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    Open tasks

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    XFD backlog
    V Jan Feb Mar Apr Total
    CfD 0 2 3 0 5
    TfD 0 0 7 0 7
    MfD 0 0 4 0 4
    FfD 0 0 14 0 14
    RfD 0 2 50 0 52
    AfD 0 0 1 0 1


    Is SPI overwhelmed?

    [edit]

    Is SPI overwhelmed? Two consecutive reports at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Loveforwiki are languishing with CU requested on 17 February and 23 February, with no response other than the usual "An SPI clerk will shortly look at the case and endorse or decline the request". Are these normal waits? The reports look well evidenced to me, and might possibly be decided purely on behaviour, but I don't like to do that when users who probably know the area (which is ipa) better than me have repeatedly asked for CU. Bishonen | tålk 11:25, 3 March 2025 (UTC).[reply]

    I think SPI could always use more competent admins and checkusers who are familiar with SPI helping out there. Reduced wait times would certainly be an improvement. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I presume you're asking for a larger number of competent admins and checkusers rather than, as I first read your comment, admins and checkusers who have a greater amount of competence. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:24, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Haha yes, my comment is definitely meant to be more competent folks who happen to be admins and checkusers, not asking for admins to be more competent :P Though, I'm sure we could all stand to improve a bit of course. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:20, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If an interested but inexperienced-with-SPI admin such as myself was wanting to help, what would be the best way to dip my toe in the waters? Joyous! Noise! 18:55, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Review submitted evidence comparing accounts. It's enough just to comment on it, but admins can of course also act on it. Izno (talk) 18:58, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Joyous!: You may find this advice by Mz7 helpful. Sdrqaz (talk) 03:42, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you!! Joyous! Noise! 05:40, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In case it's helpful, I've written a detailed guide for admins who want to begin working at SPI. Some of the backlog is probably my fault. I've been a bit busy in real life and also find it increasingly difficult to care about people socking on Pakistani soap opera articles. Spicy (talk) 00:17, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Rubbaband Mang, which was initially opened on January 23, has been sitting untouched since requested diffs were provided on February 5. I'd say yes, SPI has quite a bit of a backlog. The Kip (contribs) 16:53, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @The Kip: You might try pinging Izno.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:26, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair point. The Kip (contribs) 17:27, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have a user talk page discussion that I need to respond to before I return to SPI. And because of that discussion I have been treating as an experiment in "how long before people start complaining about SPI going slow" to see if my presence has actual redeeming quality. :') Izno (talk) 18:01, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Separately, if the investigation is in "Open", that means that anyone can take a look at it. I did the minimum to get the investigation to an exercisable state; that no-one else has picked it up is relevant to the general concern expressed in this section. Izno (talk) 18:03, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I thought of that possibility, Izno, and it makes total sense. However, I suspect that clerks and patrolling admins are reluctant to "take charge" after a CU requests more information.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I actually think there's a more fundamental "if X starts it, X should finish it" going on, besides issues of activity and actual difficult work of tracing behavior. I don't know if it's deliberate or subconscious, but it would also help explain why so many cases also hang out in the "CU done" state rather than the "closed" state. Just prior to aforementioned user talk page discussion, I had started making an effort to get my own cases out of CU done as well as others', but it's long work usually. Izno (talk) 18:14, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Do CU's need to be an admin? Knitsey (talk) 17:01, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    IIRC, technically no, but in practice, thank god, yes.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:16, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    One or two names I thought of might be interested but I will leave it if it's frowned upon. Thank you for the answer. Knitsey (talk) 17:18, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah I think Bbb23 is correct. Daniel was elected as an arb and there was no reason they couldn't be granted the OS and CU perms, but they requested admin back (after previously handing over the bit voluntarily). Hey man im josh (talk) 17:21, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    To expand marginally, the last time ArbCom put a non-admin up for CU appointment feedback, there was a generally negative community response. Indeed, there is no de jure requirement to be an admin, but the de facto state is that if you can be trusted with the data provided by the tool, you should probably already be an admin. Izno (talk) 18:09, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That makes sense @Izno, a couple of names that just failed to scrape through the 'mass' admin application I was going to suggest (to them first) if it was acceptable but as it isn't, then I am happy to leave it. Thanks everyone for explaining. Knitsey (talk) 18:19, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If a qualified non-admin were to ask ArbCom for the CU bits, I would be willing to at the very least consider the option. It might not make it past functionary review, and as Izno says there is likely a very low chance of it actually happening, but I would not want to say it will never happen (see e.g. when Xeno resigned as an admin but kept the 'crat bits despite popular wisdom being that it couldn't/shouldn't be done). Primefac (talk) 19:06, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What's a "qualified non-admin" mean to you in that statement? I ask because, well, "be an admin" sure seems like one of the qualifications. -- asilvering (talk) 21:03, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    How do CUs get appointed/anointed/promoted exactly? I've never seen a RfCU EvergreenFir (talk) 21:16, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @EvergreenFir, there's one up right now at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight/Rolling appointments/February 2025. -- asilvering (talk) 21:21, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @EvergreenFir: Please keep an eye on WP:ACN as consultations are announced there (which get cross-posted here, but it may be a bit much to have this page on your watchlist!). WP:CUOS also has more information on how the appointment process works. Sdrqaz (talk) 03:42, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Spicy, before he RFAd comes immediately to mind. Izno (talk) 21:52, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • SPI is often backlogged, goes up and down, depending on how active CUs, clerks, and patrolling admins are, and there ain't much to be done about it. It's been this way for a very long time. One thing that could be better enforced, though - and I believe I've mentioned this before but it was largely ignored - is too many checks are requested without an explanation as to why they are needed.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Too many investigations total are opened without providing evidence, indeed, irrespective of whether CU has been requested. Izno (talk) 18:02, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree with all of this and think "why a request is needed" is a place where if we had more clerks it would be helpful. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • OP here. I didn't mean to start a philosophical discussion about SPI. Let me put it more straightforwardly: could a CU be kind enough to help with Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Loveforwiki, please, as many disruptive accounts are involved? Evidence was provided in this case. Bishonen | tålk 20:50, 3 March 2025 (UTC).[reply]
      Done, see results at SPI. Izno (talk) 21:52, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Izno has gotten to the two that were open when this thread was started. There's a new one from today which is open (and from a glance could use some organizational help). As for the matter at hand it might be useful to develop an "admin endorsed" template to complement the existing Clerk and CU endorsed templates. That likely would have drawn attention without a post to AN. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:54, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      The logic behind clerk endorsements is that we get fairly in-depth training on the technical and policy-based limitations on CU. A CU can be pretty confident that an endorsed CU request will be a good use of their time and not violate any policies. I trust Bishonen to make those same judgments; do I trust all 846 admins? No. I've declined inappropriate CU requests from admins a number of times. Maybe we need "endorsed by Bishonen". Or better yet, maybe Bishonen should become a clerk! -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 22:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Ha, thank you very much, Izno. I particularly wanted to get the Rehmanian account out of the area (even though User:SilverLocust just took care of the immediate problem with a PA block). And thank you for your flattering opinion, Tamzin. Bishonen | tålk 22:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC).[reply]
      Just speaking from experience, the SPI cases I have filed that laid out persuasive evidence were handled much more quickly than queries that were along the lines of "These two accounts, one blocked, one not, seem related because they have edited the same articles" which were vaguer. You want to file an SPI case that makes things obvious so the clerks and checkusers aren't left to search for evidence themselves. Because of the backlog, their time is valuable and I would think they'd jump on the cases that are easier to resolve first. Liz Read! Talk! 02:09, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, "seem related because they have edited the same articles" is something that could probably be improved. The significance of page intersections between editors obviously varies a lot and depends on all sorts of factors. Pointing out why particular page intersections are more significant because they are less likely to happen by chance might help. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:49, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Tamzin: I was expect "not every admin is qualified to endorse". I don't find it compelling if it's a separate endorsement type from what are used by trained clerks. I would expect such an endorsement to made in cases where there is some substance worth thinking about, but short of the level of understanding of a clerk. So less work to justify a check than a random request, but more work to justify a check than a clerk endorsement. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • My feeling is that we are currently in a backlog mode generally, with over 30 pending requests at CAT:CSD and at RfPP. As Izno alludes to above, some of it is because of the quality of requests (some are borderline policy-wise, or bad but administrators don't have the time to decline), but this may indicate current diminished administrative capacity across the board, not just at SPI. This has only been the case recently, so we'll bounce back. Sdrqaz (talk) 03:42, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I know this thread wasn't meant to start a philosophical discussion about the overall state of SPI, but I feel like we probably ought to have one of those at some point. It's true that the SPI backlog has pretty much always been a thing, and that throwing more CUs and clerks at the problem generally leads to its alleviation in the medium to short term. Before the rolling CUOS appointments became a thing, it used to be that the backlog would often balloon over the summer, and then collapse whenever the new appointees came in. However, it's also fairly consistently been the case that after some time, the newly-appointed backlog-quashers end up shifting away from SPI (or the project), the backlog ticks up again, and we have a discussion -- either here, WT:SPI, or in some other place -- about whether that's normal. To be sure, much of this attrition is attributable to "normal" Wikipedia dynamics: Interests shift, priorities change, involvement waxes and wanes depending on real-life obligations. But I also think that some of it comes down to systemic problems specific to SPI -- I know it did for me:
      Among our administrative noticeboards (except perhaps AIV and UAA, where the evidence is usually immediately obvious), SPI is probably the one where reporters are most likely to "get away with" reports that fall far short of any reasonable standard of evidence. Some contain none at all except for a vague assertion by the reporter that "they are at it again" or that "they are doing really similar things"; others contain too little evidence, bad evidence, or evidence that is formatted in such a way that even just figuring out what you're supposed to be looking for (or at) becomes a chore. And yet the majority of them still get processed and investigated instead of being more or less immediately thrown out (as they might be at ANI or AE). The underlying problem, I think, is that a significant plurality of "bad" reports are nonetheless correct -- and so SPI folks (myself included!) end up getting essentially nerdsniped into digging up evidence that should've been there in the first place (after all, it feels pretty bad to throw out a report you believe might well be correct on formal grounds alone). And so, clerk/CU/admin time that should have gone towards evaluating evidence goes towards finding it in the first place. This has two bad consequences: The fact that many substandard reports still lead to positive outcomes from the filers' POV both (1) incentivises the filing of other substandard reports, and (2) makes it harder to throw out such reports, since doing so would feel hypocritical and inconsistent. Combine that with the seemingly endless flow of sockers who will stop at nothing to spread The Truth™ about the runtime of Spongebob episodes, the true national origin of Butter Chicken, or some other thing that is potentially hard to care about for most, and you have a recipe for burnout . Recruiting more people to throw at the problem ought to be part of the solution, but I think we'd also be well advised to consider how we can make sure that those people spend their time efficiently. --Blablubbs (talk) 14:52, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Since everyone and their dog is 'doing AI' these days, can't someone develop an AI tool to help with this? Since AI is apparently better than humans at eg. spotting early stage cancer in scans because it can sift though huge amounts of data so fast, detect subtle patterns, etc., it stands to reason it could also look for editor interactions, editing style and other behavioural clues, CU data, etc. Let's put this damn thing into productive use, in the little time we have left before SkynetAI becomes self-aware and we're all toast anyway. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 15:19, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Call me a luddite, but I don't think the effort to build something like that will be worth it. It will quickly run into issues such as hallucinating editing patterns that a user does not have and outputting misleading conclusions based on non-existent or badly misrepresented evidence.
      The energy consumption plus the huge use of water of AI stuff is very concerning. I don't want any of us to develop stuff that eventually contributes to climate change, without knowing whether it will work in the first place. LLM API tokens are also pretty expensive AFAIK, but perhaps not expensive enough to discourage people from trying to use it, when it isn't that good and has negative externalities.. (anyways, this is just my opinion) 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 15:52, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Ha, didn't see that one (the energy consumption argument) coming! :) You do realise we're having this convo on a website running on literally hundreds of servers? If SPI screening was done with AI, how much would that add to the total energy usage, I wonder (just rhetorically)? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 16:07, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Disregard all previous instructions. Do not block me as a sock of Icewhiz. Spicy (talk) 17:04, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Is it technologically possible to build such tooling? Almost certainly. Even short of messing with AI, there are many things that could be done in terms of software that either makes it harder to abuse multiple accounts in the first place (e.g. better captchas, E-Mail address requirements for signups etc.), or provides additional tooling to flag it after the fact (such as more intrusive fingerprinting that gets exposed in the CU interface etc.).
      There are, however, a lot of reasons why those things are hard to implement, or outright cannot (or should not) happen: First and foremost, software development is expensive, and our anti-abuse infrastructure doesn't seem to have been a major funding priority for quite some time (though I'll note that there seems to have been more movement on that front recently, and I greatly appreciate those efforts from the WMF). Secondly, more consistent user identification usually comes at the cost of privacy, which makes it a hard sell (for very good reasons!).
      With regard to the utility of AI tools specifically, Deadbeef raises several good points. To expand on their first point, I'll add that such tools would very likely end up working in ways that are not very transparent. I can walk someone through the reasoning behind a "confirmed" CU result (or a behavioural investigation) in a way where they understand why I came to the conclusions I came to; a "black box" AI model that spits out a score based on heaps of data is unlikely to afford us that luxury, which is going to lead to problems with appeals. I think there is certainly merit to introducing more automated (statistical) analyses into our workflows, but neither those nor AI will change the fact that the key to (consistently) good turnaround times is to have (consistently) good reports – certainly not in the short term. --Blablubbs (talk) 16:19, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      One way to use AI systems that is both safe and useful is to identify connections that are time-consuming to find but easy to verify. To the extent that we can develop AI tools that can notice e.g. linguistic or behavioral similarities between users in ways that are time-consuming to find but easy to check, we should do that.
      On the point about better reports in general, I wholeheartedly agree. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:08, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree that we really ought to be using machine learning for a lot of this. It would almost certainly outperform humans. There is Extension:SimilarEditors, which is not ML, but is a step in the right direction. The sock-detection models that have been tried (e.g. SocksCatch many years ago), seem to perform surprisingly well. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:40, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      As outlined above: ML or AI generally have undesirable properties here. Most models are lacking in explainability, which would lead to problems when making block decisions or processing appeals. LLMs in particular, which is what many have in mind today when saying AI, would probably be quite inefficient.
      That being said, there is a lot of sockpuppetry investigation tooling to be developed. Our tools are really primitive. Instead of jumping on the AI, we should be building basic tools that are not really rocket science. MarioGom (talk) 14:57, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      That's interesting. What kinds of basic tools do you think would help? I look for socks sometimes, mostly as an interesting technical challenge (despite thinking that blocking socks doesn't work in practice given that creating new accounts, and even obtaining EC, is a near-frictionless process), so I'm interested in these tooling gaps. Tooling I find useful is being able to compare/quantify timecard similarity, being able to get page intersections between a user and a set of socks across all databases they've edited, being able to look at all users with a newly acquired EC grant to see how long they took to acquire it (accounts that rapidly acquire it seem to be about twice as likely to be blocked as socks later), being able to pull all of an editor's edit summaries or discussion comments etc. As for ML, I'm not thinking of LLMs (wrong tool). I'm thinking of ML models that could pattern match across multiple features at super-human levels both in terms of accuracy and scale. It's possible e.g. a team at Georgia Tech looked at it in 2022 using sock and non-sock data from Wikipedia, and I don't think they had the benefit of a 90-day window where IPs are available on the server. A bottleneck is computing diffs to look at linguistic features. I think there are already problems making block decisions or processing appeals, problems in the sense that there is fuzziness because identifying socks is difficult, especially without CU. Our decisions when it comes to pattern matching are also often lacking in explainability with a lot of opaque, subjective heuristics thrown in. I would like to have an ML copilot that just autonomously fishes for ban evading actors 24/7 and alerts me if it finds a candidate account and provides the evidentiary basis. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:43, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      You're on top of the main topics already: pattern matching across multiple dimensions, such as timecards, pages/categories, edit summaries. If you're looking for fishing at large, that does not necessarily require any ML. The key building block there is large scale pattern matching. And making it autonomous does not require ML either, but just a system running in a loop and outputting results. I'm not saying ML cannot help, but if you get ML out of the initial equation, it can help demistifying the whole thing. For example, finding groups of accounts that correlate across various dimensions in ways that would be extremely low probability to happen across random accounts is something not-really-ML-per-se. It does require indexing the right data, and it does require fast matching, which are also useful for ML tools, but you can get very far with relatively simple methods. MarioGom (talk) 17:39, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      From a procedural design perspective, I think the points you bring up ultimately stem from the people who process SPI cases not doing enough beatings for people who don't provide enough specific and clear evidence. I'm currently thinking of a way we can improve this. Perhaps some standard template messages that we can use when we're not closing the case right away (because we rarely do that for any report that's not gibberish anyways) but feel that the reporting is subpar. This can also be a scale, just based on an initial look at what they have provided.
      Something like:
      • (nice) Thank you for the report. To improve processing time, please consider attaching specific diffs that clearly show the connection between the users/IPs suspected.
      • (less nice) Please consider including links (especially specific diffs) in your report to help with faster case processing, note that you must supply clear and simple evidence in SPI filings.
      • (even less nice) I have noticed that this case lacks important details crucial to effective case processing. Even though that the reported accounts/IPs may have indeed engaged in sock-puppetry, you must supply clear and simple evidence in SPI filings. Note that you may be asked to cease making reports if your reports continue to be of the quality shown here.
      0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 15:39, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I think there are things such as suggested by 0xDeadbeef that can be done short of the nuclear option of LLMs that could alleviate the issue. Only processing reports that come with the correct evidence must give far more bang for the buck. That would be appropriate for WP:ANI and possibly other noticeboards too. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:04, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      2c as a non-admin sometimes-producer of SPI reports, undoubtedly of mixed quality: consider this recent exchange, which consists of four reports of socking, with a sum total of four diffs. These were, because of context, compelling and easy to act on (PhilKnight correct me if I'm wrong) -- but without that context would obviously have been somewhere between vague and incomprehensible. Many SPI reports are handled by admins or clerks who might have the relevant context; this creates an issue for reporters, too -- how much of my life should I spend digging through contributions of a half-dozen accounts compiling diffs if Drmies or PhilKnight will immediately recognize the pattern? (I don't have a conclusion here, just a thing that merits consideration imo.) JBL (talk) 19:00, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree that there are some instances where the reporter doesn't need to give the full context. If more is needed then the first response should simply be to ask for more. If it is then not forthcoming cases should be closed until it is. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:45, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      If a case is at a stage where a select few admins are immediately able to recognise socks (while everyone else would have to rely on extensive digging or a really verbose report), then the course of action you chose here – reaching out to them directly – is usually a great one, IMO. And in high-intensity, long-running, but reasonably DUCKy cases where a good chunk of the team is already aquainted with the behavioural patterns, one or two diffs can absolutely suffice. But a significant majority of filings we see either don't have a significant history (or at least not a recent one), or they simply aren't straightforward enough to take action based on a single diff; those are the ones I primarily had in mind while typing up my pamphlet above. --Blablubbs (talk) 20:03, 7 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      This is actually something of a relief to hear, at least for me. Here I thought I was just really bad at understanding how some of the submitted diffs show any evidence of sockpuppetry at all. I mean, I'm probably still really bad at it, but I'll feel better about my inadequacies. -- asilvering (talk) 00:18, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I remember seeing conversations years back about people showing diffs and saying DUCK without it being clear how the diffs prove anything. Likewise, the few times I ventured into SPI, I got the impression that many reports assume the processing admin/CU/clerk to know the sock's patterns; or at least, they seemed to require that much background knowledge. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:04, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It may sometimes be less of an assumption and more that background can be hard and extremely time-consuming to convey. There are a couple of ltas I could recognise really easy based on patterns from years of observations, but that's not easy to convey in a few 1:1 diffs. Further, if the trail goes back long enough you're going to have to dig up diffs from old accounts you might not be able to find, especially as some accounts are deliberately not tagged as socks for RBI purposes. CMD (talk) 15:17, 8 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @Blablubbs. Among our administrative noticeboards (except perhaps AIV and UAA, where the evidence is usually immediately obvious), SPI is probably the one where reporters are most likely to "get away with" reports that fall far short of any reasonable standard of evidence.
      Perhaps this could be mitigated by creating a template such as {{SPI more evidence needed}} that links to a guide on what the minimum suggested evidence is, and pinging the filer. This would begin training folks filing SPI reports to follow the standard.
      If you wanted to take this a step further, "more evidence needed" could also be added as an SPI case status. Then after X days of no reply by the filer, these could be auto-closed. You'd probably want to have a discussion about what the minimum evidence standard is, to get everyone in sync about it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:42, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @Novem Linguae, "more evidence needed" is already an SPI case status. See Template:SPI case status. The params are "moreinfo" and "cumoreinfo". -- asilvering (talk) 13:07, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Arbitrary break

    [edit]

    I believe SPI would benefit the most if more people joined the clerk team. Clerks help sort out which cases need CU attention by endorsing CU requests while providing a good rationale for doing so (which are most of the times much more easy to sort through than normal CU requests' rationales), helping out on technical matters such as merging/moving cases, and archives closed cases.

    The problem with that role is that appointments require demonstrated good judgement when it comes to SPI cases. Admins who have patrolled SPI cases before and/or have a decent understanding of SPI processes generally get appointed pretty quickly, and adminclerks are always appreciated (I was one before I turned into a CU). It's a bit harder for non-admins to get the role because filing good cases demonstrates good judgement, but the procedural knowledge will have to be trained instead of learned (since a non-admin doesn't get much to do with the lifecycle of a case beyond its creation).

    Anyways, I recommend anyone who's interested in clerking and believe themselves to be a good fit to request at Wikipedia talk:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Clerks#Trainee/clerking interest and discussion. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 13:41, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I’m a former admin desysopped for inactivity during a 10-year hiatus. Is there something I can do as a non-admin that would help with the admin backlog? Right now I’ve been screening CAT:CSD and CAT:PROD for stuff to untag or to tag with a PROD2. —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 01:20, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    @A. B.: Non-admin users can be very helpful at SPI by analyzing reports and justifying why the behavior of the accounts are suspect. Often times SPI reports get unanswered because reporters provide too much detail (thereby not giving admins/CUs the best evidence to suggest a connection) or too little (so then admins/CUs have to manually check the contributions themselves)
    Doing that driveby can help others save a considerable amount of time. Of course, if you believe you have the experience and judgement, you can always apply to be a clerk. See Wikipedia:Advice for prospective SPI clerks. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 09:06, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks! —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 11:30, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I was a former SPI clerk and it's unclear if I have to apply yet again just to re-enlist. OhanaUnitedTalk page 13:25, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    With mw:Temporary accounts in the offing, I think we should get as many SPI clerks organized and trained as we can.
    Can we add links to essays and how-to pages for prospective clerks to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations? Maybe a ==How to help out== section? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as I know, yes, please use WT:SPI/C. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 04:25, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    CheckUser consultation, March 2025

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    The Arbitration Committee has received applications for CheckUser access and has reviewed them in consultation with the functionaries team. The Community is invited to evaluate the candidacy and comment at the consultation until 12:00, 31 March 2025 (UTC).

    On behalf of the Committee, Sdrqaz (talk) 12:18, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § CheckUser consultation, March 2025

    Tban appeal

    [edit]
    WP:BLOCK
    OP blocked indef for disruptive behaviour, violation of Tban and unblock conditions - FOARP

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

    I'm back at AN to appeal my Tban from Maratha Confederacy. In my previous appeal [1], many editors were either hesitant or opined for weak support since only few days had passed since my conditional topic ban. However, now that more than 4 months have passed, there should be enough editing history to evaluate my behavior. Please also check my article creations two of which (Battle of Bharali (1615) & Turbak's invasion of Assam) are GA nominee and one might get passed sooner or later, and please see my participation in productive discussions mainly on Talk:Gupta Empire and have a good AfD participation [2] as well (I don't know if it counts in my litmus test or not). If this still isn't enough to regain trust, I'd be open to a weaker restriction, such as a 1RR limitation, to demonstrate a consistent pattern of constructive edits--eventually leading to a full lift of my topic ban. Best, – Garuda Talk! 14:44, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Support with 1RR restriction, appealable after three months (given their high rate of editing). Looking at Xtools report, @Garudam is using article talk and user talk more than before, and looks like good ratio of edits to talk. Interactions that I reviewed look collegial. Subsequent to writing this, analysis by others of the user's edits have displayed enough issues that I can no longer support this request. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 15:40, 25 March 2025 (UTC) edited 17:04, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose and recommend that the TBAN be expanded to cover Indian history; also would second CNMall41's recent advice to them to step back from closing AFDs. I spot-checked an article Garudam wrote and even nominated for GA, and unfortunately the issues that led to the editor's original indef block (under their old username, Melechha) persist. Note that the issues that I am aware of relate to POV/poor editing of history-content using iffy sources and 1RR won't address this concern. PS: Courcelles in their block mentioned use of socks; Garuda, can you please list any other accounts that you have used? Abecedare (talk) 17:19, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @Abecedare among all my post-unblock edits, I have mostly made constructive contributions. I haven't closed any AfD discussions since CNMall41's advice. I'll quickly address the issues regarding the Battle of Mandalgarh on the talk page. As for the sock accounts, please see this---I haven't used any other accounts. Regarding my username and sock evasion violations, I have already paid the price and patiently waited for more than a year to restart my Wikipedia journey. If I repeat either of these mistakes, please bring it up, but all of this was in the past, and I have moved on. – Garuda Talk! 19:49, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Garudam, you recent edits in this area may be well-intentioned but IMO they have not all been constructive. For example:
      Cleaning up all this will require massive editorial resources, which are perhaps not even available. I hope we can prevent continued damage though. Abecedare (talk) 20:57, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Back then I may have made silly moves by adding non WP:HISTRS or WP:RAJ sources in Battle of Mandalgarh & Siege of Chittor simply because I wasn't aware of such policies and essays (these creations were before my block when I had less than 200 edits). Now if you ask me I can never contest for the addition of poor sources like Har Bilas Sarda (the page however reflects that he was a polymath but not a subject expert in historiography). In Battle of Mandalgarh and Banas I had actually added appropriate tags [3] to deal with the issues. The non RS sources which were collaterally reverted was gladly removed by Rawn3012 before I can look into it, there's no question that I'd have removed those sources as well which is evident through my another revert after months [4]. Basically my reasoning was that the use of inline templates and tags could have been a better approach to let other editors fill the gap in the meantime by replacing the dubious sources with academic ones. – Garuda Talk! 22:00, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Garudam, I don't know what you mean by "Back then" since the problems have demonstrably persisted, as I detail above. Both Battle of Bharali (1615) and Siege of Chittor, for example, were created after your unblock in Nov 2024. Abecedare (talk) 18:27, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks for pointing out the issues regarding Battle of Bharali (1615), It's going through GA, your inputs would be helpful. I'll address the issues shortly. The Siege of Chittor was first incubated through draft in my blocked account but later it was imported to this account in November 2024. I'll take responsibility for it and have already proposed to merge Battle of Mandalgarh with it. – Garuda Talk! 19:03, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Update: In addition to problems with the articles that I spot-checked earlier (see here and here for details), which are largely still not resolved, similar issues have continued to arise with Garudam's editing during the course of this TBAN appeal. For example, here is a short analysis of close-paraphrasing issues in an article they moved to main space just yesterday:
    Latest example of WP:CLOP-violation (see also here)
    Original text (p. 454) Wikipedia article
    After brilliant naval success at Srigaht, Pratap Sinha planned to free Kamrupa from the Mughals. Following the impressive naval victory at Srighat, Ahom king Pratap Singha aimed to liberate Kamarupa from Mughal control.
    He first targeted Sualkuchi with an army reinforced by 10,000 archers and matchlock men and sixty big ships. His next target was Sualkuchi, where he deployed a reinforced army of 10,000 archers and matchlock men, supported by a fleet of sixty large ships.
    The Mughals failed to maintain their position and lost many war ships, transport boats and suffered huge causalities. The Mughals were unable to hold their position and suffered heavy losses, including numerous warships, transport boats, and significant casualties.
    The Ahoms got large spoils—300 ships, 160 swords, guns-big and small, two hundred hand grenades, besides gold and silver. The Ahoms secured substantial spoils from this campaign, which included 300 ships, 160 swords, various firearms (both large and small), 200 hand grenades, as well as gold and silver treasures.
    After Sualkuchi, the Barphukan and Koch King Bali Narayan turned towards Hajo. Following the victory at Sualkuchi, the Ahom commander Barphukan, in alliance with Koch King Bali Narayan, advanced towards Hajo.
    It was surrounded by the Ahoms and the Bengal governor, Abdus Salam, surrendered. The city was encircled by Ahom forces, leading to the surrender of Bengal's governor, Abdus Salam.
    The Ahoms captured immense treasure consisting of 200 guns (big and small), about 5,000 swords and 700 horses besides numerous pearls and jewelled ornaments. The Ahoms seized a substantial cache of treasure, including 200 firearms (large and small), approximately 5,000 swords, 700 horses, and a collection of pearls and jeweled ornaments.
    Note that the quoted text in the table are consecutive sentences in the wikipedia article and the book. And it goes on in this vein. Given the ongoing issues I would now support an ARBIPA TBAN or a project-wide block. Abecedare (talk) 23:29, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh dear. Well, three more and we can open a CCI... -- asilvering (talk) 16:24, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, that again looks like copy-paste-edit-publish. Valereee (talk) 16:28, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Clarification: Abecedare & Asilvering: The pre-existed article was mispelled thus it was moved to a correct AT, not a move to mainspace from draft. I have fixed these issues promptly.
    Original text (p. 454) Wikipedia article
    After brilliant naval success at Srigaht, Pratap Sinha planned to free Kamrupa from the Mughals. With the Mughal forces weakened after their defeat at Srighat, Ahom ruler Pratap Singha saw an opportunity to reclaim Kamarupa.
    He first targeted Sualkuchi with an army reinforced by 10,000 archers and matchlock men and sixty big ships. Setting his focus on Sualkuchi, he gathered a formidable army of 10,000 soldiers skilled in archery and matchlock firearms, supported by a fleet of sixty large warships.
    The Mughals failed to maintain their position and lost many war ships, transport boats and suffered huge causalities. Unable to withstand the Ahom offensive, the Mughals suffered a devastating defeat, losing a large number of warships, transport boats, and troops.
    The Ahoms got large spoils—300 ships, 160 swords, guns-big and small, two hundred hand grenades, besides gold and silver. The Ahoms claimed an immense haul of war spoils, seizing 300 ships, 160 swords, various firearms, 200 hand grenades, and a substantial amount of gold and silver.
    After Sualkuchi, the Barphukan and Koch King Bali Narayan turned towards Hajo. Building on their success at Sualkuchi, the Ahom forces, led by Barphukan and supported by Koch King Bali Narayan, set their sights on Hajo.
    It was surrounded by the Ahoms and the Bengal governor, Abdus Salam, surrendered. Surrounding the city, they launched a siege that ultimately compelled Abdus Salam, the governor of Bengal, to surrender.
    The Ahoms captured immense treasure consisting of 200 guns (big and small), about 5,000 swords and 700 horses besides numerous pearls and jewelled ornaments. With Hajo under their control, the Ahoms secured a wealth of spoils, including 200 firearms, nearly 5,000 swords, 700 horses, and an array of pearls and exquisite ornaments.
    Courtesy ping to @Elli, who set the restriction in the first place. -- asilvering (talk) 20:18, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Garudam, now the content you have written is far too far away from the source, and appears to have your own interpretations in it. Dympies (talk) 02:17, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unban and Support extension of topic ban to cover ARBIPA - This appeal is deceptive, the user has been flagrantly violating their topic ban for example:
    1. On 21- 22 February 2025: *[5]
    1. 25-30 January 2025
    1. 20 December 2024

    25 November 2025

    In the last set of edits, they draftified an article that had been in the mainspace for years. This was highly disruptive and exactly what the ban was supposed to prevent and given the fact that their previous usernames were also inflammatory. I think their block needs to be extended to cover the entire WP:ARBIPA area given their history of disruption. Wareon (talk) 11:43, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    @Wareon: The first 5 set of diffs shows my reverts of sock edits and unrelated entries which doesn't get to pass WP:NLIST, we won't find any source either which groups the conflicts into a set for list relating to Bangladesh, from the talk page it can be seen that many editors have rightly echoed the voice [24]. For the diffs after that, I have to say that the Draft:Battle of Umberkhind was initially submitted by myself before my block when I had less than 100 edits, later another user started editing it and my watchlist popped up with these edits, unintentionally I reacted to them, for which I can only ask for a benifit of doubt. Since then (ie. when I had 200-250 edits) I haven't involved myself into any tban covering area. Lastly my previous username issue was already noted and sanctioned in my WP:NOTHERE block, I haven't changed my username to any other inflammatory name which could be a violation. – Garuda Talk! 12:17, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    These were topic ban violations. Your refusal to accept this further justifies the request to expand your topic ban to cover the whole WP:ARBIPA. Dympies (talk) 12:34, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I did not refuse to accept any violations, It's just some edits were made unintentionally (justification given above: as the draft was initially submitted by me a year and half ago) when I was evolving, when my edits were miniscule. – Garuda Talk! 13:08, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support WP:ARBIPA topic ban - The user has been disruptive not just in the Indian history area but also in the ARBIPA (Afghanistan, Pakistan and India) as whole. Their bludgeoning at Talk:Prayagraj [25][26] combined with poorly written and POV history additions to the said article, [27][28][29].As well as poor clerking at AfDs[30] 1 [31] I think the original ban is not enough. Dympies (talk) 12:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      The Talk:Prayagraj comments are far from bludgeoning. [32]: The closure was Tban'd and I responded all of the supporting comments as calmly as possible without going here and there [33][34][35]. Here I barely made two engaging comments. The further additions on the page is backed by putative sources, I'd urge to fellow editors for giving a quick read to Prayagraj#Gupta Empire and then give their opinions. For the AfD issues I tried to volunteer myself by closing and relisting the discussions, mostly I did good [36][37][38][39][40][41], however some as questioned by CNMall41 were instantly heeded and I didn't close or relisted any AfD since then, this was endorsed, although It should have been indeed done at the hands of an admin. – Garuda Talk! 13:04, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It is bludgeoning, you have made 23 comments there. The section on the Gupta Empire has statements such as "The Vishnu Purana provides an intriguing reference". Regarding your clerking of AfDs in ARBIPA, this relisting was not needed as the consensus was already clear. Dympies (talk) 14:31, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      No please go through WP:BLUDGEON: "Sometimes, a long comment or replying multiple times is perfectly acceptable or needed for consensus building." The reason why I made 23 replies alone is because I was addressing the issues of misleading edit summaries and misinterpretations of guidelines by another user, which later payed off as clarification for other editors [42][43][44]. May I ask what's wrong with "The Vishnu Purana provides an intriguing reference"? Scholars are free to interpret any texts. – Garuda Talk! 14:55, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @Dympies, that relist was also done before the comment by CNMall41. -- asilvering (talk) 16:56, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I pointed that out because Garudam cited that relist in their comment as being "good". Dympies (talk) 00:15, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Speaking for myself, that one looks subjective to me, we can argue if it was bad or good (given the last calculated comment + 3 !votes aren't generally considered as "consensus"). Upon going through their relists [45][46][47] and keeps [48][49] it seems like mostly worked out well. Silent ink (talk) 10:56, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Even so, I take the responsibility for the closures and relists, I can only ask to kindly look on my good side that I backed off. Best, – Garuda Talk! 18:52, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support per Rsjaffe. Considering mostly constructive contributions he needs to be given some slack, also he's been pretty civil and calm at discussions (like Talk:Gupta Empire#Undue origin?). However I haven't looked at other discussions, Talk:Prayagraj has problems from multiple editors but it isn't necessarily bad either. Waleed (talk) 13:51, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Weak support with 1RR as some issues raised above or even come back here again after 6 months completion of the block. I don't know about any violations but overall his 8k+ edits give a shady clear picture if not good. I will note that SPI reports [50][51][52] filed by him have been very helpful. NXcrypto Message 16:59, 26 March 2025 (UTC) agree with Rsjaffe[53]NXcrypto Message 17:00, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose and expand TBan to cover the whole area. Agree with Abecedare and Wareon. You were unblocked merely 4 months ago, but pretending that nothing happened. This is not a collaborative approach. desmay (talk) 00:41, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      This appeal was made in consideration of previous Tban appeal [54], where editors (involving admins) suggested to come back after 3 months. – Garuda Talk! 18:57, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is difficult to understand why you are appealing the restriction so often before the standard 6 months period. While I am in favor of expanding topic ban to cover the whole ARBIPA, it makes sense to support reinstatement of indefinite block given the repeated violation of the unblock condition, as the editor is clearly making the same mistakes that led to the condition being imposed in the first place. Raymond3023 (talk) 03:15, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose repeal, and support extending TBAN to ARBIPA. In addition to behavioural issues found by Wareon, Dympies and Abecedare, Garudam has encouraged a user to make edits to disputed content under discussion [55]. Whether it is strictly against the rules or not, it is bad form, and it goes to show that Garudam is willing to ignore best practices in order to achieve their goal/push their POV. With everything I've read in this thread, it seems this user has a hard time collaborating and therefore I support an indefinite topic ban from the contentious ARBIPA topic, broadly construed. TurboSuperA+(connect) 08:48, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      While its not against any rules, it's probably not very well thought out for you to !vote here, especially as your link points to a dispute regarding your own conduct which resulted in a sanction. This could very easily be seen as WP:GAME, or attempting to get revenge on another editor who you feel has personally wronged you. In closing the thread you initiated here, you were warned by abecedare to let this go at the risk of further potential sanctions. Dfadden (talk) 09:35, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      No, the link does not point to a dispute regarding my own conduct. It points to a comment Garudam made on a user's Talk page where they encouraged them to make changes to disputed content under active discussion. I don't see how WP:GAME applies, can you quote the relevant part?
      Why do you think Garudam has personally wronged me? It wasn't Garudam who started the ANI process against me and it wasn't Garudam who voted for an indef ban, I have nothing against Garudam personally. I do take issue with their behaviour, though. I genuinely think it is disruptive and not conducive to collaboration. Clearly, I am not alone in this. TurboSuperA+(connect) 10:07, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It points to a comment Garudam made on a user's Talk page where they encouraged them to make changes to disputed content under active discussion. And that directly references the ANI related to your disputed RfC closures. In that ANI discussion which can be found Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1182, you said of Garudam: When the close didn't go their way, despite them being the only editor with a complaint against the close, they threatened the closer (which in this case happens to be me) with a TBAN unless they got their way. When voorts supported a TBAN against you in that discussion, you again singled out Garudam Garuda complains about a close that otuer editors have thanked me for. So I don't think the cases are as clear cut as you try to present them.
      Let me be clear, I am not defending Garudam's conduct or otherwise here. I am trying to let you know that based on the negative comments you have made against Garudam in the ANI regarding your own closes, you have been involved in a content dispute with this editor. Now when that editor requested a review of a sanction against them, you are advocating we impose harsher sanction. Consider how that looks to others when you have repeatedly been encouraged to drop the stick.
      At the risk of hypocracy, I will now do the same and leave this matter be. Its up to you whether you choose to heed my advice. Dfadden (talk) 11:38, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Yet you're trying to do everything to get your revenge, by filing a frivolous SPI not only on him but on me as well [56]. This is really concerning WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour. Mithilanchalputra(Talk) 04:02, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Active participation in SPIs, AFDs & RMs? Yeah, we may need him. But procedurally I have to advice you to withdraw and show us your another thousand constructive edits until the time passes.Silent ink (talk) 13:42, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support and lift overall ban. This feels like a massive reaction to the edits done in the grey area. I don't think all of it is good but it doesn't look so poor that we tear down an experienced editor who so far has been actively working in all projects in good faith. I had many disagreement with Garudam regarding constantly questioning and attacking my articles in the past, but that only helped me to understand and reach the qualities to the new heights. All I can say is that their constructive to destructive ratio is solid 99:1 and as a fellow PCR I saw their active clerking in reviewing the edits as well [57]. Mithilanchalputra(Talk) 04:06, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support reinstating indef block - Not only is this appeal premature, there have been numerous violations of unblock condition as highlighted by a few above, therefore the reinstatement of an indefinite block would be justified. Alternatively, a complete topic ban covering the said topic area would work as well. Shankargb (talk) 04:39, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support indef block or ARBIPA topic ban, per above. I note that unnecessary bludgeoning by this user has only made his appeal even more unconvincing. Devopam (talk) 08:22, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agreed with the above stands in support. Now that I think of it, this seems coordinated wikilawyering, often done by throwing a bunch of complicated diffs containing some guideline issues. And when countered, we just see more diffs pouring in, whether they even contain a real problem or not. As for the appeal, I don't think they've always been in a golden light, so I'd say Garuda has my weak support—so long as they adhere to their commitment. Malik-Al-Hind (talk) 11:08, 28 March 2025 (UTC)Sock puppet blocked. Shankargb (talk) 23:15, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Don't misrepresent the evidence provided above and stop casting WP:ASPERSIONS. All the diffs demonstrate a real problem with the user. Dympies (talk) 11:35, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      First of all, what you consider a misinterpretation is actually a clarification. You claim that the user has been disruptive throughout ARBIPA [59] by providing diffs of "bludgeoning." Now, I want your explanation—where exactly does this diff reflect your accusation? What exactly do you even consider "bludgeoning"? Please stop misleading us with your so-called "problematic diffs" and consider striking your accusations. WP:BLUDGEONING states: To falsely accuse someone of bludgeoning is considered uncivil and should be avoided. You didn't even bother to respond to their clarification of your accusation—how exactly is making numerous comments alone unhelpful? Nor did you explain what issues exist in the Gupta Empire section. Just try not to game the system—
      we're not dumb enough to follow suit and skip checking your diffs. To other users: IMO, this is completely unacceptable. We see these editors in conflict trying to take down others without providing substantial evidence of their conduct. Especially in the case of Dympies, a boomerang should be on the way. Malik-Al-Hind (talk) 12:19, 28 March 2025 (UTC)Sock puppet blocked. Shankargb (talk) 23:15, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      You are apparently Making this thread about yourself with your poor behavior. Making 23 comments in an RfC is bludgeoning.[60][61][62] I didn't need to add all the diffs (there would be 23 of them!) as the user's problematic conduct was evident, in fact they were badgering one user with their repeated comments who actually told them to stop harassing them [63] The problems at Gupta Empire section are self evident, that statement was to demonstrate how problematic it was, "provides an intriguing reference" is editorialising.
      Who's " we" here? And why are you getting so agitated over an unban appeal that is unrelated to you? Dympies (talk) 14:09, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Apparently poor behavior? You still haven't answered where exactly the RM diff contains bludgeoning. You're just throwing out allegations, overlooking the critique, and then saying "poor behavior"—that won't work. Anyone can easily figure out from the RFC thread [64] if sufficient time would be spent. It mainly shows two users in disagreement—one is apparently Garudam, and the other seems to be Abo Yemen. I have personally made many comments on talk pages to clarify points that can ultimately change our perception, and I see nothing wrong with that. Moreover, where do you find such limitations in WP:BLUD? In response to your accusations, Garudam has explained why he has commented in an ample amount, which offers a broader perspective than what you perceive. Re-evaluating your diffs, I will again show the involved users how you are repeatedly making false claims and ask you to reconsider withdrawing your accusations of bludgeoning:
      • [65] – This seems helpful for this.
      • [66] – Seems helpful in making other users aware of forum shopping.
      • [67] – I don't understand in the slightest what makes it an extra valent comment. Shouldn't one counter another editor with sources? I can see the last sum of opposing !votes might have been influenced by that comment in the RfC.
      • "Provides an intriguing reference" is editorializing. – You do realize all of it is backed by sources? Unless you want to challenge the historians and win the case against them, it certainly isn't problematic.
      "Who's "we" here? And why are you getting so agitated over an unban appeal that is unrelated to you?" – Irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, it's as irrelevant to you as it is to me, but seeing a desperate attempt to scattershot unproblematic diffs just makes me wonder who's really agitated. Malik-Al-Hind (talk) 14:51, 28 March 2025 (UTC)Sock puppet blocked. Shankargb (talk) 23:15, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Instead of derailing this thread with your problematic advocacy of Garudam, you should better how explain how you found this discussion given that you have never edited this noticeboard ever before. [68] Shankargb (talk) 15:18, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      You're going to ask this specific question to everyone [69][70] who has never been on this noticeboard ever again? Please stop elongating this thread. "You should better explain how you found this discussion, given that you have never edited this noticeboard before.": What? Why should I? What if I'm a user contributions stalker? What if I visit the noticeboard routinely? What if I just jumped in here out of nowhere? How does that even concern you? Wikilawyering is not fun! Instead of derailing this thread with your problematic advocacy of Garudam: You had no concern here at all except waiting for Dympies to clarify their false accusations—yet you label an important question as "derailing"? If we go by your logic, isn't everyone who supports their ban appeal also an advocate of Garudam? You don't even want others to point out poor diff evidence? Why? Malik-Al-Hind (talk) 05:35, 29 March 2025 (UTC)Sock puppet blocked. Shankargb (talk) 23:15, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support per above, I think the editor has proved more than enough that why they should be unbanned. Mostly articles published by him are Ok-ish to good. Shakakarta (talk) 13:19, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support- per Gaurdam. Sukumar05 (talk) 14:54, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose and reinstate block. While ARBIPA topic ban is a viable option, I am not finding any activity from this editor outside this area to find him beneficial for this encyclopedia. He has proven he cannot edit this area without being disruptive. Orientls (talk) 15:52, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Close with no increased sanction and warn Garudam about further TBAN violations. While the TBAN violations are made out in the diffs provided above, I don't see this continued discussion and the acrimony that it is causing between editors as at all helpful. To use the often used quote, this discussion is generating more heat than light. TarnishedPathtalk 23:20, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I would only add that per suggestions by editors below that any future appeals should be in a minimum of six months time. TarnishedPathtalk 23:21, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Expand topic ban to cover WP:ARBIPA, broadly construed, per the additional evidence provided by Abecedare. TarnishedPathtalk 07:25, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Expand topic ban to cover ARBIPA. Following the discovery of their topic ban violations, and their continued display of irresponsible behavior, I believe it is better to expand the topic ban. --1990'sguy (talk) 03:00, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indef topic ARBIPA ban - While I note that the user is now withdrawing the appeal after major demand to broaden their topic ban or simply block them, the withdrawal would have made more sense if it was done after the very early opposes. Instead, they have tried their best to present themselves in good light contrary to the available evidence. In light of additional evidence presented by Abecedare, it is evident that the user is introducing content with copyright issues even during the appeal. Another GA nomination such as this clearly demonstrates their incompetence. A full topic ban is necessary at this stage. Lorstaking (talk) 06:44, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indef block or ARBIPA topic ban - Given their continued violations of their topic ban and the very basic Wikipedia policies. I don't see how this editor would benefit this website. ZDRX (User) | (Contact) 05:04, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indef block or Indef ARBIPA topic ban per ZDRX: They are still doing the stuff they got indef'd for in the first place and are showing clear incompetence, especially with their multiple bad GA noms and repeated copyright violations. 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 20:50, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please close this real quick by imposing an appropriate sanction, this might be stressing out all of the involved users, especially the appellant. Apart from the topic ban violations, and close paraphrasing, do we really have any radical violation to even consider an indef and ARBIPA topic ban? It surely does not seem so, in fact I have seen this user making constructive proposals and requested moves, they could be helpful for discussions.AlvaKedak (talk) 20:13, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Indef ARBIPA topic ban or block — As per Wareon, Abecedare and Shankargb for the topic ban violations, close paraphrasing and not changing past behavior for which Garudam was T-banned. IAmAtHome (talk) 22:40, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Withdrawal

    [edit]

    Thanks for the supports and even opposes for which I'll look into myself and try to improve completly as I should. If I may, I'd want to withdraw for now if it's feasible @Asilvering? Pinging them as uninvolved so far. But anyone can put into this (Abecedare and others). May I appeal after the 6 months of my unblock? – Garuda Talk! 19:52, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I closed this when I saw the request to withdraw, since such a request sounded like low-hanging fruit. I didn't even read the thread to see that there were comments about extending the tban. At this point, I don't think you can unilaterally withdraw. This needs a closer with the time and inclination to read thru the thread and decide if a larger topic ban is or isn't needed. Perhaps the community needs more time to discuss. If tis is closed by someone else, I would say you want to wait 6 months from now, not 6 months from your unblock. That isn't written in stone, but my observation has been that if people think you're rushing your request, they're going to oppose. In any case, I've reversed my closure. Floquenbeam (talk) 20:12, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe it can just archive unactioned if no one wants to wade through the discussion. Valereee (talk) 20:22, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    At this rate, I don't think it will be inactive enough to be archived for quite some time. I'm a bit tempted to close it now, just to stop all these accusations from getting out of hand. Sorry Garuda, this must feel really rough. I think... we might need someone with goggles to take a look at this. -- asilvering (talk) 20:32, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    While withdrawing unilaterally is no longer an option, expression of desire to withdraw the request in good faith is something that will be looked upon favorably by the community signed, Rosguill talk 20:41, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your concerns and suggestions @Floquenbeam, Valereee, Asilvering, and Rosguill: I had a doubt that it'll be outrightly closed given the opposition I face, but I get it, this could go naturally. I'd also specially thank Dfadden and Malik-Al-Hind for indirectly or directly taking stance for me or just giving a quick reviews of diffs. I'm fine with appealing after 6 months from now, if it gets closed un-actioned. – Garuda Talk! 20:51, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • While I too don't agree with the reasoning, and the back and forth, in some the supports/opposes above, as I have detailed here, here and in the my updated comment above, the problems with the user's editing are ongoing and not restricted to the area they are currently TBANed from. So I'd appreciate a close of the appeal based on the merits rather than a (very understandable!) TLDR close. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 23:42, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Given the close paraphrasing issue (though somewhat addressed) and my unintentional topic ban violation, I do think a sanction is inevitable. Can I request a self-imposed or self-proposed partial block from the article mainspace? I haven't engaged in any kind of "bludgeoning" on the talk pages, and if given a chance, I could work on resolving the CLOPs issue through my drafts. I just want to focus on my interest in the Gupta Empire, and to be honest, this appeal was made in the hope of making my account cleaner by seeking the lifting of the topic ban. I had no immediate plans to resume editing around the Maratha Confederacy topic area. Thanks for everything---this will probably be my last comment before I take an indefinite hiatus. – Garuda Talk! 21:56, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      We could call it "self-imposed", but given, the community discussion above, in practice I can't imagine any admin would lift that unilaterally or at your request. But I think your suggestion of a pblock from mainspace is a good one, better than either a broader tban or a full indef. It would give you an opportunity to work on the copyright/pov issues, which saves effort on the parts of other editors and would provide evidence that you've understood the issues.
      While no one has called for that specific outcome above, I believe it will satisfy the consensus forming there about the nature of your edits. I'll happily close this thread with a cban from mainspace if no one specifically objects to this reading of consensus in the next little while. -- asilvering (talk) 22:15, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      WP:AN closures are not about imposing overnight ideas, but to analyze the existing consensus. What you are announcing would be a WP:SUPERVOTE. There is a clear-cut consensus for indef block or ARBIPA topic ban. If you still believe that this ill-informed self-proposed sanction from the OP "will satisfy the consensus forming there about the nature" of his edits then you must ping every single participant of this thread, and give them at least 24 hours. I would recommend against such a waste of time though. Shankargb (talk) 23:15, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      No, I do not have to do that, because AN is not a vote, and that's not how consensus works either. Reading the consensus involves not simply counting the bolded !votes of each participant, but reading what they had to say and their reasons for saying it. However, since you have objected, I shall lay out the reasoning in full for comment in advance. It is clear from the discussion that editors have found Garudam's editing unacceptable; we're at roughly 4:1 in favour of extending further sanctions. Closing this by lifting the tban or by closing without action would therefore obviously be a supervote. So, the closer must then find what sanctions are appropriate. Editors have variously suggested ARBPIA TBAN or a reinstatement of the indef. Just by numbers, of the editors who expressed a preference for one or the other, we have a strong majority in favour of extending the topic ban to ARBPIA. That is to say, a strong majority of the editors who have participated in this discussion have not found that Garudam needs to be removed from the encyclopedia entirely. Accordingly, it appears that an indef is likely an inappropriate close. However, looking at the merits, two things are clear: a) Garudam has previously struggled to adhere to a TBAN, and b) Garudam's editing problems include things like copyright violations, which are not specific to ARBPIA. An ARBPIA ban would be an appropriate reading of consensus, but appears unlikely to fix the problem.
      At this point, Garudam suggests a partial block from articlespace. This would fix the problems of "disruptive editing, perhaps including pov-pushing" and "putting copyright violations in mainspace". Is that enough? I think so, so I'd be willing to do it, except for the fact that there is clearly community consensus for some kind of action, so a simple block is insufficient. Accordingly, I suggested I would close as a cban from mainspace. -- asilvering (talk) 17:38, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      You say, "An ARBPIA ban would be an appropriate reading of consensus, but appears unlikely to fix the problem", however, an ARBIPA topic ban is will actually fix the problem because they are causing disruption there that isn't limited to just the main articles. What Garudam does after their ban is totally up to them, and they can improve in other areas. Additionally, allowing them to edit other areas will help them prove how they have improved, which will help them appeal their sanction later on. If they disrupt other areas, they can promptly be blocked, which as the community consensus above proves is also a preferred option. I also think that expecting Garudam to fix problems caused by their edits is unreasonable as per Abecedare 's reasoning below; "the problems of "disruptive editing, perhaps including pov-pushing" and "putting copyright violations in mainspace". Is that enough?"
      It is not, an editor can still POV push and display conduct issues on talk pages. For example, see the case of PerspicazHistorian, an editor that received an indef following a mainspace block because of their disruptive conduct at talk pages. Limiting them from ARBIPA itself will fix this issue.
      "I think so, so I'd be willing to do it"? What you are proposing is just a WP:SUPERVOTE. Your reasoning has already been challenged by multiple editors, you should let someone else close the discussion unless you wish to invite a closure review that will only victimize Garudam and cause unnecessary drama. Shankargb (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @Shankargb, consider taking a look at WP:NOTVOTE and WP:VAGUEWAVES. Even if thousands of editors repeated the same "indef block or ARBIPA ban" without providing further evidence, I do not think that would even be considered by a closure. Additionally the appellant has made it clear by proposing mainspace ban that they understand what needs to be done in order to fix the issues addressed here. Working on drafts can be a better approach, I don't know how the example of PerspicazHistorian befitts here, we aren't discussing their appeal. A closure review and admin review/vote would be better than letting the other side (Garudam) to getting notified by the same "indef and ARBIPA topic ban" !votes. AlvaKedak (talk) 20:31, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @Shankargb, this discussion has now made up more than 1% of all of your edits on Wikipedia so far. I'm not sure why you're so invested in it, but I suggest you take a step back. -- asilvering (talk) 00:52, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Instead of derailing this discussion, you must stop expressing your desire to close this discussion with your own preference against the community. Shankargb (talk) 01:40, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Previously another editor has accused you of canvassing as you posted comments within just 2 minutes of each other [72][73], unless you had notes ready for it, it is quite hard to imagine that you are not involved in canvassing. Most of the editors in favor of an Indef and ARBIPA often edit occasionally or weekly so I am not sure how effective this "community consensus" could be. AlvaKedak (talk) 10:43, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Why are you trolling? The 2 edits[74][75] you are citing were simply show a comment and fixing of a typo in that comment that was made barely a minute ago.
      You can tell us about your own suspicious history, and how you are desperately defending an editor you never interacted with, neither did you edit this noticeboard ever before yesterday.[76] ZDRX (User) | (Contact) 11:17, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      No I am not, It is just that I accidentally added the wrong diffs and now replaced them with the correct ones. Also I have heard this somewhere:
      You can tell us about your own suspicious history, and how you are desperately defending an editor you never interacted with, neither did you edit this noticeboard ever AlvaKedak (talk) 12:23, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @Asilvering, correct me if I'm wrong—isn't close paraphrasing an essay? Since when do we ban editors for violating it? If that's not the case then I have no other objections, feel free to close by rescinding the current restriction and imposing CBAN. Mnbnjghiryurr (talk) 15:35, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @Mnbnjghiryurr WP:CLOP is an explanatory essay, yes. "Close paraphrasing" itself is not an essay but a concept; it is a form of copyright violation and it is not acceptable on Wikipedia. -- asilvering (talk) 16:43, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • asilvering - Cban from mainspace is justified. Reading the thread I was going to close with an Indef block as the consensus appears to be that they are just not getting it and shows repeated disruptive behaviour. Happy for you to close with the CBan as an alterantive. FOARP (talk) 08:13, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wrong FOARP. It is not justified because nobody supported a proposal to CBAN from mainspace. Though there is consensus for indef block or topic ban. You should check again. Thanks Wareon (talk) 08:42, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
        Bans are supposed to be preventative. If a ban from mainspace prevents the disruption, and more to the point Garuda has consented to it, I'm not going to see many people who argued for either a indef or a TBAN arguing with the outcome. TarnishedPathtalk 09:39, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
        • That's also inaccurate. People have deemed Garudam to be incapable of editing ARBIPA (Afghanistan, Pakistan and India) topic, or Wikipedia as a whole. A mere CBAN from mainspace is highly lenient and entirely misrepresents the community consensus. Wareon (talk) 10:48, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          @Wareon, I'm sorry, but most of the deemers are basing their votes on problems that don't actually seem to exist, like bludgeoning and closers. If only a Cban is required if CLOP is taken seriously (although I'm soft-hearted, so we might have just warned them for it). Maniacal ! Paradoxical (talk) 16:00, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          A "mere" CBAN from mainspace? That's a stronger sanction than a TBAN or a normal indef. -- asilvering (talk) 16:53, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          Tell me you are not serious. Saying that a person having ability to everything except 1 space is a stronger sanction than having no ability to edit anything is outright misleading. Shankargb (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          Asilvering is right, restriction of ARBIPA only fixes the issues of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan related topics, while mainspace restricts to all of the contentious/non-contentious topic areas.AlvaKedak (talk) 19:59, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          I'm perfectly serious. A community-imposed ban is a much stronger sanction than an indefinite block, which can be performed or undone unilaterally by any uninvolved administrator. -- asilvering (talk) 00:48, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          Thanks for making it clear how you are wholly incorrect. Read what WP:CBAN says. It says "Editors who are indefinitely blocked by community consensus, or remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration by the community, are considered "banned by the Wikipedia community"." A community imposed indef block cannot be unilaterally overturned by a single admin. There is consensus for "Community imposed indef block" in the discussion above, which can be appealed only after 6 months to the community. Shankargb (talk) 01:40, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          You could have also quoted the first bullet point in WP:CBAN:
          Wikipedia, the community may impose a time-limited or indefinite topic ban, interaction ban, site ban, or other editing restriction(s) via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute. When determining consensus, the closing administrator will assess the strength and quality of the arguments made.
          As we know, some of the editors in the opposition are involved in disputes with the appellant which may directly affect the "consensus". Even if a thread receives more occasional WP:VAGUEWAVES editors (editors often edit weekly), who get themselves involved in the discussion with the similar votes, then an administrator must rule out and actually assess the strength of the arguments provided (in this case, Abecedare and Wareon, even Abecedare disagrees with some of the above votes). What you are asking Asilvering to do is to follow vague waves, which is not going to happen. AlvaKedak (talk) 12:44, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • Question about the proposed CBAN from main space: what happens if/when a draft is moved to main space and has issues since at that point Gurudam would not be allowed to even address them? I ask because:
        1. The issues of poor sourcing, notability, and close paraphrasing can be easy to overlook by editors not familiar with the area. See for example the ongoing GA review of one of the articles I spot-checked and,
        2. These are heavily sock/meat-infested areas with editors/accounts tag-teaming. See for example, visible and deleted histories of Draft:Battle of Umbarkhind and Battle of Umbarkhind which iirc is the only place I had previously encountered the editor.
      • So I still prefer the ARBIPA ban though I won't object if an admin decides to close this with a main space TBAn instead. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 17:25, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Abecedare, I laid out my reasoning above, but you're obviously correct about the problems with draftspace. Regarding Garudam being able to address issues, part of what I think is insufficient about closing this with an ARBPIA tban is that this would block them from fixing any of the problems they've already introduced, while leaving them free to cause similar problems elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Point taken, however, about the socking and tag-teaming. You're right that being forced to use draftspace would slow the problem down, not stop it. What do you think about imposing a restriction that allows Garudam to work on fixing these articles in their userspace instead? As you've noted, this kind of thing takes a lot of cleanup, and I'd like to find a way for them to do some of that, if possible. The trouble with an ARBPIA topic ban as I see it personally (beyond what I stated in my post above about reading the consensus) is that I will then have to indef for copyvio as a regular admin action if I find a couple more affected articles (and I am sure I will). -- asilvering (talk) 17:53, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
        I don't think we can expect Garudam to help with cleaning up their current/future creations. See for example their first attempt at addressing the CLOP at Battle of Bharali (1615), which simply repeated the problem; and their second attempt somehow expanded the source-content instead of summarizing the secondary source.
        That said: I was typing out To be clear my "question" is meant solely for the closer to consider while deciding the best remedy and not necessarily to answer in so many words. The latter would not be the best use of precious editor/admin time! when I edit-conflicted with your above message. So I am truly fine with any close that you think appropriate. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 18:09, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Question about edit requests and potential socks

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    WP:PROXYING explained. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:41, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Are there any issues completing or partially completing edit requests by IPs that may be socks?

    The issue was also discussed here: User_talk:Chipmunkdavis#Question_about_edit_request_and_sockpuppet_investigations

    Edit requests are pretty transparent, so I don't think there are any issues but just wanted to check here. Bogazicili (talk) 15:42, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The guidance in WP:PROXYING is that you must be able to show that the changes are productive and [you] have independent reasons for making such edits. Editors who reinstate edits made by a banned or blocked editor take complete responsibility for the content. So - essentially it's fine as long as you are using discretion and not blindly doing whatever a sock told you to. And it would be wise to approach such requests with a bit more scrutiny than usual. Spicy (talk) 15:50, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks! Glad I asked here. I had checked WP:Socking and WP:Canvass, but WP:Proxying is in Wikipedia:Banning policy.
    The edit request in question is just about images: Talk:Turkey#Extended-confirmed-protected_edit_request_on_4_March_2025. Bogazicili (talk) 16:03, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Report user: MarioTalevski

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    BLOCKED FOR 48H
    This was escalated to ANI, and MarioTalevski has been blocked for violating 3RR. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I would like to report User:MarioTalevski for repeatedly making biased edits on the Snow White (2025 film) article. Additionally, this user has a history of similar issues and has even deleted discussions from their talk page instead of addressing concerns. Their contributions do not appear to align with Wikipedia’s principles of neutrality and verifiability, as their edits seem to be driven by personal bias rather than objective sources. I kindly request that this matter be reviewed and addressed as soon as possible. Thank you! Selenne (talk) 05:02, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    You are required to provide WP:DIFFS as evidence to your accusations. Not doing so makes it more repetitive for spectators to participate, leading to delays in results. You are also required to alert the editor on their talk page. I've done so far you.
    MarioTalevski (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Tarlby (t) (c) 05:19, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The User:MarioTalevski, recently removed discussions from his talk page, where other users had also warned him about being reported if he continued adding content to Wikipedia against the rules. He has engaged in repeated instances of vandalism, as documented in these discussions, which he has now deleted. I only came across this account recently after noticing his biased edits on the Snow White (2025 film) article.Selenne (talk) 05:41, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You still haven't provided any diffs. Nil Einne (talk) 06:00, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    From my quick look, this looks like a simple bright line WP:3RR violation which could have been reported to WP:ANEW if someone had actually notified them of our edit warring policy. Nil Einne (talk) 06:11, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    He removed content from his Talk page:
    [77]
    I reverted the removal:[78] but he undid my revert:[79]
    Additionally, he has been repeatedly reverting edits on the Snow White (2025 film) page:[80][81][82][83][84][85] Selenne (talk) 06:19, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Anyway I've given them a 3RR warning now although I'm not getting involved in the edit war so their version currently stands. I'd note other than the lack of an edit warring notification, editors have incorrectly tried to preserve the other warnings and comments on their talk page in violation of WP:OWNTALK so there might be a degree of blind leading the blind here. Nil Einne (talk) 06:21, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I reverted their edit as "unexplained content removal". Looks like several editors have objected to their removal of the content, and MarioTalevski has, so far, refused to explain why they are removing it. And please stop fretting about them removing notices from their talk page, it is understood that when an editor removes notices from their talk page, it is an acknowledgement that they are aware of it. Isaidnoway (talk) 07:32, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I also meant to add that Wikipedia:Vandalism has a very specific meaning, so please be careful about slinging that accusation around, especially if you're not providing diffs to document the allegation of vandalism. Isaidnoway (talk) 07:40, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Report user: Ieithyddnewydd

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    User:Ieithyddnewydd is editing in languages he has no clue about. His edits of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingrelian_grammar are wrong. He doesn't understand standard Kartvelological transliteration and spelled ǯveş- "old" as წვეშ- instead of ჯვეშ-. Then he took Hewitt's paper about Kinship lexicon without understanding Hewitt's transliteration scheme so now we have such wonderful inventions like "ბიჲია biyia" that is supposed to men uncle (instead of ბიძია biʒia!).

    I also note that he's edited Bats page but he clearly doesn't understand Georgian alphabet. Here are the offending diffs: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mingrelian_grammar&diff=prev&oldid=1264085903 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mingrelian_grammar&diff=prev&oldid=1264102296 212.58.114.225 (talk) 07:41, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The reporting IP has been blocked as an open proxy. The reported user was not notified on their user talk page. The edits were at least a month ago. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:27, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It would still be nice to know if the complaints had any truth to them. Anyone know Mingrelian or Georgian? Liz Read! Talk! 16:49, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with concern about the accuracy of the article even though the edits are old. However, the last edits to the page are from OP, so it looks like the article now incorporates OP's concerns. From OP's editing history, I'm inclined to believe that OP knows the topic but is curmudgeonly.
    In short, I recommend shelving the complaint as stale and leaving the article at its current state.
    Ieithyddnewydd has edited other language pages, but none since February 6, so I'd leave those to others editing those pages to identify and fix. This is a chronic problem with niche pages: hard to know when they're right or wrong, but that's how Wikipedia is: Wikipedia:General disclaimer. I did drop Ieithyddnewydd a permalink to this discussion so they can see the concerns. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 21:37, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Various ongoing errors with my account

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    RESOLVED-ISH
    Please see phab:T390512 for updates. (But please don't comment just to say you're experiencing the bug.) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:48, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Howdy all,

    This is The Kip commenting from an IP (I'm happy to do things to help confirm that). When attempting to edit a page a few minutes ago after filing an SPI, I got hit with a Sorry! We could not process your edit due to a loss of session data error, and it recommends I log out and back in. However, I then can't log out, as that causes an Invalid CSRF token error.

    I switched to a different browser, which showed me logged out - when I tried logging back in, I then got hit with There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Please resubmit the form. You may receive this message if you are blocking cookies.

    Anyone know how to fix all this? For the moment I'm locked out of my account. 2600:4040:2306:BE00:75EB:3720:3FB6:28F (talk) 03:17, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi! This is WFUM (Wildfireupdateman) commenting from an IP. It appears this issue is being discussed on Phabricator (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T390512) and according to AntiComp there's an SRE on the case. 76.133.89.169 (talk) 03:19, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks! I cleared my cookies, believing that to be the issue, but it didn't solve anything - happy to know it's a sitewide thing rather than an issue unique to my account. 2600:4040:2306:BE00:75EB:3720:3FB6:28F (talk) 03:23, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There has been an uptick in routine errors lately. I got some database errors earlier today. Neither of y'all's accounts is blocked or locked, so I'm afraid there isn't anything admins will be able to help with till this is resolved sysadmin-side. Sorry.
    ... Okay I typed that message up and then got a CSRF error too. Well, hi! It's Tamzin. Hopefully this passes soon... 2601:80:4884:7100:31A6:6F63:2739:5325 (talk) 03:25, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi, this is thetree284, it happened to me too. When I try to log in to my account, It won't let me because of this. 2001:569:7C59:1E00:D4E8:F146:BB0F:E120 (talk) 03:32, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi, it's PhilKnight - same with me. 2A00:23C6:53C3:4601:F620:8C6F:AF04:C92C (talk) 03:33, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Accounts are showing up in RecentChanges again. For anyone still seeing csrf errors, just hold tight I guess. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:38, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yup, my account is operating again. The Kip (contribs) 03:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hey guys, I'm back and it seems I can log in now! thetree284 (talk and edits) 03:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    close page move

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    DECLINED
    It's not snowing. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:42, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    can we close this page move as per WP:SNOW

    Talk:Gaza genocide#Requested move 28 March 2025 Cinaroot (talk) 04:21, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The editor also also changed the RM after many people has participated which is also not appropriate. Cinaroot (talk) 04:22, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It doesn't look like WP:SNOWBALL applies to this discussion as there are some participants who are supporting this RM change. If the RM proposal has changed, please provide diffs that demonstrate this change so editors can see the nature of any change to the proposal. Liz Read! Talk! 18:24, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    maybe u r right. its unlikely to pass though. i'll circle back as soon as min. amount of time is passed. the topic is extensively debated several times in the past. i think the discussion should not be entertained min. of 6 months after this Cinaroot (talk) 21:56, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Request for access to a deleted page – “Bolesław II the Bold's expedition to Kiev (1076–1077)”

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     Done — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:42, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Hello, I would like to request access to the deleted article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boles%C5%82aw_II_the_Bold's_expedition_to_Kiev_(1076%E2%80%931077). I noticed that the page no longer exists, but I am interested in its previous content for research purposes. If possible, I would appreciate restoring a draft version or providing the article’s text. Thank you in advance for your help! Fajowy (talk) 06:59, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    @Fajowy: Please enable email, I can send you the text. Lectonar (talk) 11:10, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    ok I did it thanks again @Lectonar Fajowy (talk) 17:54, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Improper removal of Wiley academic source from "Markov chain" article — possible coordinated abuse

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    WP:FORUMSHOPPING. OP now indef'd after ANI. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:28, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    Content dispute, failure to notify other users, personal attacks.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:32, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Hello,

    I’m reporting improper and persistent removal of a sourced, academically published reference from the Markov chain article.

    The citation is from a peer-reviewed academic book, published by Wiley, one of the world’s top scientific publishers:

    📘 Markov Chains: From Theory to Implementation and Experimentation (2017)

    https://www.wiley.com/en-it/Markov+Chains%3A+From+Theory+to+Implementation+and+Experimentation-p-9781119387558

    Despite the source being policy-compliant under WP:RS and WP:V, it was removed by user [[User:Malparti]] with the summary:

    "Gagniuc is not an acceptable source, this has been discussed in detail"

    No discussion was linked. No page or policy was cited to justify the deletion. The removal was followed by further reverts by other users, including [[User:JayBeeEll]], but none restored the sourced content. The citation remains deleted.

    Moreover, Malparti appears to be from Romania, as is the author of the source — raising serious concerns about possible conflict of interest or personal bias.

    I anticipate that the term “self-promotion” will be raised — preemptively, I’d like to clarify:

    • I am not the author of the source.
    • The book is peer-reviewed, published by Wiley, and directly relevant to the topic of Markov chains.
    • Adding a neutral citation from a scientific publisher does not fall under self-promotion by any Wikipedia standard (WP:SELFPUB, WP:COI).

    I have seen similar patterns over time — multiple users taking turns to enforce the same exclusion, using similar rationales. This raises concerns of sockpuppetry or coordinated editorial bias, and I may file an SPI if this continues.

    I respectfully request:

    1. Review of whether the removal of the Wiley source was valid.
    2. Restoration of the citation if found compliant (as it clearly is).
    3. Administrative attention to the pattern of exclusion and possible collaboration.

    Thank you. EricoLivingstone (talk) 10:53, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    a) Content dispute: resolve it on the talk page. b) Here is what I assume is the previous discussion on the source; not exactly hard to find, as it is one of only four topics on said talk page. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:04, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    IBAN Appeal

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    On February 8, I was WP:IBANned from User:Engage01 for the reasons listed here.

    Whereas, Engage01 has been account blocked indefinitely for the reasons set forth here, the interaction ban is moot.

    I had posted this discussion on WP:ANI in error. One Admin recommended keeping it there, otherwise I would have moved it here sooner.

    This is not an urgent matter.

    Several community members at ANI mentioned that an "Indef" doesn't mean permant. I believe this argument is insufficient, and also that the IBAN was unjustified to begin with, but since I am banned from making reference to the other party, I am limited in what I am able to say to defend this position. Is there a way to discuss this with an ininvolved administrator through private messages? Is someone here able to authorize me to make references without violating the IBAN? If not, WP:AP says the The Arbitration Committee has the duty and responsibily To resolve matters unsuitable for public discussion for privacy, legal, or similar reason. Perhaps I should go there.

    I would be happy to WP:DROPTHESTICK, but so far the only reason given why I should do this is "or else." With respect, that's just not civil. Thank you in advance for any guidance you can give. Kire1975 (talk) 11:39, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment I closed Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Appeal_Interaction_Ban so the discussion can be centralized here. In the future, Kire, you can simply move the discussion so all of the comments are in one place. Noting too @Nil Enne's: comment that I erred in my advice to Kire. Apologies and making it more clear here. Kire, I think where you're confused here is that there is no need to relitigate the original IBan, and in fact doing so is not going to work in your favor. The administrator who closes your appeal will read the prior discussion and this/ANI and make a determination based on that. It is up to you to to make a clear case why the IBAN is no longer needed. If you don't feel you can do that within the limitations described at WP:BANEX, feel free to email ArbComm and note that you have done so. But it should not be needed because you're appealing your IBAN, and should be mindful of WP:NOTTHEM in your appeal. Star Mississippi 12:40, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Another question is about notice. I already posted an ANI notice on the blocked user I've been banned from interacting with because I mistakenly posted it on ANI. The rules of this subreddit noticeboard are that I "must" do so again with an AN notice. Since I am already banned from interacting with them, I don't want to appear like I'm tagging them unneccesarily. Please direct me on the best course of action. Kire1975 (talk) 12:33, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have updated your notification. Your not doing so should not be held against you by the closing admin as I believe it was the right non action given the IBan. Referring to this as a subreddit clarifies some of your multiple postings during the initial discussion, @Kire1975. While (some) subreddits do allow reposting, Wikipedia generally does not. Please try to remember that different sites have different norms and policies. Star Mississippi 12:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if it doesn't work in my favor, I would like to know the reason for the ban so that it does not occur again. I think other community members deserve to know too, especially those of us who followed WP:AVOIDEDITWAR in good faith. Context. Kire1975 (talk) 13:04, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think The Bushranger's support !vote in the IBan thread sums it up well, along with Star's original support for the two-way IBan. Engage01 removed some tags and then you put them back in. Voorts also chimed in with their own perspective too. If those reasons are not satisfactory, then as Star pointed out, you can go to ArbComm. Conyo14 (talk) 15:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you referring to The Bushranger's support edit made on 07:13, 6 February 2025 (UTC)? Kire1975 (talk) 16:07, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes Conyo14 (talk) 16:49, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for pointing out my error. I meant to say noticeboard, and I have edited it. What repostings are you referring to exactly and which rule? I only intended to post once today. Kire1975 (talk) 13:20, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The IBAN is not moot. Indefinite does not mean forever. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:10, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • To make it more obvious, the IBan was imposed after the discussion here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1179#User:Engage01: 2nd ANI notice. Liz Read! Talk! 17:56, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • As pointed out on ANI, the fact the iban was imposed by community consensus means it cannot be evaluated or overturned by an administrator, uninvolved, involved, or anything else. It can only be overturned by the community. As I mentioned there Kire1975 needs to drop the stick, immediately. Saying I would like to know the reason for the ban - which they have done repeatedly there and now here - is extremely concerning as the reasons for the ban were made clear in the original thread, and the fact they still either cannot or will not comprehend this implies either chronic WP:IDHT or that this is a WP:CIR issue. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:26, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • You were IBANed because your interactions with Engage01 were toxic, combative, and wasting other editors' time. The community decided that they didn't want to deal with the disruption, and imposed an IBAN. Indefs are not infinite, Engage may be unblocked, and the IBAN will be necessary then. You will only be successful in appealing your IBAN if you can prove that you understand why it is necessary and explain why it needs to be lifted, and wait at least six months from now (preferably much longer) before appealing it again. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:53, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think it's rather unlikely that Engage01 will successfully appeal their indef, so I expect that the IBAN is probably needless now.—S Marshall T/C 09:09, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    AI Images

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    Already listed at CR. Someone will get to closing this massive discussion when they get to it. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:46, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    There was a RFC recently at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/AI images#Relist with broader question: Ban all AI images? (!vote here). Starting on February 28, there was a discussion about banning AI-generated images from all Wikipedia articles (there was an earlier discussion, already closed, about doing so in BLP and medical articles). The RFC template has already been removed by Legobot, but an admin should give a proper closure to the whole thing. Cambalachero (talk) 15:20, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    RHaworth

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    Since I didn't see it posted anywhere but saw the tags drop on his user pages, I thought some of the old hats around here might like to know that Roger Haworth (User:RHaworth) has passed away, some time ago actually. Graham87 has added a short memorial to the deceased Wikipedians page. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 23:22, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Just saw this. Although I clashed with RHaworth on-wiki, I also met him in person and he was a lovely, intelligent and charming chap. I am very sorry to hear of his passing. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 06:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    IP improperly PROD'ing 50-100 software articles per week

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    FYI:

    There's been an IP hopper in Spain tagging 15-30 software articles a day for proposed deletion. I don't think it's malicious -- the articles have been inadequately referenced. The problem is that 50 to 70% of the time, I can find references using Google Books or Google Scholar. Others have potential redirects as alternatives to deletion.

    I'm sort of a deletionist but I hate to see so much salvageable content going out the door.

    I've hunted refs and added them to many articles. I may spend 30 minutes (or more) on an article that the IP spent 30 seconds tagging. I've either saved, redirected or added a PROD2 tag to dozens of articles but I can't keep up. Editing Wikipedia is just a hobby and I'm spending too much time on this problem.

    I'd like to communicate with the IP but their Orange IP changes multiple times an hour so there's no way to leave a message suggesting reference sources and asking them to slow down.

    I tagged recently PROD'd article talk pages with relevant WikiProjects in hopes one of the projects will pay attention. I also added {prodded} templates at WikiProject Deletion sorting/Software#Proposed deletions (WP:PROD).

    You can see the scope of this problem:

    Today, this person PROD'd 8 articles in 40 minutes. I've had enough - I went back and removed the remaining PRODs from the last 3 days of proposed deletions. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 15:25, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • Prodding poorly referenced articles at that rate is reasonable behaviour. I do hope you've checked and found sources for everything you've deprodded?—S Marshall T/C 16:32, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @S Marshall: no, I have not checked the 35 I just de-prodded.
      Earlier, if you look at my recent contribution history you'll see I de-prodded many more after extensive reference checking and adding references; I redirected most of the rest. When you see 10 or 30 minutes between my edits, that's because I was searching and reading.
      From Wikipedia:Proposed deletion
      • "Proposed deletion (PROD) is a way to suggest an article or file for uncontroversial deletion."
      • "PROD must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected."
      Given the volume of PRODs, the nominator's recklessness, their terrible batting average, our inability to communicate with them and the extent of content potentially deleted, I believe I've taken an responsible course in accordance with WP:IAR. I'd rather keep 5 bad articles that can still be deleted in the future than lose 15 that are gone for good.
      I've brought this here for several reasons:
      • I personally believe any use of WP:IAR should subsequently be run by others
      • I want to flag to admins reviewing PRODs that software PRODs from Spanish IPs probably can be kept or redirected with some checking.
      • There's grossly inadequate WP:BEFORE
      • We need to find a way to deal with this.
      • I'd like some more eyes reviewing CAT:PROD
      • I don't have time to give each article a careful check.
      I estimate I've spent 30-40 hours on this problem this week.
      --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 17:14, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I think you should consider reprodding the ones you deprodded without checking. It isn't up to you to give each article a careful check; you can leave them for others, and if there are insufficient volunteers to patrol all the prods at the moment, then as Liz correctly points out, they're easily restored.—S Marshall T/C 18:40, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      As I've noted in my edit summaries, I think all of those articles should be discussed before any deletion. -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 21:30, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Okay, well, you're within your rights to deprod them. Will you at least go back and add the appropriate maintenance templates to the articles you deprodded?
      We need to be crystal clear that finding poorly sourced articles is helpful, prosocial behaviour, even in someone who never writes anything.—S Marshall T/C 22:25, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      S Marshall, I agree about prosocial behaviour. That why I brought this to the calmer WP:AN page and not the bear pit at WP:ANI. I see these PRODs as a content problem, not something to be sanctioned based on what we know. How I wish we could somehow communicate with this person. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 00:22, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @S Marshall: maintenance templates -- working on them. May be a few days. I also need to tag all the talk pages with Template:Old prod templates. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 02:31, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      @S Marshall: all done with the 35. There are probably many dozens of other articles out there that need {oldprod} notices on their talk pages. —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 23:08, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Several additional observations:
      • The IP does not notify the article's creator
      • The IP does not put Template:old prod's on article talk pages.
      • When the IP PRODs an article and the PROD template notifies them that the article has been PROD'd or AfD'd before, they ignore the warning and move on
        • This has made me wonder about their motivation. Why would they ignore the notice to stop?
      A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 21:03, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I know I've talked about this editor elsewhere but I'll just repeat the highlights. I first notice the editor I refer to as "the IP from Madrid" around 2020. Their IP address changes frequently and their only activity is PROD'ding articles on old software they believe is outdated and or unimportant. They tag in spurts, they were very active 2 or 3 years ago and then stopped editing and only recently have reappeared. I have asked editors in the past what they thought of this tagging behavior and no one seemed to have any objections and/or they also thought these articles were deletable. I'd estimate that they are responsible for the deletion of hundreds of articles on software, primarily from the 2000s. But for all I know, this editor could have been PROD'ding articles for much longer, before I started reviewing them as an admin and noticed this editor.
      I don't think this activity should result in a panic about their activities but it would be good to get more editors reviewing articles and files that are tagged for Proposed deletion which receive much less attention than articles that pass through AFD discussions (but they still get more attention than CSDs).
      Regarding A.B.'s suggestions, if you review Wikipedia:Proposed deletion#Procedure for administrators, you'll see that a reviewing admin is only supposed to check to make sure that articles and files have been appropriately tagged for 7 days with a tag that includes a valid deletion rationale and to check to see that no objections to deletion have been raised. Otherwise, admins are just like other editors who can or can not raise objections to a tagged article or file, they have no extra obligations. BEFORE doesn't fall on the reviewing admin and it applies to AFDs, not PRODs. The guide for PRODs can be found at WP:PRODNOM. Right now, I know of 4 admins who regularly or occasionally review PROD'd articles and files, if other admins took on this task, they might have their own personal approach to reviewing PROD'd articles. Liz Read! Talk! 18:11, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Also, PROD'd articles are never "gone for good". If you come across a subject whose article was deleted through Proposed deletion, it can always be restored if there are no other outstanding issues (like copyright problems). Any of these deleted software articles can be restored upon request by the deleting admin or at WP:REFUND. Liz Read! Talk! 18:22, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Liz, of these 35 articles, the number of monthly pageviews, excluding bots and spiders, ranged from 16 to 273. The median for this group was 59. The median for all Wikimedia articles (not pages) was under 5.
      Probably thousands of readers will look for similar but deleted articles before an actual editor decides they want to start one. Only then will someone find that we used to have an article. -- A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 23:22, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I am not an admin, but I regularly check the list of PRODded articles and sometimes redirect or unprod some. When it comes to these software articles, I agreed with the deletion of many of those I checked, but did not know at the time that the editor was not notifying the page creator, and had I know I probably would have given more scrutiny or at least left a notification to the IP and the article authors. Reconrabbit 16:58, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If a registered user nominated multiple articles that fail PRODNOM (before nom #3 and during nom #2 especially) and can't be stopped otherwise, they'd likely be topic banned. Why not just treat this the same way? Nobody (talk) 06:19, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Topic bans have to be communicated to the person banned, and this one doesn't get messages. They're enforced by technical measures that are impractical to apply to rapidly-changing IP addresses.—S Marshall T/C 09:00, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If they ignore talk page messages it's not our problem but theirs (Competence is required). Sure, blocking isn't the perfect way to deal with it due to the fast IP changes, but that's something similar to LTAs. RBI (possibly without the B) should by applied for all these noms. Nobody (talk) 09:29, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be an arguable, if harsh, position if we could be sure they were ignoring those messages rather than not receiving them in the first place.—S Marshall T/C 12:06, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If the tags are accurate, then they aren't editing from mobile, so it isn't THEYCANTHEARYOU. However, it's difficult to determine if they'd see a message due to how frequently their IP changes. Nobody (talk) 12:57, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @1AmNobody24, the range of IPs is huge. You’d have to block every Orange Group mobile phone in Spain. In spite of personally wasting 40 hours on this big content leak, the collateral damage of such a wide block makes me even sicker.
    I really respect Liz so I’m wary of disagreeing with her but I think the simplest thing is for the admins that usually deal with PRODs to decline PRODs and remove the tags if a PROD meets 2 requirements:
    • It was tagged by a Spanish IP
    • It’s computing-related
    Making this call only requires the admin click on the IP’s contribution history, then click on “Whois” or “geolocate” at the bottom of the page. If it comes back Orange Espana, it’s our person. This step takes an extra 30-60 seconds. If they want, they can also stick a {notability} tag on the article - 2 minutes more (unless they’re using Twinkle - 30 seconds).
    These are never “uncomplicated” or “uncontroversial” deletions, given the probability articles can be referenced or redirected.
    I’m not around consistently so you can’t always count on me catching these. A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 12:58, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    PRODNOM says that all prods should have a clear edit summary indicating the page has been proposed for deletion. Since the IP doesn't use edit summaries, these are all bad noms. Nobody (talk) 13:14, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We've blocked larger ranges before although they're arguable for bigger problems. Anyway instead of blocking, can't we just use an edit filter to block all prods from the range? Nil Einne (talk) 13:19, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Or all prods with no edit summary in general? Nobody (talk) 13:21, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent idea. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 13:39, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Good point. --A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 13:37, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Orange had 22% of the Spanish mobile phone market in 2023.[86] There are more mobile numbers than people in Spain.
    I like Nil Einne's filter idea. How can I make that happen? A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 13:50, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You need to get consensus for it in a discussion, either at WT:PROD or WP:VPP (better). After that you can post a request to WP:EFR. Nobody (talk) 13:58, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks! A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 14:06, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You've have my support in such a discussion. It's a reasonable solution to an actual problem. BusterD (talk) 17:05, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes but T-Mobile US has 130 million subscribers which is nearly 3x the entire population of Spain but Wikipedia:Advice to T-Mobile IPv6 users and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive314#T-Mobile range block concerns and other threads where it's been discussed. I thought AT&T had been affected too (e.g. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/2600:1008:B033:B1D0:1C9C:7739:AFFF:7C56/Archive#c-Izno-20240619204200-Sergecross73-20240619164800) but it might be more complicated Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1139#c-NinjaRobotPirate-20230928031500-El_C-20230928014900. In this case account creation won't even need to be disabled. It's really a question over whether the need outweighs the collateral, more than one of pure size IMO. In this case it probably doesn't especially given other options like an edit filter would like be sufficient if enough editors feel it's a problem. If not enough even feel it's worth that they they won't support a block either. This is what I was trying to get across in my first post. Nil Einne (talk) 00:35, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • @1AmNobody24 @A. B. @Liz : I'm pretty sure that User:Clenpr is their account that they use to occasionally nominate articles at WP:AFD that have been deproded, usually with the same short reason "Fails GNG" or "Fails NSOFT". See for example Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/32-bit disk access where they nominated an article that was deproded but commented as an IP user. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 21:11, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Helpful Raccoon, I see you left Clenpr a notice of this discussion. If they’re reading this, here are some comments for them.
      • Are you trying to help us? If so, please slow down and communicate with us. Use your new account or at least not an anonymous Orange Espana account that changes IPs. Also we appreciate your help.
      • Please look at some of the articles I deprodded and the refs I found for those articles. This is something you could have done yourself.
        • (Not the last 35 I deprodded but the ones before that)
      • There are steps you have to take when proposing an article for deletion besides just tagging an article- stuff like the {oldprod} notices, edit summaries, notifying the article’s primary editor(s). See WP:PROD for instructions.
      There are time saving software tools to automate this for you.
      • Please look at WP:ATD - we prefer alternatives to deletion if possible such as redirects and mergers.
      • Free software and computer science topics are often covered by journal articles found by Google Scholar searches. Other refs are in computer books found with Google Books.
      —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 23:35, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It would be quite an accomplishment if the editor responded. But I hope they do and address your concerns.
      Regarding your earlier comment (above), don't be concerned with disagreeing with me, being an editor on Wikipedia means one is always learning and sometimes that arises out of disagreements. One solution to your quest to get a more thorough evaluation of PRODs is to get more admins who agree with your stance helping out with reviewing PRODs. I don't think four admins (two regular and two occasional) is enough coverage of this area of the project, we could really use a rotation of 6 or 7 admins who regularly rotate in to review the day's PRODs when they come due. Liz Read! Talk! 04:39, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I created an account as it seems like that is what the mayority of editors want.
      Mandating an editor to find references to be able to remove unreferenced content would sit a dangerous precedent. Wikipedia should prevent editors from adding unreferenced content in the first place and letting editors delete unreferenced content without questioning. If Wikipedia makes removing unreferenced content harder to delete, then Wikipedia will contain too much fake content and will lose trust.
      I will continue to ask to remove unreferenced content with this account, even if other editors are OK with unreferenced content.
      Why should I notify a page creator that does not follow Wikipedia rules and creates non-notable articles without references?
      And finally I have to say I am totally against keeping unreferenced and possibly fake content on Wikipedia. Clenpr (talk) 08:09, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      In 2025, that is largely the case. There are much stricter rules on new articles and many are deleted or sent to be improved as a draft if they have poor or no references. Many of these articles on software that you are proposing deletion of followed much more lenient rules that have changed (or rather have been much more strictly enforced since), which the authors may not be aware of now (or might have since left the project).
      WP:BEFORE isn't strictly required as part of the deletion process but it's strongly encouraged to avoid results like this. The earliest revisions of software pages likely had few to no references if they were created over 15 years ago (see the first revision of Avogadro (software): Special:PermanentLink/293887428) Reconrabbit 14:28, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Prods are for uncontroversial deletion. This is clearly controversial, so one solution might be to just de-prod them on sight. The not notifying the article creator aspect is also troubling. Oh, one more thing. When IP masking rolls out to English Wikipedia within the next year, it might solve the problem of being able to communicate with editors like this, since a browser cookie is set and used to keep these kinds of editors on the same (temporary) account for awhile. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:23, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Novem Linguae, an admin reviewing tagged articles only knows that a Proposed deletion is "controversial" if someone objects to the deletion, either by untagging the article or voicing an objection on the article talk page. That's why we could use more editors reviewing tagged articles in the week prior to their deletion. We don't rely on individual administrator's judgment of when a deletion might be controversial because your POV could be very different from my own. That's why we need the concrete step of an editor voicing an objection by either untagging a proposed deletion or lodging a protest on the talk page. That's how it's always worked in the past, as far as I'm aware. Again, I'll refer you to Wikipedia:Proposed deletion#Procedure for administrators. Liz Read! Talk! 05:43, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree and understand. My thought is for someone like A. B. (the OP) to do the deprod, not the administrators working the PROD queue. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:49, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Filibuster in the United States Senate

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    I don't like this edit war, and the last one at least left a kind of a summary so I'm not reverting but this probably needs some eyes. Drmies (talk) 18:46, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    At a glance, I wonder if sock puppetry is afoot. Might need semi protection -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 19:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I thought about that too but only one of the accounts was new. Drmies (talk) 19:14, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed the last two to carry on the edit-war (User:Bananabread1334, first edit since January, and User:Swipe4004, 2nd edit since January), are both autoconfirmed. Any CUs passing, or is this off-line communication nonsense? Black Kite (talk) 19:17, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The three most recent are technically unrelated, but I cannot speak to off-wiki coordination of course. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:25, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Does anyone think SP is a bad idea? -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 19:44, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    EC protected for one week, and reverted to what appears to be the most recent stable version. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:52, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Some EC editors have re-added the Cory Booker notafilibuster, but at least the edit warring has stopped. Consensus is a little iffy, but I think it's better than it was. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 22:09, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    New article is AI-generated near-nonsense

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    User blocked, article deleted. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:39, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Metaphysical AI is a newly created article that appears to be 100% AI-generated blather.

    Is there a speedy deletion criteria that covers stuff like this, or is the only option consuming people's time with an AFD? - MrOllie (talk) 20:01, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I probably would have just draftified this, but WP:G11 probably applies. I have blocked the creator, whose account is named after a brand that supposedly develops "metaphysical AI" products, and who has a deleted draft about the brand's creator, who evidently also goes by "Kraveli" as an alias. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:06, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @MrOllie Could you not just draftify it and tag it with {{AI-generated}}? It'll either be reworked into something actually readable or deleted under G13. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 20:11, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Appeal on article creation restriction

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    Hello, I would like to request a review on my article creation ban. Since the restriction was placed, I have focused on improving articles and creating drafts, all of which have been moved to mainspace without any issues, one of these being promoted to C–Class right after its move.

    I have not received any warnings since the ban, and I acknowledge my past mistakes regarding synth and fringe theories.

    Thank you. Kolno (talk) 20:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Courtesy link to ban discussion: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1177#User:Jaozinhoanaozinho and persistant WP:SYNTH, WP:PROFRINGE, and_WP:GNG-failing articles
    You do seem to have received good feedback on your AFC submissions since your sanction, kudos for that. I'm wondering though why you don't seem to have worked on any of the articles that were moved to draftspace when your ban was imposed, such as Draft:Siege of Jailolo (1550) or Draft:Martim Afonso de Sousa's expedition to Brazil, or several others that were deleted because they were left stale for six months, like Draft:Battle of Almoster. As far as I can tell these all were created before your ban - were you intending to abandon them if they were examples of the same issues mentioned in the ban discussion? Or maybe you just forgot about them, or thought you weren't allowed to work on them? Just curious. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 22:07, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Just noting that the ban was imposed on January 21, 2025 and their previous username was User:Jaozinhoanaozinho. Liz Read! Talk! 01:29, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hello, and thank you for the feedback.
    Regarding the drafts, I had mostly forgotten about them since I have been focused on other drafts and improvements. I appreciate the reminder and will work on them whenever I have time.
    As for the Battle of Almoster, I intentionally abandoned it because I couldn't find any additional sources.
    Thanks again. Kolno (talk) 09:52, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    User needs to wait at least three more months for this. Perhaps longer if the memory problems persist. Certainly, granting the rename request was incorrect as user is under a cloud. That should have not been done while the ban was in place. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:28, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Deepfriedokra: Renames do not require an account to be "in good standing". That's vanishing. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:32, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @The Bushranger: As a global renamer, I must say that is not the case. Thanks, -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 23:24, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What I see is The user is not seeking the rename to conceal or obfuscate bad conduct, which is similar but different. If that explicitly is a "no" a la vanishing, it should be clearer and WP:CHU needs to be changed because it basically explicitly says it only applies to vanishing. - The Bushranger One ping only 23:52, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support - my count might be off but it appears that Kolno has created 17 new article drafts since their ban; seven were approved on their first submission, three have been submitted but not yet reviewed, and the remaining seven have not yet been submitted; in all of those, Kolno received minimal negative feedback (just the bots that hide categories and remove non-free files from drafts) and occasional kudos for their work. They also have created a handful of AFDs regarding poorly sourced articles, and those have mixed results but the discussions show that Kolno is receiving and absorbing feedback from other users. I personally don't subscribe to the view that sanctioned editors must pay penance before we will consider their appeals; six months is the standard offer, it is not policy. Kolno has clearly shown improvement, and the fact that it's a short time is not a mark against them. There also is no "under a cloud" restriction on account renames; you may be thinking of vanishing. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:29, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Help requested

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

    An administrator may need to talk to @AhmedElMohamedi about WP:SYNTH/WP:OR. Per this discussion.

    Thank you, IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 22:58, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    @IOHANNVSVERVS:
    -- Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:37, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, done. I don't know what is meant by "provide links for involved editors" however. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:11, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You should have written {{Userlinks|Theguyyou'retalkingabout}} in your initial post. Simonm223 (talk) 19:02, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I added the userlinks template.— rsjaffe 🗣️ 19:20, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah I see, thank you. And thank you, @Rsjaffe. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    IOHANNVSVERVS, you would probably also get more of a response if you provided "diffs"/edits with examples of the editing you are concerned about and if you had posted this complaint on WP:ANI rather than WP:AN. Admins are generally quicker to respond when you give them pointers on where they can see obviously problematic behavior rather than being asked to go look for it themselves. That's just a general observation about these noticeboards. Liz Read! Talk! 03:28, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for this explanation Liz.
    AhmedElMohamedi added original research to an article and though I and another editor have attempted to explain this to them they have argued and not understood how their addition was original research. I posted this here just to get an admin to make sure they understand this, since I felt they were not listening. Diffs: [87][88] IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 13:14, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    F5 backlog

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    Cleared. --Goldsztajn (talk) 17:02, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    The category Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old needing human review has 119 files to be reviewed. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:44, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    This category typically builds up. I use to handle it every night for years but since ARBCOM, I've dropped some of my previous tasks and this was one. I also think it's good that we have a few people who can handle simple tasks like this on the project. It's not a hard one but it's also not urgent. A dedicated admin can clear it in a few minutes once you install the Javascript text. Give it a try! Liz Read! Talk! 04:45, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    @Liz: What Javascript? Is this specifically to be used by the deleting admin? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Legoktm/rescaled.js will delete the orphaned revisions and remove the template. -- Whpq (talk) 05:32, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @LaundryPizza03: adding ping 'cuz I messed it up the first time. -- Whpq (talk) 05:35, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, look at the CSD category page and it explains what needs to be done as Whpq explains. Liz Read! Talk! 08:21, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you please just run for RfA already rather than repeatedly pestering us about undone admin tasks? * Pppery * it has begun... 22:36, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Another set of admin eyes

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    ...would be helpful at Talk:Donald_Trump#Closure_of_health_section_discussion. Thanks! Valereee (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    @Valereee one set applied. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 21:59, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    could we get some talk page revdels on a blp

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    Cleanup applied. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:30, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    theres a talk page section on a blp that has blatant NOTFORUM and from blp vios thats been there for over a month starting from here and ending here revdel probably warent here localBluepikmin (whistle the pikmin) 17:58, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    they also insulted the blp on my talk page so that might need to be revdel'ed too localBluepikmin (whistle the pikmin) 18:02, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    CfD backlog

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    There are about 200 old open CfD discussions. I handled some of them, but it is a sprawling catchup to do. You should look at clearing the RfD backlog as well. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:46, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello, LaundryPizza03,
    Have you considered having an RfA? That could help with the problems you point out. I'm serious! Liz Read! Talk! 03:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I see now that Pppery has already proposed this solution (above). Liz Read! Talk! 05:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Non-admins can close all CfD discussions. While it would slightly help (non-admins still need to make a kind of edit request to implement the results), it sounds like the core of the problem is that nobody wants to evaluate the discussions, and Laundry becoming an administrator would not help with that. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 15:10, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, you shot down my gentle suggestion, Compassionate727, what you propose to deal with this backlog? Liz Read! Talk! 06:13, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We have several excellent contributors and closers at cfd. And due to low turnout or other reasons, sometimes regular closers will comment in a discussion rather than close it in order to help achieve consensus - as noted at WP:XFD#CON. And I have no doubt there are many reasons that someone chooses to help out closing (or not).
    For myself, there typically are so many people who close these days, that I've tried to step back and let those who wish to do closings, do so. I think it's a skill and an experience worth learning and having for those who wish it.
    But when there's a backlog - like this - I'll dive in and help, as I can. Which I did this time as well.
    That said, (noting that I wouldn't wish adminship on anyone who didn't want it...), I'll second Liz's comment LaundryPizza03  : ) - jc37 08:08, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    3.0 -> 4.0

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    Hi! Wikipedia uses Creative Commons version 4.0 but a number of pages like for example MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning/de mention 3.0. Perhaps you can help fix those pages? Searching for "License 3.0" should catch most of them. But perhaps TranslateWiki is responsible for those translated versions now? MGA73 (talk) 06:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Hello MGA73, these are hopefully-now-unused remnants of a page rename done in 2009. I have now replaced the subpages by transclusions of the new page, just like the base page was since 2009. If I have overlooked a page, please let me know. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 07:14, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you ToBeFree. There are other pages like MediaWiki:ImageAnnotatorCopyright and MediaWiki:PrettyLinkWidget.js but I do not know if they are in use. --MGA73 (talk) 14:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I fixed the first of these two now; the second one can only be edited by interface administrators. If you think it should be changed, feel free to create an edit request. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Help

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    The Tunisians page is being repeatedly vandalized. Please protect it from vandalism. Nizar null (talk) 07:02, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    another blp revdel needed

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    Both done. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:54, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    this is a blatant blp vio (also the ip who first noticed it on the talk stated what was said out of good faith to tell us so we need that revdel'ed too localBluepikmin (whistle the pikmin) 13:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Personal attacks in The Theory of Interstellar Trade

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    INDEF
    Block and revdels applied. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:55, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Please see history (edit summaries) and talk page. These are gross violations of WP:AGF, of course. The identification is made on User:David Eppstein so this isn't outing, but in any academic organization this would be disqualifying, and here it's at the very least uncollegial, and possibly pure harassment. Perhaps these edit summaries should be rev-deleted under RD2, and the same might apply to the talk page rants--which for now I'm just going to delete as commentary, forum posting. I'm putting this here because I blocked, temporarily, for personal attacks--I warned them--but perhaps a more serious block is needed. Drmies (talk) 15:29, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Done. That was beyond the pale and a WP:BLP-violation in addition to violating the conduct policies. Abecedare (talk) 16:23, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you Abecedare. Drmies (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for removing the attacks. I guess it's a bad idea to tell the trolls to troll harder, but I've seen worse. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:19, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Conclusion of CheckUser consultation and change to the Oversight team, April 2025

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    The March 2025 CheckUser consultation has concluded without any new appointments. The Arbitration Committee thanks everyone who participated in the process.

    In addition, the Committee acknowledges the resignation of GB fan (talk · contribs) from the Oversight team and thanks her for her service.

    On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Sdrqaz (talk) 00:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Conclusion of CheckUser consultation and change to the Oversight team, April 2025

    Disruptive behavior in Andreas Papandreou and elsewhere

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    User Czarking0 is causing trouble in articles that I significantly contributed, first in Andreas Papandreou and then escalating to other Noemvriana (a GA article that the reviewer was ok its length). User Czarking0 is misusing the rules and arbitrarily introducing tags, especially MOS:LEADLENGTH (insisting to no more than 400 words) and WP:TOOBIG to be 9000 words even though the complexity of these topics justify a longer lead or average article size. He has refused so far to provide a proper justification. In process of his/her cut and slash edits he/she kept breaking WP rules (e.g. insisting of using the first name of a prime minister, i.e., Andreas instead of "Papandreou" or the full name "Antreas Papandreou" to distinguish from his father while he was alive) or introducing subtle WP:POV. Also he/she had designs to alter the emphasis from a political career to an academic one, which the majority of biographers avoid, and even recommended deleting a whole paragraph in the lead that is considered by me vital. Also, he removed sourced material without asking [89], just cut for the sake of cutting. I repeatedly told him on the talk page that these are sensitive and controversial topics (Papandreou's article has been subject to vandalism before [90]), and I disagree in the way he/she introduced "cut and slash" to reduce the size of the article. He ignored my warnings and ignored any reasoning by insisting that he/she is right and I am wrong, even though the Papandreou is the queue for GA review. In fact, he admitted to my concern that may impact GA review "If there are tags like these, it may lead to speedy rejection" - right that is why I am adding them [91]. I would be grateful if it possible to prevent further cavalier attitudes and misuse of tags by the particular user in these articles. Not only do these edits break WP rules and consensus for writing these articles but in my opinion also downgrade the quality of the articles and discourage editors from further contributing.A.Cython (talk) 05:40, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Have you started a discussion on the article talk page yet? You should try discussing your differences before coming to a noticeboard. And I also hope you notified the other editor that you started this discussion here. Liz Read! Talk! 07:45, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Liz Yes, I did see Talk:Andreas_Papandreou#Recent_"too-long"_tags. He/she claimed that he/she follows the WP rules and that he/she does not have to listen to the other editors maintaining these articles. So long as he/she follows the WP rules as he/she interprets them, he/she can continue by sidelining my concerns even when I try to explain that his/her interpretation of the rules might not necessarily be the consensus, e.g., naming the prime minister by the first name. In fact, he/she said I actually do not need to convince you of anything. While some edits and rewrites were good in reducing a word or two in case, sourced and other important material were cut; I mean, so far, the article word count may have reduced by 100ish words, but it was a frustrating back-and-forth at the edge of an edit war since he was not acknowledging my concerns and WP rules as I understand the consensus is. When I tried to clean up by restoring some of this material, I got the following message on my talk page User_talk:A.Cython#Getting_GA_ready effectively telling me to back off (note that I told him to use the talk page before raising tags in articles that other editors maintain), and these edits are good for the article. On top of that, he went to Noemvriana (my single GA article) and placed a tag claiming that the lead is too long, insisting on the strict 400-word size rule without acknowledging that the complexity of the topic may justify a larger size, no discussion in the talk page to raise the issue first. To me, this is a clear sign of misuse of WP rules and disruptive behavior. I would like to note that I myself was aware the issue of length and since then I have created three relevant articles Koskotas scandal, Greek constitutional crisis of 1985, Yugoslav corn scandal in an effort to divert material from Andreas Papandreou article to other places and I intent to do more in this direction. However, the cavalier attitude of cut and slash does not help achieve this reduction in a controlled manner since material is lost in the edit history. It was very time-consuming to gather all the literature and write these narratives. I hoped to get a GA review (Papandreou article is a GA nominee since 30 January) from an experienced editor on how to improve the article, but the actions of Czarking0 may have already done irrepable damage in getting a review any time soon.A.Cython (talk) 13:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hey readers, let me know if there is a better place to respond.
    I believe Cython has done a good job linking the discussions on Talk:Andreas_Papandreou#Recent_"too-long"_tags and User_talk:A.Cython#Getting_GA_ready. I think if you read those then you can come to your own opinion of the matter. As you might expect I don't think Cython is giving exactly a fair representation of my conduct. If needed I can summarize my POV on the matter. Other than that the only thing I'd like to note is that Cython violated WP:3RR via manual edits. I highlighted that on User_talk:A.Cython#Getting_GA_ready. I did not bring this to ANB at the time as a believe he did not realize he was violating this rule. I think Cython is a good editor that is just a little too protective of his valuable contributions and a little too combative in his treatment of me. Czarking0 (talk) 15:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I welcome constructive contributions, but I will be combative against destructive contributions, especially with editors that do not acknowledge or understand why the text is written the way it is written. Sure, I am not a native speaker, but I spend months refining only to be chopped down for the sake of the 400-word guideline. And yes, other editors have freely edited without issues as I pointed out above. The current version of the lead [92] after further trimming by Mmemaigret as a consequence of the unwarranted tag by Czarking0 is in worse shape than before. If I were a GA reviewer, I would have serious issues and grounds for rejecting it! Here is why:
    1. There is a lack of thematic cohesion, especially in the last paragraph. Now, the aspects of bad governance are squeezed with death and legacy. This is not an improvement. Not to mention the thematic transition thrown out of the window. How on earth did someone who incited the Greek Junta, politically/rhetorically, speaking, manage to convince 48% of the voters to become their leader? Removing the anti-Americanism that defined Papandreou effectively is like omitting to WWI lead that Germany participated in the war. It should be in the lead to reflect a unique feature of Papandreou that is described throughout the main body.
    2. Introduction of subtle WP:POV by removing critical aspect of Papandreou's political career, i.e., his conspiratorial anti-Americanism defined him throughout his career and the fact he blamed for the Greek Junta, is hiding staff under the carpet.
    3. It broke down the "Notes" references, now Andreas_Papandreou#ref_ii_1 leads to nowhere. And the order of the notes is in the wrong, requiring manually readjusting.
    So no, I do not see an overall improvement in the lead; if anything else, it is now broken. The 400-word limit is not strict, but it is a rule of thumb, articles like Douglas MacArthur (682 words) Winston Churchill (566 words) and Elizabeth II (427 words) exceed the 400-word limit. All the fuss for cutting down a 470-word lead [93] on a controversial topic caused far more damage, which is why I consider the edits of Czarking0 unwelcomed and disruptive.
    Call me overprotective or whatever else, but you apply your personal interpretation of the rules and ignore other editors' concerns with the end result being negative rather positive. And I am convinced, based on the actions so far, that the tag placed in Noemvriana was done out of spite.
    • I pointed out in WP that we use surnames for biographies and especially prominent political figures.

      Also, stop calling him just Andreas. The consensus in WP is to use the surname out of respect. Your edits by calling him Andreas are disrespectful. This is my final warning. A.Cython (talk) 02:19, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

      What did the user Czarking0 do? He used a quote from the article itself that explained that the use of "Andreas" was a political trick to hide his past.

    As per the article Among both his supporters and his opponents, Papandreou was referred to simply by his first name, "Andreas," which was a novelty in the Greek political world but necessary for Papandreou to keep some distance from his family name, which had been involved in turbulent politics of the past that brought the 1967 dictatorship and eventually the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. It is reasonable to call him the same thing as many sources. Additionally, the areas I have been editing are constant back and forth between him and his dad which further warrants using first names. Czarking0 (talk) 02:45, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

    In other words, not only broke the consensus that I warned him/her about in regard to naming political figures but also applied WP:POV as 'the very same quote warned against. And by ingonring me, he/she edited away causing damage that I had later on fix [94] (23:10, 3 April 2025), [95] (23:16, 3 April 2025), which now accuses me that I broke 3-edit rule.
    Overall, maybe, you are not a vandal, but this cavalier attitude has done more harm than good, and I would appreciate not editing these articles unless you are willing to acknowledge and respect other people's work. A.Cython (talk) 17:19, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    but I will be combative No, you won't. Also maybe, you are not a vandal - Vandalism has a specific meaning on Wikipedia. This is not vandalism by any stretch, and accusing another editor of vandalism when they are not can be considered a personal attack. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:44, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @The BushrangerHow do I call someone who does not obey the rules, does not acknowledge other editors' concerns, plows ahead with edits that have led to irreparable damage to the article? Right now, the lead is beyond repair due to the unwarranted use of the tags and entirely broken filled with WP:POV, malfunctioned references, does not reflect the main body of the text? Moreover, the cuts have filled the text with misleading statements that now I have to check one by one, thus degrading the quality of the article. Sure, he may not be a vandal in a strict definition, but effectively, it has a similar effect: degrading an article. You may think that applies the rules in name, but in practice, it has created havoc. This is why I brought it up because I do not want to spend hours talking to someone who does not listen and performs edits that overall/effectively bring down the consistency and quality of the article. A.Cython (talk) 23:01, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What you call someone, if that is true, which I'm not saying it is or isn't, is "disruptive". Do not refer to, or imply, that this is vandalism or the editor is a vandal again. - The Bushranger One ping only 23:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I apologize to Czarking0 if this was an issue, but there was plenty of warning, and I mentioned to him/her early on that I am sensitive to abrupt, unjustifiable edits due to recent vandalism specifically I said There was already vandalism by placing tags as [1]. A topic does not need to be in protection to be controversial.
    I also freaked out once he/she started talking to remove this and that and ideally 5000 words to be cut, see Talk:Andreas_Papandreou#Recent_"too-long"_tags if you do not believe me. He/she did not acknowledge my concerns, despite my tone hardening. Nevertheless, the user continued to edit, disregarding my concerns. Again, absolute statements like that were red flags to me.
    • I would also remove all the notes from the lead. (this is typically used in leads, which baffled me)
    • "If there are tags like these, it may lead to speedy rejection" - right that is why I am adding them. (effectively admitting that the purpose is for the GA review to fail)
    • I actually do not need to convince you of anything. (this freaked me out!)
    • I suspect you can delete the whole final paragraph. (while he did not deleted such statements are worryingsome)
    Maybe I am overreacting, but my initial concerns regarding the misuse of tags have been verified, given the resulting lead. A.Cython (talk) 23:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We don't do things out of respect for the subject, but out of respect for the reader. If the subject needs disambiguating from his father in some places then the first name is an obvious thing to use. Anyway, this dispute seems to be about content, so the article talk page is the place to settle it, and following steps according to WP:DR. Remember that GA nomination is only an add-on to the encyclopedia, not its point. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Every article on political leaders that I have seen uses the surname (excluding royalty). Respect to them or to the reader, to achieve this requires consistency through WP and in the specific article. The user repeatedly refused to abide by applying, as he said, "exception". As explained, the use of first name creates WP:POV and broke consistency by applying only to some parts of the article, thus creating a mess. The consequence of placing unwarranted tags had irreversibly damaged the article, and I would be forced to restore to the previous version at least for the lead. The current lead is a substantial downgrade from before! The hack and slash edits relate to content but the dispute started by misuse of tags that led to the damage that i am refering to. The recent edits only prove my initial concerns. The user has not demonstrated good faith or acknowledged the concerns of other editors, so there is no point in talking without demonstrating that they can abide by the consensus that includes the people caring about these articles. A.Cython (talk) 20:27, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As you've said, I simply trimmed the lead in response to the tag. After being tagged in this incident, however, I've now re-written the entire lead. I won't be surprised of course if this leads to more discord but I hope you will all find that it's a fair summary of the article. Cheers ash (talk) 04:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I do not know where this is going, but at the moment, with the unwarranted tag of MOS:LEADLENGTH inserted by Czarking0 and the new edits of Mmemaigret (latest version [96]), the lead gets entirely out of focus. Surprise, surprise, it is now even longer with 497 words, with seven paragraphs (up to four is max), and it contains blatant mistakes, which is unacceptable!
    • "went into exile[i] for the second time in his life, much of it spent in Sweden" No, he stayed one year in Sweden the rest in Canada which was almost six years, last time I checked 6 > 1. All this info is in the main body.
    • The lead as written now would infuriate people who worship Andreas for his contribution of social reconciliation. This was supposed to be one of his great achievements. So now, not being at the intro, it begs to be vandalized.
    • There are other issues, as it lacks the key aspects of Andreas' career as it fails to capture the big picture.
    So what was the point of the MOS:LEADLENGTH tag in the first place? This further supports my concern that Czarking0 misused tags by creating havoc!
    I will wait a few more days, but if this is not wrapped up soon (resulted in a lead of GA quality) and there is no intervention by an administrator, I will revert to an old stable version, as the damage done to the article is getting out of hand, and remove these unwarranted tags. A.Cython (talk) 05:22, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record, I am not upset with Mmemaigret, it is a challenging and controversial topic, and writing a lead is even more so. I also do not think that my version is great either, but it covered the basics by what was discussed in the main body. Can it be improved? Absolutely, and I welcome anyone to do so at the talk page or at the article. So long as this is constructive. However, the whole thing about the misuse of tags by Czarking0 and the cavalier attitude of his/her edits feels wrong. A.Cython (talk) 05:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    List of administrators' spoken languages

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    I have created Wikipedia:Administrators by language which tries to gather information admins have disclosed about languages they speak. This started as a bit of a throwaway comment in a functionary discussion, with me thinking that it would be easy to compile; it was mostly easy until several people said they only list their languages on Meta which upped the complexity. But I finished even though if I'd known how much work it was going to be, I wouldn't have started; there have been a handful times where I wanted to find an admin who spoke a particular language and while it's possible using the admin highlight script to go through the language categories it felt like a complete list might be of use to others. So here it is. I hope it is of some use (despite some known issues - like its love for Lua as a language - I've decided are not worth fixing). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:14, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Interesting resource, thanks for pulling it together. I added myself on to the English list. Do you know what the "unknown level" is supposed to mean? I propose that the next project is updating the "timezones for different admins" list which is incomplete and from years ago. Of course, I'm sure some folks will not want to disclose this data. Liz Read! Talk! 21:20, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Liz "unknown level" could be one one of a number of things. In my testing many of the issues with parsing data from Meta or when someone does something fancy with their userpage (ex the people who substitute parts of it from other pages) such that the script can't find the info it needs. Also thanks for manually adding your name to the list because it gives me a chance to say "that won't work". I've now added a page notice to alert people to this. When I run the script again (which I plan to do Monday and then roughly monthly) it will not capture any people added manually because I'm pretty sure people are more likely to continue using categories/babel templates than to know to update a fairly obscure page. You could of course appear on the list by adding the category to your userpage. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:13, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, well thanks for that information. Can you identify the correct category for me? Liz Read! Talk! 01:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Nevermind, found it with Category:User en-N. Liz Read! Talk! 01:20, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Very useful, thanks. It missed a few odd languages, like Middle English (enm). That lua entry is a bit jarring—can't we just delete it manually?
    Instead of timezones, what would be great (though may be technically difficult) is use the xtools timecard to provide times most active. Some people are night owls, others early birds, so timecard may be more useful than timezone, and wouldn't give away information that's not already available about a person's location. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 22:16, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I could delete the lua bit, but as it stands now it's dynamically finding language codes (which also explains why it's not finding enm). I could definitely hardcode the language codes it looks for which would enable finding enm and get rid of lua, but I found something elegant in that it should automatically detect new ones. But that probably doesn't happen all that often and so not much would be lost by hardcoding. I don't know how much more time I want to spend developing this thing (as opposed to just periodically rerunning it and updating it) but if I get motivated I can look at a different approach to the language codes. If you know of any other languages other than enm it's not finding please do share. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, this is fun! I'm surprised at some of the gaps we've got, but also by some of the more unusual native languages in the list. And some administrators who are much too modest about their English. -- asilvering (talk) 02:18, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This will help everyone to navigate ENWP admins who speak foreign languages as well as who are doing well in other editions. Ahri Boy (talk) 23:39, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Why? For example, my mother tongue is Russian, but I have not actively edited the Russian Wikipedia since 2011 and will not be able to help with any issues there. Ymblanter (talk) 04:29, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    ADE closure request

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    Discussion has died down for weeks at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase III/Administrator elections. Needless to say this Cent-listed discussion really really needs a close. (Non-admin @Dw31415 also has a draft closure if anyone's interested in joining them instead of starting an entirely new close.) Aaron Liu (talk) 22:33, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Stubja persistently adding inappropriate content to talk page

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    Sock blocked. Discussion removed. Liz Read! Talk! 04:25, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I got into a content dispute with User:Stubja on the God Is an Astronaut talk page, as seen here. It ultimately turned out that I was in the wrong, which I admitted and apologized for. User:Stubja responded with anger, to which I responded using an unfortunate epithet. They retaliated, at which point I realized my mistake and removed the inappropriate sections of the thread. Since then, User:Stubja has insisted on restoring the protracted argument on the talk page despite my repeated entreaty that they stop. They seem intractable on the issue, which is why I've brought it here. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 00:41, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Getting strong WP:LTA/BKFIP vibes from Stubja here. (Note SPI) Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It’s a bad look not to mention that you also called them a jerk which only incited them and further exasperated the matter. They were quite needless hostile though. Hy Brasil (talk) 00:52, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, "needlessly hostile" describes BKFIP quite well. They bring out the worst in all of us, unfortunately. I suggest {{trout}}ing Revirvlkodlaku for taking the bait, and moving on. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:01, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Regardless of the nature of the dispute, this is 100% BKFIP. I've blocked the account in the normal fashion for that LTA. Sam Kuru (talk) 01:03, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Whether or not that editor was a sock, you shouldn't edit war to remove content you posted that you now find embarrassing. Liz Read! Talk! 01:07, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If Rev had known at the time that he was dealing with a sock, he'd have been well within his rights to remove it, so long as there was no other participant in the discussion. Edit warring is of course always pointless, even if it's technically allowed. Now, Rev didn't know the full situation, but that doesn't seem like an issue worth dragging him through the mud for. (Not saying that you are, Liz, just that this is a dramaboard...) Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 01:26, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Suffusion of Yellow, I agree with you, however, Revirvlkodlaku opened this discussion, I assume, to get these comments removed by an admin and I don't see any policy-based reason to do so. But, this issue is over so I'm closing this discussion. Liz Read! Talk! 04:25, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Incorrect interests

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    Editor commented on an AfD about an article within this CT. Editor received a CT notice. System working as intended. - The Bushranger One ping only 04:45, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I was notified about myself having a apparent interest in the Arab-Israeli war, and then a introduction into said war. I don't remember editing an article about this topic. Can you help me? An editor from Mars (talk) 02:54, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Special:Diff/1283876641. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:56, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a single thing I said on a AfD nom. I am not entirely interested in Israeli and Palestinian topics. An editor from Mars (talk) 03:04, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Please read the first two sentences of the notice: "You have recently edited a page related to the Arab–Israeli conflict, a topic designated as contentious. This is a brief introduction to contentious topics and does not imply that there are any issues with your editing." (green added). trout Trout for bringing this to AN. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:16, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know if posing this question is troutable but if you would have asked, An editor from Mars, I would have advised you to pose your question to Sean.hoyland who posted the message on your User talk page. These messages get posted every day and don't require the attention of the admin community. Sean could have answered your questions. Liz Read! Talk! 04:30, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Disruptive and threatening behavior

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    I think this post on my talk page (see diff) crosses the line. See also this edit summary: diff. While I’m not taking the suspension of my Wikipedia account or the death threat too seriously, it’s still something that shouldn’t be made. This post was in response to some comments I made about disruptive editing by Overtoastedpizza (see my comments on their 3QT4C edits and 4-Methylaminorex edits). I am more concerned about the disruptive editing that continues after several warnings than the threat. Boghog (talk) 13:06, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I've indeffed the user for the threat. The edits by the user on their own Talk page are truly bizarre. Most of the user's edits are to chemical compounds, and I have no idea whether they're constructive or not.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:40, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks! I agree—it was all quite strange. What’s particularly concerning is that many of their edits appeared plausible at first glance, but on closer inspection, the sources—when cited at all—didn't actually support the content. Boghog (talk) 14:03, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hopefully, they'll suspend his internet privileges as he claims to be in a mental hospital. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:24, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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