Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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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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On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.

There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.

When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.

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Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this should not normally be in itself a problem at closure reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would call to use tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.

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Please append {{Doing}} to the discussion's entry you are closing so that no one duplicates your effort. When finished, replace it with {{Close}} or {{Done}} and an optional note, and consider sending a {{Ping}} to the editor who placed the request. Where a formal closure is not needed, reply with {{Not done}}. After addressing a request, please mark the {{Initiated}} template with |done=yes. ClueBot III will automatically archive requests marked with {{Already done}}, {{Close}}, {{Done}} {{Not done}}, and {{Resolved}}.

If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.

Other areas tracking old discussions

• Wikipedia:Requested moves#Elapsed listings
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Administrative discussions

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1156#Boomerang_topic_ban_proposal_for_User:Hcsrctu

(Initiated 26 days ago on 9 May 2024) Ratnahastin (talk) 03:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 80 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

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

Talk:Ariana Grande#RFC: LEAD IMAGE

(Initiated 61 days ago on 4 April 2024) This RFC was kind of a mess and I don't think any consensus came out of it, but it could benefit from a formal closure so that interested editors can reset their dicussion and try to figure out a way forward (context: several editors have made changes to the lead image since the RFC discussion petered out, but these were reverted on the grounds that the RFC was never closed). Note that an IP user split off part of the RFC discussion into a new section, Talk:Ariana Grande#Split: New Met Gala 2024 image. Aoi (青い) (talk) 22:52, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League

(Initiated 58 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)

• FYI this discussion can now be found in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 439. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:22, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators

(Initiated 57 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)

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

(Initiated 57 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)

 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)

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

(Initiated 54 days ago on 11 April 2024) ☆SuperNinja2☆ TALK! 09:41, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

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

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

(Initiated 44 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)

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)

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

(Initiated 41 days ago on 24 April 2024) There's been no comments in 5 days. TarnishedPath^talk 03:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:International Churches of Christ#RfC: Ongoing court cases involving low profile individuals

(Initiated 33 days ago on 2 May 2024) RfC template has been removed by the bot. TarnishedPath^talk 13:21, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Andy Ngo#RfC: First sentence of the lead

(Initiated 31 days ago on 3 May 2024) Discussion has slowed with only one !vote in the last 5 days. TarnishedPath^talk 11:09, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Ben Roberts-Smith#RFC: War criminal in first sentence of the lede

(Initiated 27 days ago on 8 May 2024) Last !vote was 27 May, 2024. Note: RfC was started by a blocking evading IP. TarnishedPath^talk 11:23, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Total
CfD	0	9	36	0	45
TfD	0	0	12	0	12
MfD	0	0	2	0	2
FfD	0	0	4	0	4
RfD	0	2	23	0	25
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

WP:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 11#Colonia Ulpia Traiana

(Initiated 66 days ago on 30 March 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 24#Phone computer

(Initiated 63 days ago on 2 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 21#Category:Crafts deities

(Initiated 61 days ago on 3 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 23#Category:Mohave tribe

(Initiated 58 days ago on 6 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 58 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. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 13:56, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 27#Category:Indian massacres

(Initiated 57 days ago on 7 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 23#Category:Dos Santos family (Angolan business family)

(Initiated 57 days ago on 8 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 27#Category:Volodimerovichi family

(Initiated 57 days ago on 8 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 13#Genie (feral child and etc.

(Initiated 56 days ago on 9 April 2024) mwwv ^converse∫_edits 18:02, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 6#Larissa Hodge

(Initiated 56 days ago on 9 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 29#Category:Muppet performers

(Initiated 53 days ago on 12 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 30#Category:First Nations drawing artists

(Initiated 51 days ago on 13 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 30#Jackahuahua

(Initiated 50 days ago on 14 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 30#Category:Neo-Latin writers

(Initiated 50 days ago on 15 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 1#Hornless unicorn

(Initiated 47 days ago on 17 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 19#Dougie (disambiguation)

(Initiated 46 days ago on 18 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 May 13#Category:Pocatello Army Air Base Bombardiers football seasons

(Initiated 40 days ago on 24 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 13#Sucking peepee

(Initiated 40 days ago on 24 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 6#Supplemental Result

(Initiated 40 days ago on 25 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 May 4#Category:Fictional West Asian people

(Initiated 38 days ago on 26 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 May 4#Natural history

(Initiated 38 days ago on 26 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 May 13#Category:Fictional animals by taxon

(Initiated 38 days ago on 27 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 May 13#Roman Catholic bishops in Macau

(Initiated 36 days ago on 28 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 June 3#Frances and Richard Lockridge

(Initiated 34 days ago on 30 April 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:35, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 29 days ago on 6 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Amina Hassan Sheikh

(Initiated 28 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)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 May 17#Category:Extinct Indigenous peoples of Australia

(Initiated 25 days ago on 9 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Tamil_genocide#Merge_proposal

(Initiated 76 days ago on 19 March 2024) Merge discussion which has been occurring since 19 March 2024. Discussion has well and truly slowed. TarnishedPath^talk 14:34, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 48 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)

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)

Talk:Press_Your_Luck_scandal#Separate_articles

(Initiated 32 days ago on 2 May 2024) Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Republican_Party_(United_States)#Poll:_Should_the_article_include_a_political_position_for_the_Republican_Party_in_the_infobox?

(Initiated 20 days ago on 14 May 2024) The topic of this poll is contentious and has been the subject of dozens of talk page discussions over the past years, so I am requesting an uninvolved editor to close this discussion. Cortador (talk) 20:28, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Prosecution of Donald Trump in New York#Merge proposal

(Initiated 4 days ago on 30 May 2024) Commentators are starting to ask for a speedy close. -- Beland (talk) 06:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Colton Cosmic - block/unblock/ban discussion/clarification thread

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

---

Colton Cosmic has today requested that his block be lifted, and he be allowed to return to editing Wikipedia. Colton Cosmic has been discussed several times at various locations around Wikipedia, but it's still a bit unclear what his exact block situation is and what some of his next steps should be if he would like to be unblocked.

The most recent discussion was an RfC/U which can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Colton Cosmic - this dates from February and March 2014. The result of the RfC/U was to keep Colton Cosmic blocked. Colton Cosmic was not unblocked to engage with the RfC/U and owing to behavioural issues, his talk page access was removed two weeks into the RfC/U, so his participation was limited. Colton Cosmic believes the RfC/U was more akin to an AN/ANI style block discussion than an attempt to find a solution to any problems with his user behaviour.

Colton Cosmic's full block log can be found here and a (brief) time line of events and links to relevant information follows below. The RfC linked above has additional links/diffs of interest.

Colton Cosmic says he is the WP:CLEANSTART account of a previous editor, choosing to abandon his original account and start with a new account because of privacy issues. He was initially blocked on 15 May 2012 by checkuser Timotheus_Canens for abusing multiple accounts, he was quickly offered to be unblocked by administrator Bwilkins on 21 May 2012 if he divulged, to Bwilkins, details of his previous account, and agreed any sanctions be transferred to his new account [1]. Colton Cosmic refused to divulge details of his new account to Bwilkins, on privacy grounds. The only person he has informed is Jimbo Wales.

The Arbitration Committee - Ban Appeal Sub Committee was asked by Colton Cosmic to unblock, and on 2 August 2013, SilkTork, on behalf of the committee informed Colton Cosmic that the committee would not be unblocking Colton Cosmic, unless he agreed to meet two conditions, those being to avoid editing Wikipedia under any account or via any IP address for a period of six months, and to divulge the details of his previous account to the Arbitration Committee. This offer was declined and instances of block evasion were reported immediately afterwards. The full list of self identified block evading IP addresses can be found at Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Colton_Cosmic

Administrator Nihonjoe unblocked Colton Cosmic on 11 April 2013 (unblock notice on Colton Cosmic's talk page [2] this resulted in a thread at WP:ANI (see [3]). SilkTork expanded on the Arbitration Committee's rationale for not unblocking (see [4], the committee at the time believed Colton Cosmic to be a returning user under some form of sanction, did not have an indication of what the original account was and did not believe they could unblock at that time.

The thread at ANI (linked, above) concluded with the community agreeing to reblock Colton Cosmic, but not answering some questions about the nature of the block and any way forward for the block to be lifted. Colton Cosmic subsequently had his talk page and e-mail access removed after repeatedly filing unblock requests, his talk page access was restored before again being removed after he abused the 'ping' mechanism to contact numerous administrators and ask to be unblocked. He was thought to have contacted in excess of 20 administrators, using a variety of IP accounts to evade the block, in order to request an unblock. It is unclear how many administrators have been contacted by Colton Cosmic, soliciting for an unblock, but Colton Cosmic believes he has asked around 35 administrators in one way or another, including the IRC based unblock request channel (where users may speak to an administrator to discuss a block and ask for a block to be reviewed on-wiki). Typical requests placed via block evading IP addresses [5][6][7][8]

The purpose of this thread is not to solicit an unblock on behalf of Colton Cosmic, but primarily to decide on what to do with Colton Cosmic and provide him with a clear message about his current status and what, if anything, the community wishes to happen with regards to Colton Cosmic.

There was some uncertainty about whether the block, because ArbCom refused to overturn it, counts as an ArbCom block and is now one only they can overturn, but ArbCom and individual arbitrations have taken part in various unblock discussions without claiming it to be an ArbCom block. That leaves discussion open to the community.

I believe the choices open to the community are to (a) unblock Colton Cosmic, and if that is the course of action, to decide on any topic or behaviour bans; (b) to do nothing, leaving him indefinitely blocked or to (c) explicitly community ban him. If the decision is not to unblock Colton Cosmic, some idea of the circumstances a further appeal would be considered would be valuable.

Please note that per the Banning policy - no consensus to remove an indefinite block results in a community ban, per In some cases the community may have discussed an indefinite block and reached a consensus of uninvolved editors not to unblock the editor. Editors who remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration by the community are considered "banned by the Wikipedia community". If you wish for Colton Cosmic to remain indefinitely blocked but not formally banned, it would be appreciated if you could indicate this.

Colton Cosmic has requested to be unblocked for the duration of this request - I and several administrators I've consulted aren't comfortable with this, but if any administrator does wish to unblock, Colton Cosmic has pledged to remain civil and to only participate within the discussion. His talk page access has been restored and he may reply to comments there, with comments to be transferred over to this discussion. Colton Cosmic is cautioned that using his talk page to ping other users or continue behaviour for which he has previously had access removed will result in talk page access again being removed and most likely this thread being archived prematurely.

In short, I'm looking for a watertight response I and any other administrators can provide to Colton Cosmic in future (if he is not unblocked). This thread is accurate to the best of my knowledge but if there are further corrections or additions to be made, please feel free to list corrections below. Many thanks. Nick (talk) 00:17, 22 July 2014 (UTC) @Anthonyhcole, Nick, Blackmane, and Worm That Turned: Would any of you consider posting at Jimbo's talkpage that I am about to be banned [9] and it would be decent of him to go ahead and vouch that my prior account is free of blocks, sanctions, and so forth. Posting there would also have the effect of drawing a more representative group of Wikipedians to the discussion. Colton Cosmic (talk) 15:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Notification to Jimbo. [10]. Nick (talk) 16:31, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Nick, I am further in your debt. I can feel the noose tightening in that discussion, so might as well try this. Although you have not questioned it, be assured that my representation that Jimbo has the account and, in his words, "investigated" it, is accurate. The way I viewed his and my arrangement was that he was supposed to unblock me if it checked out. He did not do so. If he viewed it, rather than a simple check for blocks and sanctions, as more of an holistic appraisal of my merits as an editor which he would then mark pass or fail, he did not ever clarify this to me nor notify me what my deficiencies were, if that was his finding. Colton Cosmic (talk) 17:01, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo has asked that I make people aware of this statement [11]. Nick (talk) 17:12, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Reply to @Jimbo Wales: on his request. You want me to ping you with the emails? I will tell you our first exchange was on 12 and 13 September 2013 (within about an hour I think, I guess the date flipped in whatever time-zone my client logged, i.e. it wasn't a day later). You agreed to confidentiality on my prior account, and I told you. You restated the name in a reply email. I do not want to further put into bytes the account name because of privacy concerns, and for goodness sake don't checkuser it now because it'll show up in the logs. Can you just please tell people that the account was free of blocks and sanctions before I am banned? Colton Cosmic (talk) 17:28, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Before I begin, I'd like to protest against this discussion being transcluded to ANI rather than taking place directly there. I do understand the issue of Colton needing to participate and this being a way to do that but even for an experienced editor, I found replying to be surprising and confusing and it took me a few moments to figure out where to reply. Issue for another day but this is one reason I think our talk pages need serious engineering effort to improve our workflow.

Now, on to substantive matters. I can confirm that Colton Cosmic disclosed to me the name of an account which has no blocks or bans. Additionally, albeit without having done a comprehensive search of the history of the account, I saw no warnings or complaints or concerns of any kind posted there. Additionally, having checked a fair number of edits, I didn't see anything ban-worthy or problematic. These are simple facts.

However, it is worth noting that at his request, based on his stated (but unexplained) very strong concerns for his privacy, I did not checkuser the account. I therefore have no way of knowing or even guessing whether this account is really related. With sufficient effort based on writing style, articles edited, etc., I think that respected community members might be able to make an educated guess, and it seems as likely as not to me that Colton is telling the truth.

Additionally, as I said to Colton, I could find no reason for him not to disclose the account to ArbCom. Per his wishes and my promise, I have not done so and do not intend to do so, but I continue to offer my advice that disclosing the account to ArbCom, explaining the reason to them why he has privacy concerns (the account is not a definitive real name), will be a helpful way forward.

As it stands, I neither endorse nor impose a continuation of the ban. I don't know anything about the rest of the evidence or controversy, as I restricted my research to the specific question of whether the alleged past account was under any sanctions: it was not.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:30, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

To whom wants to know, I responded via email (he also emailed me) to Jimbo on his miserly position that our like dozen emails back and forth have given him no inkling whether the account is really mine. I strongly told him in kind just what I made of *his* propensity to tell the truth. If he wanted to frickin' linguistically analyze the account compared to Colton Cosmic, we could have no doubt found key similarities together. He said nothing of that before he commented the above. If he wanted to get on IRC and quick quiz me randomly about edits I made years ago and check that way, I'm sure they'd ring bells and I'd get them. Oh well, at least he finally acknowledged *something*. Colton Cosmic (talk) 03:33, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Anthonyhcole: I saw your comments in my ban discussion. Why don't you just vote instead? You say "that's the story being put out" about me (which is weasel words) but I see Anthonyhcole as the one who's putting it out. Colton Cosmic (talk) 03:17, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Colton Cosmic's responses

I. @Fluffernutter: is incorrect that A) I ever appealed to her on IRC (I didn't), B) I haven't disclosed my prior account to anyone (I did), and C) I ever voiced or implied concerns about my personal safety (I didn't). @Dennis Brown:is incorrect that I'm banned, and I'm surprised to hear him make this assertion because I thought I recalled he said that editors shouldn't be banned as a result of discussions in which the participants didn't know they were voting for a ban. @Beyond My Ken: says he well remembers my Arbcom discussion but I don't understand how he was privy to that because it took place on its confidential mailing list. Colton Cosmic (talk) 09:33, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

II. It's starting pretty poorly for me, but I'd say to anyone who actually comes fresh to my case, to not treat it like a standard WP:AN/ANI "vote him or her off the island" popularity contest. Think instead about things like whether I actually did what I was originally blocked for, if I really had any alternative besides clearly-disclosed block evasion, and also whether these ban discussions are truly representative of the community and fair to their subjects. Or if something needs to be changed and handled differently. Colton Cosmic (talk) 10:43, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

III. @Od Mishehu, Yamla, Blackmane, and Robert McClenon: and others, in my seven or eight years of editing, I have never socked Wikipedia. After being wrongfully blocked and then pushed around while trying to make the appeals system work, I resorted to clearly-disclosed IP block evasion. Evasion is governed by its own policy, WP:EVADE. Everybody knows that to sock requires a deceptive element. One pretends to be someone else to cause the appearance of more support for a viewpoint than actually exists, or to work mischief for humor, or for malicious purposes. I never did that at all. So demands for me to stop socking for a year have already been met at least seven times over. @Atlan:, I don't agree with that other stuff you said however yes, it is my position that these WP:AN/ANI ban discussions are not representative of the community. The community, and Lila Tretikov also says this, is comprised of *all* the editors and administrators. What we have at WP:AN/ANI is, I find, heavily weighted toward block enthusiasts. But that is not to imply that I'll give it no weight if this discussion finishes at the same proportions as it has started. Colton Cosmic (talk) 15:52, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

IV. Okay, I am not going to get in some ping pong match with Robert McClenon. I believe that most people know what a sockpuppet is. I'm not that. @Tide rolls: says I'll never abide by any Wikipedia policies but in fact I always took them seriously. I never had a problem in my first 5 or 6 years of editing. @Kww: says I don't intend to be a useful contributor ever. In fact in my previous account I started several articles on important matters, and even in my short time as Colton Cosmic before being stomped on I at least wrote Rain_City_Superhero_Movement which was directly linked by mainstream news sites like Slate.com and I believe quoted by national newscaster Robin Meade on HLN morning news. People, I feel like my words are falling on deaf ears but if you actually look at my edits when this account started you'll see a good editor. Don't allow me to be portrayed as some horrible villain because I block evaded later. I felt I had no alternative. I encourage any newcomer to my case, so far I've only noticed one below, to ask yourself "Why are we banning this person? What did he actually *do*?" Colton Cosmic (talk) 11:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

V. Blargh, would anyone post notification at Jimbo's talkpage to ask him vouch that my prior account is block and sanction free, to save me from being banned? It would also broaden participation in this discussion. Colton Cosmic (talk) 14:02, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

VI. @Favonian: I do not want to get sidetracked but the idea that I canvassed my RFC/U was refuted by WP:AN/ANI when Bwilkins reported me for that and not a single person agreed. I tried to broaden participation in the RFC/U with pretty well random editors, without any idea if they'd support me. It's explicitly allowed by WP:CANVASSING. Read the nutshell. @GiantSnowman, Favonian, and Ohnoitsjamie: please stop telling me to disclose my former account to an arb or "arb or similar." Jimbo has it and is well aware it is free of sanctions and block, which means of course that my WP:CLEANSTART for privacy concerns was valid and policy-compliant. Last, some passing administrator should tell Resolute that typing to me in the discussion "Honestly Colton, go away" with "go away" bolded is uncivil violation WP:CIV and so is other stuff he or she is saying, that I "couldn't be trusted" and so forth. Colton Cosmic (talk) 18:54, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

VII. @Binksternet: Contrary to your criticism, I believe I am not naturally argumentative, it is of course rather that I argue with being blocked, pushed around, and insulted as if a non-person, which I've come to realize is the experience of many a blockee. My five or six years editing prior being blocked were nothing like this. As for your charge of hypocrisy, I'm comfortable I'm not that either. You grant that I made productive content contributions but it is telling as to your personality that you can't resist to come back a moment later to inform us all that it was merely to a "non-critical area."[12]. Finally, it is not by my choice that time is wasted with any of this, it is that I seek to be unblocked. I wish I could go back to creating content. It's also a bit astonishing those that choose to take the time to comment, only to complain that their time is wasted to comment. Answer is of course don't blame me, go do something else. Colton Cosmic (talk) 01:51, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

VIII. He was ten months late, but if anyone didn't see it, Jimbo publicly acknowledged that he examined my prior account and found it free of sanctions, blocks, and any obvious misbehavior; he further said though that he took no position on whether it was actually my account, suggesting that I turn it over to the arbs for linguistic matching and so forth. Of course even if that worked, someone would raise the possibility that perhaps I have a secret *third* account that's the really abusive one. And so on. And so on. I ask the closer of this discussion to mention that Jimbo reviewed the account and it was free of blocks and sanctions, because all along this has been a sticking point for many. Colton Cosmic (talk) 01:51, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment

The most charitable (based on assume good faith) explanation of Colton Cosmic's statement that he has never socked Wikipedia is a case of refusal to read or hear the Wikipedia definition of socking, of mind-boggling proportions. Just because Colton says that block evasion is covered by a separate policy and not by the sock-puppetry policy doesn't make it true. The sock puppetry policy defines block or ban evasion as a form of sock-puppetry. I have a suggestion. Since Colton is refusing to use Wikipedia terminology, we should use his terms, and ban him officially, and provide that he may not appeal the ban until he has avoided ban/block evasion (including disclosed block/ban evasion) for one year. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:35, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Also, the transclusion of a section of a talk page is confusing, because it is difficult to avoid replying on the talk page rather than on AN. Colton is limited to using his talk page, but the admin who transcluded his comments could have, with less confusion, copied and pasted them. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Community comments

• Confirm community ban. So now, if we want to put a time limit, I'd say he can appeal after a year of no socking, starting now. the panda ₯’ 00:27, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• To make a long story short: What the Panda said. CC is unquestionably banned, not just blocked. I will be happy to consider changing that after a year without socks. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 00:53, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm community ban. Disclosure: I discussed the drafting of this statement with Nick on IRC, and I'm pretty sure I've previously declined on IRC to unblock CC. I have a couple of different thoughts on this matter, but they all take me to the same conclusion. First, if the revelation of his past account name is as much a threat to Colton Cosmic's safety as he implies, such that he cannot disclose it to anyone, no matter how trusted, then a project where trolls make a game of harassing, outing, and doxxing other users is simply not a safe space for him. So for his own purported safety, I would keep him away from the project. Second, Colton has exhibited as severe and long-term a case as I've ever seen of "I didn't hear that". No matter how many times he's been told "No, you need to go about it this other way, the way you're doing it is actually going to hurt you," he refused to consider the wishes of the community or the fact that the advice was intended to help him return to good standing. Members of the Wikipedia community are expected to defer to community policy and community consensus, even if they think it's dumb or wrong. Since Colton shows no willingness to do that while under a severe sanction, there's no particular reason to think he'd do it with regard to any other policy or discussion, either. And third, tying the previous two together, the tendentiousness with which Colton has approached his current block just makes it flat-out difficult to believe that his previous account did not suffer from the same sanctionable issues, and based on that I would not be comfortable with him being unblocked without disclosure of the account to at least some trusted party who is willing to vouch for its not being under sanctions.

  As far as routes forward, I would echo DangerousPanda's recommendation: one year with no socking and no block evasion, whether he identifies himself in those edits or not. The point of "it's not sockpuppetry, it's just block evasion" is an academic one; both aren't allowed, and both need to not happen if Colton wishes to show the community that he can abide by its policies. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:53, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Ban I echo Panda's requirements above. One year without a sock, a case of ban evasion, or a round of forum shopping on IRC will change my mind on this matter --Guerillero | My Talk 01:58, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm community ban - I well remember the discussion at the time, and the ArbCom discussion related to it. I see no reason why there should be any confusion about his status. A year without socking is fine as a prerequisite for any future requests, but I'd also add that ArbCim's quite reasonable questions must be answered as well. BMK (talk) 02:54, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  Given CC's comments above, I'm not sure that a return to editing at any time is in the cards, since he doesn't seem to understand at any level why he is banned and what is expected of him. BMK (talk) 16:18, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Confirm community ban. I have no confidence that this individual will abide by any policy or conform to any guideline or established convention pertaining to this project. Tiderolls 07:35, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Question When did Colton Cosmic last evade his block? I've not been following things recently. Worm^TT(talk) 07:44, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  Colton Cosmic states on his talk page that it's been 45 - 60 days since his last block evasion. I'd personally be willing to consider a standard offer unblock in February next year (about 9 months overall), assuming he does not evade his block until then. Worm^TT(talk) 09:12, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Confirm community ban until he has stopped socking for at least a full year; and revealed to a sitting arb the identity of his older account, and the arb in question informs the community that (s)he got the account name. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:54, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Question - I think something else needs stipulating here. As is evident on CC's talk page, I was one of the last editors to interact with him outside of admins doing their thing. One thing that should be clearly laid out is what is expected post ban. There is an expectation of no socking for one year, I'm fairly certain that CC can adhere to that. After that, then what? Presuming that the no socking requirement is met, for CC to post a GAB compliant unblock request would require revisiting the issues that caused the block in the first place, issues that have been chewed over like old soup. In a year's time, I can see that this whole cycle will repeat itself. Blackmane (talk) 11:36, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

There are conditions and recommendations that have been recommended as a way forward literally dozens of times, however CC has always refused AND railed against all who made suggestions. They include things such as:

• must advise ArbCom or an Arb of the previous account
• if they are a CleanStart, then they must not edit articles or subjects that they edited under the previous account
• stop fighting old battles
• in fact, stop referring to any old battles or issues
• (hmmm...notice a trend? THE PAST IS THE PAST, KEEP IT THERE)
• stop doxing others, stop creating new enemies, and stop labeling people as enemies (especially when those people actually try to HELP!)

The general feeling has always been that ANY slip into past behaviours, including bringing up old quotes, old battles, etc will lead to an immediate re-block for-freaking-ever. He's been given these before ... he's simply refused to partake. the panda ɛˢˡ” 12:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

So, hypothetically speaking, if CC were to fulfill said conditions now, how would this impact this ban discussion? or conversely, would these conditions have to be met after 1 year of no detectable socking? I ask not so much for CC's sake as it is for my understanding. Blackmane (talk) 18:10, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

You need to remember, this discussion going on is not a "should we ban him" discussion; it's confirming that according to the community, he already is banned. The above "conditions" are those that will be presented to him as basically non-optional when he starts to decide he's prepared to be a member of the community and requests an unban in the future, and are those that he could have been unblocked by following in the past (until, at least, he continued his behaviours and the community declined to unblock him). I mean hell, I personally offered to unblock him ages upon ages ago (as is noted in the opening statements), and I meant it sincerely. the panda ₯’ 19:17, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Keep blocked and revisit an unblock request after a year without socking. CC's responses so far are not inspiring, as he is already implying he will dismiss any outcome he doesn't like as "unfair" and "not representative of the community". Does he believe there is some silent majority out there that wants him unblocked, but that somehow only those that want to keep him blocked find their way to this discussion?--Atlan (talk) 12:30, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Question A number of people are saying no socking. I'd like that restriction clarified a little. Does that mean no contributions to Wikipedia or does that simply mean no editing of Wikipedia using an alternate account? I presume the former, but think this should be spelled out for the sake of clarity. For example, would a non-contentious edit of an article that CC has never before edited, using an IP address, count as 'socking'? --Yamla (talk) 13:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  Yes. No edits means no edits. If the site catches on fire, he shouldn't try to put it out. That is the whole idea of a ban. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 13:14, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Formal ban with right to appeal in one year. This has gone on too long. Also, as per Yamla, clarify that any and all of use of IP addresses, for any reason, is block evasion, and under Wikipedia policy, that is socking. (Colton uses his own definition of socking, which is that it only applies to illegitimate use of registered accounts for deception. He is wrong. It also includes the use of IPs for block evasion.) As noted in the RFC/U, his refusal to disclose his previous accounts stretches the community's patience. How do we know that his previous account is clean? If it is clean, why not use it, rather than post these repeated disruptive requests for unblock? Robert McClenon (talk) 13:18, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm ban not to be lifted without a) no socking for a year and b) full disclosure of any/all previous account(s) to an Arb or similar. GiantSnowman 19:34, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm ban. Colton Cosmic is simply a project by a Wikipediocracy editor that is interested in "Arbcom accountability". There's no intent to ever be a useful contributor to Wikipedia. Incidentally, his last block evasion appears to have been on 2 jun 2014 at 13:51, per the filter I established to keep his socking down. One thing to bear in mind when reviewing is edits is the substantial amount of work that has gone into filters to prevent him from editing.—Kww(talk) 00:23, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks for that Kww, it seems to tally with his statement that it was 45-60 days ago. Worm^TT(talk) 07:04, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Keep Blocked for an entire year with no socking whatsoever, Not really a hard task –Davey2010 • (talk) 02:31, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Leave blocked/Ban for one year, per Dennis, The Panda, Fluffernutter and others above. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 08:49, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm ban, Suggest taking the standard offer but all the ip ban evasion and MULTIPLE an threads that have confirmed it tells me it is bad precedence to cave to this behaviors. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 16:17, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm ban. Worrying about the history of any previous accounts is no longer relevant in my view. What is relevant is the fact that Colton is an unrepentant, serial sockpuppet abuser who categorically refuses to abide by the community's stated way back. WP:OFFER has been extended to him numerous times, and he steadfastly refuses to consider it. Beyond that, we couldn't even trust him with talk page access during the RFCU because he began abusing the system. We have quite honestly wasted far, far too much time dealing with this editor. Honestly Colton, go away. If you can make it a year without the disruptive socking, I'll support your return. But not before then. Resolute 17:19, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm ban unless they can go for a year with no socking, disclose previous accounts to an Arb, and acknowledge that a resumption of edit warring on Phoenix Jones or any of his previous battlegrounds will not be tolerated and will result in an immediate reblock. This user has wasted too many editors' time for too long; I'm not even sure why we keep having these discussions. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:29, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm ban per everybody and his uncle: disclose previous accounts to an Arb, no canvassing, sock puppetry/block evasion of any kind – in fact, not a peep for a whole year! Favonian (talk) 17:54, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm ban. Colton Cosmic is argumentative and is not needed here, having contributed a bit to real-life superhero articles; a non-critical area. The person has settled into a hypocritical role at Wikipediocracy devoted to collecting real-life information on Wikipedia arbitrators, despite his apparent refusal to disclose his own earlier Wikipedia account per WP:ILLEGIT. (Yes, I'm aware that Colton Cosmic says that he disclosed the account to Jimbo, but so far that angle has not borne fruit.) Colton Cosmic has begun pinging WMF board members about updates to the disclosure policy for checkusers, etc. His interest lies down that path, not in making Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. In essence, he is not really here to build the encyclopedia. He wastes time in argument and in process, making his presence a net negative. Binksternet (talk) 19:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Confirm ban - I am baffled to see that the degree of Colton Cosmic's behavior is unacceptable. We are here to build an encyclopedia, not cause disruption. I suppose if he doesn't evade blocks or use sock puppets after one year, I would change my mind on that. But for now, enough is enough. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 20:12, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. Blocking Colton for nothing in the first place was pretty disruptive. We reap what we sow, sometimes. (I learned recently that the Greg Kohs troubles all began with a bad block, badly, arrogantly handled, like this one.) But if you want back into the clubhouse, Colton, follow the roolz. It's the nature of things here - and most places, really.

I'm not exactly sure what you did at Wikipediocracy. Did you claim to be compiling a dossier on the private details of all the arbitrators, and threaten to use those details in order to punish or coerce them? That's the story being put about. You'll need to deal with those accusations, I expect, in any ban appeal. If those claims are true, and you demonstrate sincere regret, I'll support you, and I'm sure more than a few here will ... but you'd need to show you know you were being a total dick and regret it. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:22, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

It's primarily whining. He has a list of real names for Arbcom members that he keeps out on the web, but it hasn't got anything truly abusive on it. He proudly outs me periodically (not a very exciting feat of technical wizardry, given that I use my real name on my user page and include my birthplace, current residence, and a list of countries that I have lived in). It was the fascination with me that allowed me to connect the dots in the first place: the more I improved the filters on him here, the more he whined on Wikipediocracy.—Kww(talk) 02:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

So, Kww, do you think whatever it was he was up to there warrants a permaban? Or, if he stays away for 9 months/a year, would you support unbanning (assuming no other serious disruption in the meantime)? I just haven't seen enough about that WO/outing business - and I think the relevant thread has been hidden - to know what to think.

Are you saying you know the name of his prior account? (Others have thought they did, and been wrong.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:19, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I think his behaviour now, during his block, warrants a permaban. I'd shrug off the Wikipediocracy stuff in terms of behaviour, but I think it goes to motive: I think the theatrics surrounding his refusal to request an unblock through channels is linked to his Arbcom accountability crusade. I don't have any idea what his previous account is.

I do suspect that he is User:Duke Olav Otterson of Bornholm and User:Mr. Jones and me, but it's hard to tell. Those could be Kumioko as well.—Kww(talk) 04:35, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

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

Nikkimaria - topic ban proposal

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

---

Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

In the light of three recent requests for Arb enforcement in which Nikkimaria was involved, I wish to propose a topic ban relating to infoboxes. The three enforcement requests and the opinions offered there cover the reasons, so I won't repeat it all here. The three are...

• Pigsonthewing
• Gerda Arendt
• Nikkimaria

(Those links will need to be updated when they are archived)

• My proposal is that Nikkimaria is topic banned by the community as follows:

1. Nikkimaria is banned from removing infoboxes from articles.
2. Nikkimaria is restricted to 1RR when editing infoboxes.
3. Nikkimaria is banned from policing the Arbcom infobox ruling in any way, including (but not limited to) reporting other editors for alleged infractions and requesting sanctions against them. (Striking - see below — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:33, 22 July 2014 (UTC))

As a disclaimer, I will state that I was not involved in any previous infobox issues or in any related discussions, and I remain neutral on the question of inclusion/exclusion. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:58, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Additional: After a request for more specific info, I'd recommend reading the opening comments by User:RexxS at the Nikkimaria case where he includes some links (I can't link to it directly because it has been hatted). That case is not too long, so the other editors' comments plus the admins' responses shouldn't be too hard going. The other two cases involved an accusation against User:Pigsonthewing which came to a firm consensus that no offence had been committed, and a case against User:Gerda Arendt which found a violation but appears to be accepting it as a mistake with no action needed. On the whole, I see Nikkimaria's whole attitude as one that is fomenting conflict when we should be trying to put the infobox wars behind us and move forward - she seems intent on following her "opponents" around to try to catch them out and report them for sanctions, and that is entirely against our collegial spirit. But as I say, those three reports say things more than any manageable number of diffs could — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:38, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

One more comment: I meant to say that I think Nikkimaria's status as an admin makes her behaviour even less acceptable - admins should be helping put out fires, not pouring on more fuel — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:52, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Some diffs. I've been able to put a few quick diffs and links together to illustrate some of the problems and their extent - stalking of opponents, involvement, edit warring, and conduct unbecoming of an admin - [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:06, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support as proposer — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:06, 22 July 2014 (UTC) (See below — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:06, 23 July 2014 (UTC))
• I also am completely neutral on infoboxes. Can I request some diffs or a little background before supporting this proposal? I am slightly familiar with the AE requests you refer to but a little more detail would be great and save me a lot of time. --John (talk) 10:07, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  To be honest John, I don't think there are any specific diffs that would help here because there are so many people and so many words involved. I'll see if I can find one or two comments in those enforcement cases that might help to summarize. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:22, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  Updated, above — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:39, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support, I followed this little drama over at AE, and Nikki has been bang out of order. Darkness Shines (talk) 10:12, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support To anyone else who is swithering about this case, I recommend reading the AE cases linked above. This is a silly and divisive thing to fight over. We need to nip it in the bud. --John (talk) 10:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Comment I think that this is a good idea in principle, but that it doesn't go nearly far enough to make much difference. For example, one of Nikkimaria's party tricks is stealth-removal for the nationality field from infoboxes (using uninformative edit summaries), on the basis of a piece of guidance for which there is no consensus, and which she has edit-warred to sustain despite the lack of consensus.The proposed ban won't impede that.
  Additionally, the topic ban will merely displace her wider problem of persistent content removal with uninformative edit summaries, and her persistent failure to respond constructively to complaints. I think that a broader set of measures are required, and that this well-intentioned but very limited proposal will merely displace what is clearly a wider behavioural problem. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  I was aiming for something simple that I hoped a majority would get behind, so I specifically aimed at preventing more of what just happened at Arb enforcement - the more problems we try to solve, the more we'll split the community and probably end up solving nothing. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  @Boing: I appreciate the logic, and should have explicitly acknowledged your good work in opening the discussion here so promptly. Sorry about that.
  However, my concern is that you have underestimated the community's loss of patience with Nikkimaria, and therefore been a little too cautious. Even the minor extension of your proposal to ban the editing of infoboxes would make a huge difference to the effectiveness of the topic ban. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:11, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Gerda definitely breached her restrictions, so that AE report was valid and justified. Andy's breach was a technical breach that most at AE concluded didn't breach the spirit of his restriction, so that report was reasonable, too: a reasonable person could see Andy's behaviour there as a breach of his restriction. On the diffs so far presented about Nikkimaria's behaviour, I can't support any kind of sanction. (10:42, 22 July 2014) I just read the Nikkimaria AE report, and now agree with Sjakkalle, below.
  Support #1 and #2, oppose #3. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:52, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support proposal #1 and #2 ("infobox removal" and "1RR"), but oppose #3 ("policing"). Due to the edit warring with infoboxes after having been specifically admonished for it by ArbCom, I think it is well within bounds for the community to pass a restriction like this that mirrors those of Gerda and Andy. However, we should avoid restrictions that prevent appropriate reports of misconduct. I understand that the idea is to prevent the tactic of first provoking a breach and then using it against the opponents, but banning otherwise appropriate reports strikes me as overbroad. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:09, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Nikkimaria did Pigsonthewing a favor by providing a reminder of the Arbcom restriction—it's only because PoTW's edit was deemed to be merely a technical fix that a lengthy block was avoided. I understand that third parties may view the AE reports with dismay, but the issue cuts both ways—those on the other side are dismayed that PoTW could imagine that it would be desirable to add an infobox after narrowly avoiding a site ban for infobox warring. What PoTW should have said when asked to self-revert was "I only added the template because it's obvious that it was intended, however I will self revert and leave it for others". Rather than a reply along those lines (or just a self-revert with no reply), PoTW chose a pointed response which shows that there is no reason for a remedy to be focused on Nikkimaria. Johnuniq (talk) 11:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. I'm striking #3, because I think User:Sjakkalle makes a good point. If we go with #1 and #2, then we'll even up the sanctions - it's not right that battleground opponents of infoboxes should be allowed to remove them while sanctioned proponents are not allowed to add them. And I think Nikkimaria's clear edit warring over infoboxes justifies a 1RR restriction — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:33, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Statement by Nikkimaria: I'd like to start by apologizing to the community - some of my actions recently have indeed been inappropriate. I have become increasingly frustrated with the activities in the infobox realm, and I let my frustration get the better of me.

  The two AE reports, believe it or not, were not my first choice of action. Gerda in particular I would prefer not to see sanctioned; however, Gerda in particular has breached her restrictions on multiple occasions, and both editors have found editors willing to proxy on their behalf. It seemed to me that if not me, then no one would report breaches of the ArbCom remedies; I am pretty damn sure that had a comparable restriction been imposed on me from the start and I had acted similarly, I would have been blocked long ago. This inequality led me to attempt to "even the playing field", as it were, by policing edits in the infobox realm.

  So here is what I will propose, moving forward: I will not remove infoboxes from articles that I did not create. This is in line with Gerda's restriction. The "nationality" guidance that BHG refers to has been removed from the infobox documentation, and I will not attempt to reinstate it; I have also already pledged to improve my use of edit summaries, and can certainly work on the communication issue further. More broadly, I intend to take steps to reduce my involvement in this conflict, and my tendency to get drawn into extended reverts. I welcome the community's input on how well (or not) my efforts are working. If, after say a few weeks, it is the consensus of the community that my editing remains out of line and that I have not adapted it to good-faith concerns, further sanctions will be appropriate.

  I need to go off-wiki now, so will be unable to respond for several hours. Hopefully you will consider my proposal as a means of reducing tensions. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:11, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  Continuing the battlefield mentality with accusations like "both editors have found editors willing to proxy on their behalf" does not seem to me like a very good way to go about reducing your involvement in the conflict — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:17, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  @NikkimariaL "Yes, I did some bad stuff, but they made me do it." You should have taken the admonishment by ArbCom as a huge red flag telling you to stay away from the infobox dispute entirely. That you didn't speaks volumes about your lack of judgment, and that raises very serious questions about your suitability to be an admin. BMK (talk) 16:09, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  @Nikkimaria I welcome the small signs of progress in your statement above, but I share the concern of BMK that your opening remarks look so much the sort of unblock request which is declined with a link to WP:NOTTHEM.
  That reply doesn't alleviate the concerns which I raised at WP:AE [20] that your approach to a huge swathe of conduct and content issues displays a persistent lack of maturity. I hope you understand that having pushed the community's patience so far, there is a widespread loss of confidence in your abilities as an editor, as an admin, and a colleague. That's a difficult situation to pull back from, because you have calculatedly and repeatedly destroyed the ability of so many editors to sustain any assumption of your good faith. AFAICS you can avoid escalating sanctions only if you now make extraordinary efforts to up your game on a number of fronts.
  If you are genuinely committed to turning a corner, may I suggest that you consider seeking out one your critics as a mentor? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:29, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  BHG et al: Yes, I understand that. My intention with my statement was to explain why I got to where I am, not to attempt to excuse it. As mentioned, I intend to take steps to improve my conduct immediately. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:58, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support #1 and #2 (prohibition of removing infoboxes and 1RR). Per the comments of BrownHairedGirl I would expend the first restriction to also cover the removal of information from infoboxes as well as the removal of entire infobox. If the information in an infobox is wrong, she can draw attention to it on the talk page and a non-topic banned editor can remove it if there is consensus to do so. I would also add #4: Nikkimaria must use accurate and descriptive edit summaries for all edits; and #5: Nikkimaria is warned that further edit warring, on any topic, will lead to blocks. The penalty for breaching any of these restrictions should be the same as for the remedies passed in the arbitration case, i.e. blocks starting at one month. Thryduulf (talk) 12:33, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  In effect we already have #5, in that any admin can unilaterally respond to edit warring by issuing a block. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:52, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  @Boing Do we really? In practice, admins are wary of unilaterally blocking other admins, and are even wary of doing so at WP:AN3. Something explicit here would give more admins the confidence to act on any further edit-warring. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:12, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  Well, I wasn't afraid of blocking other admins when I was one ;-) But you make a good point - we do tend to see admins allowed to get away with things that an 'ordinary' editor would be blocked for, so maybe some sort of pre-approved support would help. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:23, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Support #1 and #2. Given that infoboxes are attractive, these restrictions will be effective. Interestingly I have to agree with BHG about Nikkimaria. I remember when we were editing, Nikkimaria would continue to revert and never address the concerns, her edit summaries are erroneous. After edit war, she created another issue and she had never talked about it. Such behaviour is not the best. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 12:55, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Comment I've added a few diffs to my opening statements, above — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:07, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I just saw. Thanks. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 13:22, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Request to slow down and have a look at all the sides. First, I'd feel a little better about the reporting admin's involvement or lack of involvement if I hadn't seen this. Better would be for one or two completely uninvolved admins to take the time to read all the diffs and then decide where this should go. The following questions are worth consideration: why is Nikkimaria frustrated? Does her allegation of proxying have merit? Why did Montanabw add 13 infoboxes to articles where the ensuing drama was almost guaranteed to occur? Why is Gerda forgiven when she claims to forget her sanctions and yet she mentions them fairly frequently? In my view it takes two to tango and in this case more than one person was reverting - why not look at everyone's behavior and then decide how to solve this? Finally, I'm not convinced these remedies will achieve anything except to create even more factionalism, entrenchment and bad feelings. P.s, - I've stared at this for 15 minutes before hitting save. Wading into this mess is never pleasant but I strongly believe this is the wrong solution and the wrong venue. Victoria (tk) 14:49, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  I am not an admin. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Suppport (1&2) - I agree with BHG that this proposal doesn't go nearly far enough in dealing with Nikkimaria's behavioral problems (which really are well beyond the standards expected of an admin). However, this is a start, and can perhaps be the "short, sharp shock" that gets Nikkimaria back on track and prevents her from heading towards the desysop she seems to be recklessly stumbling towards. BMK (talk) 15:31, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  Oppose - Given her statements and, more importantly, her request for desysoping, no additional sanctions are needed at this time, as Nikkimaria now deserves the chance to show that she can change her behavior. BMK (talk) 15:39, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Comment as an uninvolved admin who has also commented in that capacity on the various AE requests: Without expressing an opinion about which sanctions may or may not be appropriate, I'd like to point out that there is an ArbCom decision, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes, where Nikkimaria was admonished for edit-warring on infoboxes, and others were sanctioned. Now I suppose that the community has the authority to impose sanctions of its own, but considering the previous decision it may be more appropriate to make this request for sanctions in the form of an amendment request to the Committee at WP:ARCA. This would ensure that the whole conflict area and all who are involved in the conflict remain subject to the same sanctions and enforcement framework.  Sandstein  15:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  There no reason to "suppose" that the community has the authority to impose sanctions when and where it chooses to - it does, and the intermediate step you suggest, of supplication to ArbCom, is both unnecessary and somewhat unseemly. I have suggested to the Committee, on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard that in the future is should make its "admonishments" enforceable at AE, but at this moment it is the view of admins there that an admonishment is not an AE-enforceable sanction. It therefore falls to the community, ArbCom having somewhat dropped the ball, to determine if Nikkimaria's behavior warrants a community-imposed sanction. It is neither necessary nor desirable to treat this as a situation which must be dealt with only by ArbCom. BMK (talk) 15:56, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. The discussion at Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement is replete with evidence of Nikki wikistalking/hounding various "opponents". One way or another, I would urge that that be addressed directly and forcefully here. It has been going on for too long, with too many "opponents," and the comments at Arb enforcement of opining sysops shows that they see that the problem exists. Epeefleche (talk) 16:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support implementation of #1 and #2: Nikkimaria must not remove info boxes from articles, and must adhere to 1RR when editing them. Her behaviour is disruptive and it needs to stop. I agree with BrownHaired Girl that these sanctions do not go far enough, as there's evidence of edit warring and other behaviour not conducive to collegial editing and inappropriate, especially for an admin. For example, the problem of her cryptic edit summaries has been raised on her talk page many times (October 2011, February 2012, January 2013, May 2013, June 2013, October 2013, May 2014) and she has promised to amend her behaviour, but the problem persists. It shouldn't take a thread on a dramaboard for her to respond to these very valid concerns of her fellow editors. She also engages in edit warring. Here are two recent examples: on Eugenie Bouchard, she removed the template {CAN} and replaced it with "Canada" six times between June 30 and July 6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; edit summary: "mos") in spite of the objections of multiple other editors. There's a discussion on her talk page here indicating this was part of a campaign to remove flag icons on a range of articles. On Longmont Potion Castle, she removed material 12 times between Apr 27 and June 6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). It wasn't until June 3—after having removed the material seven times already—that she provided a reason for the removal on the article talk page. Nikkimaria (like all of us) needs to go to the talk page right away when her edits are challenged, even if she believes she is right. Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of her edits, and whether or not the content she is changing/removing violates the Manual of Style, she shouldn't be edit warring to enforce style guidelines. To do so serves to alienate other editors and does little or nothing to improve the content from the reader's point of view. -- Diannaa (talk) 19:50, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. Nikkimaria has apparently accumulated quite a few people who disagree vehemently with her editing style, but this isn't an RFC/U. I think these sanctions are a bit harsh. Nikkimaria can maybe be a bit overzealous, but I don't think she needs a topic ban, and I don't think this situation should be used as a foot in the door to get further sanctions against her. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:43, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• @NinjaRobotPirate: I think the fact that this is not a RfC/U is the point. RfC/U is not binding; this would be. - Sitush (talk) 21:57, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Comment We have set the stage for ongoing episodes of the infobox wars by failing to set any sort of coherent guideline for when and where they should be used. The Arbcom case on the matter had this helpful finding of fact: "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article by site policies or guidelines." Before we clamp down on Nikkimaria, or Pigsonthewing, or Gerda Arendt, we have to be aware that this will go on, with different antagonists on each side, until we as a project provide some guidance on infoboxes. I'll echo the above that this thread really shouldn't become an open criticism section on Nikkimaria's editing style. It was posted to get consensus on two very specific points. On those points, I'm neutral. I don't like edit-warring, but I don't like ambiguous expectations on formatting either. The Interior (Talk) 21:42, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
• Support 1 and 2 I believe that Nikkimaria stepping away from all the infobox drama is the best way to go. Canuck^{89 (chat with me)} 08:02, July 23, 2014 (UTC)

Me again - thank you all for your feedback. I realize that some of my actions have been problematic. Now that I've been shown the extend of the problem and the community's reaction to it, I would like a chance to see if I can fix it myself. I believe I can, but if after a reasonable amount of time it turns out I'm wrong, I think stronger sanctions - up to and including a desysop or block - would be appropriate. Consider it a different application of WP:ROPE, if you want. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Nikki. What puzzles me, is that the diffs to the discussions with you both on your talkpage and on other talkpages and here and above reflect -- frankly -- an enormous amount of feedback prior to today. I've rarely seen someone on this board who had received more feedback prior to their being brought here. Yet, despite all that feedback, over a period of three years if not longer, and after being admonished by sysops and Arbs and members of the community, you continued up until the very point in time to exhibit the same behavior -- which you now describe as very problematic -- for which you've been admonished. Epeefleche (talk) 22:42, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Epee. I had made some changes in response to that previous feedback - for example, avoiding unique (self-invented) abbreviations in edit summaries. I was, however, too reluctant to accept concerns expressed by users with whom I was in dispute. I can now see that my adaptations so far have been insufficient, and that those concerns are shared by a broader representation of the community than I thought. Given this realization, I am fairly confident that I can make the further changes necessary, if allowed the opportunity to do so. One thing I've learned from the ArbCom saga is that self-driven change as opposed to imposed is far more effective. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:52, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks. Just so I'm clear, does your offer include "fixing" what a number of editors and sysops are concerned is wikihounding? As with your edit summaries, and the infobox issue that is a primary focus here, that is an area in which for an extended period of time members of the community have complained to you, but you have (as with edit summaries, generally) typically not accepted responsibility for what you were accused of. Thanks. Epeefleche (talk) 23:03, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• It includes all conduct issues raised in this and related discussions, as well as any future conduct issues that may be brought to my attention. Within the limits of policy - I'm not going to restore material violating copyright, for example, as was recently demanded - but certainly that should not apply to most established community members. In effect, my offer goes far beyond the restrictions proposed by Boing, and I think it would be have more of a chance of working than what he proposes (no offence, Boing). And if it doesn't, and if I do not respond appropriately to suggestions that it hasn't, I think pointing to this conversation would be more than enough to justify much stronger sanctions. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:26, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

• Many thanks for reducing the drama. I appreciate it. I hope your "offer" in this regard does not have a quid pro quo (i.e., that you will act that way whatever the rest of the community decides here; for my part, I think I will sit the rest of this out and not tender a !vote, given your comments above and below). Epeefleche (talk) 01:08, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• I appreciate your offer Nikkimaria, but I still think a community ban on removing infoboxes and a 1RR restriction on infoboxes should be imposed - even accepting your admirable response here, it is clear that the ArbCom sanctions are not even-handed, and it would not be fair for you to not face actual restrictions while your opponents are under similar bans in the opposite direction. I'd love to see a time when no infobox restrictions are needed, but while they are I remain convinced that they need to be applied equivalently to editors on both sides of the dispute. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:28, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• (No, I'm going to strike that and will comment below — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:05, 23 July 2014 (UTC))

• A request to Nikkimaria Nikki, I will be direct. Your stonewalling and mocking of concerns expressed to you by so many editors in good standing has been extraordinarily sustained and extraordinarily determined. When you became an admin in 2010, the then-current version of WP:ADMIN said "sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator, and consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators should especially strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another".
  That was part of the job description which you signed up to, and the wording of that section has changed little in 4 years. You knew the required standard from the outset, but had to be admonished by Arbcom only 8 months ago to remember what is required of you. Even despite that, you continued your unprofessionalism and sustained disruption right up the point where I promised an RFC on you a few days ago.
  So, bluntly, I don't trust your assurances. They have the ring purely of a last-ditch measure to try to avoid the sanctions which you have so determinedly made inevitable; you have already had plenty of rope.
  So I have a suggestion. At Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nikkimaria, you wrote on 17 August 2010 in response to Q4 about admin recall: "if a situation arises where recall would seem necessary I suspect that I would request my own de-flagging anyway". You are now on the cusp of steps which would lead towards a recall. So I ask that as a sign of the good faith of the assurances you are making now, that you act upon the assurances you made then, and promptly request your own de-sysopping.
  If you can restore the trust of the community, you might feel able at some future date to go back to RFA and ask for the return of the bit. If you stick to the spirit of your 2010 assurance, by de-sysopping yourself now, that of itself will be a significant step on your long path to restoring trust and it would allow me for one to support your latest WP:ROPE proposal. OTOH, if you try to wriggle out of the spirit of that 2010 commitment, I for one will regard it as evidence that your current last-ditch assurances are of little value, and I will continue to support the strongest sanctions against you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Done. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:11, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Well done! BMK (talk) 02:16, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Well, I didn't see that coming, but that's a very honourable action and I raise my hat to you. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:33, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• I also didn't expect that response, but I think it may be welcome. My caveat is that the discussion at WP:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Request makes it unclear whether Nikki accepts that this is happening under a WP:CLOUD. I will wait to see what happens. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:19, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• I see that it's now done. Congrats and thanks to Nikkimaria for the prompt response.
  Now that you have done that, I support giving you the WP:ROPE to demonstrate that you can adopt a new style of editing. I wish you luck. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't see the need for any sanctions. Would like to see a couple of the commentators above following Nikki's example. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:42, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose, as per Johnuniq and Hawkeye7. It's a shame Nikkimaria has been hounded out with pitchforks, and I'd urge this to be closed before the tar and feathering starts. - SchroCat (talk) 12:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - she has asked to be de-mopped (albeit it under a WP:CLOUD, though I do not see any abuse of the tools) and has also expressed a seemingly sincere desire here to improve. Therefore the topic ban is not needed at this time, hopefully she can resolve the issues raised and if not WP:ROPE applies. GiantSnowman 12:10, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment I have now removed Nikkimaria's sysop bit, per her request Worm^TT(talk) 12:25, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• I do think that ArbCom sanctions that are unevenly applied to contributors on the two sides of the dispute are unfair. But as Nikkimaria has made good on her promise and has turned in the bit, and has made a commitment to listen to what people are saying and to take remedial action, I want to give her the chance to do that and so I switch to Oppose the sanctions I originally proposed. — Alan / Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:10, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose she de-mopped. I think that is a big enough sanction, for now. If issues kick up again, it will be simple to start another discussion --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 14:39, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per BrownHairedGirl and Boing!'s comments, especially in light of Nikki's voluntary cloudy de-sysop and promises. This is an excellent step forward and I applaud Nikkimaria for it. Dreadstar ☥ 16:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per request for de-syop and many of the excellent comments above, especially that of Boing.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:27, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

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

SineBot dead

Resolved

 – Back up --slakr^\ talk / 16:57, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Ritchie333 here. I can't think of where else to write this, and I'm sure it's already been reported (in which case, sorry), but SineBot has not signed anything for about the last 3 days, appearing to go dead just after 20:08 19 July 2014. To prove it, I will deliberately not sign this post (I am opt-in).

• I dropped a note on the talk page of User:slakr who is the maintainer. Banner on the talk page suggests they may not be too available. Monty₈₄₅ 15:48, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Ooh... I edit on wikis that don't have a bot like SineBot, and it's quite annoying to have to sign comments that other people don't sign. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 16:51, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't know I rather like the fact that its not edit conflicting me when I forget to sign or want to add more to a post. I always thought it was an annoying pest. Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:22, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

If you work on any of the noticeboards that new users use regularly, such as the AFC HelpDesk, the biography of living persons noticeboard, or any number of AfD debates, then SineBot is invaluable. Signing posts is not intuitive to new users (if it was, most people would do it) and without automatic signing, trying to work out who wrote what in a noticeboard full of newbies is a major pain. I am genuinely surprised to learn that not only is the bot not controlled by WMF Labs, but it's closed source. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:39, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

SineBot is dead. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 10:01, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

The sooner we have WP:FLOW rolled out more widely, the better. WaggersTALK 10:10, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

That's definitely a matter of opinion... Black Kite (talk) 10:29, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

There are still huge problems with Flow. I hope these will be fixed, but it is definitely not ready yet. Dougweller (talk) 17:02, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

A minority opinion at best. At least you could opt out of VE. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:01, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

SineBot is dead again

SineBot is dead again. Does anybody know what's going on? — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

No clue, but it seems that no one has as of yet alerted slakr, (or if they have, not on-wiki) so I am posting a message on their talkpage. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 20:42, 25 July 2014 (UTC) - EDIT: Message posted here. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 20:46, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

A Wikipedia feature I just discovered today - good for history merges

Today, I noticed a speial page which looked interesting - Merge page histories. It turns out to be a good tool for history merges. The major features of this tool, as far as I can tell, are:

1. It detects automatically which version of the source page is the latest one which is older than the oldest version of the target page, and won't let you move later revisions. This feature is good if the source page eventually became something else, but can be bad if the target page had started out as a redirect to the source.
2. You can, however, tell it to only move earlier revisions than that - you select the latest revision it should move.
3. It doesn't mix deleted and non-deleted versions of the target page.
4. It retains any protection the target page may have.
5. It doesn't create a new revision of the old page - a big advantage with history merges
6. If you move all non-deleted revisions of the source, a hard redirect is automatically created. This can't be overriden.
7. The logs for this action aren't in the move log - they're in a separate log.

עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:55, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Interesting that the log page claims the extension is disabled. Monty₈₄₅ 20:23, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

This feature was only recently enabled, if memory serves correctly. Someone probably forgot to update the blurb. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour ^{♪ talk ♪} 22:58, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is pretty cool; it was mentioned in the last tech news. I had a little play with it on my local MediaWiki installation when I first heard it would be used on Wikipedia, and then pretty much forgot about i7t when it was enabled here. I've removed the out-dated notes from the MediaWiki interface pages for the merge log (MediaWiki:Mergelogpagetext and MediaWiki:Mergelogpagetext/en-gb), updated Wikipedia:How to fix cut-and-paste moves to mention this special page (based on the text that started this thread by Od Mishehu, and mentioned this discussion at Wikipedia talk:How to fix cut-and-paste moves and Wikipedia talk:Moving a page. Graham87 02:55, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• Brilliant! Big thumbs up to the devs for this one. Jenks24 (talk) 06:43, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

  Guess I'm missing something, I tried to merge my sandboxes, but very little moved. The results are not the same as actually merging the complete histories; if processing an XFD for merge, what will be lost by using this tool vs the move/restore method? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:29, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

• If it history-merges page A to page B, how does it handle pages Talk:A and Talk:B, and any archives that they have, and any other /subpages of the articles or of their talk pages? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 20:20, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Anthony Appleyard:} It doesn't. Graham87 05:54, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
    • That's rather... disappointing. Killiondude (talk) 06:16, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
• Is there a help sheet for this thing? Looks like a great idea, but only when used by someone who already understands the theory. Until I've tested a lot of stuff in sandboxes, or until I can look at a help sheet, I'm not about to use this tool for real merges. [Update] Ugg, I saw the "unmerge" button in the log and decided to try to un-merge one revision from Xaosflux's sandbox, so I clicked the radio button for one revision, and it unmerged seven revisions. Why seven? [Update 2] I missed the bit about "it will merge the radio-button revision and all before it". Nyttend (talk) 03:42, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Certainly needs more clarity, btw merge my sandboxes all you want :D — xaosflux ^Talk 04:02, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Nyttend: There's documentation on MediaWiki.org, but it's not very helpful. Graham87 05:54, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Forum shopping

A requested move was started yesterday at Talk:West Germany#Requested moves, and also involves moving East Germany. This came two days after I closed a discussion agitating for the same move on Talk:East Germany. The result was fairly clear to keep the article at the current title based on WP:COMMONNAME. I fear the new RM on the West Germany talk page is forum shopping (it was started the same editor who started the original discussion on the East Germany talk page). I don't know if another admin wants to consider ending the RM? Number 57 08:41, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I've closed this but have a template problem - can anyone fix it? Dougweller (talk) 11:33, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

@Dougweller: -  Done. GiantSnowman 11:42, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Sukhoi Su-25

I protected Sukhoi Su-25 (a Russian-built ground attack aircraft flown by the Ukrainian Air Force) the other day as it is was subject to changes and edit wars related to the MH17 shoot down and Russian/Ukraine issues, (basically changing the cited service ceiling of the Su-25 to show it can reach the height of the Malaysian aircraft). The protection is due to expire later today, instinct is to extend the protection but not everybody is a fan of full protection so just looking for support or suggestions on the best way forward, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 12:00, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I think indefinite semi-protection would be warranted, given the number of IPs (mostly Russian) that were inserting outright disinformation. That should keep the activity down to a moderate level, and it seems to me that changes to the cited ceiling specification would be blockable as deliberate falsification of content. Acroterion (talk) 12:47, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

RFC closure review

Hello, I would like to request a closure review of this RFC by FormerIP (talk · contribs) please. There are a few elements to the closure that I disagree with:

1. It was a WP:NAC on a controversial topic, and one that will have an impact on hundreds/thousands of other articles.
2. The close is confusing and incomplete - it states that "both nationalities should be referred to in the opening sentence of the article", however does this mean that the wording should be X is a German-American soccer player, or does it mean that the wording should be X is a soccer player. Born in Germany, he represents the United States at international level, or perhaps even something else? Both seem appropriate wording according to the RFC close, yet the RFC was started precisely because the wording in my first example was disputed as it implied ethnicity as opposed to nationality.
3. It does not seem to accurately reflect the consensus.

I participated only briefly in the RFC, but participated more fully in earlier discussions that led to the RFC and am obviously INVOLVED. GiantSnowman 14:42, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

In response:

1. According to WP:CLOSE an RfC should not normally be overturned on the basis that the closer was not an admin. At the least, I think an explanation is required here as to how my not being an admin might be a relevant consideration.
2. I don't think this is the case, but if clarification is needed, why not simply ask for it? It is true that the close restricts itself to the central question debated in the RfC and leaves a number of possibilities open for precise wording (although not the second of those you suggest here, because the close stipulates that nationality should be dealt with in the first sentence). I think this was appropriate - a close should not be any more restrictive than is necessary. Although I don't personally think it is needed, I could amend it to provide additional guidance about how the opening sentence might be worded, if it is felt that this would be helpful.
3. The votes were more-or-less evenly split and one side based their argument on there being a pre-existing consensus for their position. But they were challenged about this during the RfC and failed to produce any evidence showing such a consensus exists. Indeed, the evidence that was produced pointed instead towards an error on their part (in thinking that WP:MOSFLAG governs article leads, which it clearly doesn't). I don't think any other interpretation of consensus was possible, given that one side of the argument rested on a premise that was completely unsupported by evidence.

Formerip (talk) 20:37, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• Overturn, reopen, someone else close later down the road Was closed waaay too early, and the close looks like a supervote. Discussion had not died down by any means. Saying things like "I spot-checked a few relevant articles, and found a mixture of approaches, with some mentioning multiple nationalities, some mentioning multiple nationalities but downplaying one or more (e.g. "a Brazilian-born Spanish footballer"), some not mentioning any nationality, but instead naming countries the person had played for and some only mentioning one FIFA nationality. I could also see that some editors involved in this discussion have also recently been active in enforcing their preference in the subject-area." and "There was a parallel discussion at WP:BLPN, but I did not feel that this added anything substantive to the discussion here." (which means the possibility of using arguments not presented in the RFC) appears to say the decision is based on his own partial research and biases, a no-no for a closer. Nothing personal against FormerIP, but that was a bad close. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 15:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
  • • It is true that I carried out my own partial (in the sense of "inexhaustive") research as part of the close, but I don't think this was impermissible. In this case, the argument of one side rested on the claim of a pre-existing consensus, for which no evidence was presented during the RfC. There was a parallel BLPN discussion, and it may have been that the crucial evidence had been presented there. Or, there may have been prior talkpage discussions unreferenced by the parties but which supported their case. Or, there may have been uniformity of practice in the subject area, which would have at least pointed to the possibility of a consensus existing. In the event, I did not find any of these things (so it made no difference to the close), but I don't think there is a basis for saying that it was wrong of me to try. Note that, in the hypothetical case that things had been different, this would not have involved bringing arguments made externally to the RfC into the close, but it might potentially have brought a different complexion to the arguments actually made in the RfC.

    I think that you should consider either explaining or striking the suggestion that the close was biased. Formerip (talk) 20:59, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

    • I think you are taking the term "bias" in a way other than I meant to use it. I didn't question your faith, just how you reached your conclusions, and using outside information does bias the conclusion. IE: influence. Looking at the other articles (WP:WAX comes to mind) and checking the other discussion. I didn't question your neutrality, and you even made it clear the close was against your personal preference. It sounds like you used (or attempted to use) arguments that were not included within the discussion, and you aren't supposed to do that for a close. Under no circumstance did I mean to infer you had a NPOV or cultural bias. I used the word as plain English, not Wikispeak. I would also note your sentence " I could also see that some editors involved in this discussion have also recently been active in enforcing their preference in the subject-area." which seems a note of frustration because of the actions of others, which might have influenced the decision. You did think enough of it to include it in the closing statement. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 21:47, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• I think that's a personal view of yours, Dennis. Certainly, when I undergo the process of weighing arguments, I feel free to do some outside research to help. If one side in an AFD screams "no reliable sources", I will look at the sources. If I see that they consist of Nobel prize winners that are being quoted in their precise area of expertise, that helps me weigh the "no reliable source" argument without making me biased. Similarly if a keep argument is based on the sourcing, I will take a moment to ensure that the site quoted actually does seem to have some kind of reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. I try to give the people making the argument the benefit of the doubt, but nothing precludes (or even discourages) a closer from verifying arguments made during a discussion.—Kww(talk) 23:32, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• I do the same things, verify the claims made in the arguments, those are normal parts of a close. I don't go check other articles to see how applied (or failed to apply) policy or go looking for opinions in other discussions, however. That is where you are introducing arguments outside of that discussion. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 00:43, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• So, in this case, how would you have gone about checking the claim of a pre-existing consensus? Formerip (talk) 00:47, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• "There was a parallel discussion at WP:BLPN" is a problem and shouldn't have made a difference or even been considered. Any consensus in FOOTY should be reflected on the main page of FOOTY, which is pretty well documented and would contain any real consensus. Would I have looked for other RFCs in the archives? Maybe some, but really, those should be indicated on the main page. Unless the vote links to the consensus, I wouldn't go searching an hour as it is their responsibility to back their claims if they aren't obvious or easy to find on the main page. That is like someone saying "it's notable" at AFD without more explanation. So the short version is, when closing, if a !vote makes you have to go on a scavenger hunt, it is a weak or unsubstantiated !vote, and they haven't done their job in presenting their case. That is their job, not yours. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 01:06, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• So, on that basis, I should have just rejected their argument out of hand. Instead, I made some investigations to see if their argument stacked up, found nothing to say that it did, then rejected their argument. Either way, same result. So why are you supporting an overturn of the decision? Formerip (talk) 01:12, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• I didn't ask for an overturn because your conclusion is wrong (I don't have an opinion on what the proper close should be, not an area I know well enough to close). I said overturn because of the methodology in the close, the technicals of the close are what is bad, and that makes for a bad close, whether or not a good close would have the same conclusion. Since I don't know the topic very well, it would be difficult for me to have faith in this close, whereas a clean close I could trust. Again, it isn't personal at all, I think you closed in good faith and don't have a problem with you doing other closes, but I think you made some procedural mistakes that reduce the authority in the decision. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 01:48, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• • @Dennis Brown: Why do you think it was closed too early? The close was made 33 days after the RfC started and 27 days after the final comment. Number 57 15:13, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
    • Struck that portion, oldtimers bit me. The rest stands, however. And for the record, I'm as pro-NAC as they come, so that has nothing to do with my conclusions. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 17:24, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
• Comment as an involved party Whilst I have some sympathy with the second point made by GiantSnowman, I disagree with his third; closing an RfC is about weighing up the strengths of the arguments put forward, not seeing how many people !voted each way. The "one nationality" side could not provide any evidence backup to their claims of a consensus, which FormerIP noted in his closing comments. Also, I didn't see anyone able to justify the "one nationality" stance, except claiming it was due to a previous consensus (no evidence of which was provided). Even a personal discussion with the most opinionated editor on his talk page resulted in him admitting that he was unable to justify only having one nationality in the introduction (it was thinking above his pay grade apparently), and was only arguing that way because he believed there was consensus. Number 57 15:19, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• There are two results we need from the RFC which deals with a sportsperson who was born with one nationality but represented a different nation at international level - how many nationalities do we display in the lede, and how do we display them? The RFC was closed too early, as Dennis says, and we were not afforded time to fully discuss both of these elements. GiantSnowman 15:45, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
  • How was it closed too early? There had been no further discussion for almost a month – lack of time was not an issue. Perhaps what should have happened is that the closer should have recommended a second discussion to decide between the two, but I certainly don't see a problem in closing the "one or two" side of the debate. Number 57 15:57, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• • • • Perhaps a second discussion would be useful if editors want that. I don't necessarily think it's part of a closer's job to initiate follow-on discussion about matters not covered by the RfC, though. Editors can do that for themselves if they want to. Formerip (talk) 20:49, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• • • It wasn't closed as early as I thought but there was ongoing discussion. Not a particular problem since it had been a month but not ideal. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 18:36, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

• Endorse close. I'm unsure how this being an NAC has anything to do with the result (no tools were needed for this close). I'm also unsure how this is precedent setting for hundreds-thousands of articles since the close seems tailored to this page (The MOS is, and should effect many articles... that to my understanding is the reason we have a MOS). The close appears to me to reflect the consensus that was found (i.e. that both his German and American nationality should be mentioned in the lead). That the consensus that was established does not quite answer the question of the RFC does not seem to be an issue with the close, just with the discussion (which did not address that specific issue). Responding to above, I agree with Number 57 that discussion had died down (last time stamp appears to be June 23). Crazynas ^t 16:50, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
• Endorse close - This result was within the closer's discretion. Agree with Crazynas that it applies just to the article about John Anthony Brooks and we can't assume that it settles the issue for all other articles on footballers of mixed nationality. The closer faced a problem in that the issues weren't precisely stated -- e.g. this was not a vote on an actual opening sentence. Given the vagueness of the question posed and the vagueness of many of the arguments, coming up with Both Brooks' German and American nationalities should be referred to in the opening sentence of the article seems well within the parameters and it does not go against any hard evidence offered in the discussion. In my opinion closing this as No Consensus would also have been possible. Regarding non-admin closures, I don't personally object to non-admins closing a thread like this on a content matter. As to future RfCs, nothing rules out having more RfCs about nationality. It is probably impossible to stop them. EdJohnston (talk) 02:45, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Rossana Reguillo

I noticed that there is what looks like a regular article (Wikipedia:Rossana Reguillo) in the Wikipedia pagespace. I tried to move it to the main article pagespace, but was prevented from doing that because Rossana Reguillo already exists as a redirect to Wikipedia:Rossana Reguillo. Someone will need to delete the redirect page so that Wikipedia:Rossana Reguillo can be moved. Thanks. RationalBlasphemist (Speak) 00:34, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Deleted the redirect and moved the article over it. For future reference, you can use the {{db-move}} template to request such deletions. Monty₈₄₅ 00:45, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Great, thanks! I didn't know about that template. RationalBlasphemist (Speak) 03:10, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Allowing email survey

At User talk:Taylordw#Question for administrator the user explains that he wants to send 590 emails inviting a particular set of users to take part in a survey, but is prevented by the anti-spam email throttle. He has reasons for wanting to use email rather than a talk-page messages.

It appears that giving him the Account Creator right would exempt him from the email throttle and let him do what he wants. That is not what Account Creator is intended for, of course, but I am prepared to invoke IAR and give him the right for, say, 24 hours. Does anyone see any objection? JohnCD (talk) 12:14, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I share the hesitation around it not being the intended purpose of Account Creator but other than that have no objection, so I would agree with granting the privilege for a limited amount of time. They are of course relying on all their intended recipients having the email preference enabled, but I guess that's their problem. The only alternative I can think of is that they modify the survey to ask for each user's username, and ensure these are unique, but that would mean (a) the survey wouldn't be anonymous and (b) anyone could enter someone else's username - so that wouldn't work. Giving Account Creator seems like the simplest solution! WaggersTALK 12:48, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Has the research project/meta:Research:Subject recruitment been approved by the Research Committee? See meta:Subject Recruitment Approvals Group –xeno^talk 13:09, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

That system seems to be dormant - it describes itself as a draft, but hasn't been edited since 2011. The last entry on the talk page said it "is now in limbo pending the needs of RCom (m:Research:Committee)", but RCom too seems to be dormant - under "highlights" on its page it says that "The last RCom meeting took place on: December 22, 2011", and m:Research:Subject recruitment says "The research committee no longer evaluates requests". JohnCD (talk) 13:56, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Email is best reserved for confidential messages. I see no reason why the invitation can't be posted openly on these users' talk pages. Since 590 users is a large number, prepare to get some grief for spamming whichever way this is handled. It might help to win support for this venture if someone would post a copy of the intended message so we can see that it represents a good use of our editors' limited attention. If you want only the right people to respond, you could invite each one to post a note on their talk page to say they've completed the survey. To see if your approach is workable, you might consider drawing a random sample of 100 editors (from the 590) first before doing the complete survey. EdJohnston (talk) 15:22, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

RCOM itself is dormant, but Aaron Halfaker of the WMF still seems interested in performing its review function for studies that recruit participants. @EpochFail: any thoughts on the above? Nathan ^T 20:10, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Closers for RfC on paid editing

Discussion is at WT:COI. There are good reasons why closers don't usually sign up until an RfC is over, but I'd prefer to have closers for this one sooner rather than later. It's been a problem with big RfCs over the last few years that closers have needed a fair amount of time to get up to speed and to come up with a closing statement, and that has seemed to sap the interest and focus of the community. I'll try to do better with this one. - Dank (push to talk) 15:35, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Last time I signed up to close an RfC the closure got badly highjacked, closed horribly (at least last time I looked) and was turned into a farce. I'll not participate like that again - I'm embarrassed enough by the first one - so much so that I withdrew rather than have my already-sullied name attached to it. the panda ₯’ 22:56, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Appeal of topic ban for Antidiscriminator

Five days ago I was topic banned (link to discussion) by Drmies who closed this discussion stating "The amount of input is less than optimal, but the evidence of disruption is certainly there. "A ban on Antidiskriminator editing in topics involving 'Serbs and Serbia 1900-current' (broadly construed)" it is." (diff).

1. I believe that serious accusations against me were not supported with evidence in the related AN discussion.
   • Practically, only one single diff of my edits was presented in that discussion, and that diff was not evidence of disruption because it was actually based on two wikipedia policies and valid arguments presented on the talkpage and edit line.
   • Many links to talkpage discussions presented in the related AN discussion, I believe, do not contain evidence of my disruptive editing.
2. In case the consensus would be reached that evidence of my disruptive edits were indeed presented in the related discussion, I assure everybody that I was unaware of it. In that case I will promise and oblige myself not to repeat the same mistake again.

I think the topic ban should be withdrawn as unjustified or withdrawn and replaced with warning. I notified Drmies about this discusssion (diff).

I have no experience in posting this kind of appeals so I sincerely apologize if my appeal does not follow necessary procedure. If necessary I will adapt it promptly. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 15:58, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• I'll 'fess up that I don't rightly know if this is what Antidiskriminator should do or not, but when I checked the Editing Restriction page a while ago I couldn't find clear instructions. I have nothing to add beyond what I told Antidiskriminator on my talk page, where you'll find some others have weighed in as well. I'm about to archive my mammoth talk page and will drop a link here momentarily. Antidiskriminator, good luck with it. Drmies (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Coffee is over in the archive. No donuts today; you may take one of these.

• Earlier question and answers by others (including a recent comment by Bishonen) now available at User_talk:Drmies/Archive_70#Topic_ban. It's a lot of text, so I'll put a cup of coffee and maybe a donut in that section. Drmies (talk) 17:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

* Oppose - First, it's too soon, secondly, there was more than one diff presented of the behavior, and thirdly there was agreement that the ban was appropriate (I didn't vote or comment in it at all ) Kosh Vorlon    16:33, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

There were several diffs for barnstars I awarded to other editors and a couple of diffs which were reverts of vandalism and can not serve as diffs which are evidence of any kind of disruption.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 21:58, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

* Comment - Ad, You have got to be kidding. How about pointing the admins here to Talk:Pavle Đurišić and its last three or four archive pages, or Talk:Vojislav Lukačević? Or any of the other talk pages where you went on and on and on about minutiae as if they threatened the end of the world? This is exactly what you did when you were indefinitely banned by User:EdJohnston at ARBMAC over Pavle Đurišić. In this case, you kept on editing elsewhere even though you were well aware that a ban was being contemplated at ANI, yet you did nothing to defend yourself at ANI while the discussion was ongoing. Seriously, any admin looking at this needs to talk to User:Drmies and EdJohnston (if he is still out there somewhere) and have a good look at the ANI thread. Ad, you have been behaving like this for years (literally), and your tendentious editing behaviour is the reason you were indeffed on sr WP, and, I assume, why you are editing here. When will you get the message that your tendentious editing behaviour is not OK? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 16:53, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

*Comment: I agree with Peacemaker67's summary. The original AE ban of Antidiskriminator from November 2012 was only from the Pavle Đurišić article, because he seemed to be fixated on the issues there to the point that he was blowing up the talk page. Later, in January 2014 the ban was lifted but his response was to go back to Pavle Đurišić and continue with the original problematic behavior. My rule of thumb was, 'Any discussion about Yugoslavia in WWII in which Antidiskriminator participates will never reach a conclusion.' Anybody who thinks that Antidiskriminator behaved well at Talk:Pavle Đurišić after his ban was lifted in January 2014 is invited to start reading the talk archives beginning with Talk:Pavle Đurišić/Archive 5#Say where you read it and Citation overkill. That's the point where he was allowed to resume his participation on Talk. He is extremely devoted to removing from Wikipedia the report that Đurišić received the Iron Cross. It seems that no discussion is too annoying to pursue (or too implausible) if there is any chance he will succeed in this aim. He does not care if he wastes the time of others in this goal. If I'd been aware back in January that Antidiskriminator was resuming the fight exactly where he left off I'd most likely have reimposed the AE ban from Pavle Đurišić. So I'm obviously not disappointed that AN decided to impose a broader topic ban from 'Serbs and Serbia 1900-current' (broadly construed)", per the discussion closed by User:Drmies. EdJohnston (talk) 17:50, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• Your rule of thumb is wrong. Dozens of issues were resolved at Pavle Đurišić thanks to me. Most of the issues discovered during my review were were resolved by reaching a consensus with other editors (permanent link to the summary of the review). I don't think I mentioned Iron Cross since January when I wrote a couple of comments, grounded in wikipedia rules. You were informed about it at your talkpage and your reply was "I'm hoping that Antidiskriminator will show willingness to accept consensus on the matter of the Iron Cross and to discuss briefly." (diff). And I did discuss briefly. Actually, after your comment I did not discuss it at all. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:05, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
• So being "fixated on the issues" and "blowing up the talk page" results in a topic ban on Serbian topics 1900-present? This is absurd. He didn't even have a chance to adress your AN nomination. A warning, if delivered (rather than a ban), should not regard a topic as broad as 1900-present.--Zoupan 21:27, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• Bishonen's comment in that archived discussion puts the lie to this. Drmies (talk) 21:38, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• Decline and place limit on future appeal Seriously - a validly-imposed topic ban was just implemented. This "appeal" is a frivolous waste of the community's time because the community and the evidence were quite clear. Place limit on future appeals to no sooner than 6 months from closure of this waste of time the panda ₯’ 22:18, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I sincerely apologize if my appeal is perceived as "a frivolous waste of the community's time". I appealed here because I did not see an evidence of disruption in the related AN discussion. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 22:35, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, the community did, and the evidence was so obvious that very few people needed to comment for the Admin to read the consensus. I don't even think I commented because it was that obvious the panda ₯’ 23:58, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

The consensus is based on arguments grounded in wikipedia policies. Not on proposals or !votes of the group of involved editors. That is acknowledged by one of them at related AN discussion: "People, what we need here is more input from uninvolved observers. As much as I would want this topic ban to happen, it's no use for us involved people to be proposing or "!voting" for things here. Without outside attention, nothing's gonna happen." --Antidiskriminator (talk) 00:11, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

• Decline. Although I do not feel I am in possession of enough information to make any specific allegations against AD, editors may wish to note my comments in closing an RfC about an article he created, here. Formerip (talk) 00:53, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything revisionist or fringe in the article I created. I don't think anybody has ever disputed the assertions presented in the text of this article.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 01:06, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I've posted more details below. Please note again that I am not making any allegation against you - it's just that I think the article needs particular attention. Formerip (talk) 02:09, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

I have attempted to make a sockpuppet investigation, but I am unable to complete it because I am not a registered user. Please may someone send this Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/Cooperative Guy to the main page? 159.92.1.1 (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

 Done by DeltaQuad (talk · contribs). TLSuda (talk) 22:01, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

User WattleBird refusing to follow rules and cooperate

There is currently edit under debate at the American Dad! article Season 11 & 12 dispute. So far three users believe the edit should be one way while two others, WattleBird and Davejohnson, believe it should be another. To be completely fair, while the edit is under debate on the talkpage, I have reverted the article back to the version it was at before the debated edit was instated. Mind you, this left neither belief of the edit in the live article, as shown here [21] and here [22]. Moreover, It is Wikipedia policy that the article must go back to the version it was at if a new edit in question is under debate. However, Wattlebird has reverted back to his desired version of the edit while stating he is correct on the edit despite consensus, as shown here [23].

The user is pretty much taking it upon himself to conclude that the argument is over despite consensus having not been reached, as shown by his responses on the talkpage. I have made an effort to contact the person responsible for the source he believes supports his claims and the user has basically dismissed this and everyone else disagreeing with him, concluded that his version is right, and reverted, as shown by his responses here [24] and here [25] and reversions. The users behavior is growing increasingly difficult, unreasonable and domineering at the article and he's not following Wikipedia policy regarding the reaching of consensus. I have not warned this user because he's already bordering on incivility and it would just ignite the situation and I simply don't feel like dealing with that. Could this page be protected until consensus is reached? AmericanDad86 (talk) 22:19, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Did Wikipedia just burp or what?

The Talk:Star Trek page is acting very odd. It is not recognizing a lot of posts or signing. Is this a mass issue or just local?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:11, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

No, someone forgot to put in a closing ref tag. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:25, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a moment to look into it. I will remember this in the future should such a thing happen elsewhere.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:32, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Durdevdan uprising article

See Talk:Đurđevdan_uprising#Title_and_scope_RfC.

I wasn't able to draw a consensus from the discussion here, but I am concerned about the article. It is not an easy one, because most of the sources are in Serbian-Croatian. The events described in the article are, in general terms, real events (I am suspicious about one or two of the details, but that's a side issue).

What I am concerned about is the framing of the article. My feeling is that the sourcing generally on this topic reflects what is in the sr.wp article sr:Масакр у Санском Мосту, that there was a massacre of Serbs and Jews in a place called Sanski Most (modern-day Bosnia) in 1941, carried out by the Ustase. Prior to this, there had been some resistance activity in the area, which was used by the Ustase as a pretext for the massacre. The difficulty is that our article places emphasis on the resistance activity as if that, rather than the massacre, is the historical event worthy of a WP article. I'm concerned that this may reflect a revisionist/apologist/nationalist narrative (one that seeks to put war crimes committed by Croats or the Ustase into a context where they do not seem quite so bad, or where they are not the most important part of the story - although it should also be noted that the most significant contributor to the article is actually Serbian). I think this is a case where we ought to have an article about a war crime here, but what we have is an article about events which (according to some) provided some rationale for a war crime. The major difficulty is that there is a paucity of sourcing in English, so re-writing the article would not be a straightforward task for most editors.

Note that I am not making any allegations against any editors. I may have the wrong end of the stick, or editors involved in the article may have created a poor article in good faith by following sources.

I didn't feel I could resolve this issue via a close, so I'm seeking support and opinions about how further investigation or action should proceed. I don't see it as a major emergency requiring immediate resolution, BTW.

Apologies for not providing background reading - that's difficult because there's not much in English. I'll perhaps try to cobble something together later. Formerip (talk) 01:55, 26 July 2014 (UTC)