Misplaced Pages

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Administrative discussions

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

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

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

(Initiated 10 days ago on 13 December 2024) challenge of close at AN was archived nableezy - 05:22, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

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Requests for comment

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

(Initiated 222 days ago on 15 May 2024) Discussion died down quite a long time ago. I do not believe anything is actionable but a formal closure will help. Soni (talk) 04:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 77 days ago on 7 October 2024) Tough one, died down, will expire tomorrow. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:58, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Turkey#RfC_on_massacres_and_genocides_in_the_lead

(Initiated 76 days ago on 8 October 2024) Expired tag, no new comments in more than a week. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 21:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

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

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

Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines#Request_for_comment:_Do_the_guidelines_in_WP:TPO_also_apply_to_archived_talk_pages?

(Initiated 68 days ago on 16 October 2024) Discussion seems to have petered out a month ago. Consensus seems unclear. Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:34, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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

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

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

(Initiated 57 days ago on 28 October 2024) Participation/discussion has mostly stopped & is unlikely to pick back up again. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

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

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

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Grey_Literature

(Initiated 44 days ago on 10 November 2024) Discussion is slowing significantly. Likely no consensus, personally. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment#RFC_on_signing_RFCs

(Initiated 40 days ago on 13 November 2024) - probably gonna stay status quo, but would like a closure to point to Bluethricecreamman (talk) 06:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 40 days ago on 13 November 2024) RfC has elapsed, and uninvolved closure is requested. — Red-tailed sock _{(Red-tailed hawk's nest)} 15:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 37 days ago on 16 November 2024) Very wide impact, not much heat. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 33 days ago on 20 November 2024) TompaDompa (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 15 days ago on 8 December 2024) No further participation in the last 7 days. Consensus is clear but I am the opener of the RfC and am not comfortable closing something I am so closely involved in, so would like somebody uninvolved to close it if they believe it to be appropriate.RachelTensions (talk) 16:00, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

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

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

(Initiated 38 days ago on 15 November 2024) This RfC expired five days ago, has an unclear consensus, I am involved, and discussion has died down. JJP_Master (she/they) 22:56, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Len_Blavatnik#RfC:_NPOV_in_the_lead

(Initiated 7 days ago on 16 December 2024) RFC is only 5 days old as of time of this posting, but overwhelming consensus approves of status quo, except for a single COI editor. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:04, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

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

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

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

(Initiated 88 days ago on 27 September 2024) Lots of considered debate with good points made. See the nom's closing statement. Kowal2701 (talk) 09:47, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

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Deletion discussions

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

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

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

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 December 16#Category:Origin stories

(Initiated 22 days ago on 2 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 03:45, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Compassionate727  15:37, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 December 14#Template:Support-group-stub

(Initiated 10 days ago on 14 December 2024) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 05:06, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done —Compassionate727  15:17, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

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Other types of closing requests

Talk:Arab migrations to the Levant#Merger Proposal

(Initiated 90 days ago on 25 September 2024) Open for a while, requesting uninvolved closure. Andre🚐 22:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 78 days ago on 7 October 2024) A merge + move request with RM banners that needs closure. No new comments in 20 days. —CX Zoom 20:16, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 69 days ago on 16 October 2024) Experienced closer requested. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 67 days ago on 18 October 2024) This needs formal closure by someone uninvolved. N2e (talk) 03:06, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 48 days ago on 5 November 2024) RM that has been open for over a month. Natg 19 (talk) 02:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:JTG Daugherty Racing#Requested move 22 November 2024

(Initiated 31 days ago on 22 November 2024) Pretty simple RM that just needs an uninvolved editor to close. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 17:40, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Williamsburg Bray School#Splitting proposal

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

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

Talk:Winter fuel payment abolition backlash#Merge proposal

(Initiated 56 days ago on 29 October 2024) There are voices on both sides (ie it is not uncontroversial) so a non-involved editor is needed to evaluate consensus and close this. Thanks. PamD 09:55, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

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Review of Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2015 January 8#Kirby Delauter and Draft:Kirby Delauter

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

There is certainly some support for moving the draft to main space, but I still see endorsing the original deletion (and salting) to be the consensus opinion.

The closer erred in assuming that salting was the consensus opinion. Not a single editor in the DRV supported salting. In fact, after Draft:Kirby Delauter was posted, five editors commented favorably about the draft. No one commented negatively against the draft.

Because the draft addressed the undue weight and BLP1E concerns present in the deleted article, the original reasons for speedy deletion no longer applied.

Cunard (talk) 23:24, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, most of the material in the draft was not really suitable for a BLP -- it's all local coverage. I support the continued salting of the article title for now. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

• The DRV closer failed to be clear or explicit regarding the salting of the title. Did he overlook it, of did he consider it a question for WP:RFPP? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:17, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It was my estimation that the consensus included salting. -- RoySmith (talk) 03:14, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it is true, that consensus supported the salting, the original action and the indefinite continuation, I rather doubt it. In any case, I think you should have said so, and pointed any desires for continued debate on the salting question to WP:RfPP. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:36, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Just to be clear, the title wasn't salted by the DRV closer, it was salted by the admin who speed-deleted the article in the first place. The DRV was closed as "endorse" which would generally be seen as an endorsement of the close and protection together. Mine was one of the opinions on which the close was based and I can confirm I didn't really consider the issue of salting, in fact the discussion I had with Hobit and Thincat was one about recreation in draft form. The natural next step is for a draft to be moved to main-space. Nonetheless, I did "endorse" the deletion which included salting. RoySmith interpreted my comment (and others) as an endorsement of both and without explicit commentary to the contrary, I'm not sure how he could have done otherwise. It's overly bureaucratic, yes, but I'm with Joe in thinking this should go to WP:RfPP so that the protection can be removed and the draft can be published. Essentially, we all got caught up on the SD/IAR issue and ignored the protection. St★lwart 04:20, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Yes. Go to WP:RfPP so that the protection can be removed, or not, per the consensus of discussion there. The DRV discussion did not reach a consensus on continued salting, in my opinion, due to lack of direct discussion of that specific question. RoySmith did well enough to make a clear decision on the actual question posed in the nomination. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:29, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Absolutely, "removed, or not". St★lwart 05:07, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'm with Joe in thinking this should go to WP:RfPP so that the protection can be removed and the draft can be published. – RoySmith insisted that the consensus was to maintain salting despite the new article draft. The suggestion that this should go to WP:RFPP does not make sense because that would be asking an WP:RFPP admin to unilaterally overturn RoySmith's close. Cunard (talk) 06:38, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Because nobody had specifically addressed the question of whether the protection should remain and so in endorsing the deletion, we were endorsing the protection. Had I (had we all) had the foresight to see it coming, we might have included a line or two ("oh, and un-salt"). We didn't address it and so Roy didn't address it in his close. Self-trout for that one! Post-close, his response makes sense. I don't think that prevents an admin at RFPP reviewing the case and making a determination about protection. I can't imagine anyone would object to them doing so. They are really overturning the original protection (on the basis that it is no longer needed), not Roy's close. St★lwart 09:53, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'd rather not start an WP:RFPP post after starting this AN request since that could be viewed as forumshopping. If you or another editor want to make the WP:RFPP post, that would be fine with me. Cunard (talk) 20:06, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Look, it's quite clear that the only possible policy-based outcomes were to redirect to Frederick County, Maryland#Charter government if the draft didn't meet WP:N (or, say, if BLP1E is applicable), or to allow recreation of the draft if it did meet WP:N. (On this point, I'd rather not take an opinion - this whole affair has been stressful enough for me). But once the blue shield is down, there's nothing to be done except wait until attention has moved on (or the tech bloggers pick it up, and the whole mess becomes too embarassing to the project). WilyD 10:01, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I was going to stay out of this, but I find the blue shield dig offensive. I have absolutely no problem with the community deciding my close was faulty, and I am glad that this discussion finally got started in an appropriate forum. But I do resent the implication that I'm reflexively defending a fellow admin because of cabalistic loyalty. If you take a look at the DRV archives, I think you'll find that I've handed out more than my fair share of trout. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

If there's an argument to delete rather than have a redirect to Frederick County, Maryland#Charter government (probably the outcome I'd advocate if I weren't already sick of this train-wreck), it wasn't presented during the DRV or in the closing summary. It's a tough DRV to close (and I think you generally do a good job at DRV). But the cumulative effect of endorsing and closing as endorse is exactly how a blue shield works, little misbehaviours/overlooks/blind eyes by everyone to defend their friend/colleague's significant misbehaviour. If the point stings, that's unfortunate, but we can't avoid mentioning our problems because they're painful to deal with - then they only fester. WilyD 10:48, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Arguments for deletion certainly were presented at the DRV. A redirect is a poor idea since it is possible that Delauter might end up mentioned in another article (SmokeyJoe suggested Streisand effect, for example.) If a reader is typing "Kirby Delauter" in the search box, they would probably prefer a list of articles (if any) that mention him, rather than being shuttled off to a specific one. As for your doubling down on this "blue shield" crap, I have to wonder: if someone closes this thread with no action, will they too be part of the blue shield? Is the only way to avoid a charge of corruption to agree with your opinion of what should happen with the Kirby Delauter page? You seem to have ruled out the possibility that the people who agree with the deletion and salting are doing so in good faith. 28bytes (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Whether it is in good faith (as assumed) is neither here nor there, it is still admins preventing ordinary discussion by the use of tools and confirmation of the use of tools even where the numbers were against it, and the consensus by those who addressed it was not to salt. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, you might be assuming good faith (and if so, I thank you) but my concern is with people who are not, and who are moreover explicitly assuming bad faith and attacking the character of the people who disagree with them. Regardless, I don't see much benefit to be had in continuing to argue with you about whether the DRV close was correct; perhaps we can agree to disagree on that? 28bytes (talk) 17:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I would not think it helpful to read any of that as you do (if you give him the benefit of the doubt ie good faith) statements like "blind eye" "overlook" and even mis behavior could be negligent, not malicious, but mistaken acts (in this case) would still wind up in the same place as intentional acts. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:42, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Arguments for deletion rather than having a full article were made at DRV, no arguments were made for deletion rather than redirecting to the only page where the subject is mentioned. (The argument that under different circumstances different choices might make sense is axiomatically true, but invariably irrelevant. WP:RFD sorts out cases with multiple possible targets routinely, and never, ever, ever comes to the conclusion that deletion makes sense.) Reasonable, good faith editors can conclude that the draft/subject meets WP:N, and thus should have an article, or that the sources are mostly local, BLP1E and/or NOTNEWS applies, and thus the article should be redirected to the only page on which he's mentioned (as we would with any other politician who doesn't meet WP:N or its stepchildren). I don't believe that anyone endorsing the decision is acting maliciously, I suspect they're trying to protect their friend from having their misconduct exposed and ignoring that we're ultimately here to write an encyclopaedia. Wanting to protect ones friends is an admirable enough trait, but in this context there's no harm in having your action overturned, so there's nothing to protect them from anyways. WilyD 18:32, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• When I !voted to overturn the speedy the matter of salting didn't occur to me (it isn't a really a DRV issue anyway). Now I re-read the DRV discussion I can't see anyone saying they supported continued salting though obviously if anyone had been in favour they might not have thought it appropriate or necessary to say so. Interestingly, the last !vote was to endorse the deletion and to allow a new draft. Cunard's draft was presented quite late in the DRV and I think it deserves (and ought to have) community discussion. I don't know the best way of achieving this. Thincat (talk) 13:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
• For the record I endorse both the original deletion and salting, and User:RoySmith's closing of the DRV, for the reasons I offered in the DRV. And I find User:WilyD's "blue shield" remark above (implying that everyone who disagrees with his opinion is corrupt) to be reprehensible and out of character for an editor and admin whom I've otherwise had a good impression of. The fact is, the only reason there's a draft of Kirby Delauter right now is because of a stupid remark he made on Facebook and the reaction to it. That it now contains details about Delauter's family and career as a businessman and local official does nothing to alleviate the fact that he's known for one thing. If, a couple of months from now, people still think this local politician is of lasting notability and therefore merits an encyclopedia biography, I'd be willing to reconsider my position in light of new evidence of that. Perhaps by then tempers will have cooled and there will be less of a desire to make an example of him for his ill-considered remarks. 28bytes (talk) 13:33, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the admin endorsements of the IAR speedy were well intentioned but they did give a very unfortunate impression which possibly may not be so obvious to war-weary admins. It was not a good idea to have handled a supposedly "textbook" case in a non-textbook manner. If this is the right place for community discussion about the contents of the draft (is it?) I'll give my views. Thincat (talk) 13:51, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Thincat, the proper place for community discussion about the contents of the draft is AfD. In my view, the draft complies with BLP and NPOV (and no one has suggested otherwise), so there is no pressing reason not to move the draft to mainspace and list it at AfD. If, as 28bytes notes, people want to "make an example of him for his ill-considered remarks" in the article itself, the editors can be blocked and the article can be semi-protected or full-protected as necessary. Cunard (talk) 20:06, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

And in my view, the draft doesn't show why he passes WP:NPOL. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:30, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

He doesn't have to pass NPOL if he passes WP:N. And the largest newspaper in the state wrote an editorial about him. That's mighty fine coverage. And coverage unrelated to the "one event". There is massive coverage about the one event. Hobit (talk)

• I reiterate that the salting should be undone and there was no consensus to salt, so overturn. I also think Roy Smith was wrong in his reading. He says correctly that there was not numerical strength to endorse, but ignores that fact that non-admin i-voters could not see the deleted article - so of course we were disabled in offering opinions on whatever was deleted. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:19, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

  DRV is not AFD Take 2. We don't need to be able to see the article -- we just need to see if the closing admin read the discussion correctly. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:30, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

And he read it wrong: there was no consensus to salt, there was not numerical strength to endorse, and he incorrectly discounted the views of those who could not see the speedy deleted article. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:35, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

No one requested to see the deleted article. Presumably they'd either already seen it, or felt that their !vote did not depend on what was the article content actually was. I can email you a copy of it if you'd like. 28bytes (talk) 23:05, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

28bytes, during the discussion, and still, the deleted version remains here), explicitly cited during the discussion. Final version, without attribution of course. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:03, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

NB. If it weren't for the speedy deletion, the cached version would carry an AfD notice. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks SmokeyJoe. 28bytes (talk) 00:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I now see, Smokey Joe linked to that cache version without the attribution in the discussion apparently after I participated or I just didn't see it because I took the speedy for BLP at face value that it had a really bad BLP problem, so we should not see it. None of that, however, changes the fact that the consensus was to overturn the salt, and numerically the !vote was not to endorse. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:28, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Your point is non-responsive and still supporting overturn - the closer incorrectly discounted the numerically strong views of those who wanted to allow a real attempt to write and judge in the ordinary process an article. The consensus was not to salt by those who addressed it, so he was wrong there too. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:16, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense. You say the closer "incorrectly discounted the views of those who could not see the speedy deleted article" but you provide no evidence that there was anyone who could not see it and wanted to. Cunard, for example, stated that he had read the article via Google cache. If anyone wanted to see the deleted text, all they had to do was ask. 28bytes (talk) 23:30, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense and again non-responsive - we could not see the deleted article and so offered no opinion on it - that is exactly what was said at the time but the closer incorrectly took that as somehow endorsing, and the consensus by those who addressed the issue was not to salt. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:38, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

You keep saying "non-responsive" like we're in court. What is it exactly that you want me to respond to? 28bytes (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The closer got it wrong - I've offered why I think they got it wrong. I did not ask you to respond at all but if you do, don't go off on how we could see a speedy deleted article, when the very purpose of speedy deletion is for us not to see it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

• Okay, there are a lot of issues here.
  • The deletion was out of process as was the salting. Neither the speedy nor the salting could be justified by our deletion or protection rules. The bar for endorsing such action should be very high. There is no way that high bar was met.
  • The draft had unanimous support in the discussion of all those that indicated they'd looked at it. I believe 5 people supported it and no one objected. It's hard to understand how a draft with 100% support of everyone who indicated they'd read it could be prevented.
  • The above two issues are related the (out-of-process) deletion meant that there wasn't time to try to fix the article before it was deleted. If we'd followed our regular process, we'd probably still have this article.
  • Not a single person in the discussion indicated why this article was important to speedy out-of-process. IAR should be used when there is a reason to use it, not just because someone feels like it.

Hobit (talk) 23:12, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• For the record, I think the right way forward is to move the draft to article space and allow an AfD as desired. That's where we'd be if someone hadn't been working outside of process to begin with and that's where we should get to. IMO the draft meets our notability requirement and is well above any speedy criteria--it should get a discussion. Hobit (talk) 15:16, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
• DRV reviews deletion decisions. Salting is tangential to DRV's scope: we do discuss and review it sometimes but it doesn't always receive the attention that deletion decisions receive, which I think is why this issue wasn't really bottomed out at the DRV. Personally, I think the purpose of salting is to prevent bad faith editors from perenially re-creating material in despite of a consensus. I think the salting should always be removed when a good faith editor wants to create an article in that space.—S Marshall T/C 14:34, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
• I am not familiar with the intricacies of DRV or salting but I wanted to weigh in here because I have read the draft and feel strongly that it belongs on Misplaced Pages. It seems that bureaucratic/administrative process is interfering with making an excellent article available. Unless I am missing something, it seems that no one can provide a reason for its exclusion from the main space, other than that this is where the process has ended up. Bangabandhu (talk) 19:34, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Moving Draft:Kirby Delauter to Kirby Delauter

From WP:RFPP here:

Would an admin unprotect Kirby Delauter and move Draft:Kirby Delauter to Kirby Delauter? See this close of Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Review of Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2015 January 8#Kirby Delauter and Draft:Kirby Delauter by Spartaz (talk · contribs) (thank you, Spartaz, for reviewing and closing the discussion):

This discussion has stalled. As far as I can see there may be disagreement here about whether the article should hae been deleted but there isn't a killer policy based argument that the delete aspect of the DRV as closed was wrong. Where I am seeing a lack of consensus is around whether the salting should have been reinstated. As the salting was part of the original deletion is is certainly in RoySmith's ambit to reinstate this with the endorse finding but, on challenge, we do not have a clear specific consensus. As such, and bearing in mind that DRVs remit is deletion not salting I think the consensus is that reinstating the salting is not an enforcable provision of the DRV close. What does that mean? It means that any admin can unsalt this without needing to see consensus on the point. The only reason I have not done this myself is because there appears to be a risk of BLP issues to consider and I have not got the time right now to research the question to determine if there is a BLP risk from the unsalting. This does not preclude someone who has got that time from doing so.

Cunard (talk) 00:24, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Not unprotected This should be taken back to DRV; I am not going to override an endorse close there by my own action. Courcelles 19:06, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I would rather not take this back to WP:DRV for further discussion since this WP:AN close already reviewed the WP:DRV close with the conclusion "the consensus is that reinstating the salting is not an enforcable provision of the DRV close". And "It means that any admin can unsalt this without needing to see consensus on the point" as long as the draft is reviewed by an admin as BLP compliant. Ping User:Courcelles. Cunard (talk) 07:50, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after this is resolved. Cunard (talk) 07:50, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
• The unsalting is actually rather irrelevant here, surely the question is whether the draft article is sufficient to overcome the original "delete" arguments even if it is BLP compliant. I personally don't think it is good enough notability-wise - it looks to me like this person's "notability" is hung on a minor news event and a load of local news reports. Black Kite (talk) 08:37, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• Borderline notability means that it should be put through AfD. It easily passes all WP:CSD criteria. There never was a BLP concern, BLP1E is not really a BLP concern, and if there is a BLP concern, it exists in Draft space equally as mainspace. This person is a politician. The salting was a knee-jerk reaction accompanying the out-of-process deletion, and this salting appears to be wholly ignored or unsupported at DRV and here. Courcelles was wrong to ascribe an endorsement of the salting at DRV. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:03, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not often I disagree with you SmokeyJoe, but on few things here I must. Fails WP:NPOL and it's just a drama magnet. Misplaced Pages is not a social media reporting site, and the only thing of note here is Kirby's brief Facebook rant. Unless or until Mr. Delauter does something notable, then it's best that the article is deleted. Salting removes the temptation of further problems right now. Just IMO, so ...

• Keep deleted and salted — Ched :  ?  10:52, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

(ec) Hey Ched, maybe this disagreement can be resolved. We are talking about different things? Deleting for failing WP:NPOL is a matter for the AfD process, and is not a CSD criterion, and failing NPOL does not give admins the right to unilaterally delete contrary to the leading sentence at WP:CSD. For me, this is about respect for process, and vigilance against kneejerk reactions by a ruling class of Wikipedian. Did DRV approve the deletion with silent reference to NPOL? Possibly. If it is agreed, as you say, that this person fails NPOL, and further that there is drama magnetism at play, then yes, "Keep deleted and salted" is the right thing to do. But please, User:Floquenbeam, send it to AfD next time. If this were AfD, I would argue that reliable independent secondary source coverage exists, and the appropriate place for the content is at Streisand_effect#Selected_examples, justified by this. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:07, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I can agree with 99.9% of that. The one part I must take exception to is the "knee-jerk". Admins. are supposed to "mop-up" things they see as a mess. In this case it seems more that an admin grabbed the mop and cleaned up a mess before it was reported to the corporate office, and the "please clean" request was filled out in triplicate. Now - I'm wondering if putting Draft:Kirby Delauter up at WP:MFD would help resolve things here? Thoughts? — Ched :  ?  20:47, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Pre-emptive mopping may be questionable. It could be perceived as "controlling". Anyway, MFDing the Draft might be sensible. MfD might be good at the isolated question of whether the page is a BLP violation. If the question goes to NPOL, I for one will shout "wrong forum", MfD is not the approval court for drafts. Better to unsalt, move to mainspace, and list at AfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

• All very bureaucratic but the varying admins seem to require just that. For the matter to be properly decided by the full editorial community, the draft should be taken to AfD for a proper keep/merge/discharge from draft/delete discussion. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:52, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
• Meh Why would we immortalise this trivia? Guy (Help!) 22:40, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Requesting review of close of RfC at Griffin article

Second, it's hard to find fault with the close, but just as hard to be at peace with it: it could have come down either way. Let's face it, we do have Category:Conspiracy theorists, and I have no doubt we could find plenty of articles that have the phrase in the first sentence, the lead, the infobox. In addition, we report on theories that are conspiracy theories and label them as such, whether the subject and their supporters like it or not. Whether it's a BLP violation to state "x is a conspiracy theorist" when there is overwhelming evidence that they are (I think the RfC supports the latter point) is an interesting question, and probably one that ArbCom, as our Supreme Authority, should decide on. That it's "essentially not-neutral" is still an open question, as far as I'm concerned, and that's where our BLP and fringe policies may bump into each other. This RfC couldn't have decided on the larger point, and I advise Jytdog to kick this can down the road some. Drmies (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

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

• Short version:

Please review the RfC response and the close, and the implementing edit made by the closer. I tried to discuss with the closer, and that went no where.

The RfC was focused on whether to name Griffin as a "conspiracy theorist" in the first sentence. The issues are at the intersection of WP:BLP and WP:PSCI (conspiracy theories are generally in the realm of PSCI and fringe, and the intersection is discussed at WP:BLPFRINGE.

In the edit implementing the close, Nyytend rewrote the entire lead, going beyond the scope of the RfC.

The close did not reflect the actual response to the RfC, nor the complexities of how BLP intersects with PSCI.

I am not at all opposed to taking "conspiracy theorist" out of the first sentence (good arguments were made for that). I think the reasoning provided in the close was flawed and the implementing edit was definitely over-reaching, and will create big headaches for the rest of the work we have to do.

The close is going to be important to subsequent DR efforts on the page and I was looking for a more thoughtful close reasoning, that considered the range of views, and considered BLP and PSCI in light of each other. Instead, we basically got one admin's view.

• Long version:

I know this is a bit long; please take a minute to bear with me.

Nyttend kindly responded to a request to close the RfC at Talk:G._Edward_Griffin#RfC:_.22conspiracy_theorist.22_in_first_sentence. The question was whether to name Griffin as a "conspiracy theorist" in the first sentence. The issues are at the intersection of WP:BLP and WP:PSCI (conspiracy theories are generally in the realm of PSCI and fringe, and the intersection is discussed at WP:BLPFRINGE. In my view there are live, interesting questions here and anybody who treats the issues as cut and dry, on either side of the issue, is really missing the boat.

I am contesting the close itself, as well as Nyttend's edit to implement the close. I discussed it with Nyttend and I don't think he has heard me (he hasn't responded to my actual objections), so here we are.

This is a troubled article - it has been protected twice, in quick succession, for edit warring. There are strong views on whether/how to describe Griffin as a "conspiracy theorist" and how to discuss his medical views. We need to move carefully and conservatively in editing it. I am trying to work DR carefully to keep us out of AE, but we may end up there.

I've been trying to work DR in bite-size pieces. We were able to agree, during full protection, on modifying the infobox to include "Known for: Conspiracy theories", and that compromise was implemented by an admin.

The subsequent RfC was narrowly tailored to discuss just the first sentence of the article. The RfC was well publicized, and we got a good (not great) range of thoughtful input from editors not already involved in the article. I was very interested to have the community weigh in, and to get a close that thoughtfully weighed the tension between BLP and PSCI, and that took into account what the community had to say about that, with respect to the issue at hand. The close will be important for resolving subsequent content issues that we still need to work through.

The close was to take "conspiracy theorist" out of the lead. The reasoning was based on "conspiracy theorist" being derogatory. In the implementing edit, Nyttend rewrote the entire lead.

I have two main objections:

1) In the edit implementing the close, Nyytend rewrote the entire lead, going beyond the scope of the RfC and ruining the careful effort to work DR slowly and bite-by-bite. I asked Nyttend to change his edit to only deal with the first sentence, and he declined, saying that: "If it's not neutral to call the guy a conspiracy theorist in the first sentence, it's likewise not neutral to call his ideas conspiracy theories." I pointed out that the RfC was limited to the first sentence, but he was not hearing that. He believes his edit to be solid. I don't. I think he is well intentioned but he is not honoring the RfC. The edit short-circuits/forecloses our efforts to work through the content issues and doesn't respect the perspective of several editors, which include involved admins.

2) In the close itself (which you can see in the link above), as well as subsequent comments on the article Talk page]] (at this section, and in discussion on my talk page (in response to my query on his talk page), Nyttend cited the view of a minority of respondents, that the term itself is derogatory; he didn't cite the many (and persuasive) arguments that it was UNDUE to name Griffin that way in the first sentence (in light of the rest of the lead), and Nyttend didn't cite or discuss any of the arguments made to keep "conspiracy theorist" in the first sentence, which are not without grounds in policy. The close reasoning did not reflect the actual response to the RfC, nor the complexities of how BLP intersects with PSCI. The issues are not cut and dry here.

In the discussions afterward, it became clear to me that Nyttend came in with clear views on the issue, and that he relied primarily on his own interpretation of PAG in doing the close, and in implementing it. He was unaware that most of the !votes were in favor of keeping "conspiracy theorist" (I know that !vote count is not determinative but it should be considered), and made it clear that he was unfamiliar with the PSCI shortcut to the part of NPOV that deals with fringe/pseudoscience in content in WP. (it is not bad to be unaware of things, but it is bad to close an RfC where PSCI is so central and to be that unfamiliar with it).

Again, this first RfC is going to be important to further DR efforts, and its lack of grounding in what folks actually said at the RfC, and in what PSCI and BLP say, are going to warp those further DR efforts.

I am not at all opposed to taking "conspiracy theorist" out of the first sentence (good arguments were made for that). I think the close was flawed and the implementing edit was definitely over-reaching, and will create big headaches for the rest of the work we have to do.

Please review the close and implementing edit. Thanks.Jytdog (talk) 19:49, 4 February 2015 (UTC) (edited to make it clear that I don't disagree with the conclusion of the close, but I feel that the reasoning presented in the close didn't reflect the full response to the RfC nor the complexities of the policies involved and will cause problems going forward Jytdog (talk) 01:39, 5 February 2015 (UTC)) (added to statement that editors at the page had agreed, prior to the RfC, to add "Known for: Conspiracy theories" to the infobox and note that RfC happened after that)

• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the review is closed. (I am adding this because RfC closure reviews frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.) Cunard (talk) 20:46, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

• {{Do not archive until}} removed. Cunard (talk) 01:07, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. I would take issue with the close, because it seems to be saying that if material can be shown to be derogatory then the game is up because we will never include derogatory material in the first sentence or lead of an article. But I can think of comparable examples where consensus has been to include such derogatory material (David Icke, David Irving) so, for me, the close doesn't quite add up. On the other hand, I don't think it can easily be argued that the close should have been "yes". It could easily have been "no consensus", but there would have been no practical difference, because in that case the derogatory material should also have been excluded. So, I endorse the close just because there is nothing to be gained from overturning it. I can see the argument that the closer went beyond the scope of the RfC in their implementation of the result. However, the implementation of the close is not part of the close, so I would say that here is, strictly speaking, not the place to examine it. If a consensus on the implementation develops here, then fair enough, but otherwise it might instead be brought up on the article talk page, not for the closer to defend their actions but to test whether consensus supports them. Formerip (talk) 21:15, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Addendum. In writing the above, I hadn't twigged that there might be additional issues involved to do with use of tools. In that case, yes this is is the right venue for discussing the implementation. Formerip (talk) 23:35, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comments. I have looked carefully at the RfC and at the subsequent edits and discussions about the close, and I can see arguments on both sides of what is not a black-and-white case. About the most basic part of the RfC close, I think that it is reasonable for Nyttend to have concluded that the outcome was to remove "conspiracy theorist" from the lead sentence, based on the discussion that occurred. So I do not see a good reason to overturn that. I also think that the subsequent edit warring over the description, near the end of the lead section, of the subject's theory that the scientific establishment is in a conspiracy to suppress his fringe medical advice could have been avoided by simply looking for compromise language. Why not call it, instead, a "discredited theory"? But we are not here to discuss content. I think that there were multiple significant errors in the use of administrative tools in the close. Unlike Formerip, it seems to me that because this is AN, the use of those tools needs to be discussed along with the close itself.
  • The explanations given for the close demonstrate a disturbing lack of understanding of NPOV, BLP, and other important policies.
    • At Jytdog's talk page, Nyttend said: "We need to write this guy's article in a way that will be agreed on by his supporters and his opponents". There is nothing in NPOV or BLP that would give BLP subjects and their supporters that kind of veto power over content. If there were, then we would have to delete Kim Jong-un#Human rights violations and about half the content of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Whereas it is reasonable to take the "conspiracy theorist" label out of the lead sentence, it does not follow that it has to be taken out of the entire page.
    • The longstanding consensus reached at the ArbCom Pseudoscience case says that obvious or generously recognized pseudoscience can and should be identified as such on our pages. And Jytdog is correct to cite WP:BLPFRINGE (to which I might add WP:VALID). (This is a conspiracy theory about pseudoscience, so please no wikilawyering about the RfC not having been about pseudoscience.)
  • As Jytdog correctly says, the RfC was carefully worded to be about only the lead sentence. Furthermore, a reading of the RfC comments makes clear that several editors specifically drew a distinction between the lead sentence and the rest of the lead section. There was no consensus that could be drawn about the rest of the page, after the first sentence. The closing administrator could in theory extend the application of the close to more of the page, if policy so required, but policy did not require that.
  • After Nyttend full-protected the page, appropriately, to stop edit warring, he then made an edit restoring the page to his preferred version: . An administrator editing through full protection is exercising a serious responsibility, because it is something that the rest of us are prevented from doing. Again, doing so could be justified when there are overriding policy concerns (such as BLP violations). But policy did not require this edit, and Nyttend knew by this time that the edit was controversial. Also, there is a longstanding consensus that full-protection is not supposed to be used to protect the "right" version of a page.
• --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
• I would myself endorse the decision of closure, because most of the uninvolved members who had participated in this Rfc actually disagreed with the inclusion that was being discussed. VandVictory (talk) 01:18, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
• I don't see grounds for overturning the closure; although I think it violates WP:NPOV not to call him a conspiracy theorist or, at least, a supporter of conspiracy theories, in the first sentence, there are arguments in favor of exclusion, although I probably would have disputed the close if I had been active. However, the edit whitewashing the lead is not even consistent with the close; it is clear that there are no potential arguments to remove "conspiracy theorist" from the lead entirely.

  I hadn't noticed that he edited <strikie>through protection to restore his preferred version. That would normally be grounds for an immediate block. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

  I admit to tagging the article through protection; but something needed to be done to indicate that the status is solely Nyttend's opinion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:21, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

  Apparently, protection was on for less than a minute. Still, Nyttend's edit-warring to restore his own revision, not consistent with his close, was not "proper". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:51, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it was set for 24 hours it looks like as it expired today, but it was implemented yesterday. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:26, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comments: IMO the page protection issue is a red herring. It was done to stop edit warring and very short term. This said, there is now a proposed lede re-write on the article talk page which is subject to on-going improvement. I posit that some tweaks will make it acceptable to all, thereby rendering this review moot. – S. Rich (talk) 02:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

In my view the proposal to rewrite the lead is premature. I'd like us to wait to see the results of this review. We need to go slow, bite-size. Jytdog (talk) 03:10, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

If this ANI plays out, what will we have? I see three possibilities: 1, The closing is endorsed. 2. The closing is overturned and a new closing is implemented. 3. The closing is overturned and the RFC is opened up for a new closing. With Number 1 the OP does not accomplish much. (The present version becomes the accepted (for now) consensus version.) Number 2 is unlikely because it entails one admin overturning another admin's decision. (Not a rare event, and the closing was done in a non-admin context. But unlikely.) Number 3 entails a continuation of the drama. In the meantime we are moving forward with a discussion to improve the lede on the article talk page. – S. Rich (talk) 03:51, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I think reviewing the closure would be helpful for you folks there. The main problem that I think people were hoping to see as Jytdog mentioned was where WP:PSCI fits into play here. The main result of going outside of the scope of the RfC and the use of admin tools at least has been fixed, but the actual closure seems to be something worth looking into. How we deal with fringe topics seems to not have been addressed in the closure, and Nyytend appears to not be familiar with PSCI policy within NPOV based on some conversations mentioned here, which appears to have lead to only a partial understanding of the discussion. A common problem I see in the article is that people cite BLP for removing "derogatory" content, but have trouble with PSCI where valid criticisms of fringe topics (i.e. psuedoscience, conspiracy theory, etc.) stay regardless of being perceived as negative (NPOV doesn't mean non-negative content). The RfC should have been closed with both policies in mind, but the benefit from revisiting the close would help orient future discussion about the tone to take in handling both policies going forward. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:26, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• comment - just to be super (maybe too) clear about what i am after here. I am looking for a restatement of the close, that takes into account what responders actually said and that deals with both PSCI and BLP - we will need this to guide further discussions on the page. I would also like a clear statement on the validity (or lack thereof) of the closer's implementing edit. This too will be important going forward. If the do-over of the closing results in overturning the surface result, that is neither here nor there to me; I think there are reasonable arguments for keeping and for removing "conspiracy theorist" from the first sentence. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 14:03, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Nyttend I don't know if you are following or have read the above, but if not would you please do so, and would you be willing to withdraw your close and implementing edit, and allow someone else to do the close anew? That would ease the situation. I have seen closes done by Dank of really complex RfCs and have respected his work. I would likely ask involved editors if that would be OK, and then ask him. Thanks. Nyttend I also want to apologize to you; I was looking for certain qualities (not answers but qualities) in the close and I should have not just thrown the close up for anybody to grab... I should have done it more intentionally and gotten agreement from editors at the page on a closer, and then asked someone. Sorry that you were pulled into something unawares. I do appreciate that you volunteered to do it. Jytdog (talk) 14:09, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• comment - Jytdog, it appears you want to choose your own closer and impose certain dictates. Your apology to Nyttend is certainly a respectable gesture, but it appears to be superficial because you haven't changed course. You stated, I was looking for certain qualities says it all. How is this not WP:FORUMSHOPPING? You may have attempted to qualify your desires as not answers, but your following statement I should have not just thrown the close up for anybody to grab... is very telling. The concerns you've expressed go beyond what editors are obligated to write in a BLP, perhaps because your own experience as a writer of prose is limited, and your focus as a biotech is of primary concern as evidenced by the emphasis you've given to PSCI in this BLP. I find it rather disruptive considering we are supposed to be writing about a person's life, not your opinions on laetrile or whether or not you agree in principal with this author's writings. I do hope an admin will take notice because this type of behavior goes beyond the pale. Atsme☯ 14:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Atsme - 1) I am writing on a public board where everyone can see. 2) I wrote: "I would likely ask involved editors if that would be OK, and then ask him." 3) I wrote: I "should have done it more intentionally and gotten agreement from editors at the page on a closer, and then asked someone. " 4) I don't believe for an instant that I could "pick my own closer". My point was that the selection of closer should have been intentional and not random. And of course, by agreement of everybody who cares. For folks reading here, the kind of reaction I just got, is why i will not be surprised if this ends up at AE. Jytdog (talk) 18:12, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• "choose your own closer": exactly, that's one reason I'm not comfortable closing here. (Lack of experience is another.) But thanks, Jytdog, that was kind of you. - Dank (push to talk) 15:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

thanks Dank - my intention was (and is, if we get there) that the closer would be acceptable to everybody.Jytdog (talk) 18:13, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Sure, I didn't mean you were trying to choose your own closer, I meant that I'm not comfortable closing on request because it raises eyebrows. - Dank (push to talk) 19:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support close. It is my understanding that the main issue is close review is whether the closer used reasonable judgment and whether another closer can understand why they closed it the way that they did. I concur with the close. Having not reviewed the RFC results in as much detail as I would if I were closing, I don't see anything wrong with the close. However, I am puzzled. What exactly is the original poster, User:Jytdog, saying is wrong with the close? It appears that he was asking for certain qualities for the closer or conditions on the close. The RFC had been open for 30 days, so that any experienced editor could have closed it, with or without a special request by an editor. Maybe I have completely misread the policies, but I don't see a policy that permits one editor to impose conditions on the close. It looks to me like a reasonable close in terms of deciding not to use the 'loaded' phrase "conspiracy theorist" in the first sentence in Misplaced Pages's voice. I support the close based on what I have seen, but I don't understand the argument by the OP. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

"so that any experienced editor could have closed it . . ." I think that may have been the key point. Nyttend didn't appear to be experienced in policies relating to fringe topics, and didn't appear to consider the comments from those addressing the fringe aspect in the RfC because of that. I'm not sure what others think, but if the opposite happened where a closer was not even aware of BLP policy and only summarized from the fringe perspective instead, I'm pretty sure that would be open to review too due to lack of basic understanding needed for the topic. Seems like a review is exactly what's needed when a closer unknowingly bites off more than they thought they were handling. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:15, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Robert McClenon thank you for asking for clarification. My problem is with the reasoning presented in the close, which is going to be cited in the rest of the DR process, and the implementing edit. The RfC question limits itself to the first sentence and specifically calls for consideration of BLP and PSCI. If you read the survey and discussion, there was robust discussion on the "no" and "yes" sides, with policy-based arguments, well-stated on both sides. And the counted !votes actually favor "yes" (keep "conspiracy theorist" in the lead). And if you step back a bit more and look at the talk page discussion, as a wise closer would do, you would see that there is some fierce discussion going on with respect to the tension between BLP and PSCI - we've already been to BLPN, RSN, and the fringe noticeboard. What was needed, was a close, that actually listened to what the community said and dealt with the policy issues that were raised, and was thoughtful. (remember, this is a BLP article of a guy who makes his living writing books and making movies pushing FRINGE ideas... and if you look at the Talk page discussion, we have believers in his ideas participating. and it is a BLP. Lots going on. ) If you read the close first and go look at the RfC, you would think it was SNOW. It was far from that. As I said, I found the arguments presented by responders, based on UNDUE, to take "Conspiracy theorist" out of the first sentence to be persuasive. I am OK with the surface of the close, to take it out. But the reasoning presented in the close is very thin, and doesn't reflect the discussion at all, nor does it mention PSCI. And based on discussions with the closer it has become clear to me that these are the ideas that he came in with. He found an echo in some of the comments (a minority of them) and went with that. He didn't actually close the RfC - he just made a SuperVote. And his implementing edit went way too far and rewrote the whole lead. Those are my objections. I hope that is clear. I am sorry if it was too long. Jytdog (talk) 19:52, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• I want to say two things based upon the subsequent comments here. First, I think it is incorrect to accuse Jytdog of forum-shopping, because it is well within Misplaced Pages norms to ask for a review of contested closes. (After all, that's why we have DRV for deletion decisions.) Second, I think it is necessary, not optional, for Nyttend to comment here, and tell us whatever he might think about the ways that he used administrative tools. I raised some significant issues there, and I see nothing subsequently to make me change my mind about those concerns. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:58, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• Added comment – The RFC was opened while another thread about the lede was ongoing. That thread was addressing the lede in a broader sense and we seemed to have agreement that describing Griffin as a conspiracy theorist somewhere in the lede was appropriate. What Jytdog's RFC did was to open another thread that produced the same arguments from the same people. And while the RFC was on-going, Atsme opened a thread that was broader in scope, but still concerning the same issues (NPOV & UNDUE). And now we have a fourth (or is it fourteenth?) thread here where the same old stuff gets argued. Nyttend's closing (and edit) had the immense virtue of great virtue of establishing a consensus version for the lede as a whole. With the present version (provided by Nyttend) in place, editors are proposing and discussing a re-write that will use either "conspiracy theory" and/or "conspiracy theorist" in the lede. WP:CCC is in play at the bottom of the article talk page. With this in mind, reviewing admins of this request should simply close the request without action and advise editors to strive on elsewhere. – S. Rich (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

How can it be true that Nyttend's edit "established a consensus version" and also true that a consensus contrary to Nyttend's edit had developed elsewhere and also true that editors are now working on an agreement about how to undo the controversial part of the edit? That does make it sound like an edit that was against consensus which has caused editors unnecessary work. Formerip (talk) 16:39, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support close as no arguments indicate that the close was improper, which is the sole criterion here. Collect (talk) 16:35, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
• Comment. To clarify my earlier response, I support the close as a plausible interpretation of the arguments (although it gives inadequate (apparently no) weight to WP:PSCI), but note that the closer's edit was contrary to the close in that there is consensus that it should be noted he is a conspiracy theorist in, at least, the first paragraph, and unanimity that it should be prominently noted in the lead that he supports conspiracy theories, if not that that he is a conspiracy theorist. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment This Noticeboard is not the place to relitigate the issues raised in the RfC. OP has not demanded that the close be set aside, only that there is sufficient, policy-based concern to be uneasy about its conclusion. Where there is good faith, reasoned concern about a close, a review by a second Admin is warranted. The matter can be put to rest, one way or the other, so that editors can work on improving other parts of the article. There will be no harm done if a thoughtful review affirms the original close. Whatever the outcome, all editors will have increased confidence that the result is robust and stable. SPECIFICO talk 18:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
• Close. Consensus is clear, there is nothing left to fix. Guy (Help!) 22:45, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Guy I have not requested a review of a close before and i have no sense of where we are. can you spell out your comment for me a bit? (are you actually closing or are suggesting a close? what consensus is clear to you?) Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 23:23, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

If Guy was closing this discussion s/he would have used {{archive top}} and given a rationale. – S. Rich (talk) 15:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Edit exceeding the scope of the RfC

The issue that isn't being addressed properly here is the way the edit by Nyttend went beyond the question posed by the RfC re the first sentence. Link to the RfC question: -- and here's the portion of the edit Nyttend made that exceeded the scope of the RfC: . Closing an RfC is a matter of determining the consensus of the community; there can't be a consensus for an answer to a question that wasn't asked. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I also want to note here, the editors working on the page agreed during full PP to make an edit request to the infobox, that Griffin is "Known for: Conspiracy theories". That discussion is here and you can see it the infobox here G. Edward Griffin. Nyttends' edit removing "conspiracy theory" from the lead altogether not only went beyond the scope of the RfC but went against the consensus that we had established. Jytdog (talk) 13:29, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I am glad that Nomoskedasticity opened this distinct subthread, because the narrow focus by some editors above, on the close itself, was resulting in not seeing the forest – the ways in which administrative tools were used to go beyond the close itself, in ways that went against policy – for the trees. As I said above, those administrative actions reflected significant misunderstanding of policies, including NPOV and BLP, as well as misunderstanding the scope of the RfC discussion, and made improper use of editing through full protection. I am disappointed that Nyttend has not commented here, nor acknowledged that some of us have raised these concerns. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:28, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Nomoskedasticity: So what? Look at it this way – the RFC was closed with a determination that CT should not be used in the first sentence. So it was properly removed. (You can't argue with that change.) And then Nyttend makes 2 more changes in the next sentences. But those two additional changes are based on the same determination that using CT in the lede was improper because the "derogatory characterization" is a "fundamental non-compliance with maintaining a neutral point of view." What do you want this AN to do? Give Nyttend a scolding? (The task of a closer, let alone an admin, is tough enough. And very few appreciate those roles.) Or do you want the AN to say CT should be used in the subsequent sentences? If that is your solution, then it contradicts the RFC determination. (This solution is not going to happen.) In any event editors are now working on a new version of the lede on the talk page. Join in. You will see that CT is (now) used in the first paragraph via a quote from Sean Easter. – S. Rich (talk) 15:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

S. Rich, I get it that you agreed with the close, and I've already said that I do not have a problem with the close itself, but I could not possibly disagree with you more about the supposed power of administrators to go beyond what was in the close itself. There were serious mistakes here, and there needs to be some reassurance that they are not going to happen again. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:48, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

No need to say "supposed power of admins". Any non-involved experienced editor could have closed the RFC. (And "supposed" has a rather derogatory tone about it.) As Misplaced Pages is a project where anyone can edit, nothing prohibits a closer from editing an article. Before anyone is going to formally admonish Nyttend for those other two edits, you got to convince the admin community that Nyttend's determination regarding NPOV was incorrect. I don't think that is going to happen. – S. Rich (talk) 16:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Not so. I stand by what I said. Unless anyone thinks that we need to delete Kim Jong-un#Human rights violations and about half the content of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Srich, there is no uncertainty about what is being asked here. OP is asking for a second Admin to review the closing. It's not helpful to suggest that anybody here wishes to "give Nyttend as scolding." That's a straw man, it's not constructive and it's arguably a personal attack which insinuates other editor(s) come here with an inappropriate motive. SPECIFICO talk 16:46, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Two objections were made above when this AN was opened. One was about the close and the other was the edit. This subthread is about the edit. As to both objections, nothing is going to change. WP:Closing_discussions#Challenging_other_closures may be of some help: basically the close will stand. The edit itself is simply part of the process we follow when improving articles. Contributors would better spend their time thinking about how to improve the article (and contribute on the talk page) because this AN is a dead horse. – S. Rich (talk) 17:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Srich, that reply was neither helpful nor responsive. I suggest you drop the stick. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 17:40, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I actually found his reply helpful and informative, and agree that we should be spending more time writing prose and less time poking sticks. But wait, there's only two editors who are actually writing prose. Hmmm...this may require further review. Atsme☯ 15:35, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

The issue about the edit goes to Question 4 asked by Arthur Rubin which inexperienced editors here have not understood. If the additional edits to the lead were an "administrative action" then for another admin to revert them would be WP:WHEELWARRING which admins stay away from since they can be sanctioned for that - it takes a discussion like this one to overturn them. If the edits were just part of a close, another admin can overturn them. The other piece of it, is whether the edits outside the first sentence were based on the RfC or not and were essentially an admin making a SuperVote on the RfC, which admins are not supposed to do. These are serious and subtle questions and are what AN is for. There is no doubt that Nyttend's restoration of his edits through protection was an admin action, as that is something only admins have the ability to do. Separate questions have been raised about that, but the full resolution depends on the status of the initial implementing edits beyond the first sentence. Jytdog (talk) 15:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Multiple questions

There are multiple questions that should be resolved somewhere. Only the first one is really being discussed here. (If someone wants to respond to individual questions, please do so. I've signed each of my comments individually.)

1. Was the close, stating that "conspiracy theorist" should not be in the first sentence, correct.

   In my opinion, it was the wrong choice, both as a matter of guidelines and as a matter of consenus, but plausible, so it should probably stand. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   Closes which are within reason should not be overturned. Collect (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   I think the close was necessarily subjective, but specifically with respect to the first sentence, it was a reasonable conclusion. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   i think it was a reasonable conclusion, given for the wrong reasons. Jytdog (talk) 06:36, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   Yes, his actions are supported by policy. Atsme☯ 15:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   Absolutely correct. No other way to see this. Wasting too much time on this.--Pekay2 (talk) 01:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

2. Was there consensus as to whether "conspiracy theorist" should be included in the first paragraph.

   I think there was consensus, in favor, that the fact that he is known for conspiracy theories should be in the first paragraph. There certainly wasn't consensus against. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   No clear consensus - but I tend to think positive consensus is required for inclusion of what was clearly viewed as a contentious term. Collect (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   In the discussion, several editors said explicitly that they were drawing a distinction between the first sentence and the lead as a whole, and there was no clear consensus either way about the rest of the page, outside of the first sentence. Several participating editors said that there were issues of due weight with respect to the first sentence specifically, which sets the first sentence off, relative to the rest of the page. Therefore, for a closer (whether an administrator or not) to determine that the phrase should be deleted elsewhere on the page, either there had to be a policy basis for doing so, or it would be a super-vote. Administrators making such closes are expected, even required, to understand applicable policies correctly. As I have explained above, this close reflected a serious lack of understanding of policies, and of previous ArbCom decisions. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   no. There were 9 "no" !votes, and 13 "yes" ! votes and 1 "neutral" !vote (which was neutral on the first sentence and "hell yes" for somewhere in the lead). Of all those, only two (arthur rubin, alexbrn) specifically discussed the lead. and I'll add that three of the "no" !votes (DocumentError and Carrite and JonRichfield seemed to me, to be saying "no" to the narrow question of "conspiracy theorist" in the first sentence only but were fine using things like "promotes conspiracy theories" outside the first sentence. That makes it 17 to 6 !votes in favor of saying something like "he promotes conspiracy theories" which is overwhelming. the implementing edit not only removed "conspiracy theorist" from the first sentence but all reference to "conspiracy theories" from the lead. That did not reflect the discussion. Jytdog (talk) 06:36, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   Consensus is not required for the removal of fundamentally noncompliant material, with particular emphasis on BLPs. Atsme☯ 15:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   NPOV is the issue. Concensus is not relevant since it can't change policy in this RfC--Pekay2 (talk) 02:09, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

   NPOV is the issue. It fails NPOV to imply that it is part of a mainstream view that he does not support multiple conspiracy thories. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 11:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

3. Was the decision to remove "conspiracy theorist" from the lead part of the close?

   Clearly not. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   Uncertain- where the closer appears to have felt that a positive consensus is needed for inclusion, then this might well be part of what he viewed as the proper close. Collect (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   It certainly was not part of the RfC question, as it was written, and the RfC discussion appears to have been conducted based on the understanding that it was about the first sentence only. That does not rule out a close that goes further, based on policy, but the basis on policy here was incorrect. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   No. Here is the actual close, so it is fresh. Doesn't mention the first sentence nor even the lead; seems to aim to cover the whole article: "Closing as "no". The opposers demonstrate quite well that this is a derogatory characterisation of the guy, a fundamental non-compliance with maintaining a neutral point of view. Of course, something cited to Griffin's own works, wherein Griffin specifically calls himself a conspiracy theorist, is a valid source for saying "self-described conspiracy theorist"."Jytdog (talk) 06:36, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   Yes. The admin acted properly by removing improperly sourced contentious material that is fundamentally noncompliant with NPOV. The closer followed both WP:Consensus#Administrative or community intervention Sysops will not rule on content, but may intervene to enforce policy (such as WP:BLP) and WP:Closing discussions#How to determine the outcome ...closing admins are expected and required to exercise their judgment to ensure the decision complies with the spirit of Misplaced Pages policy and with the project goal. A good admin will transparently explain how the decision was reached. Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but neither is it determined by the closer's own views about what is the most appropriate policy. The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community, after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, those that show no understanding of the matter of issue. Atsme☯ 15:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   Absolutely yes. The closer was very clear.--Pekay2 (talk) 02:27, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

4. Was the decision to remove "conspiracy theorist" from the lead an administrative action, so that reverting it is a violation of something (probably an ArbCom decision, Arbitration Enforcement)?

   That needs to be established. I would say, not, but it would be problematic to reverse it until a consensus at an administrative noticeboard is reached. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:21, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   That would likely have to be discussed in a new section entirely - if it were intended to be an admin action, then it would absolutely need to be reviewed in a full discussion with positive consensus needed to overturn such an action, and not in this rambling discussion. Collect (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   I am not aware of any ArbCom sanctions or other editing restrictions that would interfere with an uninvolved administrator reviewing what happened and either supporting or reversing any of it. But I see that as becoming moot, in light of subsequent work by editors at the page and the talk page. What I am interested here is some clarification of what was appropriate and what was not appropriate, and an indication from Nyttend that he is interested in learning from this situation and doing better going forward. I'm not interested in seeing anybody get punished, but I am interested in seeing some learning. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   That question is way over my head. Jytdog (talk) 06:36, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   Yes, reverting an admin's action to remove noncompliant contentious material from a BLP was tendentious and disrespectful of the sanctions and RfC closer. Atsme☯ 15:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Atsme that doesn't respond to the question that was asked. The question is whether, specifically, Nyttend's implementing edit should be considered an "administrative action" or something else. Your response doesn't deal with the question of how to classify that edit, nor why it should be classified one way or another. Jytdog (talk) 19:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog you asked Was the decision to remove "conspiracy theorist" from the lead an administrative action and I answered Yes. Nyttend's response on his TP was pretty clear: as was the following excerpt from his explanation on your TP: Let me be clear: the core policy is neutrality, and your words make me think that you're attempting to wikilawyer in order to undermine that core policy and make him look bad. . Considering the WP:Forumshopping it appears you are engaged in now, and the fact that you refuse to WP:DROPTHESTICK, it appears Nyttend has far more insight than you give him credit. Atsme☯ 01:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Is there any other way to see it?--Pekay2 (talk) 02:41, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I expressed no !vote at the RfC. Collect (talk) 22:54, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll note that neither did I. I only became aware of it after the close, because I watch Jytdog's talk page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• I'd like to add some things. First, I request that Nyttend comment here. Second, I have one additional question:

1. What are the limits to administrators editing a page through full protection, and was Nyttend's edit within those limits?

   I think that editing a page when the rest of us cannot do it is a very serious action to take, and is easily abused. The only time that an administrator should do so is when policy requires it (for example, to remove a BLP violation). Otherwise, stay off a high horse, and make an edit request on the talk page like the rest of us. Full protection is intended to prevent edit warring and disruptive edits, and not to preserve anyone's preferred version of a page. Here, it is complicated because Nyttend appeared to believe that policy required his edit, but he was wrong about that. I think there is a serious need for a consensus that editing through full protection is not something to be done carelessly. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

   Where an admin has made a determination that a claim of fact made in Misplaced Pages's voice is something where policy dictates that it ought be made only as an opinion of others, then it is proper for him or her to remove such a claim made in Misplaced Pages's voice, which should be reserved only for statements of fact, as an administrative action per the ArbCom BLP decisions. If such is the case, that admin should state it here before this gets too far afield from that issue as BLP requirements are not overridden by local consensus. Collect (talk) 13:14, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   I looked back at the ArbCom BLP case, and I didn't see anything in the final decision about Misplaced Pages's voice versus attribution to a source. Where does it say that? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:06, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   WP:NPOV Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Misplaced Pages's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil."

   WP:NPOV/FAQ When a statement is an opinion (e.g. a matter which is subject to serious dispute or commonly considered to be subjective), it should be attributed in the text to the person or group who holds the opinion

   And in many many discussions. Collect (talk) 22:34, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

   Agreed and understood. It just wasn't in the ArbCom BLP decision, and the ArbCom Pseudoscience decision indicates that obvious or generally recognized pseudoscience can be identified as such in Misplaced Pages's voice, rather than presenting it as a matter of a source's opinion. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:08, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

   Perhaps JzG can also respond to this question. I respect Nyttend's decision as an admin which I've already stated above with inline text attribution validating his adherence to policy. Atsme☯ 15:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm continuing to see editors saying that administrators should do the kinds of things that Nyttend did because that's what policy requires, mainly the BLP policy. I feel bad about repeating myself, but I feel a need to repeat what I said earlier:

• At Jytdog's talk page, Nyttend said: "We need to write this guy's article in a way that will be agreed on by his supporters and his opponents". There is nothing in NPOV or BLP that would give BLP subjects and their supporters that kind of veto power over content. If there were, then we would have to delete Kim Jong-un#Human rights violations and about half the content of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Whereas it is reasonable to take the "conspiracy theorist" label out of the lead sentence, it does not follow that it has to be taken out of the entire page.
• The longstanding consensus reached at the ArbCom Pseudoscience case says that obvious or generously recognized pseudoscience can and should be identified as such on our pages. And Jytdog is correct to cite WP:BLPFRINGE (to which I might add WP:VALID). (This is a conspiracy theory about pseudoscience, so please no wikilawyering about the RfC not having been about pseudoscience.)

Look, I get it, about the importance of BLP. But it is a misreading of BLP to say that anything negative about a person must be deleted. What Nyttend edited through full protection to remove was not something that BLP requires to be removed, and I'm basing that on a decision by ArbCom. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment – It seems some editors want the RFC to go both ways. One, they say the RFC was strictly confined to the first sentence; but, two, they argue that consensus was for inclusion of conspiracy theory/ist somewhere in the lede. They are willing to accept the determination as to One (first sentence), in which case this AN is unneeded. But the Information page WP:CLOSECHALLENGE says "Most closure reviews need to be based on context or information left out of the discussion, or new information that would have altered the discussion outcome were it held now." And "Closures will rarely be changed by either the closing editor or a closure review: if the poll was close or even favored an outcome opposite the closure, if it was made on the basis of policy. Policies and guidelines are usually followed in the absence of a compelling reason otherwise, or an overwhelming consensus otherwise, and can only be changed by amending the policy itself." With this in mind, where is there context or information left out of the discussion or new information? Where is there a compelling reason? Where is the overwhelming consensus? The answer to these questions is negative because much of the discussion in this AN is a re-litigation of the CT question and not worthwhile. Moreover, didn't Nyttend make the determination on NPOV? (One more thing, why are editors giving Nyttend grief by asking Nyttend to comment here and implying that Admin misbehavior is at issue?) – S. Rich (talk) 20:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

S. Rich, you are framing what others of us have said, as things that we did not say. I don't think that anyone said that there was consensus for removing the phrase from the first sentence and for keeping it elsewhere. What I, for one, have been saying is that there was consensus for removing it from the lead and no consensus either way about removing it or keeping it elsewhere, and that administrative tools were used heavy-handedly to go beyond what the RfC (in which I did not participate) had determined, in ways that are actually contrary to policy and an ArbCom decision. It is perfectly reasonable to discuss those problems at AN. I am not asking that Nyttend be punished or sanctioned, and it is unhelpful to imply that anyone is asking for that. It is perfectly appropriate to ask that administrators respond to concerns about their actions, and cause for concern when they do not respond. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Enough with the questions already. Nyttend closed this, and other Admins are ignoring this 'go nowhere' conversation. Wrap it up and move on.--Pekay2 (talk) 03:33, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate to close this discussion, unless it is to ignore Nyttend's closing edit. If Nyttend refuses to comment on his reasoning, it must be assumed that anything he did not explain with reference to policy, including his closing edit, is not part of his close. Discussion on the article talk page cannot go anywhere unless it is determined exactly what is required by the close. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 11:34, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

status update

As this thread lingers, editors on both sides of the issues in the article have gotten antsy and have started to aggressively edit the article and edit war. Probably close to page protection again (that would be the third time). I have decided to step away from the article as the editors there are dragging themselves to AE. It would be very helpful to the folks still working on the article if this thread could get attention and resolution. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 06:06, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I hope you included yourself in that accusation of "aggressive" editors. Passive aggressive behavior is equally as disruptive, Jytdog, and your pretense as peacekeeper is disingenuous, especially when you are at the core of the problem. It should not have taken us 2 months to convince you that contentious material in a BLP could not be stated in Wiki voice. You also don't seem to understand the difference in executing bold edits for policy compliance vs what you're falsely trying to portray as antsy and aggressive editing. My attempts to correct the policy violations and expand the article may have been bold, but I have proposed those same changes on the TP for nearly 2 months, but you kept SQS to prevent them. The removal of PP, and the RfC calling out the policy issues gave editors a green light to fix the fundamentally noncompliant policy issues that were pointed out by the RfC, but your "side" reverted the changes. It appears you will do just about anything to prevent Griffin from becoming a GA candidate - like filing that completely false 3RR claim against me. It's shameful behavior. You say you want to avoid ARBCOM but you never change course. I consult you to drop the stick and move away from the carcass as you have already been advised to do by several other editors. Atsme☯ 20:10, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

• Note to admins. I have decided to watch the Griffin article again. I am waiting for a close of this review of the RfC close. Once that is done, I plan to launch a second RfC to ask whether the lead, outside the first sentence, should say something about Griffin being a conspiracy theorist or promoting conspiracy theories. This was what I intended all along but the process has been stalled by the controversial close and the dragging out of the review of the close. Editors at the article have clearly stated views and are not going to convince each other and the discussion there continues to be deadlocked; we need to work DR and keep bringing in the voices of the community to help us resolve issues in a careful, stepwise fashion. Would an admin please review this thread and close it? If that means referral to another venue, please be clear about that; I've not requested a review of an RfC by an admin before. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 14:37, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that Nyttend's edits went well beyond the RFC consensus. Atsme is on a crusade to whitewash the article. Griffin is, as evidence comprehensively on the Talk page, a conspiracy theory advocate. He does not originate them, but he advocates them. To describe them as conspiracy theories does not violate WP:NPOV or WP:BLP. Misplaced Pages is not a hagiography, and Griffin is a well known crank. One who advocates antisemitic conspiracy theories and outright quackery.

This article would be immeasurably improved by the withdrawal of Atsme, who seems unable to accept that conspiracy theories about the Fed and laetrile are, well, conspiracy theories. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Review of non-admin closure at Manual of Style/Icons

Would an uninvolved admin please be so kind as to peruse the discussion at WT:Manual_of_Style/Icons#The previous Formula One "consensus" and an editor's odd interpretation of it and review the Non-admin closure that has precipitated the confusion? The contested change has been made three times and reverted twice and there appears to be confusion as to the breadth of the result of the original consensus and the ambiguity left in the closing statement by the non-admin closer. Thanks. Mojoworker (talk) 16:49, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Paging @Technical 13:. I don't see any issues with the close, personally. Those who are edit warring against the consensus found in the most recent discussion should, as usual, take it to the talk page. HiDrNick! 17:26, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

• HiDrNick, please see User talk:Technical 13/2014/4#Non-neutral non-admin close for my thoughts on it. I'll happily review the new discussions when I have some time, about to head to class for 4 hours. — {{U|Technical 13}} 17:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not criticizing Technical 13 - in fact I haven't participated in this RFC/discussion at all. It's just that some editors are construing the results of the proposal and !vote more/less broadly than others... The original "Formal poll" asked for editors to be "stating an opinion based on policy or guidelines in favour of or opposed to the use of flags to represent a driver's or team's nation in Formula 1 articles". Some editors (and the contested edit to the MOS) are taking the close to apply to areas other than Formula 1. Clarification and rationale would be helpful. If people are happy with Technical 13 making the clarification, that's fine with me – I don't have a dog in this hunt (my peeve is flag icons w/o the name/abbreviation of the nation, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish). I just felt the opinion of an uninvolved admin might shut everyone up so we can all get back to editing. Mojoworker (talk) 00:40, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

• Pinging User:SMcCandlish who contested the close in December at User talk:Technical 13/2014/4#Non-neutral non-admin close. Cunard (talk) 00:58, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I think that the close is over-broad in its interpretation. It appears to make a general statement about sports generally when the discussion was about Forumula One racing in particular, and the conclusion reached actually contradicts years worth of previous consensus discussions. Basically, the F1 editors lobbied very hard to get their way on this, and people who also really, really, really like flag icons are trying to misconstrue the questionable result of that one discussion as an overruling of something like 5 years of previous decisions against festooning articles with cutesy pictures.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  10:23, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the review is closed. (I am adding this because RfC closure reviews frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.) Cunard (talk) 00:58, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Please stop adding these tags and clogging up the page. Allow threads to die a natural death, if that's what they're going to do.. Not everything needs a formal closeure. BMK (talk) 17:18, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

How about we post a comment here everyday until someone responds – that should keep it from getting archived. Seems clear that @Technical 13: has decided not to clarify his close (despite a cordial reminder on his talk page), so the ambiguity remains. I guess there really aren't enough admins to go around. Is it any wonder we're losing editors? I posted this here when a nascent edit war was developing. Wisely, @Jojhutton: reverted only twice. But, if this is archived without clarification from technical 13 or an uninvolved admin, it raises the additional question of what to do about the edit to MOS:ICON – should it be reverted to the status quo ante or left as is? Mojoworker (talk) 21:11, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• I haven't decided to do or not do anything. My ex's 60+ year old father slipped on some ice in a store parking lot last weekend, broke three ribs, punctured a lung, went in for multiple operations to fix it, and has been in ICU half the week. Clarifying my close on a topic on Misplaced Pages has been at the very, very bottom of my todo list. I'll get to it in the next week or two when my mind has a minute to regroup and I apologize if I seem brash or uncaring, but in comparison to what I'm dealing with in RL atm, I really don't care. — {{U|Technical 13}} 21:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

No worries Technical 13. Quite understandable given your circumstances. Sorry if my frustration was leaking through into my post. Sadly, an admin could clear this up forthwith, leaving you to care for your family. Guess there are just too few admins. Or too many lazy ones? At least too few that will do anything that requires a little work. Someone on Dennis Brown's talkpage was talking about redirecting Chicken shit to ANI – I guess AN would be just as appropriate. If we can't come here for assistance, then WTF are we supposed to do? I realize admins are volunteers too, but if y'all aren't gonna do anything, then turn in your bits and let someone else do it. Anyway, take your time Technical 13, my gripe is not with you. Mojoworker (talk) 19:56, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Anyone can run for admin any time they want, you know Mojoworker, there's no need for anyone to resign and open up a vacancy ;-) Squinge (talk) 12:25, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Block review of User:Russian editor1996

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

• Russian editor1996 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Please read the ARCA request that I have linked. At the linked page, the request that I'm referring to is in the section "Clarification request: Eastern Europe". Now that the application of DS was rightfully overturned by motion of ArbCom, I'd like to request that Russian editor1996 (talk · contribs) be unblocked. I've explained my reasons in that ARCA request. As far as I can see, no behaviour by this editor warranted an indefinite block. Given that it is already known that the administrator that imposed it did so out-of-process as a discretionary sanction, I believe that there is no reason to allow this unjust block to stand. RGloucester — ☎ 05:35, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock The fact that the black was procedurally incorrect as a DS block -- because the editor had not received a prior DS warning -- does not mean that it was unjustified as a normal admin block, which it has been converted to. The behavior noted was still the same behavior, and there's been no evidence of that not being the case, so the block should stand as is. (In any case, has Russian editor1996 requested an unblock? What standing do you have to make this request?) BMK (talk) 05:51, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

What behaviour "noted"? No evidence of behavioural misconduct was ever provided, which is why I pursued the ARCA motion in the first place. The issuing administrator has provided no diffs or anything. Please look at the editor in question's edit history. The only justification for a block that was provided by the issuing administrator was "arbitration enforcement", which obviously doesn't apply. I don't play legal games with "standing", whatever that is. The fact remains that this is an illegitimate block. It must be overturned. RGloucester — ☎ 06:21, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

We don't do block reviews requested by third parties. The user in question hasn't requested an unblock himself; if and when he does, it will be considered. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:49, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Just out of interest, is there anything in policy anywhere that says a third party cannot request a review of a block they think is unjust? Squinge (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Just to be clear RGloucester (who was recently blocked for outlandish behavior at ANI) himself stated that " was nothing but disruptive". Seems strange to me that anyone would ask for someone who they considered to be nothing but disruptive to be unblocked... just saying. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 14:52, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

He will not ask for an unblock because he has no history of talk page use, or of even understanding what a talk page is. In other words, an editor has been removed from the project with no justification. I've explained my use of the word "disruptive", and explained that that did not warrant any kind of block. Coffee has still yet to provide a single diff supporting his indefinite block. I'd ask him to try and do that, so that others can comprehend the thought process that went on inside his mind at the time. Coffee, of course, likes to portray himself in a good light. In a better world, he would've blocked for what he did, so he doesn't have much room to talk. RGloucester — ☎ 15:32, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

He has two choices: learn what a talk page is (which is not optional if you want to contribute in contentious areas), or stay blocked. Do feel free to coach him on talk page use and thus achieve the result you prefer. Guy (Help!) 16:34, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't "prefer" any result. Indefinite blocks are a serious matter, and are not usually given out lightly. We have every obligation to assist this user, who has been gravely wronged. RGloucester — ☎ 19:19, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

They very much are very serious and are the driving force of people leaving the project. Future Perfect is also wrong that we don't do block reviews by third parties. They also provide no policy or guideline relating to this. This is an admin noticeboard where you can request assistance by other administrators and other experienced editors. If a bad block happens, you should be able to report it here and have it reviewed. That's also what the template says. Issues appropriate for this page could include: General announcements, discussion of administration methods, ban proposals, block reviews, and backlog notices. This is a block with seemingly no evidence behind it, and by that motion, it should be lifted. Tutelary (talk) 19:56, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Normally, it is undesirable to have block reviews requested by third parties. Only the person blocked can make any assurances about their future behavior. But this is a case where we have no idea why the block was issued. The block could have been a mistake. The block is not a tragedy, it is just unmotivated. My own review of 11 February did not reveal any bad edits. Unless User:Coffee can point to one or more specific diffs that were disruptive, I argue that the block should be lifted. EdJohnston (talk) 22:34, 22 February 2015 (UTC) Remove part of my comment since Coffee has provided the rationale for the block. EdJohnston (talk) 19:10, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• He was blocked for creating unsourced articles about the UKR/RUS crisis... among a long term editing pattern of edits which were not conducive to editing in a contentious area - due to NPOV and other concerns ( etc). As you'll notice he wasn't unblocked by ArbCom, the block was merely changed from a DS sanction to a regular block since he hadn't received a DS notice. Once again I'm very confused as to why RGloucester is advocating for someone with a disruptive editing pattern (someone he even reverted and warned for similar behaviour himself). — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 22:57, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

It is very simple, Coffee. None of those edits ideal, but they are simply not grounds for an indefinite block. We all make non-ideal edits from time-to-time, but that doesn't mean we all get blocked indefinitely. Such blocks are only issued when a user is either WP:NOTHERE or extremely disruptive. This editor was neither. He made some genuine content contributions, and "creating unsourced articles" is not grounds for a block. In many cases, too, he reverted his own inappropriate changes, showing some level of self-awareness. Nothing about this editor struck me as malicious. To be frank, blocking this editor indefinitely is completely out of proportion. Users who are much more disruptive on a regular basis do not get blocked for 24 hours, let alone indefinitely. It is a double standard. As I said on my talk page earlier, it is easy to target this editor as no one cares what happens to him. It is very easy, however, for such slippages to spill over. You need to understand that blocks must be issued in proportion to the disruption. In this case, the disruption was essentially negligible on a real scale. We must maintain the principles of our system for curtailing disruption, otherwise it will be compromised. RGloucester — ☎ 00:58, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not the remit of Arbcom to undo blocks by our admins. We need to analyze it ourselves. Here's what I found out:

• The first diff (this one): the user immediately self-reverted when he saw that he had broken the template.
• The second diff (this one) is from September 2014
• The third diff (this one) he attempts (in an incorrect way) to re-name the template from diff 1. This edit was immediately reverted by RGloucester.
• The fourth diff (this one) is from July 2014.
• The fifth diff (Diff of Germany) while silly and POV, dates to July 2014.
• The sixth diff (Diff of Right Sector) is from March 2014.
• There's no posts on the user's talk page from July 2014 until the block notice was posted. He received no information that his edits were inappropriate or the articles he created were being deleted; no warnings or communication whatsoever prior to the indef-block. Four of the diffs posted by Coffee are from last year. Only two of the three deleted articles were actually unsourced. I don't see any noticeboard discussions about the person's editing. I think it was a bad block. -- Diannaa (talk) 00:53, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support an unblock I fully concur with the reasoning of User:Dianna and User:RGloucester here. Much of the issues appear stale, There is evidence of self-awareness, there appear to be procedural irregularities in terms of informing the editor of problematic issues, and an indefinite block here appears to be major overkill. Give the editor a break basically. The unknown are easy targets, and I find it heartening that a 3rd party is advocating. Let the editor develop if he or she so wishes. Mentoring and attempting to reach out, not indef blocks for marginal stuff. Bad block. Irondome (talk) 01:25, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock discussion on a user that has not requested an unblock. Chillum 01:33, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Are you telling me that we have a system whereby groundless blocks can be maintained merely because the subaltern does not speak? Do you wonder why he doesn't speak? Perhaps that's the reason, though: he knows no one will listen to him anyway. I feel like that's an absurd reason, at least in cases like this, to oppose removing a block that was clearly applied inappropriately. RGloucester — ☎ 01:38, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I will thank you not to put words into my mouth. I am saying that the block was not groundless, disruption has been described. I am saying we have no indication this user will not be disruptive if unblocked or that they are even around anymore. This discussion is moot until the user expresses a desire to be unblocked. Chillum 02:08, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• Then I would suggest a time limit of a week. If there is no meaningful response from User:Russian editor1996 by that time, we abandon these attempts. It is very likely the editor has been frightened away, or feels there is no point, or does not know the procedure for appeals. I would suggest explaining the situation on the editors talk page in more detail, with an advisory on how to appeal. If no response by next monday, let it go. Irondome (talk) 02:17, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• Giving specific information to the editor in greater detail on his or her talk page is an excellent idea. BMK (talk) 03:12, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• I've added some information to the editor's talk page. If I've missed anything, please feel free.. BMK (talk) 03:25, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Added a few words on ed T/P. More informal, but hey, what harm eh? I said WP is not "unkind". I really like to think that. Anyway..Irondome (talk) 03:41, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

(ec) I think it's moot that the user has not requested an unblock, as Arbcom advised that "the block may be modified by any uninvolved administrator". I think we should unblock irregardless -- Diannaa (talk) 01:40, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

But that is the case with any block, that any uninvolved admin can alter or undo it (although consulting with the blocking admin is usually considered to be good form, I believe), but blocks aren't generally undone without a request from the blocked editor, and then the explanation of the editor is taken into account when deciding whether to block and unblock -- as EdJohnston said above, only the editor himself can vouch for their future behavior. If the purpose of ArbCom was to convert this block from one made under DS to a standard run-of-the-mill block, why are extraordinary steps being taken when the blocked editor has not requested an unblock and has provided no explanation of the behavior? It's very rare that I've seen that happen, if ever. BMK (talk) 02:00, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Again, what is the "behaviour"? The block notice provided no citation of any particular "behaviour". RGloucester — ☎ 02:29, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support unblock - looks like biting a relatively new user who was acting in good faith and did not committed any disruptions deserving a permablock. If he will continue disruptions it is quite easy to hit the block button again. I would request him to change the name as the present one is quite silly Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:37, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Note: While interesting, because this discussion could possibly affect future situations, I think that Re1996 will simply make a new account or possibly already has. Not much is at stake for the editor in question, although I do believe that the issue raised is still relevant for the rest of us.  Mr.choppers | ✎  03:37, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• Well, while it may work it is a wrong way to unblock a person (just look the other way when he or she creates a new account) Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:37, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support unblock as I don't see anything in his edits (or deleted edits) that merited a block, especially nothing that merited a block out of the blue with no warning. Davewild (talk) 07:35, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support unblock. Two admins have claimed that we should not consider unblocking users unless they request it themselves, but neither has offered any policy link to support that - I have asked, but I got no reply. And it seems an absurd position to take anyway - it's like saying a convicted criminal can't be set free even if the conviction is faulty, simply because he hasn't actually asked for it himself. Of course the community should be able to question a block and of course the community should be able to overturn it if it's thought to be bad, and admins are supposed to listen to feedback and constructive criticism from the community. And this is clearly a bad block in my opinion - there were problematic edits but they were really not all that bad, and no attempt at communication or trying to help this person at all before the indef block. Squinge (talk) 09:48, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

  PS: I agree with User:EdJohnston who says "Only the person blocked can make any assurances about their future behavior", and that makes perfect sense if there was genuinely sufficient bad behaviour to justify a block in the first place. But common sense says that if the community doesn't believe a block was justified in the first place, then the user should not have to make any assurances (just like those of us who have not been blocked don't). Squinge (talk) 09:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock unless and until the user shows ability to engage on Talk pages. The evidence of disruption is clear, and in the absence of actual commentary from the user we have only past behaviour on which to judge the likelihood of disruption continuing. The track record of disruptive editors who do not engage on Talk is poor. Guy (Help!) 16:48, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
• Weak support unblock I agree with Diannaa et al that the evidence of recent harmful behaviour justyfing the original indef block is minimal. But I only weekly support an unblock because I agree with Guy that it's concerning if an editor doesn't know how to use talk pages, it suggests they may not be suitable for wikipedia. On the other hand, I'm not sure they have yet had a major need to use talk pages. The only thing really would be to appeal their block. But I'm not sure whether not using a talk page here is because they can't figure out how, or because they don't want to. I have some sympathies for someone who feels they were unfairly blocked, and can understand how they may not want to bother. And it does seem there's only been limited attempt to engage them in discussion until recently. P.S. I'm not an admin so can't see the deleted stuff. Nil Einne (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock - Unblocking someone with clear POV editing issues in a highly contentious area, who also apparently doesn't know how to communicate via talk pages, is simply not a smart idea. It's not like we're losing someone who was clearly here to help build an unbiased encyclopedia. - This editor still has not posted an unblock request, might I add. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 12:11, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

We know that you "oppose", Coffee. Thanks for letting us know. You still have not demonstrated what this user did to warrant an indefinite block at the time that he was blocked. Is there a reason that you are evading accountability? RGloucester — ☎ 18:11, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Well clearly it's because I've gone WP:ROUGE! — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 19:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

You are trying to suppress The Truth™ so clearly until you personally unblock this editor, Misplaced Pages will have irredeemably failed. Guy (Help!) 23:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

There is no need to be snarky, JzG. You'll note that the editor in question reverted that addition himself. Please be kinder to the peasantry. RGloucester — ☎ 02:48, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Or you could try being less kind tot he POV-warriors. Guy (Help!) 07:49, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

"peasantry"? When did this become 16th century England? — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 13:50, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Less 15th century, more 18th century. We certainly have a bourgeoise, a petty-bourgeoisie, a peasantry, an aristocracy. I reckon I'm petty-bourgeois, myself. Regardless, please be kinder to the peasantry. RGloucester — ☎ 14:36, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

We certainly have nothing of the sort. Now you're just sounding ridiculous, not that you weren't before when you were advocating for a clear POV warrior. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 16:19, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

We certainly do, Coffee. Societies are always arranged in classes, whether one likes it or not. That's just the way it is. I'd say that the system here is quite 18th century in function. The bourgeoisie has a bit of power, but has not supplanted the aristocracy. The peasants do the basic tilling, preparations, and maintenance, the bourgeoisie craft the goods, the aristocrats govern and mange the system. It is all very simple, really. RGloucester — ☎ 18:00, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

This is silly. You people are debating the blocked status of an unused account. The account was unused for 10 days when this was posted and there is still no activity. If you are worried about the user then put a note on their talk page telling them what to cover in their unblock request, put a link to this discussion on their talk page also. If they show up and do that then it will be given consideration, until then it is moot.

There were POV issues, there was disruption. Until the user communicates an understanding of our policies it would be reckless to unblock. Until we hear from the user discussion of unblock is just filling space. Chillum 16:29, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Where was there "disruption", Chillum? This was an indefinite block, not a twenty-hour block or a forty-eight hour block. What warranted an indefinite block? The problem is not that of the user himself, but that of the flippant administrative action. RGloucester — ☎ 18:00, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

History-merging

• Who except me does any history-merging? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I do the occasional hist-merge, but I don't patrol any hist-merge related maintenance venue. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 23:39, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Why, Anthony Appleyard? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:01, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• I was wondering who will do the history-merging if I have go to into hospital for a while, or whatever. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:15, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

The best advice I can give you is not to worry about such things. Take care of yourself in priority over some online encyclopedia project. Your help is invaluable and others are probably not clerking specifically because you do such a good job at it. If you were to become unavailable, someone else will no doubt eventually come along and carry pick-up the torch. That is the beauty of a community project - nobody is truly irreplaceable, no single person can, by their absence, jeopardize the continuation of Misplaced Pages. :) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 06:22, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I've actually been doing category history merging (see my recent page undeletions). And while only admins are capable of actually doing a history merge, anyone else who happens to be reading this can always tag the target with a {{histmerge}} tag.עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:37, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

This is a bit of a tangent: Who here has tried to do history merging, and given up or stopped doing it? Is it difficult, and could it be made easier to do with better tools, simpler interfaces, automated sanity checks, etc.? My general rule of thumb is that if the English Misplaced Pages finds it hard to get a task done, then smaller projects will find it impossible. I'd be happy to file any suggestions in Phabricator: if someone wants to {{ping}} me with their ideas. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:15, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Though I don't do much histmerging, when I've needed to Special:MergeHistory has been fairly straightforward, much more so than deleting/restoring seems like it was. Sam Walton (talk) 23:25, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I've had to histmerge/histsplit/histfix various pages are various times, and while it is by no means a simple process, once you understand how the system works with deleted-vs.-live revisions and "moving" a page, it becomes very doable and with minimal trouble. The most recent non-trivial histsplit I remember doing was with Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive268#Page move cleanup. We histmerge all the time at SPI but these are trivial ones (move a page over an existing one by deleting it then undeleting the previously existing revisions). I've never used Special:MergeHistory, because I am not 100% sure of how it functions, and I trust my own manual work more than what this tool may be able to provide. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:39, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Ditto that. Special:MergeHistory is woefully underdocumented. History splitting and merging with your delete button is easy and straightforward; the only part that's even remotely tricky is making sure not to accidentally include revisions from overlapping time periods. —Cryptic 00:42, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

I protected Bosnia and Herzegovina earlier due to two editors warring over it, here. Of course I protected the wrong version. However, I did fix a problem with the reference here. But I'm told the reference isn't valid, see User talk:Sevvyan#February 2015. I'm not going to try and judge if the reference is reliable or not. Also they have posted a request at Misplaced Pages:Requests for page protection#Current requests for edits to a protected page but they seem to be asking for a reduction in the protection. If someone has the time could they take a look at the request on RFPP page. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 03:55, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: I thought that deleting obviously frivolous websites (see it in Google Translator) needed no discussion/consensus when those are being used as the only source. My request basically was/is to revert to the long-time reference (to CIA World Factbook), or lower the protection to semi since much of the vandalism was by IP editors. Important: this is about a country article, its Infobox to be precise. Sevvyan (talk) 05:53, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

This seems uncontroversial, the CIA World Factbook is clearly a more reliable source, so I have made this change. For anything else please use {{editprotected}} on Talk. Guy (Help!) 07:48, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Can you please add these two uncontroversial Infobox items too (both ref to CIA) that I was trying to add in order to complete the Infobox, when the article got protected:

|official_languages = Bosnian (official), Croatian (official), Serbian (official)<ref name='CIA'/>^a

|religion = {{vunblist |40% ] |31% ] |15% ] |14% ] and other}}<ref name='CIA'/>

Thanks again! Sevvyan (talk) 15:48, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Why did you now remove the Inbox's internal reference to the footnote a, instead of entering the above CIA ref stating country's official languages? Sevvyan (talk) 18:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Nominating an article that is protected for edit warring, such as this, for Featured Article, as was just done (ham-handedly) by Sevvyan is a disruptive action, in my opinion. --Gaff (talk) 23:41, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I had no idea it could be seen as disruptive to nominate a country article that's been substantially improved since its last nomination which failed, back ni 2006. Bosnia is a controversial place, the article will probably never cease to be a target of trolls and IP vandals. Should that exclude it from candidacy? I don't think so. Sevvyan (talk) 23:45, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• Hey. I just tentatively lowered the protection to semi in response to a request at RPP so Sevvyan could make his desired corrections. Sorry. I didn't know this discussion was ongoing here. Feel free to reinstate full protection with no objection from me whatsoever, should you deem it necessary. However I did put a warning out there that further edit warring or disruption would result in a longer period of full protection and/or blocks, so it will probably be fine either way. Regards, Swarm 00:55, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I have finished/updated the Infobox (so to make it complete). Can you please raise the level to Fulll again, to allow emotions/everyone to calm down? Thanks. Sevvyan (talk) 14:01, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Why would we honour a request to protect at your preferred version, especially since you just replaced the CIA World Factbook as a source, with doznajemo.com, an online news magazine of no obvious merit? Guy (Help!) 16:05, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

It seems you confuse me for the other party: It was me who actually asked you and others to revert their use of gossip site www.doznajemo.com back to the CIA ref, see here, here and here, and all repeated at the beginning of this very thread. Thanks. Sevvyan (talk) 13:43, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

CFD is backlogged again

Can some admins please help out at WP:CFD? We'ere backlogged again, with 129 discussions awaiting closure - including 3 from November. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:56, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I got a couple of the older ones: who's up next? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:40, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Update: 2 of the 3 November ones have been closed; however, the overall backlog is bigger - 134 now. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:28, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

And now it's 137. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Would there be some way of persuading people not to make such unimportant nominations? There are very few where the result really matters and, when it does matter, it is usually because the nomination should be opposed. Thincat (talk) 18:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Block for user Gavitech

Hi, sorry if it isn't the right place, but it's my first time that I warn about a user on en.wp.

I'm an admin on Italian Misplaced Pages and I blocked Gavitech (talk · contribs) less than an hour ago for promotional editing on it.wp. His edit pattern suggests that he's deeply involved into promotion of companies and personalities connected to those companies.

I noted that his contributions here are exactly about the same articles he edited/wrote on the Italian Misplaced Pages: articles like Waste Italia, Claudio Sforza, Pietro Colucci or Value Partners (management consulting) were speedy deleted on it.wp, Kinexia is under scrutiny right now, and several other edits are too.

I strongly suggest to block indefinitely the user and to put his contributions under scrutiny here too. --Sannita - not just another it.wiki sysop 11:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

@Sannita: If you think that any of this user's articles here are spam, add a {{db-spam}} to the page; this will also help atttracrt local sysops to the issue. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:50, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Afd mess

Sorry guys. Twinkle failed on an Afd for Fairy Loup due to "lost token". Clicking on the link in the article for "This Afd" all looked well, and posted the reason on the blank page. When it appeared in the Afd list raw, without the usual header, assumed that was all I needed to add to the relevant discussion page. Total bollocksed the entire Afd area.

Relevant page that is causing the issue is here. Could one of you kind people nip over there and sort me it out?

Thank you. And really sorry for the mess. :( --Haruth (talk) 13:10, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• All. *breathes sigh of relief* Worked it out by referring to other Afd and now fixed.

Can close this one off. (Wish I hadn't been so keen to confess now... ;-)) Thanks again. --Haruth (talk) 13:23, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid you now have to email every Wikipedian in person,and apologise. Including those without confirmed email addresses. Guy (Help!) 00:10, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Phew! I was afraid you'd send me their home addresses and I'd have to go round them all and apologise in person... ;) Best wishes. --Haruth (talk) 01:04, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Requesting review of close of RfC at Template talk:Infobox officeholder#RfC Congressmen's tenures in infobox

The abovementioned RfC was originally closed on February 24 at 23:39 (15 minutes after his immediately previous edit on a different page) by User:JzG (aka Guy) with the rationale:

diff: "Consensus is in favour, but the group expressing opinion is small given the breadth of scope and the arguments against are rather strong, so it is hard to call this anything other than a vote in favour rather than an actual consensus. I advise against wholesale implementation of any decision and instead advocate a limited trial with examples proposed by opposers to see just how workable it is or is not in practice, with real-world examples. My suggestion is to choose a single area (State or County or whatever works, try the box on everyone and see if it throws up examples of Stupid. As I say, the number of votes is insufficient to call this a proper consensus given the number of article affected, but I doubt that extending it would achieve a meaningful change in this. Suck it and see."

On February 25, at 00:10 (11 minutes after his immediately previous edit on a different page), Guy amended his closing rationale, and one minute later made another small addition, now stating:

diff: "Consensus is in favour, but the group expressing opinion is small given the breadth of scope and the arguments against are rather strong, so it is hard to call this anything other than a vote in favour rather than an actual consensus. I advise against wholesale implementation of any decision and instead advocate a limited trial with examples proposed by opposers to see just how workable it is or is not in practice, with real-world examples. My suggestion is to choose a single area (State or County or whatever works, try the box on everyone and see if it throws up examples of Stupid. As I say, the number of votes is insufficient to call this a proper consensus given the number of article affected, but I doubt that extending it would achieve a meaningful change in this. Suck it and see. I missed the fact that this applies only to national level (I'm British, I have no real idea about US politics). I fall back to my original statement: try it, see whether it throws up obvious bonkers result."

The timing and the twice amended closing rationale seem to indicate that the closer did not even read appropriately through the pertaining discussion. The closer said that he got aware of the existence of this RfC at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure (see thread here. There had been posted a request for closure on February 21 (by User:Cunard) which expressly required to read through the discussions which led to the opening of this RfC. When I (unwittingly duplicating the request) requested closure on February 24, I did not expressly mention the previous RfCs, but the links are mentioned at the top, the commenters at the previous RfCs having been notified. IMO the three discussions would take anybody at least half an hour to read and think about it. Parsing the closing rationale we find:

1. The closer missed what the RfC was about. Expressly mentioned in the title of the RfC is "Congressmen" which is a term used only on federal level in the US.
2. The closer is under the misapprehension that the RfC is about changing the parameters of the template, which would affect all articles on which this template is used. In fact, the RfC is about the usage of what to write in one section of the template, anything you write in one infobox on any article has absolutely nothing to do with any other article. You write a certain tenure in one congressman's infobox, and another tenure in another one, the parameter for offices has nothing to do with it. The actual info, some year/predessor/successor mentioned or another, couldn't possibly result in any "bonkers" anywhere.
3. The closer admits that he has "no real idea about US politics" and uses that as an excuse for zig-zagging around. Well, somebody who attempts to close any discussion should just read through it and, when in doubt, consult Misplaced Pages. Besides, the difference between US congressmen and British MPs is expressly stated in the discussion.
4. The "previous consensus" (as stated in the proposal) was achieved by 14 commenters (a vote of 12 to 2), and affected, in theory, the exact same number of pages, and treated the exact same question: How to present long tenures with renumbered districts in the infobox. Nevertheless, the closer found that 20 commenters were not enough to establish consensus, whichever way.
5. The closer does not address or revise the actual arguments brought up by either side. He found that "consensus is in favour" and then relativates it to a "vote in favour" and mentions that "arguments against are rather strong" but does not cite any of the arguments. All is vague, and thus useless. At RfA we have the perennial question about 4 users voting for A and 1 user advocating B citing guidelines and policy. How would the candidate close the discussion? In favor of B, mostly, but certainly not without addressing the arguments and making a clear statement which guidelines were decisive for his decision.
6. The closer then proceeds to "advise against wholesale implementation of any decision and instead advocate a limited trial with examples proposed by opposers to see just how workable it is or is not in practice, with real-world examples." He is under the misapprehension that changing info at individual articles could be implemented "wholesale". Well, there are scripts for gnoming purposes, but I doubt that anybody could write a script to make an editorial call to find which congressmen served tenures with different district numbers, and would come within the scope of this proposal, that would need fact checking (not that difficult, but necessary). I chose the example mentioned in the proposal Charles B. Rangel as the one and only trial venue, and met with opposition not only from one of the 4 opposers of my proposal, but also from the closer who then said that diff: "That seems to go well beyond the cautious approach I advocated". One trial page is "well beyond the cautious approach"? Is it possible to do a trial on less than one page?

This closure triggered subsequent discussions at the request for closure page mentioned already, at the actual closing section of the RfC in question, at Talk:Charles B. Rangel, User talk:JzG, User talk:Collect and User talk:Newyorkbrad, and triggered a new RfC to evaluate the closure of the RfC in question at which Guy commented on his closure also.

The ensuing controversy made Guy amend his own closure again, adding the following comment:

diff: As closing admin I will say this: the result of this debate is, as I state above, a vote for, but with sound reasons against. 20 people is a small number when you are talking about a template transcluded on nearly ninety thousand pages, many of them biographies of living people. If you're not happy with that, then you can have a straight no consensus based on weight of arguments, not vote-counting.

I chose to try a middle path because the proposal is evidently popular among the small group who participated. I suggested a limited trial with examples proposed by the opponents (as well as the proponents) to test how it works. This is apparently being interpreted as blanket reversal of a previous consensus. It isn't. It's also apparently being interpreted as carte blanche to impose changes without first discussing the parameters of any limited trial. It isn't that either.

You may at this point legitimately do one of the following, I think:

1. Request the close be reviewed and vacated at WP:AN.
2. Try the limited trial, as per above, with all parties collaborating not fighting.
3. Misinterpret the result and thus more or less prove a negative result for the trial by enforcing bonkers results, in which case you revert to the status quo.

I don't really care which you do, but please note that taking aggressive unilateral action without discussion in order to impose an esoteric interpretation of the close, is not one of the options.

• The closer re-iterates his misapprehension about something that would cause a change on a "template transcluded on nearly ninety thousand pages". As explained above, the number of pages where this template is used, is irrelevant. This RfC is about changing info written in the template individually. Besides, there have not been 90,000 congressmen in history, not even 9,000. In fact the "previous consensus" was used on exactly five pages (Charles B. Rangel, Michael Grimm (politician), Barbara Lee, Pete Stark and Jerry McNerney), now only four, since I changed Rangel to the new version.
• The closer re-iterates that 20 is a too small number to achieve consensus, but even after having been pointed to the fact that the "previous consensus" (treating the exact same question) was established by only 14, remains adamant to comment on the discrepancy.
• He also mentions BLP. Charles B. Rangel is a BLP, and there is absolutely no problem with this part of the infobox there. Besides, Ex-Arbitrator New York Brad said about this, at the time the "previous consensus" was established in May 2014 I do not perceive this as a BLP issue.
• The closer then waffles around, contradicting himself several times,

"as I state above, a weak vote for, but with sound reasons against" versus "you can have a straight no consensus based on weight of arguments, not vote-counting." If there is no consensus then the closer should say so, especially when he can explain it with the strength of the arguments. This clearly contradicts his original rationale that the number of voters was too small to assess consensus.

"It's also apparently being interpreted as carte blanche to impose changes without first discussing the parameters of any limited trial. It isn't that either." versus "You may at this point legitimately do one of the following, I think: Try the limited trial, as per above, with all parties collaborating not fighting." Well, it's being done at Charles B. Rangel. It follows the example and the discussion at the RfC, why should something that has been discussed and ordered to trial be discussed again?

Based on the above report I request the closure being vacated, the status quo ante, as of February 23, be restored, including a deletion of all subsequent discussions of the subject of the closure, the new RfC on RfC closure, and the new infobox format tested at Charles B. Rangel. Then some uninvolved admin should assess consensus and state clearly in the rationale his reasons, and should address as many points raised here as possible. Please note that I try not to discuss the actual question debated at the RfC, my report here addresses as far as possible, only the technical question of the closure, and the subsequent controversy caused by it. Kraxler (talk) 15:53, 27 February 2015 (UTC) Struck unprecedented proposal, it distracts from the real issue.. Kraxler (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Kraxler appears to have decided that I could not possibly have read the debate in less than 15 minutes. What he appears to mean by this is that if I had thought about it for longer, I would surely have agreed with him. I have said several times that I am happy to have anyone review the close, but Kraxler's summary above is hardly a neutral description of the matter. That doesn't matter much as admins here are sufficiently experienced in presentation of cases at the drama boards that they will in any case check for themselves. My close is I think a valid summary: the vote went one way but there are strong counter arguments, so I proposed a limited test. Kraxler seems unhappy with this. He also seems to think that all subsequent discussion should be deleted, which would be pretty much unprecedented in my experience. I fail to see any grounds at all for doing that even if the close is vacated. Kraxler has also suggested on my talk page that I am WP:INVOLVED, and seems to think I was recruited tot hat close (which is almost true, as I would never have seen it had he himself not added it to the list of debates needing closure transcluded on this page!). I remember now why we are always backlogged. Who wants this kind of crap? Guy (Help!) 16:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The limited test is already under way. The user who is unhappy with it is Collect. The backlogs certainly don't exist because one closure out of a thousand is questioned. I never questioned any closures before. I always abided by and respected consensus. The problem here is, that we don't know what was the consensus. You have contradicted yourself so many times, that we need clarification. Besides, Ididn't accuse you of being involved. I certainly was suspicious about your interaction with Collect only muinutes before your closure, but I'm willing to accept it as a random occurrence. Kraxler (talk) 16:51, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Kraxler's, your complaint comes across as angry griping. If you have a point to make, I suggest you edit your comment down by at least 80%. It's much too long for anybody passing through to want to read it all. Jehochman 16:18, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The report states clearly what it is about. If you don't want to read it, then don't. We'll have to be patient, someone else might appear to take the time. In my experience, many editors, admins or not, write and read much more than such a small complaint, like this one. It's not urgent anyway. The Rfc had been open for months... Kraxler (talk) 16:38, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Endorse close. It can be frustrating for an editor who has little expertise to come in an close a discussion that's important to you, but that's the nature of RFC. Because we expect that RFC closers be uninvolved, they are almost never subject matter experts. We give closers wide latitude to judge consensus, and so are unlikely to overturn a close unless it's just completely off its rocker. That's not the case here. Some times an RFC is like a weighted coin flip, and that's OK: it would be best for the involved, invested, and expert editors of this topic to rally around the close, implement the consensus found, and see how it goes. If it's a bust, then there's no deadline. HiDrNick! 16:58, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

RE "unless it's just completely off its rocker" Well, I think it is. Besides, you and Jehochman seem to think that the close was against my proposal. That's not the case. My proposal was approved by the closer, and ordered to trial. I started the trial already. The so far only voters who commented on the new format approved the general outline, and are only debating the numerical sequence of the district numbers. That can and will be fixed. The new format is also used now for state legislators. So, with the actual discussion and my proposal, there's no problem at all. I take exception to the close itself. It left many points open, and it caused unnecessary drama and disruption. And the closer refused to clarify the crucial points. Kraxler (talk) 17:17, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Um, the drama seems all to centre around you. You might want to think about that for a minute. Guy (Help!) 18:01, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Endorse close and offer Kraxler a mild suggestion that he back off a few yards now, and especially keep away from accusing anyone of bad faith or of being WP:INVOLVED. Fully covered now in at least four venues, IIRC. Opening a fifth sounds too much like Baseball Bugs. Collect (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

You voted in the RfC, you can't close or endorse it. Kraxler (talk) 17:18, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Kraxler, you are skating on extremely thin ice here. You just struck someone else's comment on the baseless grounds that having opined in the RfC they are not entitled to opine here, as if you are permitted to act as policeman of this discussion despite precisely the same issue applying to you. It's not your call. Acting like a spoilt child with the admin community looking on is ill-advised, to say the least. Guy (Help!) 17:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Proposed topic ban for Yagmurlukorfez

I'm suggesting a topic ban for Yagmurlukorfez (talk · contribs) on articles related to Central Asia. The reason for why i'm suggesting this action is because Yagmurlukorfez has been engaged in widespread meatpuppetry on behalf of Tirgil34 (talk · contribs), who has been making extensive disruptive editing for years through the use of more than fifty blocked socks. To protect Tirgil34's edits, Yagmurlukorfez has engaged in disruptive editing on articles related to this subject, which i will illustrate here:

1. Meatpuppetry for Tirgil34: Because of his similar editing behaviour to Tirgil34, Yagmurlukorfez has been investigated as a sock of Tirgil34 numerous times and by several editors. These investigations have so far been unable to find a technical connection between the two, but it is clear that Yagmurlukorefez is involved in meat puppetry with Tirgil34. Already in May 2014, Yagurlukorfez' has a a conversation in Turkish with Hirabutor (talk · contribs), a sock of Tirgil34, on the former's talk page. My translation indicates that they appear to agree on coordinating their edits privately, alternatively on the Turkish Misplaced Pages. Meanwhile Yagmurlukorfez asks on the talk page of Su4kin (talk · contribs), yet another Tirgil34 sock, for help on Kyrgyz people, with the two later promoting each others views on the talk page. Yagmurlukorfez has been engaged in cordial conversions at the talk pages of at least four of Tirgil34's socks: Radosfrester (talk · contribs), Hirabutor, Su4kin and Ragdeenorc (talk · contribs), where they have praised each others edits, awarded each other barnstars and so on. It is interesting to note that at the talk page of Radosfrester, where Radosfrester and Yagmurlukorfez praise each others for their edits, the section below consists of a very similar discussion Tirgil34 is having with himself through Radosfester and another sock User:Daru Dakitu. In July 2014, when these socks were exposed, Yagmurlukorfez blanked his talk page, possibly to hide evidence. Examples of Yagmurlukorfez and Tirgil34 coordinating their edits include:

1.1 On Andronovo culture he restored an edit by Tirgil34's sock Radosfrester no less than four times. The confirmed Tirgil34 sock Kervani (talk · contribs) made the same restorations at the same time as Yagmurlukorfez.

1.2 On Issyk kurgan he restored an edit by Tirgil34's sock Radosfrester twice..

1.3 On Paleolithic Continuity Theory, regarding an edit of self-proclaimed OR by Tirgil34's sock Ragdeenorc, Yagmurlukorfez steps in for Ragdeenorc in the ensuing edit war to ensure that Ragdeenorc's OR can be inserted again and again while avoiding the 3RR rule. Tirigl34's OR is eventually removed by the experienced user User:Dougweller. In a subsequent discussion began by Dougweller, and involving Paul Barlow, Yagmurlukorfez steps in for the now banned Ragdeenorc in defending these edits.

1.4. The article Wusun has been frequented by blocked Tirgil34 socks' Sirivsk (talk · contribs), Radosfrester, Hirabutor, Poikdiyma (talk · contribs) and the suspected sock Mrliebeip (talk · contribs). Lately i've been engaged in an effort to remove these edits (primarily made by Radosfrester and Poikdiyma), which also contain fringe theory and serious misrepresentation of sources (as discussed here), in accordance with CFD G5. Yagmurlukorfez has continiously restored these edits and removed my additions in coordinance with various IP's who are obviously Tirgil34, as can been seen from the revision history.

2. Pushing fringe theory: In addition to restoring Tirgil34's fringe additions to Misplaced Pages, Yagmurlukorfez has been adding some of his own. Notable examples include claiming that the Anronovo culture and the Afanasevo culture were of Turkic origin.

3. Edit warring: Yagmurlukorfez has been engaged in edit warring to push both Tirgil34's and his own edits. For example, concerning the fringe additions on Andronovo culture mentioned above, he made five reverts within one hour to reinsert his edits.

4. Vandalism: While edit warring against me on behalf of Tirgil34 at Wusun, Yagmurlukorfez displayed clear signs of vandalism. In this edit, Yagmurlukorfez removes references to a large number of distinguished scholars and restores Tirgil34s material, gaming the system through a fraudulent marking "POV views fixed" to push a content blanking without valid reason.

5. Yagmurlukorfez has resorted to numerous personal attacks in his frequent edit wars, which i will illustrate here:

5.1: He has accused Zyma (talk · contribs) of being an "anti turkish-turkic etnocentirst indo-euoropean nationalist".. At other times Yagmurlukorfez has presented himself as a victim when recieving similar accusations, showing that he is well aware of the the fact that his own accusations are in violation of policy.

5.2: When IP's clearly related to Tirgil34 entered ANI to baselessly accused me of vandalism, sockpuppetry and making obscene racist comments, the same IP then recruits Yagmurlukorfez to join, and Yagmurlykorfez immediatedly appears to express support for the IP's allegations and also levels accuations of sockpuppetry, without evidence.

5.3: On Turkic peoples he has designated those who disagree with him as "Aryan nationalists".

5.4: At the article Issyk Kurgan, Yagmurlukorfez writes that a disagreering user needs "to go to a mental institute".

5.5: At the talk page of Dougweller, Yagmurlukorfez states that Florian Blaschke (talk · contribs) is a "convinced" Neo-Nazi. Such personal attacks (Godwin's law) are strictly forbidden.

Through his tendentious effort to obstruct work to clean up Tirgil34's edits, Yagmurlukorfez has done significant harm to Misplaced Pages's coverage of Central Asia. A topic ban is therefore necessary for this user.

• Support as nominator. Krakkos (talk) 18:28, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Nice try. First I accused for being sockpuppet by User Krakkos, but it doesn't worked. Now the Florian accusing me for being meatpuppet. As I already said thousands of times, I have nothing to do with Tirgil34. As for the personel attacks, user Florian Blaschke accused me too for several times being Turanist/Pan-Turkist. Which has nothing to do with the "topic ban" subject. Besides, those "personel attacks" happaned at almost 1 year ago. And I'm wondering, why now? why you decided to report me for those "personel attacks" after all those months? Why just after the sockpuppet investigation, which is you didn't get the what you wish?Yagmurlukorfez (talk) 19:03, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

The meatpuppetry claim is still reasonable, since you have regularly supported Tirgil34's socks. Only some of the attacks are from last year, but that only demonstrates a long term problem. It is fair to accuse someone of being Turanist (or whatever-ist) if they regularly push a particular POV against academic consensus. If you weren't pushing a Turanist POV, you would have more support than just socks of Tirgil34. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

If that "someone" isn't a "turanist" or something like that, it would be only one sided claim. (or blaim) And according to Misplaced Pages, this is a violation of personel attack rule. You can't blame an editor as a nationalist, turanist or etc. just beacuse of his/her contents of edits. Your nonsense arguments are really waste of time. You're not even aware what you're talking about.Yagmurlukorfez (talk) 00:56, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support - Points 1, 3, and 5 have sufficient evidence to justify some sort of action. Point 2 I would have to research more, but given other behavior, I'm not inclined to disbelieve it. Point 4 I would generally call "disruptive editing" (though I do see that WP:Vandalism does count those edits as vandalism), but is sufficiently evidenced as well. Points 1-4 support a topic ban, while 1, 3, and 5 could be used to argue for a block that I won't define. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:37, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support per nom. I have been fighting Tirgil34 (along with his zoo of sockpuppets) and Yagmurlukorfez for years, with little to no support from admins (even receiving a ban instead of a thanks once), and am burned out. The Turanist vandal-fest needs to stop. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:51, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Response to an archived thread

Regarding Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive871#Possible compromised account?, a response was left directly in the archive, and I thought I'd bring it out here. I don't believe it's actionable, but I just wanted to keep things consistent. Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 00:46, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

The response

Hey. This is Jaywubba1887. My apologies for the editing errors. I have been using the Misplaced Pages (Zero?) mobile app and for some reason when I edit some articles, the app, once it saves and processes my edits, will delete large sections of the article by itself. I have no intention of deleting the sections and will edit on the full version of Misplaced Pages from now on, so this won't happen again. I feel like it is a code error or something on the mobile version of Misplaced Pages. Additionally, I'll be more specific with the edit summaries on the regular version of Misplaced Pages from now on. Sorry again for everything. Jay (talk) 00:37, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

"Best known for IP"

Misplaced Pages:Long-term abuse/Best known for IP has been updated to reflect the return to LTA status of the IP in question. Drmies and Yngvadottir unblocked the editor based on a 0RR restriction. Both Drmies and the IP have failed to live up the agreement: the IP by not following it, and Drmies by not following through on AN3 reports in order to enforce the 0RR restriction.—Kww(talk) 16:15, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• So sue me, Kevin. Drag me before ArbCom. That ANEW discussion was pointless, as pointless as your continued blocks and mass rollbacks. What Hafspajen thinks now of having started that report, I don't know, but at least it served your purpose, didn't it. Did you want me to have blocked Hafspajen as well for their edit warring based on a misreading of user talk page guidelines, or do you think that only some people should get blocked for breaking the law? To a hammer, not everything looks like a nail, apparently. Congratulations. Drmies (talk) 18:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Since this IP has on more than one occasion promised not to edit war to be unblocked and proceeds to edit war as soon as they change IPs I think we should just start treating this person like someone who is engaging in block evasion. Chillum 18:17, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

That is where we were before I attempted to cut the Gordian knot. These long-term abuse pages are a courtesy to fill in background that not everyone can be remotely expected to know, but they're also a scarlet letter, and they are not official. This editor is not under any formal sanction. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:24, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Since when do we need formal sanctions to handle an IP hopper? Nobody is suggesting that an LTA page = banned. I am suggesting that a long history of blocks for edit warring and block evasion and lying in unblock requests = banned.

This is a user who has been blocked countless times in for edit warring and incivility and who lies to get unblocked while regularly changing IPs. Trying to work with this user was noble but they were just as disruptive. This is not a case of Misplaced Pages causing a good editor to be disruptive, this is a case of a disruptive user on Misplaced Pages. This is no different than the last several thousand users who did not want to play by the rules of the project, if not for their regular changing of identity they would have been indeffed long ago. Chillum 18:29, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• That's exactly the point. There's nothing unusual in this case except for the efforts to keep him unblocked. He's a disruptive editor that shows no capability of ceasing to be disruptive. There's been no effort to "cut a Gordian knot" here, simply to unblock a misbehaving editor on the basis of content contributions. "A long history of blocks for edit warring and block evasion and lying in unblock requests = banned" is, indeed, standard practice.—Kww(talk) 18:43, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

The editor in question, after years (are we at a decade yet?) of personal attacks, edit warring and block evasion was inexplicably unblocked based on a promise to abide by a 0RR. They quickly "forgot" that agreement under yet another IP and were blocked for a week. One week after that block expired, they were back on the 3RR noticeboard. Why is that not blockable? Well, "They were unblocked under a 0RR condition by Drmies but were subsequently blocked by another admin and served out the block. So the condition has been superseded." You see, if you agree not to do something, do it anyway, get blocked for it and do it again, it doesn't matter. Or something like that. Also expunging their record is that they were blocked for a personal attack and later unblocked by an admin who was unaware of their history. That makes them "an editor among editors". Or something like that. They aren't blocked for 3RR because both editors have the best interests of Misplaced Pages at heart. Or something like that. This editor either cannot or will not follow any rules (including, but by no means limited to 3RR, NPA, CON and EVADE). I no longer care which one it is. I no longer care if any of their edits make sense. - SummerPhD (talk) 23:24, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Being insulted.

Just got insulted and called a "jackass" within an ANI discussion . I take that as an insult by Hijiri 88. --Catflap08 (talk) 18:05, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Are you seeking some sort of administrative action? Chillum 18:25, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Well yes, thats unless this is considered normal conduct by users. BtW Might have left the notice on the wrong end of the talk page of the user in question. The user discussed with me in the past few days in what I consider an uncivil manner but being called "jackass" goes a bit to far. --Catflap08 (talk) 18:29, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh Nice in his latest edit I am now “only” called “Jerk”. That is within the ANI. Even in the discussion within the talk pages in question his/her conduct was in my books rather irrational. I do work on contentious issues dealing with Nichiren Buddhism here in general but this goes a bit too far.--Catflap08 (talk) 18:45, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Here's an idea: stop behaving like one and maybe he won't call you one. Guy (Help!) 20:27, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Here is one: Stop changing the subject and plastering my talk page and talk pages involved. Stay on the subject and not call me names. --Catflap08 (talk) 20:34, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I regret to say that the noticeboards in general are among the places where editors are most often not at their best behavior. "Jackass" is a bit strong, I admit, but probably not necessarily out of line in such discussions. Unfortunately. Having said that, should such conduct continue, there might well be grounds for some sort of interaction ban. I know some people around here come from areas with pronouncedly different standards of popular or polite decorum, unfortunately, and that some words are more offensive in some areas than others, although, honestly, I don't know anywhere "jackass" and "jerk" are considered acceptable. If it continues, though, I might see taking action reasonable.... John Carter (talk) 20:53, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I reverted certain edits and included references … I now find myself in an ANI just after I sought RfC and being called names. I have a history on working on articles that due to content tend to be disputed – learning curve still goes up. Never the less being called names is a no go. My edits on articles involved remained minimal, the discussion however hefty.--Catflap08 (talk) 21:05, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

"Jackass" seems to be a fairly mild description of your behavior... 207.38.156.219 (talk) 00:03, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Just a question in re Category:Deaths from surgical complications

Hi. This category was deleted on February 26, 2015 (see ). However, the red-linked categories remain on all the articles in which the subject had this category. Just wondering if this is a problem or if the bot hasn't gotten started yet. Yours, Quis separabit? 21:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Administrative advice

I'd like to ask the advice of administrators, if you please. This might well be outside your purview, but I figure I'll ask anyway. Mondolkiri1 (talk · contribs) is an editor that was indefinitely blocked for being WP:NOTHERE. Prior to his block, I had worked with Mondolkiri1 on multiple articles. Whilst he was always a bit eccentric (not that I'm not eccentric), he never struck me as completely mad. However, it seems he's gone off a cliff. Yesterday, an IP address posted on my talk page, making all sorts of weird insults. He later identified himself as Mondolkiri1. That IP was swiftly blocked. However, the same Mondolkiri1 has now made the equivalent of a death threat at my French Misplaced Pages talk page. Now, as I know, this user is already indefinitely blocked here. However, this type of behaviour seems completely inappropriate. I'm not sure what action can be taken against him. RGloucester — ☎ 21:24, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

You may want to contact the WP:STEWARDs to ask for a global lock, or at least contact the French admins to block him for a death threat there. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:21, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Much obliged, Beeblebrox. I've contacted a steward. RGloucester — ☎ 22:57, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

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