Rambling Rambler

January 2024

Hi Rambling Rambler! I noticed that you have reverted to restore your preferred version of British Democratic Party (2013) several times. The impulse to undo an edit you disagree with is understandable, but I wanted to make sure you're aware that the edit warring policy disallows repeated reversions even if they are justifiable.

All editors are expected to discuss content disputes on article talk pages to try to reach consensus. If you are unable to agree at Talk:British Democratic Party (2013), please use one of the dispute resolution options to seek input from others. Using this approach instead of reverting can help you avoid getting drawn into an edit war. Thank you. ——Serial 16:01, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi,

While I'd disagree with the action you took to revert my changes I have put a discussion on the talk page here outlining why they meet policy. If I don't receive any justifiable reason not to proceed with the changes I will re-instate them tomorrow. Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:45, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi, apologies are due to you for the unwarranted 3RR warning. I came back to revert myself, but unfortunately (for me), you had already replied. I apologise, Rambling Rambler! ——Serial 16:57, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Well that's that, time to be nothing but rude and hostile to you from here on in. Prepare for WAR!

Jokes aside though, that's appreciated, I can understand why from an uninvolved perspective such a large edit could appear to be based in petulant anger than policy-backed.

All the best, Rambling Rambler (talk) 17:04, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

That was exactly it; thanks for understanding. And I totally approve of settling for nothing less than total domination! ——Serial 15:21, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Freedom Party deletion

I saw this as the non-free logo I uploaded is flagged for deletion. I don't know if I want to contest the deletion, but until 2014 the article did have better sourcing. User:Truenature12 incorrectly removed "dead links". I guess this is a reminder that articles can degrade over time due to misguided or biased edits.

• Copsey, Nigel. "New Millennium New Leader: Nick Griffin and the Modernisation of the British National Party". What Next. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
• "Top woman quits BNP in finances row". Birmingham Post. 2 October 2000. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
• Bassey, Amardeep (7 May 2000). "The family face of BNP right-wing extremism". Sunday Mercury. Birmingham. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
• Leek, Martyn (8 April 2001). "Sinister secret behind public face of fascism". Sunday Mercury. Birmingham. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
• Dutton, Edward (December 2004). "The dangers of wearing glasses: intellectual opposition to liberalism in contemporary Britain". Contemporary Review. Retrieved 10 February 2010.

• Leek, Martyn (25 March 2001). "ALERT AS RIGHT WINGERS TARGET ELECTIONS; Don't be taken in by new Freedom Party, voters told". Sunday Mercury. Birmingham. Retrieved 10 February 2010.

• "Candidates named for delayed poll". BBC News. 9 June 2005. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
• "Adrian Davies: Electoral history and profile". The Guardian

Fences&Windows 20:05, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't really know what you want me to say here. All you've given me is a list of supposed source names that don't have any links with them, so you've provided no evidence that the named user's edits were "incorrect". Frankly after having attempted to google some of the references all I get is circular evidence where it only appears on a Wikipedia mirror site.

Even if I was to simply take it at face value though and assume they were all accurate, none of them fail to deal with the problem that is the group having a general lack of notability. If we had an article for every "party" that maybe gets a low-level local government councillor or two in an election cycle and then promptly fades into complete obscurity we'd have 10,000s of articles just to cover England alone. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

February 2024

Please stop. If you continue to blank out or remove portions of page content, templates, or other materials from Wikipedia without adequate explanation, as you did at Plot armor, you may be blocked from editing. When a discussion closes as keep, as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plot armor did, you are not allowed to immediately circumvent the deletion process and merge the page. There is a separate merging policy, which was also ignored. Considering the above warning, this looks like a pattern similar to edit warring. Please refrain from similar actions going forward. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:40, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

@Pbritti I can only give my sincere apologies for this. I had believed that the AfD closing as keep wasn't also an explicit judgement on merging (or rather the prevention thereof) following closure. As a result I hadn't believed I was ignoring the merge policy, but rather was following it as a bold merge given the article's short length that was comparable to those listed in the Plot device article (covered by reason 3 under WP:MERGEREASON) and that there wasn't need for a new discussion as the merging of the content hadn't been the subject of discussion but rather the subject being notable for inclusion on Wikipedia.

This was erroneous on my part and I'll remember that "keep" at AfD is also a judgement against merging contents of the article for the future. Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:47, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Apology more than accepted. Two things that I should add. First off, a keep at an AfD indicates that a merge would almost certainly be controversial. Likely controversial merges should always be discussed before making the merge; good indications of a suitable BOLD merge candidate are no recent editing activity with the content of the article ("recent" being subjective, but six months is reasonable) and few prospects of improvement. A keep at AfD does not, however, indicate that a merge is a bad idea: if the prospect of merging had broad support at an AfD but the discussion was closed as keep, considering suggesting a merge following the appropriate procedures. The second thing I want to add is that you don't need to apologize for good-faith mistakes. The response you made above indicates that you have made mistakes regarding policy now and in the past but, in this case, you did so with no ill-intent. I take you at your word that you won't do something like this again and now have a better understanding of what went wrong. Let me know if you need any help! ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:02, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

AIV

You reported user ShirtNShoesPls to AIV, but this report suggests that you don't have a sufficient understanding of Wikipedia's vandalism policy. The policy deals with vandalism in narrow sense, where disruption is the intended outcome. Good-faith edits that you disagree with on content- or policy-based reasons are not vandalism. You appear to have had previous disagreements with this editor, including a recent ANI report. I would encourage you to avoid reporting this editor further; if they're editing inappropriately, other editors will notice. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

@Pbritti I did ask an admin for advice on what the line would be before making this a vandalism issue, which in their view was deliberately introducing erroneous material [1] which is what their editing has reached a level of. Even, you yourself last month brought that they're adding "false information" to articles [2].

There isn't the ability to view their edits as being under any sense of "good faith" at this point, especially given they've now been open about getting their information from reddit so this looks to simply be WP:NOTHERE point-scoring [3][4]. Rambling Rambler (talk) 15:20, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Is there a reason you described ShirtNShoesPls to the admin in a hypothetical manner? They would have likely taken action, particularly if you noted the many repeated instances in which ShirtNShoesPls has only barely avoided sanction or received a brief block. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:40, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

@Pbritti Because I'd recently referred another user to a different admin (in that case I had suspicions of them being a single-purpose account) who came down like a tonne of bricks and decided automatically that reporting a user by name to a "random admin" was simply attempting to "get back at someone for a content dispute" so quite frankly didn't want to deal with that crap again. Also at that point I hadn't really spent much time looking at how far back their misbehaviour's gone, so it seemed to me to be the first instance of them going from disruptive editing to full blown potential vandalism (it was only soon after that I found multiple instances of it either happening first hand or reports like yours commenting they'd seen it).

The utterly absurd thing here is that so far no-one's disputed that the other user's behaviour is out of line and is significant enough to warrant action, yet it's my efforts to report that correctly and get something done about it by admins has seen myself getting ping-ponged between ANI and AIV. Rambling Rambler (talk) 22:57, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Look, this isn't a matter for AIV. There's something of an unwritten rule there that an established editor (more than 100 edits) who isn't vandalizing scores of pages is not a candidate for AIV. This is because further evidence is needed to establish a pattern of abuse, which is what ANI is for. I regret letting my watch on SNSP's talk page lapse, meaning that I missed you opening your original thread. If you are still inclined, please feel welcome to collate evidence relevant to their disruption. I will gladly support your case–particularly on CIR grounds–but I would encourage you to approach this in the correct manner. ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:03, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

If you think it's worth doing an ANI on it, I'll put one together now and tag you in it. Rambling Rambler (talk) 23:05, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I would strongly support opening a new ANI thread. However, if you are willing to wait at least 15 hours, I would appreciate that. I have a somewhat convoluted tech project that I have to complete for work by tomorrow afternoon, so I'll be focussing on that for the remainder of the evening. After that, I'll be able to contribute a massive amount of evidence (and, somewhat sadly, my experience with making ANI reports). ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:11, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll start a sandbox to draft it for now then. When you're ready for it to go live on ANI just let me know. Rambling Rambler (talk) 23:17, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Will do. If you are using a sandbox page here on the encyclopedia to collect your thoughts and diffs, please just ensure that whatever statements you add do not violate the attack page policy. Other than that, good luck and let me know if you have any questions–I'll be checking back on to Wikipedia every hour or so for the evening as I'm tracking another instance of disruption. ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:21, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll make sure it's clearly signposted that it's a draft ANI post. Rambling Rambler (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

@Pbritti put together a draft, it's currently in User:Rambling Rambler/sandbox Rambling Rambler (talk) 00:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Pbritti have you got anything to add or can I go ahead and post it? Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:56, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Your report is too long. Brevity is the soul of wit, and ANI favors comprehensive but compact reports over walls of text. I say you try and cut down your comment by half. Please note that I will add my piece once you have initiated the discussion; I have added my comment to the sandbox page. ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:47, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, may I recommend you entitle the section something shorter like ShirtNShoesPls's continued disruption and CIR, which is easier for the passing ANI-stalker to swallow as a worthwhile discussion. ~ Pbritti (talk) 19:49, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

@Pbritti I've about halved it, should be good to go now I reckon. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:03, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

I reckon you're right. Whenever you feel like it, I say you should open the ANI. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:06, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

@Pbritti done. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:09, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, it would seem the problem has been resolved. Let me know if you ever encounter something similar and want a second pair of eyes to give it a glance. Thanks for sticking with it despite the handful of frustrating switchbacks. You helped preserve the project from a great deal of disruption. ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:10, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Will do, thanks for the help in getting it resolved. Rambling Rambler (talk) 01:14, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Revolutionary Communist Party 1944

While it is an old article that could be improved there are plenty of reliable sources out there so deletion is not justified. See Google Scholar and Google Books for sources. Wellington Bay (talk) 12:52, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I'll keep it as a stub for now, see if anyone can find detailed enough sources to expand it. Giving a brief scan on the results that came up the books centred around the group seem to be written by Ted Grant and Alan Woods (so should be avoided given they're heavily associated with it), are to do with the 1970s RCP, or give a very brief mention to the short-lived 40s incarnation. Rambling Rambler (talk) 13:00, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I've restored the sections and tagged them. This isn't a brand new article but a legacy article that was written when citation demands weren't the same so we normally wouldn't just delete material summarily. This is also a useful source Revolutionary History journal - also the book War and the International: History of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain, 1937-49 Wellington Bay (talk) 13:24, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't matter when it was created. Wikipedia articles have to meet core policies on verifiability, reliability and neutrality, and if they don't then it's either leave what is citable as stubs or, if effectively duplicating other articles, you AfD. There's no special rules for older articles, it's simply understood they were created long ago and may not have been updated to meet policy until now. But that still requires updating to policy.

On the two items you've linked there, the first isn't not a good source. It's a journal by Trotskyist activists that hasn't been rigourised as reliable, so would likely be allowable if used in conjunction with reliable sources for substantial claims.

Overall there seems to basically be a major problem with Ted Grant/Alan Woods related articles on English Wikipedia, as their achievements seem to be aggrandised and nearly always uncited. Unless these things can be proven they need to be removed. Rambling Rambler (talk) 13:34, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Revolutionary History is used as a source by scholars. By your argument sources about Christianity would only be acceptable if they are by non-Christians. It's not a partisan or party publication unlike say Grant/Woods books about the IMT so it is independent. Wellington Bay (talk) 13:45, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

By your argument sources about Christianity would only be acceptable if they are by non-Christians

No, that's not the point I made. If you had well-regarded, proven experts who were Christians documenting Christianity in a demonstrably peer-reviewed journal that dealt on Theology, that's acceptable. If you had some guy from the bible belt with a "journal" that was self-published it wouldn't be.

Wikipedia's standards are quite clear on this. Rambling Rambler (talk) 13:49, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

As for deleting rather than tagging the sections- this presupposes that there are no sources when, in fact, there likely are and secondly if the first act is to delete then why do tags exist at all? Wellington Bay (talk) 13:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

The tags are there for when there are small areas that aren't cited, there's a mix of areas that have citations and then a few stray claims that may warrant them, or most commonly when people see issues but don't have the time/interest in performing cleanup.

It's basically the difference why in the RCP article I've used "better source needed" ones a couple of times and/or citations needed. Here however, everything below the lead was uncited. Rambling Rambler (talk) 13:53, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Notice of edit warring noticeboard discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. Thank you. Savvyjack23 (talk) 00:54, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Sneako

Remove that “upset” Haiti bit and I’ll remove the entire comment, not just parts. 🏳 Savvyjack23 (talk) 22:25, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry

Hello, I noticed that you undid my restoration and I double-checked what I did. I am sorry for undoing your edit at the article, Sorry, I've Got No Head after realizing that it was because it wasn't cited. I am also sorry for putting the "blanking" notice on your talk page and I realize that it was a mistake. Sorry about that :). Let me know in the future if I make any more mistakes. Trudy Walker (talk) 19:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

That's fine. It's not bad to be enthusiastic but I would suggest you start off by improving individual articles you have an interest first and get into the feel of the site and how policies work in practice compared to always as written, as opposed to mass reverting lots of changes to a wide number of different articles. While it may feel helpful it can look somewhat suspicious for a new user to be going across all manner of articles in a manner of minutes doing this, and could lead to being read as subtle vandalism and result in punitive measures. Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:22, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Revolutionary Communist International - Sweden

A major write-up about them in the Swedish magazine etc. https://www.etc.se/story/oevergrepp-moerkas-i-kommunistsekt-som-rekryterar-bland-skolbarn Wellington Bay (talk) 22:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Seems to be about the Swedish section, though it is behind a paywall. Seems to be quite a common story across various elements of the Trotskyist left in the last few years. Rambling Rambler (talk) 23:15, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I have de-PRODded Collider (website)

I have de-PRODded Collider (website), but I am on the fence about whether the article should exist, or should be addressed through some other resolution. I do think that it should be discussed. I have created Draft:Valnet, Inc., on the parent company of Collider, and I think that once that draft is complete, several of its subsidiary companies, including Collider, Screen Rant, MovieWeb, Comic Book Resources, and XDA Developers, could reasonably be merged there. BD2412 T 03:35, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi @BD2412, it might be better then to just Bold merge them together now. The article on Collider completely fails to meet GNG and I did try and find reliable sources on it, but they’re non-existent.

Having a corporate page covering all the sites may allow for a better demonstration of notability. Rambling Rambler (talk) 10:45, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Can't merge them until the parent company draft is in good enough shape to move to mainspace. That process should take no more than a few weeks. BD2412 T 18:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. Rambling Rambler (talk) 18:30, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

CWI (2019) RFC

Please see Talk:Committee for a Workers' International (2019)#RFC: Copypasting from CWI 1974 and merging of two articles Wellington Bay (talk) 12:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this, I’ll take a look later. Rambling Rambler (talk) 12:58, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Socialist Alternative (Malaysia)

I'm not sure what website you're looking at but its most recent publication is from 2023 about a state election, not 2017. Just wanted to clarify this. Sisuvia (talk) 07:14, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I was going off of their old website linked in text. They have a second one linked but it comes back as unsecured, with a dead front page, and if you click around there might(?) be a post from them in 2023 but it’s hard to verify exactly who posted it. Either way it does suggest it’s inactive.

I cleared out several sections that claim to be active on the CWI page but in reality had been dead a while. One (can’t remember which) only had a Facebook page where the last evidence of in-person activity of any size was a demonstration at the embassy of the section’s country in London. Rambling Rambler (talk) 08:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

User:Jamesation

You may wish to reply to comments at User talk:Jamesation that are addressed to me but I suspect are actually aimed partly at your edits. Wellington Bay (talk) 21:29, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

International Revolutionary Left

Hello, Rambling Rambler,

I noticed that you PROD'd this article but didn't notify the article creator. Sometimes this notification is taken care of a bot, but this doesn't happen 100% of the time, bots do not complete this task all of the time. It's better for you to handle this step yourself.

What's strange is that you used Twinkle to tag this article and a notice should have been posted automatically. Can you check your Twinkle Preferences and make sure you have checked off the box that states "Notify page creator if possible". And, while you are at it, go into the CSD options and check off all of the different CSD criteria. It's crucially important that content creators receive notification when articles they created might be deleted because they often can make changes that address the deletion rationale. And, more importantly, it's just being considerate to your fellow editors.

Thank you for doublc-checking your Twinkle Preferences. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

CWI

(1974) is a disambiguator. Without a (2019) article there is no need for disambiguation. Wellington Bay (talk) 10:23, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

But there is ambiguity, that is detailed within the article itself. Namely that there is an organisation founded in 1974 with that name (which the article covers) and a post-split incarnation that uses the same name, website etc.

From my understanding of the MOS, while a disambiguator is commonly added due to multiple Wikipedia articles of a similar name it doesn't only see addition because of that. Given the continued (and documented in sources) disputes over the organisation's heritage/lineage/trotskyist-cred points it's probably best for now to leave it as it was for clarity's sake. Rambling Rambler (talk) 10:32, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Disambiguation in wikipedia refers to the need to add diambiguators to distinguish between otherwise identically named articles. Since there is only one CWI article there's no need for (1974) as a disambiguator. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Also, the AFD decision was to merge, not simply redirect yet you removed material being merged from the 2019 article. Wellington Bay (talk) 12:10, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't solely refer to that, notice in the opening line "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts that arise when a potential article title is ambiguous, most often because it refers to more than one subject covered by Wikipedia, either as the main topic of an article, or as a subtopic covered by an article in addition to the article's main topic" (emphasis mine). So clearly we can use it when there are outside considerations at play here.

And yes, the AfD was to merge, but notice the closing comments of "If all of the referenced content has already been merged to the target article, then this page will just beome (sic) a redirect". The referenced material was already moved across, and the section list for CWI (2019) being copied into a different organisation's article would more than likely reach WP:UNDUE. Rambling Rambler (talk) 12:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

How would it violate WP:UNDUE? It's only a list of current sections. Without it there is actually no merger since nothing has actually been added from the 2019 article. (The duplicate material had originally been added to 2019 from the 1974 article a few weeks ago ie its been in the 1974 article for the past 5 years and originated there.) Wellington Bay (talk) 12:27, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, (1974) doesn't disambiguate for the purpose you mention as the "refounded CWI" claims to have been founded in 1974. Something like Committee for a Workers' International (defunct) would be clearer. Wellington Bay (talk) 12:31, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

The duplicate material is the referenced material the closer was referring to (and it was they who brought to my attention your unilateral decision to have the article for CWI (1974) moved to). The section list for the new CWI is very clearly inappropriate for being put into an article that we agree is a different incarnation of the organisation in the same way it was inappropriate for having much of the history of Militant in the article on Socialist Appeal as it used to.

At this point, as I suggested on your talk page, it's probably best to have this discussion on the talk page for the article in question as several others are likely to have views on any alternative naming. Rambling Rambler (talk) 12:34, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I didn't move any page unilaterally. I put in a request for what seemed to be an uncontroversial move for the reasons explained as per WP:Disambiguation and an admin concurred and made the move. That you disagreed after the fact is fine but I think most people would have seen the move as uncontroversial and my making the request and believing it to be uncontroversial was done in good faith. Wellington Bay (talk) 12:49, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I didn't move any page unilaterally. I put in a request for what seemed to be an uncontroversial move for the reasons explained as per WP:Disambiguation and an admin concurred and made the move.

That is the unilateral aspect of this. Also the admin's carrying out aren't necessarily making a judgement on its suitability by implementing it, hence why it can be opposed and reversed retroactively. And as shown on the article's talk page, the previous move to it being called CWI (1974) was in relation to it being defunct so should've gone through a new discussion. Rambling Rambler (talk) 12:53, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

RCI cult accusations

Please review this edit which was made in 2021 by an infrequent editor who reappeared today to remove cult allegations from the article. Is there anything removed by their 2021 edit that should be reinstated? Wellington Bay (talk) 14:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I see he has a point in that most of the sources are blogs. The Tourish article/book is about the CWI and while it may apply to IMT/RCI by extension it doesn't actually refer to the IMT directly or indirectly. The Richardson review is about a collection of Ted Grant's works published before the IMT split from the CWI and which is republished in full on the RCI's website. However, I think including Richardson's criticism and applying it to the RCI (when technically they did not edit or publish the original work) is a leap.[5] Wellington Bay (talk) 15:46, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

@Wellington Bay personally I think that edit highlighted was a fair one. The sources removed look questionable at best and suffer from self-publishing issues when taking a quick glance at them.

On the current disagreement I've removed a couple of sources, namely the self-published response (usual Wikipedia:ABOUTSELF issues) and the editorial lambasting the RCI given it's little more than an attack piece with no substance. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:15, 3 September 2024 (UTC)