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Bizarre quasi-administrative behavior by IP user

An IP user has been doing some bizarre stuff over the last couple of days. I see that the user reverted this change you made on its own IP talk page, and thought you might be interested to see this message left on my own talk page. For what it's worth, the only edit I made recently to Latin alphabet does not in fact appear to have been reverted. Grover cleveland (talk) 14:16, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@Grover cleveland: Yes, in the context of the true history of your editing at Latin alphabet, the post on your talk page was bizarre. The editing which led me to post the message on the IP talk page which you mention was also bizarre: it involved adding 157 identical copies of the same speedy deletion tag to a page. Normally that kind of thing is just vandalism, but in other ways this editor doesn't seem to be a vandal, so I really don't know what to think. JBW (talk) 15:05, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Why did you delete an article that was approved through draft space?

JBW Hi, you deleted an article that was approved through draft space (with full disclosure) for no apparent reason - the article for Bingo Blitz. Everything was cited and was also approved after many revisions and improvements, done according to the remarks of other members on Wikipedia. It was moved into mainspace after said revisions. Please return the article. Maorkap3 (talk) 21:16, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

I have already answered a similar question on your talk page. JBW (talk) 21:23, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Duck?

The indefinitely blocked Yewub & the newly registered Tednete12. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 16:33, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: I'm actually not sure. It's clearly someone pushing the same point of view, so it may be the same person, but the editing is not exactly the same, so it may be two different people. Anyway, I've semi-protected the article for a few days. JBW (talk) 21:37, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

		The Admin's Barnstar
		Skywatcher68 (talk) 21:46, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

How to petition for recreation when notability changes?

Hello JBW, I'd like to ask you about recreating an article for a fictional character which was uncontroversially deleted a decade ago but whose notability has changed. I'm not sure if I should go to Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion for articles which were deleted via PROD or not. To be specific, I'm asking about an article for which you handled the deletion at Archaon, Lord of the End Times.
I don't want to flood your talk page, but the short version is that, ten years ago, the subject wasn't notable, and the article - if it was written as poorly as most articles relating to Warhammer - probably read like a fanzine or manual page. Since 2010, I feel that sufficient coverage has been established in response to novels and video games featuring the character, and that it suffices notability requirements, but I don't know what to do to open a formal discussion. For reference, I've prepared a draft in my sandbox as of this edit which I'm happy to submit via the process at Wikipedia:Drafts for community scrutiny, but I'm sure there must be steps before that since the deletion seemed uncontroversial. Any advice you can provide would be much appreciated. MezzoMezzo (talk) 07:31, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@MezzoMezzo: Recreation of a page deleted at a deletion discussion because of a change in notability is an area which Wikipedia doesn't have any totally satisfactory way of handling, in my opinion. However, when an article is deleted via PROD, there is no problem. If anyone contests the deletion at any time, even a decade later, the article can be restored. I have moved your sandbox draft to article space. (Incidentally, at first I restored the history of the old article, but I then decided that, since your draft is a totally new version, there's no point in keeping the history of the old one, so I deleted it again and moved your draft. I am explaining that just in case you see the history of deletions and restorations in the page logs and wonder what it was about.) JBW (talk) 09:10, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you on many fronts, JBW! You've been around for 15 years and I'm nearing that; I'm sure you remember, like I do, a time when many processes and protocols weren't clear. Perhaps our discussion here could serve as an impetus, one day, to develop a means of handling specifically when a notability change is brought up after an AfD. But for now, I'll keep in mind what you mentioned about PROD (I'll still probably contact involved people to avoid going totally solo).

For this specific case, does the new version look alright? I avoided blogs, clearly unreliable sites, and (with one exception) any sources associated with the company which owns the character. I hope it satisfies basic notability guidelines now. MezzoMezzo (talk) 10:01, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@MezzoMezzo: I have skimmed through the article, reading a few bits of it in detail, and I have quickly looked at a fairly random selection of the references. From what I have seen the article looks fine. However, I haven't checked the background of each of the references to see how far they should be regarded as reliable sources, so I can't comment on that. I did get the impression that at least some of the sources are reliable ones, but I didn't check thoroughly. In effect I have assumed they are reliable sources and assessed other issues on the basis that they are. JBW (talk) 10:28, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Cool, thank you so much for the quick check. The article seems related to a few Wikiprojects, so I'll start searching for help there to get further assessment of the article quality and needs too. MezzoMezzo (talk) 11:01, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Charles Darku

JBW Hi, the recreated article of the subject, Charles Darku, was created with new content and better sources to meet the requirements of WP:GNG and WP:SIGCOV. Please restore the text. Ataavi (talk) 1:04, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ataavi: My apologies for having overlooked this message earlier, and now I don't have any time. I'll try to get onto it as soon as I do get tome again, but unfortunately that is not likely to be for many hours. JBW (talk) 21:37, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ataavi: When I saw that the article had been nominated for speedy deletion, I looked at it and its references, and decided that it neither addressed the reasons which led to deletion nor demonstrated notability in line with Wikipedia's guidelines, so I deleted it. However, having read your message above, I decided to make a more thorough investigation, to see how much basis there was for your claims. I was willing to look for what evidence of satisfying Wikipedia's notability guidelines there was. In view of my earlier, briefer, examination, I didn't expect to find much, but I assumed I would find at least something to back up your claim. I was, frankly, totally unprepared for what I found. The references you cited are as follows:

1, 2: two announcements of an appointment of someone to a job, in each case with very brief passing mentions of the fact that Darku had previously done that job; 3: a brief page about him on the web site of an organisation he works for; 4: a long list of innumerable names, in which Darku is listed as belonging to the Ministry of justice and attorney-general's department, and that is all; 5: not online, so I can't see its contents, but since it is on the web site of an organisation he worked for it is not an independent source; 6: a report of a refurbishment of a block at a school, with a few sentences reporting comments that Darku made about the work; 7: An announcement of a job appointment; 8: not online, so I can't see its contents, but it is the International Directory of Electric Power Producers and Distributors which is unlikely to contain extensive content about each individual person involved in each company worldwide, and even if it does, it's just a directory entry; 9: a report about the resignation of someone else, in which Darku's name is included in a list of others who were suspended, and that is all; 10: a report of the fact that the Volta River Authority was in need of money, which gives a few sentences mentioning comments Darku made about the matter to a parliamentary select committee; 11: a dead link, but its title makes it clear that it was just an announcement of an appointment to a job; 12: a page which does not mention Darku at all; 13: a report of an event held by a company, in which Darku's name is mentioned in a list of people working for the company who were in attendance, and that is all; 14: a report of a comapny's AGM, in which there is a one sentence mention of Darku; 15: a report relating to power blackouts involving a company of which Darku is (or was) the CEO; which quotes some comments he has made about the issues involved; 16: a brief announcement of a job move.

Can you tell me which of those constitute substantial coverage of Charles Darku in independent sources? Or even which of them constitute substantial coverage of him at all, in any kind of sources?

The article does not even faintly begin to show that Charles Darku satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. It does not even faintly begin to address the issues raised in the deletion discussion.

More than a decade ago I decided that there is so much variation in different editors' views on how similar a new version of a deleted page has to be to the deleted version to justify a G4 deletion, that it is not worth arguing over at deletion review except in absolutely clear cut cases. Therefore if you ask me again I shall restore the article, and inform the editor who nominated it for speedy deletion, so that they can consider whether to take it to a second AfD discussion. I shall also consider whether to do so myself if they decide not to. However, I hope you will not make that necessary, as it will be a total waste of time for you, me, the editor who made the nomination, and anyone else who takes part. Every one of us could use that time on more constructive work. The suggestion that the sources you have provided constitute significant coverage of Charles Darku is absurd, and the likelihood of its being kept at AfD is negligible. I have already spent more time on this than it warrants, and I hope you will drop the stick and move on to something more likely to produce a useful result. JBW (talk) 21:32, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Deleting info for no reason

The Snake Eyes (G.I. Joe) page is being vandalized by IP address 47.232.201.144 by deleting info on what the character looks like for no reason.[1] It's a simple fact that the character is a Caucasian male with blonde hair and blue eyes, I added some references from the comics to prove it. For further proof from G.I. Joe: Scarlett: Declassified[2]108.208.137.192 (talk) 05:27, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Help warning level

Hi @JBW:, I think you are safe there. Can you tell me, If any new IP or Registered user had removed or delete references from BLP but not add anything at that time on their first edit then what should we consider i.e delete1, vandalism1, or unsourced1. Damak15 (talk) 10:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Damak15: Well, first of all I personally scarcely ever use level one warnings, and never uw-vandalism1. If it's an editor who is in fact editing in good faith but doesn't understand what is acceptable, a message telling them that their editing "did not appear constructive" without telling them what the problem is serves no useful purpose at all, and is likely to be discouraging. If, on the other hand, it is clearly an editor who is intentionally vandalising, then a level two warning, indicating that what they are doing is really unacceptable, is much more useful than gently suggesting that perhaps what they did might not be ideal. Some of the other level one templated warnings are not quite so bad, but in my opinion in almost any case where such a mild warning is reasonable, it is more helpful to make some attempt to actually explain what the problem is with their editing than to give generic warnings amounting to "I didn't like what you did, but I'm not going to tell you why". Of course it takes longer to write a friendly message explaining what the problem is than to just slap a pre-written generic template onto the user talk page, but it's worth the extra effort if it helps a new editor to understand.

Just one more point concerning levels of warnings. There's a remarkably widespread impression that there's some kind of rule somewhere that says one must start with a level one warning, then progress up the levels one by one. There is in fact no such rule at all. The standard templated messages are just there for editors' convenience, to use instead of individually hand-written messages if it seems appropriate to do so. It is totally up to the editor posting a message to decide both whether one of the templated messages is appropriate, and if so which one.

OK, assuming you are going to use one of the templated warnings, either at level one or another level, in the situation you describe "unsourced" makes no sense, as the editor didn't add any unsourced content. As for the choice between a "delete" message or a "vandalism" one, I would say that if it is perfectly clear beyond any reasonable dooubt that it's deliberate vandalism, then either would be possible, but if there's any reasonable doubt at all then assume good faith and use "delete". In practice, in the situation you describe I think I would much more often use "delete", because with nothing to go on except that one edit it is usually impossible to be really certain that it isn't good-faith but misguided editing.

I hope some or all of those comments may be helpful to you. JBW (talk) 20:28, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Ok, Thank you ! Damak15 (talk) 12:40, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Welcome to the club...

I did the same thing. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 08:30, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@HighInBC: I've been a victim too. JBW (talk) 09:43, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps we should make a category... HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 09:45, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

British colonise‎

I'm pretty certain that the childish nature of British colonise‎ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is very similar to that of confirmed sockpuppeteer Cheese editor (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and his/her accounts - especially with the rather silly "I'll wait 10 minutes and if nobody says anything I'll make the change" comment on the talk page. I'm waiting to see what the next contribution is before initiating SPI - unless of course you block them first :) 10mmsocket (talk) 09:48, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Copy paste move

Copy paste move (attempted and reverted by Chlod) after blocking them for unattributed copying. The user then properly moved the page. Not sure if you are keeping an eye, but it was suggested to notify you in case further action is needed. Sennecaster (What now?) 15:16, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

@Sennecaster: No, I wasn't keeping an eye on it, so thank you for letting me know. I've blocked the account for a week. Let's hope that eill get the message across. JBW (talk) 17:18, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Another one, with some fishy editing from this IP during the block and whatever this is yesterday. Here is the copying diff. Chlod fixed it again. Sennecaster (What now?) 17:26, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Your recent comment

I found this comment to be insulting. I don't think you meant it that way, but it comes across as suggesting that the discussion is about something unimportant. To me, making sure Wikipedia accurately reports Holocaust history is improving the encyclopedia, and it is very important. I don't judge whether your contributions are valuable or useful or count as "improving the encyclopedia," and I'd ask you not to judge mine (or other editors'). I'm not sure that anyone would read your comment and think, "Oh! They're right, I should go do something else," as opposed to just thinking, "Wow, what a pompous jerk, who do they think they are?" Showing up to a discussion to criticize everyone in the discussion for participating in the discussion is very counterproductive: it will inflame rather than reduce tensions, and hamper rather than help editors' ability to resolve the dispute. Levivich 14:34, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@Levivich: (1) Please don't put words into my mouth. I didn't suggest that "making sure Wikipedia accurately reports Holocaust history" is unimportant. Nor did I "criticize everyone in the discussion for participating in the discussion". I suggested that the amount of time put into this particular discussion is disproportionate to the likely benefit, which is a very different thing. (2) I wonder what Wikipedia would be like if everyone took your line that making judgements about the value of contributions is a bad thing and nobody should ever do it. Pretty full of useless crap, I should think. (3) You say that "[you] don't judge whether [my] contributions are valuable or useful", but your comments here look to me remarkably like telling me that you think on this occasion my contribution wasn't valuable or useful. But maybe I've misunderstood. (4) As for your characterisation of me as a "pompous jerk", well, need I say anything? JBW (talk) 18:49, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I didn't say you said that, I said that's how it came across to me, even though I know that wasn't your intent. Clearly my initial message didn't communicate what I was trying to say effectively, so let me choose different words to say the same thing: Wikipedia's success therefore depends to a great extent on a large number of volunteers who give up a considerable amount of their own time to clean things up, improve the quality of what is there, and remove what is not so good. Some Wikipedians choose not to spend time on that, but to concentrate only on writing new content. That is absolutely fine, but sometimes those who make that choice disparage and vilify the work of others who make a different choice, and that is not absolutely fine. Writing content and cleaning up what is there are both essential and constructive parts of building the encyclopaedia. Some people make balanced contributions to both areas, others choose to concentrate on one area or the other. Whichever choice we make we can all respect others who contribute in different ways. I respect your contributions, even the above-linked comment that said that what I was spending my time doing wasn't improving the encyclopedia. Levivich 19:15, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

== Hip Hop Movement draft==

{{subst:arbcom notice|Hip Hop Movement draft}}

Arbcom on Hip Hop Movement draft Street sting (talk) 19:47, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Hip Hop Movement draft Arbitration case request declined

Dear JBW,

The Arbitration Committee have declined to hear the case entitled Hip Hop Movement draft, as they believe the request to be premature.

For the Arbitration Committee, firefly ( t · c ) 20:34, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Query on AFC

Is it legit to publish articles on Wikipedia without AFC submission (Bypassing)? R.C^{Outlander07@talk} 10:21, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

@Outlander07: The simple answer to your question is "Yes". However, I'll give you a much more detailed commentary on the matter, which you may or may not find helpful.

AfC is mainly there to help inexperienced editors from putting time and effort into articles which are clearly unsuitable, and bound from the start to be deleted. It seems to me that this works essentially in two ways, though there is an overlap between them. (1) An inexperienced editor may create an article which has the potential to become acceptable, but because of their inexperience they create the article in an unsuitable form, so it gets deleted fairly soon, but if instead they create a draft and submit it for review, instead of the page just getting deleted they can be given time to improve it. (2) An inexperienced editor may create an article which is totally unsuitable, and has no potential to become acceptable. Unfortunately, the article is going to be deleted anyway, but if it's a draft, there is no hurry to delete it, so the editor doesn't see their very first attempt to contribute deleted almost as soon as they create it, which must be a very disheartening and discouraging experience. Also, doing it via an AfC submission prevents the unsuitable article from appearing on Wikipedia until someone notices it, which may be a short time or along time.

Apart from the requirement that to create a new article an account has to be at least four days old and have made at least ten edits, there is no requirement at all for anyone to submit an "Article for creation" rather than just creating the article. However, I would not advise anyone to start creating articles directly until they have far more experience of editing than that bare minimum, as otherwise the risk of wasting time and effort on something which is bound to be deleted is too great.

Unfortunately, however, in my opinion there is a serious problem with the way the AfC system operates. Most of the editors who regularly review AfC submissions set an unnecessarily high standard for drafts to be accepted. They should be willing to accept drafts which are clearly good enough that they wouldn't be suitable for deletion if they had been created as as articles, but in practice most (though not all) of them decline submissions unless they reach a far higher standard than would be needed for a directly created article to be allowed to survive. That can be very discouraging for new editors, and to a significant extent defeats the purpose of the whole AfC process, which in my opinion, as I have indicated above, should protect new editors from discouraging experiences, rather than subjecting them to them. In my opinion the best (or at any rate least bad) way of dealing with this problem is for new editors not to try to create new articles until they have enough experience to have a good idea what is suitable, so that they can do so without needing to use AfC. However, that is just my opinion, and obviously not everybody works like that. For those who don't, probably AfC, although far from perfect, is a better way to go than creating new articles directly. However, as you will have realised by now, there is absolutely no requirement to do so.

Finally, my apologies for not answering sooner. I didn't want to do it until I was ready to spend enough time on it to provide more than just a minimal answer to your question. JBW (talk) 21:09, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

back at it again

Another one, with some fishy editing from this IP during the block and whatever this is yesterday. Here is the copying diff. Chlod fixed it again. Looks like HurricaneEdgar added another copied template after I originally sent this (above, sorry for the disruption) so I'm not sure this person gets the message. Sennecaster (What now?) 12:16, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

@Sennecaster: It looks very much as though they don't get the message. I have very reluctantly blocked the editor indefinitely. Internal copying without attribution is so easy to deal with, because all it takes is a suitable edit summary, so there should never be a need to block for it. However, if an editor can't grasp that point by this stage, what else can be done? JBW (talk) 14:23, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

D.S. Bradford page

Hello. I am writing to ask why this page was deleted and if there is an alternative method of handling this that can be reversed and what lesson can be gained rather than hard deletion. The page wasn't updated with current sources and I came online to add some that I had found (Rolling Stone, SPIN, and a few others). Prior to this circumstance, there was a page that wasn't updated very well and when it was edited, there was still the question of notability. In the new iteration, there were multiple strong sources demonstrating the subject as notable (some of which existed at the time of the original deletion, but were not considered before the deletion took place). If there is some way that I can be shown where I erred in the process to prevent this from happening in the future, while restoring the article in good standing and with the corrections made, that would be a good thing. Thank you. THBAO (talk) 21:10, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@THBAO: Rather than give a rushed answer, with the risk of making significant mistakes, I would like to check the history of the article reasonably thoroughly, but I don't have time to do that now. I'll try to get back to you within the next 24 hours, at the worst. JBW (talk) 21:26, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@JBW: Thank you kindly for your response. Would it help to have the references as well, in order to examine the full scope of this case? THBAO (talk) 22:21, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@THBAO: I have checked the editing history of the page, and I have given particular attention to the sources referenced in the last version of the page. I have also made my own searches for information about D. S. Bradford. My observations are as follows.

1. At least most, and probably all, of the sources cited in the article suffer from one or both of the following defects. Not substantial coverage; in some cases no more than a passing one-sentence mention of Bradford, or even less than that, such as just a photograph with a caption included in a list, or a mere credit. Not independent sources; there are pages on web sites of organisations he is connected to, an interview giving him an opportunity to express his views, etc.
2. My own searches on Google started out by finding the (now deleted) Wikipedia article, his own web site, and his accounts on Instagram, Twitter, FaceBook, and YouTube. Then I got Spotify, AllMusic, Wikidata... I could have stopped there, because experience over my fifteen years on Wikipedia is that anyone whose first page of Google hits is dominated by that kind of stuff is not notable. If multiple sources with the kind of coverage required by Wikipedia's notability guidelines exist, then some of them come up in the first few Google hits. Even so, to be doubly sure I checked the next couple of pages, and got nothing better.
3. The topic has twice been the subject of deletion discussions. The first time there was very little participation, the second time there was much more, but both times there was unambiguous consensus that D. S. Bradford does not satisfy Wikipedia's requirements.

It is abundantly clear that D. S. Bradford is not notable in the terms defined by Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Contrary to what you say, there are not "multiple strong sources demonstrating the subject as notable": there are multiple weak sources coming nowhere near to demonstrating the subject as notable. There isn't the remotest chance of getting an article about him through a deletion discussion.

Over 80% of the edits you have made on Wikipedia have been deleted. Surely that should tell you something. If you continue to spend time trying to get an article on D. S. Bradford accepted, you will continue to put work into editing which will just be deleted. You will have a far better chance of actually making contributions to Wikipedia that stick if you accept the fact that, however unhappy you are about the fact, D. S. Bradford is not going to last on Wikipedia, and move on to editing about other topics. JBW (talk) 22:11, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Hey, JBW. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 08:56, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

About adminship

Hi @JBW:, What are the necessary criteria for administrator in English Wikipedia? Please tell me. Damak15 (talk) 15:59, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Recreation

I was wondering if you could please undelete a number of articles that you rightfully deleted that I had authored. I am now unblocked and would like to add to them. This is one example [3]. BlackAmerican (talk) 07:32, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi, BlackAmerican. I've undeleted that one, and if you give me a list of the others I'll happily do those too, if there are no other reasons not to. JBW (talk) 19:49, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

This page has been removed from search engines' indexes.

You've got mail

Hello, JBW. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.- Rich^T|C|E-Mail 20:29, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Closure at Articles for deletion/Satyajeet Tambe

Hi - would you mind adding some comments to your closure, please. There's was sourcing in Hindi and Marathi available demonstrating passing of BASIC; no contributor refuted that sourcing. Thank you and regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 15:08, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: The consensus was so unambiguous that I don't see any elaboration as necessary. Nevertheless, as a favour to you have I have added a few comments. JBW (talk) 21:23, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to leave comments. Where you see unambiguous consensus; yes, I concur with regards to failing NPOL. However, with regards to the GNG/BASIC, I see assertions with no evidence from the delete votes and a rather underwhelming attempt of BEFORE from the nomination. For example, I think it's more than reasonable to expect nominators to address local language sourcing in a BEFORE in cases such as these. If I understand correctly what you have written, you made a closure before considering the sources I supplied. It was only my requesting your comments that led you to consider the sources. Given this, in my view, your closure was premature. Would you be willing to reopen the AfD with your added comment as a delete !vote rather than a closing and leave to another to close? Please treat the following comment in good faith: if you find it "difficult and tedious" to check sources in languages with which you are not comfortable, perhaps, next time, ask for support from those who do not suffer similarly. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 09:55, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I put considerable time and effort into checking the sources you provided, copying and pasting text piece by piece into Google translate because I wasn't able to get translations of whole pages. I did that purely as a favour to you, in response to your request. Yes, I could have followed your suggestion of "seeking support", but apart from the time and trouble it would have taken to find an independent editor with the relevant linguistic knowledge who was prepared to put in the necessary work, I would then have had only their assessment of the sources, so I would have been in no position to comment on them.

Of course I "made a closure before considering the sources [you] supplied". It would have been a serious abuse of administrative powers to close the discussion on the basis of my own opinion of the sources, rather than on the views of the participants in the discussion.

Bearcat pointed out "The notability test is not passed on sources in which he's the speaker of content about other things, it's passed on sources in which he's the subject of content written or spoken by other people." None of the sources you provided gave substantial coverage about him by others. Some of them gave significant coverage by him of other subjects, others didn't even do that.

On reflection I was wrong to accede to your request to add a comment to the discussion after it was closed. I shall move it to the talk page.

No, I would not be willing to reopen the AfD with my added comment as a delete !vote rather than a closing and leave to another to close. There was consensus to delete. There is no justification for reopening it because one of the participants refuses to accept that consensus.

If you persist in refusing to accept the outcome of the discussion I will take it to a deletion review. The outcome of that review would then be a foregone conclusion. There was a clear consensus. The sources you cited came nowhere near to substantiating your claim that there is "extensive non-trivial coverage of the subject", none of your other comments were based on Wikipedia policies, and everyone else in the discussion argued for deletion. There is no way that a review would overturn my closure, and it would be a waste of time for you, for me, and for anyone else who participated. I hope you won't make that waste of time necessary, and my advice is instead to accept that consensus in the discussion was against you, however reluctant you are to do so, and move on to other editing which is more likely to succeed. JBW (talk) 12:09, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

I'll comment no further on our divergence of opinion regarding process here, but I will note I struggle to see any justification for the tone you have chosen with your responses; it is simply out of proportion. FWIW, if you're in need of assistance in future with South Asian languages, feel free to reach out, I'd be happy to help you. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 00:27, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: You are quite right about my tone, and I apologise for it. I may have unintentionally allowed my approach to you to have been influenced by a recent experience with another editor who questioned a deletion of mine, and who was, in my opinion, very unreasonable, perhaps putting me into an unduly negative frame of mind about any challenge to deletions, but of course what you said was very different, and didn't deserve such a response. I still stand by the content of what I said, but not the form in which I expressed it. Thank you for your offer of help with languages. I'll try to bear that in mind for the future.JBW (talk) 16:33, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

- I genuinely appreciate the apology, thank you. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 22:34, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

User:Pliki1448

Hi JBW. This account has the feel of another Polur1467. Please let me know if an SPI is needed. FWIW, there might be more of these showing up in the future and they probably can be found via Category:HTF Haters. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: For some reason I missed the notification of your message, so that I didn't see the message until a little while ago. No SPI is necessary for this one, because it  Looks like a duck to me, so I've blocked the account. A request for CU may be worth while to look for sleepers, but it's unlikely the request would be granted unless the known accounts have been sleepers, which I don't have time to check now. Checking the category is a good idea, and a reason for not deleting it. Would I be showing astonishing ignorance if I asked if you know who or what HTF is? JBW (talk) 16:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

I think HTF has to do with this non-free image for a TV show named Happy Tree Friends. This person seems to not be a fan and wanted to express their non-fandom in a userbox; non-free images, however, aren't allowed to be used in userboxes per WP:NFCC#9 and WP:UBX#Cautions about image use. So, when the file was removed the first time by JJMC89 bot, socks started appearing to try and keep re-adding it and then started causing other mischief when the file kept being removed. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:11, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: Aah, yes. Thanks. I also now see that the template links to "Happy Tree Friends", which I hadn't noticed before. JBW (talk) 23:42, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

They probably would've been fine just leaving the userbox sans image or using some other image from Commons; however, the fact that they decide to sock over it and do stuff like this isn't going to give others a strong sense that they're WP:HERE to edit. My guess is that this is just someone feeling a little bored and looking for new ways to have "fun". -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:13, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

The Future Armenian

Dear JBW, you deleted The Future Armenian page shortly after it has been nominated, despite me contesting the deletion, and despite me introducing improvements in the style and sources of the article after nomination. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=120602020 I feel the deletion was not justified, my voice was not heard, and other users who might have been interested in the subject were not given time to participate in discussion. I would understand moderation of the text, asking for more sources, reducing the article to stub, but disagree with speedy deletion. Tell me how to best proceed, please. Thanks. --Armatura (talk) 00:36, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Armatura: The article was totally promotional in tone, from start to finish, and whether you disagree or not, Wikipedia policy is that promotional pages are speedily deleted. However, I have restored the page and moved it to Draft:The Future Armenian and you can work on improving it there. I very strongly recommend submitting it for review through WP:Articles for creation if and when you think it's suitable to become an article, rather than moving it back yourself.

I'm not sure what you think "promotional" means, but on the article talk page you wrote "This page is not unambiguously promotional, because... it is about non-commercial project, cites independent sources and is narrated in encyclopedic fashion, well interlinked with related articles", none of which has any bearing whatsoever on the issue of whether it was promotional. JBW (talk) 12:50, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Edit Warring

Hey JBW, Long time no see, I hope you remember me. Anyways, so there is this article titled List of top international rankings by country. There are these two editors called FDW777 and PLUS ULTRA CARLOS. They both have been reverting each other's edit and have got into an Reverting battle. They are arguing wether the various sections of the article be included or removed from the article. FDW777 wants to removed those sections whereas PLUS ULTRA CARLOS wants to keep these sections. Mind you that they are arguing over a large piece of text (about 80,000 bytes worth of text). I want you to calm them down and settle their dispute please. Tylertoney Dude perfect (talk) 09:02, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Deletion of the EJCC Article

Hi JBW, you deleted an article i wrote because it was marked as promotional, i couldn't even contest the speedy deletion because you already deleted it. So i wanted to ask you to let at least the parts which are clearly not promotional like the history of the Organization. I don't know why the article was promotional after all, but I can't imagine that facts like the foundation of the Centre are considered advertising. Could you look at the individual paragraphs again? Apart from that, I generally have the question of whether an article is always deleted when I list the individual programs offered there, for example, or whether the deletion was made because of the specific choice of words or something similar. The article was here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:European_Jewish_Community_Center_/_EJCC&action=edit&redlink=1 anyway, a big thank you for donating your time to Wikipedia! Leonard Winder (talk) 09:40, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

@Leonard Winder: Do you have a personal connection to the organisation? People writing on a subject in which they have a close personal involvement often find it difficult, or even impossible, to stand back from their own writing and see how it will look from the detached perspective of an uninvolved outsider, with the result that they write in a way which looks promotional to others, even if they sincerely think they are writing neutrally. The article read from start to finish as though it was intended to convey to the reader the organisation's own view if itself, and written by someone with an approving view, rather than as a neutral account. If you do have a personal connection to the organisation then you need to read Wikipedia's guideline on conflict of interest before doing any more editing on the subject.

I have restored the page, and moved it back to Draft:European Jewish Community Center / EJCC to give you a chance to work on improving it. I very strongly advise you to submit it for review through Wikipedia:Articles for creation if and when you decide it's ready to become an article, rather than moving it yourself, as you did this time.

One more comment, which may be useful to you. My advice to new editors is that it is best to start by making small improvements to existing articles, rather than creating new articles. That way any mistakes you make will be small ones, and you won't have the discouraging experience of repeatedly seeing hours of work deleted. Gradually, you will get to learn how Wikipedia works, and after a while you will know enough about what is acceptable to be able to write whole new articles without fear that they will be deleted. Over the years I have found that editors who start by making small changes to existing articles and work up from there have a far better chance of having a successful time here than those who jump right into creating new articles from the start. JBW (talk) 11:30, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Deletion of Page

Hello JBW,

I would sincerely like to apologize for not following and overlooking the guidelines, since I am new to this platform I am still learning and would appreciate if I am given the chance to further improve my knowledge regarding Wikipedia rules and standards. I will be very careful next time, and I hope that I do not make any such mistakes again. I would like to thank you for letting me know what I am doing wrong. Fatima.Innovative (talk) 14:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Mistakes Correction Of Kawsar Khan

hello I would like to talk about Kawsar Khan wikipedia profile page. he is mainly an author. Please edit my source code and help me to publish it. Here is the code — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kawsarkhan24 (talk • contribs) 15:54, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

@Kawsarkhan24: I don't have time to write a proper answer to this now, but I will try to get back to you when I can. In the meanwhile, please don't post the text of an article in a talk page. JBW (talk) 16:02, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank You For Your Advice

Hello JBW,

I would like to thank you for your advice and I will definitely be improving my knowledge and will be learning more about editing and publishing. Fatima.Innovative (talk) 16:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Article Restoriation

Can you please restore my edit history on this page. Walter Kimbrough https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Walter_Kimbrough&action=history BlackAmerican (talk) 09:55, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Can you restore this history to this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enos_Luther_Brookes BlackAmerican (talk) 10:14, 27 August 2021 (UTC) This as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Myers BlackAmerican (talk) 10:13, 27 August 2021 (UTC) My history to this. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mahbod_Moghadam&offset=&limit=500&action=history BlackAmerican (talk) 10:15, 27 August 2021 (UTC) The history to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Kahler BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC) This page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bieder BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC) This too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Naclerio BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC) This one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Bush BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Silverstein BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciclista_Olimpico_de_la_Banda BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyang_SBS_Stars BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonzo_peter_bailey BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_independence_advocate BlackAmerican (talk) 10:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Hi, FYI: ==Notice of noticeboard discussion== There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.--PLUS ULTRA CARLOS (talk) 14:26, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh my god I am so sorry

Oh my goodness, i apologise... i think i got the worng person, i am so sorry. there was another user who acytually was really harrassing me and being a threatening to block me. I am so very sorry for troubling you and I won't make the same mistake twice. Again, can't apologise enough. You can block me if you like, i would understand. You are just doing your job unlike otehr people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.185.170.213 (talk • contribs) 18:28, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of 29 AD Regiment (Samba) (India)

Hi JBW,

Though the article has since be deleted, I will be rewriting the concerned parts of the article to make it fit for Wikipedia standards. Will keep an eye on the links to disambiguation pages too.

Regards,

Akk7a (talk) 08:39, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Susan Grace Bellerby/PAustin4thApril1980

Hi. Is Susan Grace Bellerby (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) a sock/meat of PAustin4thApril1980 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? Susan Grace Bellerby was dormant from Feb 2019 to around Paul's recent block in 2021. Susan Grace Bellerby today edited Judith Barsi, an article heavily edited by PAustin4thApril1980. Susan Grace Bellerby also edited Next Australian federal election (Paul heavily edited Australian government-related articles) and Murders of the MacKenzie family (Paul also heavily edited articles of murdered families/children). AldezD (talk) 23:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

@AldezD: Well spotted. I don't think I would ever have noticed that, but once I started looking into it I found much more evidence, on top of what you have mentioned, and before long it was blindingly obvious. I've blocked the sockpuppet and reverted some of its editing. When I have more time I will check for more to revert. You may like to help out doing that. JBW (talk) 10:29, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I've been working the PAustin4thApril1980 case recently. From the above, I'm assuming Susan Grace Bellerby deserves a "suspected as a PAustin4thApril1980 sock" template? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:15, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Gjeykretm‎

I only blocked the user for 72 hours (persistent unsourced edits). Should they be blocked longer? I don't see any other info about the sockpuppettry. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 15:56, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

@Jamie: Do you know, I hadn't even thought of that. I suppose, considering that since the original block there have been both sockpuppetry and continuiation of the same kind of editing that led to the block, an increase in block length would be reasonable. If you haven't already seen, the sockpuppetry is pretty evident in a comparison of the editing of the two accounts at BET, Hess Corporation, Logo TV, O'Grady, TV Land, and Showtime (TV network), but it was the first two edit summaries at Special:Contributions/MjJmtjmemjrk.r that alerted me to it. How kind of the editor to openly announce their sockpuppetry. 16:27, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I indeffed that account; I think they need to convince us that they understand the reason for the block(s) before they continue editing, if at all. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 16:49, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

UVision Air

Hello, I'm an Admin and bureaucrat at the Hebrew Wikipedia, you deleted an article I wrote (UVision Air, I translated the corresponding article in Hebrew) on the grounds that it is an advertisement (which of course i do not intend and would be happy to get help removing everything that looks like an advertisement). I will ask you to restore the article to my user space. I would like you to clarify to me exactly what misled you into thinking that the article included advertising content. ביקורת (talk) 19:03, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

ביקורת: I have restored the page and moved it to User:ביקורת/UVision Air. (I would have preferred draftspace, but it isn't a big deal.) I can't tell you what misled me into thinking the page was promotional, because, naturally, I don't think I was misled. To me the whole page, from start to finish, reads as though it had been written by a PR or marketing professional. The whole article seeks to present the company from its own point of view, not from the neutral point of view of an uninvolved outsider. I have looked at the article to see if I could find examples to point out, but I came to the conclusion that to pick out particular sentences would be totally misleading, because it isn't a question of removing or rewriting particular parts, it's a matter of rewriting the whole thing in a different register. If you really don't see it that way then I don't think I can begin to explain why it is so. I'm sorry that I can't be more helpful than that, but that is really how I see it.

It occurs to me to wonder whether you yourself work in marketing, PR, or advertising, because I have found over the years that people in those fields get so used to reading and writing marketing speak day after day that they get desensitised to it, and can't see the promotional nature of writing which seems that way to others. JBW (talk) 19:38, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm not from the advertising field. And as mentioned I translated the article (the original, in Hebrew, not written by me). The company may not have been reviewed much, so the original writers were forced to rely on the company’s publications as well, leaving an implicit advertising fragrance.

The question is whether it is better to simply remove most of the information from the entry and leave only the base? If so I will thank you if you do.

As for the draft space - this is a good idea.

Thanks for everything. ביקורת (talk) 19:46, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi JBW, I worked to reduce the article to basic information only, From a NPOV.

I will thank you If you can devote a few minutes to re-reading the article. Thanks for everything. ביקורת (talk) 07:03, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi, As per the template requirement, I have added missing sources to the few details left in the article after its reduction

Another user (from the Hebrew Wikipedia) added additional references.

Can you check if the issues have been resolved (and remove the template)?

Thank you very much. ביקורת (talk) 10:11, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

@ביקורת: Apologies for not responding earlier to your previous message. I'll try to look at it as soon as I get time. JBW (talk) 12:09, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

@ביקורת: I don't see any problem with the page now, so I have moved it back to mainspace and removed the tags from it. You have done a remarkably thorough job of removing anything which might be considered promotional. Incidentally, a thought regarding translating articles from Wikipedias in other languages. I know very little about Hebrew Wikipedia, but I do know that some other Wikipedias have a much more liberal attitude to promotional material than English Wikipedia, some of them accepting material which is so unmistakably promotional that it wouldn't be remotely suitable for English Wikipedia. If that applies to Hebrew Wikipedia, translation of articles may need considerable care. JBW (talk) 19:00, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I thank you very much. By the way, you have an article 'Naum Koen' - completely marketing (Unclear importance, a businessman whose information about the companies he owns and the scope of their assets is unclear), based on Hebrew sources, the Hebrew Wikipedia community found it problematic and after a vote decided to delete it. I was happy to see that the English Wikipedia is careful to avoid promotion, and it seems to me that this is the case in this article. Thanks for everything. ביקורת (talk) 19:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Important

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%A7%E0%A4%95

The above user is known for his/her disruptive edits. 99% of his edits were revereted. Already there are many warnings in his talk page.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.49.154.30 (talk • contribs)

Hi JBW, this IP user is an obvious sock of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Sweetindian and is also currently editing through Someuser1234. This IP range is used everyday to evade block and to restore the content added by their previous socks. This user is currently the only one editing through this range. Is a range block possible here? because new socks are being created everyday along with IP editing to restore their content and to create more disruption. - SUN EYE 1 16:32, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

American Dad! (season 18)

User:223.165.105.133 is disruptive editing again. Xeditboy (talk) 03:05, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Asking Help for Creating New Wikipedia Article

Hello jBW, Can you just check & edit any mistakes in a wikipedia created by me. Change it from draft into Mainspace after Become neutral point of view. UnknownEditor1234567890 (talk) 12:17, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2021

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

Administrator changes

Jake Wartenberg

Emperor • Viridian Bovary

Ashleyyoursmile → Viridian Bovary

Guideline and policy news

• Feedback is requested on the Universal Code of Conduct enforcement draft by the Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee.
• A RfC is open on whether to allow administrators to use extended confirmed protection on high-risk templates.
• A discussion is open to decide when, if ever, should discord logs be eligible for removal when posted onwiki (including whether to oversight them)
• A RfC on the next steps after the trial of pending changes on TFAs has resulted in a 30 day trial of automatic semi protection for TFAs.

Technical news

• The Score extension has been re-enabled on public wikis. It has been updated, but has been placed in safe mode to address unresolved security issues. Further information on the security issues can be found on the mediawiki page.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is in progress to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the Arbitration Committee election and resolve any issues not covered by existing rules. Comments and new proposals are welcome.

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 RfA review is now open for comments.

---

• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
• Archive

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:45, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Block evasion

Hi JBW. Artisticcc Personnn (talk · contribs) looks to be Miniii Starrr (talk · contribs), who you blocked several days ago. Cheers, 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 11:38, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

New sock?

No idea who this could be but with a username like that... –Skywatcher68 (talk) 18:29, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: I agree. As you may have noticed, an administrator has blocked the account, but recent editing at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill looks like a group of people vandalising together, or (less likely, I think) one person with several accounts, so I've protected the article for a while. JBW (talk) 18:45, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Hey, JB, you should protect NC State as well. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 19:04, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68:  Done JBW (talk) 19:20, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Dhruv Verma

JBW, You deleted my recent article on behalf of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dhruv Verma but kindly see 2nd nomination Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dhruv Verma (actor). I found many reliable sources about this actor and I believe he passes General Notability Guidelines. Kindly check again and undelete this article. Suchayaar (talk)

There have been two deletion discussions, both of which resulted in consensus to delete. One of them had considerable participation, the other little. The latter was closed as a soft deletion because of lack of participation. However, by giving the re-created article a different title from the first, you prevented all concerned in the second discussion, from the nominator to the closer, from being aware of the substantial participation in the previous discussion. The closure might well have been different had the situation been more transparent (if, indeed, there was a second discussion at all; very likely it would have been a speedy deletion). Taking the second discussion in isolation, a soft deletion because of lack of participation might look reasonable, but considering the whole picture, that discussion added a little more participation to what was already a substantial participation in the earlier discussion, and that additional participation supported the original consensus. I see no reason to consider the second discussion as invalidating or superceding the first: if anything it confirms it. If the article were restored it would go immediately to a third deletion discussion, where the outcome would be virtually certainly the same, which would be a waste of everyone's time. It would be far more constructive to accept, however reluctantly, that the subject has twice been agreed to be unsuitable for a Wikipedia article, and move on to other things. JBW (talk) 12:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Reference CCS Architecture (RCA)

In late August, you deleted the RCA article, referring to advertising oder promotion. As a long-term frequent contributor to rail issues on the (German) Wikipedia, I would like to point out that this is not the case. RCA is a common initiative of some major European railway infrastructure operators, aimed at creating a single standard/platform for key train control technologies such as interlockings. If it succeeds, RCA will replace the so far numerous national standards for interlockings. Basically, RCA is nearly as important as the well-described European Train Control System which began in a similar way more than 20 years earlier. I would like to contribute to the RCA article and would be glad if you could reinstate it. --Bigbug21 (talk) 13:17, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

@Bigbug21: I don't know what you think "promotional" means, but what you have said has nothing whatever to do with whether the deleted article was promotional or not. As far as I can see, you are essentially saying that you think the subject is important, but no matter how important something is, it is perfectly possible to write about it in a promotional way, telling readers how great and wonderful you think it is. You are perfectly welcome to start a new article on the subject if you like, but if you do so make sure you write it from a neutral point of view. JBW (talk) 18:10, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

@JBW: Allright then. Is there any way to get a copy of the deleted text? I would then try to rewrite it in a more factual way. --Bigbug21 (talk) 18:18, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

@Bigbug21: I have restored the page, and moved it to Draft:Reference CCS Architecture (RCA). You are welcome to work on improving it there. When you think it's ready to restore as an article, you can move it back yourself, but it may be better to submit it as an article for creation, so as to get a review by an independent editor. JBW (talk) 19:11, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, JBW, I will work on it. --Bigbug21 (talk) 19:22, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Salting?

Having looked at the history of DJ Lector, I think salting might just do the trick. Celestina007 (talk) 13:02, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Celestina007: You may be right, but my experience is that in this situation that very often actually makes things worse, because it just leads to the page being re-created under a different title, which may slip through unnoticed. As long as the original title is used, it's easy to watch for it. So far, just one account has repeatedly created the page, and my inclination is to wait and see whether that account does so again, and if so block it. If and when another account turns up to do the same, then obviously that can be reconsidered. JBW (talk) 14:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

True. This is a very wise approach, I clearly didn’t put that into consideration. Thank you for your time. Celestina007 (talk) 14:23, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Celestina007: If it's of any interest to you, the article was in fact re-created, under the same title, by a different account. It looks as though that was in fact the original account, and the one that had previously created the article a sockpuppet. I have re-deleted the article, and blocked both accounts. If the title had been salted, I wouldn't have seen either the new article (under a different title)or the other account. JBW (talk) 21:19, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

JBW, did you mean to block Djlector? You left a block message but they don't seem to be blocked. They had been put under a 3 month block but it expired. Just checking. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:39, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

You did block Hlogimalemela, they both had been working on this article and might be the same person. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:41, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Liz: I did indeed intend to block both accounts. Thank you for pointing out my mistake, which I have now corrected. As for their possibly being the same person, I think it is almost certain they are. There are several pointers in that direction, not only the similar editing on the same topic, but details such as the second account being created a few hours after the first one was blocked. JBW (talk) 21:19, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi James

Hi James or JBW not sure which you would prefer? We had a pleasant conversation about a year ago in which you were quite helpful to me, so I figured I would come to you or hope that you could point me in the direction of a link or person that could show me how I would go about uploading images to a wiki page whether it be my own or just general pages in the future. Thank you and sorry for asking about something that I am sure is simple to figure out. M403g (talk) 03:33, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi, M403g. Actually, the first few times I uploaded images to Wikipedia, I certainly didn't find it "simple to figure out". I found it really confusing. The setup has been changed since then, and it's a lot more straightforward, but it may still be a bit confusing for someone who hasn't done it before, so I'll give you a few bits of information which may possibly be helpful to you. Information on uploading files is at Help:Files, and various other pages that you can find by following links from that page. However, there's quite a lot there, so I'll say a few things about what is involved. If you find my comments more confusing than just reading that help page, I apologise in advance, but obviously I hope you won't. There are several pages which will take you through the upload process step by step, but I'll give you a few pointers to what is involved.

• I assume that by "uploading images" you mean actually uploading images to Wikipedia from somewhere else, such as your own computer, not just linking an existing Wikipedia image int a page, but if I've got that wrong come back and let me know.
• The main issues you have to be aware of are copyright issues, and whether you are uploading to Wikipedia or to Wikimedia Commons. Unfortunately, copyright policies for uploading images are more complicated than for just editing articles, and can be confusing. Many new editors, when they try to upload a file and see stuff about copyright and licensing terms, have no idea what it's all about, and think it will be all right to just click on any of the options. It isn't all right, and editors who do that often see the files they have uploaded speedily deleted, and if they carry on doing the same they get blocked from editing. So do take copyright seriously. However, my advice is that until you have a fairly thorough understanding of the main points of Wikipedia's copyright policy for images, it's best to stick to uploading only images that you personally own the copyright to, such as photographs you have taken yourself.

• For files which for which you own the copyright or which are public domain or freely licensed under terms compatible with Wikipedia's licensing terms, you can upload them either to Wikipedia or to Wikimedia Commons. It doesn't make a lot of difference. Basically that means files that anyone is free to use. Under a very limited set of circumstances, described at Wikipedia:Non-free content, some other files can be used, but don't try to use non-free files unless you are 100% sure you have read and understood that policy.

• In the list of links at the left of a Wikipedia page, in the "contribute" section, click on "upload file". This will take you to Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard, a page with links to various methods of uploading files. The two which are given most prominence, because they are thought to be most useful for new editors, are labelled "Upload your own or a freely licensed file" and "Upload a non-free file". Personally I find the link "Plain form for local uploads" more straightforward and less confusing, even though it says "(experienced users)", but I don't know how it would seem to a less experienced editor. You can try it if you like, and go back to the other one if you don't like it.

• "Upload your own or a freely licensed file" is intended either for files are public domain or freely licensed, and it assumes that for those files you will upload to Wikimedia Commons, and doesn't give you the option of uploading to Wikipedia. "Upload a non-free file" is for files which are protected by copyright and not freely licensed, which can only be uploaded to Wikipedia. "Plain form for local uploads" likewise uploads only to Wikipedia, and can be used for either free or non-free files.

I hope some or all of those comments may be helpful, but if they aren't then just ignore them and read Help:Files instead. JBW (talk) 22:53, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@M403g: By the way, I'm not particularly bothered what you call me, but "James" always feels a bit odd, since it isn't really my name. I used to get called James reasonably frequently when my user name had "James" in it, and still occasionally now. JBW (talk) 22:58, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@JBW Wow awesome yes you are correct I was referring to images outside of Wikipedia. I appreciate all the help (lord knows I need it) thank you so much! M403g (talk) 00:14, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Please make note

I see on materialscientist’s talk page an issue. I would like to make note that ms is unchecked and deserving of further scrutiny. I have quit Wikipedia due to reckless editor behavior as his. Wikipietime (talk) 00:34, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Block evasion at 136.158.41.0/24

136.158.41.217 was blocked a few days ago for block evasion. 136.158.41.57 started to make edits in the same articles. It looks like the IP range is 136.158.41.57/24 and I noticed there's not just 1 block present. – The Grid (talk) 12:34, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@The Grid: Thanks for telling me. I've blocked 136.158.41.57, but there's too much other editing for a total block on the range. I'll look into the possibility of a selective range block on particular pages when I'm next on a computer. (The necessary checking is too fiddly on a phone, which is what I'm using now.) Unfortunately I think there may be too many pages involved, though. On the other hand, 136.158.41.57 seems to have been used by the same person since early July, so it's possible the IP range is not very dynamic, in which case blocking individual IP addresses as they turn up may be reasonably effective. As I said, I'll look into it when it's convenient. Also, please let me know if you see any more from the same person. JBW (talk) 14:33, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

It's no problem and thank you for the response! I understand with having to check with ranges. I linked /24 as it seems that might be specific enough: 256 IP addresses. 136.158.41.57/26 has the same blocked IP addresses and that's at 64 IP addresses. – The Grid (talk) 14:40, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@The Grid: The /26 range risks far less collateral damage, though unfortunately not none, and it looks to me even more likely than it did when I wrote above that there will be far too many articles involved for partial blocks to be feasible, so it seems a total block on the /26 is likely to be the best approach. I have provisionally blocked the range for a week, but that my be subject to revision either way when I check more thoroughly. JBW (talk) 15:29, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Related accounts?

Hello. I noticed you deleted the userpages of Deschanel as notwebhost material. I found they have edited userpages of two other users and was wondering if you think they're related. I'm mostly curious as you've deleted an userpage of theirs on 1st Navademy Awards. They've edited another user's page on this topic in 2020. It's a hoax as it claims to be a 2021 award, but it wasn't held yet. I'm not sure if this was the same as the deleted userpage, or if the Navademy Awards do exist or not. Alternativelly, Deschanel edited another user's page in 2018 about a TV show called Lifeline, but it seems like a hoax as well. As there seems to be an overlap of topics/hoaxes (models/tv shows), I was wondering if there's a connection and/or if a SPI is warranted. As I'm not an admin, I can't see the deleted userpages and mainly remember only the ones I speedy nominated as hoaxes. Thanks! --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:16, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@MrLinkinPark333: Thanks for pointing this out to me. I checked the history, including deleted editing, and wrote an account of what I found, in case you are interested. When I tried to save it I found my wifi connection had failed, and I lost what I had written. I don't have time to rewrite it now. I may come back and do it when I have more time, but for now, thanks anyway. JBW (talk) 11:09, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@JBW: Thank you for looking into this :) --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 19:51, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@MrLinkinPark333: OK, in case it's of any interest to you, here's my second attempt to tell you what I came up with when I looked at the editing history, including deleted edits. I actually found it quite interesting to investigate.

Chanelklark and Deschanel are certainly the same person. They edited as Chanelklark from December 2017 to May 2018, and then abandonned that account, and switched to Deschanel. There were also brief periods of IP editing and editing by AprHill in 2020. I don't know whether those were the same person as Chanelklark/Deschanel, or one or more friends joining in for a while.

The substantial majority of the editing falls into two categories: (1) drafts and user pages about awards, contests, etc, and (2) article edits relating to Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Category 1 pages were clearly totally fictitious fantasy pages. Many of them had already been deleted, and I have deleted the rest. There is also a page User:Chanelklark/sandbox/List of Keeping Up With The Kardashians Characters. I know scarcely anything about the Kardashians, but I don't see any obvious reason to think the page wasn't intended as a genuine draft for an article (even though it never got completed) so I've left it. I know even less about Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (in fact nothing) but again I see no obvious reason to think those edits are vandalism. I have warned Deschanel, and blocked AprHill, since that account did only fantasy user space editing, with no article edits at all. Since neither Chanelklark nor th IP address have edited for some time, there's nothing that needs to be done about them.

So there you are. Just one more comment. More than 60% of Deschanel's edits have been deleted, which probably gives a rough idea of their editing priorities. JBW (talk) 21:18, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@JBW: Thank you for investigating. I appreciate you gave a detailed explanation. If I run into something similar, I can use to remind myself of what was found by you and me. Thanks again :) --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 22:31, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Admin's Barnstar
		Thank you for deleting hoaxes that you and I both found from Category:Stale userspace drafts. Your help is greatly appreciated! Keep up the great work :) MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 17:34, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Re: Climax (Alvaro Cartea's article)

Hi there, I think that you requested Alvaro Cartea's article to be moved to draft or to actually delete it. He is an important economics professor at Oxford, with published work and several external references. The article is factual and in line with Wikepedia politics. Why would you move it to draft? I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseovaldia (talk • contribs) 20:58, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

@Joseovaldia: The page was moved by Portuportu2, and you should ask them why. All I did was delete an unsuitable link which was created as a side effect of the move. JBW (talk) 21:14, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you!

Deleted TP

Hello, JBW! Thanks for the deletions. I think Talk:Paul Carter (1960s pitcher) needs to be restored & moved to Talk:Paul Carter (1930s pitcher) & then the 1960s rdr. deleted again. Sorry for the screw up. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 09:17, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

@Bison X: I hope it's all done correctly now, but let me know if there's anything else I've missed. JBW (talk) 09:27, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Postman Pat

A bit confused. I'm not seeing any vandalism, except for several days ago. What am I missing? Seasider53 (talk) 00:09, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

@Seasider53: My apologies. Usually in this kind of situation I put a few more words into the protection log reason, to clarify things a little, but this time I missed doing so. This concerns a persistent abusive editor, who has been blocked repeatedly, but just comes back with a new IP address whenever one is blocked. They target particular articles, and persistently edit each of those articles disruptively, often restoring reverted edits from previous IP addresses, and also adding new edits. Some of the affected articles have been targeted quite often, and if there has been no other IP editing or editing by new accounts for a very long time, I have sometimes protected articles for a few months. If there has been other editing which makes collateral damage more likely I have protected for much shorter times, and in a few cases, where there has been substantial amounts of other IP editing, I have not protected at all, judging that the likely amount of collateral damage would outweigh the benefit of stopping this disruptive editor. In the case of Postman Pat, so far there has been only one edit which appears to come from the person in question, and over time there has been a scattering of other IP edits and edits by non-autoconfirmed accounts. As an indication of how much collateral damage might be likely, I protected the article for ten days; over the 30 days before I did that, there were four edits which would have been stopped by semi-protection, and every one of those edits was reverted, in my opinion rightly. That suggests that the risk of collateral damage is minimal.

Experience shows that once this person edits an article, it is almost certain that they will be back, repeatedly, so there is a case, I think, for trying to get protection in quickly, even after one edit, to convey the message that they won't get away with it. Article protection is something I am never totally happy to do, because there must always be some risk of collateral damage, and in cases where there is a significant amount of constructive editing which would be prevented by protection, I don't do it, even if it means allowing quite a lot of vandalism. In this case, though, the editing history of the article indicates that far more likely than not, no constructive editing at all would be stopped in the ten days of protection, even if I didn't decide to lift the protection earlier. There is no perfect answer in this situation, but I decided to protect the article for a fairly short time, in the hope that the person would come back to the article, see it was protected, and be deterred. I also thought that after a few days I might lift the protection, in the hope that by then they would have already seen the protection, and given up on that article. Obviously it is far from guaranteed to work, but I have seen occasions in the past where someone has been blocked and blocked again and again to no effect eventually gives up when they find they can't just use another IP address or account and pick up from where they had got to before their last block; sufficiently often to be worth a try. The problem, of course, is weighing the likely benefit against any likely collateral damage. Looking just at the article Postman Pat in isolation, there is no case for protection, but looking at the whole picture, including the person's practice of repeatedly coming back to an article once it has been started on, my judgement was that the balance was in favour of a fairly short block. JBW (talk) 19:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Rangeblock request

Bored students in Texas have resumed editing from 104.255.207.0/24. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:42, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: I've blocked the smaller range 104.255.207.0/26, because all but one of the edits since 2019 have been from that range. JBW (talk) 21:12, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Bored students in Virginia: 204.122.110.0/24 –Skywatcher68 (talk) 15:38, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: I thought I posted a message here hours ago, telling you that I had blocked 204.122.110.128/25, but must not have saved my edit. I'll look into the ones below. JBW (talk) 21:14, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Don't know who 49.199.0.0/17 belongs to but the majority of their past 500 edits are problematic and that only goes to the end of June. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Bored students in Washington State: 168.212.0.0/16 –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:59, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

More bored students in Texas at 208.185.249.0/24 and in Virginia at 38.146.204.0/24. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 18:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68:

1. 208.185.249.0/24: Yes, except that all edit since 2017 has been from the smaller range 208.185.249.128/26, and all editing since May of this year from the still smaller range 208.185.249.176/28, so I've blocked that range for a few months.
2. 38.146.204.0/24: I started checking subranges, but fairly soon I got a remarkable message which I have absolutely never seen before. It said "Sorry, too many requests are being made from your user account. Please try again later." However, before that happened I had got as far as discovering that all editing ever from that range has been from the subrange 38.146.204.128/25, so for now I'll block that range. JBW (talk) 20:10, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: Actually I'm not sure whether it was all edits ever or just all recent edits, but either way that block seems reasonable to be going on with. JBW (talk) 20:13, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Bored students in Wales: 159.86.128.0/18 –Skywatcher68 (talk) 14:08, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Bored students in Florida: 204.122.128.0/17 –Skywatcher68 (talk) 18:12, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Bored students in Texas again: 199.72.83.0/24 –Skywatcher68 (talk) 15:10, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Turna (musician)

I see that you deleted Turna (musician) a week ago as G4, for re-creating the article that was deleted as per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Diinoh. Another Turna (musician) was just sent back from article space to draft space. Since Turna and Dinooh appear to be completely different names, and it isn't obvious from the AFD or the draft what was the duplication, I am guessing that you can see something that was deleted. I am tagging the draft and leaving it for you to look at. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:15, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Robert. All of the pages involved are about the same person, named Nathaniel Bapela. Both Diinoh and Turna are pseudonyms, and different versions of the page differ in which of them is given prominence. I'll look at the latest one when I get time, but that isn't now. Thanks for letting me know about it. JBW (talk) 17:52, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Foreign policy of the Donald Trump administration/Archives/2020/August

Talk:Foreign policy of the Donald Trump administration/Archives/2020/August should be deleted. I provided explicit reason. @Explicit and Liz: help me. Because of JBW, Explicit will delete eight pages such that User:ClueBot III/Detailed Indices/Talk:Foreign policy of the Donald Trump administration/Archives/2020/August again. Sawol (talk) 10:00, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi JBW, just for clarification, the archive pages nominated by Sawol should be deleted because they have since been reorganized and are no longer split by month—which creates tiny archives—and are instead split into numbered archives, which is what was linked to in the speedy rationale. As noted above, if the old archives are not deleted, ClueBot III will recreate unneeded maintenance subpages for archive systems which are no longer in use. If you don't mind, I would like to go ahead and follow through with the requested deletions. ✗plicit 10:12, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

@Explicit: I have no objection whatsoever to your deleting the pages. It would, however, have been much more helpful if Sawol had provided one short sentence explaining the reason, instead of just giving a link to a section of an archive and expecting any reviewing administrator to look into it and figure out what the point was. JBW (talk) 11:28, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Block evasion

This seems to have flown under the radar until now, but 24.191.235.163 appears to be an attempt by J4lambert (talk · contribs) to return, despite still being indef-blocked — and has twice admitted as such. The IP has since, after pledging to only edit talk pages, begun editing in the mainspace; most of those edits have been to pages that J4lambert has edited in the past. Since you were the one to indef J4lambert, I figured I'd bring this to your attention. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 02:21, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

@Wcquidditch: Thanks for letting me know. I wonder whether he expected to get away with it indefinitely, or whether it was a kind of trolling, knowing it would eventually be blocked and reverted. I've blocked the IP address, and reverted all edits that hadn't already been reverted, except the IP talk page message admitting who it was. JBW (talk) 10:42, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Block-evading Turk

Hey, JB, take a look at the all-caps edit summaries here. Just giving you a heads up. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 13:41, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: Article semi-protected. JBW (talk) 14:59, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, but they're doing this to all the articles about variants. See edits by 5.177.146.131 & 46.1.252.23 –Skywatcher68 (talk) 13:08, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: OK. I've protected all the articles listed there for a month. I then found that several other variants are already protected indefinitely. For some reason the one exception is SARS-CoV-2 Epsilon variant, which isn't protected, but the DESTROY vandal hasn't attacked it. Goodness knows why. JBW (talk) 14:02, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

They've found new targets; most recent iteration (88.244.192.105) has been blocked already. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 18:36, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Obviously for a vandal who just moves to new targets when existing ones are protected, page protection is futile. In fact it's likely to actually be counterproductive, because as long as the vandalism is restricted to one group of articles, we can keep a watch on them, but obviously not on all possible future targets. I shall therefore lift the protection I imposed on COVID variant articles. I have no idea whether the vandal is likely to have access to other IP addresses in the same range, but the /24 range has not been used by anyone else since April 2014, so the risk of collateral damage from a short block on that range is virtually nil, so I've blocked it for a month. JBW (talk) 10:55, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Why did you delete a whole article I wrote?

I’m leaving fuck you and your entire webpage muthafucka fuck you again do you know how long it takes to do something like that muthafucka fuck you Lilbaby111 (talk) 19:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@Lilbaby111: If you would like to repeat your request for clarification, this time phrasing it as a civil question, and also telling me what information you need which isn't already included in the explanation I have given you, I shall be happy to answer. However, as I am sure you will understand, I have no intention of providing an answer to a request expressed as a childish tantrum. Yoy also may possibly find it instructive to read Wikipedia's policy on personal attacks. JBW (talk) 19:23, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant protection

Hi JBW, hope you are well. I saw your protection and subsequent un-protection of SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant last week. Just wanted to give you a heads up I reinstated semi-protection for a month due to ongoing vandalism and BE. Thanks! -- LuK3 (Talk) 13:02, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

@LuK3:. Thanks for letting me know. I protected a whole list of "SARS-CoV-2 xxxxxx variant" articles. I unprotected them because the vandal had moved on to other, unrelated, articles, but if vandalism is continuing it may be necessary to restore protection to all of them, unfortunately. JBW (talk) 13:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Cath (disambiguation page)

Please create-protect the Cath (disambiguation page) page, because we should not have a duplicate disambiguation redirect. The correct disambiguation redirect for Cath is at Cath (disambiguation). 2601:584:101:80B0:38D0:1DD9:ADBF:8D68 (talk) 14:11, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Since the page hasn't existed for almost eight years, and even then wasn't repeatedly created, there is no reason to protect it. JBW (talk) 15:38, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Try again with page

You deleted a page I drafted, as you felt it was promotional material. I now have significantly more media links to go with and verify the information. I have been advised to contact you before resubmitting.

PCCSSL (talk) 10:16, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

@PCCSSL: OK, post your new version as a draft, let me know when you have done so, and I'll have a look at it. Bear in mind, however, that while lack of suitable references to show notability was the reason given for not immediately accepting the draft as an article, the reason for deletion was the promotional nature of the draft, which is a completely separate issue. The whole thing read like marketing copy. JBW (talk) 10:30, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

CSD

Hi @JBW:, Can you tell me which criteria is used for submitted drafted article which is already in article main space? Fade258 (talk) 13:04, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

You sure about Tommi1986?

It does seem like Tommi1986 was reverting vandalism -- or at least persistent and obvious disruptive editing. Is there a fine line, as far as the exception to the rule against edit warring, between WP:VANDAL and more generic WP:DE (which is what you blocked the IP range for)? If the IP range had no history, I'd say "yeah, edit warring isn't vandalism", but the range's character was already established. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 15:54, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from on this one, JBW. I saw the AIV report of the IP and decided to leave it for someone else as it didn't appear to be egregious vandalism. But it did appear that Tommi was acting in good faith and believed he was reverting vandalism. Given his record, I think the block seems a little harsh. Would you be averse to lifting the block if he promises to learn from his mistake? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:03, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Jpgordon: You may have checked more thoroughly than I have, in which case you may have seen relevant information that I haven't. However, I didn't see anything that was obviously vandalism. For example, it seems entirely plausible that the IP editor sincerely believes in good faith that giving credit to a writer of the film as "screenplay" is better than "writer". There were other aspects of the editor's editing which were disruptive and unacceptable, such as reverting my talk page posts, and instructing an editor not to edit the article again, but you can't justify reverting an edit as vandalism on the basis of the disruptive nature of other edits, on other pages, no matter how unacceptable those other edits may be.

@HJ Mitchell: I will head over to Tommi1986's talk page and discuss the issue, with a view to unblocking if it seems appropriate. JBW (talk) 17:22, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2021

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

Administrator changes

Blablubbs

Alvestrand • Black Falcon • Deathphoenix • Dppowell • Mark Arsten • JGHowes (deceased)

Oversighter changes

Callanecc

Mkdw

Interface administrator changes

Galobtter

Guideline and policy news

• Following an RfC, extended confirmed protection may be used preemptively on certain high-risk templates.
• Following a discussion at the Village Pump, there is consensus to treat discord logs the same as IRC logs. This means that discord logs will be oversighted if posted onwiki.

Technical news

• DiscussionTools has superseded Enterprisey's reply-link script. Editors may switch using the "Discussion tools" checkbox under Preferences → Beta features.

Arbitration

• A motion has standardised the 500/30 (extended confirmed) restrictions placed by the Arbitration Committee. The standardised restriction is now listed in the Arbitration Committee's procedures.
• Following the closure of the Iranian politics case, standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all edits about, and all pages related to, post-1978 Iranian politics, broadly construed.
• The Arbitration Committee encourages uninvolved administrators to use the discretionary sanctions procedure in topic areas where it is authorised to facilitate consensus in RfCs. This includes, but is not limited to, enforcing sectioned comments, word/diff limits and moratoriums on a particular topic from being brought in an RfC for up to a year.

Miscellaneous

• Editors have approved expanding the trial of Growth Features from 2% of new accounts to 25%, and the share of newcomers getting mentorship from 2% to 5%. Experienced editors are invited to add themselves to the mentor list.
• The community consultation phase of the 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process is open for editors to provide comments and ask questions to candidates.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:03, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Gaurav Arya

Hi. The article is about the same person (Army guy, etc.) that was deleted per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gaurav Arya. If you have no objections, I'll go ahead and delete it (unless you get there first). --RegentsPark (comment) 15:41, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@RegentsPark: You are perfectly right. Thanks for the correction. I confess I am guilty of acting on the basis of quickly glancing at the pages, without reading them properly. 😳 I have deleted the article. JBW (talk) 16:57, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

FYI: [4]. I see you're discussing this with one of the creators below. Feel free to unsalt if you think it necessary. --RegentsPark (comment) 19:40, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Regarding "Gaurav Arya" page

I have noticed that, you have deleted that page, but earlier you declined deletion request, could you please explain the reason of deletion. Pyaarkarona (talk) 16:54, 30 September 2021 (UTC) do i have the eligibility of getting a reply??, my point is that how that person is not notable if he has more than 4 million web search results, could you please explain a little bit.Pyaarkarona (talk) 17:21, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@Pyaarkarona: Thank you for expressing your concerns. I shall try to address the points you have raised. Please let me know if anything I say needs further clarification.

I initially declined the speedy deletion request because I thought the article was about a different person from the article previously deleted as a result of consensus at a deletion discussion, but I then realised I was mistaken. As indicated both in the deletion log reason and in the message posted to your talk page, the reason for the deletion was that the article was essentially a repost of an article for which a discussion had resulted in consensus to delete it. In fact the version you created had even less content, and even less evidence of notability, than the article deleted before.

I can't be certain what you mean by asking whether you "have the eligibility of getting a reply", but if you mean that you thought that it was unreasonable of me not to respond within 27 minutes of your posting your enquiry, there are two answers. Firstly, I have many other calls on my time, both on and off Wikipedia, in addition to answering your message. Secondly, I wished to wait until I was on a computer, rather than editing on my phone, because doing the searching that I wished to do in order to thoroughly answer you is difficult and awkward on a phone.

It is not for me to explain why Gaurav Arya is not notable. In fact I have no idea whether he is or not, and if I did have an opinion on the question, allowing that opinion to influence my administrative actions would be an abuse of administrative power. Consensus that the article should be deleted was reached at a discussion in which I did not take part, and my task as an administrator was to accept that consensus, and take action to enforce it, not to form an opinion as to whether the consensus was correct or not. Nevertheless, I shall try to clarify why your comment about number of "web search results" is not an answer to the issue of notability.

The number of web hits for a search term is not remotely useful as a measure of notability, for various reasons, two of which I shall try to illustrate.

Some time ago I published a work, to which for several years there were links on numerous web sites. Almost all of those links have now faded away, but for a while there were, in fact, far more Google hits for me than for a good many people notable enough to be subjects of Wikipedia articles. However, I was not, and still am not, notable at all, and anyone who actually looked at the linked web pages, rather than just looking at a count of how many there were, would have seen that none of them was the kind of substantial coverage of me that is required by Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Other people had far fewer Google hits, but those hits they did have were much more substantial coverage of those people. They are notable by Wikipedia's standards, and I am not.

How many "web search results" you get for a particular subject varies enormously, depending on many factors, such as what search facility you use, exactly what search term you put in, what country you are searching from, and if, like most people, you use a search engine such as Google which stores personal information about your internet use, what personal records of your online activities that company has. However, searching simply for "Gaurav Arya" on Google, I got somewhat over one million hits. I have no idea how many of those referred to the Gaurav Arya you have written about, but many of them certainly didn't; for example, there were a hotelier of that name, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke University, an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego, and so on. Just searching for some expression and seeing how many hits come up can't be relied on as even a rough guide as to how many mentions of the subject in question there actually are. JBW (talk) 22:30, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I think i got almost all of your point.

Now i have two points, one is request other is a argument from my side.

• Request:please start that discussion for page deletion again, because in the previous one there were only 2 comments overall, and none of them were explained either, both comments just simply say "Not notable", i dont understand how this is a consensus, please start that discussion again, and ya if possible please put a simple message that, "if every user participating in this discussion, just add a simple explanation with their comment, then it would be very much appreciated, otherwise its ok, it is not compulsory", write a message of this type, so that we can reach to a fair consensus.
• Point:the person mentioned in the article is popularly known as "Major Gaurav Arya" not "Gaurav Arya" but i created that article with "Gaurav Arya" due to MOS:HONORIFICs and WP:TITLESINTITLES. so if you search "Major Gaurav Arya" you will get over 4 million results and i am pretty sure all results are directly associated with him. and about your first point about yourself, that you did some work and still you are not notable, that point is not valid here, he is retired army officer, which is a work he had done in past so this work is already done, it can't be faded out, and also presently he is working as consulting director at Republic Media network, which is itself a very senior post in a well known media company, so i request you to search a little about him (as you earlier said that you have no idea about him) and help/support me. thanks for reading my bad english. Pyaarkarona (talk) 05:10, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@Pyaarkarona: I take your point about the limited amount of participation in the deletion discussion. I think probably the best way of dealing with this is if I restore the whole history of the article, both before and after the deletion discussion, and move it to draft space, where you can work on it, and perhaps submit it as an article for creation. If you can provide sufficient evidence of notability, it should be possible to override the earlier deletion discussion outcome.

It isn't really important, but I'll just mention that you seem to have missed the point of some of my other comments. My last couple of paragraphs were just intended to illustrate a couple of reasons why number of web hits isn't a valid guide to notability. Specific details of the particular illustrative examples I gave, such as the fact that the work I referred to had only transient attention, are irrelevant to that point. Likewise whether the number of hits you get for a search term is one million, four million, or a hundred million, is irrelevant, as the whole point is that number of Google hits isn't a useful measure of notability. Also, in saying that if I search for the same search term I will get four million hits, you are failing to take on board my point about the number of Google hits not necessarily being the same for different people. You may get one number of hits, and I may get another. As I hope I have made clear, that is actually totally irrelevant, but purely out of interest I shall try the search next time I'm on a computer, and see whether I do get four million hits. (Now I am on a phone, and Google doesn't tell me how many hits there are.) JBW (talk) 10:12, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

agreed with both points, and (just for imformation) please dont forget to check and gather some info about this person, i am sure that you will also help me to prove this article's notability after knowing him. about this line "if I did have an opinion on the question, allowing that opinion to influence my administrative actions would be an abuse of administrative power" if you are going to type this again for me, so i have an answer about this that i am not saying that if you like this person, then please make this article public, NO. i am not saying this, if you (in future) have enough info about him then please participate in that draft discussion, which took place when a draft is being discussed to become an article, i dont know the exact word to be used for "draft discussion". Pyaarkarona (talk) 10:26, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@Pyaarkarona: The page is now at Draft:Gaurav Arya. As for notability, I have now seen enough to get the clear impression that he probably is notable in Wikipedia's terms, but I haven't checked to find proof that he is. JBW (talk) 10:32, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

see, to be very clear , i am not a very old editor, you can see my contributions here, i am not even 0.1% of your experience, but still i will try my best to gather proofs about his notability and try to understand the notability policy perfectly, but you are a very experienced editor and i am not sure, but maybe you are a administrator too, i know you must be quite busy with onwiki and offwiki works, but if you could help me finding proofs or just proving notability then i will be very very thankful to you. Regards. Pyaarkarona (talk) 10:37, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

i dont know if my above request violates any wikipedia policy, if it does, sorry for that, but please help, as far as you can within wikipedia policies. Pyaarkarona (talk) 10:39, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@Pyaarkarona: No, your request doesn't violate any policy, and you are perfectly welcome to ask. I'll try to see if I can help with finding references sometime soon, but not right now. I also suggest that you look at the history of the old article, from before you re-created it. Since that article was deleted, it isn't a good indication of what you should make the article like, but you may find article content, or references, or both, which may be useful to you.

There is another point which I would have mentioned before if I had thought of it. My advice to new editors is that it is best to start by making small improvements to existing articles, rather than creating new articles. That way any mistakes you make will be small ones, and you won't have the discouraging experience of repeatedly seeing hours of work deleted. Gradually, you will get to learn how Wikipedia works, and after a while you will know enough about what is acceptable to be able to write whole new articles without fear that they will be deleted. Over the years I have found that editors who start by making small changes to existing articles and work up from there have a far better chance of having a successful time here than those who jump right into creating new articles from the start. That is perhaps especially true in the case of an article which has already been deleted, as there are more likely to be problems with it. You may, therefore, like to consider leaving Major Gaurav Arya for now, and coming back to him when you have more experience.

Searching on Google for "Major Gaurav Arya" (with quotes) I got a few hundred thousand hits. Searching for Major Gaurav Arya (without quotes) I got over 4 million hits, but that is pretty meaningless, because it includes any page which include the three words "Major", "Gaurav", and "Arya", even if they don't come together. Thus, for example, I got a number of pages about a criminal case against a Major Gaurav (not Major Gaurav Arya) which was being investigated by a police officer named "Devender Arya". What is worse, Google tries to help by giving pages which don't quite fit the search term once it has gone through those which do, so for example I found a page about a Major Gaurav Chaudhary, which didn't even mention the name "Arya" at all, even though I had included that in my search term. It is therefore impossible to know how many of those millions of pages actually referred to the person we are concerned with, but it would almost certainly be a small minority of them. Those are further reasons why number of Google hits is not a useful measure of notability. There are yet other reasons too, but I think by now I have said more than enough to illustrate the point. JBW (talk) 21:11, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

yes, i got all your points, thanks for agreeing for cooperation, time doesn't matter, what matter is your cooperation, and about i being a new editor, i get this point, but for now i think i should try to complete this article, its because of my own feeling, i dont like to leave a work in middle, but i will definitely keep your advise in my mind for future , once again thanks for engaging with a junior editor like me for a very long conversation, wish you a great life ahead, both in real world and in wikiworld.Pyaarkarona (talk) 08:28, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Desi Books page deletion

Praveen Ahuja Chandigarh (talk) 00:12, 5 October 2021 (UTC)Hi, JBW.

Desi Books is a legitimate, registered business and a multimedia platform for South Asian literature. It's been running since April 2020 and has had plenty of media and press to validate its existence. The Wiki page was not advertising or promotion but a way to establish its legitimate presence as a news platform for South Asian literature. Please let me know what needs to be fixed for it to be restored. Maybe the page needs to be constructed differently? The reference links were all from legitimate media venues as well.

Thank you.Praveen Ahuja Chandigarh (talk) 00:12, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

@Praveen Ahuja Chandigarh: What on earth does "a way to establish its legitimate presence as a news platform" mean if it doesn't mean an attempt to promote your business?

The whole article read exactly as though it was written for the purpose of marketing, advertising, merchandising, platform audiences, etc. The way for an article on the subject to be written so that it won't be deleted as promotional is for it not to be written in that way.

Wikipedia is not a medium for you to advertise or promote your business, to publicise it, to "establish its legitimate presence", or whatever other form of marketing speak you prefer to use to say the same thing. JBW (talk) 08:59, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Praveen Ahuja Chandigarh (talk) 14:31, 5 October 2021 (UTC)I'm still fairly new to Wikipedia as a page creator. Would you perhaps point me to a couple of examples of pages for media sites that are written the correct way? I looked up a couple and followed their example. There's no promotion or marketing or advertising on the Wiki page or even the platform's website because there is no selling of anything. The site itself does not have ads or sell any other services or products like many other news media sites. There's no paywall, no money required off anyone. It's a literary citizenship effort much like Wikipedia is a volunteer effort.Praveen Ahuja Chandigarh (talk) 14:31, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Nokomis Regional High

You recently deleted edits on this page. I am a teacher leading students through the process of making meaningful contributions to Wikipedia. I am wondering if we might enlist you in providing more specific feedback as we continue this work in good faith. I take your point that certain lines, in particular, violated neutral point of view and that the effect was a tone of positivity unbecoming in the encyclopedia.

We will reinstate the deleted edits and revise them today. This is a learning process that, I hope, will lead to continued interest in the Wiki community and the acquisition of the research and writing skills required to contribute to this space. It would be beneficial if, should you think that the work is not up to standard, you might use a bit more of a scalpal than a cleaver. We respect your experience and would like to learn from it. MrVyousee (talk) 15:54, 5 October 2021 (UTC)MrV

@MrVyousee: Thank you for expressing your concerns. I shall try to answer some of the points raised by your message. I hope that some or all of what I say may be of some help to you.

Anyone can step in and make very minor and uncontroversial edits to Wikipedia without too much trouble. The first edit I made with my account was removing an apostrophe which shouldn't have been there, but of course there are edits which are far less trivial than that, but which are still unproblematic. Unfortunately, however, more significant editing provides many pitfalls for new editors, and new editors who jump straight into significant editing, rather than starting with minor details, often find things confusing and frustrating, as their good faith attempts to edit keep being rejected. My experience over the years is that editors who start small, and move to bigger things only as they gain enough experience to know what is acceptable, have a far greater likelihood of having a successful time here than those who jump straight into more significant tasks.

Teaching others to do something requires that one knows how to do it oneself. Over the years I have seen numerous teachers who have tried to use editing Wikipedia as part of their teaching without first gaining enough experience of editing to know what is involved. A very large proportion of them have had problems. I think it is very much a thing to be avoided.

You may by the time you read this have already read my message on your talk page, in which I direct your attention to Wikipedia's guideline on "conflict of interest". (I don't think that "conflict of interest" is actually an entirely appropriate description, but that is what it is called.) If so, you will have seen that editing about a subject in which you have a close personal involvement, such as the organisation for which you work, is strongly discouraged. One of the main reasons for that is that it can be extremely difficult to stand back from such a subject, and see how one's writing about it looks from the detached perspective of an independent, uninvolved, observer. Time and time again over the years I have seen editors in such a situation who evidently sincerely believe they are writing objectively, but who are writing stuff which to any outsider looks unambiguously promotional. Very often, even when the non-neutral nature of what they are writing is pointed out to them, they can't see it. It is almost always better to steer clear of such editing, and contribute only in areas where one has no such personal involvement, but if one does choose to contribute in such an area it is essential to do so in the ways prescribed in the "conflict of interest" guideline.

Another thing which I have found from experience over the years is that good faith editors who have made the mistake of writing in a way which comes over as promotional, then make the further mistake of thinking that the problem is just one of details which can easily be corrected, and all that is needed is for someone else to point out those particular details. More often it is in fact the case that the whole tenor of their writing is unacceptable. In that situation I find that pointing out a few details as examples is not, in fact, helpful, because it encourages the person in question to focus on those details, and others like them, rather than seeing the broader picture. However, one example which really sticks out is "Inspire every student. Instill a motivation for learning. Ensure contributing citizens." That is nothing but empty verbiage, intended to give a positive feel, but actually conveying no information whatever. (If you doubt that, just consider what I know about the school that I didn't know before I read that. Is it likely that previously I thought the school was one of those which thinks that inspiring students is a bad idea, and which seeks to ensure non-contributing citizens?) This is the sort of marketing speak which one expects to see in a school prospectus or on the school's web site, but it does not belong in what aspires to be a factual and neutral independent account.

Information about what subjects students are required to take is no doubt of interest and importance to students, potential students, and their parents, but it is not the kind of thing that the reader of a general encyclopaedia article is likely to be interested in. Even more so, the stuff about sports and awards is not only of minor significance, but it is written purely for promotional purposes, as one can see by the fact that it dwells only on a small minority of the relevant history, namely the minority which looks good to the school. For example, consider "Since Nokomis was built in 1968, the sports programs have won four State titles across different sports." I wonder how in how many sports the school has competed in those 53 years. Whatever the exact number, there must have been hundreds of competitions where the school didn't win, but we are told nothing whatever about those: we read only of the four occasions when the school did win. Again, this is the kind of thing that is routine for promotional material for a school, such as a prospectus or its own web site, but it has no place on Wikipedia.

Why on earth would you choose to replace "The school principal is Mary Nadeau" with "As of June 2009, the school principal is Mary Nadeau"? If she still is principal, then making that change makes no sense at all, and if she isn't then making that change rather than removing the statement altogether makes no sense at all. The only reason I can conceive of is that you didn't even bother to read what you posted: you just wanted to restore as much of the material as possible, to make things look good for the school and for you. The fact that you were restoring material originally posted by someone else does not exonerate you from the responsibility of ensuring that material you post into an article is appropriate.

I have put a significant amount of time and thought into writing this message, which I hope will convey a few of the reasons why your editing has been problematic. Obviously, I can't know how helpful, if at all, you find it, but I offer it in the hope that it may clarify things for you at least a little. JBW (talk) 20:01, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

It was right to delete that Draft:Lobo (web series) page

I was watching it for a while and I think I added one source at one point (I think it was a CBR article), but that page was doomed already. And I didn't want to be the person who nominated it for deletion (I also don't have admin rights to delete pages like you did), so it kind of just languished for a while. If someone is that interested in the series, perhaps they can re-create the page in the future. So thanks for doing that. --Historyday01 (talk) 20:11, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

I would like to re-create the page someday. BergeronOrr (talk) 20:23, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Block evasion

Drawing your attention to this, since I saw you just blocked one of the socks and reverted their contributions. Grandpallama (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi, JBW. You recently blocked RayDrum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for using multiple accounts to add new categories about "English-language films". I do not know enough about the situation to file a sockpuppet report, but I wanted to let you know that the edits by GeniusMan24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appear to be adding the same or similar content. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 19:35, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

I just noticed that Grandpallama already mentioned this editor to you in the section above, so I merged my comment with that section. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 19:37, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Related to Cwf97 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), I imagine? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 03:09, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@Grandpallama, Wallyfromdilbert, and Jpgordon: Yes. I've blocked & tagged Grandpallama GeniusMan24, but I don't suppose it will do more than at the most cause a slight pause in the editing until the next sock pops up. Sigh 😕. Still, I suppose every little helps. JBW (talk) 09:04, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

@Grandpallama, Wallyfromdilbert, and Jpgordon: Oops! Sorry, Grandpallama. JBW (talk) 09:08, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

That'll teach me to report sockpuppets in the future! :) Grandpallama (talk) 14:57, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

I saw an edit that looked familiar [5] and I wondered if maybe this new user User talk:BergeronOrr was the same person as RayDrum but I'm not particularly familiar with the pattern of edits so I could be mistaken. Thought you might want to look at it. -- 109.77.198.222 (talk) 17:37, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Yet another one

Hy JWB. User:Ravi sarthi... found via Commons where he uploaded a vanity selfie, and has done nothing here or on Commons. An obvious attempt at a personal social web space. Thanks. Acabashi (talk) 14:47, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Abusive username

Hello. I noticed that you blocked this account for "abusing multiple account". Would you mind giving me the link to their SPI case(s)? We're having a bit trouble with this self-promotional sockpuppeteer on vi.wiki (and fandom, as well). NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 03:50, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh: Two months after the event, I have no memory of this case, but as far as I can tell by searching through the history, including deleted history, there was no SPI, and I seem to have blocked on the basis of behavioural similarity to an account called Smagzine. Concumauhong started editing after Smagzine was blocked. Both accounts edited exclusively to promote someone called "Bui Quoc Huy", apparently a journalist at "Dazed" and "SMagazine Digital". I see that Smagzine has also edited Vietnamese Wikipedia, so perhaps you know more about that account. JBW (talk) 08:40, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

FYI, he ("Bùi Quốc Huy" is a boy's name) often calls himself "Steve", and he prefers making hoaxes about himself, including adding his name into various places. All links that includes his name, like this one, should be considered spam as they are fake pages. Thanks for your help. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 09:03, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Mail Notice

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Celestina007 (talk) 23:59, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

A request

JBW, I would be grateful if you could reconsider your block of Snooganssnoogans. The way I read the editing history, Snooganssnoogans (1) didn't exceed 3RR and (2) the article in question was being assailed by an IP address-turned-disruptive editor with a highly inappropriate username who inserted various unsourced/poorly sourced content (much of it in the "echoing state propaganda" category) while removing academic, peer-reviewed sources. Perhaps Snooganssnoogans could have gone to ANI and RFPP, but I don't see anything sanctionable from him/her. Neutrality^talk 21:41, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@Neutrality:

Snooganssnoogans was blocked for edit-warring, nor for breaching the "three revert rule".

I see that you reverted the article to what you evidently think was the right version, and then protected it. Are you sure that was what you intended to do? Would you like to reconsider one or both of those actions?

I agree about the inappropriate username, but I am puzzled as to why that is relevant to the question of edit-warring. Does the fact that an editor has an unacceptable username mean that reverting their edits is somehow more acceptable than would be reverting the same edits made by an editor with a different username?

"IP address-turned-disruptive editor with a highly inappropriate username" indicates that you assume that this edit was made by the same person who had previously edited from the IP address 128.239.196.109. You are very likely right. Have you made any similar assumptions regarding the editing from 71.211.138.250? Is there more evidence in one case than in the other?

Have you checked Snooganssnoogans's history? Are you aware how many warnings on edit-warring that editor has received since May 2016? Is there a limit to how often an editor can get away with edit-warring despite being warned over and over again, by making sure they stop just before they think they may get blocked? I think there is, and I think Snooganssnoogans has passed that limit.

I shall not address the parts of your message which amount to criticising the block because you think Snooganssnoogans's edits were right and the other editor's wrong. I hope an adminiatrator of your experience doesn't need ir explaining why that is off the point, to say the least.

You asked me to reconsider the block. I have reconsidered it very carefully, and reexamined the relevant history, and everything I have seen confirms my belief that the block is right. JBW (talk) 19:48, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

In my 17 years or so on this project, seldom have I seen such an ill-considered block. Yes, obviously it's relevant that the editor had an unacceptable, homophobic username: that should clue you in that there is disruptive editing and trolling afoot. This was not a situation in which Editor A and Editor B are duking it out over a good-faith content dispute involving due-weight, NPOV, or the like. This was a situation in which an IP address and an newly registered account with a troll username are (1) inserting obviously unsourced or poorly sourced content, (2) removing academic sources, (3) accusing other editors of promoting "CIA think tank garbage" and engaging in "censorship" and (4) promoting fringe notions that China is somehow a democracy. You blocked Snooganssnoogans for attempting to counter this orchestrated campaign of disruption, yet (to my knowledge) took no action to blocks the IP editors or to protect the page. I view this outcome as remarkably unequitable; it undercuts our verifiability policy, our onus policy, and our fringe policy. This is the kind of thing that inhibits our project's ability to retain good editors. It's disappointing. Neutrality^talk 00:25, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Democracy in China

When you decided to block me, were you aware that the Wikipedia page in question was targeted by a coordinated off-wiki campaign?[6] Did you discover the Wikipedia page in question through that Reddit page? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:27, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

@Snooganssnoogans: No, I didn't know about that. Thank you for telling me. It is obviously a matter for considerable concern. JBW (talk) 16:56, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Hate to snitch, but

You may wish to see recent developments at User talk:Hayleez and Special:Contributions/Hayleez. Liz has been talking to them a bit, but in light off your final warning, I thought you might want to know. (I haven't even been keeping an eye on them, but happened to run into a bad U5 of theirs in the course of some unrelated SPI work.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 02:33, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

@Tamzin: Thanks. I've blocked the account for a couple of days, in the hope that it will get them to take notice, where messages haven't worked. I had hoped it wouldn't come to a block, because much of the editor's editing is good. JBW (talk) 20:59, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2021

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

Administrator changes

Clpo13

Brian0918 • JDoorjam • Karanacs • MrDarcy • Mindspillage

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Dreamy Jazz • Ferret • GeneralNotability • Girth Summit • RoySmith

Oversight changes

Dreamy Jazz • LuK3

Guideline and policy news

• Phase 2 of the 2021 RfA review has commenced which will discuss potential solutions to address the 8 issues found in Phase 1. Proposed solutions that achieve consensus will be implemented and you may propose solutions till 07 November 2021.

Technical news

• Toolhub is a catalogue of tools which can be used on Wikimedia wikis. It is at https://toolhub.wikimedia.org/.

Arbitration

• GeneralNotability, Mz7 and Cyberpower678 have been appointed to the Electoral Commission for the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections. Ivanvector and John M Wolfson are reserve commissioners.
• Eligible editors are invited to self-nominate themselves to stand in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections from 07 November 2021 until 16 November 2021.

Miscellaneous

• The 2021 CheckUser and Oversight appointments process has concluded with the appointment of five new CheckUsers and two new Oversighters.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Garbaroman

I have been working on the Draft on the Draft:Trilith monuments in South Arabia by Garbaroman and thought it was a rather good article for wikipedia. Now I have seen that you have deleted their page and was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to deal with this editor and their article. As to me the editor seems a rather well informed editor on a topic not really covered on Wikipedia. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 00:26, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@Paradise Chronicle: In saying that I have "you have deleted their page" you evidently mean their user page. I have now restored the page, and explained why at User talk:Garbaroman, so you may like to read what I have written there. I am grateful to you for mentioning it, as otherwise I would not have gone back and reconsidered the page. I have not thoroughly investigated the draft, including checking its references, but from what I have seen it looks like a very good article, and probably perfectly suitable to become an article apart from the fact that, unfortunately, there is a copyright problem. I have written about it at some length at User talk:Garbaroman, so again you may like to read what I have written there. JBW (talk) 21:11, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time and making the effort. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:26, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Decline to delete misnamed redirece USN Sol Nevis

The article has existed, but the "USN Sol Nevis" was a completely misconceived title from the start. There is no such U.S. Navy prefix. It is either "USS" for United States Ship or "USNS" for United States Naval Ship. The original redirect — indeed use of USN Sol Nevis in the article was a total blunder. There have been no "hits" on that redirect, probably because none searching would even think of looking for USN (shipname). Not a big deal, but the result of not deleting will be a completely hilarious example of someone with little clue of the subject matter creating a name. Palmeira (talk) 19:50, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

@Palmeira: You are almost certainly right in thinking that nobody will search under that title; in that case it makes no difference whatever whether the redirect is deleted or not. If someone does search for it, then having the redirect will be helpful. If having it can't possibly do any harm, and may possibly (even if extremely improbably) do some good, then obviously it should be kept. In any case, Wikipedia policy is that implausible redirects can be speedily deleted only if the are recently created, which this one isn't, so it doesn't qualify for speedy deletion, whatever you or I think about it. (Incidentally, why did you move the existing redirect, thereby creating a new one at the old title, rather than just creating a new redirect at the new title?) JBW (talk) 21:04, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Having a host of name blunder redirects has little impact considering today's cheap storage, but having such a real blunder is something that is just weird. A bit like having a redirect for "Premier Biden" — actually more reasonable since some foreign visitors might not know we have a President and Premier is not in the U.S. domestic political lexicon. On the "why" the USN Sol Navis was obviously a blunder and rife in the article as well (lots of misinformation in there!). After I'd cleaned up the article purging it of that made up USN prefix I moved that redirect to create a USS Sol Navis which is correct for a few months in 1919 and something searchers are likely to use. I was very surprised there was no USS Sol Navis redirect at all. My usual peeve is with people applying the precise "USS" prefix to floating objects in no way qualifying, but this was something else entirely. I have no problem with "USS" redirects even for yard garbage scows — some people do think anything Navy has is USS so that is a reasonable search aid. I've got that redirect on my watchlist. It is going to be fascinating to see if there are any "seacher" hits other than ours in the near future. Palmeira (talk) 21:53, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

second.wiki and G12

Good day. I noticed that RouteNote was deleted for reasons including G12 which the example of https://second.wiki/wiki/routenote was given. I'm not interested in RouteNote, I am curious about how copying from second.wiki can be a copyright violation given that second.wiki content is under CC-BY-SA and also everything in the second.wiki RouteNote page is a translation of the Spanish WP article. Can you please explain how copying from second.wiki is a copyright violation? Thank you Jamplevia (talk) 19:43, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

No. Can you explain why you ask a question which, in the context of your other remarks, you probably think has no answer, rather than politely drawing my attention to what you evidently think was a mistake on my part? Perhaps you would also like to point out, in a civil and constructive way, the nature of "" to the editor who made the speedy deletion nomination, Twotwofourtysix. JBW (talk) 19:57, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining it was a mistake. Have a nice day. Jamplevia (talk) 20:13, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

And thanks for restoring order. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:27, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Red Hen Press Article

Dear JBW, I've made a good faith effort to respond to the maintenance flag to improve the Red Hen Press article with more citations, and would like to remove the flag, if you agree that it's appropriate. Thank you!Books2read (talk) 12:06, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Private GSM

Hello JBW, I reverted your declination of the CSD tag at Private GSM because I strongly believe that it meets one or more than one CSD criterion. First of all, the page is an advert that promotes a single entity. Rather than telling 'what the product is' the page is focused on 'why you should use the product' (G11). Secondly, it doesn't cite any sources and so anything that is stated on the page has no authenticity. It could be a blatant hoax made to look the product fancier (G3). Thirdly, the page doesn't state the significance and why the topic is important as an encyclopedic entry (A7). I don't know why someone even approved an article like this with no reliable and notable sources. If you can make the article better by maintaining a neutral tone and adding appropriate citations and sources, you are welcome. But don't just remove the CSD. Make a formal appeal on Deletion review and discuss it with other admins and/or contest the CSD on its talk page. Thank you. Enormous Efrit (talk) 11:48, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Enormous Efrit:

1. You nominated the article for deletion as a blatant hoax, and I declined that nomination. Most of what you have written above has nothing to do whether it's a blatant hoax or not, and so is irrelevant to that nomination. The article may or may not have other reasons why it should be deleted, but that has no bearing on the validity or otherwise of the reason you put forward.
2. A speedy deletion nomination is a request for an administrator to review the page and decide whether it should be deleted. I am an administrator, and I did what you asked for. To instruct me not to do so because the decision I made wasn't the one you had hoped for is absurd.
3. Have you any idea what the word "blatant" means? "It could be a blatant hoax" is nonsense. If it were blatant there would be no "could be" about it.
4. It took me seconds, not minutes, to run a web search and confirm that the article is not a hoax. You should do the same before making deletion nominations. Nominating a page for deletion because it "could" satisfy a deletion criterion, without checking whether it actually does, is a waste of editors' time.
5. I suggest you may like to read up on what WP:Deletion review is for. You will find it is not for administrators to make "a formal appeal" because they believe a speedy deletion nomination is invalid.
6. Thank you for informing me that I am welcome to edit the article to improve it. Knowing that is so reassuring. Maybe when you have had an account for three months instead of two you would like to come back and tell me more of the facts about editing Wikipedia that you think I may have somehow missed. JBW (talk) 14:23, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Voicing Erasure project

Hi JWB. I saw you nominated this article for deletion and while I agree with your PROD rationale it appears to be part of a student assignment per User:Emily01755, so I've instead moved it to draft space, as it may or not contain work they'll want to salvage. -- Asartea ^{Talk | Contribs} 11:14, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

@Asartea: OK. Thanks for letting me know. In general I am not keen on the very common practice of allowing things from student editors that we wouldn't allow from other editors, for several reasons, including the fact that I don't think it's doing a favour to the small minority of student editors who continue to edit after their course to teach them that they can do things which they will be picked up on if they continue to do. However, in this case I supose letting the page rest in user space for a while may be helpful to the editor, and won't do any harm, so I'm happy with that. JBW (talk) 11:25, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

a block you did Comment

Hi, you recently blocked User:Nolian for persistent removal of content. Apparently the block failed to gain their attention, and multiple warnings on their talk page have resulted in no behavioural change. Take a look at their contribs--single purpose, dedicated to edit-warring against consensus. It seems another block may be necessary. Daundelin❁ 14:37, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

im sorry for making bad edits i made good edits on missingno. article if you want to see

Bendy 999567890 (talk) 16:52, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

An enquiry about deleted vandalism

Why did you delete my Page? i will createa new one with different information but the same person

• Not Logged In User — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.147.195.222 (talk) 02:42, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Really? You need to be told why that was deleted? No, of course not, you're joking, aren't you? 😄 JBW (talk) 08:30, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

PAustin4thApril1980 evade

159.196.207.13 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) Last four articles edited by IP were also edited by PAustin4thApril1980 in the past. IP also posted on User talk:Nick Cooper about Threads (1984 film), an article heavily edited by PAustin4thApril1980. AldezD (talk) 18:17, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

1.136.106.242 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is also likely PAustin4thApril1980 due to strong edit history of "Murder of..."/"Disappearance of..." articles where PAustin4thApril1980 has also edited. AldezD (talk) 18:20, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

@AldezD: 159.196.207.13 was absolutely obvious, with much more evidence than you mentioned. Also, when I came to block that IP address, I found that it had previously been blocked for block-evasion by PAustin4thApril1980. I haven't yet had time to look at 1.136.106.242, but I hope to do so soon. JBW (talk) 19:29, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

@AldezD: 1.136.106.242 turns out to be obvious too. The giveaway there is editing articles previously edited by PAustin4thApril1980, but not connected to PAustin4thApril1980's obsessions. However, it turns out that that IP address too has been blocked before for block-evasion by PAustin4thApril1980, but unlike the other one hasn't edited since that block, and I couldn't justify another block in that situation. However, if you see any more from that IP address or a related one, please let me know, and I'll reconsider it. JBW (talk) 20:10, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of InstaShop

Hi JBW, I believe your deletion of InstaShop under WP:G4 is a mistake. G4 only "applies to sufficiently identical copies ... of a page deleted via its most recent deletion discussion." (emphasis mine) The page was deleted as an article via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/InstaShop, whereas I created it as a redirect; hence it is not a "sufficiently identical" copy of the page deleted. Moreover, the AfD closure specifically states that If an editor wishes to subsequently make a redirect this discussion should not prevent them from doing so, which is expressly an indication that the AfD does not preclude recreation of a redirect as I did. feminist (t) 15:14, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Feminist. After you created the redirect, an IP editor made it into an article, which was very similar to the one deleted at AFD. Fram then nominated that article for G4 speedy deletion, rightly in my opinion, and I deleted it. Your redirect, buried under the editing history of the recreated article, got deleted as collateral damage, but I've restored it now. JBW (talk) 17:32, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. If that is the case, I suggest protection of the page to prevent recreation of the article. feminist (t) 00:51, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

@Feminist: I did consider doing that, and it might be a good thing to do, but there is a significant chance that it wouldn't. The IP editor appears to be an undisclosed paid editor, who has at least five blocked accounts, and has also used more than one IP address for unlogged-in editing. They have put a considerable amount of effort into trying to use Wikipedia to publiciae this company, not only by means of the article and draft about it, but also by posting spam mentions of it into other articles. They have attempted to use deceptove methods, as seen in the AfD. Protecting the draft just might deter them, but my experience over the years is that very often in this situation protection can actually be counterproductive, because I have fairly often seen the following happen. An editor who has been so persistent up to now, rather than being deterred by page protection, may simply recreate the page under a different title. We can watch out for editing of the existing page and take action, but we can't watch every conceivable new title they could possibly use. I have therefore seen page protection have the opposite effect than intended, in this kind of situation. JBW (talk) 08:18, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Ok

Ok I understand. All I want is people to be able to see who I am. Can you make a page on Liliththerapper? Also. I think everything is great ok? I think there is no such thing as better. That is a manifestation of low self-esteem. Which I clearly don't have 😅😭 I don't like the idea humans have of something being more valuable than. The other. We are all the same consciousness energy that manifested this reality Liliththerapper (talk) 19:13, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

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More bored students

Seems they don't have enough to do at the University of Queensland. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 01:31, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Or in Idaho. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 20:44, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Blocked 169.197.75.2 & 169.197.75.224/27, which cover all the edits. JBW (talk) 08:09, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Moroccan students? 196.64.12.x, 196.64.13.x & 196.64.14.x have a history of making nonsense edits, disappearing for a few months, then more nonsense. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 21:54, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Blocked 196.64.12.0/22 & 196.64.16.0/22 for 6 months. There have been occasional short bursts of vandalism outside those ranges, but all the activity of the one persistent vandal seems to fall within them. JBW (talk) 08:05, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Bored students in Canada, I guess. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 17:03, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: Not sure whether they are students this time, but certainly the substantial majority of the editing from that range is vandalism. Blocked 209.195.248.0/22 and 209.195.252.0/24, which, if I haven't made a mistake, covers all the editing except one solitary edit in 2006. Is searching for editing by "bored students" one of your most loved pastimes? You seem to do it rather a lot.🤔 JBW (talk) 21:14, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Just perusing Recent Changes. Most of the time, I simply add the Shared IP edu template to users' talk pages but sometimes I'll do a range search upon coming across a recent vandal and see if there's a pattern. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 02:18, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

ABU TV Song Festival 2021

Good morning, Why have you deleted this voice? It was an article written correctly. I think it should be rewrited (It will also more simple translating it) HAve a nice day --Esc0fans -and my 12 points go to... 13:51, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

@Esc0fans: You must have seen the deletion log entry, as otherwise you wouldn't have known that it was I who had deleted it, and so you must have seen that the reason was creation by a blocked editor evading a block. Perhaps what you wish to know is the reason behind that policy, so I shall say a little about that. There are, unfortunately, editors who choose to persistently knowingly edit contrary to Wikipedia policies, and who ignore blocks, simply creating new accounts to evade the effects of no matter how many blocks are imposed. The only mechanism we have which stands any chance at all of encouraging them to give up is to let them learn that any editing they do will be reverted, so that they will achieve nothing by evading their blocks. Of course that is not guaranteed to work, but over the years I have many times seen an editor who has persistently used one sockpuppet account after another to evade blocks but who has eventually given up when one or more editors have started rigorously applying the policy that editing by block-evading users, including page creation, can be reverted on sight. Unfortunately that sometimes means that we lose a good article, but that is a price we have to pay for the benefit of stopping far greater amounts of disruptive editing.

It may be of interest to you to know that the policy that pages created by banned users may be deleted has been in force at least since 2004, to my knowledge, and perhaps further back than that. The policy was extended to also cover blocked editors in February 2010. Over the years the matter has been discussed many times, and in every case that I have ever seen consensus has been in favour of the policy, though there's usually a minority viewpoint against it.

Quite apart from the above concerns, the particular article you refer to was distinctly poor in several respects, perhaps the biggest one being that it was sourced only to YouTube. It took me less than a minute to find better sources than that.

I hope that some or all of those comments may be of some help in clarifying the matter for you, but please feel welcome to let me know if you have any other questions about it.

Incidentally, I wonder, are you Italian? I ask only out of interest, and you absolutely don't have to answer if you don't wish to. JBW (talk) 16:03, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer,

I asked you about the article because I was considering to Translate the article on it.wiki (italian is my native language) but I can't translate it form japanese and I want to know if this voice can be on en.wiki. -Esc0fans -and my 12 points go to... 07:13, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
	Thank you for deleting the vandal article Ajoy Tripura. I was actually in the process of nominating it for deletion, but after I clicked "publish", I was told it had already been deleted. Thank you for your help! Dunutubble (talk) 14:57, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Murder of Amy Yeary

Hi there, I saw that you removed the comma in the sentence "Prior to her identification in 2021, Yeary was known as "Fond du Lac County Jane Doe", with a note that this was improved punctuation. This is, in fact, incorrect; when starting a sentence with a dependent clause, a comma should come after the dependent clause. Here is a link on the use cases of commas. Additionally, I do not believe it is appropriate to switch words on the basis of their language of origin viz. "prior" (a "pompous Latinism") and "before" (Proto-Germanic). "Prior" is plain English and appears throughout Wikipedia as shown here. Thanks! Sideriver84 (talk) 19:14, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

@Sideriver84: Thank you for giving me a lesson on what is "incorrect" in English grammar. I see that you have indeed found a prescriptivist web site written by someone who thinks that in English, as in German, it is always necessary to separate a subordinate clause from a following main clause with a comma. Naturally, that must be THE TRUTH, since someone has said so on the internet. I have better things to do with my time than bothering to find a few web sites written by equally prescriptivist writers who give the contrary view, for several reasons. As for "prior to", it conveys precisely the same information as "before", is not in common use in natural colloquial English, and serves no purpose other than giving the person who wrote it the feeling that they are writing a more impressive style of English. I suppose they are right in sofar as their writing is more impressive to other people like themselves, but that's about all that can be said about it. Are there any other subjects on which you would like to educate me by parroting out "rules" that you read somwehere? JBW (talk) 06:52, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I didn't know that German has similar rules to English, since I don't know any German, but that would make sense since English is a Germanic language. Sideriver84 (talk) 07:07, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Sideriver84: The depressing thing about that remark is that I think you are probably not joking. The punctuation that we use has developped in recent centuries, long after English and German had evolved to being very different languages, and specifically use of commas is strikingly different between the two languages. Likewise there are significant differences between punctuation conventions in French and Spanish. The languages having evolved from the same ancestral language thousands of years ago has no bearing on how punctuation has been formed in more recent times. The conventions for use of commas in German are far from the same as those in English, even if one goes out of one's way to select the "rules" prescribed by those prescriptivist grammarians whose preferences are closest to German usage. (Oh dear! I must have made some kind of dreadful mistake in that last sentence, because it can't possibly be that what prescriptivist grammarians prescribe is just a matter of "preferences", or that different prescriptivists have different preferences, can it? After all, that would mean that their "rules" were a subjective matter of opinion, whereas of course they are objective TRUTH. How could we condemn one usage as "incorrect" and praise another as "correct" if opinions among self-appointed "experts" differed? We would be reduced to having to base our view of how a language works to observing how it is actually used, rather than how someone tells us it should be used, on the basis of "rules" that someone has made up. My goodness! We might even be reduced to having to accept sentences such as this one, since we would have no rules condemning it to appeal to.) JBW (talk) 07:51, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

24.54.205.108 block

Can you please disable talk page access as well? wizzito | say hello! 10:47, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

JBW They're vandalizing their talk page as we speak. Help? wizzito | say hello! 10:52, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Wizzito  Done. I would have done it when I first blocked if I had realised what long-term abusive editor it was, but I didn't make the connection. JBW (talk) 10:55, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Probably Link Smurf, correct? wizzito | say hello! 10:57, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:AN

Hi JBW, hope you're doing well. This is just to let you know that an IP editor, possibly the same user you've been interacting with at Alpha Motor Corporation, has started a thread at WP:AN that mentions you. It's at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Admin Abuse of Alpha Motor Corporation Page. DanCherek (talk) 15:05, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:OWB #37! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:07, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. (re Alpha Motor Corporation) WaggersTALK 15:51, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

"DESTROY" vandal has resurfaced

Blocked already but SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant should be protected in case they find some other IP to use. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 21:58, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: What new IP have they been using? I thought it might be 24.54.205.108, but that one geolocates to Puerto Rico, whereas previous IP addresses that I've checked have been from Turkey, and also the editing isn't really all that similar, so I think not. If you can let me know a specific IP address at which they have "resurfaced" I will have a look at it when I get time. I don't think I could justify protecting the article without any evidence that they are still around. JBW (talk) 22:16, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

They only got in one "DESTROY" edit before being blocked. –Skywatcher68 (talk) 02:19, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

@Skywatcher68: Right. Blocked for two months. When I checked after ready your first message about this, I missed that one, buried amongst hundreds of recent edits to the article. Thanks for the clarification. It may be worth bearing in mind for the future that it helps to give a link to relevant information that you already know of, but I would have to search for. JBW (talk) 06:50, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Deletion

Hello, would you mind deleting this for me to make way for a move --Megan B.... ^{It’s all coming to me} till the end of time 10:55, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

nevermind --Megan B.... ^{It’s all coming to me} till the end of time 11:07, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant

It is a request if you can upgrade/extend SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant protection to indefinite semi-protection under WP:ARBCOVIDDS . 42.106.205.28 (talk) 17:42, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Also, please protect Omicron because of high level IP vandalism due to emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. I have also requested the same at WP:RfPP. Thanks 42.106.205.28 (talk) 17:58, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

FYI: probably nipped a PAustin4thApril1980 sock in the bud

See Special:Centralauth/Princess Leia of Hungary. CC'ing JarrahTree who brought it to my attention. Graham87 09:13, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

And more; see my logs. Graham87 11:46, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

@Graham: Do you know, if I wanted to evade a block, I would have no difficulty at all in doing it in ways which wouldn't be anywhere near as glaringly obvious as this one makes it. I'm not sure whether making it so obvious is trolling or incompetence. Maybe some of both. Anyway, thanks for letting me know. JBW (talk) 16:22, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Something strange

It appears my colleague Dan ardnt correctly did this which I believe you correctly deleted rightfully. It appears the article is still on mainspace (recreated?) I’m not so sure, I wasn’t privy to this before opening an AFD, I’m not so sure now but if it is the article creator trying to game the system, could you please re-speedy delete under G4? Celestina007 (talk) 20:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

@Celestina007: I deleted the re-created page, and it was then recreated again by the same editor who had recreated it before.(You can see the full logs for the page, including deletions and creations, here.) I think another G4 deletion probably isn't a good idea, because in my experience over the years, in this situation getting into a creation-deletion war leads nowhere useful. Part of the problem is that if it gets to the stage of ANI or deletion review or a block and an unblock request, the wording "sufficiently identical" in speedy deletion criterion G4 is interpreted radically differently by different editors, so that getting consensus for deletion is difficult. Also many editors are inclined to give little if any weight to a deletion discussion from years ago. Consequently, although I was happy to G4-delete this article once, in the face of an editor who shows a willingness to keep on recreating it, I think another AfD is better, and I see you have already done that.

Incidentally, I noticed that the link you gave me above was to the mobile version of the page in question. You may be well aware of the options and prefer the mobile version, in which case ignore what I am going to say. Most of my editing these days is done on a mobile phone (though right now I am on a computer) but I don't use the mobile interface. I find the "desktop" version somewhat more convenient for reading the encyclopaedia, and vastly more convenient for editing. If you are on the "mobile" version you can switch to the desktop version by tapping the "Desktop" link at the bottom of the page. As I said, if you already know that and choose not to use it, then please ignore this message, but many people use the mobile version because they don't know the other version is available (as I did for a long time), and I offer the suggestion in case you are in that situation. JBW (talk) 16:52, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the response mate. On the diffs being in mobile format, I’ve met editors here who strongly dislike this, my friend El_C being on the top of that list & my colleague Bbb23 also. In any case as taught to me by my academy tutor Barkeep49, even in mobile version I can always “de-mobile” (i doubt that’s an actual word) the diffs by removing the m. As for the G4, i guess you have a good point there, AFD'ing it is indeed a good choice. Thank you one more time for taking your time to explain this thoroughly to me, you are such a darling 💗. Celestina007 (talk) 19:46, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

JBW, have you ever been called "a darling" before on Wikipedia? I mean, I'm sure you're a darling in real life... --Bbb23 (talk) 19:48, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

@Bbb23: As far as I remember this accolade from Celestina007 is the first time I've been called a darling on Wikipedia, but you are welcome to search through my talk page archives and every other talk or discussion page I've ever posted to, and if you find an earlier example please let me know. As for real life, unfortunately I know quite a few people who probably think I'm anything but a darling.🥺 JBW (talk) 21:28, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

I know what you mean (really laughing out loud).--Bbb23 (talk) 21:37, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

OH, IT'S DIFFERENT THIS TIME

This time, I'm staying, this time, the next Lil Gotit album page is getting deleted if that also turns into a redirect page. This time, if this happens again with the next album, that page is getting deleted, instantly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ForeverUnknown151515 (talk • contribs) 13:46, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Please undelete my sandbox and talk page

I was using it as a test for templates and accidentally included the template for requesting deletion, so you deleted that page and my talk page per my request. I'd appreciate it if you undeleted them. Anonymous from Stack Overflow (talk) 09:33, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

@AnonymousStackOverflow: OK, but please remove any speedy deletion tags from the page right away.A speedy deletion tag in a page such as this one is likely to waste time of numerous administrators who each come along to check the deletion nomination. JBW (talk) 09:42, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

@AnonymousStackOverflow:  DoneJBW (talk) 09:45, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I've removed them, thanks for undeleting. Can you also restore the later revisions on my talk page? Anonymous from Stack Overflow (talk) 09:50, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

@AnonymousStackOverflow: I'm not sure what edits you are referring to. I have restored all of the edits to User:AnonymousStackOverflow/sandbox and User talk:AnonymousStackOverflow/sandbox, and none of your other edits, to any page, are currently deleted.JBW (talk) 11:43, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

I was referring to the fact that the talk page was reverted to an old revision and the history only showed that revision. It might have been something you did or an internal error, but either way it went back to normal in a few minutes. Anonymous from Stack Overflow (talk) 14:05, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Draftspace request

Can you please move 3D Commerce to draftspace so I can improve it? --Theresapossibility (talk) 15:55, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

@Theresapossibility:  Done JBW (talk) 16:25, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Deri Lorus (singer)

Hi JBW, would appreciate an extra set of eyes on the Deri Lorus (singer) article. A user has continued to remove the G4 tag, and is likely part of an existing sockpuppetry case [7]. Thanks.-KH-1 (talk) 08:48, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

@KH-1: Thanks for letting me know. As you have seen, I've blocked the accounts and deleted the article. You may also be interested in knowing that I have been thanked for those actions by three editors. JBW (talk) 09:51, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm sure we'll have to deal with this again in the not so distant future.-KH-1 (talk) 05:21, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

TPA

Hi JBW. You blocked AL-HARAMEEN INTERNATIONAL but they're continuing to spam on their talk page. Might want to revoke talk page access - thanks. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 18:15, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

@Drm310: Thanks for letting me know. JBW (talk) 22:17, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

ForeverUnknown151515

They are still ranting about the Lil Gotit redirect. Not sure if or how you want to handle it from here, but I thought I should let you know. - ZLEA _T\^C 02:52, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@ZLEA: Thanks for telling me. I'm not at sure whether there's anything worth doing now. There's obviously no point in trying to talk to them, and blocking would almost certainly just lead to a new sockpuppet being created to take over. On the whole I think it's probably best to just leave them to rant on their talk page as long as that's all they're doing, and take action if and when they go back to making disruptive edits elsewhere. Please feel very welcome to let me know if you see anything more significant from them.JBW (talk) 06:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Deleted redirects

Why did you delete the redirects Fareb (2020 flim) and Arjun Pandit (2010 film)? I really need those redirects both films have been re-released. Neel.arunabh (talk) 16:20, 6 December 2021 (UTC) I am going ahead and restoring the redirects. Please do not delete these without any discussion. There is a reason why I create redirects. Neel.arunabh (talk) 16:35, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Neel.arunabh::

1. Creating a redirect from a search term such as "Fareb (2020 flim)" to a target article which doesn't mention any film, of that title or otherwise, made in 2020 is very unlikely to be useful.
2. You say that there is "a reason" why you have created these redirects. Fine: explain what the reason is, since it isn't at all obvious, and you can scarcely have thought it would be at all obvious.
3. You did not just create redirects, you pissed about moving pages back and forth. You have repeatedly been asked not to do so. Doing so is very unhelpful, for several reasons, including the following. (a) For a while the article has an inappropriate title. Even if that is so for only a short while, it risks causing confusion for any reader who happens to load the article at that time. (b) It makes the history of the article difficult and confusing for other editors to follow, especially if, as has sometimes been the case, you have made a succession of moves to several titles. (c) Since you have provided no explanation of what you have been doing it appears to be vandalism. If you wish to create a redirect then just create a refirect, don't mess about moving pages around.
4. You asked me not to delete the redirects resulting from your disruptive page moves without discussion, but you announce that you will recreate them without discussion. Do you have some kind of special status which puts you above the requirements which you expect me to follow?
5. At least once, perhaps more, you have moved a page with an edit summary which clearly misrepresented why you were doing so. Obviously that makes it more difficult to be confident you are acting in good faith on other occasions when you do disruptive things such as moving pages around to different titles, eventually returning them to their starting point.
6. You have twice in recent weeks been asked to desist from your disruptive page moving, and going further back you have received a number of messages about inappropriate page moves, over a period of more than six years. If I find that you have done the same again since your last warning about it, I shall block your account from editing. JBW (talk) 20:08, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

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Arbitration

• Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee Elections is open until 23:59, 06 December 2021 (UTC).
• The already authorized standard discretionary sanctions for all pages relating to the Horn of Africa (defined as including Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and adjoining areas if involved in related disputes), broadly construed, have been made permanent.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled

A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)