Since the previous Discussion report in August, there have been 1,718 threads across the various noticeboards and Village Pumps; the latter can be found in this issue's Community view, leaving us with 1,339 threads to review here.
1,339 may seem like a large number – and it is – of those, 1,135 ran longer than one kilobyte. But only 432 ran beyond a nickel, 248 beyond a dime, and 74 beyond a quarter.
The caveats and provisos from the previous edition, as well as those of the electric winnower software itself, hold true here.
Perhaps most striking in this period is a large increase in disputes involving large language models; a significant proportion of user conduct disputes at the Administrators' Noticeboard for Incidents feature either the misuse of a LLM or the accusation thereof. While the simple use of a language model is not counter to policy (and in some cases it is explicitly disregarded as an issue), it is nonetheless a powerful tool that can create lots of problems in the hands of an inexperienced (or malicious) editor.
Outside of the main "drama boards", most larger noticeboard discussions focused on everyday questions of neutrality and sourcing, as well as the intricacies of policy and guidelines. However, even in a place like the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, LLMs found a way to be relevant.
WIRED is a news magazine with a very long history (about as long a history as an online publication is capable of having). It was here put under suspicion, in a thread opened by ເສລີພາບ, for having published articles without fact-checking: indeed, of having published an entirely fabricated article, with made-up details, by a nonexistent reporter. For nine days this stayed on the website, until they realized it was fugazi and removed it; even then, there was not an official retraction until some months later (when other publications started giving them the business about it).
A list of other shoddy articles was produced, offered as evidence that Wired has fallen off and warranted reëvaluation. One of them, by Taylor Lorenz, concerned the Sixteen Thirty Fund and sparked a good deal of discussion regarding citations in said article. The overall issue was then further discussed at some length. A formal RfC was never opened, and the thread was archived without closure.
This thread, opened by Simonm223, concerned Canadian broadsheet paper National Post's handling of a syndicated report on the death of an Al Jazeera reporter killed in Gaza, which they published from the Jewish News Syndicate. Claims had been made that the reporter was a "Hamas terror cell leader", which was sharply disagreed with by other outlets (including Reuters and the CBC). The Post issued an update to the article – some objected to their lack of a formal retraction. Ultimately, this seemed like a singular incident, and no desire really existed to begin formal determinations on the source.
This thread, opened by Chetsford, concerns a source used in a specific article (Georgina Bruni), relevant due to it being erstwhile at its third AfD. Bruni, whose article was deleted, was according to the article a "British businesswoman and a UFO researcher best known for her book on the Rendlesham Forest incident". The reference in question was this:
The discussion mostly centered around disagreements on the exact nature of the relationship between a source's reliability for factual claims and its ability to establish notability.
A disagreement among editors on the article for Socialist Equality Party (a minor Trotskyist party in Germany) led one to claim that literature published by the German government (e.g. the Federal Agency for Civic Education) was self-published, so the question was raised by Frijfuhs at RSN as to whether this was true. This claim was not borne out by consensus (although it was acknowledged that they could count as primary).
An extremely long thread, mostly concerning a dispute between Glide08 and TheUzbek on a couple articles relating to government apparatus in Communist nations. Among many things, there is some discussion of whether Marxist sources may be used to write Wikipedia articles, and whether or not that is what happened with these articles.
This thread, opened by Solaire the knight, alleged that a number of articles concerning video game characters had an inordinate amount of their content devoted to shipping discourse (i.e. discussion of the merits and flaws of conjectured romantic relationships between the characters occurring outside the work itself). Indeed, one article (now a merged redirect) devoted more words to shipping than to the actual description of the character. However, the thread is somewhat difficult to follow, and specific objections are not made particularly clear; it seems to have gradually fizzled out among suggestions to pursue formal dispute resolution.
The topic of the famously controversial (and perhaps, more recently, infamously controversial) author's article is raised by Adam Cuerden, who objects to it "mix[ing] her early philanthropy with donations to anti-trans groups, with no distinction made between them". This has been a contentious article for a long time, not in the least because it is a Featured Article from eighteen years ago (albeit one which withstood a Featured Article review in 2022). It's also a biography of a person who's spent the last several years using her worldwide fame to be extremely outspoken on one of the most contentious issues in modern politics. Essentially, this thread is best seen as an eddy of a larger mælstrom.
News from the Administrators' Noticeboard for Incidents
Owing to the uniquely and profoundly unpleasant nature of ANI proceedings, in which people invariably get stressed out and say stupid things, I have done my best to refrain from constructing an æ-style gallery of of heated editing moments. You may note that users are here referred to by their initials (the attached links lead to the full threads).
User conduct thread, with reference to previous threads going back several years. The close is as follows:
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Let's begin with what is straightforward: there is no consensus for an indefinite block, but there is definitely agreement that a formal warning is warranted. Specifically, there is consensus that H. E. B. has engaged in a pattern of incivility and uncollegial behaviour. Therefore, further instances of subpar conduct on their part should lead to escalating blocks.
On the other hand, the question of whether there is consensus in favor of a shorter block is more complex. Many of those opposed to the indefinite block did not comment on shorter alternatives, and some opposition was based on the fact that the proposal was made by an IP user — an argument that is not policy-based and so carries limited weight.
That said, I am not entirely convinced that the threshold for consensus has been met, especially considering the lack of agreement on the duration of a hypothetical shorter block. Coupled with the fact that this thread has been open for so long that issuing a block now might seem punitive, I believe the best course of action is to issue the final warning and leave it at that.
This bizarre thread opens with a link to a (now-unviewable) post at a website called "puppygirls.online", claimed to be off-wiki canvassing.
The "puppygirls.online" post was itself claiming that sockpuppets were trying to remove a section of sexual assault allegations from a biography (concerning some person in the role-playing game community), which presumably they wanted to keep in it. The opener of the ANI thread wanted it gone, and had apparently been trying to get it gone for a while. They were accused of a variety of types of misprision in this campaign (e.g. forum-shopping, incompetence, and filing malformed reports at various noticeboards).
During this thread, a topic ban was proposed on the filer restricting them from the biography subject, which found consensus and was implemented. Another section was opened to propose a community ban, which did not find consensus, but they were later indefinitely blocked for other reasons.
A thread opened by an administrator, concerning a battle between two users centering on {{Russia–United States relations}}. The thread doesn't have a formal closure, but both of them ended up partially blocked from the template.
A report about an editing dispute concerning pro wrestling that turned into a "boomerang" thread (i.e. one in which the filer is themselves sanctioned, rather than the editor they attempted to report). In this case, it was an indefinite block.
The filer complained of hounding, to wit, being repeatedly accused of using large language models to edit Wikipedia. This ended up being true, and although this is not against policy, the filer repeatedly denied it, which most participants considered a major foul. Most of the thread is a discussion about the use of LLMs and the nature of our policies and guidelines regarding same.
I think it's time that we put this discussion to a close. The mass edits that were performed via script have stopped over a week ago, which was the main concern and the reason that this ANI thread was created in the first place. Whether or not G.S. agrees with the issues raised or understands that the mass edits were problematic to the community, G.S. is aware of how the community feels about this situation, and I trust G.S. enough to know that they'll comply with the wishes of the community that the automated edits to change the verbiage of "committed suicide" not continue. Since the mass edits were stopped, much of this ANI discussion has since become an attempt to get G.S. to acknowledge and agree with those who are pointing out that the mass edits were problematic, and that's not what ANI is for. If anything, this conversation can be held elsewhere (though I recommend that we leave the issue and the discussion as it is and move on).
There is consensus to implement a community ban.For transparency, I blocked them from articlespace, but I have only participated here in an administrative capacity, which does not make me involved.The support mostly focused on the severity of the issues (namely, the fictitious references), and how this was amplified by the user's unhelpful responses and inability to recognize the problem. The opposition largely centered around the redundancy of a CBAN to the pblock, with multiple opposers believing that a CBAN was also too harsh of a sanction. That said, some opposers also expressed support for some other kind of sanction (e.g. a regular indef).The discussion is numerically in favor of a CBAN, and after assessing the comments, I find there to be consensus for one as well.
One editor is accused of improperly archiving talk page sections, and the filer counter-accused of editing without due care. Furthermore, the section was closed, then reopened, then archived without closure (after a considerable volume of argument about the original closure itself).
The user named in the complaint was accused of disruptively attempting to maintain a list of city council members in a municipality's article, and eventually spent some time blocked for it (initially just from the article, but later given a full block for ten days). In the process of attempting to learn the large volume of Wikipedia policies while being accused of violating them at a noticeboard, they used a large language model to write a response, which earned them the ire of many participants.
An unpleasant (seemingly pointless and avoidable) argument that ended with the complainee indefinitely blocked (by The Bushranger) after refusing to accept admonishments for civility.
While a discussion occurred about whether the complainee should be banned for their conduct, they were indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet by Asilvering.
A bizarre sort of villainy: a rash of random IP editors each making one or two no-edit-summary edits with small size changes that replace words in articles, often by synonyms, sometimes by total vandalism. Other strange patterns are noticed. Somebody spent a lot of effort coming up with an innovative strategy for doing something mildly annoying and unmemorable. Why even bother?
Somebody with 28 edits is reverted by someone with 200,000 edits, seemingly for no reason, and uses the word "vandalism" to describe this in their report. For reasons that are unclear, nearly the entire thread thenceforth consists of the complainant being scolded for using the incorrect words, until a couple eagle-eyed respondents began to actually look at the substance of the complaint, at which point the complainee was given some rebukes and urged to put more consideration into their reverts.
Indeffed and talkpage access revoked. Given the BLP subject's history of real-life harassment with her birth name, and the obsessive nature of the arguments by J., I've indefinitely semi-protected the article as well. We don't tolerate editors who bring that here.
Use of LLMs to generate text, particularly at a high rate without sufficient checking, is a WP:CIR violation. J. is warned not to continue this pattern of behaviour.
Inconclusive, and lacking a formal closure, but consensus was unanimous for a proposed mass rollback of the user's additions following repeated incidents of direct-to-mainspace slop-hosing.
Topic ban proposal was overwhelmed by a clear consensus to indef sitewide; and as it's been 24 hours and consensus almost definitely not going to change (certainly not with J.J. continuing to dig the hole deeper), I'm closing this per WP:CBAN point 3 with consensus for a community sitewide ban.
Before this devolves further. If you believe E.S. should face recall for their actions with respect to MOS:DEADNAME, please open one. I am not excusing the edits in the slightest, but a recall will not come out of this thread and it's already starting to go off the rails. If you believe the reliability of a source should be discussed, WP:RS will help you. And if you want to troll about other threads and editors' behavior, please do so on another project.
Unsuccessful ban appeal from editor whose claim I continue to advise clients, strictly off-Wiki, on how to adhere to Wikipedia policies was met with skepticism.
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There is clear consensus below that the community ban of Morning277 should not be lifted.
Strange, confusing content dispute, featuring a new editor doing a CLEANSTART in the middle of the thread and then continuing the discussion on the new account after informing all present that it's their clean start.
At the present time there is no clear consensus in favor of lifting the TBan. N. I. is advised that they may file a new appeal in six months, or anytime thereafter
The final !vote tally of the discussion is 11 endorse vs. 6 overturn (plus one assuming the requester also favoured overturning, though they did not make a bolded comment) and I absolutely did consider that disparity in votes as I evaluated the substance of each of the comments in this discussion. I am only pointing this out for the convenience of those editors who will want to continue arguing about this, as I have come to expect in this topic area.
The endorsers have highlighted that the close was reasonable, well justified, supported by policy, and within the usual community norms of evaluating consensus. Opposers failed to give any policy-supported reason to overturn a reasonable close, only accusing the closer of counting votes, making blatantly incorrect statements about policies they evidently did not read and do not understand, or didn't comment on the close at all but only attempted to relitigate the discussion. The overturn argument is thus not convincing in the slightest, and it is bordering on tendentious to have raised it at all.
The consensus therefore is that there is no grounds to overturn the closure, and that the closure is correct. Ivanvector
Adding a post-close note since there was some debate: this topic is covered by the Arbcom contentious topics designation for Indian military history, noting that history includes "all things that have happened". Arbcom discussed but chose not to limit the sanction by date, and it is broadly construed, so it applies to this topic. Those wishing to challenge the scope of the designation may do so at WP:ARCA.
Closed as failed. There is already a Merge Discussion in progress about this article. It is not useful to argue about the details of the content of this article when there is also a discussion about whether this article should exist under this name. Also, discussion has been unsuccessful, because, instead of concise statements about article content, there have been overly long statements that have mostly been about personalities and editors. An editor who disagrees with merging the two articles because they think that chicken burger is a distinct sandwich made from ground chicken should present that as an article against merging, rather than trying to discuss details when existence if also being discussed. Conduct issues may be reported at WP:ANI, but read the boomerang essay first. Continue discussion in the merge discussion at Talk:Chicken sandwich.
Closed as probably resolved. It appears that there is consensus to use Communist state in the infobox. Whether to change the listing of the state type in the infobox of any other article should be at the talk page of the article in question. There are multiple countries either having various sorts of communist government or various sorts of government that are said to be communist, so discussion should be at the country level. If there is inconclusive discussion about the infobox for another country , another case can be opened here.
Closed as failed because now also pending in the conduct forum of WP:ANI. Survivors should then resume any discussion of article content at the article talk page.
A dispute among socialists about sourcing issues regarding a political party's schism over alleged sex abuse. This involves a dispute with some group of Trotskyists. Why is there always a group of Trotskyists?
Note: I am actively participating extensively in this discussion, and in 2022 I created the article that is now under dispute.
A thread opened by User:Sangdeboeuf... I can't even bring myself to read this one through, that jackass JPxG is just flapping his gums all over the place. Give me a break!
Questions of ethnic POV-pushing on the subject of Pan-Turkism.
As always, these reports don't capture every discussion, nor do they judge importance solely by size. But by cutting down thousands of threads to a few dozen, the winnower offers a workable snapshot of how this encyclopedia talks to itself, argues with itself — sometimes — decides things.
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