Wikipedia:Administrative action review

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Administrative action review (XRV/AARV) determines whether use of the administrator tools or other advanced permissions is consistent with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Any action (or set of related actions) involving a tool not available to all confirmed editors—except those covered by another, more specific review process—may be submitted here for community review. The purpose of an administrative review discussion is to reach a consensus on whether a specific action was appropriate, not to assign blame. It is not the place to request comment on an editor's general conduct, to seek retribution or removal of an editor's advanced permissions, or to quibble about technicalities.

To request an administrative action review, please first read the "Purpose" section to make sure that it is in scope. Then, follow the instructions below.

Purpose

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Administrative action review may be used to request review of:

1. an administrator action
2. an action using an advanced permission

Administrative action review should not be used:

1. to request an appeal or review of an action with a dedicated review process

   For review of page deletions or review of deletion discussion closures, use Wikipedia:Deletion review (DRV)

   For review of page move discussion closures, use Wikipedia:Move review (MRV)

2. to ask to remove a user's permissions:

   Permissions granted at WP:PERM may be revoked by an administrator consistent with the guidelines for that permission.

   Repeated or egregious misuse of permissions may form the basis of an administrators' noticeboard or incidents noticeboard report, or a request for arbitration, as appropriate.

3. to argue technicalities and nuances (about what the optimal action would have been, for example), outside of an argument that the action was inconsistent with policy.
4. to ask for a review of arbitration enforcement actions. Such reviews must be done at arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE"), at the administrators' noticeboard ("AN"), or directly to the Arbitration Committee at the amendment requests page ("ARCA").
5. for urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioural problems; use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents ("ANI") instead
6. for serious, entrenched or persistent disputes and cases of rule-breaking; use Wikipedia:Arbitration ("ArbCom") instead
7. for a block marked with any variation of {{CheckUser block}}, {{OversightBlock}}, or {{ArbComBlock}}; Contact the Arbitration Committee instead
8. to attack other editors, cast aspersions, or make accusations of bias. Such requests may be speedily closed.

Instructions
Initiating a review

1. Before listing a review request, try to resolve the matter by discussing it with the performer of the action.
2. Start a new discussion by clicking the button below and filling in the preloaded template (or use {{subst:XRV}} directly)
3. Notify the performer of the action of the discussion.

   You must leave a notice on the editor's talk page. You may use {{subst:XRV-notice}} for this purpose.

   Use of the notification system is not sufficient.

Start a new discussion

Participating in a discussion
Any editor in good standing may request a review or participate in discussing an action being reviewed. Participation is voluntary. The goal of the discussion is to determine whether the action is consistent with Wikipedia's policies. Contributions that are off-topic may be removed by any uninvolved administrator. You may choose to lead your comment with a bold and bulleted endorse or not endorsed/overturn, though any helpful comment is welcome. Please add new comments at the bottom of the discussion.

Closing a review
Reviews can be closed by any uninvolved administrator after there has been sufficient discussion and either a consensus has been reached, or it is clear that no consensus will be reached. Do not rush to close a review: while there is no fixed minimum time, it is expected that most good faith requests for review will remain open for at least a few days.

The closer should summarize the consensus reached in the discussion and clearly state whether the action is endorsed, not endorsed, or if there is no consensus.

After a review
Any follow-up outcomes of a review are deferred to existing processes. Individual actions can be reversed by any editor with sufficient permissions. Permissions granted at WP:PERM may be revoked by an administrator.

Closed reviews will be automatically archived after a period of time. Do not archive reviews that have not been formally closed.

May 2025 Topic ban for Wlaak by Hammersoft

Diffs/logs: ANI Discussion [1]

User: Hammersoft (talk · contribs · logs) (prior discussion)

Requesting a review of this discussion close, and either re-open for further discussion, or a re-close. My concern is that although this looks like a straightforward community imposed TBAN, I think that the discussion lacked depth and breadth owing to the lack of input from experience and uninvolved editors. Most of the editors arguing to TBAN this relatively new and inexperienced editor were editors with a rival POV, who had recently piled in to a rightly aborted AfD discussion. There were, I think, only three clearly experienced and uninvolved editors who participated in the discussion, and of these three, two stipulated that they would only support a topic ban if it were reciprocal on one of the opposing POV editors. Like most editors, I don't watch ANI most of the time, and had I known this discussion was there, I would have argued that we try other methods first, before dishing out topic bans to editors who are clearly knowledgeable on an area that is contentious, but in need of knowledgeable opinions. There is a move to subject the topic area to AE enforcement, but that has not happened yet. Topic banning the only editor who has shown deep knowledge of the sourcing on one side of the question is unfortunate, albeit that editor needs to be given some clear advice on how to conduct themself, particularly as and when the AE enforcement comes into effect. Noting that although the ANI discussion had become stale, that we provide much less time to review these quite important decisions than we do for, say, AfD discussions. A deeper look at this would perhaps pay dividends for the encyclopaedia. Thanks. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:42, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I know Hammersoft gave you the go-ahead to post here, but this is not the proper forum. Wlaak can appeal to ArbCom per WP:UNBAN: "if there are serious questions about the validity of the ban discussion or its closure, a community ban may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee, by filing a case request" (emphasis added). voorts (talk/contributions) 14:22, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Voorts, this isn't a community ban as in banned from the community but a topic ban. Escalating this to WP:ARBCOM is a dramatic escalation, and I think unnecessary. The very top of this page says that this page may be used to request review of an administrator action. I think it's perfectly in line to make this request here. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:54, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a community ban, albeit limited to a particular topic. The instructions that an editor should file at ARCA if they're able to wouldn't make sense if this only applied to indefs. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:15, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I don't like disagreeing with you Sirfurboy—ever—but it's a tricky one. I agree there's a curious number (three, four?) or editors of only a few months tenure, but as you say there were still experienced editors e.g. KhndzorUtogh, Shmayo, RobertMcClenon and of course the OP, Asilvering, and isn't it usually taken as the case that a strong nomination statement, combined with a relatively simple case, is less likely to result in (or need?) complex discussion? However, good point that the discussion has to be open for 24 hours; this was open for nearly a week, and I agree with you that "of these three, two stipulated that they would only support a topic ban if it were reciprocal" (had I seen the discussion, that would probably have been my decision too). But a closing admin can only follow consensus, and if there was no consensus for t-bans for the others, what was Hammersoft to do? Would leaving it open another six days have changed the discussion’s direction? Possibly. But this close was, I think, within the closer's discretion and certainly within custom. However, I also agree with you that the discussion itself was weaker than would be liked, But there's no quorum for ban discussions is there (unless that's a WP:PERENNIAL, it might be worth proposing, after all, if few editors speak out, few editors see a major problem). Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 14:48, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that I may be one of the two clearly experienced and uninvolved editors who participated in the discussion, and of those three, two stipulated that they would only support a topic ban if it were reciprocal. So I don't think that there was community consensus to impose the topic ban. I don't know what the least bad action by the community is at this point. It appears that all efforts by the community to resolve this are making it worse. Is the least bad resolution at this point to ask ArbCom to hold a full evidentiary case? I don't know. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:56, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, I did bestow upon you the coveted title of still experienced editor  :) Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 15:03, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Robert McClenon, I considered your comments in closing the request. I took note that you had struck your opposition. I viewed this was a discretionary range type of close, and I did feel that the topic ban was a "least bad" sort of solution. Had you not struck your opposition, I probably would not have enacted the topic ban. I grant this is a grey area decision. There was a lot to consider, including those involved in the dispute having less (if any) weight. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:48, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for reviewing administrative actions performed by a user acting in a role designated by holding advanced permissions. The evaluation of consensus at the incidents' noticeboard can be done by any experienced user. Thus review of this topic ban should take place in another venue such as the administrators' noticeboard. isaacl (talk) 15:55, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't disagree with you Isaacl. However, two things; (1) I specifically informed the OP that bringing it here would be ok [2] and (2) I've been heavily chastised in the past for differentiating between admin and non-admin functions. While it is technically true that the action I took is not an administrative action and anyone could have done it, a non-admin taking the action would certainly have been looked down upon. My action doesn't have any more authority because I'm an admin, but had I not been an admin and took the action there likely would have been considerably greater vocalization about it. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What Hammersoft did is, in fact, an admin action. Quoting from WP:CBAN: If the discussion appears to have reached a consensus for a particular sanction, an uninvolved administrator closes the discussion, notifies the subject accordingly, and enacts any blocks called for. Only admins can close community-imposed TBAN discussions and impose the TBAN--that's what makes closing a TBAN discussion an admin action. If someone wants to appeal the TBAN, they can do it to the community (or to arbcom); but if someone wants to review the validity of the close (clearly what Sirfurboy is seeking, per the first line of the OP), which is an admin action, this is the right place to do it, and Hammersoft was right to send him here. Levivich (talk) 19:48, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No administrative action is required to impose a topic ban, as there is no technical means for enforcing one. English Wikipedia tradition is for consensus to be evaluated by administrators when the result has to be implemented through the use of administrative privileges, but is flexible when it does not. isaacl (talk) 08:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless we are here. The closing admin is happy to abide by the decision here, and Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Could we amicably review whether we think the case is made for the topic ban (endorse), or whether a little more discussion would have been beneficial, without the arbitrary cut off imposed by ANI's aggressive archiving (relist) or whether the topic ban should be rescinded (overturn). An alternative to relist would be to reclose, but on reflection, I don't think that is sensible. I think Hammersoft made the best close on the available evidence - I just remain concerned that most of the supports for the ban came from inexperienced editors and/or editors on the opposing side of the argument. My own view is that relist would be wise, as we would now have more eyes on the discussion, and a broader community consensus could be found. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:39, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sirfurboy, I like that suggestion. Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi 10:14, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My concern is not for this individual case, but the precedent. This venue was set up as a place to review the decisions made by users holding advanced permissions to use or not use their additional abilities. It was not set up as a place to review the evaluation of community consensus. Given the potential for many more discussions to be included in a broader scope, I think the community should make such an expansion knowingly. isaacl (talk) 15:08, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sirfurboy, I can assure you that other methods have first been attempted. The first time Wlaak came to ANI was, iirc, in March. Since the "Aramean side" of this content dispute is almost entirely composed of SPAs that have a habit of nearly immediately getting themselves blocked as WP:NOTHERE, Wlaak is something of a rarity, and I have been taking great pains to try to ensure that he manages to build the experience required to participate seriously in this content dispute without falling to the same fate. The topic ban proposal was my last-ditch attempt to get him out of the line of fire. Since the entire topic area appears to be a mess, I subsequently started the GS proposal at VPT.

Having not realized that Robert McClenon had struck his opposition, I had come to assume that this topic ban proposal (the second!) would also fail, and was thinking my way through a sort of "brokered ceasefire" proposal for all relevant participants, which would be somewhat softer than a true tban, and which I would have proposed under the remit of GS once that discussion concluded. I did come to prefer that hypothetical outcome to a community-placed tban at ANI. But then Wlaak drew additional attention to himself (see above), and, well, here we are. He has since also requested that I refrain from taking further administrative action in this dispute because he perceives that I am biased against him (see [3]). (It is my great failing that I continue to believe in my heart, all evidence to the contrary, that it is possible to save a person from themselves.)

I think Hammersoft's conduct and judgement in this matter has been exemplary. It is my hope that, for the next six months, Wlaak's is too, and that he will successfully appeal the ban and help work towards a resolution of this decades-long content dispute. -- asilvering (talk) 20:24, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm mostly watching this discussion rather than contributing, to see what other editors feel. I will, however, post this to say I agree that Hammersoft's behaviour here has been exemplary, and whatever we decide, there should be neither criticism nor hard feelings towards them. That does not preclude that we might, on reflection, consider whether there is merit in revisiting the decision. Just as you were second guessing yourself, so too this decision is not an easy one in determining what is best for the encyclopaedia. Where a decision is borderline, there is no criticism for falling one way, but a small reconsideration may cause us to fall another. If a brokered ceasefire is possible, perhaps TBANS can be avoided. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:05, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Overturn the topic ban, per the nom and Robert McClenon's point above. It's clear that of the experienced users, the majority only supported enacting the topic ban if it was a reciprocal one. The now t-banned editor is clearly someone knowledgeable and probably editing in good faith, but with a POV; as is the other party who was mentioned in the dispute. T-banning one but not the other risks tipping the subject matter in a particular direction favoured by the party who escaped a t-ban. This was an understandable close by Hammersmith, attempting to resolve a discussion that was going stale, but I think the close risks doing more harm than good in this case, and should be overturned given the lack of strong consensus based on participation by experienced editors.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:16, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Amakuru, I think the question of whether another editor should also be tbanned is out of scope for this board (and looks like Hammersoft's recent comment means I don't need to explain why anymore). Just to add about the "risks flipping the subject matter" bit, though - the general context here is that Wlaak is on the "change things" side, largely in opposition to a "keep things the same as they have been for the past two decades" side. Which is to say that there is very little to "flip". The editor who didn't receive a tban in Hammersoft's close was doing some changes, but I believe that has stopped. If I'm wrong on that, well, the community sanctions discussion will have consensus soon enough. -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There might be a systemic component to this, one that I raised about a week ago at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard#Is this really an "all or nothing" situation regarding admin analysis & input?. In short, on simple short ANI's the admin's judgement is often the main or only criteria. Once there are more comments, I think that there is an unsolved question as to, if an admin closes it, whether or not they should or allowed to use admin discretion in the close vs saying that that they are a mere-closer where any such discretion would be considered a supervote. I think that when this occurs most admins take the safer "mere closer" route. I didn't analyze this situation in depth, but this does appear that Hammersoft operated in the "mere closer" role, and did so properly. In short, Hammersoft did was procedurally safe (and thus not incorrect) on an edge case situation but the net result of the system is in question at best. While this could make it arguable whether this is the right venue, my thought would be to tell Hammersoft thanks for doing a great job, and to reopen or restart the discussion and make the decision after further discussion. North8000 (talk) 14:26, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

North8000; that's a good analysis. I did operate in the 'mere closer' role, as I think an administrator acting in a supervote role is inappropriate. This is why I did not consider alternatives to a topic ban for just Wlaak. The only issue on the table was a topic ban for Wlaak, not anyone else. Commenters did make suggestions that others should be topic banned in concert with Wlaak, and I agree there might be grounds for that. But, to make that decision was outside of the scope of the request. Wlaak asked for it to be set to a specific date, which I did not acquiesce to because that's not what the request was for. My job, such as it is, was to evaluate if consensus existed to apply the topic ban as described. I felt it did, and implemented.

I don't think that re-opening it for more discussion would be illuminating. By the time I'd closed the discussion, no one had commented about the topic ban for 4 days. Given it was stale, I doubt re-opening it would shift the needle much if at all.

There's also an issue in re-opening the discussion. What do we do with the topic ban in the meantime? Suspend it? Override the consensus? Certainly consensus can change. However, given the events that have happened since the topic ban was applied (Wlaak has violated it no less than 8 times since it was applied ([4], even making violations after self acknowledging he was violating it [5]), the topic ban seems highly appropriate. I don't believe in the idea of convicting (if you will) and then finding proof it was necessary. But, Wlaak's actions since the topic ban were applied demonstrate very clearly there is a serious issue here that needs to be addressed. Setting aside the topic ban pending a potential change in consensus would, I think, be a very bad idea in light of events.

_IF_ we re-open the topic ban discussion, then one or more parallel consensus discussions need to be started regarding topic bans for other invested parties, rather than continue to muddy the picture vis-a-vis Wlaak. If all we do is set aside the topic ban and re-open, then we're back to square 1 and this dispute erupts again. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:34, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have in-depth knowledge of this situation and I don't. Also, due to the "mere closer" role, I did not know your own thoughts. Based on your post I withdraw my idea. North8000 (talk) 15:41, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be structurally clear, the close was a topic ban on one person with no comment or finding on a topic ban on anyone else (so it's not a decision to not impose one on them). There's no strong argument here against the close which means it's a good close at best and a close call at worst. And people making a decision on a close call is something we also need to support. So IMO the best choice is to that there is no overturn. This leaves open the possibility of pursuing a topic ban on other editor(s); there was no decision in the close regarding those. North8000 (talk) 19:33, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to also say what I was implying. The3re is nothing wrong with how Hammersoft handled this. And a thank-you to them for handling this close. North8000 (talk) 18:00, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to clarify that this page is not a second chance topic ban discussion; it is not intended to appeal or overturn a topic ban. This page is to discuss whether I acted properly in assessing and applying consensus. That might seem like a small difference, but it is important to understand it. Crucial to this; the audience here is narrow. If one or more people wish to overturn the topic ban, the best course of action is to start a new thread at WP:AN/I. The audience there is much larger and more suitable for such a discussion. I'm not trying to dissuade people; in fact posting to WP:AN/I has a better chance of getting it over turned than attempting it here would. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:48, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse Hammersoft's evaluation of consensus The best way to cut to the chase is to cut to the chase. Asilvering proposed a specific action. There were several, though possibly not as many as ideal, editors who discussed the proposed action based on policy. There was no voice against the proposal other than the editor in question. As I see it, Hammersoft correctly evaluated the consensus. If this was the wrong venue for the discussion, then it makes sense to simply address the issue and move on and do better next time rather than going in circles about endless questions on venue. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 00:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse, but... I think OP and others make some good points above. The thing is, we have no quorum requirement for ban discussions, neither by number of editors nor experience. I think we probably should have a quorum requirement for bans, probably also suffrage requirements (eg minimum experience, uninvolved), and the arguments made in this discussion about the importance of having enough experienced editors are sound, but we don't have any such requirements as of now, and for that reason, I see no error in this close (and generally agree with the endorse analyses above, eg CC's). So endorsed under current policy though I think the policy should probably be changed. Levivich (talk) 03:40, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

2 June 2025 Deleting speedy deletion tag, discretionary interpretation of Wikipedia rules by Extraordinary Writ

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Diffs/logs: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Artur_Mija&diff=1293532997&oldid=1293523112

User: Extraordinary Writ (talk · contribs · logs) ([discussion])

I believe this action should be reviewed since: 1) plain suppression of speedy deletion tag does not comply with Wikipedia rules (as per explanations and arguments exchanged on the talk page of the admin/editor, 2) the admin/editor interprets Wikipedia rules at her/his own discretion, 3) the admin/editor did not provide analysis when was provided exact Wikipedia rules violated and did not clearly indicate how to appeal of her/his decision, nor which other deletion tag should be placed. Aviapassion (talk) 10:16, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse. Clearly justified removal of an invalid CSD tag. dbeef [talk] 10:21, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Endorse & Speedy close Perfectly valid response to an utterly meritless speedy request ("no societal importance / no notability"). --DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:23, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• (edit conflict) Endorse. That action is perfectly in line with the speedy deletion policy, as ExtraordinaryWrit explained to you on their talk page. Any user (other than, in some cases, the article creator) may (and indeed should) remove a speedy deletion tag from a page when that page does not meet the referenced speedy deletion criterion. Pages that do not meet any speedy deletion criterion may not be speedily deleted, but may be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Additionally, speedy deletion criteria apply only when the page uncontroversially meets the letter and spirit of the criterion, when an experienced editor in good standing removes a speedy deletion tag that is almost always evidence that deletion would not be uncontroversial and so speedy deletion cannot apply. Thryduulf (talk) 10:25, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Endorse Not actually a use of advanced permissions; speedy deletion tags can be removed by almost any user. Lectonar (talk) 10:29, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.