Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard

Results from research about Administrators' Noticeboard Incidents

Hello all,

Last fall, as part of the Community Health initiative, a number of experienced En.WP editors took a survey capturing their opinions on the AN/I noticeboard. They recorded where they thought the board working well, where it didn’t, and suggested improvements. The results of this survey are now up; these have been supplemented by some interesting data points about the process in general. Please join us for a discussion on the results.

• Main summary
• Full survey results
• Quantitative data analysis

Regards, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 20:36, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Request for Administrator On Bullet Club Talk Page Gino Gambino

Bullet Club (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

We need someone to help, there is a very heated Discussion going on a bunch of 3RR Broken, and no conclusion to the discussion I have left a notice on the bored and I request assistance TheKinkdomMan (talk) 02:03, 9 March 2018 (UTC) TheKinkdomMan (talk) 02:03, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Deleted page

Recently I've been expanding the Arthur Thomas Hatto page. His father was named Thomas Hatto, and I see a page in his name was deleted in 2008. Could anyone check to see if the deleted page was relevant to this person (he was a solicitor’s clerk, and later became the Assistant Chief Solicitor in the British Transport Commission legal service), and if so whether there was anything interesting or useful there? Also, is there a way to check this without being an admin? Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 03:39, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

The deleted page was about a British actor born in 1992 so not the chap you’re interested in, I’m afraid. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 06:20, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Only off by a century or so. Thanks for checking! --Usernameunique (talk) 08:09, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Interaction bans

ANI seems to be chockablock with proposals for "1-way IBANs" and "2-way IBANs" at the moment, with a lower and lower threshold. Why is this?

Do we want to keep progressing this way, with an ever-increasing cohort of editors proscribed and protected from interactions with various others to save them having to develop empathy, thicker skin, and the ability to communicate, until Wikipedia editing becomes like making a seating plan at a wedding? Fish+Karate 15:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I guess the salient question becomes "despite asking for them, are the IBANs actually receiving support?" People are allowed to ask for an IBAN, but there's nothing saying that we are obligated to grant a certain number of them (they could all be rejected). I do agree, though, that simply saying "they annoy me so please make them stop" is a bit petulant, and people should grow thicker skin. Of the few IBANs I've seen enacted recently, they were definitely necessary for ongoing harassment and hounding purposes. Primefac (talk) 15:16, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

• Feel free to start a proposal to modify banning policy, but this is the wrong venue for that. I'm not sure where you're getting the notion that we're starting to overdo it though. There aren't that many IBANs and it's pretty rare to see them proposed, much less passed. Swarm ♠ 15:18, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
• If you think there are too many IBANs, the solution is to oppose them. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:31, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

  Thanks Tony. I do know that. This is just a musing. And Swarm I don't want to change the banning policy, but there's definitely an increase. There are three interaction ban requests right now on ANI. I get that they likely won't go through, that's not my concern, and my concern isn't whether we should or should not have interaction bans, either. it just seems to be proposed a lot more frequently recently and I'm curious if anyone has thoughts as to why. Fish+Karate 15:42, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

  Right, I'm sorry if that came off as snarky (I realized after I posted it that it could come off the same way). I share your frustration on them, as I think they rarely accomplish anything and are often used for We're in a content dispute and have two equally valid views but won't budge an inch! which is a net negative. IMO, the best way to deal with it is to oppose them when they come up if they aren't justified. Eventually people get the message that the community is tired of the frivolous IBAN requests. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:45, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

  If anything needs looked at here I'd say it's a revamp of DRN, which is sufficiently ArbCom-esque cumbersome to use  I personally don't even bother pointing people there and haven't for a long time. GMG^talk 15:51, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

  Jeepers. That's abysmal and yet still less complicated and unfriendly than Wikipedia:Requests for mediation. Fish+Karate 15:55, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

  You know, because half the disputes that end up at ANI, at least one party has less than the basically bare minimum couple thousand edits it takes just to figure out how half the wikitext markup works, and when a newish editor is in a heated dispute, they're definitely in the mood to figure out how to fill out their forms in triplicate. GMG^talk 16:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

• Is it worth starting an RFC requesting guidance in the policy about when an IBAN does (not) work? It might reduce the calls for them and enshrine some consensus about their value. --Izno (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
  • RfCs only achieve anything when you already know what the outcome will be before you open them. They solidify existing consensus, but are pretty ineffective for finding new solutions. If there is a consensus here that IBANs are being overproposed, and there is a clear policy change that most people agree would help, it might be worth having an RfC. Otherwise, I think the best way to go about it is through the labour of simply shooting down the frivolous requests until people start seeing they aren't being granted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyBallioni (talk • contribs)
    • I'm not entirely sure I agree with "only achieve something" since I wouldn't be attempting to achieve something (where "achieve something" is defined as PAG change) :) --in my mind, it would be an RFC simply to gather comments from editors (literally the name, as they have the flexibility to be employed). Then, we could get along to crafting language to whatever comes out of that discussion. Alternatively, a normal editing discussion could be had on WT:BAN, without the RFC tag, since I would guess most persons interested in the policy already watch the page in question. --Izno (talk) 17:19, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

We fundamentally do not have methods to mandate editors to having to develop empathy, thicker skin, and the ability to communicate other than blocking them when they do something we don't want them to do. Hence IBANs. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:16, 13 March 2018 (UTC)