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Does consensus trump policy?

Example: a tv show with an enormous fanbase (like, Doctor Who) has an episode where an item appears as an unidentified, trivial part of the episode. The primary source doesn't note it. Neither before nor after the episode is the item identified by anyone associated with the cast, crew or studio.
However, the fanbase jumps on the item as intrinsic to an understanding of the episode, idnetifying it based solely upon their preexisting knowledge as a fan.
My need for guidance arises from the fact that plot summaries are drawn solely from the primary source (ie. the episode content itself). These same people seeking to fan-identify the item point to sources that also identify the item. I think that these sources can easily be incorporated into an article about the episode, but can't be in a plot summary about the show, since identifying the item imparts a plot point that was not provided by the primary source itself. It feels like Synthesis, in that the editor is adding information from one source and using it to draw a connection to something viewed in a tv episode (the primary source).
Help? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 01:53, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Consensus cannot trump policy, though interpretations of policy may very. Consensus is determined by weighing the strength of the arguments and their basis in policy.-- Deepfriedokra 01:57, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I figured out the discussion of question from Jack's recent contributions and commented on the specific question there. But agree that consensus cannot override policy. Policy does has some wiggle room that consensus can work in, but that doesn't mean completely overriding the policy. --Masem (t) 02:57, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I am uncomfortable with the interpretation of policy that allows plot summaries to be cited to the work itself, thereby allowing fans/editors to write plot "mini essays" on fictional works based only on having viewed/read the work of entertainment. But that seems to be the current consensus, based on the assumption that crowdsourcing will yield neutrality and accuracy over time. Arguments in favor of including trivia based on the obsessions of people commenting on unreliable online fansites ought to be rejected out of hand. Only sources widely agreed to be genuinely reliable should inform our content decisions. Cullen Let's discuss it 04:48, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree to that, Cullen; in almost every case where there is an interpretive issue as to what actually happens in a plot, you rely on consensus to find the fairly objective reality of what happened. That is not the case here. The other editors were adding their personal fan knowledge to add something that was never stated, identified or used as a major plot point in the primary source. That's a very different situation, imo. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 05:09, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

On a philosophical note, technically consensus can trump policy, that's essentially what IAR is. In the case of the Doctor Who example, the issue sounds more like a case of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, in which case the answer is unequivocally no, the local group of editors working on a specific article or set of articles cannot refuse to comply with policy that other editors are requesting that they adhere to. _signed, Rosguill 05:13, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

WP:INUNIVERSE is probably relevant here. As a complete anorak I think you should just mention that this is a situation at The Mandalorian and not bring our resident Time Lord into it. MarnetteD|Talk 05:23, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I was deliberately obscuring the article so as to avoid the ppearance of looking for allies in talk. I just wanted to make sure I was on solid ground with my understanding of the relevant policies. Everyone was all, "but of course this is a minor thingie from largely non-canon material that showed up in an animated series once," and I felt like a lone voice in the wilderness of Endor, without even a protocol droid to assist (or K-9). - Jack Sebastian (talk) 07:26, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Consensus sets policy , but it cannot trump an existing policy, imho. BTW I think this is the issue Jack's talking about . Necromonger...We keep what we kill 13:00, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, since the question has been asked: further to what Cullen328 says, our policy on verifiability says quite unambiguously that "Articles must be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The fact that there is (I believe) some local consensus somewhere that a work can be used as a source for itself does not, can not, over-ride that policy, which is one of our five pillars. If there's to be a plot summary, policy requires that it be supported by independent reliable sources, and in theory it can be removed if it isn't. In my opinion, the sooner we make a start on that the better. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:52, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Per the guidance at WP:FILMPLOT we can write the plot-part of the article based on the the work itself. It often works fairly well, but sometimes people disagree. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:11, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's one local consensus which can't over-ride our actual policy; I'm sure there are others, because we have the same problem with books, TV serials and so on. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:28, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

It is not obvious to me that WP:FILMPLOT should be considered WP:LOCALCONSENSUS (which specifically mentions guidelines), or that having a plotsection per WP:FILMPLOT by default makes an article not "based on reliable, independent, published sources". Some use of primary sources does not disqualify for example The Mandalorian from existing. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:34, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

It is well established - not sure exactly where but the point has come up multiple times as to be documented at WP:WAF - that when doing a plot summary of any creative work, be it film, book, TV show, etc. that the work itself is assumed to be the primary source and does not necessary explicit citing unless quotes are included or there are details that the average consumer of the work may miss (in this latter case, this is often the case in video games where parts of the plot may not be seen by the player if they fail to take certain actions). Plots however cannot engage in interpretation, which is the base issue at the page of concern that this discussion stemmed from. --Masem (t) 15:27, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I mean, no, it doesn't. But there's a whole bunch of places where exactly this occurs. Take Mummy (Dungeons & Dragons) - or dozens of similar articles - a long list of occasions when something has been mentioned in 'in-universe' sources, without a single instance of an out-of-universe reference to it.... The Land (talk) 18:36, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Mummy (Dungeons & Dragons) seems like a good Afd candidate to me. The Mummy (1932 film), not. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:05, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Consensus is policy. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:15, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

It is indeed, but it doesn't override existing policy. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 20:48, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

How can WP:CONSENSUS not override existing policy when it is precisely the means by which existing policy is changed, so it is more than policy: it is meta-policy. I see from the discussion that this section is actually about whether local consensus trumps global consensus, which is a very different question from the title. I suggest that you change it. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:33, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Determining whether or not global consensus trumps local consensus is frequently done on an ad hoc basis and itself is subject to consensus. See also recursion.--WaltCip (talk) 13:34, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Consensus doesn't trump policy, but it's usually needed to determine how to apply it and whether a particular policy applies at all (which is usually the dispute, when experienced editors are involved.) For example, WP:BLP is non-negotiable, but whether a particular statement falls under it or is sourced well enough to satisfy it is often going to be a point of dispute, which isn't the same thing as editors saying "let's just ignore BLP." If you're completely outnumbered on a talk page but think the people there are still grossly ignoring policy, it's usually best to go to the relevant noticeboard to ask for more input and to attract outside voices who are familiar with the policy in question. --Aquillion (talk) 18:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I was advised to try and work it out (or waiting about a week) before heading to the noticeboard (NORN seems the best place for it). As the article is under fullprot as of now, and no one is doing anything, that its maybe time to do that. May I ask how to do so so it doesn't look like I am forum-shopping? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 04:44, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• The entire idea of plot summaries drawn fomr the original episode has always been a truly terrible idea. It is textbook WP:OR and yet the various pop culture communities have decided that it's perfectly fine. Dr. Who has an enormous body of reliable commentary, so relying on personal observations is a firm "no". Guy (help!) 10:12, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Standard offer unblock request from Allen2

• Allen2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Allen2 is requesting an unblock per the standard offer:

Now I understand that why I'm blocked on Misplaced Pages in the first place, because I failed to demonstrate my competency to clearly communicate with my peers in English and a lack of ability to edit constructively in an encyclopedia setting. So, I rely on Just Chilling to demonstrate my competency in English before my next request. I made a number of substantial contributions on Simple English Misplaced Pages that can appear constructive with every single edit with edit reasons, and I was able to improve my proficiency in English; this means I know when I'm going to make an edit, at anytime, especially that I will be able to correct a single grammar mistake when I just visited a page. I must apologize for my poor English and my past behavior in the past five years, so I will promise that will never happen again for my misbehavior. I hope you will forgive me for all of this. I will rely on you administrators when you allow me a second chance on this site. I believe that this block will no longer be necessary anymore, because I want to make constructive edits this time as demonstrated with my latest contributions on Simple English Misplaced Pages. That is when I started to edit again, I will be honest that I want to make things right again with my focus entirely on the encyclopedia setting. --Allen 09:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Here's my editing plan I would follow if I were unblocked:

• I will know what the very basics of Misplaced Pages mean by five pillars.
• I will formally comply with every rule and policy to make sure that I use Misplaced Pages properly. (I will be careful to what they were saying when I didn't read them.)
• I know when I'm going to make an edit.
• When I just visited an article page with some mistakes in grammar, then I will be able to fix some of those mistakes for them. It's not just grammar on Misplaced Pages.
• Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, not the place for other things - this means that I will not use Misplaced Pages for things other than the encyclopedia itself.
• I will not use Misplaced Pages as a forum. This means that I will not use article talk pages to discuss nor comment about the article. (I didn't use talk pages properly as I was talking about what's new to the article, but it talks about some changes to the article.)
• I will not use Misplaced Pages as a web host nor a social networking service (This means that I used to have a friends subpage that I had added some users that watched TV shows, I choose not to have that page anymore thanks to an administrator who deleted that page for me right after I got blocked.)
• I will not use my talk page for status updates. (This is obviously spam. Talking to myself on my user talk page is just spam and irrelevant to this wiki.)

Administrator, I will be glad to hear a response from you as soon as possible.

--Allen 09:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Please see User talk:Allen2 and Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive292#Unblock request for Allen2 (his previous request) for more details. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:59, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support unblock. Four years is a long time for a young person (I'm assuming) to mature significantly. From the request it looks like he understands the problems (and I'm also seeing much better English now). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:09, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
• Comment. Despite telling us above that "this means I know when I'm going to make an edit, at anytime, especially that I will be able to correct a single grammar mistake when I just visited a page", Allen2 should hesitate to make grammar corrections. Recent ones on Simple Misplaced Pages include, per edit summaries, "Passive verb remove: "They won" instead of "They have won."", "re-insert 'decade' word to call it as 2010s decade" and "One sentence rephrase and grammar fix: They began to play since the team was established in 1962.". 92.19.28.14 (talk) 18:52, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

  I agree that Allen2 should be wary of correcting other people's grammar, but I don't see it as a deal-breaker when it comes to unblocking. There are plenty of good Misplaced Pages editors with pretty poor grammatical skills, and we all make mistakes sometimes (I think I might even have made one or two myself). This editor should take reasonable care when editing, as we all should, but unless we unblock we can't really find out whether such reasonable care will be taken, and four years is a very long time. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:22, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support as others have said, 4 years is a long time to grow. Looking over his contributions at Simple Misplaced Pages, they look constructive and I believe if unblocked he will be a net positive. — Wug·a·po·des​ 16:10, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffee removing Categories and Lists Inappropriately

Coffee has been removing for the past day wholesale from all Jewish related lists and categories he comes across with the edit summary of "removing unsourced claims per WP:LISTPEOPLE/WP:BLPCAT/WP:CAT/R; do not take the entries I've left here as a sign of my endorsement of their inclusion... I have not looked through all the sources provided yet"

For example, from the Jewish American Poets category he removed Emma Lazarus, that would be the Jewish poet notable for having the poem on the Statue of Liberty, or from the Jewish American Military cat, he removed among them Uriah Levy who was the first Jewish commodore in the US and fought against physical punishment in the navy, certainly notable. At the very least, he should not be removing wholesale these people. On his talk page, he claims he has permission to do so by the OTRS and admin corp, yet that is not how policy works. It's one thing to remove unsourced items on a list or category, but to remove 90% of a list and say you didn't even bother to look at the article to see if it's sourced, is not how it works. The list just lists people. The article is where the sources are. We don't need to make exceptions for special cases. Sir Joseph 06:52, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

As I wrote on his page, if he has a question of sourcing, he should go to the Judaism project page, which has an active membership and people there can help out. Sir Joseph 06:55, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• I just wanted to note that this involves (at least in part) OTRS tickets, which this venue is not set up to adequately handle. Additionally, is there any particular reason that you did not give coffee more than roughly 8 or 9 minutes to respond to your note on his talk page prior to taking this to AN, Sir Joseph? Discussions surrounding this have also involved anti-Semitic and Holocaust concerns, which I do believe have some weight and deserved a response prior to going direct to AN. --TheSandDoctor 07:16, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

What 'Holocaust concerns' are relevant to a list of Jewish American poets?Dialectric (talk) 12:10, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

or people like Isaias W. Hellman, Maurice Kremer, and Florence Meyer Blumenthal, all long since deceased. Patapsco913 (talk) 14:01, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Patapsco913, that's why i said i have a small feeling that someone is punking Misplaced Pages with the OTRS but I was told it's real. Sir Joseph 14:04, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• TheSandDoctor, please explain the OTRS tickets. Also, as I said, we have policy and you can't just remove things. Please tell me, for example why Uriah Levy was removed? He died a long, long time ago. Sir Joseph 07:27, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

  As I said, communication. There is a project page that you all could have posted on either to give a heads up or to ask for help. But now there are just tons of empty lists. Sir Joseph 07:39, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• I replied to this matter at my talk page. I would ask that Sir Joseph in the future wait longer than 10 minutes for someone to reply to them before attempting a thread like this, especially when dealing with such sensitive matters of potential Anti-Semitism. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 07:39, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

  Coffee, you're right. Sir Joseph 07:43, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• I appreciate that Coffee has taken up this discussion on their user talk page, but share Sir Joseph's concerns. Can another OTRS volunteer who was active in these discussions confirm Coffee's interpretation? These articles have existed for years with entries that were referenced in the blp articles, not the list, so this appears to be a relatively new reinterpretation of policy that was not discussed on-wiki before the changes were implemented. At a minimum, Coffee should take the time to check if the relevant items have a source in the linked BLP article before removing, and if Coffee lacks the time to do this, I am sure there are editors willing to take on the task, including, as Sir Joseph mentions, on the Judaism project page.Dialectric (talk) 10:32, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, his is concerning, especially since he's stating he hasn't looked through all the sources yet.

If even one of the reliable sources states these people are Jewish, it can be included. Throwing down the BLP flag is inappropriate in that case. Necromonger...We keep what we kill 13:09, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

There seems to have been a severe failure to assume good faith here. If entries can easily be sourced then spend your time putting them back with sources rather than hurling accusations around here. It doesn't look like anyone has even added a single sourced entry to these lists in the time that this discussion has been going. Why not? Phil Bridger (talk) 14:20, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, the articles are all sourced, this is for lists, which point to an article, so yes, try to assume good faith here, yet Coffe's edit summary makes it clear not to add anything back. That is not how it works. You don't remove lists wholesale without checking the article to see if it belongs and then put the onus on other people. His edit summary even says he didn't check to see if it belongs. If you are going to remove 99% of articles, then the onus should be on you to verify that you are removing things that should be removed. Sir Joseph 14:23, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, Please explain how removing Allen Ginsberg from List of Jewish American Poets without even bothering to check the article is acceptable. Sir Joseph 14:27, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

While you were spending your time writing that diatribe I was spending mine finding a good source and putting Emma Lazarus back into the list of Jewish American Poets. Which of those is the more productive? And Coffee said nothing that could be reasonably interpreted as a prohibition on putting back sourced entries - he simply said not to revert by adding all of the entries without any sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:35, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I think that folks really need to read WP:LISTVERIFY - this specifies that the sources need to appear on the list itself, not just in the linked article, if its contentious. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:38, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

It is not just removing entries on lists without sources. It is also removing people from lists with sources that are deemed insufficient under a very strict standard (sources that do not expressly identify whether the subject is an ethnic Jew or a religious Jew are not sufficient, consensus of sources showing that they self-identify as Jewish, and the fact that they are Jewish is a component of their notability (I guess that is why Sergei Brin is no longer listed as Jewish). As most entries do not meet these standards, the fact that they are Jewish is being removed from their biographies, even with sourcing, in addition to removing them from the list. (e.g. List of Jewish American businesspeople) Patapsco913 (talk) 14:42, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Patapsco913, I thought this was our norm because of antisemitism? Anti-semites love pointing out who is a Jew. IIRC, we’ve blocked people for doing the opposite of what Coffee is doing. Not trying to be argumentative, but I was under the impression we didn’t point out that someone was a Jew unless there was clear sourcing showing its significance. I agree this probably could have been done more surgically, but I think the intent was good and I’m not really sure why this is already at AN. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:57, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

TonyBallioni, If that were true, the various Jewish wikiprojects would be antisemitic. I think the problem is that there is not a clear consensus on when we can identify if someone is Jewish and what kind of sourcing we need. I cannot find anything directly on point in the various discussion boards. As Jewish can be both ethnic and religious (generally Judaism is the term for the religion), it crosses several lines. If a source says they are Jewish (e.g. Jewish Women's Archive, the The Jewish Encyclopedia, or the Jewish Virtual Library), can we include even if it is not relevant to their notability. If a subject's parents are both Jewish, is the subject? If one had a Jewish funeral and burial, are they Jewish? If one is born to a Jewish family, are they Jewish? If the subject is an atheist but of Jewish heritage, are they Jewish (Woody Allen, Albert Einstein)? If one becomes a bar mitzvah, are they Jewish? These nuances should be explained in the biography just like we say that someone is of Italian descent. Multiple sources that specifically state whether they are referring to either Jewish ethnicity or Judaism with self-identification and that their ethnicity/religion is part of their notability seems to be a high hurdle. Patapsco913 (talk) 15:49, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Patapsco913, I actually think we agree because you just wrote the majority of what I would have said. I think it’s ultimately a content call best discussed on talk pages as to the best way to appropriately weight the sourcing. I’m more saying here that based on past experience, we’d typically like a source discussing the fact that they are Jewish. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, What is contentious? Coffee removed 90% of most of the lists. Are you saying most of those were contentious? Pick one from random, and since I've used Uriah Levy here before, what's contentious about him? Sir Joseph 14:54, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, Misplaced Pages:Stand-alone lists which contains WP:LISTVERIFY is a guideline, not a policy. As discussed above, in practice, many lists of people have not included inline citations for many years. While I understand that some editors may want to bring the encyclopedia closer to the guideline, if the changes involve large scale content removal, this should have been discussed on-wiki before being implemented. Dialectric (talk) 15:43, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

TonyBallioni A large-scale rapid content removal across numerous articles with a 'do not revert this edit' message in the edit summary should have some centralized discussion somewhere on WP.Dialectric (talk) 15:48, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree that an on-wiki discussion would have been ideal here. Regardless of the OTRS issues, I think my point was that we also consider large scale additions of “Jewish” categories to be disruptive because it’s usually nazis and their ilk who do it, and for people who don’t follow this topic area, the past experiences of having to deal with anti-Semitic trolls are going to form the basis of what they think is our practice. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Isn't the point that large scale changes to content is disruptive? In this case it is a large scale removal. Some of which can be supported on BLP grounds (which is the justification for VRS/OTRS related changes generally speaking). But a fair percentage of content removed were people who are not covered by BLP and for whom immediate removal en masse overwhelms interested editor's abilities to provide citations so that their inclusion can satisfy the relevant policies and guidelines. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:51, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

That probably would have been a good start although the standards for inclusion seem to be quite strict: a consensus of sources exactly specifying whether the subject is of Jewish ethnicity or a practitioner of Judaism (mere "Jewish" is not enough), self-identification as such, and the fact that their Jewishness is part of their notability. I doubt if many Jewish biographies could meet the hurdle.Patapsco913 (talk) 17:07, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Patapsco913, Not just that, these are made up standards just for these categories or lists. Because of ONE OTRS ticket we are turning Misplaced Pages topsy-turvy and removing sourced named because of some made up policy? Sir Joseph 17:14, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

No, these are not "made up standards just for these categories or lists". WP:LISTVERIFY applies to all stand-alone lists, and has been a consensus-agreed guideline for many years. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:22, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't see that this overwhelms interested editors. I have added a couple of entries back, with reliable sources confirming that the subjects themselves regarded themselves as Jewish, to List of Jewish American poets, and that took me in total about 10 or 15 minutes. I could have done more but was hoping that people would spend their time improving the lists rather than trading insults here, but obviously there are many editors who get more enjoyment out of trading insults than improving the encyclopedia. Coffee deleted, on my count, 63 entries from that list, so if a few editors would add a few entries each to the list per day it would only take a few days for it to get back to its former glory but with all items reliably sourced. The same could be done with the other lists. What's so difficult about that? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:17, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that one source is not sufficient. Sourced entries are being removed as well. Take a look at the diffs on List of Jewish American businesspeople "one source does not a verified consensus of reliable sources make, nor is it clear this is key to their notability" Patapsco913 (talk) 17:31, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

That depends on the source. If one source is reliable and confirms that the subject self-identified or self-identifies as Jewish and saw or sees that as part of their identity then it is sufficient. That is the case with the sources that I added to List of Jewish American poets, but is not with those that Coffee removed from List of Jewish American businesspeople with the edit summary that you quoted. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:43, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, that is the new policy I'm talking about. Where does this come from? So I now need to go back in time to the 1700's and find a source that Haym Solomon for example actually stated, "I am Jewish" for him to be included in the list? Let's not make special rules for one religion. Sir Joseph 17:46, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Once again, this rule applies to all religions, or whatever other classification is used for lists. Why do you immediately assume that Jews are treated differently from everyone else by our guidelines? There is enough real anti-semitism in the world to worry about it without you making it up where it does not exist. Historical figures should be dealt with by the "consensus of reliable sources" clause. I'm sure that the consensus of reliable sources about Haym Solomon is that he was Jewish and that that was part of his identity, so there's no problem. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:57, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, Please try to AGF. You are the one who is saying we have two rules when it comes to Jewish related categories. That is all. Don't put words into my mouth. You said people need to self-identify. People don't often walk around saying "I am Jewish." Yet the last time we had this discussion, that was what people required on this site. An absolute 100% affirmative statement that is why I and I think Patapsco913 are saying it's not something that can be easily obtained even by someone 100% self-identified.

Regardless, again, I think this should have been discussed on-wiki and at the Judaism project site and I reiterate that I think it's ludicrous that ONE OTRS ticket is the impetus for this, to have all the Jewish related cats and lists be turned upside down is crazy. Sir Joseph 18:08, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Phil that WP:LISTVERIFY applies in these situations. I agree with Coffee that the standard for inclusion of a BLP being Jewish will be necessarily higher, and require better in-line sourcing, than for historical figures. I agree with Sir Joseph that the scope of these removals was disruptive. That disruption feels justified to me in the case of BLP - our policies are clear on what actions are called for in these cases (immediate removal) - but less justified for historical figures. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:35, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

For the third time, in the hope that it will sink in, these rules apply to all categories, not "Jewish related categories". We do not treat Jews any differently from anyone else in our policies and guidelines. If we were to do so then I would argue vehemently against that. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:59, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Patapsco913, or the military one. I'm looking at that now and more than a dozen were removed that should not have been. Sir Joseph 17:44, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, if that were the case why would Evelyn Danzig Haas be removed despite having an interview where she states she was confirmed and her parents attended temple during the high holy days (Reiss, Susan B. (1995). "Evelyn Danzig Haas - Fine Arts and Family: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Philanthropy, Writing, and Haas Family Memories - Interviews Conducted by Susan B. Reiss". Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library University of California, Berkeley.) and despite her funeral being held at Congregation Emanu-El (San Francisco) (Cabanatuan, Michael (27 June 2011). "Philanthropist, arts patron Evelyn Haas dies". SF Gate.)Patapsco913 (talk) 18:05, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

If you told me which list she was removed from then I could say whether I think she was removed correctly or incorrectly. How can we discuss this properly when people don't even supply such basic information? And can everyone please say "list" when they mean "list". Categories are different things. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:07, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I was referencing the sufficiency of sourcing that would be required to put someone on a list. In this case, self-identification and a Jewish burial were not sufficient to define someone as Jewish per the editor removing the entries from the lists. Abraham Haas (died 1921) was removed from despite sourcing "Abraham Haas: Purveyer of Food Stuffs, Wholesale & Retail, Part 2, Los Angeles". Jewish Museum of the American West. Patapsco913 (talk) 19:30, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

For crying out loud (that makes it three times I've been forced to utter that strangled oath recently), I asked you a simple question so why don't you answer? What list was Evelyn Danzig Haas removed from? How can I respond to your post if you refuse to supply such simple information? And, if you still refuse to make it possible to conduct a reasonable discussion, can you tell me whether those sources were cited in the list article? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:10, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, he answered you. List of Jewish American businesspeople in retail. Sir Joseph 20:47, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

No, he said that Abraham Haas was deleted from there. Where was Evelyn Danzig Haas deleted from? Was that the same place or a different one? It is a very simple question and one that for some reason two of you are refusing to answer. It is impossible to conduct a reasoned discussion when people won't answer such simple questions. Just tell me what is wrong and I'll agree or disagree with you, but if people won't identify which articles they are talking about then they can't expect others to run around looking for which they might be. Anyway, it's two and a half hours away from the new year here and, in the immortal words sung by Jimmy Pursey, I'm "going down the pub". Phil Bridger (talk) 21:36, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the source was used for Abraham Haas on List of Jewish American businesspeople in retail and removed as inadequate (the diff is in my last comment). The reason was "one source does not a verified consensus of reliable sources make, nor is it clear this is key to their notability ... thus removing as WP:CAT/R violation" My point is that the hurdle we have to meet for identifying someone as Jewish - whether on a list or in a biography - seems to be pretty high requiring multiple irrevocable sources, self-identification, specificity as to whether the citation refers to ethnicity or religion, and the fact that their Jewishness is part of their notability. Patapsco913 (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• I still think it incredulous that this is the result from ONE OTRS ticket and while I was told that the ticket is real, I still have the nagging feeling someone is punking Misplaced Pages. I would love to have as much information as one can share about the ticket to ease my feelings, regardless of the outcome. In any event, regardless of ticketing, we don't change policy and mass edit Misplaced Pages to remove sourced content. That is my concern. Lists are lists of sourced people, and I don't think I've ever seen lists that now need references on every item on the list to warrant inclusion and these lists should not be different. If there are concerns about people on the lists, then we can discuss individual people, or bring the cat or lists to the WT:Judaism page, but we should not mass remove hundreds of people off lists. Sir Joseph 15:06, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• I am opposed to mass removal —OTRS complaints notwithstanding. I am opposed to mass anything. Implementing changes en masse is a recipe for trouble, and at the very least, requires ample discussion at related Wikiprojects or in some other centralized venue. Each encyclopedia entry, in general, should be assessed according to its individual merits. It is my understanding that that is how it was, and I argue, how it is and should be. To sum up: individual attention is required, per entry. El_C 18:43, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

_Talk 📧 18:57, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• I have had a long discussion with Cofee and TheSandDoctor about this on my talkpage, as I am somewhat of an expert in this area both in real life and on Misplaced Pages, in view of my more than 10 years of active editing on Judaism-related articles and categories. As I understand from that discussion, this was discussed by a group of five WP:OTRS editors. If anything, the discussion on my talkpage has shown, that these good-willing editors had an insufficient understanding of the issue at hand. The crux of the matter being their lack of understanding the difference between being of the Jewish nation and being of the Jewish belief, and the ramifications of that difference for Misplaced Pages articles and categories. In my opinion, these edits must stop, and possibly be reverted. I noticed changes on two articles, and disagree with both. Possibly, a broader discussion of this matter should take place as well, as I agree with previous editors, that changes of such magnitude can not be decided upon by some clique of priviliged editors. Debresser (talk) 18:48, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• I agree. Not sure how five editors responding to one complaint can undue an encyclopedia. We're not talking about someone complaining about being harassed so OTRS responds to harassment. This is possibly an abuse of what OTRS is. Who are the five editors and what are their qualifications to decide the proper course of action? Sir Joseph 19:07, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• The first step ought to be for Coffee and his associates to revert all deletions of long dead people as these have zero BLP implications regarding contemporary anti-Semitism. The next step ought to be an effort to discuss the issues regarding BLPs in a calm and sober manner before continuing this campaign of mass deletions without even looking at each biography for sources that can be verified and copied over to the list. Tagging "citation needed" is better than mass removal of content, when removal should instead be surgical and precise. Cullen Let's discuss it 20:35, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

  I have written similarly on the people not covered by BLP. However, I disagree that policy (specifically the cited WP:BLPREMOVE) prefers tagging over removal. We can have, and are, having a debate whether this content falls under that policy. However, I think there is evidence to suggest it does and if so this sober moderate path suggested above is actually not the one supported by policy. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:53, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

  Barkeep49, if a biography of a living person contains solid references verifying that the person is Jewish, then it is hardly contentious that a link to that BLP appears on a list of Jews. In my view, the solution is to copy over the best of those sources to the list article, not to remove the name from the list. Cullen Let's discuss it 21:07, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

  I agree Cullen328 that if a BLP of a living person contains solid references verifying that the person is Jewish then it is hardly contentious for that person to appear in a list article and for the source to be copied over. I'll also state, and I'm guessing you'd agree, that a generalized reference, e.g. The Jewish Encyclopedia, for people not covered by BLP, is sufficient to satisfy WP:V/WP:LISTVERIFY for many entries. The rub comes for the people in between: living people for whom the article does not provide a solid reference verifying that the person is Jewish. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:30, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• I'm not sure why this is as big an issue as purportedly being claimed. The Editnotice for lists of people says that all entries should be supported by references. Every link/guideline given in the edit summary by coffee says that entries in lists should be supported by references. For years I have been removing "alumni" from school/university pages when they are not supported by references. If one person is complaining at OTRS about their invalid entry on a page, then it's not like we can say "well, this person complained and there's no references, but these people haven't said anything so we'll just leave them unsourced"; no, we remove them all. It is the onus of those adding to the list to make sure there is verified reason for inclusion on said list. I will grant you that some of the folks being removed are dead, but WP:V is just as important as WP:BLP, especially when it comes to matters like religion and ethnicity.

The long and the short of it is this: these are not inappropriate removals, they were inappropriate additions that are now being reverted. As a minor note, an editor editing a half-dozen pages will not undue an encyclopedia and the hyperbole is quite frankly silly. If people are missing off the lists, re-add them (appropriately) and try to remember that we're all on the same team. Primefac (talk) 22:00, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Primefac, Coffee put the editnotice in. That wasn't there before. And removing unverified isn't the point, it's removing en masse those that belong on the list. His edit summary said that he didn't even look at the list to verify or validate if people belonged or not. He just removed. Sir Joseph 22:16, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) On some, yes, but it was there before this for others. Plus, the editnotice itself has existed since 2011. It's not a DS in that we can't act unless it's put on the editnotice, and clearly it's a long-standing concern. Primefac (talk) 22:20, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Primefac, Yes, but the issue is that he has removed mass removals of sourced edits. As someone who uses Twinkle I know that "I am responsible for all my edits." I can't see the emergency in this mass removal that he couldn't ask for help, either at noticeboards, or at WT:JUDAISM. Removing Lazarus or Ginsberg from List of Poets is just obscene for example, and the gutted list of American soldiers, most of whom have been dead for over 100 years is clearly not a BLP issue. We have a flag to determine if an article is alive or not. That could have been used. He also could have done a quick once over to see if the person is alive or not. But to do a mass removal was wrong. That is the issue. Nobody has a problem with V or BLP, it's removing entire lists. Just look at his contributions for the past few days and see how he gutted CATS and LISTS without checking any of the contents. Sir Joseph 22:30, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

There are many ways to fix an article, list or otherwise. One is to take a TNT approach, whereby all unsourced info (BLP or not) is removed and re-added as appropriate. The second is to leave that unsourced information there until it can be verified or removed. I think discretion (read: immediate removal) is the better part of valour. Will most of the removed names be eventually be re-added? Probably. Will Misplaced Pages suffer because a relatively-obscure cross-categorized list be missing a few names for a few days? No. Were "obvious" names removed? Undoubtedly.

Regardless of the initial actions, coffee has said in multiple places that an effort to check all those names and restore the appropriate ones will take place, provided there is assistance. Primefac (talk) 23:06, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Primefac, Your first point is an ideological issue I disagree with, there is no immediate harm in not removing all these from a list. Your second point in stating that Coffee will restore with assistance is the point. At no point did Coffee seek out assistance. That is what I said multiple times in this thread and on his talk page. He should have posted a message at JUDAISM and Jewish History that he removed a good chunk of people from Lists and Cats and people should go through his edits and re-add those that are properly sourced. But there was no communication at all. All we had was a mass removal of peoples from Jewish lists and categories with no explanation, or explanation that made no sense, since BLP doesn't apply to dead people. Sir Joseph 23:14, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Four things I'll note that seem to have been misconstrued here:

1. When I said I don't have the time to review each case on the lists, I meant that to mean that I was going through thousands of articles directly and reviewing their sources (in about the most thorough way I've ever handled any task on this site) and that was eating up most of my time so I wouldn't be able to focus on such a task as sourcing unsourced claims in a potentially contentious list. I came across these lists not including sources, even when there were editnotices (before the one's I added) on several of such lists noting the requirement for such sources to be added. When I saw that issue, I thought it best to ensure we protected the article subjects first and foremost. I understand here that it appears some of those listed were in fact dead. To that I will note that BLPREMOVE only applies to living people, so if it is found that the inclusions of the dead people (once again I personally, at this current time, do not have the resources to look into this) meet WP:CAT/R I am all for those names being listed back. I also am all for the names of living people being added back, if proper sourcing is provided per WP:BLPCAT, WP:LISTPEOPLE and WP:LISTVERIFY.

2. Patapsco913 has a long history of adding WP:SYNTH and WP:OR violations into BLPs (we've had complaints about this editor dating back to January 2019 according to an OTRS admin), yet is commenting here as if they're properly following policy with their additions. I'll note quite firmly, only a handful of what I've looked through so far (about 3,000 of their 95,000 edits) have properly been sourced or have properly stated what is in the source.

3. This is very much not an abuse of what OTRS for is as alluded above, one of our main focuses when dealing with non-copyright matters at OTRS is handling requests from article subject's about their BLPs. Considering we shouldn't wait for every single person with a BLP to complain to us about an issue that is pretty clearly not being fixed properly and is abundant across several articles (especially after Patapsco913's additions in particular), I decided to tackle this issue broadly and with urgency. I have not taken this task lightly and I don't think any of my colleagues have either. It was almost a given that these types of moves would upset some of our editors, but that was not the reason we went into this. I approached this situation with the consideration of the article subjects' personal safety first and foremost. In this situation I think it is basically obligatory that we handle describing people in this way with the most care absolutely possible.

4. These are not in any way new policies, it just appears new because no one had enforced them. Nor was this the decision of a "privileged clique of editors", these decisions were based in long-standing policies on how we handle such descriptions in biographical articles, stand-alone listings of people and categories about religious affiliations. I do understand that such moves have caused frustration, and I apologize for that. Hence why I have stated multiple times at my talk page that once I'm done reviewing several more thousand edits from this user I will gladly assist in adding names back with proper sourcing to lists, etc.

I would just ask that some of you here understand that I'm currently still in the cleanup phase of this task. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 22:16, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I think it started with my edit on Edward Kosner where I added he was from a "Jewish family" with two citations (I could have used the Wall Street Journal but it was behind a paywall so I usually leave those out since others cannot see them). It was requested to be removed via OTRS for "Concerns of undue weight, and request for removal." No problem. I did synthesize by saying he was from a "Jewish family" and not just that he was "Jewish." And it is fine that all my edits are being reviewed (I watch them - some I agree with, some I don't - they are mostly not too interesting) Here is an edit I made on Samuel Gottesman based on a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article titled "D. Samuel Gottesman, Noted Jewish Philanthropist, Dies in New York". Is that sufficient? I don't know, I thought it was. Anyhow, my biggest question involves what kind of support is needed to identify someone as Jewish. I will repeat what I said earlier. It seems that there is not a clear consensus on when we can identify if someone is Jewish and what kind of sourcing we need. I cannot find anything directly on point in the various discussion boards. As Jewish can be both ethnic and religious (generally Judaism is the term for the religion), it crosses several lines. If a source says they are Jewish (e.g. Jewish Women's Archive, the The Jewish Encyclopedia, or the Jewish Virtual Library), can we include even if it is not relevant to their notability. If a subject's parents are both Jewish, is the subject? If one had a Jewish funeral and burial, are they Jewish? If one is born to a Jewish family, are they Jewish? If the subject is an atheist but of Jewish heritage, are they Jewish (Woody Allen, Albert Einstein)? If one becomes a bar mitzvah, are they Jewish? These nuances should be explained in the biography just like we say that someone is of Italian descent. Coffee's requirement (correct me if I am wrong as I am using what you state in your edit summaries) of multiple sources that specifically state whether they are referring to the subject as of Jewish ethnicity or a practitioner of Judaism with self-identification; and that their ethnicity/religion is part of their notability seems to be a high hurdle. Sergey Brin did not meet that standard per Coffee's review. If that is the agreed standard then we should go with it but it does not seem to be the standard I have seen applied on wikipedia by many experienced editors who edit extensively on Jewish biographies. So I think it is good for this discussion to take place so wikipedia can firm up its guidelines on this unique situation where ethnicity/culture meshes with religion. (and this is the first i have heard about a OTRS complaint so perhaps the first one in January 2019 was not so egregious).Patapsco913 (talk) 23:15, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I haven't been involved in this particular series of events, but I see it as a particularly egregious example of a general problem stemming from people being added to lists, both stand-alone and in-article, and to categories, without citations to reliable sources. I believe that we need to consistently enforce the need for verifiability more stringently for people in lists and categories. - Donald Albury 22:47, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

As an OTRS agent (verify) I can confirm we have had multiple tickets this year in particular about this issue. I do think Donald Albury is on point, the issue stems from subjects being added to lists, and categories with insufficient or a lack of citations. I do think removing these categories per WP:V, WP:RS, WP:BLPCAT, WP:BLPREMOVE, WP:LISTPEOPLE is a good move especially on the BLP articles, with the long deceased subjects I do think we can slowly re-add the categories that are "lightly" sourced but should require far more stringent in categories and lists pertaining to living people and those recently deceased. All in all I think Coffee was on point with the spirt and the literal wording of the policies. OTRS is not being "punked" however I can not share the content of these tickets per Wikimedia's access to non-public information policy. Regards, --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ 01:53, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

No way at all do I object to edits that remove BLPs from Jewish categories and lists when the article lacks references that verify the living person's Jewish identity. Coffee's error in this case was to use an argument based largely on BLP policy to delete listings and categorization from many, many people who have been dead for decades or even well over 100 years, and whose biographies contain impeccable referencing for their Jewish identities. I am forced to conclude that Coffee did not even check for a death date or even skim the biography. Similarly, many (but not all) of the BLPs that Coffee has excluded from lists and categories contain impeccable referencing verifying Jewish identities. One example is Shalom Auslander, a living author whose entire career is wrapped up in his Jewish persona, as verified by many reliable sources. And I only had to go through the letter "A" to find that one. By sad coincidence, Auslander is from Monsey, New York, the heavily Jewish town where several people were stabbed at a Hanukkah party only a few days ago. What is the benefit to the encyclopedia of summarily removing Auslander from our list of Jewish authors? Misplaced Pages contains many, many lists of people which contain unreferenced links to biographies of living people, but those biography articles are well-referenced for the list claim. Some code monkey could write a bot that would delete such unreferenced list entries by the tens of thousands but that would be disruptive. If I did that myself, even manually, I would expect to be stopped or blocked. A more sophisticated and useful bot would find the appropriate reference in the biography and copy it over to the list. I suspect that human editorial judgment is still required for such a task in 2020. I encourage Coffee to use individualized editorial judgment on a case by case basis, instead of taking a counterproductive cookie-cutter approach that is wreaking havoc on categories and lists of Jewish people. Cullen Let's discuss it 03:22, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I know we're both starting to sound like broken records, but BLP was one of the reasons given; CAT/R (another reason given) specifically states that dead people in lists need to have good sources when it comes to ethnicity/religion. Stop using the BLP as a scapegoat and focus on the question at hand about whether we should be upholding the requirements for lists of people that have been in place for years. Primefac (talk) 13:40, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, which contains CAT/R, is a guideline, not policy, so not a requirement. In any case, whether CAT/R applies is open to debate - as mentioned above, Jewish can be an ethnic group, not just a religion designation, and WP:ETHNICRACECAT on that same guideline page points this out as well, making no mention of inline citations.Dialectric (talk) 16:31, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

• I don't want to get into the OTRS or mass removal issue.

  But it's been a clear requirement that lists for living people have inline citations for a very long time now, I would say over 10 years. It's true that our enforcement of this has been a bit of a hit and a miss, although this isn't the first time a list has had a massive cleanup of entries which lack inline citations, again this has happened many many years ago so it should surprised no one. So regardless of the best way to handle this, it is very concerning that some editors who regular deal with BLPs and lists don't seem to be aware of this requirement. The only problems coming should be from irregular editors and IPs unfamiliar with policies not regular editors.

  Frankly, I consider this the most concerning thing about this whole mess. How can it be after all this time, that so many experienced editors are so woefully misinformed about our policies and guidelines? I think we need to consider how this has happened, and how we can fix it, since it's clearly causing major problems, far more so than anything to do with the debate over how to handle this particular issue now.

  BTW, by the same token, the requirement for self identification is not unique to any particular religious group when it comes to BLPs. For ethnicity or races, it gets more complicated but we still require excellent sourcing. There have been plenty of people who have tried to argue that e.g. for some African tribal affiliations "everyone knows" what tribe they belong to and we should ignore our sourcing requirements but these suggestion have always been shot down. Coming from Malaysia, I myself can sort of understand how it can be where such stuff tends to be considered easily known, but the sourcing isn't there and so how frustrating it may be, but I don't think we should relax our sourcing requirements despite that, and in any case, this isn't the time or place to discuss that.

  Nil Einne (talk) 08:51, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

A very belated note. Please note that this discussion is about:

<list moved to the top of this discussion>

and various category removals. If I have missed any out or duplicated any it was accidental, not some evil conspiracy. If there is any more discussion of particular cases can people please link the article and/or list that are being referred to by putting the name between ].

I would put this list of lists at the top of this discussion but I'm sure that someone would find a reason to take offence if I did that. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:01, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would, so I've done so. Primefac (talk) 13:43, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment: Just found this in a WaPo article: The desire for connection is strong. Moskowitz’s follow-up tweet to the above, while not as viral, still got several thousand likes: “me, yelling at the ‘early life’ section: JUST TELL ME IF THEY’RE JEWISH.”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk • contribs) 18:15, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment: Seven thousand words about removing unsourced material, but nobody's linked to WP:CHALLENGE yet? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, this has nothing to do with the articles in question. This is about lists or categories. Nothing is being challenged for being unsourced. What is being challenged is mass removal for a guideline that is not policy. Sir Joseph 20:48, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, lists *are* articles. There's nothing in CHALLENGE that says or even implies that "Oh, by the way, these rules don't apply to any page whose title begins with the words "List of...". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that we have 1000s of list articles of names, many of which cover mostly blp's, that lack inline citations, and have for years. If one is challenging a specific name, that could be reasonably addressed. Simultaneously challenging hundreds of names across multiple list articles should be preceded by a first-pass search by the challenger to see if the content is referenced in any given linked article.Dialectric (talk) 21:27, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment: Our Jewish-anything categories are a terrible mess, as are the list articles in question at the top of this section. We desperately need a way to disambiguate the ethnicity and religion, not to mention nationality and culture, in all of them. EllenCT (talk) 02:10, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• I've just scratched the surface here, and the very first question I had was "why exactly are we making a point of having Category: Jewish

• That is a valid discussion we can have but this is about the mass removals that Coffee did and is still doing. If you want to discuss certain pages, we can do so either on that page or on the Judaism project page, but most of these pages are there for a reason and also as I'm sure you're aware, otherthingsdon'texist is not a valid reason to not have something, in any event. Sir Joseph 04:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I know. The point I am making is that there's a big pile-on to say "he's doing something evil!!!11!!" rather than trying to figure out if he is doing something that we should have done years ago, or prevented years ago. The discussion about the *merits* of the edits is significantly lacking. Risker (talk) 05:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm surprised to read that you feel the discussion about the merits of the edits is significantly lacking, when below I have provided six examples of poor edits: Sergey Brin, Isaias W. Hellman, Berle Adams, Noam Chomsky, Allen Ginsberg, and Norman Cahners are all notable Jews, who are notable, in part, for being Jewish. Sources provided below. I note that Coffee did not list any of the "Jewish lists" at AFD. If he had, I would likely have !voted to delete some of them. Instead, he removed entries from the lists. Same with the categories. So, whether the lists or categories should exist or not in the first place is irrelevant to the question of whether Coffee's edits should continue. – Levivich 05:41, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Risker, the exact same argument has been made against having list of women authors or African-American engineers. Should we then get rid of all of the parent and child categories in Category:American people by ethnic or national origin and occupation or Category:Women by nationality and occupation? There are plenty of gender, ethnic and racially identified categories that have been long debated in CFD discussions and guideline pages. And yes, we have Category:People by religion, Category:Buddhists by occupation, Category:Bahamian people by occupation and Category:Hungarian people by occupation along with categories like Category:Hungarian people by political orientation and Category:Hungarian people by religion. If you get rid of every gender, ethnic, race, religion or nationality identified category, you'd be deleting tens of thousands of categories. Liz 04:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

There's a very significant difference between Category:People of Hungarian descent by occupation – the logical parallel to Category:Jews by occupation – and Category:Hungarian people by occupation. I'm just fine with not having any references to religion when they are not a significant factor in the reason for the subject's notability. And I have a real problem with most of these points resulting in the subject being placed in a 'child' category instead of the main category. Risker (talk) 05:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Perhaps this question is for another time, but why is Coffee an OTRS member in the first place? And I don't want to make a big deal about this but shouldn't that bit have been removed or is that separate? Sir Joseph 04:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  My concern here is that the mass removal of content is purportedly justified because five OTRS members agreed to it. I've never before heard an OTRS member talk about OTRS as if it were some kind of Misplaced Pages Editorial Board, or subject matter, content, or policy experts. That's far afield from my understanding of what OTRS is. – Levivich 05:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  Levivich, here is an OTRS member and admin not knowing where the discussion supposedly took place, so this was also just five OTRS members having some sort of discussion, not in a centralized OTRS board even. That makes it even worse. Sir Joseph 05:13, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Bolding mine. WP:V: "All material in Misplaced Pages mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced." WP:Burden: "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material". Lists are not exempt from sourcing requirements. Lists about people's ethnicity or religion doubly so, living or dead. The only difference is with WP:BLP and the availability of discretionary sanctions, replacing poorly sourced or unsourced material means you will likely end up at AE. If the material has been challenged by removal, you need to add a reliable source to verify it in a list. If its a category, the category must be verified by a source and material in the article. Dont like it? Door is thataway. Only in death does duty end (talk) 06:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure all of the list and category memberships in question here are adequately sourced and have been for a long time (please correct me if I'm wrong.) The problem is that we are faced with an ethnicity and religion sharing the same name, both which can be and often are disjoint, compounded by the fact that the term is also used for a culture and nationality. Only the nationality has a suitable preferred term (Israeli.) Why not split of all those categories and lists into "Ethnically Jewish" and "Religiously Jewish" instead? Are there enough culturally Jewish people who are irreligious and not ethnically Jewish to cause problems with that? EllenCT (talk) 06:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: I've put a waters-testing proposal at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Judaism#Splitting categories and lists by ethnicity and religion because I haven't been able to find the proposal in archives anywhere. EllenCT (talk) 07:01, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Only in death, you write "If its a category, the category must be verified by a source and material in the article. Dont like it? Door is thataway." OK, please take a look at Coffee's deletion of two categories at Florence Meyer Blumenthal, where the person's ancestry and philanthropic activities are well supported by reliable sources. Which direction is "the door" for the editors who edit like that? I have asked Coffee to explain that edit with no response. Perhaps you can explain the logic instead. Cullen Let's discuss it 06:58, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• I will also point out that Sir Joseph is currently topic banned from the holocaust and anti-semitism broadly construed. So they should not be engaged in any discussion that involves anti-semitism. Only in death does duty end (talk) 06:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  Only in death, I'm disappointed that you said this. Nowhere in Sir Joseph's report did he mention the Holocaust or antisemitism. Not everything about Jews is about the Holocaust or antisemitism. It was other editors who introduced the Holocaust and antisemitism into the discussion, and SJ has steadfastly and very obviously been avoiding discussing those aspects of this thread (and also abiding by the one-way IBAN that was part of that same sanction...let's just get that on the table, too).I'm glad SJ brought this to the community's attention, because it gives us an opportunity to address it. And as to your other comment about WP:V, Burden, and BLP, you can see in my examples below that Coffee has been removing material even when it is already sourced, even when it's BLUESKY obvious, and even on biographies of dead people. Listing Allen Ginsberg in a list of Jewish American poets, even without a citation, does not violate WP:V, WP:BLP, or any other policy. – Levivich 06:38, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm disappointed we are once again wasting time on another one of Sir Joseph's crusades. Want to Jew-tag people living or dead? Add a reliable source in-line. Dont want to add a citation? Dont complain when someone removes it. All material when challenged requires a citation. Dont like it, go attempt to change WP:V. And WP:BLUESKY will never ever be allowed for religion or ethnicity. If you genuinely think this is acceptable, you need to be banned from editing biographies. Only in death does duty end (talk) 06:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Only in death, no one has “Jew tagged” anything. I think you should strike these baseless accusations. It is not “Jew tagging” to include Allen Ginsberg in a list of Jewish American poets. You also don’t need a citation that George Washington was American, or that St. Paul was Christian. If I’m wrong, point me to a policy that would require inline citations for any of these statements. – Levivich 06:56, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:V requires inline citations where material is challenged as unsupported. If you can write a biography about St. Paul that doesnt include a reliable source to his religion, go ahead. But current policy requires that list articles are subject to WP:V and its requirements and also require sources. Feel free to go propose changes to WP:V. And again, 'But its obvious' will never be accepted for religion or ethnicity. Those parameters were removed from infobox:person precisely because the issues were too complex and too many people labelling persons as religion/ethinicity X because 'obvious'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:09, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Sir Joseph made the comments: "these are made up standards just for these categories or lists" and "Let's not make special rules for one religion". If anyone had made up standards just for these categories or lists, or if anyone had made special rules just for the Jewish religion, then I would certainly have regarded them as anti-semitic, so yes, these are allegations of anti-semitism. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:48, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

You say, "I would certainly have regarded them as anti-semitic, so yes, these are allegations of anti-semitism." Well I say, I wouldn't have regarded "special rules just for the Jewish religion" as anti-semitic. Can I claim that, therefore, they are not allegations of anti-semitism? If I create a "special rule" that all Jewish biographies get to be TFAs, is that anti-semitic or pro-semitic? – Levivich 18:07, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Now you're just being disingenuous. You usually seem to be a reasonably intelligent person, so you can't really believe that Sir Joseph was saying anything other than that these claimed "made up standards" or "special rules" were targeted against Jews. I'm talking about what he actually wrote, in the context that he wrote it, not some silly hypothetical rule that you just made up. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

No, no, I'm being fully ingenuous. :-) Look at the two statements in full:

1. Not just that, these are made up standards just for these categories or lists. Because of ONE OTRS ticket we are turning Misplaced Pages topsy-turvy and removing sourced named because of some made up policy? He's not accusing anyone of being antisemitic here. He's saying don't make up standards for categories or lists based on one OTRS ticket. I really don't see how you're getting an accusation of antisemitism out of that statement.
2. Phil Bridger, that is the new policy I'm talking about. Where does this come from? So I now need to go back in time to the 1700's and find a source that Haym Solomon for example actually stated, "I am Jewish" for him to be included in the list? Let's not make special rules for one religion. To me that's very tenuous to read into that statement ("Let's not make special rules for one religion") an accusation of antisemitism, in the context of the example from the 1700s. That's a totally cogent point–that we shouldn't require a self-identification source for a person long dead–and it's applicable to any religion or other category. Jewish categories just happens to be the one that Coffee has been editing, but there's no suggestion there–at all–about Coffee's motivations for the editing. In both quotes, SJ is arguing against having "made up standards" for categories/lists based on an OTRS ticket, and against having different standards for one religion as opposed to another. But that's far from accusing a specific editor of having an antisemitic motive. – Levivich 20:18, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Now you just being ridiculous, as well as disingenuous. In both cases the rules have existed for many, many years for all lists and categories, but Sir Joseph was claiming that they had only been created on the spur of the moment in reaction to one recent OTRS ticket with the intention of targeting Jews in a way inconsistent with the way that we treat everyone else. If you can't see the blindingly obvious then there's nothing more I can help you with. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:23, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Only in death's post above, accusing Sir Joseph of being on a crusade, shows that he is not aware that he issue here is rather Coffee's crusade against what he calls "Jew-tagging" (another term I am not happy with). We can do without such unhelpful comments here. Debresser (talk) 18:58, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Everyone and their dog is well aware of Sir Joseph's issue in the Jewish topic area. In short, Sir Joseph should be allowed to do whatever he wants with disregard to policy, their opinion is the correct one, and if you disagree its because of anti-jewish bias. The above examples as Phil has succinctly pointed out where he dances around accusations of anti-Jew behaviour in order to skirt his topic ban are one example. He's a tendentious editor on the topic and should be permanently banned from anything related to Jews, Israel etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:39, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

And let's get this straight, Joseph had no contributions since October after the last issues with his editing on the topic of Jews, and his first edit when returning on 31st Dec is to cause another drama with veiled accusations per the above. Its one drama after another because he cant leave the topic of who is and isnt a Jew alone. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:46, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

No, the person "causing drama" is the one who is mass removing entries from Jewish categories and lists, and Jewish content from biographies, etc. The person who responds to that by bringing it to the community's attention, is not "causing drama". They are resolving drama. Put your boomerang away. – Levivich 20:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Uhm, Levivich, go ahead and add that condition to our behavioral policy. It can be part of our 2020 New Year's resolution to eliminate ambiguities in WP:PAG. _Talk 📧 21:14, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: My New Year's resolution was to spend less time on noticeboards. So far so good! – Levivich 22:39, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I think we have ample reason to believe that Coffee has been acting on OTRS complaints without the controlled vocabulary infrastructure necessary to resolve them, and as such we should not shoot the messenger. EllenCT (talk) 21:09, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

You're right, EllenCT, I shouldn't have said that Coffee was "causing drama". Stricken. – Levivich 22:39, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal 1: Coffee stops mass removals

Proposal: Coffee immediately stops mass removals of Jewish-related content, including prose, sources, categories, list entries, etc., from articles.

• Support as proposer, based on Coffee's errors in mass removals so far, his re-instating removals when reverted, and his responses to multiple editors who have raised concerns about the mass removals. Examples:
  • Sergey Brin is a GA-rated biography of a living person. Coffee removed all mentions of "Jewish" in Brin's article, including prose, sources, and categories. In edit summaries, Coffee claimed WP:SYNTH, WP:DUE, WP:BLPCAT, WP:BLPREMOVE, and WP:BLPRS. Coffee's deletions were reverted. Coffee deleted the categories again, citing WP:BLPREMOVE.
    • Is Brin's Jewish identity "controversial"? Is it DUE?
      • Haaretz interviewing Brin :

        Q: "... what does it mean to you to be Jewish?"
        A: "I think probably the most important thing is the background ...I think that's at the core of the Jewish experience."

      • CNET quoting Brin : When you're a Jew, you have a background of hardship, suffering, difficulties–and to turn that into success is part of the Jewish experience.
      • The Jerusalem Post: The world's 50 Richest Jews: 1–10
      • Biography.com: "... Brin and his family emigrated to the United States to escape Jewish persecution in 1979."
      • The New York Times: "... his family escape anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union ..."
    • It is WP:BLUESKY that Sergey Brin is Jewish. He is well-known for his Soviet-Jewish emigré background, including for his related philanthropy.
  • Isaias W. Hellman died in 1920. Coffee removed all mentions of Hellman's Jewish background, citing WP:CAT/R. The most-often-cited source in our article about Hellman is a biography published by St. Martin's Press, entitled Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California. After Coffee was reverted, he re-removed the Jewish content, claiming in the edit summary "WP:SYNTH/WP:OR violations". The biography referring to Hellman as "One Jewish Immigrant" was cited five times in this article, in all versions that Coffee edited. There was no grounds for removing this content, nevermind re-removing it after being reverted.
  • Berle Adams died in 2009. Coffee removed the only mention of "Jewish" in Adams's article, which was sourced to a book called Jews and Jazz: Improvising Ethnicity.
    • In the edit summary, Coffee wrote removing WP:SYNTH/WP:OR violation... source used does not state what his family was at birth, nor does it state anything about Russian ancestry... if it does in a part of the book not available to the snippet reader (from my review it doesn't seem to), the page numbers need to be specified. The page number is 79. It says "Most Jews in the music business naturally rejected charges of exploitation ... Some Jews in the music business were unapologetic ... Berle Adams said of the music he produced ... Yet other Jews in the music business ..." It is very obvious to me that there is no SYNTH or OR here. That Coffee didn't find it in the snippet view is not a reason to remove it. We have a {{page needed}} template for missing pages in citations.
    • Coffee also wrote in that edit summary that the other sources in this article also do not back up these claims, but the Los Angeles Times and Variety obituaries state that services were held at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery, the largest Jewish cemeteries in California. (Though not dispositive, it's also a hint that he died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which is in Category:Jewish medical organizations.) I disagree that these sources do not support Adams's Jewish identity.
  • Removing Noam Chomsky (BLP) from List of Jewish American linguists is almost a WP:CIR issue. Our GA-rated article on Chomsky contains a detailed, well-sourced (e.g., to books by academic publishers like MIT Press and Polity) discussion of his Jewish background, upbringing, and politics. Chomsky is the most famous Jewish American linguist ever. His Jewish identity is BLUESKY obvious; it is not contentious or controversial. In the edit summary, Coffee wrote Chomsky source does not mention him being Jewish. The edit summary suggests Coffee knows Chomsky is Jewish, but still removed the entry nonetheless. This is not an improvement to the list; it's disrupting Misplaced Pages to make a point.
  • Removing Allen Ginsberg (d. 1997) from List of Jewish American poets (along with many others) has already been addressed in this report, but it's the same CIR/POINTY issue. Ginsberg is probably the most famous Jewish American poet ever.
  • Removing Norman Cahners (d. 1986) from List of Jewish American businesspeople in media. This entry was sourced. Coffee's edit summary said "not backed up by references used". One of the sources was United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which writes, "... Norman Cahners, also Jewish ..." .
  • This Dec 30 conversation troubles me, e.g., Coffee's statement in response to an editor's concerns: I would also warn you not begin your edit warring behavior again (how many times have you been blocked for that now?) by going back through my edits I see you already took upon yourself to do with an entirely unrelated article. I would point out to you this discussion has been made aware to my fellow admins working this serious issue, so do try and keep this professional and do not try and subvert policy with your beliefs.
  • This Dec 31 conversation troubles me, e.g., Coffee's statement in response to a different editor with the same concerns: Yes I am currently in the process of enforcing our policies ... I also do not remotely have the time to look for those sources myself while in the midst of a major cleanup of the site, per a consensus discussion with several OTRS members/admins/en-wiki admins.
  • Coffee's statement in this AN thread troubles me. Really all four points, but particularly I would just ask that some of you here understand that I'm currently still in the cleanup phase of this task. I believe that Coffee should immediately stop "the cleanup phase of this task". – Levivich 22:41, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
• The proposal, as written, appears to have some logical sense whilst this discussion is ongoing. That is notwithstanding the above support comment, which I do have some issues with (see my oppose in proposal 2). However, I fully support continuation of Coffee's activities and am fairly positive that consensus will be determined that existing policies should be actively enforced, like coffee is doing overall. --TheSandDoctor 23:22, 1 January 2020 (UTC); amended 00:52, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support, for the reasons I stated above. I agree with Leviv that Coffee's statement that he is "currently still in the cleanup phase of this task" is worrying. Debresser (talk) 00:55, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support and adding since he has responded on his talk page with the following sentence, "contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion." as the reason. Being Jewish is not contentious and I think we need to stop this immediately. That is not what BLP is referring to. Sir Joseph 02:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support The examples presented above are evidence that Coffee has been editing disruptively in the area of Jewish categories and lists. Here is a example I discovered when I first started to look into this. Coffee went to Florence Meyer Blumenthal and removed Category:Jewish American philanthropists and Category:American people of French-Jewish descent from the article. Any editor who reads that biography and its first reference will recognize that the edit was egregiously wrong, so I reverted it. The expressed concerns are about BLP issues and contemporary anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, but this woman died in 1930, so that is spurious. I tend to be skeptical of calling people "philanthropists" but Blumenthal is notable precisely for that reason - funding worthy charitable causes for decades. There is something seriously wrong in all of this, and it needs to stop. Cullen Let's discuss it 02:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• I wasn't originally going to copy over my full reply from my talkpage about this issue, but since Sir Joseph has taken it upon themselves to misrepresent what I actually said here it is (taking out areas that were specific replies to one editor): "I'm merely going through a process to ensure we're properly sourcing contentious claims in articles and removing contentious claims that are not properly sourced. ... I have merely stated what policy states be done in my edit summaries, specifically WP:BLPREMOVE which states:

Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that:

1. is unsourced or poorly sourced;
2. is an original interpretation or analysis of a source, or a synthesis of sources (see No original research);
3. relies on self-published sources, unless written by the subject of the BLP (see #Using the subject as a self-published source); or
4. relies on sources that fail in some other way to meet verifiability standards.

Note that, although the three-revert rule does not apply to such removals, what counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Editors who find themselves in edit wars over potentially defamatory material about living persons should consider raising the matter at the biographies of living persons noticeboard instead of relying on the exemption.

The lists are not sourced properly per either WP:BLPCAT, WP:CAT/R nor WP:LISTVERIFY. The articles I've edited have not been complying with WP:SYNTH, WP:OR, WP:BLPRS nor WP:V, among others. Two that are especially relevant here are WP:V and WP:BLPRS. Instead of quoting both,I'll quote this section alone in BLPRS as it sums up pretty concisely how both cover the removal of contentious information:

Misplaced Pages's sourcing policy, Verifiability, says that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation; material not meeting this standard may be removed. This policy extends that principle, adding that contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion. This applies whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable and whether it is in a biography or in some other article.

I was merely attempting to ensure those policies are being enforced properly, in an area were we should be using the utmost care (not just leaving things "half-finished"). If you think that is permissible to be making lists of contentious information or adding contentious information to articles (BLP or otherwise) that are not properly sourced and cited on our encyclopedia, you can call me very disturbed as well. Because, WP:BURDEN specifically states (and this encompasses every article on our site, including both living and non-living people's articles and related lists):

All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. Once an editor has provided any source he or she believes, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Misplaced Pages (e.g. why the source is unreliable; the source does not support the claim; undue emphasis; unencyclopedic content; etc.). If necessary, all editors are then expected to help achieve consensus, and any problems with the text or sourcing should be fixed before the material is added back.

It then goes on to also state something quite similar to V/RS: Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Before also stating Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people or existing groups, and do not move it to the talk page. You should also be aware of how the BLP policy applies to groups.

Here's also a relevant quote from our site's Founder on the matter, who I think understood very well when making this statement "how Misplaced Pages has worked successfully":

"I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." - Jimmy Wales "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", WikiEN-l, May 16, 2006

Simply put, not only do I fully disagree with the characterization of my actions I think consensus and policy are behind my actions (even if some are frustrated that this will take some work). I'm disappointed that me clearly stating on here several times that I will assist in properly sourcing and re-adding names back after first removing poorly sourced, unsourced, contentious information on our site is apparently not good enough to assuage some of the frustration here, but I fully intend to keep to my word on that. ..." — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 04:44, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffee, "I'm merely going through a process to ensure we're properly sourcing contentious claims in articles and removing contentious claims..." That's what I and @Cullen328: would like to know more about. Sir Joseph 04:52, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I was about to add this to that reply, but since you apparently replied so quickly here I'll have to put this below: So what I actually was saying is there are a myriad of reasons for my removals, obviously articles about dead people who have not recently deceased do not fall under BLPREMOVE but they still do fall under WP:V regarding contentious claims. One might argue there isn't a lot of Anti-Semitic worries when dealing with dead people. I would say there could be some logical disagreement there, especially if those people have any living children. As that carries a level of nuance to it, I think it best we err on the side of caution. Others may disagree on that, but regardless we have bona fide policies that already require any sort of contentious claim be sourced, even in articles that are not biographical at all. This hasn't just been controversial/contentious in my eyes, but in the eyes of many readers (and even article subjects) and many other administrators. Nowhere on our site does it state that you, Cullen328, or any other particular editors have to find something controversial/contentious for it to be considered so. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 04:58, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffee, so according to you and the OTRS team, it's now contentious to be Jewish, is that the official Misplaced Pages policy now? Sir Joseph 04:59, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

How do you justify that Sergey Brin, Noam Chomsky, or Woody Allen being Jewish, is a contentious claim? – Levivich 05:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffee, saying "Person A is Jewish" is not contentious, especially when good evidence of that is available only a mouse click away. Cullen Let's discuss it 05:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Quite incorrect. See WP:MINREF which expressly states four such versions of contentious information:

Misplaced Pages's content policies require an inline citation to a reliable source for only the following four types of statements:

Type of statement	Policy requiring inline citation
Direct quotations	Misplaced Pages:Verifiability
Any statement that has been challenged (e.g., by being removed, questioned on the talk page, or tagged with {{citation needed}}, or any similar tag)	Misplaced Pages:Verifiability
Any statement that you believe is likely to be challenged.	Misplaced Pages:Verifiability
Contentious material, whether negative, positive, or neutral, about living persons	Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons

— Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

None of that says that being Jewish is contentious. Again, I ask: what is your justification for asserting that Sergey Brin or Noam Chomsky being Jewish are contentious claims? – Levivich 05:38, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Coffee, please answer the question, "What is contentious about being Jewish?" Sir Joseph 05:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Coffee, please explain in full detail why the assertion that a person is Jewish is contentious. It seems to me that amounts to capitulation to anti-Semitism. Please convince me otherwise in your own words, rather than copypasting from some generalized policy document. Cullen Let's discuss it 05:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Because, it has to do with a religious affiliation (or at a minimum an ethnic description that can be confused with a religious affiliation) which could be easily seen to be WP:LIKELY to be challenged if not properly sourced in the article. And as I've said before "unsourced" includes not being sourced directly in a stand-alone list per WP:LISTVERIFY/WP:BLPCAT/WP:CAT/R. And this is not the only potentially contentious religious designation by a long shot. All claims of (potential) religions can be construed to be a contentious claim, because such topics have all throughout history resulted in disagreement (and much worse in the case of religious violence or sectarian violence). The massive targeting of Jewish people throughout modern history shows such a designation could also present issues of increased risks to personal safety for article subjects and their families (and if the person has not self-identified in such a manner, could put them in a situation where they aren't prepared on how to increase their personal security if necessary), and so in my eyes should be approached with the upmost caution. To me, we should simply ensure first and foremost that we are clear about whether we're referring to having such a heritage or personally adhering to the belief system in question. Then we need to make sure those claims are then properly sourced before stating them, especially when dealing with BLPs. I'll note why I quoted the last bit of policy was to try to answer your questions with consensuses the community itself has determined, not to avoid answering the question (nor to even give too generalized an answer). I'll further note I do not see being Jewish as a negative thing... and I hope my use of the word contentious doesn't carry that idea with it. I merely mean it is a claim that has a high probability of being contended. As to individual cases I will note Brin appears to have had okay sources backing up his claim, but those sources weren't in the article as far as I'm aware. If they were and I didn't see them I would readily apologize for such confusion. As to the others, I imagine you are stating they were listed in their articles with proper sourcing? But, I do not know that yet as instead of trying to solve this issue I've been attempting to assuage everyone's concerns here today (because I understand some people may take offense or otherwise misconstrue the purpose of these moves). I'll note again that I'm all for us listing these designations if we have proper sourcing backing it up. In any case where proper sourcing exists I will be readily assisting in re-adding that as soon as I possibly can. I'm trying to work this out amicably even though to some degree people have made it seem I'm just being irrational, "on a rampage", or some other such unnecessary accusation. I merely want us to get this right. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 07:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Gosh, you can be incredibly wordy and non-specific when asked for clarity, Coffee, but especially striking is that you have not yet explained your edit to Florence Meyer Blumenthal, despite being asked several times. You need to take responsibility for all your edits. Are you worried about dangers to her great-grandchildren or something? Cullen Let's discuss it 07:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll note that while most articles I've reviewed thus far have more recent death dates or are still alive, this particular case was one where I think I could have given more leeway. That's because the risks I mentioned above are (as you point out) indeed lower for people dead that long and their very extended family (even if technically the same policies on WP:CAT/R etc., apply). However, I still was only applying a literal reading of WP:CAT/R in that edit. But, I think it fine if we use a bit more editorial discretion in such cases. After reading through most of the discussion here, I'll note that it seems like most are okay with having such categorizations for long dead people with just one really good source (especially if it's something like the Jewish Women's Archive or a similar generalized reference that can be relied upon). As such I will spend the next day or so going back through various removals, to ensure I didn't make the same sort of removal in other articles using that source or a similar form of sourcing (obviously only if the person has been dead for quite that long). If I find such cases, I will restore the description and report them here so as to keep the community apprised of the situation. Hindsight is always 20/20 as the saying goes, but I want to turn that knowledge into foresight here. So, when I can resume reviewing other articles of long-dead people for the sourcing issues, I will continue to apply this consistent approach of what can be considered enough sourcing for a description to be within discretion. In such cases I may still make a note on the talk page of those articles to state where I think the sourcing isn't getting it right, or where we could at least add more to back up the claim. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 09:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

That just more of your long-winded evasiveness, Coffee. Your mistake was not in removing the categories from a woman who died 90 years ago. No, you removed categories that were fully justified by the article content and the very first reference. It would have been just as wrong if she was still alive. It seems that you still do not understand that editing in such sensitive areas in a cookie cutter or rubber stamp fashion is wrong and disruptive. Your error rate is way too high. Cullen Let's discuss it 18:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Interesting, that's the second or third time now you have used the term "very first reference" to make it appear there were multiple references backing up the claim in the article. There emphatically were not, (the JWA source while appearing as if it's two sources is in fact only the exact same webpage). Nowhere in WP:CAT/R does it say adding such categories is fine if it's in "the very first reference". What it says is For a dead person, there must be verified reliable published sources that, by consensus, support the information and show that the description is appropriate. - do note the plural sources and use of the word consensus. Can you point me to where it our policies say "the very first reference" equals a consensus of sourcing? — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 22:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

This looks to me like full-blown wikilawyering now, Coffee. I said that the reference was the "very first" to emphasize how easy it was to find, and only that. You boldly removed the categories, and I reverted. Now, we are discussing. BRD. Are you now claiming that the source is inadequate and that she should not be categorized as of French-Jewish ancestry and a Jewish-American philanthropist? Are you actually challenging consensus after reading the source? Cullen Let's discuss it 23:30, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

First, I want to make it clear I read the source thoroughly on my original review of that article (and re-read it after you brought it up here). I'm not wikilawyering, I'm just making a point that a literal interpretation of WP:CAT/R seems to require more than one source. I already tried to explain before your reply on 18:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC) that I think the source can work in this case (and limited situations like it), as the person is long dead. Most importantly, I come to that conclusion now because it appears from this discussion that enough people seem to think one such good source (as Barkeep49 put it) can work for long dead people. However, for a living person or a person who died recently enough, I would think it best (and like I said, several replies back, policy already seems to dictate this) that we find at least two or three such reliable sources covering the person as belonging to a potential religious affiliation. I'm not trying to frustrate you Cullen. I just want to point out that what you may perceive to be an "error rate", may actually be the fault of how the guideline is currently written. Would you be interested in starting a discussion on the talk page of WP:CAT/R, to see if we can change the wording to say that one really good source can be all that is needed for long dead people? It seems like that may should have been how it was wrote originally, and if it were I would have never even considered making that particular removal. I will gladly wait until a consensus is formed there, even after one is formed here, before going back to reviewing any more articles - if you're open to that. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 00:28, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

No, Coffee, I am not interested in starting a discussion at another venue although I may well comment there if you or another editor start that discussion. I think that you are going about this process in a dogmatic, rote manner that I believe is damaging to the encyclopedia. Since you are so fond of quoting policy like a mantra, you should spend some time pondering this language from our core content policy on Verifiability: Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step. When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source and the material therefore may not be verifiable. If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it. If you had followed that sage advice instead of taking the "bull in a China shop" approach, we would not be having this discussion. Your contention that Jewish categories and Jewish lists constitute some sort of unique emergency that requires require immediate and drastic mass deletions is erroneous and lacks consensus. Cullen Let's discuss it 02:16, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Cullen328: I get what you're saying. I will try to approach this with a bit less invigoration. I appreciate the more amicable response from you this time. I was at first quite worried about being responsible for leaving the description on anyone's article without good enough sourcing. From here on out I'll try to focus on BLPs specifically a bit more. As far as your final sentence though, I would state that our many OTRS complaints do show that there is some need for approaching how we handle such descriptions with a bit more precision. I will gladly begin the WP:CAT/R conversation since that seems like a workable solution to you; I hope to see you there supporting such a change in policy. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

And here is my opening of that conversation. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 06:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support until confirmed to be the correct approach—not, it must be said, an absolute certainty at this juncture. ——SN54129 14:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support fixing them would be better than mass removals. Govindaharihari (talk) 16:25, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support Mass removals like this without discussion are rarely a good idea and there is enough legitimate opposition for a pause to be taken.-- P-K3 (talk) 18:32, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Note - I had already stopped yesterday, and I'll note I've only edited 3 after this discussion originally started. I would be truly amazed if anyone can find a single thing wrong with those 3, or even the vast majority of the 300+ I applied long standing policy to originally. The cherry picked issues by Levivich above could have easily been discussed without taking this to AN, and many are flatly an incorrect interpretation of policy: 1) the 3 lists mentioned must be sourced directly in line per entry according to WP:LISTVERIFY/WP:BLPCAT/WP:CAT/R, 2) Brin's article did not have all those sources present backing up the claim when I reviewed the article, 3) Hellman's article was linked to a dead link to support the claim and there was no archive of it available (that has now been fixed, and I hold no qualms with that), 4) Adams article only needed the page number to have the claim restored and that page number was found. However, for how few issues were found here there are many, many, many more examples of entirely terrible sourcing that were being used to back up similar claims of ethnic origins or religious affiliation (and many hundreds more that I haven't been able to address yet). This issue was extremely prevalent on WP:BLPs as well, and with this demand for a pause those issues will remain there in continuous violation of our related standards WP:V/WP:BLPRS/WP:BLPCAT/WP:CAT/R. I will respect the wishes of our community, but I ask that if everyone wants a pause it would also be helpful if they could devote time to ensuring the remaining hundreds upon hundreds of articles with such claims be properly sourced. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 22:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  Coffee, our article on Lynn Tilton stated that she came from a long line of Kaballah scholars (not to be confused with cabal scholars), sourced to her own statements as reported by New York Magazine and Bloomberg News . The time code for the Bloomberg interview is in the reference, as is a quote. The NYMag source also reports her statement that her father is a descendant of Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism. Multiple sources cited in the article report that her fund is named Zohar, after the "the Kabbalah bible". So why remove that she was born to a Jewish family? Why remove her from Category:American Jews? Your edit summary said it is a violation of WP:SYNTH/WP:OR/WP:BLPCAT/WP:V/WP:UNDUE. I don't see it as unsourced, contentious, or undue, that Lynn Tilton, who publicly self-identifies as a descendant of Kaballah scholars and Baal Shem Tov, who names her fund after the Kabbalah books, identifies as Jewish. – Levivich 01:47, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Levivich: As far as Tilton goes, I fully reviewed the sourcing in that article and watched the entire Bloomberg interview (not just the timestamped area) before I made that decision to remove it from her article. While I get that one can presume that coming from a line of Kabbalah scholars may indicate that the person is Jewish (the Kabbalah is centric to a form of Jewish belief, and the Zohar is a reference to it... and might I note randomly it's a mysticism that peaked my interest a lot even before I ever handled this issue), it is a technical use of WP:SYNTH to come to that conclusion. I get that you might want to say there she is Jewish, but I would emphatically state it isn't enough to make the claim that she came from a Jewish family or to say she is Jewish. She could for instance (I know this is a bit annoying of a way to look at it, but it is still possible) just have had a familial connection with people who studied the Kabbalah but never considered themselves actually to be a follower of Judaism, and she just might like to have named her fund after things her line of scholars once studied. And as far as I'm aware she has personally steered clear of directly describing herself or her family as "Jewish". As such I just want us to find more sourcing stating that she is in fact Jewish or that her family was if we want to include such a claim. So far though, I have not seen that in the article (if it exists elsewhere, we should be able to simple add the claim back in with proper sourcing). If we just want to say "Tilton came from a long line of Kabbalah scholars", or something similar, I do not at all see an issue with that. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  Coffee, that analysis of yours is pedantry on steroids. Do you actually consider the existence of a long line of non-Jewish Kabbalah scholars to be plausible? If so, please stop editing Jewish topics for a long time. Cullen Let's discuss it 05:30, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  If you want to ask that question without the snark, I'm willing to answer. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Accusing Cullen of snark is a nonstarter. EEng 07:24, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  Okay that made me chuckle. So, I'll answer regardless. Basically Cullen, the issue isn't that I think it's plausible, but that it's technically possible. To even get more to the point: if Tilton hasn't openly and directly stated she is Jewish (it even seems she has attempted to not directly state this), why should we? — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 07:37, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  Coffee, because she has openly and directly stated she is Jewish–she just didn't use the words "I am Jewish". She said she is descendant from the founder of Hasidism (one of the most ultra-orthodox Jewish sects), comes from a long line of Kabbalah scholars, and named her fund after the Kabbalah books. These aren't one-off remarks that she made off-hand somewhere, this is what she says about herself in multiple interviewed like NYMag and Bloomberg. She knows full well people will understand her to be Jewish. She's not stupid. She's not going to say, "Oh! You think I'm Jewish?! I didn't mean to give off that impression!" It's like if I told you that my family came over on the Mayflower, I'm a descendant of Abraham Lincoln, and I live in New York. I don't have to say "I'm an American"–I just said it. By telling you these things about myself (none of which are actually true), I am telling you that I am an American, even though I'm not using the words, "I'm an American". In fact, I think you will find very few instances of people publicly uttering the words, "I am Jewish" or "I am a Jew". In my experience, people just don't say that. They don't talk that way. They say, "I was raised Jewish", or "I belong to Temple Beth Shalom", or "Well, I don't keep kosher or go to synagogue anymore", all of which are statements self-identifying as Jewish, though none of them use those words, and one sounds like a denial. Check out that Chomsky book, page 9, that I linked to yesterday in this thread, and you'll see the Chomsky quote where he identifies as Jewish but says he is "neither a believer nor an observer" of Judaism... it sounds like a denial of Jewish identity, but in fact, it's him explaining "what it means to be Jewish". Also, when people are interviewed, nobody ever asks, "Are you Jewish? Are you a Jew?" It would be, you know, inappropriate, almost always. So, you'll find few examples of someone saying "I am Jewish" in their own words in an RS, I think. A biographer is more likely to just say, "He grew up Jewish" than to quote the guy saying, "I identify as Jewish." I think looking for such a crystal-clear statement of self-identification is imposing an unrealistically-strict standard. (But the content discussion should happen elsewhere anway.) – Levivich 23:25, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  First, I get that some people might not state it directly, but I at least would expect sources to state they identify that way directly (i.e. Person X is Jewish, or Person X practices Judaism, or Person X is a Jew) if we're to state it in an article without crossing the line of WP:OR. But, literally zero of the 32 references provided in her article (I looked through all of them while originally reviewing the article) state the word "Jew" or "Jewish" as a description of her (I noted this quite clearly in my edit summary).

  Second, she also stated in regards to her claim of her father's decent from Baal Shem Tov: "but my father died before he ever passed a lot of this stuff on to me. I wonder always whether he didn’t grasp it—or if he didn’t get around to telling me what I needed to know. Or maybe I wasn’t ready?", which doesn't indicate at all she was raised Jewish... if anything that seems to indicate she did searching for some of the teachings and acestral background on her own, later in life. So, the claim her family was Jewish seems entirely unwarrented, and an example of original research/synthises.

  Third, she also didn't just discuss the Kabbalah in describing her beliefs, she also stated she "studied with the Mayan Indians for a decade" in the Bloomberg interview, and NY Magazine states " bought a home in Boca Raton, where she became acquainted with a group of 'Mexican gardeners' who introduced her to Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan. Tilton devoured the book, in which a Yaqui shaman teaches the author the Toltec art of sorcery, and the gardeners became her spiritual teachers. 'They changed my existence,' she says."

  So, in essence while you may see her descriptions of herself as a claim she belongs to that religion, I don't think that's clear to everyone nor do I think the sources provided support that claim. If, however, you can find sources that do state it directly (even if not in her own words, as that was never what the policy required on self-identification... even if some people do in their own words describe themselves/their family as "Jewish") I'm absolutely fine with someone re-adding it with that sourcing inline. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 01:38, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

  I'm thrown by the "claims she belongs to that religion" part. One doesn't have to belong to the Jewish religion to identify as Jewish. Most Jews do not practice the Jewish religion (even in Israel). "I come from a long line of Kabbalah scholars" == "I come from a Jewish family", regardless of what your religious beliefs are. – Levivich 21:40, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

  These two paragraphs of WP:STICKTOSOURCE capture, in their entirety, what is at issue with that conclusion. So as it has not been mentioned here yet, I'm going to quote it (with emphasis added to things that especially apply) for the clarity of anyone reading (or participating in) this discussion:

  Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source. Material for which no reliable source can be found is considered original research. The only way you can show your edit is not original research is to cite a reliable published source that contains the same material. Even with well-sourced material, if you use it out of context, or to reach or imply a conclusion not directly and explicitly supported by the source, you are engaging in original research; see .

  ......

  Information in an article must be verifiable in the references cited. In general, article statements should not rely on unclear or inconsistent passages, or on passing comments. Passages open to multiple interpretations should be precisely cited or avoided. A summary of extensive discussion should reflect the conclusions of the source. Drawing conclusions not evident in the reference is original research regardless of the type of source. It is important that references be cited in context and on topic.

  The similarity there in the first sentence of STICKTOSOURCE to other statements I've made here (and other policies quoted) isn't me simply being redundant. It's the result of our community finding that fact so important to mention, it was placed in several different policies. Given that Tilton is a living person I think it especially applies here. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 04:15, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support Coffee's actions are WAY too WP:POINTy and edit summaries too threatening. Let's discuss. Buffs (talk) 18:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  Once again an entire mischaracterization. The section titled Important note at WP:POINT states the following: A commonly used shortcut to this page is WP:POINT. However, just because someone is making a point does not mean that they are disrupting Misplaced Pages to illustrate that point. As a rule, editors engaging in "POINTy" behavior are making edits with which they do not actually agree, for the deliberate purpose of drawing attention and provoking opposition in the hopes of making other editors see their "point". In no way do I disagree with the moves I made, I think they are backed by policy. Nor was I trying to provoke opposition, in fact quite the opposite. I also was not specifically attempting to draw attention to this matter, that was a byproduct of editing a highly watched topic area. Also, none of my edit summaries were threatening; two out of the 350+ I made in handling this whole issue merely repeated a warning from an administrator and what is directly stated at WP:BLPREMOVE. That isn't a "threat" anymore than everyone who warns vandals, page blankers, or even BLP policy violators with those well known warning templates on editors' talk pages (i.e. this is your "final warning", "you may be blocked from editing"). — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 01:38, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

  I do not genuinely believe you want to remove all WP content without an inline citation (contentious or not...which seems to be your contention). As such, it is pointy and disruptive. Buffs (talk) 18:47, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support Like it says at WP:V:

  Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.

That's what should have happened here, at most. EEng 20:56, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not exactly leaping to Coffee's defence here, because, as Cullen328 has said (among others) immediate removal is often not the solution to content that fails verification. That said, I am seriously concerned by many of the arguments in favor of these categories here, which fall foul of WP:NOR. Describing a person's identity based on parts of their heritage, in particular, is extremely dodgy. Between 3 and 10% of the US is multiracial in some form; self-identification is a complicated thing; and if you look very closely, "Is this a Jewish person" (or any other descriptor)" can start to have more answers than "Yes/No". Coffee probably ought to slow down, but many others here need to take his concern seriously. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:01, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• I don't think anyone is, or would complain about removal of bad data that is not sourced properly from articles, especially if it's a BLP. The issue is that this is mostly lists, coming from sourced articles, as Cullen pointed out. "Is this a Jewish person" is dealt with on the article page, and if there is an issue, it's removed. The point is that mass removal of hundreds without even checking the articles is wrong. Sir Joseph 19:40, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal 2: Coffee's mass removals reverted

Proposal: Coffee self-reverts all his recent Jewish-related mainspace edits.

• Support as proposer. I was going to go through all of Coffee's recent mainspace edits to check for errors, as I had done with the sampling above, but there are almost 350 edits in the last two weeks. I would fix the ones above, but Coffee's edit summaries each include a threat not to revert, so I don't want to edit those articles without knowing where consensus lies. I think Coffee should self-revert all of these removals, and if they want to, proceed again, but this time much more carefully, ensuring that the content removed is not already sourced or very easily verifiable. I believe "recent Jewish-related mainspace edits" goes back to 10:34, December 18, 2019 at Jeff Shell (who Coffee removed from Category:Jewish American sportspeople along with the sourced content that he's been inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame , and sources not in the article show he signed a public letter supporting a presidential candidate that began "We are writing as American Jews ..." , and was listed by Reuters among "Jewish A-Listers" who made donations to another presidential candidate ). – Levivich 22:41, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I believe that this is going a bit too far too quickly - putting the cart before the horse/"jumping the gun", as it were. Let's wait to see how consensus turns before moving to anything like this. In addition, it isn't in the normal business of AN to request anyone stop enforcing actual policies and guidelines. WP:CAT/R expressly requires more than one source as one source cannot be considered a consensus of sourcing, and WP:LISTVERIFY requires that each entry on a stand alone list must have inline citations. I also note that your portrayal of Coffee's removal from the Jeff Shell article was erroneous. You refer to JTA and Reuters whilst neglecting to mention that neither were in the article at the time of Coffee's edit. The Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame is not a reliable source.

With regards to comments above about Sergey Brin and Coffee's removal there: if such abundant sourcing existed for the claim, it should have been added back before adding back potential violations of WP:BLPCAT. The WP:BURDEN of providing sources is on the user who adds the content. It is also troubling that Debresser, who has a lengthy history of edit warring and blocks stemming from that, initiated an edit war over this rather than seeking consensus elsewhere first, even after I had given an explicit warning --TheSandDoctor 00:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

TheSandDoctor, is being Jewish contentious? Is that what BLP is referring to? A contentious issue is why Bill Cosby is no longer a spokesperson for Jello pudding pops, not this. Sir Joseph 04:02, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Is it because pudding pops aren't kosher? EEng 22:28, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The hell they aren't! – Levivich 22:43, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

TheSandDoctor, I respect your view that this is going too far too soon, and figured some editors might support Proposal 1 but not 2. Personally, I think the status quo ante should be restored while the time-intensive process of going through these more carefully carries on, but reasonable people can disagree. I don't want to get too far into the content-dispute aspect of this issue, but brief response to your specific points: On Jeff Shell, those sources don't need to be in the article at the time of Coffee's edits; there is no rule on Misplaced Pages that every statement without an inline citation must be removed on sight, and this is not a contentious statement. In the examples I posted above, I found those sources in less than a minute of searching, on the first page or two of search results. I dispute that the SoCal Jewish Sports HOF is not a reliable source, or at least not reliable for whether it's significant/DUE that someone in sports is Jewish. Being inducted into the "Foo Hall of Fame" is a pretty good indicator that someone belongs in Category:Foo. Same as to Sergey Brin; there were sources attesting to his Jewish identity, and more sources are very, very, easily available. As to Debresser, you are flat wrong that they initiated an edit war. Reverting an edit is not "initiating an edit war" (and it's a little scary honestly that an admin said this; I hope you're not blocking editors for this). Reverting is a normal part of the WP:BRD process. Debresser didn't edit war in either of the two articles in which they reverted Coffee. I did notice you made the same accusation on Debresser's talk page earlier, and I think you are very far off base in this characterization. One revert does not an edit war make. – Levivich 05:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support He can raise issues on talkpages of articles where he sees issues and, if necessary, user talkpages of editors, whom he sees as being less than careful about certain things. Also, he can ask for help in addressing issues at WikiProjects like WP:JUDAISM e.g. That is what he should have done, and I agree with the proposal to have his recent edits reverted and go about things this way, and in the light of things that have been explained to him on my talkpage and in this discussion. I saw only two edits to articles myself, but one was a mistake he admitted to himself, and the other I absolutely disagree with as being a misguided edit. Debresser (talk) 01:01, 2 January 2020 (UTC) I was just now shocked to see some of his edits above, especially the one that borders on incompetent editing. Removing Chomsky from a Jewish linguists list?! Debresser (talk) 01:03, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support especially considering that it's enforcing a guideline, NOT a policy and it's causing much too much concern and removing way too many false entries. As Debresser mentioned and I mentioned above, he can seek out help to remove those that need to be removed and get citations for those that need it. But Woody Allen being removed from a Jewish list? Come on, this isn't the way to do it. Sir Joseph 02:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose although I am deeply concerned with Coffee's recent edits. I have spent significant time today trying to rebuild List of Jewish American authors, and I found many cases where excellent references verifying the listing were readily available in the biography, just waiting to be copied over. In other cases, the individual just came from a "Jewish family" but had no known involvement with Judaism during their careeer. So those writers should stay off the list. I am also troubled by the failure to differentiate between BLPs and biographies of people dead for decades, since our sourcing standards are more stringent for BLPs. I am troubled by any assertion that saying "Person A is Jewish" is contentious. That claim may be unsupported by references but there is nothing wrong with being Jewish. Calling someone a "dirty Jew" is actually contentious. Disclosure: I am Jewish and was married at a synagogue mentioned in this thread. I know that lists are articles but their content consists mostly of links to other articles where formatted references to support inclusion on a list are often readily available. There are two approaches to unreferenced content: delete indiscriminately in rapid-fire fashion, or make a good faith effort to provide references before considering deletion. The second approach is the one that truly improves the encyclopedia. Instead of reverting everything, Coffee should use individualized editorial judgment to fix the mess, and should stop editing like a human rubber stamp. I have spent a lot of time today trying to fix part of the mess. Cullen Let's discuss it 04:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not Jewish, and I think much of the difficulty here lies in that it can be easy to percieve some sort of Triple parentheses going on in these lists and categories. I see no easy solution, case-by-case is at least doable. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Nice try, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, but that is complete baloney in the vast majority of these cases. Have you actually looked at a representative sample of the affected articles? If so, name a few where your implication applies. Cullen Let's discuss it 18:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think I was trying anything, but I do think there are readers (perhaps also editors) who will see pretty much any cat/list of Jews as some sort of Triple parentheses attempt. Of course, WP can't "do it" from that position. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:34, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

So life in 2020 means that people's Jewish identities need to be suppressed and concealed for our own good? Quite frankly, I find that insulting, Gråbergs Gråa Sång. Cullen Let's discuss it 18:55, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think you are reading what I think I am writing. I'll try it this way: People will at times find stuff they don't like on WP. Often them not liking it is no reason for WP to change it, but it can cause trouble and yelling anyway. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The solution to that cannot possibly be to wreak havoc on Jewish categories and lists, can it? Cullen Let's discuss it 19:22, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Case-by-case seems a better if slower way to go. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I think Coffee has been engaged in some much needed application of our policies and guidelines. In these times in which people are being targeted because of their religion or ethnicity, I think we must be very strict about the verifiability of religious and ethnic identity, even if that means erring on the side of temporarily removing people from lists and categories until the community is satisfied that reliable sources are available and that identifying an individual by religion, ethnicity or similar categories improves the encyclopedia without endangering the individual. - Donald Albury 13:31, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  Donald Albury, you’re saying we should remove Allen Ginsberg from a list of Jewish poets for his safety??? Or remove Sergey Brin’s Jewish identity from his article ... to protect his safety??? Are you seriously suggesting that we shouldn’t identify Jews as Jews in order to protect Jews? Where does this insane paternalistic RIGHTGREATWRONGS come from??? I mean what the hell did you guys read at OTRS that made you come to this conclusion? – Levivich 13:55, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  Personally I think we should do all we can to ensure that knife-wielding lunatics can build their target lists with confidence. EEng 22:19, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

  Agreed. We wouldn't want anyone accidentally stabbing a gentile. – Levivich 00:05, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  That is not a fair characterization of this at all. If anything, we're trying to be sure that even people who are Jewish but don't want that to be part of their public identity aren't placed on a list or otherwise described (in a way that you seemingly understand could be used for targeting). I think we've always tried to only state someone's religious affiliations if they have self-identified or if a consensus of sources covers them that way, and to me that wasn't at all being applied in many of these cases (or at the very least, enough sources making that clear weren't there). If people wish to be described as Jewish (in the case of Brin in particular it seems from the sourcing you found that he does) then I'm all for including that on their article (and Brin already has a pretty good personal security team, due to his role at Google). Otherwise, I do indeed think a question of personal safety comes into play here. I find it entirely facetious to claim we want to create lists to help people be targeted, when the opposite is what is intended with these removals. Attacks on Jewish people have been on the rise, but even if we were discussing another religion being overly applied to article descriptions I would still think we need to apply the correct policies as written. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 01:22, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  So, as a threshold issue, the whole "personal safety" rationale for your edits would not apply to any of your edits that weren't to BLPs. This is why I agree with Cullen about wikilawyering. Among your "last 3" discussed above was someone who died two years ago; his personal safety is no longer a concern. Your edit summary on another of the 3 basically made the point that well, he was married by a rabbi, but that doesn't necessarily mean he identifies as Jewish... and I guess I can see that argument, although, you know, you might be a Jew if you're married by a rabbi. But aside from that, by the logic that we should, in some way, tighten the sourcing criteria for identifying someone as Jewish in order to reduce the number of people who are identified as Jewish on Misplaced Pages, in order to protect those people from being targeted by violent antisemites... the end result of doing this will be that, for any violent antisemite who is using Misplaced Pages as a way to identify potential victims, you have simply made the pool of victims smaller and more accurate. I suggest that while your aims are noble, your methods have not been fully thought through, and you know, Misplaced Pages isn't here to right great wrongs. – Levivich 02:19, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Levivich: I fully understand how identifying someone who has died 2 years ago will not risk their safety, I will contend though that it could risk the safety of those around them... of course that's mostly a concern to me if their family is named in their article (or even if not, if their family is well known in any form). As to Mayer's article in particular, since his children weren't named the issue there was just that I literally couldn't see in the sourcing provided that he did identify that way... that's after even reading through the giant amount of text he personally wrote about composers for the NYT. If you are aware of sourcing backing up the claim, do feel free to re-add it. To your other point, yes, you might be Jewish if you have a rabbi marry you, but we don't actually know that as rabbis can and have presided over mixed ceremonies. In my eyes, it is best to wait for a source that actually states such a description, so we can be sure it's accurate. For your final point, I mostly think to some degree the lists overall present such issues but we don't have a policy that seems to allow them to be deleted outright... so what I had to go with was removing anything not sourced so that at least we might be getting closer to listing people who personally are fine with self-identification as Jewish (or at least who are aware they might be getting identified that way). Obviously as I said in my edit summaries while editing such lists, I didn't look through the other ones provided yet so I don't know if those sources indicate the person wanted to identify that way. As far as making it easier for targeting, I get what you're saying but still disagree. I think if we only cover people who want to be publicly identified as Jews we then at least don't run the risk of stating people are who don't want to be known that way. In my eyes if someone wants to publicly self-identify as such, then they accept the risks with such a self-identification (that's not at all to say those risks should be there, it's just a current fact of how violent lunatics have acted throughout history)... if they don't publicly self-identify that way we are putting them into a level of risk they might not have considered. I know we're not here to right great wrongs, but I think we all come here to do what we do the best we can. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 08:00, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support per baby/bathwater, and per proposer. ——SN54129 14:06, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Cullen's comments, it is a good chance to fix them first and then replace them. I don't think a user that has removed content on BLP concerns and policy concerns would or should themselves be instructed to revert those edits.Govindaharihari (talk) 16:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Cullen. Guy (help!) 00:29, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• Comment There are only two options here: or revert or not revert. "Not revert and hope that Coffee will review his many edits and improve articles" is not one of the options here. So all those who say with Cullen that that is what should be done, should revisit this question. Debresser (talk) 01:43, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I was originally in 2 minds about whether mass removals was the best option here. I've changed my mind though. As I expressed earlier, it's been a clear requirement that lists of living persons need to have inline citations for a long time now. I find it extremely unfortunate that experienced editors don't seem to be familiar with this requirement.

  I find it even more unfortunate that now it's been pointed out to them, rather than accepting that and working on fixing the problems, editors are arguing over whether it matters etc.

  I don't give a damn if a list says someone is Jewish, Chinese, Malay, Catholic, Muslim, a Scientologist, American, British, Kiwi, a businessperson, a poet, in media, in real estate, an All Black, a pornographic actor, a murderer or whatever else, it's a problem that needs to be fixed. We can debate the best way to fix it, we should not be debating the need to fix it. Yes, a list calling someone a pornographic actor let alone one calling someone a murderer is a much more urgent problem, but this doesn't meant the other cases don't need fixing.

  If editors here had clearly accepted there was a problem and agreed to work on it over the next few weeks or months, I may have supported mas reversion. But that isn't what happened so mass removals seem to be the only solution so that editors work on fixing the problem rather than ignoring it.

  Nil Einne (talk) 04:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

  • @Nil Einne: Can you quote where it says that all BLP list entries must have inline citations? I do not see that at WP:MINREF. WP:LISTPEOPLE, or WP:BLP. What page have I missed? Thanks. – Levivich 05:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
    • @Levivich: A worthy question. As far as I'm aware that requirement is at WP:LISTVERIFY, and it doesn't just apply to material about living people. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

      Coffee, LISTVERIFY does not say that all BLP list entries must have inline citations. That's why I asked for a quote. There is no such policy as far as I can see. LISTVERIFY gives the same four situations that MINREF provides–the same four you quoted in a table above. "All BLP list entries" is not one of the four criteria. The four, as far as I know, are the only four kinds of statements that require an inline citation. That Noam Chomsky (to take one example) is a Jewish American linguist does not require an inline citation, because it is not a statement that is (1) a direct quote, (2) challenged, (3) likely to be challenged, or (4) contentious. Unless, of course, you are actually challenging whether or not Chomsky is Jewish, American, or a linguist. So, I'm going to put him back on the list, without an inline citation, unless you're genuinely going to challenge that he belongs on that list. And I assume you'd be OK with that, because that is policy compliant. Yes? – Levivich 06:08, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

      @Levivich: Yes. But might I say, adding it back without an inline citation is not really that great of an example for us to set. Would you mind me going to look for an inline citation and adding it back with one? — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 06:18, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

      And  Done . Since he is a living person I made sure to find two fully reliable sources that state this before re-adding it. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 06:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

      Coffee, sure, but might I suggest Barsky, Robert F. (2007). The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower. MIT Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0262026246. – Levivich 06:35, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

      GMTA :-) Thank you – Levivich 06:37, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: You'd note I specifically avoided the term policy or guideline when I discussed the requirement. It's been clear, since if you make a complaint at BLPN about a list lacking in-line citations, the solution is to find cites and remove any that lack them. It hasn't been to ignore the problem, and pretend it doesn't exist.

But if you want to get technical, by definition if someone removes or complains about something, it has been challenged. But also, you can pretty much assume when you make a claim about a living person being something and you completely lack any inline citations to demonstrate it, it is likely to be challenged by someone at some stage if you leave it around for long enough.

I'd also note that BLP is clear that contentious doesn't mean the information is negative, which a bunch of people seem to be assuming. Something positive or neutral can be contentious. I mean, I'm sure a bunch of people would consider Donald Trump being a business person or real estate developer as contentious, not because they consider these are bad things, but because they claim he was so bad at it it's not an accurate label. A recent example not involving a list is Bruce Pascoe. His claims of having indigenous Australian heritage seem contentious to some. It's not because anyone involved in the dispute claims there's anything negative about such a heritage, in fact if anything the opposite.

The final issue of course is that we should never rely on reader's personal knowledge. Perhaps it is true that for most people, Noam Chomsky being a Jewish American linguist is not something they would challenge or they would consider contentious. But there are always going to be readers who have never heard of whatever person in the list, and so would have no idea whether the claim is true, and so would reasonably challenge it and consider it contentious.

We should never tell readers to check out a non RS to verify something, especially not about a living person. And if the only citation in an article, for a claim about a living person is wikilink, then that's what we are telling them to do. It does not matter if the non reliable source itself has reliable sources to support the claims.

I've mentioned before in relation to other things that despite our ideals, mass removals of content is often disruptive. But this doesn't change the requirement that material that is contentious or likely to be challenged should have inline citations. For pretty much any case, but especially for BLPs, the ultimate solution to any dispute about uncited content is not to try and claim you do not need inline citations but find a fucking source and cite it.

Again, we can debate the best way to handle historic problems occurring either when we were a lot more lax, or by new editors. But it's seriously disturbing that experienced editors seem to think it's acceptable to have zero inline citations when making a claim about a living person. Find a fucking source and add it. Don't claim you don't need them. I can entertain WP:SKYISBLUE debates about ordinary stuff, but not about claims about living people.

Nil Einne (talk) 08:36, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

First, I acknowledge I've used the wrong term. The key criterion is not so much that the are inline citations, but there are citations in the article/list. There should normally be inline citations. But if this was a dispute over a list where there was citations for the people in the list, but they just weren't inline, I could perhaps see some disagreement over whether these citations need to be moved inline. That said, I find such arguments fairly silly, since again, the easiest solution is simply yes, do move them inline. Maybe more importantly, the problem with no inline citations in lists, is it tends to get very difficult to verify whether there is actually a citation for someone. There may be rare exceptions e.g. if a list is a duplicate of some other RS list, or if a list is organised by RS e.g. List of people who lick cats has an "According to the NYT October 2019 list, According to the BBC January 2020 list". But those cases are few and far between. In cases where a list has multiple sources, if they aren't inline it's difficult to tie each person to one of the sources.

In any case, while I apologise for confusion over my using the wrong term, all this seems moot since AFAIK this is not the case here. None of the lists has a bunch of sources for each person which simply aren't inline. The sources may exist, but in another article or need to be found, i.e. potentially citable but not cited where it matters i.e. in the list where we are making the claim. That is a clear problem. We need a source in the list. It does not matter if the sources exist somewhere, or somewhere else. I would add that while I concentrated on lists, in reality what I said applies to any article. If you add a claim about some living person to some other article without a source, there's a fair good chance it will be reverted no matter if it's not particularly contentious. If you try to fight this by claiming that there's a source in the wikilinked article on the subject, you'll rightfully be frowned upon. Most editors will find the source from the wikilinked article and add it for you, but if you keep doing it to multiple articles, expect to receive some unwelcome attention. Again, I find it disturbing if this is news to any experienced editor.

Anyway, I had a quick look and some previous discussions I found are Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive85#List of Jewish American entertainers/List of Jewish actors (funnily enough this was the first result the first time I search although it seems to vary between this and the next), Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive103#List of Hispanic and Latino Americans, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive187#Cosplay, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive85#List of Unification Church members, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive103#British ethnicity lists, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive89#People sometimes described as Scientologists who deny they are Scientologists and especially the later discussion, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive293#List of self-identifying LGBTQ New Yorkers, Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive187#List of people who escaped from prison and Misplaced Pages talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 28#List articles according to religion or sexuality. I've tried to be fair and include any discussion I found that seemed relevant i.e. where the issue got some discussion even if there wasn't a clear consensus so have included some cases where the identification may be more controversial. (I didn't include cases where there was only discussion over how to handle highly controversial lists like people convicted of a crime without reference to general norms that I saw.) I would note that I also excluded most cases where IMO the discussion started off from the assumption that every entry needs a citation, and no one challenged that. As I said, there isn't always clear consensus but the general tone is IMO clearly that the lists need sources within the list. These normally should be inline.

I think most editors would apply this to lists of non living persons as well, but I'm purposely excluded them from the discussion. Such problems are understandably generally seen as less urgent and I did not want to distract from my main point namely poor BLP practice of thinking it's okay to make a claim about someone in an article (which includes a list) simply because there is a source in some other article or you're sure it exists. And again, I acknowledge we do unfortunately have many lists with poor practice. I'm not suggesting we start mass removing people from every one of them. However we do need to fix them at some stage. And more importantly, we should not be continuing the problem by claiming it is okay. I don't encourage WP:POINTY edits e.g. removing someone where you don't think it's contentious and don't wish to challenge it, nor for that matter adding someone back without sources this to prove there are cases where it won't be challenged or contentious, nor removing such re-additions etc etc.

P.S. Mostly OT but I did find Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive89#Is it appropriate to add unsourced information to articles on BLPs ? which included Jimbo Wales arguing IMDb was an okay source, funny.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:32, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Jimbo Wales, and disagree with Cirt, in that 2010 conversation, particularly Jimbo's Rain Man example:

You are claiming that when we mention that a certain actor was in Rain Man (with a source which proves that fact) we can't say, for reader context, that Rain Man was a hit film, without finding a source for that particular claim? That this obviously true statement, positive about the subject of the article, should be removed? That linking to our article on Rain Man is not sufficient? ... Policy backs me up 100% here: ... That Rain Man was a hit film is not challenged nor likley to be challenged. Neither is it in any way "contentious". Insisting that every fact in a BLP be sourced is absolutely without precedent in policy.

But fundamentally, while–sure–it's better to have a source than not to have a source (at least on the page, not necessarily inline), it is not better remove (to take one example) Noam Chomsky from a list of Jewish American linguists, than to leave the entry there even if it's unsourced. That leaves the list article in much worse shape than before. Better to have Chomsky on there unsourced than to not have him there at all (because not having him there makes the other list entries WP:UNDUE, and presents our readers with wildly inaccurate information). Removing an unsourced entry because it doesn't have an inline citation–if it's not a WP:MINREF statement–is neither a good idea nor supported by policy, especially when done on a mass basis. – Levivich 17:53, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose 350 edits might sound like a lot, but there are more than enough active editors around to watch those edits, and, if necessary, change something. I already fixed one of Coffee's edits (to Johnny Marks, uncontroversially I believe), and I agree with Cullen that from here forward the emphasis should be on adding impeccable sources, rather than wholesale deletion. StonyBrook (talk) 04:55, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support I think references are in order, but the manner chosen by Coffee is absurdly harsh and completely unnecessary. Noam Chomsky is perhaps the most egregious example. No one is challenging it (or should expect it to be challenged). It isn't contentious. And it's most certainly true. It's also CLEARLY references on the linked page that he's Jewish...NO ONE is contesting it. So, we're left with the justification we should remove content from lists because there isn't an inline citation reference or that it isn't 100% clear. If we're going to endorse such behavior, we're going to start deleting a large chunk of Misplaced Pages. The requirement is that there is a source. If it's mentioned in the linked page, that's sufficient for a list, IMHO. If there's someone on the list who ISN'T Jewish, that would be contentious. If there's some question, then I could understand asking for a reference. But coming in and making such sweeping changes without discussion or an attempt to ask for sources (and give time for cleanup) on such a benign topic is absurdly pedantic. Adding tags would have been more appropriate. Buffs (talk) 19:01, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support The relevant policy is WP:POINT. I think its clear from the discussion above that the overwhelming numbe of instances wouldjustify inclusion on the lists, so the more rational course is to restore them, and go from there. Individual instances can be challenged individually. DGG ( talk ) 08:12, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

  Wow, an Arb that supports the replacement of unverified claims, some of which are about living people, and supports Proposal: Coffee self-reverts all his recent Jewish-related mainspace edits. forcing a user with good faith policy concerns to replace them and publish them to the www. @DGG: Perhaps you should be the one, why don't you be the one to do it then? Govindaharihari (talk) 15:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

  If you think this involves unverified claims, you haven’t read the thread. – Levivich 15:54, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

  I have read plenty of the thread to know there are unverified claims. If the new position is that anyone can be added to any list without a supporting link and it is to simply be assumed there is a link somewhere on this wiki that supports the claim and anyone that challenges the claim should be the one to do the investigations to find them then that seems like something we should clarify with a community discussion.Govindaharihari (talk) 15:56, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support Repeating my reasoning for Proposal 1 above: WP:V says:

  Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.

So maybe as material is restored {cn} tags might be added, but given that we're all here that should be decided here first. EEng 20:56, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• Forcing anyone to self-revert their removal of challenged material is a fundamentally invalid proposal. Editors are, even legally, responsible for their additions to articles. Forcing anyone to add something to an article is incompatible with the responsibility requirement of Wikimedia's Terms of Use. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 12:15, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not so sure about that, but anyways, somebody else can do the honors. The question is if the edits should be reverted or not. Debresser (talk) 13:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• ToBeFree, I agree, but in this case, the material is not being challenged at all. Nobody is challenging that Florence Meyer Blumenthal, Isaias W. Hellman, Norman Cahners, Sergey Brin, Noam Chomsky, Allen Ginsberg, or Woody Allen are Jewish. It's not even unsourced. The entire point of this proposal is that, because of the high rate of false positives resulting from these mass removals, they should all be reverted, and then Coffee (or anyone else who wants to) should remove only those entries which are actually being challenged. – Levivich 19:25, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Nothing that was unsourced on any of the lists was removed. The content has been challenged, that was why it was removed. If you or anyone else disputes the removals please cite the claim and replace them. This is not just about the lists Coffee felt to act on this is about all our lists in general, they all need the same treatment. Govindaharihari (talk) 19:37, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Govindaharihari, this isn't just about lists. I'm serious when I say, you have not been reading this thread closely enough. Of the articles I just linked to, the first four (Blumenthal, Hellman, Cahners, Brin) were articles where Coffee removed "Jewish" even though the information was sourced in the article, either inline or elsewhere. The remaining three (Chomsky, Ginsberg, Allen) were removed from lists, but their Jewish identity is not (and is not likely to be) challenged, so per WP:MINREF, there is no basis to remove them from lists just because they don't have an inline citation. If, in fact, someone where to challenge whether Chomsky, Ginsberg, and Allen, were Jewish, I would say that challenge would be made in bad faith, and would be disruptive, because those three are very famous for being Jewish. There may be other list entries that could be or even should be challenged, but along with those, many entries were removed (such as Chomsky, Ginbserg, and Allen) that are basically un-challengable. This is the reason why the edits should be reverted, and editors should start again, only removing those entries that they actually mean to challenge. – Levivich 19:48, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  If anyone believes that we should remove all unsourced entires from all lists across Misplaced Pages, they should start an RfC to see if there's consensus for doing so. They should not just unilaterally begin mass removals of list entries. Furthermore, if they do start unilaterally beginning mass removals of list entries, perhaps they could start with, say, lists of Pokemon, rather than lists of accomplished Jews. Is this really a lot to ask? – Levivich 19:51, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Nothing is unchallengable if it is unverified at its location. Govindaharihari (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  No, that's not true. I cannot "challenge" that the earth is round, even if "the Earth is round" appears somewhere without an inline citation. For me to do so would be disruptive and in bad faith. And–again–the first four examples I just posted a couple comments above were verified in their location. – Levivich 19:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  I have not been through all Coffee's removals, I am sure they were all done in good faith though. Govindaharihari (talk) 20:00, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  I have been through some of them, and I've posted some examples to save you some time. Just a thought: maybe you could go through at least those examples before you oppose the proposal. – Levivich 20:25, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  I will never support the replacement of unverified names at source to any list once they are removed in good faith. Govindaharihari (talk) 20:32, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  I agree, there are plenty of lists that still have concerns and I support that we improve them as well but the fact is that these lists have been improved and that is great imo, we as editors should now work to expand them and keep then at a high quality. Govindaharihari (talk) 19:57, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  List of Jewish American linguists was not improved by removing Noam Chomsky. List of Jewish American poets was not improved by removing Allen Ginsberg. Etc. In each case, the lists were rendered incomplete and undue as a result of removing some of the most notable examples of the category. That's why they should be put back, and instead of mass-removing everything unsourced, editors should go one-by-one and either add {{cn}} tags or add a source, or removing only the ones they intend to actually challenge. – Levivich 20:02, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  List of Jewish American linguists was improved, Noam Chomsky is back there now loud and proud with two supporting links, that is an improvement and other names are being replaced with supporting links which is great. Govindaharihari (talk) 20:07, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Please don't be pedantic. That improvement isn't a result of the removal of Noam Chomsky. That's a result of his replacement after discussion between me and Coffee in this thread. Similarly, List of Jewish American poets has been improved by Cullen (thank you, Cullen), which in no way makes Coffee's removals proper. Again, if you think we should remove all unsourced entries and put it upon other editors to replace them with sources, start an RfC and see if that has consensus, because our current PAGs do not document any consensus for removing all unsourced entires (note Jimbo's comments about this very thing from ten years ago quoted above; note the language of WP:MINREF). I, for one, lament that Cullen has been spending his time sourcing the obvious, like that Allen Ginsberg is Jewish, when could have been doing something else somewhere else that would have been more productive. But of course it's every editor's choice how they spend their time. I don't think editors should be able to choose to spend their time removing all unsourced entries from Jewish lists. – Levivich 20:11, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, many thanks indeed to Cullen for any time he has spent working to improve these lists. When I have time I will look at a few and contribute also. 20:19, 5 January 2020 (UTC)Govindaharihari (talk)

  That's great, because there are almost 350 to go through, so we'll need Cullen, and you, and me, and a whole bunch of other people to spend a whole bunch of time going through all of them. Or, alternatively, these mass removals could be restored, and editors could just add a {{cn}} tag, or just remove the ones they actually intend to challenge, which would leave far fewer than 350 for other editors to go through. – Levivich 20:28, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  A high quality cited list with less names is an improvement in all ways imo. Govindaharihari (talk) 20:36, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Replace the material with a cite or start a discussion at the WP:V talkpage to amend the policy. Otherwise your continued advocating for replacing uncited material is a deliberate attempt to flout policy. If you continue to advocate for uncited material to be restored to article space I will look to have you sanctioned under the multiple discretionary sanctions that apply (BLP and I/P will apply to at many of the articles you want uncited information reverted to). Consider yourself warned. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:35, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  no need for any warnings here, there has been no editwarring and only comments and discussion, all good. Govindaharihari (talk) 00:03, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: All information in lists should contain citations, this should especially apply in the case of BLPs policy supports the removal whole sale. Adding {{cn}} doesn't mitigate the BLP issues. The policy says that any information challenged may be removed, the information was challenged and removed. Great now go back and add sources and include the information. Additionally claiming someone is any religion with out a citation could be contentious in my opinion. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ 02:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

List of Jewish American authors - a case study

I appreciate the kind words in the section above about my contributions to rebuilding List of Jewish American poets but that was an accidental side effect, as it were, of my efforts to rebuild List of Jewish American authors after Coffee wreaked havoc on that list at 23:45 30 December 2019 (UTC).

Coffee was editing at a rapid clip at that time, spending only a few minutes each to devastate many Jewish American lists. In this case, he removed 145 authors from this list in a single edit. Let me make it perfectly clear that this list had unreferenced entries, as did the others, and clearly these lists need work. The question is what kind of work should editors be doing in such cases? Thousands of lists have similar problems and also need work. I am not opposed to doing that work myself as can be seen by my recent edit history which shows that I have spent most of my 2020 editing so far trying to rebuild this particular list. I have added 71 authors back to that list, all with references and many with two references. I have devoted a lot of research time and mental energy to save this list the right way, as I have done with at least one other major list in the past.

Coffee is quite fond of quoting cherrypicked sections of policies and guidelines over and over again, presumably under the theory that if an argument is not persuasive the first time, he can convince other editors by repeating the argument verbatim seven times. I don't know about the rest of you, but that tactic does not work for me. Let me quote a portion of our core content policy Verifiability, which offers some very wise advice that should inform any further discussion of this fiasco.

Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step. When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source and the material therefore may not be verifiable. If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it.

Coffee's edits to Jewish American lists were as if that first sentence contained the word "must" instead of "may", and as if none of those other sentences had been written, debated and accepted as policy. It was almost as if he was a bot operating under the simpleminded algorithm "no reference for list entry = deletion mandatory". Consider the horrifying damage that such indiscriminate deletionism causes. With a single mouseclick, Coffee eliminated Nobel prizewinner Isaac Bashevis Singer, Pulitzer prizewinner Bernard Malamud, Pulitzer prizewinner Herman Wouk, and Chaim Potok, an Orthodox rabbi who wrote a smash bestselling novel The Chosen, which became a Hollywood movie. He also removed very well known American Jewish women authors Gertrude Stein and Susan Sontag. All these writers are dead so there are no BLP concerns. There is no need to provide a reference that the clear daytime sky is blue or that Paris is the capital of France or that the apple is a fruit, because those facts are self-evident to intelligent people. Similarly, it ought to be self-evident to anyone with even a passing familiarity with 20th century American literature that those six highly notable Jewish American writers should not have been removed with a single mouseclick. The best solution would have been for Coffee to provide those references himself. That is precisely what I have done. The second best solution would have been to add "citation needed" tags. The third best solution would have been to do nothing and move on, since these claims are self-evidently true to intelligent editors at all familiar with the topic, and there were better things for Coffee to do at the time. Instead, Coffee chose the worst possible "solution", mass deletion of those writers by a single click of a button.

When criticized, Coffee responded with elaborate wikilawyering replete with his usual repetitiveness. Questions were met with evasiveness, dogmatic pedantry, and an insistence that his radically deletionist edits were somehow mandated by policy, and intended to protect "the Jews". In my opinion, Coffee has shown himself not competent to edit Jewish topics, or any type of list. I will leave it to uninvolved editors to craft a specific solution. Cullen Let's discuss it 06:10, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

"Devastate". "Quite fond of". "Worst possible". A large wall of redundant text complaining about "elaborate wikilawyering". Not helpful. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 07:53, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate your criticism of my style of writing, ToBeFree, but would even more appreciate you engaging with the substance of the issue in a positive way. Cullen Let's discuss it 07:58, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, my comment didn't help either. I just find this hard to watch, as one point of complaint appears to be the length of some responses. If I understand correctly, your position is already clear and many editors are in support. No need for a long essay to be added, it seems, at least if it is full of biased terms. Those who disagree have already voiced disagreement, those who agree have already voiced agreement. This should not end with a long accusative essay by one main participant of the dispute. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 08:08, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

My initial comments were made in the very early stages of evaluating the magnitude of the problem, and before working several days to fix it. I thought that more informed commentary would be useful at this point, as well as a progress report. Please let us know what work you are also doing to improve list articles, ToBeFree, and thank you for your contributions. Cullen Let's discuss it 08:29, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Edit warring user despite warnings

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

User Mostafa2704 is edit warring List of football clubs in England by competitive honours won despite an ongoing discussion taking place regarding the nature of the edits in question and despite me advising them directly on their talk page that continued reverting could make them fall foul of Misplaced Pages:3RR. The edit history shows continued reverts despite this not being agreed by consensus. Bungle 09:38, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Bungle Please report edit warring to WP:ANEW. 331dot (talk) 09:45, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Will do, thanks. Bungle 09:53, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Range block assist

Hi all, rangeblocks aren't exactly my forte. Can someone please assist? I've done simple /64 range blocks on a couple of these IPs, but these are some of the ones I've seen problems with:

• 2405:204:4208:1de0:79e3:ae7d:ecb:3ace
• 2409:4060:402:cfaf:45b2:cafe:a3c5:1f91
• 2409:4060:402:cfaf:de1c:ca68:9ea6:e8c5
• 2409:4060:2089:d590:ee90:41bb:de0b:a59f

If I'm interpreting the rangecalc tool, I can't block all of these in one fell swoop. For scope, this user has been making disruptive edits since about August 2019. Here's one of the early ones. You can see the sloppiness. Also here. Lately they've been taking to adding presumably false information to articles. Most of their edits have edit summaries like "Ok" "Ook" and "Oook". You can get a better sense of it by looking at this /32 contribution history. Anyway, if someone can help figure out some reasonable ranges to block, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:11, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Actually, just discovered this account, so May 2019 might be when they started, if anyone cares. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 19:28, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Since the ISP is Jio, the IPs are mobile network meaning they'll constantly change, so it is going to be pretty much impossible to rangeblock without lots of collateral. I'd say rangeblocking Special:Contributions/2409:4060:402:cfaf:45b2:cafe:a3c5:1f91/64 for 3 months is somewhat excessive since the IP the person uses will change fairly quickly. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:47, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

@Galobtter: I appreciate your feedback. Since I didn't see any other edits from that /64 range, or from the other /64 range I blocked, that led me to think it wasn't heavily used, and I get the sense that /64 collateral is typically minimal, per WP:/64. That said, if anybody wants to adjust the block to something more reasonable, I would not object. This is why I came here. I've also semi-protected some of those articles, but left a few honeypots open. Regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, rangeblocks of that ISP, or of Indian ISPs in general, are usually ineffective. —DoRD (talk)​ 13:32, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

From a quick look at some of the 500 edits from the /32 range mentioned above by User:Cyphoidbomb, it looks to be nearly all vandalism. Though good faith editors might conceivably want to participate from that /32, it does not seem like they are at the moment. Nearly all of those 500 edits have been reverted. EdJohnston (talk) 18:44, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: Yeah, there is a stunning amount of vandalism and incompetent editing. I suppose I should consider DoRD's note above, unless someone thinks a /32 block is reasonable. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 00:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

User:SharabSalam

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

User:SharabSalam has violated WP:3RR in Attack on the United States embassy in Baghdad: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 . Telluride (talk) 14:57, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:AN/3 is the right place to report that. --Yamla (talk) 14:59, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

That might not be a great idea, because Telluride has violated 3RR as well. A good read of WP:BRD might be in order for both editors. Black Kite (talk) 15:01, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

It's odd, really, that that whole topic doesn't seem to be under DS and so 1RR (unless I've missed it, perfectly possible of course). ——SN54129 15:10, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I was going to do just that, adding {{IRANPOL GS talk}} toward that end, but since the dispute was defused (one way or another), I decided to hold off on that. El_C 22:55, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, El_C, I only looked at discretionary sanctions—forgot about GS! ——SN54129 12:16, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Is this meat-puppetry?

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

I was noting the sudden arrival of new editors to The Mandalorian discussion page and was wondering if these represent meat puppetry: (1, 2, 3). The user sending out the request for help notes how "its impossible to talk sense into these guys", suggesting that the person requesting the help isn't looking for help changing or building consensus, but instead burying dissent under votes.

Am I reading this wrong? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 20:32, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

These editors were previously involved in the discussion, as can clearly be seen on the talk page. I wanted to hear their opinions and see if they had any additional input which they could have provided. Their previous comments had indicated they agreed with my position, and I was curious to know if they were willing to reiterate their position and provide support or clarity to the discussion. --Bold Clone 22:07, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Again, Bold Clone opined that "its impossible to talk sense into these guys". - Jack Sebastian (talk) 22:21, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Again, because I was not making any headway in reaching a consensus, I consulted other editors to see if they would be willing to assist. I got a bit loopy over the deja vu of saying the same thing at least a dozen times, I was jazzing it up a bit. If you took offense, I offer my apologies. --Bold Clone 22:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

No meat-puppetry here, Jack Sebastian. I'm commenting here because I'm mentioned 3 times above. In the case of this current debate, I've attempted to have a civil discourse about the article, and tried to remind other editors such as yourself of the mandate at the top of the talk page, which reads "Be polite, and welcoming to new users". In fact, my most recent comment agreed with your stance of removing the contested item from the series summary page after considering your argument. We don't need drama, just clear discussion. -- GimmeChoco44 (talk) 00:38, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

And respectfully, I will point out that I have provided just that: civil discourse and don't think I have not treated anyone poorly. To me, it appeared that you had sought out additional voices. Understanding that I may have misunderstood your intentions, I withdraw the inference. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 02:54, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:APPNOTE it would have been better to put something like "There's a vigorous discussion going on at Talk:The_Mandalorian#Keeping_Star_Wars_lore_and_fancruft_out. Please help." at for example Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Star Wars and/or Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Television. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:14, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Better still would have been, "Help me, , you're my only hope!" – Levivich 22:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@Jack Sebastian and Bold Clone: This doesn't qualify as meatpuppetry, but it is canvassing. When getting others involved in discussions of disputed content, we should try to be as neutral in our request as possible, not try to front-load our request with the suggestion that people other than the requester are being inflexible jerks. Gråbergs Gråa Sång's suggestion above is the norm. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 00:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

The 2020 WikiCup is on!

Do you want a fun and exciting Wiki challenge? An opportunity to get involved in some of the most important editing on Misplaced Pages? A giant shiny cup to display on your userpage? Well then you should join the WikiCup challenge! Folks of all experience levels are welcome to join. It's a good way for veteran editors to test their mettle, and for new users to learn the ropes. The competition revolves around content creation, such as good and featured articles, DYK's, reviewing such content, and more. See Misplaced Pages:WikiCup/Scoring for full details. Over the course of the year, users compete to create the most and best content in a round based format. The top performers in each round will advance to the next, until just 8 remain in the final round. Out of those, one Wikipedian will walk away with the coveted silver Wikicup. Could that user be you? Find out by signing up! Signups are open until January 31, 2020. May the editing be ever in your favor! Captain Eek ⚓ 22:03, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Arse. Anther round of people fighting to get badges. Guy (help!) 00:28, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

JzG, Oh Guy, you're just jealous because you don't have the WikiCup ;P Captain Eek ⚓ 00:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

CaptainEek, I don't have anything against WikiCup specifically, but the toxic environment at places like ITN is the result of badge collectors and treating Misplaced Pages as a competition. I understand the value of gamifying as a user engagement mechanism but I've seen too many fights over the parents' egg and spoon race to be comfortable with it. Guy (help!) 10:08, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

An exercise in navel-gazing, bling-chasing, self-indulgent narcissism. Can't be beaten 😆 ——SN54129 11:05, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Copy and paste move

Can someone fix Chatterer and Chatterer (Hellraiser)? The newer one (disambiguated) is essentially a copy-paste of the old article. I tried to fix this using Special:MergeHistory, but it didn't work – I got an "overlapping revisions" error, and I don't remember how to deal with this. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 05:26, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Done. Thank you. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 14:40, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Astroye removing sourced information repeatedly

See his talk and he has been blocked for this multiple times. Several users have tried to communicate with him and he refuses to post to his own talk page or the talk page of the relevant article(s). He has no interest in collaboration or even comprehending the basic rules here. @Danlaycock and Jan CZ:. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:09, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Cathal Ó Searcaigh BLP violations

Hello, this article is being edited disruptively and currently has serious BLP violations. It need to be protected and/or other measures. Thanks in advance. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 20:14, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I haven't looked at anything else yet, but this edit summary is clearly deceptive. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:32, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, I've read a bit more in the last few seconds, and it clearly goes beyond the deceptive into the trolling. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

the section Fairytale of Kathmandu is extremely problematic. If there is relevant sourced content that can be added then fine but as it is now this

libellous perhaps? AugusteBlanqui (talk) 20:47, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

It is defamatory. I have removed, asked for protection, and a revdel. Captain Eek ⚓ 20:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Rangeblock review requested

• 2605:6000:770A:AD00:0:0:0:0/56 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I stumbled on this range after reverting this edit and looking at the page history. I found that there was a clear pattern of inserting hoax info into article from the range spanning 2 years (since 15 October 2017) with no noticeable constructive edits. The majority came from the /64 range, but not all. There's a clear pattern of edit summaries with single terms like "cool", "clever", and "fun" as well.

The IPs had received multiple warnings from folks like Geraldo Perez and a blocks on:

• 2605:6000:770A:ADF0:6596:440C:53E7:9B1A (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) by Ronhjones
• 2605:6000:770A:AD00:D461:8554:F48B:4871 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) by GorillaWarfare

I'm making this post to (1) make a record of the abuse and (2) to ask someone familiar with rangeblocks to double check my block. I'm comfortable with /64 blocks, but this is my first /56. The /48 range does not seem to contain any extra addresses. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:17, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Spectrum in the US South I would be extremely careful with because it’s usually legacy Time Warner Cable (see here.) For IPv4, their addresses are usually the same for years on end, and IPv6 is also relatively sticky within a /64 (but I have less experience with their IPv6, so I don’t want to talk as strongly as IPv4.) I’m not familiar enough to say with certainty if this block is needed, but I would not make a range block this large for a year if it is needed. This is impacting a lot of non-mobile connections and a year on a first block is pretty long for a normal ISP.Update: collateral doesn’t actually look bad in CU. I would suggest lowering the length a bit (try 3 months or less at first) and getting rid of the hard block, though, just because of the ISP and range size. Collateral wouldn’t be an issue now, but it could conceivably change in the future and I don’t think we want this impacting a large residential population. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:28, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: thank you! I'll decrease length and remove hard block. I was thinking this may have been possible with two /64 blocks as well, now that I look closer. I'm going to bed, but any admin is welcome to adjust this block as they see fit. EvergreenFir (talk) 07:07, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Lithuanian resistance

I'm not sure what to do about Lithuanian resistance so I'd like help please. Until recently this page was a disambiguation page, stable since 2012, with 2 entries: Resistance in Lithuania during World War II and Lithuanian partisans. At this edit, User:Ragaiselis blanked the page with a new article, the content of which appears to overlap that of the 2 aforementioned articles. I found it because that edit has left behind a redirect Lithuanian resistance (disambiguation) which now longer targets a disambiguation page. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 19:05, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

FYI, I've boldly returned it to a DAB page. (Temporarily at least.) My reasoning is that, if there's room for another article on the subject of Lithuanian resistance (and there may well be, it's not my period), then presumably the DAB page will be more, not less, necessary. It seems likely, though—at a first glance—that the "new" article pretty much duplicates most of the others. I'd suggest that WT:MILHIST is a better place to get an expert opinion on the value of articles like this. ——SN54129 19:36, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2020

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2019).

Administrator changes Dreamy Jazz • Newslinger • Rosguill Deor • Spartaz • Xeno Angusmclellan • clpo13 • Edgar181 • Matthewedwards • NCurse

CheckUser changes Bradv • Casliber • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno Oversight changes Bradv • Casliber • DGG • David Fuchs • Maxim • Newyorkbrad • SoWhy • Xeno Someguy1221

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment asks whether partial blocks should be enabled on the English Misplaced Pages. If enabled, this functionality would allow administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces, rather than the entire site.
• A proposal asks whether admins who don't use their tools for a significant period of time (e.g. five years) should have the toolset procedurally removed.
• Following a successful RfC, a whitelist is now available for users whose redirects will be autopatrolled by a bot, removing them from the new pages patrol queue. Admins can add such users to Misplaced Pages:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist after a discussion following the guidelines at Misplaced Pages talk:New pages patrol/Redirect whitelist.

Arbitration

• The fourth case on Palestine-Israel articles was closed. The case consolidated all previous remedies under one heading, which should make them easier to understand, apply, and enforce. In particular, the distinction between "primary articles" and "related content" has been clarified, with the former being the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted rather than reasonably construed.
• Following the 2019 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Beeblebrox, Bradv, Casliber, David Fuchs, DGG, KrakatoaKatie, Maxim, Newyorkbrad, SoWhy, Worm That Turned, Xeno.

Miscellaneous

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Request for sources is being constantly reverted

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

I am adding a {{fact}} tag to a sentence "The 2020s (pronounced "twenty-twenties"; shortened to the '20s) is the current decade in the Gregorian calendar that began on 1 January 2020 and will end on 31 December 2029." in the article 2020s. The statement is not obviously true, it's rather controversial, and debates are ongoing all over the place. Years are counted from 1 not from 0 hence decade is 1-10 and not 0-9. The other side also has their arguments why a decade could be say 2020 - 2029 so in short it's not obvious and we need to source this statement, as we do every non trivial statement. However my request for sources have been constantly reverted by user User:HiLo48. My personal request in his or her talk page to familiarize themselves with Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, one of the most important rules in Misplaced Pages, was not only left unanswered, but reverted as well. I see no way to reason with said user, and I don't understand why one would insist that a statement in the article wouldn't have sources, hence I'm posting here. I must stress this is about asking for sources for the statement that's already in the article and not about which definition of a decade article should use. --Nomad (talk) 07:45, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The statement is obvious, and there are no sources anywhere that state that the 2020s are not from 2020 to 2029. There are a few fringe sources which state the "next decade" is from 2021 through 2030, rather than the current decade being from 2020 through 2029, but they are fringe. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:59, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I would have reverted Nomad's {{fact}} tags if I had seen them before HiLo48. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:02, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Well thats weird insisting that a statement should have no sources. You talk about sources so I assume you looked up for them, you claim you found a few fringe sources so I assume you also found quite a few good sources supporting statement in question. Is there a reason you didn't add them to the article? If I find a source on my own and add it, are you going to also revert it? --Nomad (talk) 09:17, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• This reasoning based on years being counted from 1 is pure pedantry. A decade is any 10 years, so 2020 to 2019 is a decade, and so is 2021 to 2030, and so is 2022 to 2031. It just happens that the decade 2020–2029 is called the "20s" or "2020s". And the years 1–9 weren't a decade, or part of a decade (1 BC to 9 AD?) you'd want to give a name to. Big deal. EEng 09:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC) p

This is about reverting request for sources instead of providing source or just leaving it alone, not about your or my opinion on what a decade is, right. --Nomad (talk) 09:17, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

This is about you making a fuss over something that no one with common sense is worried about. It's ridiculous. EEng 20:26, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• The article is 2020s and {{fact}} was added in diff. Perhaps we should ask for a bot to add a similar tag to 1970s and 1890s and 1760s and friends. Please don't introduce crankery at Misplaced Pages—no one cares about the amusing arguments regarding when the decade should really begin. Johnuniq (talk) 09:18, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
• Although I do agree with Arthur that there is little merit in the challenge, because "the 2020s" is almost never taken to include 2030, the correct response to that is not to suppress the {{fact}} template but to go away and source it properly. WP:BLUE is all well and good, but once somebody comes and challenges something then it's better to simply provide sourcing.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  You might like to start at 110s. Re 2020s, is there any serious doubt concerning whether the year twenty-twenty is in the twenty-twenties? Johnuniq (talk) 09:46, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Obviously not, and only the most extraordinary logic could place the year twenty-thirty in the twenty-twenties. HiLo48 (talk) 09:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Absolutely. If someone asks me when I was born, and I say "the 1970s", they'd assume I was insane if I then told them I was born in 1980. Black Kite (talk) 12:36, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• Is someone really arguing over the need to source the obvious fact that the 2020s means 2020 to 2029? The sheer stupidity that sometimes plagues this place still manages to amaze me even after all these years! Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:59, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

  Nothing surprises me any more. But really ... if someone asked me when I was born, and I say "the 1970s", they'd assume I was insane if I then told them I was born in 1980... Black Kite (talk) 12:36, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• Query: WTF is this doing at AN, and can we end this and go back to arguing full-time over who's Jewish? EEng 20:26, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• I missed that it was in WP:AN. If the OP had any facts on his side, WP:ANI would have been appropriate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
• This debate could have been settled with a citation to the most reliable of sources: https://xkcd.com/2249/ --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 05:35, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

  Now you show up, Mister, um, "AntiCompositeNumber". Suspicious name there. EEng 06:40, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:THQ#Two articles for the same individual

 You are invited to join the discussion at WP:THQ#Two articles for the same individual. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:37, 6 January 2020 (UTC)Template:Z48

Would an admin mind taking a look at this Teahouse question and check that I didn't give an incorrect answer or otherwise make things out to be more complicated than they need to be. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:38, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: I have roughly merged the two articles. Although one article was newer than the other it contained significantly more content so I merged into that article. The answer you gave at THQ was very good, but I think you could have left out the parts about history merges because it complicated the answer and it is rarely possible anyway. Best — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:12, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to do that Martin. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Padavalamkuttanpilla

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

Please check the latest activities of the User:Padavalamkuttanpilla Kutyava (talk) 05:53, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kutyava: What is your concern exactly? Have you attempted to discuss this with Padavalamkuttanpilla yet? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:16, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Admin action (page protection) review - self requested

• Crime in Sweden (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I semi protected the page Crime in Sweden because a user with a dynamic IP has been disruptively edit warring there. I feel this case warranted it and that the IP editor has no intentions of stopping or engaging in meaningful dialog (see WP:ANEW report as well). I am WP:INVOLVED however, so I wanted to request outside input on this. Any admin is free to reverse this action if they think it was inappropriate. EvergreenFir (talk) 22:19, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Let me ping three other editors who were involved here too: Pudeo, Aquillion and Sjö EvergreenFir (talk) 22:20, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Seems like a good call to me. Regardless of how one feels about the data, this (which they were revert-warring in with their most recent edits) was clearly breaking the lead, in addition to the first two sentences being cited to sources that clearly shouldn't be used there. It's bad enough to raise WP:COMPETENCE / WP:NOTHERE issues. The user did try to contact me on my talk, but, well, you can see what they were like - stuff like You make a mockery of wikipedia and I despise deceitful people like you makes it seem unlikely they could be communicated with. --Aquillion (talk) 22:40, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

As much as I'd like to block 'em for incivility and disruption, it looks like a /20 range block. Didn't look like it would cause collateral damage, though.-- Deepfriedokra 22:59, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

• Is this possibly related to David A, who's had a history of edit-warring about crime stats on that article? --Calton | Talk 03:29, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Unblock request from Captain Occam

• Captain Occam (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hi all,

We have received an unblock request at UTRS from Captain Occam which I would like to put to the community,

"The simplest answer is that the block is no longer necessary. I violated my "race and intelligence" topic ban because I assumed its scope was limited to articles that discuss both race and intelligence in combination, and it didn't occur to me that it would be viewed as covering the topic of intelligence or psychometrics in contexts that don't involve race. During the eight years between my 2010 topic ban and my block last year, a "race and intelligence" topic ban had never previously been interpreted as covering the entire topic of human intelligence. But now that I'm aware that the scope of my topic ban is interpreted that way, I'm not going to make the same mistake again.

I'll also reiterate an offer that I made once before: I'm willing to disable my Misplaced Pages e-mail feature as an unblock condition, so that there can be no further suspicion that I'm using it to try to influence the articles where I'm topic banned.

I request that people reviewing my request please read the request for clarification that I made shortly before I was blocked, particularly this part: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment&oldid=835271663#The_e-mails I accept that my block itself was valid, but there were a lot of misunderstandings surrounding the decision to make it indefinite instead of for a month: particularly what others assumed about the contents of the e-mails I was sending, before I posted them in that request, and also what ArbCom intended the scope of my topic ban to be. When I asked ArbCom about its intended scope, the only arbitrator who gave an opinion said that it applied only to articles that discuss both race and intelligence in combination, not to either race or intelligence by itself. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment&diff=prev&oldid=834201165 ) The rest of ArbCom never gave an opinion because they felt the answer no longer mattered now that I had agreed to avoid all intelligence related content in the future. However, the answer I received is relevant to the question of how long a block I deserved for editing articles that relate to intelligence (but not race), before I realized this was a bad idea.

Finally, I think I should be unblocked so that I can continue maintaining the articles that are my largest editing interest at Misplaced Pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/William_Beebe and related articles. In 2011 I raised the Beebe article from start-class to a GA, and more recently I am the only editor who's been keeping all of its references in the correct format. Now that I'm blocked, this maintenance is no longer being done, and there is a risk that the article will eventually be demoted. I'd also like to be able to add more images to this article, now that photographs published in 1923 and later have begun to enter the public domain. One of my long-term goals is to eventually make this article into a featured article, but that also depends on my having the ability to edit it

f I'm unblocked, my editing will be similar to my editing from what I was unblocked in January 2017 until I was reported at AE in April 2018, except with no more edits to intelligence related articles. I edited articles related to creationism vs. evolution, video games, and books. I have a few more specific plans:

I plan to improve the sourcing in the article about Adnan Oktar, the famous Turkish creationist, which contains several citations to blogs and self-published websites. I disagree with almost everything Oktar has written, but I think BLP policy ought to be upheld regardless of my views about a person.

I also intend to recreate the article about the Final Fantasy musical theme "One-Winged Angel". This article used to exist, but was turned into a redirect in 2007. I think merging the article in 2007 was the right decision, but at this point there are enough sources discussing this piece of music to to create a well-sourced article.

Finally, there's William Beebe and related articles, of cours

I was blocked for violating the topic ban I was given in the 2010 "Race and intelligence" arbitration case. This was my first topic ban violation, and the maximum length the case allows for a first violation is 1 month, but admins felt I was an unusual case that required an indefinite block instead. I accept that the block itself was valid, but there are problems with some of the arguments for why an indefinite block was necessary. I described two of those issues in this request's first section.

One argument presented at AE was that I should be indef blocked based on my past interaction with the editor Deleet, because that user was allegedly a neo-Nazi. According to TonyBallioni this allegation is irrelevant to my block, but other admins have said it is a compelling argument. If others consider it a compelling argument, I request that they please examine the background of this statement, which was recently discussed on the oversight mailing list, because it suggests the statement is very unlikely to be tru

One of the basic principles of the "race and intelligence" arbitration case is that when a person has participated in articles related to that topic, they remain permanently associated with the topic from that point onward. This principle was first established by ArbCom in a pair of amendments passed in May 2012 and September 2012, defining a new class of editors "associated with the R&I topic" or "who have worked in the topic", and creating remedies about interactions with that class of editors wherever they are encountered on English Misplaced Pages. This principle applies especially to me, because I'm under a unique remedy that all of my participation in discussions everywhere on English Misplaced Pages is potentially sanctionable under the "race and intelligence" case, as stated in the third bullet point here: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?oldid=757695840#Arbitration_motion_regarding_Captain_Occam Because of this principle, it is not unusual for editors to be banned or sanctioned under this case at times when it's months or more than a year after they exited the topic area.

I'm mentioning this not because it excuses my actions, but because I think it gives them necessary context. Most editors haven't experienced what it's like for those of us sanctioned under this arbitration case to have the controversy and risk of sanctions from this case follow us for the rest of our Misplaced Pages careers, and to have our former involvement in that topic used to discredit us in unrelated areas we want to edit. When we react to this situation badly, as I did, it's entirely appropriate for us to be sanctioned to show us that we're in the wrong. However, I think it would be reasonable if admins could show some understanding of how difficult this situation has been to deal with, and that the twenty months I've been blocked is a sufficient block length for the mistake that I made.

Finally, if I'm unblocked, I understand that I probably cannot expect to be unblocked again if I repeat a similar mistake"

TonyBallioni has given permission for this to be logged here and I am going to enable TPA to give the user the chance to respond to questions here.-- 5 albert square (talk) 00:41, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment The current block stems from this AE case, which is recommended reading. Captain Eek ⚓ 02:00, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

  Oof, that was a painful AE report to skim through (read it before). I would conditionally support an unblock request from this user. I'm glad Occam understands that this is seriously a last, last, chance unblock. Besides complete adherence to the topic ban, the only unblock condition I think might be needed is one where if Captain Occam starts to reignite old disputes, then an uninvolved can just indef block. Obviously, if people start picking fights, we can reevaluate things.
  Regardless, this unblock request shows to me that Occam is on the right path towards contributing positively to this community. –MJL ‐Talk‐ 03:01, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support unblock Occam's history is certainly messy, what with a variety of blocks and an ArbCom case in their name. But this unblock request shows a level of maturity, and examination of their mistakes. It appears that Occam understands there will be no next time. The sword of Damocles shall hang above their head for a long time. My advice to Occam is that they stay far away from anything controversial, avoid noticeboards, and work on some solid and uncontroversial content creation for the next six months. Be beyond civil in all interactions, making sure to be polite and cordial. If you cannot be civil, just stay away from those discussions. And interpret your topic ban as broadly as possible. Captain Eek ⚓ 06:06, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

An update on and a request for involvement at the Medicine MOS

A month ago I closed an ANI thread which was a mixture of behavioral concerns and content concerns. That thread reached no consensus of sanctions against any editor but did arrive at a strong consensus for how to handle the content dispute - by conducting a formal Request for Comment (RFC). Basically by default I have found myself as an uninvolved sysop attempting to see through the ANI consensus and mediate a way towards an RfC. We are at a moment where additional editor attention would be helpful and in some cases essential to this process. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

MOS RfC

• The discussion has been voluminous despite only a half dozen or so editors, including myself, participating. (Fun fact, with a hat tip to EdJohnston, but the discussion is longer than AN and ANI combined). I should have worked harder to limit this output from all participants (including myself).
• Most editors who have been participating in the process have gravitated towards this RfC question (option 1) and format with the belief that only minor changes are necessary before launching. Tryptofish feels that the other RfC format will not be successful and has offered an alternative (option 2) which so far has not garnered any support from participating editors. If you wish to comment about either RfC and/or the potential launch of Option 1 here is probably the best place to go.
• Note there is an ongoing RfC

According to the ANI close this should be done by an uninvolved sysop. While I remain uninvolved someone with fresh eyes agreeing that the RfC is neutral would be for the best, in my opinion and so I am looking for that uninvolved sysop. Additionally, I would love to line-up an experienced and capable editor (or panel of 3) and who would be willing to act as closer(s) at the RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Conduct concerns around MOS:MED and WP:MED

In the last month I have witnessed sincere efforts by all involved to put the past aside and work together. Despite these efforts, what had been a fragile peace immediately following the ANI discussion has not held. Over the last 10 days or so there have been a steady number of behavioral concerns brought forward by a number of editors about any number of other editors. We're at a point where some sanctions are probably required and I have directed the two most recent people towards WP:Arbitration Enforcement. However, not all the misconduct is of the type that fits with the strengths of AE which is why an Arbitration Case has been mooted by multiple people. I write here in the hopes that can be avoided either through additional uninvolved sysops taking interest in the topic or through community discussion and consensus to resolve the conduct concerns. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

articles moved to drafts, possibly unneccesarily

I just created some articles for specific countries in 2020. an editor moved them to draft space, even though some articles already had some specific information in them. the editor claimed that the articles needed to be moved to draft space, due to lack of content.

however, we already allow current year in country articles to be created in mainspace, even if they have little or no content!!! here are some examples: 2019 in Libya, 2019 in Sudan.

I'm perfectly fine to wait a bit before moving these articles to the mainspace, but ultimately, I feel there should be no obstacle or constraint on all of them being moved to mainspace, regardless of whether they have content or not. you can view the message that I received here: User_talk:Sm8900#2020_in_Syria_moved_to_draftspace

is that okay? here's my contribs history Sm8900 (talk · contribs). Thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 04:21, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) The fact that other articles exist doesn't mean that they should exist or that similar articles should be created as explained in Misplaced Pages:Other stuff exists. Articles are added to the mainspace all the time, but the fact that they were added doesn't mean they should've been added or were "allowed" to be added. It could just as easily mean that simply weren't noticed to have been added or weren't properly assessed as to whether they should've been added. So, I wouldn't try to argue that you should be allowed to create articles similar to those two you've mentioned above, but rather argue that whatever article you're trying to create should be upgraded to article status based on its own merits. Being moved back to the draft namespace doesn't mean you cannot continue to work on the page and improve it so that its ultimately moved back to the article namespace. Draft:2020 in Syria contains no real encyclopedic content whatsoever at the moment; if, however, you can expand the article into at least a viable WP:STUB, then it will have a better chance of staying in the article namespace the next time around. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

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