User talk:Andrew Lancaster/Archive 7

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Archive 7

May 2024

Please stop your disruptive editing.

• If you are engaged in an article content dispute with another editor, discuss the matter with the editor at their talk page, or the article's talk page, and seek consensus with them. Alternatively you can read Wikipedia's dispute resolution page, and ask for independent help at one of the relevant noticeboards.
• If you are engaged in any other form of dispute that is not covered on the dispute resolution page, seek assistance at Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

If you continue to disrupt Wikipedia, as you did at Talk:Genetic studies of Jews, you may be blocked from editing. Drmies (talk) 19:36, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

@Drmies: please explain what you are referring to. If I am not mistaken, aren't you referring to something where you are the main editor who has repeated the same unorthodox and now disputed edit several times? I don't see any justification for this threatening and confrontational threat. You only explanations so far for your drastic deletions has been explained in short edsums. If you have a better explanation give it properly.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:44, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

• You have twice reverted my removal of talk page content started by the sock of a block, racist editor; as an administrator, I think that WP:DENY applies perfectly well here. Now, if you have a better explanation than "there is no emergency here", thereby giving legitimacy to a blocked user who thinks that Wikipedia is his own webhost, well. If you want to start a discussion about the wording in the article, feel free to start a thread on that. Drmies (talk) 21:02, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

@Drmies: I have done that. But admins do not have special power to threaten good faith editors in order to get what they want into Wikipedia. You should not be brandishing your admin status at all! Admins are not managers or super-editors. Your edit was disputed, and the only (undeleted) discussion was in edsums. My two reversions are based on the idea that you had done your edits in a rush, and that is still my hope. Your deletions of my edits, and the edits of other good faith editors, are clearly NOT justified by DENY (which you cited), unless it is stretched to the point that it becomes meaningless. Extremism and oversimplification of WP certainly won't lead to a better encyclopedia. There is a very clear tradition on WP that the deleting of whole threads of discussion involving long term good faith editors is a very big call. There is another tradition that when a good faith editor gives a reasonable objection, you don't just make threats and start acting aggressively. You need to take those community positions at least as seriously as the aim of reducing the impact of trolls? Admins should support editors, and not start fights.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:21, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Eh, everything you say about me, I can say about you: you reverted without a good argument, and you thereby gave a platform to someone who's blocked indefinitely for all the right reasons--but you actually haven't said a word about that. And what do you even mean with "your edits"? You hadn't contributed to that conversation. Drmies (talk) 21:43, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

@Drmies: there is clearly a difference. I am a long term editor of that article, and that talk page. I also made no threats to abuse the system and try to make trouble for you for disagreeing with me. I also did not delete the edits of good faith editors. (Deleting is a much bigger call than restoring?) Those are big differences between us. The article you have barged into is clearly a complex and difficult subject which has needed a lot of careful consideration of wildly different opinions which are often associated with controversies. We can't just ignore every aspect of those controversies. I would never dream of coming into such a situation making major deletions and threats.

Our main mission here is to solve those types of editing and balance problems. Troll chasing obsessions should only be a supporting task? The concept of "contamination" which was used to delete the posts of good faith editors does not belong on WP, and I know of no guideline which mentions it. (I hardly ever hear mention of DENY. I don't see it as something with anywhere near the support and consensus which some of the principles you've broken have.) POV pushers do sometimes need special actions, but they have also traditionally sometimes pushed WP editors to see where there might be problems in articles like this. Just calling all such POV pushing editors trolls and deleting everything they "contaminate", including the posts of other editors, is not a good idea IMHO. Threatening people who object to this approach is even worse.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

It is understandable that some contributors to the free encyclopedia have strong feelings about liberty. However, those who have to deal with the inevitable long-term abusers have strong feelings as well. Your comment at Talk:Genetic studies of Jews (diff) was unnecessarily provocative and off-topic for an article talk page. You may not care if an IP was associated with trolling but it is not helpful to use an article talk page to say so. You are free to raise any points that you believe need consideration but you should focus on article content and sources. Do not encourage POV pushers by mentioning them. Johnuniq (talk) 09:23, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: I accept that others can have strong feelings, and I do care about trolls. Caring about trolls is not the same as disagreeing about how to handle specific cases. Accepting that people can have strong feelings is not the same as accepting that threats and admin credentials should be bandied about whenever someone disagrees with an edit. The "provocation" you refer to is in fact that I objected to receiving a generic threat for disruptive editing because I tried to preserve a question which needs more discussion. My 2 editsums explain this to Drmies, who I clearly thought might not have understood. That is not very "provocative"! It should be possible to have reasonable differences of opinion on matters like this without dramatization and escalation. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:05, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

At least half of your comment (see diff above) talks about an IP and how you don't care about trolling and you are wondering if the IP was correct. That is the provocation because it encourages long-term abusers. If you think there is an issue regarding article content, talk about the issue—text that is in the article, or which should be in the article. Johnuniq (talk) 01:29, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: thanks for looking at it further, but I'm afraid that is not correct. First of all the threat above was posted before my "provocation" (as you call it), and so you are reversing cause and effect by using the term "provocation". It was a reaction. The provocation is above. Secondly, and connected to that, either you are deliberately twisting my words, or you need to read that post more carefully. "I honestly don't care if the point was raised by an IP associated with trolling." In other words, once again my post is about something and has to be read in context. It says that I think threads involving good faith editors should not be automatically deleted because of association ("contamination") with someone who has been declared a troll. Trolls can in fact make valid points. Obviously we can't have admins going around deleting arguments because trolls might agree with them? I hope you agree, but even if not my opinion is obviously quite different from saying that I don't care about trolls! Hopefully we can agree on that at least.

Perhaps you will also note that there is also an implication in my post that I question how this POV pushing IP was designated as a troll and described as racist. Honestly, I am still wondering about that. Is that "provocative"? The Elhaik article which the IP editor wants to give more emphasis to is controversial, and has been a source of awkward discussions for years. However, I don't think it should be called "racist", as @Drmies: seemed to in the initial edit [1]. Many of Elhaik's specific conclusions are out of date, and were controversial from the start, but that's clearly not the specific point the IP was pushing. Looking for triggers among the IP's priorities, it is not racist to question the idea of there being a single biological Jewish race. I don't think Elhaik, who is an Israeli, is controversial for believing that. The IP's constant references to the influence of "Zionism" are certainly over the top, and tone-deaf, but I also don't think this term is automatically racist. This is clearly the type of article where it can sometimes be referred to in its proper sense. Academics rightfully question whether any ideologies have influenced studies, and such concerns are certainly important in articles about "race". Drmies might have seen something else, but I could not see it at first sight. All or most of the edits of this IP are just pushing the same basic ideas AFAIK. As far as I can see concerning the small edit war on the article, which Drmies entered into with 2 reversions, it was not really a very controversial edit. Perhaps Drmies does not realize that. It involves adding a short summary into the lead, about some information which is in the article already. However, as far as I can see, the decision to designate this POV-pushing IP as a "troll" might even hang mainly upon that little edit war? In any case Drmies gave no specific evidence to justify the strong terms "racist" and "troll". To me, POV pushing is different from trolling, and the different meanings of words in cases like this are worth being cautious about, even if we have "strong feelings" about trolls and racism. Note that I am not sure about the background thinking of Drmies, but I do feel uncomfortable with serious words like this being used in ways in order to quickly get the edits we want. If we are serious about the word "troll" then we won't use it to get the edits we want.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:47, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what "is not correct" refers to. I was explaining my earlier "was unnecessarily provocative and off-topic"—I was not referring to any provocation you may have experienced. Debates concerning philosophies of running a website are not productive and agreement is unlikely. The take-home message is that there are now two admins warning you that encouraging long-term abusers will result in a block. Johnuniq (talk) 09:03, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: by now you clearly know very well that you misleadingly described me as saying that I do not care about trolls. Instead of changing the topic or threatening me, an apology would be fine. My post was also certainly not off topic, so you could apologize for that misleading remark too if like. Up to you. Concerning the question of whether I "encouraged" "racists" or "trolls", I think this is obviously deliberately overdramatic. If an editor I do not know deletes a whole thread and claims "racism" without citing any evidence then similar situations can occur? As I noted from the beginning I looked around quickly to for any signs of an "emergency" and did not see any. The editor involved could have chosen to give the evidence after that. At this stage I still have not received any. Instead I received a threat. I would still like to know whether this decision about the IP the result of a community decision, or just a quick decision by one editor?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:55, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Please do not hold your breath for an apology. If you cannot see how your actions can embolden a longterm troll, then you have a lot to learn. That you didn't see an "emergency", whatever that is supposed to mean, is not a yardstick for my administrative actions. Drmies (talk) 13:20, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

@Drmies: I am not a new editor, and I can survive without the apologies, but your attitude towards accountability and collegiality needs work IMHO. This is not because of my ideals, but because of what works. Please be more careful about little things like accusations and threats when intervening into situations like this. Rapid escalations and obviously overdramatic attacks on good faith editors, can in fact embolden bad editors, and create more angst (and new trolls) out there in the internet. I agree that there is no point talking about this in circles. However, we should all be able to live with reasonable levels of disagreement, and I hope you can agree with that principle.

FWIW, I've now gone to look at the old SteveBenassi account, which you apparently see as the same editor. There is a familiar pattern and there are many people out there who struggle with these topics about DNA, races, ethnic groups etc., and they will keep coming because of all the nonsense on the internet. We obviously don't need such people as editors but some of the issues they raise can help us to consider points in the article where we need to explain carefully. Carefully written articles on WP can help reduce disruption, because they reduce misunderstandings, and potential disruptive editors can see their questions are handled. You are also right that people concerned and confused about these issues also look at talk pages looking for signs of censorship and so on. I personally try to avoid words like racist and troll except in very clear cases, because both of them require knowledge of what people are thinking. This is just good practice at all times IMHO. You can ignore all of this advice but I offer it in good faith and hope it can help you - at least in understanding my own thoughts on this.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:47, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that is the same editor. I am going to refrain from giving you advice, and I have no intention of coming back here, so there is no need to ping me. One last thing: you seem to think that "racist trolling" is a function of intent; it is not. Drmies (talk) 03:24, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

> "misleadingly described me as saying that I do not care about trolls"

I said nothing misleading. I gave diff in which you said "I honestly don't care if the point was raised by an IP associated with trolling.". In my 09:23, 8 May 2024 comment above, I summarized that as "You may not care if an IP was associated with trolling but it is not helpful to use an article talk page to say so." Johnuniq (talk) 08:10, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

@Johnuniq:. FWIW compare: I do not care if this point was raised by X (my sentence); I do not care if the person who raised this point was X (your rewriting). Can you see that these are two different statements? One is about the point. The other is about the person. So I do care if the IP was a troll, and I never said otherwise. My "provocative" proposal is that we have to be allowed to say that "1+1=2" both before and after a troll says it. Our central mission demands this absolutely. Apparently you disagree (or perhaps don't care), and that's why I fear mission creep which is apparently in conflict with WP's main mission. Secondly, you also wrote this: At least half of your comment (see diff above) talks about an IP and how you don't care about trolling. I presume that you forgot that wrote that? In any case, by now you seem to have accepted that it is not true? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:38, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

So you care if the IP was a troll and you still thought it a good use of an article talk page to write a comment featuring them. Admins do not need to persuade someone to agree with being blocked and my warning stands. It is simply not helpful to take actions that do the opposite of WP:DENY. If you think there is an issue regarding article content, talk about the issue—content which is, or which should be, in the article. Do not talk about contributors, and particularly do not talk about them when there is reason to believe they are a long-term abuser. Johnuniq (talk) 01:17, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: you came back to my talk page to argue unconvincingly that you have not been twisting my words. Please do not keep trying to twist things. Yes, we are both concerned about trolls. We disagree on other points, and you said you don't want to discuss "philosophies of running a website" (your words). FWIW though, better WP articles really are still our main aim AFAIK, and luckily, the better they are the less they tend to attract trolls. To make better WP articles we often need to talk about past controversies on the articles. DENY is OTOH an essay. It is being interpreted in an extreme way by you, as shown by the fact that you keep resorting to saying you are an admin. And what is the "opposite" of DENY? Your aggressive dismissal of the need for accountability and transparency is something I find very worrying. If there are going to be forbidden topics, then there needs to be an agreed list of them that everyone can easily know about by editors, and if necessary reviewed. Banning absolutely ALL reference to all blocked editors would be a new approach AFAIK, not demanded in DENY, and it would lead to ridiculous and confusing talk page discussion in this type of article where the same topics come back each year, and we want to get better each time at handling them. As editors we sometimes need to discuss repeating controversies, as repeating controversies. There needs to be some common sense and collegiality when it comes to DENY?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:08, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Please explain why did you remove my definition from this page

the page i am talking about is the this page. why did you remove my definiton of common sense? Adityaverma8998 (talk) 05:41, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I am not the person who reverted that specific change, but most of your changes are low quality, badly proofread, somewhat incorrect, and leave the article in a worse state than it was in before you edited them. LitanyOfBoredom (talk) 05:59, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

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Interlanguage links in Gerhard of the Moselle, Count of Metz

Hi Andrew Lancaster,

You reverted my contribution to Gerhard of the Moselle, Count of Metz. Of course it is debatable whether on should see every other language. However, removing my link Matfriede (noble family) I think is plain wrong. I was well aware of the fact that this article does (not yet?) exist. However, linking to Matfriede is wrong, because the article speaks of the Matfriede family, not of a person called Matfrid died 836. Because an article about the Matfriede family only exists in other languages, e.g., at de:Matfriede, the red link here is necessary. After your latest modification, even the link to the German Wikipedia is not visible any longer. Of course one can remove the link at all, but I think that doesn't help readers.

One could perhaps change the link into {{ill|Matfriede (noble family)|lt=Matfriede|fr|Girardides}} although I prefer some more languages.

The article was listed on Wikipedia:Database reports/Interlanguage link templates need to fix, therefore I've fixed it like this.

Regards
Cyfal

Cyfal thanks for contacting me. After looking at it more I can see what a mess it is.

• One source of problems is that someone has already made (wrongly, I think we would agree) a dab page on English WP which goes from Matfriede, which is obviously a family name, to the article you mention about one individual Matfrid. I did not realize that when I first saw your edits. So for the time being that article is about the family as well ... supposedly, and so technically we should either link to it, or else ask for the dab to be deleted, or else make a real target article. I notice someone has put a few little notes about the family in the article about the individual, but that is a silly situation.
• Your approach tried to work around the problem without setting up for a better future. Matfriede (noble family) is not a logical name on Wikipedia, because Matfriede on its own is already the name of a family, and has no other meaning. When you make a redlink it should be one you expect other Wikipedians will also use in the future. The real problem is the existence of the dab with no target article. I think we need to turn the dab into at least a stub.
• I can't imagine any possible reason for linking to every little article such as Bulgarian etc.? I don't think that is the normal approach on WP at all. We should pick one or max. two good ones. I also can't imagine why you deleted the links to the German article??? That clearly seems like the main one we should link to. Most of the others seem to be about the "Girardides" who are possibly related. (One of the problems with all the articles is that they are presenting highly speculative ideas as facts.)

I will try to turn the dab into a stub and then that should create a situation which will be easier to work on further.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:22, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your detailed answer. If you proceed as you proposed it will be clearly a much better solution of the problem. I fixed some other language links similarily recently and had always the problem in case the English article did not exist, I've needed to guess a plausible disambiguator (e.g., like here "noble family").

When linking to only one or two foreign languages, then my idea was to include French, because region nowadays is in France, but I leave this now up to you because you put more work into this article, so you have clearly a better idea what is appropriate.

Regards, Cyfal

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