User talk:Dennis Brown

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I am busy due to real world activities. I may be absent for days at a time, and may not respond swiftly to queries.

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Hi Dennis Brown, if you have the free time, could you have a look at and respond to Afghan.Records ANI thread? It's been open for over 10 days now, there is a pretty clear consensus in favour of a block and no admin has ever responded to it yet. Thanks in advance! — AP 499D25 (talk) 03:01, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Dennis Brown - 2¢ 03:21, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An IP address "117.193.205.235" keeps editing Virudhunagar Lok Sabha constituency again and again by using "winning candidate" template for a specific candidate instead of normal "candidate" template (election results due in 4 June 2024). Action required. Thank you. SamsonM2 (talk) 10:17, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I was just the one time, so I'm hesitant to take drastic actions unless it is a pattern, but I will keep an eye out. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:48, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Dennis Brown: please check the page again. The same user (IP slightly different) doing disruptive edit. SamsonM2 (talk) 06:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking isn't an option, given the range, but I've protected it for a week. It's a bit of a borderline case, but the different IPs are getting reverted for various valid reasons, enough to protect it. After the protection expires, if the problem comes back, go to WP:RFPP and request protection be extended, but only after several edits that are problematic. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 06:18, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. SamsonM2 (talk) 06:19, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2024).

Administrator changes

• Kbdank71
• Kosack
• NrDg
• TLSuda

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC is open to convert all current and future community discretionary sanctions to (community designated) contentious topics procedure.

Technical news

• The Toolforge Grid Engine services have been shut down after the final migration process from Grid Engine to Kubernetes. (T313405)

Arbitration

• An arbitration case has been opened to look into "the intersection of managing conflict of interest editing with the harassment (outing) policy".

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I note you used your administrative powers to delete one of my contributions on the grounds of "Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material". I must say I disagree that my contributions could be described as such. Can you revert your deletion or explain why not? 116.255.53.19 (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do think this was likely an error. The revision deleted was not one that added the victim's name, and revisions on either end of it still include the name. I'm ready to reverse the deletion, but I'd love to hear from DB first. Incidentally, IP116, RD2 is not just for grossly insulting material, but also for BLP violations, which is the reason that was included in the deletion log. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:17, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It was a mistake. I had gone in and researched afterwards and I was trying to make heads or tails but didn't have a chance to action it before it got late here. Farmer Brown - 2¢ (alt: Dennis Brown) 22:41, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Done, sorry about the delay. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:41, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Conflict of interest editing by Dennis Brown. Thank you. – Joe (talk) 13:21, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Just saw this. I'm pretty sure I also own some fraction of AT&T, tucked away in some index fund in my 401k. ~Awilley (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me as I might not be the most familiar with requests for decrease in protection. But from what seems logical to me based on the WP:Protection Policy, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia than anyone can edit. I, nor anyone, should be hindered by full protection (as its been in the past), for a redirect where protection was never really warranted in the first place. Instead of "why should full protection be removed", it seems more appropriate to ask "why should full protection be kept" and there's absolutely nothing I can think to say for it, besides the fact that an administrator felt like protecting it and then washing their hands of the matter (based on the DRV).

Multiple edit requests have already been made since 2017, which could have been avoided through reduced protection. Personally, I would like to add an "R from different spelling" rcat to the title, yet there's zero reason why I shouldn't be able to just uncontroversially do it myself instead of forcing an admin to oversee it, which the multiple past edit requests at this title have already been multiple too many. "Not visible" doesn't really apply to this redirect when it's tagged with the most relevant rcats (with slogans itself being highly visible due to being discussed as a well-condensed-yet-unnecessarily-bloated set of redirects, in the process of being cleaned out), and would be instantly viewable via the New Page Feed if something ever comes up. If a change ever affects the redirect, it will be the only page in the queue with a 2006 creation date, so that's not as much of an issue as it might have used to be, as a lot of people (myself included) monitor redirect changes. Needlessly protecting redirects just because one admin 7 years ago thinks they'll never have to be touched or edited with rcats ever again, is not a good practice, especially in cases where the future for the redirect is not obvious and rcats themselves change. This is not an alternate spelling of "Big Mac", but instead targets a section on a page that can easily be renamed or moved, forcing this redirect to be updated accordingly every time it happens. This is also not like "Obama" where the outcome has been talked to death about and needed to be protected to prevent vandalism. This is just a page, of dubious usefulness, that has teetered the line of being kept and being deleted on multiple occasions. While I would like to make a change and add an rcat, there seems to be no justification for keeping the protection; in my mind that's plenty enough explanation to reduce, as "no protection" is the default / status quo outcome according to the protection policy, for when there is no reason to have a page keep its protection. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 00:28, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, per WP:UNPROTPOL, "administrators may unprotect a page if the reason for its protection no longer applies, a reasonable period has elapsed, and there is no consensus that continued protection is necessary". The original protection was strange at best and seems to have arisen from the previous 2017 undeletion, where it's since been discussed at RfD and DRV on multiple counts. No longer applies, reasonable period elapsed, and no reason to suggest that protection is still necessary.

Also from UNPROTPOL, "[Full protection is appropriate for] pages with persistent disruption from extended confirmed accounts." This rationale never applied as there was no disruption, much less from extended confirmed accounts. The only evidence of redirect removal was from the otherwise valid CSD G4 tag (as it was recreated following an AfD that closed as delete). Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 00:37, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• When I consider unprotecting an article, I look at a few things: How many people are likely to watch it? (fewer watchers means higher possibility of vandalism going unnoticed). How likely is it going to be edited? What is the likelihood that any edit would be vandalism rather than constructive? How difficult is it for editors requesting edits to get those edits considered? What is the risk vs. reward? Then I try to apply what I think is the community consensus, the expectation, for the protection. After all, it isn't about my opinion, it is my best guess of what the greater community would choose if it were to be put to a vote. In this case, I felt like the community would say "It isn't likely to be edited, since that is a trademarked slogan from a long time ago, so the value of making it so anyone could edit it is less than the value of preventing vandalism in an environment of increasing numbers of articles and decreasing numbers of admins and patrolling editors." Now, that isn't a guarantee that this would be the result, but it is my best judgement, so that is the basis for my decline. At the end of the day, the real policies aren't the words written down, they are the consensus of what the community (as a whole) would prefer to do, and the written words are just there for convenience. I still maintain that articles, templates and such that are very unlikely to ever be edited but pose a ripe target for vandalism, and are already protected, probably should stay protected because there is virtually no benefit in unprotecting them compared to the risk, and that most editors in the community would support that. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:09, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  To address the hypotheticals in the order they were raised, this page is already in the top ~0.1% echelon of attention given to redirects, due to people having eyes on titles that recur in-and-out of multiple deletion venues. Most redirects have zero incoming links, while this specific title has been featured in a half dozen focused-discussions in WP space. I have already given an example of a change that I was planning on making, i.e. adjusting the rcats after an RfD closure, which I'd very well imagine to be uncontroversial to do and otherwise a net positive. This page has never been vandalized over the decade this existed pre-deletion, from 2006 to 2016, so there is zero basis to suggest that vandalism is a fear over any other title. There has never been a disruptive edit to this page, so I'm unsure why so much weight is given to that perspective. There is no evidence of any "risk" at this title, and the reward is that the third pillar isn't purposely obstructed after the existence of a no-longer-necessary full protection was brought to light at RfPP. Wikipedia is a work in progress; even the smallest of pages can and should be "mercilessly edited" by anyone, to inch closer towards a better encyclopedia.

  Redirects in general are less likely to be edited, sure, as it's an area that not everyone will see. But keeping an article protected longer than it needs to be is a disservice to the core tenents of Wikipedia being a place where anyone can edit, across pages big and small. Especially if the reason is "it's already protected, and because there probably won't be more than one edit a year, it shall be upon admins alone to maintain this title forever; they can handle the edit requests whenever they happen". It being protected already does not matter if the reasons do not hold up today, much less hold up 6 years ago. There was no policy basis for the initial protection. Years has passed, and the non-existent reasons for the initial protection have expired, surely. I really fail to see the reason for preventing people from editing the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, at an otherwise innocent title, all to prevent the tiny chance of vandalism on a page that has never been vandalized prior. (If someone really wanted to vandalize, this protection wouldn't prevent them from going for any of the other pages they could hide disruption on among several others, that are totally unprotected and never have been, nor has there been disruption from what I could find.) Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 03:03, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I understand what you are saying, and I will admit that FULL protection is probably overkill, but I still feel some kind of protection makes sense, so I have reduced it to semi-protection. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 03:23, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]