User talk:Daft Elephant

Nomination of Femosphere for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Femosphere is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Femosphere until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

(As a note, I am not the nominator just doing some clerical work.) Skynxnex (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Malicious usage of AfD procedure

This request for help from administrators has been answered. If you need more help or have additional questions, please reapply the {{admin help}} template, or contact the responding user(s) directly on their own user talk page.

Dear Team/Admin,

I hope you’re well.

I’m wondering if you can help me with an incident that has occurred regarding the malicious usage of the ‘article for deletion’ process against an article that I authored.

The article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femosphere) was submitted on 19 April 2025 and I am confident that it meets all of Wikipedia’s guidelines. Several other editors also agree with this, as can be seen in the discussion. However, a single, rogue editor (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:HairlessPolarBear&action=edit&redlink=1) created their Wikipedia account on 23 April 2025 with the sole purpose of having the article deleted, subsequently triggering the AfD process.

They proceeded to make a number of spurious accusations of guideline violations, with a clear, prejudiced agenda. Moreover, one of their allegations was libellous; that is, they wrongly accused me, without providing evidence, of being part of some kind of clandestine, co-ordinated effort to promote the article. When I refuted this claim, they essentially copied and pasted their list of baseless assertions into a new comment and posted it again – in effect harassing me.

I would be very grateful to you if you could investigate this matter. I went to great lengths to ensure that the article was notable, neutral, and objective. It would be a shame for an article that makes a substantive contribution to Wikipedia’s body of knowledge to be deleted because of the actions of a single, rogue editor.

Please get in touch with me if I can provide any more information, or help in any way.

With thanks, and best regards,

DE

~~~~ Daft Elephant (talk) 14:18, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Daft Elephant. I saw your comment about this, at the AfD page, so I came here to look. The reason that the admin help template did not work is because you enclosed it in "nowiki" tags. Doing that actually prevents templates and other formatting from happening (including your signature, as well as the links in your comment here), so I fixed it for the template.

I'm not an admin, but I'm an experienced editor. Now that I've fixed the template, an admin may perhaps show up. Alternatively, you can report these kinds of things at WP:ANI. In this case, I personally don't think this requires an admin to do anything, but perhaps an admin might disagree with me. The AfD process is going to play out as it should (so far, going strongly towards "keep"), and I don't think the other editor is really being that disruptive (other than making a wall-of-text at the AfD page, which, to be honest, you have done, too), so I don't think they need to be blocked. The fact that they are a new account and this is the only thing they've done so far isn't necessarily a reason to block, either. Although I've supported keeping the page, there's no question that it's a controversial subject, and some people may understandably be uncomfortable with it.

Welcome to Wikipedia, by the way. Please feel free to ask me if you have any other questions. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:43, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Tryptofish, thanks very much for your help on this - I really appreciate it!

Rearding the rogue editor, it's more that they used their singe-use account to trigger the AfD process in bad faith. I see that an admin has responded - I disagree with them, of course, but will need to find an alternative way of communicating with the community to get this problem resolved.

I fully recognise and agree that the article covers a controversial topic, which is why I went to such great lengths to be neutral and objective. I might not have found the perfect balance but I'm encouraged that so many editors, like you, have offered help and support. Daft Elephant (talk) 08:03, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your complaint does not require administrator intervention.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:30, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome Daft Elephant!

Now that you've joined Wikipedia, there are 49,146,291 registered editors!

Hello, Daft Elephant. Welcome to Wikipedia!

I'm FULBERT, one of the other editors here, and I hope you decide to stay and help contribute to this amazing repository of knowledge.

To help get you started, you may find these useful:

The Five Pillars (fundamental principles) of Wikipedia

Introduction to Wikipedia (and Editing)

Writing a New Article

Teahouse: Ask a Question

When editing, follow the 3 Core Content Policies:

1. Neutral point of view: represent significant views fairly

2. Verifiability: claims should cite reliable, published sources

3. No original research: no originality; reference published sources

Always cite Independent and Reliable sources for all claims you make when editing.

Remember to always sign your posts on talk pages. You can do this either by clicking on the button on the edit toolbar or by typing four tildes ~~~~ at the end of your post. This will automatically insert your signature, a link to this (your talk) page, and a timestamp.

Sincerely, FULBERT (talk) 15:13, 6 May 2025 (UTC) (Leave me a message)[reply]

Notice of AN discussion

Hi Daft Elephant,

I've started a discussion about your recent RfC collapse on Talk:Femosphere at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard: see here.

HairlessPolarBear (talk) 13:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Remsense ‥ 论 14:45, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

May 2025

You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for persistently making disruptive edits.

If you believe that there are good reasons for being unblocked, please review Wikipedia's guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text to the bottom of your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:49, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Account Deletion

Dear administrators,

I am writing to request the deletion of my Wikipedia account. Due to personal experiences with bullying and toxicity on this platform, my mental health has been negatively affected, and I no longer wish to be associated with Wikipedia.

I understand that while my past contributions may remain, I would like my account to be fully deactivated. Additionally, I request that I no longer receive any emails or notifications from Wikipedia.

Admin attention requested – Could someone please assist me with this request?

Thank you for your understanding and assistance.

Sincerely,

[Daft Elephant] Daft Elephant (talk) 18:15, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, I missed this whole incident over the past two weeks and after catching up, I came here to give you some tips on getting unblocked only to find you wanting to "delete" your account. That's too bad, I think but you have had a bumpy introduction to Wikipedia. For those of us who have been around a while (10 years or longer), these kinds of disputes happen on a regular, weekly basis so if you don't have the stomach for disagreeing with other editors, arguing to support your stance, editing according the many guidelines here, then you might be too sensitive for the way collaborative editing works. Editing here requires having a thick skin and an ability to not hold grudges.

But like Drm310's says, accounts aren't deleted, you just stop using your account. And no one but you controls the notifications you receive, go into your Editor Preferences and change them/uncheck the boxes. No one but you can do that.

I think you would have made a valuable contribution here so I hope you change your mind. But Wikipedia is not for everyone and if you come from the academic world, you'll find it particularly difficult to not have control over the content of an article. That's just part of the project. Good luck for your future work. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 07:44, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you to the editors who helped me!

@Tryptofish and @FULBERT, as you will be able to see from the article's page (Femosphere), the rogue editor was able to recruit a gang of bullies who have spent most of today butchering my article. I did my best to defend it, but was blocked.

Today has had a horrible impact on my mental health and, as you will be able to see on my Talk page, I have requested an account deletion. Clearly, Wikipedia is not for me.

I wanted to take this moment to thank both of you for all of the help you've given me. It was always going to be difficult to create an encyclopaedic entry for a topic so controversial, but both of you remained neutral and fair throughout. @Tryptofish, you might even have had to restrain yourself at times!

I am incredibly grateful.

I wish you both the very best!

With best regards,

[Daft Elephant] Daft Elephant (talk) 18:28, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Accounts cannot be deleted, as every edit to Wikipedia requires some type of identifier (either username or IP address). Simply abandon your account and that will be the end of it. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 19:19, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Daft Elephant One of the ironies of editing Wikipedia is that we often start editing out of a passion for a topic or the like, and between that zeal for improving it we miss some of the initial steps that are foundational for the overall community of editors, one that is generally not understood at first as many norms and mores of communities are not understood by those new to them. I think many of us may have experienced initial challenges like this, and I think that @Liz in another comment above provided some helpful advice from years of volunteering with Wikipedia that you may want to consider. The balance required to try to bring a controversial article topic into an encyclopedia WP:ENC that maintains a neutral point of view WP:NPOV with WP:INDEPENDENT published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy WP:RELIABLE is not easy. However, thousands of editors try to do this daily in a world increasingly fed misinformation and disinformation to persuade, rather than to objectively state what something is and then let people make up their own minds about it. I hope you perhaps take some time away to attend to your needs and then seek a way to focus on editing within at-times complex community norms. Who knows what the future benefits may be that result from this? FULBERT (talk) 06:30, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]