Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Dear administrators, I have forgotten the password of my original account User:Paytime, how can I recover my password (I have not added any email address). Paytime3 (talk) 09:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Paytime3 This isn't specifically an administrator issue(the Help Desk is the forum for this)- but if you did not have an email address on your old account, there is no way to regain access. You will need to use your current account and identify it as a successor to your old account("I am Paytime3, I was previously Paytime but lost access"). 331dot (talk) 09:43, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@331dot:, My another account in this English Wikipedia (Paytime2) has been blocked by User:Zzuuzz. Paytime3 (talk) 09:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Look, it's just not a great idea to arrive at the admin's noticeboard saying simply "I'm a sockpuppet of x". I'd unblock the account, but you don't need 3 of them. You may ignore the 2nd account. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's also not a great idea to post to a checkuser's talk page saying simply "I am back, you blocked my previous account". @Widr: FWIW. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's a lie. I dont know them. Paytime (talk) 11:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

{{checkuser requested}} See the discussion above and Paytime's latest comment. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:35, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On it. --Blablubbs (talk) 11:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Paytime2 is more or less  Confirmed to Paytime3; these two are also a decent technical match for an LTA (who has a habit of showing up at noticeboards saying "I'm a sockpuppet of x"), but I'm not familiar enough to be certain about that connection and I don't think it matters too much, so I'll leave it at that. Paytime didn't show up in my check of those two, and I don't see any reason to check them independently. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:01, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Blablubbs. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:13, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I feel very much discredited, which is perhaps only right. Even reading Wikipedia is quite upsetting. I would like an opportunity to reinstate myself and show that I have learned from my mistakes and wont repeat them. I still think I can make a positive contribution.

Process

I was not clear how, or indeed if, I was supposed to respond to the community consensus discussion. I didnt feel I was able to put my case.

I feel that the decision was an excessive punishment as far as the WP:BANPOL is concerned. I fully accept that I have done wrong. I recognise that and I would like an opportunity to explain how it happened and show that I have learned from my mistakes.

I had been attacked several times, generally without reasonable cause, and I have not felt much support. I dont feel that the collaborative approach is very effective. Very few projects seem to be operational. It is completely open to individual editors to be confrontational. On one occasion I was threatened with an immediate block because I was said to have committed three copyright infringements. It was true, but they were spaced over three years, were all minor, and one was in respect of material I had written myself. I was very sorry to find that Fayenatic london said that I had been abrasive. That was certainly not intended, and I have done my best to be supportive to other editors. However I have increasingly felt threatened, for example by those who express disbelief that I might not be aware of some policy which they find important, and by those who say that because I did something it should be treated with suspicion. That, of course, has been considerably exacerbated by this block.

I am asking for a more balanced approach. I have put in a lot of time and effort over the last ten years and I think I can properly say that the things I did wrong were a very small part of that. I still think I can make a positive contribution, though I would have to work hard to build up trust.

If I was allowed to return I would propose to continue to avoid categorisation altogether. I would certainly avoid the articles which got me into trouble. However I have done very little Wikipedia:BLP editting and I dont think any apart from Alex Scott-Samuel have been controversial. Biographies of living people understandably attract more attention than most other articles and I have been very careful with them.

History

I started editing in December 2006 primarily working on the history and organisation of the NHS. I did start Socialist Health Association, which was the organisation I worked for, and clearly I had a conflict of interest, although I was then very inexperienced and did not appreciate that was important. In fact the article was almost entirely historical, and I had priviledged access to its archives. I dont think there was anything controversial in it until 2019.

Mostly I worked on articles relating to British healthcare organisations. I didnt do much work on categorisation until 2013, but after 2019 I did a lot of that. The huge majority was completely uncontroversial - adding articles to existing geographical and historical categories and developing existing categorisation schemes.

I was blocked and accused of vandalism while I was creating Dewrance & Co. Ltd, without, as far as I saw it, any justification and without any opportuity to discuss it. I created User:Harry Boardman in December 2016 as an insurance policy. I havent used that since August 2019, and I lost the password so dont have access to it, which is why I didnt mention it.

I created User:Bigwig7 in August 2018 also as an insurance policy. I used this account to create Alex Scott-Samuel‎ in February 2019. I fully acccept that this was wrong and I had a conflict of interest. I didnt see it as an attack page. I took some trouble to include his academic work. At the time there was a great deal of media coverage about him, almost entirely hostile and I did try to produce a more balanced view. He was the chair of the Socialist Health Association of which I was the only employee but what he did to me was a very small part of what drove the extensive coverage of his activities in the media. There were battles over the Socialist Health Association article but I kept out of them. Only one significant contribution was from me, and that was defended by other editors, not me. I didnt make any significant edits after 2019 because I realised this was a mistake.

I should add that User:BarleyButt is nothing to do with me, although they have edited both those articles.

I now see that what I did was dishonest. There is no reason for me to do such a thing again. I am now retired and have no employer so there is not likely to be such a stressful situation again. My user name is such that it is immediately apparent to anyone who I am. That is not generally a problem, but it was in that situation.

I am quite upset to be accused of acting "as though he's superior to the community for so long, " I dont feel superior. I am well aware that there are plenty of editors who know a lot more than I do, but I often dont feel much sense of community. There are areas where I have more experience than most editors and I have tried to be helpful, but they are mostly rather out of the way.

I would say in my defence that my actions actually had little effect. I dont think any decisions about categorisation or deletion were altered by my piling in, and my edits on those two articles were all referenced to reputable sources and survived subsequent discussions in which I was not involved. After things settled down in my personal life I decided to keep away.

I value Wikipedia and I have devoted considerable time and attention to improving it over the last few years. I have contributed quite a lot of photographs and I have made financial donations. I maintain my subscription to the Health Service Journal primarily to inform the coverage of NHS articles. I ask that the things I have done wrong should be considered in the context of the things I did which were right. I am happy to accept any restrictions which are thought appropriate. Rathfelder (talk) 14:04, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is WP:CBAN following this [1] AN thread, and the unblock request has been copied here at Rathfelder's request, per WP:UNBAN. Meters (talk) 11:30, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

• Oppose - lost the trust of the community about two months ago, due to serious abuse of Wikipedia: vote-stacking with socks, in conjunction with socking to create and maintain a conflict-of-interest BLP attack page. Is the punishment excessive? Absolutely not. Even if we were to forgive you, it would not be so soon. starship.paint (exalt) 15:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Checkuser note - I found no evidence of recent (as in more recently than their banning) abuse of multiple accounts, and agree that User:BarleyButt is  Unrelated. This is not an opinion on the request, I may comment later. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - This was only two months ago, and I don't find the unblock request in any way persuasive. I'd feel differently if the editor edited some other projects for a long time (at least six months, preferably over a year) without having any COI, sockpuppetry, etc. As I said in the siteban discussion, using Wikipedia to advance personal real-world disputes, and sockpuppetry to game consensus, are two "high crimes" on Wikipedia. A simple, "I shouldn't have done that, won't do it again" two months later just isn't enough for me. I want to see proof that this editor can edit collaboratively (elsewhere) without abusing the privilege. Levivich (talk) 16:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Conditional support - if you haven't socked since your ban. PS- IMHO, you should've waited 'at least' six months, before requesting your ban be lifted. GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - I have conditions in mind under which I could support in the future (and they are harsh) but this is too soon. If we start giving the impression that you can run amok abusing multiple accounts to defeat consensus and write hit pieces on living persons you know personally, and then once caught you can just apologize and move on like nothing happened, we will never recover from it. Some will call out WP:NOTPUNITIVE but I have always said that there is a benefit of deterrence in treating harshly editors who commit harsh offences, as Rathfelder certainly has, over the course of years and up to very recently. The standard is six months, though I can't say I feel even that is long enough. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Let me quote what I say just 2 months ago: "No one is bigger than the project, and I don't care how much "good" was done, socking to vote stack, on top of having a COI negates all of that and then some. Also if someone is going to need multiple topic bans to even be allowed to edit, they shouldn't be editing period." That was 2 months ago. I'm stressing that because that is WAY too soon to even consider lifting the site ban, let alone what led to it. RickinBaltimore (talk) 17:35, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• I cant respond to the discussion, but if the appropriate period of blocking is six months I am content to wait. Rathfelder (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC) copied from user's talk page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meters (talk • contribs) [reply]

  I can only speak for myself, but I want to clarify that I did not say that six months was the appropriate length of time. I said that's the standard, and I also said I wasn't sure that would be long enough in this case. There are lots of editors who did good work over long periods of time who got into similar levels of trouble and are still blocked years later. I don't want to discourage you, I don't think you're at that point, but I can't predict what's going to happen with this over the course of time. I've just seen a lot of "I waited six months so unblock me" ban appeals in my time here, and they are never successful. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:30, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  @Rathfelder: - my personal opinion, is two years, no socking, and edit other projects without much incident in that time. Plus, when you’re back, you’d still be indefinitely topic banned from certain areas. starship.paint (exalt) 01:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose, per Starship, Rick, and Ivan. This unblock request coming so soon after the block feels shortsighted and frankly a bit arrogant. I'm simply not convinced that the net benefit is there - we'd have to tie one hand up watching both of his hands, and all the good content work in the world can't make up for a complete and utter lack of trust. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:03, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• (Non-administrator comment) I hate to say it, but as far as being an unblock request goes (i.e., regardless of the severity of the offence, socking, subsequent banning etc), it reads as mixture of "not my fault" and "didn't mean any harm", which fails to acknowledge that a) it wasn't anyone else's fault, and that b) harm was clearly done. SN54129 15:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose It's a shame Mr. Rathfelder feels like the community was unfair, but Wikipedia has a right to protect itself from abuse. The request is long on excuses and short on apology. I see no evidence he has learned from this experience and in any case, he hasn't even waited long enough to request Wikipedia:Standard offer. Try again in six months with less whingeing and fewer excuses. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 16:14, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I see no meaningful signs of remorse. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 02:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose, per Starship, Rick, and Ivan. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. I'm disappointed to still be seeing things like "I used this account to create Alex Scott-Samuel in February 2019. I fully acccept that this was wrong and I had a conflict of interest. I didnt see it as an attack page. I took some trouble to include his academic work. At the time there was a great deal of media coverage about him, almost entirely hostile and I did try to produce a more balanced view." It suggests that including his academic work is a sufficient balance for also including a nasty quote calling him "a swivel-eyed middle-aged conspiracy theorist" (attributed to The Times as "the Times called him...", but sourced to a clearly strong anti-Corbyn opinion piece from a columnist). I'm sorry, but I remain unconvinced by claims that it wasn't written as a deliberate hit piece by one of his professional enemies hiding their true identity with a sock account. As written, the article was around 50% "Controversy". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:05, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I doubt that I would support an unblock even after six months, but this appeal is way too soon to even consider. I find it hard to believe an experienced editor has this severe a lack of understanding of the standard offer, and of how the community views using socks to vote stack and to create a negative COI BLP. Both sock accounts were inactive for lengthy periods (eight months for Bigwig7, and two years for Boardman) but returned to editing. All three of Rathfelder's known accounts have been active at the same time, including tellingly, all three on Alex Scott-Samuel‎ in less than a one-week span. I find Rathfelder's explanations disingenuous. Meters (talk) 21:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - this is just trying to get everybody else to see the history with the same rose-tinted glasses that he is apparently wearing. But no, socking to include the quote swivel-eyed loon about a real life adversary in their BLP is not try[ing] to produce a more balanced view. Idk what it would take to convince me to support an unblock, but an acknowledgment of what actually happened would be the first step. nableezy - 00:23, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per above NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 00:25, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi I am trying to add an article about https://mizmash.com/ which is a price comparison site for appliances. It is saying i dont have permissions, how can i add this? thanks Christampa999 (talk) 03:23, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's a feature, not a bug. Per WP:AUTOCONFIRM, your account needs to be at least four days old with at least ten edits before you can create an article. That's not a matter for the administrators noticeboard. Also, please read WP:COI, because you have one. Acroterion (talk) 03:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would like for someone to look over my shoulder at User talk:Qalandar303. I've made a few edits to the article the editor is fighting over, so I'd prefer to withdraw administratively, so to speak, and the editor is testing my patience (which, admittedly, is in short supply). The editor has made some serious personal attacks on Talk:Subh-i-Azal, following their edit-warring with User:Cuñado over something silly--they wanted to add two citations that weren't actually being used, and in arguing their case crossed a few boundaries, IMO. I warned them for this edit, which put the cherry on top of the sundae. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 03:30, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• I think they upped the ante with a legal threat involving various other (?) editors. Drmies (talk) 03:38, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Other editors may also wish to take into consideration consistent personal attacks and slurs by User:Cuñado - one against me personally, here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Attempted_schisms_in_the_Bah%C3%A1%CA%BC%C3%AD_Faith#This_Page_Needs_a_Rework (which was admitted as being such by another editor) - against anyone who attempts to contradict narratives of the organization he has openly admitted to belonging to. I would also like to cite the following entry Criticism_of_Wikipedia as context. Qalandar303 (talk) 03:39, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeffed for legal threats. Acroterion (talk) 03:41, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Quick note on my comment mentioned above. There was an argument on Talk:Baháʼu'lláh#White washing, biased, and imbalanced about one month ago involving Qalandar303 and Drcombo (not to be confused with Drmies). Both were brand new accounts. Qalandar303 accused Drcombo of representing the Iranian government (to be fair, that's a real thing when it comes to Baha'i pages). When Qalandar303 appeared again recently, I forgot which was which and made this comment. Obviously in retrospect I should have just kept it focused on page content. Cuñado ☼ - Talk

Sockpuppet of Niponese Dog Calvero - Ryder1992 (talk) 12:30, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You mean Nipponese Dog Calvero. I'll leave this to people with more experience identifying this particular LTA. --Yamla (talk) 12:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Two socks continued in January 2023 the same editing pattern that led to Doug Coldwell's block last October. The new edits include poor use of archaic sources, too close paraphrasing, and copying public domain sources without attribution at Willis Fletcher Johnson and Charles Henry Ludington—after Coldwell's December request to be unblocked to work on "his" articles was declined. I bring this before the community for a community ban discussion, as well as some consensus on how to move forward on the cleanup. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

History

Accounts

• Doug Coldwell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  • Douglas Coldwell (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  • LordGorval (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
  • Thomas Trahey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Blocks and ANI: ANI 1 (September 2022) · ANI 2 (October 2022) · ANI 3 (January 2023) · Talk page discussion of block · Older ANIs: 2007 and 2016

SPI: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Doug Coldwell

Copyright Contributor Investigation (CCI): No 1 (533 pages) · No 2 (718 pages) · No 3 (78 pages)

GA and DYK Stats: 233 GAs (no record of which have been re-assessed, but there are seven GAR templates on his talk page) · 549 DYKs, and a number of awards for both speed and quantity

Notifications: DYK [2] · GAN [3] · Doug Coldwell [4]

Summary and sample

So to recap, we now have a giant mess of copyright violations, improperly attributed sourcing, dodgy sources which don't properly verify claims, and outright tripe to clean up, and need to figure out how that will be done. That isn't exactly within the scope of ANI. So, the question now is, where does that discussion happen?
— Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 12:00, 28 October 2022 (UTC), Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1112#Where to now?

I feel I should add the following, for the record in case years later someone can't understand why all this happened. Bluntly, it's the only thing you need to know to understand why Doug Coldwell simply cannot be a productive editor here until he allows himself to be tutored in the proper use of sources. On May 31, 2016, he added the following to the article Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation [5]:

The largest plywood panels ever made were manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation

This is cited [6] to an article published in 1918 and written by a Haskelite employee [7]. What's going on here is wrong on so, so many levels:

• Even if the claim was "As of 1918, the largest plywood panels ever made had been manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation", we wouldn't accept that with a source written by the manufacturer itself -- we'd need a reliable and independent source.
• But the statement made in the article, in Wikipedia's voice, is that Haskelite made the largest plywood panels ever made, period. And it's cited to something more from more than 100 years ago. This is so monumentally stupid that even my very substantial powers of invective cannot do it justice.
• And to add the cherry on top, the cited article isn't talking about the largest plywood panels ever made -- it's talking about the largest waterproof plywood panels ever made. That qualifier just got left out.

It's just hopeless, and it's not occasional -- it's typical of DC's work. I'm really beginning to think we need a special process to deal with the stupefying amounts of crap he's woven into the fabric of the English Wikipedia -- a sort of nuke-on-sight authorization for deleting his articles, or reducing them to harmless stubs, without the usual ponderous processes. We did something like this, IIRC, in the Neelix situation.
— EEng 15:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC), October 2022 ANI

Proposals

What looked initially to be ownership and lapses in DYK and GA reviews has now extended to outing, socking and a 3-page contributor copyright investigation. Other than CCI, there has been no formal attempt to coordinate clean up of the mess left behind. Three proposals below: the second and third are necessary for gauging community consensus because of the type of issues one encounters when attempting to address Coldwell content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Community ban of Doug Coldwell

Per WP:CBAN, "discussions may be organized via a template to distinguish comments by involved and uninvolved editors". Please declare prior involvement and post in the "Involved" section only if you were previously involved.

Support

1. Support The scale of the problems with material not supported by sources is sufficient to justify a ban, and the sock puppetry indicates that this person is not interested in editing constructively at present. Nick-D (talk) 07:16, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support. I was the reviewer for some of Doug's GAs, and participated in the September 2022 ANI thread, but I don't think that makes me involved. I had hoped at the time of the ANI that Doug could be persuaded to fix some of the problems in his articles, but the sock-puppets have convinced me that he should be banned. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:22, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support This is mostly symbolic due to the fact that he will hit 3X the next time he uses socks or meats, but the cban will send a clear message --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:47, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support I have reviewed some of Doug's GAs, but I have not participated in previous ANI discussions (though I did roughly follow the conversation at the time). The socking is not helping, and it seems like Doug is not able to self-reflect on how to improve his behaviour, so a CBAN should be in place until such time that Doug can demonstrate how to improve their editing, per an unblock request. Z1720 (talk) 22:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support While it may have been Doug's long tenure and prolific content creation that made him lapse in adequate sourcing, his attitude when asked to improve articles he worked on was uncooperative, and his insistence on continuing to make poor edits after cases were opened shows an unwillingness to work towards Wikipedia's goals, rather just to get "his" content onto Wikipedia. Kingsif (talk) 00:06, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Neutral

Involved

1. Support ban. (AFAIK, I had never encountered Coldwell before these incidents, but can probably now be considered involved because of bringing forward the ANI that uncovered the socks.) I believe Coldwell was a good faith contributor whose competence to edit Wikipedia should have been questioned a decade ago. Along with the burnout factor of those who work in the area of copyright patrolling, we have a cleanup problem that is beyond Coldwell's capability to help with; he has demonstrated again this month that he is not able to contribute content written in his own words, using appropriate sources and reflecting them accurately. Whether the new editing represents socks or meatpuppets, it is concerning that others may be emulating Coldwell's poor editing habits. It is time to send a clear message to Coldwell and any Wiki-associates that their time might be better spent elsewhere, and meatpuppets will be reverted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support ban. Like SandyGeorgia, I don't believe I encountered Coldwell before September 2022. I tried direct engagement with him at Talk:New York Central and Hudson River Railroad No. 999 and came away unimpressed (in particular, he incorporated part of a source assessment I made on the talk page word-for-word into the article). My impression is that Coldwell doesn't have a good grasp of the spirit and intent of our policies. I think this is clearly illustrated at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1112#User Doug Coldwell at Haskelite Building and 801 N. Rowe Street--keep in mind that this incident occurred a month after a long ANI discussion in which he was banned from GA/DYK nominations, had autopatrolled removed, and came pretty close to an indefinite block. Since then the poor-quality editing has continued, and he's either socking or encouraging people he knows to edit (badly). He's well past the point where his editing is a net negative, and the CCIs will take years to resolve. Mackensen (talk) 22:04, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support ban. I was one of the first editors to investigate Coldwell for copyright violations after an editor reviewing one of his GAN submissions raised some concerns to me about copyvio, and I was the editor who filed the CCI case request that got us to this point. I'm not going to say that Doug Coldwell should have been caught and disciplined years ago. I'm not going to say that because our processes back then were weren't very good. But now he has been caught, and he's refused to change, and he's has made a big a mess for actually good editors as Billy Hathorn made. Coldwell and Hathorn are not learning types, so as punitive as I feel writing this, advocating for and obtaining a CBAN for Coldwell is not a punitive act. This is the driving into the turf of a fence post for razor wire that will keep future copyvios off English Wikipedia. I do not doubt that as a consequence of his CV and the cleanup required to remove it all, a lot of our coverage of American history is going to regress by years. If it even moved forward in the first place. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 23:03, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
4. Comment: I would support a ban and I think that it is needed as can be seen from his block appeals however due to the fact that I have been started multiple GARs for his articles and in one of his block appeals he said that I do believe I know who is behind having me banned - User Gusfriend. His campaign is to have all my Good Articles delisted. I believe that I am too involved for a formal !vote on this section. Gusfriend (talk) 01:32, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support - my involvement is that I participated in the Sep 2022 ANI thread which led me to do a little editing of the 999 railroad article Mack linked above. I just read the 2007 ANI thread and it's stunning how similar that one is to the one I participated in. After fifteen years we just can't risk spreading more misinformation. Levivich (talk) 01:45, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support ban. My first encounter with Doug Coldwell took place in January 2022 with the GA3 review of Cone Mills Corporation. Cone Mills had failed GA1 on copyvio concerns, which I found to be remediated. The reviewer for GA2 never returned, but a comment was left casting doubt on the broadness of the page. I quickfailed Cone Mills on GA3 for failing to address in any substantive manner that comment. I then reviewed five more Coldwell pages, passing two (since delisted at GAR; I have participated in attempts to improve the pages) and failing three others. I participated in the September 2022 ANI but not the October or January ones. The issues have since been revealed to be far broader than poorly cooked GANs and indeed will require long-term, multidisciplinary collaboration to resolve. The mess he has left us, his continued socking activity, and his disregard for some of our most important policies and guidelines merit a ban. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 02:09, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
7. Support ban In my early days of editing in 2021, I reviewed one Doug Coldwell GAN. I am clearly involved, as the first ANI thread that kicked all this off was started by me. At the time, it was just Doug adding photos of himself into articles along with self-promotional text and then ignoring all attempts to communicate with him, forcing a block just to make him engage at ANI. And then he started posting his "I have over 300 confirmed kills 200 GAs and 500 DYKs" copypasta, and accusing me of being jealous of him (LOL) and otherwise acting poorly. At the time there was hope he would learn from the experience and so an indef block proposal didn't pass. And then the second thread happened and an admin rightly indeffed him. Cue repeated insane unblock requests, one over 50 kb long, and Doug having to get OS'd for OUTING another editor, and then the socking/meatpuppetry. There is no alternative but to impose an outright community ban so any further socking can be reverted on sight. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:56, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support Was not in any contact with Doug, that I am aware of, before the first ANI thread in September 2022. I believe I first saw it after a link was posted in the Wiki Discord, and watched the goings-on for some time, as I rarely get involved at ANIs unless I have to, and watched as the conversation evolved from mild ownership concerns to severe copyright concerns and failure to communicate, requiring a brief block to ensure actual communications. There I got involved, and there saw paranoia, refusal to learn, and petty insults. By near the end of the discussion, I expected Doug would run himself into an indef at the very least, even when he narrowly escaped it at the first ANI thread. Soon after, he did, only to come back with sockpuppets. The CBAN is an unfortunate necessity. Prolific editor, but unwilling to learn, refusal to communicate, and the whole trainwreck of the unblock request... Has to be done. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   Iazyges, you posted in the "Involved" section, without declaring an involvement. Did you mean to post in the "Support" section above? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:13, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   @SandyGeorgia: Amended to declare involvement; should have occurred to me that that should be included. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:21, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

   Thanks; I was concerned the format was unclear, so added a line of instruction. I'm not sure if participating in an ANI makes you involved, but the closing admin will have to sort that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

9. Support - copyvio sockpuppeteers need to be dealt with in the harshest of manners because of the massive timesink they cause. No idea as to whether I am involved, so I am parking myself here. MER-C 10:57, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
10. Support per above. I think the fact that I failed the now-deleted Preparation (principle) article's GA review makes me involved in some form. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 16:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
11. Support Back in 2020, I decided to try my hand at GA reviewing and help out with the backlog. I picked an article that looked not too long, and then I quick-failed it for copyvio and unclear writing. Coldwell then showed up at my Talk page to complain at me: I have created 500 Did You Knows and 50 Good Articles, so have an idea how this goes. [...] I'll ask someone else to do the Good Article review. I'll renominate it. Please don't interfere and just let another editor do it on their own with their own opinion. If I'd had more sense, I would have looked into those 50 GA's back then, and we might have known about the problem 3 years ago. I'll call myself "involved" on those grounds. XOR'easter (talk) 18:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support ban. I first ran into Doug at Talk:Star Watch Case Company/GA1. It was only my 2nd GA review at the time, but it was obvious that the (low) quality of the writing didn't jive with the number of GAs logged by the author. The perfunctory way they responded to my review also pegged my WTF-meter; it was obvious they weren't giving any real thought to my comments. It was so jarring, I made some off-wiki inquiries to find out what was going on. It wasn't until later when the extent of his GA and DYK gaming came out that I fully understood the situation. And of course the socking (which goes back 15 years) removed any doubt that we're better off without him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 23:33, January 29, 2023 (UTC)

Delisting Coldwell GAs

Pending completion in early March of GA process mergers now underway, the proposal under discussion at GA is that Coldwell GAs will be delisted via a global process except for those articles where a reviewer has opened an individual GA reassessment and vouched for/verified content of all sources, including offline sources (that is, AGF on offline sources is suspended because of history). During the ItsLassieTime CCI, a handful of copyvio GAs were stubbed and delisted via individual GARs; there are over 200 GAs in this case. See implementation details at GA talk, and an encouragement to wait for the GA process merger to be completed.

Discussion of proposal to delist Coldwell GAs

• Support. Implementation detail is being worked out at the GA talk page, and is similar to what is done at Featured article review. Opening 200+ GARs would be a burden, and a combined process will be more efficient. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support this is unfortunately necessary, the problem is widespread enough and reviewing these individually is unrealistic and unfair. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:55, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support GAR is overburden as it is --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 21:58, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Save a massive amount of time and effort by avoiding GARs. Basically every single one of his contributions is getting reviewed at CCI anyway. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:00, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, per my comments on the GA talk page. GAR cannot possibly scale to handle the volume, and a GAR without a user to work on the article is something of a dead letter anyway. Mackensen (talk) 22:05, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. This is going to be necessary given the experiences I had with the only two Coldwell GAs I passed of six nominees reviewed, Mail chute and Shelby Gem Factory. Not doing this would cripple GAR at a time when GAN itself is also sorely backlogged. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 22:09, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I'm not sure if there are any precedents for such a large scale GA delisting, but it is warranted in this case. I note SandyGeorgia's comment at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations that her spot checks have found significant problems that are time consuming to fix. Nick-D (talk) 22:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as in my comments linked above. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per the various comments above. There's no realistic alternative. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support There are too many articles that would need to go to GAR and it would not be sustainable to take them ther individually. Gusfriend (talk) 01:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - going through them one by one is too much of a burden to place on volunteers. Levivich (talk) 01:48, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support This must be done in order to preserve the GA rating having any meaning anymore. Doug Coldwell mass-produced these with little care for accuracy or avoiding copyvio; we should not spend the time to rigorously check each and every one when many if not most are chock-full of copyvio, failed verification, and factual errors. I've personally looked at several and they all had massive issues to the point they never should have been promoted to GA regardless. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:49, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I agree that sending all of Doug Coldwell's articles to GAR would be too much work for reviewers. Better to mass-delist and then renominate those that seem like they have some value (not that I think there are any.) NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 04:38, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, as unfortunately necessary. No prejudice against anyone who chooses to re-nominate one to GA, although anyone doing so should be warned to enact a full rewrite. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, on the understanding that any article which is clean of copyvio gets relisted. Animal lover |666| 07:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Issues are beyond copyvio (misrepresentation of sources, for example), although nothing prevents anyone from re-nominating an article to WP:GAN after a WP:GAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:02, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, articles often fail broadness and copyvio criteria. GAR costs too much time. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per above. MER-C 10:52, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 16:11, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support The very first one that I randomly plucked from the list, Typographer (typewriter), reads like it was written for a school assignment, and not for a very old student either. For example, He observed office workers overwhelmed with laborious tasks of handwriting lengthy official documents that took a long time. It would be surprising indeed if the laborious task of writing a lengthy document were completed in a short time! XOR'easter (talk) 19:10, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as someone who quickfailed several Coldwell GA nominations only to see them quickly renominated. The GAR process is too cumbersome and there are too many articles for it to be possible to review them individually. And delisting does no real harm to the encyclopedia as the articles are all still there and can be renominated if someone wishes; it merely removes undue credit from Coldwell. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:20, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Too much community time will be taken up by reviewing all of this user's GAs to ensure that they comply with the criteria. I would rather that these are delisted, and interested editors can check the article (and maybe make improvements) before renominating them. Z1720 (talk) 22:13, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. I took a look at Star Watch Case Company, which I failed in GA1, but I see was eventually passed in GA3. The quality of the writing is still abysmal. It's fine as far as spelling and grammar goes, but it's stodgy, stilted, and just plain boring to read. I plugged most of the text into a "readability estimator" website which ran a bunch of scoring algorithms on it; the rankings ranged from 5th to 9th grade reading level. If I were reviewing it today, I'd fail it again. I assume this is typical of his other GAs. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Another Ludington company. I'm beginning to wonder how much POV there is throughout anything now on Wikipedia related to Coldwell's Ludington, Michigan due to COI, and why COI has never come up in these discussions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:18, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Support As someone who has done hundreds of GAN reviews, I may be the most prolific reviewer to have never touched Doug's work (I'm pretty sure). There were two reasons for this: 1. he had hundreds of noms with zero reviews. 2. when one of his noms for one of the Hall family became the oldest unreviewed nom, I looked over the article and decided that I would not be able to pass it, but that I was not sure I could adequately explain why, at least not without an essay in the review. If we were to run reassessments on all of those articles, those same two issues would make life hard: there are hundreds. There are issues it will likely be hard to explain. But we know there are issues.
  And I honestly do not think delisting should be seen as some horror solution. A GA assessment should be viewed as an assessment, not a badge of honour (as much as we know we wear listed articles as such), and there will be plenty articles out there that could be GA listed or nommed that aren't (GA status is not all-encompassing); i.e. delisting Doug's articles means that they require assessment, is all. I think that's already been established. Kingsif (talk) 00:16, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Removing unverified content cited to offline sources added by Coldwell

Coldwell's articles are already at CCI so WP:PDEL applies, but community consensus to shoot offline sources on sight and stubbify articles might help advance the cleanup by at least removing instances of too-close paraphrasing that are extremely time consuming to chase down.

Discussion of removing content cited to offline sources

• Support, but hold off on stubbing articles until the GAR processes complete the planned merge and it is determined what GAs other editors intend to rewrite. I was surprised to find the same issues recurring in 2019, and in the recent sock edits. Of particular concern is the difficulty in tracking down copyright issues in Coldwell's edits because of the extensive use of very old and offline sources; it takes hours to examine one article. The damage spread across content, has been seen already in a healthy sampling of articles. With misrepresentation of sources along with copyright issues, inaccuracies, and archaic sources, WP:AGF on offline sources in GAs is not useful. My own sampling reveals everything covered in the post above with EEng's sample, and the often-archaic sources along with misrepresentation of them combined with plagiarism or too-close-paraphrasing. Because he is often the only editor on obscure topics, it is fairly easy to see what can be deleted if it can't be verified. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  To confirm - if an article is not a GA, then it can be stubbed/deleted without waiting? MER-C 11:02, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Correct. I believe the GA folks are wanting to preserve some GAs if possible, but there are technical issues in how and when to make it happen, so we are asked to hold off until they finish the Proposal Drive and get everything in place. No reason not to deal with other (non-GA) content per usual. Of course, if the copyvio is egregious enough on any given article, I would think that CCI admin action would override GA preferences. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:59, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, and ask that copyright inquisitors not to be expected to restore the articles that CCI will necessarily, as a part of the process, eviscerate. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:08, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support This seems uncontroversial and there are a number of precedents for this where we have had to assume everything an editor has added is unreliable and/or a copyright violation. I've handled some instances of this over the years, though not on anything like this scale. Nick-D (talk) 22:24, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support but, as Sandy notes, delay until implementation of some of the other points. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:45, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support but hold off per above. Levivich (talk) 01:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Anyone can do this anyway using existing policies but I have found that (1) a community ban and (2) explicit approval from the community for PDEL makes it much easier to deal with. MER-C 10:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Especially given the scale of the problem. Details as per SandyGeorgia. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:14, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Sounds like the sensible course of action. XOR'easter (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Time is an important resource for Wikipedia editors. It takes too much time to track down and evaluate offline sources, so this solution is a better idea. I hope that editors who go through this process will keep the sources in a "Further reading" section so that future editors might be able to use these sources to improve the article. Z1720 (talk) 22:15, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Great idea ! You should bold that, Z1720. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:15, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

General comments

Image copyright issues

I have yet to dig to find if this is a pattern, but File:1965 Time Capsule II interior.jpg is not in the provided source and is tagged at as FDL image for some reason. File:See-through of Cupaloy.jpg is also improperly tagged. File:Westinghouse 5000 year pin.jpg provides no source so I can not find if DC was the author of the image or not. Someone at commons is going to need to do a CCI as well. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 22:19, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I contribute File:1960s TV camera.jpg and the bizarre recreation that is File:Lionel Flash Lamp.jpg Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 22:49, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting articles for copyright violations

When it is necessary to seek the deletion of an article on grounds of suspected copyright violations based on precedent by the user concerned, like for example with Billy Hathorn, copyright inquisitors do not use AfD; an AfD wastes time for CCI and AfD regulars (believe me, I know). Instead, copyright editors use Wikipedia:Copyright problems (CP), which gives a seven-day grace period to allow for rewrites before MER-C an admin deletes the article. The method used at CCI for determining what can/should be sent to CP to save volunteer time is demonstrating majority authorship of the article text by a proven copyright violator. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Concurring. MER-C 10:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page header

I would like it if a talk page header was created with a link to this discussion plus any other relevant information to be added to any article which was one of the GA articles including those that have already been delisted. This would give people context when they come to the talk page and wonder at the history of the page. Gusfriend (talk) 01:19, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe note it in the article milestone. Where we'd normally link a GAR, we could link to this thread, perhaps. Levivich (talk) 01:51, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There might need to be a project space page with an explainer. Something like Wikipedia:Doug Coldwell copyright violation removals or Wikipedia:Delisting of Good Articles by Doug Coldwell. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 02:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think something bespoke would work best here much like Sammi suggests -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:48, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I've now spent more time looking at the script used to close GANs and GARs, and unlike when Gimmebot processed all content review processes into articlehistory, GA now uses a script which operates very differently from the original (gimme)bot or FACbot. (And doesn't give oldids on GARs or roll in DYKs, etc) I've some ideas of how to make the process work, but it will involve some combination of new coding or mass message sender or something. My idea to do it the way FAR does won't work. But better heads can convene elsewhere to figure out how to effect a delisting of a couple hundred GAs without having to initiate a couple hundred GARs. Whatever is written for transclusion to the GARs or talk pages would hopefully not name DC rather be written more generically. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If GAR uses a process similar to what FAR does, the end result would be a GAR listing in articlehistory that points back to this thread. Should they decide to go that way, I am familiar enough with {{Article history}} and the FAR process to help them set it up. However. Coldwell has many more DYKs than GAs, so that leaves a lot of articles uncovered. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just had a look at User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/GANReviewTool, and it will be trickier than I thought. Some special script coding may be needed, but for 200 plus articles, probably worth the effort. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:55, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]