Jobas

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Ein as-Sahla

Just to correct myself, the source was not the 2008 consensus, but an article on the village mentioned in the article. The village is part of a single municipality and only the population of the entire municipality, which has another two villages is shown in the ministry's list.--Bolter21 (talk to me) 14:38, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

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History of Western civilization

What is exactly your problem? The sources mention explicitly the Jewish influence, Judaism is a general definition the also includes 'culture' and that's the correct term for the article. Your game trying to stick to the source word by word is incorrect, let alone hypocrite as none of the sources mention the term 'civilization' for Rome or Greece (don't even mention Rome) for instance. As long as other cultures mention geographic origins Ancient Israel should be mentioned as well. Infantom (talk) 11:38, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Help me pls

I saw that you like my discussions but I am alone and I need support in the discussions, could you help me? --FrankCesco26 (talk) 18:42, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

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May 2017

Wikipedia's technical logs indicate that this user account has been or may be used abusively. It has been blocked indefinitely from editing to prevent abuse.

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Note that multiple accounts are allowed, but not for illegitimate reasons, and any contributions made while evading blocks or bans may be reverted or deleted.
If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you should review the guide to appealing blocks, and then appeal your block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|Your reason here ~~~~}}. Note that anything you post in your unblock request will be public, so you may alternatively use the Unblock Ticket Request System to submit an appeal if it contains information that must be private.

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Administrators: Checkusers have access to confidential system logs not accessible by the public or by administrators due to the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy. You must not loosen or remove this block, or issue an IP block exemption, without consulting with a checkuser or the Arbitration Committee. Administrators who undo checkuser blocks without permission from a checkuser or the Arbitration Committee may be summarily desysopped.

Doug Weller talk 13:00, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Jobas (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

I apologize for editing while logged out and also using another account and am requesting that I be unblocked in accordance with WP:ROPE. I will not repeat these errors again and am thankful that this block allowed me to reflect upon my actions. I have made several positive contributions to Wikipedia (over 23,364 edits) and ask for forgiveness this one time. I appreciate you considering this request. Respectfully, Jobas (talk) 16:53, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Decline reason:

After reviewing Doug's comment and the others posted, I am declining your unblock request for now. Come back in two months (sometime after August 1st) and we can discuss this. Ping myself and Doug Weller. In the meantime you can edit on other Wiki projects, just not this one. Ad Orientem (talk) 01:16, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

You've done some good work here, but this is pretty serious stuff. All the more so because you've been around a long time and should have known better. All things considered I'm not absolutely opposed to giving you a second chance, but I'd probably be more sympathetic if the request came after a reasonable period of time. I'm not going to decline the request for now, but if you came back in a month with no evidence of block evasion we might possibly commute the block with the clear understanding that any repetition would end with an indef from which I seriously doubt you'd get another reprieve. Ping Doug Weller for his thoughts as the blocking admin. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:29, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Ad Orientem, thanks for your reply and for your faith in me. If you think that I need a one-month break from Wikipedia, I totally understand and would be happy to apply for an unblock at that time. Respectfully, Jobas (talk) 17:37, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I do think some time-off would be best. It is extremely unusual for someone caught socking to be given short term blocks or unblocked quickly. This is a very serious no-no. That said, I am not going to decline your unblock request until I've heard from Doug Weller, whose input I think is important as the blocking admin. Of course there is nothing stopping you from withdrawing your unblock request, and coming back in a month or two. IMHO such a request would be more likely to get a sympathetic hearing at that point. But I do want to stress that any block evasion would likely torpedo any hope of getting your block lifted. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

P.S. I will be traveling over the next couple of days so I may not respond quickly to anything addressed to me though I will try to check in briefly at least once a day. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:39, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem: Take a look at Talk:English people. Socks chatting to themselves. Personally I'd argue that a month's time off at least is needed, and more than that, a topic ban from religious topics as that seems to be the focus of the socking and I'm not convinced that Jobas can resist the temptation to sock at those articles. Doug Weller talk 12:26, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Certainly User:Jobas' recent conduct of using sockpuppets has been deplorable. However, I'm not convinced that a topic ban is in order. User:Jobas has done some fantastic work on religion-related articles, such as creating Christian culture and Christian attitudes towards science, in addition to expanding existing articles, such as the one about Religion in Asia. I support defining User:Jobas' current block as being two months, rather than being an indefinite one. During this time, User:Jobas is prohibited from creating a new account or editing with an IP address. After he is unblocked, he should be aware that any violation of Wikipedia's sockpuppet policy will result in another block of a longer duration. Keeping in mind both the nature of the offense, as well as User:Jobas' ten year investment in the project and relatively clean block log during this time, I believe that this is a good solution. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 19:17, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

A blocked editor is by definition not allowed either to create new accounts or to edit as an IP. I do not suggest for one moment that Jobas has done so. My comment is simply to clarify any possible confusion which may be caused by the edit above from Anupam, which could be seen as showing a lack of understanding in the meaning of a block. --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 19:36, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks User:Anthony Bradbury, I knew that but highlighted it simply because the reason User:Jobas was blocked concerned editing from other accounts and IP addresses. With regards, Anupam^Talk 19:38, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Comment only: I have no opinion on this block as I am not aware of the details, but I would like to point out the number of edits quoted is massively inflated because of the bizarre and obfuscating editing history which seems to involve adding one character and then changing it multiple times. I have no idea why except it inflates the number of edits, such as this Mramoeba (talk) 21:26, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

I had a technical problem and as User:Nyttend said: " ... but when you have more than 100,000 edits on more than 50 wikis in more than 5 years of editing, you're not going to be doing some silly chain of self-reversion for nefarious purposes ... ". To this end, I have made a several positive contributions to Wikipedia (over 100,000 edits) on more than 50 wikis and in more than 10 years of editing. While I apologize for editing while logged out, I should note that my IP is dynamic. Therefore, my changing IP was not intentional, but something that is customary with my ISP. Respectfully, Jobas (talk) 23:03, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

I can accept that, but it doesn't explain your use of IP addresses and your account at Talk:English people. Doug Weller talk 11:32, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

How many chances for an editor well aware of our policy on sockpuppets?

Looking further into this, I am not at all happy with suggesting an appeal in two months. Jobas says " I will not repeat these errors again and am thankful that this block allowed me to reflect upon my actions." But it's only three years since he was reminded of the 9 female sockpuppets he created on Commons, which he said he did because he kept losing his password.[1] He made it clear at that time that he was aware of the rules. At about the same time he made a CU request at Commons.[2] He later (last year) seems to have changed his story, saying that "these sock-puppet it wasn't mine, i used to live in the campus so we shared IP with several students since we used the same Internet line. so it wan't mine as the test later show. and the i'm still working in wikipedia commons project, since user:Martin saw that there is no connection between these accout. (I never been blocked there for sock puppet as you claims)"[3] He also socked at the Arab Wikipedia.[4] This was several years after he was blocked here in 2007 for editwarring and using an IP to sock.

Then there are those chains of self-reverted one-byte space edits like this one.[5] He blamed this on a technical problem which he didn't explain, but they did stop - when User:Bishonen gave hin a final warning. However, they were replaced by rapid fire (several a minute) additions of 'see also's to articles. All of this make it very hard to look at his edit history (and vastly inflates it). Just as his deletions of his talk page here made it hard for me to see what other editors have said. On the Arab Wikipedia he archives it. I also note that a lot of his edits are copy/paste from other articles, for which he has been warned more than once during the last two or three years. Some of these have left out relevant context, others have left out the reference information, etc. I'd need to analyse them further but there's at least a hint of a religious agenda relating to Christians, Jews and Muslims. But it's hard to find these edits as they're buried in all the tiny edits.

Then there's the edit warring including a block this year.

@Ad Orientem, Anupam, Anthony Bradbury, and Mramoeba: Personally I think that this editor should not be unblocked for at least six months after which he can request the WP:Standard offer. If it is accepted I'd like to see some conditions place on him although I'm not sure how we can best stop his multiple tiny edits which I'm not convinced are that beneficial. Perhaps a restriction that slows him down? Doug Weller talk 14:01, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

One of the reasons I don't feel able to comment on the block is exactly because of issues like this. I am aware of Jobas because he was deleting various atheist categories, about 2 or 3 per minute, from pages in alphabetical order, I had been editing prominent humanists so he kept popping up on my watchlist. Everything was swiftly hidden by the single character edits so it was incredibly labour intensive to see if this was just affecting "my" pages or was an ongoing problem, and one which I don't have the time or inclination to get involved with. There was a discussion surrounding that but it appears to have been edited out of Jobas's archive. Thanks for looking a little further, I remain convinced the editing style is deliberate. I don't know what Jobas has done this time around but I feel REALLY uncomfortable with an editor who works like this. Whatever I have said or done on Wikipedia, or that any of us has done, is transparent and obvious. Who knows what this guy is doing that isn't being picked up on? If he gets banned he just creates more accounts, and who knows how many of those there are that haven't been found? It's like playing games that no one else wants to play, and in the case of the pages I edit, pushing a religious agenda. Mramoeba (talk) 14:29, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I didn't changed the story; in Wiki commons I wasn't able to edit by my Jobas main account till I created the SUL account; and I lived in a Student House of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem campus, where more than 100 students were living; We all shared the same IP address and so many of the accounts in Wiki commons editing from that IP weren't mine. And I have made a several positive contributions to Wiki commons (more than 150 files).

Here my block log in Arabic Wikipedia and It's possible to ask any admain there about me or about my edits. About those chains of self-reverted yes it was a technical problem and after the warning I used anther computer for editing and it's easy to check by IP I guess.

For my last 10 years editing here, beside this block I been blocked in 2007 for adding an information without supporting with a reference and editing while logged out (I was new here in that time and not aware of the rules); then the second block was this year for edit warning. So it's relatively clean block log.

user:Mramoeba, it’s not appropriate to use the time span in which I made the categorical edits in order to pronounce a statement on their validity. I had carefully studied the articles in which I removed categories and had recorded these in my notebook and made a decision upon them per WP:CATEGRS. After spending countless hours doing this, I then removed the categories in a short time span, after I diligently examined each article and in which pages that you been editing, I pushing a religious agenda, can you please give an example??. The main issue here was the use of alternative accounts, which I should have named on their userpages. I should note that I did not use my alternate account to tag-team edit war with my main account so I am a bit surprised that some users are calling for a six month block. However, if that’s what the Wikipedia community asks of me, I’m willing to comply and continue as a productive editor after that block expires. Thank you.--Jobas (talk) 18:20, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Jobas, we have already had this discussion. Regarding your pasted reply about the categories, which you pasted every time anyone disagreed with you, the point was you were not making any meaningful judgement about the categories you were deleting, you did not have the time to do that because you were deleting them off faster than you could read the pages you were deleting them from. THAT was the issue, that you weren't making meaningful or useful contributions. You were targetting atheist pages. I don't know what other pages you target because I cannot be bothered to wade through the treacle that is your editing history. Remember, I asked you if you would instead like to help look at or check sources before deleting them? But no, you had no interest in keeping the category on pages, you were interested only in deleting them wholesale and leaving it to others to have to re-add them, presumably knowing full well that many pages would be overlooked. Once again, why should it be my job to go around looking for your illegal accounts? Do you think that is what I am here for, to play games and check up on people who show themselves to require policing? I have no desire to do that, thankfully some people have both the responsibility and the judgement to, and it is those people you are currently dealing with. Mramoeba (talk) 14:51, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Again the edit but again my edit was based on Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, which cited: Categories regarding religious beliefs or lack of such beliefs of a living person should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief in question; Just because you don't agree with me or with that rule it's not necessarily mean I targeting atheist pages. And if you genuinely believe I'm using more sock puppets or I have more accounts, take your concerns to WP:SPI.--Jobas (talk) 15:01, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• I agree this editor shouldn't be unblocked for at least six months, after which time the standard offer applies. They seem to expect others to use untold time and effort to clean up after them and, as Mramoeba says, 'to wade through the treacle that is their editing history'. Jobas, you have not answered the pertinent comment that you were deleting categories faster than you could possibly read the pages you were deleting them from. Therefore, I'm unimpressed by your quotations from WP:NONDEF. You had no way of knowing if the atheist categories you were removing were defining characteristics or not, so WP:NONDEF doesn't apply. And yes, you were targeting atheist pages Also, I'd be interested to know what kind of technical problem it was that was forcing you to make all those tiny edits and then self-revert them, as I have never come across anything like that. It's a pity you didn't try to do anything about it while people were still being patient with you and merely begging you to stop, before you got my sharp final warning. Bishonen | talk 15:25, 3 June 2017 (UTC).

User:Bishonen I had carefully studied the articles in which I removed categories and had recorded these in my notebook and made a decision upon them per WP:CATEGRS. After spending countless hours doing this, I then removed the categories in a short time span, after I diligently examined each article.--Jobas (talk) 18:20, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Assuming your statement is true, and I'm not impugning your honesty, I congratulate you on a level of diligence that would be remarkable coming from our best editors. Unfortunately it is also a claim that for exactly that reason is likely to produce raised eyebrows if not outright accusations of lying from the community. Sometimes your better off just being quiet and letting things progress. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:45, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• Man, it's like pulling teeth. Jobas, what was the technical problem? How did it manifest from your point of view? Please stop dancing round that. Also, please don't make additions to a comment that has already been answered, as you just did.[6] It wrongfoots the other person. Bishonen | talk 19:27, 4 June 2017 (UTC).

• Hi Jobas. Based on the above comments, and in particular for me, the fact that this does not appear to have been your 1st time socking, I now think you should not request an unblock for at least six months. Additionally I think you should expect that a topic ban of at least a year on religion and atheism related subjects is likely to be a condition for your being unblocked. Further to the issues above I recall your trip to ANI back in February (the Xenophrenic discussion) where concerns were raised about AGENDA oriented editing on religious subjects, especially relating to atheism. There was some talk of a temporary topic ban then. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:54, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with User:Doug Weller, User:Bishonen and User: Ad Orientem that a block for the duration of six months is warranted. Following the expiration of this block, I suggest that User:Jobas be allowed to return to editing, with a one-year WP:1RR restriction on articles pertaining to atheism/religion. If he violates 1RR, further blocks can be imposed. I think this condition will help prevent any detrimental behavior from occuring and at the same time, will allow User:Jobas to constructively edit on the project (e.g. his creation of the article about Protestant culture). I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 20:02, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Anupsm: We are saying he can appeal in six months, not that it will automatically expire then. Doug Weller talk 20:08, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: that works too - after six months, he can request an unblock per the standard offer. Cheers, Anupam^Talk 20:13, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I think it's time we all stepped away from this discussion. There is a clear consensus in favor of a minimum six months before considering any unblock, with no guaranteed outcome. Let's let it go for now and come back to this in December. In closing, I want to again caution Jobas (no need for a reply) that any credible evidence of block evasion would likely be fatal to any unblock request. And now I am moving on. See you all in December. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:19, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

As an only peripherally uninvolved admin who has read through the whole thread I would agree that there should be no consideration of unblock for six months; I also favour the suggested topic ban to be implemented when or if, unblock occurs. And I would like to see an answer to the question repeatedly asked above; what was the technical problem causing large numbers of micro-edits? --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 22:04, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

This is unfortunate. I have seen Jobas editing for a few years on religion and atheism topics and found that Jobas provided many new and diverse sources to many of these articles. Like Ad Orientem and others have acknowledged here and in the section above, Jobas has done some meaningful work here on wikipedia. I think credit should be given for that much at least since he improved many of these wiki pages through the years. It seems there were some edit wars between one other editor named Xenophrenic. Both were found to be editing multiple similar religion/atheism pages and these resulted in quite a bit of edit warring from both editors over the wording of what the sources said on those pages (for example, Antireligion). Both were blocked recently temporarily over similar differences in point of views and personal remarks since the tensions were a bit high between them, see the noticeboard entry [7]. Aside, from that, I have not seen Jobas be aggressive or abusive in such articles with others, even when I disagreed with Jobas. But we have to keep in mind that religion/atheism pages are places where all sorts of views are controversial, so in a sense, this is not worth completely banning someone IF they have contributed to a good degree in good faith. On a side note, I never really encountered these micro-edits, until reading this talk page. Although, these little edits do look a bit odd, I think that Jobas can re-adjust and stop this and make an appeal in a few months. Time is good for reflection. Hope this helps.Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 05:40, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

once again edit warring after block august 2017

A user with the name Jobas started edit warring on quite a few pages on different WIKI languages. For example on July 30th refer [[8]]. Seems the block is not fully complete. Grsd (talk) 15:03, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

It seems very unlikely that the Jobas on the Arab Wikipedia is the same as this one. — Gamall Wednesday Ida (t · c) 15:19, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

it seems very very unlikely , that this concerns a different user. Same topics, e.g. Religion in europe, just a different language, same insertion of unsourced material that does not comply with WIKI guidelines . Grsd (talk) 15:33, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Please do not make up any false comment here and in admain talk pages as you done in User:Ad Orientem talk page. The block is only in English wikipedia, not global in other Wikipedia projects which are independent projects.

And yes I am the same Jobas on Arab Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia, French Wikipedia etc, and it's not a secret that I have made a several contributions to Wikipedia on more than 50 wikis for more than 10 years of editing. So I'm "starting" editing there.

There is no "edit warring" going on in other Wikipedia project, any user can see that and can tell there is no edit warning going. and here is my edit's in ia.wikipedia.org where you claim i'm edit warning I done only one edit in 30 of July, that was adding a file that uploaded in the Wikicommons.--Jobas (talk) 15:42, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

So you admit that you inserted an incorrect and unsourced map on several WIKI pages. Something that should not occur as per WIKI rules maps don't get a free pass on WP:V and source.I find this even more to be a big issue as you've been around a long time and should have known better. Especially as the discussion about this map was rather extensive on the Religion in Europe talk page at a time you were actively contributing to this page including the talk section. Your reply that you're only blocked on the English version does not give you a free pass to knowingly insert unsourced material so please stop doing this. Stop edit warring !!! Grsd (talk) 20:15, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

You just keeping telling false comment, Please read more about Wikipedia:Edit warring,so there is no edit warning going in "different languages"., see here, and here and here, from 30 of July till today I made only one edit in these projects, based on history edit this mape was added by dozens of diffrent users yet you picked me, so please stop spreading false commnets in my talk page.--Jobas (talk) 22:32, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

A bowl of strawberries for you!

Take WP:OFFER and come back! Marvellous Spider-Man 05:42, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Category:Persecution by atheists has been nominated for discussion

Category:Persecution by atheists, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:16, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

December 2017

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.

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This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Jobas (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

Respected administrators, I would be really grateful if you could graciously consider my unblock request. I have had six months to reflect on my participation on Wikipedia, including the action that got me blocked and I apologize for that. However, I have grown as a person during the last six months and feel that I can continue to be a productive editor. I hope to hear from you soon. With gratitude.--Jobas (talk) 18:54, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Decline reason:

There is a strong consensus against unblocking at this time. This is heavily based on statements made by you which you knew to be false in previous unblock requests and only admitted to this within the last 24hrs. This decline is not to be construed as a WP:CBAN and is without prejudice to a future unblock. However I strongly suggest waiting another six months, at a minimum, before submitting another request for a Standard Offer. A little longer might be better. Also I must say that if you had come clean about all of this six months ago, I seriously doubt there would have been any meaningful opposition to your being unblocked. Ad Orientem (talk) 18:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

@Ad Orientem and Doug Weller:

You haven't said anything specific about what you would do differently, which is disappointing. I would be willing to consider this if you will accept a topic ban from anything to do with atheism or religion (which would apply to all Wikipedia pages, not just articles or article talk pages) to be followed by a 6 month 1RR restriction on such pages. Doug Weller talk 16:56, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

This seems reasonable to me. Give us an idea of what you want to work on with the understanding that you will be under a 1 year topic ban from religion and atheism related pages and discussions broadly construed. I also support the proposed 1RR restriction. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:58, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi User:Doug Weller and User:Ad Orientem! I hope you both are doing well. I agree with you that a six-month 1RR restriction is appropriate here, although I am not convinced that a topic ban is in order. User:Jobas has done some fantastic work on religion-related articles, such as creating the Christian culture and Christian attitudes towards science articles, in addition to expanding existing articles, such as the one about Religion in Asia. In addition, User:Jobas is from the minority Palestinian Christian community and I feel that this unique and underrepresented background is a valuable addition to the various backgrounds of other Wikipedia editors. He already effectively endured a topic ban with his six-month block from editing Wikipedia completely and the nature of the block was to address the issue of sockpuppetry, rather than the content of his edits. I would suggest that any further violations of Wikipedia's policy with respect to sockpuppetry should result in another block of a longer duration. Keeping in mind these facts, as well as User:Jobas' ten year investment in the project and relatively clean block log during this time, a six-month 1RR restriction is the solution at this time, in my humble opinion. I hope this helps. Respectfully, Anupam^Talk 19:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

User:Doug Weller, User:Ad Orientem, and User:Anupam - thank you all for your comments here. I apologize for not making more clear that what I will do differently in the future. I promise to never use a sockpuppet account again and if I am in any doubt about an action that has the potential to be in conflict with Wikipedia policy, I will research the relevant policy before acting. I also will use talk pages more often, rather than jumping to reverting right away. I am willing to accept the 1 year topic ban from religion/atheism related articles, as well as a 1RR restriction that User:Ad Orientem detailed above, while at the same time adhering to the vows I mentioned above. I thank you for your willingness to unblock me and giving me another opportunity to return as a productive Wikipedia editor. Graciously.-- Jobas (talk) 19:11, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Could you elaborate on what subject areas you intend to focus on during the period you are topic banned? -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:17, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

You're very welcome User:Ad Orientem. I plan to edit topics relating to medicine and biology, as well as history and geography, during this one-year period. Once again, thanks for giving me another chance. Respectfully yours.---Jobas (talk) 19:25, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@Doug Weller. Is this satisfactory to you? -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• I'm against unblocking this editor. He edited very disruptively before the block, see especially Mramoeba's comments above, and was very evasive after it. He used to make a lot of tiny obfuscating edits that made his contributions history like treacle to wade through, and when challenged claimed these were due to a "technical problem", but never explained how that could happen. See him evading the question here. I don't think quoting Nyttend's answer at the Village Pump, which was obviously made without knowing much about the context, helps. I myself asked Jobas about it twice[9][10] — see him pretend-answer my first question here and then ignore my impatient follow-up. I've never heard of such a technical problem, and it's surely unlikely on the face of it. Jobas has had six months to find a credible explanation of how such an editing pattern, which was one of the major problems with his editing, could happen "technically", and until he does, or otherwise stops shuffling around it, I'm against any unblock. This is without even considering the sockpuppetry. (Note: Jobas tends to change his own answers and move them about, so the diffs I've provided are simply the best I could manage.) Bishonen | talk 19:51, 7 December 2017 (UTC).
• I think I am going to solicit comments via ANI. At the present time my thinking is a six month topic ban followed by six months of 1RR on religion and atheism pages/discussions broadly contrued. However as there is an objection, I would like to get some additional input. I will ask that comments and questions be posted here so as to allow Jobas to respond. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:10, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support Standard Offer Request per my comments above and here. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 21:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• Question: Having had this considerable time to think about it, what was the technical problem that you had which led to the unhelpful and obfuscating pattern of editing one character at a time, and immediate reversal, which was making it almost impossible for other editors to see what actual edits you were making? What measures can you suggest so that you can be sure it doesn’t happen again? What would happen if, despite your best efforts, the editing pattern started again? Mramoeba (talk) 21:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support: Per my comment made at ANI. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:26, 7 December 2017 (UTC) (see below)
• Strong Oppose an unblock until we get a credible explanation of the "technical problem". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:29, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Honestly, I'm trying to figure out what nefarious purpose those edits could have but I just can't find it. Gaming autoconfirmed/extendedconfirmed makes no sense since Jobas had 20k edits around the time of blocking. There wasn't anything really to gain, that I can tell, from inflating his editcount.
    Then I thought of something: Maybe Jobas was trying to wipe an embarrassing page off his "most edited" list for the Wikipedia namespace; the xtools edit counter lists the top 9, and number 3-9 are FPC pages afflicted with those odd edits. But if you look at the subpage that lists, I think, the top 100 Wikipedia namespace pages, there are quite a few more pages than necessary to wipe something off the top 9. If Jobas was trying to hide something, he did it slowly, deliberately, and over a very long period of time: there are pages from February 2017, September 2016, July 2016... it's just too spread out for me. Do I think it's possible Jobas was trying to fill up his top 100 WP namespace listing with pages to conceal some page where he'd made 18 edits? I guess it's possible... but the circumstances just don't strike me as credible. I will say that those pages in the top-100 account for more than 2k of Jobas' edits... but even then, he had plenty to hit any editcount threshold well before he began this odd activity.
    Honestly, I'm of the mind that this is probably an input system related issue. Maybe Jobas was editing from an odd mobile device, or had some kind of misconfigured text input setup. It's weird but I don't think it's really his fault or suspicious enough to sustain denying an unblock and converting the block to a siteban per WP:CBAN. Jobas indicated above that it appeared to be related to the computer he was using at the time. If it's truly a technical issue, such as a problem with the system or software he was using at the time, then I think we could leave it with a promise to be wary of it happening again. I don't see any value in demanding an explanation unless there's some obvious nefarious purpose to these edits that I'm missing. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Then why refuse all requests to explain it other than saying "technical problem" when asked? It's a simple enough question, and I 'll probably could easily switch to supporting an SO unblock if we get a credible answer (though I do wish you hadn't given him some answers that he could just say "yes, that was it" to). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Just to provide an example (using a diff from above), here's an example of the "technical problem" that went on for a couple of weeks. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Mendaliv, the obvious nefarious purpose would be to make his contributions difficult to research, compare Doug weller's comment above that it's hard to find Jobas's questionable edits as they're buried in all the tiny edits.[11], also compare Mramoeba: "Everything was swiftly hidden by the single character edits so it was incredibly labour intensive to see if this was just affecting "my" pages or was an ongoing problem".[12]. You suggest there was a technical problem during a particular period in the past, Mendaliv; that period seems to have continued despite all the complaints he received about it, with no non-admin warnings or pleas having any effect, right up to the point in time where I told him I'd block him if it didn't stop.[13] Then it did stop. That's a coincidence I don't like; it suggests, if nothing worse, that only the threat of imminent sanctions will persuade Jobas to have any concern for the convenience of others. Since I'm here, I'll also say that if people are impressed by Jobas's explanation of his machine-gun quick removals of atheist categories from BLPs,[14][15], their capacity for AGF is greater than mine. Now I'm done. Bishonen | talk 23:26, 7 December 2017 (UTC).
      • Nope, I don't buy the atheist categories explanation either. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:31, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
      • Yeah, that atheist category removal explanation doesn't work for me. Jobas needs to better address why those edits weren't appropriate, and merely explaining the speed doesn't do it. It looks like Jobas is running some kind of bot or script to me. That may be a reasonable explanation for the weird runs of edits in projectspace in FPC noms; they actually become doable for obfuscation purposes. Even if we can't show for sure that Jobas is running something, I believe the speed of the edits is high enough that we can treat it the same as automated editing.
        As I was writing this, I was going to say something about Jobas' editing at arwiki being persuasive given he's clearly continued to work there productively and without getting blocked. Looking at Jobas' editing patterns at arwiki, however, it looks like he's running some kind of anti-vandalism software, like Huggle. The overwhelming majority of his edits in mainspace at arwiki, at least over the six months I skimmed, appear to be reverts. Of course, I don't read Arabic, but I can recognize the automated edit summary patterns well enough to tell what's a revert and what's a rollback. Taken with the speedy edits here, I almost wonder if we're looking at someone using a modified copy of AWB. I honestly wish I could read Arabic to investigate whether there's something untoward going on over at arwiki, but that's neither here nor there.
        At any rate, I'm convinced at least enough to switch to oppose for now (see below), unless and until Jobas can address these issues. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank User:Mendaliv for the comments. For the last six months I been editing at Arabic Wiki with my alternative account Jobas1, and as every one can see I expanded existing articles and created some articles during that period, and made more than 1,500 edits. Even at Arabic Wikipedia, I had this problem and they were able to understand my explanation--I am an ESL speaker so I apologize that I was not able to convey it that well here. As I said I had a very faulty computer that would auto-click edit add a character and then save it. I have since replaced the computer that I had and this problem will not occur again. I am sincerely sorry for the problem that it may have caused you and others here and assure you that this will occur no more. Thank you for your understanding.--Jobas (talk) 02:43, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Oh okay. Interestingly Jobas1 has made an edit here, though it looks like it was accidental. I'm not going to argue it's a sock, but it does add credibility for my purposes that it wasn't used illicitly after you were blocked on this account. It also looks like Jobas1 is being used for actual article work at arwiki. Any particular reason for the separate accounts? If not that's fine, I'm just curious, not suspicious of anything.

As to the issue you're describing... in what seems like a past life, I used to do tech support work. Sometimes crazy things do happen with browsers, whether they're misconfigured or something else, and people do tend to ignore them for a long time. I'm not exactly onboard with your explanation, but I've got two possibilities before me: (1) You're being truthful, aren't sure what was going on, and just didn't address it until it actually did become a problem; or (2) you're lying to cover up misconfigured automated editing scripts or generating edits to mask some kind of behavior or evade scrutiny. If you got an unblock here, and it happened that you were lying, then I think it's pretty likely you'd rapidly return to doing whatever you want—and what you were doing previously is pretty easy to discover—and you'd wind up reblocked in short order. That's pretty normal, honestly, and to an extent I believe the others below want you to confess to doing something untoward before they'd support your return. And, really, if you were deliberately doing something either strange or improper, confessing, owning up to it, and promising not to repeat would go a long way towards your credibility. That said, it's still possible in my mind that you are telling the truth, and really have no knowledge of the problem other than it was something wrong with your computer. If that's the case, I think the standpoint of demanding you confess to something you didn't do, and therefore can't really allocute to, before granting an unblock is unreasonable. That is, if we assume you're telling the truth, what's your pathway to an unblock? If the Standard Offer means anything, then you ought to have a pathway to an unblock that doesn't involve deception. In particular, given I haven't found any reasonable nefarious conduct that might explain the odd edits, I'm inclined to say the onus should on those opposing your unblock to demonstrate that those edits served a prohibited purpose. I do not find the claim that it was generating "white noise" to mask other improper edits to be persuasive. At the very least, I'd have to see evidence that the strange edits coincided with or actually masked controversial edits.

I do, however, still believe that much of your editing is bot-like, particularly with depopulating categories and making single changes across a wide variety of articles. Even if you aren't using a bot, I think you would do well to seek to discuss edits you make to a large number of articles before you carry out those edits. This is what you should have done with removing the atheist categories, honestly. At least providing some advance discussion of the reason for making the edits, like depopulating a category, and showing your work on a few example articles that you plan on removing. I would say, in particular, where you're dealing with categories where the attribute is central to the subject's notoriety (e.g., subjects who are well-known atheists but you don't have an exact reference at hand to show it), it's less urgent for you to remove the category before discussing.

Going back to the Jobas1 account, I note again that Jobas did not use that account for socking on enwiki, and has spent the last six months over at arwiki actually creating content. I think that's a very positive sign. As I mentioned elsewhere, we used to look for positive participation on another wiki as almost a sine qua non of eligibility for an unban or community lifting of an indef. Unless there's evidence that Jobas or Jobas1 actually have not edited productively at arwiki, then that would change things. To sum up, my main concerns are your bot-like editing and your understanding that it's usually a good idea to discuss first when contemplating mass changes that some editors may find controversial. While I believe the concerns about your explanation for the strange edits are well-founded, I consider your explanation plausible enough that conditioning your unblock on a better explanation (i.e., explaining what nefarious acts you were doing) to be unfair. Thus, I will support an unblock with the conditions agreed to previously. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@Mendaliv: Re "At the very least, I'd have to see evidence that the strange edits coincided with or actually masked controversial edits", please see my further observations below, which I believe demonstrate exactly that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:39, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Comment as somebody who edits primarily about health and medicine, where we have high standards for sourcing and very clear norms and guidelines for content, I am worried about whether Jobas will take the time to understand WP:MEDRS, WP:MEDMOS, and WP:MEDHOW, etc, given the combative nature of his past behavior, and about my watchlist getting overwhelmed with the kind of rapid fire fiddling changes that Jobas did in the months prior to his block. The continued evasion about the "technical problems" is also a concern. Jytdog (talk) 22:00, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• It seems clear to me from the comments here (and I imagine it would be clear to Jobas) that getting into the fiddling changes again would almost certainly result in reblocking. But since MEDRS, etc. haven't previously come up as issues for Jobas (to my knowledge), and since he also mentioned biology, history, and geography, that doesn't seem like a reason not to unblock. (Though I realize you're expressing concern rather than opposing here). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:23, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• My suggestion would be to separate the block from the ban, and to consider this as an appeal of the block, leaving an indefinite topic ban in place that can be appealed separately via ANI. If that were the case, I would be inclined to conditionally support the unblock, since Jobas can be a productive contributor (even if I have disagreed with him at nearly every interaction we've had :) ). But not an unblock while at the same time attaching an expiration date to the topic ban (if I understand what's being proposed correctly), as that should be a separate discussion that the unblock doesn't need to be weighed down by. Of course, per comments above, any set of unblocking terms would need to require an explanation of the "technical" matter (even if it's "I was trying to increase my edit count" or "I didn't want people to scrutinize my edits", that's better than nothing). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:18, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

User: Rhododendrites, I'm grateful for your faith in me and willingness to give me another chance. Thank you so much.--Jobas (talk) 02:43, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose pending a credible explanation for the behavior shown in Boing!'s "technical problem" example above. I can think of lots of motivations for repeatedly adding and removing whitespace but few of them are good. We can support a SO unblock even for someone who was pulling shenanigans provided they come clean about all the circumstances leading up to the block/ban. But he hasn't done that. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:57, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your honest questions User:Mramoeba. I had a very faulty computer that would auto-click edit add a character and then save it. I have since replaced the computer that I had and this problem will not occur again. I am sincerely sorry for the problem that it may have caused you and others here and assure you that this will occur no more. Thank you for your understanding.--Jobas (talk) 02:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

But Jobas, how do you account for having a run of that weird behavior on February 14, from 00:06 to 00:26 UTC, but your account at Arabic Wikipedia, which was actively editing around the same time, didn't have any such problems? There are many other near-overlapping periods where you clearly switched between Wikipedias but you only experienced this problem on English Wikipedia as far as I can tell. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 02:46, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Good point.

So to clarify, you had a computer that was so malfunctioning as to select pages (and only pages, not talk pages or draft spaces) in alphabetical order, make only single character edits and immediately revert those edits exactly, several times in succession, over days (maybe weeks). And at no point did it occur to you to stop immediately what you were doing? You never once thought to fix it or get some help, maybe leaving an explanation somewhere apologising or explaining that you were trying to fix it, and it coincidentally stops when an admin informs you you’ll be banned if you don’t stop? That is what you are asking me to believe because I just want to be sure I understand.

BTW I concur with Bishonen that it serves to hide edits which may indicate other editing patterns. Mramoeba (talk) 02:52, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I can understand how that is concerning. I only edit Arabic Wikipedia from the university rather than my personal laptop since the latter does not have an Arabic keyboard. My personal laptop had a technical problem, not the university computers. I regret that I did not fix the issue before I was threatened with a block because I did not think the technical problem was a huge deal since I could just revert the automated edits. I hope you can understand. Jobas (talk) 02:56, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

This explanation does not compute (so to speak). I cannot fathom a way this would be technically possible without some intentionally introduced Wikipedia-related software. It's not like the "edit" and "save" buttons operate according to similar functions, use similar url parameters, or are even located in the same area of the screen. If they were both the first link on a page, if it was a matter of a character being removed from the url, etc. In an attempt to AGF, since it's possible there's something I'm not thinking of, I've asked at VPT, intentionally not linking to this thread: is it possible... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Strong oppose I am entirely unconvinced by the explanation. I didn’t even get an answer to my questions. And by the way if you are sure your english isn’t good enough for an explanation at the time then how on earth is it good enough to make any sort of rapid editing decisions (several per minute re atheist categories removal et al.) on pages which require reading closely. You can’t have it both ways. Mramoeba (talk) 03:05, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support unblock request: Jobas was a longtime and prolific content editor and a net positive to Wikipedia -- his articles are very detailed and high quality. By keeping him blocked, we are loosing avery good editor who would continue to improve WP. Being a sockpuppet was obviously something stupid that he shouldn't ever have done, and he should promise never to repeat that behavior again, but having one sockpuppet over a ten-year editing career on Wikipedia (the sockpuppet was created after 9 years of Jobas editing) is not enough for me to refuse his unblock request. The quality of his edits and how much content he created shows he should be unblocked. --1990'sguy (talk) 03:18, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. I find the (repeated) explanation of the "technical issues" to be completely unconvincing. If there were a mea culpa along the lines of "yes, I was filling my edit history with rubbish to increase my edit count/obscure controversial edits, and I originally lied about the reason for this", that honesty would create enough trust for me to support a provisional unblock. But we keep getting these fantastic stories, which indicates to me that Jobas is still trying to deceive the community. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 03:36, 8 December 2017 (UTC).
• Support Unblock This user has written entire articles and I'd hate the community to lose such a productive editor. I don't understand why some are harping on the technical problem that ceased well before a block for a totally unrelated issue.Knox490 (talk) 06:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
• Support Unblock I have had intersections with Jobas in the past and have not experienced many issues at all. If anything much of the conflict that other editors have mentioned including supposed sock puppeting seems to boil down to other editors obsessively stalking him on atheism and religion pages, such as User:Xenophrenic (who is known for aggressive, obsessive, and tendentious behavior including altering admin comments on closures for ANIs). Seeing that Jobas only had one content block in recent years unsurprisingly due to edit warring with User:Xenophrenic, I think that the issue is certainly fixable on Jobas' side. Though some have mentioned about Jobas doing rapid deletions of categories, I found an ANI on this [16] and it looks like Jobas and Xenophrenic were engaged in an edit war where Jobas only reverted 13 reverts in a short time period in response to Xenophrenic did 43 reverts in a short time period. Obviously the more aggressive editor (who was not Jobas) was never blocked indefintily despite the higher volume of reverts. Jobas got a slap on the wrist here since he had good behavior up to then. Considering that Jobas has been around for about 10 years and has made lots of fruitful contributions to wikipedia, it may be too much to keep him blocked. He has already allowed for 6 months to pass and I would not mind monitoring him for a bit to make sure he does not engage in silly little obscuring edits. If he is unblocked and if he returns to such behavior, I would not hesitate to support sanctions on him. A topic ban is a different issue, but I would disagree with a topic ban too since people would have not show that he has engaged in tendentious and disruptive editing on particular topics in a consistent fashion. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 06:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock without clear acknowledgement of past issues. The "technical problem" explanation is clearly a smoke screen with no basis. Three supporters arrived here within four hours with two (1 + 2) having no other edit in the last ten days. Johnuniq (talk) 08:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
• I'm not buying the explanation for the "technical problem" at all. It's hard to believe technically (for reasons other people have raised), but to accept it we'd have to also believe that it went on for days and even weeks on end (the example I linked to continued in episodes over nearly two weeks), and that it fortuitously didn't happen when Jobas wanted to make actual edits.

  In the example I showed, there's a period from 10:09, 13 April 2017 to 12:45, 14 April 2017 when the "technical problem" wasn't happening and Jobas was editing just fine, and then the "problem" kicked in just 13 minutes after that and went on for about half an hour unchecked. Then on 15 April we have the same - some real edits followed by another "technical problem" session.

  Go back a bit further and we see Jobas controversially removing the atheist categories from all those pages, between 13:09, 5 April 2017 and 13:23, 5 April 2017 and then the mysterious problem kicks in again just a few minutes later and goes on for a couple of hours (and then picks up again the next day). And all the while this technical problem just happens to be choosing articles in alphabetical order, ones which Jobas had not edited before.

  What we are seeing is clearly Jobas making controversial edits and then trying to obfuscate them by pushing them way down his edit history. Had Jobas confessed I would probably still support an unblock, but this latest pile of horseshit pushes me to oppose strongly. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:13, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

  As an aside, I was a software developer for more than 30 years (and still do some now in my spare time), starting in the days when a computer was bigger than a bedroom suite, and I've heard all sorts of "blame the computer" excuses in my time at Wikipedia - and I've not once been wrong yet in disbelieving them. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:36, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

  As a quick test, I did a session in my sandbox where I made the same type of edits manually and reverted manually. Wikipedia response seems a bit slower that usual at the moment, and I managed 2 or 3 edits per minute. Jobas's similar sessions saw 6 to 8 edits per minute, and (based admittedly on my single annecdatum) I can easily see that being about right for an automated script driven by an alphabetical list of article targets.

  At this stage, I'd say Jobas needs to finally tell the truth and then try again in another six months. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:29, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Having reviewed the discussion on this talk page, their explanation of a "computer malfunction" for their previous obfuscatory edits holds no water at all. In fact, it is clearly BS. Now this is a shame, because if, at this point, they had said "yeah, I admit they were obfuscatory edits, but I'm sorry and I won't pull a stunt like that again" then this request would likely have been successful. But we are where we are, and the request asks us to trust them that they will behave differently in future, while demonstrating a continued lack of honesty about the past. On that basis I can't support right now. (commenting here, per the ANI request) -- Begoon 13:57, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Boing! said Zebedee for your honest questions and comments. I am a young user and I admit that I was immature about the issue in the past - the technical problem was simply me attempting to boost my edit count so that I could one day display a Service Badge on my userpage. This is quite embarrassing for me and I am ashamed to admit this, but in good faith, I have honestly come forward to answer the question you asked about the technical problem, a behaviour I ceased well before my block. I promise that I will never do this again and embrace the one-year restrictions that are currently recommended for me. Now, I ask that you please forgive me for this, Thank you. Jobas (talk) 14:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I have answered below. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The "technical fault"

Folks, have a look at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#is it possible to have a bug that automatically edits, adds/removes a character, and then saves a page repeatedly?, which I think pretty much nails it. And it's interesting to see that the +1/-1 edits appear to have been driven by category - the ones here are all in Category:Italian cuisine and are being edited sequentially. An earlier batch in March was driven from Category:Greek cuisine. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:42, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Ah, it's just struck me that G comes before I, and a little further digging shows that prior to editing the Category:Italian cuisine articles we see Category:Israeli cuisine, and prior to that Category:Iranian cuisine. It looks like he's been drilling down from Category:Cuisine by country. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:11, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your honest questions and comments. I am a young user and I admit that I was immature about the issue in the past - the technical problem was simply me attempting to boost my edit count so that I could one day display a Service Badge on my userpage. This is quite embarrassing for me and I am ashamed to admit this, but in good faith, I have honestly come forward to answer the question you asked about the technical problem, a behaviour I ceased well before my block. I promise that I will never do this again and embrace the one-year restrictions that are currently recommended for me. Now, I ask that you please forgive me for this, Thank you. Jobas (talk) 14:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

No, you did not "honestly come forward", you kept on lying until it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that you were lying and you finally had no alternative but to confess. In doing so, you have wasted huge amounts of other people's time. You were being dishonest about your editing as recently as yesterday, which in my opinion resets the WP:Standard Offer clock.

Now, while you're here, do you want to also confess that your claim that you researched all those "atheist" articles properly and made notes in your notebook before rapidly removing the categories was also a lie? Coming clean completely would be a big help, and if you do that I would personally support making a new WP:Standard Offer, meaning try again six months from today when I would probably support. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you again Boing! said Zebedee, I admit that I was immature in rapidly removing the categories without scanning well the categories and previous statement about the notebook was false, I ask that you please forgive me for this, and sorry for wasting your and other people time.--Jobas (talk) 14:31, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The pattern repeats itself. You continually lie about something until another editor is forced to threaten or waste his or her own time to find evidence which exposes you. Then and only then do you attempt to confess, and not even honestly, with some half assed excuse about your English, or this time your age (having previously tried to express how experienced an editor you are with 10 years and tens of thousands of edits to prove your worth). The burden if responsibility is not on the community here to catch you being dishonest. The burden of responsibility is on you to behave and edit in an honest way. You have failed to demonstrate any change in behaviour leaving me forced to conclude you haven’t learnt a single thing from this ban. You are wasting our time once again. Mramoeba (talk) 14:36, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Question for those opposing the unblock request Given that Jobas has confessed to what most everyone already knew, namely that their explanations of a tech glitch and rapid removal of atheism categories were false, and that he has already been blocked for six months and further that blocks are not supposed to be punitive, is it believed that he poses an ongoing threat to the project that requires he remain blocked? I am not trying to play the Devils advocate here (pun intended). Rather I am trying to get an idea as to the rational for declining the requested WP:SO if that turns out to be the consensus. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:44, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

My view is that Jobas is not sufficiently honest/mature at this point to be allowed back yet, having been blatantly and repeatedly lying even in this unblock request discussion - the "lying until you can't hold out any longer" approach is characteristic of juveniles when they're caught, and they say what they think needs to be said to get them off the hook - and I've seen too many cases of confessions and promises being made by young editors who then carry on doing exactly the same things that they think they just got away with. I would like to see a further six months of maturity before I'd support an unblock. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:59, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and I'll just add that Mramoeba makes a good point above (which I've only just seen) in that 10 years of experience does seem to clash with the claim of being young and immature just six months ago. Genuinely immature, or being dishonest about being immature? I don't know - it is common to still be immature into one's late teens or even early twenties. Either way, I think it would be a mistake to unblock at this time - until he has had some more time to properly reflect on what has just happened and re-assess his approach to honesty. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:06, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is still a real concern that Jobas has not demonstrated an understanding, ability and genuine intention to return to editing without a very real probability that more community time-sinks such as this would be the result. I don't see genuine understanding and intent to alter behaviour, just a final, minimal "confession" of the obvious after enormous effort and wasted time, when totally backed into a corner, and no reason to think it would not happen just this way again. Boing's points about maturity and time to reflect are well made too. -- Begoon 15:10, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The lying doesn't impress me. Particularly given the admission to being focused on a high edit count just for the sake of having a high edit count... it makes me wonder about Jobas' high edit count over at arwiki, where his main account behaves like an anti-vandalism bot. I'm not convinced, however, that this has to be fatal to Jobas' request here. We now know the apparent root cause of Jobas' misconduct, and have something to hold him to when crafting unblock conditions.

That said, one of the critical issues with a SO unblock is, as I refer to above, the paucity of evidence of change and improvement during the period of inactivity. As a result, the requestor's approach to the request and the questions asked of him or her are afforded a great deal of weight. In fact, in the absence of red flags, I think the approach to the request is given at least as much weight as the conduct that led to the block in the first place. And so, as here, getting caught in a lie (the strange edits), and having to fess up about different misconduct only after being caught in the lie (the cat removal) would normally be fatal to a SO request.

So where does that put us? We have a root cause of misconduct, the desire to have a high edit count, leading to fairly obvious behavior, artificially inflating edit count. One of the main annoyances reported is watchlist spam, which reminds me of unauthorized bot use... so why not try the same solution here? As added unblock conditions, I believe Jobas should be prohibited from making automated or semi-automated edits, as well as warned that bot-like behavior (such as long stretches of small edits across many pages in consecutive minutes) will be grounds for a reblock. I think, whether a SO is granted this time or in the future, this should be a part of the unblock conditions. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 15:18, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds like a wise move to me, and I'd certainly support it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:36, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Given that the editor has extensively shown in the above discussion that he can't be trusted at all, keeping the block is not punitive but preventative. I also note that their actual edit runs (between the "technical fault" ended and his indef block) consist mainly of edits which are pointless ashould in fact be reverted if you want to follow the MOS, i.e. adding "see also" links which are already present in the short articles. 18.14-18.51 29 May were 100 or so edits like this (a Rayon and a District are the same thing); 17.17-17.37 26 May were 50 or so edits like this where the see also is literally included in the one or two line article already; 14.32-14.49 is another run of the same thing. 25 May consists of hundreds upon hundreds of edits doing again the same thing for other provinces. 20 May, 17 May, ... all the same useless pattern. Either they don't understand why having a see also which repeats a link you can find in the body two lines up is useless and actually unwanted, or they do understand this but are just still trying to up their edit count, but this time with edits which seem at a cursory glance to be beneficial. An editor you can't trust (not even in their unblock request after having veen blocked for months already), who causes problems, and where the majority of his edits are useless anyway, is an editor we don't need at all. Fram (talk) 15:09, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Since Ad Orientem wants further commentary from those opposing an unblock, I still oppose it. Jobas only confessed after being backed into a corner here and now, first trying further evasiveness and timewasting. This after having had six months to think it over! I really don't think it's time to unblock. It's not a question of punishing him; rather, I still think he poses a threat to the project, inasmuch as it looks like he will again need to be policed by editors who could be doing something more useful, not to mention more fun, with their editing time. Pinging the blocking admin, @Dougweller: after what has transpired here, what do you say? For my part I believe the user should stay blocked, with another six months before the next unblock request. Bishonen | talk 15:51, 8 December 2017 (UTC).

• I totally oppose any unblock. Jobas has lied and lied and lied again, and is almost certainly still lying. The "confession" came not only, as other editors have mentioned, after the dishonesty had been proved so clearly that even Jobas must have realised that his lies were obvious to everyone, but also only after being told by one or two editors thing to the effect of "if you had confessed I might have supported an unblock". It is evident that he "confessed" only because it looked to him as though doing so would help his unblock. When the "confession" came it was a partial confession, which looks highly implausible. Also, although there are now "confessions" to a couple of parts of the problem, namely the lies about the huge number of pointless trivial edits followed by self reverts caused by a mythical "technical problem" and the mythical "notebook", there are still other, and in my opinion more important, problems which are totally unresolved. For example, although we now have a confession that the "notebook" used in the blatant attempt to censor Wikipedia by removing references to atheism was a lie, we still do not have any explanation of that attempt at censorship itself. In the context of everything else we know about this editor, the trivial edits and self-reverts look far more like an attempt to hide controversial editing, such as the atheism censorship, from scrutiny than like a simple case of edit-count build up for vanity, as the "confession" claims. Several editors, notably Bishonen and Boing! said Zebedee, have given a whole string of reasons why this editor cannot be trusted, and the more I study the things he has said and his twists and turns when confronted, the more it seems to me that he is still lying to us. I also do not agree at all with the long-standing and oft-repeated view that if an editor "has made some good contributions" we should tolerate the fact that he or she is persistently disruptive and dishonest, and turn a blind eye to incessant lies. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 17:05, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose (edit conflict) unblock, basically based on the rationales presented by Boing! said Zebedee, Fram and Bishonen. The standing offer rationale was insufficient to begin with, as pointed out by Doug Weller, and neither was the subsequent explanations noticeably better. Admittance is one thing, but not being completely truthful is troubling for me as well. I am not convinced that the same pattern of unproductive editing in the earlier months of this year will not be repeated. I think Jobas should wait another 3 to 6 months while present some more evidence of constructive editing from other sister projects, sorry. Alex Shih (talk) 17:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Now opposing I made a proposal for editing restrictions as a condition of unblocking in good faith, believing in Jobas's explanation. Now I find that although a few hours ago he was still claiming that many of his problematic edits were due to a technical problem, he now admits "the technical problem was simply me attempting to boost my edit count so that I could one day display a Service Badge on my userpage." Even though these occurred well before the block, at that time and until today he maintained it was purely a technical fault and nothing to do with his editing. He also now admits that he hadn't actually done any checking before rapidly removing categories and that his statement about taking notes in a notebook was also false. He has wasted a lot of time and energy by lying about his past activities. He also tries to excuse himself because he is a young user, but he's got 10 years of experience here. I can't see why he should be unblocked yet, this was not a good faith request and his finally admitting that he lied doesn't change that. Doug Weller talk 17:29, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

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.

Ongoing block evasion

Jobas continues to spread biased content through various IPs in the articles which were his main pool of interest. The following IPs have added or re-added content which was edited by Jobas:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/62.10.82.29
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/62.10.66.232
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/62.10.76.181
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/78.12.28.46 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.151.218.61 (talk) 01:49, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Culture by religion

Template:Culture by religion has been nominated for merging with Template:Culture. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. PPEMES (talk) 23:43, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

"Impact Of Christianity On Civilization" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Impact Of Christianity On Civilization and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 January 12 § Impact Of Christianity On Civilization until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. An anonymous username, not my real name 00:24, 12 January 2023 (UTC)