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Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Misplaced Pages 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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Administrative discussions

Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive367#RfC_closure_review_request_at_Talk:Rajiv_Dixit#RFC_can_we_say_he_peddaled_false_hoods_in_the_lede

(Initiated 20 days ago on 5 December 2024) - Ratnahastin (talk) 07:18, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive367#Close challenge for Talk:1948 Arab–Israeli War#RFC for Jewish exodus

(Initiated 12 days ago on 13 December 2024) challenge of close at AN was archived nableezy - 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Requests for comment

Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Mentoring process

(Initiated 223 days ago on 15 May 2024) Discussion died down quite a long time ago. I do not believe anything is actionable but a formal closure will help. Soni (talk) 04:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/In the news criteria amendments

(Initiated 78 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Turkey#RfC_on_massacres_and_genocides_in_the_lead

(Initiated 78 days ago on 8 October 2024) Expired tag, no new comments in more than a week. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

 Note: This is a contentious topic and subject to general sanctions. Also see: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard topic. Bogazicili (talk) 17:26, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

 Note: Not sure if anyone is looking into this, but might be a good idea to wait for a few weeks since there is ongoing discussion. Bogazicili (talk) 16:33, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines#Request_for_comment:_Do_the_guidelines_in_WP:TPO_also_apply_to_archived_talk_pages?

(Initiated 69 days ago on 16 October 2024) Discussion seems to have petered out a month ago. Consensus seems unclear. Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:34, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

 Note: Needs admin closure imho, due to its importance (guideline page), length (101kb), and questions about neutrality of the Rfc question and what it meant. Mathglot (talk) 21:28, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

And in true Streisand effect fashion, this discussion, quiescent for six weeks, has some more responses again. Mathglot (talk) 01:30, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 459#RFC_Jerusalem_Post

(Initiated 58 days ago on 28 October 2024) Participation/discussion has mostly stopped & is unlikely to pick back up again. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

 Note: This is a contentious topic and subject to general sanctions. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed.  22:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Grey_Literature

(Initiated 45 days ago on 10 November 2024) Discussion is slowing significantly. Likely no consensus, personally. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Option 2 was very clearly rejected. The closer should try to see what specific principles people in the discussion agreed upon if going with a no consensus close, because there should be a follow-up RfC after some of the details are hammered out. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 03:10, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

 Doing... —Compassionate727  13:43, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Compassionate727: Still working on this? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:18, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Ugh… in practice, no. I'm still willing to do it, but it's in hiatus because of the three(!) pending challenges of my closures at AN, while I evaluate to what extent I need to change how I approach closures. If somebody else wants to take over this, they should feel free. —Compassionate727  22:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Taking a pause is fair. Just wanted to double check. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

asking for an update if possible. I think this RFC and previous RFCBEFORE convos were several TOMATS long at this point, so I get that this might take time. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#RFC_on_signing_RFCs

(Initiated 42 days ago on 13 November 2024) - probably gonna stay status quo, but would like a closure to point to Bluethricecreamman (talk) 06:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

• Done Soni (talk) 21:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Check Your Fact

(Initiated 41 days ago on 13 November 2024) RfC has elapsed, and uninvolved closure is requested. — Red-tailed sock _{(Red-tailed hawk's nest)} 15:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#RfC Indian numbering conventions

(Initiated 39 days ago on 16 November 2024) Very wide impact, not much heat. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

• Consensus seems clear, I don't think my Indian-ness poses a WP;COI here, closed. Soni (talk) 22:03, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:List of fictional countries set on Earth#RfC on threshold for inclusion

(Initiated 35 days ago on 20 November 2024) TompaDompa (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (music)#RfC about the naming conventions for boy bands

(Initiated 16 days ago on 8 December 2024) No further participation in the last 7 days. Consensus is clear but I am the opener of the RfC and am not comfortable closing something I am so closely involved in, so would like somebody uninvolved to close it if they believe it to be appropriate.RachelTensions (talk) 16:00, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not comfortable closing a discussion on a guideline change this early. In any case, if the discussion continues as it has been, a formal closure won't be necessary. —Compassionate727  13:00, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Articles for creation#RfC: Should a bot be created to handle AfC submissions that haven't changed since the last time they were submitted?

(Initiated 39 days ago on 15 November 2024) This RfC expired five days ago, has an unclear consensus, I am involved, and discussion has died down. JJP_Master (she/they) 22:56, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Len_Blavatnik#RfC:_NPOV_in_the_lead

(Initiated 8 days ago on 16 December 2024) RFC is only 5 days old as of time of this posting, but overwhelming consensus approves of status quo, except for a single COI editor. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:04, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

The CoI editor has now accepted that consensus is for the status quo, but I think a formal close from an uninvolved editor, summarizing the consensus would be helpful, since the issue has been coming up for a while and many editors were involved. — penultimate_supper 🚀 16:35, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

yes, despite multiple posts to WP:BLPN, WP:NPOVN, WP:3O, several talk page discussions, and now an RFC, I doubt the pressure to remove word oligarch from the lede of that page will stop. An appropriate close could be a useful thing to point at in the future though. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done by Nomoskedasticity. —Compassionate727  13:30, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Template talk:Infobox country#Request for comment on greenhouse emissions

(Initiated 89 days ago on 27 September 2024) Lots of considered debate with good points made. See the nom's closing statement. Kowal2701 (talk) 09:47, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Compassionate727  13:29, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Israel#RfC

(Initiated 32 days ago on 22 November 2024) Legobot has removed the RFC notice. Can we please get an interdependent close. TarnishedPath 23:08, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Chloe Melas#RFC on allegation of making a false allegation (resubmission)

(Initiated 31 days ago on 24 November 2024) The bot has removed the RFC notice. Can we please get an independent close. TarnishedPath 23:03, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Compassionate727  13:44, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Deletion discussions

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of songs recorded by Mohammed Rafi (A)

Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:29, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion has now been relisted thrice. --Jax 0677 (talk) 00:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Arab migrations to the Levant#Merger Proposal

(Initiated 91 days ago on 25 September 2024) Open for a while, requesting uninvolved closure. Andre🚐 22:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:LGBT history in Georgia#Proposed merge of LGBT rights in Georgia into LGBT history in Georgia

(Initiated 79 days ago on 7 October 2024) A merge + move request with RM banners that needs closure. No new comments in 20 days. —CX Zoom 20:16, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Compassionate727  14:11, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Donald Trump#Proposal: Age and health concerns regarding Trump

(Initiated 70 days ago on 16 October 2024) Experienced closer requested. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Tesla Cybercab#Proposed merge of Tesla Network into Tesla Cybercab

(Initiated 68 days ago on 18 October 2024) This needs formal closure by someone uninvolved. N2e (talk) 03:06, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be better to leave that discussion be. There is no consensus one way or the other. I could close it as "no consensus," but I think it would be better to just leave it so that if there's ever anyone else who has a thought on the matter, they can comment in that discussion instead of needing to open a new one. —Compassionate727  14:15, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Stadion Miejski (Białystok)#Requested move 5 November 2024

(Initiated 49 days ago on 5 November 2024) RM that has been open for over a month. Natg 19 (talk) 02:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:JTG Daugherty Racing#Requested move 22 November 2024

(Initiated 32 days ago on 22 November 2024) Pretty simple RM that just needs an uninvolved editor to close. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 17:40, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Compassionate727  14:37, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Williamsburg Bray School#Splitting proposal

(Initiated 28 days ago on 27 November 2024) Only two editors—the nominator and myself—have participated. That was two weeks ago. Just needs an uninvolved third party for closure. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:37, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

 Doing... BusterD (talk) 20:28, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Winter fuel payment abolition backlash#Merge proposal

(Initiated 57 days ago on 29 October 2024) There are voices on both sides (ie it is not uncontroversial) so a non-involved editor is needed to evaluate consensus and close this. Thanks. PamD 09:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

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

RfC validity review requested

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

I am concerned that a recently-closed RfC substantially violated WP:RFC, resulting in keeping away interested editors and biasing the ones who appeared. I would like the validity of this RfC ruled on. For details, see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure/Archive 8#Talk:Ayn Rand.23Request for comment: Qualifying .22philosopher.22 in the lead sentence, particular the first link in it, which summarizes my concerns. MilesMoney (talk) 18:46, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

This is a content issue, not an administration issue. I respectfully point out that this is an inappropriate venue. Yworo (talk) 19:43, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Not so sure about that. If you click that link you will see that the user who closed the thread at ANRFC directed him to bring it here, and if I take the meaning correctly what is being asked for is a review of the RFC itself, not the underlying content issues. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:05, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Yup. I, JethroBT 20:07, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• And having reviewed the supposed "violations" in the framing of the RFC I must agree that there are none and the opening statement was appropriately neutral. And the close looks perfectly fair and clearly had a lot of thought behind it. I therefore endorse both the RFC itself and the close, and remind the reporting user that consensus is Misplaced Pages's fundamental model for decision making. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:12, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

  Thank you. I had no horse in this race, and tried to write a neutral RfC. Yworo (talk) 20:14, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

In regards to my decision to close rather than declare the RfC null and void per Miles' arguments, I did not agree that the opening statement to the RfC was particularly malfomed:

1. Miles argued that the opening (seen here) was biased because it omitted material such as tertiary sources that favored use of qualifiers and lacked arguments based on Rand's academic standing. None of this is required in an RfC opening. Miles also objected the use of the word "opinion" to describe the use of "amatuer" and "self-styled" as qualifiers to describe Rand, which they were (because this description of Rand is not present in reliable sources).
2. There was disagreement between Yworo and Miles on the phrasing, where Miles attempted to correct the RfC opener with this statement which definitely does not present the topic neutrally, and this statement in a later section. Yworo later reverted these changes here and here. This disagreement was perhaps a little disruptive, but given that the argument of initial bias is questionable, I do not believe this is a valid reason to call the discussion biased.
3. Miles argued that because the RfC was only included in the Biographies subtopic and not the Religion and Philosophy subtopic, the article attracted insufficient participation from the proper venues. He argued that this omission "...brought in editors who were interested in biographies, not philosophy, making it difficult to bring them up to speed on the relevant issues. I didn't see any evidence that lack of education or interest in philosophy detracted or muddled the discussion.

What I do see, if anything, is a great deal of bludgeoning on the part of Miles in the discussion, and this request to question my close, while valid, seems to be a continuation of that behavior. I, JethroBT 20:35, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Why was the RfC closed so quickly? I was in the process of developing a list of sources (I had already went through 13, published by Blackwell, OUP, CUP etc.) in order to offer an argument in the discussion. I would note that the discussion was mainly devoid of reference to reliable sources. The RfC started on September 24 and closed Oct 8th. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:02, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I asked for an admin to rule on its validity and close it on a policy basis so that it could be opened again neutrally. That's not what happened, which is fine. The sooner it's gone, the sooner we can move on. MilesMoney (talk) 02:50, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

It was closed because MilesMoney specifically requested closure, here. It seems to have backfired on him. Yworo (talk) 02:22, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

@Atethnekos: the discussion actually started back in August. See Talk:Ayn Rand/Archive 46#Again.2C not a philosopher. And with 46 archive pages for Talk:Ayn Rand, I bet your RS has been hashed out previously. So I recommend you check. But please do feel free to improve the article. I hope you enjoy the foray! – S. Rich (talk) 05:12, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand: that edit shows explicitly that he requested it be closed on "the basis of policy, not consensus". But the RfC was closed on the basis of consensus, explicitly. I still think the RfC should have been let to run for longer, if even just up to the standard 30 days. The RfC was being edited substantively less than 3 hours before closure (compare: and ). One can dismiss my would-be contribution as "hashed out" before having even seen it, but I think standards were not met with the result that I was not allowed to present it at all. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 06:52, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

As I said in the close and in the ANRFC request, assessing consensus is assessing relevant, policy-based arguments. I, JethroBT 08:49, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

@I JethroBT:, I think you misunderstand MilesMoney and Atethnekos. MilesMoney said, to paraphrase, 'please close this as malformed based on the procedural policy WP:RFC rather than weighing the merits and content policies.' After weighing the procedural policy, and finding it had not been violated, Atethnekos expected you to decline the close as you determined no procedural reason for close existed.--v/r - TP 13:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that does make more sense to me when described that way. Thanks for clarifying. Given that consensus was fairly clear though, I did not see much harm in closing. @Atethnekos:, I'm open to hearing your arguments if you think they were 1) not considered in the present discussion and 2) present a compelling, new argument that would change consensus per Misplaced Pages:Closure_review#Challenging_a_closing under "Closures will often be changed by the closing editor without a closure review:" #1 and #3. You can leave those comments on my talk page. However, given that consensus was fairly clear this time around and was endorsed, it might be better to to simply wait until the next RfC on the topic, which I anticipate will happen in a month. It's up to you what you'd like to do. I, JethroBT 14:57, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

JethroBT did the right thing and did it well. The RfC was closed on the basis of consensus, and the various arguments about the lede were well laid out in the discussions. More importantly, no WP policy was violated in the discussion as the article complies with WP:POLICIES. The other issue concerns guidelines for reaching consensus. E.g., were guidelines followed in setting up the RfC or in how it was carried out? Perhaps, and perhaps not. But editors are smart enough to figure out what editing issues were at stake. They had their say in this regard. Since no POLICY has been violated as a result of the RfC, the issue that MM is concerned about – policy violation – does not provide a basis for reversing the results of the RfC. @I JethroBT: you did good. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 15:01, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Srich, aside from making another appearance in your whistle-stop and flattery tour for Admin candidacy, what earthly reason is there for you, an involved editor, to comment here after the matter has been reviewed and resolved? Please consider a ratchet down. SPECIFICO talk 16:47, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your offer, I shall take you up on it. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 16:57, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Guys, I created this section because I wanted the RfC's validity ruled on by an admin, not just an editor who chose to volunteer. I had expected an admin to respond to my closure request, so when that didn't happen, I came here. The RfC has since been ruled valid, and regardless of how I feel about the ruling, I am bound to accept it. As I said to Mark Arsten, "I will not dispute the results of this RfC nor edit against its stated consensus", and I'm going to continue living up to that.

So I'm not going to dispute the results, but I'm still going to comment on how we got there, because it wasn't quite right. I'm glad the RfC is closed, one way or the other, because I don't see how dragging it out any longer could have helped. In my view (which is contradicted by Beeblebrox), the RfC was too flawed to come up with a meaningful result. Best to clear it out of the way and move on. More deeply, I think it was a case of the tail wagging the dog. The lede has to reflect the article, so any progress has to be to the article as a whole before the lede can be updated to reflect it.

Anyhow, TParis is correct that I requested that the RfC be closed on a policy basis, not a consensus basis. The result I expected is that, if there was no willingness to close it on a policy basis, it would remain open. JethroBT took matters into his own hands and did more than I requested. It didn't much matter this time, but it's still a bad thing. Editors answering requests shouldn't just go off on their own.

My other concern is that JethroBT, in explaining his decision, admitted to some pretty basic factual errors. The biggest one is that he claimed there were no reliable sources for "amateur" or "self-styled". In fact, the two qualifiers are supported directly by the Oxford Companion to Philosophy and Reason.com, and nobody has seriously questioned their reliability. The counterarguments have been on other bases, some of them involving policy.

While I am still not disputing the results, I don't feel that this methodology was sound or should be repeated in other cases. In particular, if he made such basic errors, then I don't believe he was qualified to come to any conclusions. I would politely suggest that he avoid getting involved in RfC's if he does not have the time to invest in actually reading what was posted. It's highly counterproductive.

I would also have preferred it if Beeblebrox, not JethroBT, had explained their reasoning. I'm sure you can understand that "I don't see nothing wrong here" isn't a very satisfying explanation. If nothing else, I would have learned something if they'd explained their view of policy as it applies here.

Finally, I feel strongly that the behavior of both Yworo and Srich32977 here has been atrocious. They show a strong WP:BATTLEFIELD mentality, and their subsequent actions on the article talk page were gross violations of WP:TPO; both took this as an opportunity to shut down discussions.

That's all. Once again, I want to remind you that I am not disputing the results, and I will remain bound by them. That doesn't mean things were done right, and it doesn't mean Yworo and Srich32977 should go unpunished for their behavior. Regardless, the matter of the RfC should be considered closed. Please consider this a post-mortem, as we're examining an issue that is very dead. MilesMoney (talk) 05:24, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

It is dishonest of you to say "I'm not disputing the results" and then go ahead and dispute the results by criticizing pretty much every step of what happened. I see no link to any URL pointing to Reason.com in the discussion (nor anywhere on the page currently), and I already noted in my close why the removal from the Oxford Companion is not compelling on its own: Removal from a single compendium of philosophers does not seem to constitute a need to qualify the term. It's true that no one questioned the reliability of the Oxford Companion. But that wasn't really the point-- several other concerns about heavy reliance on this source were raised: , , , . That you disagreed with all them does not null their arguments. I, JethroBT 06:09, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Calling me dishonest is simply a personal attack, as you are accusing me of intentional deception. I recommend that you redact that and accept that we have an honest disagreement.

Unfortunately, you've made another factual error. If you read carefully, you'll find that there are two references to Ayn Rand in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy. The one you referenced is in the preface, on page x, which briefly mentions that Rand's bio was rejected. The other is on page 762, where it calls Rand's philosophy "amateur". It's mentioned on the article talk page, and I even linked to a full copy of the relevant OCP article. The fact that you are unaware of this issue is deeply concerning.

As for resistance to this source, the usual argument is that it's "only" one source, as if we need more, or that it's insulting, as if that's relevant. However, I haven't seen anyone claim that the Oxford Companion to Philosophy is unreliable, and I wouldn't take them seriously. If anything, it is one of the very best sources available, given its high academic standing.

I'm sorry, but the facts here are entirely clear. I am not asking you to change what you did, or even apologize for it. I would prefer, however, that you recognize the errors you made and try to avoid making them in the future. I have to admit that you strike me as defensive and dismissive. I noticed, for example, that you didn't acknowledge that you went too far when you closed the RfC on the wrong basis. This is, as I said before, highly counterproductive. MilesMoney (talk) 07:22, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Close needed at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Template editor user right

The RFC on whether to add a template editor user right comes to a close today and will need to be assessed by an uninvolved administrator. Thanks to whoever chooses to take it on. equazcion� 16:46, 10 Oct 2013 (UTC)

Any takers? PS. Be sure to use {{closing}} if you've taken this on but haven't posted the close yet. equazcion� 02:40, 12 Oct 2013 (UTC)

The proper place to ask for closure is at WP:AN/RFC which I've already done. It appears that admins are busy with other fires currently... Hasteur (talk) 13:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Non-guideline page being edit-warred to be marked as guideline.

WP:MOSAM - which has never received any sort of community approval process - keeps being editwarred to be marked as a guideline. It's a poorly-written mess, and well below the standards of any real guideline. It has never had any sort of community approval process, it was just marked as a guideline, while existing so far out there from normal editing that no-one noticed for a while. Adam Cuerden 22:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I kind of agree with you, but, I strongly advise you to drop the issue. There appears to be a consensus at VPP that this isn't a problem and it's been de facto accepted as a guideline due to it's unchallenged use. Right or wrong, your concern has not gained community support.--v/r - TP 22:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

It's been marked a guideline for half a decade, and it's regularly enforced, so it is a guideline. A less-than-professionally written guideline, certainly, but even our most globally relevant and accepted policies started in similar states. More to the point though, Adam, since you've rejected and ignored many invitations to collaborate in improving it —even refusing to explain what you wish it said in the part you dispute— in favor of policy-violating forum shopping, canvassing, and edit warring, there is no reason to take any complaint you make about it seriously any longer. --erachima talk 23:02, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I think this *is* a guideline, by silent consensus, and through the actions of editors enforcing that written in the guidelines across various pages. Promotion to a guideline simply requires consensus, and if nobody complained or was able to remove the guideline tag in all of these years, that suggests the bulk consensus is it is a guideline - we're not a bureaucracy and we don't always have to follow proper procedures. I'd suggest you (a) identify clearly the problems with it and work on a consensus basis to improve and (b) or if you think it is unfixable or in need of a massive rewrite that will take months, start an RFC that is broadly advertised to have it downgraded from guideline status.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:21, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

That would be WP:EDITCONSENSUS, to drop the proper bit of WP:ALPHABETSOUP. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:04, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The only people who were calling for it to be a guideline at VPP are the members of the Wikiproject. Literally all non-membersd thought it was questionable. Adam Cuerden 06:53, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Being a member of a wikiproject doesn't make their views any less valid. You seem to really want this downgraded, and a broadly advertised RFC is the best way to make that happen. Consensus can change, and maybe now there is consensus that it is not a good one. I'd suggest rather focusing on fixing it until it's at a state you and other opponents can accept as guideline-ready. The tag at the top of the page is not the most important thing here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 07:41, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• Close - per close at VPP (to allow discussion to be in one place or to be posted to a forum where such guideline decisions can be made). However, here's my two cents. Guidelines require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline (not just WikiProjects). See WP:PROPOSAL. There does not seem to be too much participation in developing that page. Only one editor with more than twenty edits to the page and none of the editors with more than ten edits are an admin. There are a lot of What links here linkes, but it's hard to say what that means (e.g., whether the page has been used/enforced as a guideline for years or something else). If the page sat at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Anime- and manga-related articles for years with a guideline tag, then WP:EDITCONSENSUS would seem to apply. When was the page first listed at Manual of Style? Why the opposition to this page being a guideline (do other MoS guidelines already sufficiently cover the issues in the page)? Given the lack of users who have significant edits to the page, I tend to think that following WP:PROPOSAL with a request to make Anime- and manga-related articles a guideline may be needed to establish a high level of consensus from the entire community needed to create a guideline. -- Jreferee (talk) 09:14, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• Close as per the previous VPP close. There's no issue with the only people supporting a subject guideline being from that subject's WikiProject. At the end of the day, it's that WikiProject that set it up, and will use it most often; unless their guideline directly contradicts any policies or wide-reaching guidelines, then it should remain a guideline. Issues with exact content, writing style and so forth should be dealt with via reasoned discussion, or proactive attempts at improving it. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 10:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Admin bot

Would it be possible to start a bot with admin rights, to do very basic tasks, such as deleting redirects to deleted articles, deleting talk pages without a main article etc.? Or does one already exist? GiantSnowman 11:47, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

There are already several admin bots, though I'm not sure if they do what you're suggesting. equazcion� 11:56, 11 Oct 2013 (UTC)

...bots run by admins or bots with full admin rights? GiantSnowman 12:11, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

(ec) There are less than 1000 bots, and scanning through them I saw 8 that had both a bot & sysop flag. They are:

• 7SeriesBOT (talk · contribs)
• Cydebot (talk · contribs)
• DYKUpdateBot (talk · contribs)
• ListManBot (talk · contribs)
• Orphaned talkpage deletion bot (talk · contribs)
• ProcseeBot (talk · contribs)
• TorNodeBot (talk · contribs)
• Yet Another Redirect Cleanup Bot (talk · contribs)

Check out each one and see what turns up. Rgrds. --64.85.215.22 (talk) 12:13, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Since 7SeriesBOT already does deletions, this makes sense as an added task ES&L 13:00, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

If it could do that would be great. I'm trying to think of similar tasks that would be suitable for a bot but I think those two are all for now. GiantSnowman 13:09, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Per the community discussion in June 2011, consensus was reached to provisionally suspend the administrative permissions of users who have been inactive for one year (i.e. administrators who have not made any edits or logged actions in over one year). Most of these bots haven't edited in more than a year and should have their Admin rights removed until they are needed. IMO these are even worse than individual accounts because they are bots. 7SeriesBOT hasn't really done any editing in a long time. Just a couple edits that appear to potentially be errors or test edits on the part of the operator.138.162.8.59 (talk) 13:15, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

7SeriesBOT doesn't EVER edit anything ... it only deletes. It's exempt from the desysop due to non-editing ES&L 16:07, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I've reserved Cyberbot III for when/IF I become an admin. I'll ping BWilkins to see if he's willing to add this task to his bot. IP, the bot is active in deleting stuff. —cyberpower _Online 14:00, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Psst...He's already here: ES&L=BWilkins. Rgrds. (same 64.85 as above) Rgrds. --64.85.217.134 (talk) 14:17, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• Hold on a second. Redirects often have history, may be required to remain for attribution purposes, and can often be just re-targeted rather then deleted. Likewise, talk pages without an article are sometimes the result of an article being created in the wrong name space, or may otherwise contain information that needs to be reviewed. We need to be exceedingly cautious with bot deletions. Monty₈₄₅ 14:41, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• An article is created at Monty Monterson (runner) and is then moved to Monty Monterson (athlete), creating an automatic redirect. The latter is deleted at AFD, but the admin forgets to delete the redirect. I see no harm at all in having a bot clean that element up. GiantSnowman 14:46, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• An article is created at Monty Monterson (runner) and is then moved to Monty Monterson (athlete), creating an automatic redirect. At AfD the consensus is "Merge content to Atheletes of nowheresville and delete" This is done, but the history remaing under the redirect is required for proper attribution of the merged content. How does the bot tell this case from the previous one? DES 16:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• Monty Monterson (runner) has no history in this case, only the creation of a redirect. All the history was at Monty Monterson (athlete) - which is why "merge and delete" can not be an AfD result because it creates WP:COPYVIO by breaking the attribution chain. In "merge" results a redirect must be kept. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 19:23, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:Copying within Misplaced Pages (guideline) and WP:Merge and delete (essay) are the relevant pages. Merge and delete is usually – but not always – an incorrect outcome. WT:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 47#G8 vs. redirected material (January 2013) has some discussion about G8ing redirects without sufficient checking. Talk page templates like {{Copied}} and {{afd-merged-from}} are supposed to prevent incorrect deletions. Flatscan (talk) 04:17, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• As someone who tries to maintain Broken Redirects to a reasonable level, I can certainly say the biggest influx of these is by former titles of now-G13'd AfC submissions. I've tried using Twinkle's batch-del functions to rather mitigated results. :) · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

It appears that the problem stems from Admin error. Perhaps this is due, at least in part, to the current climate of not promoting the right editors to admins. If we were promoting those who were technically competent rather than only those who play nice and stay in their corner, we would have less problems with these things not being done correctly. I see no reason to create a bot to clean up after complcent admins. It would be better to ensure those folks fix their mess or allow people who know what they are doing to help instead of tell them they aren't needed or wanted because they are critical of admins and the broken system that is currently in place. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 16:36, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, no. Most admins I know use an AFD helper script to close AFD's. If that script were somehow tweaked to check the "What links here" for the article, and see if any of those were redirects to the article being deleted, and then delete that redirect at the same time the article was deleted, then you would not have these occasional glitches. ES&L 16:43, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

As I just pointed out below, it already does. :) · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:57, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

What they should be doing is checking the what links here for associations before running the helper script. So yes, it is a result of the admins not doing what they should be doing. Not as an afterthought. Part of that problem is that there is more work for the number of people doing it, hence all the backlogs. So many of them feel rushed to get it done. Hence, more help being needed from experienced editors. If only we still assumed good faith in our editors and everything in this Wiki weren't protected, life would be a much better place. But, since we no longer have faith or trust in our fellow editors, have massive amounts of content restricted or blocked from view/edits, we are left with an overburdeoned admin corps. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 16:53, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

For straight up deletions, I always check the "Delete redirects" box, or check for redirects to be deleted manually. I agree that admins deleting pages without doing this (despite the system message reminding them to do so) are the ones performing their work incompletely. :) · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Which goes back to my earlier point that too many (and more so in recent times) of the admins being promoted are political/popular promotions rather than promoting the people with the skills necessary for the job. Its common to see an editor get promoted who knows nothing about the technical side but doesn't ruffle feathers. Its relatively rare to see a technical editor who frequently participates in the drama boards and deals with controversial stuff, and isn't already an admin, get the tools. So whether its the intent or not, the morale of the story is if you ever want to be "trusted" don't participate in any of the controversial areas until after you get the tools. Otherwise your likely to torpedo your chances. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 18:26, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

*shrugs* I'm not arguing about admniship or RfA. All I'm saying is the administrators are specifically reminded to delete redirects when deleting a page, whether manually or via the closeAfD script; negligently failing to do so needlessly creates broken redirects. It literally takes mere seconds and it is the responsibility of the deleting admin's to clean up after themselves. :) · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:53, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

And that is why it will continue to be an issue. Because the only ones that want to talk about and fix the broken RFA system are the ones no one wants to listen too. Part of the reason why this is a problem is because we don't have enough people with technical skills with with the admin tools. Just the folks who hide and slide. Of the 25 or so editors who got the tools this year, less than 5 are technical. Only a few use their tools on more than an occasional basis and most of the rest rarely use their tools at all. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 14:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• i'm pretty darn sure there is a bot that tags talk pages with no corresponding article for speedy deletion. Forgetting to do so is one of the more common admin errors, especially with new admins, but it is hardly indicative of some sort of serious problem as some are implying here. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:11, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• I delete thousands of pages that are former titles of now-G13'd AfC submissions per month, and the names of the deleting admins are certainly recurring; same goes for redirects to other deleted pages. The biggest problem isn't about talk pages of deleted pages, it's redirects to deleted pages. :) · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:22, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think bot deletion of orphaned talk pages is a good idea. Not infrequently the author of a speedy-deleted page who has contested deletion on the talk page re-visits it to add a further comment/complaint/question, and (some of) those need to be answered. JohnCD (talk) 22:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• @GiantSnowman: — we already have a bot working on pages that redirect to deleted or nonexistent pages; it's Legobot, run by Legoktm. Rather than deleting them, the bot tags the redirects with {{Db-redirnonebot}}, because these pages often shouldn't be deleted; that's the reason the template has a big warning in red letters. Sometimes someone vandalises the redirect so that it goes to the wrong place, while for other redirects there's a related topic, so the solution is retargeting rather than deletion. As a result, there are numerous cases in which blind deletion would be harmful, so a bot to delete broken redirects would not be a good idea. Nyttend (talk) 15:04, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Please stop being negligent

• Currently working through a batch of these, and while I hate to single anyone out, I'll politely remind the two admins whose names I see over and over again (although this stands for every admin working on page deletion), @RHaworth: & @Sphilbrick: (I consider these pings notification enough), to please clean up after themselves and delete redirects to pages they delete, especially declined or abandoned AfC submissions. Having to G8 thousands of broken redirects negligently left behind on a monthly basis is not something anyone should have to do. The "normal" broken redirects that need to be fixed are already numerous enough. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 03:19, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Salvidrim Question Since it's my bot that's been doing a fair amount of the G13 nominations, would a preemptive tagging of the redirects to the G13 nominated article (Some hybrid of G8-G13 to indicate that once the G13 goes through the G8 should be processed) be helpful for reducing the amount of broken redirects left behind? Hasteur (talk) 13:22, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Meh, whether someone patrols broken redirects or G8 deletions, it still ends up involving two people having to check out the same set of pages twice to clean it all up. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:33, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

@Salvidrim!: that's silly. If they're taking the time to delete orphaned G13's which aren't any good, why make them do any more work? The broken redirects aren't going to cause any major problems and someone will clean out the backlog just like you're doing. Legoktm (talk) 15:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

What's silly is involving two people having to repeat the analysis of the same set of pages, instead of one doing it all at once. It causes confusion amongst the users drafting through AfC, because often they have their userspace draft watchlisted, not the AfC sub because it was moved later, and they don't see the G13, they see my G8 of their userspace draft-redirect and come to me for explanations. It'd be highly preferable if the person cleaning out the declined AfC submissions also took care of the userspace redirects so that the drafting user only sees one name across the board. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:33, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

If you have a page watchlisted and it gets moved, the new page is on your watchlist too, so I'm not really sure what you're talking about. Legoktm (talk) 21:29, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I meant bookmarked (new users possible are even unaware of the Watchlist function). See lower my other reply. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:45, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

@Salvidrim: and they don't see the G13, they see my G8 of their userspace draft-redirect and come to me for explanations I'm going to call BS on that. The bot notifies the creator once the page is eligible for G13 that they need to do something. The bot notifies the creator when the nomination for G13 actually occurs. TWINKLE notifies the user who created the page that the page is being nominated for G13. The only reason why a user might not get a notification of G13 nomination is if someone was doing it by hand. Hasteur (talk) 13:05, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

@Hasteur: Oh, please. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 20:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

@Salvidrim: Example by example analysis

1. Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/B S Ajaikumar has never existed, so your misleading deletion rationale is your own fault.
2. That doesn't appear to be a complain of "why did you" but a thank you for helping them consolidate and delete
3. User is indef blocked for edit warring but their AfC submission still exists. They appear to be poking you about getting help with the AfC submission, not complaining about a stealth deletion
4. User's submission still exists and hasn't been deleted, user is just petitioning you about how to improve the article, not complaining about deletion
5. Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) still exists and the user is trying to get a new "trial" by changing the name which I would assume that you can admit is deceptive and evasive of the established processes.

Any more diffs you'd like to present to shore up your case or should we dismiss your complaint as grumpy-old-man syndrome? Hasteur (talk) 12:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

You should listen to my complaint, even if it's a grumpy-old-man syndrome (or projected OCD), but I don't see any reason to dismiss a reasonable request for admins to perform deletions correctly and thoroughly in order to simplify everyone's workflow. You're of course absolutely free to disagree with the merits of said suggestion if you prefer the current status quo. The point with the above diffs that you seem to be disregarding is that the users came to my talk page after I deleted a userpace broken redirect which should've already been deleted by the admin who deleted the target of said redirect. I shouldn't even be involved; I'm just the guy who cleans up messy broken redirects left behind by other valid deletions performed by other admins who should be the ones to answer queries about their deletions. Having no broken redirects ever is clearly utopian, but IMO such maintenance-positive goals are things everyone should strive towards. It's nice to have obsessed gnomes like me cleaning these things up, but ideally it shouldn't be needed. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 12:21, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

What I have done

I have just broken my promised holiday from my admin account in order to semi-protect 2 user talkpages from what was increasingly disgusting and persistent acts of threats, personal attacks and vandalism towards those two editors from someone with both the will and ability to change IP addresses very quickly. The two user talk pages are:

• User_talk:MoonMetropolis (specific edits needing removal and leading to protection: this and this
• User talk:PantherLeapord {specific edits needing removal and leading to protection: this and this

It was my belief that due to a) the fact that I might be one of the few who have both of those talkpages on my watchlist b) the disgusting and violent nature of those attacks, and c) the speed with which they were changing IP's, that rather than post a request at ANI or RFPP, I was better off protecting the pages immediately myself.

I welcome review of my actions in this specific case. I will be notifying the two users whose pages I protected momentarily for their comment. ES&L 10:42, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

It needed to be done so I have no complaints. As for who the IPs are: I have NO idea! I reverted their vandalism on User_talk:Jeremy112233 and then they just started coming after me. I also have no idea as to why they went after MoonMetropolis as they are currently blocked for edit warring. PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 10:51, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree it needed to be done quickly. I have revdel the revisions from the history because they are extremely offensive. GB fan 12:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I think it was terrible and that you should either: shave your head and become a Buddhist monk or immediately commit seppuku. Oh wait, nevermind, this isn't Clavel's Shogun. Carry on. GregJackP Boomer! 14:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

The IPs are proxies, probably open proxies and should be blocked for longer. Peter James (talk) 17:23, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I've reblocked 62.103.75.93 for six months as a proxy server. Could you please supply the other IPs here? Bishonen | talk 10:14, 13 October 2013 (UTC).

Three have already been blocked as proxies (72.252.114.147, 202.43.188.5 and 188.95.32.186); the other is 190.151.10.226, which was only blocked for 31 hours for personal attacks. Peter James (talk) 12:35, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Good, this person is helping us find quite a few open proxies. One year for 190.151.10.226 also. Thank you, Peter. Bishonen | talk 12:58, 13 October 2013 (UTC).

Good calls, good work, and quick action was certainly needed there. Has anyone notified WMF of the threats? Seraphimblade 12:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Our charming little vandal appears to have come back now that the talk pages of User:PantherLeapord and I have become unprotected. Oddly enough, they seem to only target us as far as I know.--MoonMetropolis (talk) 09:33, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted, Revdeled, and blocked 116.90.230.222 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 197.210.252.44 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) each for 6 months. GiantSnowman 09:49, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again! PantherLeapord|My talk page|My CSD log 10:15, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

User:Thomas.W

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

This user do attacking me personal. Also he is not going for a objective factual dispute but is simply allegations and personal assessments as facts. Would be nice if someone could tell him this is not legal on Misplaced Pages. Thank youGeorgLeft (talk) 17:42, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Recommended reading: Talk:Michel von Tell. Michel von Tell is a recreation (by GeorgLeft) of an apparently self-promotional article that has been previously deleted at AfD both under tha current name and as Michel Von Tell (the latter as recently as a week ago...). Which is why I have nominated it for speedy deletion as G4. And there have of course not been any personal attacks. Nor have I been informed of this AfD other than through the notification system... Thomas.W 17:47, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not see any ground for the dispute. You created an article which has previously been deleted and which does not contain a single reliable source.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

And again. Everyone else got to proof everything 10 times and eaven this is not enough. But Mr Thomas just claim whatever he wants. And the best argument he got - an OTHER article about this person has been deleted once. Bye the way Thomas. this is not the subject here. the subject is you are attacking me, dont be nice, objective, stay with facts and dont follow many wikipedia rules and act like you would be the King of wikipedia. You decide whats right and whats wrong, you dont need facts, if you say something this is fact enough and you are the greatest here. Thats what it is about here GeorgLeft (talk) 17:55, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

The salient fact is that Michel von Tell does not meet Misplaced Pages notability guidelines, as has been repeatedly made clear. And yes, if you post here, you can expect your own behaviour to be looked into. Including asking whether you have used multiple accounts. Have you also posted as User:Adolfoo? Before you answer that, I suggest that you take note that we have methods which can detect the use of such multiple accounts. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:00, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I did not - not eaven talked to him. If i see this right he nominated the article for deletion. Dosent make much sence. But this isnt the point here. The point is Thomas attacking me personal. This is what it is here about. GeorgLeft (talk) 18:06, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Well, since it's Saturday evening here in Europe I guess incoherent posts should be expected. I'm bowing out of this pointless "discussion" here on ANI because having incoherent posts about Michel von Tell in one place, Talk:Michel von Tell, should be more than enough. Besides, since I wasn't even properly notified, as the rules say I should have been, I guess I wasn't invited to the Saturday night party on ANI anyway. Thomas.W 18:07, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

the rules say - be nice - stay objective - no personal attacks - no assertions - and so on. lets make it short. the only thing you had to say - an OTHER article about this is deleted before - its not the same article so this is no argument at all. you just declared personal that all the 23 sources are not good - without any prove or argument - you just say so- you ignoring every of my arguments because they are fact and then you attack me. you just switch subject and assert i have an other account. eaven if this is absolutely irrelevant for the debate if this article is keep or delete. and also this guy was on your side not on my! but have a nice evening - maybe you are less destructive after it. have fun GeorgLeft (talk) 18:23, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

"in one place, Talk:Michel von Tell" - which may be deleted. Talk:Michel Von Tell has been deleted before, was there any discussion there? Peter James (talk) 18:34, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Slightly belated reply to User:Peter James: I wouldn't call it a discussion, it was more of an incoherent rehash of previous AfDs for and . Thomas.W 18:42, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• (e/c) Just a quick explanatory note: it was, indeed, essentially the same article; 23 sources this time, but they were the same type as the five sources in the deleted article, and none of them addressed the notability of the article subject. That's enough re-creation; I've salted both titles, and WP:Deletion review will need to be used if someone ever wants to recreate the article. Also, if I had more time, I'd probably file an SPI on GeorgeLeft, except now that the articles can't be recreated at will, it probably doesn't matter. And Thomas, I didn't see any personal attacks, but I did see some rudeness - probably due to frustration, which is understandable - that were nonetheless unhelpful. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:46, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Seeing what is obviously the exact same person do the exact same thing, creating a (self-)promotional article about the same thoroughly non-notable individual, only a week after the latest AfD ended, almost made me lose my temper... Thomas.W 19:00, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, sock or not, I've indeffed Adolfoo. There's been nothing but disruption from the account. Bishonen | talk 19:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC).

Community ban proposal for paid editing firm wikiexperts.us

So, I'm here to propose that we enact a rather unusual community sanction.

I am proposing that we ban any edits made by or on behalf of the firm which runs wikiexperts.us , and any editor who is paid, compensated in other means than money, employed, or otherwise encouraged to edit on behalf of this firm or its clients. This will also apply to any companies which may be reasonably construed as related to this one, such as spinoffs, parent/child companies, renamed companies, new management, or other changes of that sort.

This company's contemptuous attitude toward our conflict of interest guidelines may be found at their site above, as well as at their comments on a Signpost article here: , and in their statement on the CREWE Facebook page here: . They note in their statement that several CREWE volunteers, not exactly harsh opponents of any COI editing, stated their approach is unethical and unacceptable.

The company claims that they will act ethically and that it respects Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines with the exception of COI. We should put to the test whether they will respect our policy on bans by refraining from editing once banned from doing so, as paid editing without full COI disclosure is inherently unethical. The ban should be set so that it can be lifted at once if the company agrees all of its representatives will fully and publicly disclose COI/paid editing and otherwise fully adhere to the guidelines of WP:COI in the future, and contingent that they in fact do so in all future cases.

Note that this should not be considered or turn into a referendum on all paid or COI editing. Those PR persons or corporate representatives who respect our site guidelines and engage according to them are not at issue here. What is at hand and must be dealt with is a company which has explicitly stated that it will not follow those guidelines and in fact considers it "unethical" to do so. Seraphimblade 20:06, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support - a firm which considers it "unethical" to adhere to the guidelines of a private site regarding conduct on that private site can reasonably be seen as having a really strange concept of ethics. John Carter (talk) 20:14, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• I'd support this if there was a way of identifying these people immediately, but without a a firm grasp of who is editing in spite of COI and who is not, how are we going to enforce this? Regards, — Moe Epsilon 20:59, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I realize the difficulty in enforcing this, and I'm under no illusion that we can do so perfectly if they choose to defy it. I'm proposing it for a few reasons. The first is to simply say, as a community, that we find this type of conduct unacceptable. The second is that it would allow us to act on any discovered instances without any uncertainty. The third is that since we are aware of the identity of a company representative and can notify them of the ban, they would likely be required to notify their clients that they are not allowed to actually edit Misplaced Pages, and must do so in defiance of site requirements. That could cause some difficulty for them in doing such business. Seraphimblade 21:05, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• I am wondering if we are taking the wrong approach to this. If we try and police/ban these editors they will find ways around it. What about looking at a policy to manage these people and help integrate their service into our community. If we know who they are we can better judge their edits and allow the community I scrutinize their work.Mike (talk) 21:08, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
  • The big man what's in charge has explicitly said he is not interested in following COI procedure and that he considers doing so (i.e. following it) unethical. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
    • And if it becomes known to prospective clients that this firm has explicitly said it intends to violate the rules here, it might cause prospective clients to wonder whether they want to be, potentially, linked to a firm which engages in extremely dubious behavior, and might potentially cause the firm to revise their procedures. Most firms won't want that sort of negative publicity. Mrfrobinson might have a point about maybe, somehow, creating a location where PR people can announce datadumps of RS material which independent editors could then use for developing articles here, and I wouldn't mind setting up some way to allow that, but that is a separate matter. John Carter (talk) 21:29, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support, after the comments made in reply to the signpost article, it's clear that they are not here to improve the encyclopedia, have no interest in reforming to do so, and belive that avoiding/flaunting Misplaced Pages policy is "ethical" and following it "unethical". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support this measure simply on the basis of the representative's posturing and messages. It all feels rather "Methinks he doth protest too much". This assumes, of course, that the gentleman in the CREWE group does represent the firm. Had those pronouncements not been made I would have expressed the opposite view. I believe in 'innocent until proven guilty', but he could not resist having a go, and thus, in my view, lost his own case. Fiddle Faddle 21:21, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support - self-declared outlaws who pretend to a "right" to violate our terms and conditions for profit. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:27, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Orangemike (talk · contribs), is doing something "for profit" a bad thing? Of course it could create a bias, but all edits are made by biased editors (there is no such thing as an unbiased editor). What matters is whether the content is NPOV (and compliant with our other polices and guidelines). No? --B2C 21:43, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Uh, yes, it is, considering that there is a more or less obvious bias for a firm to get paid, and that is a bias only for-profit editors would have. It is almost a presupposition that companies will be extremely unlikely to offer any sort of bonus, or repeat business, or renewed contract, if the results of the first term are unacceptable to them, and that would reasonably include if the firm created an article which is less laudatory than the client would want. Yes, all of us have bias, but only for profit-editors also have a corporate bottom line to worry about, and there is no really good reason to allow that additional difficulty a factor, nor, honestly, can I really see why a company would really want to face that problem, if they were in fact ethical. John Carter (talk) 22:31, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, other than "they get paid and that upsets me" what exactly is the reason for the ban? Seriously, everyone shut up about people getting paid to edit, as long as they follow our policies on NPOV, OR, RS etc etc and their edits are not vandalism, leave them alone. Paid editing itself is not a reason to ban. I'm sick of this crap being talked about everywhere constantly on Jimbo's page and every where else that someone can stick it in, it's getting disruptive. If their particular edits don't follow our policies and guidelines then there are procedures and policies to deal with those editors as it happens, because any editor would get in trouble for those things. To single out those that get paid is wrong. You don't think it's fair? Find someone to pay you.Camelbinky (talk) 21:28, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Read the proposal carefully, please. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 00:18, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. First, their argument supporting keeping their clients anonymous is well taken. In theory, those clients could create anonymous accounts and edit WP directly. They are simply hiring an agent to do that.

  Second, what matters much, much, much more than WHO is editing, or WHY they are editing, is WHAT (content) they are editing. As long as the WHAT is consistent with our policies and guidelines, why does it matter WHO made the edits, or WHY they made them?

  Third, this is practically impossible to enforce, and and any efforts to investigate and enforce per this proposal is bound to be more detrimental to WP than the supposed problem itself.

  Finally, I just read WP:COI for the first time and I find it to be ridiculous. The emphasis on WHO and WHY rather than on WHAT is absurd. A COI could lead to bad and inappropriate edits. But everyone edits with a bias. The edits of anyone editing with a COI should be given the same scrutiny as any other edits, with an eye towards compliance with NPOV, Notability, basis in reliable source, etc. I don't think WP:COI improves WP - to the contrary. It's probably against broad consensus, but I, for one, call WP:IAR with respect to WP:COI. The emphasis there is inherently totally wrong, and, I believe, harmful to WP. --B2C 21:34, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support ban. The refusal to declare their COI is problematic for many reasons. These include that any account taking a pro-corporate stance is now often assumed to be a paid advocate, and this has led to a lot of bad feeling on various articles, with editors at each others' throats even more than usual. The best thing PR companies can do for Misplaced Pages (apart from staying away from it) is to engage ethically so that their presence here doesn't cause the atmosphere to deteriorate for everyone else. The way to do that is to declare their COI and stick to the talk pages, per the WP:NOPAY section of the COI guideline. SlimVirgin 21:45, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
  • SlimVirgin (talk · contribs), what about deleting WP:COI? Wouldn't that resolve the problem as well? Seriously. I see that WP:COI can create "a lot of bad feeling on various articles, with editors at each others' throats even more than usual." Does WP:COI do anything else? Does it do any good for Misplaced Pages? Like what? A better place to discuss this is probably at Misplaced Pages talk:COI#WP:COI guideline seems contrary to the interests of WP. Make it an essay? Delete? Or can you defend it?. Thanks. --B2C 21:58, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi B2C, what causes the bad feeling is the knowledge that some PR companies don't respect the COI guideline, so editors are constantly (often unfairly) suspicious of people who arrive with pro-corporate positions. The best way PR companies can help us avoid that kind of damage is to behave ethically: declare their COI, stick to talk pages, not try to ghostwrite content, make sure they don't overwhelm editors with requests, respect our policies, and provide independent sourcing for any suggestions they make.

So no, the way forward is not to delete the only guideline that, for all its inadequacies, is the only thing standing between Misplaced Pages and wall-to-wall paid advocacy. :) SlimVirgin 22:20, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support, in line with the existing ban on the similar business Wiki-PR a.k.a. Morning277-of-the-300-socks. We may not have discovered this one's sock-farm yet, but I'm sure it's out there. JohnCD (talk) 22:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. WP:COI is indeed ridiculous and ought to marked historical. Eric Corbett 22:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Take it to WP:VPP, then. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:26, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

    Why should I take the trouble? Eric Corbett 22:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Given that he admits he uses multiple undeclared sockpuppets to avoid scrutiny, I'm not sure why this is even a question. I believe 100% we need a more functional system to deal with PR type editing than we currently have, but we don't need to endorse sockpuppetry in the process. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:13, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support - Blatantly disclosed misbehavior such as this muse be met with concerted action, or we leave ourselves open to all kinds of mischief. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:26, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support with the caveat that we need to be very careful about only banning those who are correctly identified. I think one of the newest gambits of tendentious editing is to accuse those editors with whom one disagrees in a content dispute of being COI editors, simply to gain the upper hand in the content dispute. But I certainly think that the recent SPI mega-case is an appalling assault on what Misplaced Pages stands for, and I support standing up against it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support as a deliberately punitive measure, pour encourager les autres. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:41, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

  Encourage them to do what? Eric Corbett 22:48, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

  To not act like these people. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:40, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support Given that this company has been using dozens of sockpuppet accounts and IP-hopping unregistered accounts to evade accountability, this is a no-brainer: they're plainly not here to develop neutral articles through collaboration-based editing. I'm all for mass deleting the articles which they created to send a message, and this should be uncontroversial for the articles in which no other editors have made significant contributions per WP:CSD#G11. Nick-D (talk) 23:08, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support per Alanscottwalker, Beyond My Ken and others. Misplaced Pages is supposed to be a hobby, not a job. While it should come as no surprise that there are a few paid editors, we shouldn't ever encourage it. It might be necessary if this needs to be written in stone to reopen the effort to formally make paid editing against policy.--MONGO 23:18, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

  Who has ever said that Misplaced Pages is supposed to be a hobby? Eric Corbett 23:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

  Misplaced Pages is not a hobby... unless you choose to see it that way. It is a public tool that is open for most people to use and keep current. I AM A BOX! OF APPLES! (talk) 23:28, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

  What was I supposed to call it? I don't and won't accept money to edit...I do it for free in my spare time when and if I want. That seems to fall into a definition of hobby to me.--MONGO 23:41, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support Reluctantly. I have worked with several declared COI or paid editors, and generally found it a positive experience. Nor have the subjects of those topics gotten the kind of bashing this company's spokesman claims to fear. If some of the points maind in the signpost respone had been made at an RFC to amend or delete WP:COI they might have gotten some traction. But to declare willingness to abide by all the rules except the ones you dislike does not show good ethics in my view, and given the socking history here, I see no reason to trust these editors. DES 23:34, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. At the moment, they aren't even acting against the guidelines. The COI guideline strongly discourages paid advocacy, but doesn't ban it. Even if they were acting in opposition, they would, at most, be acting against a behavioural guideline, not a policy. First, let's fix that - instead of strongly discouraging paid advocacy, let's make it a policy that all people with a financial conflict of interest must declare their COI, and block accounts which do not. Then we can talk about banning wikiexperts.us if they violate the policy. - Bilby (talk) 23:38, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support - per Alanscottwalker and multiple comments above - using multiple accounts to avoid scrutiny, means to continue. Tom Harrison 23:44, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support. This is not a matter of WP:COI guidelines. This statement by chairman of the company, Alex Konanykhin (if I understand correctly) looks to me as a declaration of war on this site by openly defying our rules. If this proposal passes, we should delete two pages: Alex Konanykhin and WikiExperts.us. I am not sure you realize who this man really is: his BLP page does not explain where and how his initial capital came from. My very best wishes (talk) 23:54, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

  So, you accuse him of a "declaration of war" and then you do the same by saying the article about him should be deleted because he doesn't play by our !rules... um, either his article does not deserve to be here already or it does, how he feels about Misplaced Pages or what he does to or on Misplaced Pages has nothing to do with the article about him. Ridiculous comment and clearly a !vote with no merit, remember this is not a democracy of who has the most !votes, it is about who brings the best facts of argument.Camelbinky (talk) 00:03, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Then let me clarify. If a wikipedia user openly tells that he is not going to follow our basic rules and actually does it, he would deserve be banned. Now, imagine this is not just an ordinary user but a head of a PR company who makes their mission to undermine integrity of Misplaced Pages, and that is what he tells . That is what I call a "declaration of war. As about deleting these pages, OK, let's wait if this community decision passes. My very best wishes (talk) 00:12, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Whoa up there! We have articles here on every tinpot dictator and mass murderer on the planet; just because we stop him spamming, doesn't justify deleting articles about him or his company, if they meet WP:BIO and WP:CORP respectively. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:24, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Point here is not that he is a "bad guy" (this is not a reason for deletion), but his company which uses Misplaced Pages for advertisement. If these articles were created and developed by banned users for the purpose of advertisement (one of them was blocked long time ago ), then edits by banned users can theoretically be removed by anyone. I saw his BLP page and more or less familiar with his story. Creating a neutral biography in this case is very difficult because he made a lot of PR effort and spend a lot of money to create a favorable publicity for himself in external sources/publications that ought be used in his BLP article. Saying that, I know that his company is not the worst player who is working to subvert wikipedia. My very best wishes (talk) 03:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support as their actions have conclusively demonstrated that their goals are incompatible with Misplaced Pages's, and they have no intention to change them. Remember that this is not a general referendum on COI editing, this is a discussion of the individual entity wikiexperts.us. It's possible that another company might do COI editing in a way that is compatible with Misplaced Pages's goals; this isn't the case with wikiexperts.us. It does seem that our approach to COI editing as stated at WP:COI doesn't exactly exclude it, but there's no reason to shoot ourselves in the foot on principle with wikiexperts.us until we fix it. Zad68 00:00, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Per Nick-D and others. Alex and WikiExperts have attitudes that are contrary to what Misplaced Pages is about. Manxruler (talk) 00:04, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support This is a sensible cause of action to take, it will give admins extra help in dealing with the fallout of edits by this company. WP's reputation relies upon it's WP:NPOV policy any paid for editing that puts a dent in that reputation and thus is prejudicial to the projects long term goals and we need to act to prevent that. LGA _talk 00:09, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support per many above. NPOV is far, far more important than a paid PR firm's desire to control content in their clients' interests. The fact that this firm intends to mask COIs, thus actively hampering the project's ability to enforce this, is not acceptable. Resolute 00:28, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. It is not sensible to ban an editor (or group of editors) without first presenting diffs showing bad editing. If the WikiExperts are so bad, their edits will stand out, and there will be a trail of problems behind them. Surely a few diffs could be provided. If the WikiExperts are so good at what they do that we can't detect them, nor come up with any diffs, we are placing a symbolic ban that we cannot enforce. We should not help them gain business by giving them lots of attention. Do please consider restarting this discussion once you've found diffs. Jehochman 00:32, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we should state that it's okay to violate WP:SCRUTINY just because we've been unable to prove the person has been making bad edits (which cannot be done precisely because they are violating WP:SCRUTINY.) Will it have a huge effect on their business? Probably not, but there's no reason to let Alex contribute to discussions onwiki. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:37, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

The information at Misplaced Pages:Long-term_abuse/Morning277 isn't enough? Zad68 00:46, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

This isn't a discussion to ban Morning277 and any meat or sock puppets. If the discussion started that way, I'd support it. Jehochman 00:49, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

And anyway, they are already banned. MER-C 02:24, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

So why are we here? Block any socks of Morning277 and call it a day. Why are we here? Jehochman 02:32, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Morning277 and MooshiePorkFace are a different spamhaus (Wiki-PR). MER-C 03:15, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support The clearest infringements of policy of this firm is in regards to Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry. The infringements of this policy have been systematic and malicious in the intent to avoid consensus and undermine WP:NPOV, a core policy. An encyclopedia-wide ban for the firm is an obvious and legitimate solution. Meat puppetry is covered by the policy. All the accounts and IPs associated controlled by this organization should be banned as sock puppets or meat puppets. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 00:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support If I'm correctly understanding the people who oppose this proposed ban, they're saying that we need evidence of misbehavior. The diff and the Facebook link provided by Seraphimblade demonstrate that this company (1) is actively trying to influence content here on Misplaced Pages, (2) plans to do its best to circumvent standards that we apply to everyone and everything, and (3) openly rejects and cannot be convinced to follow those standards. How is that not sufficient evidence that these people should not be members of the community? Banning them will mean that we can actively delete anything that they write, without regard to whether the pages in question look like spam; I am actively an opponent of deleting useful content written by banned editors, but this is different, because if we identify anything to which they've contributed without removing it, we help them by allowing them to demonstrate what they've been able to do. We have the G5 speedy deletion criterion, the 3RR exception for reverting banned editors, and other ways of getting rid of things added by banned editors; we need to be able to use all of them. On top of that, (1) During the discussion at the Signpost article, someone suggested that the US Government's Federal Trade Commission be notified because this company's perhaps engaging in an illegal kind of advertising. Perhaps banning them would enhance the legal issues if they keep on going. (2) We need to be careful to mark pages that they've edited: put the {{COI}} template on any such articles, and be sure to delete new articles with the G12 template, so they'll be marked as blatant spam instead of under G5, since these creations are done essentially for the company's own purposes. Finally, perhaps we can ask admins to log pages on which we've caught wikiexperts editing, and ask someone with a WMF email address to contact these companies, letting them know that someone looking for them on Misplaced Pages will now notice that the page is marked as a COI problem or that it has been deleted as spam. Nyttend (talk) 01:04, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Nyttend, I don't believe that you are correctly understanding the people who oppose this proposed ban. We are not saying that we need evidence of misbehavior. We are saying that, given a situation where there is clear evidence of misbehavior and where the misbehaving editor is expressing an unpopular opinion such as "the rules should be changed so that I am allowed to misbehave", you should support a ban based upon the bad behavior, but oppose a ban based upon expressing the unpopular opinion. You should not say "I support the proposal because there is also bad behavior" but instead should say "I oppose the proposal as written -- we do not ban based upon expressing unpopular opinions -- but would support a ban based upon evidence of misbehavior." It is a subtle distinction, but an important one, because it goes to the heart of what Misplaced Pages is and stands for. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:41, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support WikiExperts has openly declared war on Misplaced Pages, e.g. "Misplaced Pages IS a marketing tool, the most important one in online visibility, with most companies using PR pros to improve their profiles. We have helped hundreds of clients." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Could you provide some links to show infringements of policy? This thread is turning into torches and pitchforks. Where is the evidence? I see an appeal to emotion, a very successful one, but that's not the way we should do things. Jehochman 00:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

He explicitly admits to violating WP:SCRUTINY on the most recent signpost's talk page. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

And where is our policies is an editor not allowed to explicitly admit to violating WP:SCRUTINY, as opposed to actually violating WP:SCRUTINY? You say he did both? I agree. So write up a proposal for a ban based upon violating WP:SCRUTINY. Supporting a ban for explicitly admitting to a violation is wrong. The proposal should based upon an actual violation. It is a subtle distinction, but an important one. We do not punish thoughtcrime here. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:53, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose A rather IDONTLIKEIT proposal, given that nowhere on Misplaced Pages is paid editing absolutely banned. If the OP could prove that what they were doing was harmful to the encyclopedia we might get somewhere. KonveyorBelt 00:45, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Agree, I want to see diffs. I want a discussion based on policy and evidence, not emotion. Jehochman 00:50, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

The reason it's hard to provide diffs proving disruption is entirely because he's violating WP:SCRUTINY with his socking. If he weren't violating the sockpuppetry rules and we could actually scrutinize his edits, I wouldn't support banning him. But as it is he is breaking WP:SCRUTINY (which is why there are no diffs of disruptive article space editing,) and saying that we shouldn't ban him just because we can't prove disruptive article space editing is pretty much equivalent to saying it's okay to violate WP:SCRUTINY as long as you are good at it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:53, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

And how do you propose that we enforce this ban, if we can't even generate a few diffs? Are we going to get a psychic to identify the banned users' accounts? You know what this ban will lead to: lots of false accusations and the resulting disruption. Remember MyWikiBiz? The hunt for Greg Kohs sock puppets and other "enemies" of Misplaced Pages led to a lot of harmful dramas. Please, let's not repeat those mistakes. Jehochman 01:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I cannot imagine this proposal leading to the block of any user account other than the one currently commenting on the signpost article since he's good at covering his tracks. I'd be more worried about WikiPR blocks targeting the wrong people, because they are horrible at trying to cover their tracks. But seriously, why should we let this dude comment on the Signpost article? It's not the biggest deal in the world which is why I didn't bring it up myself when I saw him pop his head over, but what possible good is there from not blocking his admitted account? There's no reason User:AKonanykhin should not be indeffed on ENWP. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:05, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I will take a look at the signpost comments and block him if there's any problem with his edits. We should not block or ban people for merely disagreeing. There has to an action and a problem. Jehochman 01:10, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Possibly block User:AKonanykhin and add him to Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of Wexperts, containing already blocked socks (see block log here ). See and if you want unambiguous evidence of sockpuppetry. If WikiExperts contractors or employees want to appeal their block, they should make a request as per Misplaced Pages:Guide to appealing blocks, like every other blocked user.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 01:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

What evidence do you have connecting these accounts? How do you know that's not some other troll having a little fun? There's needs to be a thoughtful presentation and discussion of evidence, not a rush to judgment. If there is sock puppetry, please go report it here: ]. Jehochman 02:29, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Connecting those banned socks? I gave the diffs, and obviously the blocking admin agreed. As to connecting the User:AKonanykhin, I only said "possibly". Thoughtful presentation and discussion is always a priority, and this discussion now is part of that. When looking at User:AKonanykhin's edits, it is pretty clear, or as many people at SPI say, WP:DUCK. Also, his contribs admit meatpuppetry explicitly. For example here User:AKonanykhin explicitly says that he is part of an organization which supplies "a growing network of participating wikipedians with paid assignments". That is describing and admitting to unambiguous meat puppetry, at least when combined with the admission here that not announcing the conflict of interest is done to avoid scrutiny. Assigning edits to other people to make edits for a common purpose and trying to avoid scrutiny of this activity is a clear infringement of Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry, and I think the majority of editors agree with this. I think the editors voting support here are just part of that majority who have the same judgement. It's not a rush to judgement.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 08:22, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

All these accounts pre-date the existence of WikiExperts for over a year. AKonanykhin (talk) 18:20, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support. This kind of flagrant declaration to violate Misplaced Pages guidelines means these editors have already lost the faith of the community. Binksternet (talk) 01:05, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Per several editors above, it seems hypocritical that they will respect all WP guidelines but COI and have intentions to to declare war on WP. At first glance, it even reminds me of how Jimbo went ballistic over Tony Ahn's PR firm including WP article creation services. --Eaglestorm (talk) 01:15, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Declaring that you disagree with our policies and guidelines, and even stating you wont obey them is itself not a reason to ban. Everyone commenting here about "declarations" and "war" and they "don't respect us" and "he doesn't agree with our policies"... you're !votes seriously are illegitimate since they are not based on any policy! You have to back up your !vote with policy instead of, as another editor stated "emotions". Who cares if they don't respect us or have faith in the community? Are you that much of a control freak that we have the idea of a 6 year old "I'll take my ball and go home" because they wont play the game by the !rules we made? Misplaced Pages is what our readers need it to be. Seriously, grow up everyone and just go edit an article and close this shit out, if they break a !rule they will be punished. Until then mind your own business.Camelbinky (talk) 01:30, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I think the issue is if they have said they will not obey the policy and guidelines when challenged, that's disruption, and that's why we impose blocks and bans as to prevent such. Now, whether we do that in a precautionary manner, that's a different question, but I have seen this used before, so it seems to be valid option. --MASEM (t) 01:35, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Really? That's hearsay. Can we please ask the editor a few questions and let him answer in his own words, instead of jumping to conclusions. This discussion is much too hasty. We need to be more thoughtful. Jehochman 02:26, 13 October 2013 (UTC)\

Hearsay? No, that's Masem's opinion of the statement and the guideline/policy just like all of the Users' comments above. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Clearly not here to build an encyclopedia. MER-C 02:24, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• I've just exchanged a few emails with Alex and he seems to have the potential for reasonableness. I think we need to walk back this dispute and try to understand what exactly people are objecting to, and how each side can understand the other's concerns, and how there can be an agreement about what sort of editing (if any) would be allowed. Placing a hasty ban will not prevent harm, and may just drive the activity deeper underground. Jehochman 02:24, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

If he is a reasonable guy, he should prove it by providing a list of all their accounts - now and forever, which of course goes against his comment cited in the beginning of this thread. If all of them can be watched, and he follows his part of the bargain, then outright ban may indeed be unnecessary. My very best wishes (talk) 04:02, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose As an absurdly broad restriction. Were this simply saying that editors who work for the paid editing firm are banned that would be one thing, but what does "otherwise encouraged to edit on behalf of this firm or its clients" mean? It seems to be worded in such a way that takes this restriction well beyond the firm itself or regular paid editors.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:04, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Guilt by association is simply wrong. What makes it even worse, is that many of the supporters of this admit it will be symbolic anyway, as we can't readily identify who is subject to the proposed ban. So now you banned if your an employee, of a client, of the company who has never violated WP:COI? Talk about over broad. Act in good faith, follow COI and self identify, but if you work, not even for the company, but a client of the company, you are banned. While we are banning categories of people, lets ban all racists, we can worry about identifying them later. Monty₈₄₅ 03:15, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• OPPOSE such a broad ban. It's ridiculous to apply a ban to anyone associated to the corp. Let alone, possible to enforce. How about a ban of the editors and management of the firms? —(っ◔◡◔)っ 03:25, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• SUPPORT until they change their declared policy and commit to stating their COI and restricting their edits to talk pages. I'm perfectly happy to work with open COI editors. (What this whole issue throws up is the need to improve the skills of our new page patrollers, recent changes patrollers and AFC helpers.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:55, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Just like any other site, following the terms of service is not optional. These guys have indicated that they will actively violate Misplaced Pages policy. That is an option granted to absolutely no one, not even Jimbo. Ban these scumbags until they agree to follow all Misplaced Pages policy, including COI. VanIsaac_{WS Vex} 05:27, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support per WP:IAR - paid editing would destroy the project unless we will do something about it. Alex Bakharev (talk) 06:17, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Weak Support, but I agree with Bilby above when he says "let's make it a policy that all people with a financial conflict of interest must declare their COI, and block accounts which do not". Then we have a clear supportable policy for paid editors. They can edit but they must admit they are paid and by whom. --Bduke (Discussion) 08:27, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Strongly oppose: This ban is based purely on speculation. Not one person has come forward with an actual example of an edit that anyone related to WikiExperts has made that egregiously breaks Misplaced Pages’s actual policies. Needless to say, since this ban was proposed, my own Misplaced Pages profile’s talk page has already been vandalized—with a user claiming that despite charges being dropped in a past event, the reason why is to be suspected. This is a very clear personal attack that breaks Misplaced Pages’s Biography of Living People protocols.

I invite anyone to look at my personal user profile here, which has not made one single edit to article space in the entire time I’ve been on Misplaced Pages. Banning me for editorial breaches would not make sense, as I’ve never edited Misplaced Pages’s articles. As Misplaced Pages administrator User:RKlawton on the WikiExperts.us Misplaced Pages page so recently pointed out in an edit summary, COI is a guideline on Misplaced Pages, not a protocol. There is no policy that requires a declaration of COI. A ban should only be in place if someone or some entity actually breaks a Misplaced Pages policy repeatedly, which there is absolutely no evidence WikiExperts has ever done. I believe we have never broken a policy, and the evidence appears to support this.

Firms that have actively flaunted Misplaced Pages policies could be considered eligible for a ban, such as Wiki-PR or MyWikiBiz. However, evidence of said flaunting of actual policies must be in place before such a ban can be enacted. My own personal disagreements with the COI Misplaced Pages guidelines, is in no way contrary to the spirit of Misplaced Pages. Real discussion on COI issues is beneficial for Misplaced Pages, as there are no firm policies on COI and therefore the only way to form them is through a firm policy and the discussions that lead to it. Instead of trying to ignore my ideas and force a community ban on a company that has never been proven to flaunt Misplaced Pages rules, perhaps a formal discussion on creating an actual paid editing rules should be completed.

Let me clarify something. I believe that COI guidelines on Misplaced Pages are ineffectual and unfair, but I am not stating, nor have I ever stated, that we have ever edited with a conflict of interest. We edit with pure neutrality and only for very notable individuals or organizations. COI guidelines state that it is very hard to edit without a bias, and we do that very hard job. The COI guidelines do not state that it is impossible to edit without bias, and rightfully so. We do it.

The nominator has claimed WikiExperts is an “unethical” company, but can provide absolutely no evidence that something unethical has taken place or that a single Misplaced Pages policy has ever been broken by WikiExperts. A breach of normative ethics is also different than an actual breach of policy, which has not happened. If my previous remarks have insulted people here on Misplaced Pages, I do apologize, as I was simply trying to start a discussion. I would add that these discussions were all had off Misplaced Pages’s pages, unless Signpost is considered a Misplaced Pages page. I would also add that we have spent a lot of time investigating how to best implement the COI guideline into our company model and have done so to the best of our abilities, to ensure only neutral edits are made.

In terms of the accusations above:

User:John Carter wrote “ if it becomes known to prospective clients that this firm has explicitly said it intends to violate the rules here, it might cause prospective clients to wonder whether they want to be, potentially, linked to a firm which engages in extremely dubious behavior, and might potentially cause the firm to revise their procedures. Most firms won't want that sort of negative publicity.” This is administrator has clearly stated that he intends to harm the business of WikiExperts with the tools of Misplaced Pages if he can, without providing any evidence that WikiExperts has broken a single Misplaced Pages rule. This is an abuse of administrative authority.

User:TheBushranger clearly states that his impulse to ban WikiExperts is based off of comments on a Signpost article that disagree with COI guidelines. He adds nothing else to support his argument. How is expressing someone’s own viewpoint on Misplaced Pages guidelines or policies against the spirit of Misplaced Pages to the point that one must be banned?

User:OrangeMike calls WikiExperts “outlaws”; what law is being broken and what policy. Either COI guidelines really mean that it is only strongly suggested that COI be declared, or that is false, and COI must be declared or a user will be banned. It cannot be both.

User:JohnCD states that a ban of WikiExperts would be the same as a ban of WikiPR. WikiPR was proven to have flaunted actual Misplaced Pages policies time and time again, and no such evidence is provided against WikiExperts. The two cases are not at all the same.

User:Kevin Gorman has stated something plainly false, by claiming that Alex Konanykhin uses sockpuppets to edit Misplaced Pages. Let me make this clear; my user account nor WikiExperts has ever once used a sockpuppet for a single edit. That is contrary to Misplaced Pages policies, all of which we follow to the letter. In addition, accusing someone of sockpuppetry without evidence is a serious thing here on Misplaced Pages, and inappropriate without evidence.

User:Beyond My Ken states that I have blatantly disclosed misbehaviour. Which misbehaviour is that? I have stated WikiExperts disagrees with COI guidelines. I did not ever say that we disagree with any actual Misplaced Pages policies. We agree with the lot of them.

User:Tryptofish has stated that abusers of Misplaced Pages need to be identified to be banned, we agree with this. And if we are proven to be abusers of Misplaced Pages policy, there is no way we would continue in a similar vein. We would correct any potential abuse of policy if there was one. Fortunately there has never been such abuse.

User:Nick-D also falsely accuses us of using “dozens of sockpuppet accounts”. We have never used a SPI to post an article and have never once had more than one account edit the same page, ever. In fact, we don’t have any “accounts” at WikiExperts. Wiki Experts have their own accounts and work entirely independently of one another.

User:MONGO has stated that Misplaced Pages is a hobby, not a job. There is no Misplaced Pages policy that supports this.

User:DES accuses us of only abiding by rules we like. WikiExperts abides by all actual rules on Misplaced Pages and has never said otherwise. COI is a guideline, not a rule.

User:Bilby is correct.

User:Tom Harrison also unfairly, and without evidence, accuses us of using multiple accounts.

User:My very best wishes has made a clear and inappropriate personal attack on me in the above string.

User:Orange Mike claims we are spamming Misplaced Pages. We are not. In fact, we have never encountered Orange Mike before despite his valiant efforts to keep spam off Misplaced Pages. That is because we have never spammed Misplaced Pages, and we do hope that such a significant figure on Misplaced Pages would be able to find value in our well-researched and community accepted articles if he ever came across them.

User:LGA discusses “fall out” from our work on Misplaced Pages, but does so without any evidence an article we produced was not within Misplaced Pages guidelines.

User:Jehochman is making the only argument I’d really like to make myself, which is, we’ve never broken any actual rules nor have we damaged Misplaced Pages in any way. No evidence exists to say we’ve broken policy or added non-notable articles, and I myself am telling you we have not ever damaged Misplaced Pages’s copy and text. Each article we have worked on has in fact received a great amount of praise from the community, from barn stars to personal thanks.

User:Resolute accuses us of breaking NPOV. Let me reiterate, we have never broken NPOV, and are known to our clients as very restrictive on only posting neutral material.

User:Atethnekos also accuses us falsely of sockpuppetry, when it has never been proven and isn’t even the subject of this proposal.

User:Nyttend is using speculation and original research to try and piece together an argument to keep WikiExperts from editing Misplaced Pages. He also accuses us of possibly breaking the law without any evidence whatsoever. I believe this is very contrary to Misplaced Pages’s rules.

User:Eaglestorm has declared that WikiExperts has declared “war on Misplaced Pages”. Firstly, at no point has this ever been stated by myself or WikiExperts.

In short, there is no evidence that WikiExperts or users associated with it have ever broken a rule on Misplaced Pages. Recently I have tried to state my beliefs on how COI guidelines have failed people we work with time and time again, and how we have been able to abide perfectly by the guidelines without announcing a potential COI, which is the truth. If stating we don’t follow a “guideline” that is not a “policy” here is enough to ban, I would request the closing administrator state as such. If guidelines are in fact enforceable policies, let this be the precedent. I would also add that while we would fight any policy that explicitly states we would have to declare COI for our clients, if made actual policy we would have to abide by that rule, as we abide by all others. AKonanykhin (talk) 09:25, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

AKonanykhin, the rule you are breaking is WP:COI. The fact that we say guidelines may have the "occasional exception" does not mean, once you're aware of them, that you may blow them off entirely. You and your company's representatives, or anyone else you're paying/rewarding to edit, must disclose COI and stick to talk pages/noticeboards rather than editing directly in the COI areas. It is not optional. The "occasional exception" is not "an editor who disagrees may just ignore it altogether."Seraphimblade 11:09, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

AKonanykhin, nice try with that lengthy diatribe of yours and your comments on what I just wrote. You forget that I got that from similar points by Smallbones and a few other editors. Paid editing is paid editing, in the same principle of reporters being paid a sum to write favorable stories about certain people. Don't forget that there are editors who are adding or deleting info about the organizations or companies they actually work for.--Eaglestorm (talk) 14:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Very well, AKonanykhin, show me that you are maintaining NPOV by revealing your client list so that the relevant articles may be inspected for such. PR firms exist to promote a company or individual's image and the nature of the business is inherently POV. If you and your group are that incredibly unlikely exception, then you should be willing to stand behind your work. Resolute 18:06, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. It would certainly be permitted for you to reveal the list of firms you have here, unless the contact forbids making such revelations, but that is the only good reason I can imagine for withholding full public disclosure. And even in that event, it would certainly be possible and I believe permitted for you to e-mail the list of clients and known or presumed identities of editors to OTRS or ArbCom or somewhere (I admit I don't which would be most appropriate) so that they can review the edits and see if you have, in fact, been abiding by the standards of wikipedia. John Carter (talk) 18:12, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support per WP:NOTHERE.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:28, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Yes, AKonanykhin, WP:COI is a guideline; however, Misplaced Pages:Consensus is a policy. Misplaced Pages's guidelines are determined by consensus. Bans are enacted to prevent disruption of, and harm to, the project. A statement that demonstrates a unilateral refusal to abide by WP's guidelines due to one's personal perspective tends to show an inclination to disrupt and/or harm. Tiderolls 14:20, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support, of course. "Just a guideline", while in some rare instances a valid argument, is incorrectly applied more often by people who don't quite understand what guidelines are and their relationship to policies. Guidelines describe how consensus has determined policies are to be interpreted in particular circumstances. The WP:NOTHERE argument is also quite valid; While we can ensure some paid editors' intentions to purely produce accurate information on a company, a refusal to abide by COI as a matter of course makes it likely enough that their intentions are otherwise. equazcion� 14:38, 13 Oct 2013 (UTC)

Can you point out where the employees, of the clients, of wikiexperts are failing to abide by COI as a matter of course, because the proposal bans them as well, and what policy would justify such a broad ban? Monty₈₄₅ 15:35, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Guess the more accurate wording would have been, "as a matter of policy", but the point still stands. I can't point out actual infractions, if they exist, since their policy of not revealing themselves prevents us from identifying their potential COIs. Perhaps there's no written policy in place that dictates a ban in this situation, as we've probably never had such a situation before, but that doesn't really matter. It would be best for the encyclopedia to prevent institutions that state they plan to flout Misplaced Pages's rules from editing, as best we can. equazcion� 16:57, 13 Oct 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. I think any PR company which openly declares their Misplaced Pages services must be outright banned, unless they: (a) immediately and openly provide list of all their past and currently active accounts, and (b) promise to follow all basic wikipedia rules and actually keep their promise. This should be included in WP:COI, unless it's already there. This is nothing personal. Based on their statements and actions so far, this company openly defies such requirements. And, yes, the idea of collective responsibility must apply in such cases because these users may act as a group. For example, one can easily imagine a situation when several users from such company support each other by comments, votes or reverts - hence the open disclosure of all their accounts is absolutely necessary. My very best wishes (talk) 15:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• The above "action" was done prior to WikiExperts' opening and was not WikiExperts business. AKonanykhin (talk) 17:08, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support - The key is not that they are doing paid editing (which is not outright disallowed), but that they refuse to attach identity to the accounts that do that paid editing as such those contributions can be reviewed, as per WP:COI. That's the more troubling aspect. --MASEM (t) 16:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

@AKonanykhin: Honestly, that comment you made regarding me is at least to my eyes pure bullshit. At no point did I indicate that I would take any sort of direct action, which is an unwarranted assumption that you seem to have jumped to rather easily with little provocation. Please refrain from such incendiary, irrational comments in the future, because if nothing else they raise very serious questions regarding your input. John Carter (talk) 14:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• I object that this thread is commercial slander and a violation of BLP. Bad things are being said about a person and his business without proper evidentiary diffs. Jehochman 16:07, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: Replying to each of the individuals above stating things I believe are false is not a diatribe as User:EagleStorm has stated--I was putting all my replies in one place rather than scattering them across the votes above, paying attention to what each user has said, and responding where I can to make sure my side is clearly laid out, as should be done in any AN conversation. User:EagleStorm states that he received my "war on Misplaced Pages" comment from listening to other editors, which is exactly my point. There is a lot of misinformation being perpetuated above in terms of what WikiExperts does or does not do, due to large scale speculation. Let me reiterate. I have one and only one account and would never use another. Anyone who contracts with WikiExperts is instructed to follow COI guidelines to the letter as well as all Misplaced Pages policies, excepting only an official declaration of COI, to ensure our content is perfectly neutral. That has resulted in no complaints from any Misplaced Pages user upon reviewing our the articles we post. Regardless, the COI guideline is under much debate and constant editing. We don't have a clear consensus on Misplaced Pages. Banning WikiExperts without any clear evidence that WikiExperts has harmed Misplaced Pages in any way would merely be a backdoor to banning paid editors without first gaining full community support on paid editing generally, and that is both unfair and ignores the actual consensus that Misplaced Pages has reached--that only the current somewhat lenient COI guidelines can be agreed upon, and that banning paid editing is not something the community is willing to do. Until this is resolved to policy level, I have believed that following the more lenient approach that paid editing is allowed, so long as neutrality, verifiability, and other content policies are strictly followed. I would follow that up with a caveat that for anyone here who has a policy they believe we are not following, and that should be followed, please inform me of it so that we can review it and integrate it into how we edit. We want nothing more than to continue to be constructive members of the Misplaced Pages community, and very much sympathize with those that might be sensitive to the idea of paid editing. Our only intention in our off Misplaced Pages commentary being used to judge us above, was to open a dialogue on how we believe that COI declarations are not mandatory and can harm good, neutral editing Misplaced Pages paid editors by subjecting them to the same often over-the-top accusations that appear in this very comment string. AKonanykhin (talk) 16:27, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

How can an objective review of your contributor's content be accomplished without the requisite COI disclosure? Tiderolls 16:33, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• • • Misplaced Pages has many different methods of vetting articles and contributions, including new page patrol. Each of our pages gets patrolled when added. We write every article objectively, and they are all subjected to the same oversight that every new article has when being added. I'm not sure what you are asking for, for an additional level of scrutiny being given to us over other editors? Where would that occur? AKonanykhin (talk) 16:46, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

You're not sure what I'm asking? OK, I'll bite; I'm requesting that you and the editors from your organization edit within the policies and guidelines of this project. Tiderolls 16:55, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you've hit the nail on the head with your suggestion that you should be subject to "an additional level of scrutiny ... over other editors", AKonanykhin. The difference between your team's contributions and those of other editors is that you are acting as the agents of parties who quite naturally wish to be presented in the best light possible. Neutrality (a Misplaced Pages-wide policy) - i.e. a presentation of the negative aspects of the companies you represent along with the positive aspects - is strongly impacted when your paycheck comes from those that desire the minimization of their negatives and an emphasis of their positives. Considering that there is an actual motivation for you to violate or at least skirt NPOV, there is clearly extra reason to review your contributions. You've previously made the dubious claim that all editors present a biased perspective when they write articles, but the reason that these alleged biases are only subjected to normal scrutiny is that they occur on the individual level whereas your group is engaging in systematic editing. -Thibbs (talk) 17:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• • • (c-e) :::Agreed. And the rather weak statement that "we don't choose to follow unofficial rules" is clearly a rather weak statement. Repeated violations of such "mere guidelines", are I believe themselves in at least some cases demonstrably enough for editors to be banned or otherwise sanctioned by ArbCom or on these boards. The fact that an organization seems to boast that it can, and apparently does in some cases, violate the conduct guidelines established at a private site, where editing is a privelege, not a right, does I believe raise serious questions which have not yet been addressed about the ethics of the firm involved, and such questions about the ethics of PR firms, if publicly discussed, could not unreasonably result in damaging press and damage to the reputation of the firms involved. And, yes, contentious matters around here get discussed in a lot of external media fairly regularly and sometimes thoroughly, whether we want that or not. Your statement, in effect, seems to be little more than a statement of "Trust us - we know what we're doing", by a source whose ethics pretty much indicate that they are about as trustworthy as the first person that quote is attributed to. And, in response to the above comment, that isn't an answer. You seem to be attempting to dodge addressing the fact that you have one method under your control, regarding which you apparently insist you have a right to act contrary to guidelines. That apparent stated, insistent, refusal to abide by guidelines cannot help but damage any credibility you or your editors, and potentially all their edits, might have so long as you continue to make that insistence. John Carter (talk) 16:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

AKonanykhin certainly likes to rebut my comments. Hurt much?--Eaglestorm (talk) 03:12, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm inclined to oppose per Bilby. WP:COI doesn't provide a particularly solid basis for blocking when it goes out of its way to use words like "advice", "recommendations", "discouragement", etc. It's not that COI is just a "mere" guideline, but the language it uses is exceptionally fuzzy. I for one am grateful to AKonanykhin for clearly illustrating the weakness of our COI guideline. As Bilby pointed out above, this guideline should really provide the basis for a new policy explicitly requiring the declaration of COI for individuals and corporations writing about themselves (broadly construed) and including their agents and paid advocates. Rather than blocking AKonanykhin for failure to follow fuzzy recommendations in a guideline I think it's high time these common sense rules were made into firm policy. The only thing that holds me back from opposing the proposed block entirely is the sockpuppetry aspect of it. That really concerns me because when systematic corporate-backed sockpuppetry starts it just takes a few more turns of the wheel until we have flotillas of sockpuppets voting in AfDs, jiggering consensus on RS determination, and otherwise degrading our ability to form a clear consensus. Atethnekos's links above provide enough circumstantial evidence of this kind of taint to restrain me from opposing the block. -Thibbs (talk) 17:29, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Policies are not laws and there need not be a policy in order to take an action that people feel is necessary. Practice often tends to come before policy. Those who feel that COI should be a strongly-worded policy should not feel there's a technical reason to oppose this action merely because COI isn't codified as such yet. equazcion� 18:51, 13 Oct 2013 (UTC)
    • Obviously the community can do as it pleases, but my lean toward "oppose" is based on moral, not technical grounds. I'm opposed to any kind of ex post facto proceeding. I can't help but imagine myself on the wrong side of a "practice often tends to come before policy" argument and it makes my skin crawl. If we are serious about tackling this issue then we need to craft serious rules. Blocking AKonanykhin for ignoring our suggestions misidentifies the source of the problem. -Thibbs (talk) 20:10, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - Ban people for what they do, not who they are affiliated for. If we start preemptively banning editors because of their personal life and/or employment instead of because of what they actually did on-wiki, where will it stop? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:56, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• I find it significantly sad that there is an AN discussion this long and this contentious about WikiExperts, when there has not been a significant public thread about Wiki-PR. Wiki-PR has hundreds of confirmed clients, many more suspected clients (including *Viacom*, and a number of fairly notable bands,) and thousands of more as of yet undetected clients. The sockpuppet investigation in to Morning277 has been effectively shut down, and their work is continuing. All this thread is serving to do is let Alex get free advertising by managing to inject himself in to a discussion that should be centered around a different group of paid editors. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:30, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose as utterly excessive. WP:COI is a guideline, not policy. I'm not a big fan of paid editors, but I fully understand why a company would wish to keep the exact identity of their clients private. If all of the company's accounts were labelled as being linked to the firm, then there's little need to be this draconian. Beyond that, the proposal is VERY extreme, as it is literally just an enormous blanket; "otherwise encouraged to edit" is WAY too overreaching, as what is wrong with someone with this firm asking for one of their friends to update, say, the 2013 British GT season results table? That would violate this ban, and that makes this ban a bad idea. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 19:23, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Everything here is a strawman argument. WP:PAY does not explicitly prohibit paid editing. Since the proposal cannot back up its claims with policy the whole thing should be withdrawn before anyone gets any silly idea about "declaring war on paid editors". KonveyorBelt 19:35, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• I suggest tabling this thread and instead using the energy to conduct an RFC on paid editing with the goal of forming a solid policy. In the thread below I suggested that the policy might require paid editors (employees of the subject, or contractors), to disclose their work on a noticeboard set up for that purpose. Once the paid editing is disclosed, we can monitor it for problems, and take any measures needed, including swift blocks of problematic editors. We can hold paid editors to high standards and not waste time with any who try to play games. For any paid editors who try to avoid scrutiny by omitting the disclosure, it could be our policy to indef block them. I think such a policy would be better than what we have now, and alleviate the biggest concerns. If we test it and there are still problems, we can then discuss next steps. Jehochman 20:42, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I think having that RfC is a wise idea regardless. There's a real quick way to table the current discussion, though, and that is for wikiexperts.us to say "Alright, we get you, consensus is clear that we must reveal our edits. Here's the list of articles we've edited so far and the times we did, and we'll clearly mark such edits in the future." The fact that they won't do that makes it look even more like there's a reason they don't want those edits to be examined. AKonanykhin, would you be willing to do that? Seraphimblade 20:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
    • (e-c)Just adding this before the thread is closed. That proposal above sounds really good to me. There might be problems with undisclosed editors for hire, and I would myself also like to see some such noticeboard to also include a way for corporations who see problems with their articles but don't want to have paid editors be able to contact people with sources to use to develop articles. But that proposal is at least a really good start. John Carter (talk) 20:54, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
      • I think we have an emerging consensus that paid editors should disclose. If their editing is good, disclosure should not have any downside. People look at the edits and go, "Yep, those comply with our content policy. Good edits. Thanks." If not, remedial action can be taken as needed. For the moment, I suggest that Wikiexperts agree that from now on their paid editors will go the relevant article talk page and post a note that they, the individual editor, are working for the subject and that they welcome scrutiny of their edits. There is no need to for individual editor to identify Wikiexperts as the agency-intermediary on the transaction. It's not our concern how somebody has been hired; it's not our desire to interfere with a business contract that might stipulate confidentiality; we just need to know that they are being paid so we can check their edits more carefully. Can everybody agree to that as a temporary measure until there's an RFC which sets up a general policy, and possibly a central noticeboard? Jehochman 21:53, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
        • For me, at least, so long as someone says "I'm getting paid to do this", I couldn't care less who it is paying them. I just want to know, to be aware of what I'm looking for. And that's not even to say paid editors will intentionally edit badly, but subconscious bias can creep up on the best of us. It's possible the paid editor didn't find some serious negative information about their client, because, well, they weren't terribly well inclined to look. I am going to object to closing this thread, though, because we do not yet have any indication wikiexperts, in particular, actually plans to do that. If and only if they do commit to doing that, I would say they're no longer engaged in the behavior the ban proposal is for, and at that point the discussion would indeed be moot. That hasn't, to my knowledge, actually happened yet. Seraphimblade 22:08, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - largely per Monty845 and Jehochman. No need to so passively assume bad faith; surely we can wait until they at least do something to violate policy. Go Phightins! 22:24, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• That was a violation of policy which resulted in blocking an account by an arbitrator. I am sure there are many other similar accounts; I simply did not investigate (that's why Mr. Konanykhin is probably hesitant to disclose all his accounts). Mr. Konanykhin claimed above that it was not his company. Well, based on the editing pattern, that was either Mr. Konanykhin himself (in which case he should be blocked right now) or someone else who worked for Mr. Konanykhin. My very best wishes (talk) 23:11, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support in principle. There are many rules that are good to have as rules, even if difficult to enforce. I have no great aversion to the idea of paid editing, so long as it is done aboveboard, with disclaimer of all conflicts of interest. bd2412 T 00:12, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support but Oppose simplistic ban as written, preferring to insert the word "undisclosed" into the wording. Prohibition doesn't work. It just sends the practice underground where it is more difficult to monitor, let alone control. Paid editing is a fact of life. Some paid editors will be better, as in more compliant with our values, than others. We should reward the more compliant editors, the ones who self declare stick to that single account, and try to comply, so that their life is easier than paid editors working undeclared.

  What if they declare that they are a paid editor, but refuse to say who pays, or to give details on their COI? I can see that they may justify this refusal on privacy concerns. I have seen privacy suffer due to attempting to declare details of COI. I think some balance can be found here. If they declare that they are paid, and declare that they have a COI, that is way better than editing undisclosed, changing account every time caught, until they become good at being undetected.

  Tryptofish's concern is very important.

  Agree with bd2412. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:30, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• So how to do this?

Proposal: Undeclared paid editors are banned, effective from today. As banned editors, their edits are not welcome, even if otherwise constructive. Any pages authored by banned editors are summarily deletable per WP:CSD#G5. G5 deleted pages may be recreated by another editor in good standing, but they must be written afresh, as the banned editor's contributions are not welcome, and reuse of their material would require attribution per our licencing.

The question of whether an editor is an undeclared paid editor is resolvable at WP:COIN.

An undiscovered undeclared paid editor may retrospectively avoid banned status by immediately declaring as a paid editor.

An editor declaring their status as a paid editor must make a clear note to that effect at the top of their userpage.

Notes: There is little point attempting to punish accounts. Accounts are cheap and disposable. What matters in paid editing is their product. If we delete their product, per their terms, they must refund the fees paid. This will make them pay attention.

Paid editors still need to be afforded personal privacy. It is not necessary to disclose full detail on who is paying them, and exact what they are paid to do. Having them disclose that they are paid editors will be a very good start, and quite possibly sufficient, as they can be watched. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support The gentleman and his associates have blatantly declared that they have an agenda that aims to subvert the open-source, public interest character of Misplaced Pages, as per the following statement on his Misplaced Pages article Alex Konanykhin

  "We believe that boycotting fundraising efforts of Misplaced Pages might compel it to raise billions via advertising and develop content of significantly better quality."

He's a vulture capitalist tool of the "investor class", in short, targeting an organization that looks like easy prey to him.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 05:16, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. This proposal violates everything we stand for. If someone says they think vandalizing Misplaced Pages is a good thing without ever vandalizing Misplaced Pages, soapboxing, or otherwise violating any policy, do we ban them? If someone says that Misplaced Pages should deny the Holocaust but never goes beyond expressing that opinion, do we ban them? It goes against our core principles to ban for thoughtcrime or for expressing unpopular opinions. Bans should be based upon specific edits that violate specific policies or guidelines, not on having a "contemptuous attitude toward our COI guidelines". I am very disappointed in those of you who support this, and I can only hope that you just didn't realize what you were doing. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Consider the caveats of Tryptofish and SmokyJoe. This is an "ounce of prevention" approach. Disclosure is a core component of the COI policy, and the pretense to taking the moral high ground is made with accompanying statements that exceed the reprehensible and duplicitous. He is deviously waging an anti-Misplaced Pages PR campaign, like a devious PR man would be expected to do. What's wrong with upholding the stature of Misplaced Pages in the face of such chicanery.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 11:17, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Again, if someone says that Misplaced Pages should remove all material critical to Scientology but never violates any rule or goes beyond expressing that opinion -- once -- on the Scientology talk page, do we ban them? You are asking what is wrong with banning someone because they express an unpopular opinion. My answer is that everything is wrong with banning someone because they express an unpopular opinion. You may one day express the opinion that you disagree with the way Misplaced Pages is run. If that ever happens, would you object if we banned you for waging an anti-Misplaced Pages PR campaign, even though you had not broken any of the rules? In my opinion, your willingness to punish thoughtcrime hurts Misplaced Pages far more than any PR flack or sockpuppet ever could. Nonetheless, I would oppose banning you for it. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose ban. If you can think of a reason to impose a ban which is explicitly based on policy, then I would like to see that reason, but until then... "The company claims that they will act ethically and that it respects Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines with the exception of COI. We should put to the test whether they will respect our policy on bans by refraining from editing once banned from doing so, as paid editing without full COI disclosure is inherently unethical." basically means "They say they're ethical. I think they're not. So let's ban them, and if there are any edits later, that proves they're unethical!". Banning somebody to give them a chance to prove that they won't edit through a ban is just a 21st century form of witch-dunking. bobrayner (talk) 12:43, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Let's face it: paid editors are here to spam and spin. No one pays an editor to objectively edit something like Ancient Rome unless they are trying to sell a book. So why pay for an article here? To sell a non-notable thing as "encyclopedic". 'Cause of the artificial notability. For me, Paid editing = spam. Doc talk 13:12, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• You do realize that you just supported a proposal that, as written, bans someone who has never spammed, never accepted pay for editing Misplaced Pages, and indeed has never edited an article, or done anything other that expressing an opinion that such editing should be allowed, right? I don't think anyone here has a problem with nuking actual spammers, but that's not what is being proposed here. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:52, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• My support isn't going to make any difference in this. I have a black-and-white view of paid editing in general. No one gets paid to edit an article for truly encyclopedic purposes. Who would pay someone to improve, say, Cuisine of India? Unless they have a financial incentive to promote something? I work for free here as a volunteer, and am highly suspicious of the motives of any paid editor. That us all. Doc talk 00:30, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support - they are everything that Misplaced Pages is not and should not be. Independent paid editors can be tolderated; a full company cannot, as they cannot be trusted to abide by our neutality, bias and POV policies. GiantSnowman 13:18, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Let's stop this now. This ban proposal is premature. We need to first work out the policy basis by having a discussion to the effect that undeclared paid editing is unwelcome. Once we have developed that consensus and tag the page as policy, then we can look at specific cases in violation and deal with them. If this ban is placed, I will request arbitration to have it overturned. It is silly to keep going here. We need to resolve the policy question first. Jehochman 13:37, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

What policy question? Tiderolls 14:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

"Undeclared" paid editors usually get tripped up due to their use of WP for non-encyclopedic purposes. How else would one identify undeclared paid editing? Doc talk 14:16, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: I've always found WP:COI to be misused in the vein of the Spanish Inquisition and heavily tilted toward those editors interested in writing about corporate entities. Until the community requires disclosure of a COI by any editor who might have one (instead of strongly advising), (See this comprehensive description in WP:COI), this type of ban request is merely an inquisition. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

So your position is that if the wording is changed mandating disclosure that the expressed intent to violate the WP:COI policy would be sufficient grounds for banning, but with the current wording

If you have a financial connection to a topic...you are advised to refrain from editing articles directly, and to provide full disclosure of the connection.

at Misplaced Pages:Coi#Paid_advocacy.2C_public_relations.2C_and_marketing), insufficient?

Maybe it is time to close that loophole.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 15:06, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if it's helpful to call it a loophole. AFAIR, the guidelines have been clear for a long time that neither is disclosure required nor is editing with a COI including paid editing forbidden. As I said below, despite some occasional confusion this seems to be supported by long standing practice. And while there are arguments for and against this stance, I'm pretty sure at the time of formulation the lack of a requirement for disclosure was intentional. If people want to change the guidelines, there are ways to go about, clearly trying to use a different intepretation at AN is not the way to go about it. If consensus is reached that failing or refusing to disclose a COI is blockable that's fine but it should be full thought given to the implications of such a requirement. (Personally I think if full thought is given the requirement will be far more more limited most likely only applying to a specific form of paid editing.) Nil Einne (talk) 16:17, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

@Ubikwit: I think my position is clear. COI as written and invoked today is grossly biased against editors who might want to contribute to corporate related articles because it presumes anyone with a COI can't contribute well sourced, neutral content to notable corporate topics. Such presumptions demonstrate great upfront bias and POV. I do not think that requiring disclosure of COI is neither wise nor practical. However, unless it is made a requirement and applied equally to all forms of COI--Any external relationship – personal, religious, political, academic, financial, and legal – can trigger a conflict of interest. (from WP:COI), ban requests like this will remain an inquisition. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:42, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose -- Editors should be judged on their editing behavior per WP:COI not who they might be in real life. This includes the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, their gender, their education, their age, their nationality, their philosophy and their employer. This proposal, if passed, is the beginning of open-ended and "legalized" discrimination on WP.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:13, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Let's face it. This is subversion of the project. Yes, it makes a lot of difference if someone edits in his own capacity, rather than as a member of an outside organization with goals very different from our goals. My very best wishes (talk) 15:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think this entire discussion went on a wrong track. This is not a "COI problem", but a "MEAT problem". If people work on behalf of an outside organization or another person, they appear essentially as "meatpuppets" and therefore must disclose that they belong to a certain organization or work on behalf of another person (who might also have his own account like Mr. Konanykhin).

• Support ban. This company isn't only advertising that they will create articles for companies that meet our notability guidelines - they're also advertising that they will keep these articles free of negative content (eg. "Your Misplaced Pages presence is completely safe, if you entrust it to us"), presumably even if well-sourced. I would appreciate more evidence about specific users identified as working for this firm, or pages the firm has edited, but even without that, I think we have enough to show that they are not interested in following policy in the specific, as well as a general problem with WP:NOTHERE (their goals and the encyclopedia's goals are not similar, and they've outright mocked our guidelines and people who try to enforce them). –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:00, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

That's what I see too. Taking negative content out of the articles seems like owning it - sometimes, truth hurts, live with it. Unfortunately, that's gonna happen if we let these Wikiexperts clowns run wild in the project.--Eaglestorm (talk) 04:21, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• Strong support: the very existence of a website like that one undermines the whole concept of WP. Its manager/CEO/whatever openly stating that he will not follow WP:COI and adding gems like this one:

RE: "you have no actual right to be allowed on Misplaced Pages. -- How come? I'm out, even though any looser can be there, safe in his anonymity and bullying experts and professionals?

is a clear indication that he has zero respect for the project and the people involved in it. Even if the ban is technically very difficult to impose it sends a clear message and acts as a warning to anyone out there thinking of giving money to them. Gaba 20:06, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Very strong support " "..a company which has explicitly stated that it will not follow those guidelines and in fact considers it "unethical" to do so", seems to have been demonstrated by the OP. A function of the organization appears to be to use Misplaced Pages for reasons outside our core pillars.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:05, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• Weak support I was originally intending to strongly oppose based on the fact that the common reasons given aren't actually supported by our guidelines. In particular, our COI guidelines do not stop people with a COI from editing articles nor do they require disclosure. They simply strongly discourage such editing encourage disclosure This is supported by long standing practice where an editor is not blocked for editing with a COI nor for failing to disclose it, but instead only for actual violations they commit due to their COI and where we do perhaps have a lower tolerance for such poor behaviour for editors with an undisclosed COI. While I recognise a number of editors disagree with this, this obviously isn't the right place to change the guidelines. However looking more carefully, I see there is a resonable case to be made that the editors are actively violating WP:SOCK namely using multiple accounts to violate scrutiny so there is some merit to a block. Nil Einne (talk) 15:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

If people work on behalf of an outside organization or another person, they appear essentially as "meatpuppets" and therefore must disclose that they belong to a certain organization or work on behalf of another person (who might also have his own account like Mr. Konanykhin). My very best wishes (talk) 18:05, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Comment: It appears that in addition to unproven accusations of sockpuppetry against myself or WikiExperts (we have never once broken the rule against sockpuppetry), some editors are also bringing up unproven accusations of Meatpuppetry. The meatpuppetry on Misplaced Pages policy discusses the use of more than one person being used to sway an argument on Misplaced Pages, which is something we have never done. Never once has WikiExperts ever employed a series of individuals to support or oppose an argument on Misplaced Pages, including here in this comment thread. I'd also like to point out that I myself have plainly declared who I work for (as owner of WikiExperts) and my position there, and have never made an edit on a talk page without using this account, which features my real name. Even if there is a proclamation that editors must OUT themselves in all cases of potential COI in the future, I myself have never broken that possible future rule. Why would the argument that COI must be treated as policy and not a guideline result in the banning of a person who is open about their connection to a company being discussed? I've been very clear about my association. However I refuse to OUT any other editor, as this is against Misplaced Pages policy. AKonanykhin (talk) 19:32, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

No, you work for your clients. Given that you refuse to name them, your claim that you have "plainly declared who I work for" is objectively false. Resolute 20:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

As someone who cracks down very hard on attempts to out users...I find the outing argument completely weak and fallacious here. If you don't want to be identified as being affiliated with a company, don't edit articles in a promotional way on behalf of that company. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:08, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• @Konanykhin. No, I think at least three accounts (in addition to your own account) already acted as your sock/meatpuppets: , , while editing your biography alone, and I am not counting other suspicious "trough away" accounts who edited the same article. One of them was blocked, and rightly so. Who knows how many others are out there editing other articles? My very best wishes (talk) 20:17, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry says: "Improper purposes include attempts to deceive or mislead other editors, disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, or otherwise violate community standards and policies." The link there, to Misplaced Pages:List of guidelines#Behavioral, says "Do not use Misplaced Pages to promote yourself, your website, or your organization." On Novermber 10, 2010, 15:36 default time, User:Eclipsed starts adding material to the page Alex Konanykhin . Same date, 17:50 default time, new user named "Konanykhin" on Commons adds a photo of "Alex Konanykhin, author of book Defiance" and describes it as "own work" . Same date at 23:46 default time, User:Eclipsed adds that photo to Alex Konanykhin article . User:Eclipsed continues to edit Alex Konanykhin article, which also involved removing potentially negative information (November 20, 2010: ). User:Eclipsed also edits the KMGi (advertising agency) article, including uploading the KMGi logo and adding it to the article . On January 4, 2011 User:Eclipsed indicates that he does paid editing and says that he has a "financial connection" with Alex Konanykhin and KMGi (advertising agency). All of this shows clear conflict-of-interest meat puppetry, an infringement of Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Agree. So, this is fourth meatpuppet account. I am not arguing that corporate accounts should be forbidden, but only that they must be properly registered as corporate accounts to allow scrutiny by community. Perhaps we need a separate category of accounts, called "corporate accounts", which would be a subject for more stringent rules, because a group of hidden corporate accounts can cause significant damage for the project, as we actually just have seen in case of Wiki-PR? My very best wishes (talk) 21:54, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Instead of accusing me of sockpuppetry here UserMyVeryBestWishes, please note that your prior attempt to investigate me for sockpuppetry ended without evidence to support your claim. I welcome you to do the same with any other account, as I have never committed sockpuppetry--in fact, I've never edited an article on Misplaced Pages before. Just review my user contributions to verify this. Also, User:Rosceles, no one has proven that I or anyone with WikiExperts has ever edited in a promotional manner, so I don't agree with your argument in favour of outting other editors, as it implies that we must be editing promotionally purely because we are being paid to edit. And, User:Resolute, please see our policy here, where we stated explicitly "We do NOT upload articles provided by clients. We do NOT upload press-releases, advertorials, or other material not in compliance with Misplaced Pages standards.". We create referenced, neutral Misplaced Pages articles on companies or individuals looking to have a presence on the site. I work for myself, as the owner of the company. Clients purchase our services, I do not work for them. Just as McDonald's does not work for you when you purchase your meal. Besides the fact, that the meatpuppetry policy on Misplaced Pages covers a very specific practice--the use of multiple editors editing in concert on a talk page in order to sway an argument. You've misinterpretted the policy. AKonanykhin (talk) 21:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

He is accusing you of sockpuppeting because you are sockpuppeting. KonveyorBelt 22:02, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi User:KonveyorBelt, I would encourage you to take a look at my response to his accusations here: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Wexperts . I may post my response here, but am not sure what the protocols are for including identical information on that investigation's page and this page, as User:Atethnekos is doing? I think it would be beneficial to add the explanation here as well, but don't want to be accused of spamming the message. Would it be appropriate to add it as a comment below? AKonanykhin (talk) 17:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

RfC on WP:BRIGHTLINE An RfC has opened on whether Misplaced Pages:No paid advocacy (BRIGHTLINE) should become policy. See Misplaced Pages talk:No paid advocacy. SlimVirgin 17:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. I think real problem here is not paid editing, but whether someone works as an individual or on behalf of an outside organization/another person in Misplaced Pages (added later)). In latter case, they appear essentially as "meatpuppets" and therefore must disclose that they belong to certain organization or work on behalf of another person (who might also have his own account like Mr. Konanykhin). My very best wishes (talk) 18:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

  Everybody belongs to some sort of organization. Would you force every editor to disclose their entire life story, their family members names, positions, affiliations, lovers, bastards, and so on? Come on, this is just getting too crazy. Jehochman 23:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• I am talking about someone working on behalf of an external organization in wikipedia. I thought that was clear. For example, I never worked on behalf of an external organization or another person in Misplaced Pages. Do you? My very best wishes (talk) 01:35, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• support at a base level I was opposed to this proposal, because we should keep open access, but they have really shot themselves in the foot by explicitly saying they indent to ignore our policies. Gaijin42 (talk) 19:46, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I've never been paid to edit Misplaced Pages, but I've been paid to write articles for others to publish on Misplaced Pages. I then took that article to DYK of my own accord because it was interesting and DYK-worthy (w/o getting paid). If this policy passes, what stops me from being punished? I've never been accused of not being WP:NPOV or posting articles that failed WP:GNG, so why shouldn't I continue to edit the way I do?--v/r - TP 23:53, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

If it passes, then yes, that would fall under the policy. But then, if the community decides that writing WP articles for pay is a problem, then writing Misplaced Pages articles for pay to be posted by a third party would also be a problem. Arguably not as big, and harder to detect, but still an issue. That's largely what has been happening with the Morning277 case - he writes the articles, and other people post them on his behalf. - Bilby (talk) 01:08, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support. That company should be banned from editing the Misplaced Pages. It is scarcely credible that someone who is paid on a regular basis to edit in Misplaced Pages can avoid conflict of interest that would defeat the usual Misplaced Pages criticism and contest process.Chjoaygame (talk) 00:53, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Oppose You can't get rid of it, all you do is drive it underground. The best way to deal with it is find acceptable guidelines, such as private disclosure (public would present obvious problems) and try to channel it. And, by the way, having recently been paid for an article (non-wiki) in real life, I find I like it.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose this issue is here to stay, if there's fuzzy guidelines rather than clear and actionable policies its our own fault. Admittedly the attitude of this particular "company" (?) leave a lot to be desired Jebus989 15:51, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. Why would not Mr. Konanykhin simply tell us: "Our company has editors X, Y and Z. They created/edited such and such pages. Please inspect: this is good job". No one would object this. To the contrary, their company could earn a very good reputation here. There is no good reason why they can not do it. The argument about "outing" (working for a company) is indeed unconvincing. However, if they do not do it, there is only one logical explanation: they are going to violate our policies, exactly as Mr. Konanykhin said in some of his statements above and publications (e.g. No donations to Misplaced Pages). My very best wishes (talk) 04:15, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: To answer the question as to why I cannot divulge our client base, beyond the Outting rule and the fact that as of now COI guidelines are suggestions and not policy -- we have non-disclosure agreements with our clients and editors. That means we cannot legally disclose who our clients are, or who works with us as editors. So long as COI disclosure is voluntary and not mandatory, we feel that a lack of disclosure is within the rules and policies of Misplaced Pages. If COI disclosure does become policy on Misplaced Pages, we would have to reconsider our own policies, however this would never be done in a retroactive manner.

Secondly, I want to highlight my response to the accusations of sock/meatpuppetry above. It can be found here: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet_investigations/Wexperts#Comments_by_other_users. I prefer not to add it piecemeal to the above discussion as there is enough confusion over the "evidence" for our supposed bad deeds, and I want to record set straight. AKonanykhin (talk) 17:27, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• Clarification I consider "We believe that boycotting fundraising efforts of Misplaced Pages might compel it to raise billions via advertising and develop content of significantly better quality." an obvious declaration of war upon everything that Misplaced Pages stands for, as it is a call to impoverish and eventually destroy us, and reduce the remnants to prostituting our once-valued name and reputation to the great profit of companies like his own. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:49, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to require disclosure of paid editing

• I hope some of this good energy can be directed toward a workable policy. See Misplaced Pages:Paid editing policy proposal. The gist of this policy is that disclosure is required. That would be the first step. If in time we see that disclosure is not sufficient, we can figure out what the next step would be. Jehochman 23:15, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Might it be better to toss that up on the WT:No paid advocacy page where there is an attempt to centralize all this discussion, as an alternative proposal? --MASEM (t) 23:43, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Help with image deletions

Here's some images from various queues that I am unable to delete, because I am the person who nominated them. If someone could evaluate them for possible deletion I would appreceiate it:

• File:10th-Provincial Assembly-KPK.png
• File:Cucho tailor.jpg
• File:Cuchotailor2.jpg
• File:Monster on boardwalk mermaid 2007 .jpg
• File:Pervez-Khattak-CM.jpg.gif
• File:Circle II Circle.jpg
• File:Criss Oliva.jpg nomination withdrawn
• File:Jeff Plate.jpg
• File:Jon Oliva's Pain.jpg
• File:FG Original title card.png
• File:Justice Lords.jpg. Thank you, -- Diannaa (talk) 04:11, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

These are all handled. Thanks to those who helped out. -- Diannaa (talk) 20:40, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian race controversy

There is sort of a war going on in this articleAncient Egyptian race controversy, There seems to be an issue with some edits on this page. 2 editors claim the IP editor has done something wrong. and has reverted the edits. I don't see anything wrong the page was dull before it now has life and images. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.108.61.128 (talk) 16:49, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Yup. There seems to be an edit war - what looks like a single (possibly banned?) user is adding material against consensus. The IP above appears to be the same user, and has made a personal attack in an edit summary. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:58, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not that IP. I don't have anything to hide either, if I did I wouldn't have brought it here. I made a sarcastic comment based on what the other editor wrote he doesn't know if the ip was a banned editor or not. So I guess he also made a personal attack on someone instead of assuming good faith right? 150.108.61.128 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:12, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

There is no absolute requirement to assume good faith if there is serious reason to believe otherwise. Please note that I have subsequently reverted your own edits, and have indicated that at this point the appropriate way to continue this matter, should you wish to do so, would be to start a discussion on the talk page regarding the material you seek to add, why you seek to add it, and the sources to support that material. John Carter (talk) 17:18, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

So you're not the same IP, even though you're editing the same article from the same range? Pull the other one. If you have nothing to hide then WP:REGISTER. GiantSnowman 17:19, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Also I guess you are personally attacking me as well correct? I usually don't waste my time with Misplaced Pages because of petty things like this. I don't see anything wrong with the edits the IP user made, that is why I brought it here so Admins can get involve, LOOK INTO IT and stop the war. But since I'm being accused by you, I'm just going to leave it 150.108.61.128 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:22, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I just saw that John careter posted here as well should have come here before I reverted. Why are all these attacks coming from and how do you know I'm that IP?

IP, you're now at 3RR (using the two IP addresses - we're not stupid y'know) - one more reversion and you'll be blocked. GiantSnowman 17:31, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

cleary you are the smartest man alive, so smart you belive what ever pops into your head, why don't you prove that I'm the other IP and lets see how smart you are then. Stop making foolish acusations — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.108.61.128 (talk) 17:36, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

"discussion on the talk page regarding the material you seek to add, why you seek to add it, and the sources to support that material" what are you talking abput I did't add anything to it what sources. the only thing that was added by that IP was an art gallery and images did you even look at the article before you attacked me for doing something wrong? Why didn't the others explain or list the reason behind why they did the reverts.150.108.61.128 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:32, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Also doest wiki keep the disputed edits there untill the issue has been resolved or a consensus had been reached? so how do any of you revert the edit I brought on here just like that without any reason as to why? Then treaten me Is that how its done on wikipedia? 150.108.61.128 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• I suggest you read WP:DUCK, and stop thinking we're idiots - you're at 150.108.61.128 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), the 'other' at 150.108.160.69 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Same range, same location - making the same edits? 150.108.160.69 mentioned in their edit summary coming to an admin board - and yet it was 150.108.61.128 who brought it here. So unless it's a massive coincidence that two separate people from the Bronx both have the exact same opinion about such an obscure topic, you're very clearly the same person. GiantSnowman 17:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

And the assertion that all that was added was images is demonstrably false: . AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:43, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

There's also the 206 IP. Semi-protection? Dougweller (talk) 18:28, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Probably can't do it myself, as an "involved" person per my last revert, but I would support it if someone else wanted to. John Carter (talk) 18:30, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

It's probably a blocked or banned editor. The article has an odd editing history - accounts with maybe 4 edits only to this article, loads of IPs, an SPA or two with more than a handful of edits. Maybe Yalens will have a clue if he's around today or tomorrow. Dougweller (talk) 20:32, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Wiki-PR

Given the seriousness of the problem Wiki-PR presents, I think it would be good if a public discussion about potential community responses to Wiki-PR was started. I'm sure discussions are taking place on private lists like the functionaries and arbitration lists, but I think that, since openness is one of our founding values, it would be good if potential community responses were discussed in open forums as well. I had not intended to start an AN section about Wiki-PR yet, but I'm worried that the discussion about WikiExperts a few sections up risks generating a lot of acrimony between people at a time when we are going to need to come together to figure out how to formulate a reasonable response to Wiki-PR as a community, and think that it may be better to start this discussion earlier rather than later. As a side note, several journalists have also been in contact with me in recent days about Wiki-PR, and at least one piece that provides new and interesting information about Wiki-PR is likely to be published on monday.

Here's a summary of some of what we know about Wiki-PR so far from publicly available sources, including the signpost article, the daily dot article, and the SPI/LTA case pages:

• Wiki-PR has successfully inserted a large number of articles in to the encyclopedia by using an extensive network of sock and meatpuppets. Most of these articles have not yet been detected, and may number as high as 12,000.
• Besides damage their direct work has done, the case has also led directly to the effective retirement of some long-time respected editors, including Dennis Brown.
• Many of these articles covered non-notable subjects, and a number have been deleted. More articles still exist than have been deleted. Most Wiki-PR articles that were deleted were deleted through the Morning277 SPI, which is now effectively closed. I don't want to speak for the checkusers since I am not one, but I think it's a safe assumption that the closing of the SPI was related to at least two main factors (a) the number of IP ranges WikiPR uses makes it hard to impossible to take effective technical action against them, and (b) the workload involved in trying to do so was also quite high.
• Although most discovered articles were quite low profile, Wiki-PR has apparently also worked on a significant number of articles about higher profile topics, apparently including articles related to Viacom, Imagine Dragons, and Fictionist.
• The Wikimedia Foundation is either contemplating taking some form of legal action against Wiki-PR, or otherwise expecting that this will turn in to a legal issue in the near future. The Wikimedia Foundation has also stated that, although they have a part to play in dealing with this issue, a community response is also needed.

Although I hope WMF is able to find a way to stop ongoing damage to the encyclopedia, I doubt they will be able to correct the damage that has already occurred, and I suspect that the community will need to find a way to do so. I also feel like this incident will force us to re-examine our approach to paid-editing and find a way to prevent another covert entity of Wiki-PR's size forming and doing the same thing again a year from now, but I feel like discussions of how we will react to Wiki-PR and how we will stop it from happening again should probably be held separately.

I don't have perfect ideas about how to deal with the past (and ongoing) disruption caused by Wiki-PR, so I figured for now I would just throw this up as an open thread. It's clear that a community response to Wiki-PR's activities is necessary - what form can that community response take? Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:38, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

The best solution I can imagine is a clear policy of some sort effectively dealing with paid editors, and some sort of mechanism, like maybe through OTRS or maybe this noticeboard?, for publicists and individuals who might want their articles improved, to be able to either indicate that they have reliable sources dealing with them that they would want considered for inclusion in the article or otherwise indicating that they think their existing articles might be unbalanced, and, maybe, an informal group of editors willing to tackle such matters. There would be questions, reasonably, about whether such a group of editors would necessarily be indicated to bring articles up to GA, FA, or whatever, or whether they should simply work to bring it to C or B, depending on the amount of material available. Just a few early ideas, anyway. John Carter (talk) 19:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to see the diff of notable, relevant, sourced content kept from the mainspace because the originator revealed a COI. Tiderolls 20:00, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

A good partial solution is to be clear on what constitutes a reliable source for business topics. These groups depend on sub-standard publications being accepted as reliable sources. A clear guideline on the quality of publications that are required for establishing notability and inclusions of claims in business-entity articles will help alleviate this issue. Instead of keeping the bar low and concluding that any piece from a news agency is reliable enough (even when these can easily be promotional pieces or otherwise inserted as a favour for the company or its agents), we can set the bar higher and limit this to general news coverage in select high-quality publications (Businessweek, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc.), and not coverage in low-quality publications, nor blog, opinion, or promotional coverage even in the high-quality publications. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:16, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• There's a double edged problem. (1) Paid editors can be annoying, troublesome, or edit contrary to our content policies. (2) Misplaced Pages articles about businesses can have a negative impact on the business if the article is out of date, erroneous, or poorly written. If we are going to ban paid editing, then we have to put in place a process to fix articles promptly if a business complains. If we don't have the resources to operate such a system, then we should leave open the possibilities that businesses can "self-help". One possible solution would be to have a noticeboard where paid editors could disclose what projects they are working on, and their work could be reviewed. If specific paid editors caused trouble, we could be pretty quick to ban them. If paid editors chose to operate sub-rasa, we could have a policy to ban them whenever discovered. So, the policy would be "Disclose paid (or COI) editing so we can monitor your activities, or else you will be banned on the spot if it is discovered that you've been editing on the sly." I think the first step is to ensure transparency. If we implement that and it does not work well, I will be open to consider stricter measures. Jehochman 20:34, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• One more thing... This noticeboard isn't going to establish a new policy. After people make some comments, you should organize an RFC, and let that run for a month. That could result in the formation of a policy. The above threads suggesting bans of paid editing services should be tabled until there is solid policy to stand on. Jehochman 20:36, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I know this noticeboard isn't going to establish a new policy. I was more hoping this thread could be used to discuss ways to react to the immediate problem at hand: that there's a network of socking undisclosed paid editors who have created or monitored as many as 12,000 articles, who are active in at least some big name areas, whose actions have driven away multiple long time prolific editors, and whose activities are ongoing. I think an immediate response of some sort to WikiPR's activities likely needs to happen before serious discussions of long-term policy adjustments, and with the SPI basically shut down, I think potential community responses should be discussed somewhere publicly other than Jimmy's talk page and the signpost talk page - this seemed like an appropriate forum. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:46, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

I think the first step is to put in place a paid editing policy. Then we go to the known paid editor agencies, and point out this policy and ask them to confirm that they will comply. Then, we can be on very solid footing if further undisclosed paid editing occurs, and the agencies may find themselves in hot water if something goes wrong and one of their clients sues them for violating Misplaced Pages's policies, thereby damaging the client's reputation. Our policies do have real world consequences. Once more than one person knows about something, it's not really secret. Paid editors may think their activities are secret, but sooner or later the activity could (and probably will be) exposed. Right now they can hide behind the excuse, "there's no clear policy on paid editing." Once we take away that excuse, they'll have to comply with our rules, or else they'll be taking a rather large and stupid risk. Jehochman 22:02, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

With several hundred blocked socks, I'm not sure why it would be necessary to wait to discuss further action specifically re: Morning277/WikiPR in particular for us to have a paid editing policy in place. We've categorically established that the people behind the operation engage in systematic sockpupppetry to avoid scrutiny, sockpuppetry to manipulate AfD's, sockpuppetry to make it look like multiple users are pushing for the same set of edits, etc. Waiting to take further action against Morning277/WikiPR until we have a more firm paid editing policy in place is, quite literally, saying it's okay to violate any ENWP policy you want - but only if you are a paid editor. These people can't hide behind the excuse "there's no clear policy on paid editing," because there are loads of clear policies that they are violating.

Getting a comprehensive paid editing policy in place is going to take a lot of time and work. Waiting to get that policy in place before we try to start formulating a response to a particular problem that has already resulted in the loss of multiple long-term prolific contributors to the encyclopedia, significant damage to parts of the encyclopedia, etc, is not something that we want to do. The problem is not paid editing, and we need to come up with a community response to Wiki-PR faster than we'll be able come up with a comprehensive paid editing policy. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:33, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

For WikiPR, have at it. If they are found to be socking, block them all, end of story. You don't need to reference paid editing to do that. Sock puppetry is a blockable offense. My concern is that we don't start banning people merely for paid editing without proper disclosure. We should make it be policy that paid editors have to disclose, then we can ban anybody who doesn't. Jehochman 22:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

The intended point of this section was to discuss potential community responses to Wiki-PR in specific, not broader questions of paid-editing. It's been established that Wiki-PR, in particular, is violating our policies at a colossal scale, one that is likely unaddressable through normal SPI procedures, but one that is, because of its sheer scale, important to address. I'm not sure how best to address it, and thus put the question forward here. This is not intended to be a general "let's block all paid editors" thread, and I would request that people generally attempt to confine discussion to the narrow question of "Wiki-PR is a problem, what measures can we take to begin to address it?". An issue this large needs discussion of potential solutions at a public community forum; ignoring it isn't very likely to help it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:57, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• This really needs to be an RFC that is widely advertised and hosted at a more appropriate place. I would suggest an RFC on a dedicated subpage, but WP:VPP is another option. I would also like to take a moment to shamelessly plug my own essay on the subject of such discussions. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:48, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• • Agreed, not just on these specific instances but exactly what we expect from paid editors. There's at least three different convos, one here, one at WP:COI and one at WP:NOT, and they're having conflicting advice. I strongly suggest centralizing what policy/guideline change (if any) needs to be made in light of the paid editing issues. --MASEM (t) 05:49, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Although it's certainly true that a centralized policy discussion about the issues surrounding paid editing is necessary, I would suggest that it's probably not the greatest idea in the world to not have a separate discussion about an appropriate response to this particular set of incidents. Perhaps I should have posted this at AN/I instead of AN, but I see a whee little bit of a problem with an active group of paid editors who have created or effected thousands of articles including some about significant subjects who have in doing so violated almost every blockable policy we have and there being no public effort to block of any of their accounts, re-NPOV any of the effected articles, or otherwise respond in any form. Kevin Gorman (talk) 15:16, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with those who think a formal, centralized discussion is needed to promulgate policy. But I also think Kevin Gorman was right to raise this issue. It has already identified the need to have some separate discussions. I won't speak for Kevin, but I don't see evidence that he is opposed to those discussions taking place, he is simply trying to ascertain what can be done now, for this specific situation. Yes, we need a policy on paid editing. That will take months. Surely that isn't the only thing that can be done.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:08, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

For example, we have policies that allow edits, even otherwise valid ones, to be removed if know to be by a sockpuppet. I gather that we have passed the time when it is feasible to determine whether the ips are socks or not, but if we have a sense of which articles have been edited, we can make sure the edits are compliant. If the sources are suspect, or non-existent, we can take a hard line on the content addition.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:21, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Al fatiha

Dear adminisator,

I noticed dehonesting text in article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Al-Fatiha. In the begiijig there is writen "for the homosexual rights organization". I tried to remove this part as its quite very dehonesting the serious article which is for 1.6 bilion people very important. I will understant your will to keep it there but just want to appel on your heart to remove this part. thanks you very much. Abdel Malik PS: i font have anythink against other sexual orientations but this should pe always a personal way to everybody himself not a public show. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.98.49.174 (talk) 00:25, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

The hatnote linking to the homosexual rights organization is provided because it shares the same name (i.e. al-Fatiha) as the chapter of the Qur'an. To assist people who end up at the al-Fatiha article but are actually looking for the information about the Al-Fatiha Foundation, that text and link need to be at the top of the article. -- tariqabjotu 00:59, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, we have lots of hatnotes of that kind because a lot of people, rightly or wrongly, type in a short text when they're looking for something which has either a longer name or is here included in a different name, and we try to make it easier for those people to find the article they're actually looking for this way. Other articles which have similar hatnotes which some editors regret, but which we more or less need to make ourselves as useful to as many editors as possible, can be found at Catholic Church and a large number of other articles. John Carter (talk) 01:06, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

John Shand

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

Hi,

I wanted to nominate John Shand for AfD as 'not notable' (after trying prod), but I can't proceed as an IP. So can you please make Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/John Shand and do whatever else is needed, thx. 88.104.26.129 (talk) 06:28, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to do this. Given the detailed entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, and the list of positions the subject held, I don't think such a nomination would have the slightest chance of succeeding. Hut 8.5 06:37, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I didn't ask for an opinion, I asked for a technical task. 88.104.26.129 (talk) 06:56, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Editors are not obliged to complete deletion nominations for IPs. They can, but they don't have to. As someone who does sometimes complete such nominations, I would be happy to complete it if I thought it had any chance of succeeding. Hut 8.5 07:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Hut, you reverted me. Do you not understand "this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed"?

Perhaps you think you are 'special' and that does not apply to you?

I did not ask for your opinion, I asked <admins> to perform a routine adminny task. Is all.

When admins start making decisions like that, outside of policy/consensus, we're really fucked. 88.104.26.129 (talk) 07:15, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I understand perfectly. The notice can be removed because there is no deletion discussion. As an unregistered user you don't have the right to start AfD discussions. The most you can do is ask that a registered user start one for you, and that registered editor would be well advised to use common sense in deciding whether to do so. In this case the subject clearly passes the general notability guideline and a nomination with a rationale consisting of "not notable" would be frivolous. Hut 8.5 07:20, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I was about to remove the anon's earlier prod of the article but got interrupted. I agree an AfD is unlikely to succeed, but my understanding is that anons are allowed to nominate articles for AfD, and the procedure for their doing so is set out at WP:AFDHOWTO. They cannot complete the nomination, but they can ask for a logged in editor to complete it for them.-gadfium 07:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

As an unregistered user you don't have the right to start AfD discussions ??? O_O

You've lost the plot entirely. See WP:PILLAR, why don't ya?

Where does it say that "The notice can be removed because there is no deletion discussion"? Or did you perhaps just make that up, and hope the stoopid IP wouldn't know better? Please answer. 88.104.26.129 (talk) 07:39, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

You of course understand the word "right" was obviously meant in the technical sense, not in the authority sense ... like "reviewer right" and "admin rights" ... or is that a huge WP:BATTLE in your pocket? ES&L 16:00, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

As the creator of that page, I've completed the nomination. I suggest we take this conversation there and discuss the content. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:40, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I have closed the AFD per WP:SNOW. GiantSnowman 15:06, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Outing

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

I am afraid I might screwed up smth and I need advise on how to proceed. Yesterday I blocked ‎R.stickler for outing. They have an idea that another user (User:Martinvl) is affiliated with a certain organization and is therefore editing in COI. They went to the user page of Martinvl and asked them to identify themselves as a member of the organization. The user asked the edits to be revdeld (not by me). Then they went to the talk page of one of the pages Martinvl edited and added a notice that he is a COI editor. Martinvl reverted, they re-added. At this point I reverted again and advised them to read WP:OUTING. They did, decided that it is not applicable to their situation, and went again to the talk page of Martinvl and ask them to admit that they are a COI editor. Then I blocked them and revdel the edits.

Now, they posted an unblock request (still to be acted upon) and point out to Misplaced Pages:COI#How_to_handle_conflicts_of_interest which indeed says they should post at the talk page of the COI editor and on the talk page of the article. They say the guideline does not limit the number of times they should do it, and therefore they got blocked for nothing. I also got an impression if they get unblocked they are determined to continue, but I do not know for sure of course.

I do not have much experience with outing, and I would appreciate some help in this case. I do not have problems to unblock the user, but I am sure they should not behave in the same way as they did before being blocked. Thank you in advance.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:46, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not an admin, but I'm inclined to back you on this one, at least initially. Attempting to edit-war a controversial notice onto an established editor's talk page, when said user is currently in good standing, is bad enough. Trying to force a discussion about said issue, despite the clear fact that Martinvl did not wish to discuss it, is also very poor form. R.stickler has yet to actually provide any evidence of this claimed association, am I correct? If that's the case, then this COI claim is indeed an attempt at outing (although a pretty lame and half-arsed one) Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 10:26, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

  Indeed, I have not seen any evidence of the association (and the evidence is not on Martinvl's user page).--Ymblanter (talk) 10:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

  On his user talk page, R.stickler has offered to provide the evidence of the association to trusted parties, but has not posted the evidence publically as he says that to do so would reveal Martinvl's identity and that would indeed be outing. To me, this doesn't sound unreasonable. - David Biddulph (talk) 12:19, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

  (This was posted after my reply here). I would still at this point appreciate a second opinion (formally they posted an unblock request anyway).--Ymblanter (talk) 12:35, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

  I too am not an admin, but as far as I can see it there are two questions requiring a second opinion:

1 the block

2 the revdel

- David Biddulph (talk) 12:49, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

It may become known that a user is an African American, an Evangelical Christian, a member of the National Rifle Association, or even a member of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science but that does not justify anyone insisting that they reveal any such affiliation when editing articles on slavery in the United States, Christianity, assault rifles, or evolution.

I don't think affiliation with an ethnic group, religion, political party or other organization should justify COI tags or challenges for articles about things that those groups are involved in. Obviously we can challenge concrete claims. This should perhaps be made even clearer at WP:OUTING. --Boson (talk) 19:18, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

As a reminder, administrators should not use any options labelled "FOR USE BY OVERSIGHTERS". If you think you might be revdeleting something covered by the oversight policy, use an innocuous reason in the RD summary and report it to the Oversight team for evaluation. LFaraone 14:09, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Not sure it applies to my case but done that anyway, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Valid block per harassment. NE Ent 14:37, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

It does seem that someone created this account and named it Arse Tickler for this sole purpose. NebY (talk) 17:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Could you please remind us, NebY, when the account in question was created, and when there was first any interaction with Martinvl? I'm not convinced that your (and Martinvl's) SPA allegation is proven. - David Biddulph (talk) 17:32, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I can't prove it - not from the evidence I have to hand. But I have seen a number of attacks on Martinvl over the last couple of years and they often start with a few edits to establish bona fides as an editor followed by a sustained campaign culminating in the blocking of the account and considerable wiki-lawyering. This history of seven edits in February and five edits in July followed (starting in September) by nothing but attacks on and arguments with Martinvl followed by a block and wiki-lawyering fits that pattern. NebY (talk) 18:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• The comment at "17:02, 14 October 2013" at the bottom of User talk:R.stickler is clearly designed to encourage onlookers to do their own analysis to out an editor. That is not an acceptable use of any page on Misplaced Pages and talk page access should be revoked ASAP. Johnuniq (talk) 19:59, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• R.stickler made exactly twelve edits before first leaving a note at Martin's talk. The third edit, and several others in the first twelve, demonstrate knowledge of internal policy that you'd never encounter simply by reading the encyclopedia (project shortcuts, e.g. WP:ELN), and yet the first edit to the userpage, just two days before he links WP:ELN, asks a question that you'd only ask if you're completely new to MediaWiki or trying to appear completely new. You could learn shortcuts like WP:ELN by editing as an IP, but then you'd understand the basic workings of MediaWiki — the only way you'd make this combination of edits is if you're trying to look new when you're not. Clearly a sock of someone, and harassment is not one of the acceptable uses of alternate accounts. Nyttend (talk) 21:15, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Good block; looks more and more like WP:NOTHERE. That username still, um, sticks in my craw. Miniapolis 00:25, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Folken de Fanel

I'm here with a simple issue. While attempting to continue a major overhaul and merging of Dungeons & Dragons content I noticed that Folken de Fanel made 36 redirects in the court of 22 minutes from 23:42 on October 4 to 00:04 October 5. Each of these redirects bore the edit summary "restore merge per a previous consensus". Whether or not the previous consensus from 3 years ago is valid, the edit summary is very misleading because Folken de Fanel did not carry out any merger at all. It was just a blank and redirect, resulting in dozens of pages being redirect loops, breaking over a hundred pages of links and removing a large amount of content under a misleading edit summary. I've gone and rollbacked these redirects; not on the grounds of contesting them as "keeps", but on keeping the content up while an actual merging process goes on. I have zero intention of keeping these pages beyond the time needed for merging in. I ask that these pages remain so Folken de Fanel does not promptly re-redirect them out and threaten me with ANI. I am not seeking any action against Folken; I do not have the time or energy to argue. These pages will be likely all gone within the week. Thank you for reading. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:36, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Redirecting does not remove content. If these are truly pages that were up for AFD years ago, and the results were merge + redirect, and no one bothered to merge in those three years, FdF is in the right to simply redirect - any editor can still get at the old content and add what is necessary. --MASEM (t) 03:41, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

They were not AFDed, they were discussed briefly three years ago in that link. Mass breaking content including links and entire groups of pages is not "merging"; Folken de Fanel did not merge the content as his edit summary stated. I've already begun redirecting them again. But I must sleep and more will be taken care of tomorrow. Also, the original mergers were contentious and not redirected out or had additional discussion prior to Folken's re-reverting. If you check that link, you will see I have re-redirected (kept categories) the page out again. This is a brief and temporary solution to not break the rest of the Forgotten Realms content area. Whether or not I can recover the content in four-five additional steps means little when hundreds of readers will miss out unnecessarily. I find this option the best route and not deter, confuse or otherwise hinder readers who seek out the page's content until I can tidy the rest up on a list. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:13, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a better justification for your use of WP:Rollback? I don't see that it was necessary or allowed by the guideline. Flatscan (talk) 05:16, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Masem: really? Chris has been rapidly taking care of all this in the last couple of weeks. And you've no problem with someone using a clearly false edit summary? Oyi. Hobit (talk) 04:38, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

How is "restore merge per a previous consensus" "clearly false"? I don't see an implication in "restore merge" that FdF is redoing the merges at the list article. Talk:List of Forgotten Realms deities/Archive 1#Merge with individual deity and deity group articles is a valid wikilink to an archived discussion. The articles I spot-checked are in the discussed list. Flatscan (talk) 05:16, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Two reasons: #1 the articles were never merged, just redirected as far as I can tell. I see no evidence of any attempt to merge either years ago or this time. #2 Even if there was a merge at some point, redirecting isn't "restoring a merge" because, again, there is no merging being done. Hobit (talk) 05:52, 15 October 2013 (UTC) clarified Hobit (talk) 06:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

1) Redirecting without copying anything is allowed by the last paragraph of WP:Merging#Reasons for merger. The wording dates back to 2005 and 2007. You participated in the 2010 discussion, and you had 3 years to raise the issue with Neelix or edit the articles directly, as FdF pointed out. Requiring FdF to investigate and be responsible for Neelix's 3-year-old edits is unreasonable. 2) An edit summary like "revert to redirect per a previous consensus" would be more precise, but I think that describing FdF's "restore merge" as "clearly false" – in the context of your other comments, implying willful deception – is a gross exaggeration. Flatscan (talk) 04:40, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Merging does not require any material to be brought into the main article, if none of that material is new or appropriate, as long as that fact is checked. And as long as it is simply a redirect and not a delete, recreate and redirect, the content before the merge+redirect can be reviewed without admin assistance and brought in if the editor believes the fact was missed. --MASEM (t) 06:04, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting assertion, but completely unsupported by WP:MERGE: "A merger is a non-automated procedure by which the contents of two or more pages are united within a single page. Merging creates a redirect from the source page(s) to the destination page, with some or all of the content copied and pasted into that page." If no content was copied, then it wasn't a merger, it was a redirection without merging. While a merge includes a redirect as part of the process, what differentiates a merge from a redirect is the copying and pasting. Jclemens (talk) 06:32, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting bit of wiki-lawyering there. Don't think it's been merged properly? WP:SOFIXIT. It's in the edit history. Which is still there. So, you know, not a deletion. --Calton | Talk 11:17, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what you can actually merge, though, since all but one I've looked at were entirely sourced to TSR or Wizards of the Coast publications. In other words, nothin' but primary sources. --Calton | Talk 11:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Still not the point. There were 36 edit summaries that claimed he was merging stuff. No merging actually happened. He could have said "redirecting" and we'd not be here. But he didn't and we are. There is a strong difference between merging and redirecting, that's not wiki-lawyering.Hobit (talk) 13:28, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

No, not really. Redirecting an article to another where the appropriate encyclopedic content - in the eye of the person doing this - is already present, is a merge; the topic that was redirected still has content available about it in WP. It would not be a merge if the person redirected the article to a target article that made zero mention of the topic that was redirected, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. --MASEM (t) 13:41, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

So you are saying that merging something, in the Misplaced Pages meaning of the word, doesn't actually involve merging anything? While Misplaced Pages certainly has terms of art that are like that, WP:MERGE says quite the opposite. So your definition doesn't seem to work for the English meaning of the word "merge" nor the Misplaced Pages meaning. Could you explain why you think your definition is correct? Hobit (talk) 13:58, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

The WP definition, which matches the real world version is "A merger is a non-automated procedure by which the contents of two or more pages are united within a single page." Doesn't say anything about retaining information from every page involved in the process (unless you're wikilawyering the language). The only outcome that I would expect of a merge is that the topic that is merged in is not reduced to a single mention in passing: whether this means the topic has its own section, paragraphs, one or more sentences, or a line in a table, it doesn't matter (a mention in passing would simply require a redirect). If this means that information from one page is duplicative or not appropriate encyclopedic to be inserted into the target page, so be it. --MASEM (t) 14:48, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Wow, I'm wondering if you just stopped reading at that point. WP:MERGE goes on to say "with some or all of the content copied and pasted into that page". So yes, it does say something about retaining information. As does the English definition (combine or cause to combine to form a single entity, notice the word combine...). Are you seriously claiming that a redirect is a merge? Hobit (talk) 14:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

If some of the content in the article(s) to be merged already exists in the target article, then yes, some of the content has been put into the target article already. If that then leaves content that is deemed unencyclopedic and is left out, then that's what happens. (Mind you, the language "copy and pasted" is not really correct because more than likely a merge that does add more from a merged article will be edited appropriately to fit the flow of the target article during or after the merge - the attribution path should still be followed when doing so.) --MASEM (t) 15:16, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

So assuming a redirect target has some information on the topic, any redirect is a merge? That is taking the English language (and Misplaced Pages terminology) and bending it so far on it's ear it's amazing. Our policies speak of redirection and merging as different things on a regular basis. I'm having a hard time coming up with an example where a redirect from an AfD wouldn't also be a merge in your use of the terminology. I'm starting to feel like you are just yanking my chain. Hobit (talk) 15:22, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

A redirect (as a close action from an AFD/discussion) w/o a merge means that an editor can go and blindly replace the page contents with the right #REDIRECT, not having to worry about attribution, existing content, or the like. It may be worthwhile to consider anchors in the target article as to help the redirect link land at the right spot, but that's it. A merge w/ redirect means that the editor performing the merge should review the contents of the to-be-merged article(s) and target and carefully determine what, if any, content should be brought over, and if any content is brought in, add in tracking for attribution, before making the target page a redirect.

Yes, that means that a merge that doesn't bring over any information before the redirect is going to look from a 60,000 ft level like a straight redirect, but that's where AGF comes into play, that the editor performing the merge made a judgement call that no new information from the page in question was needed in the target page. And that's why merge + redirects are tons better than deletion, because any editor can go back and pull out details they felt were important that the merging editor might have omitted and add them after the merge. (I would argue we would be in a similar place if FdF pulled one sentence and added it to the target articles before redirecting, with claims "he didn't merge enough!"). If FdF did this blindly, without any prior discussion at all, sure, I would question the motives behind it, but here, FdF is doing an action discussed before, with changes that were undone in the interim. --MASEM (t) 15:33, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

My last reply on this: If nothing is merged, it ain't a merge. That's pretty obvious in my book. And as the action discussed before was a merge which never was implemented. Hobit (talk) 17:22, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

All I can say is that you were part of the original discussion back in 2010, Hobit, if you had any objection about the amount of content moved, you had all the time to say it, or to move more content yourself. You never did, so I had no reason to assume you were not in agreement. All I did was to restore the 2010 status quo. You obviously have your own view on what a merge should be, but I see nothing here in opposition with WP:MERGE, so this discussion doesn't belong at ANI.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:38, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

... none of which deals at all with the fact that Masem has asserted something so utterly ridiculous that it defies common sense. He's asserting that redirecting an article to a target that already contains something relevant and not adding or changing any of that content at the target article constitutes a merge, contra the definition that I quoted, and (as Hobit pointed out) he selectively re-quoted. Masem's behavior in this matter is clearly worse than yours, Folken, because you could simply say you were going too fast and assuming that the merges had previously been done, while Masem's argument is something that's meritless, has been pointed out as meritless, and yet he maintains that it is the definition is wrong, rather than he. Jclemens (talk) 04:49, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Common sense would suggest that merging involves taking some portion of one thing and including it in another. But reality is not that clear-cut, especially when more than two articles are involved in the merger. We could imagine a discussion closing with consensus to merge articles A,B,C,D into article X. Now suppose that the merging editor finds that article C just repeats one of the sections of article A, and that article D is nothing but tinfoil hat gibberish sourced to the article creator's personal blog. In that case, after the merge there will be nothing of articles C and D in the merge product but I would say the whole thing still does constitute a merge. Wouldn't you? This D&D situation is the extreme end of that scale, where a lot of articles have gone into the merge discussion and some content from some of the articles has found its way into the merge target, but nothing or very little from each individual article. I agree that this is more like mass redirection than a merge, but calling it a very selective merge is not totally off the wall. (And a very selective merge is exactly what this content needs, not wholesale Ctrl-C Ctrl-V). Reyk _YO! 05:23, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

(edit) and the last paragraph of Misplaced Pages:Merging#Reasons_for_merger explicitly states that it's OK to simply redirect instead of merging if there is no mergeable content. Reyk _YO! 05:26, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you - that's exactly what MERGE says on the tin - combining two or more articles into one. It doesn't say a minimum amount of an article to be merge has to survive, only that we keep attribution history and redirect so that all the prior edits can be traced. There's a distict lack of good faith here in assuming what FdF is doing is purposely harmful. --MASEM (t) 05:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Better history links:

• Folken de Fanel's 36 redirects
• ChrisGualtieri's 35 rollbacks

Spot-checking these articles, I see a pattern where User:Neelix proposes and performs the merger in October 2010, and an IP editor restores in December 2011. Flatscan (talk) 05:16, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Could you identify where the merging was done? I didn't notice any merging at all. I might have missed it, but I don't think Neelix made a single edit involving content. Hobit (talk) 05:52, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Neelix did merge the lead of Circle of Greater Powers to the lead of the list (overall diff, history). The last paragraph of WP:Merging#Reasons for merger allows for redirecting without copying, but asks that it be clearly identified in the edit summary. I prefer precise edit summaries, as they make WP:Copying within Misplaced Pages checking easier. Flatscan (talk) 04:40, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• Folken de Fanel has a long history of problematic behavior, which was cataloged at a recent RFC/U. He has been blocked on multiple language Wikipedias for edit warring, including this one. He is indefinitely banned on fr.wiki, his home language wiki, and remains indefinitely blocked for sockpuppetry on it.wiki. He's had plenty of chances to shape up his contributions, but seems more intent on harassing those of us who point out his poor, uncollaborative behavior. If indeed he's making widespread use of misleading edit summaries, then it's probably time to increment the number of Wikipedias in which he's no longer welcome. No doubt some of the same people who opined in the that RFC/U that he was being persecuted for his views will rush to his defense here, but it really falls to the greater community--how much longer will this conduct be allowed to continue? Jclemens (talk) 06:27, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
• Chris has been doing a great job with the merges so far, and needs to be allowed to continue. If it helps him to have the articles live as he merges them, then I don't see a problem holding them restored for a brief time. He already merged back a few last night before logging off, and given the sheer amount of cleanup and merging work he has put in over the last week, I don't see why we can't extend a little good faith that he is going to have that taken care of quickly. If that really is an insurmountable problem for everyone else, then since he is doing merges by going through the categories, then at least do him the favor of keeping the categories when you redirect the pages. BOZ (talk) 18:00, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I have no problem with Chris merging D&D articles in his own way, but he absolutely needs to master the simple courtesy of communicating with other users rather than making misguided accusations of bad faith or needlessly dragging them at ANI whenever something doesn't go exactly the way he wants.Folken de Fanel (talk) 18:21, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Nothing to see here. I noticed a comment at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mask (Forgotten Realms) explaining that a series of merges to List of Forgotten Realms deities, performed per a consensus discussion in 2010, had been restored by a disruptive IP around 2011. Some of these articles ended up at AfD recently, and I agreed with the editor's recommendation of a procedural close to redirect/merge. I went to check the discussion and all the articles that were part of the merge proposal. Indeed, most, if not all of them had been illegitimately restored by an IP, and since there were was already users asking for these articles to be redirected right away so as not to clutter AfD, I went ahead and restored the redirect, ie the merge procedure from 2010. I saw that the 2010 consensus was apparently satisfied with the short content already present beforehand in the target article, so I didn't do more than restoring the redirects that should have stayed as such. What little content was added to the articles between 2011 and now didn't amount to much, and WP:MERGE doesn't prevent only a small part of the article to be moved, so yeah, that's it. I simply returned things to the 2010 status-quo, and the accusation of "false edit summary" is at best laziness, or at worse outright and misguided assumption of bad faith from ChrisGualtieri.
This is really a non-issue and a useless cluttering of ANI. ChrisGualtieri can easily access article histories and move whatever content to the target he deems necessary (something he doesn't seem to get), if he considered there were better merge targets or ways to merge, then he could just have informed me, changed the redirect target without mass-reverting me, and just proceeded (as long as he has consensus on his side). ChrisGualtieri seems to have major communication issues per his recent ANI reports, and on top of that this comes only a day after he again misguidedly assumed bad faith against me about another case of redirect, so I would not appreciate if this behavior became a trend. I have also noted that ChrisGualtieri has just created a new article, List of human deities (Dungeons & Dragons), to apparently merge all the articles in question there. I don't necessarily agree with this choice, of which ChrisGualtieri failed to notify me, and I hope this ANI report was not a way to preemptively stifle opposition.Folken de Fanel (talk) 17:58, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

There is a lot wrong with your post.since you were notified of it going to this noticeboard. You have harassed me and caused a great amount of stress and all because you are incapable of understanding when people are even on your side. In the span of two weeks, I've done more to fix the Dungeons and Dragons content than you have in your entire editing history! Deletion is a last resort and of the 100+ pages I've merged, you have the audacity to flagrantly twist my words and actions into some sniveling little behavior dispute? Misplaced Pages is a collaborative project to build an encyclopedia; it is not therapy and you should not be here to fight anyone. Folken de Fanel, you are not worth MY time, and you are not worth this communities time when you refuse to understand even the most basic of reasons why I temporarily restored them: To prevent over 400 broken links that go into a redirect loop. If you had bothered to check and carry out a merger instead of creating said redirect loops, I wouldn't have rolled them back and I wouldn't have brought this here. You equate "causing stress" to a personal attack. You have caused a lot of unnecessary stress with your battleground behavior and wasted hours of time responding to your sheepish excuses and disruptive actions. Now I am going to conduct the rest of the mergers now that I have a few spare hours and maybe do some of the 500 other D&D pages that need merging or fixing. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:56, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Outside of your own, obvious hostile behavior against me, I can't see anything here that belongs in ANI. I have provided all the necessary explanation in my previous comment, that you keep ignoring it and even go further in your groundless accusations speaks volumes about you. That's not the first time you've written frivolous ANI reports, so I wouldn't like you to think ANI is your go-to whenever you don't want to bother communicating. I'm not (yet) seeking sanctions against you because you're otherwise a valuable user, but I'm asking the closer of this thread to firmly remind you that ANI is not your personal alternative to civil discussion. Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:53, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• If one merges a number of articles which are only besourced to primary sources into a list (which is therefore similarly only sourced to primary sources), the list is just as subject to deletion as the original articles ("Lists, whether they are embedded lists or stand-alone lists, are encyclopedic content as are paragraphs and articles, and they are equally subject to Misplaced Pages's content policies"). Not that it would get deleted round here, as there are too many people prepared to ignore Misplaced Pages policy in AfDs, but I hope Chris is hoping to add some real-world notability to that article. Black Kite (talk) 18:37, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

The plain descrption of plot and characters in fiction can and should be preferentially taken from the work itself, it is one of the places where primary sources are appropriate. since the sections of an article or the content of a list of this sort do not have to meet any notability requirements, there is no need for secondary sourcing of undisputed factual content, and the attempt to remove such is one of the reasons why some of us are a little apprehensive about indiscriminate merging. This attitude that we should remove ll mention whatsoever of the actual events and individuals in a fiction is thoroughly unencyclopedic. BK, you closed a very closely related discussion at AN/I --your comment above suggests to me that you are too involved in these questions to have done so. DGG ( talk ) 23:50, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Yet, at the same time, WP:NOT#PLOT says we don't burden topics with too much detail taken from primary sources even if it is verifiable. If no secondary source has bothered to do a more detailed discussion or review of the fiction, we should not be going into that great detail ourselves. The articles FdF is merging rest heavily on the primary sources and attempts to show secondary sources have brought up nothing, and as such, a lot of that content has to be trimmed out in the merge to make the target article appropriate for Misplaced Pages. --MASEM (t) 06:02, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I closed the ANI as it was getting off the point (towards RFC/U territory) and there was no admin action required. As for the above, I don't see how merely stating Misplaced Pages policy is at all contentious. As Masem says, if "the articles ... rest heavily on the primary sources and attempts to show secondary sources have brought up nothing" then we shouldn't be creating a bigger article with the same problem. Since the individual items are non-notable, the one reason for having such a list (navigation) does not apply. To say "the content of a list of this sort do not have to meet any notability requirements" is flat out wrong - there has no be notability for the main subject of the list, and that means secondary sources. Otherwise we could create lists of, well, pretty much anything non-notable using the same criteria. Black Kite (talk) 10:03, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

DnD's use of deities (and how it changes between settings and over time) is certainly a subject that has received outside coverage. Now, I don't think the current organization in any way promotes the effective presentation of that coverage, and the merges (by race of fictional adherent? seriously?) don't seem at the moment to be creating any better of a situation. But the topic does pass N, because you could go write Gods in Dungeons & Dragons and that would be a real article on a notable topic. --erachima talk 10:28, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

At which point, due to its length, List of deities in Dungeons & Dragons is a valid WP:SPINOUT (if not worthy of being that topic's main article in its own right). I don't remember the precise bit of WP:ALPHABETSOUP but it's always been my understanding (after reading it long ago) that if a list is on a notable topic, the individual items in said list do not necessarily need to pass N themselves (and this is why, my not-yet-caffinated brain continues remembering, merging to a list is often a good idea at AfD). That said, we shouldn't necessarily merge wholesale from fails-N articles to a list, instead using "X is Y, and is recognised in-universe for Z" in a single paragraph at most in the list with the article redirected there. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 13:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment- I do not see how FdF's edit summaries are deceitful. It's very clear that he is not claiming to actually be merging anything. Rather, he explicitly states that he is returning these pages to their post-merge state and links to the discussion where the merges were proposed. That much is obvious from reading the edit summaries. And if that wasn't clear enough, he's said much the same thing here at this ill-thought-out ANI thread. Reyk _YO! 04:28, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• Realistically, since we're not even prepared to put any constraints on Claritas' freedom to roam the fiction topic area removing content at will, there's no point even discussing Folken de Fanel. Unlike Claritas, FdF doesn't have a history of bad faith.

  I do seriously question the community's judgment on this. I think it's a horrible mistake to let these users blunder about the fiction topic area like loose cannons, and I feel we could save ourselves a lot of future drama and heartache with a few judicious topic bans. But the community won't stomach it, so move on.—S Marshall T/C 15:44, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• Primarily because if we topic banned everyone who did anything controversial, nothing would ever get done. --erachima talk 15:56, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
• I still can't see anything "controversial" or any "blunder" that I would have done in this case. In 2010, a consensus discussion established that a series of articles were to be merged, and several users, including some who have contributed here, approved the move, as well as the amount of content being merged (perfectly in compliance with WP:Merging#Reasons for merger). In 2011, a disruptive IP reverted the redirects against consensus and without discussion. In 2013, some of these restored articles ended up at AfD, where a member of the D&D project noticed the IP's disruptions and remarked these articles were better restored back to redirects rather than cluttering AfD. Following the said AfD I found all the other articles in question and in perfect accordance with my edit summaries, merely restored them back to their 2010 status, which should never have been changed. If there was anything controversial or any blunder, it lies with the original disruptive IP and the misguided user who overreacted by opening this thread in blatant assumption of bad faith instead of just trying to properly understand the situation, or even to initiate simple communication. End of story.Folken de Fanel (talk) 16:40, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute closed

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

1. Hitmonchan (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic-banned from all pages relating to any transgender topic or individual, broadly construed.
2. IFreedom1212 (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic-banned from all pages relating to any transgender topic or individual, broadly construed.
3. Tarc (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic-banned from all pages relating to any transgender topic or individual, broadly construed.
4. Josh Gorand (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic-banned from all pages relating to any transgender topic or individual, broadly construed.
5. Baseball Bugs (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic-banned from all pages relating to any transgender topic or individual, broadly construed. He is also topic banned from all pages (including biographies) related to leaks of classified information, broadly construed.
6. David Gerard (talk · contribs) is admonished for acting in a manner incompatible with the community's expectations of administrators (see David Gerard's use of tools).
7. David Gerard (talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from using his administrator permissions (i) on pages relating to transgender people or issues and (ii) in situations involving such pages. This restriction may be first appealed after six months have elapsed, and every six months thereafter.
8. The standard discretionary sanctions adopted in Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Sexology for (among other things) "all articles dealing with transgender issues" remain in force. For the avoidance of doubt, these discretionary sanctions apply to any dispute regarding the proper article title, pronoun usage, or other manner of referring to any individual known to be or self-identifying as transgender, including but not limited to Chelsea/Bradley Manning. Any sanctions imposed should be logged at the Sexology case, not this one.
9. All editors, especially those whose behavior was subject to a finding in this case, are reminded to maintain decorum and civility when engaged in discussions on Misplaced Pages, and to avoid commentary that demeans any other person, intentionally or not.

For the Arbitration Committee, Rschen7754 01:44, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Discuss this

Deprecate PROD, close unchallenged AfDs as delete without prejudice

I have made a proposal to deprecate PROD in favor of closing unchallenged AfDs as if they were successful PRODs. Since this will likely effect the workload of administrators in one way or another, I'm notifying you of the discussion as well as the relevant deletion process talk pages. If you have an opinion on the matter, please chime in there. --erachima talk 17:40, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages noticeboards
• Administrative backlog