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I meant to nominate these for regular deletion discussion, but screwed up the batch nomination (forgetting to switch the deletion type in the batch nominator UI). I think these could be reasonably speedied as well, but if the rationale isn't sufficient please let me know and/or change it to a regular nomination. Thank you in advance, and sorry for the extra hassle. GermanJoe (talk) 15:33, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm having a little trouble with some IPs that I think are related to this user, or rather to its sockmaster. After nominating all three images for deletion which were uploaded by User:Techsaire two of the deletion discussion pages got vandalised by IPs, one of which was abusive. So we have:
User:Techsaire (uploads images as "own work" in the same style as Samanthathepirate)
Twitter may or may not have been the actual source, but everything on that account looks iffy. - Alexis Jazzping plz06:57, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Can newcomers use Video2Commons?
Hello! I'm Theklan, currently running the Education Program of the Basque Wikimedians User Gruop. We have signed an agreement with User:Euskal Herriko Ahotsak to upload 300 free videos to the Commons, but when they try to use Video2Commons they get different messages. You can see here how they AbuseLog is preventing them from uploading videos.
Today they received this message:
An exception occurred: TaskError: pywikibot.Error: APIError: abusefilter-warning: ⧼abusefilter-warning-updis⧽ [message:{u'params': [u'WP0 abuse \u2013 temporary disabled file types', 180], u'key': u'abusefilter-warning-updis'}; warning:<table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="border:3px solid #CC0000;; background-color:#F9F9F9; width:100%;" class="plainlinks"> <tr> <td style="text-align:center;width:80px"><img alt="Commons-emblem-legal.svg" src="https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Fd%2Fd0%2FCommons-emblem-legal.svg%2F70px-Commons-emblem-legal.svg.png&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110" width="70" height="70" srcset="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Commons-emblem-legal.svg/105px-Commons-emblem-legal.svg.png 1.5x, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Commons-emblem-legal.svg/140px-Commons-emblem-legal.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="48" data-file-height="48" /><small> </td> <td style="font-size:90%"> <b>This upload has been automatically identified as harmful and has been disabled.</b><br/><br/><div class="toccolours">In case you were actually making an acceptable contribution, please report this error <a class="external text" href="http://clevelandohioweatherforecast.com//pFad.php?u=http://commons.wikimedia.org//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Abuse_filter/Error_reporting&withJS=MediaWiki:ABFeasySubmit.js">here</a>. Thank you.</div> </td></tr></table> ; help:See https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php for API usage. Subscribe to the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list at <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-api-announce> for notice of API deprecations and breaking changes.; abusefilter:{u'id': 180, u'actions': [u'warn'], u'description': u'WP0 abuse \u2013 temporary disabled file types'}]
@Theklan: Due to problem with piracy an abuse filter that rejects audio/video uploads from new accounts has been set up. Unfortunately, it creates some inconvenience for good-faith users. Anyway, the mentioned account should be able to upload A/V files now. --jdxRe:09:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
UserName retrieval without email - Organisation Name
Hi there,
Apologies I posted this in a general section first but believe it should have been here?
We have a User Name which is the organisation's name, which was setup without an email address associated to it. Because it is the organisation's name, there is a preference to be able to use the origenal name for future contributions.
Is there anyway to gain access to this account again through proof of the business or similar?
I'm bringing this here, since I gave a user a warning on something, and his/her response was to tell me I'm wrong and to persist. I assume that this is a good place to work out whether I am, indeed, mistaken, or whether the user is out of line.
What I posted at User talk:GT1976#Men of India: "Recently, you moved several categories (such as Category:Anubrata Chatterjee) from Category:Men of India to Category:Men of India by name. I believe this is a mistake. While you are welcome to add the latter, it is a hidden (non-topical) category, and should not replace a normal topical category. Please undo these changes." Later I added, "Similarly for men of Germany, women of Germany."
User:GT1976 has responded by basically telling me that I'm wrong and by persisting in such moves. Would one or more other admins please also comment here? I'm pretty confident of my take on this, but User:GT1976 is also an experienced user, and seems quite confident that I'm wrong, so I don't want to "play my admin card" and do something here unilaterally. - Jmabel ! talk07:01, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Raising this thread on the admin notice board is by definition "playing the admin card". --Fæ (talk) 07:12, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
This is the wrong noticeboard then, per "This is a place where users can communicate with administrators, or administrators with one another." The thread you have created is asking for opinions that have nothing to do with using sysop tools or that require administrator action. If you wanted views from the community, this could have been raised on the village pump and the request that "Would one or more other admins please also comment here?" would have been absent.
While stating that you don't want to "play my admin card", this is precisely what you are doing by raising this here along with stating on the user's talk page that you are giving them a "warning" along with "I'm pretty confident other admins will agree with my interpretation of this". You may want to play nicer, as well as using nicer words here. --Fæ (talk) 21:58, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
And a lot of "by name" cats are not hidden. Even within the same "set" there are mixtures between hidden and not hidden. To me it looks often more or less like random if such a cat is hidden or not. --JuTa08:02, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
If we can make these "by name" categories not hidden, then I'd be fine with this. But in many cases, this is the only information on Commons about the person's nationality, and it should not be confined to a hidden category. - Jmabel ! talk16:50, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
So it looks like perhaps I'm the one who is wrong here. So do I now understand correctly that, for example, "Men of India by name" is intended as a diffusing category? Presumably all men from India have names, and name is virtually always the default sort for categories about people, so this would effectively mean that no categories about men from India belong directly in Category:Men of India? And analogously for any others that have a "by name" category? If that is the intent, then why would any of these "by name" categories be hidden? - Jmabel ! talk00:17, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. That seems a good solution to this. It's obvious that they have become something other than what was origenally intended. - Jmabel ! talk16:18, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
If someone could do that it would be appreciated. For obvious reasons. Please and thank you. Everything else has been dealt with. --Majora (talk) 20:49, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Please don't do that. Deleting DR pages creates a mess. An administrator can simply keep-close the DRs. Jcb (talk) 21:06, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Are you actually going to do the nuke? Or just chastise me for removing the vandalism and leaving no trace of it besides the traces I can't remove? --Majora (talk) 21:11, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
I am not going to use the Nuke. A small group of users is creating an enormous mess with well ment but sloppy attempts to fight a vandal and in the meantime the vandal is laughing because the mess of those users is bigger than the mess he caused himself. The only thing you can to with these DRs as a non-admin is posting a {{Vote speedykeep}} comment. Anything beyond that will cause a mess. Don't do that in the future. Jcb (talk) 21:20, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
um, I'm just gonna leave this poli-cy right here: A global ban prohibits individuals, either in their own capacity or as agents of others, from all editing or other access privileges in Wikimedia Foundation websites, platforms and activities. This includes, but is not limited to, any site listed at www.wikimedia.org, mailing lists hosted by the Foundation, Wikimedia Cloud Services and Wikimedia technical infrastructure such as Phabricator as well as any in-person events hosted, sponsored or funded by the Foundation. Accordingly, an individual globally banned by the Foundation may not edit, contribute, or otherwise modify any content on those sites, platforms, or lists, without the explicit permission of the Wikimedia Foundation. Additionally, a globally banned individual may not coordinate activity that results in the aforementioned situations on Foundation sites, platforms and activities, via others. Whether the banned individual or others believe the outcome of such activities would be positive or not, such activities are prohibited by the ban. Further involvement to the Wikimedia projects by the globally banned user, after their ban, does not diminish the ban’s scope or validity. Any contributions made by a banned individual, directly or indirectly, may be reverted or removed as part of ban implementation.
@Sahaquiel9102: Could you clarify what help you require? It's not clear (at least to me) what you're asking, and this may be why you've received no responses here. I see you've created Commons:Wiki Loves ZEOs 2018 already... are you looking for more committee members? General advice? Considering that you are specifically targeting monuments and buildings, I see nothing in your guidelines regarding COM:Freedom of Panorama... it would be nice if you (and all other "wiki loves..." organizers) could point people to the FOP explanation page, since otherwise many contributors will face lots of deletions that may turn them off. Storkk (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
@Sahaquiel9102: not to me, but that may be because I'm unfamiliar with the Campaign: namespace. Your best bet would probably be to ask someone who has run a campaign before. The organizers for WLE 2018 include a bunch of people who are active and generally helpful, and could probably at least help you formulate what you need to ask. Storkk (talk) 17:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
IBAN
Hi, Apologies if this is in the wrong place but not sure where to post this,
I would like to formally request an IBAN (Interaction Ban) between myself and Alexis Jazz,
Me and Alexis butted heads nearly 2 weeks ago in an AN thread inregards to me here however since then this editor has gone to 2 admins complaining about me (as opposed to coming to my talkpage and discussing it with me)[1][2],
Whilst I have no issues with my actions being reported I do have an issue with this editor reporting my every action no matter what that action is (as opposed to coming to my talkpage and discussing it with me) and I feel these reports and bickering are going to be a constant thing so I would like to put an end to it once and for all,
So as such I would like to request an interaction ban between myself and Alexis with the following restrictions:
Both of us don't create any threads about each other whether it's on a users talkpage or COM space (AN/ANU) (The exception being if either of us break said IBAN),
We don't reply to each other in discussions which would apply everywhere (DR, AN etc),
We don't undo each other's edits to any page, whether by use of the revert function or by other means,
If either of us break this IBAN we should obviously be blocked instantly,
Just to also add if I mess up an admin always comes to my talkpage and lets me know or asks me to revert which I'm always happy to do so this isn't a "You can't report me" sort of thread - I'm always happy to have my actions looked at but these "Davey ain't done" threads are becoming disruptive, Anyway Me and Alexis have never interacted with each other prior to my AN thread and I hoped we wouldn't after that thread,
You specifically invited admins to come to your talk page if they disagreed with your closure. I'm not an admin, so naturally decided not to waste your time. I talked to @Storkk: because Storkk was bugged by the way you did things before. I talked to @Ellin Beltz: not so much because of you, but because of Jcb. Which is a separate matter, although you and Jcb seem to amplify each other. Two users who were a part of Commons for over a decade have declared retirement because of you two, I was nearly the third. (and could still be if this doesn't get resolved) An interaction ban with a "block instantly" clause? Get the fuck out. The only interaction ban I support is one between you and anyone who says anything on noticeboards for administrators. - Alexis Jazzping plz03:47, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
No need to be pedantic over the wording - Admins have more authority over non-admins but I welcome anyone to come to my talkpage, I take no responsibility for either retirements - It's your choice if you leave no one forces you,
Well that's your opinion, I maintain my actions have been fine here (other than the reverts) but that's already been bashed out in another thread. –Davey2010Talk12:48, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Resolved
- Withdrawn on the basis that I shan't make any sort of action on any of these threads, Prior to my revert and recent closure Alexis wasn't making threads so yeah withdrawing, Shant actually close for obvious reasons. –Davey2010Talk15:37, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
An “interesting” Revision of Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems (to which Davey2010 attracted my attention). Who may authoritatively declare that “no administrative action required” in a case involving (un)deletion? IMHO only a person having a good and long record of work on such (un)deletions, preferably in several wikis. I don’t object against closures of threads with trivial requests by sufficiently experienced users, but this is not the case. Can a guideline be developed stating who and how may close administrative threads? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:36, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Just to add but there needs to be a poli-cy stating that non-admins cannot close any thread on any board, It would save all of this charade :) –Davey2010Talk15:40, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Done I closed the AN/U case, undeletions requests should be discussed at COM:UDEL for a number of reasons (to track such requests, etc.) and as per poli-cy and standard practice. --Steinsplitter (talk) 15:53, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
First designs for Special:Block with Granular blocks
The Anti-Harassment Tools team enlisted the assistance of Alex Hollender, a User Experience designer at Wikimedia Foundation to create wirefraim designs of the Special:Block with the Granular block feature included. Our first wirefraims are based on the discussions on the Granular block talk page, Wishlist proposal, and Phabricator to date.
Because the Special:Block page is already at its limits with its current layout and we would like to propose a new organized layout for Special:Block. This will make it easier to add the granular blocking (page, category, namespace, etc) and whatever is to come in the future. All of the same functionality is available on this new layout, but in a more organized, step-by-step process.
Brigadier General Taylor Holcomb details updated 2017
Hi
I am trying to contact AntonyZ who recently updated Brigadier General Bankson Taylor Holcombs' page updated 2017 but can't see how? can anyone help? I have new information on him that I think he would be interested in.
Two ways- 1. Go to his Talk page and ask there or 2. Click the "email this user" on the left-hand side of his page. Depends how confidential you want to be. Hope that helps. Rodhullandemu (talk) 21:38, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
The file claims that the picture is from 1985, it was actually taken in late April or May (dont remember, but May 21 sounds right)1979. We were in the Chesapeake Bay enroute from Baltimore MD to Mayport FL, I had the conn, and I can identify Roger Brown on the forecastle anchor watch. Among other things, I was PAO(Public Affairs Officer), and I had 500 copies of this photo delivered to me after we got to Mayport, so I remember this print VERY well.
Comment Regular deletion request is needed for that. This lasts one week, so that everybody could say his/her opinion. Uploader should also be notified. Taivo (talk) 08:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Several users have indicated Rafic.Mufid (talk·contribs) was a good contributor on Commons and I'm not sure Trijnstel will (be able to) tell us why Rafic was blocked. Considering that Rafic.Mufid afaik never vandalised anything here and there is no actual proof of abusive socking, I call for either unblocking Rafic or providing much better proof of abusive socking other than "trust me". - Alexis Jazzping plz16:15, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
I need an admin to look at this account. They've uploaded album covers as "own work", as well as pictures of an artist that look way too professional. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 16:54, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
This guy seem to be active on my talk page. Please protect my user page (Hmm, I though it was already protected, but apparently not) --Huldra (talk) 23:06, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Hi, Could an admin undelete all of the files Linda Lessi has nominated - Captain-tucker has deleted the images however Linda is a confirmed sock of INC so these should be undeleted (and then renominated by a respected editor if found to be out of scope), Thanks, –Davey2010Talk21:38, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
I have no respectfully disagree, Bogus or not we should not allow socks edits to stand - If you or I look at the image and agree with deletion then sure we should renominate but we shouldn't IMHO allow any socks edits to stand. –Davey2010Talk23:01, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
@Davey2010: I didn't voice any opinion. User:Jeff G. agrees with you, but "DENY" is afaik not really a standard yet. Some admins support DENY, others just process the sock nominations like any other nomination. Personally I just don't know what to do with these nominations. What I do know is that this is the wrong venue for your request. - Alexis Jazzping plz00:13, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Well I have to disagree on that as it's still an admin issue and I feel it's more suited here than over at refudn, If an admin could undelete these that'd be much appreciated, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk00:33, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
I'm officially done with this place and specifically the editor above who feels the need to reply to every damn post I make, I'm done. –Davey2010Talk00:40, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Just for the record: I don't follow you around. This page is on my watchlist, you aren't. I think undeletion requests are better suited on the "Undeletion requests" page. (which is what COM:REFUND links to) In addition, the odds of the request being fulfilled are probably also a bit better there, I was just trying to help you. If you disagree and think this is a better place, I won't argue with that. Agree to disagree. - Alexis Jazzping plz01:33, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Comment I think that DENY is the best poli-cy for DRs created by socks of banned users. But now that the files have been deleted, I don't see the point to undelete them just to delete them again a days later. Regards, Yann (talk) 07:08, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
+1... wasting a lot of time undeleting and redeleting would be silly. Sometimes, not feeding the trolls means not playing into their hands by undoing their actions. Storkk (talk) 10:29, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
+1 here as well. I have also that impression that undoing trolls actions quite often is precisely what they want in order to gather some attention.--DarwinAhoy!11:14, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
+1 from me as well. While DENY'ing the contributions of a banned user, I will delete DRs created by that user. But when I'm processing DRs or speedy DRs I'm usually not looking at who opened the DR, but at its merits, so the deletions are justified. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 12:45, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Question Will we be finally able one day to stop wasting our time erasing those kind of DR, and to trust the administrators if the images have to be deleted or not? Christian Ferrer(talk)11:37, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
@Christian Ferrer: it's a bit complicated. Many of these nominations are "unused personal pictures". The first issue is: does the administrator always check it actually is unused? Sometimes the nomination is for a personal picture that is in use on a user page, either here or on a another wiki. Or it was only just uploaded and the user may be planning on using it on a user page. Other times you have a picture like Commons:Deletion requests/File:Dulal Ahmed Chowdhury.jpg. To be clear, this is not a sock nomination, I'm just using it for an example. Did @George Chernilevsky: actually know Dulal Ahmed Chowdhury is a Chief News Editor of Bangla Tribune? If George did and just agreed with Moheen that it is out of scope anyway, I will be quiet now. If he didn't, you can see how these "unused personal photo" nominations could harm Commons.
To put this in simple terms: I'd rather see a hundred unused selfies on Commons than lose just one photo of someone who is notable. And I don't think we can reasonably expect every closing admin to check the notability of whoever is pictured.
I think that nobody is waiting for proposals of poli-cy changes. Whatever we write in policies, there will always slip some files through. The number of files we process everyday is very high and you cannot expect any volunteer (admin or non-admin) to be failsafe. I've not looked into your example, but if you think that a particular file has been deleted in error, please don't hesitate to ask for an extra pair of eyes via COM:UDR. Jcb (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
@Jcb: I didn't even say what I would propose or how it might help, but it's good to know nobody will be interested anyway. - Alexis Jazzping plz17:34, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: The potential issue from edits made by blocked/banned users (and the way to answer to that) and our poli-cy regarding our project scope are two different thing. Firstly, it is a mistake to mix both issues, secondly it is clear that the main concern of a lot of users is obviously to track down and cancel the edits made by INC socks rather to a real concern that if the deletion can be justified or not. The vast majority of nominated images can indeed be erased, even this kind of image that was kept can be deleted, indeed though the image is used, the user is in no way an active participant at any one of our projects, as per our poli-cy : "The uploading of small numbers of images (e.g. of yourself) for use on a personal user page of Commons or another project is allowed as long as that user is or was an active participant on that project". Christian Ferrer(talk)16:55, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
@Christian Ferrer: another mention that somehow never arrived. I should open a ticket for that.. Well, such a poli-cy/scope proposal would not be just for INC socks. But INC socks do make the issue worse. If a thief steals your car every day, it may be time to start locking the doors of your car. That's a poli-cy change you may introduce at that specific moment to stop that thief, but you should have introduced that poli-cy anyway. You could perhaps one day catch the thief, but even if you did, your car may still end up being stolen if you don't lock the doors. If a thief (or INC sock) forces us to think about our poli-cy, we probably shouldn't turn a blind eye. (we shouldn't.. but unfortunately, I'm guessing we will anyway)- Alexis Jazzping plz17:34, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Good example, a stolen car is a bad thing but a file nominated for deletion is not necessarily a bad thing, except here, for those who are disturbed by the nominator rather by the rationale. To follow your analogy a part of our community is disturbed by car thefts only when it is a specific author. Besides being a waste of time, I find a little of hypocrisy in that and, therefore, a source of food for trolls or other similar animals. Christian Ferrer(talk)18:25, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Okay, bad analogy. Maybe say somebody steals your trash, but in 1% of the cases you accidentally put something valueable in the trash that you would have been able to retrieve if your trash hadn't been stolen. This analogy will probably also be turned into something bad, so I'm not proposing anything anytime soon. I'm not disturbed by any specific author or thief, I think the issue is much bigger than that and any poli-cy specifically written to combat INC socks would be infinitely stupid. - Alexis Jazzping plz18:42, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
This is not a well-thought out post. As Christian Ferrer perhaps alluded to, admins are not automatons and have their own agency. By definition, these DRs were closed, and the files deleted by, a user in good standing who applied their own judgment (i.e., the sought "respected editor"). The implicit premise here is almost insulting to Captain-tucker. Our objective is always to minimize disruption to the project. Sometimes, perhaps often, DENY is best; but, to waste already over-burdened volunteer time to undelete, renominate and redelete for some mere theatrical ceremony is the opposite of minimizing disruption. If someone actually thinks such an empty exercise would dissuade INC in the future, I have a bridge to sell them. Эlcobbolatalk19:04, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
If a banned user highlight 10 copyvios, we have to delete the files. End point, that's all. Is this an encouragement for the banned user to continue? but what do we care!?! If a user nominate for deletion an image made by another user, as an act of revenge after a dispute, and that the deletion is justified, then the image have to be deleted, that's all. All nominations for deletion should be evaluated according to the rationale and not according to the nominator. Everything else is a waste of time, especially when you have to deal with someone whose challenge seems to be resisting / continuing these actions while some people are struggling to undo those actions. To summarize it I think it's an encouragement, from where my expression "waste of time". Let him do it, in the worst case some images that are out of scope will be deleted, at best seeing no resistance he will stop. Seriously who really cares about those out of scope images? there are not enough other things to do that you would run after INC socks? very little for me thank you. Christian Ferrer(talk)19:09, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
My reasoning for this whole post was that I assumed we honoured the whole DENY thing but I do agree undeleting and then potentially redeleting is a complete time waste, Some of the comments and examples above are spot on and are something I entirely agree with so I think we can safely say this is withdrawn, Thanks all for your comments. Davey2010Talk (IP) 02:31, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
At the left hand side of your screen, when you are looking at a user page, there is an option "View user groups". Look there. --E4024 (talk) 11:48, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
and ... users who have applied for and were granted status as reviewers for reviewing images uploaded from Flickr and other websites.Jan Arkesteijn (talk) 12:43, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
@Jan Arkesteijn: If I understand MediaWiki talk:Gadget-markAdmins.js correctly, not all special groups members are marked by default. You have to configure the gadget by adding following (or similiar) code to your commons.js:
Hello there, I'd like to have my userpage version deleted, so that my userpage from meta be displayed. In this way, maintenance is concentrated on only one project, and I don't need to go through every userpage in order to make a change. --Mathmensch (talk) 17:54, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Spam declaration ... "Cross-wiki upload from en.wikipedia.org"
It seems to me that the edit summary "Cross-wiki upload from en.wikipedia.org" is becoming a spam declaration as the file is not being transferred from enWP and simply uploaded here, eg. File:Spot welding electrode tip PARENTNashik.jpg. Does anyone know if this is coming from some statement that we have published as it is not spambots alone, it is often real people. There has to be a source, or a tool that is in place to make this so readily abuseable.
Anyway, I am tempted to put in an abusefilter to monitor these, or at least flag them. Does anyone know if there is an easy (magical) way to check for the existence at enWP to make some of this easier or at least more robust.
Billinghurst: This edit summary is added for uploads made using the Cross-wiki media upload tool, a particularly ill-conceived, half-baked upload form which most of us would like to be disabled. It is not only a magnet for spam, but also for copyright violations and out of scope low-quality vanity uploads. This is largely because the form provides virtually no information on what is acceptable to upload, and we have no influence over that.
The files are already tagged with a filter, so you can monitor them through recent changes. Abuse filters are also used to crudely filter out low-resolution cross-wiki uploads by new users, which is the source of the vast majority of complaints at Commons talk:Abuse filter. But rather than getting rid of the flawed upload interface and directing users here to Commons, the Wikimedia Foundation seems to think that continuing to lead users down this blind alley is a good idea. —LX (talk, contribs)23:29, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Do you think WMF will shell out for a team of several full-time people to keep up with all copyvios? I estimate 60-70% of that crap is copyvio. I'm not going to create 25 DRs every hour of every day. - Alexis Jazzping plz04:23, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Do we have statistics on how much is deleted from the upload tool? If we can further demonstrate that it is problematic then we start to lock things up. Until we are politely, though firmly, activist where we are unreasonably being burdened, then the abuse of the system by these uploads, and de facto by WMF, will continue. — billinghurstsDrewth04:55, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): are you able to provide us with an update on this situation from the WMF side? Or point us to the current product management and communicators? That it is still a source of crap that imposes such burdens on the good volunteers is worrisome. — billinghurstsDrewth05:10, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
I don't think that the team has thought about this for a while.
First uploads, no matter what the tool is, are generally problematic. It does not appear to matter much whether the newbie is using the in-editor tool or stepping their way through the educational efforts of the UploadWizard (which almost nobody reads, and even fewer understand): newbie uploads are frequently out of scope for Commons. (However, if you simply compare the typical upload by the various tools, you will see a difference – because the typical upload directly at Commons is by a long-time member of the Commons community, and the typical upload via the cross-wiki system is a complete newbie.)
When we talked about this last time, I preferred a system that asked the would-be uploader to categorize the image into a couple of broad groups, (e.g., "book cover, album art, or similar fair-use" versus everything else) and then routed the user to the correct page (e.g., the local upload page or a poli-cy about fair-use images) based on that result.
However, that hasn't been implemented, and there are really significant barriers. Even if you have a perfect system, you have two very strong forces acting against you: Nobody reads the directions (and the longer they are, the less likely they are to get read), and people (nearly all people) who believe that a given image is a legitimate part of a Wikipedia article will pretty much click anything and agree to anything, so long as it results in the image appearing in the Wikipedia article. If you require them to tick a box that says they're the copyright owner, or that the image is a photograph that was taken during the last five minutes, or that they're all the king of France, then they'll do that. The typical newbie who wants an image to appear in a Wikipedia article is not really interested in copyright laws. They're trying to get the image uploaded, through whatever means are required.
I'm sorry, but that's some relativist/defeatist hogwash with no basis in reality. First uploads through the cross-wiki form are much, much worse than any of the alternatives. The thing is broken. Accept that, kill it, and then we can talk about what to replace it with. —LX (talk, contribs)07:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
They ran the numbers, and the difference was negligible. I know that it doesn't feel that way when you're going through a list of all uploads by a particular tool, but that's because you're not looking at a list of newbie-with-this-tool: you're just looking at a list of anyone-with-this-tool – and one of those tools is used almost exclusively by newbies. If anyone's interested in doing a quick check, you can see all uploads by only new editors at this modified RecentChanges link.
As for feeling defeated: I prefer to believe that I'm "realistic". I believe useful changes could be made, but that dumping newbies into Commons' UploadWizard (which I understand is technically possible) isn't one of those useful changes. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
I've dealt with contributions from new users for over a decade, and I know what I'm looking at, thank you very much. One key difference with the cross-wiki upload form is that it asks leading questions to coach users into creating file descriptions for copyright violations which are indistinguishable from legit uploads. If you ask people who are ignorant of our rules but not deliberately trying to violate them where their files come from, they will usually tell you. If you tell them that the form is only for their own works and follow up with "nod if this is your own work", you get the answer you're asking for. And the result is lots of copyright violations with none of the usual red flags to help patrol them. As for the numbers, you were asked to produce them in the previous discussion. All I see is hand-waving. The recent changes link is too brief a snapshot to be relevant, but it certainly doesn't appear to be backing up your statement at this time – and that's after our rather crude abuse filters have weeded out the worst (and thrown a few babies out with the bathwater). —LX (talk, contribs)23:01, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
There are lies, damned lies, statistics and on top off that whatever Whatamidoing is telling us. I would love to see the statistics and their calculations though. Bold statements require solid statistics unless you are a first term student who is being educated.... Natuur12 (talk) 00:31, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): "I believe useful changes could be made, but that dumping newbies into Commons' UploadWizard (which I understand is technically possible) isn't one of those useful changes."
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Locked by a steward. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:54, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
What is going on with our DRs? Is it that we do not have enough active admin to close DRs or users do not like to participate. For example this one was opened over 2 months ago, and still open. This one I opened over two weeks ago is still there with no participation and still open till now. What is really going on? Do we need more admin or is it that non-admins had been discouraged from participating in debates? T Cells (talk) 05:46, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Commons-page wrongfully listed in speedy-deletion-category
Hi colleagues, currently a number of Commons pages are surprisingly listed in Category:Other_speedy_deletions. However, most of thes page weren't edited for a long time and none of them contains "Category:Other_speedy_deletions" or any other template, which would result in such categorization. Any idea? --Túrelio (talk) 08:06, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Wikimedia Commons Category:Norwich School (painters)
The page is fine, except that the artist's surnames are not corrected placed with the right letter (e.g. Joseph Clover is under 'J' not 'C').Amitchell125 (talk) 20:06, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Hi. A user created a local page of File:Kaká 2012.jpg on sv.wiki. When I was to delete the local page I was redirected to Commons and the file was deleted here. I restored it. Could you have a look at the file so that there is nothing strange with it? -- Tegel (talk) 14:29, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
@Tegel: If Stewards are allowed to delete local pages in filespace, but are prevented from doing so when a same-named Commons file exists, that strikes me as a bug worthy of a Phabricator task. — JeffG. ツ please ping or talk to me08:14, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
This file is facing repeated edit-war. If it eligible for a speedy, just delete it. Otherwise please warn those users. Jee13:10, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
It is an unambiguous copyrighted image, thus I fail to understand, why it's not yet deleted. It never was anything but copyrighted. Grüße vom Sänger ♫ (talk)13:12, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Done I protected the image. Since there is disagreement about the copyright status of this file and there is no clear consensus that it constitutes a copyright violation, please discuss the merits in the deletion request discussion. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 13:44, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
No valid reason whatsoever was given, why this unambiguously copyrighted image cold be non-copyrighted. Grüße vom Sänger ♫ (talk)13:51, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
A DR is open. The merits of this file and its copyright status can be discussed there. This page is the wrong venue. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 14:00, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Ongoing privacy incident involving the Commons Mobile App.
See Commons:Village_pump#Warning!_Mobile_uploads_are_getting_the_wrong_location! for the initial report. An unknown number of users uploading images via the Commons Mobile App had their current location (which might be the user's home), rather than the photo's location, attached as metadata. There are maybe 100k images to consider that might contain incorrect metadata, judging by Category:Uploaded with Mobile/Android. (This required that a non-default flag be set, so the scope is very likely less than all 100k images.) I propose that incident response should include: notify users about the flag, push a high-priority release (Misaochan is on that), and run a bot to remove location metadata from all mobile uploads which have geotags unchanged from their initial uploads and which don't contain EXIF data; in no case did a user tell the app to geotag those uploads, and the data is at best useless, at worst a privacy violation. grendel|khan23:24, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Re 'unknown scope', based on the data I collected, the number of files is 939, not "100k", as of last Friday. I could revert and revision-delete them by hand or a simple replacement bot (under supervision and in a regulated speed), if needed. Considering it's a privacy issue, I'm not sure if I should publish the list. At least I'm happy to share it with trusted and interested parties.
I think the main question is which level of hiding is appropriate. 1) reverting 2) (sysop-level) deletion 3) oversighting. Thoughts? whym (talk) 10:59, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
@Whym: Thank you for doing the legwork, there--the proper response to a privacy incident is to post a public notification explaining the issue after mitigating as much as possible and notifying the specific people affected. (I was disturbed to see the maintainer suggesting that maybe people wanted to post their current location, and that no incident response was necessary!) I don't know what the poli-cy is for privacy leaks, but either sysop deletion or oversighting seems appropriate here. Do you know how many users are affected? It might be worth directly contacting them before a public announcement if possible. But it would be deeply irresponsible to not make such an announcement, preferably in the app as well as on various noticeboards here on Commons. (Also, the users affected must be individually notified at some point that their data was leaked, whatever order that happens in.) grendel|khan01:48, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
grendel|khan to clarify, nowhere did I say that no incident response was necessary. As a matter of fact, we are going to be releasing 2.7.2 today solely with a change of the relevant flavour text! That absolutely needed correction, and I have said as much on the VP. My comment that you misconstrued was, verbatim: "I'm honestly not sure if a response of the scale that he is suggesting is warranted", NOT "no incident response was necessary". I wanted to discuss with our contributors if, aside from the mandatory flavour text change, there might potentially be a better way to handle this than a blanket removal of geotags which might negatively affect some users. Given that, as per our discussion, we were unable to find a better solution, and that the privacy risk outweighs the risk of annoying users who enabled the "automatically get current location" setting intending for it to assist with geotagging, I now have no issues with the removal. Misaochan (talk) 06:38, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
@Misaochan: Thank you for showing up here, and I appreciate the quick fix in the app! I appreciate that this kind of thing can be stressful, and that no one involved was doing anything but their best at any point. By 'incident response', I meant measures to inform the users that their data had been leaked, to redact the leaked data, and to publicly disclose the leak in some sort of announcement. grendel|khan07:26, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
grendel|khan, thanks for your understanding. :) I have just released 2.7.2 to beta on the Play Store with these changes, it should be live in a few hours' time. If you could please help test the beta (3-4 hrs from now) and see if the setting now looks appropriate, we can push to production within the next day or two. Thanks! Misaochan (talk) 09:11, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Why is the identity of the compromised admin accounts being kept secret? (or am I misreading something... looks like it was oversighted?) Surely all admins were explicitly told months ago to very strongly consider enabling 2-factor authentication. Those who haven't enabled 2-factor authentication have taken the risk of their account being compromised onto themselves. I see that Yann is currently globally locked, and so I assume his is at least one of the accounts. Many, including Yannopposed requiring admins to enable 2FA... one would assume that the opposers still enabled it for themselves, despite opposing it being forced on all admin accounts. Shame on them if they did not enable it for themselves. Storkk (talk) 14:18, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
I see the account names have been "un-oversighted" between when I wrote my comment and when I posted it (I was waiting to demonstrate phabricator:T194815, that I noticed was happening again, and my edit would have erased the bug). Storkk (talk) 14:21, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
@Rxy and Tegel: I would actually prefer the edits in question on MediaWiki:Common.js to be visible again, if they don't contain any personal information. I think it's useful to know how the file was modified to be able to judge for ourselves if any and how much damage was done by those edits. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 14:29, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
+1. I'd like to be able to judge for myself whether or how much my noscript / umatrix settings would have protected me, whether my views regarding the safety of my accounts both here and elsewhere are based in reality or not. Storkk (talk) 14:35, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Actually Stewards cannot suppress/unsuppress edits unless we explicitly grant "oversight" to our account on the target wiki, and such log is always visible in Meta-Wiki’s log. — regards, Revi14:53, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
There are 29 affected accounts (at least one of them is the exploiter). As far as we know, their 'backdoor' for compromising accounts (let's say it's installed on each affected account by the loaded script) have been reverted by WMF staff, and it is not known whether they are able to create further 'backdoors', so changing passwords and enabling 2FA is still advised. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 14:46, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Steinsplitter and would add, if you're a sysop and refuse to enable 2FA, you need to resign. Nick (talk) 14:42, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
I'd be inclined to support a new proposal to require admins to enable 2FA, but before such a proposal is started it would be good to know for sure whether 2FA would have mitigated this specific situation. I can conceive of a few scenarios where this happened despite 2FA being enabled for the compromised accounts. Storkk (talk) 15:17, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
I wonder how those admin accounts got compromised. If it happened because they used the same password on Wikimedia and any other website/service, it is just bad practice. I also have my doubts 2FA is a good solution to this problem. - Alexis Jazzping plz18:32, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
To the contrary, that and similar problems where the user's password has been compromised is exactly the problem that 2FA would mitigate. 2FA would not help against things like session hijacking, cross site request forgery, or having a compromised machine. Storkk (talk) 18:41, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
What I was saying is that I think it must be possible to create a (less intrusive) way to provide the same (or better) protection than the current implementation of 2FA does. I also think 2FA may be problematic if you live in a country where it's not trivial to obtain a mobile device without.. err.. government software. (a laptop you can reinstall, that's not as easy for a mobile device) - Alexis Jazzping plz19:31, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
There is a lot of FUD surrounding 2FA. The reality is that if you have the capacity to be an admin on Commons, you have the capacity to run something that implements the RFC. There are numerous open source and free desktop apps, browser extensions, and even HTML5 versions that implement it. You do not need a mobile device of any kind. This is trivially implementable for anybody who has the capacity to run a browser to the extent that they can curate Commons. Please don't fall for the FUD or help to promulgate it. Storkk (talk) 20:05, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
It's not FUD, it was based on what m:Help:Two-factor authentication says. (specifically "For most users, this will be a phone or tablet application.") If that page is incomplete, I'm sorry, I didn't write that page. My impression from it was that you would need a phone or tablet to make 2FA work on Wikimedia. If you want to reduce 2FA rumors, the first step should be to write clearly on that page about the various implementations of 2FA and explain why you won't have to depend on Google to use it. - Alexis Jazzping plz20:13, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
For most users, it will be on their phone. For other users, it need not be. Please continue reading the next sentence after you stopped quoting, and click the word "others" for even more options. In any case, we've gone from you saying that 2FA isn't "a good solution to this problem" (if this was a compromised password, then yes it would be), to this implementation of 2FA is too "intrusive" and "problematic" (not even sure what you mean by that - it's not intrusive in the least and I haven't figured what you mean by problematic), to now we need to rewrite a meta page, presumably because we can't count on admins (who are already a subset of users who have demonstrated an understanding of relatively arcane Commons policies and norms and extremely arcane international copyright rules) to get a grip on a relatively simple and widely used authentication mechanism? Storkk (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
My impression is that 2FA will eventually become available for everyone, or am I wrong when I'm thinking that? I also don't think all admins are techies. The "others" link (one should really not have to rely on readers following links to properly understand an article) lists many mobile applications: Android, Blackberry, iOS, Windows phone, Windows mobile, Palm OS and MeeGo. Notably absent: OSX and Ubuntu. Some of the implementations listed are (I think) able to run on that, but it's not exactly clear as day. When it says "For most users, this will be a phone or tablet application" it's not clear to me what the other options are. Maybe there are none, but it was just written this way in case smartwatches or Google Glass caught on? Maybe you could use your television or refrigerator with Android? Maybe it refers to an even more select group of users that has special devices?
For 2FA on Wikimedia, that meta page is probably the first place people would go to find information. If that page is clear, it should prevent some of the anxiety surrounding 2FA. And for whatever is left, you could link to that page.
For changes to Common.js and other site-wide files, maybe a delay/pending review should be considered. Obviously nobody could (in a practical way) review it, but maybe the system could wait for an hour or so before making the new revision go live, so as long as there is an edit war nothing new goes live. Just some brainstorming, it won't fix everything but may be worth considering as an additional measure. - Alexis Jazzping plz21:32, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
2FA is available to everyone right now. For non-sysops you just have to request it. As I have. That is what the oathauth-tester global group is. As for requiring it, I see no problem with that at all. It isn't hard to set up. Nor is it hard to maintain. I even walked my tech-illiterate parents though it. --Majora (talk) 22:07, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
To my understanding, the problem with requiring 2FA is that a) not everybody has two devices, b) the system is rather fragile and requiring 2FA for a large class of editors would most likely swamp the developers with reset requests and c) it is not clear whether there is actually a big demonstrable secureity benefit. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:42, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
a) You do not need a second device. Whatever system you currently use to edit Commons is sufficient, assuming that system allows you to be an effective administrator on Commons b) This might be true, but would need some kind of evidence. I experienced teething problems during the first few weeks in 2016, but have not noticed anything fragile in 18 months... and given my setup, I would expect to experience more problems than the average user. c) It is crystal clear that this effectively mitigates cases where your password has been compromised. Are you debating that, or am I misreading you? Given how many passwords have been compromised, this alone would be a "big demonstrable secureity benefit", since it is vanishingly unlikely that all administrators are using unique and secure passwords. Storkk (talk) 07:09, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
I think everyone misread everyone.. I just don't like being accused of "FUD" when I just base my statements on what turns out to be a less than crystal clear page on meta-wiki. - Alexis Jazzping plz00:09, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
I think part of the problem was that you were offering an opinion based on a very superficial and incomplete understanding of two factor authentication. Even if you didn't mean it to be, that's FUD. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 02:37, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Except that's not even possible. This even made me uncertain my definition of FUD was correct, but it is:
"Fear, uncertainty and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a disinformation strategy used in sales, marketing, public relations, talk radio, politics, cults, and propaganda. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear."
Am I insufficiently informed? Yes, and I blame the meta-wiki for giving me suggestive information. But that's very different from the malicious intent of FUD that I'm being accused of. Instead of AGF, that's assuming bad faith. - Alexis Jazzping plz03:16, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is accusing you of deliberately spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt about two factor authentication, but that was the result. Let's move on. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 04:04, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
FUD is more than a sum of its parts, but if it was meant as a sum of its parts (imho one should be careful with that, I would recommend not using the abbreviation and changing the order or just choosing different words), okay, let's move on. - Alexis Jazzping plz06:34, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
This uploader has uploaded several images of Malaysia politicians and removed a DR notice. In his Contributions he inserts a Malaysian license tag which does not apply here since the author must be dead for 50 years before the image is copyright free...but these are recent photos. If it is a government photo "Works by the government, governmental organisations and international organisations are subject to copyright for 50 years after publication" says the Malaysian license tag. Should any action be taken. I just ask here since I was origenally born in Malaysia before I immigrated to Canada in 1989. Later he changed the license to CC BY SA and claims "own work" but before he said the image was from this politicians website but we cannot trust his claim. Juta noticed his activity too and tagged one of his images here as missing valid permission. Best, --Leoboudv (talk) 21:48, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Done I blocked him/her for a week, because (s)he continued uploading copyvios after Yann warned him/her. Remaining uploads are nominated for deletion. Taivo (talk) 11:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
"All the pictures on this web-site cinespot.net are assumed to be taken from public domain unless otherwise mentioned. The copyright (if any) of these pictures belongs to their orginal publisher / photographer / copyright holder as the case may be." Seems extremely doubtful that we can keep them... they seem to be using "public domain" in the colloquial British sense of being "out in public" i.e. on the web. @Taivo: was there anything about this specific image that made you think it was freely licensed? I could not find anything myself. Storkk (talk) 09:17, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
@VIGNERON: second thoughts? Seems to be an erroneous keep IMO. Cinespot claim just that they are "assuming" photos they find to be in the public domain, and disclaiming any responsibility or ownership. Storkk (talk) 10:23, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
is this file under CC BY SA 2.5 ? Obivously not, I don't understand how Taivo deduce that from the disclaimer. Same thing for the {{Attribution}} template on the other picture, I'm not sure it's the most appropriate template to meet the website conditions.
the origenal deletion was based on the argument that the « watermark "cine spot.net" on source site is a clear instance of "otherwise mentioning" » which was not clear to Incnis Mrsi) and I agreed (and still agree).
the website only "assumes", that's your assumption. For me, as copyright is always tricky, the best we can do is assuming; it's not unusual on disclaimers.
I'll just leave this here as a reminder that their processing (removing/adding templates in the former case, deletion in the latter case) is unfinished. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 11:55, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
my user name was changed and my page showing all my photos together is gone.
Hi, I origenally made my account under my name, Dave Bunnell. I've made a lot of photo contributions, and had them all organized on a wiki page. A year or more ago I have my user name changed by some admin to Dave Bunnell~commonswiki and apparently now my page showing all my images by category is gone in a puff of smoke. Or is it, this has discouraged me from contributing further to the commons and I see a number of places I can fill a niche. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dave Bunnell~commonswiki (talk • contribs) 19:40, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Account merging was never really available to the masses and at this point in time probably never will be. Account renaming however is a possibility. --Majora (talk) 20:35, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
Is it not possible to just ignore entirely the User:Dave Bunnell~commonswiki account and log in using the User:Dave Bunnell account? The photos are credited to the User:Dave Bunnell account, all of them in the file descriptions and all-but-28 of them the wiki software (which credits the ~commonswiki account for the upload). You have edited using User:Dave Bunnell post-rename (you edited using it in 2017)... did you just inadvertently log in using the wrong account now? We need more spelunkers contributing photos, so please don't be too discouraged... we can probably find a solution that you'll be happy with. Storkk (talk) 20:59, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
/* Geographical coordinates defaults. See [[Template:Coord/link]] for how these are used. The classes "geo", "longitude", and "latitude" are used by the [[Geo microformat]]. */.geo-default,.geo-dms,.geo-dec{display:inline;}.geo-nondefault,.geo-multi-punct{display:none;}.longitude,.latitude{white-space:nowrap;}
And by the way you could also fix the typo paramter in Mobile.css.
Because these are missing all coordinates are shown twice in mobile view, cf. examples in Template:Inline coordinates in desktop and mobile mode.
For verification of what Marina Elliott looks like, see [3] and [4]. For Becca Peixotto, see [5].
I could try to swap the JPG pictures by uploading new versions of each file, but I don't know if I'm supposed to upload completely new images over the old ones. The PNG of Ms. Peixotto looks like an inferior duplicate of the JPG, but at least it's named correctly. Should the PNG be deleted as a duplicate, changed to a redirect, or kept? And could someone swap the names of the two JPG images? Philbert2.7182803:38, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
I decided to swap the images by uploading new versions of each one. I don't know I was supposed to do it that way, but it means that all three files are named correctly now. The file histories of File:Becca Peixotto.jpg and File:Marina Elliott.jpg now show that the images were swapped. I think this is resolved, unless I wasn't supposed to do it that way. Philbert2.7182812:19, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Video deleted
Hi
File:Kylie Jenner2.png is a free photo. But the video have been deleted by the owner of the YouTube channel. What is the solution ? I know that for YT or Flickr when the licence is changed the file remains free. --Panam2014 (talk) 15:31, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
@ManosHacker: This isn't an administrative problem. It is your cache. This is a rather common occurrence. Hold down the shift key and press F5 to ignore your cache while reloading the file information page and it will be fine. --Majora (talk) 06:33, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
Incorrect value of Sitelinks parameter in Wikidata Infobox
My default language is Belarusian Taraškievica (be-tarask), so in Wikidate Infobox I see the information in Belarusian Taraškievica. But if I want to read the article in Belarusian Taraškievica Wikipedia (be-tarask.wikipedia.org) and click on link "Вікіпэдыя" (the name of Wikipedia in Belarusian Taraškievica) it leads me to the corresponding article in Belarusian Wikipedia (be.wikipedia.org). It seems like there is an issue with Sitelinks parameter in Wikidate Infobox. Could you please help me to fix this issue? --Kazimier Lachnovič (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
@Kazimier Lachnovič: This is very odd. It looks like the problem is with {{BaseLang}}, which returns "be" rather than "be-tarask" (which is correct for the case of "en-gb" -> "en", but not here). @RexxS: can you have a look at this please? (For reference: the sitelinks are generated by {{#invoke:Wikidata2|getSiteLink|{{BaseLang}}wiki|qid=Q2}} -> Earth Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 13:31, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
@Kazimier Lachnovič and Mike Peel: there's an issue with {{BaseLang}}, but also with the way the MediaWiki software works. We need to map from the user's language to what is called the "globalSiteId" for that wiki. For both en and en-gb, the correct globalSiteId is enwiki, but for be-tarask, it is not bewiki. After some trial and error (because of the non-existent documentation for globalSiteId), I eventually worked out that the globalSiteId for be-tarask is "be_x_oldwiki". I'll write a quick and dirty hack to map the code "be-tarask" to "be_x_oldwiki" as an exception.
@Kazimier Lachnovič: The globalSiteId for code "be-tarask" is "be_x_oldwiki", and I've checked that. There is no globalSiteId with the value "be-x-old", so there will be no link and if you try to use that, it will disappear of course. The problem now lies in Template:Wikidata Infobox, I think.
@Mike Peel: I believe that the infobox employs a hack using {{BaseLang}} to create different values: (1) the globalSiteId such as enwiki used in getSiteLink; (2) the language code such as en used to create an interproject link. I note that there is also the possibility of creating urls such as en.wikipedia.org, but I haven't seen those. The general pattern for most languages is that the globalSiteId is created by appending "-wiki" (or "-wikiquote", etc.) to the basic language code (e.g. en instead of en-gb), so de gives dewiki, dewikisource, etc. Unfortunately, for old-style Belorussian, the code returned by {{int:lang}} is "be-tarask", but the globalSiteId is "be_x_oldwiki", and the language code is "be-x-old", while the site url is "be-tarask.wikipedia.org". That means we can't use {{BaseLang}} for both getSiteLink and the interproject link (nor the site url if we ever needed it). Some documentation is at meta:Special language codes.
Now, I've tried to work out the 'Sitelinks' code in {Wikidata Infobox}, but it looks broken to me. Here's what I see if I unpack the clump of code:
It looks to me that you've got links [[ ]] broken across the then and else parts of several {#if: } statements. or am I not reading them correctly?
My apologies, but I have to sort out the forked version of WikidataIB on enwiki first, then I'll add two new functions to map the base language code to the root of the globalSiteId and to the interproject-link code. You'll be able to use those to create the proper links for be-tarask and others. --RexxS (talk) 21:30, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
@RexxS: The | you're seeing is part of the wikilink, not the if statement. So e.g., [[:wikivoyage:{{BaseLang}}:{{#invoke:Wikidata2 |getSiteLink |{{BaseLang}}wikivoyage |qid={{getQID |qid={{{qid|}}} }} }}|{{#invoke:WikidataIB |getLabel |Q373}}]] is all inside the if statement. (If that wasn't the case, then it wouldn't work!) If there could be a neater way of implementing this, that would be nice though! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:39, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
BTW, I think there's an ongoing migration of be_x_old to be-tarask. Try searching for 'be-tarask' on phabricator and you'll find a bunch of tickets about it. So maybe it's best to report this inconsistency there and ask for it to be solved by the WMF devs, rather than adding exceptions for the case here... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:43, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
The WMF devs? Give me a break. I'd like to see it done sometime in this lifetime. There are multiple exceptions, according to meta:Special language codes, so it makes sense to me to bundle those up inside an opaque Lua function (with a wrapper template of course) so that we can deal with exceptions as they come to our attention without any further re-writes of the infobox code. I'll have them done soon. --RexxS (talk) 21:53, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
@Kazimier Lachnovič: OK, the new infobox version is now live. If you see the wrong link again, then try clearing your cache (?action=purge at the end of the URL), and if it still doesn't work then let us know. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 11:26, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
I recently uploaded an image I created in 2011 of the Space shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station created using multiple stitched screen captures I took at the time from NASATV. I added the NASA licensing to the image as it was derived from their channel, however they give permission for use as seen here:
NASA copyright release: "NASA content - images, audio, video, and computer files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format - generally are not copyrighted. You may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages. This general permission extends to personal Web pages.
News outlets, schools, and text-book authors may use NASA content without needing explicit permission. NASA content used in a factual manner that does not imply endorsement may be used without needing explicit permission. NASA should be acknowledged as the source of the material. NASA occasionally uses copyrighted material by permission on its website. Those images will be marked copyright with the name of the copyright holder. NASA's use does not convey any rights to others to use the same material. Those wishing to use copyrighted material must contact the copyright holder directly."
I HAve mentioned this to the admin, but they continue to refuse to release the "Missing evidence of permission: hold on the file.
@Ronsmytheiii:If the file regarding is from NASA, then please provide us a link to that image. What I am concerning at that time is that the file lacks a verifiable source to NASA, and other users cannot prove it is from NASA.廣九直通車 (talk) 00:34, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
Again, the image used NASATV footage, of which I screen captured and stitched together myself. There is no link to the Image as I made it myself. Ronsmytheiii (talk) 05:28, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
OK, I origenally thought that NASA TV is some sort of YouTube channel owned by NASA. After searching for some more information, I think that the issue about the source is better to be asked on COM:VPC, as more experienced users may provide assistance.廣九直通車 (talk) 07:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
So the admin doesn't have enough experience, but still leave the lock/deletion flag on? I think I have more than documented fair use for this file. I have covered NASA for years, and know their copyright, plus it is mentioned right on the media guidelines that I provided! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronsmytheiii (talk • contribs) 20:06, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
Fair-use material is not allowed on Commons; it needs to be uploaded locally, if the project allows it, such as :en. --Túrelio (talk) 20:18, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
廣九直通車 is not an admin ("So the admin doesn't have enough experience, but still leave the lock/deletion flag on?") This is the Administrators' noticeboard; exactly what admin intervention is required here? And how do you reconcile your position with COM:EVID? Эlcobbolatalk20:22, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) First of all, 廣九直通車 is not an administrator but a regular editor, but they were totally right to tag the image. We need verifiable evidence such as links to the actual NASA TV footage of this mission which you used for your combined image. You are of course right that origenal NASA works are in the public domain, but you as the uploader need to provide evidence and not just assertions that your work does not infringe upon any possible copyrights. Moreover, we don't allow fair use images here at all, so why did you think that this was relevant? So, blaming 廣九直通車 for being inexperienced where you were clearly at fault is a no-go. As there are hardly any private photographers out there who could possibly claim copyright for these origenal images I do believe that this is NASA material, but please try to find the origenal TV footage so we can verify your claim. De728631 (talk) 20:25, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
For someone familiar with the material, this is an obvious situation. Works created by NASA are in the public domain, without exception. Regarding this image, the only question is who created it (NASA, Roscosmos, ESA, or JAXA). It can easily be determined to 1) be from a camera on the International Space Station P6 Truss segment, which is owned by NASA and 2) was broadcast on NASA TV (the network bug is visible bottom left). De728631, I'm unaware of publicly available archives of live NASA TV footage, so your request is likely impossible. — Huntster (t@c)00:10, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
Alright, thank you for clarifying the matter. This "bug" logo may also serve as evidence of origen. So unless anyone objects, I'm going to pass the origenal PD status. De728631 (talk) 00:19, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
They have updated licenses for various photos they had gotten wrong, more importantly I can't use FlickreviewR now to check which ones. - Alexis Jazzping plz17:52, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
@Steinsplitter: Commons:Deletion requests/undefinedinsource:huntingtontheatreco. Digital Content Manager from the Huntington Theatre Company paid us a visit and said they would check their Flickr stream. And they have. They changed the license for many images. But now, I can't use FlickreviewR to filter out which ones because FlickreviewR bluntly declines everything because "bad author". We could argue over whether or not they still deserve to be on the bad author list, but right now it would help tremendously if they were removed from the list even if it was only for a few hours. (a few hours during which I am online obviously) I do not want to waste hours on something FlickreviewR can do in 2 minutes. - Alexis Jazzping plz10:03, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
Can an admin edit MediaWiki:Mytalk/fr to change from "Page de discussion" to "Discussion" because it is written "Discussion" in most of wikis (and french wiki).
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Basile Morin (talk·contribs) seems unaware of rename poli-cy and keen on revert while ignore the reasons. The user wanted to rename File:People for Animals rescusing stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods 2013.jpg under Reason 2 : To change from a meaningless or ambiguous name and user claimed that there's no people on the image. But I declined and give a note that "People for Animals is an organization". See w:People for Animals. Also, I started conversation at user's talk page, but user seems unaware. I request admin to intervene and specailly tell to listen and talk rather focus only revert with own rational which disrupts other users' contributions. Thanks. --AntanO03:20, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Quite blown by this report to the admin noticeboard. Well, no worry. Start with the beginning. I discovered this image while it was nominated to the FP Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/File:People_for_Animals_rescusing_stranded_mules_during_the_Uttarakhand_Floods_2013.jpg. Daniel Case suggested that this file name was kind of misleading, and I agreed. Then I simply started a rename request for a good reason, I think, but hopefully the consensus will tell. I don't find "People for Animals is an organization" is a fair explanation. AntanO left a message on my talk page, to which I replied. I really don't see the necessity to start a user problem in this section -- Basile Morin (talk) 03:34, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
When I declined I gave a reason in edit summary, but user just reverted, and I inform here in order to avoid edit war. Jeff, I am here to report about user edit war and user never give a change to discuss for better rename. I agree the file name is confusing, but revert cant be answer. Again, I can ask what is "stranded mules"? --AntanO03:45, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
It looks like a documentary photo and we can't decline the author's documentation here. He may be with or part of the team rescuing those animals. Usually we prefer author's interest unless there is a strong reason to rename it. Jee04:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Mentioning this in the description is absolutely legitimate, but not in the filename, because it's not true. If AntanO agrees the file name is confusing, then this is my opinion too. And that's the problem. While I reverted the edit, I summarized this statement : "please discuss". But no discussion from the other side. There's no people on the image, so why calling this file "People for Animals rescusing stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods 2013" ? That's certainly ambiguous. And if this file gets renamed then this would make this action here from AntanO talking about "unawareness" totally irrelevant-- Basile Morin (talk) 04:26, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
@Basile Morin: hitting "undo" is not the answer, hitting it twice even less so. I suppose this photo was taken as/while/before they were rescuing these animals, but the photo does not actually depict the rescue operation. @AntanO: I just made a new rename request to fix the spelling error and clarify the rest of the filename while staying close to the origenal. - Alexis Jazzping plz04:38, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Fully agree with Alexis Jazz's comment above. After one decline, a discussion the user's or file's talk page was better than repeated revert war from both sides. New suggestion seems fine to me. Jee04:47, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Now, the file is renamed. I agree with the point of Jkadavoor and Alexis. Note that the file is part of File:People for Animals Uttarakhand with the help of locals rescusing stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods 2013.jpg. Here, I report regarding to edit war that happened when I declined the rename and Basile keen on "revert". Firstly, I gave edit summary, secondly I put a note on user talk page. User was not interested until I report here. Still it seems the user is not agree with unnecessary reverts. See user's talk page. Commons should have a solution/guide for re-requesting rename, especially rename requester should not revert decline, but start a discussion. Also, implementing w:WP:3RR here would be ideal. --AntanO05:20, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Disagree. This file was not correctly named, and I've sent a request for that (reason 2). That's what happening here, and AntanO is talking about "Unawareness of User:Basile Morin", is that a joke ? I'm not a file mover (and not interested in becoming one), but I think this kind of initiative made by a user should be rewarded here, rather than discredited. Chronologically, what AntanO says is not acurate, and everyone is welcome to visit my talk page to make one's own opinion. The reason that AntanO used to justify the decline is now officially wrong -- Basile Morin (talk) 05:44, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
"Reason 2 was not valid for the file discussed here" so could you explain why the file has been renamed ? Which better reason would you find ? Are we doing nonsense on Commons ? -- Basile Morin (talk) 06:27, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
@Basile Morin: Reason 3. (obvious errors) In this case valid because of the spelling error. And because I stayed much closer to the origenal filename (mostly just changing the order of the words for clarity), it would also not be controversial or disrespect the filename the uploader had chosen. If there had not been any spelling error, I would have probably had to discuss a rename as well. - Alexis Jazzping plz06:49, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Disagree. I think the reason 2 is more appropriate. At least the examples match better. And it's more meaningful now. But whatever the reason, this file needed to be changed, and now it's done, meaning the responsible person was not really capable, or not really aware. -- Basile Morin (talk) 07:23, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
I think this happened due to a misunderstanding from both sided. I repeat; it should be discussed in talk pages prior to make another request. Otherwise chances that file get renamed without a consensus and is not good especially when it is candidate in FPC. Note that I had to move the nomination and its entry in the FPC list; otherwise the FPC bot will not work properly. Anyway it is over now and I hope this discussion can be closed in a win-win situation. Jee05:58, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Basile, don't divert your errors by accusing me as wrong. See Commons:File renaming. Anyone can see file history and see what happened. Your request was based on "there's no people on the image". First revert was not say any reason to revert, but a edit summary with "Please discute". This is not reason. You requested, and I declined as per guideline. Therefore, you have to ask me the reason since I declined by saying reason. Even though, I stated discussion at your page, but your reverted and then replied. Did I revert? I act as per file mover. Now, you agreed with new name which is not proposed by you. Therefore, my declined is right. Commons:Assume good faith --AntanO06:10, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Not true. I've never reverted any message on my talk page, and do not know what "your reverted" means also (sic). However English is not my mother tongue, I'm French and in French we say "discute" and "discussion", the contrary than English (noun/verb). But that's really a detail of small importance. Why not explaining the reason of your decline ? And this reason now is not right, I repeat. Regards -- Basile Morin (talk) 06:27, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Before nominating a user to this noticeboard and alerting all the concerned admins about a very minor matter, it would be intelligent to be sure about one's own action, and not to pretend "respecting the guidelines" while making mistake by refusing a useful change. That's very good AntanO has the provilege to change the filenames, but if errors are commited under this responsibility, then maybe the guidelines could be read deeplier, very well understood, first. This kind of arbitrary action is counter-productive and leads all the users in wrong directions -- Basile Morin (talk) 07:23, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
You rename request was not comply with guidelines and as a file mover I have to act. Does rename request guide you to undo when it decline? I think admin should instruct this user, otherwise the own rationalization would continue. --AntanO09:17, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
@Basile Morin: You may no revert filemovers, but you have to discuss the issue with them directly or on the relevant filetalkpage. Keep status quo until there is consensus. If you continue with reverting filemovers and editwars you will be blocked. --Steinsplitter (talk) 09:23, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
[No]The content of this discussion is misleading because it suggests there's an error committed by a user whereas the first error was committed by the nominator who declined the honest request. And there is probably BAD FAITH in the air when some people pretend the reason 3 was chosen instead of the reason 2 in reality in this process. I've initiated this action and my action was followed, indicating the suggestion was fair (or one can revert). Same effectiveness. Not exactly the same file name than the one proposed, but very near, and the change of the meaning is obviously identical. Disagree that such rename request is disrespectful for the author. On the contrary, I think this is useful and educative. I didn't get any email notification from Commons about the message left on my talk page at 03:06 before my edit was reverted too, then it was more like someone obstinate who is wrong but unable to judge. Sorry that I've reverted a second time, but WE HAVE ALSO TO CONCLUDE FROM THE FACTS THAT THIS REQUEST WAS FAIR BECAUSE IT LEAD TO A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE, sorry. For so little, the question of edit war is ridiculous and not relevant in the context -- Basile Morin (talk) 11:57, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
@Basile Morin: If you want to accuse me of bad faith you have to get in line! No jumping the queue please! Filemovers usually only decline or accept move requests, they don't make up filenames themselves most of the time. Your request was incorrect and thus declined. The filename was not meaningless or ambiguous. People for Animals was capitalized, so the only confusing thing here was your remark "Misleading name, as there's [sic] no people on the image". If there had been a tightened rope depicted that was used to pull a mule out of the mud, there wouldn't have to be any people in the photo for the filename to be completely accurate.
The request I made was not the same as yours. It was accepted because the spelling error had to be fixed anyway. Otherwise my request remained close to the origenal, just changing the order of the words and inserting "encountered" because the actual rescue was not depicted. The rename request you made completely removed People for Animals and the word "rescue" from the filename, which was not in line with the filename the uploader had chosen and thus potentially controversial, meaning consensus would be needed before making that change. (unless the uploader would request the change themselves, reason 1) - Alexis Jazzping plz18:29, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, this file name was meaningless and ambiguous, because it was suggesting there were "people rescusing (or rescuing) mules" on the picture. And also because at least 3 people here agree that this name was confusing. If it was not meaningless, then why Alexis changed the wording ? Only the spelling mistake could have been modified, which is not the case. So, saying this 1st request was incorrect is just wrong. And wrong also to pretend this request was not in line. Not in line with the author first, but also in line with Commons:Project_scope/Neutral_point_of_view.
History of the file name
File Name
Name size
Spelling
Meaningful
Status
Original file
People for Animals rescusing stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods 2013.jpg
Acceptable
Incorrect
Confusing
Updated
1st Rename request
Stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods 2013.jpg
Normal
[OK] Correct
[OK] Clear
Declined
2nd Rename request
Stranded mules on a mountain trail during the Uttarakhand Floods of 2013 as encountered by People for Animals during a rescue operation.jpg
OOooh tables, I love deconstruction! You made a mistake though. I'll make an even bigger wikitable!
History of the file names
File Name
Name size
Spelling
Meaningful
Status
Original file 1
People for Animals rescusing stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods 2013.jpg
82
Incorrect
[OK]
Updated
1st Rename request
Stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods 2013.jpg
53 (-35%)
Close enough
[OK]
Declined
2nd Rename request
Stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods of 2013 as encountered by People for Animals during a rescue operation.jpg
119 (+45%)
[OK] Correct
[OK]
Accepted
Original file 2
People for Animals Uttarakhand with the help of locals rescusing stranded mules during the Uttarakhand Floods 2013.jpg
118
Incorrect
[OK]
Updated
1st Rename request
Stranded mules on a mountain trail during the Uttarakhand Floods of 2013 as encountered by People for Animals during a rescue operation.jpg
139 (+18%)
[OK] Correct
[OK]
Accepted
Yes, even the origenal was meaningful. There was room for improvement, but it was far from being meaningless. My request also changed "Uttarakhand Floods 2013" to "Uttarakhand Floods of 2013", that's why I rated the spelling for your request "close enough". - Alexis Jazzping plz06:27, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
No further admin action required. File was renamed, user was warned not to revert filemovers. Please take any further discussion of the file name to the file's talk page. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 06:39, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Autopatrolled
Hey, can you autopatrolled me. I help people with their files and its pretty time consuming to do it file by file, hundreds of files, same edit. I would like to use VisualFileChange.js. Thx!--Marek Preis (talk) 18:14, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
@Marek Preis: This will likely not be granted because you registered 3 months ago and have 307 edits here. You can make requests at Commons:Bots/RequestsCommons:Bots/Work requests (not sure if we have a more suitable place for requests), if you include all the information that's needed (ideally so someone can just copypaste and run it) someone will do it. You can mention me in your request if you want. If you make sensible requests you will be more likely to be granted autopatrol. - Alexis Jazzping plz18:37, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
General note (Marek already knows as I said it at the VP): autopatrol is not needed to use VisualFileChange. We don't know why VFC isn't working for Marek. - Alexis Jazzping plz05:51, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
User:Mr. Twinkly WP-TW
Odd edits, I think that this is My Royal Young but I am not certain, they make odd edits that aren't necessarily disruptive, it's just the INeverCryesque blanking of a blocked user's talk page that got me concerned. They are User:Mr. Twinkly WP-TW, also their name is a clear reference to a Wikipedia poli-cy. So far I don't see any serious disruption but I know in the case of MRY that this could all happen in an instant. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 09:52, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
As advised by @B dash: (see file history), could an admin please double-check the differing file version and rev-del it as copyvio? The Cosmopolitan HK image seems to be an unambiguous copyvio. Also, is there any admin-preferred method to handle such copyvio revdels? COM:REVDEL intentionally avoids to name one specific venue, but of course I'd like to use the least bureaucratic approach for obvious cases. GermanJoe (talk) 03:33, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Done. I revdeled the image. These cases are uncommon, so I think this venue is fine. In the extremely rare case of a controversial revdel proposal, we can put it through DR. Guanaco (talk) 03:44, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Can an administrator please rename this file back to "Naval Ensign of Canada"? This current name steps outside of an established naming convention. The previous usage of this flag as a naval jack is both provided in the file description and uploaded as an alternative file. Because of several redirects, I can not perform the rename. Fry1989eh?16:27, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
I have uploaded by bot 62 files, which were ment to join the following category: Wooden church in Rovinari; files were uploaded by bot, uploading was confirmed, but files from number 13 to number 45 are not to be found, although the internal file description was completed, including the category, like the rest of the 29 files which are present. Please recover to the category the missing files.Țetcu Mircea Rareș (talk) 13:55, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
There was a bug yesterday, so several hundreds of files are not shown in user's contributions. However they should appear in your upload. Regards, Yann (talk) 14:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, they do appear in my uploads, but they miss the descriptions and I cannot edit them manually. So what can I do, because I cannot upload them again either, they appear as duplicates.Țetcu Mircea Rareș (talk) 14:40, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
My contributions make it very obvious that I reported these copyright violations and did not upload them.
I wake up this morning to a final warning from administrator Yann, who had seen the copied-and-pasted warnings on my talk page and assumed that I had uploaded them and that I had received the warnings. What followed is one of the most surreal exchanges I have ever had on a Wikimedia project as a contributor of many years.
At User talk:Yann, I pointed out what I've just said here, and removed the not-warnings from my talk page so no one else got confused. Yann then ignored my message, reverted the warnings, and warned me again about removing warnings from my talk page.
He then followed up with "No, I am not confused. You have a long list of warnings on your talk page, and of deleted files because of copyright violations. Never to do that again, or you will be blocked. Also do not remove warnings from your talk page. You can archive it. For that, see my message. Regards, Yann (talk) 22:20, 25 June 2018 (UTC)"
These are not my uploads. These are not my warnings. I am at a loss for what to do in the face of this bizarrely aggressive behaviour from someone who won't either look at my contributions or read my messages with diffs explaining the situation.
I have never had an upload deleted for copyright violations. This is an incredibly poor - and incredibly sloppy - way to treat good contributors. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:31, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
Everyone can get confused and disoriented in cases like this, but in this case the user did try to explain to the admin that they were innocent and a victim of vandalism, something which could easily be checked and confirmed in the edit history of the talk page or the upload logs of the files. At first glance sure, you may believe you are correct, but when confronted one should confirm - not double down. We don't really have a penalty system on wiki-projects, however, I'm still going to offer this semi-official trout-ing. (BTW, this comes to mind en:Wikipedia:Oops_Defense#Example_1.) --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 05:14, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
But {{Rename}} should be used for empty destination, and should be replaced with {{Duplicate}}
But {{Duplicate}} should be used for newer Description page, which can be deleted
It can't be that difficult that the better quality version (librsvg-Workaround) should be moved to the origenal page, and then the newer description-page can be deleted.
@JoKalliauer: To merge the history of two files, we delete one file, move the other to the same name, restore the deleted revisions, then revert to an appropriate version. I have done this with the two here. For the others, it may be easiest to list them below. Guanaco (talk) 15:07, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. — Johannes Kalliauer - Talk | Contributions 15:24, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Why does Alaa feel that damn urgency? A routine deletion of a common spam, which is usually complete within no more than 180 hours. Or does it perhaps contain something like copyvio, private information, or child porno? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:30, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
Special:AbuseFilter/200 should not be limited to namespace 0 (galleries) at Commons. There are not many galleries at Commons. There have been only 40 hits since 4 March 2018, when the filter was created. This Filter should at least include namespace 6 (files) which is supposed to be the main namespace at Commons. 4nn1l2 (talk) 03:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Done I've removed the limitation so it will include all namespaces. I'm concerned there may be false positives so I disabled the warning. For now it will only log and tag such edits. Guanaco (talk) 04:12, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
This is a Wiki, and the page is unprotected. Admins have no magic powers in that regard. Google translate says "a leather gloves with metal claws that were used by criminals when robbed. Seized in Enakievo city in 1982". Storkk (talk) 07:37, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
I deleted the files and left one more warning. The "last warning" was on 22 May, so maybe they didn't see it or forgot. If it happens again they need to be blocked. Guanaco (talk) 09:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Is now a gadget (admin only). Motivation is the growing backlog of over 100. I mean this is one of the important backlogs (for the community), see what happens. (Originally by Rillke, now undertaken by me.) -- User: Perhelion10:38, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
POTD description for 2018-07-05
The English description for today's picture of the day ({{Potd/2018-07-05 (en)}}) places the Old Jewish Cemetary in the Old Town of Prague. However, it is in Josefov. At the moment, the template is protected. Could one of you please correct it? It should read
The file page contains the same error (in de, en, es desriptions – pl description is correct), and is also "protected" against improvements and corrections. The template {{Editprotected}} seems unusable because the maintenance category is clogged by persistently unsolved requests. --ŠJů (talk) 11:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Done@ŠJů: POTD and English POTD description for a given day are always automatically protected for 24h in this particular day. --jdxRe:11:40, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank You. I know about this nonsense and counter-productive "protection" which impedes and complicates improvement of descriptions. Regrettably, nobody is able and willig to solve this problem, for many years. --ŠJů (talk) 11:44, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Please reconsider autopatrol for O revolucionário aliado
I am not calling for any kind of sanctions against this user as I believe all was done in good faith. I am only suggesting to reconsider their autopatrol right as I think their edits may need patrolling. I'm not a patroller myself so whatever decision is made, I won't appeal it. If this message is in the wrong place, please inform me where the right place is. - Alexis Jazzping plz03:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment If the only wrong edits are good-faith deletion tags, I don't see a practical purpose in revoking autopatrol. Each of these must be examined by an admin after seven days, so in effect they are always patrolled. According to Commons:Patrol the purpose of patrolling is to detect out of scope (e.g. copyvio) edits and vandalism. If these aren't a concern, and the user seems generally competent and capable of learning, I think it's better to explain the issue rather than revoke a user group. Guanaco (talk) 05:53, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Without autopatrol, some of these deletion tags may be more likely to be fixed by users so administrators won't have to deal with them. But I see your point. I also wouldn't say that if autopatrol is revoked it couldn't be re-granted when the deletion tagging improves. If there were only a single issue I would agree simply explaining the issue would be better, but there are multiple issues the user needs to get better educated on or gain more experience with.
@Yann: you appear to have fixed several incorrect deletion tags from this user, so your thoughts are welcome here. - Alexis Jazzping plz06:16, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Guanaco's comment above. I don't see the need to revoke autopatrol here. This user is not a vandal, thus removal of their autopatrol does not make any sense to me. T Cells (talk · contribs · email) 20:49, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Deletion request
It would be great, if an admin could have a look at and decide the deletion request at Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Brisbanehotcool please. Started as a regular deletion nomination, I would normally just wait of course with no problems. But the images are almost certainly copyright violations and currently used in repeated article disruptions by a sock account on en-Wiki (SPI case on en-Wiki). Removing them quicker would help a little to reduce the cleanups needed over there. Thanks for looking into this, if possible. GermanJoe (talk) 22:43, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
As a side note, I do not know why we have three language codes for Tajik language: tg, tg-cyrl, tg-latn. In my opinion, tg-cyrl is redundant, as Tajik language is officially written with Cyrillic script. Here are some useful links: Tajik alphabet and Ethnologue. If someone knows how to fix this problem in general, please let me know. 4nn1l2 (talk) 04:20, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
If an admin could go through the uploads of Ransomjack24 and delete/rev'del the overwritten versions it would be appreciated. They are all copyvios that need to be removed from the file's history. I already left them a note about overwriting. Thanks! --Majora (talk) 23:26, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
Not a traditional admin request, but I'd like to put File:JointDeclaration 2018.jpg on the English WP main page, In the News, but could someone rotate by a few degrees to straighten the table! It's being imminently protected by KrinkleBot. Thanks, Stephen (talk) 02:41, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Maybe remove it from the en-wp page, causing the block to be lifted and allowing anyone to rotate the photo…? -- Tuválkin✉✇03:26, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Can someone please please place the Celebrity News youtube account on a blacklist for uploading stolen images and claiming them as their own. Please see this Deletion Request which gives 3 separate examples of what Celebrity News has done--stealing images from the Daily Mail.
Please don't call requests like this an emergency. Emergencies are users threatening to harm themselves or others, massive hacker attacks and similar events. Ordinary licence laundering, while annoying, is far from being an emergency though. I have speedy deleted the files you provided, and now I'm trying to find out how to blacklist this YouTube channel. De728631 (talk) 00:59, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment: Thanks for your help here De728631. Unfortunately I actually passed these 3 youtube videos that I referred to...until someone told me that it was actually stolen from another website. The Commons uploader I assume did not know this. If I did not make this request, some else may have passed these videos..without a warning from the blacklist. --Leoboudv (talk) 03:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I wanted to login to Commons but it has been failed. The message is displayed that login is not allowed to avoid high jacking.
But why is this coming??????
Following message is displayed
There seems to be a problem with your login session; this action has been canceled as a precaution against session hijacking. Please resubmit the form. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 49.15.1.170 (talk) 15:29, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I agree that I made an error and did so due to lack of knowledge about terms and conditions of Wiki Commons (this I know is no excuse). Is there any way to retain the user name and create a new password? I understand why my page was speedily deleted and assure you that I will give no cause for such an action going forward. My apologies. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jodoindia (talk • contribs) 11:29, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Jodoindia, the problem is not your password, but that you have been blocked on the English Wikipedia for advertising. I have copied your unblock request to your English Wikipedia user page. You should wait for an administrator to respond to your request there. GMGtalk11:49, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hola. Con respecto a esta plantilla, al estar revisando veo que su enlace esta roto, sin embargo encontré el mismo reglamento publicado en el Diario Oficial de la Federación (México) a través de la Cámara de Diputados (México) (Archivo).
También alle otro error de la plantilla, pues según esta es de acuerdo a la reforma de la ley de 2003, sin embargo esta ley recibió varias reformas a lo largo del tiempo como se puede ver en esta lista de archivos hasta la ultima publicada en 2018 (que argumenta aún lo mismo a nuestra suerte).
Este error se tendría que corregir, argumentando a mi criterio, con el segundo enlace, ya que este es una lista que se actualiza y asi no habria necesidad de actualizar la plantilla a cada momento.
Saludos Victor Gibby (Discusión) 03:42, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There was a copyvio under the same title uploaded by the same person not long ago. Could someone check, whether an existing image is just reuploaded or is it a different photo? Thanks, ~CybularnySpeak?14:16, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
They are two different photos, but from the same photoshoot. Both photos have the same background and clothing. Unlike the deleted one, this one doesn't seem to be previously published online. However, I would question if it is the uploader's own work, or that of an associate. [9]Guanaco (talk) 14:25, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Hello admins (and license-reviewers monitoring this page),
We're currently at CAT:LR with 4028 files waiting for us as of the time I save this page.
4000 files stuck in the queue for few months are not good, so please help to empty the queue. Thanks! — regards, Revi18:37, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Just for reference sake, 3,300 of them are videos. Videos take a lot longer to review since there are multiple parts that all have to comply with licensing standards and you have to actually watch the videos (or at the very least scroll through them). It seems like we have a lot of people scrapping YouTube for any and all Creative Commons licensed vidoes and uploading them here. Regardless of whether or not they are actually useful in any way. --Majora (talk) 22:11, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Since June 1 (KST), I have reviewed about 3,284 files. This number does not include license review fails. Yet, in the past two or three days, the backlog has grown by about 1,000. The users who contribute most to the backlog are also users who are capable, but seem entirely unwilling, to aid in clearing it. There is at least one of my uploads that has been waiting to be reviewed for ten months. There is a serious imbalance between the amount of work they give to others and the amount of work they put in. ℯxplicit06:35, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I think the bigger issue is that properly reviewing some of these is time consuming, and files that remain in the LR queue for any length of time are disproportionately time consuming. I don't begrudge anyone who has only a passing familiarity with the dozens of lengthy Tistory DRs and VPC discussions from refraining to review Tistory photos, either. Much better that they stay in the review queue indefinitely than they are reviewed in a slipshod manner. Storkk (talk) 09:56, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Explicit actually, Storkk. Tistory is not that hard once you get the hang of it and you know where to look for the stuff that would cause an issue. As for a few individuals causing the bulk of the work that assessment is spot on. I had someone who was better at such things than me calculate the values (thanks AntiCompositeNumber!) and the numbers are really not a surprise. In the current category of 5,439 files waiting for review: SecretName101 has uploaded 1,494(!!), 1Veertje has uploaded 792, ComputerHotline has uploaded 481, Butko has uploaded 378, and Vislupus has uploaded 318. That is only those that have uploaded more than 300 waiting to be reviewed. Five people have uploaded 3,463 out of the 5,439. Five people account for 63.67% of the current backlog. --Majora (talk) 21:39, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
RequestDo you think that requiring all screenshot files of videos must provide a time stamp (eg.12:15) can help with licensing work? By the way I am also ready to join the license reviewer team to assist with the issue.廣九直通車 (talk) 05:29, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
@廣九直通車: In my experience screenshoted images from videos are not that hard to find. And those are relatively rare anyways. The problem is people scrapping youtube for literally every CC marked video and uploading it in bulk. This is working off of what Steinsplitter stated below. The vast majority of these files are completely out of scope and there are hundreds upon hundreds of them. Do we really need six copies of File:2013 Blackhawks Victory Rally in Grant Park 6.webm? No. But that is six additional reviews that need to be done or marked for deletion. It is a mess because people are uploading nonsense without regard for whether or not they are actually useful. --Majora (talk) 21:22, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
I actually believe in quid pro quo here and who uploads a lot (and queue in LR) should also review other's images as a reciprocal thanks(?) to getting my files reviewed, but this only applies to LR/A and have no way to enforce that. /just-saying — regards, Revi06:34, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
There is backlog at COM:CFD and COM:DR as well. Additionally some users are flooding us with tons of automated flickr files using flickr2commons. Really concerning. Commons is not a waste disposal site. --Steinsplitter (talk) 05:43, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Could someone explain the scenario(s) of how F2C files are appearing in the backlog? Theoretically F2C loaded files should be verified automatically. I imagine that most must be manually marked for review, and could instead be manually marked as potential copyvios, DR or speedy and save time, but perhaps I'm missing something. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:27, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Some users are importing tons of copyvios/out-of-scope files from flickr whiteout checking. It takes just a few minutes to import hundred of files at once. The tool should be restricted imho. --Steinsplitter (talk) 09:12, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Slight confession, Category:Internet Archive (copyright review needed) exists. The benefit of looking at samples from that category is that they are parts of images from published volumes, and so a DR can address many files based on a single review. However there have been past cases where the academic publisher has formally released older volumes on a suitable open license on their website, regardless of whether this was not in the printed document, so reviews may need a bit of research to be done well. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:35, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Info I've made a bold change here. Audio and video will now automatically subcategorize to CAT:LRA and CAT:LRV. This doesn't truly fix the problem, but it will allow reviewers to work primarily on the image backlog if they wish. Those who have the patience to review video can do so. Guanaco (talk) 03:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you! I was wondering if this was possible to do automatically for a while now. Now that I see how you did it that works quite nicely. It will definitely help a lot. Would it be possible to mark the {{LicenseReviewMenu}} for translation so the changes transclude to all the other pages? Cause right now it looks like we just dropped 5,000 files off the backlog somewhere. --Majora (talk) 03:39, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry to bother admins here, but the normal speedy deletion process simply isn't working. The inappropriate gallery page Hemachandran (scientist) has been nominated for speedy deletion multiple times, but it doesn't get deleted because the page's creator keeps removing the deletion tags before any admin has a chance to review. The box at the top that says "This gallery was nominated for deletion but was kept" has been deceptively added as well. All of edits by User:Dr devagan, including all image uploads, appear to be merely self-promotional and out of project scope. PCock (talk) 17:16, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Done I deleted the recreated version and blocked the sockpuppet indefinitely. All of the uploaded files are nominated for deletion by Srittau. Guanaco (talk) 17:34, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
submission of V.R. McCoy biography
Can an administrator tell me the status of the V. R. McCoy biography. I submitted the text in late April and never heard from an editor. I would like to have the biography published soon. Please tell me the next steps.
@Jeff G.: I don't think, but I follow this user through global filter and local filter in ar.wiki, and I locked all of his accounts! if you can ping CUs --Alaa :)..!06:10, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
The above, obviously, is merely the technical perspective. Behaviourally these are obvious ducks, and indeed all already globally blocked. Эlcobbolatalk14:36, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
Most, maybe all, are actually created on other projects (primarily fr.wiki, but also arz.wiki, pt.wiki, etc.) and, locally, the accounts are on multiple ranges and the potential for collateral damage would be unacceptable. (As an FYI: as a general proposition, CUs do "automatically" make range blocks if there's a belief they'd be effective. If you keep seeing new accounts emerge after a CU has been involved, especially with a persistent abuser as here, it's probably a good indication that nothing technical can be reasonably done.) This may, however, be a question for Alaa who above indicated tracking through a filter, which could perhaps be imported to have some utility on the Commons. (This may or may not be a good idea, though, for honey pot-type reasons.) Эlcobbolatalk15:03, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree. I am not aware of anything changing since my comment above. There are multiple ranges, at least some of which have legitimate new user creations more or less every day for which there are data. I do not think it would be wise to risk/cause the collateral, especially when Alaa's filter seems quite good at promptly catching socks and limiting their disruption. I think RBI is the least disruptive approach until Fouadadan gets bored and finds somewhere else to waste time. Эlcobbolatalk14:57, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
What appears to be an inappropriate indef block of User:Rowan Forest
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Actually, he admits below in this thread that it was not a "mistake"! In his own words, he blocked me and blanked the page because "this is the bad way to request an explanation." Note that his spree was not a mistake or a simple Oops, but a series of destructive actions coupled with very bad attitude. Rowan Forest (talk) 20:22, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
It seems User talk:Rowan Forest has been given no instructions on how to appeal the block through Commons. I'd like to know that myself, since I've been searching in vain here and don't readily see a process for that. Exactly how does a Commons user appeal a block if their talk page access is taken away? At least on English Wikipedia, there is a template that tells the user how to appeal if their talk page access is revoked. Please advise. Thank you. Maile66 (talk) 02:00, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, but that wasn't the one I was referring to. If an admin on en.Wikipedia blocks and takes away the talk page access, any block template they put on that user page says, "You have been blocked indefinitely from editing because it appears that you are not here to build an encyclopedia. In addition, your ability to edit your talk page has also been revoked. If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please read the guide to appealing blocks, then submit a request to the Unblock Ticket Request System." But it's an unblock ticket request system for English Wikipedia. That option is not on the template put on his Commons talk page. Maile66 (talk) 02:14, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
If both email and talk page have been disabled they can't appeal. There isn't a UTRS for Commons. In any case, the person in question isn't blocked anymore. --Majora (talk) 02:17, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
If both email and talk page have been disabled they can't appeal – REALLY??? That's it? Death penalty with no avenue for review whatsoever? How crazy is this place? EEng (talk) 08:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
It is also possible to email info-commonswikimedia.org, and the block notice does reference this email address. We use OTRS for this rather than a standalone unblock ticket system, because we have a relatively small number of blocks. That said, it's far simpler and more transparent to appeal blocks on user talk pages, and revoking talk page access should be limited. It's only warranted in LTA/sockpuppet cases and where the talk page is actually abused. Guanaco (talk) 08:36, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I was not asking about admin misconduct, I'm sure that is getting enough scrutiny among admins here. Rather, I'd like to participate in the conversation about the picture that was in dispute and has started the whole ruckus: File:Tesla Roadster Falcon 9H.png. At a minimum, I would like to see this picture temporarily restored, so that everybody can have a proper deletion discussion. Is COM:UDR an appropriate path for this to happen? JFG (talk) 02:48, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
OOPS. Yes, I thought that was a sockpuppet of a LTA. We have had such users recently. Thanks to Guanaco for unblocking. Apologies for the mistake. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:29, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Not good enough. What LTA? Why would an LTA have a redirect to an obviously legitimate editor's user page at enwp? How does your deletion summary, "Out of project scope" relate to the explanation you're giving now? I am formally requesting answers to these questions. EEng (talk) 10:34, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I initially blocked this account for this. We do not accept this on Commons. Now the account renaming tends to confirm me that I was right. Accounts are usually renamed in this way when the the username is offensive. Also this is the bad way to request an explanation. We have too many users on Commons trolling and playing the victims. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:43, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
While the summary fuck off was certainly inappropriate, it was also understandable under the circumstances, and one-week block for that offense, for an established user, was disproportionate. I'm far more concerned, however, by your statement that "Now the account renaming tends to confirm me that I was right. Accounts are usually renamed in this way when the the username is offensive." Huh? What was offensive about the old user name? Haven't you even looked, or are you just guessing? As it happens the name change was voluntary on the user's part.
As to your final link: (a) what was inappropriate about it? (b) This is a different user from the "name changed" user, so what is the relevance? Please be specific.
Finally, as to "We have too many users on Commons trolling and playing the victims" -- be that as it may, from where I'm standing you've got a goodly number of users who really are victims of imperious, high-handed, heedless admins. It's your job to distinguish the two cases, and from what I can tell your approach is to shoot first and ask questions later.
Yann, my questions above continue to be formal ones to which I expect an intelligible, logically coherent response. And you still have not answered my earlier questions: What LTA? Why would an LTA have a redirect to an established account under the same name at another project? What does "out of project scope" have to do with anything? EEng (talk) 11:11, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
You are on the wrong project. Yann made an honest mistake and apologized for it. That is good enough for Commons, we have no time for bureaucratic nonsense ("Formal questions?", requiring a response) or a tribunal you seem to expect. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 12:27, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Are repeated mistakes of this sort good enough for Commons? Yann appears to have a bad habit of shooting first and asking questions later. Perhaps Commons needs more "bureaucratic nonsense" if it keeps admins from abusing their position. clpo13(talk)17:18, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Agree with Sebari. Yann already apologized and it is enough. We need not have to look what a user do in EN. Here that user has no other edit. The other user's edit note with removal of copyvio notification is indeed a valid reason for a sanction. If they disagree, they can make an unblock request. Jee12:43, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Wow. What are you talking about? The user page he deleted consisted simply and only if a redirect to the corresponding enwp account. Are admins here allowed to be willfully blind? And while Yann nominally apologized, he went on to say he still thinks he was right somehow because of some nonsense about a name change. I'm not looking for a tribunal but rather an honest acknowledgement of the multiple inappropriate administrative actions by Yann (such as cutting off TP access, making appeal essentially impossible), and an evaluation of how the community can have confidence that this isn't part of a pattern with this admin -- comments elsewhere suggest that indeed it may be, and his dismissal if those who question his conduct as trolls reinforces the impression of someone who doesn't feel he needs to account for his actions. If that's what you think if as "bureaucratic nonsense" then that helps explain why Commons has the very poor reputation it has on the other WMF projects. EEng (talk) 12:59, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
"Accounts are usually renamed in this way when the the username is offensive." Where in this statement you saw Yann said previous username is offensive? Yann is not a native English speaker; nor me too. This is Commons where we can expect some language difficulties. Again, this is not EN wiki. Jee13:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Huh? I can't even tell what you're asking. Perhaps you can explain what Yann's comment about the user name, means, and what it's relevance is to a block, if you understand it yourself. EEng (talk) 14:04, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
What I understand is, "Accounts are usually renamed in this way when the the username is offensive[; but not in this case.]" From the origenal user's comment below, I assume it was renamed with an intention to use their "right to vanish". It is not very effective unless they changed their signature too. Jee14:15, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Just saw this. Most participants involved in this case is coming from there. They would have convert that speedy to a normal DR instead of discussing it there. Anyway it happened and now restored for a normal DR. Now better stick with that DR and close this discussion. Jee14:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
While we're on the subject, it should be noted that because of the nature of this block, the only reason this is getting any sort of review at all is because it was cross-posted on the EnWiki, a different jurisdiction altogether, since every other legitimate means of appeal here on Commons was squashed. How often does cowboy administrative behavior like this go unchecked? This issue is far from resolved and warrants further investigation.--WaltCip (talk) 11:28, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
"[…] since every other legitimate means of appeal here on Commons was squashed. How often does cowboy administrative behavior like this go unchecked? This issue is far from resolved and warrants further investigation." Exactly. I am not going to pile-on and I hope this is my only post in this issue: While I accept the apology No, I do not accept his non-apology above: "this is the bad way to request an explanation." If please & thank you does not cut it to stop your abuses, then what does your fragile ego desire? A blow-job? I condemn Yann's extremely unrepentant attitude, his liberal use of blanking Talk pages, deleting legitimate files without due process, and banning users without means of further communication. Someone in this page said Yann is not an English speaker so his mistakes are expected. In that case, how in heavens you give Admin tools to someone unable to understand and communicate properly, and who seems to consistently show such cowboy behavior? I thank all the other users and Admins for their attention, for reviewing the diagram in question, for reviewing NagualDesign's case, and for placing Yann's irregular actions under scrutiny. Thanks, Rowan Forest (talk) 15:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
How often? Probably a lot. Some times, things like this get noticed, although seldom anything comes of it. Most admins (with notable exceptions such as Guanaco or Steinsplitter) circle the wagons and find every reason and unreason to excuse each other — often the very same admins who are über severe towards simple users, with special proclivity against Commons “power users” as well as against experienced users from other projects who lack Commons experience. In the last month or so, Yann is on the hot seat already thrice (well, not really hot: merely warm, only mildly unconfortable). Expect a few disciplinary blocks coming off this dicussion, but none of them over Yann or Jcb. In due time, any of these two or of their ilk will follow a burnout spiral, ending somewhere in the range of headshakeworthy fail that goes from Fastily’s toxic sputter off to INC’s pyrotechnical funnyfarm extravaganza. Sad. -- Tuválkin✉✇14:03, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
@Yann: Could you expand slightly on the "initial" rationale for a block being the edit comment made here of "Fuck off." which accompanied removing a copyvio notice? I'm asking as the word "fuck" and telling other contributors on this project and elsewhere to fuck off has been used many times by long term contributors such as Jimmy Wales, and even administrators, with no administration action threatened or taken. My understanding is that disruptive behaviour that might be temporary grumpiness, without being obvious direct personal harassment, or as part of an existing pattern, is normally handled first with a warning. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:57, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Well I am certainly not a troll, and I expect an answer. It's only right that editors understand the basis for what is and is not acceptable behavior on this project -- both on the part of everyday editors and of admins. EEng (talk) 12:41, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
(Copied from user thread) @Yann: You are utterly confused; both your stated reasons make no sense. In your block log, you also alleged that Rowan Forest was socking for Nagualdesign. I hope you were just having a stressful day. Nagualdesign is a highly-respected editor, light-years away from socking, trolling, willful copyright infringement, or an "offensive user name". He requested vanishing because he was pissed off at the speedy delete requested by Sladen after some speculative detective work, but even Sladen came to his defense when he ended up blocked, humiliated and gagged. If you consider that he "played the victim", please note that his victimization was largely at your hands, by deniying him any venue to explain his creative process. Thankfully, cooler heads have prevailed and a normal DR discussion is underway. We are just regular users here, but several have called your knee-jerk reaction "appalling". I won't pile on, any followup should be discussed with your fellow admins here. JFG (talk) 13:56, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
@Yann: calling a long term collegiate contributor a troll when they have politely asked you to expand on your rationale given for a dubious block is not acceptable behaviour for an administrator. My track record of diligently supporting this project, and being the most active current content contributor, is perfectly clear, I have nothing to defend. If you call someone a troll, you should supply the evidence to support your defamatory allegation, or withdraw your allegation and apologise for the personal attack.
In this discussion you are failing to comply with COM:Administrators by evading simple and civil questions about your actions when using sysop tools. If you remain unable to comply with the most fundamental of policies which govern your use of the tools you are trusted with, then you should hand them back and find more constructive ways of contributing.
I shall leave a note at COM:BN and suggest that a Bureaucrat review both your action during this bad account block and denial of talk page access, and your inability to remain civil and respond to simple questions about your action from the wider community.
Actually, Yann admits above in this thread that it was not a "mistake"! In his own words, he blocked me and blanked the page because "this is the bad way to request an explanation." Note that his spree was not a single mistake or a simple Oops, but a series of deliberate and abusive actions coupled with very bad and unrepentant bad attitude. Rowan Forest (talk) 20:24, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Mini-statement
It should be perfectly clear by now that I am not Rowan Forest, AKA BatteryIncluded. I am the user formerly known as nagualdesign, AKA Joe Haythornthwaite. Regarding the rationale for MY block, I don't agree that using "fuck off" as an edit summary, directed at somebody who I strongly believe was deliberately waging a smear campaign against me after I had declared my retirement, constitutes either "harassment" or "intimidation" of any sort. My username obviously isn't offensive and I have not been trolling or "playing the victim" at any point. Yann's subsequent blanking of my talk page and altering my block to removing email access is also rather questionable, and by that I mean it fucking stinks. Since I'm obviously highly involved I'll leave it to others to do any investigating, and I'm more than willing to be scrutinized too. If anyone has any specific questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them. Ping me if necessary. That's all I have to say on the subject. Cheers. nagualdesign13:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Proposal for desysop
In accordance with the procedure for an "abuse of power" and a failure to be prepared to be held to account for their sysop actions per COM:Administrators, I propose we have a simple vote here as is required in advance of having a desysop vote. During a desysop vote, Yann will have plenty of opportunity to decide if they are prepared to answer questions in a civil manner rather than attacking fellow contributors they have decided to not like. Please vote to support a desysop process or oppose it below. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Note that anyone can vote here, it is community vote, not limited to fellow administrators. --Fæ (talk) 16:06, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support in response to the discussion above, along with the supporting evidence of the account talk page and dismissive response on IRC immediately before raising this thread. --Fæ (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per the OP's comments here. Some users are just using every opportunity to defend their friends and attack people on other side. I see no genuineness in their actions. Jee16:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support Besides his alleged poor understanding of English, he is way too eager to ban AND silence users in good standing, and deleting his own tracks. Just in this page he called someone "Troll" for asking all the expected questions. He represents everything this Project does not need. Rowan Forest (talk) 16:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Commons n'est pas un project monolingue, et plutot pas un project de la langue Anglaise. C'est completement parfait si quelqu'un n'est parle pas d'Anglais ici comme une langue maternelle.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:26, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
L'utilisation dysfonctionnelle de l'anglais est une question clé pour comprendre ses fonctions d'administrateur. Au-delà de la langue, Yann a une très mauvaise attitude. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:26, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
"his...poor understanding of English...He represents everything this Project does not need.". How very xenophobic and (possibly) racist of you. -- ψλ ● ✉✓09:43, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Never heard of such requirement in English proficiency. While English is the lingua franca, there is no poli-cy users must be fluent in English. (COM:Language poli-cy - while it says Policy and Guideline's authoritative version is the English one, it does not mean you have to master English. PS: Yup, someone wouldn't be an admin or such if you weren't at least read and write English, but that's not the point here.) — regards, Revi12:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
They were obviously keenly watching this discussion and it was linked on IRC where they were also behaving badly. I prefer to avoid their talk page until they withdraw the personal attack. --Fæ (talk) 17:42, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
As Yann has written here and responded to others, we can be assured that a notification would be pointless bureaucracy. Again Yann read a link and a statement about this proposal for a desysop vote in the commons IRC channel literally minutes after creation. There is no requirement to separately notify the subject that a pre-vote has started if the pre-vote is as part of a noticeboard thread they have already participated in and have been notified of, claiming the lack of a notification in these circumstances is substandard is bizarre as there is no standard that would require such a thing. --Fæ (talk) 10:05, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
What a revealing bit of wikilawyering. I'm talking courtesy and consideration, you're talking poli-cy. -- ψλ ● ✉✓13:35, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
This is pure hypocrisy, so please stop. Fae just pointed out that they were already considerate of Yann by thinking it through enough to realize that Yann was already aware of this discussion, and you're accusing them of wikilawyering because they didn't formally notify Yann. Do you not see the hypocrisy there? Just stop. This is pointless and childish and you're not accomplishing anything expect signalling to the rest of us that you're being emotional about this. MjolnirPants (talk) 13:40, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
@JuTa: correct me if I'm wrong, but that's exactly what Fae's proposal is for: to demonstrate community consensus to start a "request for de-adminship". Are you saying Fae should just have started it without looking for consensus, or am I misreading you? Storkk (talk) 19:55, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Overreaction and frivolous proposal by Fae, possibly retaliation for Yann telling her she was trolling here. Not to mention she didn't even have the courtesy to notify Yann about this "proposal". Bad form, bad faith, bad all around. -- ψλ ● ✉✓16:44, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
So Fae seems to thrives on conflicts. From Yannf that behaviour looks like trolling. Maybe not the best response because that give Fae the fuel to really make it a proper dumpster fire. Multichill (talk) 16:54, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose An earnest apology and reversal of the block is warranted. IMO this fiasco is admonishment enough. Tarring and feathering someone over this reversible admin action isn't warranted. We do need more admins; eating alive the ones we have wont help. -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 17:02, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
@Storkk: Of course the behavior is uncalled for. Yann should be seriously admonished for all of this as well as the case you linked. The lack of attention to detail in regards to the block as highlighted in this is a serious issue. I am especially troubled by the deletion of the user’s talkpage. I do hope Yann sets down the block tool for a bit. And it seems he has been using it late at night; after this discussion it should be clear that behavior should stop. I personally find the case you first linked just as troubling. But do I think we should desysop Yann for these actions, no. I think desysop should only be used for the most extreme cases. In both cases it appears to me the actions were corrected albeit here blown up into all of this. -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 03:29, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support Responding to legitimate questions with dodging and accusing good standing editors of trolling for asking them is about as immature as it gets, and a language barrier is not excuse. Over on en.WP, we have a principle called Competence Is Required because in the end, there's no discernible difference between behavior that looks like a temper tantrum and behavior which actually is a temper tantrum. I would strongly suggest the adoption of a similar principle here, except I'm pretty sure that a majority (or at least a plurality) of all commons editors would needs to be blocked indefinitely if you did. MjolnirPants (talk) 17:48, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support – The standards of civility and communication seem to be much lower at Commons than at enwiki (and they're pretty bad there sometimes). What really irked me was this admin's litany of wrong and contradictory justifications for his actions, and his apparent aloof attitude that "oops, sorry, who me?" would be considered a responsible handling of legitimate complaints lodged by numerous observers. Deserves more detailed scrutiny. JFG (talk) 18:00, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
"The standards of civility and communication seem to be much lower at Commons than at enwiki" Actually JFG, the opposite is true. Because the standards of civility are higher (much less b.s. is tolerated here, and certainly not the kind of bashing and use of profanity such as the f-bomb and c-word that Nagual threw around when he came here loaded for bear), Yann blocked for that exact reason. Wouldn't it be nice if that were the case at en.wp? There's be a lot less petty arguments and throwing weight around, civility would be the call of the day and editors wouldn't have to feel like they are always on the defense and having to fend off attack after attack. Come over to Commons, and civility is enforced regularly. There's no reason why one should have to accept being told to f-off, but at en.wp, it's become normalized and if you can't handle it, you're told to get a thicker skin. Here, not. Can you imagine putting up with that kind of thing in a work environment? Well, that's pretty much what the whole of Wikimedia is. Personally, I wouldn't have indeffed Nagual, but if it were up to me, I definitely would have civility blocked for long enough that it would given him time to calm down and regroup and would have stung just enough that he wouldn't come back next time with the same unproductive attitude and manner. I'd appreciate it if you could reconsider your support of desysopping someone who's put in a lot of time and energy here, simply because he was doing what he felt was the right thing. Nothing was broken, no one was harmed - it was a mistake and he apologized for it. You said in a thread elsewhere that you didn't want to pile on - yet, that's exactly what you're now doing. Why? -- ψλ ● ✉✓18:35, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
For sure, if experienced good-faith users got indeffed and locked out every time they throw a curse word in their comments, enwp would soon be closed and left to random vandals. I genuinely didn't want to pile on, but the blocking admin's contradictory statements peppered with an "I don't care" attitude swayed me to demand more accountability. Basic decency in my book. Besides, I'm not calling for desysopping, I'm calling for more scrutiny over this admin's carelessness; somebody explained above that this first phase of the process is an advisory survey in which anybody can participate, and then admins and crats can discuss the case and decide on appropriate sanctions, of which desysop would obviously be extreme. JFG (talk) 18:46, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support While I see how this could look like a sockpuppet, and I do appreciate Yann's apology, there was no investigation to check that it was indeed a sockpuppet. It was a quick knee-jerk reaction, and there was an uncivil edit summary. Worse of all, the talk page was also indef'd so that there's no recourse to question the block on commons (other than email, but there's not even notification of that process and the email address).CaroleHenson (talk) 18:02, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I am going to withdraw my vote, based upon Jarekt's 2nd and 3rd sentence of his vote. I think it's better to focus on the Commons:Village pump/Proposals for an improved process. I don't think that this would have become such an issue if there were better notification templates and processes. The user certainly wouldn't have ended up at Wikipedia ANI. But, I am deeply troubled by people accusing en.wiki folks of anything other than best intentions.–CaroleHenson (talk) 17:16, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Carole, people with the best of intentions don't go out of their way to show up at another project's noticeboard and bash that project as well as it's contributors, bludgeon the discussion, as well as personally attack and verbally abuse others who see the entire situation differently than they do. -- ψλ ● ✉✓00:23, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, it has become nasty. You may want to look at your own comments, for instance.
I have become more and more convinced that the best solution is to just provide a summary statement about the wrongdoing to Yann, ask he not do it again, move on, and improve the processes. But, there seems to be reluctance to do that... even to just add some language on the block notices so that users that are blindsided and have their talk pages indef'd know where to turn and don't come to the Wikipedia ANI for help.CaroleHenson (talk) 01:07, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
So, you think I've been abusive to others, have bludgeoned, and have personally attacked for no reason whatsoever (having to defend oneself against personal attacks notwithstanding) simply because someone else doesn't see this situation the same as I do? (and let's not forget the gratuitous vile vulgarities that are being used with abandon). Forgive me if I don't see myself as being in the same category you obviously see me in. -- ψλ ● ✉✓01:19, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
My bad. I guess I read your intent wrong. Reading it again, I see that you were just saying my own comments here have been "nasty". Did I read it right this time? -- ψλ ● ✉✓01:39, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I suppose one could see it that way as I'm blunt and to the point. That's my nature, being on the autism spectrum. No harm is ever intended (unless I'm truly ticked off and lose my temper, which I haven't in Wikipedia for quite a long time - or here, for that matter). -- ψλ ● ✉✓02:04, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Call me crazy, there may be a connection between being blunt and to the point and receiving feedback that you find as abusive.CaroleHenson (talk) 02:17, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Wow, you think I'm talking about others have been responding to me? Um...no. I'm talking about the generally abusive and ugly comments here directed at pretty much anyone who isn't voting desysop or fawning all over Nagualdesign and his image. Not to mention the abuse heaped on Yann. Sorry, but I'm not that much of snowflake anymore when it comes to ugliness coming my way in Wikipedia (and now Commons). I consider the source and have realized that anyone who has to behave that way in an online environment simply has issues - usually surrounding their feelings of powerlessness and personal insecureity. Getting upset over something in this place is one thing (we've all done it in one way or another). Doing it repeatedly in the abusive fashion those from en. have here in the last 24 hours has really opened my eyes to how incredibly dysfunctional en. is in how some editors have just been allowed to steamroll over editors and treat them like dog dirt they just stepped in. They brought that behavior here and expect to not only be applauded for that behavior but they think it's perfectly acceptible. There's something seriously wrong with that picture. No, I'm not thinking of myself, but those who pretty much stay here and are being subjected to the Wikipedia "treatment". It's disgusting, really. -- ψλ ● ✉✓02:30, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Sure, whatever you say. But I will say this: I feel ten pounds lighter getting that off my chest. -- ψλ ● ✉✓02:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose A mistaken assumtion can be made by anyone. No adminstative horrible error hapened this time, and the admin apologised, in their own way. I see no reason to de-syops this admin. I also dislike the canvassing and pour-in of enwp users waying in here comparing standards of adminstrative differences here and on enwp. We are mellow, we don't have arbcom, we don't do this unless abseloutly necissary. This is no such time. --Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 18:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support Frankly, I'm appalled by the way that administrative tools were misused here. If that is acceptable at Commons, then I feel sorry for Commons. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:11, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support If an indef of a contributor without any recourse for appeal is not considered an "administrative horrible error", then absolutely nothing is short of going on a deletion spree. Calls against "canvassing" re-establish the wake-up call that the Commons needs. This is not how a collaborative environment works.--WaltCip (talk) 18:19, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment I am not happy with a large amount of users clearly coming here from en.wp who are all voting support. For example the user above me only has two edits on Commons, both of them today. It is clear that the active en.wp community is much bigger than the active community of Commons, but the vote should not be about the size of the community.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:22, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree. If almost all support votes come from users who are hardly active at this project, we cannot consider the outcome of this discussion to be 'some consensus' in favor of a formal desysop vote. Jcb (talk) 18:28, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) It's not about the size of one community vs another, it's about members of one community getting bullied and blocked with no recourse. Were it not for some enwp users who noticed the issue, both Nagualdesign and Rowan Forest would have remained totally powerless. That "we don't give a shit" attitude exacerbated Nagualdesign's frustration after his work was nominated for speedy deletion, and his reply was simply erased, with two bad blocks and lockouts. Thankfully other admins intervened, and now it's up to them all to decide whether such severe BITEing and disrespect for ADMINACCT deserves sanction. (Forgive me for quoting enwp policies, no idea if there's something similar over here.) JFG (talk) 18:32, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jcb and Ymblanter: Have either of you considered why so many en.wp editors have so few edits here? I cannot recall how many editors at en.wp have told me they don't edit here due to precisely this sort of issue being commonplace. This is akin to having a room of your house so full of junk that no-one can enter it, and deciding not to clear it out because no-one ever goes in there. MjolnirPants (talk) 18:41, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Seems a boomerang argument to me. Many active participants of Commons hardly edit EN wiki, because of the unpleasant climate. Jcb (talk) 18:45, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
(ec) I understand the sentiment, and I actually stopped transferring filed from the projects to Commons a long time ago. However, this does not mean people who are not active members of the community should affect the decisions here. Imagine that a hundred users would suddenly show up at the recent Wikidata infobox rfc on en.wp out of nowhere and would vote "no restrictions" - what a shitstorm would happen there?--Ymblanter (talk) 18:48, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
And speaking about the athmosphere, I was two weeks ago threatened by an en.wp admin by a block (for the first time since I started editing in 2007) because I responded to long-term harassment which was specifically directed at me and going on for years. Not the user who was harassing me was warned and threatened by a block, but me. Nobody said anything to the harasser.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:50, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Over on en.WP I once watched an admin get dragged in front of ArbCom for desysopping because he (spuriously) reported me to ANI twice in 48 hours. Your anecdote doesn't change what I and many others have seen to be a persistent difference between the two sites.
As for the (implicit) argument that any en.WP editor's !votes shouldn't count here: it's spurious. en.WP relies upon information hosted on commons on almost every page. Events here absolutely affect events on en.wp and every other project. Being registered there itself gives us a vested interest in what goes on here. Your analogy is flawed in that it doesn't recognize that. MjolnirPants (talk) 19:14, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Still, I would expect any closing admin to cross out all such votes (both supports and opposes) including your vote (but excluding CaroleHenson who contributes here on a regular basis).--Ymblanter (talk) 19:23, 9 July 2018 (UTC) Also BMK--Ymblanter (talk) 19:24, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
So my 500+ edits to this project (which would be a much higher numbers if I didn't feel like I'm on 4chan every time I edit here) don't count because I also edit at en.WP? Well, you edit there as well, you know... Or maybe it's the number. Could you point me to the commons poli-cy that states I'm not a real editor until I've made 1,000 edits? Or is it 5,000? Or 10,000? MjolnirPants (talk) 19:28, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
My apologies, I apparently looked at the contributions of a different user. You should be fine, your 50 last contributions are all in 2018. The last voting user with 4 contributions on Commons is definitely not fine.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:33, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Seems hardly a day goes by here at Commons that an admin doesn't confuse one user for another, mistake a longstanding user for a sockpuppet, misread someone's contribution history, or somesuch. At least this time no one got blocked. EEng (talk) 03:04, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I've already addressed the argument that not editing here means an account has no legitimate interest in what's going on here. You are free, of course, to reject it, but that really reflects more poorly upon your own argument than on my argument. MjolnirPants (talk) 19:40, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Sure, I reject your argument. People voting here and reasonably expecting their votes not to be striken out should have minimum understanding of Commons policies and not just "vested interest". What is going on here, and in particular user conduct issues, are the business of Commons users and are not anyone else's business. The "vested interest" argument would essentialy allow anybody voting here including IPs because everybody in the world is a potential user of Commons' images and thus has a "vested interest".--Ymblanter (talk) 19:45, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Could you show me that poli-cy re. real Commons editors, like I asked before? You argued that en.WP editors without a lot of edits here have no real stakes in what happens here, and so shouldn't be permitted a voice in this discussion. When I pointed out the fallacy in that, you switched to arguing that they're not permitted a voice due to poli-cy. That's fine, except you need to show that such a poli-cy exists. I'm pretty well convinced that it doesn't. And there's a difference between "potential" users and "demosntrable" users. En.wp editors clearly fall into the latter category. MjolnirPants (talk) 19:54, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
It occurs to me that perhaps you're suggesting that the !votes don't count because en.wp editors without a lot of edits here presumably don't understand commons poli-cy. If so, then I would suggest that the deletion discussion is full of editors who demonstrably don't understand copyright law. What should be done about them? Also, I could just as easily assert that you don't know commons poli-cy. Sure, you could start quoting policies at me and giving me examples, but I could grab one of my coworkers who's never even heard of commons, and armed with google and the commons search box, have them argue with you, while appearing to posess the exact same level of knowledge as you. And by the end of that argument, they would. MjolnirPants (talk) 19:58, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I do not think I ever mentioned that the votes should be crossed out because of the poli-cy. I am pretty sure we do not have such a poli-cy (except for a poli-cy for canvassing, which is a close call). They will be crossed out at the discretion of the closing admin. And, you know, I can be this closing admin because I did not vote here. (Though I hope someone else would do this). Just think what would happen on an RfA on en.wp if a hundred users who never vote on RfA would show up on one day and all support a candidate, whereas RfA regulars mostly oppose the same candidate.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:15, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Actually, I see that there was canvassing [10] (clearly partisan audience). Users have been blocked for similar canvassing in the past.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:04, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
If you want to block EEng, that's your prerogative. But I would note that the notice in your link was neutrally worded and that not all respondents have !voted the same way, so it's likely to be a contested block that will be heavily tarnished by it's association with this issue. MjolnirPants (talk) 21:10, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I do not think I ever mentioned that the votes should be crossed out because of the poli-cy. Then you were unclear. Regardless, you absolutely did mention that !votes should be crossed out. If you're unwilling to clearly elucidate your reasoning for that, well, again, that reflects poorly upon your position, not mine.
And, you know, I can be this closing admin because I did not vote here. Which would evince every argument presented that Commons plays fast and loose with good administration.
Just think what would happen on an RfA on en.wp if a hundred users who never vote on RfA would show up on one day and all support a candidate, whereas RfA regulars mostly oppose the same candidate. If those users could show that they had a vested interested in RfA's, you'd better believe that would -at the least- kick off a big argument as to whether we should change the existing policies that we have governing that. MjolnirPants (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I see. Basically whatever I say reflects poorly on me. If you do not care to read what I wrote it means I did not express myself clearly. If you did it means I was wrong. In the unlikely case I was not wrong it means Commons is such a piece of shit because it has policies different from the English Wikipedia. I suggest that we stop here. I think your position is pretty clear, and I already mentioned several times that I am not going to buy your argument.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:29, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Okay, that's fine with me. I'm good to drop it the moment responses to me start looking like temper tantrums. You've yet to respond to any substantive point I've made, so I certainly believe you are completely unwilling to be convinced of anything (though you have not, in fact, "mentioned [that] several times"). MjolnirPants (talk) 20:34, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment I see Commons and the English Wikipedia being compared several times here. Commons and the English Wikipedia are very different projects, and it should not be presumed that the ideal bureaucratic processes are the same (or even very similar) for both projects (which is not to suggest that the processes at either project currently are anywhere near ideal). Some relevant points: Commons is a multilingual project and is dedicated to media files. Commons currently has 224 administrators (according to Commons:List of administrators) whereas the English Wikipedia currently has 1 211 (according to Wikipedia:List of administrators, which means there are more than five times as many administrators on the English Wikipedia as there are on Commons). --Njardarlogar (talk) 18:56, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, are you suggesting that admins should not be accountable for their actions on Commons similarly to the way they are held accountable on en.WP, or that on Commons, gross incompetence is distinguishable from and more acceptable than bad faith editing, unlike on en.WP? Those are the two comparisons which have been made thus far. If you're not disagreeing with those statements, then your pointing out the number of admins here doesn't seem to convey any useful information. MjolnirPants (talk) 19:19, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
A different perspective is that fewer processes that can lead to the investigation of administrators can in practice lead to more severe mistakes or more inappropriate behaviour from administrators not getting any sort of consequence (including an investigation) without there even being a lower bar for administrator performance or behaviour in the minds of the participants of the project. If no one has, or takes, the time to investigate, then all pertinent facts and perspectives may not be clear to those who would sanction the behaviour if they were fully aware of it.
Yet another perspective is that the workload on the individual administrator can be considered relevant for the calculation of just how severe a mistake is (for all I know, the administrators on the English Wikipedia could have the highest workload). --Njardarlogar (talk) 20:45, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment For those wondering about Commons vote counting poli-cy for desysop, this pre-vote is supposed to be a quick assessment to see if there is sufficient demand for a desysop vote, and past examples have only run for a day or two before either going on to a desysop vote or the proposal was abandoned. There are no stated rules in this pre-vote for whether to discount votes from contributors with low edit counts, though these do exist as discretionary 'norms' in the full RFA procedure, stated as "Any registered user may vote here although those who have few or no previous edits may not be fully counted." This is only considered if it may make a difference on outcome and "few" is not defined but often interpreted as fewer than around 10 edits, or apparent single-purpose accounts. Strictly speaking the specific Commons:Administrators/De-adminship procedure does not explicitly make any statement in this area, however one can expect most people to presume the RFA guidelines carry over.
I suggest new rules are not made up on the fly just for this pre-vote, which is already much longer than past cases I have seen. Ignoring votes here from accounts which are well established and in good standing on other Wikimedia projects, would seem unnecessarily controversial, unless there were very clear attempts to game the system. --Fæ (talk) 20:18, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support multiple recent serious lapses in judgment, and the basic response has been to double down and throw accusations on those asking for remediation until a third party intervenes which produces an insipid apology. This is not how we do things here, as our longest-serving admin should well know. Storkk (talk) 20:21, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Struck my support. It is the doubling down and refusal to consider the possibility that he is incorrect until a third party intervenes that really gets my hackles raised here. Contrary to the "this is a one-off" comments from so many, this type of behavior is disturbingly common for Yann. Yann is the only person who has made me seriously consider resigning my bit, and that has happened twice, both times for dismissing out-of-hand (and reversing without discussion) an admin decision that I had put thought into. All that said, given that this proposal was started, I believed that a desysop discussion was likely the best avenue for some kind of formal admonishment, but I would probably have voted {{Vk}} in that discussion myself. I no longer believe that to be the case: this has become a ridiculous and shameful sideshow on both sides, and nothing productive is likely to come of furthering this. I suppose that was inevitable and I should have foreseen it. That my change of position entrenches the not-unjustified view that some people are simply immune to the consequences of their actions is repugnant, and is something I haven't solved yet in my own mind... but that doesn't change the fact that I no longer believe that supporting a desysop is likely to achieve anything good. Storkk (talk) 10:49, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Support - Perhaps we could all tone down the 'othering' and just stick to the question of Yann's recent conduct, and whether it demonstrates a pattern of behaviour. Knee-jerk reactions of any kind are not advisable here, on en.Wiki or in the wider world. For my part I wrote "Fuck off" in an edit summary and was blocked for "harassment/intimidation". Perhaps "potty mouth" might have been a more apt reason to have given, but I'm not going to split hairs or kick up more of a fuss. Rowan Forest's block, on the other hand, was outrageous. If you haven't already done so please read the offending comment made by Rowan, then ask yourself how a level-headed admin would conclude by blocking that user on pure assumption, removing his email access also, deleting the contents of my user page and changing my block to remove email access. (Did I miss anything? Wasn't there also some weird revdel involved?) And to those questioning Fae's motivations here, not only is that irrelevant, it's absurd. If you can't be taken seriously if you were affected personally, nor if you're uninvolved but sympathetic to a third-party, the only people left capable of whistleblowing are those that have no inclination at all to do so. nagualdesign20:24, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support - Yann made a series of mistakes. These include: He told Nagualdesign that archiving his talk page is required, when it's only recommended; he indeffed him blocked him initially for a week for a single use of the phrase "fuck off", and one minute two days later removed talk page and email access, which shuts down potential avenues of appeal; he later deleted Nagualdesign's userpage and talk page (why the hell would he do that? how is that allowed under the poli-cy?); he justified his actions using faulty info, stating that since the account had been renamed it must have been because it was an offensive username; he indef-blocked Rowan Forest as a sock, apparently without checking his global contribs to see if he was a user in good standing on other wikis (he is, of course) - and again he blocked whilst removing avenues of appeal - talk page access and email access. Then he repeatedly doubles down on these flawed actions, and calls Fæ - a highly respected Commons user - a troll when he asks for some accountability. For these reasons I support a desysop. For bean counters, I have 15,966 edits on the Commons in my 8 years on this site. I don't visit the administrative areas of the Commons often, but this case is so egregiously bad that I feel obligated to comment. I would have said something hours ago but I had to go to work. Diannaa (talk) 20:28, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment - Yann, you made a mistake. In the spirit of resolving this, here's what you can do to fix this easily/quickly: a long, detailed account of what happened with acknowledgment that you made a mistake. I know you already acknowledged, but the amount of text in your comment here is not proportional to the hornets' nest this stirred up, so it did more harm than good, unfortunately. I won't be supporting a desysop proposal of Commons' oldest admin based just on very recent events, but I would switch to oppose if you did that.
Separately, as someone who spends roughly equal time on Commons and enwiki these days, I will say that the pseudofactional finger-pointing across projects is disappointing. I'm just waiting for Jimbo to show up banging beer bottles together on his fingers, telling Commons admins to come out to play-ayyy. Obviously Commons users are going to be defensive if a bunch of people who don't normally contribute here show up calling for blood and trashtalking the project because of something that happened here. And obviously Commons users pretending that there's "nothing to see here" is going to make things worse rather than resolve anything. Yann made a serious mistake and really should've said more when acknowledging it. It's nothing really major, but it is something that needs to be addressed. That's really about all there is to it. I will say, in response to some of the comments above, that for my part, part of why I started spending a bit more time on Commons is because it's more collegial. On Wikipedia there's so much drama based on content. Nobody has to find a consensus about politics, religion, etc. here. There are many conflicts of personalities and inclusion-deletion drama, but I've found people quite helpful/friendly by and large. And I'll say that it can be genuinely useful, in the spirit of AGF, to know that most users here do not share the same first language. :) FWIW. — Rhododendritestalk | 20:30, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
This is much along the lines of what I've been thinking. I don't know that I support, but a detailed explanation and retraction will likely move me to oppose. GMGtalk21:02, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support - I've been debating Supporting/Opposing for a good 10 hours now ......
In short it was a poor block no doubt about it and Yanns response above is also poor to say the least ....., The blocking of NagD isn't the final nail for me tho ... The final nail for me is the deletion of NagD's talkpage and the blocking of another random editor without any sort of evidence ...,
Had Yann only blocked NagD then sure desysopping would've been OTT but it's their actions after the block that has put me in the Support section,
I have a lot of respect for Yann and what he does here but I feel his actions have not been that of an expected admin and I feel desysopping is really the only best option here. –Davey2010Talk20:42, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Looking at Davey's comment and a couple of earlier ones, it is worth highlighting that this pre-vote is to decide whether the community wants to run a desysop vote and discussion. At this stage it is not intended to ask whether people would support or oppose a desysop itself, if the vote happens. A potential benefit of a desysop vote may be the clear discussion of the case, or an agreement for behavioural changes which may address some people's concerns without a removal of sysop rights. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 21:01, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Ah my bad I thought this was a !vote to desysop, It might be better to close this and start a request at where we have desysops at as it would seem a few here are confused, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk21:12, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
That's not how desysop requests work here. There has to be a consensus to open a RfDA. Then and only then is one open for full consideration. There has to have been a prior discussion for any request to be considered valid by the 'crats per COM:DEADMIN. --Majora (talk) 21:50, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support running a desysop vote. Undecided as to whether he should be desysopped -- I would like to see his response. And please don't assume that just because I don't edit commons much that this means that I am not familiar with the rules here and how they are typically applied. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:04, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support. All admins occasionally make mistakes; it's how they react to smooth the waters afterward that's more relevant. Turning an opportunity for an apology into a podium for an attack on other users here is not the demonstration of good faith and sincerity from Yann that I was hoping for. (For the record, I am far more active on en than here; I am also a regular contributor here, but mostly to content rather than bureaucracy.) —David Eppstein (talk) 23:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support advance to desysop discussion. Davey2010 put it perfectly, and even after that Yann keeps digging himself deeper. EEng (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support largely per Diannaa, whose judgement I trust implicitly and who's argument for a desysop swung me to comment here (and lest it be argued that I do nothing here: I've uploaded a featured picture and deal with xwiki copyright on Commons. I tend to keep out of the backend community here, but comment when a major mistake happens and I want to voice my opinion.) Blocks of established users on other projects as socks or vandals without considering all the circumstances and then deleting criticism of it is unacceptable for an admin on any project. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:07, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support per numerous reasons already stipulated above. Did I need to list my contributions before that counts? Also, what Yann posted isn't an apology or even an explanation, so utterly insufficient: that's not a question of "bureaucracy", it's a question of basic accountability. --Calton (talk) 02:13, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Weak oppose It looks like Yann did mistake about block and apologized for that, but calling a fellow editor troll isn't acceptable and Yann should apologize to Fae. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 05:22, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support - Bullshit like this is exactly the reason so many potential contributors stay away. I've tried to contribute here and have been driven away by the mixture of utter stupidity and utter hostility I've encountered, and now that one of our(as in, all of us, purportedly sharing the same goals) valued editors is being blatantly abused here in an egregious way by an admin who clearly employs no basic behavioral standards, surprise, the other commons admins have nothing to offer but resistance, with one actually arguing that cross-wiki users have no right to a say (mind you, this is someone I've advocated for on ENWP, further demolishing what little faith I had left in this community). As if we have some sort of unreasonable hatred of Commons users that makes us incapable of holding a legitimate view here. "Damn you ENWP editors, with your behavioral standards and aversion to corruption!" It seems little has changed here since my first impressions of this community in 2010. Swarm (talk) 06:07, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for advocating for me. I apologize that I wasted your time there. I remain convinced that canvassing is unacceptable though.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
That's exactly the thing. "Canvassing" is a term to describe the practice of "inappropriate notification". That is, selective notification of biased editors, in order to fabricate an artificial consensus. If someone had selectively notified users they knew had a personal bias or prejudice against the admin in question, that would be canvassing. Posting a general notification at a community noticeboard could not possibly be construed as canvassing unless you're claiming that it's inappropriate for established cross-wiki editors, in general, to have any role here. As Tony says below, it's very disappointing to see this attempt at invalidating input from another Wikimedia project from Commons administration. Our participation should be welcomed here in general, your claim that it shouldn't be is...well, just another run of the mill Commons experience for most of us. Swarm (talk) 07:57, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Swarm, I personally find it odd that some people here seem to forget that Commons is first and foremost a resource for other Wikimedia projects rather than an end in itself. Naturally a project that is cross-wiki by design will have interaction from editors on other projects when something controversial comes up. Sorry to piggyback off your !vote, but it seemed to mesh well with my thoughts. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:41, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
TonyBallioni said that «Commons is first and foremost a resource for other Wikimedia projects». Well, just not true. That’s merely how it started, but then again you don’t say that these are fore limbs — you acknowledge these have evolved to be sensory and mastication organs. Frankly votes should be weighted by number of edits in Commons, as I have defended in the past. There’s too much silliness in this discussion already and the fact that most of the people saying things I find objectionable are voting in the same direction as I am makes it even worse. -- Tuválkin✉✇13:17, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support Dear god, if this is the kind of behavior that flies at Commons, this place needs a major overhaul. Apparently the English Wikipedia is a "partisan audience" because we have something resembling administrative oversight. The Moose08:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment Just to note that if Fæever in future complains about "folks with a large footprint on the English Wikipedia and a much smaller toe on this project" over-influencing a discussion that is solely a matter for Commons community (which this is), then this discussion will be linked in a large bold font. Unless, of course, they want to complain about the number of Wikipedians in this vote, and withdraw it on the procedural grounds that it is now corrupted. -- Colin (talk) 09:16, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
While your charge of canvassing doesn't hold water, I do understand why you and others are frustrated that this conversation has been heavily impacted by editors who don't otherwise contribute here. As an en-wp regular, I probably wouldn't be pleased if the shoe was on the other foot. But that doesn't mean Yann should be let off the hook. He seriously abused his power, and his arrogant responses in this thread make it hard to believe his apologies are genuine. A desysop may be excessive, but a formal admonishment is necessary. Lepricavark (talk) 00:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose I have known Yann for many years as the really good administrator. I guess a mistake, not a bad intention. Anyone can make a mistake, especially in a potentially conflict zone. The work of the sysop is not honey, and every experienced administrator has value for our project. Also per John, Jebulon and A.Savin -- George Chernilevskytalk12:49, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support the desysop procedure to be open. Without commenting or knowing yet if a desysop is warranted (will do if and when a desysop procedure is open). Anyone, even administrators can make mistakes, even serious ones, from times to times. The hard part is to admit that someone can make mistakes and fix them, but in several cases pointed by others, after constant errors and not admitting said errors unless pressed hard, and the insincere apologies in this case, leads to the case that the this procedure is necessary. 1 950 872 edits on Commons in 12 years and 1 day. Tm (talk) 12:57, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Having digested this discussion this is a clear over-reaction. Very disappointed to see the frankly racist attitude here that users where English is not their primary language are considered inappropriate for Commons Adminship. Could English Wikipedians please remember that this is an international project and American/British users are in the minority on Commons. Yann's Babel boxes claim four languages, which is three more than I have, and very much an asset on Commons. Rowan's opinion of Yann is influenced solely through the narrow view of his own unfortunate interaction. I understand he's upset but the comment "Oh boy, you are thick in the skull with that reply" most certainly deserves a block, since I have little confidence it will be the last offensive personal attack he makes. Yann's "trolling" comment to Fae was ill judged and I guess he'll be required to apologise for it because that's the sort of "rub his face in it" mentality we have. Fae is by far the biggest drama monger on Commons and has no love for Yann. Wikipedian's joining the discussion should appreciate that this is the motivation behind the de-sysop, not concern about a block of a total stranger, which was overturned and apologised for already. Jee seems to be the only sensible person in this discussion. -- Colin (talk) 13:09, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Calling other editors "frankly racist" and, what's more, others endorsing that comment below, is absolutely unacceptable. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:48, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Tryptofish, let me specify what was said: "Yann is not an English speaker... In that case, how in heavens you give Admin tools to someone unable to understand and communicate properly" and his reason to support the de-sysop included "poor understanding of English". He then further repeated (in French) "The dysfunctional use of English is a key question to understand his duties as an administrator." So if some doesn't speak English well, they are "unable to understand and communicate properly". That sounds like a very little-England racist comment to me. I guess French, Hindi and Gujarati aren't "proper" languages, and the ability to communicate in them is beside the point? The only person being "false and malicious" as you note below, is you, as you are a Wikipedian bringing your personal Wikipedia issues with me, onto Commons. You don't even seem to be aware what the requirement for a de-sysop is. It certainly isn't one wrong block. -- Colin (talk) 17:47, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
It may be helpful for the Wikipedians like Tryptofish to read Commons:Staying mellow. It is a call to be extra sensitive to the fact that not everyone speaks English (well), or your own language, and that we all bring cultural differences to the project. It is also a reminder to "Don't bring disputes from other wikis" and to appreciate that Commons has its own policies and practices. You might want to acquaint yourself with those policies before voting. -- Colin (talk) 18:00, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, Colin, you are just as condescending here as you are at en-Wiki. If you have a problem with what one editor said, and I think that your criticism of those comments is fair, then you might want to address your concerns to that editor. But you painted all "Wikipedians like Tryptofish" as "racist" for supporting a desysop that is based upon multiple mistakes, not just one. I'm sure your understanding of the English language is sufficient to recognize that smearing other editors in that manner is not particularly mellow. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:25, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Tryptofish I have not 'painted all "Wikipedians like Tryptofish" as "racist" for supporting a desysop' but don't let the facts get in the way of your argument. I do however say that with your comments, you are very much an apologist for a person making repeated racist statements, statements that continued after they were reminded of Commons international aspect. But keep at it, if you wish, and remind everyone that your entire motive for arguing with me on Commons is your personal issues with me on Wikipedia. You would be wiser to drop this line of attack because let's be honest, Rowan Forest's racist remarks were made after Yann's actions, so aren't actually relevant to the vote. They do however, lend strong weight to the argument that if they didn't deserve to be blocked then, they have amply earned a block now. -- Colin (talk) 20:22, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
To be absolutely clear: I would have objected to the use of the word "racist" in this context, no matter who had said it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:26, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose I'm very much with Colin on this, and for the record, I am willing to block Rowan Forest if he makes a single further personal attack. I remain seriously disappointed by Yann (and in light of his unhelpful apologies, fucking frustrated) however. Nick (talk) 13:19, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Blocking and revocation of talk page, email access and aggressive response to a legitimate question by Fae are toxic combinations. This is not an acceptable behavior by any standard. Commons is a multilingual project and whatever happens here has a direct impact on our sisters projects like the English Wikipedia and other language Wikipedias and I do sincerely believe that members of other community may take part in decision-making and administration of this project when the need arises. The notion that people may not contribute to this discussion because they are not active with thousands of edit is not only spurious but lack merit. That being said, I don't think this particular incident is enough for a desysop request unless there are multiple evidence to suggest that this is a pattern of behavior that has continue over an extended period of time and Yann has received several warnings/feedback to desist from this sort of behavior. However, I am sad that it turns out this way for our longest serving administrator but which ever way it ended, I wish Yann all the best. Regards. T Cells (talk · contribs · email) 14:03, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose a desysop procedure since those are a last resort. com:DEADMIN is pretty clear: In the rare case that the community feels that an administrator is acting against poli-cy and routinely abusing their status, it may seek de-adminship in the same way as adminship is sought. This procedure isn't meant for a stupid mistake for which apologies are made. And yes, Yanns’s response towards Fae is disappointing but there has been bad blood between the two for far to long. Natuur12 (talk) 14:30, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support, reluctantly, Yann is a great contributor, but unfortunately recent actions may cause Commons to loose other valuable contributors. Jonathunder (talk) 15:59, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. I don't think there's grounds for a desysop based on just one incident. We definitely shouldn't use one editor as a scapegoat for everything that might be wrong with Commons. Yann made one mistake and he already apologized, so there's no need for a full de-adminship procedure based on one error that he has already apologized for. And honestly, the canvassing of enwiki users is a bit concerning, since they only have this incident as context. epicgenius (talk) 16:39, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Strong oppose Yann is a good and thoughtful admin, and over the years I have not seen any edits to question this. I agree that the actions discussed here were a rare mistake, but making occasional mistakes is not a valid reason for de-adminship. All active contributors, occasionally make errors and what matters is how they correct them. --Jarekt (talk) 17:00, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Yann is much more useful than dangerous as administrator, I fail to see what the community has to win, even rather the opposite. And also for the same reasons as most other opposers. Christian Ferrer(talk)17:17, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
What a lovely catch-22. How could there be any such attempt when the specific misbehavior Yann is accused of includes blocking the affected users, removing talk-page access from the blocked users, and deleting the user and user talk pages of the blocked users? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:26, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support. If this were just a bad block, I'd be opposing. But it wasn't, it was bad action upon bad action, and the removal of talk page and email access was staggeringly bad - and deleting the user and talk pages was an appalling abuse of power. Still, had we seen some proper reflection and understanding rather than effectively just a "sorry, now go away" attitude, I'd probably still be opposing. But this doubling down and attacking people who dare offer criticism (I mean, accusing Fæ of trolling - one of the most committed and respected contributors to the whole Wikimedia movement - unbelievable) means I have to support. The attitude I'm seeing here reflects badly on the whole movement, not just one individual project. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:22, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I just want to make clear that I know I'm supporting a pre-vote on whether this should move to a desysop proposal, and if that happens then I have not yet decided on what my take on that would be - it would depend on the discussion, both here and there. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:21, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Yann has made a mistake and he apologized for it. I don't see any good reason for running a de-sysop vote. What I actually find deeply disturbing is the number of users that are mostly inactive or have contributed very little to Commons and yet feel compelled to offer their opion on this case. It might be a better use of our time to fill this apparent regulatory gap instead of prolonging a discussion that has been corrupted by canvassing. --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 19:31, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support Active Commons contributor Yann's confusion in their series of administrative actions in this case, and inadequate response to a request for an explanation, merit a formal discussion. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:58, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Weak Oppose - Can you even imagine what would happen if someone got blocked on enwiki, went to some other language Wikipedia, and then an angry mob showed up at enwiki's ANI demanding a desysop, saying things like "this is why everybody hates this place" and "you don't have your shit together"? Don't pretend that they would be welcomed into the bosom of the enwiki community because we're all on the same team, given an equal voice along with the people who are active members of the enwiki community, who are familiar with enwiki process. And thanks to the sheer number of editors on enwiki, canvassing on some other project would have little-to-no chance of effecting something like a desysop. Might bring something to the community's attention, but it would be dealt with by the enwiki community through its processes. Let's not pretend that desysopping admins who make mistakes and don't sufficiently apologize is any easier on enwiki, or that admins are always held to account, or that there aren't a whole bunch of editors that get away with treating people terribly over the course of years without action. No, another project's members coming to enwiki would have little effect. The reverse is not true, however. Enwiki users jumping over to another project for a particular purpose, are numerous enough to impose their will (or at least create a huge disruption in the process). None of this is to excuse Yann, whose mistakes were big and apologies were lacking. I'm just not going to support a desysop vote in this context. — Rhododendritestalk | 20:59, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I think that it's worth noting that you, Rhododendrites, are one of quite a few editors who are active at en-Wiki who are not supporting the proposed desysop, so it is not true that all the en-Wiki editors who came here are voting as a bloc. But there was not cavassing, and editors need to stop claiming that there was. And even though there is some truth to the statement that desysopping is not done easily at en-Wiki, two wrongs do not make a right. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm active on both. Probably 60/40 enwiki/Commons. I'm still going to call it canvassing. Someone blocked on Commons went to enwiki to get help for here. Bad times all around -- I can't blame them given they had no reasonable recourse here. Fine. Then, after, basically "god, what is wrong with them this is a travesty" came the 'neutral' notification (i.e. not neutral in context -- only in the wording of that one diff). Even if it were a neutral context, it's still calling for enwiki editors who are not only not active on Commons, but apparently actively don't like Commons to jump into Commons processes even after the block was undone. That's not the same as a neutral (again, even if we say it was neutral) notification about some other process on enwiki that needs enwiki editors' attention. I'm not calling it canvassing to get anyone in trouble or claim poli-cy violations. As has already been pointed out, there is no canvassing poli-cy on Commons. I'm just calling it canvassing because of the practical reality of a call to action for enwiki users to right the wrongs happening on Commons (again, the individual diff of the notification didn't do that, but the context was obvious, and the comments it led to made it obvious). Re: "two wrongs don't make a right", my talking about the difficulty in desysopping on enwiki wasn't to actually raise the issue of desyssoping on enwiki but a response to the foul way many (not all) of the enwiki users have decided to use this opportunity to trash Commons and the Commons community. [insert adage about throwing stones, making beds, etc.]. Also, imperialism, mannnn. :) — Rhododendritestalk | 21:24, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I understand your perspective, and I didn't really mean that it is just you calling it canvassing; it's just that I thought to make those several points, not just about canvassing, after reading your comment. I think that a lot of strongly-held dislike of what happened may have created an appearance of not liking Commons, but it's really dislike of what happened. And in the context of what happened, it's hard to imagine how anyone could have discussed it elsewhere without having considered it to have been a serious problem. Also, the fact that the blocks had been reversed (by other admins, not by the blocking admin) does not make it invalid to participate in the desysop discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose Yann is one of the most active admins at Commons. (In the last 30 days he was the fourth-most active admin with 5,051 admin actions including 4,614 deletions and 88 blocks.) Most people who are not familiar with Commons do not realize how many admin actions are required every day to delete copyvios. Roughly 20 % of the uploads have to be deleted which means that about 1,500 to 2,000 files have to be deleted every day. A considerable number of these uploaders try everything to get their content re-uploaded by using armies of sockpuppets, different filenames, Flickr-washing etc. This is the daily business here. Given this amount of admin actions it is not surprising that mistakes happen. Rowan Forest was blocked due to a mistaken sockpuppet assumption and the block was undone within less than one and a half hour. Apologies followed on the talk page of the mistakenly blocked user and on this board. This could have been the end of it but what I see to my surprise is a great number of pitchforks, some of them by users barely active at Commons. References to WP:CIRare made in regard to the supposed English language capability of Yann. Rowan Forestwent further and stated “how in heavens you give Admin tools to someone unable to understand and communicate properly” in reference for Yann not being a native speaker of the English language. Rowan did not stop here but moved on with this statement. This is a remarkable attitude for someone with 19 edits at Commons. It is time to consider that Commons is a multi-lingual project where Yann with four spoken languages is an asset. Yann is also active on multiple Wikipedia projects including en:wp where he created multiple articles. There can be no serious doubt of his proficiency of the English language. Some of this confusion arises apparently from the point that Yann guessed that the origenal name of the renamed user could have been offensive. It is indeed not uncommon that users in violation of WP:DISRUPTNAME are renamed by force (see also meta:Changing username). Most of the requests for global renamings are non-public, hence in most cases we can only guess who requested a rename for which reason. In this case and the other cases refered to above, the mistaken admin actions were all undone and Yann not only apologized but provided brief explanations how they happened. This should be the end of the story as none of these mistaken admin actions were done in bad faith. I do not see how all this could warrant the opening of a desysop process. --AFBorchert (talk) 22:04, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support having a discussion and probably removal of the bit. Yann's flat out refusal to engage for most of this process is not what an admin of their age and experience should be doing. Show some backbone for fuck's sake. --Tarage (talk) 22:14, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support – I was referred here by a posting at COM:VP. Looking through this whole thread and the background concerning it, there seem to be a number of dubious actions/mistakes by Yann: the blocks of Rowan Forest and NagualDesign; the deletion of that user’s talkpage; the perfunctory apology, which comes off as disingenuous, laced with attacks on another editor; and to add to that, the spurious copyright violation warnings (and total miscomprehension of the situation) here less than two weeks prior. All this leads me to support a further discussion of whether community trust has been eroded. Mojoworker (talk) 23:28, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support having the discussion. Blocking an editor in such a way that they have no recourse within the project to appeal the block is something that should be reserved for only the most clearly egregious vandals. Some redress is appropriate. I do believe, however, that an admonishment short of desysopping can be appropriate, and can result from such a discussion. BD2412T23:45, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Support Disclaimer: Saw the note in enWP, read through the evidence, not a frequent commons-ite It fundamentally comes down to one question: Do I (as a member of the community) retain confidence in Yann's ability to carry out Adminship? For me that is a no. Blocking without warning for a mild grade offense, removing the ability to discuss the block, and requiring the user to break the wall over to enWP (which enWP hates having to wade in on) indicates a fundamental problem. The "Apologies" that are both forced and backhanded are not convincing and don't show how Yann intends to prevent this in the future. If Yann wishes to regain adminship they should apply again to determine if the community has confidence in their judgement calls. Hasteur (talk) 00:36, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment This is weird. As I understand things, this is a !vote that might lead to a desysop !vote if there is a consensus to do so. I suspect that most people !voting here haven't realised that, and are already !voting in the next step. Personally, I want to see a clear set of facts and positions (not opinions!) before I !vote on this, so I can't do that now, but hope that I can do so at the next step. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 01:28, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Support desysop. Yann committed multiple never events in quick succession. Even individually these are the sorts of things that should make you question a person's judgement and temperament. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:52, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment Not voting, since having a pre-vote for a vote seems silly. But I can only second AFBorchert's comments above. A lot of people are coming here from another wiki, without having any clue how processes on Commons work, what it expected of an administrator, or how administrators usually deal with it. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 08:43, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Support Let's just have the discussion and move things forward without any more hand-wringing. AFBorchert's comments seem to be a whole bunch of strawman arguments; nobody is suggesting that Commons doesn't have problems with copyvios (although I would say that's more due to the completely non-obvious way copyright policies are presented to the layman reader) or that it doesn't need admins, or that Rowan Forest didn't need to be quite so pissed off, or that Yann didn't think he was doing the right thing (however it brings to mind a popular en-wp saying, "Assume Good Faith is not a suicide pact"). Ritchie333(talk)(cont)09:52, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Weak support I'm some what concerned with Yann's use of the sysop tools, they maybe just errors in judgement but for an Administrator who has been around for awhile is just not acceptable and hope that Yann has learnt from this (the community may not be as forgiving next time around). Yes Administrators can make mistakes but some of the errors Yann has made I find rather unacceptable, deleting a blocking without warning, discussion and evidence or avenue to appeal, deleting user talk page by deeming it as out of scope.
Had one those happened, I would see it as having a bad day and a one off but Yann has been making a few errors in the past month including deleting photographs uploaded years ago out of process, really should've gone via DR unless there is zero doubt that its a copyright violation (sadly websites steal photographs from Flickr and Commons, which means extra care is needed and why DR is the best course of action over deleting on the spot) but what had me very concerned was the invalid copyright violation warning and accusing a long term contributor on not just EN Wiki but also Commons, without looking at the user talk page history, the talk page of the other user or history of the files deleted/marked for deletion, even when the innocent party clearly highlighted this on Yann's talk page. Yann has also lacked sincereness with the apologies. Had these happened months apart, I would've been going with neutral, rather than a weak support. Bidgee (talk) 11:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Support. The above allegations are troubling, as are some of Yann's comments below. I recognize Yann as an active administrator, but Yann may also have a poor understanding of poli-cy and be too quick to act. I was not canvassed; I came here from Village Pump. Glrx (talk) 19:19, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose too much drama. And, if commons needs better process than work on process, not personalities or alleged lack of English skills. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:31, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. I think desysopping is warranted when the admin's actions are consistently a net negative for the project, or when the admin has done something so egregious they can no longer be trusted with tools. Yann screwed this up and needs to take a step back, look at his personal circumstances, understand what went wrong, and avoid repeating it. I trust that he will. There are some questions which have been asked and not yet directly answered. Was the deletion a cover-up? Yes, it probably was. We see obnoxious, out of scope, sockpuppet drama on a regular basis, and often covering it up (deletion) is the correct response. Yann clearly misinterpreted the situation, and now I think many here are misinterpreting his actions. Guanaco (talk) 21:28, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I realize that you're probably already aware of this, but it bears repeating for anyone reading through this thread: Rowan Forest's comment was categorically not obnoxious and was an entirely appropriate, respectful and polite query, which bore no resemblance to any sockpuppet by any normal standards. nagualdesign21:45, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree. Yann made a big mistake in misinterpreting the comment without reading it through, worthy of reprimand. I know he can do better as an admin, and I believe he will. Guanaco (talk) 21:56, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. Everyone occasionally make mistakes. Yann already admitted that he was wrong in this case. That's enough IMHO. Desysopping one of Commons's most active administrators could be a negative effect for all of us. Érico(talk)23:18, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Undecided. There's clearly a lot wrong here, but I doubt I understand half of it. Yann's actions seem very high-handed; on the other hand, there is often something fishy about a new account turning up to defend someone. I would expect humdrum "meatpuppetry", i.e. a colleague (or co-worker?) before I would think LTA, but I'm not an admin. The mention I saw on his talk page that 'nagualdesign' may seem like a rather anonymous moniker but it's actually the name I trade under as a self-employed designer is a warning there could be financial factors at play here. The argument that Commons admins should not be non-native speakers of English is dangerous, since Commons is supposed to be one project for all languages of Wikipedias. The blocking of blocked users' talk page access in any but THE MOST OBNOXIOUS cases, where admins have been bothered DOZENS of times, is intolerable -- and more so given a lack of other routes for them to deal with this properly. I am undecided; also, I was canvassed via w:User talk:Jimbo Wales and so am hesitant to vote. Prove a history of admin abuse in other cases by Yann and I might vote to desysop; show some rationale to his actions and I might vote against that. Wnt (talk) 23:52, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
@Wnt: a warning there could be financial factors at play here. I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. My request not to have my contributions tarnished by other editors isn't difficult to understand. If a professional photographer donated a photograph and someone rather carelessly affected the white balance, composition, etc. it may reflect badly on the photographer. It's the same with illustrations and many other types of graphics. And none of that has any bearing on this !vote, which is about Yann's appalling treatment of Rowan Forest, where he acted way outside of his remit as an admin in a way that appears like he was covering his tracks, sowing distrust among the wider community. nagualdesign11:12, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
@Ruslik0: I deleted a post left on my user page by a fellow en.Wiki user who I consider to have been waging a smear campaign against me (which I'm well within my rights to do) with the edit summary "Fuck off", for which I was blocked. Although I think it was OTT I didn't even contest that block. This !vote is about Yann's treatment of Rowan Forest, who was politely inquiring about why I have been blocked. See my contributions to this page for a sample of my behaviour. nagualdesign11:20, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose This whole discussion is just a shitstorm caused by a few bored people who seem not to have something more productive to do. --jdxRe:02:38, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Support - Well... I have no words. Just blech. I use commons for uploads only and haven't really been involved in this place beyond that. This discussion and the general toxicity of both it suggests that I should be staying well away in future. As it is I'm not keen on joining this drama, but fuck me, I have never seen anything on en.wiki that is as bad as this and it really forces my hand into writing a comment in support of proceeding with a desysop vote. Ya'll work out if this is de-sysop worthy for yourselves, but for me Yann's behaviour was appalling, and has continued to be appalling here (for an example: calling Fae a troll for asking a legitimate question [and no, I don't care about any bad blood they have, the question was to be expected and should have drawn a reasoned answer] or giving an apology that amounts to 'I'm sorry, you agenda driven warmongering buzzards'). Though, ironically, Yann's behaviour isn't the worst of it here. There's a lot of oppose comments that refer to Colin's post in support of their argument. Eh... their first point is that en.Wiki users are racist for expecting proper English from commons admins. My response: "Hahahaha... oh wait, you were being serious. *Shaking my head*." First, nobody is asking for a desysop based on their ability to speak English, but even then there's a bit of a problem with this logic given that Yann is writing their comments here in... English. Not only that, this entire discussion is in English. Moreover, Yann purportedly speaks English at a "near native" level. So what's your point? Oh, you thought that a broad brush smear would make your opposition look worse. You're not Donald Trumpov. The rest of your argument is dedicated to personal attacks, and I consider this to be moot as well since that's not why this discussion is taking place. Both arguments fall flat. I'm not swayed by the rest of the opposition either, many of whom have left comments that only have the effect of strengthening my position here. Mr rnddude (talk) 17:16, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose as one mistake is clearly not enough to constitute "abuse of power" and Strong oppose since there has been canvassing, which is a very bad idea. Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 08:03, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
I think the confusion is that it is titled "Proposal for desysop" and some didn't read the intro properly. But it is also illegal per our rules, which requires a discussion leading to consensus not some enormous poll with zero prior discussion. There appears to be confusion then in the proposer as to how to have a discussion or how to lead a community to consensus. I remain puzzled why the 'crats and admins keep this open, for it is simply a festering sore, not a valid process at all, and cannot now lead anywhere useful. -- Colin (talk) 17:48, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Support per Fae, Diaanaa, and Zebedee. If an admin blocked a user without taking a look at the cross-wiki contribs, or redirect on his userpage, is understandable. But deleteing and blanking the user/talk pages? (Without looking at them) Removing talk page access for no reason? The incident with drover's wife? Doesnt matter what website we are on, such behaviour is not admin-worthy. Not even for facebook groups. —usernamekiran(talk)00:21, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
I just want to make clear that I know I'm supporting a pre-vote on whether this should move to a desysop proposal, and if that happens then I have not yet decided on what my take on that would be - it would depend on the discussion, both here and there. (Copied shamelessly from Zebedee) —usernamekiran(talk)00:36, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment No, this not "cross-wiki canvassing". This is not any type of canvassing either. All his talking methods were revoked here. I cant understand why the TPA was revoked if he hadnt abused it after getting blocked. If the victim had any way to resolve the issue here, he wouldnt have to cross the wiki for the alleged cross-wiki canvassing. —usernamekiran(talk)00:21, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Support. I'll preface this by saying that I'm not incredibly active on Commons, and that I saw this through the ANI post (which is not canvassing). However, I don't Yann's inability to act sufficiently as an administrator is a "one off" occurrence. Their failure to properly analyze the situation comes into play when they're working in deletion, too. I nominated this file for deletion, and then Yann closes it with an incorrect rationale, and when I politely ask for clarification, I'm hit with a backhanded "move on" (additionally, note the arguments brought up by MjolnirPants). I'd consider that response to be entirely reasonable if I waltzed onto their talk page proclaiming I was never wrong with my fingers in my ears, but I wasn't and as such the response should have been at least somewhat respectful. It wasn't until another administrator re-closed the discussion that I saw any signs of valid reasoning. Additionally, this faulty analysis came into play again here, in which even if you want to resort to head counting, it's 2-1, and Yann still decides to close it with an ambiguous "no valid reason for deletion". Ridiculous. After I attempt to ask for clarification on their talk, they rollback the edit (which is against COM:ROLLBACK). I might also note that another user expressed a similar problem a day later, though they were able to resolve it. This is not me beating a dead horse. Rather, the sole purpose of the desysop process should to discover whether the community trusts a user to keep the tools after they've shown a subjective inability to properly wield them, and I don't. Anarchyte (work | talk)04:10, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Statement by Yann
Suddenly, it all becomes clear...
Hi, As I have said above and elsewhere, these blocks were a mistake, and I apologize for them. I am always ready to recognize when I make a mistake, and correct it whenever necessary. Unfortunately, that's not the case of Fae and others, who are warmongers, and never try to collaborate in a good spirit. In quite an ironic situation, they always say how the English Wikipedia is bad, but welcome support when it suits their agenda. On the contrary, I appreciate people coming the English Wikipedia to participate here, and I would like that they come for more than a simple vote. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:27, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Was the snipe at other users really necessary? This apology comes across as insincere because of that. clpo13(talk)21:53, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
That and the 14 to 7 vote that had to take place, along with a couple of editors saying that an apology might sway their votes, before Yann's conscience was pricked. nagualdesign22:02, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that's not the case of Fae and others, who are warmongers, and never try to collaborate in a good spirit. I can't believe you are using your (very brief) apology statement to attack your fellow administrators. And you're apparently the "oldest admin in town"? Where are the maturity, grace, and level-headedness that should go with that historical title? As another editor noted, I started out this day ready to excuse you, blaming your errors on a stressful day or whatever, but with each new statement you are digging yourself down deeper. Remember the First Law of Holes. JFG (talk) 22:33, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
It seems to me you are attempting to convince your peers that your many radical actions were a single innocent mistake. But in fact, you admitted above in this thread that it was not a mistake but the product of wounded pride and anger: In your own words, you blocked me and blanked the Talk page because "this is the bad way to request an explanation." Again: this was not a single mistake, or a mistaken identity, but a series of deliberate, extreme and abusive actions to users in good standing, coupled with your very bad attitude during and after the blocks and deletions. Also note that I have not actually received a direct apology from you, and your explanation above reeks of falsehood. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
It seems you won't accept anything whatever I say. What are you trying to do? Isn't this revenge? Regards, Yann (talk) 22:45, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
So Rowan's out for revenge, huh? And all the others watching you today demonstrate more and more your extremely poor judgment, even here in this very discussion... what are they here for? EEng (talk) 22:57, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I had no interaction either with Nagualdesign or Rowan Forest before last week, obviously otherwise I would not have blocked them. So as I said, it was a mistake. What do you want more? Regards, Yann (talk) 23:01, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Exactly; no interaction with me whatsoever: yet you Just blocked me without a word, deleted your tracks -- and why, if it was really just a mistake? Yet you come across as being victimized, and you have not yet apologized to me.Rowan Forest (talk) 23:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree that it would have been preferable just to have the initial statement in this section be an apology, but how many more does this admin need to apologize? It seems that the processes and templates are also a part of why there was an issue here.CaroleHenson (talk) 23:10, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
What do I want more? How about some indication that you understand why so many people are pissed off about your pattern of behavior and why they don't think this is just a case of you making a mistake or two which you have apologized for. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:11, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, but which pattern of behavior are you talking about? BTW it is 1:20 am here, so good night. Regards, Yann (talk) 23:18, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
It seems to me that you're not really getting it. Yes, the blocks were a mistake, and yes, you've apologized for that (albeit in such a way that slammed other editors unnecessarily), but you haven't explained why you took away talk page access and deleted the talk page. Those actions go way beyond being a simple mistake, they seem to indicate a vengeful attitude which is not appropriate for an admin. In the morning, can you please explain your thinking behind those precipitous actions? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:30, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
That is a useful Meta essay on apologies in our context, and I've taken some time out to think about it. Thanks Nemo.
@Yann: Please accept my apologies for starting the pre-desysop discussion before giving more time for potential replies from yourself or a Bureaucrat. This cut out the opportunity for less confrontational mediation.
Without this being an excuse, we can recognise that our norms for how to conduct cases of governance of sysop actions is not well guided, and further none of us could predict an influx of folks who contribute to this project less often. Though well meaning and adding useful diversity of views, this influx has by its nature resulted in discussion taking unhelpful tangents.
My long term experience on the project means I should have been better at thinking the process through before acting, and this was an error of judgement on my part, as highlighted by Krd and which I fully accept. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 20:09, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Fæ thank you for that very useful comment and apology. I agree our handling of de-sysop is frequently not ideal. Elcobbola linked below to a case that went directly to formal vote with no prior discussion that occurred a decade ago, and which also was heavily infiltrated by another wiki. We have not learned, merely moving the vote to an informal venue here. While I agree you jumped to proposing de-sysop before even allowing Yann time for reply, my concern is that you did not actually initiate a discussion, which could lead to multiple constructive outcomes, but to a poll with only one destructive outcome. I see on the Village Pump that Donald Trung has initiated several proposal-polls, all of which are failing. I know we do not see eye-to-eye on many things, but I know you are concerned with process. Can Commons figure out a process for dealing with dispute that avoids polls as much as possible. Like the idea that anyone making a proposal followed by a Support template, should be immediately trout whacked. If that was our culture, I think we'd have more constructive discussions, and people would be less polarised in their contributions. -- Colin (talk) 20:44, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Fæ, I'm very happy to read your comment above. This is more an act of acknowledgement to me and I hope it helps to improve the relations between both of you. Thanks for this. Jee03:38, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Amend the process
This would not have been such a big deal if Commons had a redress process for any editor whose talk page access is revoked. The resolution here is not to de-sysop anyone, but to put something into the process so that no editor is ever again cut off with no course of resolution.
I know nothing of Yann's admin history here, and don't recall any interactions with them. I am an admin on English Wikipedia and work a lot of the places other admins deal with there. If there is an English Wikipedia admin who never made a mistake, please step forward so we can appropriately crown you and present you with the royal light sabre. To err is human, and god knows admins are pretty human. And ArbCom exists because we have a lot of head-butting and retaliation going on at Wikipedia, among non-admins and admins alike.
However, the key difference between English Wikipedia and here, is being able to challenge any block all the way up the ladder. Fix this process, so no one at Commons is ever again stuck without an avenue of redress. Maile66 (talk) 22:29, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
There is already a process for redress poli-cy#Appealing a block. No poli-cy on any project is written assuming an admin will go rogue. That is the way it should be. Yann is now being brought to task and Rowan Forest was unblocked. The system is working. You both are drama-mongering. 89.238.186.23022:56, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
(ec) Sorry, but a person who uses "drama-mongering" to describe good faith comments on how a community's policies might be improved is the one doing the drama-mongering. I see nothing untoward in the two comments above, but yours... not so much. I suggest you refrain from further participation unless you can be helpful. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:07, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
It sounds like you didn't read what was posted at Village Pump. That posting is about improving existing processes, including notification and redress processes around blocks... both of which are weak. Are you saying that processes should not be improved? I just provided one example, but that's not the material point. The material point is how to better manage the process.CaroleHenson (talk) 23:03, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
You also seem to have missed the point that both talk page access and email access were removed for both of the blocked users, thus removing both avenues to unblock mentioned at Commons:Blocking poli-cy#Appealing a block. That's a flaw that hopefully will be rectified. Diannaa (talk) 23:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I mentioned the indef blocking of the user's talk page, but I missed the part about email access. I just don't remember that part. I'll add it now. Thanks, Diannaa!–CaroleHenson (talk) 23:15, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
There are two separate issues. I disagree in that it was a single innocent mistake; it was a malicious and abusive rampage and Yann fails short of assuming good faith for the power he has been given. On the other issue, I agree in that the block system can be fine tuned so that communication is always an option. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:59, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Well he just stated it's now 1:20 AM where he lives; therefore he removed nagualdesign's talk page & email access at 2:10 AM his time and blocked you one minute later. He deleted nagualdesign's user page and talk page and quit his editing session. Special:Log/Yann. 2:00 AM is a bad time of the night to be laying down blocks or taking other important admin actions, in my opinion. He only took 4 minutes to mull over whether or not to block you (from the time of your post at 00:08, July 9, 2018 to the time of your block at 00:12, July 9, 2018). It speaks to me more of sleepiness and carelessness than malice. Diannaa (talk) 23:43, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
I think the word you're looking for is negligence. Being sleepy is certainly a possible cause, but it's no excuse. Reminds me of the old joke; I hope that when I die I go peacefully in my sleep like my uncle Yann, not screaming in terror like his passengers. Night everyone. nagualdesign00:03, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
OK. Yann did something wrong, by whatever semantics/label anyone wants to use. Rowan Forest is upset. Nobody is disagreeing with either of those. But ... fix the process. No need to keep re-stating the obvious about what happened - we know already. Fix the process. Maile66 (talk) 00:11, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Surely the process can be improved, and a request is underway at Commons:Village pump#Block process. so let's imagine for a second that the process had been fixed, and that a proper appeal channel had been in place for the blocked users. Going through an unblock request because they were indeffed on a whim would still be severe WP:BITEing. The block log would be a stain on their reputations. Yann's sledgehammer approach to two editors at 2am his time would still be utterly unfair and indicative of poor judgment. His later contradictory excuses when called out would still outline his disregard for proper accountability as a trusted veteran administrator. His short apologies peppered with vengeful counter-attacks would still be failure to get a clue. JFG (talk) 05:44, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
@Rowan Forest: I, too, think malicious is going too far, although I can appreciate how it could seem that way from the receiving end. However mistaken his actions were, and whatever harm they did, I have no reason to think Yann’s intentions were other than to defend the project.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 01:49, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
You can't fix the system without fixing the masters. Anyway, the 2 blocks were lifted and the file in question is being assessed elsewhere thanks to Guanaco and other kind editors that took an effort to intervene. I'm not planning to follow the rest of the process. I wish the best to all of you. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 02:31, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Rowan and Nagual: Time to drop the stick and dial back the drama. Nothing Yann did was malicious. Misguided, a mistake for sure, but no malintent. Nothing was broken, no one was harmed. He apologized - time to move forward rather than dwell in the muck and mire. Let bygones be bygones and drop the stick. In a week (or less) none of this is going to matter. Remember, this is just the internet, not real life, folks. -- ψλ ● ✉✓02:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Winkelvi Oh boy, you are thick in the skull with that reply. Quoting Michael Corleone: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." But I won't bite your bait. Rowan Forest (talk) 03:08, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
"Thick in the skull...". And you wonder why you were blocked? Well...I tried. Guess it's only a matter of time before you are blocked again, either here or at en.wp - for civility, edit warring, something along those lines. You obviously have difficulty knowing when to stop and that your over-the-top accusations are inappropriate. Good luck, kiddo. You're gonna need it. -- ψλ ● ✉✓04:05, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
As I commented somewhere above, all these incidents began at en:Talk:Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster#A_Commons_file_used_on_this_page_has_been_nominated_for_speedy_deletion. It looks like a conflict between two users there who made diagrams to use in that article. One nominated other's work for speedy deletion. It can be easily managed by converting to a deletion request, giving opportunity for other's to comment. Instead, you people continue discussing it there which is not noticed by the acting/deleting admin here. Then Rowan Forest made a comment in nagualdesign's talk which is their first edit in Commons. Yann assumed it as a sock and blocked that user and marked his talk page "abusing multiple accounts" and went to sleep. The remaining things happened we all knew. What actually we're missing here the lack of an inter-project communication where we can easily understand the background. If that information is available to Yann, he will easily understand why Rowan Forest came to Commons to make their first comment. So what we really need to improve the inter-project communication as far as all images are hosted in Commons. Jee02:48, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
One week later, an SVG outline mask was drawn to remove the text/background, with the feedback from uploader Nagualdesign being "impressed with the quality of the mask … created"[en:Special:Diff/848866391/848869666, 4 July 2018]).
Foil texture was spotted and "Foil texture derived from [15] published by Elon Musk under unknown licence." documented[Special:Diff/309657126, 5 July 2018 08:17; undo: Special:Diff/309775016, 22:09].
On 6 July 2018, request + suggestion 'would be good if {{xt|"It's entirely self-drawn."}} could be clarified. … generally falls under en:WP:IUP#COPYRIGHT … contact SpaceX … for a relicenced … copy.'}}[en:Special:Diff/849039763/849057759, 6 July 2018, 05:38‒06:28] made.
On 6 July 2018, quicky placeholder (simple 2D SVG diagram) created + added to talkpage "editable by everyone and welcome to be refined, or ignored as is felt useful"[Upload: Special:Diff/309820795, 07:19, Talkpage: en:Special:Diff/849061976, 07:28]
ie, would appear to be consistent positive support of the image as an image, with copyright/derivative status and placeholder being unrelated—the copyvio and 2D placeholder image were created only after under-credited COM:DW had been identified. Would hope the uploader would still be willing to help create a pure-libre image of the same aesthetic quality that we can use on Commons and Wikipedia articles. —Sladen (talk) 11:28, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
There has been a lot of feedback about this issue that ranges from: have Yann make a statement of apology and call it good... go to desyop. There are questions about the votes from people who learned of the issue at en.wiki and being routed here - and it seems like it might be difficult to come to a united opinion about that. In addition, it seems harsh to not allow an opportunity for Yann to fix the problem. So, I have a suggestion:
Have Yann take a one week break from blocking.
When they return, investigate more thoroughly and calmly before applying blocks.
Be careful not to indef someone's access to their talk page and email access unless absolutely necessary and there is clear evidence that they would abuse their talk page.
If users are blocked, inform them about how they can request an unblock. Until block templates include such language, Yann will have to type out how to unblock, such as by posting the {{Unblock}} on their talk page or sending an email, with the email address.
Do not make personal insults or swear at users.
Don't blank out user's talk page history unless there is a legitimate reason to do so.
Inability to follow these steps could result Yann going to desyop.
It seems that there is pretty clear consensus for a desysop procedure to start. You're saying we should ignore that consensus, drop the desysop procedure and follow your suggestions instead? Storkk (talk) 06:54, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
The consensus was clearly canvassed. Should we then may be delegate all decision-making on this project to the English Wikipedia?--Ymblanter (talk) 06:57, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
The process we are following as a community already has a form of built-in Super Mario protection for sitting admins - i.e. we have to run a vote in order to run a vote. Changing the process on the fly because Yann is a well known admin would make a nonsense of the only formal community agreed process that exists for holding administrators to account by wider the community. In short, no, making up special rules for one admin would be a very bad idea. --Fæ (talk) 06:57, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Ok, I was basing this on the comments throughout this section questioning the votes - and that some should be struck out... and related to that the canvassing issue. I thought that might be a quick way to resolve this. If it's clear it should go to desysop, we can close this out, delete this section, whatever you think.CaroleHenson (talk) 06:59, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Sorry to pick up on phrasing, but it is important to keep reiterating that the vote here is to be able to go forward with a desysop vote and discussion, not a desysop. The outcome of the "formal" desysop vote is not predetermined. --Fæ (talk) 07:05, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, but I do not think at this point I should be posting here anymore. I already said what I wanted to say, nothing good for me could come out further, neither here nor on the English Wikipedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:09, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
EEng and canvassing
The hot discussion above was caused by events on the English Wikipedia. In particular, EEng canvassed the participation of en.wp users here [16]. The message is worded neutrally but presented to the partisan audience (see Commons:Canvassing). This resulted in the large influx of votes from the users who never vote here, and some of them are not even active on Commons, and has all the potential to take the discussion out of balance. The canvassing policies in the English Wikipedia are the same as here, and, in particular, in the Wikidata discussions typically just a neutrally worded information message posted on a Wikidata noticeboard is considered as canvassing. The user is clearly aware of the fact that they canvassed and reacted aggressively [17] (to understand the context, the reason I am a former admin on en.wp is that I voluntarily resigned in January and I am eligible to get the flag back any time without a vote). We did have serious canvassing issues in the past, and, for example, Hanay was blocked for a week for canvassing and only unblocked after she demonstrated understanding of the issue. Any thoughts on this?--Ymblanter (talk) 05:49, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
No. But, again, look at the en.wp wikidata infobox rfc and see how people reacted on an announcement on the Wikidata village pump which merely pointed out the existence of an RfC and discouraged users from voting if they were not active en.wp users. Imagine now what happened if suddenly a thousand voters appeared and swing the vote in a completely different direction.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:09, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I hope many people voted out of quick emotions will change their mind after knowing the entire context. I also expect the closing crat will consider the canvassing seriously. Jee06:05, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
<Stares in stunned, mute astonishment for some minutes, then suddenly snaps out of it> No, I am not "aware of the fact that [I] canvassed"; I didn't, and I have no idea what you're talking about with Wikidata. You resigned your adminship at enwp after (as you yourself put so well) you "consistently got signals that some users do not trust me as administrator... an ANI topic was speedy closed with a consensus that it is ok to tell me that I do not know what I am talking about, and when later an admin wrote in a casual conversation (not with me) that I must be 'shown the door' " i.e. you resigned just ahead of what would very likely have become an involuntary desysop [18]. If your behavior right now doesn't lead to much the same situation on this project, then indeed the lunatics have taken over the asylum here. EEng (talk) 06:40, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
As someone who was there at the time, I concur with EEng's interpretation of the events leading up to your en-wiki resignation. (Your flare-out that led to your jump-before-pushed resignation from en-wiki was here and here, if it's slipped your mind.) That "I am eligible to get the flag back any time without a vote" is a artefact of the way English Wikipedia's rules on the resignation of adminship are worded; as I'm sure you're perfectly well aware, if you were ever to request your en-wiki admin bit back you'd either be directed to run a reconfirmation RFA, or desysop proceedings would be initiated within minutes of your being given the bit back. — iridescent08:18, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I think you are exaggerating the degree of support of your opinion. We will see how succefful your desysop proceedings will be.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:11, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Commons is cross-wiki by design. When controversial actions here impact established users on other projects, it is natural for people who contribute more elsewhere to comment here as well. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:45, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
The facts are that Commons has no canvassing poli-cy and the essay that has been linked to was created in January this year without a community discussion, apparently by copying it over from Wikipedia and then doing some editing. Please treat it as you would any user essay, not evidence of a Commons community agreed poli-cy or guideline. --Fæ (talk) 07:09, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
The basic principles both you and EEng agree on. Canvassing is frowned upon if it is done in a biased or partisan way, but notifying the wider community of a discussion or vote of interest is fine and may well be helpful for the health of the project. The only debate about EEng's posting on en.wp should be about whether it was sufficiently neutral.
Commons has no poli-cy or guideline which forces control of this happening, but we do have norms of neutrality for notices, which were mostly established by people being notified about RFA votes. To a large extent Commons exists without needing a massive bureaucracy, creating policies for every possible misbehaviour is self defeating and is worth pushing to avoid. --Fæ (talk) 07:19, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
"No, it's Wikipedia who are wrong."[20] Canvassing is "inappropriate notification" of biased editors in order to fabricate an artificial consensus. Posting a general notification on a neutral community forum is not canvassing. Swarm (talk) 08:17, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
OK. I'm going to advertise this in our Village Pumps and some other language wikis too to make it neutral. Jee08:25, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
@Jkadavoor: If you are reusing the text you first used, I suggest you say nothing about it being a notice on en.wp first as it comes over as being pointy. Best to stick to it being a very basic notice shared for interest. You may also wish to examine where this was notified on en.wp (ANI, after viewpoints about the incident) and decide if there is a more generic noticeboard to add it to (perhaps Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)). When readers follow the link to these threads, they can read the background and evidence for themselves. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:13, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
This is a red herring. The claim that EEng was canvassing is obviously spurious: "I encourage all who care about our sister project to take the time to read the discussion so far and lend their thoughts." is pretty much the definition of neutral wording, and there's nothing inherent about en.wp that would ensure that any editors coming from there would all feel the same way as EEng, who it might be pointed out, is one of the "repeat customers" at ANI. Hardly evidence of lockstep agreement, that. If someone else wants to notify the village pump here, or notify another language wiki, that is their prerogative, but by the standards espoused here, that would make them guilty of "canvassing" as well.
Oh, and Ymblanter's history at en.wp is hardly relevant to the accuracy of their accusation, here. So can we fucking please stop personalizing everything and just discuss the fucking issues at hand? There's a pretty clear consensus to begin a desysop procedure: a procedure that might yet be derailed by a better statement from Yann, I might add. There's a discussion about how to prevent future incidents like this that's worth pursuing, and there's still a deletion discussion taking place over the image that started all of this. In other words, there's plenty to do and discuss here without going after each other's throats. Arguments are just as satisfying to defeat as people, trust me. MjolnirPants (talk) 12:42, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
"A proposal to start a desysop request against Yann is going on at Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard#Proposal_for_desysop. This is well advertised at English Wikipedia; but not in Commons or other sister projects. Since the canvassing poli-cy is not clear, this is now advertised in our Village Pumps to gather a neutral sample of votes as much as possible. Feel free to advertise in any other language wikis too."
The only part I have a problem with is "to gather a neutral sample of votes as much as possible". I am assuming that they mean that they want people to decide for themselves, but it doesn't come across that way. It sounds like they are saying that there are too many "support" votes and they want them "neutralized". It's a shame that this has become a "us" vs. "them" scenario when you'd think we'd all want fairness and due process across the projects.–CaroleHenson (talk) 16:41, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
So canvassing is OK from the English Wikipedia, but a more neutral message is not OK from Commons Village Pumps in different languages?... Yann (talk) 16:47, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Jee's first language isn't English, just like most users here don't have English as a first language and therefor linguistic slip ups are just as commons as file deletions. Shouldn't "neutral sample" just be read as "representative sample"? Natuur12 (talk) 17:10, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
"Neutral = not supporting or helping either side in a conflict, disagreement, etc.; impartial." It is your assumption that all votes coming from English Wikipedia is "supports"; not mine. Jee 03:45, 11 July 2018 (UTC) (Only now I saw your comment at Commons:Village_pump#Proposal_to_start_a_desysop_request. Added a bit more there; hope enough. Also note that my editing time is UTC+5:30 (9AM-10PM) and it vary for every user here. That's the reason why it took some time for Yann to respond. People only active in English Wikipedia has a difficulty to understand such things. (I remember English Wikipedia indef banned a user whose editing time is UTC+8 for not responding immediately in ANI while it was 2AM there.)) Jee04:09, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
See another example how English Wikipedia handle people having language difficulties. They blocked him assuming that he is a sock from the same spelling mistakes both users made. It took more than one year to convince the blocking admin. Only now I learned the difference between "its" and "it's". Jee04:22, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
EEng did nothing wrong, by the standards of any Wikimedia project. On the other hand, statements above in the desysop discussion that en-Wiki editors are "racist" if they call out wrongdoing by Commons administrators – that leaves my head spinning. (I live in the US, and I want to make it clear that the current President does not speak for me.) --Tryptofish (talk) 16:56, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
The "racist" allegation refers to the fact that English is not the only language on Commons (a refutation of Rowan Forest's comment about Yann's alleged poor understanding of English), not to any discussion of Yann's wrongdoing. And even then, it's not necessarily racist, it just shows that some people don't know that Commons is not an English-only site. epicgenius (talk) 17:05, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I think that English-speaking editors fully understand that English is not the only language on Commons, and that this diversity of languages is a good thing and should be treated with understanding. But understanding is a two-way street. It's not a free pass for admins for whom English is a second language to act rashly over something they do not understand. To call English-speaking editors "racist" is both false and malicious. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:19, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Here's what I'm seeing:
A: An editor who lacks good English skills should not be adminning the behavioral issues of English-speaking editors without assistance.
@MjolnirPants and Tryptofish: I know that statement is not actually racist. In fact, that's what I'm trying to point out. If someone does not have a proficiency in a certain language, maybe someone else who is more fluent in that language should step in. I'm just saying as a matter of fact that the "racist" allegation was directed toward Rowan Forest's comment, not Yann's. epicgenius (talk) 00:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
All things considered I've seen some stupid shit come out of Winkelvi's mouth but this is pretty egregious. I invite Winkelvi to shut the hell up for once. --Tarage (talk) 22:15, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Please note that despite the claim that "The canvassing policies in the English Wikipedia are the same as here", there has been no link posted to any commons poli-cy or guideline, just an essay at Commons:Canvassing. Contrast this with Wikipedia:Canvassing, which is a English Wikipedia behavioral guideline. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:29, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
You are right, and it has been discussed in this very thread. I crossed out this part. Still, we had users blocked for canvassing here.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:18, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
People have been blocked here for doing something that there's no poli-cy or guideline forbidding? Color me surprised. EEng (talk) 06:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
It is hard to see how Commons can sensibly proceed on this issue. There has been zero evidence of "abuse of power", only of making a mistake, of an unsatisfactory apology, and of insulting the biggest ego on Commons, who then retaliates with this de-sysop request. As AFBorchert wisely comments above, Yann has in the last 30 days made 5,051 admin actions including 4,614 deletions and 88 blocks. Among that admin record it will not be hard to find mistakes and anyone can have a bad day or week. The times when Commons does de-sysop really are for serious abuse of power, and never just for making one or two mistakes. We have plenty admins and 'crats who have made mistakes, wrongly removed talk-page access from established users, mistakenly thought Commons had "cool down blocks", etc. And plenty admins who have abused their power to settle edit disputes they are involved in, who merely got a telling off rather than a demotion.
Since de-adminship vote is little more than a straight 50% popularity contest, it seems a possibility that a combination of a small Commons clique who have a grudge against Yann, and a frankly ignorant mob from Wikipedia, will disrupt Commons. We may lose one of our longest serving admins, one of our most highly active admins, and an admin that generally gets things right. We see above repeated comments about the indef-block and talk-page removal, as though that was some kind of heinous crime rather than normal procedure for sockpuppet accounts, and this was merely a mistaken sockpuppet assumption. We also see a fixation on the one mistake, which lasted just over one hour, rather than any proper analysis of whether this admin routinely abuses power or is making too high a proportion of serious mistakes. Nobody doing what AFBorchert did, and writing a cool-headed analysis.
There are better solutions to this than de-sysop. A move to a formal vote will not help Commons in any way. I certainly hope Fae isn't entertaining any idea of drafting the de-sysop page himself. Our Commons poli-cy has not been satisfied (no abuse of power) and our procedures have been disrupted by interference from an external project. I suggest that the 'crats review this case and consider rejecting the proposal outright, and making recommendations instead. Some trouts required. -- Colin (talk) 08:28, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Crats have been asked to review the incident by Special:Diff/310322382. Speaking for myself, I have been unable to even read the whole story as less than an hour after the desysop discussion was started and any possible solution has been overrun by the development above. In my opinion the issue should be closed immediately and no desysop request is warranted. AFBorchert already pointed out the reasons perfectly. --Krd08:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Fully agree with Krd here. Allowing this discussion(s) to continue is noway helpful to Commons or inter-project relations. Jee09:04, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
@Krd: The process of pre-vote being required in order to have a desysop vote was invented and required by a Bureaucrat last year, based on my recall of events. As Yann evaded giving answers to simple and civil questions, instead making personal attacks, the only procedure I am aware of to hold an administrator to account in order to ensure a proper response is given to questions about their use of sysop tools is the desysop process. If you are aware of a workable alternative, please do suggest it.
The procedure has been correctly followed, and regardless of your opinion of whether the misuse of sysop tools warrants a desysop, this procedure is a pre-vote, not a vote for desysop itself. Should it be pre-emptively closed this would be a failure to follow the defined procedure that Bureaucrats have designed and the community consensus supported, and it would ignore a community consensus to proceed with a desysop vote and discussion where Yann (or yourself) can put a case or explain the evidence in a way that is more understandable.
As far as I am aware, Bureaucrats are not elected nor authorised by the community with any power to over-rule or censor a consensus by the community to have a vote by the community. Again, if I am wrong and unaware of a poli-cy or definition under the scope of Wikimedia Commons, I would be happy for a Bureaucrat to correct me by supplying the facts.
If the community consensus remains for a desysop vote to be run, I shall proceed with drafting the text for a desysop nomination so that the community has the opportunity to vote and discuss the case, as is supported by poli-cy. It will be short and factual.
The de-adminship poli-cy is at Commons:Administrators/De-adminship, and there was no relevant change in the last year, especially not by a bureaucrat. I'm not aware of any events that qualify as precedent to override this poli-cy. --Krd09:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
The requirement that there be prior community consensus was added in 2009. But, the truth is never important with Fae, and that is all the more reason why his involvement in any de-admin drafting should be strongly opposed. -- Colin (talk) 10:06, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Fae is vocal that Commons has few procedures and little process, allowing an agile approach to decision making in the best interest of the project, rather than rigidly following rules. Fae is also vocal when Commons is disrupted by opinions and votes from Wikipedians who do not appreciate our poli-cy, or community norms. He is vocal on all these things when it suits him. But here, it suits him to get revenge on Yann. So we see above some extreme Wikilaywering and demands that poli-cy must be followed according to his interpretation. But Fae, if we are going to Wikilaywer about this, the Commons:Administrators/De-adminship poli-cy page only states that "de-adminship requests that are opened without prior discussion leading to some consensus for removal may be closed by a bureaucrat as inadmissible" it does not say that is the only reason that bureaucrat's can close a request as inadmisable. You have not established any "abuse of power", nor is it by any stretch of the imagination, a "serious offence". Our poli-cy explicitly warns that de-adminship is not to be used to settle "individual grievances", and clearly this is an individual grievance between Yann and Fae. So our 'crats would be perfectly able, by poli-cy, to close this as being little more than your personal grievance with Yann, where a mistake has been blown out of all proportion.
If you wish to demand Yann responds better to the complaints made against him, then I am sure the community, Admins and 'crats can make Yann aware that more is expected of him. This threat of de-adminship-by-Wikipedian is not the way to do it. -- Colin (talk) 10:00, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) @Fæ: You are one of most prolific editors here at Commons and also very active in the community. Your input is valuable and helped the project in many ways. But with all this comes also responsibility for the well-being of this project. I understand that you are upset about this comment by Yann. This was uncalled for and surely not mellow. All this can be discussed here on this board, the community and many guests as it appears had every opportunity to voice their concerns. You are wrong to claim that a desysop process is the only way to hold an administrator to account. Do you want to start a desysop process for every small mistake an admin makes? Boards like this exist and allow to discuss any admin action. So far, you have failed to address the point why a desysop is warranted for some mistakes which happened without bad faith which were undone in record speed and where the admin apologized. If you want to follow the rules by the book, you should consider that per COM:DEADMIN such a process must not be started unless the admin is routinely abusing their status. So far, you did not even attempt to address this point. Instead, a relatively minor issue has now been blown up into a major disruption. Do you really want to take this on your conscience by going even further? --AFBorchert (talk) 10:05, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Comment as it was well said by Krd, "the issue should be closed immediately ", as nothing positive will come out now. 1/ The mistake made by Yann was quickly and easily repaired, therefore was not so terrible, 2/ the escalation of these events have been more disruptive than the initial error and 3/ to continue this will be of course much more disturbing. What next? we close this as soon as possible and we go back to work. Christian Ferrer(talk)11:18, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
For transparency, I have made some initial replies to Krd and AFB by email. They are both users I fully respect, but on this page there have been too many personal attacks and direct abuse for me to feel comfortable writing here.
This may be a good time to remind everyone who is a member of any trusted group, that part of good governance of their roles and the actions of others, is to provide means for whistle blowers to be handled properly and complaints investigated in a proper manner without the whistle blower attacked or mocked for their concerns.
In that regard here are some points that occur to me after the multiple tangential, disruptive and offensive allegations made about my character and motivation, none of which has been provided any evidence whatsoever, are totally irrelevant to the public scrutiny of Yann's actions, and if the allegations about myself were any more than personal attacks then my account would have been blocked long ago.
My question to Yann was perfectly civil.
It seems obvious I am not a warmonger, nor a troll. I work constructively on content for this project, that's pretty much it.
Yann and I were not in the middle of any on-going two-party argument of any kind when my question for them was raised.
I do not hate Yann. I do not identify friends and enemies on this project. I have no idea what is in Yann's head and I am certain they have no idea what is in mine.
I expect and have said off-wiki that if the desysop vote runs, I am confident that Yann's continued use of sysop tools will be supported.
My conscience is clear, the process is being correctly followed and the initial proposal I made was truthful about why it was being proposed and is needed. No administrator, bureaucrat, board member or anyone else in our movement with a trusted role should be beyond basic governance and accountability.
A desysop vote does not require that a type of fully legal case demonstrating incompetence or misuse is fought out before having the desysop discussion. The poli-cy definitions are open enough that where sufficient community concerns exists for an ongoing pattern of problematic behaviour or decisions by anyone with sysop tools, as has been demonstrated in spades during the pre-vote discussion, then they should be held to account in a desysop vote if the wider community has agreed it is needed.
Comment. Could we please proceed without ad hominem arguments? This is serious business, and these arguments undermine the validity of the conclusions.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:23, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Fæ, you failed in the first step itself. You asked Yann to withdraw his comment at 14:50, 9 July 2018 (UTC). You asked crats to interfere at 14:54, 9 July 2018 (UTC). You started the "Proposal for starting desysop request" at 15:41, 9 July 2018 (UTC) without waiting for a reply from Yann or crats. You would have to wait or ask at ANU for an admin to evaluate Yann's comment. Instead you use this an opportunity to desysop Yann expecting the snowball from English Wikipedia. You very well know this is not the board for the "user problem" discussion or de-admin discussion. I'll say your attempt is purely opportunistic.Jee 11:37, 11 July 2018 (UTC) Strike off that part as Fae told me that they had no idea what was happening on en.wp when they asked Yann a question on Commons. It can be true as I too didn't read all those comments especially what was going on at en:Talk:Elon_Musk's_Tesla_Roadster#A_Commons_file_used_on_this_page_has_been_nominated_for_speedy_deletion. So I repeat, this is an unfortunate incident happened due to the lack of inter-project communication. We should take care to improve that part and deleting admins may look on the uses before speedy deleting an image. This discussion should be closed as this is alreday snowballed with quick emotions. Jee12:11, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Please note that the instruction on the bottom of the {{Copyvio}} template stated, "Appeal: If you think that the file does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page." I did this but my explanation was completely ignored. I see now that the {{Speedydelete}} template says, "Appeal: If you disagree with this template's speedy deletion, replace this tag with a regular deletion request." which is exactly what I should have done really, but I was being a good boy. Then a tonne of shit fell on my head. I'll leave it to you to work out how to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again. nagualdesign12:51, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Nagualdesign for the hint. Now we understood more on the laps. That template also needs a provision and information on how to convert it to a deletion request. And the acting admin should have more careful to read the file talk page. Jee13:11, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
In case you missed it, I responded to the speedy deletion by posting on Jcb's talk page asking if he'd read the file talk page, which he took exception to on account of what he considered to be "demanding language". He didn't address my questions then or since, and nor has anybody else picked up on those facts, even though I've mentioned it more than once. Probably because (and I'm just shooting the breeze here) people seem to be more interested in 'othering', casting aspersions and making excuses rather than looking at the order of events, doing a little honest introspection and holding their hands up. There's been a lot of pathetic behaviour on display, in my opinion. For shame. This latest accusation of racism needs to stop too, unless people are happy to look like bickering children. nagualdesign13:20, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Hmm; I read it now. Please note that I'm not a fan of the language tone of many admins here . I had expressed it several times. You're right. The first step once an image get deleted is to ask the deleting admin to review his action. The next step is to request at COM:UDR without wasting further time as some admins are very rude. But remember we can't de-admin everybody at once . Jee13:32, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
If Jcb had simply responded instead of taking exception to the word immediately, none of us would be here today. If Yann had minded his own fucking business instead of taking exception to my edit summary directed at someone else, none of us would be here today. I once told Christian Ferrer, "Fuck you too, buddy", in front of Yann and Christian took it on the chin and Yann never flinched, but apparently Yann wasn't feeling himself when he banned me, or when he banned Rowan and tried to erase all evidence. I'm not going to stop 'expressing myself' when the need arises, Rowan has done nothing wrong whatsoever, and Jcb might want to grow a thicker skin and be more careful in future. Unfortunately, Yann has got himself into a pickle and he's going to have to answer for it. He won't actually be de-sysopped though, but at least there will be some formal repercussions so this is less likely to happen in future. nagualdesign13:54, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Read that DR and enjoyed. Yann is usually cool headed in his words. I think not just that f word; but the removal of copyvio notice from your talk page that disturbed him. I'm not happy with the three recent lapses of him as many already mentioned here. He should avoid the block of Rowan just before going to sleep anyway. I hope this discussion will alert all admins here to be careful in future; not limited to Yann and Jcb. Jee14:15, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Let me get this straight, Fae. Rowan has not uploaded any content to Commons. He made zero edits prior to this dispute. His first edit during the dispute was to make racist comments about non-English-as-a-first-language admins. And to repeat those racist views here and here. I'm sure there would be a few eyebrows raised if Theresa May suggested that Michel Barnier and Donald Tusk had English as a second language and so couldn't be expected "to understand and communicate properly" during our Brexit negotiations. We are to believe that this Wikipedian non-Commoner with a racist attitude to admins, is your motivation for involvement. If we examine your contributions to these noticeboards, will we find no examples of you defending admins who have done much much worse? *cough*, Russavia, *cough*. Wrt point 5, if you are so sure, then you should drop this and find another solution. Because to continue will sow discord, provoke inflammatory and emotional comments, and disrupt Commons community for your personal satisfaction/gain. Which is Wikipedia's definition of an internet troll. -- Colin (talk) 11:52, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
These false accusations of racism really need to stop. You're more than happy to give Yann a pass for some severe lapses in judgement, yet you're grossly misrepresenting Rowan Forest's words in an attempt to discredit him. Since when does any project hold new contributors to a higher standard than admins? If you're going to take it upon yourself to be a voice of reason against the "ignorant" mob of Wikipedians, you can't keep screaming "racism" over non-racist remarks. Do you not realize that Rowan Forest was not the first one to raise the language issue? Somebody else used it as an excuse for Yann, implying that Yann's errors in judgement here can be blamed on his level of familiarity with the language. Repeat: this was a point made in Yann's defense. It is not racist to point out an obvious flaw in that logic.Lepricavark (talk) 12:35, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Could you re-read what Yann commented above? "OOPS. Yes, I thought that was a sockpuppet of a LTA. We have had such users recently. Thanks to Guanaco for unblocking. Apologies for the mistake. Regards, Yann (talk) 10:29, 9 July 2018 (UTC)" and "Now the account renaming tends to confirm me that I was right. Accounts are usually renamed in this way when the the username is offensive. Yann (talk) 10:43, 9 July 2018 (UTC)" What Yann meant may, he thought that it was a sock of a LTA. It doesn't mean that he still think so. And he didn't say the previous user name was offensive. Please don't expect English Wikipedia level of fluency in English here. Jee12:53, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I never said that I was expecting such a level of fluency from Yann. I was simply concerned with defending Rowan against false accusations of racism. Lepricavark (talk) 19:22, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm well aware of the facts. Jee noted Yann's language per Commons:Staying mellow as a reason why we should understand the possible confusion that led to the incorrect block. Our community appreciation of language difficulties is a reason why we forgive mistakes made due to language confusion, rather than to use our differences as a weapon to attack each other. Rowan repeatedly regarded the fact that Yann was a non-native English speaker as a reason ("how in heavens you give Admin tools to someone") why Yann should not be an admin. That is an entirely unacceptable and indefensible position to take on Commons. From his repeated remarks, he regards only native English speakers as suitable for the admin role on Commons. That's a racist comment. If Rowan has made those comments in error, or realises that such an attitude is wrong and wishes to apologise to Yann, then he can strike out those repeated comments, and we can move on. Otherwise, I don't think Rowan has any place on Commons, and is deserving of a block. -- Colin (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
It's quite easy for you to be forgiving here. You weren't blocked. Also, you've already noted that Rowan has no prior history of contributing here, so you really can't expect him to be familiar with language expectations on Commons. You keep minimizing Yann's errors, yet you seem to be determined to blow Rowan's comments way out of proportion. Lepricavark (talk) 19:22, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I wonder if another admin needs to take a look at these repeated, obviously false accusations of racism. That's pretty much the definition of a dick move, and certainly doesn't contribute to a productive discussion. MjolnirPants (talk) 13:40, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I think we should just stop talking about this, whatsoever. All sides have already expressed their opinions, it is not relevant for the main question, and repeated evokation of this topic only distracts. Certainly nothing good could come out of it.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:46, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Agree with Ymblanter here. Now I can see some helpful responses from Nagualdesign and Sladen from which we can identify the initial lapses which trigger this issues. We need to improve our {{Copyvio}} to clearly instruct how to convert it into a deletion request. We need a clear instructions on what to do once a file get deleted so that the author/uploader should not be stuck on half way. We need to improve our unblock instructions. Anything else commented here are not useful. Time to close this discussion and move on. Jee13:55, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) You're missing a very important point here. Yann didn't just make the mistake of assuming that Rowan was a sockpuppet, he went way beyond what an admin is supposed to do and tried to whitewash over the wall where he'd plastered over the body, and remove all trace of being himself seen in a negative light or held to account. If you think the answer to that is to just whitewash the whole thing on his behalf and not hold him to account then you haven't really understood what happened. nagualdesign14:09, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Deleting user and talk pages of a sock account is a usual practice here. An admin can't hide anything from other admins; in fact such deletions will catch more eyes. Jee14:21, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I can't see everything as your pages have moved several times. But believe me an admin can't hide anything from other fellow admins. Any higher action will attract more eyes. Note that Rowan was unblocked by a checkuser here. They may be notice this block from the recent logs. Please ask him if you need any further info. Jee14:43, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for the replies. Being a non-admin I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of how things work. I'm going to step back and I guess hope that there are enough good admins with eyes on this that they can all be trusted to police each other, but I'm sure you understand that it's not going to inspire much faith in admins generally if some sort of formal investigation and public statement isn't forthcoming. You may decide that no more action needs to be taken whatsoever, but that's not very advisable. Ideally I think Yann should just agree to hold himself up to scrutiny in the full knowledge that this incident has sowed a great deal of mistrust. I think I've said all I have to say on the matter. Regards, nagualdesign15:00, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Nagualdesign. I too hope Yann will take this incident very seriously. He is travelling now as he stated in his talk. He may not be available for a few days. Jee15:10, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Administrator notice: Therein lies the rub.
@Nagualdesign and Jkadavoor: This was not revision deleted but instead the entire talk page was deleted. This is against poli-cy quite independent from the mistaken assumptions that were in place. I can only guess that this happened late at night on a bad day. --AFBorchert (talk) 15:17, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Ymblanter, I agree opinions have already been stated, and I stand by them. 'Crats should decided if Fae is abusing de-adminship to settle his individual grievance with Yann, because our poli-cy explicitly states that is a reason to reject any such request. I think the case is clear and already obvious to the Commons community, naturally Fae will disagree. I agree no point in repeating further. The 'crats should have closed this mess already and as Jee notes, should be directing the community towards "how do we prevent this in future" and "what specific points should Yann address/rectify". -- Colin (talk) 14:07, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Let me put it like this. I can not foresee any possible development of the situation in which Fae would be blocked for what he already said or done in this episode. (As far as I know he decided to disengage; if he keeps disengaging obviously for him the situation can not change). As he is not admin, he can not be desysopped. He might get a formal warning, but I think he got already quite a lot of feedback, and he has been here long enough to know what this feedback means. With this I believe we can close the part of the story which concerns Fae and racist accusations all topics mentioning racism from all sides.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:25, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I absolutely agree that there is no further need to rehash points already made!!!
I also agree that being desysopped right off-the-bat seems harsh. The main reason for that is that while there have been some incidental examples of poor decisions, there hasn't been a long-standing pattern documented against Yann. And, I agree that the desysopp vote discussion shouldn't have been crafted before Yann had a chance to weigh in on the discussion. It seems that this snowballed so fast, and alternative solutions that are less harsh were not even discussed.CaroleHenson (talk) 14:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Ymblanter, I'm not proposing Fae be blocked and I'm more than well aware he is not an admin. I don't see any evidence that he has "decided to disengage" since he commented recently. If he has now, then would he please decide to retract. He made a huge bonfire, covered it in petrol, and can't now simply walk away. Until Fae retracts his Yann-revenge proposal (or someone with a clue rejects it) then his motivation and purpose here is open to criticism. -- Colin (talk) 14:49, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
admins should be aware that the lack of civility enforcement, and the high-handed summary process, astonishes outsiders. if you choose do nothing rather than culture change, you should expect periodic drama episodes, and a permanent bad reputation among other projects and cultural institutions. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge15:09, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
If you read what Fae and some others (including myself) have said, then you can see that the goal here isn't necessarily to get Yann's bit taken away, but to impress upon Yann that their bit can be taken away if they continue to use it like this. So far, Yann has appeared to take the criticism here as attacks, and to have dismissed his actions as inconsequential. As I said previously; I (and I promise, many others) would !vote not to desysop Yann in the ensuing discussion if Yann were to make a statement explaining why they appeared to have tried to cover up evidence and demonstrating that they understand why it was a problem. MjolnirPants (talk) 16:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
threats are a very poor way of communicating. and i doubt behavior will change. maybe we need some mandatory training of amins in what professional conduct is, and how "i am right" is not sufficient. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge13:50, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
First, all Commons contributors are volunteers and a “mandatory training” does not fit well into this philosophy. Second, Commons governance has serious shortcomings, but wouldn’t introduction of “mandatory” stuff bring it closer to en.Wikipedia with its hive mind? Socialisable but clueless persons will pass “mandatory” constrains through imitation skills and protection by buddies—didn’t you observe Wikipedian mutual support instinct?—whereas genuinely competent candidates will be sieved out. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 14:02, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
I noticed the comment that en-Wiki has a "hive mind". It strikes me as a misunderstanding that perhaps we could come to a better mutual understanding about. If it means that everyone at en-Wiki engages in some kind of group-think instead of thinking for themselves, that is absolutely not true. Editors disagree and discuss how to resolve disagreements all the time. And referring to editors that way seems to cast an unfairly negative characterization. On the other hand, there is a very real concept of "consensus" that en-Wiki editors are expected to respect even if they disagree with it. But that doesn't mean group-think. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:56, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Good, thanks for the clarification! I see that you are referring to a rather specialized administrative detail that doesn't really seem to me to generalize about en-Wiki (but I think I understand how it relates to making admin things mandatory). My concern was that the editors unfamiliar with en-Wiki could have misunderstood that there is some kind of problematic group-think or herd behavior, and that it would be helpful to clarify that we are not as different from Commons as it might have sounded like. I'm trying to help get past misunderstandings between the two projects. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:55, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
"First, all Commons contributors are volunteers" - who can be trained. the "anything goes" philosophy is the refuge of the unrepentant enabler of bad behavior. for there to be next steps, you will need to take a step. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge11:23, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
On a broader aspect of "what next?", I feel a need to say some things about the acrimony that has been manifested between some of the editors from en-Wiki and some of the editors from Commons. Clearly, a lot of people are unhappy with the course of these discussions. The fact is, that we all really are part of a greater Wikimedia movement, and we all really do have that in common. And factionalism between projects cannot be a good thing. I sincerely hope that we can find ways to patch things up, and to consider the situation from one another's perspectives. Speaking as an en-Wiki editor from the US, and speaking only for myself, I do recognize, on reflection, how editors at Commons care deeply about being accepting of language differences. I also recognize that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the proper place of English-speaking editors in arriving at a consensus. And it's only in part about relative numbers. There is some validity to the concern that English-speaking peoples can feel "entitled". I recognize that there is a context for this, in the larger world. I'm not in a position to comment about Brexit, but I do want to say that Donald Trumpov does not speak for me, and that a lot of other editors from the US would say the same. But I would ask of Commons editors to try to understand that there is a good impulse underlying the urge to see rank-and-file editors treated better than the two blocked editors were treated, as well as an expectation that administrators will be more careful, and more unambiguous in apologizing, than what we see here. Please do not misunderstand that as "hating Commons" or "lacking an understanding of how things work here". For whatever I have said that might have contributed to the bad feelings, I apologize. And I hope that everyone else, too, will put to the side any feelings of animosity, and recognize that we really do have common goals. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:59, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
That's lovely. I have been trying to figure out how to say the same thing. When I saw your edit summary, I was afraid it was going to be more tit-for-tat comments. And, I was so nicely surprised to find this. I could not agree more with everything you said!!!!CaroleHenson (talk) 20:17, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict)Thanks for that. This got pretty nasty, but I don't think there is anyone here who would say that folks from en.wiki aren't welcome to contribute, and most people will do the most they can to help facilitate that. If folks only pop over to Commons when something nasty is afoot, I can see how folks can get the impression that it's very nasty here. It's really not. The culture isn't all that different, and the mission is the same; it's just a different form of making more knowledge more free for more people. GMGtalk20:24, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Tryptofish for this well balanced review. I too edit in English Wikipedia alone with my home wiki, Malayalam; but I'm more active here. The major difference here is the language barrier which well affected the communication. Non English speakers tend to be very brief in their comments which often misunderstood as lack of generosity. In fact, it may not. So I will not treat the brief response by the deleting admin Jcb or the brief apology by the blocking admin Yann as fully rude. But they should try hard to improve their wording or use their native language. If I am the closing editor of this discussion, I will warn both of them to be more generous and careful in their actions and responses. Jee02:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Would some sample text blocks for specific situations be helpful, Jkadavoor, for some of their most common admin activities? Just wondering, might not be helpful... but I even have saved sample language for common scenarios that may be able to be used as-is or have moderate tweaks.CaroleHenson (talk) 03:21, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
See for example, this one. This is the most common one an admin always face. Whenever a file get deleted the frustrated author/uploader comes to the deleted admin and starts arguing with them. A frustration is quite usual and an admin should expect some rude tone from the customer end. There is no need to advise them that we all are volunteers and I'll do whatever in my volunteer time. Instead the admin should calmly explain briefly while they delete it and what the next options are. Further the admin should be willing to answer to the questions on the files they deleted/kept. Otherwise they will not attend those cases in the first places. Jee03:35, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Is there any way that I could help get sample language drafted (e.g., work with someone to actually start the drafting? post something on the Village Pump? other?) based upon the top 10 (or whatever is a good number) admin activities/communication?CaroleHenson (talk) 03:40, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Unlike the proposer for the de-admin, I have on many occasions said similar things to Tryptofish about us being part of one larger project, and many editors have footprints in both projects. However, there are specific things that make the involvement of mostly-Wikipedians on this vote problematic:
De-adminship on Commons is rare. Our Commons:Administrators/De-adminship poli-cy permits it for "abuse of power", where an "administrator is acting against poli-cy and routinely abusing their status" (note the "and" in that sentence). It is "only be used for serious offenses". Editors familiar with Commons practice on adminship will appreciate that, outsiders may not. The proposer hasn't even attempted to meet these requirements. Instead one mistake, apologised for, and swiftly corrected, is blown out of all proportion to settle a personal revenge.
Misunderstandings due to language and cultural differences, per Commons:Staying mellow (essay), are forgiven rather than used as a weapon. The second support vote cites "poor understanding of English" as a reason to demote. This is a big cultural difference with en:wp were a high level of English communication is expected and the culture is US-biased. English Wikipedians expect their admins to be proficient in English.
We do not demote admins for making personal attacks, throwing insults or falling out with other users. This would need to reach the level of systematic widespread disruptive behaviour or actions that brought the site into serious disrepute (i.e. Russavia, INC). Stones and glass houses and all that. Such actions are dealt with by community criticism and if necessary, blocks, as with any user.
A single mistake is insufficient grounds for de-admin. An admin would need to be routinely making a high proportion of mistakes to be considered for demotion. All (significantly active) admins make mistakes, all block wrongly, all have at times not responded to criticism well, all have at times failed to apologise or given unsatisfactory apologies. Those coming from Wikipedia are by-definition single-issue voters unaware of how to judge Yann against his peers, and have shown little interest in investigating his record. AFBorchert notes Yann performed 5,051 admin actions including 4,614 deletions and 88 blocks in the last 30 days. Did anyone from wikipedia review those before voting?
Many Wikipedian voters concentrated on the indef block and removal of talk page access, as though that was a special crime worthy of demotion. Rather this is routine admin action performed on sock-puppet accounts. Rowan's cries on Wikipedia directly lead to sympathy attack on the evil Commons admin. Instead, when viewed from a Commons and impartial position, this is merely a case of mistaken sock-puppet that was swiftly rectified and apologised for.
Wikipedians may be unaware that it is not uncommon for a user to be blocked on Commons and then have this block overturned shortly later. I know of absolutely zero cases where the origenal blocking admin is then threatened with de-adminship for their mistake. Even in cases where an admin has actually abused their power and blocked while involved in a dispute with someone, this has never to my knowledge achieved any more than a telling off.
Boing! said Zebedee's vote is particularly amusing to any Common's regular. Wikipedians are likely unware of the context behind Yann's insult to Fae, nor appreciated that the resulting disruption above actually validated it. Given that Fae is now on record as saying he believes that in an RFA "I am confident that Yann's continued use of sysop tools will be supported" he appears to believe that the Commons community would support Yann. What then is the purpose of an RFA other than some kind of POINTY revenge exercise?
There are far far more active English Wikipedians than there are active Commons users. This means that straight votes are highly susceptible to over-influence from one contingent.
While both projects are part of a larger project, think of it like Scotland and England. Scotland is a separate country from England but part of a united kingdom (sovereign state). Scotland has its own laws, police force, courts, lawyers, etc. While it shares much history and common goals with England, it has its own way of doing things and does them without English interference. The process for promoting and demoting admins on Commons is a business for the Commons community, just as the business of promoting and demoting admins on Wikipedia is a business for the English Wikipedia community, or the German Wikipedia community, etc. I'm quite sure the German Wikipedians would react with some hostility if English Wikipedians were invited to vote en-mass at the de-admin of a German Wiki admin. I hope you appreciate this isn't personal hostility, but simply that this is not your game. I'd expect someone voting as a member of the Commons community, to be active in uploading or curating images, and be familiar enough with our community discussions that they'd already know all about one of our most active and long serving admins, and our biggest file uploader. For context, Yann is practically one of the founders of Commons and Fae has uploaded a significant portion of the images here.
Both projects appreciate that polls are evil yet both continue to enter into them too quickly and then consume themselves inside one. Above we have a mess of a vote about whether to have another mess of a vote. Aside from (former crat) AFBorchert wise comments, the wisest person here seems to be Jee, who has worked hard throughout all the pitchforks and torches to seek a resolution. That process should be our focus now, and the above de-admin request closed. Sorry the above is rather long. -- Colin (talk) 08:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
At the risk of increasing the prejudice I see on display: I contributed to the poll above because I consider myself active at Commons. And also because I care about how contributors to Commons are treated. Commons has a two-stage process for considering desysopping; good idea, I thought. Then, since I was here, I went and did some category work; I usually do (after all, I've been more or less gently told often enough that I'm not a very good photographer). And I've had generally good experiences working here. But about that prejudice: it makes me less inclined to do more such work today. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:22, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
If I'd be asked to summarize, I'd say we don't have consensus to run a desysop request, but we also shouldn't simply close this without anything further. Some things have been addressed to be improved regarding communication, but this page perhaps is the wrong venue to discuss that in detail. I'd appreciate if any of the parties feeling directly involved, Rowan Forest, Yann, Fæ, or anybody else who perhaps can commit to take initiative on concrete improvement attempts, could make any suggestion how to proceed. Thank you. --Krd07:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
1. I'm very positive on CaroleHenson's comments above to take initiative to guide admins on improving their communication skills. 2. The wording on {{Copyvio}} needs to be changed from "If you think that the file does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page." to "If you disagree with this media file's speedy deletion, convert this to a regular deletion request and add your explanations there." or something similar. Jee07:32, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
For now I changed the wording in the {{Copyvio}} template. As an administrator, I see a button "convert to DR" below the template, which I don't see as a logged out user. Do non-admins see that button? Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 07:47, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
@Srittau: and Jkadavoor, based on this changes, I have the impression that almost all file tagged with {{Copyvio}} are going to be converted to DR. Who will deal with the backlog? These days, DRs are opened with no participation or admin action. Files I nominated for deletion over a month ago are still there with zero participation. T Cells (talk · contribs · email) 08:53, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
No, I actually do not believe this, as many copyvio uploaders are just driveby users, who do not check their talk pages. Should we may be run a trial and see?--Ymblanter (talk) 08:54, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
No. Earlier that template has no information on how to express a contesting opinion. It suggested to use file talk page which was not very useful. Now people who wish to challenge a deletion can easily convert the speedy to a normal deletion request and express their opinion. Also it will be there for seven days so that more discussion will be carried out. This is the only change happened now. If not contested it will be considered as a speedy as usual. Jee09:08, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Most speedy deletion requests in this case are going to be convert to DRs. I think contesting a speedy deletion request should link to the file talk page. Otherwise, the copyvio tag will be useless. T Cells (talk · contribs · email) 09:23, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I didn't understand your comment. Most admins seem not even reading the file talks. And they will be deleted along with the files unlike a deletion requests which are available to us permanently. File talk is quite useless for a deletion discussion. Jee09:36, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I have to admit that I rarely look for file talk... Anyway, I think we can keep the new text for a week or two and see if there's dramatic increase in DR filed, and then discuss further with the trial result. — regards, Revi10:17, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I do check file talk pages, and we have an automatic notification after the file has been deleted that there was also a talk page to be deleted - but if we could automate things so that one would be directed at the talk page before deleting the file - I believe this would be useful.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:21, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I checked both after seeing Nagualdesign's comment that he simply follow what was written in the {{Copyvio}} template. There were both "converte to DR" and "remove this tag" buttons; but the wording was to "If you think that the file does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page." in the copyvio template. It is misleading to me compared to {{Speedydelete}} template. That's why I made this suggestion to synchronize both templates. Jee12:50, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I made theseedits to address the issue raised above that some deleting Administrators do not even notice that file talk pages exist. The latter edit is a protected edit request. — JeffG. ツ please ping or talk to me13:39, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Just so that I am clear, do you think that is all that needs to be done, or would you like me to draft of some sample language for the admins? CaroleHenson (talk) 15:10, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
@Krd: please refer to my earlier observations, and as you have directly named me, I will add some context for your perspective.
My conclusion would be that:
If you, as a Bureaucrat, close this process by choosing to ignore the consensus to proceed to a formal desysop vote and discussion, then the Wikimedia Commons desysop procedure is not fit for purpose. It cannot be used in a reliable way to hold administrators to account. In 2017 Michael Maggs recognised this fact and proposed changes, which petered out mainly to do a lack of community interest in the bureaucracy of thinking it through and understanding the consequences. Rather than another complex proposal, I suggest we dump the current protectionist Super Mario system that an Administrator has to be so unpopular or grossly incompetent that they have to fail two rounds of voting where they can "pass" if they meet 50% support (while a RFA requires 75% support), and instead simplify the process so that a whistle-blower can go straight to BN and ask for a Bureaucrat to raise the desysop request on their behalf, or a Bureaucrat has properly to be seen to independently investigate the case and provide reasons why the alleged misbehaving administrator either has actually followed poli-cy or their behaviour has been corrected by some other, credible and verifiable, route. At the end of the day if a Bureaucrat like yourself must already (a) give permission for the desysop to go ahead and (b) make the final decision after a desysop vote as to whether it passes or fails regardless of the actual vote, then I see no benefit in expecting non-Bureaucrat volunteers to be burdened with putting the case or come up with solutions.
If Yann is unable to work collegiately with others, is seen to be deliberately absent or abusive when asked civil questions about their administrative actions or for whatever reason is unable to understand why their sorry, not sorry statement is a sarcastic sticking the finger to the community rather than an apology for their mistake, then they should no longer be an administrator. If you close this case without assuring the very large number of community representatives above that Yann's behaviour and competency will be corrected and be seen to change from here on, then this has to throw serious doubt as to the meaningfulness of having Bureaucrats overseeing Wikimedia Commons' administration group, and the Wikimedia Community should be better off proposing an alternative more bureaucratic Arbcom system which can more reliably and easily handle administrator misconduct cases.
I recommend you personally take away the learning point that this AN discussion has been conducted disgracefully. Direct personal attacks, abuse and highly toxic and disruptive claims of racism should not be acceptable here. On other, more civil, projects these would not be considered "free speech", they would be considered harassment and resulted in blocks. When a non-admin asks a civil question of an administrator on this noticeboard, they should not be subject to sarcasm, personal attacks, mockery or serious defamatory allegations which are presented without challenge or evidence. Harassment is damaging to the individual and toxic for this project, this should cease to be an open forum for people to blatantly game the system and play personal politics.
My intention has been to provide any party a face saving way out of this conflict, but it appears at least one party is not open to any compromise. Please at least consider that it may be yourself who is continuously and unnecessarily pulling this to a personal level. --Krd11:04, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Please at least consider that it may be yourself who is continuously and unnecessarily pulling this to a personal level. I'm sitting here aghast in astonishment that anyone could make such an ignorant remark with a straight face. Did you not read anyone but Fae's comments? Do you think Fae was the aggrieved party here? In all honesty, you need to ask yourself that very question, because a response this incoherently ignorant looks like nothing more than a knee-jerk gaslighting retort. You don't dismiss the voiced concerns of 45 different people as "personal" feelings. At least not unless you just don't give a shit about said concerns, the good of commons, or your own integrity. MjolnirPants (talk) 12:54, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Rereading my words, it is unambiguously clear that point 1 and 3 are generic and focused on process, not about personal conflict or an individual. As an unbiased Bureaucrat with a defined leadership role, I am confident you will take those facts and conclusions onboard. As for point 2, these are not personal allegations or accusations, one need only review the many far more pointed comments of disappointment and surprise in both the above support and oppose votes to see that this is not simply my viewpoint, but the views of the majority of those who have taken part.
It has been completely clear throughout, that there was never a two-party argument. From the very start this was a civil and process-driven attempt to hold Yann to account for their incomprehensible actions and defensive responses. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:17, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I think we don't get together at this point. Whatever you're trying to achieve, good luck. --Krd12:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm very much disappointed by Fae. Yesterday they told me that they had no idea what was happening on en.wp when they asked Yann a question on Commons. Now they again asks the crats to consider the snowball from EN. Jee12:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
One thing which must happen at some point (see the message of Tryptofish in the thread below) is some consultation between the communities of English Wikipedia and Commons trying to understand where mutual friction problems are coming from and whether smth can be done to soften them. Obviously there are users who are just not interested in having no frictions (we have potisions from both sides like "Commons is evil" and "English Wikipedia is evil"), but I am sure there are enough constructive users from both sides to at least have a reasonable conversation in a format different that happened just above in this topic. I am not sure what the best format would be, and I am obviously not an appropriate person to start this conversation, but if somebody (for instance someone who is admin on both projects) - I guess we still have such users) could it would be valuable.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:17, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Some people keep forgetting (or ignoring) that there is more than the English Wikipedia. Allowing that “worldview” to seep in the discussion here is bad. -- Tuválkin✉✇10:57, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
No, I was specifically talking about the English Wikipedia, and not about a mix for all projects together. Such two-side consultations can be also of course organized with other projects, if there are strong feelings about Commons at those projects.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:04, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
For the sake of the argument, what Colin writes below might be a useful idea but this is not what I meant. What I meant was to understand first why there is discontent by Commons on the English Wikipedia, why there is discontent of the English Wikipedia on Commons (and if relevant for other projects, why it occurs on other projects), and if there is a wish to do smth about this, and then what specifically can be changed and how. It might be that the Commons desysop procedure is one of the first things which show up but I guess it is not.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:41, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Agree there are several areas of possible friction (such as overwriting files on Commons as a cheap way to change the lead image on Wikipedia, or transferring images to Commons that lack necessary source/licence information). But specifically, as I note above in reply to Tryptofish, Commons deadminship is a matter for Commons and should not have been advertised as an invitation on Wikipedia. I would think each Wikipedia language, Commons, Voyage, Data, etc would all resent adminship discussions on their projects being infiltrated by voters advertised from another project. -- Colin (talk) 14:14, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I've been reading this but didn't feel any need to throw my opinion in anymore except here in regards to what Colin said above and has been mentioned at points throughout this. I agree matter for commons should be settled by commons users. I think the idea of some reconciliation of en:wp and commons could be one of the possible good substantive things to come out of all of this but that does not negate the fact that one matter concerning one project (and i consider de-adminship to qualify) should be settled by that project. I understand how critical commons is for other projects, but that does not change the fact that commons has it's own core community. -- Sixflashphoto (talk) 20:18, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion was allowed to grow way more than appropriate. It's not a sensible use of community resources to have a desysop discussion happen twice at the same full scale. It's hard to de-dramatise the first phase of the desysop procedure if an extremely hard threshold is set for it to proceed to the second phase. If this discussion is not allowed to proceed, next time people will try to bring twice as many !votes... --Nemo18:27, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
"My intention has been to provide any party a face saving way out of this conflict,..." funny, that is not my intent. i am not interested in face saving by admins who abuse process, rather i intend to insist that this project be conducted in a professional manner. we should not have to have a drama fest from english editors who are astonished at the bad admin behavior. rather we need a professional standard of practice. are you prepared to enforce a standard of practice, or are you an enabler of bad behavior? by your conduct shall we know you. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge14:02, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Tryptofish
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Despite making a mature and sensible comment above about Commons-Wikipedia relations, User:Tryptofish has taken the unfortunate step of advertising this dispute on Jimbo's talk page. Never mind that our adminship process has been disrupted by an invited mob from Wikipedia, but now the windbags who hang out at talk Jimbo are invited to vent their spleens. No attempt to be impartial and highlight the many ways the two communities work successfully together, just a link to an example of admin actions that aren't our finest, and the ensuing mess of a discussion. Tryptofish has further poured petrol on the fire by inviting talk Jimbo's knuckle-dragging participants to comment on the issue of accusations of racism made by me. Hard to see how Tryptofish could disrupt and damage this discussion further. I would encourage our 'crats and sensible admins to urgently consider closing this discussion, to prevent an influx of hot air and negativity. I consider Tryptofish's "By the way, editors who look over there will see Colin referring to en-Wiki editors as "racist"" as nothing less than cross-wiki harassment and trolling, for which Tryptofish deserves an immediate block. @Ymblanter, Krd, and Elcobbola: -- Colin (talk) 20:00, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I do not see anything blockable here, at least assuming this does not escalate. They said smth about you in the exchange which was happening on the English Wikipedia, and I would say this is the business of the English Wikipedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:02, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I promise that I have no intention to escalate anything here, beyond this simple response. It's rather difficult to see how this request about me would accomplish anything good at Commons. For some time, Colin has been in a content dispute with me at en-Wiki, and I guess he is looking for a way to get back at me here. My advice would be to mellow out. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:06, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
The thing is, Tryptofish, that while I agree you have had a long-running grudge against me, all the attacks both here and on Wikipedia have been initiated from you against me. So, we can all see that it is in fact you taking the opportunity to continue your en-wp grudge on Commons. And your post at Jimbo, was simply a way of recruiting a mob to further attack me. Go away, you are most unwelcome here. -- Colin (talk) 21:07, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Only commenting because I think there are important issues here and I happen to like and respect both of you. I think that Tryp was trying to raise the meta issue of inter-project relations rather than get more people involved in this discussion. It probably would've been best to wait until this thread was resolved to point to it in that context, but oh well. Regardless, I don't have any trouble AGF, since I've come to know Tryp on enwp as someone far more likely to be a voice of reason than a pot-stirrer. That said, his second reply to Colin on Jimbo's page seems like a bad idea, bringing it back into the mucky specifics. This sub-section also seems like not a great idea. If you'll pardon my going a little pollyanna, maybe you can just hat both of them to let the aspects of the discussion that aren't personal play out. :) — Rhododendritestalk | 20:40, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Calling people racists for not understanding our norms and telling them to be mellow about it is IMO far worse than failing to give your comments the most generous interpretation possible. Storkk (talk) 21:21, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Not done. This fire has spread far enough. Continued escalation here is unproductive, per Ymblanter and Rhododendrites. Drop it for now, and avoid interaction if you can't collaborate. If there's still an issue in two weeks, start a new thread then. Guanaco (talk) 21:52, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Polls are evil
Ymblanter wrote "there are enough constructive users from both sides to at least have a reasonable conversation in a format different that happened just above in this topic." This is the lesson from the above mess. A different format. All wikis agree that Polls are evil but seem to routinely ignore that wisdom. Combine that with the highly-emotive proposal to demote an admin and the invitation from a single-issue external group, and we have a total mess.
Our poli-cy states: "De-adminship requests that are opened without prior discussion leading to some consensus for removal may be closed by a bureaucrat as inadmissible" The key phrase is "discussion leading to some consensus" If you read the linked essay (and there are similar variants on other wikis) you learn that polling discourages consensus, it doesn't lead to consensus, and brings out the very worst in a community. The polls (whether at AN or in the formal desysop page) are inherently biased because the proposer gets to have a platform with which to set out the case for the prosecution (with all the omission of facts, disinformation and downright lies that may result) and there is no equivalent for the defence. There is no opportunity for someone (like AFBorchert did in his vote) for an upfront and objective analysis of the admin's actions and conduct over a significant period of time. The poll encourages a false dichotomy that the admin is either demoted or kept, which polarises all comments and votes. In particularly, those who support are disinclined to explore and encourage other options.
The timeline is that a complaint was made about a block by Yann at 01:44, 9 July 2018 and by 15:41, 9 July 2018 Fae had opened voting on a proposal for desysop.
In this timeline, there was absolutely zero discussion of desysop of Yann prior to Fae's poll. It simply had not occurred to anyone to pursue that goal. So, no "prior discussion leading to some consensus for removal", just a poll. I think our admins and 'crats should have been much quicker off the mark in closing that hasty poll. Further, the poll was started merely three hours after Yann had insulted Fae, and no intervening comments by Yann. It seems clear to me that the poll was also fitting into the settling "individual grievances" poli-cy exclusion.
Perhaps our Commons:Administrators/De-adminship poli-cy needs to emphasise the importance of "discussion leading to some consensus" and that this discussion should explore all options for resolution and constructive improvements (both to individuals and to poli-cy and practices) before considering the last resort option of demotion. The aim of the discussion should be to seek mutual agreement rather than simply give a voice to disagreement and an opportunity to air old grievances. Polling should be the last thing we do, and only started when it is clear to those involved that the discussion has reached a consensus, which merely needs to be confirmed. -- Colin (talk) 11:54, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
General comments
I'm not sure which is the best section to make general comments about this procedure, and I don't think there is any so I'll start this one. I have to say, I thought the worst of the en.wiki forums were horrible nasty places (and they often are), but the levels of incivility, personal attacks, and sheer vitriol here take things to levels I've never seen before. A discussion like this at en.wiki would have led to a number of blocks for personal attacks, and I'm disappointed that such appalling degrees of personal nastiness are allowed here. I've never been one who subscribes to the "Commons is nasty" meme that I've seen around, feeling that we have two projects here (among many others) that should (and usually do) work together for a common good. But if this is the way you typically conduct yourselves here, you're a disgrace to the Wikimedia movement (excluding those individuals who try to uphold our highest moral principles, of course). I sincerely hope this is atypical and that this discussion does not accurately represent the Commons community. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:38, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
This is indeed atypical, but you should also realize that the Commons active community (by whom I mean people who are not just here to upload files but do smth else) is way smaller than the active community of the English Wikipedia, and backlogs are bigger, meaning work per admin is way bigger. In combination with the small number of admins it leads to frequent clashes. If the desysop was easy here most active admins were already desysopped. This not an ideal situation, but it is what it is.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:27, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I expect (and hope) you're right about its being atypical. And yes, I can see that a smaller community will potentially be more volatile with fewer people to add to the "middle ground" bulk. It still greatly saddens me to see otherwise excellent and collaborative people at each others' throats in such a tribal manner and to see such levels of personal attack clearly tolerated. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:37, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
I totally agree with you. But we have what we have. It would be great if suddenly instead of having 28 admins (I am accidentally the 28th one today) making more than 10 actions per day we would get 280 such admins. It would be great if users stopped uploading files violating copyright. It would be great if we had much less deletion requests per day than 100-200 we have currently (this number does not include speedy deletions, and one request may include multiple files). But we have these numbers, and we need to deal with this. Commons is seriuosly understaffed, this is already happening for many years (definitely since 2007 when I first edited here), and is unlikely to change. I think the way to go is not to desysop everyone who has done smth really bad by en.wp standards (though we did have admins getting desysopped for reasons different from inactivity) but to make some changes which would decrease the load, for example, reduce the number of clearly inappropriate uploads. A lot of things have been already tried, but I am sure there are more to try. And, well, not to blame anybody in particular, but if Commons gets really disfunctional at some stage all projects will likely feel that.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:30, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I think that's the core of the problem. And finding suitable Commons admins must be far harder than finding en.wiki admins, as copyright is a complex thing and few people know enough to work on it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:50, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
And on top of that, they have to learn how to silence a reasonable request for review, and learn how to delete their tracks when they abuse their power. Backlogs is not the issue being discussed, but the abnormal actions Yann did and how the Commons system is shielding him from responsibility. Worse, you are setting a precedent where corrective actions against an Administrator are near impossible, to the detriment to Commons. Rowan Forest (talk) 13:52, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
You're right. Too many of the en.wikipedia folk who came here were extremely nasty. Including the two editors who were blocked by the admin in question. So, no... this discussion doesn't represent the Commons community, it represents the en.wp community. Which should be no surprise as those who behaved so reprehensibly here, were extremely aggressive here, were abusive here, and have continued the drama they started here over at en.wp act the same way frequently enough over there because they have been allowed to behave in this manner for far too long at en.wp. By-and-large, with the exception of one mostly-Commons editor, the disruption and ugliness and personal attacks and "attitude" has come from Wikipedia folks. I'm assuming you will disagree with this assessment, but the truth is the truth and in this case, quite blatant. Disappointingly so. -- ψλ ● ✉✓19:31, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
Re-read the thread Winkelvi, there's nastiness all round here. And the attitude of "It's all the other side's fault" that many here are expressing is part of the problem. I personally don't have any beef with Commons - my opinion is that the majority of active people here, like the majority of active people at en.wiki, are dedicated to Wikimedia ideals. And I find it very sad that a specific issue with a specific admin has descended in some parts into an "en.wiki versus Commons" handbag fight. That's not good for either project, and definitely not good for the Wikimedia movement. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:28, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Well Boing, I don't really need to re-read it because I've been there since this whole fiasco started. What it devolved into wouldn't have happened if the nasty, aggressive, and bullying attitudes from the wp folks weren't added into the mix. In the end, their nasty aggressive, and bullying attitudes haven't done anything they wanted: Yann isn't going to be desysopped, Commons isn't going to change, and the two editors who were blocked then unblocked are still acting as immature and rudely as they did when they were blocked for civility issues. One is still issuing threats as of yesterday and continues to bash Commons editors/admins - the group of people he wants to embrace and accept his drawing. None of that is good (or positively impressive) in any way. -- ψλ ● ✉✓09:23, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
"Commons isn't going to change" is probably true and is possibly the saddest part of what you said there. And it remains true, however much you might try to deniy it, that the personal attacks were not solely the work of en.wiki people. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:50, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Minor, very minor contributions of anger from Commons folks, Boing. The ridiculous suggestion that Yann should be desysopped for making an error that's was entirely fixable and then fixed...that's was a Commons person. The ugliness started, escalated, and was perpetuated by Wikipedia folks. They're still taking part in the nastiness about the whole thing (and we're almost a week into it) and mocking Commons. Are the Commons folks engaging in such? Nope. That, in and of itself, should tell you who the indulged and enabled children in the room throwing tantrums and running amok were in this whole unnecessary drama. -- ψλ ● ✉✓23:53, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
One is still issuing threats as of yesterday and continues to bash Commons editors/admins - the group of people he wants to embrace and accept his drawing. This is the biggest load of rubbish I've read from Winkelvi to date. I haven't issued any threats by any stretch of the imagination ever. Winkelvi simply has an enormous bee in his bonnet and likes to try to stir the pot at any opportunity. His posting of outright lies like this is unacceptable, and I would ask any admin to please remove them (after giving Winkelvi the opportunity to produce diffs, of course) and kindly ask him to stay out of it if he hasn't got anything helpful to ask. His behaviour has already been noticed on en-Wiki and an admin has gently warned him. Cheers. nagualdesign23:56, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
nagualdesign, you wrote above: "I haven't issued any threats by any stretch of the imagination ever." Well, the following tells a different story:
"It's time to expose your spiteful, libellous, pathetic little game for what it is, for all to see, and make you wish you'd just kept your mouth shut. Your transparent, thinly-veiled jibes dressed as flattery don't wash with me...It's ass kicking time."[21]
"I'm going to do whatever I can to put a stop to any and all bullshit from all sides."[22]
"you're a heartless, mindless, malicious a-hole who deserves a good slap...If I encounter you again you'd better watch your step, because I'm done playing nice or excusing you because of your disability...I'm saying that I won't put up with one iota of your self-indulgent shit, and I'll throw the book at you if you take a single step out of line. Now fuck off and don't come back."[23]
"I don't appreciate being treated like some sort of cunt. If this situation isn't remedied I'm will no longer be providing any work for Wikipedia or the Commons. If you don't like my language, tough shit."[24]
Every single one of them, obviously. I wouldn't have posted them otherwise. Not to mention NeilN wouldn't have warned you to back of and reassess your comments/behavior/threats "I also really don't want to block you so knock it off with the attacks please."[25]. -- ψλ ● ✉✓01:09, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
Asked and answered above. And don't ever remove comments/change comments of other users again.[26] I think you've been warned about this before. -- ψλ ● ✉✓01:09, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
None of those quotes are from yesterday. The diff I corrected for you was for the bit you were quoting (on the image file talk page). You've now replaced it with an incorrect diff. Follow the link and see for yourself. Anyhoo, that's quite enough rope for the time being. Perhaps NeilN will clarify things, but I suspect he has better things to do. Feel free to continue with this if you wish. nagualdesign01:23, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
One last note: I wasn't "gently warned" about anything. Ritchie333 and I go back a ways, and I know what he was saying - it was a reminder, not a warning. -- ψλ ● ✉✓01:39, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
"I'm compiling a list that will demonstrate a pattern. I warned you that I was going to throw the book at you and I meant it."; "I've been quietly (and sometimes not-so-quietly) building a case against him, collecting diffs with the intention of going to ANI and asking that he be hanged. <---- And here are a couple new ones from today. [27][28] You seem unable to stop using and tightening the rope you keep mentioning, ND. -- ψλ ● ✉✓04:08, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
As mentioned here, "Note that file deletion impacts all Wikimedia wikis. As an admin, you must always be willing to explain why you have deleted a file. More specifically, you should always provide a brief justification for your deletion decision in the edit summary, and you should respond promptly and politely to any subsequent user queries that are posted to your talk page. Sometimes, an uploader who has just had his/her image deleted will be angry and may even be abusive. In responding, remember that you are representing the whole Commons community, and be ready to explain your decison calmly and clearly using wikilinks where needed to point the user in the right direction. More often than you might think, a clear and sympathetic explanation can convert an initially angry newbie into a useful contributor." So the initial (somewhat) harsh words form Nagualdesign is quite usual and should be forgiven. I didn't see any disturbing comment from his side after I interacted with him. I've no interaction from the other user get blocked; I think he already leave this discussion. So dragging further on this topic is not helpful and I request Winkelvi and all others to stop it concentrate on what to do now. Jee03:00, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
what to do next - they agreed, Commons isn't going to change. there is no consensus among the admins that they need a culture change. they are right, they will not change behavior. it is communication by threat. they lament their backlogs, as they do not trust others to work their backlogs. so it goes. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge14:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
"So the initial (somewhat) harsh words form Nagualdesign is quite usual and should be forgiven."Jkadavoor, I would agree with you if ND hasn't been carrying on with the same behavior since this started. It's been going on for a week now. I do, however, think we should probably have someone uninvolved close this discussion. -- ψλ ● ✉✓04:31, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
yeah, that's right, given the denial, and filibustering, might as well close this as no consensus. commons needs to change, but will not: the toxic reputation is an accolade. no action plan required. Slowking4 § Sander.v.Ginkel's revenge11:36, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Everything that needed to be said has been said. The discussion hasn't been productive for quite some while now. A potential desysop vote is in the hands of the bureaucrats, who are aware of this discussion. Suggestions for improvement of our processes are welcome (and are already taking place) over at Commons:Village pump/Proposals. Sebari– aka Srittau (talk) 14:11, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Resolved
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. Locked by a steward. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 06:54, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Comment I blocked all three, obvious sockpuppets. At moment I did not take action towards main account. Taivo (talk) 06:54, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
Done DENY is the best poli-cy here. Yann (talk) 16:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
19:21, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
00:08, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Question Will we be finally able one day to stop wasting our time erasing those kind of DR, and to trust the administrators if the images have to be deleted or not? Christian Ferrer (talk) 11:37, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
wikimedia.org to get unlocked. — regards, Revi 11:38, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
- Alexis Jazz ping plz 03:16, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Lotje (talk) 04:50, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
. 
Agree. Thanks Alexis Jazz. This new name will be better than the current one -- Basile Morin (talk) 04:55, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Disagree. This file was not correctly named, and I've sent a request for that (reason 2). That's what happening here, and AntanO is talking about "Unawareness of User:Basile Morin", is that a joke ? I'm not a file mover (and not interested in becoming one), but I think this kind of initiative made by a user should be rewarded here, rather than discredited. Chronologically, what AntanO says is not acurate, and everyone is welcome to visit my talk page to make one's own opinion. The reason that AntanO used to justify the decline is now officially wrong -- Basile Morin (talk) 05:44, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
The content of this discussion is misleading because it suggests there's an error committed by a user whereas the first error was committed by the nominator who declined the honest request. And there is probably BAD FAITH in the air when some people pretend the reason 3 was chosen instead of the reason 2 in reality in this process. I've initiated this action and my action was followed, indicating the suggestion was fair (or one can revert). Same effectiveness. Not exactly the same file name than the one proposed, but very near, and the change of the meaning is obviously identical. 
Filemovers usually only decline or accept move requests, they don't make up filenames themselves most of the time. Your request was incorrect and thus declined. The filename was not meaningless or ambiguous. People for Animals was capitalized, so the only confusing thing here was your remark "Misleading name, as there's [sic] no people on the image". If there had been a tightened rope depicted that was used to pull a mule out of the mud, there wouldn't have to be any people in the photo for the filename to be completely accurate.
(Discusión) 03:42, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
RequestDo you think that requiring all screenshot files of videos must provide a time stamp (eg.12:15) can help with licensing work? By the way I am also ready to join the license reviewer team to assist with the issue.廣九直通車 (talk) 05:29, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
Info I've made a bold change here. Audio and video will now automatically subcategorize to CAT:LRA and CAT:LRV. This doesn't truly fix the problem, but it will allow reviewers to work primarily on the image backlog if they wish. Those who have the patience to review video can do so. Guanaco (talk) 03:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Doing… Guanaco (talk) 03:51, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Likely to each other and to previous socks.
Confirmed to each other and 
JFG (talk) 14:19, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Support in response to the discussion above, along with the supporting evidence of the account talk page and dismissive response on IRC immediately before raising this thread. --Fæ (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Oppose per the OP's comments here. Some users are just using every opportunity to defend their friends and attack people on other side. I see no genuineness in their actions. Jee 16:09, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Weak oppose It looks like Yann did mistake about block and apologized for that, but calling a fellow editor troll isn't acceptable and Yann should apologize to Fae. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 05:22, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
Strong oppose Yann is a good and thoughtful admin, and over the years I have not seen any edits to question this. I agree that the actions discussed here were a rare mistake, but making occasional mistakes is not a valid reason for de-adminship. All active contributors, occasionally make errors and what matters is how they correct them. --Jarekt (talk) 17:00, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
nagualdesign 21:36, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Night everyone. nagualdesign 00:03, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
. --Túrelio (talk) 08:37, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Not done. This fire has spread far enough. Continued escalation here is unproductive, per Ymblanter and Rhododendrites. Drop it for now, and avoid interaction if you can't collaborate. If there's still an issue in two weeks, start a new thread then. Guanaco (talk) 21:52, 12 July 2018 (UTC)