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Non-neutral paid editor

@EMsmile is heavily editing Solar_radiation_modification in favour of her declared client, www.earthsystemgovernance.org. This has included placing undue weight material in the body and lead, and attacking rival organisations (ie the DEGREES initiative). Despite multiple appeals on the article talk page / her personal talk page, she's still at it - wasting everyone's time with long discussion posts arguing in favour of biasing the page. She just needs to be locked out of this article and related articles, and - if that's not possible - given a temporary or permanent ban. Andrewjlockley (talk) 12:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

That's not the only page where I'm seeing some questionable edits:

• [1] Softening language surrounding the impact of COVID on sustainable development goals.
• [2] Cutting information concerning the impact of climate change on water scarcity.
• [3] - here it's more the slash-and-burn approach to the reliable sources that were deleted.
• [4] Refers to an economics journal as poor sourcing for a statement about the economics of sustainable financing.

An openly paid editor making promotional and other questionable edits is probably WP:NOTHERE. But I would caution you that you do need to inform EMsmile on their user talk page that this thread has been created - pinging them is not sufficient. Simonm223 (talk) 13:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

done Andrewjlockley (talk) 13:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

@Simonm223: I looked at all four edits you listed, and I think there are perfectly WP:GF reasons for them.

1. By "softening language", do you refer to the removal of phrases such as "has had a profound impact on the mental and physical wellbeing of communities around the world" and "The pandemic slowed progress towards achieving the SDGs. It has "exacerbated existing fault lines of inequality" + "The brunt of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were felt by poorer segments of the population"? Let's be frank: do you imagine a paper encyclopedia retaining these phrases? Do you think they would have made it through a FAN or even a GAN? The edit already keeps the phrase "It was "the worst human and economic crisis in a lifetime." and I would argue that it already implies what the cut phrases said. An abundance of emotive language risks that some users tune out. You may disagree with this perspective, but it is a defensible one. Likewise, the paragraph she cut about "An independent group of scientists..." - do you still imagine this statement to be relevant in say 3-5 years' time? If not, it would likely violate WP:NOTNEWS and so should not belong there. Lastly she cut the claim that three of the SDGs "ignore the planetary limits and encourage consumption" - a very strong statement cited to...an obscure book, seemingly not even peer-reviewed.
2. Wikipedia should not use language such as "recent report", and COP29 is already over. There is literally WP:RECENT, and cutting that paragraph seems justifiable under that metric. If that reference has some hard numbers on water scarcity that are not present elsewhere in the article, then it should be used to provide them. However, that paragraph was not it.
3. Do you really think phrases like "China's dedication to sustainable finance is extending to multiple fronts, demonstrating a holistic approach to green development. The ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a flagship project spanning numerous countries, is increasingly embracing green finance principles, prioritizing eco-friendly investments across its vast infrastructure and development endeavors. This shift aligns the BRI with sustainability goals, emphasizing clean energy, climate resilience, and biodiversity protection in partner nations....Notably, China's 14th Five-Year Plan introduces a comprehensive sustainability approach that permeates various sectors, encompassing agriculture, mining, transportation, and more. China's active engagement in international collaborations is poised to influence global green finance standards, driving increased transparency and accountability in sustainable investments." are consistent with WP:NPOV? Really? Maybe cutting all of it went too far, but it certainly didn't belong in an article looking like that.
4. That citation was linked as a mere PDF, with almost no work done to make it a properly formatted citation. When I did look up the title, I found that said "economics journal"...was apparently an internal publication of the Central Bank of Hungary. It's unclear if it had been peer-reviewed, and I strongly doubt it counts as a good source for any matters not specific to Hungary.

In all, using these edits and an accusation of COI (by an OP who appears to have his own COI in this subject matter) to argue that a user with extensive topic experience "is probably WP:NOTHERE" seems downright Kafkaesque. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Are you accusing Simonm223, who raised the points you're responding to, of having a COI as well? Are you also accusing Thisredrock, who raised the concerns here? It is obvious looking over these in context that EMsmile has been editing in both a WP:TENDENTIOUS and WP:PROMOTIONAL manner with regards to their employer, in precisely the manner that WP:PAID is supposed to prevent. --Aquillion (talk) 20:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

If I have, I would have written exactly that. My response is only there to question how closely Simon looked at the edits brought to the discussion, and their relevance to the matter at hand. The idea that removing a paragraph cited to a single economist at a Hungarian Central Bank from a global-level article is somehow a ploy to indirectly promote an NGO employing her seems like an Olympic-level stretch to me, and the other claims are hardly more plausible. If you look at the edit history of something like Climate change, you'll see that editors often end up adding sentences or paragraphs backed up by sources that aren't bad by Wikipedia's general standards - but simply not good enough or relevant enough for a specific high-level article like that, so the veteran editors end up removing these contributions soon afterwards.

Given this context, I don't see a major issue with any of those edits (other than that I personally would have attempted to rescue at least one of those references by citing it in a different manner - but lots and lots of editors do the same approach of cutting everything they consider irrelevant outright, and are not obligated to do it differently). If you or Simonm223 still think there's an issue which makes them relevant to this discussion, you would have to make a stronger case for it to convince me. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 21:03, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I have been an interlocutor, perhaps the leading one, during @EMsmile's paid time heavily editing this page. As background, this is a very contentious topic. Her client is not precisely the one that @Andrewjlockley provided, but is this campaign to restrict this area of scientific research. https://www.solargeoeng.org/

My experience with her is that she has, in each individual interaction, been collegial and reasonable. However, her work on a whole (more than 180 edits over the last few months) has significantly shifted the article's point of view, consistently in the direction of her client's perspective. I can provide specifics, if helpful. TERSEYES (talk) 14:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Adding: Another editor compiled some examples of her edits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Solar_radiation_modification#c-Thisredrock-20250116135800-Andrewjlockley-20250115180000 TERSEYES (talk) 14:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• An editor with a declared COI should never be making non-trivial article-space edits to article covered by the area of the COI; the strongly discouraged wording has always been interpreted as allowing only trivial edits that exhibit no hint of bias - the reason why it's strongly discouraged is because the moment they're editing with a clear bias towards their employer's perspective they're supposed to be gone. If they've continued to make such edits after being informed of this, they should be blocked. I'd also strongly suggest going over their edits and undoing them - it's important to deny any benefit from this sort of behavior. --Aquillion (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  Aquillion So...how should we then interpret the fact that the OP's username, "Andrewjlockley", appears to match this (Redacted)?

  Now, I'll admit that he doesn't appear to have ever attempted to cite his own work in this or other articles on the subject (which, as far as my understanding of the rules go, would have been grounds for an instant topic ban.) Yet, it's fairly clear his incentives align with this article being positive towards geoengineering, and with editors who take the opposing position being marginalized. I would like to note that if Earth System Governance is EMsmile's primary employer, then opposition to geoengineering is not even seen anywhere on their front page - nor on any of their most visible pages, such as Research Framework. The contrast between this and that Google Scholar profile being primarily dedicated to geoengineering research is significant. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Now, I'll admit that he doesn't appear to have ever attempted to cite his own work in this or other articles on the subject (which, as far as my understanding of the rules go, would have been grounds for an instant topic ban) - that would be wrong. See WP:SELFCITE; citing yourself is permissible within limits, provided you're doing so in appropriate contexts and not just spamming your work everywhere. This makes sense when you stop and think about it - people whose work on a subject is significant enough to be cited are the very people we want editing articles. But beyond that your accusation is off-base. Read WP:COI, and especially WP:COINOTBIAS Having a perspective on a topic is not bias, and even a bias is not a COI, which is much more narrowly-defined. Academics who have written about a topic and who study it are obviously not just allowed but actually encouraged to edit in that topic area - it wouldn't make any sense to bar experts for being experts; and obviously an expert on a controversial subject is going to have a perspective. WP:PAID editing, on the other hand, is much more unambiguous; editors who are paid to edit Wikipedia are supposed to work through edit requests, because they don't just have a bias but an overwhelming financial imperative that pushes them to edit tendentiously. --Aquillion (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Aquillion, if I recall correctly, the community explicitly rejected a prohibition - hence why the wording settled on “strongly discouraged”. If I’m wrong on this, please advise me, because I come across mentees in the mentorship program that have COI and if there is a consensus that paid/COI non-trivial edits are explicitly prohibited, then WP:COI needs updated as well as how we explain to new editors.

It’s not fair to someone to say “we strongly discourage this” and then go tell them “what we meant by that was you aren’t allowed to do it at all”. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 21:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

If you read the discussion, the reason for the current wording was concerns like "what if someone just fixes a spelling error or an obvious glaring problem, they shouldn't get in trouble for that." It certainly wasn't "yeah WP:PAID editors should be able to just ignore this entirely whenever they feel like it." When someone takes an action that policy strongly discourages, the logical conclusion is that they're putting their ass on the line in terms of being absolutely correct in every other way (and should think long and hard that every edit they make that goes against that strong discouragement.) If they're not putting that thought in, or if they slip up and make a non-neutral edit? They need to stop, and if they refuse they need to be ejected from the topic area entirely. "Strongly discouraged", to me, is the strongest possible prohibition we can place on something without making it strictly barred - it is an absolutely huge deal. EMsmile's behavior shows absolutely no awareness of or respect for this - they've been constantly, and aggressively, behaving in ways that policy strongly discourages. Someone who does that is obviously going to end up blocked. --Aquillion (talk) 06:13, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm happy to admit that I can read the discussion in that way too, and I agree that "strongly discouraged" is the closest to "prohibited" without being prohibited. That being said, we both agree that it's not the same as prohibited. But in that case, it takes basically no time to update the way it's advertised to people - change strongly discouraged to prohibited, except for obvious, minor changes that no reasonable editor would object to (such as fixing an obvious typo, or reverting vandalism). I stand by my comment that, as it stands, editors should not be punished for not knowing that "strongly discouraged" really means "virtually entirely prohibited". That's a discussion for another forum, though.

Note I'm not commenting on this user or the situation at all - but as I've had a couple mentors (through that mentor program/app/widget/whatever it is) recently who I've had to ask about COI/PAID, I want to make sure that, if I need to be manually saying it's virtually always prohibited to edit an article directly when I post templates/COI-welcome/etc, I want to ensure I'm doing that. Because I find it unfair if I (or anyone) only posts something saying "strongly discouraged" when in reality they should be told "unless it's an obvious typo or whatever, it's prohibited". What slightly concerned me/piqued my interest was your statement that editors who are paid to edit Wikipedia are supposed to work through edit requests - but I realize that was an oversimplification based on the facts of this case. To be clear, I don't think I need to be doing anything super special/additional - your reply has assuaged my concerns that the wording there was just applying the guideline to this case, rather than a general statement.

Thanks for the reply. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 21:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

• So...how should we then interpret the fact that the OP's username...appears to match this Uh, guys? Does WP:OUTING mean nothing to you? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

  @The Bushranger - I think that sanction should be swiftly applied. This is not something we take lightly. Even if they are one-in-the-same, this is still not one of the permitted exceptions to the policy for DOXING. Furthermore, this wouldn't be the first time when someone has presented themselves as an SME (by inference of their username) but is really impersonating that person either for nefarious or even just fame/fandom purposes, which might result in wholly inappropriate correspondence to the innocent real person. TiggerJay (talk) 01:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  I've redacted the name and link and revdel'd the diffs between when it was posted and now. I'll leave it up to over admins if Oversight is necessary or if further sanctions are needed, but for now: @InformationToKnowledge:, do not attempt to link a Wikipedia user with anyone's real identity, no matter how obvious it might seem, if they have not done so themselves. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  I've posted a rather harrowing warning on their user talk page. I never had cause to use that template before. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:56, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  As a mere administrator, I am unable to see whatever sort of extremely dangerous content was redacted by Oversight here, but was the thing posted here the very obvious thing that any eight-year-old could have figured out how to do within ten seconds? jp×g🗯️ 04:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  I would suggest that there are some policies which we must maintain an above-average level of diligence in, especially those which can have real life, in person consequences. And over the years the principles of privacy still remain one of those absolute things that have brought down trusted veteran administrators in a single violation. The policies and the very narrow exceptions are very clear, and this is one area where you most certainly want to error on the side of caution, even if it might otherwise seem obvious right now. Tomorrow they could change those things which you believe make the correlation "obvious", to make it far less so, but that DOXING would make it a forever permanent association unless revdel is performed. TiggerJay (talk) 04:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  Could we get an edit to WP:OUTTING for this specific scenario? Did not know and would not have engaged with the info provided had I known. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:31, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

WP:BOOMERANG back to Andrewjlockley

I would be one of the first to admit that EMsmile has not been a perfect editor; i.e. frequently exhibiting (in my mind) undue focus on rewriting article leads to hit algorithmic benchmarks such as readability over updating article content. However, that does not change the fact she has been one of a literal handful of editors to have stayed consistently engaged in WikiProject: Climate change over the past few years. This is a topic which seems to wear out editors very quickly, as I can attest from my own experience. I would therefore strongly urge caution and ensure we avoid further editor attrition that did not need to happen.

With that in mind, I would like to say I have great difficulty assuming WP:GF here - not when the OP editor (Redacted), which all appear to take a pro-solar geoengineering perspective and when said editor neglected to disclose this clearly highly relevant fact on his own in the process of making this report.

I am not aware of the specifics of EMsmile's paid editing, but to my knowledge, opposition to solar geoengineering is at most just one of the many positions her employer had taken - and not a particularly controversial position, since there is currently no affirmative consensus in favour of this intervention. (i.e. the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, the gold standard in climate science, is at best non-committal: see Cross-Working Group Box SRM: Solar Radiation Modification on page 2473 of Chapter 16 of the 2nd installment of that report.) In my view, the OP has a much more direct conflict of interest with this topic than EMsmile does.

P.S. This is really not how imagined exiting a 6-month hiatus. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 16:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

With the greatest of respect @InformationToKnowledge, your posts here are a distraction. This discussion is not about @Andrewjlockley, or his views, or his work outside of Wikipedia. It is about whether EMsmile had a conflict of interest when they edited solar radiation modification, which is a very controversial topic. Given that EMSmile repeatedly boosted the "Non-Use Agreement" campaign, giving it much more coverage and visibility than other initiatives mentioned on the page, and they boosted the founder of the campaign, and the campaign and the founder both come from the organisation that pays EMSmile to edit wikipedia, there are important questions that are not answered by budget whataboutery. Thisredrock (talk) 18:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

See WP:BOOMERANG... if you bring it up, you are open to questioning yourself.

All of this is pertinent. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I think what we have here is a situation where there may, in fact, be two editors with a COI. We know, for a fact, that EMSmile has been paid to edit and did so non-neutrally. That is a contravention of WP policy. We have an allegation that Andrewjlockley is a researcher who has based much of his career on writing on the topic. WP:OUTING concerns aside this could, if AJL is getting paid for their work or if they are making edits that bring attention to their work, represent a COI too.

The question of whether either editor has a conflict of interest is not affected by whether the other editor also has a conflict of interest. As such we should probably treat these separately. If InformationToKnowledge is entirely correct then this still isn't a matter of EMS is green and AJL should be sanctioned - it might be they both should be though.

Basically the EMS question is easy: they were paid to edit and did so non-neutrally. If AJL is also disruptive or has a COI we can deal with that separately. Simonm223 (talk) 19:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Thisredrock: there is no problem bringing up boomerang here, as it might be relevant. It doesn't need to take away from the discussion, and editors who bring things to ANI absolutely need to realize that the expose themselves also to the same or more scrutiny for their on-wiki activity. Of course those also calling for a boomerang are also opening up their edit histories as well. That being said, I would support that idea that we should not simply pivot the discussion to AJL and forget about EMS. Rather, there are two discussions about unpermissable COI editing behaviors and they both need to be followed through on. TiggerJay (talk) 20:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Please reread WP:COI, and especially WP:COINOTBIAS. The suggestion that being a published academic on a subject constitutes a COI for the entire subject is nonsensical; and the suggestion that it could be in any way comparable to straightforward paid editing is absurd. This is not a complex point of policy - even a heartbeat's thought ought to make it obvious that we do not bar academics from editing Wikipedia in their area of expertise. See the final paragraph of WP:EXTERNALREL, which specifically encourages subject-matter experts to edit their area of expertise .--Aquillion (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

as per (Redacted) is an independent researcher who left UCL and is working with European Astrotech.

Don't think its a COI, but every participant in this thread seems worth double checking to see what is happening. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, based on Bluethricecreamman and Aquillion's comments and evidence I'd say it does look like there is not a COI for AJL. Of especial relevance is Aquillion's reference above to WP:SELFCITE. Simonm223 (talk) 20:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, earthsystemsgovernance appears to be a research group/advocacy group that does fellowships too, and not a company perse. [5]

If there is a COI for either EMS or AJL, its subtle enough it requires some more investigation.... What is the funding situation for European Astrotech/earthsystemsgovernance? Are there corporate interests behind any of this? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

The issue with EMS is that they are, by their own account, a freelancer who was hired to help earthsystemsgovernance with their online profile including Wikipedia. EMS is, according to themself, not a researcher or anything else of the sort. Simonm223 (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

yeah, that def sounds like COI... I've heard of Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Fellows before, but they are negotiated with WMF ahead of time, right? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

• Hello! I don't know if it is better that I stay out of this discussion and let it play out or that I explain my position? OK, let me try to explain my position: I have been editing Wikipedia for a long time on all sorts of topics; since several years mainly on climate change topics. I fully believe in the vision of Wikipedia and I believe that I have followed all the rules, even those around paid editing (I actually think more people should edit Wikipedia as part of their day jobs, not just as a hobby after hours...). I have disclosed that I am a paid editor for some of my editing (I also edit a lot in a volunteer capacity). I believe that I have explained on my profile page exactly how I manage any potential for WP:COI that arises as a result.
• With regards to SRM has anyone taken a look at how the article looked a year ago? It was a mess (see here the version of 15 May 2024). Has anyone looked at the discussions we've had on the talk page regarding WP:NPOV over the months? This is a controversial topic, and this controversy ought to be reflected in the article (which wasn't done well before, when it was rather one-sided). I believe my edits have in fact made the SRM article better overall, better structured, more clearly showing the pros and cons. We are not meant to take sides but to simply explain what is going on, who is discussing what. I think the discussions on the talk page went quite fine, very friendly and supportive, until all of a sudden just a few days ago when AJL appeared on the scene. All of a sudden he and a few other people popped up (who have not edited much on Wikipedia before and not on a range of topics either) and straight away I get attacked very aggressively on my talk page by AJL (with the threat of "If you continue to distort Wikipedia in this way, I'll seek to get your profile shut down."). Why? Can we not discuss this in a calm and civil manner?
• AJL and at least two of the other people who very recently showed up on the SRM page have a history of pushing for more SRM research in their day job (Redacted). Also, User:Thisredrock explains on their user profile that they are into SRM research. AJL then attacked me for having included a section on a non-use agreement (abbreviated as NUA on the talk page of SRM). This non-use agreement is about stopping all SRM research work altogether (although User:Thisredrock said "I don't think that there is any disagreement that the NUA campaign should be covered on this page). Understandably, these academics might object to the mention of such a non-use agreement in this Wikipedia article (given that it would be against doing any SRM research), right? It's easy to attack me now because of the paid editing aspect but shouldn't they disclose their professional stance (and potential COI or bias) as well?
• I have been editing Wikipedia for 10 years with over 50,000 thousand edits, quite peacefully. In my opinion, we could have had a calm, civil discussion on the talk page of the SRM article to see which sentences on the non-use agreement of SRM are justified and which are not, how criticism of Position A or Position B could be worded, rather than heading straight to the admin noticeboard, without even trying to reach a consensus in good faith. That's sad. (to clarify: I felt that the comments by User:Thisredrock on the talk page and in the edit summaries were not aggressive and we could have collaborated quite well on this even if we have different viewpoints. Consensus could have been reached by assuming good faith on both sides).
• Finally, as to the examples that User:Simonm22 of my editing in January 2025 in their post above, I don't see what these examples are trying to prove. If you disagree with any of those edits, why not bring it up on the talk pages of those articles? Those edits have nothing to do with SRM. I edit on a big range of topics, not just SRM. I've explained in my edit summaries why I made those particular edits, and I stand by them (thanks for User:InformationToKnowledge for taking the time to review those edits in their post above). EMsmile (talk) 21:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

This is an absolutely Shameless example of whataboutery orDARVO, but I'll respond anyway.

I haven't been involved with UCL or with European Astro tech for years . I've never been paid for researching srm.

Research is not advocacy . I don't run any advocacy service within srm . I run a neutral information service which promotes all sides of the Debate equally, and which I pay for out my own pocket . I don't care if people are editing for cash but I do care if they're doing it badly and in a biased way Andrewjlockley (talk) 22:37, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I wish to clarify the relationship between the Earth System Governance project (ESG, and EMsmiles's client) and the the campaign for a 'Non-use Agreement' (NUA) on solar radiation modification (SRM). ESG is an academic network that host conferences, publishes a journal, has working groups -- all the usual stuff. The NUA is a political campaign that, despite its name, seeks to restrict SRM research. There is great overlap between the two endeavours, to the point that the NUA is de facto a project of ESG.

Of the NUA's three leads, one (Biermann) was the founder of ESG and its first chair, for ten years, and is the editor in chief of its journall. ESG is administratively housed in his academic department. Another NUA lead (Gupta) is a member of ESG's 11-member leadership board , one of five authors of its current implementation plan , and -- for what it is worth -- married to Biermann. The two of them are among the three editors of ESG's series of short books. By quick count, of the other 14 authors on the NUA's founding paper, one other is on the governing board, at least eight are lead faculty, at least two are senior research fellows, and one is among the journal's six editors.

In the other direction, of ESG's 11-member governing board, eight have signed the NUA sign-on statement.

The only engagement with the issue of SRM by ESG's governing board, lead faculty, senior research fellows, and members of its journal's editorial board has been the NUA and its predecessor critical articles. TERSEYES (talk) 08:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@TERSEYES, would you mind helping explain how you have, what appears to be firsthand knowledge of the "relationship" between ESG and another user on here? TiggerJay (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

The NUA coordination group, [6] seems to be entirely headed up by academics too. Again, bias isn't always COI. If a PhD also volunteers for a nuclear non-proliferation club, and also decides to edit wikipedia, as long as they aren't tendetious, its probably fine.

For NUA/ESG, i think editors (myself included) are looking for evidence the groups aren't aligned with wikipedia. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

• Did we seriously get a redaction, and not just a revdel, but an oversight on like a hundred revisions of ANI for someone... as far as I can tell, mentioning the on-wiki username of the guy who opened the thread? Is it possible to get any clarity on this? jp×g🗯️ 04:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  This isn't the first time, and sadly will not be the last time there is a large revdel, there was one that spanned over 16 hours worth within the last month. TiggerJay (talk) 04:46, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  They didn't just mention the "on-wiki username", they mentioned the person's (claimed to be) actual legal name, with links to articles about said person, when (as far as I can tell) aside from the username they had not connected themselves to the person off-wiki. Also it was called to my attention that EMsmile (talk · contribs) has also encouraged people to search certain user's names to connect them to off-wiki activities, which is also not on. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  ... gonna ask in talk page of WP:OUTTING if we can have a list of these edge cases at this point Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:53, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  The Bushranger, I'd like to see a diff for that claim about EMsmile encouraging people to investigate other editors. That's a serious charge. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 07:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  @Liz: the diff of them placing it is in the oversighted area, but the diff of my removing it is here - I didn't revdel it because it didn't name any names that weren't the user's username, but it was definitely a "look up this person". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  I don't know if I am understanding this correctly -- is the idea here that if some editor on here is named User:Johnjacobjingleheimer, then it constitutes WP:OUTING (e.g. so egregious that it must not only be removed from the page, and also removed from the revision history, but also made invisible even to the few hundred administrators) if somebody refers to him as "John Jacob Jingleheimer"? Or merely if someone says "I googled John Jacob Jingleheimer and the top result is his personal website saying he's the CEO of Globodyne"? Both of these seem like the kind of thing that The Onion would make up in a joke about Wikipedia being a silly bureaucracy, rather than an actual thing. jp×g🗯️ 03:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

  For example, my real name is pretty easy to find if you put even minimal effort into it, and I have a LinkedIn account that shows up pretty prominently if you search my name. What do the functionaries want people to do if they notice that I am aggressively defending some company and then it turns out I work for it? Like, is the official recommendation that someone makes a Wikipediocracy/Sucks thread? jp×g🗯️ 03:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

  if there was a list of examples with this specific scenario at WP:OUTTING think it would be easier to avoid.

  opened a discussion on the talk page to discuss adding these edge cases.

  alternatively, maybe we need a new essay to point to? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

  JPxG, to be fair, I've seen two or three days of ANI be OS'd simply because a user stated they were a minor. JayCubby 15:26, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

• I have indeffed Andrewjlockley based on their admission of sending a letter to another user's employer, which is blatant WP:HARASSMENT and is absolutely unacceptable, and for their generally aggressive behavior here. We have ways to deal with COI reports, such as the COI VRT queue, that exist exactly so we aren't WP:OUTING people or contacting their employers. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 21:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

  @CaptainEek I respectfully question this block. When Wikipedia is being spammed by an organization, I believe it's OK for volunteers to contact the organization and ask them to stop spamming us, right? This is totally different from emailing the employer of a volunteer editor for purposes of harassment. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:17, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

  This seems like a more nuanced situation than outright spam. EMS is an experienced contributor who seems to work with this client as more than just casual employment. This felt much more like Andrew attempting to circumvent a process he didn't like, and I think his statement evidenced his disdain. EMS believed she was acting in good faith. She may still get sanctioned here, but that's no excuse to just be emailing the clients of paid editors. Maybe I'm wrong, and the community is fine with random editors emailing article subjects to get them to fire their experienced paid editors. But I think that sets a dangerous precedent. I'm not opposed to an unblock should Andrew show understanding, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing the email in question first. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:10, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

  I agree this is a nuanced situation and for clarity I brought up spamming as a hypothetical - I'm not saying ESG is a spammer. ESG is, however, an organization that has chosen to fund a Wikipedia editing project. When an organization makes this choice, I think our community regards the organization as being in some way accountable for what they are funding.

  Since you haven't seen the email in question, I assume you felt that sending an email was in and of itself a blockable offense. If that's the case, then we have a culture in which when there's a dispute over a funded project, we do not try to resolve it privately with the funder as would happen in a normal relationship between organizations. Instead, the dispute is supposed to take place on a public and permanently-archived page, and we are all forbidden from informing the funder that it is even happening. Is this what you want Andrew to say he understands before you'll unblock him? To be frank, this is the kind of convention that makes newcomers and outsiders think we are nuts.

  BTW do you think there any way to get the entire EMSmile COI question referred to AE instead of ANI (climate change is a CTOP)? The former has less of a tendency to turn into an indecisive sprawl. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:53, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

  i was mildly curious when i saw this ani thread mentioned at FTN. at this point,

  the amount of energy and time its taken from community seems ridiculous.

  AE may better handle it and the nuance and figure out what should be done. if so, hope an admin closes soon. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 06:21, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

  I also wanted to question this block. I'm not familiar with all the applicable wikipedia rules and conventions, but if I found out that eg the Heritage Foundation had been paying a contractor to edit the climate change page, I would hope that editors would 1) question the contractor and their edits, and 2) separately write to the Heritage Foundation to ask what they were up to. The latter wouldn't qualify as harassment in my book, just a sensible response to a legitimate concern about the integrity of wikipedia.

  Fwiw I also don't think that EMsmile should be blocked because ultimately we don't know whether they were paid by ESG to push the ideological line of the NUA campaign. Given their long history as an editor, and the fact they conduct themselves with courtesy and decency, they should be given the benefit of the doubt. Thisredrock (talk) 06:52, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Does Wikimedian in Residence apply?

EMS's situation being paid by a research org, (and ajl's claimed situation to run a research information service), to edit wikipedia seems analagous to | wikimedian in residence. See also WP:WIRCOI. In general, all editors are biased, but that's ok as long as there's no WP:TEND. In general, seems COI mostly is about bias towards the company or org you work for, or for a direct product your employer makes. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:50, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

what is the process of being a wikimedian in residence? if there is no process, is EMS technically a wikimedian in residence by default? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 06:18, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I think the way I work is quite similar to Wikimedians in Residence, so I would be happy to be characterised as such. EMsmile (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

My situation is totally different to @EMsmile. I just run a twitter and a substack etc. There's no overarching brand or organisation, and certainly not one I'm promoting here. I'm not even mentioned in the Wikipedia page on the subject AFAIK, nor are any services I run. Let's focus on what this is about. It's about @EMsmile adjusting the page to favour her client (if she was neutral it wouldn't matter). That's not the same as "this person may have some other involvement in the field", which would mean every doctor can't edit WP as they get paid for medicine. Also FWIW I'm pretty open about my ID and unless people are specifically compromising my personal security or encouraging troll swarms etc then I don't think there should be sanctions. Andrewjlockley (talk) 08:12, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

What I wanted to point out earlier is that if I am accused of being biased (or that I am editing in a biased and non-professional way), then it's also possible that the person who makes that claim is biased as well. SRM is a controversial topic, there is no doubt around it. Millions of research money is being poured into it, from all sorts of sources (currently a lot from US tech milliardares). This is explained well in the SRM article here. I had in the past added more information on funding to that section. Then there are some groups (CSOs and NGOs but also academics) who have expressed concern about SRM. Some have even called for stopping all research. This kind of concern should be included in the SRM article. That's all. I am not saying it's right or wrong but it deserves to be mentioned as per WP:DUE.

Would it be helpful, and allowed according to WP procedures, if I added a link to an article from 2023 which explain some activities on SRM outdoor experiments in the UK where AJL's name is mentioned (I don't want to make a mistake, or further mistakes, regarding WP:OUTTING- sorry if I got that wrong in the first place)? I don't really want to discuss AJL's work on SRM in depth. But it might shed line on the background to all this.

Personally, I think this all should have stayed on the talk page of the SRM article and good compromises could have been found. I believe I have worked well on the talk page of the SRM article with other Wikipedia editors in the last six months; generally reaching consensus on the most suitable wording in a good faith manner. There really is no need to attack each other. EMsmile (talk) 11:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Note also that AJL wrote on my talk page "I've already publicly raised this in an open letter to your apparent client" on 15 January. EMsmile (talk) 11:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: Indefinite block for EMsmile

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

---

Let's cut to the chase before more oversighting is required here. EMsmile is a paid editor who violated WP:OUTING - encouraging other editors to look up off-wiki information on the person who raised concerns about their non-neutral paid editing. This has been disruptive - frankly edits that lead to mass requirements of oversight are highly disruptive - and that's notwithstanding the paid editing. Let's not bother beating around the bush anymore. EMsmile's contributions to the project are disruptive and should be curtailed. As they seem to think they did nothing wrong it will be up to Wikipedia to do the curtailing. Proposal withdrawn. I think I was a bit hasty. Now supporting topic ban below. Simonm223 (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose block, support WP:TROUTing EMS for almost WP:OUTTING, WP:TROUTing AJL for aggressive interactions, warning ITK for WP:OUTTING.- informationToKnowledge did the problematic edits, not EMS. EMS encouraged looking up a username but apparently that wasnt revdeled, just editted out by an admin.also this whole thing has been edge case after edge case,to the point where even admins are learning more about the outtingbpolicy.

the wikimedian in residence description and more specifically WP:WIRCOI suggests that groups aligned to wikipedias vision of open knowledge (universities, research groups, museums) can be allowed to edit even when paid explicitly to edit wikipedia.would like more info about EMS employer or if they did anything else like add links from their employer’s research specifically or edit their employers article . their employer so far just seems like a research group Bluethricecreamman (talk) 13:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

From WP:WIRCOI WiRs must not engage in public relations or marketing for their organization in Wikipedia - this seems not to be the case here. Simonm223 (talk) 14:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

like aquillion says, bias isnt coi and coi isnt bias.

want to see diffs where emsmile is citing their own research, editting their orgs article, or evidence their org is actually a front group or something else that isnt aligned with wikipedias values before im certain wp:coi appliesBluethricecreamman (talk) 15:24, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't know the rules on punishing alleged transgressions on wikipedia, but personally I would want a lot more information - along the lines suggested by Bluethricecreamman - before anyone made a blocking decision that would affect someone's livelihood. Thisredrock (talk) 14:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Part of the thing is that Wikipedia is not supposed to be someone's livelihood. Bluethricecreamman has raised an exception allowed for employees of institutions like museums and libraries for edits that are aligned with both institutional and wp project goals but that exception explicitly disallows public relations activities. That forms something of the core to the main dispute - whether EMsmile was aligned with wp project goals or whether they were engaging in public relations for the org that employs them. I assert the latter while Bluethricecreamman asserts the former. Reasonable minds can disagree so additional editor feedback on that locus of dispute would be a good thing. But that doesn't change that people aren't generally supposed to be editing Wikipedia for pay. Simonm223 (talk) 15:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Trout at this point. EMS accidentally almost outted someone, ITK did out someone by some edge case, AJL is excessively aggressive for a few edits and should be warned, not sure where COI is anymore and without some silverbullet evidence or argument, think we just move on and let the content dispute happen on talk page. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose this seems a bit excessive. I would, however, like to see User:EMsmile apologize for the WP:OUTING that occurred. Allan Nonymous (talk) 15:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  I've already apologised on my talk page earlier today. I would be happy to write a more detailed apology: just tell me where to best put it? NB that I have never violated OUTING before so I am normally well aware of this and very careful. EMsmile (talk) 15:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

• Strong oppose (uninvolved) there were actually two people who performed different outings that were redacted, both EMS and ITK. While I think both might have been done in simple ignorance (because who hasn't googled to check for bias before), it is entirely different to do it publically and publish said information. The sanctions for such are quite clear, so I think they should be performed, but only for long enough to satisfy the penalty for such actions (eg not WP:PUNISH).

That being said, looking at EMS specifically, there is a lot to wade through that an uninvolved, unbiased SME would really aid this review. This is especially true because from a few hours of reviewing things, it fails a DUCK test, and looks more like what we would hope from a PAID editor. What I see is a properly disclosed WP:PAID editor, 99% live edits, 97% created pages still alive, steady-long-term edit history, 85%+ edit summaries in recent months, 20% of main space edits have been to the talk pages, their own talk page discussion remain civil (even when receiving borderline uncivil comments), regular use of PGs seemingly in appropriate (eg not wikilawyering) ways. These are all the opposite of what we see from typical COI/POVPUSH/PAID editors. Therefore, it does require a more nuanced look into their edits to ensure there isn't WP:CPUSH going on. This is going to require a lot more time to carefully go through their talk page discussions in full context, understanding the subject enough to weigh the merrits of their actual edits. But after an hour or two, I think there has been some cherry-picking of evidence. In think short of a thorough investigation, taking hours of an editors time, I think it will be quite difficult to call this actual disruption or rather it is more an edit war between involved editors. While this has been a very disruptive ANI, I'm not convinced its fault of the accused but perhaps still the accuser stirring the pot. :TiggerJay (talk) 15:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, just to compare, AJL on the same metrics: ((I didn't even look at these until after the EMS post above) 93% live edits, 95% created pages still alive, otherwise dormant account becoming very active this month, 100% edit summaries recently, 44% of main space edits to talk page, no recent talk page interaction their talk page... So far nothing really wrong. However, then you discover that AJL account has made ONLY 16 edits in recent history before raising this ANI. They have been uncivil on EMS's talk page including very questionable off-wiki behavior[7], and never actually citing policy except once where WP:PAID was completely misrepresented[8]. But as you look further in to the rather SHORT recent contribution history of this editor, it is ASTONISHING that their interaction on talk page with EMS was a grand total of 5 interactions before raising this at ANI (3 on article talk, and 2 on EMS talk). And in those talk messages it went from 0 to 100 between two posts[9][10]. Again for someone who came out of seemingly nowhere (no more than a dozen edits in any given month for over 11 years)... And this ANI was raised after a total of 16 edits in a 24-hour period. This is quacking like a either WP:OWN or WP:SOCK. TiggerJay (talk) 15:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Maybe everyone gets WP:TROUTs at this point and we move on? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:13, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh I do think we're beyond that for several reasons, as I've maintained outting is not something we should ever take lightly nor ever simply give it a pass. Beyond that AJL escalated this astonishingly fast (I would suggest in bad faith), from a (pharaphrased) "why did you do that" to "I'm reporting you to ANI and writing a letter to your employer" in the very next talk page edit, which is not only uncivil, but borderline NPA and off-wiki threats.

However, to be abundantly clear I don't think EMS is in the clear either, there is a need for a closer evaluation of the edits for 'potential civil-POV which is also prohibited, but I just do not see the bright line, typical POVPUSH/COI edit behavior which is typical of such paid editors. I can understand how it might come off in a quick evaluation of blanking a section like this might come off is overly whitewashing, but China's dedication to sustainable finance is extending to multiple fronts, demonstrating a holistic approach to green development. The ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a flagship project spanning numerous countries, is increasingly embracing green finance principles, prioritizing eco-friendly investments across its vast infrastructure and development endeavors. This shift aligns the BRI with sustainability goals, emphasizing clean energy, climate resilience, and biodiversity protection in partner nations. but I think if you were being honest, that sounds wildly promotional to me and doesn't belong here. Can you even stuff more peacock terms in there?! Now a more appropriate thing would have been to edit it or tag it, but the removal wasn't the best choice available there. However, I would proffer that if any one of the experienced editors here removed that paragraph, nobody would bat an eye. But I think it does call into need for a closer look, instead of just a hasty "I didn't like they removed a paragraph" from an article they might have a COI with and thus indef! That is irresponsible. TiggerJay (talk) 17:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

in hindsight might be open to restrictions on geoengineering and other related topics if ems is part of a pure advocacy group

mostly a la liz aka only edit requests and talk page discuss for geoengineering. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:19, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

• Strong support. They've consistently edited mainspace to push things in a direction clearly influenced by their employer. An editor whose entire post history consists of stuff strongly discouraged by policy should not continue to edit; the OUTing is just the cherry on top of unacceptable behavior. I'm also unimpressed by the way that both this editor and those defending them have constantly tried to sling aspersions at other people in order to defend them - even if true, WP:NOTTHEM applies; it does not excuse EMsmile's own behavior. The interpretation, above, that the fact that WP:PAID only strongly discourages paid editors from making mainspace edits does not allow editors to blithely ignore the entire thing without even the slightest token lip-service; the discretion it grants is for occasional limited uncontroversial edits, not for editors to take that one line to mean that the whole policy has no applicability to them at all. I'm baffled that this is even in question - EMsmile's editing is wildly beyond the line for what could ever be acceptable from a paid editor. --Aquillion (talk) 16:20, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose and IMO unthinkable They disclosed that they have a small consultancy project from Earth Systems Governance Foundation and made 65 edits on the article in question some which may have gone into the gray area where they maybe should have done a requested edit. From a glance at their user page it looks like their PE contributions are a tiny fraction of their >60k edits in wide-ranging areas. And IMO the reporter has been pretty nasty at best on this. I've done work with PE's before and would be happy to hang out at the subject article for a few months if pinged. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:18, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  made 65 edits on the article in question some which may have gone into the gray area where they maybe should have done a requested edit: shouldn't every edit they make to this article go through an edit request? It isn't just if the edit is obviously controversial, any edit to that article (or related ones) is at the very least in the "gray area" as you call it. Yes, they have behaved better than most paid editors by at least being transparent about their COI, but it doesn't give them a free pass to make 65 edits that should have gone through edit requests.
  I'm not sold on an indefinite block right now, given their useful contributions beyond the topic, but I would support an "edit requests only" restriction on the topic of geoengineering broadly construed. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  Personally, I am much more concerned about undeclared paid editing (which I feel is very prevalent and too prevalent) and feel that how rough we are on declared PE (doubly so for the approach by the op of this overall thread) to be a bad thing and a disincentive to declare. But if pinged and folks want, as I said before, I'd be willing to hang out at the article for a few months. And (even without any requirement for such from here) I'd strongly suggest that anything but gnome edits be submitted for someone else to put in. North8000 (talk) 00:50, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

• I'd want to see a lot more evidences/diffs to support this proposal before supporting it. There might be evidence somewhere in this long, long discussion but it should have been presented again when this proposal was set forth, especially the evidence on any attempt at "outing". Along with copyright violations, that's one of the most damning accusations that can be made about an editor and yet, I haven't seen anything to support it. If it's part of an edit that has been revision deleted or oversighted, it should still be identified so those of us with the ability to examine it can verify it. Alluding to misconduct without supporting evidence is just casting aspersions. I'm not saying that everything here is proper (hence why I haven't supported or opposed this block) but you can't make charges without providing evidence to back them up and if it is buried somewhere else in this complaint, you have to add it to this proposal. But I think given the length of time this editor has contributed to the project and the fact that they have identified themselves as an editor who is getting compensated for their work (that is, following policy guidelines, so far), there should be due process before laying down the harshest sanction that we have. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:18, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

  Once again, I don't care about being outed because I'm using my own name. What I care about is the integrity of Wikipedia. I reported this behaviour on the talk page of both the article and the user and got nowhere - so I escalated it, as is the proper process. It doesn't require a long history of misconduct to justify this - because editing to promote your fee-paying client is egregious behavior, which is completely antithetical to the Spirit of Wikipedia. If someone doesn't stop after one warning and expresses absolutely no contrition, then escalation is the right thing to do. I was to-the-point but not personally abusive while doing so. I'm not obliged to soothe the tender feelings of those who are undermining the very essence of Wikipedia . I don't claim any ownership of the articles that I've created / worked on but I do care about the integrity of information on the subject - and when people are paid to bias Wikipedia they are acting as a sock puppet WP:SOCK . I called this out by means of letter to the employer - not because I wanted to get EMS into trouble with the employer, but because I wanted to get the employer to stop doing what they were paying EMS to do on their behalf . Let's stop getting bogged down in bureaucratic process and concentrate on the key point, which is whether we want Wikipedia to be edited by people who are trying to promote their employer's organization or point of view. All this talk of outing and "be kind" sea lion behaviour is a total distraction. Andrewjlockley (talk) 20:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

  I meant meat puppet. Andrewjlockley (talk) 20:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

• Tentative oppose - Hard to evaluate the OUTING claim given what's been redacted, so it's up to oversighters to decide if it was bad enough for a block. Not enough evidence has been presented that we need to block for COI/PAID activities yet, though. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:41, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

• Striking not because I'm convinced an indef is merited, but because the context relies on far more jargon and understanding of the subject than I have the capacity to dive into at the moment. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

• Support a topic ban from ESG and its affiliates with no opinion on indef block at this time.

From what I can see, Earth System Governance looks like a mission-aligned organization that could support a fruitful, policy-compliant Wikipedian in Residence position (FWIW I sometimes do paid projects as a WiR). There are a few potential hazards with any WiR role, however. One hazard is identified by the COI guideline: "WiRs must not engage in public relations or marketing for their organization in Wikipedia". More broadly, we have a movement-wide custom that Wikimedians in Residence do not edit about their institution" (emphasis in the original). Multiple editors have complained about EMsmile's edits that are in some way connected to her client. These edits merit examination:

• August 12 2024: EMsmile added a section on the NUA, which as TERSEYES points out above is closely connected to her client.[11] All citations in the section were to primary sources affiliated with the NUA.
• Nov 18, 2024: EMsmile added the name of Frank Biermann, her client's founder, to the SRM article.[12]. When you have a COI, this kind of edit is PR/marketing. Her edit summary was ""copy edits, added wikilink", i.e. there was no indication of substantial or COI editing in her edit summary.
• Jan 15 2024: When challenged about the NUA-related content, EMsmile responded with a ~600 word wall of text, followed by a ~400 word wall of text, followed by several shorter comments, all about advocating for more NUA content than other editors wanted.[13] Tne persistence and sheer amount of text are not in line with WP:PAYTALK , which says that COI editors must be concise and mindful of not wasting volunteer editors' time. Several of her comments also cut up another editor's comment, in violation of WP:TPO.

When others complained about her edits and her COI, EMsmile accused them of making personal attacks."[14] I did not see any personal attacks in the discussion to that point. The criticism had been very civil IMO. Making unfounded accusations of personal attacks turns up the heat and is uncivil.

EMsmile, I am concerned about the justifications you provide for editing about your client: "And regarding my situation as a paid editor in this case: I fully understand that this could raise red flags for folks. However, I've been editing Wikipedia now for over a decade; most of my 50,000 or so edits in a volunteer capacity and many in a paid capacity (for various clients). I have no intention to throw overboard my professional judgement for a short term consultancy and to start neglecting Wikipedia editing policies.." There is no execmption in the COI guideline for experienced editors. All parts of the COI guideline apply to everyone, including you. Trying to be unbiased does not make you unbiased when you have a COI. You also justify your advocacy by pointing to your transparency. E.g. when called out on adding the founder's name to the SRM article, you wrote, "That is correct, and I've stated this very clearly and transparently on my user profile page."[15] Transparency is good but it's only one part of the COI guideline. Transparency does not make it OK to use Wikipedia to advocate for your client.

It is obvious to me that EMsmile should immediately stop all forms of editing about her client and its founder. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:09, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

I looked at Earth System Governance Project last night just to better understand the organization. It came across to me as promotional. I looked at the history and my heart sank. EMsmile has made 113 edits to the page, all within her time of being paid by ESG.[16] She has according to the authorship statistics written 73% of the article, in violation of the COI guideline. This is absolutely not what Wikipedians in Residence are supposed to be doing.

I added the paragraph below to my comment at around the same time as EMSmile's response below ESG, like many non-profits, probably wants to help Wikipedia but needs guidance on our rules. It is very common for non-profits to see Wikipedia as a form of social media presence and to want to leverage Wikipedia to build their brand. Brand-building is not where the opportunity is on Wikipedia. The opportunity is to improve Wikipedia articles in the organization's area of expertise using top-quality sources. A best outcome for all this would be for EMSmile to stop the COI edits and then work with ESG to pivot the project in a more productive direction.

Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:56, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello User:Clayoquot, we know each other well from working on the same articles as part of WikiProject Climate Change. My client for the project under discussion here is the "Earth System Governance Foundation" (not the project (Earth System Governance Project (which is an alliance), nor the concept earth system governance itself). So when you say that I should "immediately stop all forms of editing about her client and its founder", then who do you mean? Strictly speaking it would be the "Earth System Governance Foundation". They don't have a Wikipedia article about themselves, neither do they have a website.

FWIW: If you look at the history of two articles that you mentioned: earth system governance and Earth System Governance Project, then I think you can see that I actually made them a lot better, not worse (compared with their versions from about early July last year). I added better sources and more nuanced content, including criticism and debates. If there are still unsourced, overly promotional statements in there, then this needs to be addressed (probably best on the talk pages or with direct edits of course).

FYI: The Earth System Governance Project is “a global research network that aims to advance knowledge at the interface between global environmental change and governance. The network connects and mobilizes scholars from the social sciences and humanities researching at local and global scales.” It is not an advocacy group. It is not my client nor employer. There is also no official/legal/formal connection between the ESG Foundation and the ESG Project.

If a topic ban was imposed, would such a topic ban for me for Earth System Governance Project apply only to the duration of this particular consultancy or for life? Also a topic ban from earth system governance? Would I still be allowed to propose changes on the talk pages? And would the ban stop when my consultancy stops (likely in a few months), or be there for life?

Just to clarify for those following this ANI: the bulk of my 60 000 edits were done in a volunteer capacity; and a certain proportion (it would be hard to estimate exactly what proportion) was done for different clients (they are mentioned on my profile page). Those clients are all mission-aligned and are not for profits or even corporations. I have no "agenda" that I am pushing. All I want to do is improve the quality of Wikipedia articles in the area of climate change and sustainable development. A lot of my work is actually just about readability improvements.

Also just to clarify: when I mentioned "personal attacks" in that post that you, Clayoquot, linked to, I wasn't referring to attacks in this thread but I meant AJL's aggressive/confrontational comments on my talk page, and also on the talk page of SRM. It felt like a personal attack when someone writes on my talk page "If you continue to distort Wikipedia in this way, I'll seek to get your profile shut down. I've already publicly raised this in an open letter to your apparent client." EMsmile (talk) 17:59, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

To clarify, the fact that you work for a non-profit does not mean that it isn't paid editing or that the guidelines do not apply to the same extent. Some of your edits are directly adding quotes from the project's mission statement, which is far from "readability improvements" and definitely should have gone through an edit request.

Also, despite what you claim, the Earth System Governance Foundation appears to be directly linked to the Project. In fact they even use the same website, which states that [t]he Earth System Governance Foundation also serves as legal representative of the Earth System Governance research community. This is hardly what I would call "no official/legal/formal connection". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:12, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

yeah, thats clearly a COI vio. let's report to WP:COI/N, or something else. EMS, it does not matter you made an article better, or are unbiased... COI's destroy the appearance of neutrality. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:02, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

did report to WP:COI/N Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:16, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

It does matter (which doesn't mean I agree that they do make the article better -- that's outside my expertise). Just a point of order: we do allow COI edits and even PAID edits as long as they're (a) transparent and (b) constructive. I understand there are some editors who will say things like "editing with a COI is not allowed", but that's flatly incorrect in policy terms. It's not in the spirit of a Wikipedian-in-Residence program, but if EMsmile claims to be a WiR it's not on their user page or in this thread, as far as I can tell (and being a WiR isn't usually an effective shield anyway -- it's more a signal that someone is knowledgeable and following best practices such as, yes, not editing about the institution that hires you). We're talking about a standard paid editor, not a WiR. If the changes were constructive and transparent, there would be no reason for action. Evidence of editing with a COI isn't relevant to a sanction except where it's not transparent or not constructive, and my understanding of this section is that multiple people take issue with the quality of EMsmile's edits (i.e. edits that fail NPOV, not merely an editor that has a COI; the relevance of highlighting a COI is that we rightly provide little-to-no leeway to COI editors to make content mistakes relevant to their COI). FWIW. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:23, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

WP:COI/N put this back into our court. Simonm223 (talk) 13:02, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose indefinate block as seems excessive given her long history of useful edits. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

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

Proposal: Topic ban for EMsmile

I added this heading just now to break up a section that was getting long Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:23, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

The following comment was a reply to the comment by Rhododendrites dated 18:23, 19 January 2025 (UTC) in the section above.True, editing with a COI is allowed if certain practices are followed. Indeed this is looking more like a standard situation in which 73% of a Wikipedia article was written by someone who was paid by the subject. Our community has a fair amount of practice with this stuff. To answer EMSmile's question, the topic ban I propose is for the ESG Foundation (your client) and its direct affiliates, broadly construed. This obviously include the ESG Project and its founder. It also includes the Non-use Agreement as this is closely tied to the ESG Project. This is the narrowest scope I can think of that would prevent the kind of disruption we have recently seen from you. I propose this topic ban be indefinite but appealable after 12 months. As you probably know, there's a good chance that you can avoid getting sanctioned if you commit to a voluntary restriction. I do not think at this time that you need to be banned from citing the scholarly works of ESG-affiliated people, however I strongly recommend you be very judicious and selective about the extent to which you do this. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:39, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi Clayoquot, I think your proposed topic ban is a good solution and way forward ("the topic ban I propose is for the ESG Foundation (your client) and its affiliates, broadly construed. This obviously include the ESG Project and its founder. It also includes the Non-use Agreement as this is closely tied to the ESG Project."). I am happy to make a voluntary commitment to this restriction. I have no experience with such topic bans so I don't know the exact procedure. Do I put this on my profile page? Can you point me to an example where someone else has done this (maybe via my talk page)?

[As an aside: My client for the work on the SRM article, i.e. ESG Foundation, has no position on geoengineering, and has not even endorsed the Solar Geoengineering Non-use Agreement (SGNUA) Open Letter. So the link between ESG Foundation and SGNUA might not be as direct as some might think. There is an indirect link via people though - sure.]

By the way, the paragraph about the non-use agreement that is now (after some discussion) in the section on opposition to SRM research (second last paragraph) is pretty good in my opinion and does not need further changes at this stage (well, except the first sentence is a bit clunky, I already pointed that out on the talk page last week).

SRM is part of the climate change topic complex and is thus, not surprisingly, a topic full of potential for debate and discussion (some people are strongly pushing for it, others are strongly warning about it), so I think further work is still needed and this article will evolve accordingly over time. Hopefully without any ANIs in the future. :-)

I'll make sure I am more careful in future with respect to those grey areas while editing the solar radiation modification article as mentioned above by User:North8000. I could even commit that for the next few months, I don't make any edits to the solar radiation modification article directly but always go through the talk page (taking up the offer that North8000 suggested above: "I've done work with PE's before and would be happy to hang out at the subject article for a few months if pinged").

Oh and should the section on my profile page where I explain how I manage any potential COIs that can arise from working for/with clients, need improvement and tightening? Happy to be given advice on this (maybe better on my talk page than here). EMsmile (talk) 22:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

For the topic ban, you can add it to Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Voluntary. Regarding the non-use agreement paragraph, I'm surprised to find it only citing primary sources (the agreement itself and its list of endorsements), making me wonder about WP:DUE. To be fair, that is a recurring concern throughout the section (with, for instance, the claim of ETC Group being a pioneer in opposing SRM research is sourced... to ETC Group itself). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:14, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

EMsmile, thank you for being flexible on this. Just to make sure you are aware, a topic ban means you may not make any edits related to the topic in question, and this includes edits to talk pages. There is a small set of exemptions. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 23:30, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh, the talk pages as well? Fine by me for the talk pages of ESGP and its founder but not for the entirety of the SRM article, I am sorry. I think this would not be justified. It's also a bit impractical. With regards to Chaotic Enby's post above I could stress that there are also secondary sources for the non-use agreement, and that I could provide them on the talk page and then leave it up to others if they want to add them to the article or not.

For background (if this helps, but it should rather be on the talk page of the SRM article, not here): The solar geoengineering non-use agreement is an academic initiative that simply believes SRM is a dangerous technology that should not be further developed, much like nuclear technology in the past and that powerful interests are funding it. That's it. That is why the topic is contentious. EMsmile (talk) 23:54, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

As I described above, I believe your edits regarding NUA at Talk:Solar radiation modification violated WP:PAYTALK quite egregiously. Do you disagree?

Posting sources on a talk page is one of the milder forms of advocacy but it is still advocacy. Other editors are capable of finding the sources they want on SRM very quickly, and their searches for those sources will probably be less biased than your searches. I do not think the benefit of you sharing sources outweighs the risk of you using the talk page for COI advocacy. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:15, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. I've used the talk page at SRM since middle of last year to reach consensus with other editors in a collaborative manner, like I always do. I tried to make my points in a concise manner, even if I sometimes failed (should make talk past posts shorter in future). Sometimes they might look like a "wall of text" because I copied a paragraph or even a whole section that is under discussion across. Of course there is always room for improvement but to be banned from writing on the talk page of SRM at all is in my opinion excessive.

Please also note that the person who started this ANI originally said that I am doing "PR" for my client. This is not true. I can expand on this further but I think this is a content question, not one about procedures. Perhaps it's better to now let that his be handled in the COI noticeboard thread here?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#c-Bluethricecreamman-20250119181200-Earth_System_Governance_Project. As was pointed out above by Rhododendrites: "we do allow COI edits and even PAID edits as long as they're (a) transparent and (b) constructive."

I believe my edits for the solar radiation modification article have been transparent and constructive. The article is in fairly good shape now and does not include any "PR" for a certain "brand" or alike. EMsmile (talk) 09:59, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Just to be clear, a topic ban from ESG and its affiliates would not stop you from editing the SRM talk page. It would only stop you from editing the SRM talk page on the topic of ESG and its affiliates. And regarding your history on the SRM talk page, I'm sorry I think you just don't get it. The length of your posts there is a symptom of the attitude that you expressed in other ways. You took the position that you, a paid COI editor, get an equal say in the editorial decision-making process. Instead of offering information and then deferring to the judgement of unconflicted editors, you repeatedly asked for the article to be made more favorable to your client. And unless you are topic banned I see no reason to think you will not do it again. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd like to know what other editors think of edits like this at SRM and this at Frank Biermann (an article written almost entirely by EMsmile while being paid by ESG). Do the uninvolved people here see these as PR or not PR? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:09, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

IMO if it were not for the PE aspect they look like pretty routine factual edits and I wouldn't use the term PR (by it's common meaning) for them. With the declared PE aspect I'd call it where it would be better to discuss and let them be put in by somebody else if they agree. North8000 (talk) 20:33, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

(involved, as I've had disagreements with EMSmile before). To me, some of this doesn't quite look routine. For instance, using Biermann's website to say he's graduated with distinction (we rarely mention this), or his own website to state he's often used by the press, and namedropping in a highly-viewed article. It's not egregious, but it would raise eyebrows even without the PE aspect. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:11, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Hi Femke, I've modified the Frank Biermann article accordingly now (I agree with you; this needed improvement - my bad). And just to explain: I had mentioned Frank Biermann in the SRM article because he played an important role in developing the non-use agreement in the first place, and not because I wanted to "name drop" him (137 pageviews per day for the SRM article in the last year is not exactly "a highly-viewed article"). But I do understand that this could be "eyebrow raising" in the overall context of this COI discussion.

I would be happy to improve the Frank Biermann article further if there are still problematic aspects (or "PR"?) that I have overlooked so far. However, I think it's probably better if I give myself a voluntary restriction for this article and also for the Earth System Governance Project article, as well as the non-use agreement component of the solar radiation modification article. I have just now written about this voluntary restriction on my profile page here. I feel bad for the page watchers and admins that this ANI has gone on for such a long time now. Maybe we could draw it to a close now with this conclusion and voluntary topic ban? (if needed this could be fine-tuned through my talk page rather than through this ANI thread?) EMsmile (talk) 23:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

We are making some progress. Your voluntary restriction, as currently worded, is quite far off from a topic ban or even a mainspace topic ban. A topic ban on the ESGF would stop you from, for example, adding a mention of Biermann or the ESGP to articles like Solar radiation management. You have written about your client in multiple articles that are not in your voluntary restriction.

At the very least - whether or not you have a voluntary restriction - you need to follow the COI guideline. Your comment above suggests that you don't recognize that you should have used a edit request to add Biermann's name to the SRM article. Are you willing to commit to following the entirety of the COI guideline, including the use of edit requests for any non-trivial edits that involve your clients? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:00, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• Support. I find the voluntary restriction too little too late. I don't think it should be narrowly construed or time-constrained, as some COI remains after a paid position. Some of EMS' additions are egregiously non-neutral, such as adding the following to an infobox "focus=Stimulate a vibrant, pluralistic, and relevant research community for earth system governance" [17]. You still claim on your user page that there is no organisational connection between the ESG Foundation and Project, despite their website stating the opposite, as pointed out 3 days ago. Working with a COI requires community trust, which I don't think exist anymore. I do wonder if this topic ban should be extended to future employers too? I can't find it back, but we have had discussions 3/4 years back already about more subtle COI editing on your part, where you promoted papers from individual scientists unduly, in exchange for them volunteering time to improve Wikipedia. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support per Femke. jp×g🗯️ 11:28, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support and will withdraw my proposal above. Simonm223 (talk) 13:33, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose involuntary, as long as the details on the voluntary get confirmed North8000 (talk) 13:48, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  They are confirmed (below). North8000 (talk) 20:46, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

• Support per Femke. also this discussion has gone too long and is nearly 0.5 WP:TOMATs long. We should end it somehow, and some kinda editting restriction is warranted at this point. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support per Femke, while a block is far too much, a topic ban (with or without edit requests) seems more reasonable. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:03, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support as proposer and I think extending it to future employers/clients makes sense. Once someone has started work on a project, it can be difficult or impossible to change the client's expectations. It is emotionally hard for the community to contemplate sanctions that affect an individual's current employment, so preventing that kind of situation is best for everyone. EMsmile does relatively well when working for clients who do not expect COI editing. I hope the guidance she is getting here will encourage her to seek those types of projects. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:46, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support While I do believe that EMS has made some positive contributions, they have also made some egregious errors. If this was not a situation of PE or COI, then at most we'd probably consider a voluntary ban, but given the PE/COI concerns, once you've lost the trust of the community, it is going to be extremely difficult to overcome that cloud. When doing PE/COI work one must be extremely carefully not to make any questionable or promotional edits, they must be 100% defendable, and what we've seen here is that there are multiple instances where that is absolutely not the case. It is a difficult choice because there is a mountain on good work, lots of history and many examples of following procedures and presuming good faith. As I mentioned early on, this might be a case of sealioning, where we've got a civil contributor who is still pushing for a specific POV. These are always difficult. But in looking back at specific edits, and even by EMS own admission, that mistakes were made, and the threshold for when we loose trust and faith in a PE has been exceeded. And while I'd hate to mess with someones livelihood and income, it does not appear that is EMS' primary income, and thus I think that it is appropriate that this ban also extend to any other PE works now and in the future. TiggerJay (talk) 16:08, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

  I'll be honest that without the COI element I'd not be seeking any sort of sanction bigger than a trout. However I take the COI part very seriously and that's the locus of my concerns. Simonm223 (talk) 20:52, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

  Agreed! TiggerJay (talk) 21:20, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

  (I'm going to use the COI term with the meaning which I think you intended....IMO the Wiki-meanings are too broad and variable). IMO the golden rule (which IMO was mistakenly taken out of the COI guideline) is (paraphrasing) that where influence from the COI connection overrides the duty to edit properly in the interests/objectives of Wikipedia, you have an (in practice) COI. And the policy says that in the highest-risk condition (PE) they are strongly discouraged (not forbidden) from editing directly. IMO good practice in relation to this is that edits where there is any COI type question about the edit that they should request somebody else to put it in. While I haven't taken a deep dive on their edits, from looking at the ones presented to make the case that they are problematic, I see only minor violations of that "good practice" and no explicit violations of policy. Another consideration in my mind is that IMO undisclosed paid editing is a huge problem in Wikipedia and IMO Wikipedia being overly rough on disclosed paid editing contributes to that "undisclosed" problem. Finally, the described voluntary restrictions if adhered to (and with them as a 60k editor with only a tiny fraction of their edits being PE, I expect would happen) would remove all question for a year and then be just normal practices (and all of that inevitably under a magnifying glass, with the obvious option of coming back here if needed) IMO would solve it. Which is why I suggest (only) the voluntary restrictions at this time Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:12, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  In principle I agree that it's great if we can avoid UPE. I trust EMSmile fully to abide by a topic ban, so I don't see that as a risk here. I don't think it's accurate to say a tiny part of their edits are PE; I reduced my activity in the climate change project for years, waiting for EMSmile to finish her paid editing stint, as I had become quite frustrated arguing against KPI-driven editing. For instance, high-speed editing with loads of unnecessary quotes, as we see in her article Frank Biermann and Earth System Governance Project. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:23, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  What I was using when I said that only a part of their edits are PE is that they have 60,000 edits over 10 years on 5,412 different pages, and it looks like they are good at declaring when they do PE work. North8000 (talk) 16:56, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

• Support, for the reasons already outlined by the various others who support a topic ban. Axad12 (talk) 08:33, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
• Comment Since it's scattered in three places, an overview here might be good. The restrictions that they have already committed to and are already under mirror the proposal (for one year) with the exception that they can participate on those two talk pages (only) if pinged. North8000 (talk) 17:07, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  Where has EMsmile committed to stopping COI editing at Solar radiation management? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:46, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  I was comparing their self-imposed restrictions to to what you wrote at the start of this subthread. And regarding the SRM article, there I think that the scope of their self-imposed restriction (at their page) mirrored what you wrote, which at the SRM article is just on non-use-agreement related. I guess the the other possibility that fell within what you wrote up would be talking about the ESG org and it's founder at the SRM article, but as I understand it that has not been in there /questioned/an issue (except within the non-use-agreement area) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:19, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks. I see what you mean now. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:57, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I restored this thread after it was auto-archived. After this much editor time has gone into a discussion I hope it can be closed by a human instead of being left unresolved. Could an admin please close it? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:55, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

There might be a reason this looooong discussion hasn't been closed yet, Clayoquot. I doubt many admins will fight for the opportunity to dive in and sort out this lengthy discussion. If this gets archived again, please do not unarchive it a second time. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:35, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I understand, and I won't unarchive it a second time. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:00, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Clayoquot, I might have misunderstood, were you seeking a closure of all parts of this discussion thread or only the topic ban proposal section right here. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 07:46, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Just the topic ban, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 11:52, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

IMO with their self-imposed voluntary restrictions already in place, and based on the size and particulars of their track record, I don't think that they would violate them, that it's time to let this one go. (by whatever method) I think that undeclared PE is a big problem and being overly rough on declared PE contributes to that problem. Editor has over 60K Wikipedia contributions and it appears only a small fraction are PE. While I know that the nature of the PE organizations technically doesn't matter, I think that it's worth noting that the clients appear to be environmental advocate type organizations. One other side note; this subthread spans both before and after they put the self-imposed restrictions in place. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:45, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I have avoided commenting on EMsmile's track record because AN/I is a poor venue for assessing the overall histories of good-faith, prolific, polite editors of technical subject areas. But since a few people have brought it up, I have to say that there is complexity to it and I've often experienced the frustration that Femke expressed below, while also appreciating EMsmile's many positive contributions. I wonder how much scrutiny has been done given that nobody seems to have noticed four copyright warnings and a still-open Contributor copyright investigation.

I do agree with you that undeclared paid editing is far a bigger problem. The community consensus as captured in the COI guideline is to require certain types of self-restraint for declared COI editors even though this will have the effect of discouraging declaration; it's a trade-off we have collectively accepted. I also agree that there is not much difference in scope between EMsmiles' voluntary restriction and the proposed topic ban, but this only makes me wonder why she wants a narrower scope. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:30, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Other than the 1 year expiration, I think that the scope is essentially the same. North8000 (talk) 02:16, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

One other difference is whether this applies to future paid editing. Most of the people in this section support that as well. Given there were some (way more subtle) issues with COI before, I think this is an important distinction. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:31, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support per my arguments above, obviously. I still believe they should be indeffed - they've egregiously engaged in strongly discouraged behavior with no hint of respect for the relevant policies - but at the bare minimum they should never be allowed to touch these topic areas ever again. If we're not going to sanction for clear violations like this, what is even the point of WP:PAID? It is not intended to be a policy that people can simply decide doesn't apply to them. And the idea that a voluntary restriction could be enough at this point is absurd; the entire reason we're here is because voluntary restrictions haven't worked. Regardless, I feel that people undersell the extent to which paid editing threatens both our mission and our reputation. --Aquillion (talk) 16:19, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
• Support, but I'm also wondering whether a topic ban from paid editing (construed broadly to include any edits on any topic they had ever been paid to edit) in general wouldn't be more appropriate. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:37, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

  I think more evidence of misconduct is needed to support this. Most of EMSmile's edits in the last few years are done Wikemedian-in-Residence like constructions. I've objected to some of this editing in the past, but there's a lot of good stuff there too. She manages to reach experts in the field all the time to fact-check our articles, and request more up-to-date sourcing. And she replies to feedback, after some insistence, to align KPIs with Wikipedia P&Gs (e.g., she stopped expanding leads to ~600 words after I pointed her to WP:LEADLENGTH). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:37, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Femke: They shouldn't be directly editing leads at all... If they are routinely directly editing articles with which they have a COI despite being strongly discouraged that is a problem... Doing what is strongly discouraged as the norm and not an exception *is misconduct* (or if you want to put it a different way a failure to align their editing behavior with P+Gs) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:50, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  Most of EMSmile's previous paid work did not have a COI element to it really, and was closer to a WiR position. For instance, she was paid by Formas to broadly improve climate change articles. In her newer projects, both this one—but possibly also the one for Utrecht University—there is a clearer COI element: promoting organisations directly and citing related researchers substantially more than others. That needs to stop, but those WiR-like positions? I wouldn't think it's needed. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:27, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  The COI rules for WiR are the exact same, we don't make any exceptions for them. All paid edits fall under COI, WiR or otherwise. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: If anyone wants to critique the above-mentioned project funded by Formas, for which I got the funding and under which I edited during 2020-2024, you can find it here (feel free to comment on the talk page there): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/SDGs/Communication_of_environment_SDGs (by the way: only a small part of my editing hours were paid for by that grant; a large proportion was actually volunteer editing). Under this project, many articles in the climate change topic range (132 to be precise) were improved (see here).

Is it possible that some people who have commented in this thread dislike any form of paid editing? Comments such as "Regardless, I feel that people undersell the extent to which paid editing threatens both our mission and our reputation" seem to indicate that some people want to ban all paid editing. I think there are many scenarios were paid editing (which adhere to Wikipedia policies around COI) can be very beneficial, e.g. when the money comes from a grant on science communication (like the Formas project did), from a WiR program, or from someone's university (e.g. when academics or PhD students do a bit of editing on their area of expertise during their day job) or from a consultancy with a mission-aligned organisation.

Also, this statement is upsetting for me, and I think it misunderstands the work that I did under the Formas-funded project: "I'm also wondering whether a topic ban from paid editing (construed broadly to include any edits on any topic they had ever been paid to edit) in general wouldn't be more appropriate."

Can we rather agree that if the relevant policies around COI are followed then some types of paid editing can be good for Wikipedia? I think the Formas-funded Wikipedia project was good, and I wish we had more of them.

And, in order to try and conclude this ANI thread, could someone please tell me how you want me to change the wording of the voluntary restrictions on my user page? They should be not voluntary but forced? You want them to be longer than one year? Indefinite? For as long as I am under any paid editing arrangement, even if the future funding source had nothing to do with ESGP and Frank Biermann? EMsmile (talk) 12:02, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

If you are routinely directly editing articles then you are not following the relevant policies around COI. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@EMsmile, I agree with that paid editing can be very beneficial in a WiR-style project. The community has a range of reasonably-held views on this, but written policy does allow WiRs to edit articles directly and routinely in some circumstances. To answer your question, what's missing is 1) a commitment that covers 6.9 million articles, not just 3 articles, 2) an indefinite time period, and 3) having the commitment be to avoid all editing about all current and future clients and their affiliates. None of this would stop you from fully executing what you said is your mandate at Solar radiation management. It wouldn't stop you from bringing this article to GA or FA status - in fact it would probably help.

Regarding forced vs voluntary, in principle I prefer voluntary restrictions. There are two reasons I think a forced restriction would be useful in this particular case. First, you've had a statement on your userpage for years that I always strive to strictly abide by Wikipedia's accepted practices on conflicts of interest and that statement did not prevent this fiasco. Second, in the current AN/I discussion I believe I've seen sustained wikilawyering from you on the scope of your COI, specifically on the question of whether you have a COI for the ESGP. It sounds like someone saying that they work for the Coca-Cola Company but don't have a COI for Coca-Cola. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:42, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

"written policy does allow WiRs to edit articles directly and routinely in some circumstances" so the only WiRs who can routinely do that are those who aren't paid, all paid editors are required to follow WP:PE. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:58, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Have you read the relevant section of WP:PE? It says "There are forms of paid editing that the Wikimedia community regards as acceptable. These include Wikipedians in residence (WiRs)—Wikipedians who may be paid to collaborate with mission-aligned organizations, such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums." Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:08, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Those are the restrictions for the forms of paid editing that the Wikimedia community regards as acceptable... Those which we do not are completely banned. We have repeatedly sanctioned WiRs with COI issues with their host institution, the nuance is generally in "mission-aligned" because promotion is not mission-aligned but is what stakeholders generally want out of WiR (the ones I know say thats the hardest part of the job). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:09, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

To: Horse Eye's Back about the general issue of paid editing: this seems to turn into a general discussion about paid editing. Let me ask you something: if a Post-doc researcher spends some hours out of their day to improve a Wikipedia article (during their day job) on a topic where they have some knowledge, would you say "you are a paid editor, go away!"? When a university uses their science communication department to add information coming out of their peer-reviewed publication would you also want to ban that? (See here, by the way, interesting Wikimedia Science Communication Network - promoting just that). What about someone like User:Noura2021 who is doing good work on Wikipedia and says on their user page: "I'm working as part of a European Union GLAM project at the European Investment Bank on Wikipedia to hopefully enhance knowledge across topics".

Is it possible that you have a very narrow view of "paid editing" and what it does to Wikipedia? I've been looking around for further guidance and essays on Wikipedia about "paid editing" and found various bits and pieces. This essay is actually very interesting: WP:CRY. It says there: This page in a nutshell: Do not attack editors just because they are paid editors or have a conflict of interest. and Several times in several essays users have tried to propose policies to essentially ban paid editing. These proposals are, however, too vague, and lead to witch-hunting of editors, both paid and not. It essentially causes other users to go after paid editors for disagreeing with them..

To sum up, this is complicated. And I don't think your narrow view on basically banning all paid editing (if I understood you correctly?) is currently supported by the community. Please do take a look at the Formas-funded project that I mentioned above. I think it was very beneficial for many Wikipedia articles on climate change, and we should try to have more projects like that. EMsmile (talk) 17:25, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes you misunderstand, I am proposing that we ban this editor (you, EMsmile) from paid editing... I am not proposing that we ban paid editing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

IMO this is moving close to a "drop the stick" situation. An editor with 60k contributions with only a tiny fraction PE, and thos are all environmental advocacy orgs, and already implemented self-restrictions covering in the relevant areas, seems open to others which are not too onerous, record of being open, transparent and well-intentioned. North8000 (talk) 23:31, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@North8000: what is that fraction? You've obviously done the math so what fraction or percentage of their edits are PE? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:57, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

@EMsmile: since @North8000: seems to be unwilling to be transparent perhaps you can help us out... What percentage of your edits are PE and how do you differentiate paid edits from unpaid edits? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:06, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Quit the crap. I was doing you a favor by not engaging on your straw man mis-statement regarding what I wrote. (acting as if I claimed that I did a full mathematical analysis of their entire 60K of edits on thousands of pages) And now you double down by mis-stating that as "unwilling to be transparent". North8000 (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

@North8000: I'm not acting as if you did a full mathematical analysis, I'm acting like you have a general fraction which can be provided. Are we talking 1/100th, 1/20th, 1/10th, 1/5th, etc. If the answer is that you don't know what fraction of edits are PE you can also say that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 07:22, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: One word. Don't. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:15, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

@The Bushranger: what is the aspersion? North8000 has repeated the claim that the edits make up a small fraction of the total edits three different times (just search above for fraction)... Without ever actually supporting that claim. Maybe you would like to weigh in here but it seems that a large portion of the edits made by this account[18] (perhaps even a majority) are covered by their disclosed paid gigs. For example we have five years of paid editing about Sustainable Development Goals and 773 edits to Sustainable Development Goals. Likewise it seems that edits to water related topics are covered by a paid editing agreement, the disclosure says "Here, the idea is to improve relevant Wikipedia articles that touch on climate resilient WASH topics, e.g. the Wikipedia articles on water security, WASH, effects of climate change on the water cycle, effects of climate change, groundwater, water resources, climate resilience." and we have 569 edits to WASH, 501 edits to Effects of climate change, 337 edits to Water security, 320 edits to Sewage treatment, 315 edits to Urine-diverting dry toilet, 303 edits to Open defecation etc etc etc. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 07:28, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

To answer the question of Horse Eye's Back from yesterday: My paid editing work is a small fraction of my overall Wikipedia editing in the last ten years but I don't know the number. My editing hours went far beyond what was covered in any of those paid editing gigs. Those contracts were actually much smaller than you might think.

To give you an example: say I had funding to improve the article on WASH. Say I got 8 hours. I usually ended up working on it for far, far longer as the topic simply interested me and I have some background knowledge on it, therefore often editing late into the night, like other volunteers do, too. Can you see the similarity in all the Wikipedia articles that you have listed there which I have worked on? They are all environmental / sustainable development / climate change topics. These are topics that interest me personally and where I have some background knowledge (or have skilled up in the meantime). I have worked on them in a Wikipedia-in-Residence type capacity with lots and lots of volunteer hours thrown in, too. Because I enjoy the work. I also helped organise and facilitiate two fairly large online edit-a-thons in 2020, one on SDGs and one on climate change.

But let me make a suggestion: I invite you to have a more detailed discussion about my editing activities on my talk page if you like (including the question if it would be wiser to operate with two Wikipedia accounts; I am wondering about that). - Please, let's not take up any more valuable volunteer time here in this AN/I thread. EMsmile (talk) 11:17, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

So how can someone tell whether an edit you made was paid or not? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:05, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to put this, but having worked on many of the same articles as EMsmile that were in the scope of her 2022-2024 climate change project, I don't think COI editing was part of that project. Different clients expect different things. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:36, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. Can't deny Clayoquot makes a strong case for this. But opposing as not needed per voluntary restriction, and on the practical grounds that a formal restriction for EMsmile may cause Tyler Durden to consider his actions "fully justified". Even if he sincerely thinks he's saving the world, there's no excuse for attempting to contact the employer of a well liked and respected editor. WP:RGW. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:40, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  You make it sound as if contacting the employer of a less-liked editor is OK. FWIW, EMsmile's employer was not contacted. Andrewjlockley wrote the letter without taking 30 seconds to find out who her employer was and he sent it to an organization that wasn't her employer. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:39, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Voluntary restrictions

@EMsmile: Just clarifying

• When the Earth System Governance Project and Frank Biermann "zero editing" restrictions expire a year from now, of course if you were under any relevant PE arrangement all of the rules related to that would be in force.
• Did you say that you were under a relevant PE arrangement on the Solar radiation modification article? If not, please ignore the rest of this. If so, while still under it (until you explicitly say it is over), for the areas not covered by your "zero edit" self-restriction, would you agree to operate in a "doubly safe" mode in the other areas of the article? Until then, ask someone else to put in any edits that are not clearly merely-gnome edits?

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:43, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello North8000: to answer your comments/questions:

• To the first point: Yes, I understand that and agree.
• The second point: Yes, the PE arrangement was to improve the solar radiation modification article in several ways and in collaboration with others: one was just general improvements, structure, clarity, updated references, images, wikilinks and so forth. The other was to make the article more balanced because we felt that the current discourse about risks of SRM research was not very well described and relevant publications had not been cited. There was already a section on "criticism" when I started editing the article but as per WP:CRIT it wasn't well done (in my opinion). I started discussing this on the talk page of the SRM article in May 2024. There were some page watchers who agreed, some who disagreed - which is normal. And yes, I agree to operate in a "doubly safe" mode in future. Could I clarify this small point: When you say "ask someone else to put in any edits" how would that work in practice? Would pinging someone on the talk page, e.g. you, be acceptable or would people find that annoying and "pushy"? EMsmile (talk) 08:50, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

P.S. regarding the point made by Femke above ("You still claim on your user page that there is no organisational connection between the ESG Foundation and Project, despite their website stating the opposite, as pointed out 3 days ago."): the sentence in question on the ESGP website in fact says (bolding added by me): "The Earth System Governance Foundation also serves as legal representative of the Earth System Governance research community." This sentence actually means mainly to try to get accreditations at UN conferences for ESG-related scholars, who can then enter UN meetings as representatives of the ESG Foundation. It is not the representation of the “project”, which has no legal entity, no positions, no fixed income, etc. - I have made some changes to my user profile page too in order to explain it better. Hope this helps to clarify. EMsmile (talk) 12:18, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

That takes care of everything I asked about. I did a lot of work with perhaps wiki's most prominent PE (CorporateM) prominent because they had high visibility discussions all over the place on the whole idea and how to do it best/right. Maybe it's emblematic of the challenges that they are mostly gone now. Plus several others. Answering your question I know that there are lots of ways, (some are really backed up partly because most people don't know how to do a requested edit well) but what worked was just putting the requested edit on the article's talk page. Feel free to ping me there if you wish. The common mistake with requested edits to to not make it explicit. Say exactly what would be taken out and exactly what would be put in. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:47, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I really don't know where in this discussion to write this, so I might as well put it at the end. One of the arguments against paid editors is that they take up too much volunteer time. Does the length of this discussion not mean that those who argue in this way have a point? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:04, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Request for closing TBAN proposal

Can somebody please close the TBAN proposal. Despite the wall of text, consensus seems clear, and discussion is way past the point on productivity. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 09:59, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Reopened

I’m undoing my close as there seems to be a desire from the community to continue the discussion as seen from my talk page and also a closure review at WP:AN (which is filed by the TBAN proposer above, who also has unarchived this discussion once back in January). I can be wrong though. Any uninvolved admin without a COI is free to close the discussion again at any time. PS. I don’t agree with some of the untrue claims on my talk and at WP:AN. To be frank, I’m quite upset about them. OTOH, I understand it’s not uncommon and that they probably stems from the risk of closing a controversial case where both parties hold a strong belief. Lastly, I hope editors can note the association between the Global Systems Institue of the University of exeter and Solar radiation modification. Anyway, I’m running out of my “volunteer hours”. Thanks. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 07:11, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

WP:BATTLEGROUND & WP:PA by Cerium4B

• Cerium4B (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Reporting this concerning user who is not WP:AGF and is continuously showing WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, along with threatening [19] another user by falsely accusing them of a WP:3RR violation and casting aspersions [20] by saying: Maybe you didn’t even notice what article that was. Honestly, I haven’t seen such carelessness from any editor on Wikipedia since I joined., which is just unacceptable. They've also been removing warnings [21][22] and then placing revenge warnings [23]. On top of that, they refuse to acknowledge their content blanking behavior [24], and this isn't even the first time they've been warned [25] or brought to admin attention [26]. Mr.Hanes Talk 13:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• The issue become a battleground because that user was reverting without checking what i have edited.[27],[28], finally he understood [29]
• As he reverted 5 times in that page ([30], [31], [32], [33], [34] Out of these, 4 were my edits & 1 was theirs). So I don’t think saying it is very threatening

  You’ve violated WP:3RR. I am suggesting you to restore all of my edits before I report you for violating the three revert rule

  Why did they performed 5 reverts in a single page? In his talk page It’s highlighted that he is an experienced editor, shouldn’t he be aware of WP:3RR?
• We met after contributing on article related to Myanmar. But he gave me notice about “Introduction to contentious topics about India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan” [35], is it logical? Why didn’t he noticed that article was not related to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. So he is not careful again. That’s why I said

  Also your this warning is totally wrong. It’s used for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Maybe you didn’t even notice what article was that. Honestly, I haven’t seen such carelessness from any editor on Wikipedia since I’ve joined

• I removed his first warning and in edit summary i said

  Please add a new topic

  I asked him to add a new topic about that, because he warned me in a previous discussion related to another user. I didnt think notifying that user would be a good idea!

so i asked him to add a new topic. But he reverted that too [36]. Then again I reverted that and said

I’ve requested you to add a new topic. Don’t notify other users that was a completed discussion. Also you are not careful. You are making mistakes

[37] Because I believed he again didn’t notice that I’ve requested him to add a new topic on that.

• As he violated WP:3RR, I’ve placed the 3RR warning. [38] It’s not a revenge warning.
• the article showed There were about 20 jews in Myanmar with a cn tag since September 2023. So I removed that section. Because I thought a individual section for Judaism was not necessary. And still believes that is not significant. That’s why i started a discussion on that article talkpage [39]
• Previous incident:

1. [40], the issue has been solved and yes it was my fault.
2. And this [41]? Please see that whole incident or edit history carefully!

— Cerium4B—Talk? • 14:32, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

@Mr.Hanes, I noticed that you have reverted my edit on Islam in West Bengal, without explaining the reason or without any edit summary. [42]

Please explain me why have you done that. If that doesn’t create any issue on other articles like Hinduism in Saudi Arabia, why is that a issue if I add that to Islam in West Bengal??? — Cerium4B—Talk? • 14:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Cerium4B: The POV warrior

• Cerium4B (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Reporting serious concerns regarding WP:NPOV, WP:IDHT, and WP:PA violations by this editor. They've been blatantly pushing their certain POV by adding unsourced content to 2002 Gujarat riots ([43] [44] [45] [46]) and Violence against Muslims in independent India ([47] [48]), both of which are contentious topics. Thankfully, their edits were later reverted by Ratnahastin ([49] [50] [51]). They've also been blanking content with vague and misleading edit summaries, like at Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ([52]), where they justified the removal with: People of Bangladesh haven’t accepted this., which is just a classic case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. At Hinduism by country, they kept removing content with the excuse Unnecessary data ([53] [54]). Thankfully, their repeated attempts to push a particular POV were reverted yet again ([55] [56]). It doesn't stop there—they also tried adding POV-ridden honorifics at Islam ([57]), which got reverted ([58]), and made generic, non-consensus changes ([59]), which were reverted yet again ([60]). Another instance of them inserting unsourced, controversial content was at Lawrence Bishnoi ([61]), which, unsurprisingly, was later reverted. Their disruption extends to Dhaka–Bhanga Expressway ([62]), where the page has basically been hijacked with POV-driven additions and removals. They've also been issuing unwarranted warnings ([63]) without addressing the concerns raised by Worldbruce at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cantonment Public School and College, Rangpur. Instead of engaging in constructive discussion, they’ve made racial remarks ([64]), saying: The Kaler Kantho just a small local newspaper? 😂 Honestly, I believe Wikipedia should restrict foreigners from editing articles related to other countries. They ignored Liz's warning and kept posting nonsense ([65]), further showing a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality: @Liz Actually, I am talking about @Speederzzz. He is from the Netherlands. He said that Kaler Kantho is a small local newspaper, but it is a national newspaper in Bangladesh. Given the extent of their POV-pushing and disruptive behavior, they shouldn't be allowed to edit in the article namespace anymore. At the very least, a partial block is necessary, but considering their poor discussion habits, an indefinite block might be the only real solution. Koshuri ^(グ) 17:51, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

@Koshuri Sultan, What do you want to prove with these? These are my early edits after joining Wikipedia. Back then, I made many mistakes because I didn’t know Wikipedia’s policies.

However,

• what is unsourced about the 2002 Gujarat riots? The information about the deaths of Muslims and Hindus is still present in the article. I tried to highlight them, which I shouldn’t have done!
• [66], Sadly, the images have been deleted, so I can’t comment on what they contained. Based on my edit summary [67] i think the image contained some information.
• [68] At the time, I wasn’t familiar with WP:MOS
• [69], I added relevant content with sources, but another user reverted it. I thought he was more experienced So I didn’t engage in re-adding or edit wars over these changes because I knew I had no understanding of Wp:policies.
• [70] What’s wrong with it? Isn’t he a terrorist-gangster?news Or do u want citations in short description?
• [71]DO u have any idea about this article? check news
• [72] Here, I was overly rude when the most famous “school and college” of North Bangladesh was nominated for deletion. I reacted that way because I didn’t understand how Wikipedia works. I didn’t even know Wikipedia has admins 😆. However, I’m still upset with Worldbruce for nominating that article for deletion. But nowadays, if I need help, I ask Worldbruce or mention him for review.

Now, I’m much more familiar with Wikipedia’s policies.

But I don’t understand why you’re digging up these controversial edits. It’s normal for new editors not to edit like admins right after joining. I think even admins made mistakes when they first started.

I hope in future I’ll be an admin.😎

Now,
undoubtedly, I still make mistakes.

• But if anyone checks my edit count or general statistics—https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Cerium4B —you’ll see that 97.4% of my edits are live, and only 2.6% have been deleted.
• If anyone look at your general statistics—https://xtools.wmcloud.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Koshuri_Sultan —only 67.7% of your edits are live. That means most of your edits (32.8%) have been reverted, compared to mine.

You are just harassing me here. I was about to create an article when I got this notification. More than an hour has been wasted defending myself against your report. I don’t know what you’re focused on, but please stop doing this to other users.
I just noticed that you were blocked for more than 200 days and recently got unblocked.
If any admin sees my reply, Im asking for a block on Koshuri Sultan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) again for - randomly, intentionally harassing a Wikipedian. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 20:18, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Actually, when Koshuri Sultan's name was Based Kashmiri, I believe he was blocked for sockpuppetry. Especially given your own history, Koshuri, I don't think it's fair to go way back into an editor's contributions to find mistakes when they were just learning about how Wikipedia works. Let's focus on recent edits from the beginning of 2025 (which I think some of these are). Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:37, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

You're right, Liz. I have learned from my past mistakes, which I can proudly say. But after taking a good look at Cerium4B's newer edits, which I just saw in the existed ANI above, it's quite clear that they are not leaving their past behind. Koshuri ^(グ) 04:58, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

What have you seen in the above ANI report?

When I explained him the issue [73],

he himself tried to delete his report [74]

check what have i explained above [75] — Cerium4B—Talk? • 14:18, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Good whataboutism. Unfortunately, this ANI isn't about me, and you've barely addressed the issue with a poor fauxpology. It's concerning that you want to greenlight your poor additions and disruptions just because they were made in the "past" (not that the newer edits are any better). That means you expect others to ignore your pretentious behavior and move on—but sorry, that's not how it works. Tracking your poor edits is nowhere close to harassment. You're only making your case worse. Please don't falsely accuse other editors of "involvement in harassment." Koshuri ^(グ) 04:57, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

[76] Your past is way worse than mine. (Disruption, vandalism, violation, edit wars, sockpuppetry, etc.) What if someone reports you for your past? — Cerium4B—Talk? • 14:03, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Uh again whataboutism, it's not helping you. Where do you see disruption, edit wars and vandalism in my past edits? In fact I have myself filed many SPIs and ANIs (I guess three) and in all I have a good strike rate (if we say informally), you don't need to waste your time in defaming me. Koshuri ^(グ) 14:47, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this ANI isn't about me

Just to be clear so you're aware in the future, when you report someone at ANI your own edits may be scrutinized per WP:BOOMERANG. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:06, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

• Apart from what has been cited here, I found Cerium4B to have falsified sources for adding false claims such as here where he claimed "film's portrayal of sensitive historical events, including the assassination of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has drawn criticism". It is not found in any of the source. It was removed after discussion and the rest of the content was already covered on the article. Cerium4B was not even present on the talk page. I believe a topic ban from WP:ARBIPA is justified. Capitals00 (talk) 18:13, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Capitals00,

  • I haven’t falsified this, most probably Godi Media has changed their news. The news was like these -

  1. BBC News is covering everything [77](please translate)
  2. Also ckeck this news [78]

  • As i was not notified about that discussion, I had no participation…

  — Cerium4B—Talk? • 20:28, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

  The Indian Express is not a Godi media source. You clearly falsified that reference in this edit because it does not support your content. To say that you have to be notified of the talk page discussion even after you have significantly edited that article speaks of your irresponsible behavior. Koshuri ^(グ) 05:02, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  Instead of judging what is Godi media, please review the news I’ve given. My contribution was based on news. If the news changes, I have nothing to do with that.

  Additionally, The Indian Express is not neutral enough on Bangladesh. check — Cerium4B—Talk? • 13:07, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  How does it justify your falsification of the source? Your source for your claim is Chief Adviser's Press Wing Facts (Bangladesh). Now I am going to doubt your competence more than what I did before. Koshuri ^(グ) 14:54, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  I’m not sure if you r serious or joking with me here. According to the sources I provided above, you can check whether my additions to Emergency article was based on news or not. And later i have provided a news that proofs that Indian Express is not neutral on Bangladesh. Which is a type of godi media. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:20, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

• Cerium4B, I have some concern regarding your some recent edits. Could you please clarify why there is no need to mention this when the information is present in the citation? + could you explain why this is considered biased content as you claim while removing?
  I also wanted to know that why are you giving personal assumptions on an editor POV without solid evidence, as seen in your comment here : "So, Wikipedia should reflect your personal opinions now? You like Indians, so you left them out, and you have a problem with Bangladeshis, so you exaggerate their presence?" This isn't the way to do healthy discussion.
  And regarding this reply, could you clarify why you replied Done ✔️ after doing Keep vote if it wouldn’t be considered AfD vote canvassing? Well, I also voted on this and the article is nothing more than a promotional gebbrish. NXcrypto Message 10:08, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  @NXcrypto,

  First of all you should clarify why have you restored those edits. Anyone can see that those contributions are biased. (Requesting Admins to check this [79])

  what kind of reference is it that you restored [80]?????

  It is clear that the user deliberately exaggerated information about Bangladeshi nationals.

  If anyone checks the reference, the information about Bangladeshi nationals is not correct.

  You have not checked the edits or the citations, yet you have restored them. [81] — Cerium4B—Talk? • 13:25, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  Pinging @Varoon2542: here who possibly added those census data and you ignored my query about vote canvassing. NXcrypto Message 13:42, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  Niasoh notified me about that afd. After checking I replied him “Done ✔️“. Is it not allowed? And how is that a canvass? He had just notified me to check that. Did he ask me to make a keep vote on that afd?

  however, I didn’t know about wp:canvass, but when koshuri noted that, I checked but I don’t think It’s a canvass as he had just notified me to check.

  Moreover Niasoh did that to me, why are you questioning me about that? — Cerium4B—Talk? • 13:51, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  Pls don't make stories, you replied Done ✔️ after doing Keep vote on afd. NXcrypto Message 14:39, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  There is nothing to make any story on Wikipedia.

  1. On my talkpage Niasoh notified me about that afd.

  2. Then i have made some contribution to that article. edit history

  3. Then voted to keep the article

  4. then I replied “Done ✔️” to niasoh

  what is a makeup history? — Cerium4B—Talk? • 14:46, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  See WP:CANVASSING. Mr.Hanes Talk 15:14, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  I am highly unsatisfied with this reply. Why are you not accepting the fact that you did a canvassed vote on afd. NXcrypto Message 15:20, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  I am again saying that Niasoh notified me about that afd, After contributing to that article, i voted to keep the article. and then koshuri mentioned wp:canvassing, before that I didn’t have any idea about canvass.

  if niasoh made canvass, he should be questioned. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:29, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  That's one way to betray your friend 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 16:09, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  Now you are pinging varoon, it’s Okay.

  but you haven’t answered my question. So it’s clear that you haven’t even checked what was that content and just hit the rollback button!

  which is a clear violation of WP:ROLLBACK — Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:06, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  Well, the content was cited. There are some difference between rollback and undo. And that's was undo not rollback. NXcrypto Message 15:12, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  +I would like to clarify that I have never misused rollback. My rollback log, available here, shows that all my rollback actions were appropriate. Please avoid making false accusations against me. NXcrypto Message 15:30, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  I didn’t know that rollback and undo options are much different. Both work same.

  However you haven’t clarified why have you restored that… — Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:38, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  You said

  “I also wanted to know that why are you giving personal assumptions on an editor POV without solid evidence, as seen in your comment here : "So, Wikipedia should reflect your personal opinions now? You like Indians, so you left them out, and you have a problem with Bangladeshis, so you exaggerate their presence?" This isn't the way to do healthy discussion.”

  Why don’t you see the whole incident???????

  As varoon said these ([82], [83]), I said him those on the article talkpage with properly mentioning his comments.[84]

  I’m not explaining these to you anymore. You should check everything carefully. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 13:37, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  This isn't the only time when Cerium4B and Niasoh have canvassed together. Cerium4B has notified him to join discussions where Niasoh has never edited or participated before.

  • Cerium4B started a move request here and asked Niasoh to join the discussion [85], Niasoh voted in his favour and replied him Done [86]
  • Cerium4B also notified Niasoh to help him to support him when he got into dispute with Varoon2542 [87] (Note: Niasoh never edited that article before) Koshuri ^(グ) 16:45, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  Previously I’ve said I didn’t have any idea of canvassing. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 17:35, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

• Umm... I wasn't aware that this thread was still active. As far as I know, I had pulled this ANI since the main issue was resolved through discussion, but then I saw Yamla reinstating it [88]. So, I guess I should be involved here again. Seeing the concerns raised by many users above, I have to say that Cerium's past contributions closely resemble their recent ones. They've also been found involved in WP:CANVASSING and WP:VOTESTACKING with their co. recently [89], and their discussion behavior has remained unchanged throughout their Wikipedia career. Mr.Hanes Talk 15:28, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  If there was a violation of wp:canvassing, isn’t it niasoh who violated it? — Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:40, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

• Note that there was another section up the page regarding Cerium4B's editing. I have merged them so that discussion can be centralized, and at the more recent report as the old one was very further up the page. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:36, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Totally unexpected!

I have explained everything to you! [90]

now the admins will judge… — Cerium4B—Talk? • 17:30, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Frankly, I have no idea what is going on here. I see various confusing walls of text. Can you condense your complaint RE Cerium4B into 100 words, with links to diffs that clearly show misconduct? voorts (talk/contributions) 18:01, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Very well then @voorts, I'll try to summarise the whole drama in less than 100 words. Mr.Hanes Talk 18:33, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Cerium4B ANI (summarised)

Basically the user is being reported for persistent WP:NPOV, WP:IDHT, and WP:PA, WP:CIR, WP:CANVASSING along with a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. Doing mass removals and additions (without consensus) [91][92] and on top of that removing warnings [93][94]. Casting aspersions and passing personal remarks: [95][96] [97][98][99][100][101]. Making blatant POV ridden edits: [102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109] all of which were later reverted. Falsifying sources [110]. canvassing, tagging and vote stacking: [111][112][113][114]. WP:IDONTLIKEIT/WP:ILIKEIT & WP:IDHT issues: [115][116][117][118]. Mr.Hanes Talk 19:26, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I haven't checked all of these many, many diffs but just noting that there is nothing wrong with an editor removing a warning from their User talk page. It's surprising how often this comes up here when it is perfectly okay behavior. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:57, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

As someone who sometimes includes this information in an ANI report, it's not that I think it's problematic behavior but an indicator that they've 100% seen the ANI thread and choose to distance themselves away from the thread by removing it. It's just something to note that could mean something. Tarlby ^{(t) (c)} 18:05, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

This is still not helpful. Please provide recent diffs, not old ones, showing Cerium4B making problematic edits and then not accepting constructive feedback from other editors. Also explain the conflict. it's hard to reconstruct things when you say that Cerium4B is misrepresenting sources, and then you just link to a diff of adding a new section to an article; I'm not going to dig through sources to figure out what Cerium may or may not have misrepresented. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:03, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I opened a random selection of diffs from the above, and every single one was either a) from October of last year, or b) a complete nothingburger. If you can show, for each category of behaviour you'd like admins to investigate, diffs of 1) the unacceptable behaviour, 2) someone explaining why that behaviour is not acceptable, and 3) the behaviour continuing after that explanation, we'll be able to do something. -- asilvering (talk) 00:24, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm with Voorts and Asilvering. Fewer diffs (you only need, I'd say, 3-6 is sufficient), but recent ones and relevant to the argument you are making. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:37, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

@Liz and Asilvering: Upon further investigation into their recent contributions, I'm seeing a pattern of making undiscussed page moves citing vague assertions of their desired title being the common name and if not WP:OFFICIALNAME. On 16 January they went on a frenzy renaming institutions, places named after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his daughter Sheikh Hasina to what they called "official" and "common names" after interim Bangladesh government had renamed them, although no discussion was done to determine whether they were common names as WP:OFFICIALNAME makes it clear that we do not just rename titles of article when a newly formed government changes them on whim.

• Sheikh Hasina University was moved to Netrokona University [119] citing this link after Bangladesh government had renamed the University.
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman University, Kishoreganj was moved to Kishoreganj University with the same rationale [120]
• Mujibnagar University was moved to Meherpur University same as above [121]
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman University, Naogaon was moved to Naogaon University [122]
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University was moved to Gazipur Agricultural University [123]
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shariatpur Agriculture University was moved to Shariatpur Agriculture University [124]
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Digital University was moved to Bangladesh Digital University [125]
• Bangamata Sheikh Fojilatunnesa Mujib Science and Technology University was moved to Jamalpur Science and Technology University [126]
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Pirojpur was moved to Pirojpur Science and Technology University [127]
• Jatir Pita Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Narayanganj was moved to Narayanganj Science and Technology University [128]
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University was moved to Gopalganj Science and Technology University [129]
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University was moved to Maritime University Bangladesh [130]
• Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Aviation and Aerospace University was moved to Aviation and Aerospace University Bangladesh [131]
• Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College was moved to Bogra Medical College then to Bogura Medical College and then it was redirected to Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College[132] all of this was fixed by @Utopes: [133]
• Gangachara Sheikh Hasina Bridge was moved to Gangachara Bridge, Rangpur [134]
• Bangabandhu Aeronautical Centre was moved to Bangladesh Aeronautical Centre [135]
• On 21 January,they moved Bangabandhu Island to Putney Island [136] citing a link to a reference entry at the Library of Congress [137] while calling it the common name.
• Their recent mainspace edits have also been disruptive, on 24 January they inserted POV AI generated content into the article which apparently contained falsification of the source material.[138] [139]. Their response to these concerns right above from 8 February only speaks of their lack of collaborative approach. I think a topic ban from ARBIPA is justified. NXcrypto Message 13:30, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

• Well, as I’ve the right to move a page, i moved those according to the official change. Where discussion was needed i did a move discussion.
  These institutions were named after Sheikh Hasinas family members during her authoritarian regime. These names were totally confusing. We used to call the universities according to their District name, which are their present name.
  As the government neutralised the name of those universities, I changed them on Wikipedia. Before the official change, I didn’t do anything. Also the same thing did to other articles.
  Even today, the government has changed names of 11 more institutions which were named after Sheikh Hasinas family members. [140]
• Emergency movie: Yes, that was partially Ai generated. I used Chatgpt to complete the citations. And Chatgpt modified my speech. However using Ai to make contributions is not a violation. Using Ai is discouraged in discussion, As far as I know.
  You are continuously accusing me of content falsification. But I have provided other news, one from BBC. If you check that you will understand that my contribution was based on news. And I believe that Indian express has changed their news. The movie was made by a political leader of the ruling party of India. So it’s not impossible to see a news alteration by godi media.

— Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:24, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

You moved them citing "official and common name", there is no requirement on Wikipedia that we must use WP:OFFICIALNAMEs in the title, you cannot claim that the rename is a common name when it was only recently done this requires discussion. Your weird page moves at Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College were also disruptive and had to be fixed by a page mover. "These institutions were named after Sheikh Hasinas family members during her authoritarian regime" - Read WP:RGW, Wikipedia is not a place for partisan editing.

AI use is discouraged and editors are told to exercise caution making sure that content does not violate guidelines. You did not cite BBC but The Indian Express which is not supporting your information. NXcrypto Message 16:07, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College Is located in Bogra District. to make a redirect, i did that. It will help people. When they will search Bogura Medical College or Bogra Medical College, they will find the main article.
Unfortunately while doing the second move, I couldn’t move back to the main article. because there was already a redirect. (my first move). And I don’t have “page mover” right, so I couldn’t fix that. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 18:31, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

So, it seems when I look through this, it seems like the primary complaints, Cerium4B are undiscussed article page moves and using AI for citations and other content creation. While it might be true that most editors can move a page, if there are complaints about it, which there obvious are because we're discussing this at ANI, then you should be discussing mass changes like this. Can you change your editing practices in response to the problems pointed out, in good faith, by other editors?

I think what bothers me the most is not the article page moves, which were not warranted but can be reverted and rather using AI to form a citation which might exist for a long time before another editor thinks to check on it and finds that it is inaccurate. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:26, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

If I missed some glaring problem here, I apologize but this is a very lengthy complaint. My comments were not an attempt to summarize what has been said but by what stood out to me in the most recent comments posted today. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:29, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

@Cerium4B, please do not use AI to generate citations for wikipedia. This puts you at risk of violating WP:V with your edits. You must base your edits on sources that you, yourself, have read. AI is also often very poor at maintaining WP:NPOV, and it can fabricate "facts", so it's not a good idea to use it for writing articles at all. You are working in and adjacent to various WP:CTOPs, and other editors have questioned whether your edits are pov-pushing, so you especially ought to avoid using AI.

These moves do not appear to me to be RGW issues. In particular, I find it disingenuous to say that These institutions were named after Sheikh Hasinas family members during her authoritarian regime is a partisan statement. It is simply a statement of fact. Nor is it an unacceptable statement of one's personal politics to use the word "authoritarian" to describe her. Our own article on Sheikh Hasina describes her government as "authoritarian", cites RS who call her a "dictator", and contains an entire paragraph on Bangladesh's diplomatic backsliding.

@Cerium4B, what is problematic about these moves, at least the handful I investigated, is that you changed the name without adding any kind of source for the information, and without writing anything about it in the article. So someone who comes to Shariatpur Agriculture University sees an article where, aside from the bolded first words, every mention appears to be of a different institution. There is no information at all about the name change to the current title. That's unhelpful and confusing to readers. Please don't make this kind of page move in the future. -- asilvering (talk) 23:52, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

@Liz & @Asilvering,

• Page moves: I understand thta I should’ve made a discussion before moving those articles. But I noticed that the page reviewer reviewed those moves. If there were any issues, they should’ve reverted those and given me a warning on my talk page. I think those moves are not violating any Wikipedia policy.
• Accusation of using AI: Using AI isn’t a violation on Wikipedia but it is discouraged. Generally, I don’t use AI to contribute. I use AI to complete a citation from a URL. For example, the command -

  “make a Wikipedia citation from this (www….com) URL, use <ref… code”

  – But there I made a mistake by failing to set that citation in the matching content. If I had set the BBC news reference correctly, that wouldn’t be an issue to discuss here today.
• However: This contribution on the emergency movie was already reverted by an editor, saying the controversial section is discouraged. And they didn’t give me any warning when I added the controversy section. I didn’t try to edit-war to keep my contribution. So it shouldn’t be an issue here!
• Solution: If the page moves are a major issue, I’m requesting to revert those moves. Also, I’ll try to improve those pages as asilvering suggested.

Though this report is weird, but it is very educative.

If I have said anything wrong here, please forgive me. I’ll try to be more careful while contributing, and I can assure you of that! — Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:45, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Do not use AI to make citations. Period. There are tools on Wikipedia itself to help automate formatting of citations. LLMs are prone to mistakes and simply are not fit to purpose here. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:10, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Noted…I will stick to that. Thanks for letting me know about this amazing tool! — Cerium4B—Talk? • 17:58, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I still don't think you get it, Cerium4B. You were brought to ANI. This is where editors come to ask for other editors to be blocked and lose their editing privileges. This discussion has gone on for 10 days! There are editors that want you to no longer edit here, at all. And you are still saying that I think those moves are not violating any Wikipedia policy? If there were not editors who disagreed with you, we would not be here discussing your editing. I don't see how much more has to be said so you realize there is a problem and you have to change your editing to accommodate editors who are having issues with you. This is your second chance, this is your User talk page message saying "This is a problem". Please take this seriously or you could be blocked next time. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:52, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

@Liz,

This is not the first time I’ve been reported here. Also, I’ve reported other users here, so I know much about WP:ANI.

This report has lasted 10 days because Koshuris report was just a nothingburger! Then, the two users, Hanes & Nxcrypto, started to find my faults. If at first they could mention my faults, then we could have reached a result. But they didn’t succeed. Finally, Nxcrypto found my undiscussed page move and an Ai generated contribution (which was already reverted by a user on that article).

Above, admins have told me that those page moves are not a major problem. So, I’ve commented, “I think those moves are not violating any Wikipedia policy.”

In a recent comment, @Asilvering suggested me that there's no need to revert those page moves if I can add reliable sources that indicate that the names have been changed. And I can provide references. I will add reliable references.

Two users want a ban on me, Koshuri and Nxcrypto are supporting each other here, and they have a history of supporting each other. [141]

User EF5 is opposing Nxcrypto’s proposal, & Abo Yemen’s comment also sounds like an opposition to Nxcrypto.

However, I am apologising for all of my mistakes. I will never use Ai to make such contributions and will try to discuss before moving an important article. And trust me, all my contributions here are with the intent of helping Wikipedia. Thank you!

(I was reported here by Koshuri for my earlier contributions. When admins said the old ones are not significant, Koshuri tried to find my other faults, then those were also not significant. Since then, they have not been much active in this discussion. Then, Mr. Hanes also failed to provide evidence of my mistakes. Since then, they have been inactive here. Nxcrypto has been active since the first day. Finally, Nxcrypto have found those page moves and an Ai made contribution a violation, and he wants a topic ban on me. Koshuri is now supporting his proposal.) — Cerium4B—Talk? • 08:51, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

There's no need to revert those page moves, if you can add reliable sources that indicate that the name has been changed, and you add some mention of it to the article. Then, they're perfectly fine. If you don't have any sources for the information, though, please do revert the page moves. Once reliable sources exist on the topic, then you can move them. -- asilvering (talk) 19:50, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

@Asilvering, I’m noticing that other users have already made contributions to those articles. They have added reliable sources. They have mentioned former names(some of those institutions had multiple names) in the infobox and in the history section with reliable references. Anyone can check that. Also, I’m providing a reference here, which was recently gazetted by the government of Bangladesh, to make sure everyone that those names have really been changed. Check - () — Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:58, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

References

The point being, you need to add those sources before making moves, just to avoid this kind of problem in the future. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds, Thank you once again for your guidance. I will make sure to follow this in the future. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 18:47, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Proposal to pblocked Cerium4B from mainspace

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

---

In violation of WO:NPOV, WP:IDHT and for casting WP:ASPERSIONS on other good faith editors. They are WP:NOTHERE to build Wikipedia but for a specific WP:BATTLEGROUND cause. The series of personal attacks and casting aspersions along with POV pushing is extremely concerning. Their recent involvement in canvassing and irresponsible behaviour on talk pages further warrants a pblock from mainspace of English Wikipedia. Maybe they can prove themselves by contributing in bengali or simple Wikipedia.

• Support as proposer.Mr.Hanes Talk 17:58, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose: While it is true that Cerium4B has been involved in canvassing for long time but he claims to have been completely unaware about canvassing[142][143]. The edit diffs related to POV-pushing & Personal Attack are month old. Given these factors, imposing sanctions at this stage does not seem justified. NXcrypto Message 10:24, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

• Struck per my above comment. NXcrypto Message 13:44, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Proposal topic ban

The lack of response from Cerium4B to any of the concerns about his editing raised above is apparent. His announcement that he is currently busy in real life only when the above thread became more crucial is barely a coincidence.[144] I propose an indefinite topic ban from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan (WP:ARBIPA) for Cerium4B. NXcrypto Message 07:44, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support per my above rationale + Cerium4B disruptive page moves and problematic edits. NXcrypto Message 09:23, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Please stop making illogical proposals and try to respect other users’ real lives. None of the accusations you have raised are major problems. Those pages were already reviewed by “page reviewer”s. If there were any issues, they would have reverted those and warned me on my talk page. If they had done that and I still didn’t follow their suggestions, then I could be reported here. But nobody has shown any issue with those moves; it’s just you all here trying to strike at me anyway! — Cerium4B—Talk? • 15:05, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

@NXcrypto How is a ban from IPA topics helpful when most of his edits are Bengali-related? 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 16:18, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose since I got no reply 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 13:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Certainly, not a good rationale. – Garuda ^Talk! 20:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Will you leave me alone for one fucking day please? 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 04:12, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Couldn't be more bitter with your words. Who's even holding you back? – Garuda ^Talk! 09:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support - The response from Cerium4B to this proposal only signifies his irresponsible behavior. Similarly, his response to Liz and Asilvering does not show if he understands the seriousness of this report. Koshuri ^(グ) 16:33, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that response. -- asilvering (talk) 19:48, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  Why do you think so? His response is evasive at best. In better words, he is saying "I was correct, but if you think otherwise, ok." That does not give any confidence that we will not end up here anytime soon. NXcrypto Message 04:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose - Besides the AI and moves, all of the "damning" diffs presented are from several months ago, I don't think this is neccesary (and the constant "proposals" seem like WP:BITING, but that's just me). E_F⁵ 00:59, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

  @EF5 consider latest abuse by Cerium4B, misusing warn template. [145] and his response to this : [As your edit count is less than 100, I’ve given you the test edit warning...][146] NXcrypto Message 19:30, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

While the warning was wrong, the revert was right. The "Bangladesh ranks first in inflation" is completely innacurate. E_F⁵ 19:35, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

That is a content dispute. Refer to his response regarding his misuse of the warning template. NXcrypto Message 19:43, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Don't try to brush it off. As Black Kite said, edit warring is far more disruptive than a template misuse. E_F⁵ 20:06, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm even going to as far as to suggest a BOOMERANG for NXCrypto for WP:HOUNDING Cerium, WP:BLUDGEONING and overall hostile behavior noted by several others below; seems this user has caused similar "drama" (if that's what you'd call this mess) well outside of this. — E_F⁵ 00:28, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support : Cerium4B has demonstrated a consistent pattern of disruptive editing, including mass undiscussed page moves, AI-generated citations, and POV-pushing. Despite multiple warnings, they have continued to make unilateral changes without consensus, disregarding WP:NPOV and community collaboration. AI-generated content poses a serious reliability risk. While they claim to acknowledge their mistakes but their dismissive attitude and attempt to deflect blame suggest they are unlikely to change their behavior. Tban is warranted to prevent further damage. Mr.Hanes Talk 12:57, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support - Evasive attitude of Cerium4B, and his continued problematic editing is leading me to support this proposal. He cites a frivolous SPI here to cast aspersions against two editors. While EF5 has opposed the proposal by citing WP:BITING, he should see one of this recent edit from Cerium4B where he is posting a frivolous warning by falsely labelling a constructive an edit as "test edit". Capitals00 (talk) 16:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  How wonder!

  despite seeing the whole issue you are blaming me for giving a test edit warning to a newcomer!

  @CelesteQuill misrepresentated a source on the article Bangladesh. We are still discussing the issue here - “user talk:NXcrypto#Bangladesh article”.

  As they misrepresentated the source I’ve given the test edit warning.

  What is constructive on his contribution [147] ??? — Cerium4B—Talk? • 17:33, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  You are still displaying a warlike mentality instead of accepting that you misused the warning template. You issued a test edit warning to Celeste Quil, even though their edit was not a test. It’s important to acknowledge mistakes rather than always defend unjustified actions. NXcrypto Message 17:43, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Cerium4B did issue the wrong template to CelesteQuill, but they were correct that the text misrepresents the source. I started a discussion at Talk:Bangladesh#"Ranking". (Article talk pages are where such discussions should take place.) Schazjmd (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Schazjmd, I hope Cerium4B will accept that he/she misused warning template. NXcrypto Message 17:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @NXcrypto, I hope so too. I also hope that you and CelesteQuill will acknowledge that the text you both added to the article is not supported by the cited source. Schazjmd (talk) 17:59, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Okay. Seems like i did. (But I don’t know how)

  My intention was to warn the user. I assumed, that was a type of test edit from user with less than 100 edits.

  However, as they misrepresented the source, which warning should have i given to them? — Cerium4B—Talk? • 18:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  You could have used uw-error1 or uw-unsourced1. Or you could have just typed out a message, explaining the problem with their edit. Schazjmd (talk) 18:02, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Schazjmd is correct, @Cerium4B, but I would instead suggest that you avoid giving any warnings at all, template or otherwise. If someone makes an edit you think is incorrect, go to the Talk page of the relevant article to discuss it. In general, it's not helpful to use warning templates on another editor's talk page if you're in a content dispute with them. In your case in particular, you're clearly still learning Wikipedian norms and policies, so at least in my opinion I think you should avoid warning other editors at all. Focus on yourself. -- asilvering (talk) 21:36, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  That is content dispute. Main issue by CelesteQiul is misusing warn template. NXcrypto Message 18:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Personally, I think misrepresenting sources in articles causes more harm than using the wrong warning template. Schazjmd (talk) 18:05, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: I think you should give a read to the recent chat we had on the talk page of NXcrypto. This was clearly a POV push and absolute vandalism and misinformation spamming to the lead of a country article. Its just that NXcrypto and the editor with 60 edits do not understand the English language properly and/or are that negligent. They're now trying to gang up and wrongly topic ban Cerium4B since he's not supporting their agenda. Swoonfed ^(Ping) 18:13, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

See WP:NOTVAND. Capitals00 (talk) 02:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Considerably more harm, yes. -- asilvering (talk) 21:37, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be BITING to me, and as above it seemed to be a good-faith mistake (we're all humans, after all). Now if it happened several times, that'd be a different story. — E_F⁵ 19:14, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support – I added this content, and Cerium4B issued me a test edit warning, even though my edit was well-sourced. I fail to see how a properly referenced edit qualifies as a "test edit." Furthermore, Cerium4B have been engaging in POV-pushing, even when user provided reference screenshots. Such nationalist edit warrior behavior is disruptive. Given their aggressive and warlike approach toward other editors, a topic ban is necessary. CelesteQuill (talk) 17:20, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

You're acting as if the content you added was actually accurate or informative in any way, shape or manner. That is actually misinformation and vandalism considering the source actually does not state what you added there. That's made up info in your mind. So we can't even revert vandalism or actual POV from new editors nowadays without getting topic banned. That's crazy. You're an account with 60 edits. Swoonfed ^(Ping) 18:09, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Where have they engaged in vandalism? Do you even understand what vandalism is? Do not attack them for having a low edit count(which on Wikipedia means nothing really) - Ratnahastin (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose - The edits shown here are several months old and irrelevant to the issue at hand. The page moves are harmless. A topic ban is not necessary by any means considering he is not engaged in vandalism. The fact that he gave a warning to User:CelesteQuill, who is a new user with 60 edits and was engaged in vandalism was the right approach. This is indeed WP:BITING and he is being ganged up on. Swoonfed ^(Ping) 17:57, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  You’ve misrepresented the source. [148]. You have already checked the discussion regarding your misrepresented contribution. I’ve mentioned the issue multiple times, then @Swoonfed has also elaborated the issue [149].

  Stop doing wp:attack. As your edit count is less than 100, I’ve given you the test edit warning. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 17:44, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  [As your edit count is less than 100, I’ve given you the test edit warning...]

  Sorry, but this does not justify your mistake. You have already admitted to using AI (ChatGPT) for Wikipedia, so I don’t think you should have any issue accepting this mistake as well, that you misused the warning template. NXcrypto Message 18:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  You have already admitted to using AI (ChatGPT) for Wikipedia
  at this point you're just rubbing this on their face 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 18:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Swoonfed [The page moves are harmless....] No, the page moves by Cerium4B were disastrous, undiscussed, and appeared to push a particular point of view. Such moves should not be dismissed as harmless.

  [The fact that he gave a warning to User:CelesteQuill, who is a new user (account created a month ago)..] No, the account is actually one year old, and I have just checked that CelesteQuill good contribution history on hiwiki. [and was engaged in vandalism was the right approach...], You are once again falsely accusing an editor of vandalism despite prior warnings. NXcrypto Message 18:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  I agree the page moves he made were done without any discussion or given source, but they were indeed accurate. He's understood his mistakes and pledged not to continue moving pages in that manner. We shouldn't drag that any further in my opinion since the user has admitted to improving themselves in that regard already.

• [You are once again falsely accusing an editor of vandalism despite prior warnings...] What are you even talking about? Celeste Quil added blatant propaganda and misinformation to the article of Bangladesh today and reverted me and Cerium4B about 2 TIMES trying to re-add it. You also reverted us 2 times. That's a combined 4 times in a single day - all to add false information to the lead with a source that does not comply with your claims. That is literally VANDALISM or POV pushing. Celeste Quill reverted me here. You reverted twice: 1 and 2 - citing removal of "sourced" content, which is actually made up and not sourced indeed. The fact that both of you were constantly claiming that this was "sourced" info is blatant gaslighting and misinformation.

  Do you even understand what you've done? This is the sentence you added: [{{TQ|According to the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2025, Bangladesh ranks 1st in inflation, facing some of the highest price increases globally. The country is 2nd in extreme weather events, frequently affected by floods and heatwaves. It ranks 3rd in pollution, with severe air, water, and soil contamination. Bangladesh is 4th in unemployment or lack of economic opportunity, and it holds the 5th position in economic downturn, facing risks of recession and stagnation.[150] - since when does Bangladesh rank first in inflation GLOBALLY? Keep in mind, this source simply stated these are the biggest issues within the country internally. Swoonfed ^(Ping) 18:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  "literally VANDALISM"

  Consider familiarising yourself with WP:VANDAL, WP:NOTVAND and WP:VANDTYPE, source misrepresentation is not vandalism, you should retract these accusations of vandalism or else you may find yourself getting sanctioned. - Ratnahastin (talk) 18:49, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Source misrepresentation when done multiple times while constantly gaslighting and reverting those pointing out their mistakes is indeed vandalism. That too to the lead of a country's article. What they did today is a bigger issue than whatever "wrong" template warning was given to the new user. This level of negligence and blatant disregard while handling high importance articles and still not admitting to the mistakes and continuously arguing is not proving their point to me, at least. Swoonfed ^(Ping) 18:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  It is not vandalism and stop this or else I'll have to seek sanctions against you considering that you are aware of ARBIPA. - Ratnahastin (talk) 19:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Ratnahastin: Can you explain how a ban from IPA topics, that is from topics related to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan going to help the matter at hand here considering Cerium4B mostly edits articles related to Bangladesh? Is that also a part of IPA now? You've also shown support to an IPA topic ban below. Swoonfed ^(Ping) 19:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Swoonfed as you claim: [He's understood his mistakes and pledged not to continue moving pages in that manner...], Please cite the edit diff where Cerium4B pledge to not to do POV undiscussed page move in future. NXcrypto Message 18:55, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @NXcrypto: see the last para (1), also here (2) Swoonfed ^(Ping) 19:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Swoonfed I have reviewed both diffs you provided and found that Cerium4B stated: [I will never use AI to make such contributions and will try to discuss before moving an important article...] But, your claim that he pledged to stop making undiscussed or POV-based moves is inaccurate. Nowhere in that reply does he make such a pledge. Instead, it appears to be an attempt to avoid sanctions rather than a genuine acknowledgment of past mistakes. NXcrypto Message 19:38, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support - Net negative, their comment above "As your edit count is less than 100, I’ve given you the test edit warning" does not inspire much confidence. We don't hand out test templates to users based on edit count and CelesteQuill did not make a test edit and calling them a vandal without even understanding what vandalism is [151] , makes me think that this user should not be editing a contentious topic. - Ratnahastin (talk) 18:22, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Really @Ratnahastin?

  so now a misrepresentation of a source is a lesser issue than my comment! — Cerium4B—Talk? • 18:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose and article protected. This, added by NXCrypto and Celeste Quill, is absolutely source misrepresentation. This edit suggests that Bangladesh has the highest inflation globally; the source does not say that, it says that Bangladesh's No.1 risk is inflation (you will notice that eleven other countries also have "inflation" as their No.1 risk). Bangladesh's inflation rate is currently around 10%, which is quite high, but pales into insignificance beside Argentina's 54%, Turkey's 31%, Iran's 27%, Nigeria's 25%, etc. Whilst I could AGF that the editors adding this do not have English as their first language and therefore do not understand how misleading that addition is, it looks really suspicious as well. I have fully protected the article for 1 week. After that time, if I see editors doing this again, I will not assume good faith and I will remove them from the article (if not the entire topic area); it's not vandalism, but deliberate disruption and edit-warring carries exactly the same sanctions. Black Kite (talk) 19:25, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Thank you for actually commenting on the gravity of the actions taken today by these two users: NXcrypto and Celeste Quil on the article of Bangladesh today. They've constantly reverted and re-added their misinformation hiding it under the guise of "sourced" information. Their lack of comprehension of the English language is clear, but this was a deliberate POV/agenda push. And they're yet to apologize or admit to their wrongdoings above or in NXCrypto's talk page. Swoonfed ^(Ping) 19:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Black Kite The main issue isn’t the article edit but rather the recent misuse of the warning template by Cerium4B [152]. But, his response to this issue was: [As your edit count is less than 100, I’ve given you the test edit warning...] [153]. NXcrypto Message 19:58, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• That is certainly an issue. But it's a far less important one than edit-warring source misrepresentation into the article, which you have not addressed. Black Kite (talk) 20:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, @Black Kite. More than a week ago, I asked for diffs of 1) the unacceptable behaviour, 2) someone explaining why that behaviour is not acceptable, and 3) the behaviour continuing after that explanation, and we still haven't gotten that. At this point the whole ANI thread and block proposals appear to be vexatious. -- asilvering (talk) 21:31, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

asilvering, would you consider a close? This looong thread has been open for almost two weeks now with no action taken. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:46, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I admit I considered it earlier today, but since I had literally dozens of notifications from this thread, I could hardly say discussion had run its course. However, in all those edits, all we've gotten is more evidence that implicates the supporters of the ban, not Cerium4B. I'll close this soon, if no one else beats me to it. Some laundry to do first. -- asilvering (talk) 03:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Swoonfed is spot on, on "WP:BITING and he is being ganged up on" and Black Kite as well. I can share more details about the same behavior that I have noticed on other pages by the supporters over some time now, but busy right now with family things. Can you keep this open for a day or so? For the record, I usually edit on an IP, but have made an account to remain anonymous. Kaleighlight (talk) 22:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

You are not allowed to evade WP:SCRUTINY. Reveal your past accounts or IPs, otherwise you can face a block for evading scrutiny. - Ratnahastin (talk) 01:42, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• Not much confidence in Cerium4B's responses. Considering their reckless use of AI, mass removal of content [154][155], and overzealous templating of newcomers, I'm inclined to support a block ranging from a Tban to a Pban. – Garuda ^Talk! 20:44, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support a topic ban. Wikipedia has millions of articles not in the contentious topic area. An editor can spend their life editing Wikipedia and not brush up against something as contentious as this has been. Edit productively elsewhere for a few months or a year, and then ask to return to editing the thing that riles you. BD2412 T 05:44, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  @BD2412, May I request you to investigate those accusations against me? Because I’ve already refuted most of their accusations. Now my two mistakes are being discussed here.

  1. Those undiscussed page moves and

  2. An ai made contribution

  Yes, there are millions of things on Wikipedia where I can contribute if I get a topic ban. But there should be some reasons to ban me. Everything should be fair here.

  Moreover, it’s not a voting contest. Admins will investigate everything before taking any step. If, in their investigation, they think I’m doing violations continuously, they should definitely ban me. — Cerium4B—Talk? • 10:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Harrasment by Awshort, Round 2

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

---

I posted this thread which did not lead to any action.

The same user, Awshort, has now begun reverting my edits on an article that they have no history of editing, nor do they have a history of editing any article even remotely related to the subject.

This is clearly harrasment: "Hounding on Wikipedia (or "wikihounding") is the singling out of one or more editors, joining discussions on multiple pages or topics they may edit or multiple debates where they contribute, to repeatedly confront or inhibit their work. This is with an apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance, or distress to the other editor. Hounding usually involves following the target from place to place on Wikipedia."

Diff just now.

Again, Awshort has no history of editing the article nor any history of related articles. They made this comment soon after I created a thread in DRN about an unrelated disagreement. The Spreckels talk page comment included the the line "Here from NPOV noticeboard" thereby giving themselves plausible deniability to wikihound me. They have zero user contributions on the NPOV noticeboard, and zero contributions to the article or related topics, which leads me to believe they were actually there from following my user contributions to harass me.

Diffs from first post, pasted below for your convenience: Here are diffs where they follow me around to pages it doesn't appear they have had any interest in prior:

• 1

• 2

• 3 Now, I will of course acknowledge that on the third example, I did make a mistake. I thought I had only removed the text of the sentence, but looks as though I accidentally deleted part of the template too. I am unsure how that happened, so I will try to figure that out.

Delectopierre (talk) 07:53, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

This article appeared Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Claus Spreckels: Accusations of slave ownership more than a week ago; Awshort commented on the article talk-page five days ago, indicating that’s how they found the discussion (very plausible). Awshort’s read that your changes do not have consensus on the talk-page also seems correct. You should spend less time trying to make this article say what you want and more time understanding the (very sensible) objections of other editors. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 13:56, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

If you are referring to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1175#Wikihounding by Awshort, this discussion thread ended with Awshort listing some problematic edits made by you and reverts or changes they and other editors had done to address some of the problems. You never responded to the list that they posted. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:37, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Funny, that. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:04, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

You never responded to the list that they posted

They posted content disagreements, that, in each instance, had editors on each side of the discussion. I didn't reply because the list Awshort provided was about content and this board is for behavior. Furthermore, I posted problematic behavior from Awshort on the talk page for the article previously at issue, and they didn't respond.

But what do either of those facts have that have to do with Awshort's harassment? Delectopierre (talk) 05:29, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Awshort commented on the article talk-page five days ago, indicating that’s how they found the discussion (very plausible)

I find it highly implausible that of their 977 edits, 0 are on NPOVN, and the first time they follow the NPOVN to a thread just happens to be the thread that I'm participating in, very soon after I posted at DRN. For a point of comparison, Awshort has left 53 comments on the BLPN, a board they have stated they follow.

Awshort’s read that your changes do not have consensus on the talk-page also seems correct

The changes they reverted were not changes discussed on the talk page or NPOVN; rather they were changes that occurred during those discussions. In point of fact, I manually reverted them as they were made without consensus. Awshort then reverted my reverts, in a topic area they have zero history of contributing to.

You should spend less time trying to make this article say what you want and more time understanding the (very sensible) objections of other editors.

I have much to say, but this doesn't seem to be the appropriate venue. If you'd like me to reply to this part, just let me know.

Delectopierre (talk) 05:21, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

The IP has the right of it, that's what you should be doing. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:52, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Also seems worth noting that Awshort self-reverted several minutes before you opened this thread. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 23:30, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm curious what relevance that has, in your view? I wasn't aware of it as I was posting this thread. Delectopierre (talk) 05:10, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

• Well, if you weren't aware, when you file a complaint at ANI, the behavior of the filing party (that's you) is being scrutinized as well as the editor being complained about (in this case, Awshort). Believe it or not, many editors come to post complaints at ANI when they are actually responsible for more disruptive editing than the editor they are complaining about. We can't take the comments of the filing party as being true and accurate, we need to see evidence and also hear from the other party. We don't rubber-stamp complaints and sanction other editors just because someone asks admins to do so.

So, the fact that Awshort had posted about your editing history and that other editors had to revert your work is just as worthy of consideration as your complaints about Awshort. This is how ANI works and it's also why we advise editors, especially newer editors, not to come to ANI because the outcome can be unpredictable and you can find yourself hit by a WP:BOOMERANG. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:44, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I am well aware of WP:BOOMERANG.

We can't take the comments of the filing party as being true and accurate, we need to see evidence and also hear from the other party.

I am not asking you to take my comments as true and accurate, I have provided evidence.

So, the fact that Awshort had posted about your editing history and that other editors had to revert your work is just as worthy of consideration as your complaints about Awshort.

What does another editor reverting my work prove? There are countless reasons something could be reverted, and I could have posted the same list in reverse -- from my perspective. But again, what would that prove?

Look, I'm not suggesting I'm perfect; far from it. I try to follow the rules to the best of my ability. If there are rules I broke that I need to answer for, then I will do so. That said, when someone harasses me - according to the behavioral policy - I am going to report it. Delectopierre (talk) 06:05, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, actually my question wasn't about your edits being reverted it was that in the last discussion, which you refer to, the discussion ended when Awshort asked you a question that you never responded to. That was the only point I was making. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:14, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Got it. Again, I didn't reply because -- from my perspective -- Awshort's comment was about content. Was I incorrect in my assessment or in my decision not to reply? If so, would it be helpful to reply here, now? Delectopierre (talk) 04:51, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

• Comment - I suspended a content dispute at DRN brought by Delectopierre involving Awshort, because I don't want to try to mediate a content dispute between two editors when one of them also has a conduct dispute with the other editor. This is the second report of harassment at this noticeboard by Delectopierre against Awshort. We appear to be looking at an editor who does not like another editor. If we (the ENWP community) close this report without action, we may see another such report in the future. I don't have a strong opinion at this time as to whether we should take any action on this report, or whether we should allow this report to be closed without action, and expect another report at some time. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:59, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

  We appear to be looking at an editor who does not like another editor

  My response to this is that I do not like Awshort's behavior toward me. Delectopierre (talk) 04:01, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  Robert McClenon, I'm not sure what action you would propose but so far, no administrator has thought that any action was warranted in this ongoing personal dispute.

I don't know if you realize it, Delectopierre, but I doubt there is a single editor on this project that doesn't have a rocky relationship with SOME other editor on this project, some editor (or maybe many editors) that they don't like or have no respect for. And yet, they find a way to continue on doing work on Wikipedia despite their ill-will towards another editor(s). If we blocked editors simply because they drove another editor crazy, well, we wouldn't have any editors left here to contribute. And, believe it or not, there is probably some editor out there that feels the same way about you that you feel about Awshort. I know there are editors on the project who don't care for me but we don't bring each other to ANI, we ignore each other instead and keep on doing our best work.

Of course, if there is serious misconduct, then that must be addressed but the fact that no admin has taken action yet on the two ANI threads you have started is a sign that, right now, no action is likely to be taken and your time would be better spent on other work. Now, I'll stop lecturing you and responding to this discussion. I advise you not to start a third ANI discussion on this subject unless there is serious, obvious misconduct. Happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

User:Liz - I thought that any of various actions might be in order, such as a caution to Delectopierre, and I am satisfied for now that you have provided it, if he heeds the caution. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:24, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

@Liz: - I have a house walk through today that is taking up all of my spare time, but I will reply shortly after it is completed on this topic. If I could ask that it stays opened until I have a chance to do so and at least present my side, would that be okay?

Also, I had sent you an email on Jan 30th regarding advice on DP and how to proceed going forward. Your status said that you were busy in real life so I didn't ping you on your Talk Page, but I wanted to disclose it.

For full disclosure to anyone else, the message had in part

However, I don't want to automatically give up on DR since I feel it looks bad to automatically go to ANI over conduct while in DR , as well as wanting to follow proper procedure in the hopes that this user could learn from it. Long term, they seem like they could be extremely beneficial as an editor if they would stop doing original research and follow policies. Do we have any kind of mentorship program, or places like dispute resolution that could possibly help the user understand policies a bit better? Noticeboards seem like a last resort so I'm trying to find a middle ground to help them while also making sure they understand that how they are following policies may be problematic and showing how to correctly follow them.

And @Robert McClenon:, thank you for your help wkth the prior case. I never got to thank you but i appreciate your attempt at helping us both as well.

Awshort (talk) 07:07, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

If I’m to be cautioned, it only seems fair that I get an explanation as to how Awshort’s behavior does not meet the definition of wikihounding.

As I read the policy, their behavior meets each element described on the policy page. Delectopierre (talk) 19:08, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Strict letter-of-the-law reading is also known as WP:WIKILAWYERING. Simply put, there is enough good faith explanations that it seems unlikely Awshort is directly hounding you, and more that you both have overlapping areas of interest & a disagreement on how to edit such topics.

You don't have to like each other, but there simply isn't enough evidence here to indicate harassment. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:18, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I don’t read the relevant policy to require proof of intent. Do you read it that way?

If so, that’s a nearly impossible standard to meet. Delectopierre (talk) 20:44, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Comment: I've only just noticed this case here, but I am kind of an involved party, being the editor involved in the content dispute at Talk:Claus Spreckels. I have serious issues with Delectopierre's disregard for WP:NPOV in their contributions and their ongoing confusion about WP:PRIMARY vs WP:SECONDARY sources and how these are to be used. But what I also find problematic, and this speaks to the issues on this page, is the tendency of this editor to be Wiki-litigious, being extremely obstinate when the problems with their contribution are pointed out, quick to revert other's edits, and engage in all manner of Wikilawyering to use challenge others on small points, ignoring big-picture concerns about NPOV and the primacy of secondary scholarly sourcing. Also, there's a tendency to quickly accuse other editors of WP:Civility violations while acting in a WP:BADGERing and provocative way themself.

I don't know the specifics of previous interactions between Delctopierre and Awshort, but I'm glad that since I posted to the NPOV noticeboard, there are now a few other editors who have looked at the Claus Spreckels article and have the same concerns that I do. For my part, I'm working on writing new material to replace what's currently in this section based on secondary scholarly sources, rather than being caught up in seemingly endless rounds of relitigating Wikipedia's most basic rules with this editor. Peter G Werner (talk) 20:10, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The referenced discussion is primarily a content dispute, and isn’t relevant to this post. But because it was highlighted up thread that on my first ANI post I didn’t respond to a content dispute on the last thread, I will do so here.

I find this rich coming from you.

In the discussion, you were warned by another user, and then by me, to ensure you were being civil. Your reply was that I should take it to a notice board, not that you would be civil.

Furthermore the assertions that the editors at the NPOV noticeboard were squarely on your side of the debate is not correct. They had some concerns with the language I added, which they modified and I did not contest. They also had concerns with the arguments you were making, yet you continued to make the same arguments.

The discussion led to your proposal of new language which I agreed to. Then you went way past that consensus and demand the entire subject be removed.

Delectopierre (talk) 20:28, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, that's a rather creative way of looking at it. I'm not going to argue with you over behavior, considering your rather clear pattern (and I see it here too) of antagonizing people and then playing the victim when you manage to get a rise out of them. If I'm a tad too honest about calling such behavior the way I see it, I'll cop to that.

In terms of the content dispute, it seems that the editors who have taken the time to come to the talk page for Claus Spreckles article discuss the concerns about sourcing have not supported your position. Learn from that and move on. (And, for the record, I've never wanted "the entire subject to be removed", only the use of proper sourcing, neutral language, and that topic not carry undue weight in the space accorded to it.) Peter G Werner (talk) 01:18, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, that's a rather creative way of looking at it

Right back atcha Delectopierre (talk) 02:48, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Comment: Delectopierre, you don't seem to understand when people speak gently to you, so I must tell you this bluntly. You are hounding Awshort by continually starting discussions here, rather than the reverse. I get that you have a mental illness (so, as a matter of fact, do I) but you can't expect co-workers at Wikipedia to provide the service that you should be getting from medically qualified people. Just stop. Now. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:02, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

This is an incredibly inappropriate comment. Delectopierre (talk) 09:43, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Omg. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 12:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

? Delectopierre (talk) 20:19, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Omg = Oh my God. I'm not too sure what that editor meant by that. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:30, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

It seems very (even incredibly) appropriate to me. What do you object to? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:33, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Your invocation of my psychiatric conditions and accusation that I use Wikipedians to treat said conditions rather than seeking professional help. I list my conditions on my user page in an effort to destigmatize psychiatric conditions. Your comments do the opposite. Delectopierre (talk) 20:47, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I invoked your psychiatric condition as something that some users might consider to be a mitigating factor in your defence, not to attack you. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, but I do not consent to their invocation. It is inappropriate to do so for any user. Delectopierre (talk) 20:58, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Then I withdraw that part of my remark.Phil Bridger (talk) 21:14, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: I'd like to suggest that this thread should be closed with a warning to the OP against combative behavior, wikilawyering, and the opening of frivolous ANI threads, and with a strong encouragement to take to heart the following passage from WP:AGF: When disagreements happen, ill intent may not be involved. Keep a cool head, and consider dispute resolution if disagreements seem intractable; many of them are not. - — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.36.106.199 (talk • contribs) 16:33, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Bias and NOTHERE by Big Thumpus

Big Thumpus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Ever since being blocked for trolling and successfully appealing the block, Big Thumpus has demonstrated time and time again why the block should not have been lifted. Every edit they have ever made has been pushing a far-right agenda. At a discussion on WT:RS, Thumpus promoted the far-right conspiracy theory that all mainstream media outlets were funded by USAID to support the Democratic Party, and when the discussion was predictably WP:SNOW-closed, started a discussion to try to overturn the SNOW-closure. Simonm223 hit the nail on the head by commenting that Nearly all you've done since you joined Wikipedia is complain that sources, Wikipedia as a whole and other specific editors are biased against the US Republican party, Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Most recently Thumpus edit-warred with Willondon on Oligarchy to remove a paragraph describing Elon Musk as an oligarch (Full disclosure: as I added those sentences, I suppose I am INVOLVED on that but so be it.) and then argued with Willondon and I on the article's talk page. A look at their xtools pie chart indicates a worrying sign of mainspace being fifth – a clear sign of an SPA. Thumpus does not seem to understand that Wikipedia is not the place for their RGW campaign to whitewash Wikipedia of negative coverage of Musk and Trump. I await administrator comment on this matter. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 12:30, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Well since I've been mentioned I might as well comment. I wasn't going to pursue AN/I about Big Thumpus largely because if I started AN/I tickets about every POV pusher in the AP2 topic area I'd never get anything else done. The best thing I can say about Big Thumpus is that they rarely edit in article space and so most of their disruption comes down to being frustrating to deal with at noticeboard and talk pages. Ultimately I think that they would benefit from a broad topic ban on AP2 to encourage them to engage with Wikipedia in a more productive way. I might also consider a WP:NOTHERE block as Big Thumpus contributes nothing significant to the project and is frustrating to collaborate with but, considering their edit history, these two actions might have the same net result anyway. I was not aware of them edit warring at Oligarchy but that would be, imo, an escalation of prior bad behaviour. Simonm223 (talk) 12:42, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Looking at the Oligarchy topic I can see a good faith argument for removing the Musk information as it's very specific and RECENT for what is meant to be a very general topic article. No other section mentions a specific person so why is Musk specifically mentioned? Why not the various Russian oligarchs? Also, Chicdat, it appears that you were casting aspersions with this talk page comment, "You appear to be very clearly an SPA created to push Musk's POV.". True or not, that comment should not be made on an article talk page. While a lot of edits outside of mainspace may be POV pushing, it also could be an editor who is simply not engaging in edit warring. Based only on the evidence here I don't see that BT has done anything wrong and may be correct in terms of the Oligarchy article. Before anyone suggests I'm a Musk supporter, an editor previously suggested I shouldn't be allowed to !vote on Tesla topics due to my support for TSLAQ topics and Musk's actions here. BT isn't going to be a successful editor if they don't learn about sourcing etc but talk of AP2 bands at this point, given the evidence here is unwarranted. If there is more evidence my view may change but currently, based only on the USAID question and the questionable inclusion of Musk in a high level topic article, I don't see the issue. Springee (talk) 13:03, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

This is WP:DUCK here, not aspersions. A review of Big Thumpus' edit history clearly indicates that they do little else. Simonm223 (talk) 13:11, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree with Simonm223. There is aspersion-casting and there is calling a spade a spade. Look at BT's contributions and tell me where my comment was incorrect. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 14:44, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Please review FOC. If you feel the need to identify editors as garden implements, do it on user talk pages or here, not in the article space. What you did in no way made your arguments stronger but it did increase the temperature in the discussion. This is especially true in cases where the material you added can reasonably be viewed as POINTY. Springee (talk) 14:58, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

By your argument, thousands of administrators have casted aspersions by adding the {{spa}} template to a talk page, which is commenting on the contributor. Nevertheless, as you have been here for 17 years and have hundreds of edits on extremely controversial talk pages, I will defer to your judgement and drop the stick. Clearly you've encountered SPAs before and know how to deal with them. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 15:18, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Tagging an edit on the talk page as SPA is one thing. Accusing editors of pushing a Musk POV moves past that. Also, the tag generally helps when dealing with RfC where a lot of !votes might be accounts that are recruited etc. Dismissing a reasonable argument with SPA is likely to upset the editor in question. Heck, I would be personally very insulted if someone accused me of carrying water for Musk! :D Springee (talk) 15:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I saw this edit last week and thought "well, there's an editor who is going to be disappointed with the outcome". However; 196 edits, and of those only 11 to mainspace, and most of those are either reverts or have been reverted since. I'm pretty sure that I've lost some IQ points reading the WP:IDHT arguing at WT:RS and WP:NPOVN. That, with the additional of negligible useful content, is by definition heading towards WP:NOTHERE territory, and BT would be well advised to not continue on that course. Black Kite (talk) 13:13, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• Comment I don't see a problem with lifting the block. The original block was for sockpuppetry, not trolling, and I don't think that was demonstrated. It may well be appropriate to institute a topic ban or a community-sanctioned block for behaviour, but that's a different matter. --Yamla (talk) 13:18, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  I think we're dealing with the unfortunate result of a poorly structured block. A block for trolling might have been preferable but what we got was a block for socking from an editor who, despite their issues, appears not to be a sock. However I do think, if other editors are reaching the end of their patience with Big Thumpus too, that it's time to take some action. Simonm223 (talk) 13:34, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm going to let this play out as it may, but I think jumping right to accusing people of being SPA's when they haven't been editing the encyclopedia for a significant amount of time is hasty. If anyone cares to fully peruse my edit history they might find that I've made some oddball edits to random articles and even started a draft of a mainspace article. Plenty of editors here engage within a certain topic area for some time, because it's prominent in the news or some other reason, and then go on to do the same within another topic.

I spend a lot of time reading Wikipedia articles and genuinely think everyone has done a great job in most areas, so of course sometimes it's hard to find anything to edit.

I will also add that I've tried my best to WP:DISENGAGE when other editors express strong disagreement, especially when said editors seem to have a history of bringing people to ANI or at least threaten to. Big Thumpus (talk) 13:40, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I think jumping right to accusing people of being SPA's when they haven't been editing the encyclopedia for a significant amount of time is hasty is a carefully-crafted non-denial. Zaathras (talk) 14:06, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't know what else to say. Do I need to explicitly state I am not an SPA to be taken seriously? Big Thumpus (talk) 14:15, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

No, you need to stop being disruptive at places like Wikipedia Talk:RS and edit somewhere that isn't the AP2 CTOP. Simonm223 (talk) 14:19, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

The only way I would take you seriously is if you said "I am a SPA" because that would demonstrate some self awareness... You do appear to be a single purpose editor focused on a very narrow subset of contemporary American politics. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:46, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

BT, that you are here means you are probably not handling things in a way that will work over the long term. Based on the originally presented evidence I don't see a than being reasonable. However, it would be best to listen to the concerns as well as see how others work in contentious spaces. Your views, right or wrong, are going to make you a minority on many Wikipedia topics. I would suggest looking to see how other editors are effective in such cases. Springee (talk) 14:52, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't disagree outright but I also think it's fair to note the history of who started this thread. Wikipedia undeniably has some issues with how contentious topics are handled and I think it's critically important that majority voices are not constantly lobbying to have minority voices restricted or banned from participation. Big Thumpus (talk) 15:04, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Your concern is valid but if people are talking tbans you are likely not handling it in a way that will work in the end. If you want to make an impact on various topics, vs just getting voted off the island, you need to stay cool, bring evidence (typically RSs) and rational arguments. If you run into a wall such as what you are seeing at Oligarchy, don't edit war, don't personalize it. Make your best case on the talk page. Sometimes you won't convince people even when you are "right". I'm those cases you can decide to accept it or use the various dispute resolution tools. The RfC is a powerful one. It's not uncommon that a local consensus is overturned when a RfC gets uninvolved editors to weigh in. It's also, typically, more definitely as an involved party assesses the consensus on the end. It is frustrating when others sign motives to your actions that aren't true to your intent but don't personalize things. FOC is always a good rule. Springee (talk) 15:19, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I understand, and I appreciate your thoughtful input. I will do my best to abide by it. Big Thumpus (talk) 15:22, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I don't see a than being reasonable at this time. However that doesn't mean carry on as is. Springee (talk) 15:09, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

“It’s hard to find anything to edit”? I can point you to a forkton of national/regional cuisine articles that need all the help you’re able to give them. It would be a blessing just to have somebody make low-hanging MOS:CAPS corrections of food names (which shouldn’t be capitalized except for particular words that are proper nouns in their own right, like place names [“Kansas City barbecue”; “Teochew dumplings”] and individual humans’ names [“oysters Rockefeller”; “peach Melba”]) THOSE would be much-appreciated, collaborative improvements to article space to make a better worldwide encyclopedia. I am pretty sure that more people use Wikipedia to learn the difference between tom yum and tom kha on a Thai restaurant take-out menu than as a source for winkling out the nuances of American political bickering points. — Julietdeltalima (talk) 10:37, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

That's a great suggestion - very much appreciated Big Thumpus (talk) 13:42, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

There's really big gaps in Wikipedia's coverage of Indonesian history if you're interested, especially outside of Java and Sumatra Kowal2701 (talk) 15:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Orr if you're interested, there is a shortage of editors working on articles about Yemen and I would really appreciate your help (We're like 4 editors and half of us haven't edited for months now) 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 15:42, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

While we're making suggestions, more than one third of Wikipedia articles are still stubs. There's loads and loads to do! Category:All stub articles contains every single one, but there are links on that page that go to categories sorted by topic, if there's a particular set that would interest you. -- asilvering (talk) 16:11, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Abo Yemen Asilvering Kowal2701 Also very interesting suggestions - thanks everyone! I wasn't aware of Category:All stub articles, that's handy. Big Thumpus (talk) 16:48, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I will add to this that yesterday, NME Frigate started a discussion at Talk:Elon_Musk#Should_Musk's_juvenile_antics_be_mentioned? about, well, adding Elon Musk's juvenile antics to his article. Big Thumpus responded with an ad hominem attack on the user's perceived bias, and responded to me pointing that out by saying they AGF while demonstrating that they don't. I started a discussion at User talk:Big Thumpus#Editorial bias and they show no sign of acknowledging this problem, continuing to malign RS. I believe that, at best, this user needs some mentoring. If that doesn't work, a topic ban from AP2 might be in order. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. I think an AP2 topic-ban is clearly called for. Some of the issues with them include:

• Blatant misuse of sources. See [156], where they take a source that overtly says that the conspiracy theory they were pushing in that discussion (that news sources were being funded by USAID specifically to defend and push the interests of one American political party over another) was false, and tried to present it as evidence that it was true. Note that the "sheepish correction" they talk about is this: While Politico LLC did receive funds from USAID and other government agencies, the money was not for grants but payment for subscriptions to its publications. The article is extremely clear, so there is no plausible way to interpret this, in good faith, as supporting Big Thumpus' position; their usage was a gross and clearly deliberate distortion of the source in promotion of a conspiracy theory.
• Constant aspersions towards other editors. They try to word these in a "friendly" manner (clearly aiming for WP:CIVILPOV) but they've nonetheless constantly crossed the line, regularly questioning the motivations of other editors by implying that they're being driven by personal beliefs. These include [157][158][159][160][161][162][163][164]
• Clearly non-neutral approaches to the article and sources. [165][166][167] Stuff that may have seemed meaningful in the lead up to the election, but after Trump's win feels more like sour grapes and mudslinging. Or this and this, arguing that the Associated Press platformed opinions-as-news that many would consider "far left" or at least directly serving the interests of politicians considered to be "far left" and saying they should not be used in a neutral encyclopedia. Characterizing the Associated Press as supporting the far left and saying it ought to be unusable as a source, in particular, is so bizarre that I feel it breaches the presumption of good faith - either it's trolling, WP:POVPUSH efforts to shift the overton window without regard for sourcing, or represents a WP:COMPETENCE issue so severe as to be indistinguishable from these things.
• Attempted canvassing: [168][169]; note that the only editors they replied to in this way were ones who agreed with them.
• Extreme bludgeoning; especially when it came to the discussion of NPOV templates on the 2024 US Election article, they made countless comments that were essentially the same two or three arguments over and over with almost no variation, even after being repeatedly informed that the discussion was already well-past the point of being a WP:DEADHORSE: [170][171][172][173][174][175][176][177][178][179][180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187] ...and more. Note that all of this is a single dispute over a single NPOV template on a single article, where the presence or absence of the template has already been discussed to death for months prior. Further bludgeoning can be seen in the multiple reliable sources discussions discussed above, including one where they suggested that we should reweigh our entire spectrum of sourcing based solely on the above conspiracy theory: [188][189]. They proceeded to drag these obviously unproductive discussions out further by objecting when they were eventually hatted: [190] A refusal to drop anything, in any context, unless they're directly forced to do so is characteristic of almost all of Big Thumpus' editing in the topic area.

These are not the sorts of things that the AP2 topic area needs right now. --Aquillion (talk) 15:33, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• I’ll note that in my interactions with Big Thumpus I’ve found him well reasoned and relatively civil. Sorry but the accusations of far-right and NOTHERE are complete jokes unless there’s a lot I’m not aware of. He has bias, sure, but so does every single user here. Technically we’re supposed to all be individually NPOV but that isn’t always feasible and having people of different POVs collaborate is an important step towards NPOV. My advice to him would be to find something that interests him outside of high traffic American political articles and contribute to that and the mainspace . See Talk:Donald Trump/Article bias forum if you still doubt whether he’s HERE. A topic ban is uncalled for imo

Kowal2701 (talk) 16:03, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Big Thumpus isn't being discussed at this board for being a conservative. They're being discussed at this board because of their POV pushing, refusal to drop the stick and competence issues. Basically they're wasting a lot of peoples' time and are frustrating to edit with. Simonm223 (talk) 16:48, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

And their main contribution to that "article bias forum" that I found was a WP:CRYSTAL claim that academic sources in 50 years would vindicate their POV. Simonm223 (talk) 16:52, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Sorry but that is not at all their “main contribution”?? Kowal2701 (talk) 17:41, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I discounted the several suggestions of imposing a 6 month lag on Wikipedia reporting anything Trump does as being entirely in the wrong place for a discussion of article bias. Simonm223 (talk) 17:47, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I suppose if it had been my time he’d wasted I would’ve had less sympathy. Agreed the status quo is untenable. Maybe at most a temporary topic ban and a stated commitment to mainspace editing? I still think this report is a bit of a joke Kowal2701 (talk) 17:23, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

The accusations of time wasting confuse me a bit because WP:DISENGAGE exists. I'm genuinely sorry if other editors don't enjoy working with me, and my goal is to collaborate, but there's no obligation to engage with me or a deadline to meet in order to end a discussion. I've seen a lot of discussions on Wikipedia carry on for months or even years; most of my concerns have revolved around WP:RECENT and I really do think there's a chance that the people who disagree with me now may have a different opinion at some point, but it might take years. Big Thumpus (talk) 18:03, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I cannot imagine a circumstance under which I would bend WP:RS policy to the whims of any American governmental administration. Simonm223 (talk) 18:08, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

That's not what I was suggesting - but I wanted to discuss it with you and others over there, not on ANI. Big Thumpus (talk) 18:11, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Then what's this? [191] Simonm223 (talk) 18:17, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not trying to ignore your question but - is this the best venue to discuss it? I'm genuinely asking. I want to discuss it in good faith, which is why I started that thread on the talk page of RS. I didn't think it would receive such immediate backlash; I wouldn't have started it otherwise. Big Thumpus (talk) 18:24, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support topic ban from American politics and current events, broadly construed. The very first thing mentioned here, about starting a discussion claiming that a US government agency was funding left-wing media in the USA to attack the Republicans political parties is just so over the top and absurd, that there's clearly personal issues here that make it impossible to rationally edit in this topic area. Nfitz (talk) 18:02, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  I feel strongly that that is an oversimplification of my concern Big Thumpus (talk) 18:04, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  And yet, the description fits, in a nutshell. Such a suggestion is so completely beyond reality that I think that you need to step back and deal with your issues. Or at least stick to other areas. Have you considered WP:LACROSSE? They always need help. Nfitz (talk) 18:18, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  But it's not what I said, though. I did not say "left-wing media" or "Republicans", and that was purposeful because I would approach the situation similarly regardless of the political tilt. Thank you for the WP:LACROSSE suggestion though, I hadn't seen that. I used to play so maybe I can help. Big Thumpus (talk) 18:30, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  That's fair - I've adjusted my text accordingly - and I note in one example you showed (which didn't seem to show any US agency involvement) you highlighted media supporting right-wingers such as Cheney. Still the right or left isn't the issue here. It's the wild and very unusual claim you made in the first place that appears to be more a personal conspiracy theory than any sourced fact! Nfitz (talk) 19:39, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support Topic Ban don't know what else to say. Do I need to explicitly state I am not an SPA to be taken seriously I'm going to paraphrase Rob McClenon here and say "Then stop acting like one". Regardless of the merit of the prior block and unblok, Big Thumpus is being entirely disruptive. There are many fora in which they're welcome to discuss their opinions on US Aid, Trump, Musk et al. This is not one of them as it's disruptive. Star Mississippi 18:23, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support topic ban, this sort of conspiracy theory trolling [192] is just too wild. Hopefully they can contribute in a more productive way in other topic areas. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:00, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
• It is perfectly reasonable to argue that Elon Musk shouldn't be mentioned on the Oligarchy article. That's really not problematic behavior. Oppose the topic ban proposal that's emerged, but he should consider himself warned not to do stuff like raising that silly RS discussion. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 04:15, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support topic ban, given the comments from Big Thumpus below regarding hounding. --Yamla (talk) 17:19, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  I asked an editor if they can assure me that they won't hound me, because I feel hounded. Can I not express that feeling?? This is a genuine question. Big Thumpus (talk) 17:33, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support topic ban because of the hounding comment 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 17:24, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose per ROPE. BT probably feels rather attacked right now and that is a great way to trigger an editor into making bad choices. That said, BT, if you want to continue in this topic space I would suggest you publicly commit to 3 things. 1. You will WP:FOC and strictly refrain from ascribing motives to other editors. That means no suggestions that someone is motivated by anything other than improving the article content. For example, it's one thing to, politely, suggest a particular edit would make an article appear like an attack article. It's quite another to suggest that was an editor's intent. 2. You will bring RS evidence to support your views/concerns. Take the recent USAID thing. Having a source for your concern may have been helpful. If you weren't able to find a source then it's a good sign this may be a nothing burger. 3. No edit warring. If your edit/reversion gets rejected you can use the talk page but you won't restore a disputed edit. If you agree to those things, which shouldn't affect your ability to argue a POV then I think any tban would be punitive vs preventative. If you don't think you can't stick to those rules then I can see the preventative argument. Springee (talk) 20:04, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I can 100% agree to those things and understand the community's concerns Big Thumpus (talk) 20:06, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

This may be the way to go. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:38, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Would support this as well as a last chance if @Big Thumpus willing to comply. Star Mississippi 21:41, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Ditto Nfitz (talk) 22:54, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

That sounds like it could curb the disruptive editing with the understanding that it is their last chance. I support. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 23:13, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

If Big Thumpus is to be given WP:ROPE they need to understand that it will be a very short rope and that, if they continue to be disruptive regarding Musk-derived conspiracy theories about WP:RS standards that a block will be the outcome. Simonm223 (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Simonm223, can I have your assurance that you aren't going to WP:HOUND me going forward? I understand that you and I do not agree on certain things, and I very much want to discuss those things with you in good faith, but I do not appreciate continued insinuations that I am a peddler of conspiracy theories. Big Thumpus (talk) 17:02, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

My concern is with your disruptive editing. Please do not cast aspersions. I certainly have not hounded you. Statements like this make me fear we may be back here in short order if you continue editing disruptively at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources. Your requests that we adjust what we consider a reliable source based on the statements of Mr. Musk were beyond the pale. I am not entirely comfortable with you getting any WP:ROPE at all if I'm being honest. Simonm223 (talk) 17:09, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Are my feelings of being hounded by you invalid? Big Thumpus (talk) 17:12, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Based on this reply I continue to Support a topic ban an do not believe WP:ROPE is appropriate in this instance. Simonm223 (talk) 17:14, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree with Simonm223. I was willing to give WP:ROPE, but the continued aspersion-casting and accusations in your replies are deeply troubling. Where, in that reply, do you strictly refrain from ascribing motives to other editors? If you can't abide by your promises in this ANI, I certainly don't think you can do it on AP2 articles. I'm going to have to change my mind and support a topic ban. If you have truly improved your behavior after six months, it should be clear from your other contributions that you have done so. Consider it a chance to learn how to contribute constructively in other areas. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 17:22, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I asked a genuine question, because I feel genuinely hounded. I don't understand. Big Thumpus (talk) 17:32, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

WP:HOUNDING has a very specific meaning - which, as you wikilinked to it, you should know. If you look at our edit history together you will note we've overlapped in very few places - Two of them - the page for Wikipedia Talk reliable sources and this page - are evident. I am a regular contributor to WP:NPOV/N and when you drill down you see that I did not edit on the same thread as you there. [193] On the other three pages we've both edited the distance between our closest edits is 5 days or more. Simply put I absolutely have not been following you around Wikipedia. As such your accusation of WP:HOUNDING is casting baseless aspersions. This is precisely the thing you promised not to do when you agreed to WP:FOC as a condition of a WP:ROPE decision. I was uncomfortable with WP:ROPE and was looking for assurances that you would also cease disruptive editing on the one page where we've come into conflict and you replied with a baseless accusation. I hope you find this answer detailed enough to explain why you got such a prompt and such a negative reaction to what you did. Simonm223 (talk) 18:15, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Thats not a fun feeling, why do you feel hounded? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:19, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I feel hounded - maybe not according to the letter of WP:HOUND but at least by the dictionary definition - because Simon seems to be more determined to have me banned from a particular area of discussion than to actually discuss things with me. Practically everything I say is met with another accusation and call for action.

If I've agreed to the terms proposed by Springee, I think it's fair to ask for some reassurance that the editors who [strongly] disagree with me aren't going to take it upon themselves to police me from now on. Big Thumpus (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Simonm223, that is the sort of comment that can make a new editor feel, right or wrong, attacked or at least being poked. Since agreeing at 20:06 13 Feb have they engaged in editing that is problematic? If no, then perhaps it's best to view this as a misunderstanding and move on. I will note that one can really dislike Musk while still feeling some of our coverage of the person is way over the top. Springee (talk) 18:29, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Support topic ban. Stop with your conspiracy trolling and source misuse. The Master of Hedgehogs (talk) (contributions) (Sign my guestbook!) 18:28, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Looking at their edit history it appears they have made no edits outside of this discussion since making a commitment to reform (see their 20:06, 13 February 2025 edit). Springee (talk) 18:31, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Tbh I think the lack of mainspace editing is a bigger issue. They seem to want to collaborate and engage in discussion a lot which is great, but most editors focus on mainspace and avoid discussion except only when it’s necessary, and aim to be concise and to the point in order to maximise the time they spend writing content i.e. in the mainspace. That is something that I think you can only really learn how to gauge through experience, so I’m sceptical of whether the above terms will mean we won’t arrive back here. Kowal2701 (talk) 18:41, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

I would agree with that, many of the conflicts with Big Thumpus seem to come up when other editors are focusing on content and Big Thumpus wants to focus on the big (off-wiki) picture. I think its likely that if they did more mainspace editing then the quality of their talk page editing would improve, as it stands they have no idea what they're talking about because they've never done it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:49, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Indeed. @Big Thumpus, however this thread ends, I hope you will reconsider your approach on wikipedia. Everyone else is here to build an encyclopedia. You appear to be here to talk about building an encyclopedia, with the additional problem of having effectively no experience of the actual building part. Start building. -- asilvering (talk) 20:31, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

That is a fair warning and one TB should think about. I do understand that sometimes things like DUE are decided by trying to estimate the big picture vs what a particular source says. But focusing on adding non-controversial content while observing how editors work around controversial claims is a good idea. Springee (talk) 19:34, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, obv it’s a personal decision for them since it’s a bigger commitment. But tbh given their experiences here, especially the initial block and this thread, I wouldn’t expect them to particularly want to Kowal2701 (talk) 19:46, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

In all honesty, I am feeling pretty discouraged after that initial block and this thread. I feel genuinely uncomfortable expressing my concerns with NPOV/RS/editor conduct etc. which is a shame because those are fundamental aspects of the project and very much deserving of open-minded discussion. Big Thumpus (talk) 15:03, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

You've been editing here for 2.5 months and made just over 200 edits, of which 11 seem to have been to articles; I don't think you should be giving lectures about what constitute "fundamental aspects of the project". 100.36.106.199 (talk) 15:08, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

...Do you disagree that NPOV, RS and editor conduct are fundamental aspects of the project..?

This is what I'm talking about, though. I can't even express what should be a pretty mild take without someone showing up to malign me. Big Thumpus (talk) 15:16, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I think that people who have nearly 0 experience in improving wikipedia are poor judges of the meaning and salience of our policies, and should not be lecturing other editors about their meaning, importance, or application (either in particular instances or in general). 100.36.106.199 (talk) 15:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

This is an interesting application of the word "lecturing" Big Thumpus (talk) 15:50, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

@Big Thumpus you are not helping your case here at all. I highly recommend disengaging and letting consensus form. Star Mississippi 15:58, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

BT, the IP is right in that you haven't been here long so it's best to get a feel for how people effectively make arguments. It's not surprising that you feel discouraged. Wikipedia is the sort of place where swimming against the stream, especially in a contentious topic area, is likely to get you swatted if you don't strictly follow the written (and sometimes unwritten) rules. That said, one of the important skills (and one that's not easy to master for some) is knowing when to disengage. Those who say your comments here aren't helping your case have a point. So long as the comments stay here (and aren't attacking other editors) and your article/article talk page comments FOC then I don't think you have violated the commitment you have already made. If someone else shows up and says something negative about your editing, let it go. That will help show editors that you won't be defensive every time someone says something negative about your edits. That doesn't mean you shouldn't listen, just don't feel you have to be defensive every time. Also, that initial block appears to have been an error since the analysis showed that you were not using multiple accounts (generally that's a no-no). Given that the sock puppet account (not to be confused with wp:SPA) block was found to be invalid, you have nothing to be sorry about. It was an error. Just keep your nose clean going forward. Springee (talk) 19:28, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support Topic Ban per Chicdat above, will give BT the opportunity to demonstrate that they're not an SPA by constructive editing in other areas. Brunton (talk) 16:05, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support Topic Ban - Their accusation of hounding after agreeing to a compromise nails it. O3000, Ret. (talk) 19:33, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support Each year a handful of editors of the same archetype flit through the Politics topic area. They're aggressively strident about the side they support, how most of the reliable sources vetted at WP:RSP are biased, and set out to fire broadsides at the Wikipedia as a whole when their suggestions are rejected. This is just the latest that, after looking at the diffs above, we're better off without. Zaathras (talk) 14:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

  Please see the part about vowing not to do it anymore. I think several of the recent supports missed this commitment [194] which BT has not broken. Again, preventative is the only acceptable reason for a Tban and thus far BT hasn't violated their promise. Springee (talk) 15:21, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

  They broke the commitment to adhere to WP:FOC when they spuriously accused me of WP:HOUND. And nobody is asking for a block here. A topic ban from AP2 will give them the chance to demonstrate they can edit productively. Simonm223 (talk) 16:49, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

  What content is there to focus on in an ANI thread? Kowal2701 (talk) 16:51, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

  Feeling attacked by you and saying as much in this ANI thread isn't violating anything. They basically said they will be good. Other editors were taking at their word and all looked good. Then you came in and basically said they better not do more bad things and that they were preading conspiracy theories. Hell, I can understand why they might feel defensive at that point even though I don't believe that was your intent. As I said before, threads like this are very much a place where a new or even seasoned editor might feel attacked. When people get defensive they may not reply just as we want. It's long been understood that editors get a bit more latitude here vs places like the article talk space. I would suggest rather than implying future sins, we AGF and focus on the commitment they have made here which they can demonstrate going forward. If they break that commitment, then look at Tbans and the like. Springee (talk) 18:01, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

  There no reason to assume good faith with this user and their promises when the history has been one of bad-faith editing. Boot them from the topic area, and they then have the opportunity to work their way back. Zaathras (talk) 22:29, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

  That sounds like you want to punish them for something. What evidence do we have that they won't keep their words? It's not like we have a block history to fall back on (the evidence says they were incorrectly blocked as a sock). If they can't behave after promissing they understand the issues, well then I would agree there are grounds for a block. Springee (talk) 02:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  My own assessment, based on the stuff I outlined above, is that what they're attempting to do is WP:CIVILPOV / WP:BATTLEGROUND editing - ie. the points where they crossed the line are individually problematic, sure, but the real problem is that they all point to a sustained, deliberate effort to push the encyclopedia's POV in a particular direction while getting as close to the line as possible; the clear faux-polite tone when making obvious aspersions points to this, as does the aggressive efforts to push a POV here. None of the things you asked them to commit to would actually help with that core issue; furthermore, their replies since then make it overtly clear that they have no intention of changing their overall direction. Part of the core of their misconduct was the discussion that was overtly intended to push a conspiracy theory (note my evidence where they distorted the sourcing regarding it in a way that is hard to explain away as accidental) - yet above, after committing to do better, they denied it, saying but I do not appreciate continued insinuations that I am a peddler of conspiracy theories. The goal isn't to have them continue to do things like this and this but in a more civil way. And their replies to Simonm223 (which seem mostly focused on avoiding scrutiny from them going forwards, after they have supposedly admitted to misconduct and agreed to do better) are likewise alarming - someone who genuinely understood what they were doing wrong and wants to improve should recognize that the past mistakes they're admitting to means that there were issues worthy of attention in the past and that of course people are going to keep a closer eye on them afterwards to ensure that they actually adhere to their commitments. Their behavior and response, instead, gives the impression of someone who wants to continue to engage in WP:CIVILPOV behavior without receiving scrutiny. ([195][196][197][198]) as well as continued self-pity that makes it clear that they're not actually taking any of the criticisms to heart ([199][200][201]) - note that the latter one makes it clear that their intent after this is to dive straight back into the "NPOV concerns" where all their misconduct occurred; also note the same faux-polite tone while making obvious aspersions, which I identified as problematic above. The easiest way for them to dispel these concerns is to accept a topic ban and edit productively in other areas for a while and to appeal after that, establishing that at the very least they are not a WP:SPA and are not driven by some WP:BATTLEGROUND approach to Wikipedia's content (something that, I think, it is reasonable to assume they currently are based on their edits to date and which none of the things you've asked them to commit to really address.) --Aquillion (talk) 06:24, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Understand that they have made no edits since making their pledge so you are being this view on just what they did in the past. Also, having a different POV is not a problem. It's arguably an asset since the quality of our articles generally improves with alternative views. The only issue is if they don't take no for an answer. While CPUSH is often cited by those who didn't like alternative views, This study suggests that having more views ultimately makes the articles better [202]. So long as they aren't disruptive it's OK that their POV is different than yours. Springee (talk) 11:18, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Most of the diffs in that are from their comments in this discussion after this edit - they managed to go straight back to battleground conduct and aspersions, aggressively accusing editors of hounding them just a day after supposedly agreeing that their previous editing had problems that would justify scrutiny, in violation of their commitment not to cast aspersions. This shows that the WP:CPUSH / WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior in their earlier comments is something they intend to continue. My perspective is that you gave them WP:ROPE and they immediately hung themselves with it. I do not think that this can be excused simply because you believe that their perspective (which reflects one of the major American political parties and is one of the most common ones among editors in AP2) is an "alternative" one that we need more editors representing. Finally, while CPUSH is often cited by those who didn't like alternative views is an obvious aspersion on your part; I've demonstrated their civil POV-pushing and battleground approach to editing with extended diffs, I'm not pulling this out of nowhere. You should consider the alternative explanation that your own biases may be blinding you to how bad the larger pattern of this editor's conduct is. --Aquillion (talk) 14:51, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

No aspersions on my part. CPUSH is a gray area. Where is the line? As door the comments, again inside of an ANI where an editor may reasonably feel attacked (regardless of the good faith intent of other editors) we should understand and grant a bit of leeway so long as the behavior doesn't leave here. There is zero evidence they will fail to adhere to their commitment thus this become punitive. Springee (talk) 16:17, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

There is no evidence that they will adhere (such as positive editing in other topic areas since making the promise) and a history of non-compliance... You've gone too far here, the logical conclusion is that they will not be able to self police. Casting the aspersion that it is punitive just isn't due. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I haven't been editing since this thread started primarily because I'm busy in real life, but also because I thought that it might demonstrate my willingness to discuss this in good faith before going back to editing. I really am not feeling the AGF from the community at the moment. Big Thumpus (talk) 18:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

HEB, I'm not casting aspersions. If an editor says they won't do X and they aren't doing X then a block isn't preventative. Any block is a mix of punitive and preventative. If there is nothing to prevent then all we are left with is the punitive part no matter how small. Springee (talk) 21:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Springee you are beginning to WP:BLUDGEON here and it would probably be wise to step back now. Simonm223 (talk) 21:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Responding to an accusation of casting aspersions with a defense of oneself and explanation is not bludgeoning. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:29, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Its only punitive if we know that they won't do it in the future, the point is to prevent future disruption and we have nothing which indicates that this editor is able to edit in a manner which is not disruption. This is what makes your comments aspersions, there just isnt anything which could be read in good faith as punitive here... There is clearly a good chance that the disruption continues and pretending that there isn't is just insulting to the rest of us. Note that their only signficant edits since making that promise have been continuing to battleground American politics at Talk:Oligarchy... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

How is that Talk:Oligarchy comment problematic? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Are they not allowed to disagree with the inclusion? I don't see anything wrong with their specific objection and to be honest it appears the current discussion is a pair of editors for and a pair against. Rather than being evidence that problems will continue, their singular reply since making a pledge here [203] suggests they are taking it to heart. They are making a reasonable argument related to WEIGHT. Springee (talk) 01:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

HEB, agreed. Given their demonstrated disruption to date, why would we take a promise to self-police when we can formalise a TBAN which is enforceable and would definetly stop the disruption. If they really are hear to build an encyclopedia then they can edit outside the topic area and presuming they have a good editing/track record after 6 months it would be hard to immagine a request to remove the TBAN at WP:AN not being successful. TarnishedPath^talk 23:15, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support TBAN per the diffs detailed by Aquillion. The topic area doesn't need any more heat. TarnishedPath^talk 12:10, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support TBAN Competence is required and this editor hasn't shown any. Let's end the time sink until this editor has shown themselves capable of constructive contributions. (t · c) buidhe 18:14, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
• Support TBAN - Aquillion says it best User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 14:57, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Problematic COI editor

Moved to Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard § National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Albanian IP vandalism

• 79.106.124.128/25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · block user · block log)

This range of Albanian IPs has consistently tried to remove the same 20,000 or so bytes from List of Paramount Pictures films (2000–2009) over the past month (XTools list), alongside other disruptive edits. The majority of this range's edits dating back to October 2024 have been reverted, and many of the individual IPs have already been blocked previously. Some specific ones are listed below.

• 79.106.124.198 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 79.106.124.205 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (previously blocked)
• 79.106.124.132 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (previously blocked)
• 79.106.124.225 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 79.106.124.212 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 79.106.124.195 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) (previously blocked)

(I previously posted this at WP:AIV, but it was removed after a few hours when no one acted on it). --Iiii I I I (talk) 22:17, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

IPs in this range are continuing to make the same changes to company details using dates in the future, all without sources cited: one, two, three, four, five. I found no news about "Happy Channel" planning to change its name back to "Euforia" in 2026. Iiii I I I (talk) 22:36, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Still going with unsourced changes that add events in the future: one, two Iiii I I I (talk) 23:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

User: Terra Borealis

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

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

This user has, over a long period, made a number of disruptive edits in relation to First Nations Australians:

• Inserting content to say that Acknowledgement of country is equivalent to Nazi ideology (This occurred several times over several weeks) Second instance Third instance
• Changing wording to imply that First Nations people did not have any ownership over land but just hunted on it

• Making a sourceless addition to imply that aspects of First Nations culture are primitive/Neolithic ideas

I think this user is not here to build an encyclopedia but rather pursuing POV pushing. GraziePrego (talk) 02:58, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

@GraziePrego, I'm struggling to think of a reason not to indefinitely block; I find their talk page comment, "Secondly, it is a gross misrepresentation that I equated traditional Aboriginal beliefs with Nazi ideology. 'Connection to Country' and 'Blut und Boden' do, however, have significant similarities", perplexing. Absent any forthcoming reply here, I will block them. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:42, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I’ve indefinitely blocked them now. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 22:10, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Threat of doxing

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By 180.254.224.242 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - diff here Not sure how credible this is. Adakiko (talk) 03:13, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Blocked 31 hours for NPA. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:18, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Joslyn Rose Lyons

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

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• Managementartist (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Joslyn Rose Lyons (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

The article for Joslyn Rose Lyons seems to have some serious WP:COI editing going on. I made an attempt to remove the puffery and clean up the page, and the edits have been reverted by @Managementartist. This editor appears to be a single-purpose account dedicated to editing this page, and has a prior warning for promotional editing. Rather than continue to engage, I will defer to the experts. Thanks.

• Warning

I figured a list of diffs is redundant given their short edit history and the situation, but if requested I can edit this post to include them. (edit: Suspicious edit history also suggests the possibility of sockpuppetry.) Regards, Kylemahar902 (talk) 03:15, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

• Specific diffs would help so that we don't need to look through all of their edits. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:28, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

  The editor only has 34 edits, all of which are on this page. Here are the diffs I'm specifically referring to in this post:

  • My edit
  • Revert

  I also added a COI tag following my edit which was removed by the same editor. Kylemahar902 (talk) 03:35, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

  By the way - if you'd like, I can link the account from the edit history that I suspect of being a sockpuppet, but I didn't want to go against any policy regarding "outing." If you would like me to do this, let me know. Kylemahar902 (talk) 03:41, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Don't make any edit that links a Wikipedia account to a real-life identity unless they have disclosed this information on their User page. If you are concerned, send your information to ARBCOM. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:04, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

My intention is not to speculate about the real-life identity of users, what I meant was there is an account in the edit history which seems to be an obvious sockpuppet account of the user I am referring to in this report. Apologies if my messages are unclear. Kylemahar902 (talk) 04:16, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

"Outing" specifically refers to linking an account to a real person. Linking two accounts you suspect to be sockpuppets is allowed, but should be done at WP:SPI. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:42, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I have pageblocked Managementartist from Joslyn Rose Lyons, leaving the editor free to make neutral, well-referenced edit requests on the article talk page. This editor clearly has a conflict of interest, and given their username, is likely an undisclosed paid editor. I've also reverted the article to a version without the promotional content. The article can be expanded properly. Cullen328 (talk) 06:59, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I have also pageblocked Lteef777 for pretty much the same reasons, with the exception of the username issue. Cullen328 (talk) 07:06, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

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

User:Jgera5 reported by User:Mvcg66b3r

• Jgera5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Persistent addition of speculative or unconfirmed information; improper formatting of references. Communication is required. Mvcg66b3r (talk) 17:10, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Can you please provide diffs of unconfirmed information? Improper formatting is not grounds for admin action. Star Mississippi 18:10, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

These edits about WHBQ-TV being sold to Sinclair [204][205] Mvcg66b3r (talk) 18:45, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, communication is required. One form of required communication is notifying editors when you post about them at ANI. -- asilvering (talk) 07:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Forgot about that, my bad. Mvcg66b3r (talk) 09:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Disruptive RfC at Talk:Gaza war#RfC: Adding the United States to the infobox

In the light of the previous RfC, Template talk:Gaza war infobox#RfC: Should the US and UK be added as allies to Israel in the infobox? closed 7 February 2025, this new RfC would appear to be pointy and misbegotten. I would suggest a speedy close to minimise disruption in what is a contentious topic area.

I have attempted to dissuade the proposer from this course or at least give it better consideration at User talk:TurboSuperA+#Talk:Gaza war#RfC: Adding the United States to the infobox.

The previous RfC has pretty much flogged the issue to death as one can see from the discussion there. While the RfC was closed, I do not believe that the close by Dr vulpes has reasonably closed the issue. Some concerns have been raised with the closer at User talk:Dr vulpes#Re: Closing of the Gaza War RfC about US/UK inclusion in the infobox. While they did provide some response, this does not appear to have reasonably addressed the concerns raised.

My primary motive for bringing this to ANI is to prevent disruption which I see would be archived in the first instance by closing/withdrawing the RfC. A better close of the previous RfC would, in my opinion give closure to the issue. While the community might consider further action beyond that, that is for the community to decide. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:14, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Cinderella157,

Okay, you said to prevent disruption which I see would be archived in the first instance by closing/withdrawing the RfC. So, what you are asking for here is a reclose of the original RFC? Are you asking that it be reopened, too? What should be done with the second RFC? Generally, I believe, editors who object to RFC closures bring the case to WP:AN after they have discussed the matter with the closer, not WP:ANI.

Right now, I'm just trying to figure out what you are seeking here. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:05, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I see that pursuing the current RfC to be disruptive (an incident) and it should be suspended/closed/withdrawn forthwith to prevent further disruption. This is the primary issue for ANI. I see some of the reason for TurboSuperA+ opening this new RfC to be the inadequacy of the previous close. It may have reached the right conclusion but was not adequate in putting the matter to rest - ie it is a significant contributing factor. Ultimately, the previous RfC does need a better close (ie a reclose or perhaps something else) - one that provides closure to the question. The previous RfC is a secondary issue. Though not an incident, it is pertinent. Whether ANI chooses to deal with this at the same time or defer the matter to another venue is up to ANI to decide. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:59, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Cinderella157,

What I was really attempting to do with my comment is to be clear on a) what you were asking the community to do and b) to consider if this was the appropriate location for this request. The reasons WHY you want this action to happen can be considered by other editors who respond to this post. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:14, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Liz, to what you were asking the community to do? I thought I was quite clear as to what I am asking the community to do regarding the primary issue - for the new RfC to be suspended/closed/withdrawn forthwith. It is for the community to determine if anything further is required. For the secondary issue, a better close/reclose is ultimately sought. [T]o consider if this was the appropriate location for this request? For the primary issue, I acted in part on the advice of Bishonen (here). This does appear to me to be a disruptive incident falling within the remit of ANI. By itself, this is not the appropriate venue to decide the secondary issue. However, I identified it as having significant context to the primary issue and it would reasonably require some scrutiny by the community in deciding the primary issue. Whether ANI chooses to deal with this at the same time, having made some investment in scrutinising the matter to determine the primary issue or defer the matter to another venue is up to ANI to decide. I hope this additional detail would now sufficiently address your questions. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm just noting that I've seen this message and will wait to opine until @Liz's questions are settled. Dr vulpes (Talk) 04:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

@Cinderella157 You started a topic on my page [206] and you didn't respond to my last post [207] asking you to clarify your points. Instead you pinged an administrator [208] and when that administrator didn't do what you want you started this ANI process. Do you intend to ping admins and start topics on noticeboards until you get your way?

I explained my reasoning in the RfC I started, I then repeated my reasoning to you on my talk page and yet you still ignore what I am saying and substitute your own explanation for my motivations. I will now repeat myself for the third time.

I started the new RfC because the question is fundamentally different to the question in the previous RfC ("Should the US and UK be added as allies in other theaters to Israel in the infobox?"):

• 1) The previous question asked about "US and UK", implying that the foreign policy of the two countries is the same and that the reasons for including one would apply to the other. This isn't true and my RfC asks about including the United States only.
• 2) The previous RfC asked about including US and UK "in other theatres", my question is about including the United States in the Gaza war theatre.

Yes, it is true that I have written a message on @Dr vulpes Talk page regarding their close of the previous RfC. However, after some consideration, I realised that neither reclosing the RfC nor reopening it makes sense, because as you yourself have noted on Dr Vulpes' Talk page "a key premise of this RfC has changed effectively rendering the question posed redundant." [209]

Why would we reopen or reclose an RfC whose question is no longer relevant? That is why starting a new RfC seemed like the better course of action. I didn't think Dr Vulpes would mind since they said "reopen the RfC you're not going to hurt my feelings and there will be no repercussions by doing so." [210] The question is no longer relevant because the "allies in other theatres" section has been removed from the infobox. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 07:13, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

"Do you intend to ping admins and start topics on noticeboards until you get your way?"..."I then repeated my reasoning to you"..."I will now repeat myself for the third time."...just so you know, this is not usually a productive way to talk to people in the PIA topic area. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:44, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

But starting a topic on my Talk page and then refusing to respond is a productive way to talk to people? It seems to me the editor is simply "going through the motions" to justify this ANI request, rather than reach an agreement. Not only did the editor refuse to respond, they ignored everything I had said and continued to assert that my motivations are different than the ones I laid out. Do you see how frustrating that can be?

"I will now repeat myself for the third time."

With that I hoped to bring attention to the fact that what I am saying is being ignored: "I see some of the reason for TurboSuperA+ opening this new RfC to be the inadequacy of the previous close."

That is not my reason at all, as I have said multiple times. This would be a much more productive discussion if editors didn't assume that I am lying regarding my reasons and motivations. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 07:54, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

• @Cinderella157: whatever the rights and wrongs of starting a new RFC on a narrower question after the previous one closed as no consensus, (and I haven't closely followed the whole saga) I can't help thinking your tone here and at TurboSuperA+'s talk page is unnecessarily bad faith and aggressive. The RFC is neutrally worded and explains why it might try to reach a more decisive outcome than the last one, with people opening there accordingly. It might be that it ends up as intractable as the last one and maybe the closer of the last one will give opinions on its validity, but either way this doesn't look like a user conduct issue and Bishonen already declined to close the RFC as obviously disruptive when you asked them to do so. Please keep this collegiate, and there is no emergency here that requires immediate intervention. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:46, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

As a sign of good faith in response to the several complaints, I have withdrawn my question. I removed the {{rfc}} tag. If I need to do anything else, someone let me know.

I hope this can put a rest to the speculations about my motivations and what I am doing on Wikipedia. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 13:49, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Same request

After seeing this new RFC, I had intended to open a thread like this at WP:AE, since things tend to be more structured there... but in the interest of not splitting threads, I'll post here.

The new RFC is plainly WP:DISRUPTIVE, because it raises no new question or new information that wasn't considered in the previous RFC, closed just 10 days ago. It seems pretty well-established in this topic area that opening formal discussions in this way so soon after a previous formal discussion closed is considered disruptive (one such prior example from AE).

TurboSuperA+ raises only two issues with the previous RFC:

• the question changed half-way through the RfC It did not - participants were discussing the role of the US in the conflict, and its applicability as a belligerent, up until the closing of the discussion
• it used "US/UK" implying that the foreign policy of the two countries is the same when that is clearly not the case. This RfC focuses on the question of including the United States only The discussion in the last RFC was at least 95% about the US alone. Other countries like the UK, Germany, France were mentioned, but the bulk of the discussion was on the US. Thus, opening a new RFC "just to focus on the US" isn't needed.

I'd also like to see this RFC speedy closed, and TurboSuperA+ warned in a similar vein as WikiFouf was. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 17:39, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

"It did not"

Yes, it did, and here's the diff to prove it: [211]

And here is at least one editor calling it a bad RfC because of the change [212] TurboSuperA+ (☏) 17:58, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

That edit was made when the RFC was 6 hours old. It then proceeded to run for ~3 months before closure. A far cry from a "halfway" change as you said. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 20:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

"That edit was made when the RFC was 6 hours old."

If that is the case, then I am wrong. I apologise. It was about half-way through the revision history of the thread so I assumed it was half-way through the RfC without looking at yhe dates.

But still, the question is different in my view. If its decided in this ANI that I shouldn't have started the RfC I'll be more careful in the future.

I didn't mean to be disruptive, I genuinely thought an RfC might be appropriate. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 20:37, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

The question as discussed in the prior RFC (which you can ascertain from the discussion - RFCs rarely focus only on the exact wording of the question first posed) was "should the US be included under the belligerent header as an ally of Israel in this war?" You've asked much the same question in this new RFC. You can tell because people are answering with much the same arguments as were put forward previously.

You yourself opened the RFC repeating points that were already discussed in the previous RFC, such as:

1. There are US troops listed in the infobox under "Strength", it is unusual that the United States itself wouldn't be listed in the infobox. [213]
2. The US has sent THAAD missile batteries and troops to operate them in Israel, WP:RS say that the US troops are deployed "in combat". [214]
3. Some academics have explicitly stated US is a co-belligerent, although I am not sure if it is WP:UNDUE. [215]

(All three diffs from the previous discussion, where those points were discussed) PhotogenicScientist (talk) 20:57, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Of relevance -- even the editors on TurboSuperA+'s "side" here admit that there was no discussion in between the RFCs and no new information exists that would have changed the consensus or outcome [216]. This was a nakedly bad-faith RFC, and this should frankly merit a topic-ban at the minimum for those involved in pushing it. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 23:57, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

User:106.216.200.155

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• 106.216.200.155 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Personal attacks on IndiGo fleet see [217], further in article history. Accusations made without evidence on my talk page and others. See uncivil interactions on talk page. The talk page header makes it clear that the user does not wish to contribute positively to wikipedia. I am trying to revert personal attacks written in the article but I do not have that much free time to monitor the page. By the time I am writing this, further vandalism may have occurred. Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 07:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

more and more. Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 07:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

• There does not seem to be any further action needed beyond what Chetsford has already done. Uncle G (talk) 08:34, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

  Yes. Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 08:37, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Please block IP address: 38.2.22.11

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

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Reason: talk page vandalism by 38.2.22.11 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

"Woo Fook you liberals that watch your wife's get enjoyed trying to paint this as if he didn't actually grow up in poverty but only "wrote" about it. Remove yourselves. Literally take a sharp and remove your throats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.2.22.11 (talk) 08:00, 17 February 2025 (UTC)"

"Kitty cat doesn't even have the marbles to respond. Boohoo. 38.2.22.11 (talk) 08:06, 17 February 2025 (UTC)"

Explanatory diff: Diff showing the edit by 38.2.22.11

Luamssuk (talk) 14:11, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Atlantic diet

WP:ANI|user:Jotamar reported (once again: known from previous disruptive and belligerent conduct in pages regarding Portugal and or Spain). Because of continued, poor 'corrections' on the Atlantic diet page with short-sighted, incorrect and counterproductive 'contributions': instead of accurate or constructive content, in acceptable English, this user has a tendency to disrupt and manipulate facts in matters that they do not appear to known enough of. Because this is well over the 3rd reversal, this editor has been reported for vandalism. Not the first time: it was made abundantly clear on past incidents that no interaction is wanted from my end because: Wikipedia needs editors up to standard, not vandals whose contributions are distorted, nationalistic views on topics, and whose conduct is absolutely unacceptable. Melroross (talk) 18:16, 17 February 2025 (UTC) I have removed the {{ANInotice}} template that Melroross mistakenly appended to the end of this compliant instead of posting it to the talk page of the user reported. Someone else has already helpfully noticed the user reported on the behalf of Meloross. MolecularPilot ^{🧪️✈️} 01:33, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Melroross, you are expected to provide diffs or links to specific edits that violate policies and guidelines. Did you read the notice at the top of this page that says This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems and also says If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page. Have you discussed your concerns at User talk: Jotamar? I see nothing recent there. I know that you have not discussed your concerns at Talk:Atlantic diet because there are no conversations there. Your comment above indicates that you think that edit warring and vandalism are the same thing. They are not the same and accusations of vandalism require convincing evidence that you have not provided. In conclusion, you need to provide much better evidence that intervention by administrators is required. I am unconvinced at this point. Cullen328 (talk) 19:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Used Talk as advised. Thank you both Melroross (talk) Melroross (talk) 16:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Taking advantage of this section already opened by Melroross, I'd like to know how can I deal with this editor that right now is making false accusations against me. See Talk:Atlantic diet#Atlantic diet's geographical, socio-cultural distribution (as it stands now), particularly the third paragraph, beginning with 2). Thanks, --Jotamar (talk) 21:18, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Indeed, can Administrators please deal with this editor Jotamar? I refer to a pattern of historical incidents that this user has both partaken in and entertained. And continues as seen here. Thank you. Melroross (talk) 08:06, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Heavy bludgeoning

Despite being warned already, user Wikieditor662 continues to engage in heavy bludgeoning at Talk:Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr. (a protected and contentious article). On February 13th, Wikieditor662 started an RfC on removing the mention of RFK Jr as a conspiracy theorist in the first sentence [218]. As that had already been discussed and settled, the RfC was promptly closed, but Wikieditor662 started yet another thread on the same topic just a few hours later [219]. Since then, Wikieditor662 has posted 24 additional comments mainly to challenge users who support keeping the consensus version [220]. User Moxy already warned Wikieditor662 about bludgeoning two days ago [221], but as the behaviour continues (13 additional comments since then), ANI seems the next step to deal with the issue. Jeppiz (talk) 18:56, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

What the heck? I started an RfC because I thought the first sentence should potentially be changed (which many people agreed with me). The RfC was closed, which I argued was premature as it was done after only a few hours with like 3 votes, so someone else (not me) reopened it. I then posted comments trying to respond to counterarguments others were making and getting involved in discussions and potentially future solutions. After Moxy told me about the Bulging rule, I explained why I didn't agree, which if I remember correctly, they did not respond to my points about it. This "ANI" honestly feels more like an attempt to shut down opposing viewpoints rather than actually improving wikipedia. Wikieditor662 (talk) 19:31, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I have no problem with your opinion and you summarize the problem yourself: you do not agree with WP:BLUDGEONING and continue to ignore it. Your behaviour over the past few days is a textbook example of bludgeoning. That is the only issue here. Jeppiz (talk) 19:40, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Wikieditor662, do you understand the basic principle of debate that repeating the same argument over and over and over again in slightly different ways does not make your point more persuasive, and that this behavior eventually becomes disruptive? The same with critiquing the comments of many editors who disagree with you. If you cannot accept these facts and moderate your conduct accordingly, then perhaps an editing restriction will be necessary. Cullen328 (talk) 19:52, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Different people made different arguments so I addressed these arguments accordingly, I don't understand the problem with that. I'm trying to seek solutions to the proposals in the RfCs, even if I don't agree with them (like the one about rfk jr), and I want to hear what people's different perspectives are and why they believe what they believe. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:45, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not saying I don't agree with the rule, I'm saying I don't agree with the accusation that my actions are related to this rule. I responded to different counterarguments, and some people were making mistakes (like not addressing whether it should be in the first sentence), so I tried to correct them or at least see where they're coming from. I have toned that down a bit though, since there's such a high number of people doing this. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:47, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

If first Moxy, then I, and then Cullen328 all independently find that you are bludgeoning the discussion, it might be a good idea to listen. Again, nobody asks you to patrol the discussion to "correct" others. The fact that you continue both to insist that you do nothing wrong and insist in believing you should correct those with different views is exactly why we are here. Jeppiz (talk) 21:02, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm just confused... As far as I'm aware, I don't repeat the same arguments while ignoring counterarguments, but are you asking me to respond to less comments? I can do that, but I don't see a problem with responding to multiple problems, especially if different people bring up different points and I want to address those points. Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:16, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Generally speaking, starting an RfC and then commenting on most/many comments made by those with a different view of one's own is seen bludgeoning on Wikipedia. Stepping back and letting the RfC run its course is the preferred action. Jeppiz (talk) 21:23, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

But if someone makes a counterargument, and you have a good rebuttal to their counterargument, shouldn't you say it to show the !voters more perspectives on the issue? Wikieditor662 (talk) 21:27, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Your rebuttals aren't good, though. I ignored this because it was just a contrarian response without substance. Initiating an RfC doesn't mean the entire weight of the argument is on your shoulders to make. Let It Go, and let the process carry itself to its natural conclusion. Zaathras (talk) 22:35, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

The problem was that your comment wasn't just a !vote, it was accusing me of breaking the rules, so I wanted to defend myself so I don't get into deeper trouble with these accusations. Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:39, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Standard conduct in an RFC is to state your position and respond to any questions that are asked of you. Not to comment on every opinion you disagree with or try to correct other's remarks. That's left to assess by the RFC closer. You've stopped commenting, which is good. If you had continued, it's likely you would have been page blocked from the Talk page.

By the way, I don't think you are the only editor who is bludgeoning that discussion. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I mean, I think it's better if people debate in the responses, but rules are rules, I guess. Anyway, do you know who the other people are who are being accused of this? Also, are we never allowed to respond unless they ask a question? Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I like to think it more of a rule of thumb. Respond to one person on a thread, but if multiple people are making a similar argument, then you can create a single comment calling out the argument(s), not individuals, and their flaws. Conyo14 (talk) 18:36, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes sense, except that "rule of thumb" would usually imply exceptions if I'm correct. Wikieditor662 (talk) 04:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Idk how you gleamed the "if I'm correct" out of that. Just practice better group communication instead of arguing under every !vote or comment. It's not difficult. Conyo14 (talk) 23:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Reasonable exceptions sure. But your actions here are clearly very very far from reasonable. Nil Einne (talk) 00:00, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

If you say so... Btw, the fact you posted this at exatly 00:00 / 20 / 2025 is pretty cool. Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:17, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, the RFC-in-question should remain open for a month. GoodDay (talk) 20:59, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

• Wikieditor662 just closed the RFC in question, despite being the one who started it; this obviously violates WP:NACINV. They justify their closure by saying that they're closing it with the opposite result from what they wanted as the person who started it - but this isn't true; as they note at the end of their closure, I started a push for a moratorium in that RFC. They argue that it should be done separately, but as someone WP:INVOLVED, that isn't their call to make; they'd obviously be deeply opposed to a moratorium against a change they want to make to the article! --Aquillion (talk) 14:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  maybe we can just ask them to unclose the rfc? User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 14:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  k, just asked on their user talk page User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 15:13, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  Apparently they also closed a contentious RfC at Kash Patel despite being involved in that discussion. Some1 (talk) 03:34, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  And with basically the same rationale, I counted the !votes. I don't think an inexperienced and involved editor should be closing contentious topic RfCs. Isaidnoway (talk) 03:52, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  (Pinging users not already pinged at the necessary talk page: @Some1 @Isaidnoway) Thanks for bringing up this concern, it's currently being discussed at Talk:Robert F. Kennedy Jr.#RfC closure. Wikieditor662 (talk) 03:57, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Can you consider, as a show of good faith to other editors, unclosing these RFCs? Just re-open and let someone uninvolved, with more experience, close. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 04:01, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  W.r.t. your ping, the convo is here wikieditor.

  I think keeping these multiple involved closes after being asked by editors to unclose represents more of a behavioral issue (WP:IDNHT), and a break from the norms of the wikipedia than a content issue. ANI is the forum for such behavioral issues. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 04:09, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

The RFCs should be reopened. Any further delay to do so by the closer, is quite problematic. GoodDay (talk) 04:03, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• Wikieditor662, this is not a subject open to debate. If you are involved in a discussion, you shouldn't close the discussion, period. No exceptions accepted except for if no one has responded to the discussion yet (which is not the case here). Revert your closures if you haven't already done so. This could result in sanctions if you ignore editors on this point. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:18, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  This is all starting to get disruptive..... basically we have an editor that spends their time on talk pages - being a timesick for others. Would love to see some focus on content creation, copy editing, etc that is geared towards helping our readers. Some time editing and learning the basics about article evolution might be helpful here. Moxy🍁 04:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

User TimeToFixThis

• I'd note that User:TimeToFixThis is also bludgeoning the various discussions on this page, and with this edit is suggesting to WikiEditor662 that they start yet another RfC on the page, presumably because they don't like the way this one is going. I also note that WikiEditor662 has made three more comments on the page since this ANI began. This really needs to stop. Black Kite (talk) 08:40, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  You are misrepresenting my statement. This is a highly debated issue, and my comment was about the flaws in how the RfC was framed—not an attempt to start another one just because I don't like the outcome. The way it is currently worded forces a binary decision, which is part of the problem, and why we may not get a real consensus. Instead of a simple yes-or-no question on whether these terms should be kept or removed, a more neutral option would be to ask: if they are kept, should they appear in the first sentence or later in the lead to ensure a more balanced phrasing? Which several editors have supported.

  Your accusation of bludgeoning seems more like an attempt to shut down debate and discourse. Frankly, this kind of reporting—or tattling—feels silly. I have not excessively responded in the RfC—only once in support and once in disagreement. The only other times I have replied were when someone responded to me or mentioned me directly in the discussion section. My level of participation has been no greater than those arguing the other side, so this report is unwarranted. TimeToFixThis | 🕒 11:44, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Last sentence is admitting that you participated not much less than we62 is not. Helping •Cyberwolf•talk? 13:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  I don't know how you would come to that conclusion from I said. Feel free to verify my claim in the RfC. TimeToFixThis | 🕒 14:25, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  You wrote I suggest we either start a new RfC or adjust the current one to better reflect the discussion.. If you had genuine concerns about "how the RfC was framed", the time to express those concerns to the initiator would have been five days ago when the RfC was started, instead of waiting until after 30+ people have already replied to the original question asked. Isaidnoway (talk) 14:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  My whole goal is to establish neutrality. Personally, I don’t believe "conspiracy theorist" belongs in the lead sentence per WP:NPOV, but I understand if others disagree. However, this discussion seems redundant because the core issue—the reason this debate started—is a neutrality concern, not just whether the term should be included.

  The real question shouldn’t be “Should we include it?” but rather “Do we support the current wording, or should it be adjusted to sound more neutral?” For example, instead of outright labeling him a "conspiracy theorist," we could rephrase it in the second sentence: He is known for his activism, including his controversial views on vaccines and public health. This keeps the controversy in the lead without engaging in character assassination by stating as fact that he is a conspiracy theorist—an inherently loaded term that many reliable sources treat with nuance.

  This discussion feels unproductive because most people agree these aspects should be mentioned, but some also recognize the current wording could be revised. I’m just trying to help offer solutions. Unfortunately, we also have some people here with clear agendas who are unwilling to engage in a good-faith discussion, such as this comment: Support It is absolutely true. It is unfortunate that you can't say he is anti-human, which he effectively is. TimeToFixThis | 🕒 14:57, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Again, if you had concerns about what the "real question should have been", you should have expressed those concerns five days ago to the initiator, instead of waiting until 30+ people replied to the original question. Isaidnoway (talk) 15:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  You are correct, but what is your point. Why I am on the administrators' noticeboard? TimeToFixThis | 🕒 15:44, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  My point is there is not going to be a new RfC or an adjustment to the current one. Isaidnoway (talk) 20:17, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  @Black Kite my last 3 comments on that page were responding to questions or concerns in already established threads, which the administrator @Liz said is okay: Standard conduct in an RFC is to state your position and respond to any questions that are asked of you.

  As for @TimeToFixThis, I think they have good intentions. A problem is that most of the people accusing of bludgeoning are on the opposite side of the vote, and even if the criticism is valid, it's harder to hear because the accuser is biased. If a neutral administrator finds Time's behavior inappropriate, I would at least recommend a warning first, as I think there's a good chance they will stop if one is given.

  Wikieditor662 (talk) 04:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• TimeToFixThis, your recent history at RFK Junior is certainly not constructive. How do you explain this edit from today [222]? You marked that edit as minor. The most lenient interpretation is that you do not understand what a minor edit means at Wikipedia, which is already somewhat problematic. I recommend you to read WP:MINOR. Per definition, if anyone might disagree with the content of the edit, it is not a minor edit. Jeppiz (talk) 14:33, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
• To expand on the above, the actions of User:TimeToFixThis already seem enough to warrant action. Even after this discussion was started, TimeToFixThis went to the article on RFK Junior to do multiple changes, marked as minor including

• - Changing that RFK has "promoted vaccine misinformation" to saying he has "been a prominent critic of vaccines" and "has been accused of spreading vaccine misinformation"
• - Deleting "proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation"
• - Changing "anti-vaccine advocacy" to "opposes vaccine mandates and raises concerns about pharmaceutical industry practices"

It goes without saying that these are not minor changes. This is disruptive editing. That TimeToFixThis does this even as this discussion is ongoing strongly suggests the user is either unable or unwilling to contribute to Wikipedia. Jeppiz (talk) 14:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

As per my above statement responding to @Isaidnoway that wording violates WP:NPOV. I did not remove anything, I expanded on the context for readability. "promoted vaccine misinformation" to saying he has "been a prominent critic of vaccines" and "has been accused of spreading vaccine misinformation" is more honest to the real situation why acknowledging the controversy. It was a minor adjustment so I listed it as such. TimeToFixThis | 🕒 15:07, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Since 2005, Kennedy has promoted vaccine misinformation is neutral and succinct. Since 2005, Kennedy has been a prominent critic of vaccines and public health policies, arguing that they pose risks that are often overlooked. He has been accused of spreading vaccine misinformation is overly wordy and adds some WP:FALSEBALANCE by suggesting it's just some unnamed others accusing him of spreading vaccine misinformation. Not a good edit. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Per WP:MINOR, there are only a few types of edits one should mark as "minor" - changing the meaning of content as you did is not one of them. I'm also a little concerned about this being marked as a "readability fix", when it changed the meaning of already perfectly readable content. ser! ^{(chat to me - see my edits)} 15:15, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

TimeToFixThis, it was not a minor edit. That is not a matter of discussion, see WP:MINOR. Your refusal to acknowledge it only adds to the problem. Jeppiz (talk) 15:18, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I admit my mistake in listing it as a minor edit. I perceived it as such because it seemed like a small thing that gave context to an already exciting statement and would help for readers of the article. TimeToFixThis | 🕒 15:22, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Not only was it not minor, but it changed a sourced sentence to one which is effectively unsourced. He hasn't been "accused of spreading vaccine misinformation", he has spread it, and that is impeccably sourced. This is simple disruption. Black Kite (talk) 18:51, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm also a bit concerned about this edit which collapses what appears to be an WP:RFCBEFORE conversation saying it's obsolete because the RfC has started. Between some of the FALSEBALANCE concerns cited above, the issues over WP:MINOR and this I'm wondering if we're in WP:CIR territory. Simonm223 (talk) 15:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Right. You shouldn't WP:CLOSE discussions where you are involved. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I started that conversation, and then an RfC began after. I only added a collapse on it so people would not get confused with the two discussions. It is still there and people can still see it. TimeToFixThis | 🕒 15:38, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Indeed, you started it. Therefore it's inappropriate for you to collapse or close it. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

user has 1000 edits and has been editting for over a year... not quite a newbie, but WP:BITE might override WP:CIR, especially if TimeToFixThis takes advice and uncloses. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 04:15, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• They also have the template {{User 2farleft}} on their userpage, which caught my attention - is that an appropriate user template? It seems like a pretty clear WP:BATTLEGROUND declaration and would appear to violate WP:UBDIVISIVE. --Aquillion (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  Why does such a template even exist? Cortador (talk) 20:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  Whether the template should be removed is being discussed on its' talk page, you can bring your thoughts there if you'd like. Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:15, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Wikieditor and WP:TEND editing around Misogyny and other articles

saw this and thought I'd add in what I'd seen around the misogyny article as well. I'll add another notice to wikieditor's talk page to notify him of this as well.

• Wikieditor has been engaging in WP:TEND editting around introduction of misandry wording in the misogyny article as well.
• Wikieditor had previously been attempting to push for the change on Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_104#Misandry in January 13th or so. I'm counting 14 out of 41 replies there, 1400 words out of 3200 words.
• In february, Wikieditor starts again. 14 out of the 46 replies, 1000 of the 2700 words in Talk:Misogyny#Misandry are from wikieditor.
• Suggested to wikieditor this situation was approaching WP:TEND here [223]
• His account seems very new, and in general eager. Would like a warning to not do TEND and BLUDGEON and all that. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 05:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Abdurahmantheking7

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

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A few hours ago, User:Abdurahmantheking7 edited the Erasmia article several times by disturbing the infobox, which resulted in him being blocked. Then, more edits were done to the same article (like this one and this one) as well as to the Pretoria article (here and here) by User:2c0f:f4c0:1301:81bc:5de6:8b61:de68:6989

For the same reason that the first-mentioned User was blocked, I suggest this IP address also gets blocked for some time. GeographicAccountant (talk) 19:22, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, GeographicAccountant,

This noticeboard is for urgent, chronic, intractable problems. Given what you have stated, I recommend you report this at WP:AIV or start a report at WP:SPI as this is a very recent problem. Or contact the administrator who blocked Abdurahmantheking7 since they will be familiar with their editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:52, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I see User:Rsjaffe has already taken action on the IP Address; thanks to him as well. GeographicAccountant (talk) 22:20, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Conflict of Interest

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

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

This account was originally named "M3mediachennai", which Google brings up multiple results suggesting it may be a marketing/advertising agency based in Chennai, India - 1, 2 (for examples). The user has been advised of the CoI guidelines before in January 2025, again in January 2025, and I asked them again today to confirm their understanding. In addition, I asked them to confirm why they chose the name they did initially, and they have dodged the question repeatedly. This user initially created Archana Singh (Film Actress) as a draft page, then after it was declined rather than improve it they moved it to mainspace themselves (it is now up for AfD).

It appears likely this user has an undisclosed conflict of interest with the actor in some way and should be blocked from editing related to that subject (or entirely). Or perhaps someone else can get them to explain their initial choice of username and continued editing about one subject exclusively in a way that resolves what appears to be a conflict of interest. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 07:02, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

This is a pretty clear cut case of UPE and an indef NOTHERE block wouldn't be out of order. Bobby Cohn (talk) 17:31, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

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

SpacedFarmer disruptive editing, circumventing AfD topic ban

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

SpacedFarmer is topic banned from deletion discussions which was imposed in August 2024. They broke that ban here in September 2024 and were warned about it yet didn't reply. Over the last few days, they have gone on a notability tag spree. After I removed one of the tags, they attempted to circuvent the AfD process on Man Laws which I warned them about. In response to the warning, they followed me to The Incredible, Edible Egg page and re-added a bunch of tags that I had removed, without giving any reasoning, then also attempted to circumvent AfD by proposing a merger (as they did with Man Laws). Note that I had made changes earlier to clean up those tags. Filing here in hopes of getting a response since they don't seem to want to respond to talk page warnings.— Preceding unsigned comment added by CNMall41 (talk • contribs) 07:36, 18 February 2025(UTC)

SpacedFarmer is topic banned not just from AfD, but more broadly from "deletion and deletion-related processes, broadly construed". They have been violating their topic ban and so I have blocked them for two weeks. Cullen328 (talk) 09:40, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Worrying concerns regarding Noorullah21 & co.

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

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• Noorullah21 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• MrGreen1163 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I'm here due to serious concerns regarding these users. I would apologize to them (specifically Noorullah21) if bringing them to multiple noticeboards was excessive, but there was no bad faith intended. The issue is that these users are heavily engaged in meatpuppetry, if not outright sockpuppetry. I say this because I have observed them coordinating edits, tagging pages together, and engaging in off-wiki canvassing.

I have submitted several screenshots to ArbCom, showing that Noorullah, in his Discord group, appears to be assisting MrGreen1163 by offering them to review their articles, which is clearly an abuse of NPR right. Noorullah's Discord bio states, "Idolatry is bad," which reflects a narrow-minded attitude, particularly toward non-Muslims. While one could argue that this is a personal belief, I am unsure whether such remarks are acceptable in this context. Given Noorullah's role as an editor, one would expect a more responsible and open-minded approach.

Noorullah and co are deeply involved in meatpuppetry. I previously filed an SPI on them and some other members of their group (see: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Noorullah21) by providing ample evidence of both on-wiki and off-wiki coordination. However, I found it odd that Bbb23 closed the SPI without waiting for a checkuser to perform a check. See this discussion. I'm not trying to bad-mouth them, but I have noticed that they often block editors even with less evidence presented [224]. Maybe they did it because the off-wiki evidence wasn't provided to them. Note that I'm only reporting these two users and not the other co in SPI, because I'm unsure if other discord users are exactly them or not but in the case of Noorullah and MrGreen It's easily verified because their Wikipedia username matches with their discord account and the tagging evidence of screenshots further proves that.

Given these concerns, I believe ANI is the appropriate venue to raise this issue. I have already submitted all relevant evidence regarding their meatpuppetry to ArbCom, specifically to CaptainEek and Daniel Case. Moreover, Noorullah's editing behavior on Wikipedia is no good either. He has been warned at least three times [225][226][227] for edit warring in the past month, and his POV-pushing at Third Anglo-Afghan War is also concerning [228]. Indo-Greek 13:40, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Indo-Greek, you must leave a notice on an editor's talkpage when bringing them up here. On CU, it will not provide evidence of meatpuppetry over discord, so it would not help to evaluate your claims. CMD (talk) 14:06, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I just did that a minute before you made this reply. I agree with you that technical data might not evaluate meatpuppetry, but still I have seen on many occasions that CU usually overlooked the size of evidence, and do the check anyways. Indo-Greek 14:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Just to head off the inevitable question, yes, we have received an email from HerakliosJulianus regarding this issue. Primefac (talk) 17:40, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Hey there. I'm not sure why I'm in a discussion about sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry considering I rarely ever make any substantial edits to Wikipedia these days, only making a few minor edits in articles that I read. As I just viewed, I wasn't even a part of the previous SPI that you filed against Noorullah. I previously knew Noorullah from a history community in Roblox and its related Discord server, where we discussed a range of geopolitical and historical matters relating to South Asia and Central Asia. I was in his Discord server, which is where I assume you are referencing these screenshots of our discussions, but I left his server months ago by this point. Once again, I barely ever make substantial edits to Wikipedia these days because I quite frankly don't have the time. I haven't talked to Noorullah in months either, and this incident led me to directly message him on Discord since October. In fact, I don't recall any instance where I've backed Noorullah's case regarding a Wikipedia dispute, but rather we have had conflicting edits ourselves. For instance, Noorullah reverted an edit of mine regarding the Soviet–Afghan War page. [229] This encounter is the only instance that I recall of us even engaging each other on Wikipedia; forgive me if I am mistaken, I simply do not remember. Noorullah and I do not even edit the same articles for the most part, as I largely focus on articles relating to Pakistan and its modern history, while he focuses on articles relating to Afghans. All in all, I'm semi-retired from Wikipedia editing after a short tenure, and I'd prefer to be kept out of this dispute. Thanks. MrGreen1163 (talk) 18:47, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I think this dragging across noticeboards is way excessive, from filing a failed SPI to this? Moving on .... I told MrGreen I'd help review his articles in the sense of how to improve them, not that I'd biasedly approve them with my page patroller. Have I otherwise shown that I've ever reviewed their pages? Please point it out if I've done so. I've helped multiple users (over discord) on how to improve their editing while improving mine, See cases here: (With User:Bulgarr: [230] [231] [232] [233] [234] [235] - --- Is there a place I can submit counter evidence in the form of screenshots from discord that can further corroborate this? Let me know, thanks. Regarding "Moreover, Noorullah's editing behavior on Wikipedia is no good either. He has been warned at least three times... past month, and his POV-pushing at Third Anglo-Afghan War is also concerning... The diff you mentioned toward POV-Pushing shows me responding back with a source? Is POV-PUSHING using a source? --- "I previously filed an SPI on them and some other members of their group" - Dude, I'm not affiliated with anybody or directly help them with WP:CANVASSING. "closed the SPI without waiting for a checkuser to perform a check." - I already said I was open to a Checkuser checking me out, I'm not affiliated with anybody and would rather like to dismiss your now borderline Personal attacks because few disagreed with you in past discussions. Noorullah (talk) 17:58, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• I find this complaint misleading, even though I am having multiple disputes with Noorullah21. It does not make any sense to claim that MrGreen1163 and Noorullah21 are sockpuppets/meatpuppets. If anything, Noorullah21 has reverted MrGreen1163.[236] The nature of private evidence involved here which ANI is completely incapable of dealing with. This thread should be closed but before this we should analyse the behaviour of the OP HerakliosJulianus. I had a look into the edits of the HerakliosJulianus, and I find their creations, such as Ahluwalia–Ramgarhia War, Battle of Jammu (1774), and more to be concerning. - Ratnahastin (talk) 03:11, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  No this thread should definitely not be closed. If you don't know anything about their off-wiki canvassing then why come to any preemptive conclusion? If you think my articles are having issues then please do AfD. This is nothing but an Ad hominem case. Indo-Greek 16:27, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

As an uninvolved editor, this is extremely bizarre- most of this appears to be off-wiki stuff- I do find bringing up their Discord Bio and framing that as "a narrow-minded attitude, particularly toward non-Muslims." to be inappropriate though and the actions of HerakliosJulianus feel questionable at best. This thread should really be closed, not sure what we can do here. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 04:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I do find bringing up their Discord Bio and framing that as "a narrow-minded attitude, particularly toward non-Muslims."
Agreed tbh. People love to troll on Discord anyways 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 04:28, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Wow, I don’t know what to say. Thanks for your support guys. Really felt discouraged by these rampant attacks (on me). @Abo Yemen @Chipmunkdavis @Ratnahastin Noorullah (talk) 05:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

"actions of HerakliosJulianus feel questionable at best" huh. So I'm being attacked/Boomeranged just a day after the thread started? Exactly what do you find in my behaviour as "questionable". Also I'd like you to remember that no one is immune to boomerang, yes that includes every involved user here. It's rather vague that you don't find their bigotry at least concerning. And the thread is not going to close anyway. Only ArbCom or ANI clerk can direct here what should be done (specifically ArbCom as they have all those screenshots). Heraklios 16:36, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

"It's rather vague that you don't find their bigotry at least concerning."

With the evidence I can see, the only claim of bigotry is an alleged Discord Bio stating "Idolatry is bad" and that this is "a narrow-minded attitude, particularly toward non-Muslims.". That's an extreme stretch, and there is no provided evidence that this is influencing their on-wiki behavior.

"the chances of getting them caught on a technical CU check is miniscule"

Why was a CU even requested then? You could've opened the SPI without requesting CU, but the outcome would've been the same regardless.

"If you don't know anything about their off-wiki canvassing then why come to any preemptive conclusion?"

Then why are we here? We don't and can't know anything about the off-wiki stuff, only ArbCom can do anything about it as the SPI failed.

It's clear that WP:AGF is also not being followed here and that's why I brought up your behavior. This is not the place for this kind of dispute. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 18:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

No that's not a "extreme strech" and you know that very well, please don't downplay it like that. "Why was a CU even requested then?": because an account in that group namely Southasianhistorian8 had a past of sockpuppetery. Considering that and further evidence provided, CU request was justified. I see that you have re-looked at the SPI, that's good. Now you know what, go down there [237] and you'll find that I'm not alone in this, another verteran user Simonm223, rightly pointed out that:

Just a note this diff would tend to indicate two things:

1. it is likely Noorullah and Southasianhistorian8 are different people.

2. it is likely they are coordinating off-wiki.

So I'd kindly request you again. Please don't WP:BLUDGEON unnecessary, if you're unaware of the issue or rather don't have those screenshots. "Then why are we here? We don't and can't know anything about the off-wiki stuff" Why shouldn't we? I can pass on many instances where off-wiki issue is being brought here. I'm definitely assuming good faith from the beginning, I even begged for pardon from Noorullah if this is excessive, but it's necessary. Instead I'm being boomeranged unnecessary whether for my good if not best articles or filing of my SPI & ANI, now this I don't feel is WP:AGF. Heraklios 19:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, you were alone. It was closed by an Administrator for lack of evidence, and the individual didn't respond back after I responded to them. (Which you can see in the same diff you linked). Noorullah (talk) 20:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

As the person who you are quoting I'll note that it's generally wise to drop the issue when an SPI goes a way you didn't expect. CUs have tools we don't and the admins who adjudicate SPI see it more than we do. I tend to trust their judgment even when it contradicts my instincts. Simonm223 (talk) 20:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd have literally dropped this issue if I hadn't gotten more of their discord group screenshot, and in a day, I'd be sharing more. On ANI at least I'd quote the exact texts of their chats. Heraklios 20:30, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

"discord group screenshot" - Now you're really intriguing me about the "evidence", because the only time I've interacted with MrGreen about Wikipedia was on one server, none of which I ever said I'd canvass for him (especially since it was a Public server, lmao). It'd be nice if I could see this evidence to shut it down because I can chatlog back to it..?

By interacted I just mean talked with about Wikipedia. Noorullah (talk) 22:26, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

How does that make me alone here? Only a CU can verify if you are telling us the truth here [238]. Heraklios 20:27, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

So wait, you think I wasn't emailed on Wikipedia by him? Would gladly love for a Checkuser to see this and check the email I sent to immediately shut down this point. @Primefac

Otherwise, can I post the actual email here? (It's fairly long and accuses @HerakliosJulianus of being a sockpuppet.

"How does that make me alone here?" - Well the guy who formerly agreed with you said you should move on because the SPI was turned down. Noorullah (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

And lastly... where is there a shred of evidence of me and @MrGreen1163 having ever worked together? As pointed out by other users, we've actually only gotten on disagreements on Wikipedia. Noorullah (talk) 22:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• What happens off-wiki, especially on Discord, is not an "urgent incident or chronic, intractable behavioral problem" requiring an ANI thread. If there's an honest belief of meatpuppetry or other organized "brigading" (for want of a better term), either WP:SPI or Arbcomm would seem to be more appropriate venues. As an aside, the OP's signature makes me raise an eyebrow, as it has no visible conenction to their username. While it's true that there is no policy against that, it's still not a very good practice. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:12, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  And there was a raised SPI (as linked by OP), which got dismissed for lack of evidence without even the need for a checkuser, even though I adamantly said I was fine with one. (Which I still am). Noorullah (talk) 09:20, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  I have changed my signature and made it similar to my username even if there's no policy against it. I guess that'll do for now (hope I don't get anymore unnecessary boomerangs). Heraklios 16:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Userspace violations

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

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• Bearcat (talk · contribs)

I'm quite concerned about Bearcat's behaviour: they intentionally removed content from other contributors' userpages, also edit-warring users who contested their removals, eg. Ned Scott. I randomly found them edit-warring on my userpage (check the history at User:Est. 2021/Userpage), then I noticed the wider pattern. Besides any user's right to retain deleted categories on their userpages, they should not (ab)use their admin rights to disrupt others editors' userspace, even edit-warring about their POV. – Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 14:59, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Est. 2021, are you seriously bringing a longtime contributor (22+ years) to ANI over Category:Wikipedians that poop? How is edit-warring "(ab)use their admin rights"? Did you seek to discuss this difference of opinion before posting here? Is this ANIworthy? And diffs would have been helpful here rather than links to pages. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:57, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  (Ad-lib comment) does being an admin make them immune to rules? Does the time they spent on here also make them immune to rules? Bearcat is edit warring over a category. •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:15, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

The first and most important rule that was applicable here is that pages aren't allowed to be left sitting in redlinked categories. If an admin cleans up a redlinked category and then somebody else reverts the redlinked category back onto the page, in defiance of REDNO, then the person who reverted the category back onto the page is the one who gets dinged for editwarring, not the admin who was simply doing a necessary cleanup task. Bearcat (talk) 17:09, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Yikes imagine edit warning over an user space article •Cyberwolf•talk? 15:39, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

As usual, cyberwolf, your ad-lib comments are not helpful. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:57, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Ok ill shut the fuck up •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Speaking of userpages, how does Cyberwolf get away with the WP:POLEMIC WP:BLP violations on theirs?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Great now we are derailing the conversation I can’t wait for an an/i to hit me like a truck •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:16, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Happy now? •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:32, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

sorry for introjecting out of nowhere, but maybe it would help if you were less...defensive, if that's the word? it definitely doesn't help your case at all. ogusokumushi^{( ୧ ‧₊˚ 🎐 ⋅ )} 17:03, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

If it helps, I brought up said removal at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2025 February 18 after a quick discussion on the deleting Wikipedian's talk page, since it looks like the category being re-deleted is what triggered Bearcat's removal from the user pages. Booyahhayoob (talk) 16:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Pages are not allowed to be left sitting in redlinked categories that don't exist to have pages filed in them. That's not "my POV", it's a hard rule explicitly spelled out at both WP:CATREDLINK and WP:REDNO.

Users do not have a special right to retain redlinked categories on their userpage, in defiance of REDNO, just because the userpage belongs to them — redlinked categories on userpages still get detected by the redlinked category cleanup report, just the same as any other redlinked categories, which means they're still a problem that has to be fixed regardless of whether they're in mainspace or userspace. The thing is, the redlinked category cleanup report has a size limit beyond which it is full, and cannot detect more redlinked categories over and above its size limit. And if you say "but this is just one category, surely that can't break the size limit if we make a special exception for it", well, the thing is that if we make a special exception for this redlinked category then we also have to make a special exception for the next redlinked category that people want to add to their userpages as well, and the next one after that and the next one after that until the size limit has been breached.

There's simply nothing about "Wikipedians who poop" that should earn it special treatment that wouldn't also have to be given "Wikipedians who eat cheese", "Wikipedians with ten toes", "Wikipedians who do that voodoo that you do so well", or anything else in a virtually infinite list of categories that Wikipedians could possibly want to add to their userpages even though they don't exist either — because if we extend redlinked user categories an exemption to REDNO, then the redlinked user categories will eventually crowd out the report and make it impossible to clean up any other redlinked categories that aren't exempted from REDNO.

That's not just a theoretical problem, either: a decade ago we did have a rule that redlinked user categories were exempted from REDNO, and the redlinked categories actually did cause the report to bloat up past its size limit and stop detecting redlinked mainspace categories. It literally took months of cleanup to get the report below its size limit so that it was actually reporting all redlinked categories rather than just an "only up to its size limit" sample.

So a consensus was established, a full decade ago now, that redlinked user categories aren't allowed to be left on user pages, and are not sacrosanct just because the user who put them there invokes "ownership" rights over their user profile. This isn't "my POV", REDNO is a hard rule that user categories do still have to follow just the same as mainspace categories do, precisely because if redlinked user categories are allowed to proliferate then they break our ability to clean up redlinked mainspace categories. Bearcat (talk) 16:27, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

This category contains userpage categories which have been deleted by a consensus decision at WP:CFD or the former WP:UCFD.
Some editors have reinstated the category entries on their userpages. In doing so, they have created a redlink that, per WP:REDNOT, shows up in error lists such as Special:WantedCategories. These lists are used to identify errors in categorization. It is also limited in size and shows only a subset of the currently red-linked categories, so a red-linked category on a userpage displaces categories that other editors are trying to fix.
Therefore, these formerly redlinked categories have been re-created as hard redirects, and thus, no longer redlinks. This way, they still appear on userpages (respecting those editors' wishes), but are not navigable categories (respecting the consensus of the deletion discussions).
From the catagory pages
So i would recommend not deleting but doing a redirect •Cyberwolf•talk? 16:30, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

From the edit history, it looks like this category was a redirect to that placeholder page, but then got deleted (by a different editor, not by me) a couple of days ago and then being restored today pursuant to Booyahhayoob's request that they mentioned above. So if anybody deserves a trout here, it's the editor who deleted it in the first place, not me. Bearcat (talk) 16:43, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's the admin who deleted this category or the editor who tagged them for speedy deletion (CSD G4). They are both experienced editors and my own view is that these incidents with User categories (red linked or not) happen every few years and we go through this discussion again somewhere, generally at CFD. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:50, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• This is an issue that seems to be enforced somewhat arbitrarily. If we have a hard rule about not allowing deleted categories on userpages, first empty out e.g. Category:Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user page and then decide if standard practice should be to redirect in-use userpage categories as with the, um, poop? one. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:06, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd prefer for that one to go away too, but there's long been a consensus that it is the one and only uniquely permissible exception to the rule about redlinked categories, specifically on the basis that it's a meta-joke whose entire purpose is inherently defeated if it's redirected to the "deleted categories" placeholder and thus turns blue instead of red. What it does to facilitate collaboration the way user categories are required to, I don't know — but the consensus has long been that it's the only allowable redlink, and I've never felt all that inclined to take on the heavy lifting involved in trying to overturn that consensus. If you're willing to take that on, by all means go for it, but I'm not willing to be the leader of that charge. Bearcat (talk) 17:15, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

That's sort of my point: we tell newbies they have to follow the rule, but those experienced enough to get the meta joke thumbing its nose at the rule can do so. I could imagine anyone who had someone come to their user page and edit war away their own joke category would probably be annoyed by a sanctioned category that does exactly the same thing. And yes, the number of people who would come out to say "don't take away my joke category" would far outnumber anyone who would come out to defend e.g. the poop category. Putting that aside, why isn't standard procedure just [remove a category] → [user doesn't restore it | user restores it and category gets redirected]? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, I mean, we don't disagree on the fundamentals here. In addition to the issue you note where users sometimes think the permissibility of that redlinked joke category authorizes the creation of other redlinked joke categories, I've also come across instances of people thinking that WP:ENGVAR authorized them to create differently-spelled variants of that category, such as ones which pulled the hyphen out of "red-linked", instead of using the same redlink as everybody else.
I absolutely don't get why that category is important, necessary or valuable enough to warrant its own special exemption — and since we would never ordinarily categorize user talk pages at all in any other circumstance, I see even less of a legitimate reason for its talk pages sibling to exist at all — but precisely because consensus has permitted them, trying to overturn that now is a bigger fight than I'm personally willing to take on. But like I said, you'd have my support if you were willing to take it on, but it's not the hill I'm willing to die on. Bearcat (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I have no affiliation with anyone dude. Why do you have to throw me under the bus I don’t like being accused of such things •Cyberwolf•talk? 17:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I do not understand this as a response to what I wrote. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:48, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

[239] •Cyberwolf•. talk? 17:51, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Nothing in there is remotely about you. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:55, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Ay leave my Category:Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user page alone 😡 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 17:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• This discussion is not about editors or admins, it's about red linked categories. And there are two that I know of that are allowable, Category:Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user page and Category:Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user talk page. This is about an obscure and old policy discussion about categories that's happened over the past 20 years, please, folks, stop taking these discussions personally. In fact, unless anyone has anything new to say that is relevant to say about red linked categories, I think this discussion should be closed. If you want to debate further whether or no individual categories should exist, then make a nomination at WP:CFD. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:13, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  I think one matter at hand is whether categories deleted at CFD should be allowed to be recreated as a redirect so that people can add themselves to said category. It goes against what we would normally allow and I'd like to see the category, which has been recreated as a redirect, be G4 deleted. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:26, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't personally object to having it deleted, but that would require the editors who are in the category to not put their user pages back into a redlinked category — which is precisely where this problem started, from an editor revert-warring me about the pages being in a redlinked category. We can't delete it while allowing the pages to stay in the redlink anyway — either it gets deleted and the pages in it come out of it and stay out, or it has to stay in place as a redirect as long as those editors aren't willing to abide by its removal, and just leaving it as a non-empty redlink isn't an option. Bearcat (talk) 20:11, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I personally just don't see a reason not to have all of the categories in Category:Wikipedians who retain deleted categories on their userpages deleted. From there, it's a matter of adherence to policy. We're essentially saying that users are allowed to disregard the outcome/consensus formed at CFD if it's a WP:USERCAT. Then what, anything deleted at CfD can be recreated if it's a redirect and everyone can continue to add themselves to it while ignoring the outcome? This seems pretty ridiculous to me. I see no reason not to process CSD requests if those categories were tagged and, if they are repeatedly recreated, they can/probably should be salted. As for users continuing to add red cats to their user page, that's an issue to be addressed outside of accusations of edit warring.

I just don't get why this hasn't been dealt with. I support that Significa G4 deleted the category that led to this discussion and I'm disappointed it was recreated. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:15, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Agreed, Liz. We have a long-standing compromise that both "sides" are not thrilled with, but can live with. I don't understand the periodic desire, by people on one "side" or the other, to tear up that compromise. Floquenbeam (talk) 19:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

  Is any of this compromise written down anywhere? Or do we just happen upon it by deleting what appears to be an improper category thus waking the leviathan? — rsjaffe 🗣️ 21:40, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

You can't be serious Est. 2021. I find no violation in such routine tasks by Bearcat. Please don't unnecessarily diverge any admin's/dedicated editor's precious time for this meagre issue. – Garuda ^Talk! 20:31, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

FYI to editors following the above thread, I have RFD'd the category page after the page was recreated, tagged for speedy deletion, and had the CSD tag removed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:22, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

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

WP:CIR and incivility by Jan55is

Jan55is (talk · contribs) has been warned several times for WP:CIR editing on List of traffic collisions (2000–present), particularly their insistence on bare URLs and insertion of deprecated sources, and led me to initially believe that it was textbook vandalism, and has instead resorted to hostile edits when being told off. See [240] and [241]. They have also created what appears to be a copyvio duplicate Draft:Sunkosi River of Sunkoshi River. Borgenland (talk) 17:27, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I think it's best that Jan55is be escorted off the project. GoodDay (talk) 17:30, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I also have a suspicion that Camwillis4 (talk · contribs), a newly-created SPA account may be a sock on account of similar bare url editing, though since nothing WP:NOTHERE has been proven yet I concede that an SPI cannot be made for now. Borgenland (talk) 17:34, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Y'know, looking at that talk page, Borgenland, would you care to explain why you were so hostile to Jan55is? The lashing back of his responses notwithstanding, I'd be pretty damn caustic myself if you'd started out by telling me "Please learn to read Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. If you ever insert a crappy reference into an entry in List of traffic collisions (2000–present) again, you can be blocked from editing" or yet you continue to exhibit subpar editing and leave others to clean up your mess as a sign of irresponsibility. NWA works both ways, and you sure weren't covering yourself with glory there. Ravenswing 18:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Borgenland, why was the first warning that this editor received in December an "only" warning threatening a block without explaining what problems there were with their edits? You never even identified which of their edits were "vandalism". You should never start out with the harshest warnings with a new editor.

They have responded poorly, that's for sure, but your message was about the worst possible way of welcoming a new editor to the project and explaining policy that there is. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:55, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Apologies. At the time I first noticed them, the edits were quite poorly-written and sometimes incoherent that it did seem to be vandalism. As for Ravenswing, said comments were made after user in question restored a deprecated source [242] [243] and inserted a personal attack, in addition to this "why don't u just do it yourself and stop complaining", which I found more interesting and hence the irresponsible part because I believe it meant a general unwillingness on their part to improve and their belief that they can continue with their editing knowing that someone will clean it up for them, which is quite frustrating given that every single edit they have made on the page consists of a bare url and sometimes badly-written and unencyclopedic prose [244] [245] [246] [247] [248] [249]. Third warning was made following another deprecated insertion [250], which following the previous warning regarding WP:RS, I believed was yet another sign of WP:IDNHT. I wouldn't mind if I have to correct editors stumbling periodically with competence related issues, but if the user in question has a chronic WP:CIR problem and keeps on editing the same way despite being informed, I believe more serious action has to be carried out Borgenland (talk) 00:53, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

And that serious action does not include insulting them. "But teacher, he STARTED IT!" doesn't constitute a get-out-of-ANI-free clause from NPA, and it's troubling that you don't seem to get that. Ravenswing 02:43, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I understand that I can get hawkish with chronic WP:CIR editors and periodically bite, but with all due respect, I am not trying to wiggle myself out of here. I'd rather find every available way for said user to take things seriously regardless if I get boomeranged. Borgenland (talk) 03:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Borgenland, but this was not a chronic WP:CIR editor situation, you left a "final warning, you're going to get blocked" as your first message to them two days after they started editing. A clear "newbie", and I still don't see what about their edits was "vandalism" and you didn't give them any information at all about a) policies and guidelines on this project or b) what on earth they are doing wrong. Then you continue with hostile messages calling their sources "crap". As far as I can see their only fault was being inexperienced and unfamiliar with Wikipedia rules on sourcing. New editors shouldn't be treated as if they are vandals if they are only making mistakes and are not actually vandalizing anything.

I really hope you were just having a bad day because this approach is a terrific way to get new editors to leave and never come back. And Wikipedia survives by having a constant influx of new editors who we, that's you, me and everyone else, needs to teach how to properly edit on this project. Instead of viewing yourself as a Project Defender, consider becoming a Project Teacher and Mentor. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:56, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

User:Manderston

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

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User:Manderston has previously been temporarily banned for edit-warring, violating 3RR, not leaving edit notices, leaving innaccurate edit notices ("rvv" for non-vandalism), and marking non-minor edits as minor. His ban has since expired and much of the previous behavior has continued, along with numerous unhelpful edits changing "at the age of" to "aged" in the name of conciseness and "removing surplus words", leaving awkward wording in many circumstances that, while technically valid in English, is non-standard and distruptive. ~Darth Stabro^{Talk • Contribs} 19:12, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Manderston has shewn absolutely no interest in communicating with other editors, ignoring all messages on their talk page except the block notice. The unblock request contained what looks to me like a lightly-veiled threat to sock if not unblocked. DuncanHill (talk) 20:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Disruptive is barely the word. They might heave learned something from their indefinite block (not ban, pace Darth Stabro) if it had lasted more than 20 minutes, following an unblock request that not only failed to acknowledge any issues or concerns whatsoever, but stated Blocking my account is pointless and actually utterly ludicrous. Their talk page is a litany of advice (unheeded) or warnings (ignored). DuncanHill advised them regarding 'the age of' thing; Ssilvers warned them about edit warring; Schwede66 advised them regarding minor edits; PhilKnight advised them regarding mis-labelling edits as vandalism; while Sweetpool50 has suggested they are WP:GAMEing the system. Since then they have continued to edit war, and several editors—PhilKnight, Schwede66, myself and Billclinton1996 have requested that the previous block be reinstated. The blocking admin has also warned them that 'blocks could follow' if they maintain their behavior. I propose that this occurs ASAP. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 20:55, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
• Blocked indef. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:08, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
• Pretty good chance that's BKFIP. Proxy blocked, but there's a whole bunch of proxies and VPNs that are available again because all the 5-year range blocks from the late 2010s and early 2020s have finally timed out. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:31, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Ponnar Shankar - User:Minakshi Pillai

• Ponnar Shankar (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Minakshi Pillai (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Ponnar Shankar was initially created about Ponnar and Shankar, a story about two brothers. But now, it has since been completely rewritten and I believe is being used to promote a particular caste by User:Minakshi Pillai. They are already aware of CTOPS and have previously been blocked for personal attacks by User:Rosguill. They are also adding WP:OR to multiple articles that fall under WP:GSCASTE, including Arunattu Vellalar, Kodikaal Vellalar and Maruthanayagam Pillai, some of which have now been ECP'ed. We also have serious CIR issues, as they do not respond to warnings or participate in content dispute discussions, instead repeatedly engaging in edit warring on Ponnar Shankar. Requesting Ponnar Shankar be indefinitely ECP'ed and User:Minakshi Pillai be indefinitely blocked. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 19:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Jeraxmoira, at a glance it looks like the edit warring and lack of talk page engagement is clearly an issue and may be reason enough for sanctions if Minakshi Pillai does not quickly adjust their behavior, but the allegation that they are engaging in non-neutral promotion of a particular caste is not self-evident from what you have linked above. Please either provide clear diffs demonstrating such behavior, or retract that allegation. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Clearly this user has a bias against Vellalar and their intentions are very clear from this, this, this, this, this and the edit summary of this. I should probably reword it as degrading a particular set of castes rather than promoting one. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 20:28, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

(non-admin/non-official user reply) I checked your summary, and it feels like you are absolutely right about this. edit

Rather than adding information relevant with sources that are reliable, they (User) have been editing with discrimination and hatred against a particular community. It can be well found in references that this community has suffered enough under caste discrimination prevalent in the region and their remarks "Kallar thief caste" in the edit summary proves the hatred which the user is not even trying to hide.

Admins should intervene immediately. Manupriy Ahluwalia (talk) 06:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• Not sure about ECP, but I think Minakshi Pillai should be blocked. Capitals00 (talk) 02:38, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  I concur on a block, there's a serious CIR issue here. Responding to warnings with "k" and "ok" does not indicate that they're willing to collaborate in good faith. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 02:50, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  Please I do not want to get involved in all this, and I promise to collaborate with the mods in good faith. I have accepted. Minakshi Pillai (talk) 05:29, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Minakshi Pillai, don't edit articles that fall under Wikipedia:General sanctions/South Asian social groups, i.e, all pages about social groups, explicitly including caste associations and political parties related to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. Jeraxmoira🐉 (talk) 05:36, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

School block apparently needed

216.30.155.0/24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be a primary school. They added "woolly mammoth" four times to the list of animals at the San Diego Zoo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) using .10, .11, and .12. A fifth being a spelling correction. Out of 26 edits since Apr 24, 15 were reverted. In 2025, seven of the eight edits were reverted. Should a school block be placed on the range or should I just keep removing "woolly mammoth"? Thank you Adakiko (talk) 20:30, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

They appear to have stopped. Perhaps they ran out of Woolly Mammoths? Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 23:59, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Ehhh. Since Jan 1, I count 4 Woolly Mammoths, 1 poophead, and a shockingly somewhat useful erudite edit to BBC One. And they seem to be losing interest. Looking back to 2024, a couple of bad edits a month. Range block seems to be overkill. If they persist in perseverating SD Zoo Mammoth edits, perhaps a page block would be ok. But currently, I'd just watch and wait. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 01:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Also, if it does need a block at some point, it's a much smaller range - 216.30.155.8/29. A whole /24 would be overkill for even a large school. Black Kite (talk) 09:20, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

User:Frenkisswen : too many errors

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

This editor is editing prolifically but appears not to be familiar enough with the English language and also introduces factual errors.

This edit is typical: introduces a falsehood (there is no grade III for UK listed buildings), and changes to a singular verb for a plural subject.

Their edit history shows many edits - the large number "Current" reflects that other editors have not yet spent time to comb through them all. I looked at their first 10 from 16th February and found 4 to comment on on their talk page. That's too high an error rate, and it continues.

To protect the encyclopedia, I think this editor needs to be stopped from editing it. They are enthusiastic, and they think they are doing well, but their edits are a nett disbenefit. PamD 09:32, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Further comments by nominator

Apologies for not making the problem clear enough (as pointed out by User:Cullen328 below).

This editor does not appear to understand English well enough to be editing here, so I ask admins to block them from editing (or to take one of the other actions I suggest below: a numeric or subject area limit).

See User talk:Frenkisswen for discussion of the problem by several editors, with examples of problematic edits.

Here they show lack of familiarity with English: they change "Since its founding there have been more than 10,000 members including ..." to "Since its founding there has been more than 10,000 members including ..." and "At one time membership of the "ancient and well known society" was limited to ..." to "At one time membership of the "ancient and well known society" were limited to ...". Just plain wrong. Not just writing something wrongly themselves, but deliberately changing the existing (correct) text to what they incorrectly believe is right, leaving the article ungrammatical.

This edit is particularly worrying: they changed "It was described by Bates in 1865." to "It was described as Bates in 1865." (it's about a beetle) and then, on their talk page after I'd talked about it, said "The last correction you made the topic was referring to 'beetle' which sort of makes sense if it's referred to as 'bates' ..you can say 'bates' wrote about it but then who is the 'bates' I'm sorry but it doesn't make sense to me. They should not be editing articles in subject areas where they don't understand standard English usage.

Yes, some of their edits are useful, some others are harmless, but too many are damaging the encyclopedia - either by making our prose ungrammatical, or by introducing factual errors. PamD 18:12, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

After I commented on their talkpage about problems (after having undone several of their edits), they responded that they did not understand what the problem was. They then made 8 further edits, of which 2 were factually incorrect changes and 3 three more contained one or more clear linguistic mistakes. I suspect non-native English speaker, as their edits appear to be applying strict language rules that are not matched to actual English usage, and focusing only on those without actually reading and understanding the pre- or post-edit content. As Pam says, this error rate is too high. I see no clear substantially beneficial edits, but instead such a high error rate that every one of their edits consumes another editor's time to double-check it. DMacks (talk) 09:49, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I didn't see a specific proposal here, so I didn't !vote, but I'd say CIR-block, or else if someone wants to adopt as a mentor/mentee for close guidance. My comment to them on their user-talk was to find a Wikipedia in their native language. DMacks (talk) 17:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support; PamD's word is sufficient. +1 DMacks. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 09:50, 19 February 2025 (UTC)
• (non-admin comment) I looked at F's 10 latest edits of yesterday, 18 February. I considered one or two slightly fussy (e.g. 1, 2), but found nothing wrong and several were definitely grammatical improvements (e.g 3, 4, 5). Narky Blert (talk) 09:59, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

4, 5 aren't great improvements per summary style, although I grant they're not that bad either. But I do not think their last ten edits are enough to go on. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 10:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

In [5], IDK if "likely demands for large number of destroyers" (before F's edit) is good American English, but it's see-me-after-class-bad British English. Narky Blert (talk) 14:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

That language before Frenkissalt's edit is bad American English as well, except posssibly for Variety magazine's or Walter Winchell's style in the 1930s to 1950s. It's terrible. Frenkissalt's edit was an improvement. Cullen328 (talk) 17:24, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• As an alternative, if anyone opposes a total block, could I suggest one of two possible rulings:

1. Frenkisswen to be restricted, for some specified period of time, to a certain number of edits editing a certain number of articles per day (10, perhaps), so that other editors can check them without taking up too much of their own editing time. (Edited to change from edits to articles PamD 07:50, 20 February 2025 (UTC))
2. Frenkisswen to be invited to nominate a fairly narrow subject area with which they are familiar, and then be restricted to editing within that area, so that they can become familiar with the language used in that area and avoid mistakes such as changing "species" to "species" (so not a biological subject area), or inventing a new grade for UK listed buildings (so nothing to do with the UK). It could be "history of country X" or "books and writers in genre Y" or "Sport Z", something on those lines. They seem at present to be editing random articles, and not realising when they don't understand the language used. PamD 12:38, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Eh. I would agree that a lot of their edits are not necessarily improvements, but few of them are so bad as to require discussion of blocking, imho. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:08, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Based on the diffs presented so far, I see one clearly bad edit, several debatable edits and several that were clearly improvements. And based on that thin evidence, some editors are supporting an indefinite block? Really? Cullen328 (talk) 17:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I just read Frenkisswen's user talk page and I now see that there is a chronic problem. I do not understand why some of the evidence there was not presented here. Cullen328 (talk) 17:42, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

OK, see above where I've added "Further comments by the nominator". Sorry I didn't make the situation clear earlier. PamD 18:27, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

A minor point, PamD, but I don't think I've ever seen the phrase nett disbenefit that you use above. Is that an English expression? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:43, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

'Net disbenefit' is indeed an English expression (though perhaps not a common one). It is the difference between disbenefits and benefits and indicates more harm than good. — Malcolmxl5 (talk) 02:36, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I think perhaps I'm being a bit old-fashioned with my two "t"s, and "net" is more common. @Liz@Malcolmxl5"Disbenefit" - have I just invented that one? Opposite of "benefit", anyway. "More harm than good" is indeed much better wording and conveys my meaning! I think I was trying very hard to be calm and balanced, and to give them credit for doing good edits as well as bad. PamD 07:30, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

This sort of stuff is a tough one, it's clear that they mean well but also that they fundamentally do not understand the problem with their edits. Most (94.1%) of their edits are sub-20 bytes, a huge chunk of which has been reverted, so I feel like they're doing more harm by wasting editor time with proofreading every minor edit than good by fixing minor grammar mistakes. I also highly suspect non-native English speaker. I would support a PBAN from Article Space until they can demonstrate better editing behavior. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 19:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• I've looked through some of these; I'd say they are about a third improvement (often where the original was terrible), a third neutral or neutral to negative (unnecessary or longwinded/overformal), and a third change the sense or are not grammatical. I agree that their English fluency is in question. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:07, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Nonsubstantive micro-edits to attain access to extended-protection articles and disruptive behavior

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

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Ira varia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Hello,

This user, User:Ira varia, is engaging in disruptive editing on the Yom Kippur War article, disregarding an ongoing RfC pertaining to the content he/she is trying to edit and persistently removing sourced content without addressing multiple editors who have attempted to engage in discussion. Upon reviewing this user's contribution history, it becomes evident that their prior activity consists almost entirely of nonsubstantive micro-edits, the classic add space, revert, add space, revert routine, seemingly made with the sole intent of circumventing protection restrictions and gaining access to protected articles, where they are now acting in bad faith. Perhaps someone more qualified can review this pattern of behavior and determine whether administrative action is warranted. Turnopoems (talk) 11:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, definitely a case of WP:PGAME, as seen in the history of Moral sense theory. Recommend revoking that EC status. Isaidnoway (talk) 12:45, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) An example of the useless edits the user in question was spamming. Also, I'm pretty sure this WP:PGAME was really just to modify the article (Yom Kippur War) as they have straight up called some constructive contributions moving the results thing in the infobox to "Aftermath" section vandalism in January. Pretty sure the revocation of the user's EC rights is in order. I'll probably file a report for the apparent 1RR violation later. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 12:46, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• Removed. Is there a standard template for this? I've done it twice this morning. BusterD (talk) 12:50, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  BusterD - Template:Uw-ecgaming is probably what you are looking for. Isaidnoway (talk) 12:58, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks. I'll add it to my tool kit. BusterD (talk) 13:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Clear intention in heading. Thank you, User:Turnopoems. Seems long, but as a sysop I like to know what I'm about to read. BusterD (talk) 13:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Now they're calling us Egyptians over this thread. User called themselves "Someone speaking the truth" as well. Common pattern in WP:NOTHERE accounts... ([251]) ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 13:43, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I've blocked them for a week including talk page privileges (since their talk page contributions violate AE.) BusterD (talk) 14:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

331 utterly trivial and entirely worthless edits in an hour and 35 minutes. Gaming the system at its very worst. Good block. Cullen328 (talk) 16:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Unusual disruptive editing at Kösem Sultan

• Kösem Sultan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A dynamic IP range that starts with 2407:d000:403:1d3c: keeps re-inserting the following nonsensical sentence into Kösem Sultan: [252] I reverted a few times with edit comments asking the dynamic IP to rephrase the sentence into something intelligible. They always just revert back to their preferred version. Normally I'd start a discussion at article talk and tag the non-communicative editor but, being a dynamic IP range, it's kind of hard for me to do that. Simonm223 (talk) 17:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, I tried something a little different. I've notified all three of the IPv6 locations the user has so far. We'll see if they show up here. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 18:33, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

user Qazqsxedc228800

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

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• Qazqsxedc228800 (talk · contribs)

Vandal. When I first encountered this editor, a majority of their edits had already been reverted, and I expected to see a final warning on their talk page. I gave them a final warning for this unexplained deletion of article content made with a misleading edit summary. They continued, making similar deletions with misleading summaries [253][254]. I reported them at AIV, where the entry timed out. I've been reviewing their edits, and found only a few that are neither vandalism or unreferenced changes in pov related to WP:CT/EE. --Hipal (talk) 18:28, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

 Indeffed No communication at all despite multiple warnings and messages. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:21, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Admitted hounding

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

User admits to hounding in their veiled talk page reply, and I would request a block per WP:NOTHERE. They are upset about me nominating a page they created for deletion and also filing this SPI. Right after the SPI was closed, user nominates a page I created for deletion. This page is well outside the topic area that user edits so I asked them about it on their talk page which they stated "first of all, how does it feel to be wronged multiple times?" --CNMall41 (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Okay.  

Stop lying.  

- I never admitted to hounding or anything of the sort. Yes, I looked into your article creations out of curiosity and found an article that I believe is not notable. If that qualifies as 'hounding,' then there shouldn't be a public tool available to check that information. On the other hand, you have been hounding me and reverting my edits ever since I started editing.  

- You nominated a page that I edited, not one that I created.  

- I made the nomination before the SPI closed - look at the timestamps again. I had no way of knowing that the SPI would close almost a month and a half later on the same day.  

When I started editing an upcoming film article, you did everything you could to undermine me, assuming that I was a sock. You accused me in multiple places without any proof, yet the SPI closure ultimately proved you wrong. You were also proven wrong in your actions regarding the article. The editors at 3RR also pointed out that your actions were inappropriate.

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive491#c-ToBeFree-20250109194800-Red-tailed hawk-20250109171200

As a new editor, I am frustrated with this hostile behavior and the constant presence of your name on my talk page. And after all this, you're playing the victim?

I request that the admins seriously review his attitude toward other editors and his tendency to assume that everyone he dislikes or oppose him is a sock. A quick look at his talk page shows how he treats people who question his actions.

User talk:CNMall41/Archive 10#c-CNMall41-20241220185300-Sunuraju-20241220085700 - Civility huh?

I was completely demoralized by this hostility and was waiting for the SPI to close. In the meantime, I made some edits, clearly noting that they were without references, yet you reverted all of them altogether, citing the reason for just one edit. You didn’t even bother to check properly before reverting my edits.[255] That is what real hounding is.

Now that the SPI has been closed against his wishes, he has started a new accusation here. This kind of immature and hostile behavior should not be tolerated in a collaborative project like Wikipedia.

I demand a short ban on this editor to make him reflect on his language and behavior, as well as a permanent ban from my talk page. Shecose (talk) 20:14, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• It is reasonably concerning, at least, when a brand new editor comes to Wikipedia and their first-ever edits are almost entirely restricted to a relatively obscure draft page for a commercial product (which films are), which happens to have been previously deleted as not notable. This is unusual editing behavior, or more precisely is very typical editing behavior in connection with coordinated commercial activity. Whether or not that is the case here, CNMall41 was reasonably justified in his SPI suspicions, and the assertion that you "looked into [his] article creations out of curiosity and found an article that I believe is not notable" does come across like you went looking for something to nominate for deletion out of personal animus. You need to be cognizant of how these things appear in the context of a project where long experience has tended to connect such behaviors to ill motives. BD2412 T 05:45, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  It would have been better if you had dug deeper before making assumptions or accusations. The article was already live when I first edited it, and it was either the same day or the very next day after its teaser was released. I searched for the article after watching the teaser and edited.

  If you consider his behavior normal without even acknowledging how it might have affected me, then I don't have much else to say here. Shecose (talk) 08:07, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Raoul mishima and Kelvintjy - slow edit warring and non-communicativeness

This is an update on the issue raised [256] here previously. I tried to intervene at that time because Buddhism is something I have a lot of knowledge about. However things have not been going well. After the archiving of this thread the two editors continued their slow edit war at Soka School System [257][258][259] I then restored the article to its pre-edit war condition [260] and asked both of them to stop edit warring and come to article talk [261] [262]. I also created an article talk section [263]. However instead of talking to each other, each of these editors turned to argue to me about how the other one is the disruptive editor. They also continued editing without any prior discussion [264] - appears a reasonable inclusion but still no communication on it [265] - is a clear resumption of the edit war. I don't know how to get through to these two that they are both being highly disruptive by engaging in this slow-edit war, by engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality toward each other and by refusing to actually talk directly to each other about even basic edits. Honestly, at this point, I'd suggest that both should be topic banned from Japanese New Religious Movements. Simonm223 (talk) 18:47, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

If you look at the Talk Page of Soka School System, you will notice I tried to talk with @Kelvintjy many times, but he never answered. I'm not into edit warring, just trying to make this page more informative and less prommotionnal, and I'd like to do it with this user if he's ready for collaborating. I noticed this user has already been banned from at least one page last summer because of the same thing, reverting edits without using the talk page. Raoul mishima (talk) 18:53, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I asked you to stop the mass reversions and discuss at article talk and you just reverted to your preferred version anyway. Also you have made statements previously that indicate you may have multiple accounts. Could you please confirm whether this is your only Wikipedia account? Simonm223 (talk) 18:55, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I think Raoul meant Wikipedia:Single-purpose account, whose shortcut is "WP:SPA" (while socks are socks). Aaron Liu (talk) 19:19, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

It was that the way they put it seemed to intimate they were maintaining this account for a specific purpose which necessarily raises the question: do they maintain other accounts for similar purposes? I'm not the only one who has asked this question of Raoul mishima but they have never provided an answer when asked. Simonm223 (talk) 19:22, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

That's usually not what SPA implies, but I would also appreciate an answer. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

This is my only account today. And once again : I'm willing to collaborate with @Kelvintjy and any user. I reverted the Soka School System once again because the last revert by the other user was made without any discussion. @Aaron Liu do you know Kelvintjy or have you collaborated with him on WP pages ? Raoul mishima (talk) 20:17, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

No. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:23, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Okay, just asking because on the Soka School System talk page today, he tagged you and other users "Daveler166, Daveler16,Augmented Seventh, Tacktician, Aaron Liu, QuotidianAl Kelvintjy (talk) 09:49, 19 February 2025 (UTC)". Raoul mishima (talk) 20:31, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

That seems to be a list of people who have opposed your edits. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

It also seems they all belong to the Soka Gakkai... Btw is it your case ? Raoul mishima (talk) 22:08, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

That's another aspersion casted baselessly. Please stop assuming that all those who agree with you have a COI. And I've already answered long ago that I'm not. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:14, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Raoul mishima, it is inappropriate to ask editors about their religious affiliations so please do not make assumptions or do that again. And This is my only account today is ambiguous (what about accounts yesterday?), please list your previous accounts on your User page. Also, edit-warring is edit-warring, it doesn't matter what your reasons for doing it are unless you are removing vandalism or BLP violations which is not the case here. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Hey @Liz, Soka Gakkai is not a religion. It is an worldwide, powerful and wealthy organization, that created Japan's third political party. Being a member of this organization and editing pages related to it seems like a COI to me. Raoul mishima (talk) 07:34, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Support: I found this whole fiasco after the recent deaths nomination of Daisaku Ikeda (and thus the splitting of the badly-sourced Honors section into List of awards and honours received by Daisaku Ikeda), and part of me wishes I didn't. Now, I take a look at that article, and it's now a great mess: among other frivolous changes such as removed the "International Honors" paragraph since there is an entire page dedicated to it., we have but has also been described as a cult by medias ("Soka Gakkai has many of the markings of a cult"[3]) and politicians (the French parliamentary commission in 1995) put at the end of the first lede paragraph. A few editors also objected to such language on the talk page when they were added in late November. Despite that, Raoul continued to revert to their preferred version multiple times, even ironically mentioning talk section tx once. And when Raoul finally responded, it was January 7, and Raoul had effectively waited out the other editors' interest in editing. Trying to find consensus with Raoul means dealing with their constant deflections, as you can see in the discussion Talk:Daisaku Ikeda#Philosopher ?. Raoul clearly has an axe to grind, and their contributions would take a considerable time to comb through. But what we can do is stop them from any more edits in their area of disruption.

I also support a topic ban on Kelvin since it's clear he also has issues—both from the non-responses and interactions reported here and from the ANI thread in which he was partially blocked, including the COI concerns. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:43, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I also support a ban on Raoul mishima from pages related to Japanese new religious movements, because they appear to be a biased Wikipedia editor with an axe to grind against Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai, and anything related to them. It is important and necessary to provide an objective account of an influential historical figure like Daisaku Ikeda, but this is impossible if an editor is so biased against them. Nuanced and balanced Wikipedia pages are the need of the hour (something I have pointed to in the talk pages too), and I support anything that helps bring that about. QuotidianAl (talk) 21:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Well @QuotidianAl I totally agree, but before my edits on the pages you mention, do you really think the content provided an objective account ? This is the Daisaku Ikeda page a year ago, do you really find it objective ? Same with the Soka Gakkai page a year ago, it just looks like an advertisment. Another question : do you think people belonging to the Soka Gakkai have no biased view and can provide a 100% objective content about it on WP ? Raoul mishima (talk) 22:25, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

In fact, days before you made any edits to this article, the article passed quality standards to be featured on the main page under the Recent deaths row, whose only substantial criteria is quality. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:14, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I find more complaints in the talk page archives; see e.g. Talk:Daisaku Ikeda/Archive 4#Irresponsible Editing Without Prior Discussion. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:14, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Please look at Soka Gakkai International where Raoul mishima had removed a big chuck on information. He is trying bait me to go to edit war. If he is not stop, all article related to Soka Gakkai and Daisaku Ikeda will be edited purely by him and those who don't agree with him and are weak in providing a proper reasoning with him will get banned by Wikipedia moderator who will agree with him. This is what happened to me when I get topic banned in Soka Gakkai while the other editor is left the hook after he made the appeal as he know how to argue. Below are some the article he had made recent to mass edit according to his version Kelvintjy (talk) 01:00, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• Kelvintjy, what do you mean by those who don't agree with him and are weak in providing a proper reasoning with him will get banned by Wikipedia moderator who will agree with him. Do you have so little faith in our administrators (that's admins, not mods) that you think they will just side with an editor and impose bans on innocent editors for no good reason at all? That's a bad faith sentiment in our admin corps. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:56, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  What I meant is that editors like us who are not very good in giving a good reason in the talk page.

  I was banned by Bbb23 from Soka Gakkai as I cannot explain properly. When I appeal against the ban, it was rejected by 331dot.

  Below are some of the past incidents involved me.

  • [1]
  • [2]
  • [3]
  • [4]
  • [5]

  Kelvintjy (talk) 06:22, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  I can explain if you wish, or you can just have a look at the talk page of your own account.

  You were banned from that page because you were engaged in an edit war, against my edits and then again another users'. You kept reverting without any discussion. And the administrator noticed that you had been adding to many pages to the Soka Gakkai, primary sources, and irrelevant links. He concluded : "Kelvintjy does not generally discuss content but prefers to simply revert edits or manually roll things back without explanation. It should be noted that Kelvintjy is an SGI member." Raoul mishima (talk) 07:27, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Can you named the administrator whom you quote said about me? Kelvintjy (talk) 08:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I have not removed information but promotional content, it's way different. You have been using your WP account to add promotional/propaganda content to a lot of pages related or not to Soka Gakkai.

The Soka Gakkai page itself, which you have heavily modified last summer. It was built by multiple editors which you rolled back on the 13th of August.

"He is trying bait me to go to edit war" : not at all, and it looks like you need me to go on edit war : last August you were banned from a page for that reason, remember ?

According to your list,

Humanistic buddhism -> -539

Lèse-majesté : -133

Min-On : -958

It's not "mass edit" or you have a problem with proportions. Raoul mishima (talk) 01:43, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• Humanistic Buddhism
• Lèse-majesté in Japan
• Min-On Concert Association
• Taiseki-ji
• Political dissidence in the Empire of Japan
• Mass media in Japan
• Soka School System
• Soka Gakkai International
• Religion in Singapore

Disruptive editing from IP

Hi! I'm currently having an edit dispute with an IP user at the 2024–25 Asian Le Mans Series page. In summary: they are of the believe that Czech driver Dan Skocdople raced during the Abu Dhabi round, while in fact, Australian driver Griffin Peebles did. I've made a concise list with proof at the talk page, but to no avail. I'll add a short timeline of edits below:

• Edit 1: IP changes the page, showing that Skocdople raced instead of Peebles.
• Edit 2: I reverted IP's changes, stating that Peebles is shown on the timing sheets.
• Edit 3: IP then reverts my edit, once again stating that Skocdople raced.
• Edit 4: I state that I have made a list of proofs at the talk page, and revert IP's edit.
• Edit 5: IP reverts my edit AGAIN, seemingly without checking the talk page, reusing the same argument as before: 'Stated by DailySportsCar'. This is in reference to this article, which does state that Dan Skočdopole replaces Griffin Peebles, as that was shown on the entry list at that moment. However, the entry list was later updated.
• Edit 6: I then once again revert, slightly annoyed because IP does not seem to change their mind on the matter.
• Edit 7: This is the current revision as I'm typing this, where IP once again reverted, stating that 'Dailysportscar has reported it'.

I know it's a 1-on-1 edit dispute, but I hope something can be done against this as it is infuriating that my edits keep getting reverted, even though I've provided multiple proofs.

I will leave the page as is for now to ensure the edit war won't escalate. I don't know what the proper action is in this case; is something like an IP editor ban (even if temporarily) possible? I feel like the list of proof I've given in the article's talk page is more than enough to show that IP is reverting on false claims. If any additional info is required, please let me know. Thanks. SportscarFan2004 (talk) 21:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@SportscarFan2004: (1) You got reverted after you started a discussion on the article's talk page and (2) if those anonymous editors are all the same person, a block won't make a difference since they can just hop to another IP. Those two factors this mean that article is very ripe for semiprotection, which locks new and anonymous editors out from changing it. The place to request that is the requests for page protection noticeboard although it's not a problem at all that you came here. Anonymous editors who game the rules against edit warring by switching IPs are pretty common so the next time you encounter one, Edit 5 is where you should step away from the article and state your case at RFPP. City of Silver 23:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Perfect. Thanks for the answer! SportscarFan2004 (talk) 23:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Violating one way interaction ban

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

---

זור987 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User:זור987 violated the one way interaction ban with me, when they wrote it.

זור987 hounded and harassed me, canvassing the En WP with the He WP issues.

זור987 wrote upon me: "tracking, stalking and harassing users in the Hebrew Wikipedia, as well as here and other languages Wikipedias and in the real life, as well as using sock puppets for the same activity". They did not show any sock who did "the same activity", nor showed any "stalking and harassing users in the Hebrew Wikipedia, as well as here and other languages Wikipedias". I have not written in the He WP mainspace since October 2021.

Please delete the text which they wrote, and consider their blocking from their talk page. I rely upon the warning which 331dot wrote to them on January 22, 2025, and upon the blocking by Yamla on November 26, 2024 due to violating the one way interaction ban. Thank you, _Dgw|Talk 22:34, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

This editor has been indefinitely blocked since January 13th but STILL found a way to violate their existing IBAN with you so talk page access has been removed. I'm sorry for the persistent harrassment from this editor on other Wikipedia projects but at least it should be over here. Their persistent targeting of you is unacceptable. If they decide to sock, please report them at WP:SPI or to your local admin. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:18, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

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

Mthss.krtz

• Mthss.krtz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Persistent disruptive behavior and a refusal to cooperate from this user who repeatedly adds circular and/or poorly sourced material to religion-related articles ([266][267][268]). 🌙Eclipse (she/they/all neos • talk • edits) 23:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Mthss.krtz has a number of warnings on their talk page but has never responded to any messages. I just tagged the article they created today as possibly AI-generated. Schazjmd (talk) 23:35, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I'll just note that this editor has made a total of 20 edits, more than 50% of them just today. I'm not sure if "persistent" can refer to just a few hours of activity. I usually think of persistent as behavior sustained over months or years. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:07, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

PapaRoachLover1994 and Slovakian IPs involved in date-changing disruption

• PapaRoachLover1994 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• 195.91.5.168 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 195.91.8.209 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 78.99.172.143 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 95.102.103.29 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 95.102.237.213 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 178.23.88.192 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

PapaRoachLover1994 has been changing music release dates to their own wrong version based on incomprehension of how the music industry works. For instance, PapaRoachLover1994 has conflated release date with the first date a music release appears in a national sales chart, which is a different date. In this effort, PapaRoachLover1994 has been violating WP:MULTIPLE by using a bunch of IPs from Slovakia to do the same thing, edit-warring to push their preferred version.

The connection between the IPs and the username is established in several ways. First, Slovakian IP 195.91.8.209 responded on the talk page of Slovakian IP User talk:78.99.172.143, challenging a warning delivered by FlightTime. At the Chapter V (Staind album) page, the registered user made some date changes[269] which were reverted by me, and soon afterward were restored by Slovakian IP.[270] This pattern also played out at Lift a Sail,[271][272] Congregation of the Damned,[273][274] Lovehatetragedy,[275][276] and more.

Note that the IPs were doing the same thing before the username PapaRoachLover1994 was registered on 2 February. 78.99.172.143 was active on 9 January. I suspect that this activity has been going on for months, after seeing date changes like these from earlier Slovakian IPs. Binksternet (talk) 03:58, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I blocked the IPs for a month (they have no other edits) and partially blocked PapaRoachLover1994 so they are unable to edit articles for a month. I left a message inviting them to respond here. Johnuniq (talk) 05:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Long term disruptive SPA

Love.potion1021 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a long term disruptive SPA who is dedicated to add promotional content to Twinkle Khanna, and is always waging a never ending edit war. Dympies (talk) 05:34, 20 February 2025 (UTC)