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current talk page.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and sorry for the slow response - I'm travelling overseas at the moment, don't have a lot of time for editing. I've been able to link these accounts to a globally locked LTA (Lithuaniaball2), along with a whole bunch of other accounts - I've requested global locks for all of them. Let me know if you see any other similar editing, cheers.
GirthSummit (blether)10:33, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
I did not miss what you were reverting - I think that your revert was inappropriate. The person you reverted is an
autopatrolled editor in good standing with over 50,000 contributions to in a diverse range of subject areas - you are surely not suggesting that she is an Indian far-right POV warrior? When she made her edit, the content had been in the article for less than a month - the onus was on you to establish consensus on whether or not it should be there. Rather than reverting and leaving what I perceive to be a rude and aggressive message on her user talk page, you should have started a discussion on the article's talk page to try to find consensus for whether and how the sources might be used in the article.
GirthSummit (blether)14:13, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Suppose you edit science topic, and an editor arrives and removes Lancet journal. Then you will obviously warn the person and expect them to first becoming familiar with the editing ethics of the subject before you will be taking their argument seriously. This happens all the time. The biggest blunder Cullen328 did here was that he kept repeating the same false claim that The Print and Alt News are unreliable sources. I don't see why this type of blunder should be ignored and only Editorkamran should be targeted.
Abhishek0831996 (
talk)
14:33, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
It's not just about the removal of a source, reliable or otherwise. If an editor, who was exceptionally well-experienced and obviously competent, went to a science article and removed a recently added sentence which was in a questionable part of the article, and which was only partially supported by a citation to the Lancet, then I would not revert them, or warn them about anything. What I would do would be to go to the article's talk page, ask them what their concerns were with the sentence and its placement, and discuss with them how we might make better use of the information in the Lancet source to improve the article.
GirthSummit (blether)14:45, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
That would be possible only if the next editor has made that argument which never happened. It has been already agreed on ANI that the content was supported by the sources. You will agree too if you read about Bakshi's claims about "history" and his false information that India got independence because of
Indian National Army as per The Print article.
[2] These claims are known to be false. The content was supported by the sources, and the only dispute now is why it was not discussed on the article body, but the block was made over different reasons.
Abhishek0831996 (
talk)
15:22, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Just noticed this response. Your hostile post on her talk page caused her to disengage - who would want to collaborate with someone who addresses people as you did? If you had approached her politely, and actually tried to understand her perspective instead of asking sarcastic questions and ordering her not to whitewash articles (a ridiculous accusation), you might have benefitted from her enormous experience, and the article would now be better than it is, and nobody would be blocked. I hope you learn something from this.
GirthSummit (blether)19:42, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! I was like, what the heck?
Good to see you on my page. Hope all is well. That edit by "Not welcome at da SD" was totally bizarre, I was going to write "I have no idea who you are, but #1) I wrote the article and #2) my edit removed a hidden error message. I have never performed any action that vandalized the encyclopedia. Clearly, you do not know what you are speaking of", but I see they have been indefinitely blocked.
SusunW (
talk)
19:08, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Yep - they were running around rapidly reverting people at random and giving them Level 4 vandalism warnings. I noticed them on your talk via my watchlist and thought 'hmm - sounds unlikely'... Probably a bored teenager - pay them no mind. I'm well thanks - enjoying the Easter break, still got a couple of weeks off :)
GirthSummit (blether)19:11, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
I appreciate you. It was pretty baffling. Enjoy your break. I've been on vacation now for 5,835 days, may actually retire next year.
SusunW (
talk)
19:14, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
SusunW, you are a phenomenal editor and content creator and I always love reading the articles you create. I smile every time I see you. You are the Su to my . My hair is finally growing back. Hopefully I will be braiding it with wildflowers again soon. --
ARoseWolf20:21, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
ARoseWolf Exactly the same. You warm my heart. I am so happy for that news. My oncologist took me off of all meds last month, so yes, I totally understand.
SusunW (
talk)
21:00, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Kyle Idleman was created today. Their first two edits were to blank their userpage and Talk page. Then they made a slew of edits at
WP:RFPP asking for protection of political bios, none of which had any merit, apparently under arbitration enforcement (see the user's Talk page). The only other edits also had to do with protection of yet another political article on MelanieN's Talk page. I don't know if this rings any bells for you, but even if it doesn't, it screams sock for me and is enough, IMO, to justify a check.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
16:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
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Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that
this edit performed by you, on the page
Education in Scotland, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:
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Hello IP editor. I deleted that page per
WP:G5, because it was written by a
sockpuppet of a blocked user. I don't understand your second sentence - are you saying that the subject of the article made everything up, or the author of the article?
GirthSummit (blether)15:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
What is the difference beween the tags "Mobile edit Mobile web edit" and "Mobile edit Mobile web edit Advanced mobile edit"? Is there a difference in the UAs? I never edit with a mobile; nor do I understand what "web edit" means in this context, although I vaguely recall editors mentioning some sort of special website for editing Wikipedia with a mobile.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
18:13, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Slightly embarrassing - I don't actually know. I use them as data points, to compare accounts' editing habit, but I don't actually know what causes those flags to appear. I often edit through a mobile - perhaps unwisely, since it usually results in embarrassing typos - but I do it via the misnamed 'Desktop' mode, which seems to result in my edits not being flagged in any way. I assume that if I edited through the standard mobile interface, it would be flagged in some way, but I don't know specifics of how different editing habits result in different flags, or whether it causes a change in UA (my guess is that it shouldn't, but meh??). Perhaps one of our colleagues (pings to random assortment of SPI regulars:
Blablubbs,
GeneralNotability,
Spicy,
RoySmith) has some insight?
GirthSummit (blether)21:50, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I've also never actually figured out how the various tags map to different bits of software. I mostly treat them like opaque; if user A mostly uses Foo and user B also mostly uses Foo, maybe that's a hint that they're the same person. But I don't put a lot of weight in that. --
RoySmith(talk)22:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
If I recall correctly:
"mobile edit" = edit was done from a dedicated mobile platform (i.e. mobile-focused skin, or mobile app)
"advanced mobile edit" = edit done via minerva, with an
extra checkbox ticked in your preferences.
Tags are cumulative, so edits from a mobile app will yield "mobile edit, mobile app edit"; edits from minerva will yield "mobile edit, mobile web edit"; edits from minerva with the extra checkbox will yield "mobile edit, mobile web edit, advanced mobile edit". There is a UA difference between mobile web edits and mobile app edits, but UAs do not change when a user switches between mobile and desktop skins, or when they enable minerva's advanced mode. --
Blablubbs (
talk)
22:07, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, I should have responded to this more promptly. Simply: no need to thank me, every word I wrote was heart-felt. You are experienced, talented and, let's face it, excellent. You are also (I think this is what I said) unusually (amongst other DYK reviewers) quite frank, and rather exacting. I personally see that as a good thing, and ever since your first review of my work (
Margaret Macpherson Grant) I've thought of you as a hard task-master, but someone I should listen to. Should you change your ways? I think not. Newbs need a certain level of kid gloving, but editors with over 10,000 contributions and an eagerness to engage with the light-touch DYK process (compared to FAC) need to be willing to engage with critical and competent reviews. So yeah - please keep doing what you do, and thank you for doing it.
GirthSummit (blether)23:14, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
This
sockmaster is now sockpuppeting as
Theeditpolice (
talk·contribs), and when the discussion got brought up by Pauline Muley on
AukusRuckus' talk page, they got incredibly defensive and started disruptively blanking the conversation. This behavior is also identical to
Buger677 (
talk·contribs) on the same talk page (
1,
2 and
3), a confirmed sock of Jacobkennedy. After being reverted twice by Johnbod and Pauline Muley, a single purpose account by the name of
Ikipi (
talk·contribs), which is almost definitely yet another sock, appeared to reinforce and disruptively blank the conversion as well.
1.53.222.123 (
talk)
03:04, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks to
Pauline Muley, IP 1.53, Drmies,
Johnbod: It seems I missed all the to-and-fro on my talk page, which rarely sees such a flurry of activity!
Drmies: This sock's disruption, going right back to their earliest incarnation, is still in the process of being cleaned. Each time the master returns with a new puppet, they build on the dregs of their last foray, to continue the factual degradation of these articles. The broad topic area is one I'm only glancingly familiar with, so cleanup can be tricky (for me); and many of the articles are only lightly trafficked, so overall it seems to be an uphill battle to sort. It's incredibly disheartening they've come back before we've managed to clear even 2013's nonsense completely.
AukusRuckus (
talk)
05:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Theeditpolice's account was created in March 2020, and made five edits in the same week: After that, not a peep until 2 days ago. That was the pattern for other puppets of Jacobkennedy, too. Is checking for further sleeper accounts something that can / should be done?
AukusRuckus (
talk)
14:05, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
Doesn't look like the same person, and the article is significantly different. I've taken a look, and am not impressed by the content, or the sourcing - it's now at AfD.
GirthSummit (blether)18:18, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Hi Girth Summit (or any friendly talk page stalker). Could I get a second opinion on my block of
Special:Contributions/49.237.0.0/18? I don't normally do non-/64 rangeblocks, so I just want to make sure I haven't done something especially boneheaded. The individual I'm trying to block has been floating all around this range (
49.237.13.190,
49.237.39.216,
49.237.33.219, etc.) and I can tell from
[3] that the /18 is the narrowest range possible, but I know it's a wide range with a fair number of other people affected—some of them constructive, some of them not. My instinct is that the tradeoff is worth it given the
substantialdisruption and the fact that any innocent editors can just go to
WP:ACC, but this is way out of my wheelhouse, so I just wanted to run it past someone more familiar with these things. Hope you're well!
Extraordinary Writ (
talk)
07:14, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Hi there. It's not a particularly lengthy block, and if a persistent user is causing disruption that, in your view, outweighs the positive contributions that others are making, then the block is worthwhile (and certainly within your discretion). I'll add two observations: I think it likely that the person who left a message on your talk page complaining about this block from an IPv6 range is the same person that you are targeting with the block. A block on their /36 range is a possibility if they carry on in the same vein from that range. Also, the person in question is themselves familiar with ACC, so don't be surprised if we need to whack a few moles...
GirthSummit (blether)14:51, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, that's helpful. I think you're right about the IPv6...hopefully he'll get the message eventually, but if not I can try rangeblocking that too.
Extraordinary Writ (
talk)
17:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
After a bit of poking around, feel free to replace 'I think it likely that' with 'I am confident that'. Blocking that particular IP, or even its /64 range, will achieve nothing, but keep an eye on its /36. Cheers
GirthSummit (blether)18:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words. I have been writing and expanding articles on WP since 2006, and I include infoboxes where, for example, a Wikiproject prefers them, but I do not include them in bios where the Lead section does a much more nuanced and contextual job of introducing the subject. You are correct that it is very frustrating to have worked hard to create and maintain an article, and then have people shove an infobox into it who actually have no interest in the article at all, and merely want to insist that all (higher quality) articles mush have them. As I noted in the discussion, this proposed infobox is particularly bad. It includes supposed "associated acts", when this person does not have any such thing, and the inaccurate and ultra-trivial "creator awards". Also, the "subscriber" number is silly, as nearly all of her vlog fans also subscribe to her main channel, and most of them also subscribe to her Miranda Sings channel. The main argument given by the other editor is that he can't be bothered to figure out her age from her birthdate, which is shown in the first line of the article. --
Ssilvers (
talk)
20:25, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Welcome to the one hundred and eighty first
WikiProject Yorkshire monthly newsletter.
Thanks to the contributions of our many members and supporters,
WP:YORKS has become a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 18,643 last month to 18,663 on 29 April 2023). In the area of GAs
WP:YORKS at 210 is ahead of
WP:GM who have 92.
WP:YORKS also has the lead in FAs at 92 while
WP:GM has 66 out of a total number of 4,858 articles.
Currently we have seventy five Yorkshire featured articles:
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
Elections
Just a note to remind members that May is the time for local elections in England. Some new articles will be required for details of the elections in the different areas holding elections. Location articles may need updating to cover changes to the political makeup of the councils.
WikiProject Yorkshire Collaboration of the Month Project
The May 2023 articles selected below are an editor choice as there were no nominations on the project talk page.
The project is subscribed to a
clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis.
Monitoring is essential Use the
watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR. You will also have to check that the Commons link is set correctly.
Comments, questions and suggestions about this, or any, issue of the newsletter are always welcome and can be made by pressing the feedback button below...
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WT:YORKS! New editors are always welcome!
Delivered May 2023 by
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If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an N to the column against your username on the Project Mainpage.
A
request for comment about removing administrative privileges in specified situations is open for feedback.
Technical news
Progress has started on the
Page Triage improvement project. This is to address the concerns raised by the community in their
2022 WMF letter that requested improvements be made to the tool.
Yesterday I blocked DaveDagnaw, mainly for promoting
Draft:Henok Wendmu. Today Newac333 was created and edited the draft and its Talk page (I've reverted the edits). Based on the unclarified comments on Dagnaw's Talk page about the relationship he has with Wendmu ("I know him from work"), and the fact that they use different editing platforms, I suspect this is meat puppetry rather than sock puppetry, but I was hoping you could check to see. I can open an SPI if you prefer. Thanks.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
11:15, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
DaveDagnaw has edited across a bunch of different IP ranges, but they were most recently editing on an IP in the same /16 range that Newac333's edits have all come from. Newac333's UA is very common, but it is identical (including version numbers) to the one that DaveDagnaw most commonly uses. So, what - Possilikely (a mix between possible and likely), leaning Likely?
GirthSummit (blether)11:45, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I've blocked and tagged based on behavior, timing, and your technical results. More than enough if this were at SPI. BTW, is there any indication that any of the IPs used by Dave belongs to a company?--
Bbb23 (
talk)
12:15, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
It wasn't jumping out at me as looking like someone who does all their editing from a particular office connection - they used a bunch of different ranges.
GirthSummit (blether)13:50, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
I know the accounts are stale, but you've apparently found the CU data helpful based on the last entry in the archive. I suspect Atingle. Many edits to existing martial artists, creation of new ones, a bunch of newcomer tasks, cross-wiki edits, and clearly focused, although not exclusively, on
Muay Thai. Here's a
page intersection between Atingle and a JRM2018 sock. As an aside, I've seen other sock farms that Atingle might be a part of, but JRM2018 seems to be the best fit.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
15:30, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
Interesting. Most of their editing is coming from a new range, but they have made some edits from an IPv4 /24 range that JRM2018 has used extensively in the past. Pretty Likely in my book.
GirthSummit (blether)15:39, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi
Jayron32. Yes, I remember the case. Without going into anything I'm not allowed to talk about, I don't buy their explanation. The IP they were editing out of had only been used by two accounts within the CU window, and they were both editing (rather promotionally) about the same non-notable subjects. It might potentially be two separate people, one can never tell, but I cannot believe that they weren't coordinating - so it would be covered by
WP:MEAT. I would be opposed to an unblock.
GirthSummit (blether)17:59, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
I noticed Angerxiety because they just
voted at the RfA. I was struck by the edit summary (they use these apparently gibberish edit summaries frequently - possible it's some weird dialect but, if so, I can't identify it) and the username itself. I then looked at their userpage and saw all those alternative accounts. As for their edits to spaces other than userspace, where they spend far too much time, they have created some very odd drafts. Maybe it's just a kid or a troll, or a combination, but it's downright weird. And, regardless, they should stop creating alternative accounts, declared or not. Up to you whether to look deeper.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
15:16, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
From a brief skim, I'm thinking kid rather than troll. Yes, too much time in userspace, and too many alt accounts, but I don't think anything needs doing.
GirthSummit (blether)15:27, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Help needed on sock investigation
Hi Girth Summit,
I hope this finds you well. I've recently filed
a sockpuppet investigation on a group of editors I am very suspicious of socking, meatpuppetry, paid editing, and/or building seeming consensus with multiple accounts in AfD. There have been cases of even fishier comments by IPs or logged out editors. Even
just a few hours ago, a random IP casted
WP:ASPERSIONS on an editor who noted possible sock/meatpuppetry. Could you take a look at
this case? I am sure there are more urgent sockpuppetry cases, and reaching out to admins like this may not be fair, but it kind of makes me uneasy to see that it may be too late. Either way, thank you for your time.
Aintabli (
talk)
19:24, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
Email
Hello, Girth Summit. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
You may want to look at the edits of AnaphoreJT. AnaphoreJT is copying your deletion rationales (
you,
AnaphoreJT) and nominating MoroccanEd's articles for deletion. That'd be weird behavior for a sock/meat puppet of MoroccanEd, but I've seen weirder things.
NinjaRobotPirate (
talk)
19:12, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads-up. That was Jebli18, who I've tagged as a suspected sock of MoroccanEd. It's possible that they are two different people - the connection was based on editing behaviour, not CU results. I'm not minded to go back and unblock MoroccanEd though, even if they're different from Jebli18 they were definitely doing inappropriate logged out editing to move their declined promotional drafts into article space.
GirthSummit (blether)09:10, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
How do I stop getting notifications from a specific page?
I only edited the talk page of Display name 99 only because they replied to me, so I replied back. Had to explain myself and then finally just quit talking.
Considering no new threads have been made for the past few days, is there a way to get rid of notifications I don't want? I do know Wikipedia isn't like a social media site, but I'm curious.
WannurSyafiqah74 (
talk)
15:52, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Side note: After a quick check, I found out I'm not watching Display name's talk page, so I still get "mentioned" in those notifications. I never really put it on my watchlist? That's why I asked, so I'm not sure if those can be excluded
WannurSyafiqah74 (
talk)
15:44, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
OK, in that case you need to mute notifications from them. Go into your preferences (click on 'preferences' at the top of the page), then click on 'Notifications' on the right hand side. Scroll down, and you will find that you can mute notifications from specific accounts. Best
GirthSummit (blether)15:53, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Hi there. I'm less concerned about that one - there is the question of how to translate the name, and the separate (arguably more important) question of how we describe what it is. There do seem to be a couple of sources there in the English language that call it 'Salsta castle', and while neither of them is a great source, I guess that might suggest that it has a COMMOMNAME in English. (I'm not saying that's definitely the case - what I'd really want to see is how scholarly English-language sources refer to it, if they do). We're describing it as a country house though, which seems appropriate.
Castle Howard is not a castle, and I think our article does it justice in that regard by calling it a stately home. I would contend that
Drumlanrig Castle is a ducal palace or a stately home rather than a castle; unfortunately that article needs a bit of work (in many areas). I might get round to looking at what Gifford and Hume have to say about it and do some work on that article at some point.
GirthSummit (blether)12:10, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment
Hello Girth Summit - hope you're doing well. Sorry for bothering you, but I thought it would make the most sense to write to you regarding this. Basically, it's about Solavirum. This IP range
5.134.48.0/20, which was being used by them and as a result blocked by you
[4] has been pretty active since the block expired. I have interacted with this range a few times myself, and even after its recent block expired, the majority of their edits have still been reverted. In other words, the disruption is still at large, and the IPs in this range are still too much smart for their own good, displaying the behaviour of one who is pretty familiar with Wikipedia
[5][6]. I would greatly appreciate it if another block could be made to this range.
HistoryofIran (
talk)
19:20, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi
HistoryofIran. I've taken a look at that range, and I count 55 edits since the range block expired. I'm certain that some of those edits are not Solavirum; some of them might be however. Would you be willing to compile a list of diffs that you think are probably them, and put this in a report at SPI? (Recording it at SPI is worthwhile - if we do establish that it's them, it would impact any possible
WP:SO unblock request, so needs to be recorded and easily accessible). Thanks
GirthSummit (blether)17:35, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi, saw your note about using AIV rather than reporting socks the way I've been doing it. I have been using Twinkle for that. Is there a way to report via AIV with Twinkle? If not, what you recommend as the best way to report the IP addresses on AIV?
Wes sideman (
talk)
16:24, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes, Twinkle will do it. Go to the IP's contribs page, click on the Twinkle menu, choose ARV, and an AIV report is the default option. Make a note saying that it's Defeedme avoiding his block - feel free to mention that I recommended AIV rather than SPI.
GirthSummit (blether)17:22, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
Following
an RfC, editors indefinitely site-banned by
community consensus will now have all rights, including sysop, removed.
As a part of the Wikimedia Foundation's
IP Masking project, a
new policy has been created that governs the access to temporary account IP addresses. An
associated FAQ has been created and individual communities can increase the requirements to view temporary account IP addresses.
Technical news
Bot operators and tool maintainers should schedule time in the coming months to test and update their tools for the effects of
IP masking. IP masking will not be deployed to any content wiki until at least October 2023 and is unlikely to be deployed to the English Wikipedia until some time in 2024.
Arbitration
The arbitration case World War II and the history of Jews in Poland has been closed. The topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland is subject to a "reliable source consensus-required" contentious topic restriction.
Welcome to the one hundred and eighty second
WikiProject Yorkshire monthly newsletter.
Thanks to the contributions of our many members and supporters,
WP:YORKS has become a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 18,663 last month to 18,698 on 3 June 2023). In the area of GAs
WP:YORKS at 210 is ahead of
WP:GM who have 92.
WP:YORKS also has the lead in FAs at 93 while
WP:GM has 66 out of a total number of 4,863 articles.
Currently we have seventy five Yorkshire featured articles:
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
WikiProject Yorkshire Collaboration of the Month Project
The June 2023 articles selected below are an editor choice as there were no nominations on the project talk page.
The project is subscribed to a
clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis.
Monitoring is essential Use the
watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR. You will also have to check that the Commons link is set correctly.
Comments, questions and suggestions about this, or any, issue of the newsletter are always welcome and can be made by pressing the feedback button below...
Would you like to write the next newsletter for
WP:YORKS? Please nominate yourself at
WT:YORKS! New editors are always welcome!
Delivered June 2023 by
MediaWiki message delivery.
If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an N to the column against your username on the Project Mainpage.
22:56, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
IP- block and assistance
Hi @
Girth Summit: I was trying to set up my doppelganger
Aafi on this Wiki but it appears that the underlying IP has been blocked. I get an error: "Auto-creation of a local account failed", "The IP address or range 2409:40D0:0:0:0:0:0:0/35 has been blocked (disabled) by Girth Summit". Is there a way to bypass this error and have the local account auto-created here? Regards, ─
The Aafī(talk)08:21, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi TheAafi. I did indeed block that range. Policy doesn't allow me to tell you why, but it certainly wasn't to cause you an inconvenience! I think that what you need is
WP:IPBE - I'm not an expert on setting that up, personally, but there are instructions on how to request it if you follow that link. Best
GirthSummit (blether)09:38, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
I understand that however I am not sure if I need IPBE because I can edit from my main account. What I need is to locally set my doppelganger account Aafi which doesn't exist yet on English Wikipedia. Had the account existed locally and then affected by the IP block - an IPBE was warranted but it is not now. I do not need to make any edits from that accounts. Anyways, I will ask at Meta-Wiki to help me fix this. ─
The Aafī(talk)10:01, 4 June 2023 (UTC)
I noticed that a few weeks ago you edited
Dorian Rhea Debussy. I've been editing that article for a while, and have been cleaning up after the multiple socks and IP socks. At this point, I'm considering nominating the article for deletion and wonder if you could give me your opinion. Most of the the article is sourced by campus magazines, or by a local magazine called The Buckeye Flame. When national publications are cited, it is just for a quote by this person, and often that is because of their professional role. Any biographical info is from campus magazines. I'm not sure this article passes
WP:BASIC or
WP:ANYBIO. Your opinion would be appreciated. Cheers.
Magnolia677 (
talk)
18:59, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
Hey - sorry for the slow response, it's getting towards the end of term and I have a lot of reports to write and similar IRL. That article was originally written by a couple of socks of an LTA; it's had too much attention from other editors like yourself to be eligible for G5, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if the subject was non-notable. I haven't done a deep dive - there are a lot of sources there - but from a quick skim I come away with the same impression as you, they are mostly affiliated sources or trivial coverage, there's nothing that meets the 'independent, secondary and reliable' criteria jumping out at me.
GirthSummit (blether)16:07, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. I'm going to dig a bit more and see if I can find a more detailed biography in a reliable source. Cheers!
Magnolia677 (
talk)
17:09, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
Okay, time to atone for your sins. See
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Shāntián Tàiláng and
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Eleutherius. Similarities: (1) Filers are both new users whose only edit is to create an SPI; (2) Filers have no edits at other projects; (3) Filers have colorful usernames. Dissimilarities: (1) The Eleutherius report is long and complex, whereas the other is quite short; (2) CU was requested on the Eleutherius report and not on the other. One other note: the filer of the Shāntián Tàiláng report chose a username similar to the suspected sock. Don't know whether you'll find this enough to compare the two users, but, if nothing else, it permits me to use the word "gallivanting" again.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
13:51, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm just in from a ten mile hike around the North York Moors, involving a ridiculously steep ascent that really took it out of me - that is proper gallivanting, I suppose. Feet are a bit sore, and need to make dinner. I should have time to look at this tomorrow though - Year 6 are off on their residential week to the Lake District tomorrow (without me), and at the moment my teaching timetable is looking pretty blank. I ought to be getting our geography curriculum sorted out for next year, but I'm sure I can find a bit of time for sock sniffing.
GirthSummit (blether)18:40, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
If I keep labeling your activities gallivanting, I'm bound to get it right occasionally. Thanks for the timetable and bon apetit!--
Bbb23 (
talk)
19:54, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
Bbb23,
Spicy - I've taken a quick look at this, just some initial thoughts about the filers - brand new accounts opening complicated SPIs is obviously suspect. The filer of the Eleutherius case is on a different network, but geolocation and UA (a common one) would be consistent with previous Alias the Jester socks. The filer of the Shāntián Tàiláng looks different, but they are operating out of an IP that has been used by another account, much older but with a low edit count, which has previously posted reports at the Shāntián Tàiláng case, and also at
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Eiskrahablo, if that rings any bells. It's all a bit complicated - I'll need to come back and do some closer reading, will try to get onto it soon.
GirthSummit (blether)16:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Sorry for the slow response - mad busy, but just a week to go... If you look at the /64 range (just click on the link above and stick '/64' on the end of the URL), they've been sporadically active throughout June. I've blocked that range for six months, let me know if they pop up again on another...
GirthSummit (blether)16:53, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
I think I got any that you missed. If you see any that have not been reverted, they're from a different /64 range - let me know if you come across any, that's a very narrow range and they are bound to have access to more.
GirthSummit (blether)17:09, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Been awhile
Hope all is well. I was working on an article on
Nasta Rojc, which led me to
Vera Holme and then to her partner, Margaret Ker. Ker is
Alice Stewart Ker's daughter. According to
this she was born about 1893 (mother's article says 1892), was a student at Liverpool University, and
suffragette. Apparently she did manage to get her
degree, despite being locked up. She then joined the
Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service and was abroad until 1923. Maddingly, I only know what
this says (I have the full chapter via e-mail from the RX), which is she helped build the orphanage after the war with other SWH veterans and returned to Scotland with Holme and Greenlees in 1923. And there is a tiny bit
here after she left the ménage à trois. Just curious if you can find anything on your side of the pond or in the lochs nearby?
SusunW (
talk)
18:55, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi SusunW - nice to hear from you. Sorry for the slow response, I've been super-busy IRL with the end of the school year, so haven't been around here much the last few weeks. End of term is coming up very soon though, and this looks like an interesting subject - I'll get back to you soon!
GirthSummit (blether)16:48, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Good to hear from you. No worries. When you can. My research indicates she may have died in London in 1966, so clearly she's not going anywhere. (My real life has been particularly crazy lately too, but after nearly 2 years of dealing with an ear fungus, and finally surgery to repair his ear drum, my husband and I are coming out the other side of that nightmare. It's baby steps, but the doc says he should be able to finally fly again come September.) Real life always has to take precedence.
SusunW (
talk)
18:18, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
New pages patrol needs your help!
New pages awaiting review as of June 30th, 2023.
Hello Girth Summit,
The
New Page Patrol team is sending you this impromptu message to inform you of a steeply rising backlog of articles needing review. If you have any extra time to spare, please consider reviewing one or two articles each day to help lower the backlog. You can start reviewing by visiting
Special:NewPagesFeed. Thank you very much for your help.
Welcome to the one hundred and eighty third
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WP:YORKS at 211 is ahead of
WP:GM who have 91.
WP:YORKS also has the lead in FAs at 92 while
WP:GM has 66 out of a total number of 4,865 articles.
Currently we have seventy five Yorkshire featured articles:
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
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The July 2023 articles selected below are an editor choice as there were no nominations on the project talk page.
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Whoever's editing from the
/64 of 2402:800:6344:2A73:0:0:0:0 seems to have identical obsessions and behaviors to
Haiyenslna, aka the Akane Yamaguchi spammer whom you've blocked (or maybe just checked?) in the past. I can file an SPI report if you like, but it seems obvious enough to skip the long-form paperwork.
Indignant Flamingo (
talk)
00:35, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
On second thought, and after looking at other Akane Yamaguchi obsessive edits, it's all just mobile phone IPs in Vietnam, isn't it? Not much point, then. Sorry to bother you.
Indignant Flamingo (
talk)
02:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
That sure as hell looks like Haiyensina's modus operandi, doesn't it? I've blocked the IP for a month, and added a proforma SPI case to record for future reference. Let me know if you see any similar behaviour.
GirthSummit (blether)10:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Third opinion.
Dear @
Girth Summit,
I extend my warm greetings to you. I trust this message finds you in good health and high spirits. I am reaching out to seek your esteemed opinion on a matter that seems to be caught in a repetitive cycle. It is my belief that referring to the guidelines outlined in
WP:THIRD would greatly assist us in attaining a resolution. Given the importance of maintaining a neutral perspective, I kindly request that, if possible, you take a moment to review the ongoing discussion on my talk page (
User_talk:Sir_Calculus).
I am sincerely grateful for your time and consideration.
With heartfelt appreciation,
Sir Calculus (
talk)
22:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
That's a long discussion, and there appear to be related discussions taking place at a number of different talk pages. I see another administrator has already given you some advice about editing in contentious topic areas, and about edit warring. I'm not keen to spend ages reading through the whole thing to work out what the disagreement is about - is there a specific aspect of the discussion you would like me to comment on?
GirthSummit (blether)14:10, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
Hi! Thank you for responding. Yes. It is a long discussion no doubt. Can you give your thoughts on
WP:RAJ? There is a major disagreement on it. The admins concerned have contributed significantly to
WP:RAJ except DaxServer, so that's why I believe a neutral opinion is required.
My main argument is: Why should it be imposed on Pakistani tribe & clan related articles that are not related to Indian castes? The argument other editors are presenting is that it applies to the whole British RAJ Era in the Indian subcontinent, whether the book is written by a native & is based on Native accounts or not, it does not matter. They are not accepting sources that predate the raj period either. And the later sources are not in English, so that's another issue. They have issues with Gazetteers & censuses too. As an admin, who does not have any relation to India or Pakistan, what is your honest opinion on this? Another editor also disagrees with WP:RAJ, so it's not just me.
Sir Calculus (
talk)
15:54, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm not an expert on the sources in the area, so I'm going to speak in general terms here. The best sources to use on any subject are recent works of scholarship, which have been peer-reviewed by scholars in the field. I would find it extraordinary for there to be a need to cite a source older than, say, 50-60 years, unless it is adding additional support and contextual information to an assertion that is referenced to a more recent work. You can see an appropriate use of an older source at
Punic Wars: there is a 1938 source (Rowland Shutt), which is older than I would normally consider using. However, it is used along with two more recent sources (2006 and 2015), so it's probably there for a good reason. Much of what we know comes from the Roman historian Polybius, but nowhere in our article is Polybius cited directly - we rely on modern scholars to interpret historical sources for us, and we then summarise what those modern scholars say. I've done similar things myself in some of the articles I have written - I rely mainly on recent works, but may also include a citation to a historic primary document to add a bit of extra detail - but if anyone objected in a
GA or
FA review, I would probably take it out, because it really isn't the kind of thing we should be relying on.
So, in general terms, I can not think of any good reason why our articles about any subject should contain information that is referenced to sources as old as, or older than, the Raj period, unless it is also supported by more recent scholarly work. Does that make sense? As an aside, I would say that in DaxServer and Sitush, you have two first-rate potential mentors - if I were a new editor, I would be listening to them and taking their advice on board.
GirthSummit (blether)19:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
@
Girth Summit That's the best answer. Thank you for your advice. I will take it.
It is however a bit sad though, since the modern sources in that area exist in
Sindhi language, my native tongue, about 404 in number, the sources I have regarding tribal history in Sindh. They're not in English. Tribal history was my main topic of interest, now it seems I will have to abandon it. My primary reason for joining Wikipedia was to improve these tribal articles since most of them aren't taken care of.
There is one more thing I wanted to ask, someone's been following me on my every edit & they're not an Admin. Is there any relevant place on Wikipedia to report this?
I thank you again for your response. I don't regret writing to you. I will follow that advice & will assume good faith from now on even if things don't go well.
Sir Calculus (
talk)
20:36, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
There is no requirement that sources need to be in the English language. That is preferred, naturally, since our readers are English speakers; it is not a firm requirement however, and provided that they are high quality Sindhi language sources (e.g. books or papers published by established academics) they would be acceptable.
You have not been specific about who you feel is following your editing, so I cannot comment on the specifics. There is some discussion of this at
WP:HOUND. Note that the guidance there makes it clear that monitoring someone else's edits is not, in and of itself, problematic. Your account is fairly new, and your editing appears to have caused some waves already - therefore, someone might reasonably make the argument that they were just keeping an eye on your to check for potential disruption. On the other hand, you might feel able to demonstrate that they were doing it to harass or victimise you, which would never be acceptable. If you are confident that it is the latter, you can raise a report at
WP:ANI, but I caution you to read
WP:BOOMERANG. If you invite other editors to review the situation, and they do so and conclude that you are in fact causing o exacerbating the situation, any report may backfire on you. As I said, I don't know the specifics here, so I make no comment on your particular situation. Best
GirthSummit (blether)10:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for that information. I will keep that in mind. And about the Sindhi language sources, most of them are modern and are reliable and used in universities as well for which I can also provide a reference. I can also provide accurate translations for them. I thank you again for enlightening me. Thanks a lot, brother.
Sir Calculus (
talk)
10:52, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks
Hey, I didn't know you were a teacher. English? I'm grading discussion posts on the Miller's Tale this morning, for a sophomore survey lit class.
Drmies (
talk)
13:59, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Primary trained, so a bit of everything. Currently mainly focusing on maths, geography and computing, but taught English for years before that. Not that you'd know it from some of my typos...
GirthSummit (blether)14:06, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks
Hi, Girth! I dropped by to thank you for the many times you've handled my (sometimes not mind-numbingly important) SPI requests quickly, efficiently and without fuss. In past times I had a good number of discouraging experiences at SPI (probably entirely my own fault, of course), and for a while simply gave up reporting. There seems to have been a sea-change in the last few years, and I think you're part of that. So ... thank you! Regards,
Justlettersandnumbers (
talk)
20:59, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for noticing! I've been pretty heavily involved at SPI for the last couple of years, and between a few hard-working regulars and myself we've been keeping on top of it most of the time. It's repetitive and often time-consuming work though, so it's hard to maintain enthusiasm long term - I've just come back from a couple of weeks away to find more open cases than I can remember seeing in recent times. Back to the grindstone...
GirthSummit (blether)10:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Take a look at the filter log of Sunrise600. I don't know what to make of it. Not really relevant, but their userpage is, um, nauseating.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
16:22, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Editors at
this ANI discussion have expressed concern about the possibility the user of concern is a previously blocked editor under a new account name.
Hi Zefr, I've emailed you some observations (
WP:BEANS). I'm not going to run a check based on what I've been able to observe, but if you think there's anything I've overlooked, by all means file an SPI and we can look at what you present. Cheers
GirthSummit (blether)10:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for finding all these sock puppets. This editor has a long standing problem with creating hoaxes. That said, their recent edits often contain good stuff - I am unsure if they have changed their ways or if they are just trying to lull us into accepting their presence. That being said, if you see me restoring some content that you reverted, such as at
Bedford CF, it in no way means that I am opposed to these blocks or that I am part of the problem. I am reading the sources first. Best, Mr.choppers | ✎ 01:18, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
Hi, it's not clear to me whether you ran a check on July 12. What about JahiemJones? This topic area is not my forte, so I may be offbase here.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
16:31, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Didn't see any. I assume there's some past history, Davaha's lock notice on meta says 'Cross-wiki abuse: Evasion of CWA gblock - continued nonsense', but I don't know what the CWA gblock is.
GirthSummit (blether)13:46, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I noticed all that when I blocked Whopper. I thought of asking Amanda, but she's not very approachable. She did globally lock Whopper, though, as I requested.--
Bbb23 (
talk)
14:30, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
In your page it says you used to work in qatar, well i have been living in qatar for 12 years. I would like to know what work in qatar you have done... its an amazing place
No, I pretty much went from Doha airport to Ras Laffan, worked for a couple of weeks, then went back to the airport - no tourist stuff. I slept in a portakabin in the on-site labour camp. The amenities were alright though - there was a gym and squash courts, and a bar that provided free booze (only three drinks per night though).
GirthSummit (blether)19:01, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
I've got a script installed that gives me a link to
Bullseye next to any IP address that shows up in a page history or in CU results - it's pretty handy, you click on that and get a bunch of information about the IP, including info scraped from
Spur - it's pretty useful, let me know if you're interested and I'll figure out which script it is.
GirthSummit (blether)11:48, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Meant to respond earlier. I could swear I'd look for an install button the first time, but looking again I found it where it should be. Installed, not tried yet. Thanks.
No worries. If it's working, you should notice it pretty quickly - lots of little globe icons appearing next to IPs in page histories and the like. Click on one and wait a few seconds for the page to load - you'll see the geolocation on a map, and if you look further down the page there's more information. Expanding the 'spur' section is often very informative.
GirthSummit (blether)14:26, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
Sorry to mither but
I am at the end of my tether. It's certainly
WP:TE, arguably
WP:CIR, when I am repeatedly having to make the same points. The entire thread, as with so many others involving them, just becomes a merry-go-round of IDHT behaviour. And although they retracted at ANI their claim that I am being racist, they're still banging on about how I seem to be deleting all things Sindhi, which is ludicrous. -
Sitush (
talk)
14:52, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
Having counselled them more than once to listen to what you're saying, I'm probably not in the best position to take administrative action in this case - it might look like partiality. I've tried one more time to get them to rein it in...
GirthSummit (blether)15:47, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
Hi
User:Girth_Summit, thanks for your comment at AIV. It looks like that was definitely the wrong place to report this kind of thing, and it looks like maybe no such place exists? Let me know if there's some place I should leave a comment like that in the future! Obviously, I'm not able to revert multi-page vandalism, but I assume it will get naturally cleaned up by future editors. You mentioned talking to them: is that still the recommended strategy for "old" vandalism like this case? I don't see any evidence they're still editing or would look at their talk page, but I can certainly point them to
MOS:BOLD.
Suriname0 (
talk)
20:41, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
Yes - if there is a user who thinks they're helping, but is actually causing problems, then the first resort should be to talk to them. After that, we can handle any remaining issues.
GirthSummit (blether)21:31, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
And at an Admin's talk page
User talk:Abecedare#Fayninja.
I've been meaning to say that one of my pet peeves is that when you blank your talk page it looks as though no one has ever posted on it. So a casual visitor to their talk page would assume they weren't blocked.
Doug Wellertalk07:45, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
Blocked. I know what you mean, but the tag on their userpage and their block log ought to tell anyone who knows what they're doing all they need to know.
GirthSummit (blether)08:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
Yeah - I think my session got dropped or something. I was logged in (I must have been, I ran a check to make sure it wasn't a joejobbing troll), then moments later when I posted that I'd been logged out. That has happened to me a few times before, but usually I get a warning along the lines of 'You are about to edit and you're not logged in, you might give away your IP - are you sure?' Didn't get that this time.
GirthSummit (blether)08:34, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
@
Girth Summit, after thoroughly studying Wikipedia policies, I feel prepared to return to the platform. I have rejected my proposed free-speech absolutism and will now fully commit to diligently follow (
WP:NOPA) policy. This policy is remarkably comprehensive and serves as a guiding light. Instead of locking horns and engaging in conflicts, I will gracefully revert changes made by others, referencing this policy in the edit summary. Furthermore, even though I enjoy conversations, I will refrain from using Wikipedia article talk pages for my chatty mouth (
WP:FORUM). In short, this new and improved Fayninja will run with these two fundamental policies.
Fayninja2 (
talk)
16:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
Hello, Girth Summit. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Welcome to the one hundred and eighty fourth
WikiProject Yorkshire monthly newsletter.
Thanks to the contributions of our many members and supporters,
WP:YORKS has become a leading local British WikiProject in terms of the total number of articles supported (up from 18,727 last month to 18,781 on 29 July 2023). In the area of GAs
WP:YORKS at 211 is ahead of
WP:GM who have 91.
WP:YORKS also has the lead in FAs at 92 while
WP:GM has 66 out of a total number of 4,868 articles.
Currently we have seventy five Yorkshire featured articles:
The number has been kept deliberately low to give us a fighting chance of improving them to at least GA status, also so we can concentrate our efforts on these first.
Yorkshire Day
Happy
Yorkshire Day to all the project members. I have selected the article as the start-class article for improvement for this month. So take a look at what is there and see if you can improve it.
WikiProject Yorkshire Collaboration of the Month Project
The August 2023 articles selected below are an editor choice as there were no nominations on the project talk page.
The project is subscribed to a
clean-up listing which lists articles tagged with various clean-up tags that need attention. The listing is refreshed by a bot on a regular basis.
Monitoring is essential Use the
watchlist to keep an eye on changes to the project's articles so that vandalism and spamming can be removed as quickly as possible.
Moves Please be careful when performing articles moves and ensure that you also move all the talk sub-pages and update any image fair use rational. Otherwise the archives, to-do lists, assessment comments and GA reviews get lost and the image may be deleted as it has an incorrect FUR. You will also have to check that the Commons link is set correctly.
Comments, questions and suggestions about this, or any, issue of the newsletter are always welcome and can be made by pressing the feedback button below...
Delivered August 2023 by
MediaWiki message delivery.
If you do not wish to receive the newsletter, please add an N to the column against your username on the Project Mainpage.
10:38, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Question regarding WP:CIR and an editor
Howdy,
While I understand normally this is the sort of thing that would be taken to ANI and the like, to put it bluntly I'm inexperienced in regards to ANI and saw it fit to ask you (an active admin there) for advice/input before pursuing any sort of case.
User:Baratiiman seems to have issues that, at least to me, fall under
WP:CIR; the bulk of their edits, to a wide variety of pages, seem to indicate a less than stellar handle on English (to the point of needing significant cleanup; I've personally dealt with it semi-frequently at
Portal:Current events. Many are poorly-worded/formatted, and they often seem to lack enough relevance for inclusion on the pages affected; they also seem to rarely properly format their sources, instead leaving bare URLs (if a source at all). The same effectively goes for the articles they've created and drafted, with a laundry list of CS1 errors on their talk page serving as further evidence. It also seems they've been blocked once for edit-warring.
A quick search of the ANI archives also shows multiple tendentious reports by him, mainly over content disputes, and a report of him
from May.
The Kip (
talk)
17:41, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
Hi
The Kip - sorry for the slow response, I'm on holiday with limited time for editing. I haven't look into this editor's contributions, but a couple of things to think about before going down the ANI route. First, have you discussed the issues with them? Or, can you demonstrate that others have tried to discuss the issues but been ignored? Second, do you think you can demonstrate that their contributions are a net negative? Someone not formatting sources properly isn't that much of a problem, especially if someone is prepared to show them how to format them properly (or how to use
WP:ReFill); someone who consistently adds stuff that is of no/little value, and which requires a significant amount of work to clean up however, is causing trouble that outweighs the benefit they bring. Consider these questions and, if you think that it is someone who is a net negative and who shows no inclination to improve, go to ANI and make an evidenced report (with diffs).
GirthSummit (blether)09:15, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Zrhardesty01? Thus far, they've only done fires, including some edited by other socks, so without other earmarks of this master, I'm reluctant to block without technical confirmation. Also, the account registered last January, so they could have been discovered when you ran checks (they didn't edit until yesterday). You're probably gone for the day, but it can wait until tomorrow - something fun to do when you first get up. :-) --
Bbb23 (
talk)
21:52, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi again Girth Summit. Sorry for bothering, but if I may ask, whose sock was this?
[8] Because I am suspecting the new user editing right now in that very article to be related to it.
HistoryofIran (
talk)
09:12, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
You may ask, but I'm not permitted to tell you - I can't publicly connect IP addresses to accounts, even when the accounts are blocked. It was an LTA, that's all I can say. That new account is also a sock, but I think it's someone else...
GirthSummit (blether)09:26, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
Sorry for bothering you again, but it looks like they are socking again, a brand new user just complained about me reverting one of the socks in the talk page of the same article
[9]. --
HistoryofIran (
talk)
13:41, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
Sorry for bothering you again, but unfortunately it seems to be continuing
[10]. Another brand new user makes their first edit in that very article, and also edited a Turkmen related article
[11], just like one of the socks did too
[12]. --
HistoryofIran (
talk)
22:33, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi there! My apologies for creating an account - I only wanted to use this to talk to you, that's all. I have no other option to the best of my knowledge.
As you may know, I was labelled a sock puppet of a user named @WorldWar1989. There was indeed sock puppetry on my part (after I was blocked on July 16th), but I am not a sock of WorldWar1989. .
I believe I was linked by Checkuser to WorldWar1989 in the first place was because the User “Yue” first presented my case under the WorldWar1989 sock puppet investigation page, linking tenuous similarities between my accounts and WorldWar1989. Therefore, that was how admins got check-user to link me and WorldWar1989. However, later you said “Not sure who this is, but I don’t think this is WorldWar1989.” Another says: “I generally agree with your findings that this is a different user.”
All of those accounts in that investigation page are mine - except for WorldWar1989, Starfish12342, and TheGreatMan1969. I can't comment on the IPs due to privacy policy.
Additionally, when @Yue first raised my case to the WorldWar1989 sock puppet page, he wrote this:
"A few days after TheGreatman1969 is blocked, the user Jumopil is created and makes several edits." He went on to say that account and my mine was about the topic of Viet reunification on a certain page.
However:
Mine was not created a few days after TheGreatman1969 was blocked. That account was blocked in May 30; mine was created on July 8th.
Just because there's a similar topic discussed does not mean they're socks. And TheGreatman1969 wrote about how the State of Vietnam did not sign anything. On the other hand, mine disputed that it did sign the agreement.
The reasons I keep creating new accounts to edit (before the July 16th block), was because I was very uncomfortable with the idea of someone going through all my edit history. That was the main reason. I believed these accounts were not sock puppets or were never intended to be used sock puppets. For example, I would make a few edits, or an edit, and then I’d discard that and make a new account to continue. I never try do anything abusive with the creation of multiple accounts, and I never have any bad intentions. I do make the occasional editing and social mistake as a new editor, but it’s not the result of sock-puppetry nor out of ill intent.
I remember in an unfinished Talk Page discussion, @Yue commented "don't get why they're pretending to act in good faith when they used three socks to restore edits on the other page; waste of time" even though (1) I'm not pretending and the discussion is actually productive, and unfinished. I already pointed out a flaw in someone's argument, and also had a good response backed with evidence to refute the other person's argument but I was blocked before I could respond. (2) I only restored those few edits because they were backed with strong evidence, which I presented on someone's Talk Page.
However, I understand that while I had no ill intent, I have just recently read community rules which says, “while there are valid reasons to maintain multiple accounts, it is important to maintain accountability and increase community trust, editors are generally expected to use only one account." As newcomer to Wikipedia as an editor, I now understand that in my specific case, it’s important that I stick with one account to maintain accountability to myself and transparency for everyone to see. I do hope everything gets unblocked.
Anyway, I was blocked in July 16th, and all these accounts and deemed a sock puppet. However, afterwards I went ahead and created new accounts and continued to edit. There were things that I wanted to fix and resolve, and I did. A kind editor saw this going on and advised me to (properly) appeal my block. But at the time, I didn’t, because my thinking was this: my edits with these accounts were actually productive - even the editor who advised me saw it. It's not perfect because I can make the rare mistake like any normal person, but I don’t abuse or vandalise anything. And so far I’m not blocked with this new account. How am I a sock? However, I later read the rules, and concluded that these new accounts I created after July 16th are indeed socks, because it constitutes block evasion. This is wrong, and it will not happen again.
I recognise that you are not Worldwar1989 - I have said as much elsewhere already. You have used multiple accounts to edit war and evade blocks many times however, so you are yourself not permitted to edit here. Read
WP:SO for the options available now.
GirthSummit (blether)11:21, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
How has so much time past since you left this? Too much galivanting. Not sure whether it's Cianzera, but the following are Confirmed to one another, and all editing the same article, so I will block.
Further to your closure of this SPI, you asked for a report back if there were further accounts.
There was another user who also participated in the repetitive restoration of the unsourced content at
Zurich. Of course: it could be just an astonishing coincidence that they have a very similar account name to
ORT5000 and that they both self identify as Swiss, but I doubt it. The relevant diffs are
[13] and
[14]. The account name is
ZH8000 in case I screwed the diffs up. It has to be at least worth a look.
86.177.26.80 (
talk)
15:48, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. There are a number of similarities, including an obvious overlap in terms of editing interests. There are some technical differences which mean I'm not able to be certain. If you think that a case could be put together based on behavioural similarities, please raise another case at SPI. Best
GirthSummit (blether)16:04, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
As both were Swiss, that could explain editing similarities. It's just feasible that
Mission Q8 got the idea for the name of the sock account from
ZH8000 possibly as a bit of obfuscation. I have not got much else on which I could confidently hang a case.
Spidey senses tingling on
this one. User page says they're from Switzerland, they're editing about the EU, and they just happened to make an edit on
York Minster Lamp Standard, which I edited earlier today. I wonder which article they will eventually try to sneak an edit into soon...
Seasider53 (
talk)
22:28, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
I don't know whether this is important, but I noticed that yet another new user
Just a Swiss Guy has been making the same edits as
Mission Q8; objecting to templates on their user page just as
Mission Q8 did and is subjecting anyone who removes the edits to abuse just as
Mission Q8 et al did.
ZZuuzz has blocked this user as a LTA. It strikes me as highly likely that
Mission Q8 et al is in fact this LTA.
Hi IP editor - those links don't work, and there isn't an account registered under
User:Just a Swiss Guy. Can you check the spelling, or just tell me what pages they were editing, so I can take a look? (Although if Zzuuzz has taken action, I doubt there's anything more needing to be done.)
GirthSummit (blether)11:17, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
Actually, never mind - I found the account by looking at Zzuuzz's block log. I don't think there's any more action required there. Cheers
GirthSummit (blether)11:29, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
Strange. I cut and pasted the account name but now I can find no trace of it. Has it been deleted? For some reason, I cannot get the links to user accounts to work. What am I doing wrong (always willing to learn)?
86.177.26.80 (
talk)
14:40, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
First, orthography matters with usernames & the g in guy wasn't a capital. Second, you need to type user: before the username when you try to link to it. Note that if you do that, it will trigger a ping to the person you are mentioning. If you don't want to do that (usually with vandals and socks, you don't), use the noping template in curly brackets, like this: Just a Swiss guy.
GirthSummit (blether)14:44, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
The parade of socks has been continuing awhile with actions from various admins, but now there is a new twist with a
User:Mission Q8 sock,
User:Bravo Baselreinserting the offending unreferenced paragraph at
Culture of Switzerland (now blocked as part of the sock parade).
The twist is that yet another sock,
User:DuncanHill has taken up repeatedly restoring the offending paragraph (without providing the obligatory referencing, of course)
here,
here and
here. Although I did state that I originally
believed that they were making a good faith mistake, they resorted to that other give away characteristic where they
accuse others of being a sock because they are deleting the paragraph.
86.177.26.80 (
talk)
13:30, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
DuncanHill is a veteran editor of over 17 years tenure, who has made over 140,000 contributions to the project. I think it's pretty unlikely that they are the sock of an LTA who usually uses throwaway accounts. What seems to have happened, from looking at the history of that article, is that you are both trying to revert actual socks, and are disagreeing with each other on which version to revert back to. If it helps resolve that question, I can confirm that Euroswissman, Bravo Basel and Mumbos Jumbos are all the same person, almost certainly the same person who was behind the Mission Q8 account. I have no reason to suspect that DuncanHill, or the person editing out of 86.177.26.80, are connected to the person editing out of those accounts.
GirthSummit (blether)13:56, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Hello. I just happened to be passing, saw my username attempted to be spelled above, and sometimes an extra input can clarify things. Girth Summit appears to be spot on. I don't mind saying that the two accounts I blocked are definitely the LTA known as Evlekis (that's probably not their real name but a common moniker - long story). Taking the briefest of looks at Mission Q8, it looks like they are too. (The troll known as) Evlekis frequently relies on people reverting socks to get back to their own socky version. It's a common trap; you have to look before the socks. And
DuncanHill is definitely unrelated. --
zzuuzz(talk)14:14, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Thank you both for your response. I'm still pretty new at this, but learning all the time. The history at
Culture of Switzerland did get kind of messy and it got complicated working out who was who. Probably not helped by the fact that I failed to connect
User:Bravo Basel and
User:Mumbos Jumbos. Thank you for taking the time to look at this and I apologise for any unintentional misdirection. I would have apologised to DuncanHill but the vitriol in response to your explanation has dissipated any charity in that direction.
86.177.26.80 (
talk)
14:37, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Amongst the other things those socks did before being blocked was creating a bunch of pages intended to harass DH - I can understand if he's pissed off.
GirthSummit (blether)14:42, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
We now have
User:Reshadprestoring the unreferenced paragraph. Assuming that he is acting in good faith, after all why would he not be confused with the socks et al. I don't want to go round this particular loop again. It might be better, if you pointed out what has been going on.
86.177.26.80 (
talk)
17:28, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Hey, apologies for my edit to the page, I was missing the context and should have read the history better :(
Reshadp (
talk)
17:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi Suriname0 - that article was written by the sock of a blocked LTA - well, by more than one actually, they were operating about five accounts at the time. It didn't have any substantive edits by other users. Two of the socks tainted the AfD discussion as well - two of the keep !votes were from socks. If you're concerned about it, I'd be willing to undelete it and renominate it for deletion, pinging all the users who previously took part, so we can have another discussion where everyone knows all the facts.
GirthSummit (blether)17:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I'm ok with the deletion; if they're are any concerns about the deletion nomination, it should be re-opened, perhaps to keep it all "above board". I'm not fussed about it to be honest.
Oaktree b (
talk)
19:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
I'd like to see it undeleted and go through AfD again. The subject is notable even if the previous discussion was sock-tainted. Thanks for the ping on this!
Central and Adams (
talk)
22:41, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
If you register an account, you can use
WP:Twinkle to do that sort of thing automatically - so searching for the template, you just get a drop-down menu of templates, just a couple of clicks. Let me know if they add that again and I will revoke their ability to do so.
GirthSummit (blether)12:15, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
SPI clerk in training - clarification
Hi Girth - just wanted some clarification on your comments at
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Worldwar1989, specifically the July 26 section. You asked that the cases since July 14 be split off - so that is not including July 14? If so, I will begin checking for the oldest account of this new group and separate them. Thanks. --
Drm310🍁 (
talk)
23:27, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, I should have been clearer - all the cases including July 14. See my note in the July 19 case - there was an active WorkdWar sock, which hadn't been reported but I found it by searching their usual ranges. Thanks!
GirthSummit (blether)07:18, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
OK, I will re-check to figure out which is the oldest account and then split off those cases under it. Hopefully by the end of the day I will have time to get that done. Thanks. --
Drm310🍁 (
talk)
19:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
You recently deleted information about NFL Tight End JJ Howland when he is from tantasqua and you did no research to attempt to find a article. Have a nice day.
Fanman61794rc (
talk)
06:44, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Fanman61794rc I did try to find an article (as in, a Wikipedia article) - I searched for 'JJ Howland', 'J J Howland', 'J. J. Howland' and various other permutations - I didn't find one. If we have an article, please provide a link to it. Generally speaking, we only include people in lists of 'people from...' when we have an article about those people. We would also need a
reliable source indicating that he attended the school.
GirthSummit (blether)08:01, 23 August 2023 (UTC)