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Trivial question

Hey, Tony. I've seen this before, but never really understood the utility of it. Saw it again today with a block you issued (pertinent log), so this is my question: what is the benefit in linking something, like for example here, as: w:en:Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SammySmith8765 versus just Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SammySmith8765? Thanks! Best wishes, El_C 22:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

It allows people using m:Special:CentralAuth to click through to the SPI from meta CentralAuth, which is the most commonly used one for stewards and other users involved in cross-wiki work. Otherwise it’ll take you to a page that doesn’t exist when clicked through from meta. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:56, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Ah, meta stuff, I see. Don't understand a lick of it, but glad there are those who do! Thanks again. El_C 03:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) El C, m:Help:Interwiki linking may help (if the syntax was part of what you were wondering about). Enterprisey (talk!) 03:56, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Nah, I know about that. But on an unrelated-related note, I did attempt to read the Wikidata article recently. Did not understand a lick of it. May as well had been written in Swahili. Read ויקינתונים, too. Nothing (though I did learn that, as of 2018, there are 26 tools in which to query it with, whatever that means). El_C 04:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

IBAN question

Hello, I have a general question regarding WP:IBAN. Does it apply to just enwiki or all language Wikipedias? — CuriousGolden (T·C) 10:28, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Sanctions on en.wiki only apply to en.wiki. We don’t have any authority over other projects. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:56, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Got it. Thanks. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 17:06, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Page revision deletion request

Hi TonyBallioni,

I hope this message finds you well. I would like to request a RevDel for the Wikipedia page about the school in which I teach. The revision was meant to be some sort of joke about a Teacher and his son who went to the school, but it suggests child abuse and is really horrible. We have edited the page to remove the edit but it would be great to get the history removed as well.

Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_College,_Dublin

Revison for which removal is requested: curprev 19:15, 28 January 2021‎ 109.255.78.178 talk‎ 9,440 bytes +240‎ Fixed typo

If you can help in this regard - many many thanks

JohnNisbet2021 (talk) 22:01, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@JohnNisbet2021: In case Tony is away for a bit, I've removed the offending edit from the article history entirely and have added the article to my watchlist.-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 22:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Jezebel's Ponyobons mots You are very good, many thanks!

JohnNisbet2021 (talk) 22:45, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2021).

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hi, Tony! Did you get my email? Any thoughts? -- MelanieN (talk) 17:23, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

MelanieN, sorry, been busy with work. Catching up on my WP email now. I'll try to get you a response today. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Well, and that problem may have solved itself/gone away in the meantime, so don't spend a lot of time on it. Thanks. -- MelanieN (talk) 20:00, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

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Regards, --Armatura (talk) 16:51, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Question

Hello. This noticeboard incident, which you made a brief comment on and, unless I overlooked someone, seem to be the only admin who commented at all, was closed without a resolution, and the incident in question was hardly discussed. What is the best way to proceed? --Steverci (talk) 03:42, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

If you believe there are actually issues that need to be addressed and that they were unresolved, I would recommend WP:AE. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:55, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
Would this edit count toward the "500 words and 20 diffs" the request cannot exceed? I wasn't sure if that applies toward just the diff/explanation part or not. If this does count toward the 500, can I have permission to add it because I believe it's important for context? --Steverci (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

SPI Case Way too Fast?

The SPI case for Empire AS appeared as if a gunshot to the head: open and shut seemingly instantly. What was the timeline for the investigation? Was Empire AS even given a chance to respond? How can I comment on the case if I'm not the subject of investigation?

Thank you for your consideration,
Tyrone Madera (talk) 22:59, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I conducted the investigation and made the decision to block. The case was filed for the record so people would know the reason for the block. I could have just blocked without filing an SPI, but I decided to do so in part because there are probably going to be more socks, so giving people a place to report is useful, and in part so that people could see the the accounts involved more easily. The filing of the SPI was not the beginning of the investigation but the end of it. The CheckUser evidence was quite clear and there wasn’t a need for any additional behavioural evaluation beyond what I did when I blocked. This is relatively normal at SPI. I see RoySmith has archived it. If you want to see if he will unarchive it so you can comment on the SPI before it’s archived again (I don’t have a strong opinion either way as to if it should be unarchived for comments, but I’m not lifting the block, just so you know.)
Empire AS is also free to appeal the block, and if they want to explain themselves there, another CU will examine the evidence. I don’t think many admins are going to be sympathetic to someone creating a sock to comment on the physical attractiveness of a female editor. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:46, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
If filing was the end of the investigation, then when was the beginning? Couldn't it just be someone else in a dorm with a shared IP address though? Or a family member? Or any other number of other things? What constituted additional behavioral evaluation being unneeded in this case? Was the potential for dissimilarity in writing styles between accounts looked into?

Thanks for your response,
Tyrone Madera (talk) 00:26, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
The beginning was when someone noticed an account sexually harassing GorillaWarfare, which is what commenting on the attractiveness of a woman on the internet with an account you name after them is. The account had a username similar to hers, which is oftentimes a sign of being a long-term abuser. This provided justification for the check under the CheckUser policy. CheckUsers have discretion to run checks and conduct investigations without an SPI being filed. I determined upon checking that the account was the same as Empire AS, and there was as conclusive proof of this. I then blocked, as the conduct was completely out of bounds.
I consider all possibilities before blocking. I’ve made mistakes, everyone does, but this isn’t one of them. The person who commented on GorillaWarfare’s looks on her talk page is the same person as Empire AS. I have detailed data down to the minute backing that up. When a CU has already done the entire investigation, an SPI isn’t needed as the determination has already been made to block. That’s the reason it was closed instantly.
If you want a second opinion on the relationship of Gorilla Warfs (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) to Empire AS, I see Ponyo is around. Maybe she’ll have time to look at it as well if you want a second CU (edit: urgh that was yesterday, sorry for the ping, Ponyo. Any other CU can look and see the same data, though) TonyBallioni (talk) 00:28, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
TonyBallioni, I understand what sexual harassment is. I do not appreciate your belittlement of my intelligence by you spelling it out for me. I'm sorry if I came across as rude, uncaring, or generally unpleasant during our conversation. I have no intention of upsetting anyone, and did not mean any fopaux I may have committed when writing to you. I trust your reports, and I certainly believe everything that you say. You do not need to state all that you have authority to do; you do not need to state all that you had the power to do differently. You already stated that an SPI wasn't needed; You already stated why the SPI was closed instantly. Shoving this all down my throat has been entirely unnecessary and comes across as arrogant, although I understand your intentions. Thank you for answering my questions.

Respectfully,
Tyrone Madera (talk) 01:13, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
When someone comes at you with a list of questions about a basic procedure, under a heading claiming you’ve made a mistake, in my experience on Wikipedia it’s best to spell out in detail every step of the decision making process and the policy basis for such. If I had already answered your questions to your satisfaction, I’m struggling to see why there was a need for follow-ups. Since you did ask a follow-up, though, I intended to reply in such a way that would explain the full process. If you think I’ve acted inappropriately in my replies to you, you’re welcome to open a thread at WP:AN asking the community if I’ve acted in accords with the standards of conduct for an administrator in this case. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:24, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate your justifications and your efforts to guide me in the case that I would want to file any sort of appeal, comment, or complaint. When I looked to you for explanations, I was hoping for a detailed and graceful reasoning that did not appear condescending in tone. Empire was very nice to me when I first started editing in earnest on Wikipedia so I wanted to know if there had been some kind of mistake. Your first response was great, but your second response made me feel like I was being treated as an inferior, not as a newcomer, which made me feel very upset. In my life experience it's more helpful to communicate how the other person's message made you feel and why rather than just reporting them for conduct every time. The reality is that you did not answer all of my questions to my satisfaction. That is why I asked a second set of questions, which you indeed answered. Like I said, I understand your good intent and I am very grateful that you took the time to read and respond to this. I wish you good fortune in your future endeavors.

Best,
Tyrone Madera (talk) 03:24, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Just as a general heads up, people in general tend to assume you’re accusing them of something when you have a long list of questions under an accusatory subject header. The typical response to that, both in real life and on Wikipedia, is to be formulaic and respond in detail with both the factual and policy/principles justification for actions. It’s possible that my off-wiki line of work has me more used to writing in this style than others are, so I don’t necessarily see at as harsh, just as effective communication for something that is subject to review by others. Anyway, I wish you the best and hope I’ve answered any additional concerns you may have. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:36, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Was there more to it?

Hey TB, was there more to what Gorilla Warfs said than what I'm seeing here? I'm trying to figure out why Empire is digging in so hard on something that is fairly stupid i.e. making fun of Peter Sellers. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:03, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

No clue what they’re up to, but the evidence is rock solid. I’ll email you more details. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:10, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

User:Extrapolaris

Has User:Extrapolaris ever actually been banned? I'm asking because even though they are a prolific contributor, they appear to have some major competence issues. I've just nominated several AFC drafts for speedies that they moved to mainspace, including some that were were declined for not meeting general notability guidelines. Apparently ,they were using AFC until they became autoconfirmed, and then just moved everything to mainspace whether it was ready or not. This isn't the sort of behavior we need from an editor, even if they actually do what's necessary to have their original account unblocked. Thanks. BilCat (talk) 23:48, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

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LTA

I'll be sending you an e-mail shortly regarding an LTA that has appeared again that I would like your thoughts on. Feel free to reply here. Thanks a million! -- Dolotta (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Request for oversight: The WP:NOTHERE redirect

Hi Tony. I just reverted a vandal edit on the redirect linked above and the IP seems to have added a personal phone number in their edit summary. Is there a way this can be suppressed? Thanks! Jalen Folf (talk) 18:22, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

JalenFolf, I've suppressed this edit but please email the oversight team in the future for such requests as to not draw extra attention to suppressible material. Maxim(talk) 18:43, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Primarily for opening WP:DESYSOP2021. 🙂 ~ ToBeFree (talk) 00:17, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Ooops

I neglected to thank you for crafting and proposing the desysop process in my support statement. Apologies. I hope you realize you're in for a hard slog. All I have to do is keep up with the updates....lol. See ya 'round. Tiderolls 14:04, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

CLCStudent

Is there an SPI for this? Kind of surprising; I know CLCStudent has been in hot water over some overeagerness in AIV, but was surprised to see a CU block. OhNoitsJamie Talk 22:13, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

The suspected sockmaster would be Haunted331 (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki). There was also additionally long-term disruptive logged out editing that would have merited a CU block on its own. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
Any objections to including a link to the edit history of "Richard Spencer" on CLC's talk page? It would help other editors understand that this isn't just about some fooling around from 2015/2016. I'm trying to be sensitive of "outing" IP addresses, but once CLC mentioned the Spencer article, it was pretty easy to figure out. OhNoitsJamie Talk 15:12, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't want to out anybody either, but a year or two ago there was some weird IP trolling/harassment on User talk:Thor Dockweiler and User talk:Zackmann08. I can't conclusively prove this was CLCStudent but I'm almost certain it was. I hope that if/when an appeal is made, the fact that this was long-term and not a one-time impulsive thing gets take into account. Sro23 (talk) 21:47, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

temporary desysop

Hey, Tony! I was loathe to bring this up at the RfC as discussion there is big enough. I had been thinking over the past week or so that maybe a temporary desysop, similar to a temporary block or tban, might be worth looking at. I'm not (easily) finding it at perennial proposals, which makes me wonder if it's so obviously stupid an idea that no one else would consider it, but...is it? The reason I ask is that desysop is huge. Bigger than RfA, IMO, and few want to see it happen even in cases where there's really concerning behavior, as there's almost always really good work, too. And RfA2 is often a nonstarter, so the community often can't recover from a desysopping. But if it's just for, say, three months...maybe that actually does get someone's attention? —valereee (talk) 19:13, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I would support something like this. Frankly, I think the ability to suspend the admin bit for, say, three days would provide a tremendous lesson to an admin who crosses a line. BD2412 T 19:17, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
ArbCom used to hand out admin suspensions like that with some regularity. The only examples I found on a quick search were InShaneee and Lance6wins, but I also found a few examples of temporary suspension as proposed remedy, so clearly it was at least accepted as a consideration. Not sure precisely why they stopped though. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:40, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
@Premeditated Chaos, oh, very interesting. Huh. There must have been some reason that went out of style... —valereee (talk) 20:54, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
Probably because if the temp suspension didn't fix the behavior, permanently de-sysopping someone would take a whole second ArbCom case, thereby doubling the stress of all involved parties. That alone as a drawback completely outweighs the positive of a suspension as a "lighter sentence", at least as an ArbCom remedy. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:01, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
I woud argue that temporary desysops are a little beyond the thin line of the Super Mario Problem, at least for my taste. I would argue that, by allowing temporary desysops a thing, we are doing so as a punishment--if it wasn't a punishment, then that would mean that we as a community don't trust a person enough to be an admin, but only for a predefined amount of time, which seems absurd--we either trust someone to be an admin or we don't, and I wouldn't expect that opinion to change automatically in three months. So it's a punishment, but then that implies that being an admin is a privilege, since no longer being an admin is considered a punishment, and that's not the party line. I feel that we as a community pay a lot of lip service to WP:NOBIGDEAL, probably more than we actually believe in it, but this would feel to me like an official sign that we now consider adminship to be a reward that can be revoked to punish bad behavior.
Now, should that stop us? I don't know; we're not talking about blocks, so we don't actually have to also pay lip service to WP:NOTPUNITIVE, and philosophical arguments don't really have to sink . But I think that we should consider what the way we treat suggestions like temporary desysopping says about how we actually think about adminship, and maybe it's not just desysop policy that needs to change. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:18, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't disagree that the line between preventive and punitive can be blurry, but one of the things a block does is get someone's attention. Maybe a temp desysop is the same? It says, "Hey, no, we're really serious here. We mean it. Clean up your act." Because frankly a "reminder" and even "warning" says to me: We know you're a really valuable contributor, but when you do X, we have to be seen doing something." A two-week block isn't actually to prevent someone from "editing disruptively" or whatever for those two weeks. It's to get their attention so they won't do it again at all because they don't want a month-long block next time. If we thought they actually couldn't or wouldn't comply, period, we'd just indeff them. —valereee (talk) 22:09, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
I believe any admin should be able to have a conversation with any other admin and come to sort of understanding, resolving a dispute. Most of the complaints about admins, from my experience, aren't actually about their use of the tools, but communication about them. For example, if you reply to "Hey, you deleted my article on Joe Blow yesterday for unambiguous advertising and promotion I lost all my work he's a cool youtuber pls send me the page" with "Sure, no problem, I've emailed the text to you, but please don't put it back in the encyclopedia as it might just get deleted again, if you need any further questions let me know yada yada" - most people are reasonable about that. I can't think of a case where I've restored or emailed a deleted article to somebody and had further complaint from it. RHaworth ended up getting desysopped because he didn't do this and just said "No, the policy says I'm right. Go away." (or something approximating that) which just leads to bad feeling. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:26, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Butting in to say, I don't think this is a good idea. Either the person is trusted with the tools, or they aren't. If there is some question about their tool use, the way to "warn" them is to launch a discussion at AN about their behavior. If they don't get the message from that, the only recourses are further ANs ("we really mean it this time!") or desysop. I don’t see any role for "hey, we're desysopping you, but just temporarily to get your attention." -- MelanieN (talk) 22:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed; this is essentially saying "We trust you, but not until Tuesday" which makes no sense. The one circumstance in which I could imagine it being valid is if there's a particular real-world date that will cause the underlying issue to change—I could imagine banning someone from using admin tools until a particular election had passed, say—but if someone's being so disruptive that we need to be talking about pulling the admin bit temporarily, they're almost certainly being so disruptive that we need to be talking about blocking them temporarily. If you just want to get somebody's attention, I find that "any more of this shit and I'm indefblocking you and you can argue your side from an {{unblock}} template" does the trick just fine, provided the person knows you'll be willing to follow through on the threat. ‑ Iridescent 15:28, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Another thing concerning CLCStudent

Would it be appropriate to put a template stating that CLCStudent is blocked on the English Wikipedia on his userpage, even if no (suspected) sockmaster or (suspected) sockpuppets are listed? Granted the seriousness of the situation and how the aforementioned user is fairly well known (300k+ edits), putting a template above all the userboxes wouldn't hurt. KevTYD (wake up) 00:08, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I've gone ahead and done this. If anyone reverts, we can talk about it further. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:44, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
@Ritchie333: I don't know why you'r taking advice re. a CU block from a 500-edit account; in my experience, if a CU wanted to place a tag, they would have done so themselves. I can't speak for TB, but many admins consider tags to be unnecessary scarlet letters. And no, the obvious retort—"it makes it easier for other admins to see"—does not cut any ice, as any admin that considers an unblock without checking the log first would be on a fast track to arbcom. ——Serial 14:18, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
I think it depends on the editor. Certainly User:Eric Corbett has such a banner at the top of his userpage (except Eric also has the remainder of his old user page below), and I understand that arose from consensus after a dispute about it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:36, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

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→StaniStani 07:30, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Green for hope

Lenten Rose

Today, we have a DYK about Wilhelm Knabe, who stood up for future with the striking school children when he was in his 90s, - a model, - see here. - Thank you for your position in the arb case request, - I feel I have to stay away, but there are conversations further down on the page, in case of interest, - in a nutshell: "... will not improve kindness, nor any article". - Yesterday, I made sure on a hike that the flowers are actually blooming ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:22, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Email

Hey, I sent you an email. It's super-super-low-priority. Don't feel compelled to log in to read it or to respond when you do. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Arbitration Case Opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 13, 2021, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, SQLQuery me! 04:53, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Talk page access revocation

Hey there, mind considering a talk page access revocation for this? I already warned him about this. He's since archived that discussion. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:03, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2021).

Administrator changes

added TJMSmith
removed Boing! said Zebedee • Hiberniantears • Lear's Fool • Only • WGFinley

Interface administrator changes

added AmandaNP

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • When blocking an IPv6 address with Twinkle, there is now a checkbox with the option to just block the /64 range. When doing so, you can still leave a block template on the initial, single IP address' talkpage.
  • When protecting a page with Twinkle, you can now add a note if doing so was in response to a request at WP:RfPP, and even link to the specific revision.
  • There have been a number of reported issues with Pending Changes. Most problems setting protection appear to have been resolved (phab:T273317) but other issues with autoaccepting edits persist (phab:T275322).

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:15, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

March 2021

Stop icon
You have been blocked indefinitely from editing because your account is being used only for vandalism.
If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text below the block notice on your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.  — Ched (talk) 02:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
I knew it! GeneralNotability (talk) 02:56, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
The chickens have come home to roost. Drmies (talk) 02:57, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm really really sorry Tony. I saw the vandalism and just wanted to make sure each account was a one-off by checking contribs. I screwed up and clicked on the block on the wrong tab. Hope you'll forgive me. — Ched (talk) 03:05, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Aye, that'll be fifty lashes on the mast for ye matey. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:39, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Please feel free to respond on the RfC on whether to say in the UPE template that the payer isn't necessarily the subject of the article

The idea is add the words, "The payer for the editing is not necessarily the subject of the article." to what is already there in the template.

Before:

After:

The idea came about from the sockpuppet investigation discussed at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/VentureKit/Archive in which over 87 articles got the undisclosed paid editing template, and I'm writing to you because you removed that template from the article on WhatsApp on 00:17, 25 December 2020, and so would have some familiarity with the events.

My view is that this is just one additional sentence and provides helpful information to readers about what the situation is (based on how editors are using that template, say for example in sockpuppet investigations).

CUPIDICAE💕 has said that it's silly and unnecessary, and may elaborate further on that.

As of this writing nobody else has responded.

Please feel free to offer any thoughts on it at the RfC.

Also, if you aren't inclined to respond there, just feel free to offer any thoughts at all here on this talk page.

Jjjjjjjjjj (talk) 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

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Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:27, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Compromised account?

Could you look at Special:Contributions/Samuel Phineas Upham? Account a) lit up after a decade-long hiatus and b) appears to have switched from an American to Indian English user and c) is suddenly involved in spam-prone topics like web hosting providers ☆ Bri (talk) 04:20, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  • That is strange, considering the source uses "edema" and not "oedema". That makes the other random ENGVAR change away from Commonwealth English all the more bizarre. ~Swarm~ {sting} 00:58, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Check this out [2], hardly looks like the writing of an American hedge fund manager, with errors like "many unnecessary quotation and details" and "to do such large edit". Also I don’t think it is outing to note that someone notable in the real world has this exact name and was a Harvard undergraduate. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:17, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

An IP keeps vandalizing my talk page

Can you please block him. Thanks. Scorpions13256 (talk) 02:37, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

 Done: blocked the /64 range. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you so much. Scorpions13256 (talk) 02:43, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

2600:8801:1299:8400:c5a7:7fe9:e014:7307

Tony, it looks like I was trying to block at the same time you were and edit conflicted. Is that the reason no block notice wound up on their talk page, or was that intentional on your part? Hog Farm Talk 02:45, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Hog Farm, I blocked the range, and the range doesn't really have a talk page. The block message gives instructions for appealing a block, so when I block ranges I typically don't give a notice as they'll likely be on a new IP in a few minutes. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:49, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2021).

Administrator changes

removed Alexandria • Happyme22 • RexxS

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, F7 (invalid fair-use claim) subcriterion a has been deprecated; it covered immediate deletion of non-free media with invalid fair-use tags.
  • Following a request for comment, page movers were granted the delete-redirect userright, which allows moving a page over a single-revision redirect, regardless of that redirect's target.

Technical news

  • When you move a page that many editors have on their watchlist the history can be split and it might also not be possible to move it again for a while. This is because of a job queue problem. (T278350)
  • Code to support some very old web browsers is being removed. This could cause issues in those browsers. (T277803)

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:20, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Possible sockpuppet?

Hello, Tony,

I was looking at sockpuppets of our young sockpuppeteer User:Zaid Zayd and found that several worked on a draft started by User:Muhammad Bin Suleman. Could this editor be another sockpuppet? It could be a case of meat puppetry though. I know you did a checkuser sweep but I thought I'd check. Liz Read! Talk! 18:06, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi

Hello. Empire AS has requested that their user page be deleted on my talk page at meta:User talk:Dreamy Jazz#Last request, and then re-created with the tag currently present on their user page. As you made the initial block and placed the tag, I'll defer to you on whether to grant this request. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 21:32, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Empire AS has requested again to have their userpage deleted and then the tag added again. I'm still letting you decide on this, and if you could say either way that would be great. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 19:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Dreamy Jazz, sorry, just saw this (editing less in the week these days.) No. I don't think we should delete their userpage. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:19, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Page mover request

Hi Tony, I just noticed your verdict for page mover rights and would like some further clarification if possible please. To be honest, I was quite surprised.

You mentioned that I did not have experience with moves, though to date I have a total of 669 moves since my inception (2014) due to various technical reasons.

Yet from 01:05, 12 November 2007 - 00:09, 10 February 2017 Tom Morris granted you the Page Mover permission with only 117 moves. Am I missing something here?

You mentioned that I do not have a need. Please see WikiProject Haiti pre-2014 before I had resurrected it from its dormant state; it was an absolute mess. Today, it is arguably one of the strongest in the region. The only reason why I have avoided such technical requests in the past was due to an overwhelming amount of organization that needed to be done within that project which was already time-consuming, so instead, I avoided it like the plague (and got around it when I could) when in fact there are many technical requests to make. I meet with members and they ask, can you do such and such and often times I must defer them for these common requests.

In terms of bundling [common] rights, is that against policy somewhere to do? Managing a WikiProject does take some permissions that I should have requested long before I went on my Wikibreak.

You mentioned, "acquiring them for the sake of it", which I take quite a bit of offense to. Between July 2016 - October 2017 you were granted a total of 5 common rights. Should I have waited 3 months in between for each new request? Seems a bit silly don't you think? My thought process was simply to not put off to tomorrow what I could have done today. My contributions should not be ignored. I have been a member for 7 years and even during the time I have taken off I still average roughly 5250 contributions per year.

Tony, I am not trying to make this a pissing match but just know that before you became an admin, you were once one of us too and so I would appreciate it tremendously if you could reconsider my request and bestow upon me similar grace please. Thank you. Savvyjack23 (talk) 02:22, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue my circumstances from 4 years ago. That was a lifetime ago in wikiyears and I don't remember them specifically enough to have that discussions.
You specifically requested page mover citing WP:RM/TR. You last had a technical request in 2017. You've also been more or less inactive since then, including this year. A few days ago you requested a significant number of user rights just having returned to the project again without really much of a recent editing history. Most admins are going to either say no or actively ignore it because they don't want to get a talk page message like this.
That being said, I'll go ahead and ping @Primefac and Anarchyte: both of whom are active at PERM/PM. If either of them disagree with me, they can grant it and I won't care. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Just noting that I've seen this. I'll be able to have a look at this over the coming day or so. Anarchyte (talk • work) 09:54, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
After looking at the request, I would agree with Tony's assessment. One RM/TR request, no obvious RM experience, and of all the page moves performed over the years nearly every one of them left a reasonable redirect. I do not think that Tony (or I) are questioning your abilities, and I personally never question the motivations of an editor asking for permissions, but I think I can speak for both of us in that you do not appear to have the need for the page mover permission at this point in time (and if it was not obvious, I would have declined your request as well). I would be interested to hear Anarchyte's take on the matter, should it different significantly from our thoughts here. Primefac (talk) 11:50, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
——Serial 18:09, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
I appreciate the courtesy in your further clarification and broadening the discussion a bit for my sake Tony; I know you do not even have to respond to these after a verdict is reached. Hi Primefac, thanks for weighing in. In terms of no experience with RM/TR, do you mean these Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests#Requests to revert undiscussed moves? I didn't know there was an experience in this. I just added a request. These requests are not at all difficult to make, just extremely tedious and time-wasting for what I need to do. Imagine I had to request 1% of 6000 articles for Wikipedia:WikiProject Haiti, that would be 60 separate requests. If you notice, 669 of my common moves ([3]) (not RM/TM), were majorly uncontroversial and were to maintain commonality among titles. So by not having to request moves that require suppressing redirects and then waiting on each RM/TM are a stumbling block for me. Savvyjack23 (talk) 19:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
When it comes to requests for page mover rights, I'm usually more lenient than Primefac (I haven't seen enough reviews from TB for a valid comparison). I don't really care for experience at WP:RM/TR because as you said, it's not very hard to make a valid request. Instead, I look at general RM participation because that's where the meat and potatoes of the PM role is. RM demonstrates that the requester understands when a page should be moved and what to do when a round-robin move needs to be made, which remains one of the only times a redirect should be suppressed. However, in this case I must agree with TB and Prime. I'm not seeing any demonstrated need for the permission in this case. I have no doubt that you understand the geographic naming conventions (indeed, likely better than myself), but without showing us that your contributions would benefit from the ability to suppress redirects and mass-move subpages, I believe a rejection at this point in time was the correct outcome. If you think we've got this wrong, come back in about a month's time with some technical requests and a dozen or so closures of RM discussions and I'm sure you'll be successful. Regards, Anarchyte (talk • work) 06:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Understood and fair enough Anarchyte; thanks for weighing in as well. Perhaps I will take you up on that in the not-so-distant future. I appreciate all of your time concerning this matter. Cheers. (cc Primefac Savvyjack23 (talk) 03:03, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Mail

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(Possibly) stale page restrictions

Hi, I was recently doing a review of all the page restrictions I've placed or taken ownership of over the years, and I noticed that a majority of the pages were no longer battlegrounds and didn't require restrictions anymore. I was looking backwards a couple of months on the article history and talk page looking for major diputes, and for the most part things were pretty quiet. I've removed the BRD restrictions from about 70% of the articles that I had put them on, and the 1RR restrictions from probably 90% of pages.

I figured while I was at it I might as well try to track down the other pages with active sanctions and see if the admins who placed them might also be interested in doing a similar review. The following list might not be complete, but it's the best I could come up with by tracking usages of the American Politics AE template. (Perhaps you can compare it to whatever system you have for tracking your active sanctions.)

I'm hoping that removing some of these restrictions can help restore some sense of normalcy to the topic area. In any case I hope this list is helpful. ~Awilley (talk) 00:31, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

1st two are worth keeping given their individual controversial status. 3rd one I'm meh on and don't really remember why I placed it. Probably an edit war or something. My general view is that sanctions working is an argument for keeping them not removing them (Wikipedia seems to be the only place on the planet that views success as a reason to end something), but since he's no longer in cabinet and was controversial amongst policy wonks more than anything else, I could go either way on him, so neutral. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:17, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
I just took a look, and in all 3 articles there hasn't been significant talk page activity since 2018. In each case there are only two very short talk page sections from 2019 and 2020. Looking at the article histories for the last 50 edits I don't see any significant disputes. Just an occasional bold edit and revert. Articles 2 and 3 aren't even semi-protected.
I can think of some real-world examples. When it stops raining, you put away the umbrella. When the rioting stops, you send the police home and end the 8PM curfews. When the pandemic ends you stop locking down the country (hopefully). When an incarcerated person behaves, you release them on parole. When the rogue nation dismantles their nuclear program you end the sanctions. For what it's worth, I'm not convinced the page-level sanctions even had anything to do with the decrease in disruption, or that they addressed the root cause of the disruption in the first place. It's like saying the scarecrow is working because since we put it up we haven't seen a plague of locusts. ~Awilley (talk) 14:54, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
I think a better analogy is saying there've been less serious accidents after guardrails have been installed on a roadway. The success of the guardrails isn't a reason to remove them. I don't see a good reason to remove these guardrails when they aren't really hurting anything and could be of potential use in the future. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:56, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
The sanctions are more like speed bumps than guardrails. Guardrails don't get in your way, and you only run into them if you're going somewhere you shouldn't. Speed bumps slow everybody down, and they're really annoying, especially when they're overused. Take off your admin hat for a second and put yourself in the shoes of an editor who is just trying to improve or maintain articles. You are now subject to the following sanctions: you may only make one revert per 24 hour period, and you may not revert anything that has ever been reverted in the past without first obtaining consensus. Violation of these sanctions may result in your account being blocked.[FBDB] Do restrictions like that make your job easier or harder? A lot of good editors choose to simply stay away from articles under sanctions. Instead of trying to deal with mental load of editing under restrictions and engaging in endless circular arguments with invested POV pushers who are gaming those restrictions, people simply walk away. Every sanction has downsides and unintended consequences, and I think we should always be weighing those against the benefits. ~Awilley (talk) 21:40, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
I don't see any downsides to these page level sanctions. Like I said, something working (wide use of page level sanctions in AP2) is not a reason to remove them. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:07, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Race and Intelligence RfC

Sorry to bother you bringing this up again. You wrote "There is consensus that the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory above." Could I ask which sources you used to determine this? I think more detail is needed. Frog Tamer (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi Tony, just a heads-up: for context you might want to see this SPA's recent comments at Talk:Race and intelligence. Generalrelative (talk) 15:38, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

A new RfC on Race and intelligence has been opened at RSN

Apologies for posting here again if you're already aware of this (or don't care), but I've just been made aware of this new RfC on Race and intelligence at RSN started by Ferahgo the Assassin. Apparently she didn't deem it necessary to inform stakeholders or the community in any way so I'm informing you for her. Best, Generalrelative (talk) 00:53, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page

An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 22:58, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

LTA

Hello, can you please delete Draft:Ali Mahmoud Al-Suleiman, this is LTA see Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of علي أبو عمر. Thanks on advance --Alaa :)..! 06:48, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Deleted by User:Explicit --Alaa :)..! 15:00, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Hi علاء, sorry for the delayed response. I was out of town for a few weeks and didn't have access to my laptop with my 2FA codes. Glad to see it has been handled. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Threat?

Hi, long time no see! Sorry to bother you out of the blue like this but would you mind looking into Natemup's recent edits to the article Yasuke and its talk page? He's directly or implicitly accused me and one or two other seemingly good-faith editors of "vandalism" (and apparently also logging out to edit-war) in multiple edit summaries[4] and talk comments, but this most recent one seems particularly problematic, especially the final Choose your next step wisely. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:05, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigation

Ehat is a Sockpuppet, what do i do if it edited my page, and how do i undo what was done? R2D2fan (talk) 08:23, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi R2D2fan, I'm not really sure what user/page you talked about. If they're a sockpuppet and have been behaving abusively and have already been blocked, you're more than free to revert them. If they haven't been blocked yet, my recommendation is to file a WP:SPI. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:46, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Biografer is the Sockpuppet it days they have been banned indefinitely. R2D2fan (talk) 03:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2021

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2021).

Administrator changes

removed Enchanter • Carlossuarez46

Interface administrator changes

removed Ragesoss

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • The user group oversight will be renamed to suppress. This is for technical reasons. You can comment at T112147 if you have objections.

Arbitration

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:52, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if you want to act on this, but...

User:Stormergeddon hasn't edited since 2014, but their username combined with the fact that their "favorite painting" is by a rather infamous failed artist makes for less of a dog whistle than a dog foghorn. The subtle-by-Nazi-standards reference to Grammar Naziism and (significantly less subtly) a certain slogan in German doesn't help much, either.

IMO, it's probably safe to ignore at this point (I mean, 2018-2019 seemed to be peak Nazi season and they didn't crawl back out of the woodwork then). I've blanked their userpage for obvious reason, but it's up to you to decide whether to block them prophylactically. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

DS 2021 Review Update

Dear TonyBallioni,

Thank you for participating in the recent discretionary sanctions community consultation. We are truly appreciative of the range of feedback we received and the high quality discussion which occurred during the process. We have now posted a summary of the feedback we've received and also a preview of some of what we expect to happen next. We hope that the second phase, a presentation of draft recommendations, will proceed on time in June or early July. You will be notified when this phase begins, unless you choose to to opt-out of future mailings by removing your name here.
--Barkeep49 & KevinL (aka L235) 21:05, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
For being “an all seeing eye” tirelessly monitoring the entirety of the collaborative project. Thanks for all your works Tony. Celestina007 (talk) 18:29, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
Heh, not so constant of late, but it is nice to be appreciated. Thanks for the kinds words, Celestina007 :) TonyBallioni (talk) 18:49, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
Good to see you around again! SQLQuery me! 22:23, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
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