User talk:Lord Roem/Archive10

Administrators' newsletter – March 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2017).

Administrator changes

Amortias • Deckiller • BU Rob13

Ronnotel • Islander • Chamal N • Isomorphic • Keeper76 • Lord Voldemort • Shereth • Bdesham • Pjacobi

Guideline and policy news

• A recent RfC has redefined how articles on schools are evaluated at AfD. Specifically, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist.
• AfDs that receive little participation should now be closed like an expired proposed deletion, following a deletion process RfC.
• Defender, HakanIST, Matiia and Sjoerddebruin are our newest stewards, following the 2017 steward elections.
• The 2017 appointees for the Ombudsman commission are Góngora, Krd, Lankiveil, Richwales and Vogone. They will serve for approximately 1 year.

Technical news

• A recent query shows that only 16% of administrators on the English Wikipedia have enabled two-factor authentication. If you haven't already enabled it please consider doing so.
• Cookie blocks should be deployed to the English Wikipedia soon. This will extend the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user after they switch accounts under a new IP.
• A bot will now automatically place a protection template on protected pages when admins forget to do so.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2017).

Administrator changes

TheDJ

Xnuala • CJ • Oldelpaso • Berean Hunter • Jimbo Wales • Andrew c • Karanacs • Modemac • Scott

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion on the backlog of unpatrolled files, consensus was found to create a new user right for autopatrolling file uploads. Implementation progress can be tracked on Phabricator.
• The BLPPROD grandfather clause, which stated that unreferenced biographies of living persons were only eligible for proposed deletion if they were created after March 18, 2010, has been removed following an RfC.
• An RfC has closed with consensus to allow proposed deletion of files. The implementation process is ongoing.
• After an unsuccessful proposal to automatically grant IP block exemption, consensus was found to relax the criteria for granting the user right from needing it to wanting it.

Technical news

• After a recent RfC, moved pages will soon be featured in a queue similar to Special:NewPagesFeed and require patrolling. Moves by administrators, page movers, and autopatrolled editors will be automatically marked as patrolled.
• Cookie blocks have been deployed. This extends the current autoblock system by setting a cookie for each block, which will then autoblock the user if they switch accounts, even under a new IP.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Question on arbitration enforcement

Hi, I'm an administrator, but since I'm also an editor in the topic area I thought I'd get the opinion of a second administrator before pontificating on this issue.

Suppose there is an article mostly about WWII, but it has two sections that directly concern the Arab-Israeli conflict. The question is: does ARBPIA apply automatically to the Arab-Israeli sections of the page (1RR, only 30/500 editors, etc), or is it necessary to first establish that the entire page matches arbcom's specification "any page that could be reasonably construed as being related to the Arab-Israeli conflict"?

I recall a case where a single item in a very long list was devoted to Palestine, and that item was the subject of a long and bitter war. I think (but I'm not sure of my memory) that ARBPIA was judged to apply to that item even though it would be hard to argue that the entire page was "related to the Arab-Israeli conflict". Most cases are less extreme. The basic approach I'd like to take is that if an editor is editing about the Arab-Israeli conflict, he/she is subject to ARBPIA. However it concerns me a little that it doesn't exactly match the prescription of arbcom even though it possibly does match their intention.

I hope this question makes sense. Thanks, Zero^talk 15:11, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Hey Zero. Yeah, your understanding is correct; a section on an otherwise unrelated article that relates to the ARBPIA topic would fall DS. If it didn't that'd prove a fairly big loophole which would miss the whole point of discretionary sanctions. If you're concerned an editor may not know this, a talk page DS notice would be a good prophylactic measure. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:04, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Hello, I have a problem here. The question is simply whether Otto Skorzeny (a former Nazi) recruited by Mossad or not. I edited the page about this, there is no relationship between this and Arab-Israeli conflict. So I ask you to remove your alert from my page. Nochyyy (talk) 05:51, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Nochyyy. The alert is just an informational notice about discretionary sanctions in the topic area. You are free to remove it if you wish; it doesn't imply any wrongdoing. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 06:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I thought it is a warning. Nochyyy (talk) 06:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Talk:/r/The Donald

Hi, re this edit: why does it produce a redlink? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:38, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Hey, it looks like the "/r/" portion seems to be messing with the templates. Not sure how to fix it just yet. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:43, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I fixed it, see Template talk:American politics AE. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:45, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Nice, thank you! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:46, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

From Jake

I apologise for lashing out at you, please don't block me for it.

I made my Wikipedia account yesterday 4/16/2017

from Jake the Blue (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

American politics 2

I'm curious as to why an arbitration case from two years ago is only appearing on my talk page now. Specifically which page is it regarding, and have there been any more recent developments that are summarized on another discussion page? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer. --SchutteGod (talk) 19:19, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi SchutteGod. It's an informational notice about the existence of discretionary sanctions in the American politics topic area; it doesn't imply any misconduct. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:59, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Email

Hello, Lord Roem. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.— nihlus kryik (talk) 08:16, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Received, thank you. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 16:23, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer

Hello, I thought I might ask before formally requesting the WP:NPR privilege for some advice. I have previously done the New Page Patrol, before the creation of the new right, and I am getting back into it again. The Page Curation tool was fantastic and so I want to do everything possible to be able to access it once again. What kind of things you are looking for when approving/declining and what more can I do to make my contribution history look more enticing to WP:RFR patrollers like you? Thanks for the help in advance, greatly appreciated! Best, Nicnote • ask me a question • contributions 17:44, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm looking to ensure the requirements of the role are met (at least 3 months experience, 500 undeleted mainspace edits) + no recent behavioral blocks or conduct issues. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:52, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

?

Are you sure the close at AE is wise? I am concerned about future posts by IPs with claims about off-WP matters in the more uncontrolled environment of AN. I have teed up the AN post but wanted to pause and ask here before posting. Jytdog (talk) 19:56, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Rest assured, I (and am sure others) will be keeping a close eye on the AN discussion. Don't get me wrong, I think a sanction is necessary, but there's some aspects of this that might need a more tailored approach.

Plus, if there's going to be an indef block, best to have broader support at AN first. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:06, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

OK, thanks for replying. Posting at AN anon. Jytdog (talk) 20:08, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2017).

Administrator changes

Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim

Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has clarified that user categories should be emptied upon deletion, but redlinked user categories should not be removed if re-added by the user.
• Discussions are ongoing regarding proposed changes to the COI policy. Changes so far have included clarification that adding a link on a Wikipedia forum to a job posting is not a violation of the harassment policy.

Technical news

• You can now see a list of all autoblocks at Special:AutoblockList.
• There is a new tool for adding archives to dead links. Administrators are able to restrict other user's ability to use the tool, and have additional permissions when changing URL and domain data.
• Administrators, bureaucrats and stewards can now set an expiry date when granting user rights. (discuss, permalink)

Miscellaneous

• Following an RfC, the editing restrictions page is now split into a list of active restrictions and an archive of those that are old or on inactive accounts. Make sure to check both pages if searching for a restriction.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Why the block?

What's this about? I restored a talk page comment that two editors wanted removed. When a third editor removed it, I decided it wasn't worth it and moved on. A ban from editing is totally unreasonable. You can see from my history on the talk page and the edits I've made to the article that I've engaged thoroughly with editors, and generally made substantial, well-sourced contributions to the page. I think my record of doing source work on the talk page stands up against that of any other editor on the page. See, for example, this section.

The previous AE action against me is no precedent to go on. It was acknowledged by several admins involved to be more or less a farce, or as MelanieN put it, a "an obvious miscarriage of justice." The only reason it wasn't overruled was because the ban ran out before any decision was made on the appeal.

I hope you'll speedily retract the ban, or otherwise explain how the ban is at all justified. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm also puzzled by the line, "restoring challenged edits without consensus." Without any diffs, I don't know what edits you're talking about. To my knowledge, I haven't restored any challenged edits recently. If you think otherwise, I'd like to see a diff of my edit and a diff of the challenged edit I've restored. If there aren't any such edits, then that's just another reason to rescind your sanction. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:47, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Edit one

Edit two - talk page shows ongoing discussion about this materials' inclusion, w/ it being highly contested.

And the edit-warring on the talk page.

This leads me to believe it'd be best for you to take a pause on editing this article for a short period. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 23:01, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Now you've just confused me even more. "Revert two" is not a revert - it's an addition of entirely new material to the article. The RfC you linked to is about a completely different topic: Jeffrey Carr's commentary, not that of Dan Goodin in Ars Technica. If I'm going to be sanctioned, the grounds should at least be correct. I think you're simply mistaken here, and I'd appreciate if you rescinded the sanction. After all, you can't possibly hand out blocks on mistaken grounds. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:16, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Just one more thing: you can see I've stepped away from the dispute over the talk page. I thought it was entirely inappropriate to remove a legitimate comment from the talk page, but since other users pressed the point, I decided to move on and not waste energy on it. Since that's the only grounds remaining for the block (I hope you'll agree that you were mistaken about "Revert two" and the RfC), I can't see how a 3-month block is justified. Rather than going through the entire appeals process, which will surely turn into an all-around drama, I'd appreciate it if you'd rescind the sanction yourself. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:20, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

That's my bad for labeling them wrong. The article you were adding talks at length about Jeffrey Carr's analysis and is presenting fundamentally the same argument at issue in the RfC -- the inclusion of certain sources and analysis that criticizes/conflicts with US security assessments about the DNC hacks, whether they're reliable, give undue weight to certain positions, etc. Adding this in while the RfC is ongoing is unhelpful at best and disruptive at worst. The edit warring on the talk page, whether you 'stepped away' from it after being warned or not, builds on this concern. I should've worded that 'reason' line in the sanction a bit better, but my thoughts on this stand: it'd be best for you to take a break from this article for a few months. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 23:27, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

The Carr RfC focuses mostly on Carr's credibility, and on Carr's criticism of the Crowdstrike report. The fact that Dan Goodin's article about a different subject - the government's GRIZZLY STEPPE report - cites Carr (among other cybersecurity experts, in an article that goes far beyond Carr's particular point of view) doesn't mean that the RfC is applicable to Dan Goodin's article. I didn't include anything about Carr in my addition to the article - I included the opinion of a different author about a different subject.

And with all due respect, your opinion of what it would be best for me to do isn't relevant here. What's relevant is whether I actually carried out a second revert of the article (I didn't), and whether I pre-empted the results of an RfC (I didn't: the information I included isn't related to the RfC, other than the fact that the article I cite happens to also discuss Carr later on, and my edit had nothing to do with Carr's opinion and didn't mention him).

This isn't just an issue of labeling diffs or wording the justification for your sanction differently. It's a question of whether the grounds for the sanction were correct. I didn't reinstate challenged edits, and I didn't violate 1RR. Now that I've brought that to your attention, I'd expect you to rescind your sanction. We all make mistakes, and since you have the power to correct yours, I'm requesting that you do so. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:49, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

BTW, the RfC isn't even about the US government's JAR. It's about private cybersecurity analysis. I really think you mixed up a couple of different issues here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:58, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not saying you violated 1RR, I'm saying you added contentious material twice on the same day and engaged in edit warring on the talk page. That, when put in context of a past sanction for similar conduct, is grounds for a ban from the article. There's no mistake here, I think my sanction is correct. You're free to disagree and appeal if you so desire. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 00:01, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Hang on: how does adding in a quote from Goodin's article violate any policy? I don't know of any policy against adding material that someone else may eventually consider "contentious." If that's grounds for sanctions, go ahead and sanction everyone who adds any material to the article, because basically everything is contested there. You're seriously justifying your sanction because I added material that someone might eventually find contentious.

"There's no mistake here". You'd admit that calling this edit "Revert two" was a mistake, right? And you'd admit that saying that that edit was the subject of an RfC (about a different subject and a different author) was also a mistake, right? And you'd admit that reverting one edit (the first edit I've reverted in that article in a long time) is not a violation of policy, right?

Come on now. There clearly were a few mistakes here. Are you really going to make me go to a drama board to contest this? I know admins reversing their own sanctions is a rare thing (nobody likes to admit they made a mistake), but you clearly didn't understand the edit sequence and RfC that were the basis of your sanction. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:16, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

You should also take a look at the previous sanction you're using as a supporting basis for this sanction. Several admins were of the opinion that that sanction was wrong (even "an obvious miscarriage of justice"). The only reason it didn't get overturned is that nobody really wanted to step on another admin's toes, especially when the sanction was so close to expiration. They let it expire and then closed the appeal as moot. The reason I asked strongly for an actual judgment on the merits of the sanction, at the time, was that I suspected someone would raise it again - as you now have - as justification later for sanctions. This is a bit similar to citogenesis - one sanction that most people agree is incorrect, but too short to be resolved in time, leads to the next sanction, in a self-reinforcing loop. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:22, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I just came across this while looking for another case. You've sanctioned me for restoring a talk page comment that two other editors wanted removed, but you just let VM off the hook last week for a series of expletive-ridden tirades against fellow editors. I'm sorry, but this pattern of enforcement/non-enforcement looks very troubling to me. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:52, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Amicus brief – Greetings Lord Roem! I'm a regular participant in editing and assorted discussion on the Russian interference article. I came across this discussion after seeing your recent sanction on Thucydides411. While I fully respect the discretionary authority of admins to impose sanctions, I'd like to remark that Thucydides has been one of the most level-headed and considerate participants in the numerous content disputes about this article ever since its creation. If he "deserves a break", as you say, then quite a few other people deserve a break too. It's also unfair to use his previous sanction as an aggravating factor because that was widely considered undue at the time by several admins after they looked at the case in detail. This was part of a flurry of AE requests by a single editor, two out of three were ruled groundless,[1][2] and the one against Thucydides[3] resulting in a block which was deemed unfair upon appeal but wasn't officially rescinded because the sanction week had expired.[4] Meanwhile, the accuser got away with no boomerang. Long story short, I would advocate a "keep cool" notice to Thucydides and perhaps a slap on the wrist but a 3-month block seems vastly excessive. Thanks for your attention; hope this helps. — JFG ^talk 20:06, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd also suggest that this is neither fair nor appropriate. The last time Goodin was discussed in any detail there was strong support for inclusion of the material, including among editors generally opposed to skepticism in the article (Archive 3). Furthermore, the source and its author are mainstream and articulate what other journalists and newspapers have articulated the world over ([5][6][7][8]). Instead of sanctioning the removal of the material without explanation or cause, you've sanctioned its addition. -Darouet (talk) 20:20, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi all, after considering some of the feedback above and discussing the matter with some other admins I trust, I've reduced the sanction to a warning. All the best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 21:05, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Can you post a link to the discussion? I'd like to take a look at it. Thanks for revisiting your decision here - I think it was the right thing to do. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:17, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

This was off-wiki. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:35, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi again, and thanks for taking other editors' remarks into account. Could you possibly strike the sanction text on Thucydides411's talk page and replace it with an expression of warning, per your decision? It looks like he is still blocked unless people take the trouble to read the discussion after the sanction notice. Thanks. — JFG ^talk 20:31, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Struck. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:47, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Restoring challenged edits without consensus

Your sanction notice says that Thucydides411 was sanctioned for "restoring challenged edits without consensus". Considering that Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections does not have "consensus required" active arbitration remedy, how are you going to enforce consensus requirement on this article? Politrukki (talk) 20:44, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Restoring challenged edits without consensus can be a sign of disruptive editing in a topic area. It is not, in and of itself, grounds to impose a sanction. The initial TBAN on Thucydides411 was based on disruptive editing + edit warring on a talk page. As discussed above, that's now been reduced to a warning. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 20:49, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification. "It is not, in and of itself, grounds to impose a sanction." answered a question I would have asked next. I was curious because sometimes it seems like "restoring challenged edits without consensus" is the way of life on this article. Particularly, some regular editors like to "challenge" an edit and demand that consensus must be obtained before reinstating the edit, only to forget the rule when their favourite edit is challenged. Politrukki (talk) 05:05, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Auto patrolled

Thank you for that. Do I need to type an extra Tag? Or is it automatically added when I create an article that it's autopattrolled?Thanks Tripp155 (talk) 23:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi Tripp155, it simply means any page you create is marked as patrolled automatically. You don't need to type or do anything. All the best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 23:28, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Jon Ossoff - Page protection

Can you extend the protection date to June 21. The election date is June 20. Current protection you set only extends till June 9. It is only another 12 days. Thanks  —አቤል ዳዊት^?(Janweh64) (talk) 08:30, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Protection isn't usually imposed preemptively. If vandalism returns once the semi-protection expires, I'll add it back. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:21, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, that seems prudent. I will continue to monitor and check back with you if vandalism resurfaces on June 9.  —አቤል ዳዊት^?(Janweh64) (talk) 06:06, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

guidance

Hi,
You may not remember me, but we met most recently here.

Would you please skim through my edit history of last 2-3 days and tell me if I'm contributing properly or not? Your suggestions, and guidance will be appreciated a lot. Thanks. —usernamekiran(talk) 17:30, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Quick skim -- looks like you're leaving proper notices after reverting vandalism, which is good. All the best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:23, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. :-) If I do the activity in similar manner for next 3 months, do you think I would get the rollback user-right?

• Also, I didn't understand why you mentioned my use of zolpidem, would you please explain that? :-) —usernamekiran(talk) 18:32, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I was concerned that you had edited while under the influence, which doesn't usually combine well with easy-to-misuse tools like rollback. But that seems to have been a minor blip; you should get the userright after a few more months, definitely. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:52, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Yup, zolpidem cuses the consumer to do weird stuff lol (if the consumer doesnt sleep, or wakes up while the zolpidem is still effective). But I have been using it for long enough now. I never stay awake after consuming it, and usually dont wake up after sleeping. There are some rare incidents when I wake up though. Thats why always turn off the modem before consuming the zolpidem. But I usually do just goofy stuff. I have never done anything serious/regrettable yet (neither online or IRL). I hope it stays the same.

Thanks for the encouragement. See you around :-) —usernamekiran(talk) 20:21, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

1RR and throw away brand new accounts edit warring

Re: [9] If I propose that there should be an exemption to the 1RR rule regarding reverting of brand new or unconfirmed spa accounts that pop up on these articles and start edit wars, what are the chances that ArbCom would take it seriously? Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:01, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

If you show a good wealth of evidence that it's a serious issue in a topic under DS, you have a shot. What they decide or how the conversation develops is anyone's guess. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 23:08, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) If particular articles are susceptible to this disruption then any individual uninvolved admin can apply that restriction on any article covered by discretionary sanctions. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:10, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

It's not the lack of restriction - it's when the restriction is in place but then sketchy accounts (often brand new anon accounts but often obviously "sleeper" accounts that had made like four edits back in 2008 or something but now jump) show up to edit war. If I'm an established user I can't revert them more than once unless it obvious vandalism, because I value the reputation of my long standing account. If it's a brand new throw away account then you just edit war to your heart's content and if you get blocked you just start another one and continue. For these kinds of accounts the 1RR restriction is essentially meaningless.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:13, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying any admin can apply a "1RR restriction except for reverting IPs or editors with less than x edits" without going to Arbcom. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:29, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh, gotcha! That's actually a good thing to know. Thanks.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:30, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

And Lord Roem, yeah, that's basically why I'm asking. Compiling this "wealth of evidence" would be quite a bit of work so I want to have a sense if it's a good use of my time. Perhaps I should ask an actual current ArbCom. User:Doug Weller maybe? Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:15, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think the biggest problem is new accounts edit warring. There are plenty of regulars that edit war and tag-team as well. If there's evidence that a particular account is a sock puppet, then one can get that account blocked. However, giving established users even more ability to edit war - in this case against newer users - seems like a very bad idea. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:47, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Actually, the Syrian Civil War and ISIL area is covered by a restriction similar to what Volunteer Marek asked about. Cuts down on a lot of the disruption. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:52, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@NeilN: I haven't really taken that careful a look at the Syrian Civil War articles, so I'm not sure how things work there (other than to notice the same Russian-topics-related editors being very active there). In general, though, giving "established users" increased ability to revert seems dangerous to me. There's also the fact of Wikipedia being a pretty unwelcoming place to new editors to think about, and I think an exemption that gives established editors extra leverage against newer editors would worsen this. If an account is a sock puppet, by all means, block it, but to further institutionalize different tiers of editors seems to me like a bad idea. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:01, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Thucydides, it's simple. There's a 1RR restriction on an article. Throw away accounts are by definition throw away-able. So they don't care about 1RR so they effectively get a free pass to edit war. Established users who don't want to get blocked (especially if some bad faithed editor tries to use the situation and reports them) so they can't do anything about it. So the current situation gives all the power to the throw away accounts and sock puppets.

And you should realize - and I think you do, though you're not being upfront about it - that a frequent situation that arises on contentious topic is that a user pops up who's an obvious sock puppet, but there's so many banned users in a particular topic area that it's hard to pin down WHICH particular user is the sock master. So you can't really take it to SPI.

Basically, the rules as they exist encourage disruption and edit warring.

Now, as to a particular situation. On the Russian Interference article, most of these brand new throw away accounts that have showed up have been on "your side" of the dispute (and yes, many of them banned users sock puppeting). Which I'm guessing is motivating your objection. But please have the prescience and the intellectual maturity to generalize and imagine a scenario - very likely - where you find yourself (and I would consider you an established user despite your narrow focus on one particular article) having to deal with such accounts. Today they're accounts you agree with. Tomorrow they're gonna be accounts you disagree with. What matters is now whether a particular policy change helps you right in this moment but whether it improves the editing atmosphere on Wikipedia in general.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:19, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

@Volunteer Marek: A pleasure to talk to you, as usual. I really enjoy the healthy dose of condescension.

I've dealt with situations where people use sock puppets to disrupt articles. I've also seen instances of new users getting chased away by established editors upset about some newbie deigning to disagree with them. On the Russian interference article, the problem isn't sock puppets, but rather entrenched differences between established editors, and a complete unwillingness for any sort of compromise. I haven't seen new editors having much of an impact at all on that page - the page is largely controlled by a particular set of established editors who have been very successful in getting through their preferred version.

You're asking for an exception to 1RR, and I think you should have a very good case that the good done by that exception will outweigh the harm (the harm being, of course, empowering greater edit warring by established editors against occasional or new editors). -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:41, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Just to say that NeilN's posts above about applying a restriction and the Syrian civil war area are correct.Doug Weller talk 05:15, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually the Murder of Seth Rich article is an excellent recent example of this problem. This article is being discussed in several sketchy forums of wiki (reddit's "conspiracy" sub reddit and a few others) where users there are encouraging each other to come and edit war on the article to "fix it" (i.e. put back in all the BLP violating HOAX stuff or POV it in some other way). So in the past 24 hrs there's been a good many throw-away accounts show up, most of them sleepers that made a couple edits a year or two ago to get around semi-protection, that are now doing exactly that. And they can't be reverted - each of them will make multiple reverts but established users can make only one. Some of these edits are border line vandalism and many are BLP vios, but damn if I'm gonna get risked getting dragged to WP:AE again and do a second revert.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:23, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Could you provide some diffs of what you view as problematic edits? Is the current 1RR causing problematic material to remain in the article? -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:30, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2017).

Administrator changes

Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn

ThaddeusB • Yandman • Bjarki S • OldakQuill • Shyam • Jondel • Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC proposing an off-wiki LTA database has been closed. The proposal was broadly supported, with further discussion required regarding what to do with the existing LTA database and defining access requirements. Such a tool/database formed part of the Community health initiative's successful grant proposal.
• Some clarifications have been made to the community banning and unblocking policies that effectively sync them with current practice. Specifically, the community has reached a consensus that when blocking a user at WP:AN or WP:ANI, it is considered a "community sanction", and administrators cannot unblock unilaterally if the user has not successfully appealed the sanction to the community.
• An RfC regarding the bot policy has closed with changes to the section describing restrictions on cosmetic changes.

Technical news

• Users will soon be able to blacklist specific users from sending them notifications.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2017 elections, the new members of the Board of Trustees include Raystorm, Pundit and Doc James. They will serve three-year terms.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:40, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

FreeatlastChitchat

FYI: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proposed Exclusion of Sandbox and Users own TalkPage from T-Bans

I don't see any violation, but I wanted you to be aware of the discussion. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:58, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the note! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:26, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2017).

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

• The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing (see more at the ArbCom noticeboard archives) is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received support; so did concrete proposal #1.

Technical news

• Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding ?fuzzy=1 to the URL, as with Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term.
• A new bot will automatically revision delete unused file versions from files in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old.

Miscellaneous

• A newly revamped database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
• A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to request resysop. Please practice appropriate account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
• Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

A note

As I'm less active on the site, please feel free to shoot me an email if my attention's needed somewhere. Thanks! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 22:38, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

RfA

Thanks for supporting my run for administrator. I am honored and grateful. ) Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:45, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2017).

Administrator changes

Anarchyte • GeneralizationsAreBad • Cullen328 ^{(first RfA to reach WP:300)}

Cprompt • Rockpocket • Rambo's Revenge • Animum • TexasAndroid • Chuck SMITH • MikeLynch • Crazytales • Ad Orientem

Guideline and policy news

• Following a series of discussions around new pages patrol, the WMF is helping implement a controlled autoconfirmed article creation trial as a research experiment, similar to the one proposed in 2011. You can learn more about the research plan at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. The exact start date of the experiment has yet to be determined.
• A new speedy deletion criterion, regarding articles created as a result undisclosed paid editing, is currently being discussed (permalink).
• An RfC (permalink) is currently open that proposes expanding WP:G13 to include all drafts, even if they weren't submitted through Articles for Creation.

Technical news

• LoginNotify should soon be deployed to the English Wikipedia. This will notify users when there are suspicious login attempts on their account.
• The new version of XTools is nearing an official release. This suite of tools includes administrator statistics, an improved edit counter, among other tools that may benefit administrators. You can report issues on Phabricator and provide general feedback at mw:Talk:XTools.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:12, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Washington v. Texas scheduled for TFA

This is to let you know that the Washington v. Texas article has been scheduled as today's featured article for September 30, 2017. Please check the article needs no amendments. If you're interested in editing the main page text, you're welcome to do so at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 30, 2017, but note that a coordinator will trim the lead to around 1100 characters anyway, so you aren't obliged to do so. Thanks! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:25, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh, wow, thank you for the note, Jimfbleak! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:55, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

No problem, I've checked there are no dead links, and I can't imagine this article needs much updating, but if you think of anything, please adjust accordingly Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:54, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2017).

Administrator changes

Nakon • Scott

Sverdrup • Thespian • Elockid • James086 • Ffirehorse • Celestianpower • Boing! said Zebedee

Guideline and policy news

• ACTRIAL, a research experiment that restricts article creation to autoconfirmed users, will begin on September 7. It will run for six months. You can learn more about the research specifics at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, while Wikipedia talk:Autoconfirmed article creation trial is probably the best venue for general discussion.
• Following an RfC, WP:G13 speedy deletion criterion now applies to any page in the draftspace that has not been edited in six months. There is a bot-generated report, updated daily, to help identify potentially qualifying drafts that have not been submitted through articles for creation.

Technical news

• You will now get a notification when someone tries to log in to your account and fails. If they try from a device that has logged into your account before, you will be notified after five failed attempts. You can also set in your preferences to get an email when someone logs in to your account from a new device or IP address, which may be encouraged for admins and accounts with sensitive permissions.
• Syntax highlighting is now available as a beta feature (more info). This may assist administrators and template editors when dealing with intricate syntax of high-risk templates and system messages.
• In your notification preferences, you can now block specific users from pinging you. This functionality will soon be available for Special:EmailUser as well.

Arbitration

• Applications for CheckUser and Oversight are being accepted by the Arbitration Committee until September 12. Community discussion of the candidates will begin on September 18.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to Admin confidence survey

Hello,

Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Wikipedia administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.

The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.

To take the survey sign up here and we will send you a link to the form.

We really appreciate your input!

Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.

For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 20:56, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Precious

supreme justice

Thank you for quality articles about US Supreme Court cases such as Washington v. Texas and Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, beginning with Bruesewitz v. Wyeth and investing "months of work", for your contributions as an arbitration clerk and to mediation, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:00, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh wow, thank you Gerda Arendt! Appreciate the kind words. :) Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:19, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

A year ago, you were recipient no. 1736 of Precious, a prize of QAI! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:49, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Aha, thanks for the kind words once more! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 07:03, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Two years ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:55, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2017).

Administrator changes

Boing! said Zebedee • Ansh666 • Ad Orientem

Tonywalton • AmiDaniel • Silence • BanyanTree • Magioladitis • Vanamonde93 • Mr.Z-man • Jdavidb • Jakec • Ram-Man • Yelyos • Kurt Shaped Box

Guideline and policy news

• Following a successful proposal to create it, a new user right called "edit filter helper" is now assignable and revocable by administrators. The right allows non-administrators to view the details of private edit filters, but not to edit them.
• Following a discussion about mass-application of ECP and how the need for logging and other details of an evolving consensus may have been missed by some administrators, a rough guide to extended confirmed protection has been written. This information page describes how the extended-confirmed aspects of the protection policy are currently being applied by administrators.

Technical news

• You can now search for IP ranges at Special:Contributions. Some log pages and Special:DeletedContributions are not yet supported. Wildcards (e.g. 192.168.0.*) are also not supported, but the popular contribsrange gadget will continue to work.

Arbitration

• Community consultation on the 2017 candidates for CheckUser and Oversight has concluded. The Arbitration Committee will appoint successful candidates by October 11.
• A request for comment is open regarding the structure, rules, and procedures of the December 2017 Arbitration Committee election, and how to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2017).

Administrator changes

Longhair • Megalibrarygirl • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93

Allen3 • Eluchil404 • Arthur Rubin • Bencherlite

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team is creating an "Interaction Timeline" tool that intends to assist administrators in resolving user conduct disputes. Feedback on the concept may be posted on the talk page.
• A new function is now available to edit filter managers that will make it easier to look for multiple strings containing spoofed text.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors will be invited to submit candidate statements for the 2017 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 12 until November 21. Voting will begin on November 27 and last until December 10.
• Following a request for comment, Ritchie333, Yunshui and Ymblanter will serve as the Electoral Commission for the 2017 ArbCom Elections.

Obituaries

• The Wikipedia community has recently learned that Allen3 (William Allen Peckham) passed away on December 30, 2016, the same day as JohnCD. Allen began editing in 2005 and became an administrator that same year.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:50, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2017).

Administrator changes

Joe Roe

JzG

Ericorbit • Perceval • Thingg • Tristanb • Violetriga

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, a new section has been added to the username policy which disallows usernames containing emoji, emoticons or otherwise "decorative" usernames, and usernames that use any non-language symbols. Administrators should discuss issues related to these types of usernames before blocking.

Technical news

• Wikimedians are now invited to vote on the proposals in the 2017 Community Wishlist Survey on Meta Wiki until 10 December 2017. In particular, there is a section of the survey regarding new tools for administrators and for anti-harassment.
• A new function is available to edit filter managers which can be used to store matches from regular expressions.

Arbitration

• Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is open until Sunday 23:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC). There are 12 candidates running for 8 vacant seats.

Miscellaneous

• Over the last few months, several users have reported backlogs that require administrator attention at WP:ANI, with the most common backlogs showing up on WP:SPI, WP:AIV and WP:RFPP. It is requested that all administrators take some time during this month to help clear backlogs wherever possible. It should be noted that AIV reports are not always valid; however, they still need to be cleared, which may include needing to remind users on what qualifies as vandalism.
• The Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative is conducting a survey for English Wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works (i.e. which problems it deals with well and which problems it struggles with). If you would like to take this survey, please sign up on this page, and a link for the survey will be emailed to you via Special:EmailUser.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:58, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Lord Roem. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Autopatrolled

Hi. You accorded this user autopatrolled rights here. At the time, they did not meed the recoimmrended number of substantive creations and still don't (10 valid creations). Their last two creations fall very short of meeting criteria for BLP. I believe their work still very much needs to be checked by New Page Reviewers. Thoughts? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:26, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Hey there -- wouldn't be opposed if you'd like to remove the flag from them. Thanks! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 19:10, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017).

Administrator changes

Muboshgu

Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned

None

Bureaucrat changes

Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news

• The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
• The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration

• Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee: Alex Shih, BU Rob13, Callanecc, KrakatoaKatie, Opabinia regalis, Premeditated Chaos, RickinBaltimore, Worm That Turned.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Five years of adminship

Wishing Lord Roem a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Chris Troutman (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:02, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2018).

Administrator changes

None

Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
• Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news

• A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2018).

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V

† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news

• The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
• Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
• A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
• A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news

• CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
• The edit filter has a new feature contains_all that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards: -revi, Green Giant, Rxy, There'sNoTime, علاء.

Obituaries

• Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:00, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2018).

Administrator changes

331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG

Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news

• Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
• Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
• The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
• The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news

• There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous

• A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
• The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

FYI

An ARCA request has been filed concerning your AE ruling – please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment#Clarification_request:_Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Niteshift36.. You weren't named as a party, but I figure you should be informed. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 23:53, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I've asked the clerk to close the ARCA request, so we can first discuss it here (as in the section below.) My apologies for getting procedure wrong. Cinteotl (talk) 00:57, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

No worries! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:29, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah, and thanks Kevin for the notice. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:35, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

• At the direction of the Arbitration Committee, this ARCA request has been closed. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 13:27, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Question regarding AE

On the AE case you closed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PermanentLink/835706907#Niteshift36, with "No Violation":

I'm seeking clarification. Not to appeal the matter, but to understand the process, and why what seemed to me like objective violations of policy were found not to be. T These questions may be helpful (But feel free to ignore them if you wish.)

• Are users responsible for sourcing content they seek to include in articles?

• Is a request that a user cite a source for proposed content a "good faith question?"

• If a user disregards such a request, but persists in proposing the content, is it reasonable to repeat the request?

• Is repeatedly disregarding requests to cite sources a sanctionable violation under DS or other WP policies?

Ultimately, my goal is to understand how things work at WP. Thanks in advance for your help.

Cinteotl (talk) 00:55, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Cinteotl, in short, I declined the enforcement request because I didn't believe the diffs presented rose to an actionable level. At worst, they're snarky, but nothing we'd impose a topic ban or other sanction for. 2 other admins opined the same before I closed it. Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:30, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Lord Roem. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your welcome note. I was wondering if you could look at Talk:Elizabeth_Warren#Inclusion_of_Trump's_charity_promise, since this person is obviously misinformed and leaving very strange arguments. Yetishawl (talk) 06:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Hey there, @Yeishawl: I'm not going to opine on the merits of including the quote, but for any American Politics related topic, it's always best to try to work with the editors on the page to find consensus on what's appropriate to include and how much weight it should be given. As far as I can tell, it looks like the conversation only just started. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 06:08, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Good to see

Hi LR. It's been good to see your name more frequently in the past while. I had hoped you were coming out of semi-retirement. Best regards, AGK ■ 18:49, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

@AGK: Thanks for stopping by, it really has been too long! Hope everything's well with you. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 04:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Miki Filigranski

The edit war was started by an IP who did not understand the editing policy, who on a misunderstanding of the policy substantiated its edits, and who did not follow BRD process. There was no consensus for the inclusion of IPs edits, or at least, those who did support it seemingly were not aware of multiple policy issues these edits have [10]. The confirmed editors weren't of much help, actually, some were constantly defending the IPs almost until now (because of which started (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PeterTheFourth). From my point of view, this situation is becoming with each day more and more ridiculous because the editor who called for respecting the BRD process, who warned there are multiple issues, who stood for the editing policy, got blocked for 48 hours and now even banned for a month. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about me, but about the message it sends - anyone can get away with anything and make a havoc against the policy, while those who stand for policy and make one mistake in the process, well, they are fucked. I am not saying that I'm not aware of my mistake with 1RR and couldn't have done it better in that situation, I made an obviously careless mistake which I already acknowledged that a week ago in the talk page and noticeboard (because of which got the 48h block in the first place), but sorry, now banning me even from the talk page when editors are starting to agree with me [11]... Why should I appeal now against this sanction? Is my appeal going to change something, in the long run, against this havoc-kind of scenarios? Are confirmed editors who made countless constructive edits get any higher recognition than some first IP around the corner fooling around? I doubt. Current situation is not encouraging to be a confirmed editor, then, what's the point? --Miki Filigranski (talk) 17:11, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Miki Filigranski:, thanks for the message. The situation here is fairly straightforward: there's a 1RR restriction on the article and this is the second time in about ten days' time that you've engaged in edit warring. The initial block should've curtailed this behavior, but seeing as it didn't, a further sanction is the next step.

As mentioned in the notice on your talk page, you may appeal this sanction, but are certainly free to edit constructively elsewhere on the site until the month is up. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:27, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

AE

Hi. Can you describe why you dismissed the AE report as "no action"? Such a term implies no violation occurred which is contrary to the cited evidence of bright line policy violations in spite of previous warnings. Take a look at User talk:GoldenRing#AE followup, which shows how the user has been acting even after AE. Additionally you may also want to take a look at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Dismissing an enforcement request which tells that unless you had very good reasons, your close of AE can be appealed on WP:ARCA. GenuineArt (talk) 11:41, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi @GenuineArt:, thanks for the message. It's fairly simple: the three admins who reviewed the evidence found it underwhelming and weren't inclined to issue any sanction. I'm of a similar mind. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 17:59, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

See the timings of their comments. GoldenRing has not edited since he commented and is yet to follow-up with my comment[12], though he had already said that a warning is minimum. Report was modified after Sandstein's comment and I believe that he was yet to respond since he generally does.[13] Can't speak of Black Kite who might have recognized the problem but wants Arbcom to judge the conduct of others and that is the last resort, not the first. GenuineArt (talk) 18:21, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

GoldenRing is still authorized to issue a warning if they really want to, and of course, if there's flagrant misconduct in the future, we can take another look. It's important to emphasize that closing an AE request doesn't constrain another admin from acting (subject to a formal appeal to AE). But for now, I think the concerns raised don't rise to the level of a topic sanction. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 18:30, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

As a side note to this discussion, you perhaps should review the procedure on dismissing enforcement requests - my understanding is that closing an AE request very much does preclude other admins from actions on the facts presented, and I believe this was tested in a case or clarification request during the GamerGate fiasco, though I can't lay hands on it right now.
Anyway, my concern is not so much that the conduct presented doesn't rise to the level of sanctions, but that there is much more going on than was presented at AE. There seem to me to be a number of editors misbehaving; while DBigXray was not white as the driven snow, the request itself was pretty battleground-ish. I don't have time at present to go digging around to see what needs doing and I'm not prepared to sanction one party in this dispute without taking a long, hard look at everyone. GoldenRing (talk) 16:28, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@GoldenRing: Thanks for the clarification, I was definitely under the impression another admin would still have discretion to review a matter dismissed, but I suppose this procedure is to prevent admin shopping. And I'm certainly in agreement, I think Black Kite's note about the conflict here was pretty on point.
In case it's needed, please know I have no strong feelings on this matter and wouldn't object with you re-opening the request or reviewing the matter in more detail later. Unfortunately, RL obligations have limited how much attention I'm able to pay to this one. Thanks again for the note! Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:04, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

I didn't know that I could be subject to an arbitration enforcement sanction without being informed that the proceedings were being initiated, without hearing the charges, and without having a chance to defend myself.

I can only guess at what the complaint is, but my action was to restore well-documented material that restored WP:NPOV balance in a BLP. This article was accusing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of being anti-Israel, which is defamatory, and I was restoring sources that defended her against the charge.

Wikieditor19920 claimed that the quote I gave was "not representative of reaction reported on by most sources", so I added reactions from other sources to show that it was representative.

Was that it?

As for failing to engage in any talk page discussion about the dispute, I was careful to ask in the Revision history that editors tell me their objections on the Talk page, and nobody took me up on it. There was no discussion of this issue on Talk.

According to the appeals template, I'm supposed to link to the discussion resulting in the sanction. But I can't find any discussion. Is there any reason? How can I appeal if I don't know the reason for the sanction in the first place?

Where was this case against me discussed? Where can I find the reasons for my sanctions?

I'm honestly puzzled. I'd like to find out what the violation was so I don't make the same mistake again. --Nbauman (talk) 14:57, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@Nbauman: You were informed on December 9th of discretionary sanctions in the American Politics topic area, which the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez article certainly falls under. You added a paragraph of text, an editor reverted your edit, then you added it back. After this, a different editor reverted it a second time, following which you added it once more. All this proceeded without any talk page discussion. This is unambiguously edit warring which falls under the kind of disruptive conduct discretionary sanctions are meant to prevent; these reasons were also included in the sanction message itself. Please let me know if you need any further clarification. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:20, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

@Lord Roem: I'd like a clarification on this. I did not simply revert the edit. Wikieditor19920 claimed that the quote I gave was "not representative of reaction reported on by most sources", so I added reactions from other sources to show that it was representative. I thought that would be proper under WP:BRD. If an editor claims that there are not enough sources to support the text, and I add additional sources to meet that objection, is that disruptive editing? --Nbauman (talk) 18:55, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

@Nbauman: Hey there, apologies for the delay in response. I'm only semi-active on the site these days, so please feel free to use the email option if you need to get my attention for something. That said, I'm a bit confused what's triggered the sudden question on this topic six months after the sanction. I don't know if you're referring to some new event, but regarding the old one, you were edit warring with a user who disagreed with the inclusion of certain material without any talk page discussion. I don't think your framing of that incident--that you were merely responding to a request to add more sources--is fully accurate.

Your sanction on the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez article only lasted for one month, so my advice would just be to be more collaborative with your editing and do your best to resolve disputes on article talk pages first. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 05:46, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Some eyes at Gab (social network) please

Hi, I'm contacting you because you were the admin who dealt with GinJuice4445 about a month and a half back. They aren't edit warring... yet... but they've been very tendentious and pointed with their dispute at Article talk, verging on disruptive. For an editor without their history I'd probably let it slide, but they've been a problem on this page before. Thanks. Simonm223 (talk) 15:09, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

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Why have I received this message? All administrators are receiving it. What prompted you to send this message? Recently, several Wikipedia admin accounts were compromised. The admin accounts were desysopped on an emergency basis. In the past, the Committee often resysopped admin accounts as a matter of course once the admin was back in control of their account. The committee has updated its guidelines. Admins may now be required to undergo a fresh Request for Adminship (RfA) after losing control of their account. What do I need to do? Only to follow the instructions in this message. Check that your password is unique (not reused across sites). Check that your password is strong (not simple or guessable). Enable Two-factor authentication (2FA), if you can, to create a second hurdle for attackers. How can I find out more about two-factor authentication (2FA)? You can find out more about 2FA at m:2FA.

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:56, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Hello! Welcome to my Talk Page!

Leave a message or shoot me an email if you need me! -- Lord Roem ~ (talk) 06:18, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Email

Hi all - not sure if this is the best way to do this, but for any editor who's trying to contact me (and looks through my history to see where I am), please feel free to use the email function if you need my attention for something. Unfortunately, I'm not frequently on this site these days, but I'm still happy to chime in if you need my feedback. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 05:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

hey

Hi.
You might not remember me, but we interacted a couple of years or so ago. I used to see your activity here or there once in a while, but lately you had vanished completely. It was nice to see your activity again. I hope you return to the project in future. Best of luck for real life. Regards, —usernamekiran(talk) 23:47, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

The_Donald page restrictions

Hello,

In April 2017, you applied 1RR and "consensus required" to r/The Donald: [14]

In July 2017, in this AE request you said "it looks like my intent was a 1RR restriction after edit-warring was rampant on the article. I agree the 'consensus required' wording is confusing and should be removed from that template".

However, you never removed the "consensus required" restriction, which has since been cited at AE at least twice:

• 13 May 2019 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive251#WookieInHeat
• 11 June 2019 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive253#WookieInHeat

On 6 July 2019, due to a move discussion, ST47 moved the page with the following log entry: w:/r/The_Donald moved to r/The_Donald, updated editnotice (1RR and consensus required) to work for the new title." My understanding of the policy is that you are still the "enforcing administrator" for the restrictions.

If I recall correctly, I have never edited the article or the talk page and I am not familiar with disputes there have been, but if the restriction serves no purpose, would you kindly remove the restriction?

Thank you. Politrukki (talk) 15:13, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Hey there, thanks for flagging this. Since there's been so much time since then, and I imagine a great deal of intervening action has taken place, I think it might be best for another admin who's more active in this area to take a look. I wouldn't want to change something now if it's been useful. That said, if another non-involved admin sees fit, I would not object to their editing the edit notice as proposed. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:59, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

You and your actions have been mentioned in an AFD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Casey Mongillo (2nd nomination) is a strange situation. You were mentioned there by the nominator. Dream Focus 03:05, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

@Dream Focus: Thanks for flagging. I've listed my thoughts on the AfD at the top. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:07, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Whoops! I didn't notice you posted there already. Sorry, sometimes my brain goes to sleep before the rest of me does. Dream Focus 13:40, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

On the matter of the Casey Mongillo AFD Nom

I’ve, pardon my language, dragged my ass out of wiki inactivity to make note on this matter. I’d just like to bring to attention the current actions of the nominator over on Twitter. (Redacted) This user has showcased MUCH disdain for this actress, and is acting upon a vendetta due to their dislike of the dub, (Redacted). Beyond that, (Redacted). If this isn’t of any sort of value, i fully understand. However, I believe the point on the matter of a strong bias or even hatred (perhaps falling under WP:ADVOCACY, disguised as good-faith editing?) still stands. Feel free to disregard this if you think it must be disregarded. But I hope this was insightful, in some capacity or another, in regards to the person you’re debating with.

DownAirStairsConditioner (talk) 06:22, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Furthermore, I’d wager that his biases on the matter violate WP:NPV, and overall constitute Vandalism due to the biased nature of these AfDs. DownAirStairsConditioner (talk) 14:13, 4 November 2019 (UTC) (edited 15:11 UTC)

Just for the record, the nominators actions aren't going to effect the AfD anymore than a sock AfD nomination would. If valid points are made by editors then a given page will still be deleted. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:05, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

I have redacted multiple personal attacks and attempted outing links from this thread. Do not restore them. ST47 (talk) 17:48, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:15, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Can be found here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Casey Mongillo (2nd nomination). - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 17:16, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging! Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:21, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@Knowledgekid87: After reading through all the feedback on ANI, I did want to take the time to apologize for the messiness caused by the untimely restore. After reading the note on DRV about speaking with the closing admin, I had honestly thought that was the first step prior to opening a DRV, and/or a substitute for it. I think my mindset was more in AE mode, where the sanctioning admin can reverse their decision prior to it being appealed. It wasn't my intention to cause confusion, so I do hope you understand what was in my mind after reading that. I'm genuinely grateful for the feedback and hope this drama will behind us soon. All the best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:17, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I accept your apology as people learn by things like these happening, I hope the drama becomes history here too. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:47, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

WP:INVOLVED

Lord Roem, would you mind explaining your closure of this?

There was no snow consensus against the OP (3-1, of whom at least two were already arguing against the OP for their own reasons and clearly, at least as far as I can see, did not understand the dispute in question) and the discussion had only been open for 60 hours. I personally make a point to chime in on all Japan-related ANI threads, but didn't get to in this case. What's more, you inserted commentary into your closing statement that was not supported by any consensus, and was directed at an editor you were already involved in a dispute with. Every other edit you made that day was in some way related to undoing something Sk8erPrince had done.[15]

Entirely aside from the question of whether S8P's edits related to Mongillo and Wiedenheft were constructive or disruptive or anything in between (I haven't checked), he was right to call the "ant" edit patent nonsense, and even if he were wrong about everything, I really think it would have been better if you had left it to another admin to close that thread given your close involvement with the OP. (Full disclosure: the optics of your opening a discussion to ban him while that close was still visible on the same page were pretty bad, and what drew my attention to it.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:23, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Hey Hijiri 88, thanks for the message. I closed that thread before any interactions with Sk8erPrince on the AfD occurred. Looking back, I think the only time I interacted with that user before this week was a warning against personal attacks back in January here. Quite right, I'm currently WP:INVOLVED and wouldn't be in a position to act in an administrative capacity over anything involving this editor going forward. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 03:37, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

But, you went to an AFD closer's talk page to question[16] a "delete" result in an AFD opened by S8P[17] in which two (disruptive) editors had accused him of "bludgeoning the discussion", then went straight to ANI and accused him of bludgeoning a discussion. Given that the ANI thread was about 6,000 words long and there was only a 75-minute gap between your edits, it seems pretty obvious that you either (a) read the AFD and posted on Jo-Jo's talk page before immediately going through the ANI thread that had been opened by the same editor and coincidentally coming to the same conclusion as the IP on that AFD, or (b) had been quietly following both the ANI thread and AFD for some time and forming your own opinion of the OP during that time. The fact that you had barely edited in two weeks makes (b) seem unlikely, but in either case it doesn't look good. (There's also the possibility that you didn't actually read the ANI thread before closing based on the age of the thread and a simple !vote count, but that's arguably worse.) It's theoretically possible, but seemingly very unlikely, that you were unaware that the editor whose AFD you were criticizing was the same one you were criticizing at ANI, which seems like a very clumsy mistake to make. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:19, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

My message to Jo-Jo, to the extent it was criticizing anything, was regarding the AfD close, as opposed to anyone who participated in that discussion. I didn't actually interact with the editor until the speedy deletion request later. Our disagreement about the article in question, and the subsequent back-and-forth conversation on the 2nd AfD, also occurred afterwards. I certainly understand where you're coming from, but I think you're reading an intent that isn't there. Best, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 05:47, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

A Star

		The Special Barnstar
		Sometimes editors need a star! You earned it! Keep on advising! Lightburst (talk) 00:41, 7 November 2019 (UTC)