Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Welcome — post issues of interest to administrators.

For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.
To request review of an administrator's action or other use of advanced permissions, use Wikipedia:Administrative action review.
If you are new, try the Teahouse instead.
Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead, follow the instructions on Wikipedia:Requests for oversight.
For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent.
Do not post requests for page protection, (un)deletion requests, or block requests here.
Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly.
If you want to challenge the closure of a request for comment, use {{subst:RfC closure review}}

When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough.

You may use {{subst:AN-notice|thread=}} ~~~~ to do so.

Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search)

Open tasks

Noticeboard archives
Administrators' (archives, search)
362	363	364	365	366	367	368	369	370	371
372	373	374	375	376	377	378	379	380	381
Incidents (archives, search)
1208	1209	1210	1211	1212	1213	1214	1215	1216	1217
1218	1219	1220	1221	1222	1223	1224	1225	1226	1227
Edit-warring/3RR (archives, search)
489	490	491	492	493	494	495	496	497	498
499	500	501	502	503	504	505	506	507	508
Arbitration enforcement (archives)
353	354	355	356	357	358	359	360	361	362
363	364	365	366	367	368	369	370	371	372
Other links
Talk Sockpuppet investigations Backlog

XFD backlog
v
t
e
V	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Total
CfD	1	8	91	61	161
TfD	0	1	0	19	20
MfD	0	0	0	2	2
FfD	0	3	53	40	96
RfD	0	0	0	73	73
AfD	0	0	0	29	29

Recreations of Carlossuarez46 geostubs

I've come across a number of articles which were part of the 2021 batch deletion of Carlossuarez46's Iranian "village" stubs and recreated in 2025-26, once again sourced only to census records. For those not familiar, CS46 had created thousands of "village" articles based on the Iranian census and many of them turned out to be things like factories, wells, individual farms and other entities which are used as census-counting points but are not villages and do not meet WP:NPLACE. I don't have a complete list but my prod log for May 2026 gives a good idea of what we're dealing with.

My question is, what is the most expedient way to handle these recreated articles? I PRODded this batch (they're ineligible for G4 Speedy Deletion since there was no AfD discussion) and the creator User:Brightkingdom will let them stand, but I'd like to have a better way than hundreds of PRODs if this turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg. –dlthewave ☎ 00:03, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The story of CS46 seems to be a well-worn legend and I've familiarized myself with as much of it as I think necessary to understand the history of his mass-production, tied with an apparent contest of some sort back in the day in order for him to obtain administrator status.

My own history in looking for some way to make a difference in this vast area was to try to understand as much about the administrative structure of Iran as possible and attempt to make some sense out of a somewhat complicated system–and whether or not I could untie various knots and problems arising for anyone else who wants to understand what Iran was all about.

I only came across CS46 after he had apparently left the picture, simultaneously realizing he had done a lot of damage along the way, but had also, on the other hand, provided some insight into transliteration, at least some reasonable coordinates, and one or two other tidbits that gave me clues as to how complicated this was going to get. But his work was uneven because of possibly using a robot or something.

Along the way I discovered that many changes had taken place in deciding whether or not a geographic location was "notable" enough to have its own article. Old parameters suggested that at the very least, administrative divisions could be considered notable, since they delineate the structure of all governments, and the encyclopedia contains articles on virtually every administrative division in existence, and many former ones as well.

So I started there several years ago and I believe I have built a truly outstanding set of tables for every level of division for Iran: province, county, district, rural district, and city. This entailed such extensive research as to make a paid editor's head swim, never mind one is unpaid and contributes to boot!

But I found it personally fascinating, learned to read Persian and Arabic along the way, and felt I made a signification contribution. But once I got into making new pages for villages, I got into trouble. I made the assumption that if CS46's many undeleted pages were extant, I would try to improve those and fill in gaps where necessary. I felt for the most part that if I had a reference for its inclusion in the hierarchy; reliable coordinates that I could cite to Google or OpenMaps; populations for three consecutive censuses; transliterations; and a history of its movement among disparate administrative divisions, it would justify a page. Because there are hundreds of these pages kicking around for years with so much less information than my minimum, that my thinking went, "Geez, no one got rid of those, and after all they are stubs that can be improved as per Wiki pleas, and I can make better new ones that don't look in any different from what was already acceptable at one time. If we rid ourselves of my recent creations, I can make a very good argument with deleting those without so much as a 2006 census figure and no reference whatever to where it actually is now: because thousands of them are attributed to laughably incorrect divisions.

I don't wish to fight. I absolutely see your side of the issue, trust me. I genuinely felt I was improving the encyclopedia and it appears I was tragically wrong. It doesn't mean I'm going anywhere...there's a lot of work to do. I'm just giving my side of the story to possibly enlighten the folks who want to flush my stuff. I get it. No hard feelings. It is I who have misunderstood. I guess I took the "be bold" and "do what's best for the encyclopedia if bending the rules doesn't break anything."

Brightkingdom (talk) 00:26, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have revoked Brightkingdom's autopatrolled permission since I think this discussion shows that their article creations need NPP review. * Pppery * _{in solidarity} 03:39, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to do this but 1) I'm involved and 2) the disruptive article-creation has stopped. I don't disagree with doing so at this stage, however.

What I would say is these articles should definitely be WP:G4-eligible, and not allowing G4 on them is slowing/stopping any effort to work on them. There was a substantive discussion on their notability - quite a lot more analysis than happens in many AFDs actually - that ended in them being deleted, and this should be sufficient.

And yes, this is yet another instance of the insane "legally-recognised, populated place" standard causing us problems. People think there's some kind of government-maintained list of villages/towns/cities for every country that can be used to generate unproblematic articles when this simply isn't true. The Russian census lists farms and railway stations! The Polish census lists forester's cottages! The Iranian census lists literal coffee houses! FOARP (talk) 08:26, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Probably makes sense to notify Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iran about this.

I picked a random one to check, Larim Dahaneh, and it seems to point to coordinates somewhere outside an apparent settlement on the OSM map. When I did a check for the enclosing features, it found only the level 7 Larim-e Shomali Rural District. So it's not clear what would be the level 8, which is listed at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dadministrative#Sub-national for Iran as Village (روستا / Rousta). On the Google Maps, it's identified, but there are no boundaries, and no Street View to check if the place is signposted.

If that's the best we get from current crowdsourced information, which doesn't have to be accurate but could at least be indicative, it's not clear if these apparent settlements are villages or hamlets worth documenting individually as gazetteer entries or not. --Joy (talk) 08:53, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Worth quoting the Iranian census-enumerator's guide on this:

"In this census, a settlement is defined as a set of one or more interconnected places and lands (both agricultural and non-agricultural) located outside the boundaries of cities and having an independent registered or customary boundary. Accordingly, not only villages, but also farms, coffee houses, mines, railway stations, etc. that have independent registered or customary boundaries are also considered settlements."

So there just isn't any concrete verification that this is actually a village/hamlet.

It's important to note that the Iranian census is hardly special in including things that would not normally be described as a "village" - lots of countries have such entities recorded in censuses and other official lists of settlements. They do this because their goal is to count all of the people living in the country, not just the ones living in places that we would consider "villages".

It means that a straight-forward, naïve reading of WP:GEOLAND, such as the one Brightkingdom describes doing above, results in editors generating thousands upon thousands of articles about railway stations, petrol stations, water-pumps, farms, shops, bridges, forester's huts, military camps, police stations, research institutes, railway-sidings, martialling-yards, passing-loops, mines, churches, shops, factories, hotels, prisons, camp-sites, nomad-counting-places, dams, oil-rigs, (etc. etc. etc. etc.). This list isn't made up - every one of these is an actual case we've had to deal with. FOARP (talk) 10:51, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Once again: G4 is strictly for recreations of deleted content, not for different articles (even problematic ones) on the same subjects. Of course, we can G7 anything that Brightkingdom chooses to db-author. Nyttend (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Brightkingdom did nominate a bunch of articles for G7. Be on the lookout for ones that were created from blank-and-redirects, since some of these are being improperly declined because they still show CS46 as the original creator. –dlthewave ☎ 21:22, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

On a different note — permanent military camps (versus temporary bivouacs) and railway stations are pretty much always notable, like villages, so I'd oppose deleting articles about them without good evidence that there's a problem. Of course, "we don't trust that this is really what it claims to be" is a good reason, especially in bulk, but one can always edit and improve a given article and demonstrate that it can be kept, independent of the rest. Nyttend (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NSTATION requires GNG, so a lot of train stations aren't going to be notable. In any case the station is going to be a completely different topic and would require different sources than the census. I would lean toward deleting the spurious "village" articles and let editors create new ones about the stations if they're so inclined. –dlthewave ☎ 21:26, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Hardest, hardest possible disagree with the idea that a railway station or a military base should have a GNG-defeating presumption of notability. These are ultimately all organisations/buildings/railway stations and we already have dedicated GNG-based notability guides for all of these. This is especially when so many of these are not as described.

Take, for example, Hashemabad Air Force Base (permalink) - that's CS46's translation of the Farsi name پايگاه پدافندهوائي هاشم اباد, which Google translate renders as "Hashemabad Air Defence Base". Instantly you see the problem that an "air defence base" is quite a different thing to an "air force base". One is simply a base for personnel and equipment for shooting down enemy aircraft, whilst the other is typically a base for aircraft - but which is it? I'm not a Farsi speaker so I don't know. CS46 thought that he understood written Farsi, but given what happened, and the views of Farsi-speakers who reviewed his articles, it is possible that they did not read it as well as they thought they did.

Then you look at the location - no runway/airstrip can be seen there, despite Brightkingdom including it on a list of airports. It is unlikely to have been an "air force base" in the sense of being a base for military aircraft, though I suppose it's possible that it was a base for Iranian air force personnel.

Then you look at how the location in the article is labelled on Google maps: it's a military base called Majid Askari. Brightkingdom relied on OpenStreetMap to add this location to the article, but OpenStreetMap is a Wiki-like source. Looking at OpenStreetMap and running the names shown through Google Translate's image-based translation it appears to show both the names "Majid Askari" and "Hashemabad Military Base" for it. So what actually is the name of the location? We don't know.

And this is the same problem reproduced across thousands and thousands of articles that CS46 dumped on to the encyclopaedia at a rate of hundreds a day. Literally hundreds a day - the day he created Hashemabad Air Force Base he created 500 other articles (EDIT: that's "at least 500 articles" because the ones that have since been deleted won't show up in this search).

TL;DR, these articles sets are a total mess. FOARP (talk) 08:51, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The bulk nature of the whole thing should suffice to void the presumption of validity in this case.

On a more general note, the standard of WP:5P1 is already very inclusive - everything that is in an encyclopedia, a gazetteer or an almanac is already presumed eligible. But if we only have unclear primary sources and vague crowdsourced information, we're below even that standard.

A generous thing to do with the bulk information would be to assume WP:potential for a list based on these primary sources. --Joy (talk) 10:49, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Joy -WP:5P1 absolutely does not say that everything in a gazetteer or an almanac is eligible. Even the briefest read of a typical gazetteer or almanac would show you why this is.

Here's just a random section in a random page of a randomly-selected Virginia gazetteer (Henry Gannett's 1904 one):

This is not cherry-picked, it's a very typical example of what a gazetteer actually is, which is, as our article says "A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory used in conjunction with a map or atlas". That's right, a gazetteer is an example of two things that Wikipedia is explicitly WP:NOT.

For almanacs the situation is the same. Here's a randomly-selected page in Old Moore's Almanack:

Random page from Old Moore's Almanack, 1862

Again, this is a very typical almanac listing all the dates of all the fairs and farmer's markets in England. There is no cherry-picking going on here. This is exactly what an almanac actually is. The typical almanac "includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other tabular data often arranged according to the calendar. Celestial figures and various statistics are found in almanacs, such as the rising and setting times of the Sun and Moon, dates of eclipses, hours of high and low tides, and religious festivals". This is exactly the kind of indiscriminate information that Wikipedia is also explicitly WP:NOT.

I'm sorry to go into detail here but the idea that Wikipedia is also a gazetteer or an almanac, when these things are - for very good reasons - explicitly not what Wikipedia is, is one that is unfortunately widespread. FOARP (talk) 11:37, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@FOARP I don't know why you have the need to argue such a red herring with someone who is agreeing with you :) the key point here is that we do not have evidence of a Larim Dahaneh listing in an almanac or a gazetteer, so it's immaterial to even ponder that route. --Joy (talk) 11:40, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said, I've seen many, many, many people stating essentially this: that anything in a gazetteer/almanac is elligible. Typically it's based on never having actually read either. Apologies if you are not in that number. FOARP (talk) 11:47, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Could we just G7 CS46's articles?

We've been WP:G7'ing the recreations of CS46's articles by Brightkingdom based (AFAIK) on Brightkingdom's statement that they would let the deletions stand. CS46's last statement here was:

"Go ahead. I'm sufficiently pissed off at the blatant racism and attacks that I really don't care what more you do. You all have sullied WP. I would like to withdraw all my contributions here as you all don't want them. Please make it so. I'm gone."

I'm not planning to go wild on these articles, any more than we have been deleting all of Brightkingdom's recreations, but the above looks like a clear case of "author requests deletion" to me. FOARP (talk) 14:00, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Support This will skip the bureaucracy of verifying 10000's of questionable village stubs. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 14:33, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no-one's objected so far, so I'll run a test-case and see what people say. FOARP (talk) 10:05, 9 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The trial-run was accepted. See here. FOARP (talk) 15:12, 9 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Further trial-runs have been accepted, see 1 2 3 4 5. FOARP (talk) 13:43, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

13 more accepted. See my CSD log for more details. FOARP (talk) 11:54, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Support. This has been a dreadful drain on editor resources for far too long. JoelleJay (talk) 12:51, 9 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@JoelleJay - 100%. Could not possibly agree more. I just went through 25 Iranian "village" articles that had "Sherkat" (شركت , which machine-translation tells me means "Company") in the title. Every single one for which there was any way of verifying what it actually was, was exactly what the title declared it to be: a company, not a village. This is more than five years after CS46 quit and more than twelve years after he was made to stop mass-creating these things. After literally thousands of (maybe already more than 20k total?) articles deleted via prods, AFDs, speedies, extraordinary deletions etc. CS46's talk page is now on its 28th archive. Multiple editors have spent years on this, with no end in sight.

We've tested the idea that people are going to improve these articles to destruction. There is no way we can improve articles that completely fail our PAGs because they are about completely WP:MILL, WP:GEOLAND-failing census-generated artefacts that are really companies, military bases, pumps, wells, farms, shops, bridges, coffee-houses (etc. etc. etc.) for which no sourcing is likely to exist. Ever.

And there isn't any reason to either. CS46 himself said we could just delete them. Let's take him at his word. FOARP (talk) 13:37, 9 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's remarkable that there has been any resistance to mass-deleting these things at all. Perhaps a filter could be made that flags new articles where the Persian name indicates it's a non-GEOLAND entity (e.g. شركت, though this one might need some tailoring to make sure it's specific to geo articles as opposed to companies) and alerts the creator to the issue. JoelleJay (talk) 09:59, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair there wasn't much resistance. It was mostly "well, let's take the low-hanging fruit", but we never made the next step from there.

What I'm considering as a next step is putting a G7 notice on every unimproved abadi CS46 article with a population below 10. As documented at WP:ABADI, Iranian law states that localities must (amongst other criteria, such as not being factories or individual farms) have a population larger than 100 people in 20 families to become actual villages. 10% of this limit seems a good safety-margin for the next step. FOARP (talk) 16:25, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Support in view of the analysis above

In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 13:54, 9 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate proposal: Could we make an X-series CSD specifically for these "abadi" articles? Example (feel free to improve):
Articles about abadis with population under 25 (or 10), referenced only to census records, or indiscriminate sources such as GNIS or atlases. This criterion applies only to pages created by Carlossuarez46, with no significant edits since creation.

(here "significant edits" is determined similarly to G5). Somepinkdude (talk | contribs), in solidarity 20:45, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Just highlighting this, but Camp Office, Iranshahr... FOARP (talk) 20:11, 15 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And just to highlight this one as well: July 7 International Airport. The things wrong with this include:

1) There is no July 7 International Airport in Iran or anywhere else. Especially, there is no such airport next to the existing Imam Khomeini International Airport.

2) The Farsi name in the article (فرودگاه بين الملي هفت و تير) machine-translates as Haft-e Tir International Airport. Haft-e Tir is the seventh day of the Iranian month of Tir, a date that is 28 June in the Gregorian calendar.

3) There is also no Haft-e Tir International Airport. I checked if IKIA or Mehrabad IA (Tehran's two international airports) were ever proposed to be named this, but drew a blank.

4) Even if there was, an airport is clearly not "a village".

I just don't know how this article was even produced, except that at least 196 other articles were produced using the same methodology on the same day. FOARP (talk) 08:27, 18 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@FOARP, is there some reason you aren't batch-deleting these? In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 03:35, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should. The ones that have a population under 100 and haven’t had any improvement since their original creation that is. FOARP (talk) 07:50, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In any other situation, a request to "please delete everything I've ever done" in reaction to a dispute as was shown here would be rejected as bad-faith throwing one's toys out of the pram. While I don't actually object to batch-deleting everything Carlossuarez46 what you are really asking for is an exemption from normal procedures not a straightforward following of them. * Pppery * _(alt) _{in solidarity} 14:57, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose as G7, support X series - This can turn into a new speedy deletion criterion, but not a G7. The top thing on the G7 section of speedy deletion is If requested in good faith. This was clearly not requested in good faith. In solidarity, FantasticWikiUser_{(Ts and Cs)} 17:27, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds like a good idea. Throwback to CSD X1 for redirects created by Neelix (talk · contribs). –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 18:48, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Request for blocking an user or take action

This post related to a specific problem, dispute, user, help request, or other non-pertinent issue, and has been moved to the Administrators' noticeboard for incidents.

Rfc archiver

Hello, I'm writing because I submitted an old ANI that seems to have been unsuccessful and archived. I would appreciate it if a solution could be found to avoid an endless editing battle on Daghaghra, please. Mhmdgrd (talk) 19:07, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean this thread? The link you provided just points back to this page. DonIago (talk) 19:36, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes exaclty, thank you. Mhmdgrd (talk) 20:26, 10 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

~~I don't see an "endless editing battle" when the last edit was two weeks ago. You sure this is a problem that needs addressing?~~ Edit: Apparently there is something that needs addressing. --Super Goku V (talk) 03:28, 13 June 2026 (UTC) (Amended on 07:27, 13 June 2026 (UTC)) (Non-administrator comment)[reply]

Yes, I'm just saving that. Mhmdgrd (talk) 17:48, 14 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing that is endless actually is what you try to make, re-write history. Your behavior is really tiring, you are not here for the decorum of the encyclopedia, but only to spread your ideology. Al-Hilali Z (talk) 07:19, 13 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder why this complaint is taking so long to resolve. What's the point of what I'm doing? What am I supposed to do? What's wrong? Mhmdgrd (talk) 15:29, 16 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. Since I responded once, I guess I should do so again. What we have here is a content dispute. Both yourself and Al-Hilali Z want to include different text in the article. AN isn't for deciding content disputes, but is for things that Admins might want to be aware of. ANI is for incidents between users and would have been a better choice than here, but they also don't deal with deciding content disputes. They do deal with chronic user disputes. Additionally, neither of you have provided diffs of the dispute here. Instead, it is just a link to the old discussion, which another user has provided as your link just pointed here. So anyone who is willing to look into this needs to go to another thread to try to resolve this. Except. That discussion barely has any diffs at all. In fact it had no diffs until a user told you to stop bringing Al-Hilali Z to AN/ANI without notifying them and without providing diffs. So all we have is three diffs that barely cover your point and no diffs from Al-Hilali Z. On a different discussion. And that has yet to consider that this has some ties to the Maghreb region. A region that I want to avoid after an incident this year that went before ArbCom and I doubt that I am the only one.

So, we have a discussion with limited evidence, started for the third time by a user who has for the third time failed to notify the other party of the discussion, that involves a region in Africa that has been troublesome at least this year, if not for a few years now, and that is posted to a noticeboard that isn't for content disputes. (Additionally, the English Wikipedia is different from the French Wikipedia. This will make sense later.) But, since I was willing to write this up, then here we go:

⛏⛑

Al-Hilali Z created a draft article for Daghaghra in April of last year and moved it to the mainspace on April 26th. (1287224808, 1287528400)
The article receives a few minor-ish edits over the next months.
In November, Al-Hilali Z made their first major expansion to the article since moving it by expanding the history section. (1320814006)
On December 1st, Mhmdgrd made their first edits to the article, significantly rewriting it. Notable changes include cutting down on a good portion of the existing text, adding a Tamazight spelling before the Arabic spelling, changing the Ethnicity from Arab to Berber, changing the Subdivisions section to use different spellings for the sub-fractions, and changing the short description from Arab tribe to Berber tribe. (1325223245, 1325223245)
Less than 24 hours later, Al-Hilali Z edits the article, calling Mhmdgrd's edits Vandalism in the edit summary and proceeding to make some additions to the article while mostly undoing Mhmdgrd's edits. (1325322202)
3 hours later, Mhmdgrd manually reverts Al-Hilali Z (and AnomieBOT) by going back to the revision of Mhmdgrd's last edit. (1325345054)
We now go forward two weeks to December 16th, when Al-Hilali Z returns to the article, where they significantly change the history section and remove a few additions made by Mhmdgrd. They follow it up with a second edit where they switch the article from being a Berber tribe to an Arab tribe, among similar changes. (1327822786, 1327823102)
While Al-Hilali Z makes changes to the article for the rest of December and into January, Mhmdgrd decided to make their own article called Deghaghra on December 28th. They follow this up with our first discussion at Talk:Daghaghra to propose a merger of the two articles. User:Jay8g resolves the situation by making Deghaghra redirect to Daghaghra and correctly notes in the edit summary that Mhmdgrd's article was a duplicate. (1329857607, Talk:Daghaghra#Merge proposal)
Now back to one article, we move from the first week of January to March 12th as Mhmdgrd decides to PROD the article. User:4meter4 reverts the PROD. Mhmdgrd improperly reverts, but now tags the article with an AfD notice and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daghaghra is created which gets a speedy keep in about 38-ish hours. (1343138584, 1343138584, 1343386791, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daghaghra)
Now before we go any farther, it is important to note Al-Hilali Z's comment from the AfD: This page have many sources and already had a debate on the Wikipedia French page where it was kept. The Daghaghra page have nothing in common with others pages under AfD who don't have sources for many. Also, the user who asked for this AfD have already background with this page. We had together a long debate on the french side of Wikipedia where he try with any force to delete this page. (...) (2 an entire debate was made on the page, and Mhmgrd was also banned [3] for Edit warring and many other things, like he did on the Daghaghra page, and try today on the English version to continue his fight against this page, it's not a personal offense against him, but a warning to other users what he is trying since some months) (Emphasis mine) It should be noted here that Mhmgrd has not been banned on the English Wikipedia, but this is the case on the French Wikipedia. If we go to the "Application to administrators" page we can find this archived discussion from December 29th to its close on January 8th: fr:Wikipédia:Requête aux administrateurs/2026/Semaine 2#Mhmdgrd : Refus de comprendre, signal bruit élevé, pov-pushing, TI, etc. where Mhmgrd's account on the French Wikipedia was permanently banned with a comment that they can do the French Wikipedia's equivalent to a Clean start on their user talk page. This also does explain why Mhmgrd seems impatient above. For the French Wiki, it seems that they have a system where normal users can make requests to the administrators, which get examined, processed, and resolved or rejected. We don't have a system exactly like that, but it seems that Mhmgrd believes that this is the exact equivalent. And for the final point about this and the main reason for emphasis: This is a content dispute that has also being going on at other projects.
Back on track, with the RfC failed, we get the back and forth at Talk:Daghaghra:
March 24th: Mhmdgrd creates a discussion called Origin. Al-Hilali Z calls Mhmdgrd's edits vandalism and neither agrees with the other.
March 27th: Mhmdgrd creates an RfC called RfC about The origin. This RfC attempt gets procedurally closed.
April 5th: Mhmdgrd creates an RfC called Rfc about the origin. Both Mhmdgrd and Al-Hilali Z make up a good chunk of the discussion, but the RfC closes against both of their positions: "There is no consensus for A" (Daghaghra are a Berber tribe) "or B" (Daghaghra are a Arab tribe). "There is some support for C which would report Ibn Khaldun's statement and attribute it to him, but the option is somewhat nebulous in nature, and given the limited comments on this RFC I recommend further discussion to more clearly define the other suggestion." (Additions mine)
May 18th: Mhmdgrd tries to create an RfC called Talk:Daghaghra#Consensus final about origin that goes nowhere.
May 21st: Mhmdgrd creates an RfC called Rfc for a final consensus on the origin of the Daghaghra which gets a formal "PROCEDURAL CLOSE" with a request in the closing to let it go that points to WP:DROPTHESTICK.
This doesn't cover the edits made to the article in the meantime where both continue to revert the other's edits:
March 26th - Al-Hilali Z reverts Mhmdgrd, March 26th - Mhmdgrd manually reverts Al-Hilali Z, March 27th - Al-Hilali Z reverts Mhmdgrd and then tells Mhmdgrd to "Stop your biased vandalism", April 12th - Mhmdgrd manually reverts Al-Hilali Z, April 13th - Al-Hilali Z reverts Mhmdgrd, May 5th - Mhmdgrd manually reverts Al-Hilali Z, May 8th - Al-Hilali Z reverts Mhmdgrd, May 15th - Mhmdgrd manually reverts Al-Hilali Z with the edit summary "final rfc consensus", May 20th - Al-Hilali Z reverts Mhmdgrd with the edit summary "You are lying, there is no consensus, the previous RFC didn't have one and the last you posted also. And I repeat it WHY ARE YOU DELETING THE SOURCES OF A LEGEND ? AND ALL WHO DESCRIBED THEM AS ARABS ???", May 24th - Mhmdgrd manually reverts Al-Hilali Z with the edit summary "This source is unreliable and not accepted by the RFC consensus. Especially since you yourself acknowledge that it is false.", May 26th - Al-Hilali Z reverts Mhmdgrd with the edit summary "You are lying.", June 16th - Mhmdgrd reverts Al-Hilali Z with Nemov restoring back shortly afterwards. (1345484642, 1345540635, 1345626487, 1345627692, 1348464569, 1348500650, 1352754744, 1353117330, 1354388313, 1355234260, 1355957010, 1356215653, 1359674737)

I don't care if this gets collapsed, but I do believe that both users have likely earned Yellow Cards at a minimum. If this gets moved to ANI and action is taken against both users, then I would be supportive of that. --Super Goku V (talk) 23:36, 16 June 2026 (UTC) (Amended 03:16, 17 June 2026 (UTC). See this diff for prior version or see this diff for changes.)[reply]

You deserve a medal for recapping all of that. Nemov (talk) 14:03, 17 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Even if this leads nowhere, hopefully it convinces both of them that they would do better to work together to a compromise than either of them trying to get the other punished. --Super Goku V (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Very well, thank you for your effort and these clarifications. I am well aware that administrators are not here to handle content-related disputes; however, as stated in my Annual Report, the disagreement could very well have been resolved with a person acting in good faith. By acting as my opponent did, I could do the same on other, off-topic pages, resorting to sophistry, finding contradictory sources, and then dragging the thread out until it becomes incomprehensible to other users.

As I mentioned, my primary wish is for this page to be written with greater rigor and seriousness, like many other Wikipedia topics. Given the breadth of the encyclopedia and all the sensitive subjects that exist, I doubt this minor conflict is the most difficult thing to manage.

Being afraid to intervene in the face of behavioral problems will not solve the issue. The ArbCom you mentioned should serve as an example of increased vigilance, because as you've seen, this is a problem that has dragged on for several years despite numerous reports. If you think I should also be sanctioned, fine, as long as it helps the page be well-written. However, I'd like you to tell me what I could have done to resolve the issue? I made every possible effort, I gave it my all, and despite that, I'm being asked to move on and leave the page as is, even though it's obvious from the details I've provided that it's problematic. Furthermore, my interlocutor has made absolutely no effort and has simply agreed with their version of events, which is just nonsense.

I don't particularly want them to be sanctioned; I just want the page to be written with rigor and professionalism. The bad faith is so obvious and caricatural, I'm going to give you the latest example which is as big as a mountain:

- He speaks of the Ait Demmer as a branch that supposedly integrated Arab tribes, which, according to him, renders my statements obsolete.

- I presented him with another, more detailed source that explains who the Ait Demmer are, which in turn traces their origins back to a Berber ancestor named Demmer, especially since the source contrasts Arabs and Ait Demmer.

- he replied to me:"You can spam any sources you want, the debate is not on the Ouerghemma, Ait Demmer or the Ouderna, but on the Daghaghra, and there is a lot of sources telling that they are Arabs and many sources show that there is Arab tribes in the Ouderna confederation. You are just coping at this level." How do you expect to reach a consensus under these conditions? I'm convinced that if it had been a user with more renaming privileges, the problem would have been easier and faster to resolve.

Question regarding Annual Report, can you clarify your meaning there? To me, an annual report would be a document created yearly that gives some sort of analysis, which I don't see in your edits, and a significant majority of your edits are from this year.
That aside, I don't see any reason for ArbCom to get involved in this. It was an example about why some users *might* avoid this subject. And no, this is a problem with the article Daghaghra and two users not working together and acting in problematic ways, not a problem that has dragged on for several years.
By acting as my opponent did, I could do the same on other, off-topic pages, resorting to sophistry, finding contradictory sources, and then dragging the thread out until it becomes incomprehensible to other users. Do that and you will be sanctioned. Please don't suggest this again nor suggest that the other user in this dispute is attempting so without sources and an explanation of how.
So far as I have see, you two are just auguring two sides of things without considering the other side(s). Personally, you two should be trying to resolve your "minor conflict" by attempting to resolving the content dispute between you two instead of coming here for possible sanctions. And I think that this should be put to rest before either or both of you are sanctioned.
Finally, looking at the thread below, it seems there were concerns that an AI and/or a LLM was used, which is why that thread was resolved so fast. (Plus again, the opening user posted their evidence in their first post which meant that no one had to dig for it to understand what was going on. Not only that, but the sources used were Wikipedia clones to my understanding. I doubt that either of your sources are problematic to that degree. --Super Goku V (talk) 03:23, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Christopher Appleton

Page created per request. Meta discussion re: similar titles can happen elsewhere. Star Mississippi 01:40, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the correct place to edit about page creations of pages which only can be created by administrators.

Would anyone mind creating Christopher Appleton with that page redirecting to Chris Appleton if they think that's necessary? Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 19:06, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Shouldn't have been salted in the first place.^[self-cite] I've been meaning for years to put together a list of all the not-uncommon full names at Special:ProtectedTitles and propose we mass-unsalt them, because I'm sure it's silently blocking a nontrivial number of article creations. If someone who's been here 9 years isn't certain of the process of what to do in this case, think of how many people never try at all! If you or anyone else wants a project, feel free to steal that idea. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 19:24, 20 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

RfC closure review at Talk:2026 Iran war

A recent RfC at Talk:2026 Iran war was closed with the effective result of A. Switching the |status parameter in the military conflict infobox to |result, and B. Having that |result be "Iranian victory".

@Locke Cole described the issue[1] better than I can:

I hate to say it, but I think the closure of the RFC was a WP:BADNAC. WP:RFC says An RfC should last until enough comment has been received that consensus is reached, or until it is apparent that it won't be. There is no required minimum or maximum duration; typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The closer also invoked WP:AVALANCHE (a stronger WP:SNOW), even though there was clearly disagreement, as well as disagreement with the formulation of the RFC itself (which presented as a false choice). SNOW implies a near unanimous consensus, and this wasn't that. RFC discussions shouldn't be closed while comments are actively being made, and this one was, and well before the 7-day minimum recommended at WP:RFC.
I think a better RFC would be a 3-part question: 1) Do we use the |result= or the |status=? 2) If we choose |result=, what result do we choose (the infobox suggests this should be either "X victory" or "Inconclusive"); "Iranian victory", "United States victory", or "Inconclusive"? 3) Do we want to have an X-day moratorium on future RFCs on this topic absent major developments?
Let the RFC run until there's either been no significant discussion for 48 hours or up to a week.

With a note[2] that the opinions expressed should be based on the WP:RS, not our personal opinion on whether this event is over or our personal opinion on who the "victor" was (all of that would be WP:OR).

I also may repeat that @MWFwiki seconds[3] the points raised.

I'll note that a couple of users reached out to the closer with concerns, relatively recently. There's been no response yet, but in any case I think that the high visibility of the page and the possibility of having to restart the RfC means it would be good to have broader input (i.e from here) about how best to proceed—in other words I think I am unable to resolve the issue [adequately] through discussion with the closer Placeholderer (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: At Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Challenging other closures, it says you may use {{subst:RfC closure review}}. "May" implies being optional; I feel like the template is unnecessarily antagonistic here, and the underlying RfC is also at issue, but I've saved a reformatted version of this using the template offwiki and can convert this to use the template if that's better Placeholderer (talk) 21:25, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think a better RFC would be a 3-part question why don't you start that RfC, then? Consensus can change. I maintain that there was clear consensus for an avalanche closure in this RfC (>2/3rds by raw vote count, clear by argument strength) to answer the second question. I don't think reopening the existing flawed RfC would be a productive outcome, and I don't really care about semantics, so I'd accept an overturn to "no consensus as bad RfC" or something similar if it'd make you feel better. Feeglgeef (talk) 21:59, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In your close, you wrote "Supporters point to reliable sources that call it an Iranian victory". Could you please provide these sources? In addition, you also wrote that "opposers bring up WP:NPOV". MWFwiki states that they only recall seeing neutrality brought up once, and not seeing NPOV at all. As such, can you link the comments that point toward this as the main argument of the oppose side? ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:34, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Feeglgeef, I would agree that this was prematurely closed. I would also agree that this was a bad RfC because it assumed that the war was over and it assumed only two possible ways to describe the result (Iranian victory or inconclusive). There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:2026 Iran war#The war isn't over yet and See Aftermath is another option per MOS:MILRESULT. There was also repeated reference to [a majority of] sources but these were not presented as evidence. Consequently, it is an opinion as to what [a majority of] sources actually say. I was in the process of looking at the sources (several which are paywalled) and find that some have not been accurately represented. This source [4] is cited in the infobox to support an Iranian victory. It poses a question, "So, who actually won?" and answers, "The answer depends entirely on who is being asked". It states that, from an Iranian perspective, it was a defeat for Washington but from Trump's perspective a decisive victory. It continues, "Independent analysts are similarly divided, and many conclude that nearly everyone lost something."

Unit the questions identified by Placeholderer are resolved, I recommend that the result should be substituted with status. The status to read: Islamabad Memorandum and Ceasefire extended until date. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:02, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

During the RfC, I referred multiple times to the Aftermath section (which another editor has since moved) and sources therein. Those sources have also been explicitly listed (by me) in the ongoing Talk:2026 Iran war#The war isn't over yet discussion, along with the paragraph summarizing them in the article body. entropyandvodka | talk 00:30, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Entropyandvodka: Sorry if I'm blind or something, but you don't appear to have left a comment at Talk:2026 Iran war#The war isn't over yet? ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 01:34, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, my mistake. I conflated that one with the related discussion, where my comment listing the sources is near the bottom: Talk:2026 Iran war#MOS:VICTORY entropyandvodka | talk 01:43, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have the time or energy to respond to all of these comments/complaints/questions, so I've vacated my closure. I maintain its merit, but as I won't be defending it I don't think it's reasonable to keep it. Feeglgeef (talk) 01:06, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I think the bigger/root problem was the setup of the RfC itself, which isn't your fault. Sorry if this was a drain Placeholderer (talk) 01:21, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, don't close things unless you are prepared to answer questions and/or defend your closure. If you "don't have the time or energy to respond to all of these comments/complaints/questions[...]" then you should not have the "time or energy" to make the closure. I don't think @ARandomName123, @Cinderella157, and @Placeholderer were acting in bad faith and framing their points merely as "complaints" - even just in-part - is hardly appropriate. They have as much right to question your closure as you had to make it.

If you maintain the closure's "merit" then you should not have vacated your closure and you should be able to verbalize justification for it (and to be clear, I recognize and appreciate that you acknowledge that your lack of desire to defend your position led you to vacate the closure). People disagreeing with a closure is almost universal. It doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong or that the closure should be vacated. If your first response to pushback is to get defensive ("[...]why don't you start that RfC, then?" - even if it's not "defensive", we're here to examine your closure) and you make no attempt to answer the questions posed to you, I have to opine that perhaps this was an inadvisable close. That's not even touching on WP:BADNAC, which advises that a NAC may not be appropriate if, per point 1: "The discussion is contentious (especially if it falls within a Contentious Topic), and your close is likely to be controversial." You acknowledge that the RfC was "flawed", so I would additionally argue that a NAC is ill-advised per point 1 of WP:NACPIT.

Regardless, it's moot, now, anyways, so, I won't beat the dead horse any further. I appreciate you vacating the closure. — MWFwiki (talk) 03:48, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There would appear to be a number of discussions at the talk page that are working at cross-purposes, noting that we now have two open RfCs operating in competition with each other and other discussions addressing the same issues. At the infobox, there has been well intended but disruptive editing around what the infobox should say while the matter is being resolved (ie, what is the status quo in the interim). I would suggest that full protection of the infobox would be appropriate at this point. I would also suggest some admin intervention that would resolve the multiple discussions into one centralised discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:50, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Admins familiar with WP:CTOP practices might also be interested in chiming in here: Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee#1RR_WP:CTOP_restrictions_and_templates —Locke Cole • t • c • b 01:51, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully most discussion that seems to fall under the new RfC can migrate there. Would it suffice to leave notes under them to direct to the RfC? I'm hesitant to suggest that apparently redundant discussions be closed, since when that was done (in good faith) for the last RfC there was stuff (namely the status v. result thing) that I thought was left unresolved—Idk if other people see stuff that would be unresolved here.

I think it'd be worth adding a subsection under the RfC to discuss what should be up during discussion—but I'd just want a second opinion before contributing to discussion bloat I say, as I discuss how to discuss what should be up during discussion... Placeholderer (talk) 02:22, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that the status quo was"ongoing." I am assuming that the change to "Iranian victory" was what led to the RfC starting in the first place, so shouldn't it be changed back to ongoing until the RfC is over? Slava570 (talk) 11:36, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I think the status quo would be debatable if we switched to the new RfC, but given that we're still on the old RfC at this point the status quo is unambiguously a |status parameter.

The debate if we switch to the new RfC would be whether or not to grandfather in the existing violation of WP:STATUSQUO and WP:ONUS given it's survived so long Placeholderer (talk) 02:42, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I would really appreciate if an admin can do something about this. It still has not been resolved and people keep switching the infobox to "Iranian victory" which is not the status quo. I have changed it again, but how do we know no one else will put it back in? We really need admin input here. If I have incorrectly reverted the infobox, please let me know as well... Slava570 (talk) 11:50, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Admins, acting as admins, can only address behavior, not content. Wikipedia:Edit warring#What to do if you see edit-warring behavior tells you how to deal with edit-warring. You can also request page protection to inhibit edit-warring, but be aware that the protected version is always the wrong version. Donald Albury 16:11, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: New, three-part RfC

Given that reopening the IMO-bad RfC doesn't address my own main concern (the skipping over of discussion on whether to use |status or |result) I figured I'd more explicitly propose to use start a new RfC with Locke Cole's suggested structure. Presumably this would mean re-closing the old RfC as "bad RfC" Placeholderer (talk) 04:05, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, preparing for work, so will be brief. Yeah, I think the three-part RfC is best, with hat-note to state "Replaced by below", etc. I'm in support of the new RfC, as written. (Moreover, I don't think any of us meant to distress Feeglgeef.) — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 11:16, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Placeholderer (and others), I have proposed a Moratorium. If the end of the war is disputed, then I don't think we need an RfC to go back to the long-standing version of "ongoing". We can revert it, put a moratorium for two months, and then see what's what. There is no deadline. TurboSuperA+_[talk] 12:55, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I just tried reverting to the status quo ante, but it was now changed back to "victory" by Entropyandvodka. Regardless of any other considerations, shouldn't it just be the status quo per WP:ONUS until the RfC is over and there is a new consensus? Slava570 (talk) 21:09, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and reverted it back as the prior RFC decision was vacated by the author. I've also started a new RFC, I'm hesitant to touch the old one, if someone uninvolved would like to close it as malformed or incorrectly stated it would be appreciated. As Placeholder said, the RFC wasn't Feeglgeef's fault, it was just a false choice that basically assumed the event was over and left participants choosing how to list the outcome instead... —Locke Cole • t • c • b 21:47, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, could you also add the options to have something like "See Aftermath section" (or analysis/June 2026 Memorandum of Understanding in this case), and to omit the parameter entirely? ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:02, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If we're talking about |result=, omit means going back to |status=. From my understanding if we use |result= the guidance is to have a very no-nonsense entry (X victory or Inconclusive). —Locke Cole • t • c • b 22:07, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Omitting result doesn't mean we have to use status. These are both optional, and the infobox docs say to "Omit [the result] parameter altogether rather than engage in speculation". Regarding the "See..." parameter, the docs say that "In cases where the standard terms do not accurately describe the outcome, a link or note should be made to the section of the article where the result is discussed in detail (such as "See the Aftermath section").". ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:14, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Got it, I'll go add those as options. =) —Locke Cole • t • c • b 22:25, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Let me know if my changes addressed your suggestion. Also, feel free to modify it yourself as long as you aren't making significant changes (and since nobody has !voted yet). =) —Locke Cole • t • c • b 22:29, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good, thanks! ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 22:41, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A yet more explicit roadmap

With the new RfC currently closed, either until the closer reverses or someone else finds consensus to do so, I suggest this:

Close the old RfC
Reopen the new RfC
Start a subsection in the new RfC to discuss what should be in the infobox during the new RfC: status quo (which one?) or a compromise. This is preferable to whatever's going on at the template's page history.
Leave notifying comments in talk sections that are covered by the new RfC to direct them to the new RfC, without closing them (for now)

Can we get an efficient consensus here so we can drop the meta-discussion and move on to actual discussion? Placeholderer (talk) 16:30, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a reminder of the issues caused by premature RFC closures and RFCs that present false choices, we're currently a "source" for a Newsweek piece that says Wikipedia called the war for Iran (and they're not the only one saying similar things). It's almost literally a case of citogenesis... Wikipedia should report what other sources say, not be a source on its own. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 21:36, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That's true, but the fact that the Newsweek is endorsing the result shown by describing the Wikipedia as echoing "what several military experts and geopolitical watchers have told Newsweek," should be taken into account. --Mhhossein ^talk 07:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Newsweek agreeing with "Iranian victory" should be taken into account, but we don't lead, we follow, so Newsweek endorsing it should not be taken into account. Grilledcheeseisgreat ^✉ 12:16, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Avalanche close

(moved from User talk:Feeglgeef where it was blanked)

Hi, I had wanted to reply to the Iran War RfC, but you closed it after only one day. If I had known that would happen, I would have commented yesterday. You linked to WP:AVALANCHE, which assumes the RfC had a snowball's chance in hell of failing. I think there was more than a snowball's chance in hell. The arguments for change were far better arguments, though there were fewer of them. I also have at least three sources I wanted to cite for the change side, including the BBC. [5] [6] [7] And the standard for proving something is conclusive is much higher than inconclusive. To be conclusive there has to be clear consensus among RS. Whereas a minority opinion can be enough to prove something is inconclusive. (PS. the RfC tag hasn't been removed, so it is still listed on the RfC page.) Slava570 (talk) 12:24, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it was incorrect to close the RfC, especially after one day; most RfCs go for a week, at least, if not longer. I also object to the fact that it was a non-admin closure to a controversial topic, and clearly more time was needed for a consensus to develop, or not. After all, I did note in my vote—the last one, for the record—that recent events (such as the closure of the Strait yesterday) might yet still derail the possible peace itself. Such things still might occur, so even declaring an outcome would be hasty. After all, we should be following the sources, not trying to impose our will (collective or not) on world affairs. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 16:55, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Just FYI, I've opened a thread at AN discussing the close/potential things to do. Your contribution is welcome Placeholderer (talk) 20:52, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

See my comment there, courtesy pings @Slava570, Javert2113, and Placeholderer. As for some of the specific points that you made.

The arguments for change were far better arguments.
No, no they weren't. At least, I found them to be worse.
I also have at least three sources I wanted to cite for the change side, including the BBC.
From skimming them, it seems like the BBC article is about public perception of victory, not actual victory. The CSIS article states Iran gets most of what it wants, and it gets it up front—before negotiations on a final deal even start. The United States gets very little. The Hudson Institute is a conservative foreign policy think tank, so I'm not surprised they believe we won. Factoring in their opinion (even as "Inconclusive") in the infobox would be undue.
And the standard for proving something is conclusive is much higher than inconclusive.
The standard for putting something in an article is that it's not forbidden by policy or consensus.
most RfCs go for a week, at least, if not longer
What happens to most RfCs is irrelevant.
I also object to the fact that it was a non-admin closure to a controversial topic
See WP:NACRFC.

Thanks, Feeglgeef (talk) 22:18, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to #4, it's actually not irrelevant. It's exactly what is described at WP:RFCEND: An RfC should last until enough comment has been received that consensus is reached, or until it is apparent that it won't be. There is no required minimum or maximum duration; typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. You must also consider the logistics of editors around the world, not everyone has the ability to respond and participate on short notice. Closing it less than 48 hours after the topic was opened, while conversation was clearly still continuing is the opposite of when a close should happen. Especially as you cite WP:AVALANCHE.

With regard to #5, I don't think @Javert2113 was objecting to a NAC of an RFC, but rather to WP:BADNAC #1: A non-admin closure may not be appropriate in any of the following situations: 1. The discussion is contentious (especially if it falls within a Contentious Topic), and your close is likely to be controversial.

All that being said I don't think reopening the RFC would be helpful, but editing your closure to indicate the deficiencies described above and that the result was still in flux when you closed it would help make the transition to a new RFC better. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 23:12, 21 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to #1: A majority of votes for the keep side were not based in any policy. You said so yourself in your close.

Responding to #2: the CSIS article literally says [Iran] Lost the War in the title and in the body. It also lists several things the US won. Ultimately the article says neither side had a decisive victory. Hence inconclusive. Second, it's irrelevant that the third source comes from a conservative outlet. See WP:BIASED. These sources are valid. If you are excluding a source for this reason, that is a POV issue.

Responding to #3: WP:NPOV says: Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views. Even if the argument for a US victory or inconclusive is a minority view, it needs to be reflected in the article in proportion to the preponderance of that view in sources. If you want to exclude that view entirely, that is another NPOV issue. "Inconclusive" would reflect a broader array of views, while "Iranian victory" excludes the minority viewpoint. Slava570 (talk) 00:01, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think part of the problem is any editor approaching this from a perspective of "we won" or "we did not win." We didn't participate. The United States and Israel are engaged in a war with Iran. Wikipedia is not a party to that conflict, nor are many people who edit Wikipedia in countries that aren't a party to the conflict. Looking at this from outside, it doesn't look like anyone has won anything yet because the negotiations to end hostility are ongoing and what little peace there is in the region is incredibly tenuous. I think most of the sources are prevaricating on whether this conflict is even over, let alone who won. And even then, I would prefer Wikipedia wait for the academy to weigh in before declaring a winner. There's far too much risk of propagandistic bias from literally any news source supportive of either side of this conflict. Simonm223 (talk) 12:00, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@MWFwiki, Slava570, Javert2113, Placeholderer, and Feeglgeef: Feeglgeef doesn't have time to justify their RFC closure, and ignored my advice in this thread taken from their talk page to simply edit their closure (instead vacating the closure and effectively reopening the RFC), but does have time to try and derail the new RFC. My good faith is getting a bit exhausted here. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 04:12, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, a little strange, particularly given that their first reply was "star your own RfC." However, I think what they're getting-at is that perhaps we should permit the first RfC (the one they re-opened) to conclude before touching this one. The two are slightly at-odds. That said, they should probably remove themselves from these discussions just as a courtesy now that they're involved to the level that they are; just as we would expect a closer to not be involved in the RfC or indeed too involved on the page, I would expect a closer to not turn-around and involve themselves in the discussion... but that's just my opinion. — MWFwiki (talk) 04:46, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, just weighing in here - I've been watching this discussion and both the RfCs, but yet to comment on either as I was concerned that having multiple open proposals might happen and muddy the waters, as I mentioned to TurboSuperA+ and Placeholderer. While I can understand Redrose64's closure of the most recent RfC on procedural grounds, I wonder if they were aware of this discussion? I'd be interested to hear their thoughts as an admin on the best way to proceed here. I am also concerned by Feeglgeef's intervention in the latest RfC given their previous assertion of WP:AVALANCHE as a reason for closure. But I'd like to hear their rationale before making assumptions about their motivation. As there appears to be considerable support for the notion the initial RfC was flawed, or at least that a third option is necessary, I'd appreciate some advice from RedRose or another uninvolved admin on the best way to proceed here for the sake of stopping this situation from becoming messier still! Dfadden (talk) 08:28, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Let this be a cautionary tale of the dangers of doing things too soon. Grilledcheeseisgreat ^✉ 10:12, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Just got back from work and all—another reason why we shouldn't do things too soon. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 21:49, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Grilledcheeseisgreat @Javert2113 I think I made this clear to them. Certainly don't close things if you're then going to assert you don't have time to defend your position. Which, again, in all fairness to them, they did withdraw their closure. — MWFwiki (talk) 22:58, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And it looks like @Redrose64 has closed the discussion without seemingly considering everything else that has gone on... —Locke Cole • t • c • b 11:17, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think people are being far too hasty to call the war with Iran over. I know that most people in the world (certainly myself included) would like to see this costly, pointless and unnecessary conflict end. However the evidence we've seen so far fills me with absolutely no confidence that the war has ended until such time as American and Israeli troops withdraw from their positions. We should be waiting to see that the war actually has ended before declaring a winner. Simonm223 (talk) 11:23, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I closed it because, as was already pointed out in that RfC, there were two ongoing RfCs at once to answer the same question. We do not need this sort of behaviour one bit. One problem, one discussion. I have no opinion whatsoever upon whether the war is "over", resolved, on hold or whatever. I'm just a schmuck who hangs around the RfC listings looking for misuse of the process. Having two RfCs on the same issue is such a misuse. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:50, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64 Did you miss the part where there was concern over whether to include the status parameter at all? The false choice the original RFC presented? The fact that it had been rapidly closed in less than two days by a NAC, and when challenged instead of simply modifying their close they completely reversed it, reopening it to new comments despite a growing consensus for a neutrally formulated set of questions? I'm guessing you missed all of that. The original RFC is a WP:TRAINWRECK. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 14:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I will say that the open RfC is not at all good. I just went there and logged a !vote that was not an option in the poll because the options were grossly insufficient requiring a choice between Iranian victory and an inconclusive resolution. These are both WP:CRYSTAL violations until we actually know that this war has ended. Again, I understand wanting this war to be over. I also want this war to be over. But it's not. Simonm223 (talk) 14:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Did you miss the fact that when I procedurally closed it, that left one on the page that was still open? Here is what WP:RFC/POL looked like when I arrived at it this morning. The first and third entries cover basically the same issue. That is why I closed the more recent one. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:44, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The broken RfC should be the one closed on procedural grounds, not the fixed one Placeholderer (talk) 14:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering, is it too late to procedurally close the first RFC though? I'm asking because now that this discussion has come up, I feel like I need to change my vote to Inconclusive or Remove the parameter. And what I think will end up happening is that after the first RFC is over we will have to immediately open a new RFC to clarify this. Whereas if we close the first one and go to the second one, I think it's more likely we will come up with a binding consensus... Slava570 (talk) 14:54, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally, we would close the first RfC, reopen the second RfC, and ping everybody involved. As for the options, you're able to edit your vote, even if it doesn't fit the options presented. Editors participating are not bound to follow the options given, though they usually do, as its not always clear that they're able to propose their own option. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 01:52, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You procedurally closed a well-formatted, structured RfC and left the broken one that didn't address that the

war might not be over and that explicitly was described as a vote open. Grilledcheeseisgreat ^✉ 15:26, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Redrose64. I mentioned in my previous comment I understand the rationale for your close. But I had been hoping with your experience you could provide some advice on how to resolve the situation please? As the original RfC remains open, a growing number of editors are expressing they believe it is a flawed choice. I have now joined them formally as I dont think there has been any helpful advice yet from uninvovled editors or admins yet despite extensive discussion here at AN on how to approach these concerns. I am certainly not asking you to express an opinion on the war being over or not. However I do think the opening of the second RfC, while misguided was a genuinely collaborative attempt to fix the issues with the original RfC, that was previously closed and reopened in questionable circumstances. Some advice on the correct way to approach addressing the concerns raised in this discussion would really help a lot more than admonishment. Dfadden (talk) 21:19, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think we'll have to accept that it's possible we'll have to break some procedural rules. When a building is collapsing, you aren't trying to follow zoning laws or anything; you're trying to live. Grilledcheeseisgreat ^✉ 22:28, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To use your analogy, I would say this is more a case of the authorities ignoring our repeated requests to send a qualified engineer to inspect the cracks and tell us if we need to evacuate. If the engineers dont come, or seem more concerned with isuing fines to the people who reported the cracks, those same people arent going to wait around to see if the cracks get worse, nor will they be inclined to ask for help in future... Dfadden (talk) 23:07, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I swear you just talked over me. Did nothing I mentioned in my reply resonate at all? —Locke Cole • t • c • b 21:38, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Locke Cole was that directed at me sorry? Dfadden (talk) 21:44, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No, that was for Redrose64. —Locke Cole • t • c • b 22:01, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, ok sorry. Editing on mobile so the nesting looks funny, and the bit about overtaking threw me off! Dfadden (talk) 22:04, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've looked at the RfC as an uninvolved admin, and despite coming very close to procedurally closing it as a TRAINWRECK, I don't think I can justify that position based on the discussion to date, and ultimately to do so would be a supervote on my part as I don't really believe that the war is over, arguments notwithstanding. New comments are continuing to come in that continue to affirm support for "Iranian victory", and a large chunk of the "change" comments do not actually argue that the war isn't over, but simply disagree with the verdict that Iran got the upper hand.

There has been an undesirable level of chaos and back-and-forth over the result, which seems to have been the product of individually-policy-compliant-and/or-reasonable but collectively incongruent edits: "Iranian victory" was introduced at a point when there genuinely were enough sources that, for a normal article, could justify inclusion without need for a drawn out discussion. As it became clear that there was some disagreement, an RfC was opened, but given that at the time it appeared that sources were still overwhelmingly supporting "Iranian victory", it was not immediately clear that there was a need to revert back to a prior status quo ante. Continued fighting in Lebanon on the 19th-23rd then made the assertion that the war was over more dubious. Ultimately, I think that the current de facto status quo of Iranian victory[dubious - discuss] is adequate for the time being. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 17:20, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

One of the problems is that, while it's true "Iranian victory" was introduced at a point when there genuinely were enough sources that, for a normal article, could justify inclusion without need for a drawn out discussion, it was, I think, added too quickly for such a high-visibility/contentious article (i.e not "normal"), and only afterwards did the expected standard of a drawn out discussion kick in. The |result change got through on a green light and all objections have been stuck on red, for the arbitrary reason that the |result change was fast—and arguably afoul of NOTNEWS.

And while new comments are going for "Iranian victory", the badness of the old RfC gets in the way of determining consensus. Is every comment weighing whether or not the war is completely over—i.e should the |result parameter, which was never a product of consensus, be there at all? Unless the commenter specifies, it's unknown.

(Thanks for the outside input!) Placeholderer (talk) 23:07, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Rosguill Thanks for looking into this but what it shows that by moving forward quickly with a half-cocked idea and edit warring, it's possible to bypass WP:ONUS. The entire change to what you describe as the de facto status quo took place in just a day or two. This was barely any time for opposing sides to weigh in. Sorry but this is totally unfair. There was no new consensus established, de facto or otherwise. Slava570 (talk) 11:30, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think this objection would be more valid if it weren’t for the extensive participation on the talk page, and the addition of a disputed tag which adequately sums up the current state of dissensus. I would feel empowered to revert back to Ongoing (or just removing the param) if either there was no discussion, if there was discussion that demonstrated a clear consensus in formation against “Iranian victory”, or if the contested text wasn’t clearly tagged with {{disputed-inline}}. But given that none of these conditions hold, intervening at this point in time seems like it would serve only the letter of ONUS without following the spirit of the consensus policy more broadly, and would be taken as an overly bureaucratic objection that would likely just result in additional, ultimately unproductive meta-discussion rather than helping editors or readers.

All that having been said, I agree with your underlying assertion that our normal processes have not done a good job addressing this case of contentious breaking news on a high traffic article (and I believe this is a recurring issue), so I’d be all for workshopping new guidelines to ensure editors don’t jump the gun in situations like this. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 13:58, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Rosguill. While I agree any attempt to unscramble the egg at this point would be met with strong objections about being bureaucratic, I would point out that bureaucracy has arguably let us get to this point. At the time when the 2nd RfC was opened, there was a growing number of contributors in the initial RfC raising concerns that the choices available were flawed and a third option was needed - eg. We were asked if the situation looked red or blue, but to many of us it looked yellow! Redrose64's close of the 2nd RfC on procedural grounds was in accordance with policy and technically appropriate, per their justification that having two simultaneous RfCs was disruptive. However it appears to have been made without regard for the already lengthy discussion here about the problems with the initial RfC. Their assertion that both RfC covers virtually the same subject matter seems to have missed a lot of the context discussed here and the article talk page. This closure effectively shut down discussion of a third "yellow" option, pushing new comments from that point onwards toward a binary choice. That is clearly going to shape how people respond - it suggests that yellow is off the table and even if it does look yellow, they MUST first choose between red and blue. I also note the close referred to avoiding a discussion forks, but simultaneously removed the venue to have the breakaway discussion continue on the same talk page, bringing it back to AN. Perhaps if we are workshopping new guidelines to prevent this from happening again in the future, we to include how closers should interpret WP:RFC#Multiple simultaneous RfCs on one page in situations like this as well? Dfadden (talk) 21:47, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Objections to the tune of "it's yellow" can, are and should be raised in the first RfC, and may warrant updating its opening question, and/or factoring this element of unfairness into assessments of consensus when closing it. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 22:28, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The first RfC was a WP:TRAINWRECK. Trying to fix it will just make it even more confusing, which obviously should be avoided. Grilledcheeseisgreat ^✉ 22:58, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be appropriate to make a note to closer at the top of the first RfC linking to this discussion and asking they also consider the points made here, rather than restating the detailed objections raised here? Or should we summarise this discussion in new comments under the RfC? Dfadden (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Locke Cole: it takes one minute to object to an inherently problematic RfC, it takes much longer to adequately defend my closure to multiple people who all have their own reasons as to why it sucks. And if I were to have edited my closure, plenty of people would have still objected. Thanks, Feeglgeef (talk) 02:03, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Look, close both if you want to. Or close one and reopen the other in that order. But don't get into a close/reopen ping-pong cycle, that's disruptive; and absolutely do not have two open simultaneously. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:25, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64 Except thats not very helpful as none of those who commented here can close a RfC on the topic since we are all involved editors. That would be extremely unwise given the history here. How do we get another admin to take a look at this discussion and help us resolve the issue? The second RfC was discussed here before it was opened and no admins advised against it. A bit of oversight before people take actions into their own hands and do things that are disruptive again would really help calm things down here. After all, isnt that supposed to be what this board is for? To help resolve disputes? Dfadden (talk) 07:49, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

History-merge backlog

Category:Candidates for history merging is now up to 11 entries, some of which date to the beginning of this month. I have one at Equal temperament that may be affected by an ongoing RM. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 05:30, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There's still six left. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 15:14, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I took care of the ones that definitely merited merging. I left the others for another hist merge admin to look at since I wasn't convinced that a hist merge was appropriate. I would say that we don't have issues of people tuning in, and that if you really want to get attention you should leave a comment at WP:HISTMERGE. Izno (talk) 18:40, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to the functionary team, June 2026 (4)

At his request, the checkuser permission of EdJohnston (talk · contribs) is removed. The Committee sincerely thanks EdJohnston for his service as a checkuser. For the Arbitration Committee, House Blaster (talk • he/they) 15:46, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Changes to the functionary team, June 2026 (4)

Request to review talk page discussion closure

I am requesting that an uninvolved admin review the closure of Talk:Major Oak#Tense and either re-open the discussion, write a new closing statement, or otherwise intervene or recommend next steps. I believe this should not have required admin intervention but here we are.

Talk:Major Oak#Tense was initiated on June 19. Later that same day (UTC), a thread was initiated at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Talk:Major Oak#Tense. I saw the MOS thread and posted there and at Talk:Major Oak#Tense. The temp account ~2026-34502-67 (talk · contribs · logs) closed the discussion Talk:Major Oak#Tense on 22 June stating in the edit summary "clear consensus, enough effort spent, closing this and removing tag". I then started a new section below the closed discussion at Talk:Major Oak#Post-close comment where I expressed my opinion that I disagreed with the closure. Other editors quickly agreed and @NebY reversed the close but was promptly reverted by the temp account.

After further discussion, I re-opened the original thread. At that time, I was unaware that NebY and the temp account had gone back and forth about this already in the edits. I was also promptly reverted by the temp account and warned about disruptive behavior and edit warring.

The original closure was unnecessary, incorrectly assessed consensus, and halted ongoing discussion that had moved beyond the initial question to more nuanced approaches to addressing the content issue. When I reverted the close, I believed I was enacting clear consensus among the small group of editors who had participated. As I have stated, I was unaware that NebY and the temp had previously opened and re-closed the discussion. I acknowledge that I was INVOLVED, and that I had not reviewed the edit history before re-opening the discussion, but this seemed straightforward.

We are at an impasse with ~2026-34502-67 (talk · contribs · logs) requiring "more discussion" on the meta-issue of whether or not it was appropriate to close the original discussion. This is distracting from and impeding the continuation of the original content discussion, which the rest of us would like to see re-opened. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 18:37, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk-y note: Redrose64 was the closer of the earlier related discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Talk:Major_Oak#Tense that may or may not be interpreted as part of the same overall motion. ~2026-34502-67 (talk) 18:43, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I do not consider this part of the problem. Redrose64 closed the WT:MOS discussion per WP:MULTI. I believe this was appropriate but more importantly, there appears to be no controversy about that action and editors at WT:MOS have continued the discussion there without issue. I only mentioned the MOS discussion because it is relevant to how and I and other editors became involved in the original Talk:Major Oak discussion in the first place. The issue here is the dispute over the appropriateness of your closure at Talk:Major Oak#Tense and whether or not to re-open it. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 18:49, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that closure of that discussion, not an RFC or suchlike, was unwanted and unwarranted. It's been difficult discussing it with someone who even rejects reference to WP:WHENCLOSE, saying "Just linking to a document in WP namespace doesn't amount to an argument."[8] NebY (talk) 19:21, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Another clerk-y note: Aside from NebY, the other involved party notified by Myceteae is Martinevans123. ~2026-34502-67 (talk) 19:50, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well spotted, clerky. My suggestion: re-open the discussion and ditch your close comments. Or, if you're too embarrassed, let an involved other editor re-open the discussion and ditch your close comments. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:52, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I did notify Martinevans123, the other editor involved in the discussion to reverse your premature closure. Nothing strange about that. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 00:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Note that another editor, @~~User:BrechtBro~~BrechtBro, has requested pending changes or semi-protection due to disruptive edits by temp/unregistered users during the active Major Oak discussion. See: Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Increase#Major Oak. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 00:58, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: @User:BrechtBro made the request. —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 00:58, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who is tangentially involved in both discussions (to either support someone else's proposed solution or to point out when a phrase was added), I agree that the close was premature and would recommend the temp account remove their closure.
While there is a cluster of comments that lean towards using is, there are also some editors before and one after who support using was, with none of them entertaining the idea of using the former; I would hardly call that a consensus (at a really rough estimate I'd say it's closer to a 40-60 split between was and is).
It seems like the temp account was concerned that there could have been an influx of new editors to the discussion due to the use of a {{discuss}} tag in the article (with a significant risk the discussion will never end), which has since been removed. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:01, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for adding this important context. Both me and @NebY responded in the thread indicating support for removal of the {{discuss}} tag.[9][10] —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 01:05, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Can we get some help here? Even just a blessing from an uninvolved admin or experienced editor that we can re-open the discussion (or a clear determination otherwise)? —Myceteae‍🌈 (talk) 18:16, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There hasn't been any new activity from the temp account over the past few days. While I don't have a stake in the discussion, it would be nice to have it unclosed without fear of getting reverted near on the spot. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:15, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Disorganized talk page archives

Not an issue for AN. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:07, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

I discovered that the archives of Talk:Vatican City is out of chronological order, and I am trying to clean it up. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 21:03, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

@Voorts: Where is the correct forum for this issue? –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 21:08, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If you can't fix it on your own, I'd try the help desk. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:11, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Michael Jackson closed

An arbitration case, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Michael Jackson, has been now closed. The final decision is available at the link above.

The following remedies have been passed regarding this case:

TruthGuardians (talk · contribs), TheWikiholic (talk · contribs), Guitarjunkie22 (talk · contribs), Jimcastor (talk · contribs), and MraClean (talk · contribs) are indefinitely banned from Wikipedia. This ban may be appealed six months after the enactment of this remedy, and every six months thereafter.
TruthGuardians (talk · contribs), TheWikiholic (talk · contribs), Israell (talk · contribs), Episteme Aletheia (talk · contribs), Guitarjunkie22 (talk · contribs), Jimcastor (talk · contribs), Mr Boar1 (talk · contribs), MraClean (talk · contribs), Never17 (talk · contribs), and PinkSlippers (talk · contribs) are indefinitely topic banned from Michael Jackson, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed six months after the enactment of this remedy, and every six months thereafter.
NE0mAn7o! (talk · contribs) is warned that future misconduct in the Michael Jackson topic area will result in restrictions under the Michael Jackson community contentious topic.

For the Arbitration Committee, ~delta _{{talk • cont • 🇰🇷 • 🎢}} 21:16, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Michael Jackson closed

Next appeal

At least 6 months, probably longer. Please focus on productive editing and don't dwell on your topic ban. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:08, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

When can my next appeal be? And for the record, I realize the reason I kept rounding numbers because I thought I was doing it right, and I wanted to show that I could. Now I know that you’re not supposed to do that. Iacowriter (talk) 23:49, 22 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Recent disruptive content removal in related articles, might be a sockpuppeteer

So a few days ago, I was looking on recent changes when I reverted this unexplained removal. Just now I found out that temporary account came back on another temporary account and removed that content again. After reverting them again, I realized that they were apparently doing this unconstructive series of edits for over 3 months. Most prominently on the articles Boston Strangler and F. Lee Bailey. I also found on the contribs page that all the related temporary accounts 1 2 3 have around 6-10 associated IPs, a very likely sign it might be the same IP user. I ask that the IP behind all these temporary accounts is blocked for repeated disruptive content removal and general unconstructive edits. Thank you, SHSR _{T • C} 03:05, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

All three map to the same ASIN subnet designator and same physical location. Agreed that they all seem to be from the same or very similar user location. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:25, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have blocked all three anon-usernames for 2 weeks focusing only on the two articles that you've highlighted. This means that the anon-users can contribute to other parts of wikipedia but cannot edit either of the two highlighted articles. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:35, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Close review Talk:Magazine_(firearms)#Straw-poll:_Proposal_#1

I'm requesting a close review for the following close [11] related to a straw poll proposal related to the merger of the High Capacity Magazine and High Capacity Magazine Ban articles into Magazine (firearms). (This is not a review of those merge discussions). As part of the merge there was disagreement regarding the if "High Capacity Magazine" should be a subsection of the article and, if yes, should a specific proposed text be included as consensus text. The close review should focus both on if the discussion resulted in a "consensus to include the section" and if the discussion resulted in a "consensus to include specific text and sources". Springee (talk) 03:16, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Impartial on inclusion of section, over turn content The discussion had 6 participating editors. On the question of including the section, there is a 3:3 split amoung the editors with both sides making arguments why the term should be a subsection. While I opposed inclusion of the section, I can understand an argument that a merged article should have a section, rather than just be merged into other parts of the new parent. However, the proposed content was opposed by 4 of 6 editor (including one who supported including the section). It also was only drafted after the merge discussion was initiated on 8 May thus it does not represent a consensus text of the prior article. Finally, the proposed material was already the subject of extensive criticism for both UNDUE content and questionable sourcing. Since the close of the straw poll a clear consensus against some of the content was established and the sources used have also been questioned. These were all issues brought up before the straw poll but didn't seem to be considered as part of the discussion against using the consensus text. I'm largely stuck with phone edits for the next 2 weeks - apologies for editing errors Springee (talk) 03:16, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse (involved) Consensus is not a vote count. The arguments against including the content were fallacious, were rebutted and were appropriately downweighted by the closer.

In addition, the vote breakdown presented by the appellant here is confusing - which 4 participants opposed the inclusion of the content. What is the 3:3 split in question? Those are different numbers than I derived from the discussion. Katzrockso (talk) 04:46, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You and Lightbreather where the only two editors who supported the content as posted. Mudwater supported having the section but not the content as proposed. Tioaeu8943, Qwirkle and I opposed the text. The text was opposed prior to being added and after the fact part of the text was removed via clear consensus [[12]]. Issues with the quality of some of the sources were raised before the straw poll, I pointed to the objections during the poll and after the fact editors again are questioning using things like a business website as a reliable source for a general claim [[13]]. Making this a proper RfC with a full month duration would give more editors a chance to address these issues without having to argue to a two person business is a RS for general claims. That is what the close endorsed. Springee (talk) 05:00, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with your reading of Qwirkle and Mudwater's comments. Mudwater didn't present any explicit opposition to the addition and Qwirkle didn't register a !vote or clear expression of opinion.

Mudwater's comment was this:

The proposed text above seems pretty reasonable to me, but I currently don't have a strong opinion about exactly what it should say, or exactly what references it should use

I'm not sure how you get from this to opposing the proposed text. Katzrockso (talk) 13:41, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I assure you, I have difficulty understanding how someone reading the whole talk page and the recent edit history could not, at a glance, see that I opposed the text as it was. Qwirkle (talk) 13:59, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I'm uninvolved in the discussion, although I was named in the framing of the question, only because I had made one small edit to the page. I am not sure a close review is going to help here. It was a straw poll, and limited in scope. Any "consensus" here is narrow and limited. I would have thought that the appropriate route here would be to raise this to the next WP:CONLEVEL. To Springee: is it possible to draft something that shows how you think the merge should look, and then start an RfC with a single question: should the content be presented as in option A or option B? The RfC would draw in more editors, and any decision of an RfC would over-ride a short straw poll. If following that route, this review could probably still be withdrawn. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:09, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Support close (uninvolved) editors supporting the merge on technical basis referred to an abundance of sources that defined a technical description. The editors opposed did not cite much other than prior consensuses. There's no need to overturn this. Simonm223 (talk) 11:01, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think one can reasonably claim the sources were not objected to in detail. I did exactly that in a prior discussion with I mentioned in the discussion. Perhaps it would be better to say the arguments were not transcribed into the discussion section. Springee (talk) 11:33, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And yet I did. Reasonably. Springee: I had no part in this discussion and I have no strong opinion on firearm articles. I read the straw poll. An overturn is uncalled for. The close was appropriate to the very limited scope of a straw poll about a merge that drew substantially less than ten participants. If that's not enough then I suggest you do what @Sirfurboy suggested and hold a formal RfC which would likely draw broader participation. Simonm223 (talk) 12:06, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
As part of the straw poll I referenced prior discussions including issues with sourcing. Regards, I suspect you are correct about following Sorfurboy's suggestion. Springee (talk) 13:06, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Do not endorse (involved) I disagree that there was a clearly established consensus at the close of the straw poll for the proposed version of the section. Several concerns about it and some sources remained unresolved both during and after the discussion. In any event, I remain open to a broader RfC to obtain wider participation and a clearer consensus on the matter. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:36, 23 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Do not endorse (involved) I do not believe this reflects actual “consensus,” even in Wikipedia’s cockamamie usage of it, and I do not think that a decision to close should have been so rapid, given the logorrhea a good-faith editor would have to plough through above, and in the deletion discussion, and the previous articles’ talk pages, & cetera, & cetera, ad nauseam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwirkle (talk • contribs) 14:22, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse (involved) I agree with Katzrockso's comment that votes alone do not equal consensus. As Simonm223 pointed out, the arguments to include the disputed content were backed up by numerous sources (unlike the opposition's arguments, or the majority of the rest of the Magazine (firearms) article for that matter). I believe OwenX came to his decision based on the weight of the arguments and not simply by a vote count. (Also some of the "votes" as Springee counted them are less than clear.) OwenX remained neutral and diplomatic throughout. Reading the nine points he cited in making his decision makes that plain.[14] I don't think it was AGF to accuse him of super-voting as Springee did and I think this close review is uncalled for. Lightbreather (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I would also add that Springee's complaint that content was added to the HCM article after he opened his AfD is a bit disingenuous since, as part of the process of creating the AfD, an invitation to improve the article was added to it.[15] Lightbreather (talk) 22:34, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

LB, there are a number of issues with your claims. First, as you say, all the material was created in the time after the merge discussions were started. That should make all of the material new material that needs consensus. The close bypassed that process and ignored the discussions about things like how much of it was poorly sourced. You claim "backed by numerous sources" but confuse quality with quality. If the sources were so strong why did editors agree to remove a whole paragraph you fought to include [16] and why are you including strong sources like a website of a two person business that clearly fails as a RS for the claims you used it for? [17] It's one thing to conclude that the section should exist. It's quite another to conclude that the poorly written content and sources, material rejected, with reasons, by half the editors involved, should be treated as "consensus". Finally, your bad faith comments are problematic. I mentioned super vote because OwenX suggested it would be a "super vote" to reject the proposed text as consensus. I asked how was that any more a super vote that to include it? From a policy POV, deciding text that was rejected with reasons by half the involved editors certainly doesn't look like any reasonable "consensus". However, if you think the correct option is to open a properly formed and advertised RfC with no prior consensus, I'm fine with that. Springee (talk) 10:06, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody has said "with no prior consensus". The straw poll should stand as a measured very local consensus. An RfC to change that local consensus seems a more appropriate next step than this, honestly, poorly advised close challenge. Simonm223 (talk) 11:46, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Simon, prior to the admin declaration of consensus, the material was new and clearly disputed by a number of editors, at least half the involved editors rejected the content. I'm fine with a proper RfC but I don't think the straw poll close should be viewed as "previous" consensus. Springee (talk) 11:49, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I understand you believe that - that is, in fact, what the close challenge is about. But you can hardly say "I'm ok with taking another recommended action as long as I get my way." You want this consensus vacated. Those editors who are uninvolved and who have commented here, to date, all disagree with you. Simonm223 (talk) 11:53, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Simon, we have a "consensus" that represented a minority view of editors who were involved with the content. We have a "consensus" that includes clearly bad or UNDUE content per subsequent discussions. How good can that "consensus" be? Springee (talk) 11:57, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly I think there's value in an RfC. But that doesn't mean the extant consensus, such as it is, should be vacated. Simonm223 (talk) 12:48, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Your belief that "the proposed content was opposed by 4 of 6 editors" has been questioned/challenged by at least two people (Katzrockso and myself) in this discussion. And the "clearly bad or UNDUE" content was one paragraph using 2 of the section's 20 sources. That paragraph and those sources have since been deleted.

Finally, if there is going to be an RfC it must be carefully and neutrally worded to keep that discussion from dragging on as this one has. And it must be widely advertised. Lightbreather (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

First, as you say, all the material was created in the time after the merge discussions were started.

I did NOT say all.

As for the deleted paragraph, yes, consensus resulted in it being deleted. Compared to other sources in the article, where there are any, the sources were, IMO, adequate if not perfect. Others disagreed and it was deleted.

Finally, the result of the AfD was merge, not "merge, but only the messy content with old sources." We were invited to improve it. The added content was an improvement based on RSs, with the exception of 2 out of 20, as mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I would invite any interested parties to read the discussion that OwenX closed and judge the sources and weight of the arguments for themselves. Lightbreather (talk) 14:58, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse (uninvolved) result within the discretion of the closing editor. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:31, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Do Not Endorse (uninvolved) It seems that deciding not just on the HCM section but the content itself with an evenly divided straw poll is worrisome to say the least. The close should be overturned and this should be subject to normal editing standards to ensure WP:V and WP:ONUS. Looking from afar at everything that has happened it seems that there are multiple issues at play that cannot honestly be decided by a straw poll. I would support an RFC that clearly breaks down the different elements at play and allows more genuine editor involvement. AadamentAardvark (talk) 02:54, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Support close (uninvolved), per WP:NOTVOTE and statements from Sirfurboy, Lightbreather, Katzrockso and Simonm223. If there is consensus for an RfC, that would also make sense. Cheers. DN (talk) 03:13, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I want to change my Username

Hi, I placed one request at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalRenameRequest but it was rejected. I am editing with my original name and this has made many problems for me. In my original life I have many degrees (two mater of sciences in software engineering and one psychology) and in art, one Ali degree in Persian calligraphy. I am now a researcher in Natural language processing. I should note that I am an expert in software design, and I can do refactoring of code.

I have been in Wikipedia for about 6 years. You can inspect my activity.

About one year ago one of admins in Persian Wikipedia began to revering my edits by hidden political reasons, and finally blocked me in editing templates. I really think this happened unfairly, and in my opinion, it is due to serious political issues we have in Iran. I should note that I cannot compete admin group because admins advocate each other. Persian Wikipedia have 35 admins non of them knowing anything about software design and refactoring.

Another problem occurred about 6 months ago in English Wikipedia, when I made a template named Template:MergedMap. A huge discussion exists in Template talk:Infobox port. I think these two events are related.

I am editing with my original name and I cannot burn my personality for Wikipedia. So as a final request: If you disagree with changing my username, I would leave Wikipedia forever. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:29, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Why was it rejected? 331dot (talk) 12:31, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

They wrote it was due to the blocking happened in Persian Wikipedia. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:33, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Hooman Mallahzadeh: Renames are a global process, and this is the English-language Wikipedia. If you would like a public discussion of your rename request, you can use m:Steward requests/Username changes § Simple rename requests instead of the private GlobalRenameQueue. But what might be simpler is to ask on fawiki's admin noticeboard if the community objects to you renaming. Generally, global renamers are willing to rename a blocked user if the local community is okay with it. Then, if you get that permission, you can just request again via GlobalRenameQueue and link to the conversation. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 12:37, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I do not want to edit on Persian Wikipedia anymore, I only want to continue on English Wikipedia. I should note that admins of Persian Wikipedia have made such a huge damage to my original personality that after one year, I have many problems in my original life. So I can not place any message at fawiki's admin noticeboard, this action is like spreading salt on wound. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:48, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Where does it say that blocked users can't be renamed?

We do that all the time: when a new user 'Acme Inc' gets hard-blocked for 'promo name & promo edits', it often happens that they request renaming to 'Joe at Acme' or whatevs, and that gets done before their block is lifted (if at all).

Besides, Hooman is only blocked on fa.wiki in one name space, it's not even sitewide.

Obviously, far be it from me to question Stewards' mastery of the rules, but I for one wasn't aware of this. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:04, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Me neither, absent evidence that the person might br attempting to evade the block or scrutiny. 331dot (talk) 14:45, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I can see the part of Hooman's request (renamer/steward-only link) that made the declining renamer think this might be an attempt to evade scrutiny, although personally that's not how I read the request. Perhaps this should be a thread on the renamers' mailing list. I don't have very strong feelings here, so perhaps @DoubleGrazing or @331dot would like to start it? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 14:50, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know renaming policy well enough. Perhaps Cabayi can enlighten us, since they handled that request? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:56, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

m:GRP#Policy, third bullet point, "The user is not seeking the rename to conceal or obfuscate bad conduct."
It's not a renamer's role to second guess the intent of admins on other wikis or their local policy, nor to disregard the validity of their blocks.

Tamzin's suggestion above points to a venue where this could be considered - m:Steward requests/Username changes and it's probably a better venue than the renamers mailing list which would exclude the wider community.

Pinging the only two renamers with native level Farsi, DejaVu & Ladsgroup. Cabayi (talk) 08:00, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I might, but it's not going to be soon. 331dot (talk) 15:01, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Cabayi I didn't expect you to ping admins of Persian Wikipedia. I expect to resolve this issue locally at English Wikipedia.

See I only want to continue editing to

Correct some typos
Hyperlink some words
Small changes in templates

and others, the same as the last 6 years but anonymously from now on. These edits have no advantage for me. I only aim to help people; helping people is my fun. I have not been active on Persian Wikipedia for 1 year and 6 months on English Wikipedia. Continuing this process is good for me, but certainly not for Wikipedia. I only would like to help people. Maybe it is better for me to follow my new habit of not being active at both Wikis. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:22, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We believe that you should discuss this with the stewards, at the link Cabayi provides above. We don't understand why you weren't permitted to change your username. 331dot (talk) 12:29, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@331dot Thank you! According to here, I created a «a separate and independent new account» for anonymity reason. I think no merge is needed. You can now archive this thread. Thanks again. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 13:15, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Usernames have not been local since 2015. Enwiki cannot dictate to Fawiki that their blocks are worthless. I pinged the two renamers with competence in Farsi. Cabayi (talk) 19:09, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Best to get confirmation from other editors more experienced in this domain, but on enwiki, I don't think there is any reason why you can't just do a WP:CLEANSTART, i.e. abandon your current account and start with a completely new one. Obviously, you should not use that new account to edit Persian Wikipedia (or any other wikipedia site where you are not an editor in good standing), but otherwise I see no problem with this approach. Fram (talk) 10:30, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that analysis. Looking at this as a global renamer, a denied global rename doesn't prevent creating a new account. Looking at this as an SPI clerk, I'd only be worried about evading scrutiny with respect to a sister-wiki block if someone were trying to hide a pattern of cross-wiki disruption (for instance, making the same kind of edits they were blocked for on a sister wiki, or picking a fight on enwiki with someone who blocked them on a sister wiki). As long as Hooman doesn't do anything on a CLEANSTART account that connects to the fawiki block or any other sister-wiki conflicts, there should be no problem. That said, Hooman, be aware that some wikis like Wikidata do not allow undisclosed alternative accounts even for good-faith reasons, so be mindful where you use the account. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 10:51, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Tamzin@Fram Thanks for your response. Also in my opinion, WP:CLEANSTART is a really good strategy for me. Be sure that I wouldn't continue editing on Persian Wikipedia anymore, being such an extremely toxic (illiterate and rude) environment. I should note that until now I have experienced many damages to my real personality by Persian Wikipedia community.

If you agree, we could close and archive this thread.

I wish I could promote English Wikipedia in the best way. I should note that I want to continue editing anonymously for small changes on articles (like typos, hyperlink, etc.) and also making articles related to my research area. Best regards! Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 10:59, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My Question for the user TFA Protector Bot about indefinite semi-protection for the article due to an upcoming today's featured article

Do TFA Protector Bot semi-protect the article (e.g. Super Mario Maker 2) indefinitely due to an upcoming today's featured article? The answer is No! ~2026-36459-16 (talk) 14:01, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Super Mario Maker 2 isn't scheduled to be TFA. In fact, it isn't even a Featured Article. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 14:55, 24 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Change to the functionaries team, June 2026

At his request, the Arbitration Committee restores the CheckUser and Oversight permissions of TonyBallioni (talk · contribs).

On behalf of the Committee, Sdrqaz (talk) 01:17, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Change to the functionaries team, June 2026

Unban request of Wolverine X-eye

The following is the request of Wolverine X-eye for the removal of their ban. I bring this as a courtesy, and make no endorsement in doing so. 331dot (talk) 08:30, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Over a year ago, I got banned by the community for disruptive editing. The ban was actually my 2nd; the first was for disruptive editing, sockpuppetry and competency issues. See this and this link for reference.

OK, regarding the nature of my 2nd ban, I would firstly like to talk about my behavioral issues. In this thread, I came to realize that my conduct was worse than I first anticipated. If things did not go my way or took "too long", I would be quick to gripe, complain, personally attack or dismiss others' comments. When people pointed it out to me, instead of seeing it for what it was, I would come up with unnecessary excuses (showing WP:CIR and not getting the point), and when contributing to articles and nominating them for say GA or FA, many of the previously mentioned behaviors would come to the forefront. Case in point, I tried desperately pushing Narwhal to FA status and would often times complain about reviewers not being fair as opposed to actually following through with their advice. This not only frustrated reviewers, but wasted their time and energy and I understand why they would feel that way. My GA involvement is an important factor in my banning as I had a tendency of taking on more reviews than I could handle. The reviews I did make were poor, harsh and lacked in-depth consideration. Again people brought this to my attention and again I dismissed the issue. In terms of my nominations, when reviewers informed me of legitimate, intractable concerns, I would dismiss or barely address them, then re-nominate those articles if the reviewer (or I, as was the case with the Fennec fox article) decided to fail it.

I would also like to discuss my editing patterns on articles. Usually, when I worked on articles I would clog the article history with numerous edits, almost all of them with the same edit summary of "Ce". Sometimes I even made numerous edits just removing some space characters. I thought this to be normal editing behavior but in hindsight I realize just how much of an annoyance and disruption such editing was.

Looking at things holistically, this is a recurring behavioral issue going back to my earliest days. It is not enough that I know what I did wrong, but why this self-sabotoge keeps happening and what I can do about it. Even after recognizing the root causes that drove my behavior I know those factors do not matter; the detrimental impact I had on the project is what truly matters. I think it's important I say that it disturbs me greatly that I have caused so much disruption to a project I actually like. I can't express just how much I regret my actions. The ban on me was completely justified and I have no complaints about that. I only want to take this moment to communicate my thoughts and insights on this situation to the community.

If I do get unblocked, I plan to work on content creation but with one caveat: I will make no more than 10 edits on 1 page per day, with each edit having a detailed/appropriate summary. Second, if I do get into disagreements with others, I will not get defensive, dismissive or rude but will try to reach a middle ground as tactfully as is required. Thirdly, if the community wishes to impose any sanctions or conditions that come with an unblock like Topic bans, mentors, or similar, I welcome it. I acknowledge that the nature of my track record warrants skepticism and that this request is a courtesy not a right.

I've been editing on Wikimedia Commons during this time if anyone is interested in that.

Thank you, Wolverine X-eye (talk) 12:39, 24 June 2026 (UTC) 331dot (talk) 08:30, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a pretty self-aware appeal, both addressing the behavior that led to the ban and the underlying mentality that led to that behavior. I would actually oppose part of the offered editing restriction, at least as a bright-line restriction: I think a general expectation of not making more than 10 edits/page/day sounds like a great idea, but you wouldn't want to make that a set-in-stone enforceable rule because like, what if someone points out you made a factual error in the 10th edit? You also wouldn't want this to apply on talk pages, where a good-faith discussion might last well more than 10 comments and you would be hampering consensusbuilding by not being able to reply, nor in userspace or draftspace, because if you're drafting a new page no one really cares if that takes you 100 edits. I would prefer something like "Is required to use descriptive edit summaries when editing articles, and to not overwhelm article editing histories; 10 edits per article per day is recommended as a rule-of-thumb limit, subject to common sense".

I also think some sort of GAN restriction is probably needed here. Wolverine shows an admirable understanding of what went wrong with his previous GANs, but that does not necessarily translate into being able to fix those problems on his own. I think the ideal situation would be mentorship, something like "Wolverine may only submit one article to GAN at a time, and only when his GA mentor has agreed the article is ready. He should follow his mentor's guidance regarding appropriate behavior at GAN." There are any number of users who could make a good mentor for this; I've reached out to Generalissima, who was once my mentee but has by now far exceeded my own knowledge of the GA process (138 GA passes being just slightly larger than 17), and she would be willing to take on this role if Wolverine is open to it. (Feel free to ping me from your usertalk, Wolverine.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 09:51, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that Wolverine has agreed to these proposed terms. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 15:23, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I would happy to help out as a mentor for Wolverine! (Apologies for the delay in response, have been feeling under the weather lately.) If he has a particular article in mind to work, I think it'd make sense for him to make a draft rewrite in userspace, and then we can push it to mainspace once it's GAN-ready. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 06:33, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I thought there was no way I'd agree to an unban for a twice-banned editor (fool me twice, shame on me), but this post seems to show genuine insight and contrition and a constructive plan. I agree with the editing restrictions proposed by Wolverine X-eye and Tamzin. Fences&Windows 12:50, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Support with the amended restrictions - it's rare that we see such insight from a blocked editor, I applaud the time and effort he's taken with this appeal. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 15:38, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the guardrails suggested by Tamzin. Seems a well thought out unblock request with understanding of the issues. Might suggest they commit to one username only but I'm not familiar enough with the history to know if the renames were just a preference change or an attempt to evade issues. Star Mississippi 16:37, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting I'm satisfied with their explanation of the rename and have no further concerns. Star Mississippi 13:47, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming the named editor or a similar mentor is on board, I Support an unblock with simply that restriction. I think an edits-per-article restriction would be unwieldy and unnecessary. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 17:23, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Possible vandalism at Singer season 11

Sorted. Fences&Windows 08:36, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

I was just browsing Singer Season 11, and I've noticed that some of the content added do not match the content from the more through Chinese version. For instance, it claims that Anna Karina and John Cleese are participants in the show, despite the former being dead for nearly 7 years and the there is no evidence for the latter ever participating. ~2026-36797-84 (talk) 16:49, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted back to the Last Known Good Version. You can feel free to do so yourself in future — find the last good edit in the history, click the date and time, click "edit" (it'll warn you that you're editing an old version), enter a good edit summary (I just used "unsourced", because the edits were and people irrationally trust named accounts more than TAs like you; you could say something like "unsourced and says John Cleese and Hugh Jackman are appearing, probably vandalism" or the like) and hit 'save'. Thanks for pointing me to this vandalism! • a frantic turtle 🐢 solidarity 17:44, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Possibly dumb question about community blocks

I've known for a very long time that an indefinite blocks issued by the community are considered blocks that typically only the community can reverse. But what I'm unclear about, is if there is any technical reason, some kind of nondelegation principle, that says the community cannot issue a block that explicitly grants an administrator review authority over the block? This comes up quite frequently over the years, in which people generally agree that an editor should be blocked, but aren't fully comfortable with the full community ban, so the thread just kind of meanders around in limbo until/unless an administrator issues an indefinite ban on their own. I'm not sure the community waiting around for an administrator to take a voluntary action is really a good use of time, and it's certainly not fair to the admins that are reading the discussion. Thought I'd ask here first since I don't have anything specific to propose at the village pump. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 17:19, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen this debated several times. There are two prevailing attitudes, both amounting to "Yes the community can". One attitude is that the third bullet point at WP:CBAN doesn't apply if the community explicitly chooses to waive it, which makes such a block only a block. The other is that when the community collectively chooses to block someone but allows an unblock by any admin, they technically are still banned, just with a special provision delegating unban authority to any uninvolved admin, much like the community could if it wanted give someone the option to appeal to ArbCom or some other entity. Personally I favor the second answer, but for the most part it doesn't really make a difference. The only difference at WP:BLOCKBANDIFF that would change between those two answers is whether the blockee/bannee "remain[s a] member[ ] of the community", which is mostly an academic question. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 17:51, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the thoughtful answer. My interpretation was close to the second answer you refer to, but I wouldn't feel like I was truly acting in good faith if I acted on this interpretation in the future without having sought guidance first. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 14:52, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting how it works in practice, since the most egregious cases get indeffed by an admin straight away (e.g. vandalism) but the ones that take longer have more interaction and a higher chance of editors voting for a block/ban.

In the same vein, it kind of works because the longer cases will be those that are harder to detect and more insidious - so slow edit warring, long-term POV pushing, hidden agendas of some kind.

So, even if at first glance it seems counterintuitive, the more I think about it the more I get the feeling that it's actually a benefit.

Back on topic, I've seen people say that the community wanting indef is CBAN by default, so by that extension we could logically reduce that to admin indef (and I've seen that happen) if it's specified by each individual editor, as well as any other changes to the usual process. This is a community project, after all, so the will of the people should prevail! In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 20:53, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In case anyone is interested, the 2017 RFC that defined the indef-to-cban pipeline was at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 140#Unblocking after community-imposed block SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:16, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Request for fixing the double redirect issues on redirect pages The Spectrum (Sirius XM)

DONE

Done. Morwen (talk) 17:43, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Hello, everyone... Please fix the double redirect issues on redirect pages The Spectrum (Sirius XM). Thanks. ~2026-35816-53 (talk) 17:36, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sanchita Basu

AfD reopened by Star Mississippi. Minnow slap issued to Deb by me. Fences&Windows 08:32, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Article was unilaterally draftified during an AfD. Should the article be returned to mainspace, or should the AfD be closed? –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 18:05, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

(Non-admin comment) Well within an admin's permitted discretion range during an AfD, although Deb probably should've closed the AfD itself at the same time with that as a decision. Minnow to them for not doing so, trout to you for not discussing this with them first on their talk page. You probably also want to inform them of this discussion, since it directly involves them. • a frantic turtle 🐢 solidarity 18:11, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

(Non-admin temporary account user comment)

Thank you for bringing that up@LaundryPizza03.

"Well within an admin's permitted discretion range during an AfD", maybe but on what grounds was it still appropriate at the moment of the move to Draft to do so since 1) a !vote indicated that at least one person who was not the page creator thought the topic was notable and took time to explain why by presenting policy-based arguments 2) the same person (myself) had improved the page to back their !vote with 7 sources.

I personally consider the Move should be undone and the discussion follow its due process. If the outcome is to Draftify, so be it but not like this. You cannot ask for community policy-based input and request improvements, on one hand, and at the same time, on the other hand, ignore the said input and improvements to the article.

Thank you. ~2026-35976-24 (talk) 19:14, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, draftification was clearly controversial. Premature actions shouldn't be done at AfD unless it meets a criterion for speedy deletion. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 19:17, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

An article at AfD should, under all circumstances, remain as an article in article space until the discussion is closed. If it meets the criteria for speedy keep or speedy delete, or there is a snow consensus for some other action then the AfD should be closed with that outcome first. The sole exception is that there is some urgent need to delete the article that absolutely cannot wait for the time it takes to close the discussion first, but this should be very rare (at most a single digit number of occurrences across the entire project in a year). Moving a page to a different namespace cannot be that urgent. Thryduulf (talk) 21:30, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored it as a contested draft in my capacity as an editor. Not closing this in case others want to weigh in. Star Mississippi 20:33, 25 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Partial block to my account

Dear all. Wishing a good editing to all. Mr Anachronist has put partial block to my account which has restricted my edits for corrections. I really find it very biased to do corrective edits to improve Wikipedia platform. I have to drop off from editing permanently even with my long association. Hope someone understands it.Thanks.Gardenkur (talk) 03:50, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

~~You have instructions on how to proceed in your block message.~~ The block message, oddly, says to appeal here.

I erred initially in the block settings I applied, thinking that restricting you from mainspace and page creation would simply restrict you from creating articles in mainspace, but it ended up blocking you from creating pages anywhhere, which wasn't my intent., I restored your ability to create pages a few days ago.

Your talk page history indicates that you have been making messes for others to clean up, and with only 200+ edits under your belt, you still have yet to learn what constitutes a proper mainspace article in spite of your years here.

I have no objection, however, if another administrator deems my partial block too harsh and decides to unblock you. My own view is that you first need to use the WP:AFC process to prove you can create a publishable draft. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 04:28, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Anachronist. I heartily thank you for the reply. Though I didnt have any malafide intentions in moving articles to main space , I do lot of efforts on researching and making edits. I accept my mistakes sometimes and never do disruptive editing. I understand in some cases these articles are not considered for main space but I do understand the principles and practices. Its upto you and other admins to understand and open the space.thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gardenkur (talk • contribs) 04:46, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Gardenkur, you need to show that you understand the problems with your editing before an admin will lift the partial block from editing articles. In your own words and with reference to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, what have been the problems with your editing and what will you do differently? Fences&Windows 08:27, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Fences and windows. Thanks for your response. While I feel that every article may not qualify to be in mainspace though its eligible,i will observe caution before moving them. I want to correct broken links and polish articles which are not properly written. I will be cautious while starting any new article. Hence I request for last time chance. Thanks. Gardenkur (talk) 08:43, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Gardenkur, you've not quite answered the question - it's in two parts:

What was the problem with your editing that led to the block?
What would you do differently if unblocked (the exact steps you would take)?

Just saying you will do better isn't very helpful, because it doesn't show admins whether anything has changed - you could still be misunderstanding very important things and we'd have no idea until it came time for someone else to clean up the damage you could cause.

Right now, you can still submit edit requests - these are suggestions that you make for other, experienced editors to submit on your behalf, if they feel agree that your edit is appropriate to make. That's a very good way to show administrators that you understand how Wikipedia works.

You want to be unblocked now, so you need to prove your competency in another way - by explaining what was wrong with your previous work and how you'll change that in future. Just saying "I will do better" isn't enough, you need to go into detail. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 10:10, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not an expert on p-blocks but it seems to me that the current block message of blocking the namespace (Article) with an expiration time of 6 months (account creation blocked) (Disruptive editing: Removed additional restrictions that seem to apply to all name spaces, not just article space. Set duration to 6 months.) is at odds with what was said at User talk:Gardenkur#Partially blocked (article creation only). If they are, and I'm not 100% sure of this, being completely blocked from article space that wasn't what was presumably intended? FDW777 (talk) 10:15, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

FDW777 might have a point here, it looks the same to me. Maybe it's just not possible to only block from creating articles in main space? Besides I guess revoking confirmed which will also stop editing semiprotected pages. So this will need to be a topic ban instead. Nil Einne (talk) 12:40, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the final blocking comment maybe it was understood what the effect is. That said, I'm not sure I understand the purpose of the "and". It seems to me either the OP agree to an effective topic ban and has the block lifted now, or after 6 they demonstrate they can now be trusted enough to create articles directly in main space and there's no block or ban needed. Nil Einne (talk) 12:49, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Reading what was Anachronist said above I think maybe what is being asked for is both agreeing to a topic ban and having one successful AFC before the block is lifted. I don't personally see the need for the latter, I feel if the OP keeps creating problems in AFC this can be dealt with as I assume sometimes is. But we should let them try to learn what is needed for new articles via AFC while allowing them to edit existing articles if the problem is mostly with their creations and not other edits Nil Einne (talk) 13:00, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, for some reason the wording in the block notice didn't quite parse properly in my head, then the confusion over what it was supposed to be vs. what it actually was made it harder for me to understand - apologies if my confusion has confused anyone! In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 13:40, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@FDW777, @Blue-Sonnet, and @Nil Einne: the original intent was to block the editor from creating pages in mainspace. It turns out that this isn't technically possible to do, using a partial block. I thought that setting mainspace=article and ticking the "block page creation" box would do what's implied: block the user from creating articles. But no, it blocks all actions in mainspace and blocks page creation site-wide. There is an open ticket on this -- https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T275037 -- which has been open since 2021.

In spite of Gardenkur being years old, it's still a "new" account based on number of edits, which is slightly over 200. I am not convinced that Gardenkur is experienced enough to know what constitutes an acceptable article. The editor has created numerous articles, which have been deleted or draftified, suggesting there's a problem that isn't going away, and the responses from Gardenkur have been vague and nonspecific. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 14:06, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the clarification, I agree with what you've said about their responses too. I've asked a couple of times but their answers are very short and don't show much understanding. I'd honestly prefer if they spent more time learning how Wikipedia works and gaining experience before asking for a review. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 15:09, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Blue-Sonnet, Thanks a lot for your response

What was the problem with your editing that led to the block? Moving more articles into mainspace

What would you do differently if unblocked (the exact steps you would take)?

I would not create any new article for few months.
Make edits only for mainspace article.
Any new article will go thru admin reviews.

I saw lot of articles with no proper grammar,not following Wikipedia guidelines and many shortcomings. I want this platform to give fair chance in case any non intentional mistake happens.I would request you to consider that it was not deliberate. I will spend time in polishing current articles as per Wikipedia policies.

I understand your feedback and will do edits carefully.Thanks.Gardenkur (talk) 10:24, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Can you please re-read my first question and try to answer it again? I don't think you've quite understood it. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 11:23, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Blue Sonnet. As per my understanding the block is creating articles that were reviewed and felt not relevant for mainspace and deleted or redrafted.Gardenkur (talk) 12:05, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Gardenkur, you can make edit requests to edit articles. You can use WP:ERW for this purpose. You can also work on articles in your sandbox or as drafts. I do not think it would be a good idea to lift this block at this time. In solidarity, asilvering (talk) 05:39, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Asilvering. Hope you are doing fine. Thanks a lot for the inputs. This was very disturbing to me. I will not edit for few months unless the editors and admins feel this was not correct.I have built my profile after lot of hard work in years. One non intentional issue is blown out of proportion.thanks.Gardenkur (talk) 05:55, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Saying the issue was blown out of proportion seals it: the block need to stay. There's a failure to take on board valid criticism. Fences&Windows 07:51, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Anachronist,Blue Sonnet,Fences and windows.If iam wrong i will refrain from editing for 6 months.Gardenkur (talk) 11:37, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Your block expires in six months anyway, so there would be no difference.

Blown out of proportion you say? Just look at your talk page, with all the comments about articles you created that had to be draftified or deleted. You are making work for others to clean up. The block was intended to prevent further disruption. You have given no indication that, if unblocked, you would even bother to learn the policies and guidelines that describe what constitute acceptable article content. You have given no indication that you would submit drafts through the WP:AFC process as a learning aid. I suggest you take some time to do that while your block is in place.

And again, I have no objection if another administrator sees fit to lift the block. As I said, it was not my intention to block you from editing, just from creating pages in article space, but unfortunately that isn't technically possible. One way or another, the disruption in article space must stop. If you must create articles, you must do it through WP:AFC. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 15:28, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Gardenkur, it might be best if I explain it this way:

You can still edit articles, another editor just has to check and make the edit for you.
- Please read Wikipedia:Edit requests.
You can still make new articles, another editor just has to check and move it to mainspace for you.
- Please read Wikipedia:Articles for creation.

You can still edit the majority of Wikipedia, it just needs to be checked by someone else first. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 15:59, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Backlog at WP:AIV

Any admins able to help sort through/clear out the backlog at AIV? It’s accumulating a bit more than usual - not at oh my word levels- but still. Thanks! Netstars22 (talk to me!) 07:40, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RFPP is similarly backlogged, if any admins are free to help out :) In solidarity, nil^nz 07:44, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I tackled some of RfPP and someone else got to AIV. Apparently too many of us sleep in North. American time zones. Star Mississippi 13:58, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks y’all!

And now that I’m looking at that timestamp am I realizing how late I stayed up that night… Netstars22 (talk to me!) 00:38, 28 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Review of collapse of talk-page comments

The collapse was appropriate. The comments are clearly AI-generated and breach LLMTALK. Q3YZFU5RM4X is warned not to use LLMs/chatbots to generate replies or Wikipedia content. Appropriate use includes translation and basic copyediting, and never generating content or replies based on prompts. Use your own thinking and words. Fences&Windows 07:46, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

An editor (FDW777) collapsed all of my comments in a discussion as LLM-generated and marked them as excluded from consensus assessment. I asked what basis and evidence supported that determination and explained my stated drafting practice. My request for clarification was not addressed and I was instead directed to ANI. I am requesting uninvolved review of whether this action and the process used to make this determination were appropriate.

Involved editors: Q3YZFU5RM4X and FDW777.

Discussion page: Mirza Masroor Ahmad.

Collapsed comment example: Talk:Mirza Masroor Ahmad#c-Q3YZFU5RM4X-20260625055500-NPOV and due weight: external perspectives.

My request for clarification on user talk: User talk:FDW777#c-Q3YZFU5RM4X-20260626100400-FDW777-20260625183500 Q3YZFU5RM4X (talk) 12:26, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I asked Q3YZFU5RM4X to stop with the LLN use here. After Pepperbeast made this further reply, Q3YZFU5RM4X then followed it up with "Those shortcuts contain several considerations, some of which seem potentially relevant to attributed or contextual discussion of terminology", which I simply do not accept is the result of I draft my own content and may use AI tools for suggestions and improvements as claimed on their user page. Accordingly, I collapsed their content as recommended. Suggest something is done about Q3YZFU5RM4X's LLM usage please. FDW777 (talk) 12:30, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This does read like someone's cutting and pasting editor replies into a chatbot and plopping the replies straight out. AI chatbots don't have a good memory, so when the preceding plain list of contextless-links was cut & pasted into its prompt box, all it could do was try to explain what it was currently looking at. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 13:50, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Q3YZFU5RM4X are you using an AI, LLM, chatbot or other form of machine generated text to create your comments? Please answer yes or no, thank you. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 13:52, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Q3YZFU5RM4X, before you answer, see the essay Wikipedia:Do not lie about AI. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 14:10, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I gotta say, that reads as pretty stereotypical AI use. Certainly AI aided in a way beyond what is appropriate. The editor admits they are a non-native English speaker who may use AI tools for suggestion and improvements. Not that any English speaker will organically write that way, but I'd submit a non-native English speaker who would feel the need to call attention to that fact is unlikely to be able to quickly rattle off these vague, ultra-polished chunks of text. I doubt 95% of English speakers could better imitate an LLM if they wanted to.

Many of these blocks of text don't seem to really understand what the question is, and seem unable to contextualize anything that comes before them in the discussion. The diffs are from a particularly egregious discussion, that last one especially, since it's clear to me at least that the LLM had no idea what to do a list of links, decided to describe what the links were, and then Q3 lacked the ability to understand how preposterous a reply that was.

Q3 opened this discussion, and how/if Q3 responds should play a big factor in how the community goes from there with them. Q3, if you're reading this, you need to respond to these serious concerns without any "suggestions and improvements" from AI tools, and should be 100% written, phrased, and edited in your words. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 14:34, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Their very first edit to their own talk page looks like a good - perhaps the only - example of their own, unassisted writing style, for comparison with whatever they post next. ~2026-36909-66 (talk) 14:38, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have too much to add here. It looks like LLM. It quacks like LLM. Collapsing the comments seems perfectly reasonable. Besides that, I don't appreciate the AI-assisted sealioning. PepperBeast (talk) 15:20, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hoping this helps explain my position.

As a non-native English writer, I first think about the issue and the points I want to make, often starting with notes or a rough draft. Where needed, I use AI to help express my ideas more clearly in English.

I review and revise the text before posting to ensure it accurately reflects what I mean. The views I express and the decisions about what arguments to make are my own, and I take responsibility for everything I post.

I would also appreciate views on the question I originally raised. Q3YZFU5RM4X (talk) 19:39, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for confirming. The problem is that we have a lot of trouble with AI at Wikipedia, especially when it comes to Talk page messages. When AI is involved, messages lose their human touch at best and completely miss the point at worst.

Everyone sounds the same through an AI filter and, being very honest, we hate that.

We want to talk to you, without any chatbots getting in the way - nobody cares if it's imperfect, what's important is that we have two human editors making a connection to create the best encyclopedia that we can.

Please don't use AI here at Wikipedia, it's too risky - if you're a non-native speaker, I also worry that you might have difficulty picking up if/when it subtly changes the meaning of a phrase or claim - I don't know whether that's the case, it's just a concern that comes to mind in cases like these.

Some people use it for basic spell & grammar checking and that's ok, but the moment it changes the content we run into trouble. It uses non-encyclopaedic language and inserts phrases that just shouldn't be in an article. It can also change meaning at random if you're not careful. See WP:NEWLLM and WP:AITALK if you want details.

We don't want to talk to ChatGPT, we want to talk to you. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 20:17, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

BTW WP:LLMCHAT is also helpful for explaining why your comments were hatted in the first place, if you need a bit more context. We've also found out that more machine translation uses AI & LLM these days, so that's something that's important to remember. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 20:34, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to what Blue Sonnet has said, nobody here wants you to have a stressful experience. It's just that in order to protect this project from an existential threat, there's little appetite for any LLM use outside of very basic, specific exceptions, and that sliver of an appetite appears to be waning by the day. There are nearly 350 active Wikipedia language versions, so there's a very high probability there's one in your native language. And that Wikipedia version will absolutely need your assistance far more than English Wikipedia, the latter which has the most articles and most active editors. If your English isn't at the level where you're comfortable communicating with us directly or making edits directly in English, I'd strongly urge you to consider editing that project instead, where you will run into far fewer headaches, and make a more valuable contribution. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 21:53, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In response to your original question, I fully support the hatting of the comments you're asking about. The problems with your LLM use -- that it is extensive, not basic, and shows poor awareness of previous comments or comprehension of the conversation beyond the diffs presented -- are significant enough that if they continue, I would support, at a minimum, you being limited to making edit requests rather than editing articles directly. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 21:59, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, these struck me as responses that came directly from the AI without much human review, as evidenced by the bot becoming confused by the list of contextless links. [18] I find it very hard to believe that was a human response that was just run through a grammar/spell checker. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 23:43, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

One thing you are obviously unaware of, is that the Wikimedia Foundation is being paid by AI companies for enterprise-level access to Wikipedia's content, for the purpose of training AIs.[19] I want Wikipedia to be better, and I want AIs to be better. Both are harmed in the long run if AIs get trained on their own output.

Therefore, using an AI chatbot as an author is prohibited here. Period. End of discussion. Stop using it, or be blocked. We don't care if your English is poor. We don't care if you cannot function on the English Wikipedia without it; if that's true then you're better off editing a Wikipedia in your own language. We prefer your own poor English communication over AI generated communications and article content. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 05:19, 27 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Continued vandalism following indefinite block

Obvious block evasion by TA. TA account blocked. — ERcheck (talk) 20:35, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

Weeks ago User:Olafrangnar was blocked following this discussion for repeatedly adding the same fabricated footballer to multiple articles. Since the block, the same edits have resumed from an anonymous IP, again inserting the same non-existent player despite previous reversions as seen here.

I'm not sure whether this is more appropriately handled as a sockpuppet investigation or simply as block evasion. Given the continued disruption and repeated insertion of the same hoax content, I believe an administrative review of the IP and whether an IP block or other measures are appropriate would be helpful. JayFT047 (talk) 19:18, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine to leave it here since it's been reported, FYI really clearly obvious block evasion can be reported to WP:AIV - just remember to give some diffs because those reports have to be done rather quickly & the admin won't have any history. If there are a few and/or it's not really obvious, then WP:SPI is the way to go. They also have the advantage that you don't need to notify the editors you're reporting. BTW You've not notified them yet so I'll do that now. In solidarity, Blue-Sonnet (I'm listening) 20:25, 26 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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

v t e Noticeboards
Wikipedia's centralized discussion, request, and help venues. For a listing of ongoing discussions and current requests, see the dashboard. For a related set of forums which do not function as noticeboards see formal review processes.
General	Administrators Main Incidents Bots Bureaucrats Centralized discussion Closure requests Education Interface admins Main Page errors Open proxies Volunteer response team Oversight User permissions
Articles, content	AI Bad image list Biographies of living persons Copyrights Questions on media Problems Dispute resolution External links Fringe theories Neutral point of view Original research Pending changes Reliable sources Resource requests Scalable vector graphics Spam Blacklist Whitelist Style Titleblacklist Translation
Page handling	History merges Splits Moves Protection Batch Importation XfD Articles Redirects Categories Templates Files Miscellany Undeletion Deletion review
User conduct	Conflict of interest Contributor copyright Edit warring and 3RR Sanctions Personal restrictions General sanctions Contentious topics Sockpuppets Usernames Report violations Requests for comment Request rename Vandalism
Other	Arbitration Committee noticeboard Requests Enforcement Edit filters Requested False positives Questions Help desk Teahouse Reference desk New articles Requests for comment Village pump Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous WikiProject proposals Discussions for discussion
Category:Wikipedia noticeboards