to bring them up again. But nobody did, and I'm increasingly beginning to understand why (obviously, because they *can't* respond to them).ChronoFrog (talk) 22:17, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. Virtually no one has responded to most of my points. It is insulting, and does not make sense how people can move forward without addressing everyone's points. Jeffgr9 (talk) 22:24, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You and ChronoFrog are completely missing the point of this discussion. This is not a rerun of the RFC. No one will respond to your points because what is being assessed here is not the content of the RFC but whether the close of the RFC was appropriate. The closing admin is expected to read through the arguments made in the RFC and the sentiment of the contributing editors. Any admin that discusses the content becomes involved and cannot make a close. As long as you approach this discussion as a rerun of the RFC, all that will happen is you will become increasingly frustrated because your expectations are not, and cannot be, met. Blackmane (talk) 02:32, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse. There appears to be a generally even balance between giving the Jews a separate line and not giving them a separate line, but the latter is split between Europeans and Asians, with occasional other stuff, and giving the Jews a separate line appears to be the closest to getting consensus. As a Christian from a Levitical family, I'm familiar with a lot of these ideas, and as I read through the discussion, I found myself first agreeing with one side, then the other, then the first, then the other, etc.; everyone's arguments tend to make sense, so we have to find a way to accommodate all of them as well as we can. "No consensus" generally defaults to status quo ante bellum, but if there's reason not to close this in favor of a separate line, there's even better reason not to close it in favor of the pre-discussion form. WP:NOTAVOTE, but as I noted above, it's not as if any position is making significantly stronger arguments than the others; all of them make good points, but since we have to adopt exactly one of the positions (putting them in both places would be an absurd misapplication of WP:NPOV), the best way to do this is going first past the post and allowing the weight of numbers to count. Nyttend (talk) 22:30, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Nyttend While I don't agree with your position (the consensus prior to moving Jews and Arabs to standalone was that they should stay under a Middle Eastern category; also, the side with RS should, as a general rule, trump the side without it), I appreciate that you *at least* read and considered our arguments. That seems to be something nobody else in here is willing to do.ChronoFrog (talk) 22:36, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It appears that most of the "Endorse" comments in here are drive-by votes. That is, they dismissed the ideas/RS brought forward by the "Oppose" side without giving any reasons, or participating in discussion here. This is the same problem that caused me to challenge Deryck's decision in the first place. The strength of arguments is determined through debate and dialogue, not simply repeating one's pre-deliberative opinions and intuitions. I have addressed, and refuted, every single argument against categorizing Jews and Arabs as West Asian/Middle Eastern, but there are no responses to be found (with few exceptions, and I refuted those too). That is deeply frustrating to me, and not conducive at all to genuine consensus building.ChronoFrog (talk) 22:48, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for this is that this section on AN is supposed to be assessing the close, not to repeat the debate. A new debate should probably happen at the same talk page, but listing it here has brought in a new audience. Those opposing are not saying why the close is wrong, just repeating or boosting the argument that should have gone into the RFC. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:13, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User: Graeme Bartlett Would it be possible to start a new RfC on this issue in the future, per WP: CCC?ChronoFrog (talk) 23:37, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. For many of the reasons already stated by others, primarily the error in viewing Jews as strictly, or even primarily, a religious group. Jews are a nation, and an ethno-religious group. Jews who are Jewish by birth and perhaps by culture, but not by the practice of religion, are still subjected to the same slurs as religious Jews, which clearly blows apart the notion that the slurs are religious. I have also noticed that those who are endorsing this decision have not provided any legitimate responses to the numerous points raised by the "Oppose" side - they simply keep repeating the same arguments that have been amply refuted by ChronoFrog and Jeffgr9. I agree with those who have suggested going back to a separate grouping for the Middle East, as opposed to the rest of Asia, but in the absence of a Middle Eastern category, it makes logical sense to group both Arabs and Jews as (west) Asian. PA Math Prof (talk) 22:58, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's because the purpose here is not to repeat the debate but to assess the closure. That the oppose side insists on doing the former is indicative of there being no actual criteria met for reopening the RFC under Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#Challenging_other_closures. Electoralist (talk) 00:59, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Part of that assessment entails examining the policy-related errors made in said closure, including the dismissal of WP:RS and violation of WP:UNDUE. Aside from that, most editors who have posted here gave their opinions on the subject, and thus I responded.ChronoFrog (talk) 01:12, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. With all due respect to the dedicated volunteers who maintain Wikipedia, I must say, the bureaucracy here is terrible. How is it possible to expect even the experienced editors here to make real decision? An huge debate has been dumped on their laps that's been active for more than six weeks on five different forums! This is not fair to the newcomers and isn't fair for the topic itself. I preferred the earlier discussion at the DRN, which was much more promising. There, the original participants were invited to present their summaries before discussion began, and real discussion was taking place before it got shut down. Though much damage is already done, I'm copying that discussion here above, since that content should have been here from the inception. Musashiaharon (talk) 01:16, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

"An huge (sic) debate has been dumped on their laps that's been active for more than six weeks on five different forums!" - Indeed, that's because the minority has been engaging in WP:FORUMSHOPPING. However, the purpose here is not to rehash the argument. Electoralist (talk) 01:25, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Untrue. And I think that rather than more bureaucratic noise, we'd like to see some RS for your perspective. I'm sure it was by mistake, but the blog post and Usenet article you have provided do not fit the bill. Musashiaharon (talk) 02:03, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I already posted the link to the peer reviewed European Journal of Human Genetics article as well as a second peer reviewed article which, between them, are cited a total of 169 times by scholarly sources as well as the LiveScience article putting the DNA findings in lay terms. I'm sure you ignored them by mistake. However, again, the purpose of WP:ANI is not to rehash the argument ad nauseum which is something you and ChronoFrong seem determined to do. As for your "untrue" remark, the fact that by your admission the argument is spread out over "five different forums!" is evidence of WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Electoralist (talk) 02:14, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, you did post that study, and I pointed out that A ) it deals only with the mtDNA half, not the entire genome, B ) nobody disputed that Ashkenazim have European mixing, but that it is not sufficient to declassify them as a MENA group (as they are a diaspora subgroup of a Middle Eastern ethnicity), and C ) it's only one source, whereas the Asian side has provided close to a dozen (and I could easily gather more, but those sources alone should have been more than enough).

As for your accusations of forum shopping, I refer you back to my original post in here. "After the RfC closed, I noticed a number of policy related errors (notably WP:RS, WP:UNDUE, WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, etc) with the final decision. I went through the proper channels to see what could be done about it, and this led me to contacting Deryck who set up a DRN yesterday, although it was locked after only an hour due to it being in the wrong forum. We were instructed to bring this to AN, so here we are. The reason I am writing this is because I want to preempt any accusations of WP:FORUMSHOPPING so that we may focus our attention on the underlying dispute."

Given the above, this does not qualify as forum shopping. I suggest taking the time to read what "forum shopping" actually means.ChronoFrog (talk) 02:36, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to bring musashi's replies from the DRN down here, because there are even more WP:RS provided within.

==== Summary of dispute by Musashiaharon ====

This dispute has been continuing for over a month and is still quite active. The core question is how to categorize Jews among the other ethnic groups in the template. Before the dispute began on June 25, Jews were placed next to Arabs under [West] Asians, and had been categorized as such for several years. Currently the choices are to put Jews in a standalone category, or to group them as a Middle Eastern or West Asian ethnicity. (It was previously attempted to categorize them as White/European. This was quickly dismissed, because A) a large proportion of Jews are not Ashkenazic, and B) the beginnings of Jewish ethnicity, regardless the subgroup, are traceable to the Middle East, which still bears obvious influence on their internal and external associations and current way of life.)

Before I state my opinion, I'll describe my criteria. An ethnicity is "a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like." It makes sense therefore, to categorize ethnicities by the origins of these defining elements. Because of this, I am in favor of categorizing Jews in general as a Middle Eastern or [West] Asian ethnicity, being that each of these defining elements is traceable to the Middle East. This is verified in linguistics (eg. Gersenius' Hebrew Grammar), historical writings (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews), Jewish philosophical writings (Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, and The Kuzari), and in Rabbinical writings on ritual law (Berachot 30a, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Agriculture: Terumot), as well as the Torah itself (Genesis 12, et al.).

Genetics is a topic of secondary importance to ethnographers, who are mostly concerned with culture. Yet there too, clear genetic markers link Jews from all over the world to the Middle East (NCBI: Abraham's Children in the Genome Era). Some admixture with the local populations is present, as with any other ethnic group. However, given the overwhelming influence of cultural factors, this can hardly be said to negate or weaken the existence of the Jewish ethnicity in any clear or specific way. Such converts were considered fully Jewish by other Jews around the world, and were more often than not persecuted and ostracized from their previous social circles (eg. Lord George Gordon).

Germane to this particular template of Ethnic slurs, the slurs themselves give further support to categorizing Jews as Middle Eastern. In particular, "Christ-killer" shows that Europeans positively identified their local Jews to be one and the same as the people who killed their god in the Land of Israel. Similarly, the term "Yid" developed from the High German "jüdisch," etc., which came from the Hebrew "Yehudi," or Judean, after Judah, the pre-eminent, royal tribe among the Jews in their own land (Online Etymology Dictionary: Yid). Parenthetically, Jews at large already had come to be called by that same term ("Yehudi", Judean) thousands of years earlier, regardless their tribal affiliation (eg. Mordecai the Benjaminite in Esther 2:5). Ultimately, "Judean" came to be shortened to "Jew," (Online Etymology Dictionary: Jew) and so even in the slurs themselves, Jews are acknowledged to be a Middle Eastern people. Musashiaharon (talk) 01:53, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

===== Rebuttal to Electoralist =====

The term "Christ killer" was not limited to the Jews in Europe, but also extended at the very least to the Jews in the Holy Land, Ashkenazic or not. During the Crusades, the crusaders massacred and enslaved Jews alongside Muslims in Jerusalem. They saw no difference between the Jews in the Holy Land and those Jews in Europe, and both communities suffered terrible bloodbaths throughout (E. Judaica: Christian-Jewish Relations: The Crusades).

The distinctions between Ashkenazic, Sephardic, Polish, Yemenite, Moroccan, Chinese and other Jews are actually quite minor. They all observe the Sabbath starting Friday at sunset until Saturday nightfall. They all avoid mixing dairy with meat. They all observe Passover, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. They all wear Tefillin. They all wear the Tallit. They all put Mezuzot on their doorposts. They all pray the Amidah and say the Shema in the morning and the evening. The differences are only in details, like the direction they wrap the straps of the Tefillin, the pattern of stripes on the Tallit, small stylistic differences in the writing of the Mezuzot, and so on. In this template, splitting hairs like this is not useful and is WP: UNDUE.

More importantly, all these Jewish communities consider each other part of their own people. For example, the Italian Jews gave refuge to and redeemed Jewish captives the crusaders brought back from the Holy Land, see above from E. Judaica. The Rambam gave instruction to Yemenite Jews via correspondence from Egypt. Ashkenazic Jews today study the Italian Bartenura's commentary on the Mishna and Yalkut Meam Loez, a Midrashic work originally written in Ladino. The Sephardi Halachic authority Rabbi Joseph Caro wrote the Shulchan Aruch, on which the Ashkenazic sage Rabbi Moses Isserles of Poland wrote his notes and commentary, HaMapah. Similarly, in Avkat Rachel, Caro expresses his esteem for the Rambam the customs of the Yemenite community and urges his student to not interfere with their customs. The unity of the Jewish community despite their geographical distance is exceptional. Musashiaharon (talk) 01:33, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ChronoFrog (talk) 02:44, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"They all observe the Sabbath starting Friday at sunset until Saturday nightfall." Actually Mushashiaron, I think ChronoFrog differs from you on that point. Electoralist (talk) 03:38, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And you were complaining about personal attacks before? What do you call this?ChronoFrog (talk) 11:30, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse close I read through pretty much all of the RFC (except for the last third that degenerated into little more than a shouting match) and on the whole find Deryck's close reasonable. Also, please do not try to engage me on the specifics of the debate as that is not the point of this closure review. Blackmane (talk) 02:53, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse close. Deryck Chan's reasoning makes sense to me.

Regarding the original RFC: Like Tryptofish, I had no previous involvement with the template and joined the discussion after seeing the RFC notice. As I said there, I agree with the reasons Electoralist stated for having a standalone category. Having read through this conversation (and much of Deryck Chan's talk page) hasn't changed my mind. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 11:17, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:BlackcurrantTea You won't explain why you disagree with the sources or policy based arguments which the "Asian" side has provided an abundance of, and you are unwilling to discuss it. How exactly does this help us reach an agreement?ChronoFrog (talk) 11:30, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

{{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the review is closed. (I am adding this because RfC closure reviews frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.) Cunard (talk) 05:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like it might be time to ban anyone who participated in the RFC (on either side) and who has already commented here from further comment in this close review; they're sucking all the oxygen out of the room. If you haven't been able to make your point (repeatedly) by now, you're probably doing more harm than good by continuing to try. --Floquenbeam (talk) 11:39, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Use your mop and hat all the discussion that isnt a direct support/oppose? Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:53, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - I was tempted to hat the wall of text directly above my Endorse but as I had !voted it wouldn't have been appropriate. ChronoFrog's fervour and zeal has long gone over the edge into badgering. Blackmane (talk) 12:37, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    - I have no idea why you are singling me out. Either way, if Wikipedia guidelines had been taken into account during the course of the RfC and in its closure (instead of relying on a majority of mostly hit-and-run "votes"), nobody would be raising a fuss about this. At this point, I honestly do think there is an issue of WP:Systemic bias on here.ChronoFrog (talk) 16:11, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    - I haven't !voted, so I've hatted the rehashing of the debate. I think I got it all, but if someone with a mop wants to edit/add/remove it, knock yourself out. If you aren't an admin, or if you participated in the original RFC, do not modify it. I think I can safely speak for fellow admins when I say that would be considered disruptive at least and tendentious at worst. We need to review the RFC close here, not restart the RFC. Katie^talk 12:50, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      - @ChronoFrog:The point of this thread was raised by Deryck Chan to review the closure of the RFC. It is not to rehash the RFC here. WP:AN is not and never will be the location to decide content issues. You have responded to virtually all of the commenters here as if another RFC was being run. If it's a few comments here and there, then that's no problem but badgering every single !voter is disruptive.

Let me repeat we are not here to go over the RFC material again. Deryck closed the RFC, you among a number of other editors raised concerns about his closure on his talk page and after an extended discussion he brought his closure here for review. Many of the commenters, myself included, will have read the RFC and we came to our own conclusions. If consensus here is that Deryck's close was appropriate then that is that. However, you are more than welcome to attempt a new RFC at some point in the future because consensus certainly can change but be warned that repeatedly opening RFC's within a short space of time to try and get your POV across is disruptive and can lead to sanctions. Blackmane (talk) 23:58, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse Close. Standalone seems to be the closest thing to consensus (with a non-insignificant minority suggesting that slurs be disassociated from geographical region altogether for everyone, not just Jews). Alternatively no consensus could be supported, but to me despite the massive walls of text from a couple of vocal advocates, Standalone is the best close option. As with others, I'm not interested in entering the debate on the issue, because this isn't the place to reopen it - my opinion is regarding the close only. PGWG (talk) 12:59, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

*Comment I just wanted to clarify for those who are against the close. This template is not about the origins of Jews, or Africans or whatever, it is how to classify ethnic slurs against people. When I hurl a slur at an African American, I am doing so based on his African heritage, unless the slur is about him being a Yankee, then it's a slur based on his being American. Same as with an Asian or Arab, but for a Jew, you are insulting him based on his religion or ethnicity. Most Jews don't have Asian heritage or ancestry. You are not insulting them based on that, you are insulting them merely for being Jewish so it does seem clear that the category should be stand-alone. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:05, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Most Jews don't have Asian heritage or ancestry". This statement is incorrect. http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7303/full/nature09103.html, http://www.natureasia.com/en/research/highlight/9440, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3032072/ I'll stop there. It's no wonder the consensus is so out of step with policy when most of the editors involved won't even read the WP:RS provided. I'm beginning to think that WP:BIAS is what's causing it.ChronoFrog (talk) 15:57, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is not the place to rehash your arguments. I'll just end by saying that even if Jews came from Asia a thousand years ago, that is not their heritage, or culture, in 2016. An American Jew is American who is Jewish, so the slurs are either geography based or Jewish based, it has nothing to do with Asia. If you want to talk about ancient history then there are articles for that. But a template on classification of slurs is not the place. This is just to discuss the close of the RFC not to rehash the same arguments over again. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:36, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jewish heritage *is* Asian heritage (or Middle Eastern heritage, if you will). Our identity now is the same as it was before we left Israel: Jewish/Israelite/Hebrew. Picking up cultural influences/genes in diaspora doesn't cancel out our national heritage. No other displaced indigenous people would ever accept such an argument, so why should we? And the reason I am "rehashing my arguments" is because nobody answered them, in the RfC, on Deryck's page, or on here.ChronoFrog (talk) 18:28, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sir Joseph, your statements regarding what defines a Jew are false, ignorant, and offensive. Please refrain from making narrow-minded arguments to define Jewish identity. But I will ask you, What defines an "American?" What defines a "Jew?" Again, when others and I have said "West Asian," we mean, Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, North African, etc.—the essential origins of Jewish identity and the ethnic slurs related to Jews from time immemorial. Please refer to my arguments above in this discussion, and not just this comment. Todah Rabah, Jeffgr9 (talk) 18:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To all, No one here who "endorses" the closure of the RfC has addressed my arguments, nor truly investigated the arguments of others who "oppose" the closure of the RfC, and that is a form of systematic ignorance and rejectionism. I understand the sociopolitical narratives and undercurrents that we have learned since childhood, and I know, and have cited, how breaking down Jewish identity as "nothing more than a religion" is false and due to trauma that has infiltrated our Jewish communities, our views of history, and dealing with current events. Please thoughtfully address all editors' concerns, or else you risk creating false histories for readers who come across these articles/templates (e.g. the omission of West Asians/North Africans/"Middle Easterners" causes the template to fail on an ethnographic scale for ethnic slurs, and literally rejects the existence of the roots of Anti-Semitism). Todah Rabah, Jeffgr9 (talk) 18:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Because this isn't the place to re-fight the RFC, it is to assess the consensus that the closer determined. The continued walls of text are starting to smell more like forum shopping than anything else. PGWG (talk) 23:37, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the slur "Christ killer" directly alludes to our Mid-East heritage, since it is an accusation that the Jews killed Christ (how could we have done any such thing if we were never there in the first place?).ChronoFrog (talk) 18:37, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse the closure - We should not be discussing the issue of how to categorize ethnic slurs against Jews. The only issue is whether the closure of the RFC was reasonable, whether the closure could reasonably be justified from the statements by the participants. To the extent that anyone is trying to re-argue the issue, that is forum shopping. I closed the attempt to discuss either the closure or the original issue at WP:DRN because DRN is not a forum to review an RFC closure; in dispute resolution, an RFC "trumps" any other content forum. DRN sometimes resolves a dispute by opening an RFC. An RFC is not followed by DRN. The issue should not be discussed further. It was already discussed adequately in the RFC (and DRN would have a smaller audience than RFC anyway). The only issue is whether the closer used reasonable judgment. The closer did use reasonable judgment in finding that there was rough consensus (a small majority) that ethnic slurs against Jews should be categorized in a stand-alone category. The only question is whether the closer used reasonable judgment, and the closer used reasonable judgment. Any other effort to discuss is just a waste of time. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:18, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse closure, as being a reasonable interpretation of the discussion. Obviously the whole Judaism topic area is more likely to generate strong emotions one way or another than most topic areas, and I think Deryck did a good job of digging through that stridency to work out what was going on. A lot of the arguments being made here that look for the discussion to be overturned are just rehashes of the same arguments that failed to gain consensus in the RFC itself. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 04:35, 10 August 2016 (UTC).[reply]

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

Proposed Removal of DYK Restrictions

Neither of these proposals are going to be implemented. There is far more heat than light in this thread, and keeping it open serves little constructive purpose. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:33, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Earlier, restrictions were placed on me regarding DYK, to wit - (a) all of my DYK noms required two reviews to pass, and, (b) all of my noms required two QPQs by me. This was based on the fact that three of my 148 reviews (2 noms, and 1 review) had been pulled from the main page due to errors and, that in two cases, I did not promptly admit I had made errors when an admin revealed himself to me with a demand I demonstrate obeisances and contrition. Deryck Chan issued the original ruling.

By unanimous acclimation (though, over my modest objections) determined by Hobit, I am grateful that the second part of the restrictions has been rescinded against me. This means that all that remains is that all my DYK noms need two reviews. This is no big deal for me, but it does - due to the large volume of content I create - generate a heavy burden on the community, which I've calculated to be an 18% decrease in number of potential QPQs occurring since my nominations are now eating up a large volume of reviews.

In the month since these restrictions were imposed I have had one DYK review pulled from the main page due to errors (8% of my total) and no noms pulled from the main page; this is less than the 12% pull average for all DYK contributors with five or more reviews during the same time period indicating the protective functions of the restriction are no longer necessary.

For the benefit of the community I recommend the remaining part of my restriction be rescinded. Again, it doesn't matter too much to me as the restriction in its current form does not impact me at all as it doesn't place any burden on me to do anything, the burden is imposed on the community (this is why I objected to the second part of the restriction being rescinded in the first place). But I do think, as demonstrated, the restriction has outlived its usefulness. LavaBaron (talk) 21:38, 16 August 2016 (UTC) edit: I forgot to GF ping everyone who registered a !vote in the linked discussion - @EdChem, Gatoclass, The C of E, Cwmhiraeth, and EdChem: - sorry LavaBaron (talk) 22:23, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Withdrawn by Nom Indifferent (as noted, the newly modified form of the restriction removes all burden from me and socializes the workload of the restriction to the community) LavaBaron (talk) 21:38, 16 August 2016 (UTC) There seems to be a consensus against this so I'm happy to withdraw this proposal at this time. Thanks! LavaBaron (talk) 08:25, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Expanded discussion

Remove I completely disagree that the restriction has outlived its usefulness but I can't see any current benefit as the user continues to use it as some kind of branch to beat the process and individuals associated with it. I'd prefer to allow the user the latitude to continue and enable him to be hoisted by his own petard, which appears to be an inevitability given the background, history of interactions and history of grievances related to this user. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:50, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For clarification:

The situation regarding this restriction is the only instance I have ever been mentioned at ANI, and I have a clean block log.
My extensive history of contributing quality content like Organized horse fighting and Attempted theft of George Washington's head has been repeatedly recognized and is generally held beyond reproach (21% of all articles I've created have been promoted to GA status).
My virtually single-handed work policing Frank Gaffney from sanitizing earned me an on-air rebuke on CSPAN from Gaffney himself and my efforts outing an attempt by the Trump transition team to edit their own Wikipedia page has resulted in a Reuters story that will run later this week.
Meanwhile, I recently contributed the most-viewed non-lead DYK hook in Wikipedia's history.

(All that said, I do realize my tendency for not genuflecting sufficiently to the illustrious majesty of some of the Celestial Immortals (admins) has sometimes been met with irritation but it's something I'm genuinely working on improving and is unrelated to the question of DYK noms/reviews.) Thank you, in any case, for taking the time to comment here. LavaBaron (talk) 21:54, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Honestly...I mean seriously really? This was just closed today with no consensus and you are already running here to repropose it? Drop it, seriously. It is starting to get annoying. The restrictions were put in place by the community and were only designed to last three months. Quite honestly, this is getting ridiculous. Let it go. Wait out the rest of the community based restrictions and move on. Bringing this up again when it was just closed 20 hours ago is just...incredible. --Majora (talk) 23:47, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Chill. First, it was closed with consensus to roll-back the second half of the restrictions which are now void. Second, like I said, I don't care one way or the other. I'm just noting that the modified restrictions removes all workload from me and transfers it to the community; a side-effect of legislation by committee. This proposal is simply a harmonization process to reconcile the consensus with an unintended consequence. As indicated above, my !vote is "indifferent" as I'm totally un-impacted whether the modified restrictions remain in place or go. (The only persons impacted are every reviewer except me.) LavaBaron (talk) 03:28, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose removal of restrictions. As Majora notes, Hobit's closure yesterday specifically said The additional proposal to remove all restrictions did not have consensus, mostly on the basis of being too soon after the restrictions had been placed, but some concerns about current behavior were also brought up. That's still true today. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:53, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the proposal to maintain the restrictions didn't have consensus which is what we were evaluating. There was only 50% support to maintain the restrictions, which is not a consensus. We had 4 luminary editors ask the restrictions be repealed in full, versus the Gang of 4 who wanted them maintained; IOW 4-4, which is not a consensus for maintenance of the restrictions. But I didn't make a big deal about it because, like I said, this doesn't really impact me one way or the other. The only part of the restrictions that actually impacted me has been unanimously quashed; all that remains is the part that impacts everyone else. It seems weird to increase everyone else's workload 18% to punish me. I mean, I feel bad watching everyone do more work, but I don't really feel punished by it. You know? LavaBaron (talk) 05:31, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Which "proposal to maintain the restrictions" would that be? Your "Counter-proposal: full lifting of restrictions" or some other proposal no one has ever heard of? When you are trying to get restrictions lifted against yourself, it is probably best not to make up things to support your case. Fram (talk) 08:00, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose And also dispute the ability of a discussion at DYK to remove community imposed restrictions at AN. Otherwise everyone who gets restricted would just get their friends at a local project to have a 'discussion' and lift/alter them. The relevant part of WP:Editing restrictions would be "The community may also impose a number of different editing restrictions on users engaged in inappropriate behavior, usually at an administrators' noticeboard. Such restrictions may be revoked at the same venue by the community when the community believes that they are no longer necessary." Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:17, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose and support complete removal of LavaBaron from the DYK process in all its facets. This is an editor who, after these restrictions were imposed, thought it a good idea to create Hillary Clinton brain damage rumor and nominate it for main page appearance at Template:Did you know nominations/Hillary Clinton brain damage rumor. When an error in one of his reviews is pointed out, he replies with "It is with absolute terror I must admit that, after staring at the hook and article for the last 15 minutes, I am still unable to see anything wrong with it (vis a vis Elizabeth Lachlan). I know my admitting this is probably my final strike, but I owe it to the project to be honest and steel myself for the fate that awaits me. Thanks to everyone who has made my time here at DYK an enjoyable one. Best" This is also an editor who has "I am in the process of finishing up some outstanding projects and wrapping-up this account and may be only periodically active over the next few months pending retirement." on his talk page[1]. He still doesn't seem to understand why these restrictions were imposed, blaming it (not only here, but many times over the past month) on others instead. So we had consensus that restrictions were needed, and we see now that the restrictions are not successful: then the answer is not lifting the restrictions early, but imposing more serious ones, like a full topic-ban from DYK. Fram (talk) 07:54, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also note the "Actually, the proposal to maintain the restrictions didn't have consensus" comment he made above. This refers to a "Counter-proposal: full lifting of restrictions" he made himself, which he now frames as the exact opposite. Please just remove him from DYK and also retsrict all appeals to once every six months or so. Fram (talk) 08:00, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose removal of restrictions. There is no indication that this editor is reflective on why the restrictions were put in place. Quite the contrary, as by this proposal first being added to original closer Deryck C's discussion on altering one aspect of the restrictions. [2]. — Maile (talk) 11:53, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Propose full DYK ban for LavaBaron

Considering the two failed proposals he started (the second a day after the first one was closed) to lift his restrictions early, and the fact that during his restriction period he had at least one incorrect review, one highly inappropriate DYK nomination with Template:Did you know nominations/Hillary Clinton brain damage rumor, and now a seriously problematic one with Template:Did you know nominations/Trump plant theory, where both the article and the DYK discussion highlight the problems, I propose a full, indefinite DYK topic ban for LavaBaron (no nominating pages, no reviews, no discussions at any DYK template pages or WT:DYK, and so on), with appeals only possible after six months (at the earliest) and with intervals of at least six months. Fram (talk) 09:18, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Within the last two weeks the following editors and promoters have all had the same number of noms [edit: or reviews and strike EdChem] pulled by Fram from the main page as he's cited for me: @Worm That Turned, Surtsicna, Casliber, The C of E, Kosack, Cwmhiraeth, EditorE, Earthh, Andrew Davidson, and Hawkeye7: Are we going to indef them all as well? I hope not.

I have only had one DYK nomination in the last two weeks: Jeffrey Grey. It wasn't pulled. Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:10, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@LavaBaron: Evidence of my having any nom pulled from the main page, ever? That or strike your inaccurate claim. EdChem (talk) 14:04, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Hawkeye7: my apologies, that should have read "noms or reviews" (I was referring to this). I corrected. I hope you understand, this was not meant as a criticism of you or anyone mentioned. EdChem - I misread your comment in the same thread and have struck your name. Sorry. LavaBaron (talk) 17:05, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems if Fram had his way everyone would be blocked from DYK; he's repeatedly made clear he disapproves of the entire section. As for the "highly inappropriate" nomination, in the AfD for said article, there was absolute consensus it was a GF article, expressed even by Delete !voters User:Notecardforfree and User:Neutrality. Fram has already misrepresented my past actions once, resulting in a bad block [3] that was immediately rescinded almost as soon as it was imposed after User:Sphilbrick, User:Oiyarbepsy, User:Gerda Arendt, and User:WilliamJE intervened on my behalf (it was subsequently ruled, by consensus, a bad block). This seems to have become a personal vendetta from Fram due to a tiff we had a few months ago over an unrelated matter. He was previously warned by Ritchie to WP:DROPTHESTICK with regard to it [4] and an IBAN has even been suggested to arrest this out-of-control approach.

And BTW, I have had a total of 148 DYK articles go to main page [either nom'ed or reviewed]. If only three had mistakes, I'm frankly pleased, not ashamed. LavaBaron (talk) 10:24, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to leave it on a harsh note, so I should just add that I do appreciate the work Fram has devoted to DYK and the time he spends reviewing other editors contributions. I really do regret our interpersonal relationship is so rocky. LavaBaron (talk) 10:35, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

- (edit conflict)Please indicate how I "misrepresented" your past actions. The blocking admin misinterpreted some events, yes, but that's hardly the same as what you claim here. Are there other problems (and in some cases problematic editors) at DYK? Yes, sure. None of these editors have DYK restrictions and continue to create problems during these though. You defend yourself with strawman arguments. I never claimed that your article contributions were not in good faith, I said that these two DYK nominations were "highly inappropriate" (first case) and "seriously problematic" (second case). Coupled with the poor review and the two appeals in rapid succession (and the continuing lack of understanding of what the problems really were and are), something more drastic is needed. Enough people have been restricted, topic banned, even blocked, despite making good faith contributions. Please provide a diff for "This seems to have become a personal vendetta from Fram due to a tiff we had a few months ago over an unrelated matter." I can't find it[5]. Fram (talk) 10:49, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Right, the "rapid succession" issue - this is the most unbelievable of all. It was actually Fram who said a decision at DYK would be invalid and the subject should be discussed at AN [6]. And now he wants to TBAN me for doing exactly that? IMHO, this seems to belie any possibility this can be a genuine proposal. (Again, however, I do appreciate Fram's hard work and am sorry for our unfortunate disagreements.) LavaBaron (talk) 10:24, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

After which it was transcluded here and I said "Ok, thanks. The other way round would have been better, but so be it. Fram (talk) 07:12, 11 August 2016 (UTC)". Fram (talk) 11:04, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fram, you're such a prolific commenter it can sometimes be difficult to follow and track as your opinion changes from moment to moment, expressed through a large quantity of very dialog-rich and passionately expressed posts. Thank you for clarifying that you subsequently changed your mind and decided a direct appeal to AN was not required. I have no problem with my proposal being closed in light of this explanation you've offered. I would also suggest we re-consider Ritchie's suggestion of a two-way IBAN to avoid these situations in the future. Thanks for all the energy you bring to DYK - LavaBaron (talk) 11:08, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A DYK topic ban would also "avoid these situations in the future". An answer about all the incorrect or unverifiable information you provided today on this very page would also be useful. E.g. your false claims that there was a "proposal to maintain the restrictions", that I "misrepresented" your past actions, or that this is due to "a tiff we had a few months ago over an unrelated matter." when no such tiff seems to exist. Please stop giving "compliments" and adding complaints about my editing style (anyone can see the number of edits made by you vs. the one made by me: in this discussion alone, this will be my fourth post, vs. 13 by you, causing many edit conflicts) and focus on the relevant elements instead. Either provide evidence for your statements or retract them. Fram (talk) 11:25, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(ec x quite a bit) Fram is usually right on content. Where the problem arises is when things move away from criticising content to making things personal, which draws a reaction from the other party and leads to massive threads here instead of actually getting the problem fixed. I don't see an interaction ban preventing Fram talking about an article being unsourced, badly sourced, factually incorrect, lopsided POV or cherry picking sources. All that said, if there's one editor here who really needs to drop the stick, based on what I've read at Template:Did you know nominations/Trump plant theory and on my talk page today, it's not Fram. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:13, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here seems to be articles related to the US presidential election which risk being too controversial, partisan or otherwise inappropriate. For example, we recently had Trump Vodka at DYK and before that there was Trump National Golf Club Westchester. LavaBaron had nothing to do with those, so far as I know. My impression is that WP:ITN has an embargo on the torrent of news coverage about the presidential primaries and main campaign and so I suggest that DYK has something similar. Andrew D. (talk) 11:29, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And so it does: Articles and hooks featuring election candidates up to 30 days before an election in which they are standing should be avoided (WP:DYK) Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:10, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support full DYK ban The quickest and simplest method of stopping disruption is to remove the person causing the disruption from the area. TRM notes above that he is in favour of removing restrictions, not because he thinks LavaBaron has no need of them and further issues are not going to appear, but that because removing them will hasten further disciplinary action due to the continuation of problems. Fram has clearly laid out the ongoing issues, and since LavaBaron has not shown any interest in actually modifying their behaviour, a full restriction from DYK would prevent others having to deal with the issues they cause. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:38, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose While LavaBaron appears to have a touching faith in Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes, and is perhaps not yet fully enculturated, he is nonetheless clearly an enthusiastic contributor who appears to have made some pretty useful contributions among the 120-odd articles he has thus far added (a couple of quick examples, here and here). Though he has an unfortunate habit of overreacting to criticism, in my experience he seems to respond well to respectful treatment. With regard to his DYK contributions in particular, I've seen no evidence that they are any worse on average than those of many others, in fact I would say they are considerably better than some whose questionable contributions have sometimes managed to go under the radar for years. So while LB's unfortunate habit of resorting too readily to dispute resolution processes might be trying the patience of some, that isn't actually a problem specifically for DYK, and a DYK ban won't address it. Gatoclass (talk) 12:56, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose the two cases stated by the nom are reasonable articles about fringe theories and certainly not a reason to ban someone from anything. It's fine for DYK to reject them, but I don't see nominating or writing them as problematic. I would consider a mutual interaction ban however--it might be best for everyone. Hobit (talk) 16:50, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- A mutual interaction ban would mean that I couldn't remove any DYKs he was involved with from preps, queue or main page if they turn out to be incorrect. How would this be a good idea? I'm one of the very few people involved with this aspect of DYK (checking things after all the regular checks have been done, and removing the all-too-frequent remaining problems), and I'm not going to let an incorrect hook stand only because LavaBaron has been involved with it. I don't make a habit of checking who has had anything to do with the hooks before removing them. I have no interaction with LavaBaron outside of DYK and DYK-related matters. A mutual interaction would be best for LavaBaron, but not for Wikipedia. Fram (talk) 08:17, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as unnecessarily punitive. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:30, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as per Notecardforfree. A mountain has been made out of a molehill. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:16, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Silly me, I thought that making unfounded accusations about other editors were considered personal attacks. From WP:NPA: "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Serious accusations require serious evidence. Evidence often takes the form of diffs and links presented on wiki." In this discussion alone, LavaBaron has made false claims that there was a "proposal to maintain the restrictions", that I "misrepresented" his past actions leading to a block, or that this is due to "a tiff we had a few months ago over an unrelated matter." when no such tiff seems to exist. I asked him above to provide evidence or retract these statements, but while he has made other edits here, he has done neither, and no one seems to care about such things any longer. Perhaps some unnvolved admin can deal with this? Or can I also make some wild allegations to get the sympathy vote? Perhaps throw in some canvassing as well? Note that LavaBaron started this section with "GF ping everyone who registered a !vote in the linked discussion ", and then only pinged three people who supported the lifting of part of the restrictions and one who commented (seemingly in favour of lifting them all), but none of the more negative commenters; and followed this up with, in a proposal from me, pinging everyone he believed had recently had a DYK pulled by me. While, as is so often the case, this canvassing only had limited effect, it still is clearly prohibited (it would be similar to me pinging all editors who voted "delete" on his DYK articles). Fram (talk) 13:14, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Fram: WP:DROPTHESTICK Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as overbroad. The two cited DYKs are both about the 2016 U.S. presidential campaignathon, and so there seems good reason to confine any remedies to that subject only, assuming remedies are required. On another note, I am not a fan of euphemisms for "lying", and urge people to either say "lying" or stop accusing others of dishonesty. In other words, ban the word "misrepresentation" at Wikipedia. Anyway, my !vote on this proposed ban is as stated.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:11, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Draft:Tichki speedy deletion under G12?

While working on clearing the G12 deletions yesterday, I came across this draft. With the exception of the title, it's a copy/paste of Koobface, but I wasn't entirely sure that G12 covers drafts of our own articles. I declined it and intended to come back to this later as a possible A10, but then got busy IRL and entirely forgot about it.

Dodger67 asked me on my talk page why I had declined it, pointing to WP:ATTREQ, and I explained my thinking. Upon reflection, I'm not sure A10 can apply either since it's not in the mainspace, and I'm still not sure we can use G12. I'm asking here because this is bound to come up in the future for drafts or it has in the past and I've missed it. The draft needs to go bye-bye, but how should I handle it? Katie^talk 12:52, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, an unattributed copy of a Wikipedia article is indeed a copyright infringement. Myself, I'd probably either redirect the draft or delete it under A10 anyway. And then ask the creating editor if they had something specific in mind when they copied the text. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:58, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

G12 itself does apply - there's no need to "stretch" A10 - the G# speedy criteria apply in all namespaces, unlike A# which apply only to mainspace. I've tagged a significant number of such "internal" copyvio drafts in the course of working at AFC, I believe this is the first time an admin has declined to delete such a copyvio draft that I've tagged. In any case this draft also qualifies for deletion under G3 as a blatant hoax. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:19, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking G3 as I read it again, and I think that's better. Roger, if you can't understand why I would ask for help from others on something about which I was unclear, sorry. We're not omnipotent and not one of us has all the answers. At any rate, it's gone now. Thanks, Jo-Jo. :-) Katie^talk 13:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is not unusual for an editor to make a copy of an existing article as a model with the intention of making changes to reflect a related subject. I'm not supporting it is as good practice; it is often a bad idea, but if done it should be done off-line not in any of our existing spaces. I don't know whether that was what happened in this case but I've seen many such examples. I agree that G 12 applies to all spaces but I applaud Katie for recognizing that the question was worth asking. There are a number of rules whose application is different depending on whether it is mainspace or draft space. This isn't one of those examples but it was a reasonable question to ask.--S Philbrick (Talk) 13:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks KrakatoaKatie, I have absolutely no problem with this discussion, we all learn off each other, the process works, we improve the 'pedia, it's all good. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:12, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps someone here could help me with a (non-urgent) query on a similar issue, I did ask an admin a few months ago but their activity is erratic so I havnt got an answer yet. An editor who was having a content dispute at an article did not come out on the side of consensus, and then 'preserved' a copy of their preferred version in their sandbox (by cut and paste I believe). As there is no history I believe it falls foul of the attribution required, I cant link it to the diff it was copied from (to provide attrib) because I dont know where/when/what revision they copied it from, and the editor concerned would not take any enquiry on my part kindly. This isnt a case of a draft as Sphilbrick notes above - as a model for others, this is just an editor wanting a preferred version of an article under their control (edit summary is explicit in this) after they didnt get their way in a content dispute. Whats the next step? Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:25, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If it's been deleted, I'm not sure how that would be handled under G12. However, I'd certainly send that to the graveyard under G4. He can keep it somewhere, but that somewhere isn't his sandbox. You could nominate it, or you could ask a friendly admin. Katie^talk 20:02, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not deleted, the article is still there, they just want a copy of their preferred version (unvandalised as they put it) in their userspace. A less trusting person might think so they can put it back that way in the future. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:21, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you need to specify the exact revision the text was copied from in your attribution, as long as you do specify which article it came from - see WP:RIA. Hut 8.5 11:42, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Testers wanted for new feature that searches for deleted pages

A volunteer developer (thanks Smalyshev!) has created a beta version of a new feature that allows administrators to search for the titles of deleted pages in a very similar way one searches for live pages. This feature is now ready for testing at [7]. The instructions for testing are described here.

Please leave comments either here (I'll copy them over) or at the Phabricator ticket. Your feedback is very much appreciated -- this is something that's clearly missing from the admin toolset. MER-C 13:53, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd save you a step and comment at the Phabricator ticket, except that site frightens and confuses me. I can see how this could occasionally be pretty useful. I just tried it out for a couple of minutes, just one article in article space. Seemed to handle a reasonable number of typos; 1 (occasionally 2) typos per word, even when each word had a typo in a four word title. Seemed to handle only being given a very small portion of the article title well. I note that it handles typos like "herw" instead of "here" easily, but can't handle homonyms like "hear" instead of "here". Not complaining, as I have no idea how you'd go about doing that, but you wanted feedback so here's some feedback. But overall, yay. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:25, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Advice please

It's weird, people seem to unanimously agree that everyone should drop this, but apparently don't understand what everyone means. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:49, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

I have been trying to discuss with administrator @JzG: edits that they have made about me. I have raised this on their talk page twice, but they are refusing to engage in meaningful discussion - see here [8] and here [9]. Which is the appropriate noticeboard to take this to, or because Jzg is an admin, should this go straight to ArbCom? DrChrissy ^(talk) 21:11, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, you haven't. You made snide comments and then attempted to hound me when I decided to disengage. I seem to recall that you "banned" me and another user from your talk page, yet you want to engage both of us on ours. How about: no. Guy (Help!) 21:20, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My advice is that everyone should drop this dispute and move on. (And ArbCom = boomerang.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:09, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't agree more. I archived it more than once form my Talk page, but the OP seems to want to sea lion this. I'm not interested. Guy (Help!) 22:12, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, the point about ArbCom is that it requires evidence, so rogue administrators and editors must provide diffs rather than simply casting aspersions, which is now very unfortunately absolutely the norm now at AN/I. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:18, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My advice is that both of you should stop interacting with and referring to each other. Failing that small gesture of self-restraint, the community should impose a mutual interaction ban with escalating consequences for the inevitable breaches that will occur.- Mr X 22:22, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The irony here is that DrChrissy's complaint is that I don't want to interact with him, and have tried not to. You can't win with some people! Guy (Help!) 22:40, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another irony is that I said "everyone" should drop this, not that DrChrissy should drop it, and I said that intentionally. ArbCom would not be a welcoming place for you either, Guy. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Earlier this year, DrChrissy opened a spurious filing at WP:AE (involving Jytdog). At the time, JzG observed:

"This is not the first time DrChrissy has tried to abuse Wikipedia processes to remove opponents. I fully support a boomerang block for this obviously vexatious complaint. Guy (Help!) 09:38, 6 January 2016 (UTC)"

That AE filing resulted in a week-long block for DrChrissy's timewasting misuse of a noticeboard.

Sadly, the problem has persisted. Once again we have DrChrissy unable to drop the stick when faced with another editor against whom he holds a grudge, despite JzG's efforts to quietly disengage. Once again we have DrChrissy making an overblown, attention-demanding, and vexatious complaint. ("Rogue administrators"? Seriously?)

The sooner this is closed, the better. If left open, DrChrissy will just work himself up into another block. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:41, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. (Although from his talkpage Guy does self identify as a Rouge Admin) Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:44, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Editors with Editcountitis working in new page patrol

Group A- Problematic group of editors patrol new pages to increase their edit count. They have no interest to check, whether a page or an article has any notability. Their job is to fill bare URLs with refills, they will tag articles with auto wiki browser and twinkle, adding categories using hotcat. They will use all those primary sources to expand the article. They will never nominate a page for CSD, AFD, PROD. They work hard 24/7 to make a zero notable article, look like a notable article.

Group B- 98% of the new page patrollers have an interest in finding the notability of a page. These users try to identify non-notable page, by checking the sources and finding references. Now "Group A" editors make their job difficult. As SPAs don't know how to improve an article. They come to Wikipedia to promote themselves, their friends and their companies, bands, shops, business. They get unexpected help from "Group A" editors, whose editcountitis allows 5-6 % of these non- notable articles to escape being noticed by "Group B" patrollers.

I am giving one example, but this is just a drop in ocean. This page's references are nothing but links to their website. John Jaffar Janardan (talk) 17:11, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The top of this page states and I quote "This page is for posting information and issues that affect administrators.

Issues appropriate for this page could include: General announcements, discussion of administration methods, ban proposals, block reviews, and backlog notices.

If you are seeking administrator intervention for a specific issue or dispute, you should post it at the Administrators' noticeboard for incidents (ANI) instead.

Do not report issues requiring oversight to this page – email oversight-en-wp@wikimedia.org directly with your concern."

So what does editors using AWB/Twinkle etc etc have anything to do with this board ? ..... –Davey2010^Talk 17:19, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you have issues with a specific user, where blocking may be necessary, feel free to post here after trying to deal with this user via his/her talk page. Otherwise, there's probably nothing we can do to help you. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:28, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@John Jaffar Janardan: You may get more of a response by posting your concerns at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:02, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

From past experience, when I see a "new" user doing page-patrols with article bomb-tagging, they nearly always turn out to be a sock of a blocked user. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:04, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So what is the issue for administrators here? A general discussion could go at WP:VPM. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:23, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Request to appeal unblock conditions (voluntary topic ban)

I am aware that I've brought this to AN/ANI on two previous ocassions. Neither which led to a consensus, hardly any discussion at all

For those of you unfamilar with the events that led to this "voluntary topic ban":

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ryulong
Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Ryulong (to which various requests for amendment/clarifiction was filed, including the ban discussion here)
ban appeal
unban/unblock discussion

To sum things up a little, I was banned in 2009. Prior to the events that led to my ban, when problems was constantly occurring, I treated Wikipedia as a bureaucracy. This included and was not limited to—overly strict interpretations of policies (especially sourcing and rollback policies), wikilawyering, abusive talk page warnings, unnecessary questions to user talk pages, nitpicking at the language parsed in either a policy or editing restriction, tendentious editing, editing such a manner so to impose my stance on articles or otherwise impose my strict interpretations of policies on articles, refusing to work with other uses, combative editing practices, policing other editors, slapping tags on articles, making gratituous remarks, etc. If you take a look at these 60+ conversations, my talk page archives (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9), and my edits dating from 2010 and earlier, I think those give some insight to sum that all up. All this, whilst "avoiding actually contributing to the project" (as one user said best). I attempted to do all the things that was administrative or technical, whilst without also helping to build an encyclopedia, and instead did things that garnered drama and ill will

It was the Power Rangers/Tokusatsu topic area that got the worst end of it. I targetted the topic area and went to impose my stance on the articles (as I said earlier about treating Wikipedia as a bureaucracy). I butted heads with a user named Ryulong and although this user certainly wasn't right in many of his judgments/actions, it didn't help matters when I sat there and was a constant drain/timesink on the topic areas resources, scrutinized every single action this user did, or otherwise harassed and/or nettled them. All this would eventually lead to this interaction ban from Ryulong and a topic ban from editing Tokusatsu articles (to be clear however, the topic ban I'm appealing is one that was voluntarily imposed in 2012 due to unblock conditions I'll mention below). Long story short, my edits from 2007-09, was mostly either A) nitpicking at every single thing that I thought was wrong with the topic area and B) trying to find faults in every single thing Ryulong said/did. Needless to say however, this whole imposing my stance on articles went beyond this topic area, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mythdon/Archive_7#Common_Era this being a prime example. I could have contributed to the Power Rangers topic area (since its something I'm knowledgeable in), but I did not, given my mindset at the time I was so focused on treating Wikipedia as a bureaucracy

When I was unblocked in 2012, I stated "If allowed back, I do not intend to return to the tokusatsu articles which I had edited during my first tenure". Its a condition of the unblock and voluntary editing restriction, because the statement was a part of my unblock appeal, to which the community ultimately reached a consensus to unblock. I felt having just been unblocked, I'd be better off not diving head first back into the topic area I was most disruptive in, and to prove myself in other areas, practing my new editing practices elsewhere, for if I ever changed my mind later on, I would have this in force to prove myself productive in other areas and only then come back. Largely another reason for me imposing that ban on myself, was me trying to avoid the one user I'd once nettled or harassed. I wanted to make completely a fresh new start, by taking the advice some others gave me, by stopping interacting with a certain user and to find other topics to edit. I took this advice for the purpose to practice my new editing practices expressed in my unblock appeal elsewhere

Since my unblock, and while I still do janitorial work for the project (from time to time, mostly vandal fighting), I also do now contribute to the project by adding content and referenced content in articles. Just take a look at my edits since 2012. What you don't see is me treating Wikipedia as a bureaucracy or imposing my stances on articles or otherwise going back to any of the other behaviors as before (as I mentioned above). I know 500+ edits doesn't seem to be much to go off of, but that's a reflection of me not going back to my old habits. I've done more for the project in just over 500+ edits since being unblocked, than I ever did in 7,000+ edits during the course of 2007-10 when problems were constantly occurring (and which there was only one content contribution I recall, and more than half of all edits was not article space, and even article space edits was me treating Wikipedias as a bureaucracy, not contributing to the project, which did nothing but inflate my edit count not improving the encyclopedia). Since my 2012 unblock, I've focused almost exclusively on the article space. These days I edit Wikipedia more as an occasion than a hobby, as I've steered clear of almost all things administrative, and mostly only edit Wikipedia if there's something to add to an article or a minor fix that could be done (as such, my vastly lower activity and edit count)

I'm requesting that the unblock conditions (the voluntary topic ban) be lifted. Power Rangers is a subject area I'm knowledgeable in, and if on the occasion I find something to contribute, it would be another topic area I could be useful to. If the conditions are lifted, I will promise not to repeat the same behaviors that pertained to treating Wikipedia as a bureaucracy and will not go after the topic area to impose strict interpretations of policies as I once had. For once, I will actually be productive to the topic area (by actually contributing)

P.S. sorry for the long post. I just couldn't help but be this insightful, given as how many may be unfamilar with my case, and I wouldn't possibly be able to convey this in fewer words. (I wanted to give everyone an understanding of what led to the events whilst also informing everyone of how things have went since being unblocked) —Mythdon 08:16, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support Rather than make any sort of commentary, I'll support with a simple thumbs up. Blackmane (talk) 12:01, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support Request seems reasonable given the passage of time and your 500+ edits in other areas that demonstrate you can edit without causing problems. Monty ₈₄₅ 13:55, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support Past problems seem to be firmly in the past. Tazerdadog (talk) 18:01, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support Please be aware that your contributions in the area are likely to be reviewed carefully, so make sure to let some issues go. --S Philbrick (Talk) 21:39, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking or an uninvovled admin to take over a protection

Hello, could an uninvolved admin please review my protection of History of Gibraltar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and take it over under their own name if they feel it's appropriate. There has been a long-running content dispute there that has broken out into a more intense edit war in the last few days. I have no dog in that fight, but I was involved in the Gibraltarpedia project and I've written several articles about Gibraltar and offered advice on this article earlier while another editor was developing it to FA quality, so I try to make it a point no to use my admin tools on anything Gibraltar-related. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:28, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Purely on the merits it seems like that article needed a break from editing, indeed - little but back-n'-forth reverting the last few days despite a talk page discussion. No opinion about which version is the WP:WRONGVERSION, though. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:43, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, with no opinion about The Wrong Version. If there's a problem after the protection expires, ping me and I'll take a look. Katie^talk 19:28, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've blocked and unblocked Asilah1981 (talk · contribs) for reasons that can be found on their user talk. Do I need to back off? @HJ Mitchell:, @KrakatoaKatie:, @Jo-Jo Eumerus:. Thanks in advance Tiderolls 20:12, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Tide rolls: Huh? Copypaste error? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:22, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Had to be. Apologies. Tiderolls 20:30, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that was humerus. Katie^talk 22:38, 21 August 2016 (UTC) [reply]

Please assess my bold action

Greetings. Pardon me, if this request is out of scope with this page's intent; I am open to admonishment on several fronts, and in need of accurate feedback in case I have been overly bold. I happened across a thread on Jimbo Wales talk page which after reading it, did feel compelled to close, which I did. To my chagrin, I aggrieved at least one editor for having done this bold thing. I'd like to ask the keepers of this page to review my actions and give feedback if it is supportable or not. Relevant threads are here and here (permalinks). Thank you for considering this request.--John Cline (talk) 04:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC) Converted links to permalinks. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:53, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No comment on whether the close itself was apt: but stylistically, you were perhaps just a trifle poetical- unnecessarily so, since a close should really sum up the main points upon which there is a consensus, or otherwise. Just an opinion though. _Muffled ^Pocketed 04:54, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Not something like, "Go back to doing something useful FFS"? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:59, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - It certainly makes a change ;) _Muffled ^Pocketed 05:01, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

After a brief skim, the close seemed fundamentally fine. I could have missed something, but I wouldn't worry too much about it.Tazerdadog (talk) 05:06, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Aggrieved" is too strong a word. The discussion was a mix of (1) the usual unproductive, combative bickering, which will always be present in any discussion that is open to anyone, and (2) constructive discussion of what I feel is one of the most pressing core issues facing us today. (Strongly disagree with NeilN's "something useful" assessment, as there is nothing more useful than constructive debate of foundational issues.) It was closed apparently on the basis of the former, and I felt it should have been left open on the basis of the latter. That's it. I was and am prepared to move on rather than make a big issue of it. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:14, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also note that, for future reference, discussions on someone's user talk page should generally be left to that user to close if they want to, unless for some reason they request an outside editor close it. I'd probably be a little irritated if someone started closing discussions on my talk page. That being said, unless Jimbo objects or reopens it, we may as well leave it lie. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:20, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate this feedback; it is helpful and I will abide by its good counsel. It is not my normal manner to non-admin close a discussion and I don't know why I felt in this case that I should. I followed an impulse and soon began feeling like I had overstepped propriety. I am glad that I've not earned a sanction and give my assurance that I won't repeat this again. Sometimes I feel like a fool and it happens that this became one of those times; I apologize. I sincerely thank everyone who gave of their time to help me with such thoughtful advice. Best regards.--John Cline (talk) 08:09, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo has, in the past, been absent for extended periods, and has welcomed rational moderation at his talk page. There is no doubt that the discussion had gone well beyond a reasonable length, and closing such discussions on Jimbo's talk page has been the rule rather than the exception. In the case at hand, I would have suggested that it too far too long for someone to close that discussion" which had reached quite unreasonable length. 6000 words is far too long, and this went far beyond that lenient value. Collect (talk) 14:31, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I've moved on from that particular discussion, but the preceding comment is worth a response.
An arbitrary word limit is all well and good for the average everyday discussion. For discussions that have some potential for improvement on core issues, not so much. Solutions to these problems are very difficult, but they are impossible if constructive discussion of them is shut down on grounds of length. These are highly complex issues that can't be resolved in 5,000 words. The question we should ask is whether or not the discussion has completely devolved into pointless argument, and that one had not. As long as there is something constructive going on, and the talk page's owner doesn't object, no number of words is too many.
It would have been helpful to take action to end the unproductive part of the thread, but there is apparently no way to do that (there is a very wide gap between pointless bickering and actionable disruption). ―Mandruss ☎ 21:20, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Look at it this way. Want to shut down a good discussion? Start a fight. Someone will be along shortly to nac it. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:37, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

John Cline, your first link is dead. Would you mind going into the archives and finding the thread and linking it from there? (BTW, this is why it's best to provide a perma-link from an iteration of a page rather than from the live page.) Softlavender (talk) 14:41, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Softlavender: Permalink to archived thread: [10] ―Mandruss ☎ 22:22, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of that, Mandruss. I was asking John Cline (or you if you like) to fix his link in his OP. Softlavender (talk) 00:36, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

LOL. Or you if you like! I am converting both opening links to permalinks—to their respective original locations, for consistency. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:53, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Review of AE block of Jensbest

There is clear consensus that the block was appropriate. There is, additionally, consensus that Jensbest should be topic banned from the subject of Donald Trump, broadly construed. Arbitration enforcement won't even be necessary in this case, as there is a clear consensus to apply such a topic ban as a community sanction. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:38, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

Jensbest (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

For Jensbest: "No detailed explanation is given for this blocking. Also on the redacted part of the talk page to the article about Donald Trump there were no wording used by me which are in anyway untrue and a violation of WP:BLP" [11] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:19, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is my second block of Jensbest. They've wiped out all the notices and warnings on their talk page. There has been extensive discussion on Talk:Donald Trump on complying with BLP on the talk page (most of it collapsed). Example: Use WP:BLPSTYLE and WP:NOTFORUM as guidelines. Stick closely to what sources say, don't post assertions like "x is a psychopath" or "x is racist", and you should be fine." This was Jensbest's post. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:28, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support block and recommend a topic ban. Wikipedia talk pages shouldn't be battlegrounds for personal attacks on people, particularly on the talk pages of their own biographies. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot I told him earlier he would be facing a topic ban [12] if he made this kind of edit (provided the revert as it's easier to see BLP violation) again. If sanctions are upheld but it is felt a topic ban is more appropriate I'm fine with that. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:44, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support block and recommend a topic ban from Donald Trump-related articles. If you look at this user's talk page history, you can see that he was warned multiple times about his editing on the Donald Trump article, and he deleted the warnings. He was:

given two Twinkle warnings by Winkelvi, on August 13 and again on August 14;
given a formal ArbCom/DS warning by NeilN on August 14 at 1:21;
blocked for 48 hours by NeilN per Arbcom sanctions on August 14 at 20:59;
given a formal warning of possible topic ban by NeilN on August 19, based on an edit on the Trump talk page that had to be redacted;
given a formal ArbCom/DS warning by The Wordsmith on August 19;
given a formal ArbCom/DS warning by me on August 21;
blocked for a week by NeilN per ArbCOM discretionary sanctions on August 22.

The user then asked to have his appeal copied to here, which NeilN has done. In my opinion this user appears to be a scofflaw who has no intention of abiding by Wikipedia guidelines. --MelanieN (talk) 05:50, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. For more insight into this editor and his understanding of Wikipedia, see his recent comments on his talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 06:05, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the talk page, there seems literally no comprehension of what's the problem- merely reiterating the BLPvio that led to the block in the first place. This rather suggests the editor is still not getting it... _Muffled ^Pocketed 06:17, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support block, and recommend topic ban. I have revoked talk page access as it is being used to continue the BLP violations. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:01, 22 August 2016 (UTC) (And a bonus point to MelanieN for use of the word "scofflaw". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:03, 22 August 2016 (UTC))[reply]
I suggest an indefinite topic ban, which can be appealed after six months. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:25, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support block and recommend topic ban: Based on his responses on the appeal, it seems to me that Jensbest doesn't realize or doesn't care that his commentary on Trump is in violation of policy and the attempts by multiple editors to explain it aren't working - either WP:BLPTALK, WP:NOTFORUM, WP:NOTSOAPBOX, the WP:AC/DS procedures or some combination of them. I think there is a high risk that this behaviour will recommence as soon as the block expires, so I think a topic ban will be necessary until they give assurances that they understand the policies & intend to abide by them.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:47, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support block and topic ban from Trump and related articles. They're here to push their POV. Sadly, this kind of thing may get worse as the election approaches, on both sides. Katie^talk 11:02, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
After reading further, I'd support an indefinite topic ban from American politics, broadly construed, that can be appealed after six months. If the consensus is to keep it to Trump, I'd support that too.Katie^talk 19:04, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be consensus forming around implementing a topic ban. Any thoughts as to the length of this topic ban? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 12:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support block and 6 month topic ban - After I saw the posts from this editor on talk:Donald Trump I headed over to Jensbest's talk page to give them a warning only to discover that they had already received several. Jenbest has demonstrated that they don't understand or accept our standards of editing and talk page participation, and that they are not able to edit Trump-related articles objectively. A six month topic ban will allow to Jenbest to make other contributions, and reflect on how they can make productive contributions to Trump articles after the heat of the election has subsided.- Mr X 12:57, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I concur as above, with one additional comment: Topic bans depend on voluntary compliance by the individual. Given Jensbest's habit of deleting and ignoring warnings, and his inability to understand what he is doing wrong, it will be necessary to explain very clearly to him what a topic ban is and what the consequences will be if he violates it. --MelanieN (talk) 14:52, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support Block and a topic ban from BLPs and American Politics (broadly construed). The editor doesn't seem to be able to keep their cool dealing with politics and refuses to understand why the edits to Donald Trump are a serious issue, which shows they either don't understand or are unwilling to follow the BLP policy. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 16:47, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support block If you can't check your political POV at the door when you enter a political article space you have no business editing there. Indefinite topic ban is the only option, with no appeal earlier than a year from enactment of the ban. Blackmane (talk) 02:27, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Recommend indef block as NOTHERE, per observations above, by MelanieN that "In my opinion this user appears to be a scofflaw who has no intention of abiding by Wikipedia guidelines" and by FIM that "Looking at the talk page, there seems literally no comprehension of what's the problem- merely reiterating the BLPvio that led to the block in the first place. This rather suggests the editor is still not getting it". -- Softlavender (talk) 13:02, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm seriously concerned with this user's prior work too, adding BLP-vios: [13], [14] and other unsourced aspersions [15], [16] (edit war), [17]; senseless removal of facts: [18]; removing cited information using bizarre edit summaries which make little or no sense: [19], [20] (is apparently on a campaign against Thierry Antinori). -- Softlavender (talk)

Endorse block with recommended topic ban (under both BLPSE and AP) until after November. He either doesn't understand why blatantly calling a BLP subject a racist is against policy, or doesn't care. Either way he should not be editing in this topic area, and I would have banned for less. We all need to stow our personal crap when editing here. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:26, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support indefinite block per WP:NOTHERE - after some consideration I am led to believe this user is only here to push their point of view, and not to build an encyclopaedia. A topic ban simply would not work - I am led to believe it would be violated, considering the user has been blocked twice before. Zero^talk 14:38, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support three month block followed by topic indef ban for all articles related to Donald Trump. My guess is their racism tare will be done once the election is over. I don't see why they should receive an indef before being given a chance to either show they are here to edit seriously or want us to hand them the rope. I do believe, however, that given their negative obsession with Trump, an indef topic ban on him and all related articles needs to be enacted once the block expires. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 14:48, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse block - and recommend indefinite topic ban regarding Donald Trump. There is no indication this editor is capable of writing from a neutral perspective in this area. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 16:34, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse block and topic ban - With the recommendation that Jensbest not discuss the matter of the block or topic ban except to reasonably request its removal. It should be made clear that Jensbest repeating what has already been said (whether in a request to remove the topic ban or made in a comment about the situation of the block (in other words complaining)), will result in a longer block. Six months to request the removal of the topic ban sounds good. A final warning that violations of the BLP policy anywhere mean an indef block or a topic ban from all BLP articles, should it be worth the time to TB. -- The Voidwalker ^Discuss 22:50, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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

User:Bad Dryer unblock request discussion

Bad Dryer has initiated a block appeal on his talk page and requested input here. See: User talk:Bad Dryer#Block review discussion at WP:AN. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:03, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For reference, here is the previous block review that took place in February. Katie^talk 19:08, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

unblock with the conditions stated I'll admit I've not looked closely, but A) it's been a while and B) it sounds like there is a good understanding of the issues and C) the interaction ban and topic ban should cover most of the problems. And of course, WP:ROPE... Hobit (talk) 20:30, 22 August 2016 (UTC) (also posted this to his talk page, not sure where the discussion would be held, I'd think his talk page would be ideal as he can post there, but eh...)[reply]
- I'm perfectly fine with a broader topic ban of all I/P issues. Hobit (talk) 22:21, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment is an AN request the way to go? Why can't a standard unblock request be good enough? Merely having the block endorsed at AN doesn't mean it's a community block, just that the admin block was affirmed. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As the admin who recommended a second discussion here, I was working off the second point of WP:CBAN. That, and given the extensive background (the ARBCOM case mentioned below) I figured that the case merited wider discussion - I know from offwiki experience that "time passed" does not by default equal "issue gone". Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:56, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Because the AN discussion endorsing the block was so emphatic that it cannot be overriden by one administrator, though if you're happy I'm quite willing to reject the unblock request for the reasons given below. I think it's better if it comes here though. Black Kite (talk) 22:37, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Bad Dryer is an expert in goading editors who he considers not pro-Israeli enough. (Have you forgotten the User:Malik Shabazz brahooha?) If he is allowed back, then please at least topic ban him from the Israel/Palestine area, (only an interaction ban with User:Nishidani is simply not enough, IMO), Huldra (talk) 20:40, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose unblock. BD's unblock request says "I do want to return to editing in a constructive manner", but when has he edited in a constructive manner? In his block review six months ago [21], more than a dozen highly experienced editors, many of them admins, made it clear that BD is anything but a constructive editor or asset to the encyclopedia. It was a nearly unanimous ruling. Softlavender (talk) 21:49, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Unblock but... would also accept a topic ban from the whole I/P area. This is the area where his previous issues have occurred (let's not forget this includes two indefs), and I have no confidence whatsoever that they would not recur. I am also not convinced that he is not a sock of User:NoCal100; behaviour has a number of similarities both in interests and attitude, and previous Checkusers returned "Possible". Black Kite (talk) 22:36, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose unblock (Non-administrator comment) - as I said in the previous unblock request, this user's unique awfulness manages to stand out in a topic area plagued by general awfulness. Multiple blocks for racially-charged personal attacks; one should be enough for a siteban but here we are. There are a rare few users who should never be allowed back; Bad Dryer is one of them. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 23:21, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I can only agree with Softlavender and others. In my 8+ years here, I have never seen anything approaching the rancor of 6 months ago. DoctorJoeE ^{review transgressions}/_{talk to me!} 00:20, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support unblock, at the very least WP:ROPE, or WP:SO applies here. I would be ok with an IBAN for BD and Nishidani. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:39, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose IMO the only thing "rope" does is allow the ghastly behavior to happen again. Other editors should not have to go through the things that this editor will put them through. MarnetteD|Talk 22:33, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment and proposal: In the earlier WP:AN request, which I had initiated, I had opposed the indef block. My viewpoint is the same, but that argument probably isn't going to fly; so the proposed solution of unblocking them and simultaneously issuing a topic-ban from Israel-Palestine seems fine to me. I don't really see any downside to this solution. Two points about the above comments, especially by Black Kite and Ivanvector. Firstly, there was no conclusive SPI (I had initiated one myself, which went nowhere), so sockpuppet allegations are at best, unproven. The SPI here was never cleared up one way or another, and fell through the cracks. It has been a long time since then, so any CU evidence would probably be stale now. Secondly, there were no "multiple blocks for racially-charged personal attacks". There was one incident which could be deemed racially charged. The other had nothing to do with race - other than the general fact that anything dealing with Israel-Palestine does have something to do with religion or race. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:55, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, one should be enough, and I disagree that others were not more of the same. I have made no comment on the SPI. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 14:50, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New user account called User:DocJames

I am wondering if we should move this account to decrease confusion.[22]

They seem to be editing well. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:21, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Softblocked. Katie^talk 22:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a User:Docjames Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:22, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have control of that account? It shouldn't redirect to your user space unless you do. Katie^talk 22:38, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@DocJames:, @Docjames:, would you consider a change of username to help reduce confusion? Failing that, would you be willing to change your signature to a different color/style from Doc James's which is close to the default?

@Doc James:, could you consider creating doppelganger accounts on any other permutation of your name that would be likely to cause confusion? Tazerdadog (talk) 22:42, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It was a redirect [23] but than someone created it. As the account is now blocked. Once that user makes a new account I can than replace it again with a redirect. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:44, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Doc James: I believe the question is now about User:Docjames, which is another redirect to your userspace, and another user (although long inactive user). -- The Voidwalker ^Discuss 22:54, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes not sure what people wish to do. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:30, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

While I don't believe they do renames anymore (unless they're wearing additional hats), I think they're the ones most likely to help point you in the right direction, so you may wish to drop a note at WP:BN. - jc37 12:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Disambig Misspelled

Can someone please delete Martin May (disambiguartion). It was created in error while creating Martin May (disambiguation). Thank you! -O.R.^Comms 16:21, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 16:25, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@OberRanks:You could have simply tagged it with a {{db-author}}. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:33, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question about a recreated article

While discussing a possible move at Talk:The Rebel Legion#Proposed move to Rebel Legion, it was discovered that the existing The Rebel Legion probably is the same as Rebel Legion deleted back in 2009 per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rebel Legion. It appears that "The Rebel Legion" was (re)created (in good faith) in December 2015 and the "The" was added to the title because an article could not be created under the old name. Anyway, this latest version was discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Rebel Legion and the result was "keep". The article has been cleaned up quite a bit by TenTonParasol, who is proposing the move, but the name has been salted. Can an admin look at this and advise on what needs to be done. I'm not sure if the edit histories of the two need to be merged and if information about the first AfD needs to be added to the new version's talk page. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:16, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've lifted the salting as it's evidently moot now and so that regular editors can do the move if it is agreed upon. The topic of the previous article is indeed the same as of The Rebel Legion, but I am not seeing similarity in the text so I'd say the old history is useless. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:12, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Jo-Jo Eumerus. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:11, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Inadvertent casting of (what some interpret as) a supervote: how to fix?

At Talk:Murder of Seth Rich there is a lively discussion about how to apply BLP to a bare mention that Wikileaks offered a $25,000 reward with no additional speculation allowed. There are multiple veteran Wikipedia editors who have offered good-faith opinion on both sides of this issue.

At Talk:Murder of Seth Rich#Administrative reminder re: BLP policy, administrator MastCell has made a declairation[24] in his official capacity as an administrator that many have interpreted as stating that one side of this policy-based content dispute is is right and the other side is wrong, and multiple editors on the side MastCell favored have pointed to this as if it settles the matter.[25][26][27][28][29]

I don't think Mastcell did anything wrong at all (please read the preceding nine words three times before dragging out the flamethrowers -- this is a good-faith discussion of a problem and how to fix it) and in no way intended to use the the admin bit is being a supervote in this way, but it is clear that some participants saw it as official admin support of their side of the content dispute.

So how do we fix this? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Best practice in general for any admin actions which seem to decide an editorial issue on any topic whatsoever is

Don't.

No matter how pure the motives, Wikipedia commends us to seek consensus from the editors, not an administrative ukase on any issues at all. Collect (talk) 07:26, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: My interpretation is that all that the references cited above imply is that the editors that wrote them (including myself) agree with the interpretation of our policy done by MastCell. I don´t see any reference in any of them to the fact that he is an administrator or any claim that just because the policy in question was cited by and administrator it meant that the issue was settled. We cited his comment because we feel it is a strong and valid argument. If the same comment would have been made by a regular editor I would have still have referred to it in the exact same way, and probably the rest of the editors cited above would have as well.--Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 09:58, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(1) You are the only person who has used the term "supervote", and only in or in regards to this AN filing, so I fail to see the problem. (2) MastCell's comment was not a !vote, it was a reminder of BLP policy, so again, I fail to see the problem, or why you are bringing this to AN. Softlavender (talk) 10:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Weasel me this... Why are "some" going to such great lengths to derail normal editing processes on this and other election-related articles? There's no basis to this concern. MastCell has been very clear and has been trying to keep the talk page focused on policy. SPECIFICO talk 11:34, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fix? If there is a fix needed. Then start a proper content RfC with a specific content proposal (within the care required by BLP) and then people can make their policy based and reasoned arguments and it can be closed by an uninvolved as proposal enacted or not (and no consensus would likely also result in not). Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:43, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Alanscottwalker, you have raised the more important concern. We can't have an RfC that proposes to ratify a BLP violation. The proposed content is clearly such a violation. SPECIFICO talk 13:24, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the phrase "WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction" does not violate BLP. Not even close. "BLP" isn't a magic word that allows you to always get your way in any content dispute. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:56, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An example that shows the problem can be found in the second !vote of the RfC at Talk:Murder of Seth Rich: " We have an official announcement above from a Wikipedia administrator acting in his administrative capacity". That's one example of someone (wrongly) thinking that Mastcell made a ruling on the content dispute. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:06, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is no stricture against citing policy in an RfC !vote, whether ad hoc or in reference to an admin's reminder; there is also no indication that that or any other voter took it as a "ruling". If you think there is something to "fix", would that for instance be MastCell removing all mention of his status as an administrator from his reminder? Softlavender (talk) 14:24, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I would chime in and say that there are two clearly opposing sides to this dispute, both citing policy (correctly and incorrectly), and wielding said policy as it were helpful to the content dispute, instead of working on the content. My .2 would be that it is NOT a BLP violation to simply say that wikileaks has offered a reward for information regarding the murder, but some editors are saying that this itself implies a deeper link that is inappropriate to write about. I don't know how to proceed. Mr Ernie (talk) 14:56, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but look. As a thought experiment, Ernie: Why do you think Wikileaks offered a reward and then when questioned by a reporter why did Assange make a statement about "our sources take risks" in the context of this reward? I'm just asking for your personal take on that. It was televised, citation on the talk page so you can view it if you wish. SPECIFICO talk 15:38, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly have my opinion as to why they offered the reward, but it would be WP:OR to add my speculation to the article. Mr Ernie (talk) 16:31, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I know you're capable of understanding my question, so your (non-)response sounds like a coy evasion. I didn't ask you to put it in the article. I asked for your evaluation of the sourced material. We constantly evaluate material from all kinds of sources as part of our responsibility to present sourced material in context, with due weight, on-topic, etc. So batter-up. What say you? SPECIFICO talk 17:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, my personal opinion would be that Wikileaks offered a reward to either grab some headlines or somehow imply that Rich was their source for the DNC leak. But please note that this opinion, if included in our wikipedia article (which no one is trying to do), would be a violation of WP:OR, WP:V, and I'll just throw out WP:BLP since everyone else is. My personal opinion has no place in the article; only reliably sourced and notable facts do. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:15, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Mr Ernie. The problem is that your opinion, though it's just a suspicion and not proven and perhaps even an idle thought, is reasonable reaction. If we put the reward story in the article other readers can be expected to have the same reaction. That would be WP:SYNTH and the conclusion that many readers would draw -- their reasonable inference -- would be a BLP violation, and a serious one suggesting unethical and/or criminal behavior. SPECIFICO talk 20:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'll post the same thing here that I did at the RfC, where Guy Macon also posted his original comment: What MastCell did, was provide a clueful and therefore authoritative perspective on how BLP reads on the decision. !votes that fail to take BLP into account at all as many of them do, are likely to be given less weight by a clueful closer and if the closer doesn't take BLP into account, the close will be liable to be overturned (not necessarily overturned, but open to be overturned). Other clueful admins have also weighed in on how BLP applies to this issue, see here, and came to different conclusions about how BLP applies (but directly addressed BLP) so anyone who takes MastCell's view as The Only Possible View is out to lunch. Jytdog (talk) 19:36, 25 August 2016 (UTC) ((add clarification since there is apparent confusion about what I meant Jytdog (talk) 20:25, 25 August 2016 (UTC))[reply]

This being AN, I would at this time like to formally request a closer or closers who is an uninvolved admin with a lot of experience closing contentious RfCs. If possible, more than one: a little extra time spent now coming up with two or three admins who agree on what to exclude and who carefully word the closing statement will avoid a boatload of time later as the losing side tries to relitigate the RfC. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:45, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I presume you mean for a month from now. The RfC was just opened yesterday. Softlavender (talk) 19:51, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think an experienced admin should close it sooner than later to prevent disruption, as I doubt we'll get any new insight. Maybe not today, but probably not after a month. Per WP:RFC the process doesn't have to run the full 30 days. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I note the conspicuous absence of admins commenting here; there is nothing actionable in the OP. And there is no reason to close the RfC early. The question is difficult and the more clueful input that is given, the better. Jytdog (talk) 20:27, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, having looked at that RfC, it's rather likely to be useless probably because the proposal is not in the form to propose the precise words and source(s): "example"[cite]. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:37, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes the trigger was pulled without proposing it to make sure everybody was OK with how it was posed. hell is other people; par for the wikipedia course, limping along as best we can. .Jytdog (talk) 21:22, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hidden page

Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2014_January_27#C:WPCATSUP

Ok, so I was going through some old edit histories (as I am sometimes wont to do : ) - and I came across this.

Seems innocuous at first glance.

However, read the discussion and then try to click on the link of the redirect in question.

Surprised?

It seems that C: is now the interwiki link for the Commons. (See this discussion.)

So just for housekeeping, I thought I'd speedy the redirect, as it clearly doesn't now get anyone anywhere (and so isn't aiding navigation in any way).

But here's the thing... I can't actually get to that redirect : )

I think we have a page that is trapped in the system which can't be accessed through typical means.

Now it shouldn't be a big deal, as I doubt the commons will ever need that page, but it's interesting enough that I wanted to share with all of you : )

Oh, and going through allpages, I found the following as well (though they do not appear to have this issue):

(And now I'll wait as someone will come along to tell me how it's actually simple to get to, "like this" : ) - jc37 12:38, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jc37, it's actually simple to get to if you know how to use the API to get these pages; there was an incident some time back in which the software momentarily permitted the creation of an article beginning with "de:", which of course quickly became inaccessible, undeleteable, and unmoveable, so we had to wait until someone familiar with API-based work was able to handle it. I'm not one of those someones. Nyttend (talk) 13:33, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

<applause> Congratulations on having tea and no tea at the same time! : ) - jc37 13:40, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[edit conflict with the applause] PS, I thought perhaps I'd get it by going through John Vandenberg's contributions for January 2014 (he sent it to RFD, so presumably he added the RFD template to the page), but it's not there. Deleted contributions? There's a relevant line:

(change visibility) 00:26, 11 January 2014 (diff | deletion log | view) . . C:WPCATSUP (Listed for discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 January 11#C:WPCATSUP. (TW))

So the revision has been deleted. But click the (diff) link, and you get a message I've never seen before, MediaWiki:Undeleterevision-missing. Or go to Special:Undelete/C:WPCATSUP, and you discover that there are no deleted revisions in the database. I'm guessing that the process of turning C: into a crosswiki prefix caused all revisions of all C: pages to be deleted and then "really" deleted those revisions entirely. You know how computer experts can often recover files that you've deleted from your hard drive, but it's much harder (or impossible?) to recover old revisions of files if you've saved a newer revision on top of it. I think this is the same situation: causing "C:" to be an entirely different kind of topic caused the wholesale destruction of everything previously at that location, but since the deletion logs and the stuff that appears at Special:Undelete is probably stored separately, there's no technical reason that it can't appear there: the software can tell that a page previously existed at this title, and it knows that John Vandenberg made an edit to it, but there's no live revision of such a page, so it should be listed in Special:Deletedcontributions. So overall, it's the bizarre effect of a rare developer intervention in the revision database. Nyttend (talk) 13:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

PPS, </applause>. jc37, you ruined the HTML validation by not closing your tag :-) Nyttend (talk) 13:51, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider it ongoing applause : )

And yes, my guess was and is that this may very well require someone with that magical un-knowable thing called shell access to resolve : ) - jc37 13:59, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If nobody can get to it, why does it need to be deleted? --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure it actually exists. For example, c:ThisIsOnlyATest. You can create any link to commons you want, and it doesn't appear to check to see if it exists before making it a blue link. Kbdank71 16:06, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect was revisited in a following month of 2014 and it was deleted, see Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2014_March_5#C:WPCATSUP. -- The Voidwalker ^Discuss 16:30, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Admin attention is required

again for Wikipedia:Files for discussion#Old discussions, which has a ~500 item backlog dating back to May. Most of these are very easy closures; any help is appreciated! -FASTILY 18:26, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Involved action by admin Ritchie333 on Main Page

Please see WT:DYK#Error on Main Page for 12 hours, after involved admin reverted it ion the main page to the wrong version!. Basically, user:Ritchie333 has reverted the DYK section on the Main Page back to a hook he had suggested in the first place, about an article he brought to GA status. The hook was corrected by user:Gatoclass, but Ritchie333 objected to the correction and reverted it without prior discussion, violating WP:INVOLVED badly. First discussion with him doesn't seem to indicate that he understands the problem. Fram (talk) 20:18, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't bold editing how the main page's content pages (noticeably ITN) are typically handled? My impression was that most people don't care about involvement there. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:24, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please, you guys (/gals), is this really ANI-worthy? Can you just take 24 hours and talk about it again over at Talk:DYK? E Eng 20:27, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. An ontological debate over the exact meaning of "removed their boobs" vs "carried fake breasts"? I'm not sure we've even established that in Devon, or even Cornwall, breasts, whether fake or not, are seen as "a distraction to drivers." And, who knows, even EngVar might have motivated Ritchie here. The Main Page can be such a dangerous place, these days. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:42, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- The problem for here is not with the meaning of the hook (and let's be clear, removed vs carried is quite different), but with the involvement (it wasa hook he had nominated in the first place, not some random hook). 22:21, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
  - If they mean the same thing, any involvement is irrelevant. So is the meaning relevant, or not?. I trust you've asked Ritchie to fully explain his motivation before inviting him here. And that his explanation was somehow lacking. Editors who take articles to GA status are sometimes regarded as subject matter experts, allegedly. Perhaps we ought to look at "wearing" vs "carrying"? Or maybe even "timebomb"? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:41, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this is something of a storm in a teacup: neither of the hooks was very good. Ritchie333 is probably in line for a WP:TROUT for re-adding a mistake to the main page, and Gatoclass might also warrant one for what I think is dubious grammar in their corrected version of the hook. But I share Jo-Jo's understanding that in general it's OK for admins to jump in and adjust stuff they have a connection to on the main page in the interest of quickly fixing errors here. When I've done so I, from memory, have always posted a note at WP:ERRORS for transparency. But the short version is that everyone seems to have been acting in good faith. Nick-D (talk) 22:57, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Deceitful PRODs

I was patrolling the expired PRODs and found a user that is using a deceitful practice to ensure the article's they PROD are deleted. Sixth of March has been adding PRODs to articles. Then they comment out the PROD so it does not show up when someone views the article. They then come back 7 days later and remove the comment so it does up and gets deleted. I have gone back to 7 July and found instances of this practice. I have restored many that were deleted this way. I figured it out after deleting two articles. On the third article there were intervening edits and reverts by Sixth of March. I started to look to see if the ip had removed the PROD and if it had been restored. I looked at intervening edits, where it hasn't been removed but it wasn't showing up either. Initially I assumed the best and thought it was a mistake. I decided the best course was to reset the click on the PROD. Then I looked at the fourth and found the same thing. I also went back and looked at the two I had deleted and found the same thing. I restored those two, declined all 4 PRODs and warned Sixth of March if I saw this ever happen again that I would block them. I then started looking through contributions and deleted edits and found more of the same. This isn't an isolated event. My main reason to bring this here it's to notify other admins to be on the look out for this tactic. -- GB fan 23:09, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[1] That is to say, four days less than it took Dr. Frank-N-Furter to make Rocky a man.

[a]

@@ Line 427: / Line 427: @@
 == Review of AE block of Jensbest ==
+{{archive top|There is clear consensus that the block was appropriate. There is, additionally, consensus that {{u|Jensbest}} should be topic banned from the subject of [[Donald Trump]], broadly construed. Arbitration enforcement won't even be necessary in this case, as there is a clear consensus to apply such a topic ban as a community sanction. [[User:Seraphimblade|Seraphimblade]] <small><sup>[[User talk:Seraphimblade|Talk to me]]</sup></small> 23:38, 25 August 2016 (UTC) }}
 {{userlinks|Jensbest}}
@@ Line 468: / Line 469: @@
 *'''Endorse block''' - and recommend indefinite topic ban regarding Donald Trump.  There is no indication this editor is capable of writing from a neutral perspective in this area. [[User:78.26|<span style="border:1px solid black;color:red; padding:1px;background:1h5h1h"><font color="008B8B"><b>78.26</b></font></span>]] <sub>([[User talk:78.26|spin me]] / [[Special:Contributions/78.26|revolutions]])</sub> 16:34, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 *'''Endorse block and topic ban''' - With the recommendation that Jensbest not discuss the matter of the block or topic ban except to ''reasonably'' request its removal. It should be made clear that Jensbest repeating what has already been said (whether in a request to remove the topic ban or made in a comment about the situation of the block (in other words complaining)), will result in a longer block. Six months to request the removal of the topic ban sounds good. A final warning that violations of the [[WP:BLP|BLP policy]] '''anywhere''' mean an indef block or a topic ban from ''all BLP articles'', should it be worth the time to TB. <span style="text-shadow:7px 5px 7px grey;font-family:High Tower Text">-- [[User:The Voidwalker|<span style="color:#123524">The Voidwalker</span>]] <sup>[[User talk:The Voidwalker|<span style="color:#353839">'''Discuss'''</span>]]</sup></span> 22:50, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
+{{archive bottom}}
 == [[User:Bad Dryer]] unblock request discussion ==

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