Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions/Removal/Tom Morris

Tom Morris (talk · contribs – Edit rights)

Tom Morris has not reviewed an article since February 2021 and has not used the reviewer permission at all since March 2021, both of which are over 3 years ago. Per WN:PEP, reviewers who do not use their permission for 2 years will have the permission removed. George Ho has notified them about their inactivity as a reviewer around 1 year ago as well as 3 weeks ago, with no response and no reviews done. As such, I am requesting removal of their reviewer permissions. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 12:41, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stats

Links for Tom Morris: Tom Morris (talk · contribs · deleted · count · logs · block log · review log · lu)

Questions and comments

As I've stated on previous requests, I am hesitant to support removal simply for inactivity.[1] This is not a protest against PEP. I would much prefer that existing reviewers re-engage with the project. It would be more beneficial to have them return and review a few shorter or easier articles to reacquaint themselves with the process. More importantly, we need more reviewers to help us solve the larger and perennial problem of why we consistently have too few active reviewers. Removing the ability for existing reviewers to return and lend a hand seems counter to the work we are doing with the pre-review process.[2] Therefore I'll wait to see what, if any response we get from the user as well as others. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 13:51, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"It would be more beneficial to have them return and review a few shorter or easier articles to reacquaint themselves with the process" - I wish they would do when they go tthe notifications. However, they didn't. Keeping inactive reviewers won't solve the actual problem (lack of active reviewers).

After more than 3 years of not doing something, you aren't as familiar with doing it. At least for me, all I'd want to see before supporting a request for re-instatement of tools is creating a few articles and maybe pre-reviewing/copyediting some stuff, just to show they remember how things work. This isn't just a hypothetical, we had a generally very helpful user make a very basic recently who hadn't use their tools in 14 years.

Also, ultimately PEP exists as a policy. This (still) isn't the place to propose changes to PEP. PEP is pretty clear, 2 years of not using means it's removed. @Michael.C.Wright Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 23:42, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Who proposed changes to PEP? Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 12:33, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To which changes were you referring? Ones made three years ago (mainly to extend expiry time) was done by Cromium, but then the decision was somewhat unilateral. Nonetheless, I've yet to see opposition to the changes made. George Ho (talk) 18:12, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Above I am responding to Me Da Wikipedian, who commented This (still) isn't the place to propose changes to PEP. I don't know what changes MDW is referring to or who proposed them.

I'm not now, nor have I previously proposed changes to PeP. I'm willing to ignore PeP in favor of an inactive reviewer immediately re-engaging to 'improve or maintain' en.wn, per WN:IAR. But I won't ignore PeP for a reviewer who merely states a desire to keep elevated privileges without taking any action. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 18:55, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise for my lack of response by email/talk page - I was meaning to respond but didn't get around to it. I've broadly moved on from editing Wikinews (as is apparent) and now mostly focus my editing time on Wikipedia and Wikidata. I am broadly of the view across Wikimedia wikis that removal of permission should generally only be done protectively (i.e. if there is a breach in the user's security) or for cause, but that's my personal view and I defer to the project's active users in how you handle user permissions. If not, as WN:PEP#Regaining permissions notes I can re-request them with a slightly lower threshold. If you decide to retain my permissions, I can assure you that I will only use them after sufficiently familiarising myself with the project's rules and current practices in much the same way as recommended in WN:PEP#Regaining permissions. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:57, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am willing to withhold my support—effectively evoking WN:IAR if you immediately re-engage with the project. I agree with Heavy Water that PEP shouldn't be used punitively for inactivity[3]. However, I don't see that this was proposed or supported by others in a punitive fashion, but rather following the policy to the letter. And you did vote in favor of PeP, saying it "Seems pretty reasonable..."[4]

I appreciate your stated willingness to brush up on policy and practices before using reviewer privileges again. However, we need active reviewers immediately and it was my hope that the risk of losing privileges would spur you to re-engage. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 18:11, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For all the "I will only use them after sufficiently familiarising myself with the project's rules and current practices" you seem to have forgotten how the main page works. @Tom Morris Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 11:32, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You also seem to have forgotten the spell numbers under 20 rule. I bet if I continue to look through that article I will find more things. Considering this, I would like to see you demonstrate ability to actually review well before deciding that you should keep the tools. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 11:44, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Tom Morris, I appreciate your response.
- (From my perspective the key change implemented was increased freshness span from ~~1-2~~2-3 days to a week.)
- Do you have a preference of topic (i.e. 'technology in India' or 'politics in Indonesia' or 'anything either Canada or education related')? I can send you a note when a new draft in your topic area is available.
- (I would also like to invite you to read and respond to a few inquiries at Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals, which are not policy related and may help with reviewing.)
Regards, -- Gryllida (talk) 00:23, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Gryllida freshness used to be 2-3 days, no? Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 00:47, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you're right, it was 2-3 days (1-2 days plus one day for reviewing), I stand corrected. Gryllida (talk) 01:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Votes

Support removal. We shouldn't be literally begging users to keep rights when they clearly don't need it. Leaderboard (talk) 15:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support – If we wait for him for a long while to review an article, who know which article Tom will publish after a long absence from Wikinews? Furthermore, reluctance to enforce WN:PEP is hardly a reason to oppose removal of the tools. Of course, it was also a reason to keep TUFKAAP's admin tools this year, but this is about Tom's reviewer tools. Moreover, current state of the project's (smaller) community should be hardly a reason to oppose removal, but again, this is about the tools here. I just have very little or no confidence about his interests in becoming re-active in Wikinews in the future. --George Ho (talk) 16:05, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reaffirming my support – Seems that he has "broadly moved on from editing Wikinews (as is apparent)". George Ho (talk) 17:22, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawing my vote for now due to (overlooked) recent activity by Tom, brought to light by Michael. —George Ho (talk) 14:20, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose removal. Tom Morris no longer meets the qualifications for PeP as he has reviewed a few articles since the request has been filed.[5], [6], [7] I think this request should be closed now. I'm sure we could pick apart his recent reviews and find problems like not spelling out small numbers. We could also fix any small errors within the 24-hour window and help him help en.wn move forward with another active reviewer. We would do the same for a new reviewer. I appreciate Morris jumping back in and doing both reviews and maintenance work and I hope he sticks around. We could use some help in the following projects, in fact;

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:06, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I should add that I appreciate @Me Da Wikipedian filing this request, as I believe that and the ensuing conversation spurred positive action. With any luck we can turn it into momentum. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 15:45, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"I'm sure we could pick apart his recent reviews and find problems" - The fact that in the 1 real review they did (the others were very obvious fails that I did in pre-review as well), they forgot how the Main Page worked, forgot a (minor) policy, and also did the review in 3 minutes (!). To be clear, while PeP is (techinically) no longer applicable, I think this illustrates perfectly why PeP is sometimes important.

I would personally like to see some reviews showing that they remember policies, and then I would be happy to withdraw. @Michael.C.Wright@George Ho Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 15:53, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Going through the article in a bit more detail (unless I myself did something wrong), here's some issues Tom Morris should have caught/not made:

1.New stories go at the top of the Main Page, not the bottom.

2.We spell numbers under 20.

3.Sources are ordered based on when they are used in the article.

4.Unused sources should be removed.

5.No sources seem to verify the head coach's retirement.

This is why I would like to see them do reviews correctly before closing this.@Michael.C.Wright@George Ho Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 16:46, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those incidences occur in just one article. If similar incidences occur in other articles he's reviewed, then I may want to re-support the removal. George Ho (talk) 16:57, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting that we didn't have this kind of reaction when a recently re-engaged reviewer published multiple articles with over-looked problems—one that even forced a correction. In that case, we all more-or-less simply worked with what we had in order to get quality articles published.

Perhaps this is why we have problems getting momentum on actually getting good articles published. We eventually get bogged down in the minutiae of 'I'm right, you're wrong' instead of 'let's work together to move the project forward.'

Not everything has to be a conflict or a crisis. We can work with Morris to get him back up to speed as we have done with others. Or we can remove his reviewer status, then ask him to publish some articles, copy-edit some articles, maybe use {{pre-review}}—all the while lamenting the lack of reviewers—then we can wait for someone or himself to renominate him for reviewer, then we can vote on it again, and possibly get a chance to point out all the ways he was wrong and we were right, and then maybe get another active reviewer.

I believe it would be petter if move forward with him as a reviewer and get back to the work of publishing articles. Even if we have to do a little extra work to help others come back into the fold.

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 18:38, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"we didn't have this kind of reaction when a recently re-engaged reviewer published multiple articles with over-looked problems" - Who and when. I've only been here for 7 weeks and the only user whose gotten reengaged in that time in Cromium, whose reviews (I think) have been fine.

"bogged down in the minutiae" - Our policies are all (theoretically) needed for a reason, and a reviewer needs to know and follow them. The fact that they forgot 4 of them on 1 article just shows that they need to re-learn some things.

"Not everything has to be a conflict or a crisis" - As far as I know, nobody is trying to make this into one.

"We can work with Morris to get him back up to speed as we have done with others" - I actually need to go back to early 2013 to find a reviewer who lost their perms from PeP and then came back to ask for them (and then never used them and got PePed again). In December 2012, MicroChip actually did ask for their perms back and used them a bit (and are now a PeP again). These are the only cases I can find were the user actually came back from that long and got perms back/stopped a PeP removal request to get keep their perms. So, actually, for this long it is frankly extremely rare. As Pi Zero said (somewhere in those archives) "You've only been back less than a day. The idea of the PeP is that someone who hasn't used the bit would be rusty, and there might be things that've changed."

"ask him to publish some articles, copy-edit some articles, maybe use {{pre-review}}" - This is a great idea and is frankly also a good use of pre-review. For reviewers who have been inactive for a while, in order to know how much they do/don't remember, they could do a few pre-reviews. And yes, I really want active reviewers too. But I personally spent nearly an hour (reviewing an article that only took them 3 minutes) trying to (post-review?) the article myself because I didn't trust (correctly it seems) that it was free of errors. This is obviously something that can't need to happen everytime someone publishes an article. So yeah, I just want to know that when Tom Morris (or anyone else coming back) reviews something, they still know what they're doing and it's actually good to be published. @Michael.C.Wright

My proposal is the following:We wait. We keep this open, hopefully Tom Morris does a few (non-quickfailing) more reviews. Then, based on their reviews, we evulate whether or not they know what they are doing/are remembering very quickly. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 05:46, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Michael.C.Wright and @George Ho this user has now not reviewed anything in 6weeks... Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 00:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, the Guardian's source did mention the retirement, but it just did not mention that he was captain. Also, the 'unused' sources are not actually unused; they verify the player of the tournament. Asked42 (talk) 18:41, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, you're probably right that the guardian thing is okay, but the player of the tournament is laready verified by Times of India@Asked42 Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 05:00, 3 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]