Wikipedia:Administrative action review#Unilateral overturning of a close by Seraphimblade

:Diffs/logs: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft%3AAramean_people&diff=1290284030&oldid=1290283663 1]

:User: {{User3|Asilvering}} (prior discussion)

Draft: Aramean people used to be a article, rated B-class and was subject to a dispute, it was nominated at AfD which closed as no consensus, Asilvering still moved the draft from mainspace and locked it as a draft for indefinite. Wlaak (talk) 22:57, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:Wrong venue. WP:DRV is the place for this. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:18, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::No, what's at stake here is the page move and protection. WP:DRV, at least in my expectation, would simply be to contest the no-consensus close. If one of these two venues had to be picked, I think Wlaak has picked the correct one. You'll notice from the discussion linked as "prior discussion", above, that I did not think either was a tremendously good idea. -- asilvering (talk) 23:21, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::Nevermind. I see asilvering told you to bring this particular issue here. I agree with their advice that you should drop this and focus on building consensus instead of trying to win a battle. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:23, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::consensus is all i have been trying. but my part of the consensus is constantly overlooked and dismissed. i have come here regarding a move done to Draft: Aramean people Wlaak (talk) 23:31, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

::Agreed... and Arameans exists, so why are we here? I think there's a stick to be dropped. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Arameans exists as a extinct people with zero coverage on history post Arabization and modern identity. I realized it would take days of reading the entire dispute to understand what is being talked about here, asilvering knows all of it which perhaps is why asilvering is the most fitting admin for this.

:::Regardless, it is the move I am discussing, why was it moved with no consensus when it had passed as a article. Wlaak (talk) 23:30, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Arameans is about ancient Arameans, but contains these two paragraphs at the end of the article:{{tqb|In modern times, an Aramean identity is held mainly by a number of Syriac Christian groups, predominantly from southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria. Aramean identity is most predominant among ethnic Assyrians, and as such, is most often used in the Assyrian diaspora, especially in Germany and Sweden. However, other groups such as Maronites, Arab Christians, and the Arameans of Maaloula and Jubb'adin may also identify strongly under the label.{{pb}}In 2014, Israel officially recognised Arameans as a distinctive minority. Questions related to the minority rights of Arameans in some other countries were also brought to international attention.}}

:::The Assyrian People speaks of an ethnic group with shared descent. That is, the group is ethnically defined. In Akopian, A. (2014) Introduction to Aramean and Syriac Studies Gorgias Press, the "Assyrian idea" is discussed in chapter 23 and confirms the ethnic definition by descent, whilst being sceptical of it. Ethnic groups may also be linguistically defined as a linguistic diaspora or across a dialect continuum, and the borders of these groups rarely map neatly with other ideas. The argument that our coverage is completed by an article on ancient Arameans and modern Assyrian people, therefore, seems incorrect. Somewhat analogous (but all analogies leak) would be how we have Celts (the ancient Celtic peoples) and Celts (modern) - the modern linguistically defined Celtic fringe. These in addition to other ethnicities (e.g Irish people). There are sources that suggest that there is a greyer Aramean diaspora that extends beyond those who identify as Assyrian.{{pb}}Is the page that was draftified the page that describes this? I think not. Not in the form it is in. But it is not wrong by design. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:44, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

• Wlaak has been topic-banned from this topic (after the AARV was started, to be clear). I've told them that they should NOT participate here unless and until the admin who enacted the topic ban says they can, but, and that has been confirmed by the admin who enacted the topic ban, so that will explain any lack of further communication from them. If they are, as I suspect, Since they are frozen out of this discussion, and no one else seems to think that this move to draft space was wrong, then this can probably be closed. If is stays open, out of fairness, I think it would be best if Wlaak not be discussed, since they cannot respond. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:38, 14 May 2025 (UTC) modified : 00:46, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• Endorse. Seeing the AfD discussion, Wlaaks topic ban and the proposal for community sanctions in this topic. I think asilvering's actions are alright. Nobody (talk) 05:17, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• Comment I am not ready to suggest any kind of overturn here, because draftifying that article is not necessarily a bad thing. There is a clear case it was not ready for mainspace in that form. I suppose my concern here is that draftification now prevents the do-over AfD that was proposed by the speedy close arguments. The AFD was a disaster. Over 8,000 words when I found it, there was very considerable bludgeoning even after a plea to keep things brief. Also some SPAs had been inconsistently marked, so I marked all the other non EC SPAs and that was nearly everyone. There was a proposal for conducting a new AfD under controlled and enforced terms, but you can't take a draft to AFD. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:02, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :I suppose WP:MFD would serve. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 09:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::I doubt it would have the necessary visibility at MFD. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:18, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::MfD isn't really ideal, as we wouldn't be discussing the suitability of the page as a draft, but as an article. Moving it back to mainspace and starting another AfD could be a solution, but, given that the scope of the dispute is bigger than the existence of a single page (and pertains to how we should refer to these people in general), a sui generis solution seems necessary here. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:35, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::What would be the purpose of taking it to MFD? What would be the value of arguing over whether to delete the draft? I accepted the draft into article space based on a mistaken good-faith assumption that a deletion discussion could resolve the content dispute over whether Aramean people are a distinct group from Assyrian people. A deletion discussion about the draft would only decide whether to throw the draft into a memory hole. At this point, what is needed is to finalize the general sanctions, topic-ban any other disruptive editors, and impose whatever restrictions are in order. A draft deletion discussion at this point would be a genuinely terrible idea. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:38, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::I agree with CE here. Very early in the dispute (as in, in March), AfD looked like it might be one way to deal with this content dispute, but I warned Wlaak against forcing it at that time as I strongly suspected it would result in the content dispute "settling" the same way it has every single time previously, and thus re-inscribing consensus against the standalone Aramean page and making the overall issue even harder to make headway on. I don't think AfD is the right place for this broader discussion, because AfD is often very bad at handling actual WP:PAGEDECIDE issues, which is what this is, instead focusing quite narrowly on notability. I suspect that the way to a neutral and informative set of articles on this topic will be something like a main article about the dispute itself, and not-exactly-spin-out articles on the culture, self-definition, etc, of each group. But that's just a suspicion, based on how editorial conflicts work out on Wikipedia, and at present I think there are zero editors working in the topic area who see that as the ideal outcome. However it goes forward, it's clear to me that any change to the current status quo will impact much more than just a single article, so AfD doesn't really have any hope of solving this one. Sui generis indeed. -- asilvering (talk) 19:43, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• Was the result of the AfD "no consensus" or was it "draftify"? No consensus doesn't typically lead to draftification, so is that considered a separate act made as an editor, or an administrative act as closer of the discussion (or a subsequent administrative act to protect a page from disruption)? That AfD looks like a big mess, and I won't pretend to understand such that I have an opinion on what to do with the article -- I'm just not a fan of forced draftifications of articles that had been in mainspace. Either it can hang in mainspace (no consensus at AfD means it sticks around), or there's consensus to do something else with it. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:25, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :It was in mainspace for three days. The status quo ante is draftspace. I think in this case draftifying was prudent given the shitshow over this topic area. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:32, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::That's not how draftification or AfD work, though? When a draft author wants to move it to mainspace even though there are problems, they risk it being sent to AfD. Then, a "no consensus" outcome at AfD is the same as any other no consensus outcome at AfD - it's not "no consensus to move out of draftspace", it's "no consensus to delete". Sometimes if there's consensus to delete we draftify as a way to make improvements, but no consensus at AfD absolutely does not lead to moving back to draftspace unless there's consensus to draftify at AfD. Draftification is a separate decision after a no consensus closure. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::WP:NOCON says an article is normally kept, not always. I think there's some wiggle room. Even if there isn't, I think draftifying to prevent further disruption was reasonable in the circumstances. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:18, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• There's a real risk of crystallizing this in its current, very unsatisfactory state. No challenger to this admin action remains standing, so we can and should close this AARV without further ado, but that's not a sufficient resolution.{{pb}}What needs to happen now is that we as a community need to have a discussion in which we decide if modern-day Arameans are an encyclopaedic topic or not. AFD and MFD are unsatisfactory venues for that discussion, for the reasons we've already explored above, so I would suggest that the discussion takes place at an RFC, and also that the RFC should be pre-emptively EC protected. I know we don't normally do that, but still.—S Marshall T/C 23:43, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :@S Marshall, I don't think that's a good idea (yet), especially now that the main recent proponent of the "Aramean side" has now been tbanned. (Luckily or unluckily for us, that makes this two-decade-long simmering dispute no longer so urgent.) I think an RfC would work best once other methods of solving the content issue, which are currently in the works, have advanced (or failed). More context on that in the prior discussion link above and on @Chaotic Enby's talk page. In short, I don't think "should this article exist or not" is a useful question at this stage. We need to start much earlier: for example, what are the most elementary facts pertaining to this topic, about which all participants agree? Trying to sort this out with an AfD, an RfC, or our other formalized methods is basically the dispute resolution version of writing an article WP:BACKWARDS. -- asilvering (talk) 23:59, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::As you know, although not everyone reading this discussion knows: the question of whether this is an encyclopaedic topic reduces to "are there scholarly sources that treat modern-day Arameans as a distinct population". That's not a backwards question at all. It's the first question, and this dispute will simmer on until it's answered. I do very much recommend a structured discussion with an agreed end date to establish this.—S Marshall T/C 01:26, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

:Diffs/logs: ANI Discussion [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1290304076#Topic_ban_for_Wlaak]

:User: {{User3|Hammersoft}} (prior discussion)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

::I don't disagree with you Isaacl. However, two things; (1) I specifically informed the OP that bringing it here would be ok [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AHammersoft&diff=1290381190&oldid=1290380781] and (2) I've been heavily chastised in the past for differentiating between admin and non-admin functions. While it is technically true that the action I took is not an administrative action and anyone could have done it, a non-admin taking the action would certainly have been looked down upon. My action doesn't have any more authority because I'm an admin, but had I not been an admin and took the action there likely would have been considerably greater vocalization about it. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:16, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

:Having not realized that Robert McClenon had struck his opposition, I had come to assume that this topic ban proposal (the second!) would also fail, and was thinking my way through a sort of "brokered ceasefire" proposal for all relevant participants, which would be somewhat softer than a true tban, and which I would have proposed under the remit of GS once that discussion concluded. I did come to prefer that hypothetical outcome to a community-placed tban at ANI. But then Wlaak drew additional attention to himself (see above), and, well, here we are. He has since also requested that I refrain from taking further administrative action in this dispute because he perceives that I am biased against him (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Asilvering&diff=prev&oldid=1290422779]). (It is my great failing that I continue to believe in my heart, all evidence to the contrary, that it is possible to save a person from themselves.)

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

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

• Overturn the topic ban, per the nom and Robert McClenon's point above. It's clear that of the experienced users, the majority only supported enacting the topic ban if it was a reciprocal one. The now t-banned editor is clearly someone knowledgeable and probably editing in good faith, but with a POV; as is the other party who was mentioned in the dispute. T-banning one but not the other risks tipping the subject matter in a particular direction favoured by the party who escaped a t-ban. This was an understandable close by Hammersmith, attempting to resolve a discussion that was going stale, but I think the close risks doing more harm than good in this case, and should be overturned given the lack of strong consensus based on participation by experienced editors.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:16, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
• :@Amakuru, I think the question of whether another editor should also be tbanned is out of scope for this board (and looks like Hammersoft's recent comment means I don't need to explain why anymore). Just to add about the "risks flipping the subject matter" bit, though - the general context here is that Wlaak is on the "change things" side, largely in opposition to a "keep things the same as they have been for the past two decades" side. Which is to say that there is very little to "flip". The editor who didn't receive a tban in Hammersoft's close was doing some changes, but I believe that has stopped. If I'm wrong on that, well, the community sanctions discussion will have consensus soon enough. -- asilvering (talk) 20:55, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

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

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

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

:There's also an issue in re-opening the discussion. What do we do with the topic ban in the meantime? Suspend it? Override the consensus? Certainly consensus can change. However, given the events that have happened since the topic ban was applied (Wlaak has violated it no less than 8 times since it was applied ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AWlaak&diff=1290474595&oldid=1290451206], even making violations after self acknowledging he was violating it [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Chaotic_Enby&diff=prev&oldid=1290440215]), the topic ban seems highly appropriate. I don't believe in the idea of convicting (if you will) and then finding proof it was necessary. But, Wlaak's actions since the topic ban were applied demonstrate very clearly there is a serious issue here that needs to be addressed. Setting aside the topic ban pending a potential change in consensus would, I think, be a very bad idea in light of events.

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

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

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

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

• Endorse Hammersoft's evaluation of consensus The best way to cut to the chase is to cut to the chase. Asilvering proposed a specific action. There were several, though possibly not as many as ideal, editors who discussed the proposed action based on policy. There was no voice against the proposal other than the editor in question. As I see it, Hammersoft correctly evaluated the consensus. If this was the wrong venue for the discussion, then it makes sense to simply address the issue and move on and do better next time rather than going in circles about endless questions on venue. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 00:34, 16 May 2025 (UTC)