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The following request for comments is closed. The request for comment has been resolved by enacting a global ban.

Nomination statement

Chealer (talk · contribs) (Philippe Cloutier) is mostly an on-and-off contributor who has been contributing since 2004. While some of their content contributions are occasionally helpful, they have repeatedly demonstrated a pattern of disruptive behaviour – in particular, Chealer cannot edit in a cooperative and collaborative manner, such as ad hominem attacks, refusal to follow guidance (including barging in on wikis they are not familiar with and insisting project regulars do things Chealer’s way), edit warring and a general inability to admit fault. To put it in the words of one of their block statements, they are “not here to contribute constructively, but to confront everyone who dares to cross their path” (translation of frwiktionary block statement).

Initial blocks

Chealer was first temporarily blocked on enwiki in 2007 for edit warring by Maury Markowitz – although it’s a trivial block for what’s to come, it indicates that their history of handling disputes goes way back with no change in behaviour. This also likely explains why they were blocked again for edit warring on enwiktionary by Jamesjiao in 2012.

enwiki

After two more blocks on enwiki for disruptive editing in 2015 by Swarm and Bbb23, they were finally indef blocked on enwiki by JzG with TPA revoked by Ponyo. Reading the discussion that led to the indef block, they took zero accountability for their actions, deflecting all blame on the users trying to correct Chealer’s behaviour – even going as far as to claim that the blocking admin (JzG) is “ignorant about blocks”.

frwiki

Come 2023 and they were blocked for 1 week by JohnNewton8 for violating Wikipédia:Esprit de non-violence. This block seemingly did no change to their behaviour as they were blocked on frwiki once again for 1 month later that year by Olivier Tanguy for similarly problematic behaviour, including the refusal to discuss things in a collaborative manner. The discussion after the first block is also utterly unconvincing. The continued refusal to edit collaboratively is what landed them an indef block in early 2024 by LD after a discussion on frwiki’s admin noticeboard.

frwiktionary

Chealer’s disruptive behaviour later spread to frwiktionary, as they were blocked for 1 week for uncooperative behaviour by Lyokoï. That 1-week block clearly was not enough of a deterrent, as they threatened Lyokoi in May 2025, after which a final warning was issued. Once again, Chealer did not take this lightly and took no responsibility for their actions. After initiating a discussion on frwiktionary’s admin noticeboard for another user to be blocked based on conduct issues, they were finally indef blocked over there by Lepticed7.

enwikivoyage

In June 2025, they barged into enwikivoyage and claimed that one of the site’s long-standing policies of linking to Wikipedia was suddenly considered invalid as there was no formal discussion 22 years ago, a few months after Wikitravel was launched. Once again, no attempt whatsoever to rectify their behaviour. Later community banned and indef blocked by Ibaman per NOTHERE.

enwiktionary

13 years after initially being blocked on this site, they “warned” Svartava (local sysop) for an edit they made all the way back in 2021 – the frivolous warning was then rightfully reverted before Chealer tried to educate Svartava about Wiktionary project customs (which was later reverted)...on a project they aren’t even a regular of (and warned for it). enwiktionary does not prohibit the use of rollback on your own talk page, nor does it prohibit the removal of discussions on one's own talk page. Chealer then received a 3-day block for edit warring on wikt:en:Template:u/documentation, which involved adding incorrect information, and wikt:en:Talk:imperial system.

Continued disruption

On Meta-Wiki and mediawiki.org, their continued insistence on Meta:Autopatrollers even after being told issues about their edit on the talk page and claiming that Johannnes89 on their talk page that “appropriate comments should not be removed from talk pages” when editing an archive page the last week only seeks to reaffirm that nothing has changed since their initial block in 2007. Whether it be continued edit warring, refusal to follow policies or the continued attacks, it is evident that they are incapable of editing in a collaborative environment. Sadly, with 4 indef blocks and poor behaviour on 3 more wikis, I see a global ban as the only possible recourse.

//shb (t • c) 11:06, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Formalities

Criteria

As per the global bans policy, this user meets all three criteria:

  • The user demonstrates an ongoing pattern of cross-wiki abuse that is not merely vandalism or spam. – YesY.
  • The user has been carefully informed about appropriate participation in the projects and has had a fair opportunity to rectify any problems. – YesY, been given several warnings. They had plenty of opportunity to reform after each block.
  • The user is indefinitely blocked or banned on two or more projects. – YesY (blocked indefinitely on enwiki, frwiki, frwiktionary and enwikivoyage).

Nominator requirements

  • have a Wikimedia account; – YesY
  • and be registered for more than six months before making the request; – YesY (account created on January 25, 2021).
  • and have at least 500 edits globally (on all Wikimedia wikis). – YesY (196,761 edits as of July 28, 2025).

Refer to Special:CentralAuth/SHB2000 for the last two points.

Final required steps

  1. Confirm that the user satisfies all criteria for global bans: YesY Confirmed
  2. File a new request for comment on Meta: YesY Done
  3. Inform the user about the discussion on all wikis where they are active: YesY notified
  4. Inform the community on all wikis where the user has edited: YesY Done by SHB

Statements from other users

a smart kitten

As it doesn't seem to be mentioned here yet, mentioning for the record that Chealer's account on Wikimedia Phabricator was disabled earlier this month: phab:p/Chealer. ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 12:35, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is unclear what your point is, but (un)fortunately, I had already realized that my account there had indeed been disabled when I tried―and failed―to report a bug there. What would be useful would be information on who caused that, why and when it will be fixed, none of which I was told anything about (although I strongly suspect―given how common power abuse is here―that the responsible is no other than Andre Klapper). --Chealer (talk) 15:02, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not meaning to make any point right now, I just intended to present the information as I thought it was relevant to this discussion. Best, ‍—‍a smart kitten[meow] 16:59, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To put it differently, it’s unclear how this could be relevant to this discussion. Had you mentioned that in the Questions section, asking Wikimedia Phabricator administrators if someone can shed some light, that would be constructive, but even then, it would be highly prejudicial.
In most (common law) jurisdictions, even with properly selected jurors, such disclosure would suffice to declare mistrial, due to how difficult it is for jurors to manage their generalization instinct (If he was "sanctioned", he must have done something wrong). Of course, if this was a court, this would have been declared a mistrial with prejudice right from the so-called "Nomination statement", but even here, if you ever comment a proper accusation, be aware that such information would taint it, and creating a statement just for that can be considered as a personal attack ("Linking to external attacks, harassment, or other material, for the purpose of attacking another editor."). --Chealer (talk) 06:15, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
it’s unclear how this could be relevant to this discussion
Mentioning an additional Wikimedia platform that you were blocked from for behavioral issues seems to me like it could be related to a discussion about user behavior. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:36, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would not call this "a discussion about user behavior", but if you have any evidence that my account was blocked for behavioral issues, you are welcome to provide it here (given this request is already unsalvageably tainted). At this point, I do not even have evidence that my account was blocked. All I have is this message:

Your account has been disabled. If you believe that it was disabled by mistake, feel free to appeal on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Phabricator/Help

You might argue the suggestion to appeal means the cause is a block, but I consider "Wikimedia Phabricator" too poor/erratic to confidently infer that. (It's not even letting me display tickets or commits anymore… even the homepage is blanked.😒) --Chealer (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to confirm that the Phabricator account got disabled due to user behavior. You should be able to see tickets or commits again by simply logging out of Phabricator (upper right corner). AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 14:33, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @AKlapper (WMF), but would you be equally happy providing a reference to confirm that and elucidate which user behavior caused that? --Chealer (talk) 21:26, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, as this has been already adequately summarized by others in this conversation. AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 08:53, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the "summary" you refer to is the speculation others provided, it would be helpful for you to explain how you know that speculation to be accurate. --Chealer (talk) 11:41, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Bushranger

I believe that Chealer, with each and every post made here, has confirmed that they are not compatible with a collaborative project. - The Bushranger (talk) 01:15, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This section is meant for statements, which can report actions or provide evidence. Mere comments about your opinion should go to the Comments section. Also note that per section 2.1 of the Universal Code of Conduct, contributions are expected to be constructive. --Chealer (talk) 21:26, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Chealer, there is nothing unconstructive I see with The Bushranger's statement – on the other hand, it is you who is unnecessarily wikilawyering by claiming what can be mentioned in this section and what can't. If anything, you, as the subject of this GB discussion, should be the last person doing that. //shb (t • c) 01:09, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Response from Chealer

SHB2000 recently took issue with one of my comments on Wikivoyage, which triggered a big misunderstanding. He successfully got my account there blocked, but perhaps because I pointed out the multiple policy violations he resorted to to reach that outcome, that achievement doesn’t seem sufficient to appease him.

His characterization of my activity is beyond arrogance. I have selflessly (to say the least) already donated thousands of hours to Wikimedia. Like most of us, the vast majority of my contribution here is volunteer. So yes, I do have many other commitments and projects and am not part of those who have contributed every day since 2004, and unless SHB2000 wants to sponsor me to contribute even more, that will not change.

My Wiktionary userpage explains pretty well my contribution pattern to all Wikimedia projects: when I see the need. Ibaman's message on the Wikivoyage "nomination" is mistaken, but the block comment is not technically wrong; I indeed was NOT THERE to build a travel guide, but to plan what should have been a simple vacation. It's only after Wikivoyage sent me to a visitor center which has probably not existed in years, costing me well above 1 hour, that I returned to fix the guide, and even that plus some associated cleanup cost me about 1 person-day, which excludes the whole blocking fiasco. Wikivoyage did not provide a justification for blocking my account, but I was visibly blocked there for daring to disagree (with administrators!) on a talk page.

There is no doubt in my mind that SHB2000’s characterization of my involvement on Wikivoyage is disinformation; the lack of proposal and adoption of the problematic document has persisted to this day, and no one considered it invalid to my knowledge. I also do not know what he means by "community banned".

The same is true of his characterizations in his Continued disruption paragraph; the only comment on Meta talk:Autopatrollers between my edits on Meta:Autopatrollers is from me (reporting issues in Johannnes89’s edits).

His characterization of my journey on enwiki are also MDM, with an obvious misquotation of myself (about JzG).

I have no idea why he states:

enwiktionary does not prohibit the use of rollback on your own talk page, nor does it prohibit the removal of discussions on one's own talk page.

…if not to further mislead readers of this request.

SHB2000 has a very dichotomous view of contributors, which is very clear from his Wikivoyage attacks. To quote just one of his comments:

I was clear that you're not a project regular and the fact that you can barge into a wiki that you aren't a local community member of and tell regulars how to interpret policy is what constitutes as disruptive behaviour.

Perhaps I failed to put enough badges on my userpages, since my 15 years of contributions and hundreds of edits on the English Wiktionary are not enough to qualify myself as a regular there (per his above statement), which apparently means I shouldn't tell Svartava when he breaks the rules (because―you know―at least he's an administrator there, so surely a regular entitled to ignore policy🙄).

As a mere mortal with a meagre ~15000 contributions over 20 years, I ask for forgiveness for being an arrogant irregular from those of you real and healthy regulars who have contributed 40 000 quality edits/year for 4 years. (Seriously, I have not examined SHB2000’s record and hope there is some positive, but even the small sample I had the misfortune to witness over the last couple months makes me extremely worried with his global sysop permissions). --Chealer (talk) 04:18, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SHB2000: You should be ashamed of continuing your fight here, before even managing to clear up the problematic "policy" which brought you here. You are right that, like many/most of the faulty administrators you mention, some of my accounts were blocked. Like most of these, the first block you seem to blame me for was a mistake, as I am sure you have already noticed by now. The second block (by Jamesjiao) is even worse, as a violation of WP:BLOCKNO, as you would have already figured out had you been properly motivated. As for the first "indef" block you mention, let’s not even talk about the infamous [former, despite what his user page claims] administrator ultimately responsible for it. I will not comment on other blocks you mention; all of the affected projects you mention were negligent to the point of blocking my accounts from even editing talk pages, which would be the proper place to tackle these issues, and that situation persists. But the rest pretty much follows from those initial accidents and a lot of personal attacks from misled editors, just like yours. Yes, all of these blocks indicate problems, but they do not make the contributors you mentioned worthless, nor provide reason to further block them.

Removing acceptable comments from others is wrong, even if you think they favor MZMcBride or anyone else you dislike.

What you imply would be me threatening Lyokoi is in fact him hiding my request from his French Wikipedia talk page. What you call a "frivolous warning" is in no way frivolous; I phrased it diplomatically, but it likely caused a regression (which has already cost me more than 1 hour and TTBOMK persists) to remain unidentified for years. I am not the one who "edit warred" on wikt:en:Talk:imperial system and wikt:en:Template:u/documentation, but which incorrect information do you think I would have added on the latter?

I am a polymath by nature; just like I am a full-stack developer doing all of backend, analysis, architecture and frontend, I am what you might call a mesopedian at Wikimedia. Whether you think I am regular or not, I fix not just content pages, but infrastructure, processes and behaviors, on Wikipedias, Wiktionaries, Commons, Meta, Wikidata, etc.

It seems you missed the warning on my userpage; I know you must have felt insulted by some of what I wrote, but rest assured you are not alone with that feeling. As that same page explains, I do not treat you or anyone differently just because you have administrative permissions. I know that you genuinely believe I did bad things, but that is no more excuse to weaponize policy while yourself actually violating policy. You already had ample warnings―at least there, there and lastly there―about your personal attacks, yet you persist again. You need to minimally substantiate at least all of the following:

  1. that I could not "edit in a cooperative and collaborative manner"
  2. "barging in on wikis they are not familiar with and insisting project regulars do things Chealer’s way"
  3. "continued edit warring"
  4. "disruptive editing"
  5. your claimed general inability to admit fault
  6. that I would have "violat[ed] Wikipédia:Esprit de non-violence"
  7. "problematic behaviour, including the refusal to discuss things in a collaborative manner" on the French Wikipedia
  8. "continued refusal to edit collaboratively" (on the French Wikipedia)
  9. "disruptive behaviour"
  10. "uncooperative behaviour"
  11. "refusal to follow policies"
  12. "poor behavior".

Your report's second statement is broken, but assuming that you are accusing me of ad hominem attacks🙄, this also needs substantiation. How dare you claim that I would "not [be] here to contribute constructively, but to confront everyone who dares to cross their path”, mere weeks after I mediated a delicate complaint about Quercus solaris’s contributions to the Wiktionary―and all the rest⁉️

Failing that, I ask you to get over this, retract this defamatory request, stop misrepresenting my contributions and refrain from any further ad hominem attacks, regardless of their targets and the wiki where the conflicts occur. --Chealer (talk) 05:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Statements about requester

Chealer

SHB2000 (talk • meta edits • global user summary • CA) and I have considerable points in common, notably our concern about the quality of content. Both he and I make huge efforts on quality control to maintain content integrity. One primary difference is how we do that: while I have rarely adopted content and have not had the time to watch any page in more than a decade, sticking to fixing the problems I encouter when using our contents, SHB2000 has spent huge time on that starting from his first year.

Either natively or as a result of the work he does fighting vandalism, SHB2000’s activities here appear to betray hypervigilance. Perhaps as a result of constant exposure to troublemakers, he suffers from hostile attribution bias, as (at least) 2 of the 4 first topics (from 4 different users) on his English Wikipedia discussion page demonstrate.

Another important difference is in maturity (SHB2000 does not indicate his age, but is (or at least was, still as of 2024) a student):

  1. Following the 3 error reports above, SHB2000 puts at least part of the blame on tools, or on―basically―who did the changes, usually trying to excuse jumping to conclusions bias.
  2. It is unclear if he tries to gain influence by inflating his edit count or if he wants to hide his involvement in conflicts, but he proceeds to a whopping 6 edits, with no intention other than removing 2 topics which are not even 1 month old from his talk page (and no effect other than removing 1 of them):
    1. diff
    2. diff
    3. diff
    4. diff
    5. diff
    6. Archive creation
  3. In March 2021, @Iridescent stops short of blocking him, but is concerned enough about his trigger-happiness to warn that “ every misplaced revert and warning is another editor potentially driven off Wikipedia ”
  4. The history of his personal pages (and personal discussion pages) is precious enough to be appreciated in its entirety, but some highlights should not be missed:


In January 2024, when a newcomer asks about his incredible experience, SHB2000 indicates he’s not paying much attention to his edit count(s). Long gone are the days of increasing the edit counter just by boasting about his ranking on the list of Wikivoyagers by number of edits. His weeks surely indeed have little time left to entertain his pride after his full-time studies and updating his personal pages on the English Wikipedia (202 edits, including some as necessary as [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46]), on Meta (286 edits, such as [47]), on Wikivoyage (651 edits) and others.

In November 2024, he indicates that his dream of becoming an admin has been thoroughly accomplished, perhaps letting him next focus on figuring out the purpose of that "Preview" button.

SHB2000 has difficulty managing his emotions, but no difficulty creating drama. I am sure that as it does in my case, his involvement in quality control makes emotional control a lot more challenging and subjects him to way more attacks than the average, but everything I see indicates his emotional challenges are at the very least a major factor in his case. He has made multiple contributions to several projects, and has clearly matured during these years, but would still benefit from oversight―and real breaks―to cool down and avoid becoming a passive. Granting him particular permissions so soon risks turning his retirements into actual retirements―from those who dare to disagree with him.

--Chealer (talk) 07:21, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Support

  1. Support Support as nominator. //shb (t • c) 11:10, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support Support per proposer. – Svārtava (tɕ) 11:52, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support Support Seems OK. --نوفاك اتشمان (talk) 12:23, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  4.  Weak support weak support per proposer --Cactus🌵 spiky ouch 13:02, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support Support --Stïnger （会話） 13:18, 28 July 2025 (UTC).[reply]
  6. Support Support --Adamant1 (talk) 16:16, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support Support Obviously, no objections to all evidence provided. Ahri Boy (talk) 16:44, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support Support – Per nominator. Passive-aggressive behavior ("j'espère que vous avez généralement meilleur goût que celui de plomb que j'en garde à la première bouchée, car [...] je n'en perçois qu'une toxicité qui [...] demanderait bien antidote"), persistent sarcastic remarks ("thank you for directing your ingratitude elsewhere"), ad hominem attacks ("Please learn to read before putting junk on other people’s talk pages") and similar behaviors have no place on Wikimedia projects per UCoC 3.1.1. – Aca (talk) 17:56, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Both of the English quotes come from my own Wiktionary talk page and are direct replies to derogatory comments by their addressee.

    @Aca: If (you think) the insults I was replying to violate neither CoC 2.1, 2.2 nor 3.1 (not to mention their author’s following violation of 3.2), it would be most helpful to add them on Policy:Universal Code of Conduct/Enforcement guidelines as examples of how the CoC is interpreted (or not enforced). Otherwise, I recommend you start by focusing on rogue administrators―yes🙄―rather than those of us doing what we can to manage troublemakers. --Chealer (talk) 06:15, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support Support Proven to be a burden and to lessen the impact and time spent on them I believe a global ban is right step towards the problem resolution.--A09|(pogovor) 19:43, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support Support This was one of the most obnoxious users I'd ever encountered in my ~19 years on Wikivoyage/Wikitravel, and I'm glad at least their tenure on that site was brief. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:46, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support Support Their shtick of performative outrage until anyone they interact with is exhausted is a poor fit for a collaborative projected based on the efforts of volunteers. I think the reserve of good faith this project has extended to this editor was exhausted years ago. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 05:23, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support Support If the OP's evidence laid out didn't settle it before me, the rather spectacular self-destruction by Chealer in response right here did so most thoroughly. - The Bushranger (talk) 06:22, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support Support User shows no willingness or capability to improve their behavior over 20+ years. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:15, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support Support By following the nomination links and reading their responses here, user shows no willingness or capability to improve their behavior for, at least, 10 years. --Ciseleur (talk) 10:08, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support Support * Pppery * it has begun 15:46, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support Support per proposer. JnpoJuwan (talk) 17:41, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support Support per the arguments above. Codename Noreste (talk) 18:34, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support Support Chealer makes an excellent case for why he should be banned on this very page. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 00:16, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Support Support I read some of Chealer's recent comments on Phabricator and am amazed. The priority field is for any person or team actually doing the work to tell others what to expect from their schedule – but Chealer changes it, because Chealer thinks it should be there for Chealer to tell everyone else how important he thinks the problem is. (Maybe that's how it worked at a previous job, so he wrongly assumed that's how it works everywhere?) When the main admin for the site tells him to stop it or get blocked, Chealer indicates that Chealer clearly knows more about how Phabricator should function than the person whose actual full-time job it is to keep Phabricator running, so everything should be done Chealer's way now.
    This pattern matches what I see at every wiki, and I assume also in his real life. Basic social skills are necessary for collaborative environments. When I say "basic social skills", I mean things like "When an authority figure tells you to stop messing with the priority field or get blocked, then you stop messing with the priority field". Or if you dislike the instructions, a person with a low (but not zero) level of social skills may respond to instructions with a question such as "Why can't I do whatever I want with this priority field?" or "Can you give me a link to the rules I need to follow if I don't want to be blocked?" Instead, Chealer tells the authority figure to stop posting off-topic comments – meaning, any comments about Chealer's misbehavior and impending block. I'm seeing none of the necessary social skills. Social skills and related skills, such as cognitive empathy (e.g., being able to predict in advance that if you say ____ to an authority figure, then they will feel angry and dislike you, instead of being shocked and surprised all the time by how completely irrational and unpredictable other people are), can be learned, but we don't teach them here. Chealer should be off all the wikis, without exception, unless and until he has average social skills. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:31, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You are either confused, or―more likely―deceptive. Most outstanding issues do not have "any person or team actually doing the work"; obviously, a definition cannot rely on such a factor. The person pushing that twisted definition is no other than that same Andre Klapper, who is not “the person whose actual full-time job it is to keep Phabricator running”, but rather a WMF employee. You must be confusing Phabricator with what is still called "Wikimedia Phabricator", Wikimedia’s instance of Phorge (a software suite which used to be [called] Phabricator, prior to forking). If you think Phorge should offer per-team or per-person priority fields, I recommend to push for that upstream (it is not a Wikimedia-specific need).
    “ When the main admin for the site tells him to stop it or get blocked, Chealer indicates that Chealer clearly knows more about how Phabricator should function than the person whose actual full-time job it is to keep Phabricator running, so everything should be done Chealer's way now. ”
    Misrepresenting other people is unacceptable, at least violating Wikipedia guidelines, all the more so when it’s intentional. Stop it.
    “ When I say "basic social skills", I mean things like "When an authority figure tells you to stop messing with the priority field or get blocked, then you stop messing with the priority field". ”
    Andre Klapper is surely authoritarian (and unlikely into "gentle parenting" if he takes care of any kid😄), but he is not an "authority figure" on that ITS. He is an administrator (see the Questions section for what that (used to?) mean), not its owner. He is an employee of the WMF, so any authority he may exert is wholly delegated by the foundation, and therefore from its elected board. If you are suggesting that oversight is insufficient, that is an issue which should be exposed and fixed, not feared. Whoever has privileges over that ITS should be accountable, just like sysops.
    “ "When an authority figure tells you to stop messing with the priority field or get blocked, then you stop messing with the priority field" ”
    I am the one who told Klapper to "stop messing with the priority field", if you wish to call a most diplomatic intervention that way.
    “ "Can you give me a link to the rules I need to follow if I don't want to be blocked?" ”
    Wow😆 The "Nomination statement" has the merit of demonstrating the naïveté of belief that following the rules would suffice not to be blocked. If my goal here was not to be blocked, I would have stopped holding admins accountable and just become one myself long ago. I would work on rugby, polo and video gaming content rather than on top-importance, often delicate and controversial topics. I would not constantly integrate, tackling the challenging issues nobody dares to touch because we fear disagreements or are sick about how we handle them here, or because they require extraordinary time/skill. In fact, the simplest would be to do nothing at all.
    Call me utopian if you wish, but I do believe in the "rule of law" (in other words, in the attainability of good governance). Clearly, you missed my personal page: “I contribute here to see results, not to spare egos. If I track some issue down to you, don’t take it personally; I am just as demanding from bureaucrats, administrators, myself or any other editor.”
    “ Instead, Chealer tells the authority figure to stop posting off-topic comments – meaning, any comments about Chealer's misbehavior and impending block. ”
    Which misbehavior? What I was asking A. Klapper there was just to cool down and stop the deception and apparent threats he was getting into.
    “ Social skills and related skills, such as cognitive empathy (e.g., being able to predict in advance that if you say ____ to an authority figure, then they will feel angry and dislike you, instead of being shocked and surprised all the time by how completely irrational and unpredictable other people are), can be learned, but we don't teach them here. ”
    Hah! You seem to misunderstand what empathy is, but rest assured I've been here long enough to know this would be the last place to learn social skills😅, long before reading your message reconfirmed it. But what you most misunderstand is the nature of my involvement here; there's a reason my page starts with a bold “BEWARE, HE BITES!”: I know most people here are more interested in doing their own thing than handling problematic participants―which is most understandable. Unfortunately, we mostly(?) learn by being confronted; constant failure to uphold accountability would make things even worse. I have been gifted with high social skills, and consider it my "duty" to use them, in particular with matters which others might feel intimidating.
    You see, what is socially skilled is context-dependent. When dealing with kids, it is often necessary to turn a blind eye, picking your battles and keeping reasonable expectations. But A. Klapper―like the vast majority of users―is neither a kid nor even a teenager. Expectations don't have to be so low. I dare hoping that Klapper is no manager, but when you were a WMF employee, he may have had some influence over you. Perhaps you still have an incentive not to anger him, if you hope to return there. I, however, am very unlikely to ever have any of my income depend in any way on Klapper. None of my contributions here were ever funded by the WMF. So my perspective is very different: while we have to limit our expectations from the average Wikimedian, we independent contributors can rightfully expect WMF employees like Klapper to behave sensibly. I am most aware that confronting someone will likely make them angry and dislike you in the short term, but our job is nowhere near complete. In the long term, colleagues benefit from authentic collaboration and exposure to occasional contrariety, which:
    • lets them realize how they can improve
    • makes them less upset the next time they feel antagonized
    • teaches them to deal with their emotions. If they do misreact to adversity, they will eventually realize the consequences and learn how to do better.
    My above quote is inexact; with new volunteer contributors, beflattering can be strategic, potentially keeping them motivated and involved long enough to do the necessary investments to reach their full potential. But cajoling longtime contributors who were granted privileges―in particular those compensated―in unsustainable. --Chealer (talk) 06:15, 31 July 2025 (UTC), tweaked 2025-08-09[reply]
    Andre was right and you were wrong. (Courtesy ping @AKlapper (WMF) since you're talking about them.) On Phab (or https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/, if you prefer, since you seem to prefer the more precise terminology), the dev or team that is writing the patch sets the priority. Random users do not set the priority. This is not the most intuitive way for the priority field to work, but it's how it works on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/. Perhaps the reason for it is so that a team's product manager can maintain a Kanban board like this one and not have the tasks constantly shuffling around in priority all the time. Perhaps you should consider being a bit more willing to calibrate to feedback, so that you don't interfere with other people's workflows. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:49, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Greetings Novem Linguae,
    “ On Phab (or https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/, if you prefer, since you seem to prefer the more precise terminology), the dev or team that is writing the patch sets the priority. Random users do not set the priority. ”
    As I wrote above, even if the issue is one which needs a "patch", most outstanding issues do not have any "dev or team" writing that patch; obviously, a definition cannot rely on such a factor. We can’t have a random developer set a null priority just because they have no intention to ever solve an issue (and not just because Phabricator has no null priority).
    “ Perhaps the reason for it is so that a team's product manager can maintain a Kanban board like this one and not have the tasks constantly shuffling around in priority all the time. ”
    Surely not; if the priority was the priority for a certain person like Klapper advocated, it would be constantly changing, based on their new priorities. We subscribers would deal with constant notifications about an issue’s personal priority increasing as it gets closer to someone’s top priorities, increasing again, then lowering with new priorities, increasing again, etc. Just try imagining the mess it would be if every subscriber was notified that a top priority issue’s Priority had been lowered to null (or Low, I guess), and asking for explanation only to figure out that the developer who some manager thought would be doing the work had an accident, or had left the company.🤯 Yes, the (normal/global) priority can change over time. The very ticket which angered Klapper so much probably exemplifies that; it used to be high, but I guess it lowered after some of the use cases were addressed differently, per the description. We could also realize the costs are higher than expected, but that would also cause changes with Klapper’s pseudo-definition. In any case, changes would never be near as excessive as what Klapper suggests. There’s a reason why nobody (but Klapper) does that.
    That being said, I am not saying Klapper has no valid concern. Again, I have nothing against asking upstream to support custom priorities. I would actually support that, and even consider it an important issue. But Phorge already supports custom date fields, which could―not without challenge― also satisfy Klapper’s wish.
    “ Perhaps you should consider being a bit more willing to calibrate to feedback, so that you don't interfere with other people's workflows. ”
    If you think I "interfere[d] with other people's workflows", feel free to explain how. --Chealer (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support Support Chealer's response showed me that they are not capable of maturing and addressing a problem that has persisted for well over a decade. jolielover♥talk 10:04, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support Support The history was strongly suggestive that a global ban was in order, and now the subject's combative response clarifies that this is not an editor who works collaboratively. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:41, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Support Support per all above. CyrusHickman (talk) 05:36, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Support Support Per proposer. DinhHuy2010 (talk) 08:52, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Support Support You're just causing too much towards the community as a whole. Usage of language such as "we" is appropriate after a certain point, and you're nowhere close to that from the evidence I've seen. Your attitude over at Phabricator was pretty bad. Leaderboard (talk) 09:45, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Leaderboard,
    It is unclear what you mean by "causing too much… milligrams(?!)", but if you think I haven’t reached that point, here is some work it would be best you―since that is the term you presumably privilege―do first. The Wikipedia Community acknowledges it has no single sense, but:

    A narrower definition of the Wikipedia community – for lack of a better word, let's call it the Wikipedia contributor community – is that group of contributors who create an identity (either a user account, or a frequently-used anonymous IP), and who communicate with other contributors.

    Even by that definition, I became part of the community on the very day I joined, 21 years ago.
    Even looking away from essays, "you" equate Wikipedia community with Wikipedians ("The Wikipedia community, collectively and individually known as Wikipedians). As for who Wikipedians are, Wikipedia:Wikipedians states:

    An unknown but relatively large number of unregistered Wikipedians also contribute to the site. As of 2012, most logged-in editors had edited as unregistered Wikipedians before registering their accounts.

    This implies unregistered editors who made less than 50 edits are mostly considered Wikipedians:

    76 percent of those respondents who had started anonymously said that they had made between one and 50 anonymous edits before they registered a user account. The majority of these respondents (54 percent) saw the benefit of having a user account only after editing Wikipedia anonymously for more than 10 times.

    So unless you disagree with the above or claim my thousands of edits are not worth 50 average [unregistered] edits, I'm afraid "the evidence [you have] seen" is far insufficient for you to judge this matter. --Chealer (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support Support. I’ve seen plenty of prickly users, users who skip pleasantries, but this is on another level. Funnily enough, they appear to make ad hominem attacks even in their denial of doing any such thing. Polomo (talk) 03:08, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Support Support Chealer says "It seems you missed the warning on my userpage" which says "BEWARE, HE BITES!". It seems he missed the message that biting isn't permitted in kindergarten or thereafter. Explaining how people need to interact with him at a point like this seems a pretty bad sign.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:23, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Greetings Prosfilaes,
    "biting" does not just have literal senses; when our guidelines ask not to bite, it is figurative. Most senses of "to bite" have nothing to do with the mouth. If you have any evidence that Lev Landau ever literally bit any of his students, let me know and I will remove the quote. I can assure you that I for one have no memory of ever biting someone, except for figuratively biting people who bite others. Landau did not install that sign to tell his students how they needed to interact with him; he was warning them about his ways and how to interpret his (frequent, but well-meaning) criticism. If Landau put that sign, I’m sure it’s because his ways caused issues. I may be more diplomatic than he was, but we Wikimedians face extra challenges:
    1. We communicate via text, which loses intonation.
    2. Perhaps even more importantly, we always communicate publicly, making it a lot harder for young egos to embrace criticism, or―at least―overcome it.
    3. Some of our projects are huge, getting us to deal with thousands of colleagues. There is no way newcomers will know us by reputation. And if we spare those we have never had positive interactions with from criticism, we end up giving very little feedback.
    It may be unfortunate, but since these exacerbate each other, I do think even the most tactful among us who focus on integration and training should consider such warnings. --Chealer (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    1. It's somewhat amazing that nowhere in that text did you consider you might be in error. If truly I didn't understand that to bite can be used figuratively, there's a good argument you failed to consider your audience. If you think that unrealistic--as you point out, figurative usage of to bite is common--then there's a good argument that you're misreading my message. Instead, you lecture me.
      Don't bite people, figuratively or literally. That doesn't mean you can't criticize, but don't draw blood while doing so. You are not a supergenius professor who can tell people how to deal with him, and have them take it. My point was that if you looking at a global ban, now is not the time to be telling others what they're doing wrong, and now is certainly not the time to be telling people how to communicate with you. Nothing in your response seems to indicate you understand that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:30, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Support Support If the Wikipedia contributor community were an archipelago of hermits each in their own burrow and unable to communicate with one other, it may well be that Chealer could be a valuable contributor. Then again, it's hard to see how such an organization could ever work. In any case, communication and collaboration is fundamental to Wikipedia's success, and for one reason or another, Chealer has demonstrated that he is entirely unable to work with others, and that is disqualifying, not only here, and other projects he has contributed to, but at any Wikimedia project. There is an interesting objection in the § Oppose section, about letting each project manage their own user bans. I see their point about independence and subsidiarity, but I would say the high likelihood of continued antagonistic and disruptive behavior at other wikis with its corrosive effect on civility and collaboration, and the ensuing timesuck among many editors, outweighs the acquiescence of one project where Chealer has 15 apparently inoffensive edits. Therefore, while I respect and sympathize with those oppose opinions, I heartily vote Support for the greater good of all. Mathglot (talk) 00:19, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It’s quite unfortunate to learn that the creator of Kune ni povos, a website "built by and for collaboration", is unable to cooperate. Congratulations for being so confident in your judgment; few people have the ability to grasp a person’s collaborative skills without knowing or having ever collaborated with that person.
    If you contribute to free software and ever come out of your (apparent―I have never heard about you) anonymity, feel free to let me know. Your remarkable diplomacy and collaborative skills would make you an interesting substitute the next time he is invited to a radio show episode on the topic of open source communities and collaboration. --Chealer (talk) 03:27, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Support Support per all the above, plus Chealer's response shows me that they fundamentally do not understand the problem. — BABR・talk 08:00, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Support Support Strong support Strong support. A global ban should only be considered for cases that not only involve a failure to comport with the behavioural expectations of a number of projects, but (insofar as the variances of those rules might leave a banned user of one project perfectly fit to contribute to another) also where the scale, recurrence, and intransigence of disruption paints a clear picture of competency issues which are universally relevant to the prospect of productive contribution to any collaborative project in the Wikimedia network. Unfortunately, I think there is sufficient evidence supplied here (not least by the user in questions themselves) to substantiate that this threshold has been met in the instant case. The amount of IDHT, the self-ascribed sense of authority, the bellicose tone brought into the various disputes that resulted in their bans, and just the general level of obduracy in refusing to accept community standards, where such conflict with the user's own best judgment about how a situation should be approached and his belief that he should be given a free hand, whatever the accepted best practices of the project in question; all of these are not just documented in the nomination and discussion above (and the various discussions linked therein) but indeed have been very clearly and immediately in evidence in how Chealer has chosen to react to the proposal, and the statements made by members of multiple communities here. This comes down to what some projects define as a "CIR" (competence is required) issue; I simply can't imagine that this user will have any more success in contributing to any other project in the WM ecosystem, given the nature of the problems that necessitated their existing indefs. And I don't think we should indulge the likely loss of community time and resources that would result from letting them bring their typical approach to cooperation into such projects. Snow Rise (talk) 21:29, 3 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm upgrading my level of support from reserved to emphatic, in light of the absolutely wild antics currently going on in the sections below and elsewhere--particularly Chealer's decision to abusively leverage the thanks function to harass SHB in clear retaliation for opening this discussion, and then responding with nothing but passive aggressive antagonism and snark when called out for it. This being how this user has chosen to act while the eyes of the global community are on them and they face the most absolute sanction that community can muster, I think it tells us all we need to know about just how flippant and undeterable this user is in respect to their most disruptive impulses.
    And this commitment to seeing themselves as a misunderstood savant trapped among us, ethically justified in in any form of stonewalling or retaliation, no matter how many in the community try to disabuse them of this view, is further testified to in their walls of text below an pedantic deconstruction of !votes above, where they engage in voluminous, meandering sophistry about everything that is wrong with the projects they have been banned from, and culture at large--while never for a second getting within miles of identifying, acknowledging, and addressing any of their own behaviour that brought them to this juncture.
    And finally, I've looked at still more of the discussions that have led to their being removed from individual projects, and they are all very tonally similar to what we are seeing here. Long chains of disputes that escalate from disagreements with individuals to groups of editors, to community and/or administrative discussions, and all of it defined by a tenacious refusal to see any of it as due to anything other than the mistakes, malfeasance, abuses, ego, or inferior perspectives of others (and admins in particular). Just an unbroken record of the worst kind of wikilawyering, hostility, and IDHT. Any reservations I had before (this is the first time I have been moved to support a global ban in a couple of decades with the projects) has evaporated. If anything, at this point I am surprised this hasn't come sooner. Snow Rise (talk) 21:28, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Support Support : I was not convinced at all by his responses, which demonstrate an inability to question his own practices. On the contrary, they are reaffirmed with an extraordinary aplomb. Having received no response below, I believe that I have been sufficiently patient. Duly noted. — Richaringan (永遠 (ながちじち) んかい !) 15:17, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Support Support Ternera (talk) 15:51, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Support Support —Matrix (user page (@ commons) - talk?) 20:50, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Support Support – Phương Linh (T · C · CA · L · B) 04:30, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Morally Support Support, by investigating their "response", it looks like the relationship between MZMcBride and Chealer isn't simple, , I don't claim that they aren't sockpuppets, but probably there needs further investigations that whether MZMcBride is Chealer's meatpuppet. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:04, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Support Support. When many people are mad at you, the only right move is to apologize. Arguing is the opposite of what you should do, yet the arguing continues. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:36, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Greetings Novem Linguae,
    If you see any argument you find inappropriate, feel free to respond. Otherwise, argumentum ad populum is not the strongest argument against arguing. --Chealer (talk) 06:32, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

  1.  Weak oppose Oppose (changed to weak oppose after reading Response from Chealer), but with great appreciation for the thorough accounting provided by the OP and recognition that this is a GF RfC, given the history they've itemized. Chealer seems like an editor who is much more assertive and confident than is customarily welcome. Recognizing the subjectivity of the criterion of abuse, it is my opinion that examples given — though each correctly handled in isolation — don't collectively rise to the level at which extraordinary measures would be appropriate. It seems each project has been able to police itself and any injuries Chealer inflicts are not of such severity that even the hypothetical possibility of a further injury creates risks of such gravity that this extraordinary action would be necessary. Having said all of the preceding, I should also note that I have never personally interacted with Chealer and I don't mean to detract from the real experiences of those who have done so and may have more of a first-hand experience from which to draw. Chetsford (talk) 03:03, 29 July 2025 (UTC); edited 05:40, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi, I do definitely appreciate your insight :). I don't mean to change your opinion, but the one thing I'll note is that a lot of it isn't really contained (and I do think my structure might be to blame) – or at least, not contained anymore. They've been wiki-hopping their disruption since their frwiki block, moving to frwiktionary, then enwikivoyage, enwiktionary and Meta, each time they get blocked. I would've definitely agreed that each project would've been able to police Chealer's disruptions before the frwiktionary block, but their disruption has significantly extended x-wiki since. Best, //shb (t • c) 03:21, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I was shocked to see them give lessons about personal attacks, but I guess I figured it now. It must be because they're such a regular of unpoliced "wiki-hopping" disruption that they're so qualified to teach us about it.
    Conduct like theirs might make it a self-fulfilling prophecy; what they see as wiki-hopping disruption may in fact be wiki-shopping from clever troublemakers who―like them―cannot refrain from "justifying" ever-easier wiki-hopping blocks.
    To set the record straight once again, I have in fact been contributing to the English Wiktionary since years before my (very) short Wikivoyage adventure. And my Meta account was never blocked. --Chealer (talk) 29 July 2025
  2.  Strong oppose as egregious MDM and apparent personal vendetta by requester. --Chealer (talk) 29 July 2025
    What does "MDM" stand for? * Pppery * it has begun 04:57, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Pppery: Oh, bad things we're all too familiar with (despite the indeed much less familiar acronym). --Chealer (talk) 05:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    (So others don't have to click that link) it means "Malinformation, Disinformation, and Misinformation" * Pppery * it has begun 15:27, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ahem, clear (and obviously unconstructive) personal vendetta. --Chealer (talk) 05:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    …which seems to justify turning anything involving those he considers as his enemies personal (see this comment and the last subsection).😓 --Chealer (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    And again. --Chealer (talk) 07:21, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  3. contre par principe (je suis opposer à cette procédure qui n'a jamais fait l'objet d'une consultation des différents projets), cet utilisateur n'a jamais posé de problème sur wikisource francophone. laissez les projets gérer leur propre vandale --Le ciel est par dessus le toit (talk) 11:07, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I got the following translation from Google Gemini (if posting this is inappropriate, I am fine with removal): "Against this on principle (I am opposed to this procedure which has never been consulted on by the various projects), this user has never caused any problems on French-speaking Wikisource. Let the projects manage their own vandals." --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:28, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I am fluent enough in French to roughly translate to: "[I am] opposed on principle (I am opposed to this procedure, which has never been subject to a consultation on the various projects); this user has never posed a problem on French Wikisource. Let the projects manage their own vandals." Cremastra (talk) 17:46, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  4.  Weak oppose on principle per le ciel est par dessus le toit. Cremastra (talk) 13:44, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose Oppose Per Chetsford and Le ciel est par dessus le toit. That said, if this does not pass (seems unlikely), Chealer would do well to become much less combative and focus much more on content contribution or else he is likely to become blocked on additional projects.

    Additional thoughts: any project can adopt the following policy: "Any editor who is blocked on at least 4 Wikimedia projects shall be blocked here as well." Such a policy makes it possible for the project to avoid having to deal with serial cross-wiki trouble makers at the cost of losing their potential contribution, if it so wishes. But it is then the project's decision to adopt such a policy rather than a decision of editors who are outsiders to that project. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:54, 2 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Greetings @Dan,
    Thank you, but I must say that not becoming blocked on additional projects is not part of my goals. If a project wants to block top talent, they are free to; they will be the one paying the price. You can only do so much to save adults from themselves.
    That being said, I find it unclear what you mean by "focus much more on content contribution". (Virtually?) All our activity here is supposed to contribute to content. Of course, fixing an article has a more immediate effect than reporting a MediaWiki bug, but in the short/medium/long term, are you saying some contributions do not help? Obviously, if I educate someone about policy and proper usage of our tools and that contributor turns out to be dead, then it’s unlikely that my message will have contributed to content. But I find it unclear how to avoid that or what you are suggesting concretely.
    Finally, I must say that while the policy underlying the requester’s proposal is quite flawed, I support it in spirit; someone’s capacity to contribute to any Wikimedia project is based on their technical and social skills, self-criticism and ethics. There are several technical skills which are (mostly) project-independent, like researching skills and MediaWiki mastery, and social skills are evidently equivalent for a given language, but it’s probably true most skills are variable. However, I deeply believe that the #1 issue with troublemakers is their lack of ethics (which includes rigor) and self-criticism. And a lack of self-control or other deficiency in these areas on one project will most likely entail a similar deficiency on most other projects.
    Nevertheless, I am not saying it is all black or white. We should not expect the same competences from contributors to edit the Hebrew version of wikivoyage:Diamond rings in Antwerp than to edit the English version of w:mRNA vaccine. Ideally, this process would be replaced with evaluations of each contributor’s overall quality and requirements for contribution to various projects/sub-projects. But that seems like a distant dream. --Chealer (talk) 11:17, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

  • Neutral Neutral I have spent over an hour reading through this discussion and the linked pages. The main thing I am left with (more than anything) is annoyance toward Chealer. I believe casting a vote based on that emotional reaction would be unhelpful. Sorry, --ginaan(T/C) 10:24, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

Richaringan

Good morning @Chealer,
Perhaps you remember me, since I was one of the French-Wiktionary sysops who ruled on your case in May 2025. Your implication here, in truth, does not surprise me unduly. I don’t retract a single word of my intervention and I fully approve the decision, albeit abrupt, of my colleagues.
You state above that “@SHB2000 has a very dichotomous view of contributors, […]”.
To what extent the page « In Rome, behave like the Romans » shed light on your understanding and challenge your perspective on the quote you retrieved?

“I was clear that you’re not a project regular and the fact that you can barge into a wiki that you aren’t a local community member of and tell regulars how to interpret policy is what constitutes as disruptive behaviour.”


Regards — Richaringan (永遠 (ながちじち) んかい !) 09:37, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Richaringan,
I have no "understanding" of that quote; it was not actually directed to me, but disinformation he must have directed to casual readers to influence the outcome of his request. I never told "regulars"―whatever that means―or anyone―how to interpret Wikivoyage policy; the comment I made which SHB2000 and Ikan Kekek still struggle to swallow is basically me agreeing with @Piotrus that links to Wikipedia should indeed not be prohibited as a general rule, as his question specified:

Better than "MoS blah blah" (I mean Wikivoyage:Links to Wikipedia)? Because AFAIK Wikivoyage:The traveller comes first is a rule as well? I am looking forward to mental gymnastics of seeing folks explain how linking to Wikipedia here would not be in travellers best interest

The reason I quoted it was to highlight SHB2000’s misunderstanding of our collaborative practices and his habit of focusing on his opponent’s activity and permissions rather than on substance.

That being said, it is not uninteresting that you mention that essay, which provides some wise advice for contributors with such a goal. But even if I had been a junior contributor, willing to do more than fix that article and become a Wikivoyage Roman, and even if that essay had belonged to the relevant project and been actual policy, the crucial point is that it obviously would not have forbidden any of what I did, let alone condone censoring my comments. In fact, on the contrary, it encourages discussion:

Surtout, discutez avec les Romains que vous rencontrez dans la rue ou au bistro.

--Chealer (talk) 15:02, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good evening @Chealer,
I very much regret that you didn’t answer my question. Moreover, your response partly confirms my analysis, shared by @SHB2000 and other participants in this request for comment. Despite this, I am giving you an opportunity to remedy this ; I will examine your last comment in detail.
“[I]t was not actually directed to me, but disinformation he must have directed to casual readers to influence the outcome of his request” : please don’t shift the blame for this ambiguity. You’re the one who, here, attributes this quote to SHB2000 without providing the necessary context. But to be honest, I don’t really care as long as it won’t prevent what follows.
Indeed, the question I ask above is an intellectual dare aimed at making you think about your relationship towards Wikimedian communities, I was not asking for your point of view on a specific fact, which in fact greatly limits the range of possibilities.
I would like you to take ownership of this issue to question this relationship, because in my opinion, the reason for this ban request is not a series of technical mistakes (that we can forgive), but rather a misunderstanding of community standards — whether explicit or implicit — which quite rightly led to these blocks (in other words, you are accused of not recognizing the community order and imposing an austere asymmetry to your interlocutors). As you have understood, my questioning is deeper and the answer we are waiting for could be favorable to you at the end of this request.
“But even if I had been a junior contributor, willing to do more than fix that article and become a Wikivoyage Roman, and even if that essay had belonged to the relevant project and been actual policy, the crucial point is that it obviously would not have forbidden any of what I did, let alone condone censoring my comments” : off-topic. You’re addressing procedural legitimacy where I’m expecting a response on the relationship with the community. I’m not interested in whether you violated a rule in this specific case, or even if I have the legal right to intervene in this matter, because it has already been addressed. We will not replay the match.
Finally, there is a self-contradiction between “I never told "regulars"―whatever that means―or anyone―how to interpret Wikivoyage policy” and “basically me agreeing with @Piotrus that links to Wikipedia should indeed not be prohibited as a general rule”, because you are still aligning yourself on a reading of the local policy. Anyway, that’s not the point.
I find it a shame that you are approaching the subject in such a reductive way. I would prefer if you would focus only on my question, otherwise the section will become unbearable and that will not work in your favor (RL; DR).
Courtesy ping: @Ikan Kekek. — Richaringan (永遠 (ながちじち) んかい !) 18:06, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe this is a case where Chealer would be advised to heed the first rule of holes. - The Bushranger (talk) 21:58, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@The Bushranger, I think that is very apt advice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:44, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe this is a case where you would better read advice before offering it, as well as the title of the section you write in. (The preceding does not constitute advice to add an Insults section.) --Chealer (talk) 06:15, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for continuing to confirm, with each and every post you make here, that you are not compatible with a collaborative project. - The Bushranger (talk) 01:15, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @The Bushranger and @WhatamIdoing,
I’m sorry, but I don't think your comments are constructive. They’re adding fuel to the fire.
When I ask questions to someone directly, it’s because I expect an answer. So, asking Chealer to stop arguing, especially since it’s done peacefully here, is not the best thing to do.
The aggressive response above shouldn’t come as a surprise, although I don’t condone it. If you have anything you would like to say that is unrelated to the exchange I have with Chealer, you’re welcome to ask a question below or leave a comment in the section “Statement from other users”.
Regards — Richaringan (永遠 (ながちじち) んかい !) 09:36, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies - I've struck my statement above and moved it there. - The Bushranger (talk) 09:39, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Richaringan, I've no wish to prevent you from talking to him, but Chealer's responses on this page, taken generally and as a whole (e.g., telling me that "You are either confused, or―more likely―deceptive"), are making people think even worse of him.
Since Chealer believes that it's good "not to spare egos" (an attitude that is incompatible with collaboration, since if someone refuses to consider the emotional effect on others of their discussion style, people will refuse to collaborate with them – and looking at his block logs, they already have decided this about him at a surprising number of wikis) and that "authentic collaboration" means directly telling people that they're screwing up because "contrariety" will benefit them, then I'm sure he won't complain about his feelings being hurt when I say that he is screwing up with his approach to this discussion. Of course, I assume that his goal is to remain unblocked; I could be "confused" on that point. Or maybe I'm being "deceptive" when I say that if someone is facing a ban due to their alleged lack of social skills, then that person needs to show some social skills in the ban discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:20, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing,
I agree with everything you said and I didn’t want to offend you.
However, it seemed to me that Socratic dialogue was the best way to give Chealer a window of redemption through posture change and self-reflection. I must be too naive — or too pious — to accept that some people won’t change. You are obviously not “deceptive”, that goes without saying.
I’m waiting for a response from the person concerned, and if it doesn’t come, I will not wait too long before taking a decision. — Richaringan (永遠 (ながちじち) んかい !) 19:51, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
“ Moreover, your response partly confirms my analysis, shared by @SHB2000 and other participants in this request for comment. ”
I do not know which analysis you are referring to.
“ please don’t shift the blame for this ambiguity ”
I do not know which ambiguity or blame you are referring to. Perhaps you mean lack of clarity? I am sorry, but I provided the context which was necessary for what I illustrated with the quote… not necessarily for any usage you can make of that quote.
“ Indeed, the question I ask above is an intellectual dare aimed at making you think about your relationship towards Wikimedian communities, I was not asking for your point of view on a specific fact, which in fact greatly limits the range of possibilities.

I would like you to take ownership of this issue to question this relationship, because in my opinion, the reason for this ban request is not a series of technical mistakes (that we can forgive), but rather a misunderstanding of community standards — whether explicit or implicit — which quite rightly led to these blocks (in other words, you are accused of not recognizing the community order and imposing an austere asymmetry to your interlocutors). ”
  • I do not know what you mean by "take ownership of this issue to question this relationship", but I realize our misunderstanding may come from differences in perspectives; when I started here, Wikipedia (that is basically what we were) was certainly not like classic wikis, but it was still basically a wiki, with lots of the bad that entails and lots of the good that entails. There was no requirement to read hundreds or thousands of pillars, policies, guidelines or essays. We didn't even have quite that many. "Ignore all rules" was already a thing, but applied with judgment. There was (in some ways and for some people) less barrier to entry and less regulation. You could more or less join as you would join another wiki. Even autoconfirmed didn’t exist. @One of my friends was involved and we would surprise people telling them they could do their part too. People could contribute as editors/integrators without requesting admin privileges or any special permission; we didn’t have a "relationship towards the Wikipedia communities"; we were Wikipedians, not just "irregular contributors". There have always been issues, but in general, at the time, adminship was considered as a role, well illustrated by the logo still in use. I felt part of the English Wikipedia community even if English was a second language and I never sought adminship. Obviously, I am never going back to Wikivoyage or the English Wikipedia, but otherwise, I do not consider that I ever left Wikimedian communities.
    Don’t get me wrong; things were even worse than they currently are, but there was no such dichotomy. Becoming a "janitor"―as they were occasionally called―was only supposed to grant technical power, and would not relieve from the expectation of behaving at least as well as regular editors.
  • The only misunderstandings of community standards which led to these blocks that I am aware of certainly do not make them right.
  • It is highly unclear what you mean by "imposing an austere asymmetry to your interlocutors"―even I do not get it.
“ As you have understood, my questioning is deeper and the answer we are waiting for could be favorable to you at the end of this request. ”
This is not supposed to be about favoring anyone, but about taking the decision best for Wikimedia.
“ off-topic. You’re addressing procedural legitimacy where I’m expecting a response on the relationship with the community. I’m not interested in whether you violated a rule in this specific case, or even if I have the legal right to intervene in this matter, because it has already been addressed. We will not replay the match. ”
This is not about playing any match, nor about procedural legitimacy; the essay you refer to was never invoked to justify Wikivoyage’s decision, nor even part of its doctrine. As for being "off-topic", I answered the question you asked, but nobody can guess what your expectations were. Again, your language ("the relationship with the community") betrays your dichotomous vision of Wikimedian communities, which I―for one―never shared.

Finally, there is a self-contradiction between “I never told "regulars"―whatever that means―or anyone―how to interpret Wikivoyage policy” and “basically me agreeing with @Piotrus that links to Wikipedia should indeed not be prohibited as a general rule”, because you are still aligning yourself on a reading of the local policy.

I struggle to see any contradiction at all there. To be fair, I find the section Piotrus created prone to confusion due to apparent discrepancy between its title and contents, so it may not be surprising if there was a misunderstanding there. But basically, what he asked is whether links to Wikipedia should be prohibited as a general rule, and I answered that no, they should not be (even if that would contradict any doctrine on the topic).
“ I find it a shame that you are approaching the subject in such a reductive way. I would prefer if you would focus only on my question, otherwise the section will become unbearable and that will not work in your favor (RL; DR). ”
It is unclear what you mean by "RL; DR", but again, we should not seek favoritism here. You call my approach reductive, yet unfocused… it’s unclear, but I did focus on your question, which is for sure pretty "intellectual" (if that is a synonym for "vague"). I did my best to answer it, but if that doesn’t satisfy you, it will surely simplify to phrase it without referring to a deceptive quote. --Chealer (talk) 06:15, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good afternoon @Chealer,
Let’s restart from the beginning, since the “intellectual” approach doesn’t convince you. I’ll be more straightforward.
Are you able to adopt a reflective and introspective stance on past exchanges with the various contributors?
Do you acknowledge that some comments went beyond the editorial debate and constituted ad hominem attacks?
What do you deduce from these long years of contribution and your multiple blocks on Wikimedia project, after reflexion on those questions?
Is there even a small part of you ready to apologize for the harm caused to other contributors?
Would you be ready to return to contributing on new healthy bases with a more constructive approach?
Your response could be decisive regarding the vote I’ll leave above.
Post scriptum:
  • « RL; DR » was a mistake. I meant « TL; DR », which stands for Too Long; Didn’t Read;
  • At no point I spoke about “seek[ing] favoritism”;
  • I will not take into account your assertion concerning me (“your language […] betrays your dichotomous vision of Wikimedian communities”), resulting from a misunderstanding.
— Richaringan (永遠 (ながちじち) んかい !) 13:26, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Richaringan,

“ Are you able to adopt a reflective and introspective stance on past exchanges with the various contributors? ”
Of course

“ Do you acknowledge that some comments went beyond the editorial debate and constituted ad hominem attacks? ”
Way too many of the above exchanges are full of ad hominem attacks. Now, I suppose you’re asking about my "attacks".
I am a skeptic as well as a critic. I do challenge people a lot (and on rare occasions, unnecessarily). Now, the reason why I quoted “BEWARE, HE BITES!” in my offices (and more recently here) is not to warn about any behavioral issue I have. What Landau (and I) meant to do is to warn that our criticism is generally not "personal", even if criticizing someone’s general behavior is occasionally needed. I am just as critical of anyone (with equal seniority).
So, thankfully, the quote is hyperbolic; I am in fact known for being nuanced and diplomatic. I do (relative to others😅) very few mistakes, but when I do a significant mistake which affects others, I am the first to amend myself. I am able to step on the little pride I have left at my age. If something I wrote which I have not already retracted and/or apologized for looks disrespectful and like a personal attack, it is almost certainly tit for tat, usually a rhetorical device meant to let the addressee realize they have crossed a line and should return to substance.
Then again, I was not half my age when I started here and didn’t have ¼ of my LSSP experience. I have always been a highly respectful person, but I am not perfect and certainly cannot remember everything I did here. I do have a vague souvenir of looking back at my first edit and not being impressed.

“ What do you deduce from these long years of contribution and your multiple blocks on Wikimedia project, after reflexion on those questions? ”
Wow, big question…
@Sanger was right?😂
Seriously, I could write a book―perhaps multiple books―about that. But many have already been written. Even I already wrote quite a bit. If you are interested in Wikipedia’s quality and social challenges and haven’t heard about Nupedia, that’s a good starter. Mako wrote it well too:
Larry summarizes it pretty well too:
In other words, it’s a tough place for integrators focusing on quality.

The causes could be the topic of studies and books. I am no sociologist, but a rough diagnosis would be as follows.
The vast majority of us are young men, many of whom have more time―and pride―than skills and maturity. Those who are more mature are chased―sometimes intentionally―by the behaviors of that demographic. Many of these contributors have a restricted set of skills/interest where they can contribute, and will tend to focus their contributions on these, often developing a sense of ownership on "their" content.
So, integrators are working on a minefield:
  1. When we try to just fix such content, "owners" often oppose, which can quickly escalate.
  2. If―instead, or additionally―we dig to the source of issues and tell contributors about their mistakes, no matter how gently, we often get even worse reactions. Unfortunately, although it is surely worse with our demographic, this phenomenon is in no way specific to Wikimedia or LSSP. Anyone who has reviewed even a little code from peers knows that even with exemplary caution/diplomacy, backlash can be brutal. Trying to set standards is challenging.
Unfortunately, I am an archetypical reviewer. Whether it’s when reading an encyclopedia or using software, when I see a problem, even when it’s not my fault and I’m not paid, I try doing something so others don’t have to go through the same. My work is mostly integration: reviewing, diagnosing, fixing, reporting when I lack the skills, permissions or time, teaching and training colleagues, both in my mandates and social production.
Now, once you step on a mine, other factors come into play:
  1. The shortage of administrators, relative to project controversiality and participant quality. Administrators are dragged into countless disputes, and even when they arbiter on an area where they are qualified, they cope by evaluating more superficially.
  2. The lack of proper compensation for contributors means we are more prone to "reward" them with administrative status, as the least recognition for their activity, even those who lack the maturity to manage their pride and the added pressure which comes with all the additional tasks these permissions allow helping with.
  3. → The less experienced and the more overloaded admins are, the more mistakes they do.
  4. Because our shortages in admin manpower is even greater, administrators feel extra entitled to break the rules when they feel that is the right thing do do.
  5. As the expectations from them lower, young admins whose egos were hurt and who are unable to recognize their mistakes feel there will be no consequences if they just sanction their "enemies", even if that breaks the rules.
  6. → The less experienced admins are and the more reckless they act, the more likely they are to ignore (in any of its senses) our blocking policy and use blocks as punishment or retaliation.
  7. Despite the ongoing decline, some of our projects are huge; for instance, the English Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of unvetted editors, a huge proportion of them lacking technical or social skills, not to mention vandals. Nobody there, even senior admins, can know most people. And yet, we lack a reputation system. We don’t have an effective way to gauge a user’s net value, or just separating troublemakers from juniors from the elite. Your edit count says little; your account could have tens of thousands of edits, but still be Essjay’s. The only heuristic we can access cheaply are the history of your privileges. Even projects using barnstars don’t have a standardized way allowing to quickly see how decorated one is.
All of the above means committed integrators who do not seek administrative permissions and play by the rules will face a block sooner rather than later. But it doesn’t stop there: once an overloaded/junior admin does that, #7 makes it much easier for another one to follow. And at that point, you are at high risk of organizational mobbing:
Sarri.greek’s admission of such a cascade was extremely understandable given the vastly different case, but shows that even her 7 years of tireless contributions did not shield her from that phenomenon.
Had I pretended that I had made a mistake when it all started, we would have been spared from this request, but that is not my style. I am here to fix what I can, not to flatter admins, invent guilt from myself or anyone, seek badges or status, or waste time on mismanaged projects.
Administrators work with the tools they have. For some, blocking is hammering, and every disagreement is a nail:
  • They can’t tell the system that they agree more with editor x than editor y, so it’s more or less the law of the instrument; what they can is block editor y for a couple days. Unfortunately, beyond demotivating y, that also misleads other contributors.
  • When the dispute is too complicated, they guess, mostly based on:
    1. what they can understand from each party’s actions
    2. which party requested administrative intervention first (which is usually content "owners")
    3. what they know about each party, which―in huge projects like the English Wikipedia―is often nothing.
    So, by lack of a proper reputation system, they will just look at what comes closest to it: the privileges each party has/had. If x is an administrator while y was blocked twice, x must be right.
There are very few―if any―systems designed to support LSSP projects with the English Wikipedia’s scale. Stack Exchange’s platform is not bad, but is designed to encourage contributions and overly positive (it disincentivizes negative reviews and is not weighted). As for MediaWiki, its only merit may be not to pretend to convey a user’s reputation. Unfortunately, the main tool it offers to palliate makes it overly negative. Thanks help a lot, but even after a decade, they remain a half-baked extension, less discoverable than blocks, and entirely unbalanced (they were a "WikiLove" idea, so they only allow thanking), and consequently little help to evaluate how problematic or valuable a contributor is.
Consequently, there are very few experts and people who truly care about quality left. This makes the situation worse for those of us who stay:
  1. There is a lot more feedback to give per integrator.
  2. Contributors are a lot less used to receiving negative feedback.
And those who do stay tend to do less (not just because they are busier).
I hope no one interprets the above as an attack on youth; I started social production at 18 and have no regrets (but perhaps some of the projects I chose early). Young manpower is a godsend, and I am very worried by the decline in youth activism. I am absolutely fine with most of the work being done by young adults or even minors―at least as long as their involvement does not hurt them. What I meant to say is that on some topics, at least supervision by experienced contributors is needed. Maturity is not directly proportional to age, but letting permissions be mostly based on activity, regardless of maturity and skills, makes disputes even more heated.

“ Is there even a small part of you ready to apologize for the harm caused to other contributors? ”
If I did any wrong I haven’t already apologized for, I would certainly apologize with interests. I was part of 2 development teams (in different organizations) which had a culture of buying food (like chocolate) to your colleagues as apology for mistakes. As an accountability champion, I kept that brilliant (outgoing) habit at a different workplace, if only for my own peace of mind. I also tried to import it in another team, but at a hybrid workplace where it never picked up (not because others didn’t mess up😏), only resulting in a few boxes of donuts purchased and the excuse to finish the leftovers.
So when my personal page explains “I take great care not to accidentally introduce regressions, but if you find that I did anyway, please tell me, and thank you in advance. I am too old to have an ego.”, I mean it. I've never offered bounties in social production contexts so far (except for issue fixes), but I would be glad to should that ever be physically practical. So I do not just apologize; I thank whoever made me realize my unfairness. Memory of these few and far between times where we manage to overcome our egos and reach movie-worthy disagreement resolutions brings back this rare Wikimedia instance, but just searching for the string "Sorry and thank you" demonstrates that habit is far from new:
  1. debian-release
  2. www-validator
  3. Tikiwiki-cvs/svn
  4. debian-publicity
I just stumbled on this Wikipedia case too. It’s easy to find more. Even on this wiki.
Now that I studied SHB2000’s case a little bit, I realize he seems to have a challenge which may very well contribute to explain some of what I highlighted above. While it is no excuse, I do hope my tone was not unnecessarily harsh to him.

“ Would you be ready to return to contributing on new healthy bases with a more constructive approach? ”
Regarding constructivity, as I just wrote, I became a lot more mature since I joined here, but constructiveness is one thing which has been part of me for ages; I have been at my peak for many years and could hardly improve.
Now, to answer your question:
  1. English Wikipedia:
    1. Besides "regular editors" and Maury Markowitz, several admins were involved. While the most problematic (JzG) relinquished their administrative permissions and Bbb23 retired, Swarm has become a Senior Administrator III and @Ponyo is still active as an administrator, but none of them offered any apology. There was no amendment by anyone in that community, and the only display of accountability was Bbb23’s recall.

      Even after I reported the disastrous process of appealing to the BASC, there was no indication that anything had been fixed. And I was just sadenned to learn that the only Wikipedian who expressed an intention to rectify things was ill and died a year later😓, before they could fulfill that commitment… RIP Kevin🙏, RIP English Wikipedia.
    2. More importantly, Wikipedia remains highly political. At my age, I am unfortunately a lot less idealistic than I was when I joined. I am not sure I ever had enough time to afford collaborating in a project so prone to controversy, open to unvetted participants and without proper governance, but I certainly do not at this point. I haven’t seen even the tenth of the necessary governance reform performed over the last decade.
    3. Resuming my contribution there would feel like condoning MDM again. I mean, even w:Help:Introduction to Wikipedia (1 click from its homepage) is decades out of date (emphasis not mine):

      Anyone can edit almost every page; just find something that can be improved and make it better!

      (not to mention the “ Get to know some members of Wikipedia's diverse, enthusiastic community. ”
      label🙄).
    I still believe a reliable, accessible and quality encyclopedia would be tremendously valuable, and hugely appreciate all the information offered on the English Wikipedia until then, but my moral debt has been settled a long time ago. I've given them plenty of chances, so No, I fully stand by my decision. If they think they can do it without us, let them prove it. If I contribute to such an encyclopedia, it will be through another project (either within or outside Wikimedia).
  2. French Wikipedia:
    The lack of gratitude is one thing―which we have to accept―but utter disrespect is another. I stand by the expectations I set, which they totally failed to meet.
    Much of #1.2 and #1.3 apply here too anyway. I already forgot much project-specific knowledge. Even granting a spectacular amendment, it would not be worth the learning curve. I already don’t use the French Wikipedia that often, so I find less issues there. There’s another major issue too: maintaining an almost completely separate version for each language is prohibitively expensive. It means we have fewer resources, of lesser quality, which are less mature and harder to manage. Even for French, that shows a lot.
    Definitely not
  3. French Wiktionary:
    Given what happened there, this would first require serious apologies/amendments:
    1. Neither Lyokoï nor Lepticed7 has offered anything close to an apology, nor been sanctioned in any way.
    2. The editor who started the final chapter has not faced any disciplinary measures to my knowledge, despite a detailed report. 2 administrators diagnose a shortage of patrolling manpower, so how do they addres it? They block a top reviewer👏.
    And it goes way beyond that:
    1. It is in no way coincidental that my journey there exposed all of that; the governance deficits are grave:
      1. Undefined or weak collective decision-making
      2. Inability to retain skilled contributors. It’s one thing to deal with problematic content, but dealing with problematic contributors is a whole different matter. A look at their list of mentors is unbelievable: Noé, Lyokoï, Danÿa, even Lepticed7 and Destraak are among the main 10… and I don’t even know if the others are any better (I don’t know them)!
    2. What I did not realize when I started contributing to the French Wiktionary is that what gave it momentum was the expiry of copyrights on version 8 of the DAF. Unfortunately:
      1. The degree to which the French Wiktionary relies on the DAF 8 means it is largely outdated by nearly a century.
      2. There will likely never be another import of such importance, since:
        1. The Académie has seriously slowed down. The DAF 9 is probably not entering the public domain before decades have passed.
        2. Even if the DAF 9 or a somewhat up-to-date source was available now, merging it would be a tremendous project, which the French Wiktionary surely don’t have the resources to achieve, considering the DAF 8’s import remains unfinished.
    3. Many of the observations on my English Wiktionary personal page unfortunately apply just as much.
    So, now that I made the research underlying the above: No, I am not giving the Wiktionnaire any more chance on a volunteer basis.
  4. Wikivoyage: Not this century. Censorship is a red line for me.

P.S.:
  • The abbreviation of "too long; didn't read" you were thinking about is "TL;DR", without a space. But that is not what you meant. "TL;DR" means you did not read something (in its literal sense). What you meant here is just "too long", which a single extra character would have sufficed to write in a correct, much clearer and typo-proof form as "verbose".
  • “ At no point I spoke about “seek[ing] favoritism” ”
    Right, and nobody wrote that you did. But you wrote “I would prefer if you would focus only on my question, otherwise the section will become unbearable and that will not work in your favor (RL; DR).” This request is about what is in the favor of Wikimedia (which is opposed to what is in my favor, since as a volunteer, my self-interest is to let others do the job). --Chealer (talk) 03:27, 10 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Use of thanks function

Chealer, any particular reason why you decided to randomly thank three of my edits on Requests for comment/Global ban for Shāntián Tàiláng? //shb (t • c) 23:53, 1 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Chealer, for the record, I expect an actual reply to this or else I will consider this an abuse of the thank feature. //shb (t • c) 09:32, 4 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note to admins that it is possible to block a user from using the thanks feature. —Matrix (user page (@ commons) - talk?) 20:48, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is indeed; I don't think it's worth a block given the trajectory of this discussion, though. //shb (t • c) 04:27, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Receive my apologies should my thanks have offended you as much as people disagreeing with you on a wiki where you have bureaucrat status. Avoiding thanks explains how you can disable notifications caused by thanks. --Chealer (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is not my habit to do things randomly―in particular on Wikimedia platforms. The reason I "thanked your edits" is the same reason why I recognized at least 3 more edits which could contribute to a successful ban of that participant.
Adding an entry of a few 64-bit integers to a table is not particularly costly. You can trust me that it is way cheaper than losing our contributors because they were insulted, harassed, defamed, all while receiving no wage nor expressions of gratitude, and losing expertise while the rest of us ends up even more burned out and intolerant to each other.
Should you dare again to propose a ban of a veteran contributor with―let’s say―15000+ contributions, and―after thoroughly researching all of their block logs―still have enough time to afford the luxury of analyzing a whopping 1% of these contributions (just to make sure your diagnosis would not turn out to be incorrect), rest assured that thanking people for contributions is unlikely to cause sanctions against you (at least compared to―say―launching all-out personal attacks on them), unless our standards evolved even more than I realized.
Don’t misunderstand me; I am not saying that if you were to review―say―their last 100 actions―and find >90% of edits to be unquestionably positive, you would need to thank for all 90+ of them. But you could try thanking for the first 1 or 2, before waiting to see if that maddens them excessively.
Now, if you were asking why I did not thank all the other contributors to that request, well, I wish I find the time to do just that, but I will have to close some 10 (or is it 20? I lost the count of all windows here) Wikimedia projects I already started before that. Who knows if I manage not to be attacked on every step on the way and manage to get there in a few years.
You are right that I did thank you more than others. That is because after thanking the main contributors, I used the occasion to scrutinize the edits which were from you. I have been extra concerned about the high privileges using which you operate here after you instigated this request, and I wanted to check how valuable your contributions from the time were. You see, I was travelling when I dared suggesting addition of links to a sister project. The generous 1¾ hours you allowed between the first message I adressed you and your resulting "ban nomination" was not quite enough for a lazy contributor (who never even made 20 000 edits/years) like myself to get a good sense of who you are and your motivations behind this request. This evaluation allowed me to find some common ground (surely because I was naive enough to assume a hint of wisdom in these idealists who claim that helps resolving conflicts and who create organizations which have its search at their core―the same people who nearly influenced us enough to do the same).
Wikipedia has always been a battlefield of ideas, but not necessarily of editors. There have always been those unable to prevent getting personal, but we would have lost even more of the reasonable ones even sooner if there had been no room for gratitude among these conflicts. When I joined, even administrators, like @Utcursch, would award barnstars to those there "to confront everyone who dare[d] to cross their path”, as you put it. Even @those part of the Arbitration Committee were so overtolerant that they would express gratitude to "disruptive editors", as you call them. They were utopian enough to seek "the highest possible quality", weak enough to warn about their fallability, and even encourage others to challenge them!
Even the sysop your silly mistakes caused you to personally ask for your rollback privileges was weak enough to acknowledge his ego and choke his stubborn pride:
I suppose you can’t even imagine the paradise it was for us blood-seeking gratitude adepts; thousands of contributions without a single block… heck, we even got more barnstars than blocks! Gratitude went so unchecked in these times that you could get thanked for thanking! Of course, that was the time before the community started shrinking; the shortage of people to block was not quite bad enough to require banning the elite.
It must be my persistent inability to overcome my nostalgia from these times of weakness and nuance―before we managed to separate the perfect from the bad―which prompted me to thank you, just like I thanked @Sarri.greek for having the courage to:
  1. rectify what was (according to her) a mistake
  2. publicly and even unforcedly admitting to have done so
  3. and documenting the reason for that (alleged) mistake.
I am still so stuck in that antiquated mindset that I did not want to stop there; I even wanted to award Sarri.greek the Barnstar of Integrity. But don’t get too angry yet; I haven’t done it because Meta-Wiki doesn’t have that barnstar… nor any. And when I considered where we were starting from and the reward I got the last time I made >70 infrastructure improvements to a Wikimedia project’s recognition infrastructure to thank @HB (that is, being blocked a mere week later, with no justification other than―ahem―my contributions being "contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia"🙄), I felt too lazy to do much more about it.
Instead, I will wait for issue #6547 to be solved, which may happen in 1 or 2 years since it’s High priority. Oh―wait, keep breathing, it’s actually the lowest priority, you should be OK for a few more decades.🙄
Sarcasm aside, thank you so much to those who take some time to offer these awards―no matter how small and infrequent they may be, I honestly don’t think the thick skin would have sufficed to endure all of the above and keep going without you.🙏 --Chealer (talk) 00:37, 9 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Warning on my talk page

Chealer, I'd like to know whether User talk:SHB2000#Your conduct was posted as a revenge warning in spite of this ban nomination. I already know what the response will be, but I expect a thorough explanation for it. //shb (t • c) 01:12, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See your talk page. --Chealer (talk) 07:21, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right, so exactly what I expected – more deflection, less reflection, as has been the case with you for the last two decades. Nice to know. //shb (t • c) 09:49, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know the big "resolved" message which is on your page is almost as daunting to read as the endless code of conduct, but it would be appreciated if you could read at least its first 5 paragraphs, up to the part which explains that our code of conduct expects your actions―which include your comments on this page―to be constructive. --Chealer (talk) 11:41, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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