Hosta

Template:Active editnotice

You may {{Archive basics}} to |counter= 38 as Wikipedia:Closure requests/Archive 37 is larger than the recommended 150Kb.

Archives

Index no archives yet (create)

This page has archives. Sections older than 366 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 3 sections are present.

Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).

Do not list discussions where consensus is clear. If you feel the need to close them, do it yourself.

Move on – do not wait for someone to state the obvious. In some cases, it is appropriate to close a discussion with a clear outcome early to save our time.

Do not post here to rush the closure. Also, only do so when the discussion has stabilised.

On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.

There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.

When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.

Be sure to include a link to the discussion itself and the {{Initiated}} template at the beginning of the request. A helper script can make listing discussions easier.

Any uninvolved editor may close most discussions, so long as they are prepared to discuss and justify their closing rationale.

Closing discussions carries responsibility, doubly so if the area is contentious. You should be familiar with all policies and guidelines that could apply to the given discussion (consult your draft closure at the discussions for discussion page if unsure). Be prepared to fully answer questions about the closure or the underlying policies, and to provide advice about where to discuss any remaining concerns that editors may have.

Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this should not normally be in itself a problem at closure reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would call to use tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.

If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.

• Wikipedia:Requested moves#Elapsed listings
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old
• Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Awaiting closure
• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Old discussions
• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion#Old business
• Wikipedia:Proposed mergers/Log
• Wikipedia:Proposed article splits

User:Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist and User:Licks-rocks civility concerns

(Initiated 8 days ago on 17 May 2024) – This discussion just got auto-archived at ANI before anyone got around to closing it, but there was a topic ban proposal in there with a decent number of votes. Could someone take a look at this? --Licks-rocks (talk) 09:56, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Place new administrative discussions above this line using a level 3 heading

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 71 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League

(Initiated 49 days ago on 7 April 2024) Three related RFCs in a trench coat. I personally think the consensus is fairly clear here, but it should definitely be an admin close. Loki (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators

(Initiated 48 days ago on 8 April 2024) Discussion appears to have died down almost a month after this RfC opened. Would like to see a formal close of Q1 and Q2. Awesome Aasim 00:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Brothers of Italy#RfC on neo-fascism in info box 3 (Effectively option 4 from RfC2)

(Initiated 47 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment: The RfC tag was removed the same day it was started. This should be closed as a discussion, not an RfC. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:03, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Mukokuseki#RfC on using the wording "stereotypically Western characteristics" in the lead

(Initiated 45 days ago on 11 April 2024) ☆SuperNinja2☆ TALK! 09:41, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Mukokuseki#Close Plz 5/21/2024 Orchastrattor (talk) 20:34, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:SpaceX Starship flight tests#RfC: Should we list IFT mission outcome alongside launch outcome?

(Initiated 35 days ago on 20 April 2024) An involved user has repeatedly attempted to close this after adding their arguments. It's a divisive topic and a close would stop back and forth edits. DerVolkssport11 (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, the RfC was closed in this dif, and an IP editor unclosed it, with this statement: "involved and pushing"

In just over an hour, the above editor voiced support for the proposal.

I reclosed it, and the same IP opened the RfC again, with this message: "pushing by involved users so ask for more comments".

I reclosed once more. And then the editor who opened this requests opened it. To avoid violated WP:3RR, I have not reclosed it, instead messaging the original closer to notify them.

The proposal itself was an edit request that I rejected. The IP who made the request reopened the request, which I rejected once more. They then proceeded to open an RfC. Redacted II (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Hunter Biden#RfC: Washington Post report concerning emails

(Initiated 31 days ago on 24 April 2024) There's been no comments in 5 days. TarnishedPath^talk 03:20, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Place new discussions concerning RfCs above this line using a level 3 heading

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 27#Category:Unrecognized tribes in the United States

(Initiated 49 days ago on 7 April 2024) This one has been mentioned in a news outlet, so a close would ideally make sense to the outside world. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 13:56, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Stress marks in East Slavic words

(Initiated 20 days ago on 6 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Amina Hassan Sheikh

(Initiated 19 days ago on 6 May 2024) If the consensus is to do the selective histmerge I'm willing to use my own admin tools to push the button and do it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:07, 24 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Place new discussions concerning XfDs above this line using a level 3 heading

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 39 days ago on 16 April 2024) - Discussion on a talkpage template, Last comment 6 days ago, 10 comments, 4 people in discussion. Not unanimous, but perhaps there is consensus-ish or strength of argument-ish closure possible. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem to me that there is a consensus here to do anything, with most editors couching their statements as why it might (or might not) be done rather than why it should (or should not). I will opine that I'm not aware there's any precedent to exclude {{Press}} for any reason and that it would be very unusual, but I don't think that's good enough reason to just overrule Hipal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 May#Multiple page move of David articles

(Initiated 25 days ago on 1 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Press_Your_Luck_scandal#Separate_articles

(Initiated 23 days ago on 2 May 2024) Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Agroforestry#Merge_proposal

(Initiated 22 days ago on 3 May 2024) As the proposer I presume I cannot close this. It was started more than a week ago and opinions differed somewhat. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 May#2018–2019 Gaza border protests

(Initiated 16 days ago on 9 May 2024) * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:13, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Place new discussions concerning other types of closing requests above this line using a level 3 heading

As per WP:CBAN, I'd like to respectfully suggest that RHB100 (talk · contribs) impose upon himself (or herself) an article ban on GPS and its talk page, and possible a topic ban on related articles. Several different users have tried to interact with him over the last couple of months years but he doesn't seem pleased and insists on controversial edits. It's detracting potential contributors to the article -- e.g., I'm about to unfollow that page. The situation brought by his 332 edits is vastly documented in Talk:Global Positioning System and many of its archives. Thanks. Fgnievinski (talk) 22:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC) (Pinging users who have edited Talk:GPS: @Kendall-K1, Woodstone, Siafu, DVdm, Crazy Software Productions, Mike1024, and Dicklyon: @Mmeijeri, Roesser, Kvng, EncMstr, NavigationGuy, TomStar81, and EdJohnston:.) Fgnievinski (talk) 22:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have provided competent, honest, and objective criticism of the GPS article on the talk page. In proposing that the section "Geometric interpretation" of the GPS article is a disaster and should be removed, I have discussed what is wrong with the section and why it should be removed without mentioning any editor. It is important to look at the article and judge it objectively without biasing the judgement in any way by who may have written and edited the material. This is what I have done. I have noticed there has been a systematic deterioration in the quality of some of the sections in the GPS article and the Geometric interpretation section is one of the worst. This criticism is desirable since it can lead to a better quality GPS article. I have pointed out in "Geometric interpretation section is a disaster" on the talk page of the GPS article that there are statements made attributed to a reference which are in no way supported by the reference. I have pointed out that there are misleading statements which are incompatible with good quality GPS references. The "Geometric interpretation" section of the GPS article is terrible and should be removed. RHB100 (talk) 00:04, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure this is the wrong place for this discussion. I think you want WP:AIN. Having said that, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that such a ban would be best for WP. I know I would engage more at the article and on its talk page if things were less hostile there. RHB100 agreed to stay away from the GPS article, and although he has toned it down a bit, his hostile attitude continues on the talk page. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:22, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kendall-K1, criticism of the GPS article does not imply a hostile attitude. The criticisms I make of the GPS article on the talk page are in no way motivated by hostility. Your accusations of a hostile attitude are in no way justified. I criticize the Geometric interpretation sections of the GPS article because this section is bad. This section involves the use of a reference to justify a statement which the reference in no way supports. It is quite proper to point this out. This does not imply a hostile attitude. RHB100 (talk) 18:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:CBAN says: "Community sanctions may be discussed on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (preferred) or on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents." Fgnievinski (talk) 01:49, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I stand corrected. Thank you. Kendall-K1 (talk) 03:11, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I feel forced to agree with User:Fgnievinski. As I discussed a few months ago in my post to WP:ANI/3RR, the situation has been uniformly frustrating for years now. User:RHB100 has an extremely narrow view of how the GPS article "should" be written, and primarily reinforces it by questioning the credentials and intelligence of his fellow editors. Additionally, he has shown very little interest in familiarizing himself with wikipedia policy or making any attempt to work with his fellow editors, insisting that they are not "licensed engineers", and has no regard for the uniform and consistent consensus against his narrow view. I have essentially stopped contributing to GPS, despite GPS being the main subject of my professional work, since it results in nothing but frustration and repetitive arguments over the same topic. siafu (talk) 03:14, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I think this is the link to the 3RR report that siafu (talk · contribs) mentioned: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive285#User:RHB100_reported_by_User:Siafu_.28Result:_Voluntary_restriction.29. Fgnievinski (talk) 13:48, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have engaged with other editors in debate after debate. I have the view that the GPS article should be written correctly and in accordance with good quality references. I have stated my own qualifications but I have never questioned the credentials and intelligence of other editors. My focus has been on the content and not on people. We should continue to remind ourselves what is wrong with the Wikipedia article since that is the first step toward improvement. RHB100 (talk) 04:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Never questioned the credentials and intelligence of other editors". Really. Just a couple examples: [3][4] siafu (talk) 05:20, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and this just in: [5] siafu (talk) 05:35, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I make no apologies for these statements, siafu. These are honest, objective, and true statements. There is nothing wrong with these statements. The section, Geometric Interpretation, in the GPS article involves using a reference to justify a statement which the reference in no way supports. It is quite proper to point out this misrepresentation. RHB100 (talk) 17:58, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As you do not regret any of the offences below demonstrates your incivility and why your long-term violation of Wikipedia's conduct policy deserves a topic ban. Fgnievinski (talk) 03:01, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• "Well if you people say [...] then you do not have the level of competence characteristic of a licensed Professional Engineer." [6]

• "I hold advanced engineering degrees from both the University of Arkansas and UCLA. I am a licensed professional engineer. I know that I am right" [7]

• "The fact that the equations in the Problem description are equations for spheres is certainly well known and should be obvious. Nevertheless, I have provided a detailed explanation of what should be obvious. Authors may not always point out that these equations are spheres but this is because it is obvious." [8]

What these people are calling hostility is valid and much needed criticism of the GPS article. I am not criticizing people, I am criticizing a part of the article which is wrong. We should never censor valid criticisms of the article. If you check the references I have given rather than the expressions of resentment of siafu, Fgnievinski, and Kendall-K1, you will see that my criticisms are valid. My attitude is based on improving the content of the GPS article. These other editors are just expressing resentment over my criticisms. We need free and open criticism of the article on the talk page. RHB100 (talk) 04:33, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It should be kept in mind that a situation can arise where one editor is right but is in the minority. There is such a thing as tyranny of the majority as pointed out by de Tocqueville. This is the thing that we are experiencing in this discussion where these other editors are trying to censor me just because I make valid and correct criticisms. This problem should be fought against by making sure we have the talk page open for valid criticism. RHB100 (talk) 04:47, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the folllowing list of archived talk sections, dating back to 2010, speaks for itself:

• Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 6#WP is not a discussion forum
• Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 6#Multidimensional Newton-Raphson for GPS - Can't make heads or tails of it
• Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 6#Accusations that Multidimensional Newton-Raphson for GPS section violates Wikipedia policy are false
• Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 7#Multidimensional Newton-Raphson calculations
• Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 7#Undue weight on Bancroft
• Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 7#Bancroft method made even more neutral, current reference retained, new may be added
• Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 7#Basic operation
• Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 7#Basic concept of GPS needs additional sourcing and explanation

and finally:

• WP:Wikiquette assistance/archive94#RHB100 (about questioning the credentials and intelligence of other editors)

Nothing seems to have changed: persistent orthogonality to wp:CONSENSUS. Unless he gets his way, RHB100 does not back off, so I tend to avoid both the article and its talk page. - DVdm (talk) 06:55, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The example I looked at, from the list above, Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 7#Multidimensional Newton-Raphson calculations, does not show this so-called persistent orthogonality to wp:CONSENSUS accusation that DVdm makes. I look at this and I see my remarks as quite reasonable. So DVdm own reference shows that I am engaging in rational and reasonable editing and that the above accusation of disruptive editing is false. RHB100 (talk) 20:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have had disagreements with DVdm. He has accused me of doing personal research when I have merely stated the obvious. Some may have gotten a little contentious and the heated nature of the discussion may have resulted in some unflattering remarks. However, we should concentrate on what triggered the complaints. And that is my writing of the section, "Geometric interpretation section is a disaster" on the talk page of the GPS article.

Here is a copy of the "Geometric interpretation section is a disaster" section from the GPS article talk page. This is what triggered the accusation of disruptive editing. This is what we should be concentrating on. Now tell me, what is disruptive in this post? Keep in mind that critical editing in no way implies hostile or disruptive editing. Some editors may be slow to see what is obvious to me. This post contains new information showing false use of a reference. Tell me what is disruptive about this post? RHB100 (talk) 20:35, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• You don't follow the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, to start with. Fgnievinski (talk) 21:44, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Fgnievinski, I have investigated your accusation that I do not follow the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. I read the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and I read the post below that I made on the talk page of the GPS article. I claim that I do follow the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines completely. A criticism of a section of the article and pointing out that the GPS article can be improved by removing the section is not a hostile edit nor a personal attack on anyone. I am using the talk page in exactly the manner in which the Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines say the talk page should be used, to discuss how to improve the article. RHB100 (talk) 02:13, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You don't even follow Help:Using talk pages#Indentation. Not to mention all the rest -- WP:TALK#OBJECTIVE, WP:MULTI, etc. Fgnievinski (talk) 02:31, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fgnievinski, You make this trivial comment about this so-called not indenting. This shows just how pathetically trivial your complaints are. You fail to mention the dishonest use of a reference by some editor, possibly you, who refers to hyperboloids. RHB100 (talk) 20:59, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Geometric interpretation section is a disaster

The Geometric interpretation section is a disaster and should be removed. It would be more correctly titled if it were called the Geometric misinterpretation section. It looks like a forum for people to enter their favorite shape. All we need to have in the Navigation equations section is a statement of the equations to be solved as in the Problem description section and methods for solving these equations as in the Solution methods section. In the Spheres subsection of Geometric interpretation, there is a statement that the solution is at the intersection of three sphere surfaces. This is a completely misleading statement which is incompatible with the need for four or more spheres as concluded in the Langley paper and as we have tried to make clear in the Problem description section.^[1]

It is also stated in the paper, ^[2], that "GPS fixes are found as the point of intersection of four spheres centered on the satellites with radii given by the PRs corrected for user clock bias".

The Hyperboloids sub-section does not in any way enhance the understanding of GPS. The paper by Abel and Chaffee referenced does not even mention the word, hyperboloid, in any form.^[2] The Langley paper talks about the intersection of four or more spheres and does not mention hyperboloids.^[1]

For gaining an understanding of GPS, the concept of four dimensional spherical cones contributes nothing but instead only adds confusion. You don't need to know anything about four dimensional spherical cones to understand GPS and you should not waste your time on this unrelated topic. RHB100 (talk) 20:12, 6 August 2015 (UTC) . .[reply]

"We have discussed this several times already. See Talk:Global Positioning System/Archive 8. Kendall-K1 (talk) 20:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)"[reply]

[Please note that the above line, although written by me on a different page, was inserted here at WP:AN by User:RHB100, not by me. Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:23, 9 August 2015 (UTC)][reply]

Well what I have said before is absolute truth and what I say now is absolute truth. Although I clearly understand the incorrect and misleading nature of this section, there are some who don't seem to understand. I am here presenting the great disregard for honesty and integrity which characterizes the writing of this section. No one has ever presented good arguments why this section should be retained. I am a licensed professional engineer. I hold advanced engineering degree from both the University of Arkansas and UCLA. When you say, "We have discussed this", that is a very vague and ambiguous statement. There are several points that are made in what I have said above, you don't say whether you are talking about hyperboloids, three spheres, spherical cones or what. RHB100 (talk) 03:57, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (User RHB100 and GPS article/topic)

This looks a lot like WP:SYN and WP:TRUTH. There is substantial evidence of behavioural issues. A topic ban seems likely. Guy (Help!) 09:42, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Guy, you say a topic ban is likely. Based on what? I have done just what I have agreed to do. I have refrained from editing the article, without a clear consensus on the talk page, as I have agreed to do. I have concentrated on making clear and objective statements on the talk page in order to show what is wrong with the GPS article. I make an objective criticism of the GPS article on the talk page and you want to put in a topic ban for that. Look at the section "Geometric interpretation section is a disaster" on the GPS talk page and tell me what is wrong with that. This is honest and objective and correct criticism of the GPS article. My writing of that section is what triggered the complaint. You tell me what is wrong with that. RHB100 (talk) 17:31, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• In my exchanges with user RHB100 (s)he has often been rather insulting, not willing or able to actually discuss the matter on hand cooperatively and technically, and refusing to accept well sourced alternative views. −Woodstone (talk) 11:28, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Woodstone has consistently refused to engage in a reason based discussion. He has insisted on putting material on spherical cones which have nothing to do with GPS into the GPS article. He regards any disagreement with his views as insulting. He seems to be motivated by the desire to make the GPS article confusing. RHB100 (talk) 17:04, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Quote from the reference (my emphasis):

P4P is the pseudo-ranging 4-point problem as it appears as the basic configuration of satellite positioning with pseudo-ranges as observables. In order to determine the ground receiver/satellite receiver (LEO networks) position from four positions of satellite transmitters given, a system of four nonlinear (algebraic) equations has to be solved. The solution point is the intersection of four spherical cones if the ground receiver/satellite receiver clock bias is implemented as an unknown.

No more comment necessary. −Woodstone (talk) 17:59, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well this is an obscure reference. The better quality references such as the Langley paper explain GPS clearly working with ordinary three dimensional spheres.^[1] Since it is explained quite clearly with three dimensional spheres there is certainly no need for these four dimensional spherical cones. It appears, Woodstone, is trying to make the article confusing as seems to be his habit. RHB100 (talk) 18:46, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• We're here to discuss user behaviour, not article content. Fgnievinski (talk) 20:23, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fgnievinski, you complain about my edits on the talk page saying they are controversial. But edits on the talk page are quite often controversial and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. My post on the talk page of the section, "Geometric interpretation section is a disaster" is what triggered your complaint. But this is a valid criticism of the GPS article. Your attempt to stifle criticism of the GPS article is very harmful to Wikipedia. RHB100 (talk) 21:06, 7 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Closure of RHB100 - GPS

• I now count three of us who have been driven away from the GPS article because of this. Is there some way to expedite a conclusion to this issue? Is there some more formal process we should pursue? Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:35, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:CBAN says: "Sanction discussions are normally kept open for at least 24 hours... If the discussion appears to have reached a consensus for a particular sanction, an uninvolved administrator [emphasis added] notifies the subject accordingly. The discussion is then closed..." I kindly request JzG (talk · contribs) to close the present discussion, as he/she seems to meet the requirements and has commented here before.[9] Then if he/she is unavailable, it'd seem we could request closure at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Administrative. Fgnievinski (talk) 03:21, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I did briefly contribute to the discussion, and have been watching since, reluctant to get involved. I support the consensus proposals above. Burninthruthesky (talk) 09:41, 9 August 2015 (UTC); edited 06:21, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I've taken the liberty of filling in a request at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure. (There's some related material at User_talk:JzG#GPS Article.) Let's wait and see what the admins say about the strength of the consensus. Fgnievinski (talk) 21:23, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Thanks. Burninthruthesky (talk) 06:21, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kendall-K1, I don't know what you are talking about here. But criticizing a section of the GPS article and proposing its removal so as to improve the article is the way the talk page should be used. I am very proud to be a licensed professional engineer and I am very proud that I hold advanced engineering degrees from both the University of Arkansas and UCLA. I know that I am well qualified and I know that the section, Geometric interpretation, in the GPS article is definitely incorrect and should be removed. My edits are good and I am very proud of that. RHB100 (talk) 03:13, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Examples from the talk page

Here are a few examples of things RHB100 has said on the article talk page after his voluntary restriction was imposed on 23 June:

"On the other hand if you want to degrade the GPS document make it less understandable, you may oppose the inclusion of this explanatory material. So let's find out who the good people are and who the enemies of Wikipedia are or otherwise explain your position."

"What you say, Fgnievinski, is idiotic nonsense... You don't have the competence to decide what will be taken and what will not. I don't believe you even possess a license to practice engineering."

"Siafu, if you want to be taken seriously on Global Positioning Systems, you need to go back and review the equations for a sphere in Analytic Geometry or elsewhere. Your comments indicate that you do not understand the equations of a sphere."

"I find your comment that the equations above do not represent spheres completely ridiculous. Do you actually believe that? ... It is absolutely mind boggling that you would make such a statement. Haven't you studied Analytic Geometry and Calculus?"

"We should devote our efforts to maintaining the superiority of the GPS article over the inferior GNSS article. GPS was developed by Americans using the money of American taxpayers. GPS shows American technical superiority in navigation and position finding. This should give us the incentive to maintain that same technical superiority of our GPS article over the GNSS article."

"Woodstone, nothing you are saying is of any value for the purposes of GPS, as far as I can tell. And it's certainly not interesting."

— Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:48, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is sometimes necessary to be honest and objective in discussions on the talk page. Several of these statements were made long before 23 June 2015. The honest and objective statement made to Woodstone was made after 23 June 2015 as was the statement about the superiority of the GPS article. The two paragraphs made to Siafu were long before 23 June 2015. According to Wikipedia guidelines that I have read, you are allowed to say that someone has made a stupid statement but not allowed to say that someone is stupid. I have followed Wikipedia guidelines in all cases. RHB100 (talk) 20:43, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kendall-K1 is correct. These quotes [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] are timestamped after the restriction of 23 June. Burninthruthesky (talk) 08:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, this conversation with siafu was more recent than I recalled. I made the mistake of relying on memory rather than looking up the dates. But I think these remarks need to be put in context. Here is the context, "For n satellites, the equations to satisfy are:

or in terms of pseudoranges, , as

.^[1][2]

Comparison of these equations with the Equations in R3 section of Sphere in which corresponds to , corresponds to , corresponds to , and corresponds to shows that these equations are spheres as documented in Sphere.

Since the equations have four unknowns [x, y, z, b]—the three components of GPS receiver position and the clock bias—signals from at least four satellites are necessary to attempt solving these equations. They can be solved by algebraic or numerical methods. Existence and uniqueness of GPS solutions are discussed by Abell and Chaffee.^[3] When n is greater than 4 this system is overdetermined and a fitting method must be used.

With each combination of satellites, GDOP quantities can be calculated based on the relative sky directions of the satellites used.^[4] The receiver location is expressed in a specific coordinate system, such as latitude and longitude using the WGS 84 geodetic datum or a country-specific system.^[5] RHB100 (talk) 18:27, 23 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is essentially the exact same argumentation used before, and as before not only do the equations not, in fact, represent spheres, the sources you have cited also do not, in fact, claim that they do. siafu (talk) 22:17, 23 June 2015 (UTC)"[reply]

Here, siafu is saying that the above equations do not represent spheres which I find to be absolutely ridiculous. And I still don't know what in the world he could have been talking about. I can't understand why anybody with any kind of an engineering education would make such a statement. I then made the comments below. These comments in this context are certainly quite proper.

"Siafu, if you want to be taken seriously on Global Positioning Systems, you need to go back and review the equations for a sphere in Analytic Geometry or elsewhere. Your comments indicate that you do not understand the equations of a sphere."

"I find your comment that the equations above do not represent spheres completely ridiculous. Do you actually believe that? ... It is absolutely mind boggling that you would make such a statement. Haven't you studied Analytic Geometry and Calculus?" RHB100 (talk) 18:08, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And this whole discussion seems to be aimed primarily at taking frank and honest comments out of context and pretending there is something terrible about being frank and honest. But telling someone they need to review Analytic Geometry is sometimes quite appropriate. But the more important aspect of human behavior, putting correct critiques and proposals for improving the article is ignored. No one has been able to point out anything wrong with the technical content of "Geometric interpretation section is a disaster" which I placed on the GPS talk page. RHB100 (talk) 18:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

RHB100 time too valuable for Wikipedia GPS article

I have decided that in view of the fact that all indications are that I am better educated and more professional being licensed as a professional engineer, my time is too valuable to spend further contributing to the Wikipedia article on GPS. The fact that other editors seem incapable of comprehending the fact that the section, Geometric Interpretation is a disaster and should be removed causes me to conclude that these people are not of the quality I want to continue to work with. I have been one of the primary authors of the section now called Problem description and I have written much of Error analysis for the Global Positioning System but now we have very hostile, highly disruptive editors working on GPS and I do not care to work with these kind of people. RHB100 (talk) 00:34, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for agreeing to impose upon yourself an article ban on GPS and its talk page, as kindly requested initially; your understanding is very much appreciated. fgnievinski (talk) 16:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have started a closure review for Talk:Kosovo#Request for comment. The RfC was closed by Kingsindian (talk · contribs) on 5 August 2015 in response to an WP:ANRFC request. The close was hidden as a contested close by Red Slash (talk · contribs). There is discussion about the closure at Talk:Kosovo#Post RfC.

There is a re-closure request here at WP:ANRFC, where Red Slash wrote:

Administrators, is there any chance one of you could close this? A non-admin stepped into a really complicated RfC and kind of made a mess of closing it, and we really could use a full-on administrative close. Thank you.

But per the RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Archive 12#Review:

On the question of whether an RFC close by a non-admin can be summarily overturned by an admin, in most cases, no, and never if the only reason is that the closer was not an admin.

Kingsindian put a lot of thought into his close. His close should not be summarily overturned by an admin. Therefore, I am taking the close here for review by the community.

Cunard (talk) 05:03, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the review is closed. (I am adding this because RfC closure reviews frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.) Cunard (talk) 05:03, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kinsindian did a good job on the close. I say leave it the way he closed it. KoshVorlon We are all Kosh 11:10, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here is my version of events.

According to comments on the talk page, Red Slash thinks that my closure is vague and that it is a "supervote". I am not sure what he means by this. I explained my reasoning in detail, and my closure is unambiguous: consensus against option "#1" and consensus for option "#2 and #3", which I even clarified on the talk page. It is not a "supervote" in any form: I just assessed the consensus of a complicated discussion by looking at the arguments for all options, and determined that "#2 and #3" is the best (or the least bad).

As to the point about non-admin closure, my feeling is that Red Slash in not acquainted with policy here (especially since he asked for re-closure at WP:ANRFC instead of starting a closure review, as I advised on the talk page). As I explained to him before, there is nothing special in being an admin; any uninvolved editor can close RfCs, provided they explain themselves thoroughly. Please see WP:ANRFC (point 3). Kingsindian ♝♚ 13:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kingsindian I think you wrote a very detailed closing, and I want to ask before assuming, did you find any consensus in that RFC, or just something close to consensus but not actually consensus? AlbinoFerret 13:51, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@AlbinoFerret: I am not sure exactly what you mean, perhaps my last paragraph in the RfC close is not as unambiguous as I think it is. I definitely found that the consensus is against option #1. For the rest of the options, option "#2 and #3" came the closest, and in my judgement, was close enough to be considered consensus. I clarified this on the talk page here. Kingsindian ♝♚ 14:11, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am another editor closer. I have found when a 50/50 question in my mind arises to just as the person to make sure. While I personally would not have touched this RFC with a ten foot keyboard cable, its a good close. Since the sock issue was cleared up, I dont see why an editor couldnt have closed it.AlbinoFerret 14:17, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If I may be allowed to comment here, firstly - no disrespect to admins - but just as trained judges are not "superhumans", persons with admin status are not somehow better qualified to cast judgement than any third party uninvolved editors. I cannot help but think that the editor to request admin closure is using this track as a sneaky "appeal" because he personally disagrees with the decision of Kingsindian. Seeing the closing statement by Kingsindian, I see all the hallmarks of a good judge who read every comment and weighed through them to arrive at his rational conclusion. If he became an admin tomorrow I doubt he will have suddenly acquired new observation methods, we are all human beings. --Edin Balgarin (talk) 22:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This post is to inform the English Wikipedia editing community that the Checkuser team has identified a very large group of socks creating promotional articles, inserting promotional external links, and otherwise editing disruptively on this project. The investigation is named "Orangemoody" because this was the first sock identified.

During the course of this investigation, evidence has been identified that this group is editing for profit (i.e., that they are paid editors). Only a few of the accounts have made any disclosure related to paid editing, and those which did failed to make complete disclosures. The investigation began in early July. Many functionaries have participated in the investigation and identification of accounts, as well as the review of articles created by the accounts. The Community Advocacy department of the WMF is also an active participant, focusing on issues best addressed by WMF staff.

It is important to note that the 381 accounts identified in this investigation are only those that were editing from the end of April to early August. This reflects the time-limited availability of checkuser data. Many of the identified accounts were editing before that time, and the nature and quality of the edits suggests that this paid editing scheme had been in place for some time before it was fortuitously identified. The WMF in particular will continue its liaison with article subjects, and will be reviewing data to determine further steps that are not directly available to the community.

The socks

There are 381 socks currently being blocked as a result of this investigation. All of the socks are linked by both technical data and behavioural evidence. The list of socks has been posted at Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Orangemoody/Accounts. All of these blocks are checkuser blocks. They are being performed by EgressBot using a standardized block summary and user talk page template, so that reviewing administrators and editors will be able to identify that they are part of this group. A copy of the block summary and template is posted on the page listing the identified socks. Unblock requests can be brought to the attention of checkusers; this can be done by posting a link at the SPI talk page. It will take the blocking bot approximately an hour to complete all of the blocks; if for other behavioural reasons an administrator needs to block any of the accounts in the interim, the block will be superseded by the bot with the applicable summary and template. The same will apply to any accounts that have already been blocked.

The socks all exhibit at least one of the following behavioural traits:

• "Article creation" socks create articles in draft space or user space mainly based on submissions to Articles for creation that had been declined, or articles that had been added to article space and deleted as being too promotional. These articles do not give proper attribution to the original authors. There are occasional variations to this process. Most of the articles created in this way have been moved to article space; a few are still in draft or user space.
• "Helper" socks will usually complete a series of useless edits in order to be autoconfirmed. They then continue making gnoming-type edits that will periodically include the addition of spammy external links. Some of these socks also participate in Page Curation, and they will “mark reviewed” articles created by the other socks.
  • Examples of "useless edits" include adding {{italictitle}} or wiki-linking words like Asia and United States, or making minor formatting changes.
• The groups are not entirely distinct and some socks have acted as both article creators and helpers.

Paid editing

Early in the sockpuppetry investigation, it became apparent that several of the articles and the individual socks were tied to deletion discussions, OTRS comments, and complaints directed at specific administrators, where allegations of either demands for payment or complaints that articles were being deleted despite payment were made. The WMF Community Advocacy team were contacted, and User:Jalexander-WMF and User:Kalliope_(WMF) have both been directly involved in working with article subjects and complainants. The work being done by this socking group is unsolicited.

The editing pattern has been identified as follows:

• An AfC draft is declined, usually because of notability concerns or excessively promotional content. There are variations on this, including deletion of articles in article space for similar reasons.
• An Orangemoody sock begins work on the article, usually based on the original contributor’s content, and develops it sufficiently to prepare it for a move to article space
  • In some cases, the sock will create a redirect page with the article being redirected to another topic. Most of these redirects are very implausible
• External contact is made with the article subject and/or the original draft/article creator. An offer is made to publish the article in article space for a fee. The person making the contact will usually claim to be an experienced editor or administrator. The names of genuine editors and administrators are often used (for example, the names of administrators who have deleted related material), and this has been reported to this noticeboard in the past.
• Money is exchanged. The article is moved to article space. It will frequently be marked reviewed by another sock, sometimes with the addition of tags.
• Some time later the article subject or person who has paid for the article to be moved to mainspace is then contacted again and advised that, for a specific monthly fee ($30/month in examples that have been confirmed), the “editor” will continue to protect the article from vandalism and prevent its deletion, claiming that they had previously done that without charge.

The use of declined drafts (and in some cases deleted articles) to identify and approach potential clients is a new wrinkle in the way paid editing is being conducted. The return to demand further money to "protect" the article is also significant, and we do have examples of socks proceeding to request deletion of pages.

The articles

The list of articles created by the socks is located at Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Orangemoody/Articles. This list is not considered complete; due to time constraints, there may be additional articles created by these socks that are not included here. Most articles relate to businesses, businesspeople, or “artists”.

Review of this list of articles reveals that the overwhelming majority of them would qualify for deletion under one or more speedy deletion criteria. In this specific case, however, in order to prevent article subjects from continued shakedowns by bad actors who are causing significant harm to the reputation of this project, the articles are all being deleted. It is important to break the cycle of payment demands, and to make it clear that the Wikipedia community, and not a small group of paid editor accounts, controls the content of this project. This mass deletion is without prejudice to recreation by experienced Wikipedians who believe that the subject is sufficiently notable for an article. We emphasize again that all indications are that the editing was not solicited by the article subjects.

Because so many of the articles contain unattributed material and/or copyvios, administrators are urged NOT to undelete articles or move them to userspace.

What the community can do to help

• Review the edits of the sock accounts for quality and for spam links, and make repairs as needed
• Review the edits of the sock accounts for any undeleted article creations. It may be appropriate to delete these articles as well
• Continue to be vigilant for allegations of similar schemes
• Review the list of deleted articles and consider creating new, well-sourced, independently written versions of articles about notable subjects. Some suggestions have been made at Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Orangemoody/Articles
• A special OTRS queue, info-orangemoodywikipedia.org, has been set up. Please feel free to refer any complaints from article subjects to this email address. The English Wikipedia Volunteer Response Team will work with the subjects, and this queue will be monitored as well by WMF’s Community Advocacy team if further assistance is needed.
• Please be kind to the article subjects. They too are victims in this situation.

On behalf of the Functionary team, Risker (talk) 23:05, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Account are all blocked: [10]. Chillum 23:31, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bot has been de-botted and de-adminned. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:38, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

This is quite something. A big thanks to all involved in this. Sam Walton (talk) 23:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I sincerely hope the WMF can get enough evidence to refer the case to the proper authorities. I'm not a lawyer, but this should be criminal-level extortion. "Nice article you have here, would be a shame if anything happened to it..." Thanks a lot to all involved for their work, and I feel sorry for the people who suffered financial losses through this scheme. Huon (talk) 23:44, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Huon. Legal action would be ideal in sending a message to undisclosed paid editor sock networks that what they are doing is illegal and unethical. Can any functionaries confirm if this is connected to recent cases of impersonation as documented at WP:COIN? Winner 42 Talk to me! 00:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as far as I can see --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 00:09, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Holy shit. Thank you to all involved in rooting out this abuse. I take it that the spam links can be blacklisted unconditionally? MER-C 00:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) To quote the above: "Please be kind to the article subjects. They too are victims in this situation." I recommend reviewing each one individually as they may or may not be relevant to the article in which they are used. There is no reason to blacklist a link to an external site if it is a valid link to have in the article. We don't want to put the blackmail victims through any more frustration than necessary. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Difficult, twisted, complex case. My hat's off to those determined souls who hunted down further information, making connections, helping to lay out the pattern. Binksternet (talk) 00:09, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting for procedural purposes that the limited-run adminbot task was advised to the bureaucrats' mailing list and the technical function of the bot was reviewed and approved by a Bot Approvals Group member prior to the run. –xeno^talk 00:20, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I concur that I was wearing my BAG-hat when I reviewed and approved this prior to its run. MBisanz ^talk 00:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to all crat's and BAG members involved for helping expedite the temporary flags for the bot run. It was all very timely and I was able to test and run without a hitch. Chillum 00:27, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I've blocked 300 plus in a few days marathon with WilliamH, so I have a pretty good idea how big this is. We did it manually with CU and behavioral analysis, this saves over a few dozen man-hours of grueling and thankless work. Good work. I would be shocked if the two groups weren't related, as there is only a few outfits prepared to do this scale of socking. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:31, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes thanks to all those involved. Your work in much appreciated. Do we have plans to prevent this from happening again / spreading? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Just to clarify, we know that OrangeMoody was active on Upwork receiving paid editing contracts. These appear to be standard contracts, and not part of the particularly nasty process described above. I'm inclined to include them in the list anyway, if only because I can't know if there were any additional requirements per what has been outlined. Any thoughts on deleting these as well? - Bilby (talk) 01:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• @Bilby: The short answer is that it's complicated. The longer answer, that offers no help at this point other than to report and document, is that the source of this particular pattern of disruption has not been identified, only the network that we have found that they are actively using. I'm confident that most of the accounts "worked" for "Orangemoody," as we're calling the pattern. As the graph shows, most of the CU evidence is clearly within a defined system. However, it's also clear that there are some freelancers that worked on other Wikipedia-related contracts whose requirements and modus operandi are outside of "Orangemoody"'s. If it's not 100% their method, it doesn't clear or assuage them of guilt. Such accounts future accounts should be held to judgement by their own merits, I think. The pattern to be 100% "Orangemoody" is pretty darn clear with research. Keegan (talk) 02:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I guess my emphasis is that "Orangemoody" is just what we're calling the ring, the Orangemoody account is not "the sockmaster." Keegan (talk) 02:49, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That makes it a bit more complex. My assumption was that these accounts were part of a sockpuppet ring that was blocked largely based on CU and clear behavioural evidence. Therefore the (now blocked) account that was also active on Upwork was using socks (Arr4). If I understand this, some were socks and some were meatpuppets, and I can't assume that a given account was operating as part of a sockfarm. I'll go over my notes about the user in question and see what I can tie in, but in that case I can't regard their previous work as anything other than normal paid editing, and therefore is not covered in this action. Thankyou. - Bilby (talk) 03:23, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Think of a user like Arr4 as an exception rather than the rule, as I think I noted something similar for the same account during the investigation. As the graphic illustrated, most of the socks/meats are clearly within boundaries, but there a few that are not. Keegan (talk) 03:58, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Wow, just.... wow. I too extend my thanks to all the functionaries and WMF people involved, and I would also urge WMF legal to strongly consider pressing charges is that is feasible. I feel as though we really need to draw a much harder line regarding paid editing, if not to totally ban it, at least to put some teeth into our disclosure requirements. I know that wouldn't have stopped this from happening, but no rule can stop someone who really wants to break it (I believe people are still being prosecuted for blackmail and running Ponzi schemes and so on, despite they're being illegal).
  I would really like to know if, in the opinion of the people involved in this investigation, you have the tools that you need to stop this from happening again. I believe Philippe mentioned a while back that when he was at AOL he had much better tools to deal with this kind of thing - what is preventing us from having those same kinds of tools, and what will it take to get them? BMK (talk) 01:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Beyond My Ken if we ban the specific type of paid editing that takes place via Upworks and similar sites, Upworks states that they will take down all Wikipedia related jobs without us needing to ask individually. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Doc: That sounds like it would be a step forward, and doable. BMK (talk) 01:48, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Much of that was because AOL is an internet service provider -- they had access to more data than we do (e.g. addresses to send bills to), and had more resources than WMF Legal. At the very least, we can lobby for things like phab:T5233 and phab:T106930 from the Community Tech team. Further additions to blocking tools may require privacy trade-offs and modification of the privacy policy (e.g. requesting for MediaWiki to collect device IDs). MER-C 02:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• That's exactly correct, MER-C. AOL had a suite of tools we could never have, because we don't have/don't want/would refuse access to the level of data that they collected. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:55, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• OK, thanks for the clarification - but is there anything that can be done to beef up the tools available, within the constraints acceptable to the WMF? BMK (talk) 20:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Remember, WP does not have a policy against paid editing. So, the only violation of WP policy here appears to be sockpuppeting. Correct? So, how many individuals have been identified as operating these sock accounts? Cla68 (talk) 01:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• We have a policy that has requirements for paid editing, requirements that I am pretty sure were not met. Chillum 01:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• (ecx2) The TOU requires complete disclosure from all paid editors, and it says right in the second paragraph of this report that only a small portion of them did that, so the others are all in violation of the terms of service. Please don't try to minimize what amounts to Wikipedia being used as a basis for extortion. You OK with that, Cla68, you good with Wikipedia being used to extort money from people? BMK (talk) 01:45, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Who was extorting money? All they said was that they would help keep the articles looking good for a fee. That's not extortion. Cla68 (talk) 07:56, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Except this sock farm would actually seek the deletion of its own articles when clients didn't pay up. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• In principle we can't know how many actual humans were behind the 381 accounts. And even if there hadn't been any explicit policy violations, the kind of extortion this sockfarm was carrying out calls for an IAR block regardless. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:44, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Our rules are clear "These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation."[11] And yes many of them were broke. And yes some of us would have acted earlier if we would have had clearer/stronger rules in place.
• This user was clearly a paid editor [12][13] months before this issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• COIN needs to get together and figure out a way to enforce disclosure or block the user in question. Arr4 had 3 different COIN threads about them but no action was ever taken until now. Winner 42 Talk to me! 02:30, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Per Arr4's talk page, they are active on more than a few other Wikipedia sites. Has this information been sent over to them? While some of them have other policies related to paid editing, the extortion aspects would alarm most other sites. Ravensfire (talk) 02:45, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes I have come across a number of paid editors who work across multiple languages. Their is always so much to do here that I rarely get to other languages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:52, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• There are extensive violations of the TOU there. Frankly, disruptive sockpuppeting is the least of this person's problems. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 02:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC).[reply]

This is, of course, the logical consequence of WMF wanting to have both a "registration not required" rule and a "no paid editing" rule. They really ought to pick one because trying to have both simply isn't tenable. It's not my intent to diminish the efforts of those who volunteered to track these folks down -- it's really appreciated -- but given the WMF's fantasy they can have it both ways it's ultimately a Sisyphean task. NE Ent 02:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

strongly not wearing WMF hat NE Ent, "registration not required" is an English Wikipedia community ideal, enshrined well before the Wikimedia Foundation was ever established. Wikis, in principle, are meant to be free and open for anyone to edit. If you think registration should be required to edit, I highly encourage you to start a request for comment and see how the community feels about the subject before pointing fingers. It's also a red herring because these articles and edits were largely created with accounts and took the time to meet all the requirements to become autoconfirmed on the tech side, and participated in the community enough to generally not be initially shut down. The only people to blame here are the actual ones behind the fraud/extortion/whatever. Keegan (talk) 02:58, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have put together 6 ideas here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Many thanks to all those involved in this difficult task. Excellent work. Johnuniq (talk) 03:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• In order for people to protect their anonymity and private details, they cannot disclose their paid affiliations. I notice that the TOU is posted in Wikimedia space, not WP space. Again, I'm not seeing any legal violations here. The only violation I'm seeing is running a massive sockfarm. Saying there was "extortion" is a gross exaggeration. Cla68 (talk) 08:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF terms of use apply to all WMF properties, including Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 08:42, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this should be clear from the fact every time you edit you should see the "By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use". And everytime you view a page, at least on the desktop site, you see "By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use".

The idea there wasn't exortion is just bizzare. Does Cla68 also believe that when criminal gangs ask for "protection" money to keep a business "safe" and causes damage to the property or persons involved when they don't pay up as an incentive for everyone to pay "protection" money aren't extorting the business?

Nil Einne (talk) 13:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there's WP:PCD in WP space. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:31, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nil Einne, it isn't extortion, because there is no negative consequences if the customers don't pay for the service. Their article gets deleted? Big deal. They are also free to edit the articles themselves, no one is stopping them. These sockpuppets were building articles that handn't previously existed. In other words, they were actually improving the 'pedia, but WP admins are now deleting them all! WP is one strange place to be trumpeting this investigation as some kind of huge victory. Cla68 (talk) 22:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

By definition, extortion is "a criminal offense of obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion." Telling someone, "You have to pay me or this article gets deleted," very clearly fits that description. From the point of view of the person being told that, it's definitely a negative consequence. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also note, their promises to prevent articles from being deleted do not seem to have worked out too well. Outright fraud? Choor monster (talk) 18:09, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, it was a good job uncovering this sockfarm. Cla68 (talk) 22:59, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's clearly nonsense. Obviously many people think losing their article (or having it vandalised, although I'm not sure if there's any evidence OrangeMoody was carrying out vandalism to punish those who didn't pay) is a negative consequence, otherwise they wouldn't be paying the money. And whoever is doing the extortion is an idiot because they're asking for money for something which no one is going to pay, because not paying isn't liable to lead to any negative consequence (even though we know they did get paid, and this has been going on for long enough that it must have been worth it to them).

Frankly, I don't understand how anyone who has any resonable experience with wikipedia can say that. The reason why there is so much paid editing and businesses and sometimes even individuals wanting articles (or changes to their articles) is because many of them do in fact see wikipedia as a genuine big deal, and a good article can make a big difference to them.

Also, they couldn't simply edit the article. For starters, if they wanted to do so they would have to obey the TOU (which I hope you now understand is binding on everyone editing or using wikipedia, including you) which means they would have to declare who they are. Technically of course they've paid someone who was violating the TOU, but from what I've read, the person or people behind Orangemoody approached companies who didn't really have time to try and understand all that.

Which underlies the other point, declaring who they are is only the start, they then have to try to understand how to actually edit wikipedia, without getting in trouble for promotionally editing, NPOV violations etc, which isn't easy. In fact, once they had understood all that editing wikipedia entails, they'd probably realise they shouldn't edit the article at all, but simply make proposals to talk pages.

Which would then lead to the problem that some random small company making random suggestions will often be ignored since many volunteers won't be bothered dealing with that. And of course, they can't make suggestions when the article has already been deleted, or will be. They could try to stop it being deleted, but the request of the company isn't likely to stop the deletion in many cases, and similarly it would be difficult for them to get an undeletion. (Perhaps if they'd mentioned the extortion attempt stuff would have happened, the fact we only found out about this recently is as I said evidence of the success, since clearly enough people were confused and simply paying.)

They could make suggestions for a new article, but that entails a lot of work, for something which is likely to amount to nothing, because if getting changes to an existing article from a random small company is hard, getting a fresh article from volunteer efforts is often next to impossible.

To be honest, I'm not sure the relevance of having other options any way. If the mafia asks someone for protection money, the business could just suffer the consequences and try to rebuild. In much of the developed world, and even some parts of the developing world, they could hire a very expensive legal security firm to protect them. They could just go to the police and do their best to protect themselves. They have other options, but the protection money request is still nearly always an extortion attempt. Not that I'm saying the mafia analogy is perfect, for starters, although I mentioned it I'm not aware there was any neigbourly effect here, like OrangeMoody saying, look what happened to company Z when they didn't pay. Also there isn't really a comparison to the police etc, and the consequences, even if still negative are clearly far less hence why the protection money demands were far less. Still it doesn't mean it isn't extortion.

Nil Einne (talk) 03:37, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Calling it extortion is an overstatement. Extortion would be a demand for money in return for not doing something damaging. These socks were engaged in aggressive business practices, more like "sampling" than extortion. I don't approve of paid editing in the least, but let's not make this something it wasn't. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:26, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's just splitting hairs. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe, if you will. It amounts to the same thing, and "sampling" (as you call it) would fall under extortion as far as a crin=minal offense. "Give us money or we will delete/vandalize/etc. your Wikipedia article" qualifies as extortion, even under the broadest application of the term. It is not an overstatement in the least. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:54, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Kudos to the team that carried out this investigation. Beyond disbanding the culprits, a legal action deterrent would do the community a lot of good. —M@sssly^✉ 08:16, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Great work there. I would consider the work of the socks to come under extortion or trying to obtain money by false pretences - convincing editors that they need to pay to get articles up on Wikipedia. I had no idea that there was all this going on behind a discussion on my talk page. I wish I had... Peridon (talk) 08:35, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Thank you to Risker and colleagues for the excellent post on this incident - it's really well written, and does a great job of explaining what's happened and what's going on. Nick-D (talk) 08:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I have been looking through the accounts that have been blocked. Most seem like they could be socks, though I'm not sure that the edits of User:Arr4 fit the pattern. Most of the accounts I've looked at edit only English Wikipedia, and occasionally upload some images to Commons. Arr4 looks like they might have been caught in the crossfire. They have edits to a whole load of different wikis including Wikisource, Wikiquote and Wikibooks in languages like Bengali and Simple English and so on. I'm not saying the functionaries have necessarily made a mistake, but it just seems like this account might not be a sock to me. They could just be someone who happened to edit from the same public wifi or whatever and got caught in the crossfire. Could someone who did the CheckUsering take a look? It would be rather inconsiderate if a productive editor gets blocked by mistake. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:21, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The results for Arr4 were sanity-checked with a few checkusers, at least in part because it was a well-established account. Aside from the technical evidence, there is also interweaving of editing on several articles/topics of the socks. Risker (talk) 12:27, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • User:Arr4 has a bunch of issues. They were noticed to be editing for pay back in Feb of 2015. They disclosed some of their paid editing. And we let them continue. They than requested an account move and fell of my radar. Other issues is they like to copy and paste from press releases. They were warned for it once. And then continued afterwards [14].Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:46, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Kudos to Risker and everyone involved with this case! Very impressive work. --Varnent (talk)^(COI) 14:21, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Just joining with others above to thank the team, and to support legal action. Actual real world consequences for fraud and extortion for the perpetrators would hopefully change this landscape, something I'm not sure blocks and reproaches can do. Bishonen | talk 11:20, 2 September 2015 (UTC).[reply]
• I've long thought that NPP can be too easily gamed, this isn't the first time we have socks patrolling/reviewing new pages by other socks. I've made a preliminary suggestion to restrict patrol and page curation to reviewers/patrollers. Cenarium (talk) 18:47, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Technical question

Taking down Upworks/Elance accounts

I have been in discussion with Upworks/Elance and they have agreed to take down accounts we feel are involved in undeclared paid editing (and have taken down a fair number on my request). Do we need a structured method to do this? Do we need a specific group of functionaries to help? Are we will to make an exception to WP:OUTING for Elance/Upwork accounts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We have long made exceptions to the outing policy (actually, it's not an exception, since the foundation policy includes this) to communicate the IPs of extremely disruptive users to their ISPs. So I think this is precedent for allow information to be shared with jobs boards to prevents editors from violating the TOS. Though permission to carry out this sort of communication should come from the foundation first. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:42, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• No. There are joejobs galore on there. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 03:26, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you mean User:Guerillero? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

People pretending to be other people. "Hi, my username on Wikipedia is Doc James. Let me edit your article!" Keegan (talk) 03:44, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes of course. But often links says X company is offering $300 for an article about Y and it was posted a week ago. Than an Elance account picks it up. And wow we have a new Wikipedia article on the subject that is promotional and created today by a brand new account that looks very experienced and does not disclose that they are paid. So what if the Elance account that picked it up called themselves Doc James. We would be dealing with the brand new account that created this new promotional article and might be tempted to run a check user on them. Especially if we find a half dozen other new accounts that edit just like them and picked up jobs using the same Elance account. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:56, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)@Doc James: Connecting Wikipedia accounts to Elance/Fiver/etc accounts isn't as easy as you think. There has been more than one case where another person has used information scraped from a user's userpage/website/facebook/linkedin to pose as them. I can think of one case where a person was convinced that a connection between a freelance account and a Wikipedia account existed. When push came to shove CU evidence showed that the editor was lucky enough to have forgotten to update their userpage when they moved and was exonerated. This is why arbcom has such high standards for off wiki evidence. I am strongly opposed to relaxing our standards of outing or tasking anyone who has a bee in their bonnet about paid editing so that we can replay the Durova-!! affair. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 04:12, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You are not going to get what I described through impersonation. We more want to be able to give others a heads up that an article on subject X is likely going to be created soon because someone is paying for one on Elance.

I occasionally put these non articles on my watch list so I can than pick up the paid editor who creates it. They generally use throw away accounts. It is one account per job. Making them create new Elance accounts is more of a burden for them as often it takes a reputation before one can get a job their.

This is the same thing with "copy and paste" issues. One usually needs to think a little before accusing someone of plagiarism. A large portion of the time it is the other site that plagiarized from an older copy of us. This does not mean that we should not investigate these issues. Or tie one of our hands behind our backs when we do. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah it seems to me most people are thinking of this in the wrong way. AFAICT, this isn't a suggestion of taking action against editors here because of accounts on other sites. This appears to be solely a suggestion of taking action against accounts on other sites, when they appear to be doing stuff against our TOU (and therefore I guess the TOU of the other site). If someone on another site is pretending to be Doc James, closing that account isn't generally going to be harmful to the real Doc James, if anything it will be beneficial.

The only question is whether the account on the other site is really being used by someone who's violating the TOU here. Who they actually are doesn't matter so much. There is I guess some risk of inappropriate action. In particular, it's possible a rival or simply a troll will see an account on one of these sites accept a job, and come here and create or modify the article. People will assume this came from the account which accepted the job, and if there was no disclosure this would be a TOU violation.

Still, there may be ways we could minimise this, depending on the willingness of the other site and their policies. For example, we could wait a week or whatever before doing anything. If the person who accepted the jobs tell the client they completed it, either they lied to the client, or they were the one who edited here, so the site might be willing to close them. Another option although perhaps more controversial and more work for the other site (so less likely to get their cooperation), if the account on the other site has accepted and completed a wikipedia job before, if they claim the person who made the recent edits wasn't them, they could be asked to disclose privately to that other sites admins, what their wikipedia account is. The other site admins could then confirm that disclosure had taken place in the past here, and check via email here that the account here is really who they said they were on the other site.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If someone is pretending to be me on another site that is "impersonation". It is not allowed by our TOU per "These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud." or Upwork's TOU per "Any offer of illegal activity or services that would violate the intellectual property rights, copyrights or terms of service of another service, product or website. Content that is offensive or 'contains false or defamatory remarks." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:31, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all, I want to share a few thoughts from a legal perspective on the issue of connecting Wikipedia accounts with accounts on other job sites.

1. WMF Legal already protects the Wikipedia trademarks (like the puzzle globe) from misuse, including when someone uses them inappropriately on a job site. This is part of our standard practice and can sometimes take a little while to resolve, but is consistently successful in removing accounts that violate our Trademark Policy. You can report trademark violations here: legal@wikimedia.org.
2. Most job sites will take down job postings that are clear violations of the WMF Terms of Use. If someone writes “I post under account X and I never disclose my paid clients,” then any community member that catches it can report it to the job site and usually get the job posting taken down. Similarly, it's a violation of our Terms of Use to edit once you are banned, so a community member can report job postings that are using banned accounts.
3. Job sites are not so quick to take down postings that aren’t clear violations of any rules. It can sometimes be really hard to tell if a person is offering properly disclosed paid editing, or to provide off-wiki editing and writing assistance, both of which may not be forbidden by our Terms of Use. Most job sites err on the side of not removing a post if there isn’t a clear problem. We, as a community, want to be careful to avoid over-reporting so that when we do find a problem, it's taken seriously and gets a good response.
4. In cases where there is a major on-wiki violation, evidence of the on-wiki investigation (e.g., long-term abuse or sockpuppet pages) can help you report a page where the job posting links to a known long-term abuser but doesn’t contain anything in the post itself that’s an obvious problem. In other words, if you can go to a job site and say “this person is banned from Wikipedia because of X, Y, and Z,” they’ll be much more helpful in taking down the posting than if there’s an uncertain violation that can’t be easily seen from the content of a job post.
5. Regarding the outing concerns, there are a few ways that the community can address harmful off-wiki activity while still protecting innocent users’ privacy:

• If there is a clear connection between an abusive Wikipedia user account and an account on another site, it can be resolved anywhere: the account can be banned on Wikipedia, the account on another site can be removed for a Terms of Use violation, or both. For example, a user pretending to be a Wikipedia user could be banned on Wikipedia, the job site, or both.
• If non-public data is the only way to connect a job posting to a user account, then a checkuser should contact legal@wikimedia.org to discuss the case. The WMF may be able to speak directly with the job site to determine if the account is the same without sharing any private data.
• Finally, we should err on the side of protecting people's privacy and not out someone with ambiguous off-wiki connections.

What that all comes down to is we think it’s great if community members help report clear cases of abuse when they’re found, but we should all be careful to avoid too much reporting on unclear cases to make sure that these job sites stay on our side and take requests from the Wikimedia community seriously. Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 00:46, 5 September 2015 (UTC) (Note, as attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, my statement is not intended as legal advice. Read more)[reply]

Official company accounts

Maybe it is time we consider the German model of official company accounts that are verified and only allowed to comment on the talk pages? If we give corporations a clear method they can communicate with us than they may be less inclined to use the underworld services such as the above. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:23, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How would this change anything? The accounts here had no interest in following any of the community norms --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 03:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Companies are willing to turn to these sorts of entities as they are not clear how to engage properly. If we made it easier and clearer to engage properly less companies would turn to undisclosed paid editing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:33, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

+1 --Prolineserver (talk) 07:11, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bear in mind also that for years now, any English Wikipedia user account named "Acme Widgets Inc." or similar has been instabanned under the user name policy (WP:CORPNAME) and told to come back with an account name like "GandalfTheGrey". The English Wikipedia has had over 100,000 businesses come here guilelessly, naively, openly, transparently, under their real names, only to teach them instantly that to edit here, you have to hide who you are, because everyone else is hiding, too. And year by year, it continues. Utter madness. Andreas JN466 16:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are several predictable downsides:

1the undisclosed paid editing would be less; the promotional editing would not be. And when their promotional pages were deleted, they would complain we had deleted the advertisements that they had thought they were entitled to. They tend to think they own the page on their company now, and making such editing legitimate would be seen as confirming it.

2it would also discourage even such small amount of NPOV volunteer editing of such pages as we have, if the volunteers had to compete with paid editors.

3even more than at present, the volunteers who care about quality would spend their time rewriting the work of paid editors--doing the work for which other people are being paid. The amount of this already is quite discouraging.

It is none the less possible that the balance would be positive,and is worth considering. DGG ( talk ) 16:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You saw the part where the registered corporate account is only permitted on the talk page of the article, and not permitted to edit related content? That should limit the impact, and perhaps provide reasonable and more transparent communication with an organization that may have legitimate concerns about content. What occurs to me, though, is that a great deal of the paid editing relates to articles that don't exist until someone pays for them to be created, which would make this option pretty much impossible for the organizations that are most likely to engage paid editors. Risker (talk) 16:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This would be a lot better than the current scenario. If the PR manager at XYZ corp is allowed to identify (through OTRS maybe), use the talk page and submit a modified version of {{COI edit request}} for changes and/or requests that an autoconfirmed editor could act on there's a lot less incentive for them to hire a PR firm. This would also free up some time of the COIN volunteers to address the other nonsense that creeps up related to new articles. This may be a small step in reducing some of the problems, but a positive one nevertheless. —SpacemanSpiff 17:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To make this even clearer. I am proposing that these account ONLY be allowed to comment on the talk pages of the article about them. They are not to comment at AfD or other places. They are also not to propose rewrites. They are to only point out grievous errors. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, I'd prefer we do something like this. –xeno^talk 17:16, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I would support official accounts with OTRS verification. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:14, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've started an RfC on this issue. Mdann52 (talk) 18:50, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I have always advised any company representative to register an account, be open about who they are, and stick to the Talk page. That was the standard advice template on OTRS (I know because I wrote it). I firmly believe that is the best way of doing things: we have been round the loop with shared accounts, it's not going to fly, but "Jan (MegaCo PR)" would be a perfectly acceptable username I think, provided they could verify the claim to company affiliation by email to OTRS. I wish we could have an editnotice on all articles relating to commercial entities advising this. Guy (Help!) 22:14, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion to Wikipedia_talk:Long-term_abuse/Orangemoody?

I want to note that this fine discussion here is going to be swept up the by the archive bot fairly quickly. Might you folks want to have coordination take place at Wikipedia_talk:Long-term_abuse/Orangemoody? -- Fuzheado | Talk 01:49, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

While you are correct that discussion specific to Orangemoody accounts may best occur there, we have a significant amount of discussion about the general principles of undisclosed paid editing that isn't specific to this case, and in fact in some ways doesn't relate to this case at all. I suppose that could go somewhere else too, but every time we take these discussions to discrete locations, they wind up with the same people talking about the same things, and miss out on the broader perspective of the wider community. This discussion has been going on for less than 4 hours. I'd like to see it continue here, at least the bigger-picture issues. Risker (talk) 02:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What to do about additional articles by Orangemoody socks

Nyttend stopped by my talk page to inquire what the expectations are for deleting further sock-created articles, and it is a good question. The functionaries as a group had a long and vigorous discussion about how to handle the ones that had been specifically identified during the course of the investigation, and the consensus (which involved about 18 very experienced administrators, which is a lot more than you'd ever see at an AfD) was to delete all of these articles that had been found. A few functionaries expressed concern about deleting a few of the articles where either (a) the subject was thought to be very likely to pass even enhanced notability criteria, or (b) where we could not locate the original article/draft that had led to the sock creation. The investigation was always intended to be a constrained one - we knew it would be impossible to reliably confirm the that socks that didn't edit within the narrow checkuser window were definitively linked to the larger group - and we knew that when we reached the point of checking what we could, we would be turning this over to the community for further action.

So now....the next steps are in the hands of the community. Based on the hard evidence that can be dug up with diligence without using checkuser data, we could locate prior versions of articles/drafts for about 90-95% of the articles that have been deleted; it takes some digging and admin tools to look at deleted pages, and a good deal of poking around in AfC and similar areas. My personal suggestion would be that if a prior version unrelated to a sock is identified, it is probably the best evidence that we will have that it is an example of undisclosed paid editing, and that the article subject is likely to have been contacted by this sock group. Myself, I would probably delete that type of article using the same basis that has led to the deletions today: that article subjects should not be asked to pay for articles or for their protection, and that the article is almost certainly at least a copyvio if it started off from someone else's unattributed draft. I'd suggest normal admin review of any articles to determine if they meet our currently existing speedy deletion criteria, even if that specific criterion isn't mentioned in the CSD request; admins do that all the time when CSD requests are posted. But maybe the community might want to have a discussion and determine if, for these specific articles that are from these specific socks, they want to just say "clean sweep, they can all go and start afresh for the notable subjects". It's not appropriate for me to make that decision alone, and to be truthful, I don't think it's even a call for the functionary team despite its many years of experience. This has to come from the community at large.

I'd urge the community to give serious consideration to deleting any article that they identify as being from an OM sock; we knew at the time we posted the list that it didn't include all of them because we did not go back and see what the accounts had done since we'd done the initial checks that put them on the list. We have identified quite a few examples of how the article subjects have been abused, and even on this noticeboard there have been multiple reports over the last few months of people assuming the identities of administrators and experienced users in order to leverage money out of hopeful article subjects/draft creators, many of whom will be unwilling to report what has happened to them. I'd be curious to understand how the community would be in a position to find out from the article subjects whether or not they were paying for the article about them; the team that worked on this specifically pushed that to WMF staff because we didn't feel it appropriate for Wikipedians (not even those of us who work with sensitive information all the time) to make that kind of contact. I don't know how you'll be sure that someone isn't getting told "see, we told you your article would be protected, and our rate has just doubled". But this is a decision for the community. We took this investigation as far as we could. Risker (talk) 03:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Convenience link — I declined a speedy deletion because I wasn't sure how to interpret the comments given up above, one saying basically "delete it all" and another "admins may delete these pages". Nyttend (talk) 03:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's kind of a tough question. While I don't think any functionary is trying to wash their hands of this, as a group we probably invested 800+ hours into this investigation, and other things didn't get done; other parts of the project also need our attention. Nothing is left to do that absolutely requires our bits - we're confident that all the socks are confirmed socks and that the community can treat them as such. But we know we cannot *force* the community (or any individual editor/admin, for that matter) to follow precisely in our footsteps. Risker (talk) 04:04, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Nyttend: that article can be speedy deleted as a copyright violation. It was take from Draft:The_Spent_Idols. At that point the code is taken and modified without attribution, violating CC By-SA 3.0. It was then used to probably extort poor User:Angel Spent, who originally wrote the draft. Keegan (talk) 04:20, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. I have deleted it as a copyright violation. These accounts are not writing this stuff and therefore are not its authors. Other accounts are the authors. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:31, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Before this was announced I took some time to look at some of the articles, and without fail they were either copyvios or unambiguous spam. Admins should feel free to delete any other articles created by the sockfarm where they meet CSD criteria; basically just business as usual. If you strike one that has originated from the sockfarm but doesn't obviously fit into any of the speedy deletion criteria then that's something we can discuss here. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC).[reply]

What about this one Jerry_G._Blaivas? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are about 20 articles, including this one, that I could not find the source through normal means of checking Draft or AfC. Intuition tells me that these articles were likely created in User:FooBar/sandbox space, which the ring watched CSDs for, and they grabbed content from there before deletion. The only way to check would be a database grep of all deleted userspace sandboxes for the key term, and that's not very feasible. Keegan (talk) 06:29, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks User:Keegan. Due to the very high likelihood that it is a copy and paste of someone else's work I have deleted it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:18, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What about Axel Von Schubert? MER-C 08:40, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That one was a copyvio of http://axelvonschubert.com/ and has been deleted as such. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 10:08, 1 September 2015 (UTC).[reply]

• Review, check for bias, nuke the obvious spam, I would say. I note that one of the socks was active at the quackmungous Hippocrates Health Institute (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), where he tried to whitewash criticism of their exploitative cancer quackery, so even if there are obviously notable subjects the content itself is likely to be problematic. Guy (Help!) 09:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Koozai is an ongoing AfD for an article created by a user blocked last night as an OM sock. (I started the AfD before this all happened.) Feel free to take a look. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:10, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I just went through the list and deleted what I thought was deletable according to our CSD criteria, marking the criterion or criteria that I think applied. I left Dion Johnson and one or two others that seemed salvageable to me. Drmies (talk) 18:57, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I noted that the article Enterprise Value Tax had not been deleted yet. After a quick look, it seemed sourced, so I started editing it for balance, but when I re-read the article it was obvious that, however many sources it had, it was a promotional article pushing one view of the tax (opposition, because it would hurt investment management firms). Because I don't think it's usual for us to have an article on a proposed change in the US tax code (of which they are many every year), I redirected it to Capital gains tax in the United States, but I really think it needs to be deleted instead, per WP:CRYSTAL and WP:PROMO. Over to you, admins, for possible deletion. BMK (talk) 20:38, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• A question: what should be done with the images uploaded by the socks? Many have been orphaned by the deletion of the page they were originally on, but only the fair use images have been automatically tagged for deletion. Some of the free images, like File:Como brothers band.jpg, are still out there. Altamel (talk) 03:10, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking only for myself, I'm inclined to leave free-use images that are properly attributed and whose license has been verified. As is noted in the statement that starts this entire section, it's quite possible that article subjects are actually notable enough for an article; that will take some sorting by our community of editors. Therefore, it's possible that the properly attributed free images may be used. Again, just my own personal opinion. Risker (talk) 03:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Process question - the request not to usefy is a challenge

Good work, guys! 2601:84:8A00:DA6B:1C30:E280:1C61:7266 (talk) 01:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note about additional accounts

Just a note that, now that the major portion of the investigation has been completed and reported to the community, checkusers will be reviewing the data to look for additional accounts that may have been missed in the main report. It is likely that we will find a few; in order to address the bulk of the problem, we had limited time to go back and review data that had been collected in the earliest days of the investigation. Those additional accounts will be added on the LTA/Accounts page when they are identified. Risker (talk) 20:02, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's excellent news. BMK (talk) 21:19, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Revisit G13 eligibility?

One of the contributing factors to this mess is the availability of declined drafts for extended periods of time. In some cases this extended availability may be justified, but for the most part, if no one is editing the draft, what's the point in keeping it for six months during which time such misuse can happen? At the very least we should look at carving out a quicker form of G13 for organizations/products/services and BLPs as this is where most of the paid editing would take place. —SpacemanSpiff 02:44, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be a lot of students registering accounts just now, it being that time of year, and quite a few seem to be of the form 123456Luke (not a real example) and have links to the course they're involved in. Am I right in thinking the number is their student ID number? If so, is there some way we could point out the inadvisability of disclosing this sort of personal information when they are creating the account? GoldenRing (talk) 02:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• A lot of them are also using their real names which is probably not a good idea. I think this falls more on the instructor who probably told them what to use as their account name. --Stabila711 (talk) 03:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• As may be. Is there some established channel of communication with educators? GoldenRing (talk) 03:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are the various education noticeboards Wikipedia:Education noticeboard and Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents although they are somewhat dead. Still, they may be useful in trying to identify who's in charge of these and if they have any wikipedia contact. Nil Einne (talk) 03:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've left a note at Wikipedia:Education noticeboard. I hope someone sees it. GoldenRing (talk) 04:15, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you email me the usernames, I'll see if I can track down the teacher and communicate with him. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:21, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Someguy1221: If the class page is already set up would it be appropriate to just post on the instructor's user page regarding the use of real names? For example, this one is already set up and ready to go and it looks like almost every student is using their real name. --Stabila711 (talk) 04:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that would be fine if they are already "in the system". I think it's important for instructors to communicate to students that the attachment of their name to their on-wiki work is permanent less a name change. I know from my OTRS work that a lot of people freak when they figure that part out. I'm more concerned about the possibility of students using their ID number in their username. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:35, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't kept a list. But I'll see what I can dig up. GoldenRing (talk) 05:07, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Bad news. There are over 5,500 users registered since the start of August with usernames that match the regexp '^[a-zA-Z ]*[0-9]{5,8}[a-zA-Z ]*$' ie they have some text, a number between 5 and 8 digits long, and then some more text (both sections of text being optional). Some of these are obviously not student names & numbers, but a fair number could be. I guess it'd be possible to query their user pages through the API to find out if they have a link to a wiki ed project page on their user pages, but it might take me a while to sort out. GoldenRing (talk) 05:51, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We always try to put good username advice in front of instructors and student editors before they get started, but it's pretty much inevitable that many of them will use identifiable usernames anyway. Here's the the advice we give to instructors in the training they go through before they set up a course: Wikipedia:Training/For educators/Creating accounts. That said, if anyone becomes aware of a specific case where a student editor runs into trouble or gets harassed because their username led someone to their real identity, please let me or another Wiki Ed staff know! That's something we'll take very seriously.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:19, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As Sage (Wiki Ed) mentioned, the educator training has a page addressing usernames. The training for student editors also links to the username policy and suggests consideration of anonymity. There's also a mention of the same in the Instructor Basics brochure. Instructors and students who work with the Wiki Education Foundation generally go through the training and receive advice about usernames.

Of course, it still happens that students use their real name or personally identifying information. In some cases, no amount of warnings short of an absolute requirement will deter some students from doing so. Other times, they might skip the training or they may create an account before going through the training and then not know how to change it. I think there's an opportunity in the course page timeline we should explore, adding a little more information or advice about usernames (for the part of the timeline I'm referring to, see the first week of this random class).

In general, I'd say the best practice is to reach out to the instructor directly. Feel free to reach out to Wiki Ed staff, too (especially if it happens that, for example, an instructor is requiring students to use their real name or if there's an unusually high portion of the class doing so).

I think it would be a good idea to avoid this kind of message as much as possible, though. As helpful and well-intentioned as it is, it creates a connection between the username and specific personally identifying information that many people would not otherwise have figured out. In fact, it may be best to keep mention of specific names and interpretation of their usernames off-wiki as much as possible.

Always good to see conversations looking out for student editors. Thanks for voicing your concerns. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:44, 2 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Sage (Wiki Ed): @Ryan (Wiki Ed): Thanks for your response. I'm glad to know someone has done something about this. It seems the message is not getting through, though. As I said above, there are about 5,500 users registered since the start of August that match a basic 'Name + numerical ID' pattern. Eyeballing these, quite a few look plausibly like they are names and some sort of ID number. Give me a couple of days and I'll come up with a list of ones that are reasonably certain. I don't think it will be a short list, but I'm not certain yet. GoldenRing (talk) 04:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So what exactly is wrong with being open about who you are on Wikipedia? I am and always have been. This is the norm in academia. When one pushes something they put their name behind it. In fact it is expected and we are the outballs out. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:36, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My concern was not so much with people using their real names (which obviously many do) as using their real names, connecting it to their course and revealing what seems very obviously their student ID number. Given some of the lowlife we encounter around here, it's not hard to see someone, after a particularly nasty dispute, calling the school with, Hi, it's Luke Martin here, student number 123456 — I'd like to make some changes to my enrollment... GoldenRing (talk) 04:38, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is also problematic that these students probably didn't have a choice as to their usernames. The instructors probably told them what to use (whether that was their real name or their student IDs) in order to make it easier for them to identify a particular student. People who use their real name by choice are not a problem. People who use their identifying characteristics because they are told to do so by a third party without regards for their own privacy is where it starts to be a problem. Students should be aware that any post made on Wikipedia is permanent and will remain in edit histories (unless specifically deleted by a revdel or an oversight). Those that made their accounts using their real names (or IDs) because their instructor told them to should be informed of this so they can make an informed decision. --Stabila711 (talk) 04:47, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

While you may be able to infer that a known student editor's username of [optional letters][5 or 8 digits][optional letters] could be based on a student id and name, it assumes too much to say that any username that fits that regex is likely a student. In fact, I would be inclined to think it's unlikely they're students. There are a whole lot of 5 or 8 digit numbers. That regex would include everybody who included a MMDDYYYY date in their username, everybody who included a zip code in their username, etc. There are also many schools that don't use 5 or 8 digit ids (the school where I last taught used 9 digits). It may be more fruitful to look through past class pages to see if you notice patterns in usernames of people we know are students.

Students also aren't likely to include their id in a name they choose themselves, and the number of instructors who require specific usernames is pretty small. Every once in a while I do come across an instructor that dictated username requirements to their students. Most of the time the requirements are for students not to use personally identifying information, but I do remember one that had them use real names (no student id) and a couple others had them use something generic like classname-[001-025]. You shouldn't see that very often, though, as we would consider it a red flag to address right at the start. To reiterate something I said above, student privacy is a serious subject and if you see a class in which the instructor looks to have such requirements, please do let Wiki Ed know (WP:ENB gets fewer eyeballs than this page, but you would get a response for something like this). In addition to the general ethics of information/digital literacy (people should know what it means to be have their personal information online), there are legal and institutional policies about student "records" (a flexible term) that the professor should consider. -- Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Student privacy is a big deal, and perhaps we should have an informational essay on it for class leaders or some such. However... PLEASE stop discouraging people from using real names. There's nothing wrong with the practice. That it's not the norm does not mean it's a problem. It in fact solves several problems. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Real names are fine. But student IDs are like bank account and social security numbers: they shouldn't be posted publicly online, ever. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 03:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually in some places it isn't uncommon for bank account numbers to be posted publicly online by people for various reasons, and there's little risk from doing so. Obviously not for for a wikipedia account username though. Nil Einne (talk) 14:25, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ryan (Wiki Ed): That's why I said that eyeballing the list of names, a fair few look plausibly like student numbers but I'm not sure yet. As for the message I left on one student's talk page, I don't think I'm particularly bright or likely to come to this conclusion - it just seems painfully obvious. If it's obvious to me, it's obvious to others. When I get a chance I'll try to come up with a more solid measure of just how many accounts follow this pattern, but it is still looking like early next week at the soonest that I'll get more time to spend on this. GoldenRing (talk) 13:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What do admins and non-admins see when they go here? I see the contents of a deleted page (last time deleted by me) that has no delete, history, or edit tabs. Make sense as the page is deleted but why does the old content show up? Same behavior when going there as an IP. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:02, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• I see the same thing but I noticed a line at the bottom that says it was copied from meta (specifically here[15]). That page has edit tabs and all history on it. --Stabila711 (talk) 00:04, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Non-admin here, I see content, but no delete, history, or edit tabs. It has a "nominated for speedy deletion notice" which says "Page edited 0 minutes ago by . Page information: deletion log • link list • delete page". DuncanHill (talk) 00:05, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, and the copied from meta notice. Seem to recall something a month or two ago about meta copying deleted articles and mirroring them back here. DuncanHill (talk) 00:06, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Appears to be something about Global User Pages. Beyond that, I have no idea. -- Orduin ^Discuss 00:07, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, I made a test edit on meta and it was mirrored back here. en-wiki admins not being able to control what appears on en-wiki user pages seems not good. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I saw the same thing the other day. Dumb idea to do this, I don't remember the discussion on this, betting no one gave a damn what we thought about it anyway. This is the kind of crap you get when you let engineers make design decisions. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:01, 3 September 2015 (UTC) I could have been more polite in stating this. I assumed it was a WMF decision, whom I was complaining about, but not so much. Apologies to Legoktm. I'm still strongly against this, but that's not a justification for being rude. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:37, 5 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Dennis Brown: Did you know you're talking trash about Legoktm? Keegan (talk) 07:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm betting that Lego did not make this decision on his own and it would have had to been authorized by WMF because it affects every wiki. In fact, he might not have been in the decision making at all, just implementation (I assume). No matter how it was done, it is a problem. I assume Lego understands my comment wasn't about him personally, but about the decision making that authorized it. Regardless, it is a very bad idea due to the high potential for abuse that is easy to take advantage of, regardless of who the responsible parties are. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:17, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
          • You'd be wrong then. Legoktm (talk) 16:05, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
            • Someday, Dennis Brown, I hope you look back and realize that you think it is acceptable to violate WP:AGF, WP:NPA, and a host of other civility policies as long as the account has (WMF) after the name. That's what you're saying, no matter how you want to paint it. It's okay, though, no one cares to enforce civility when it comes to the WMF anyway. Trash talking is perfectly a-okay. Keegan (talk) 03:15, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
              • • I don't remember trashing any account with WMF. They do have a history of doing things, usually with the best intentions, that negatively affect the community, without sufficient input. Visual Editor comes to mind, as do other "events". This change seems to give a single vector for vandalism that would affect multiple Wikis, and reduce the control (and increase the confusion) for admin patrolling these pages. What is acceptable on one wiki, isn't on another, for instance. So I do think it is a horrible idea to essentially transclude pages across multiple Wikis. And it takes a great deal of imagination or hyperbole to take my statement and call it a personal attack. Defending the program by using ad hominem and hyperbole when describing my statement doesn't change the wisdom of this change to the system. I could have been kinder, true, but it is a frustrating change with seemingly insufficient input. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 12:07, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]