Wikipedia:Administrative action review

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Diffs/logs:

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

There is recurring controversy at WP:ITN over the phrasing used for blurbs of sham elections. Some editors believe that indicating an election was undemocratic is inappropriate for blurbs and oppose mentioning it. Stephen is among those editors. That is fine. Many of those editors reference a "long-standing practice", saying that blurbs can never mention an election being undemocratic. In April 2026, consensus at WP:ITNC resolved to post the 2026 Beninese presidential election with "is declared the winner of". Stephen changed it to "wins". Ignorance can be plead in this instance. In June 2026, I started a discussion at WT:ITN about either formalizing the "long-standing practice" or formally repudiating it. That is currently being resolved at an RfC at WP:VPPR. It is generally my reading that RfC will end in no consensus to formalize the longstanding practice or to mandate saying it was undemocratic.In August, the 2026 Zambian general election was held and at the ITNC discussion, there was a clear consensus to post it in the form "is declared the winner of". This occurred. Stephen supervoted to change it to "wins", an action they must have known would be controversial, from reading the discussion and from the monthslong controversy, and for which there was clear consensus against. It is not appropriate for admins to make controversial edits through WP:FULLPROTECTION. I made a post at WP:ERRORS. An admin came in to say they agreed with Stephen. Stephen removed the report. I restored the report. Another admin came in to say they agreed with Stephen. Stephen removed the report again. Another editor restored the report. Two more editors came in to say that this should be resolved elsewhere, and it was removed. Stephen is free to have their opinion, and if they disliked that the discussion had clear consensus against it, they should've taken off their admin hat and !voted as an editor to use the "wins" blurb. What they did was not appropriate. 1brianm7 (talk) 15:40, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Overturn with a buffet of trouts. The consensus at ITNC was for "is declared the winner of". Changing that to "wins" was a supervote. The RfC makes clear (despite it not yet being closed) that there isn't global consensus for doing that, and if there is a "longstanding practice" of supervoting (which, I actually think there is, and it's one of the perennial problems with ITN), it needs to end. Two trouts to Stephen for twice removing a listing at ERRORS when it's Stephen's own error that's being discussed. One trout each to admins Amakuru, Schwede66, Dclemens1971, and Crisco 1492, all of whom should have recognized that ITNC consensus was explicitly for "is declared the winner of" and not "wins," and that this is a "clear error." It was particularly egregious to read Crisco's comment "Whether or not it ['wins'] should be preferred over '... is declared the winner of ...' requires local consensus at ITNC." because there was local consensus at ITNC for "is declared the winner of," since that was the only proposed blurb. All five admins should have been able to recognize this as a supervote against consensus--the clearest supervote I've seen in *checks watch* about a week or two. Admins are not to substitute their own judgment for community consensus, not even (especially not) on the main page. Levivich (talk) 17:25, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Well, I'm not an admin (at least for another couple days), I didn't remove any discussions, I have no ability to change the main page, and I'm not sure why expressing an opinion is a troutworthy offense. ERRORS is for objective errors, not for issues that are being negotiated at ITNC (where the discussion was still ongoing and has not been formally closed), and my point was simply that repeatedly bringing the issue to ERRORS after it had been removed by admins appeared to be an end-run to that discussion. I will not comment on the merits of Stephen's actions here beyond noting that it is a best practice for an editor not to remove discussions from ERRORS in which they are involved. Dclemens1971 (talk) 17:40, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

Not for "expressing an opinion," but for failing to recognize that ITNC consensus was explicitly for "is declared the winner of" and not "wins," and that changing it to "wins" was a supervote, which is an objective, clear error. Consensus is something you're expected to have a strong grasp of as an admin. Also, whether it should be "wins" or "declared winner of" was not being discussed at ITNC prior to the posting--if there is consensus to post, and there was, then the consensus is to post the proposed blurb, and not something else that the posting admin thought would be better. Also also, it was not "removed by admins," it was removed by one admin, who was the admin who made the error. Also also also, bringing it to errors was not an "end-run" to any such discussion, because there was no such discussion, and errors is the right place to report main page errors. Also also also also, the only people in the post-posting discussion so far who prefer "wins" are Stephen and Amakuru. And everybody knows this exact issue is the subject of an ongoing RFC, which makes the supervote even worse: nobody can claim there is clear consensus one way or the other, which means there is no basis for changing the consensus blurb to anything else. Trust me: take the trout, it's better than a reply full of mischaracterizations, which is only digging a deeper hole.

Here's the bigger-picture problem: when admins supervote, like by changing "is declared the winner of" to "wins," and further, when admins circle the wagons by proclaiming that this is "longstanding practice" or somesuch, it is disruptive, because it creates a ton of work for other people. We have to launch an RFC, for example, to "prove" to these admins that what they're doing doesn't actually have consensus. We have to have an XRV, to "prove" that it was misuse of admin tools to change the blurb so significantly. Other editors like me end up volunteering to go dig in the ERRORS page history to figure out what happened and vote on its propriety. None of that work would be necessary if there were no supervotes, or if supervotes were quickly reversed, or at least called out, by other admins. Admins supervoting == more work for everyone else to correct. That's what makes it bad. Particularly as you're about to become a new admin, I urge you to recognize, be clear about, and oppose supervoting, and other violations of PAGs, when you see them. Levivich (talk) 18:06, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

(ec) At the time I posted that comment, the discussion at ITNC was continuing, and there were arguments both for and against the version that was posted. A consensus for the initially proposed blurb is not a consensus against the version posted by Stephen. There was insufficient discussion of the merits of the two phrasings, and saying otherwise is misrepresenting the facts of the matter.

As an aside, ERRORS is explicitly for "actual errors only". A dispute over the version of an ITN blurb posted belongs on ITNC, not ERRORS. Stephen should certainly not have removed the report due to being INVOLVED (and especially not twice). — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:42, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

A consensus to post a blurb is a consensus to post that blurb, not some other blurb written by the posting an admin. I'm surprised I have even type that explanation out to a veteran admin. And there was no discussion of the merits of two phrasings: there was the phrasing that had consensus, and there was Stephen changing the posted version to something else that he thought was a better version, plus Amakuru's claim that "wins" was "the format used for all elections" was instantly disproved with examples of postings using "is declared the winner of." Being the posting admin, Stephen doesn't get a vote on which of two blurbs is better, and Amakuru's claims were immediately disproven. So that leaves no arguments "both for and against" the version, just consensus "for" the proposed blurb. This wasn't a matter up being debated, this was settled at the time another admin, robertsky, posted it. Then Stephen came in and changed it. Pure supervote, and a supervote does not create a "discussion" or good-faith debate. Levivich (talk) 18:11, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

• Yes, a consensus to post a blurb is a consensus to post that blurb. I am well aware, and your disparaging tone is pure ABF. I would not have posted the amended blurb had I been the one to post to ITN in the first place.

The issue is, ERRORS is not the place to achieve consensus or to reverse a perceived supervote. Read the guidelines at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. The page is for obvious errors. Identifying whether something is a 'supervote', as opposed to ordinary administrative discretion, and what can be done to remedy the situation is beyond the scope of ERRORS: "Lengthy discussions should be moved to a suitable location elsewhere, such as the talk page of the relevant article or project." Procedural errors can be resolved at the relevant project page (as was in the middle of happening) or, in egregious cases, through noticeboards such as this. The ongoing discussion had no resolution, and still has no resolution, which means the subject was beyond the scope of ERRORS. Once it has a resolution (i.e., a consensus), and it's just a matter of making the change on a protected page, it falls under scope. Otherwise, we run the risk of starting a wheel war, which is a bad time for everyone involved. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

ABF for my "disparaging tone"? I could just as easily say that reading my tone as "disparaging" is ABF on your part. Feel free to AGF that my tone is not disparaging, because I can tell you it was not intended to be disparaging. Criticism is not disparagement. And sorry, but I think ERRORS is exactly the place to remedy a supervote. No wheel-warring necessary. If, for example, you had said that, as you say you're well aware, consensus to post a blurb is consensus to post that blurb, and therefore Stephen should not have unilaterally changed the blurb -- if you said that, if the other admins who commented said that, I am 100% sure Stephen would have self-reverted, and there would be no wheel war (and no need for this XRV, or the calls to restore the blurb at ITNC post-posting). That's why I said a trout to the admins who did not accurately identify this as a supervote: the clear supervote, and the baseless defense of the clear supervote, has caused disruption. Levivich (talk) 19:05, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

• Why do we have ITN on the main page, anyway? Are there editors who genuinely believe our coverage of breaking news represents the wiki at its best and so recent news should be prominently advertised on the main page?
  I would not endorse the decision we're reviewing. "Wins" does not mean the same as "is declared the winner of".—S Marshall T/C 18:00, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

  I would happily scrap ITN myself to be honest, I don't think it really does the job it's supposed to any more, and the decisions made about what to post and what not to post are usually quite arbitrary. The decision to promote WP:TWAFI to a full main page section might just be the catalyst we need to put ITN out to pasture, but that's a discussion for elsewhere rather than here. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 19:02, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

  it's purpose is to highlight quality articles and WP as a dynamic resource to keep articles on encyclopedic topics up to date with current events. It is not a news ticker since WP is not a newspaper. Election articles typically are a good demonstration of quality articles with updates in a timely manner so are generally posted assuming the article is properly updated. Masem (t) 12:50, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

• Endorse. Stephen's edits were entirely in line with the necessity to avoid editorialising in election blurbs and maintain WP:NPOV. ITN blurbs are not articles they are short blurbs with links, and election blurbs have a boilerplate format used universally for all countries since it is impossible to sum up the nuance of a disputed election in one sentence. A local consensus at ITN/C can't override a core policy such as NPOV.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:21, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
• Not endorse: Stephen did not respect the consensus of the ITNC discussion. The consensus was for the phrasing "declared the winner of", not just wins. Other options were not even discussed at the time, and I find Levivich's argument that [a] consensus to post a blurb is a consensus to post that blurb, not some other blurb written by the posting admin compelling. If other editors feel that the blurb was not NPOV compliant, they should argue as much at ITNC (which is still open). They should not edit the blurb at TM:In the news to match their preferred version withcout consensus. Chess enjoyer (talk) 18:46, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

  Whether WP:ERRORS was the right place for this or not, I agree that Stephen should not have been the one to remove the report, on account of him being involved in the dispute. I consider removing a report at the errors page to be equal to closing discussions on other pages. Chess enjoyer (talk) 19:12, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

• Endorse. I've been promoting items to ITN for several years and there is a longstanding practice to not editorialise election outcomes. And in my view, that needs to remain so, and only clear consensus (e.g. via RfC) can change that. In addition, I shall say that it is quite common that an ITN discussion has come to a consensus to post without there being a hook that is viable. Editors often focus on whether something is worthy of posting or not, rather than the exact hook wording. Quite often, as posting admin, I have to copy-edit the hook so that it complies with MOS, has proper grammar, etc. Therefore, changing a hook from what's proposed at ITN is by no means uncommon. Stephen is one of the core team members who ensures that what is there is proper. Good on him; he deserves a big pat on the back from everyone for his stellar work. Schwede66 19:27, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

  I find nothing wrong with admins unilaterally making grammar fixes or other uncontroversial changes to hooks such as updating death tolls. I think the change under discussion is a little more substantial than that, and needed consensus first. Chess enjoyer (talk) 19:44, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

  Actually, I just noticed that the death toll edit came from an error report, but my point still stands. Chess enjoyer (talk) 20:00, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

  I agree, changing "was declared the winner of" to "wins" is not a typo fix, grammar change, or other copyedit, or even an uncontroversial change like updating a death toll--none of which anyone would have a problem with. Rather, it's unilaterally imposing this vote. Levivich (talk) 20:40, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

  Stating unambigiously that one side wins in an undemocratic election is editorialising. TarnishedPath^talk 05:14, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

• The bigger concern than the main page edits is the double removal of a discussion Stephen engendered. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 19:50, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

  Yikes!—S Marshall T/C 20:34, 25 August 2026 (UTC)

• Not endorse. Admins unilaterally changing blurbs on the main page should only be to correct unambiguous errors such as typos or grammar or to update following factual changes (e.g. death tolls). Changing "is declared the winner of" to "wins" or vice versa is not such a change (fwiw I have no opinion about which is better in this case). Doing it while there is an ongoing discussion is worse. Shutting down discussions about your own actions, twice, is a very serious breach of WP:INVOLVED and absolute basic admin standards. Thryduulf (talk) 21:04, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
• Not endorse, per Thryduulf. The removal of the discussions at ERRORS is the real problem, I'm not entirely sure what Stephen was thinking here. Black Kite (talk) 21:29, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
• No good guys here. This probably doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who has heard my thoughts about ITN, but this is yet another example of the general lawlessness and "the rules don't apply to us" philosophy that dominates the area. Also, "long-standing" is often used as a euphemism on Wikipedia to mean "we've gotten away with it so far", in both content and conduct disputes. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:59, 25 August 2026 (UTC)
• Not endorse. WP:Consensus is a policy that all editors, including admins, are expected to follow.Katzrockso (talk) 00:11, 26 August 2026 (UTC)
• Not endorse. Advise User:Stephen to work on being more personable, less terse, less procedurally authoritarian. Decisions need to be more than just right, you need to bring the community with you. Otherwise, you risk ostracising your colleagues.
  User:Levivich tosses too many trouts too hard. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:44, 26 August 2026 (UTC)
• Without any opinion on the actual edit, removing the errors listing even once would have been out of line. Spiritually if not literally it seems like clearly a violation of WP:INVOLVED, unless I am radically misunderstanding usual practice at ERRORS. Rusalkii (talk) 04:56, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

  Removing a report at ERRORS is akin to closing a discussion, so should generally only be done by someone entirely uninvolved, or where an admin has corrected an unambiguous error. If they've opined on the merits of a controversial issue or their changes are challenged in good faith for any reason, they are involved for such purposes. Left guide (talk) 05:49, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

• Overturn per above and promptly correct the error. BilledMammal (talk) 06:09, 26 August 2026 (UTC)
• Comment Stephen appears to have last edited before this was lodged, and not edited since. I'd prefer to contribute to this discussion at least having seen a response from them (or an indication that they do not wish to participate). They seem to have edited daily this month; hopefully an indication will be given shortly. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 07:18, 26 August 2026 (UTC)
• Not endorse. (regular at ITN) In my opinion, the "wins" vs "is declared" issue is a nothingburger, as the average reader is not going to know the difference between the two. The bigger issue is that Stephen removed the ERRORS discussion twice as an INVOLVED admin. I have noticed (in reference to SmokeyJoe's comment) that Stephen comes off as "procedurally authoritarian" at times at ITN (haven't run into him in other areas of the project). Natg 19 (talk) 17:03, 26 August 2026 (UTC)
• Not endorse. Truthfully, "wins" versus "declared the winner" is a semantic argument to me, and as far as I'm concerned, I do not believe the posting was in error as there has long been lacking consensus at ITN to refer to elections in such a way, so to me, I believe this was a fair usage of admin status to make a decision that was believed to be in the best interest of the project. That said, the double removal of the ERRORS discussion was in poor form and something that has long irked me. I think admins, in general, rush to remove potentially viable concerns from this page to seemly no real benefit of the project. There was no reason to stifle valid concerns about the wording of the blurb, by an involved editor or not, and certainly not twice. DarkSide830 (talk) 01:32, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

  Apologies for my own part in adding to this confusion, but just to clarify: Stephen was not the posting admin. Another admin posted the blurb as written. Stephen later changed it. Levivich (talk) 02:56, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

  All good. Personally, I'm still not terribly miffed by the change as much as the Errors tiff. DarkSide830 (talk) 02:44, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

• Not endorse - The consensus was clearly for the version which the posting admin posted. The version which Stephen posted had not been proposed or discussed at all. Stephen's action was a form of WP:SUPERVOTE which disregarded the perspective of everyone who had actually participated in the discussion. His removal of the discussion from ERRORS was especially egregious - admins ought not to suppress discussion of their own actions, even if they would otherwise be justified due to there being a better venue for the discussion. As to the actual text of the ITN posting: appeals to NPOV are misplaced. What reliable sources say about the nature of an event is relevant to what we say about that event, in the article body, in the lead, and in links to it elsewhere such as ITN blurbs. It is as absurd to suggest that we should always post 'N wins X election', regardless of what reliable sources say about the conduct of that election, as that we should always post 'N dies' regardless of whether reliable sources say it was natural causes or homicide. That's not neutrality, it's cultivated ignorance. Personally I think 'is declared the winner of' is pretty weaksauce too, and I have made appropriate representations on this point in the ongoing RfC. This is not the place to rehash those arguments; but I endorse Andrew's correct observation in the post-posting ITN discussion that we have several times recently used the same formulation as was proposed (and initially posted) in this case. Stephen's actions are unjustifiable in that context. GenevieveDEon (talk) 17:46, 27 August 2026 (UTC)
• Not endorse Note for transparency that I participated in the discussion referenced. Stephen’s actions constituted a WP:SUPERVOTE that went against the consensus at ITNC. The admins are there to make changes to the MP per the outcomes of ITNC discussions, not write blurbs to their own wishes. I agree with others that the removal of the MPE thread is also problematic. Chorchapu (talk | edits) 18:01, 27 August 2026 (UTC)
• Not endorse – As the longstanding practice is just that, practice, and not formalized as a requirement, there is nothing that says editors cannot form a consensus at ITN to depart from that practice when they deem it to be a good idea. As things stand, this it is a matter of editorial discretion and as such should not be altered by any one editor without first obtaining a consensus to do so. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 23:58, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

  And yeah, shutting down discussions to undo an unfounded admin action is really not exemplary behaviour, even if other admins sided with the admin doing so. Just goes against WP:INVOLVED; let someone else shut it down if they feel like it is warranted. –Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 02:55, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

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Diffs/logs: User: SarekOfVulcan (talk · contribs · logs) and Ritchie333 (talk · contribs · logs) Mevsherd (talk) 21:13, 28 August 2026 (UTC)

Hello. Please review the conduct of two administrators, Sarek of Vulcan and Ritchie333. They shut down an active discussion of administrator accountability. More specifically, I wanted to discuss part of a Project page, which I attempted to do in its Talk page.

More background: 1) I disagreed with this statement on the Project page “Administrators are held to high standards of conduct….” 2) On the Talk page, I proposed removing it. 3) SarekofVulcan immediately shut down the discussion with the message: “The following discussion is closed…. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.” There was no help in knowing what “the appropriate discussion page” for my proposal could mean (and mild bullying by that admin later); it was already in Talk for the Project page. 4) I resurrected the discussion, and elaborated my objections (including an example of an admin being a bad role model). 4) Another administrator immediately shut it down again.

The closed discussions are Proposal: Remove ""Administrators are held to high standards of conduct....", and Um,_What?_Seriously_Inappropriate. Also relevant is an ensuing discussion with HammerSoft on my Talk page: Administrators and higher standards of conduct. There was mild buillying by SarekofVulcan (pretty mild in the grand scheme of things, but still poor conduct) here and my (51% serious) response.

I can't quite tell if these closings were technically administrator functions, but there are obvious barriers to someone (me) who's been editing around 7 months twice-reverting a close by administrators. I don't beleive the discussion met the guidelines for closing that I found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Closing_discussions

Comment. I fully acknowledge my concern about administrative accountability is pretty broad, and that Project page is narrowly focused. I can certainly believe that there are better venues. Nonetheless, none were offered, and it was a discussion in talk of a part of the Project page. I don’t see how that is inappropriate (but I can see how it’s not ideal).

The behavior made the point. Open discussion of administrative accountability is a part of holding administrators to a high standard, and administrators blocked it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mevsherd (talk • contribs) 21:13, 28 August 2026 (UTC)