User:IgnatiusofLondon/Occasional tasks

Hello! I, IgnatiusofLondon, created this page to explain irregular or strange editing patterns that may require longer explanations than are convenient to read in edit summaries or article comments.

February 2024: San Marino edits edit

Motivation: These edits are intended to improve and standardise Wikipedia's coverage of the administrative units of the Republic of San Marino, namely its castelli (first-level administrative units) and curazie (second-level administrative units).

Before this task, most of the curazie articles were unreferenced stubs. Most of these curazie do not enjoy significant coverage, and what there is to say about them can often be adequately summarised in the article of their parent castello. Nevertheless, per WP:POPULATED: Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low (emphasis in original). Because curazie do have legal recognition, these articles cannot be deleted ex-post, and are instead likely to remain WP:PERMASTUB, often no more than a sentence recognising that they are a curazia that is part of a castello.

Task description: This task started on 9 February 2024, and includes the following steps (usually applied to each curazia entry in two steps):

  1. standardising the preference for curazie and castello over frazione and comune or municipality;
  2. providing short descriptions for all curazie entries;
  3. providing British English, dmy dates, unreferenced (if applicable) and More citations needed (if applicable) tags for all curazie entries that presently lack them;
  4. removing the See also sections in curazie entries that presently link to other neighbouring curazie, somewhat unhelpfully for readers (why would a reader having read the stub of a curazia in one castello want to read the stub of another curazia in the same castello, rather than just go to the entry for castello already in the article?);
  5. adding references to each curazia entry, at the very least a reference for the castello to which each curazia belongs, in a very cheeky drive-by for WP:FEB24.

Disputing editors: This is a WP:BOLD change across related articles. I do not think that these edits are controversial, but I will be happy to seek consensus if my edits are disputed (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject San Marino may be a good venue). I will report any disputes here as and when they arise.

  • On 10 February 2024, AusLondonder left a message on my talk page (search the archives for the section entitled Use British English on San Marino articles) raising concerns about my introduction of British English tags.

February 2024: List of districts in London boroughs edits edit

Motivation: On 8 February 2024, I initiated a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London (search the page or archives for the section entitled Concerns about district list articles on London boroughs). I explained to editors that every London borough had a "List of districts in X" article, many of which were displaying signs of original research or attempts to list areas that do not pass the relevant geography notability guideline. In the ensuing discussion, editors suggested that an appropriate redirect would be List of areas of London.

Task description: This task started on 13 February 2024, and simply involves redirecting each list of districts article to List of areas of London through a WP:BLAR, enacting the consensus that emerged in the talk page discussion noted above. If the entry has an existing redirect to a section in the borough, that redirect was maintained. The list of areas by borough at Template:Areas of London was consequently removed.

Disputing editors: This task follows an established consensus, and any disputing editors are kindly welcomed to contribute to the talk page discussion noted above.

February 2024: Livioandronico2013 edit

Motivation: Livioandronico2013 is a sockmaster active across Wikipedias of different languages. Livio originates from Wikimedia Commons, which maintains an active checkuser form for his sockpuppets. During his active time at the Commons, Livio uploaded over 3,000 of his photographs, which range from standard- to high-quality. In December 2017, Livio was blocked indefinitely from the Commons for incivility towards other editors. In October 2018, it emerged that Livio had used sockpuppets in over 300 nominations for featured picture. In April 2023, a global-ban request closed as no consensus.

In the English-language Wikipedia, Livio is more commonly known as Σπάρτακος, and was blocked on 3 October 2018. They have been the subject of several sockpuppet investigations analogous to Livio's at the Commons.

Every few weeks, Livio creates a new sockpuppet to edit across different-language Wikipedias. At the time of writing, over 30 sockpuppets have been identified. The sockpuppet typically exhibits similar behaviour (see the links in the "Pages affected" navbox): replacing photographs on Italian articles across different-language Wikipedias, and showing fairly advanced technical familiarity with Wikipedia (for example, setting up archiving systems). After a few days, each sockpuppet is discovered and blocked. Among Livio's haunts are articles relating to San Marino; in recent weeks at the time of writing, two or three socks have replaced images on these articles.

Task description: Having noticed an image replacement on one of Livio's haunts by a likely sock, I go through the editor's contributions history to revert their other image replacements. It should be stressed that only some of these image replacements are an improvement on the former image in the article.

Disputing editors: This task follows an established consensus (WP:BANREVERT). Any disputing editors are kindly welcomed to further discussion on my talk page.