Tuesday, March 17, 2026

English Wikiversity as a junkyard and the bad admins

Lead statements: Wikiversity mainspace has become a "junkyard" of abandoned, low-quality content that serves education purposes only poorly. This state of affairs was brought about by arguably incompetent administration and incompetent policy/rule making. A decent remedy would include desysopping bad/incompetent/dishonest administrators, installing at least one professional administrator and greatly improving the rules to make it easier to move bad content out of mainspace to user space (or delete it, in some cases). Something like receivership can be considered. Unfortunately, if all inferior administrators get removed, hardly any administrator will be left. (Inferior administrators include Jtneill, Mu301, Atcovi, Juandev, Koavf and Guy vandegrift, as per below. Former highly problematic administrators include Abd and Marshallsumter.)

Disclaimer: Collecting this kind of material requires careful attention and is challenging as for mistake avoidance. I am ready to make corrections based on feedback/comments provided, whether in Blogger/Blogspot or on wiki. I am repeatedly reviewing the material for problems.

Other limitation: What follows is so much more chaotic/poorly organized than it should be.

Outline about what is wrong in the English Wikiversity:

  • Too much worthless junk
  • My Blog subpage was deleted there by Atcovi (still in Wayback Machine in recent revision)
    • As alleged "vandalism", which I cannot confirm to be accurate.
    • Atcovi is one of the editors guilty of all that junk being there unaddressed.
      • Speculation: he is trying to remove/hide criticism.
  • Hardly any good administrator
    • Dave Braunschweig was something of an exception: he was pretty good
    • With good administration, the junk can start to be moved to user space
      • I proved this can be done during my one year of curatorship/semiadministration
    • Evidence or signs
      • Unequivocal support of Juandev for admin – huge red flag (see also below)
      • Failure to protect me from desysopping – failure to protect the cleaning force
        • Perhaps more controversial and I can hardly be neutral about myself 
      • The embarassing failure to block disruptor Harold Foppele
        • I have a page about what I consider to be the Harold Foppele scandal at Meta.
  • Example bad administrators
    • Jtneill
      • Been there more active since 2008 and did too little to prevent the junk from accumulating.
      • Created many arguably worthless stub pages in the field of psychology, which contributed to the spirit that anything goes.
      • Nominated Juandev for admin, which is absurd as per the criticism below and under that, "Juandev". 
      • For the page Fairy Rings, applied "Clear objective that is in scope" as a rationale for keeping. This rationale should not be a condition sufficient, or else too much substub junk has to be kept (link).
      • (From another blog post) When I was dealing with the troll Harold Foppele, he did not help me with him and instead tolerated his copyright violation, as per his user talk page, where he wrote "I've removed the copyright tag [...]", after which I wrote "The page still contains copyright violation. [...]"
        • We could have blocked the troll early on for copyright violation alone, if the admins including Jtneill cooperated with me.
      • In 2019, wrote: "[...]  However, I not in favour of an editing block. Marshallsumter continues to make many helpful edits. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 05:15, 8 October 2019 (UTC)"  ⟹  utter failure to notice the problems with the "lectures" by Marshallsumter  ⟹  lacks capability to curate Wikiversity.
      • In his May 2026 RFD nomination on Harold Foppele physics pages, he was not even able to take a stance on whether the pages should be deleted other than that they should be reviewed for deletion. At least he made the nomination, which quite possibly is going to lead to the right outcome (removing out of mainspace). In any case, lacks capability to curate (properly assess pages for deletion, keeping, moving to user space, etc.)
        • (Maybe I should not be so overcritial. When a dubious philosophy page by S.Perquin was in RFD, I also did not take a clear stance on deletion. This was because original research was allowed and I was not clear what would allow me to vote delete/move out of mainspace. At least, I criticized the page on substance on the page's talk page (WM). And at least, I did participate on RFD and cleanup processes, unlike most.)
      • Proposed a deletion policy in passive voice and without signing his post, in May 2026. Thus, he stated e.g. "It has been revised and moved [...]" instead of "I have revised it and moved [...]".
        • Before he made that proposal, he made changes to the page without discussing his changes anywhere or placing rationales for these changes.
        • Used ChatGPT to edit the page, a red flag; the edit summary does not indicate what the edit does but merely which tool was used to make the edit and where the session is.
        • In a somewhat similar fashion, he pushed his views on use of GenAI not by starting a Colloquium discussion with a wording proposal (as I did) but rather by editing his proposal in Wikiversity namespace.
        • Changed "learning outcomes are scarce" to "learning outcomes, or research aims are scarce", which will make it harder to delete bad content.
          • He will be able to defend pages like Fairy Rings and its subpages, which he did before (the pages I nominated were eventually deleted, but not on his proposal).
            • To wit: "Keep. Clear objective that is in scope. Delete the test database pages. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 12:01, 22 November 2025 (UTC)".
          • The edit summary incorrectly states "Per suggestion: Wikiversity talk:Deletions#Maybe a change for Proposed deletion (prod)?": the discussion link does not propose the above change.
            • The discussion link shows a professionally/competently made proposal by PieWriter.
        • Incidentally, he failed to try to make it a policy since 2008, for 18 years. Better late than never?
    • Mu301
      • Been there more active since 2007 and did too little to prevent the junk from accumulating
      • Supported Juandev: "Juandev has been a trusted and valued contributor to our community for a very long time. His comments and suggestions have provided valuable insight into how we can provide a thriving and vibrant learning environment. I have very strong support for this nomination. --mikeu talk 03:25, 16 January 2026 (UTC)"
      • Stated about Koavf: "Very helpful and productive contributor. --mikeu talk 02:01, 22 May 2026 (UTC)".
        • Untrue, by my lights: I have not seen Koavf contribute much of content. For this to be true, "contributor" would have to mean administrator doing almost no content contribution work and almost no curatorial (article deletion) work. I do not see how Koavf's editing activity constitutes "productive contribution".
        • Koavf is not productive even as a curator; in 2025, he did almost no curatorial work.
      • From my review of his 2025 activity, Mu301 does very little content contribution and editing work and almost no curation (making sure bad pages get deleted), but does find time to exercise political power by using his power tools and voting in editors.
    • Guy vandegrift
      • Defended absurdly bad page having 4 photos (Student Projects/PhotoTalks, RFD), contributing to the spirit of junk keeping.
      • But: did a pretty good (if incomplete) job at moving Marshallsumter pages out of mainspace.
      • I sense he is actually a nice guy; PhotoTalks case is some kind of weak spot of his. But I don't know.
    • Juandev
      • Hindered my attempt to keep some minimum standards for mainspace content: "I just wonders since when is low-quality unwelcomed in Wikiversity? Juandev (discuss • contribs) 06:39, 26 October 2025 (UTC)" (here).
      • Attacked me in my curator role, which eliminated an effective cleanup force: myself (here but also previously, e.g. on my talk page, in support of Harold Foppele).
      • Supported keeping pseudoscience as pseudoscience. Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion/Archives/22, "What about to tag it as pseudoscience and keep it. Wikiversity is a free lerning environment and if someone want to learn here how to meditate, why not. What I would propose here to use or create a template for it, which would indicate its a pseudoscience or its an Original research."
        • An aside: meditation is not pseudoscience, in general.
    • Koavf (Justin)
      • Failed to block disruptor Harold Foppele in Nov 2025 (link).
        • If he was unhappy with my substantiation work as for the block, he should have done his own substantiation work.
          • Anyone should be able to raise an issue with even subpar substatiation - collecting/putting together substantiation is everyone's responsibility.
      • Supported Juandev thus: "Support globally trust user. —Justin (koavf) [...] 08:54, 4 February 2026 (UTC)"
      • Now in May 2026 RFD on Harold Foppele pages, he apparently changed his mind and wants to delete all the Harold Foppele (pseudo-)physics pages, albeit with no articulation of a rationale: "Delete all Not worth keeping. ―Justin (koavf) [...]  08:27, 17 May 2026 (UTC)".
        • (I think these pages should better be moved to user space, at least as a lasting testimony for the auditors. At least, here is Wayback Machine for one of them.)
      • His signature is this: "―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯L" No-one should be allowed to wave his political ideology (here, anarchism, etc.). in a signature, I think, let alone an administrator. (Anarchism is a disruptive political pseudo-philosophy, all too easily leading to failed adherence to rules and processes.)
    • Atcovi
      • Engaged in sockpupetry/meatpuppetry in his own admin election from year 2013 under Draubb user name.
        • "For your Information everyone: I do not commit sockpuppetry, Yingshong is my brother and Hommbo is my cousin. These two truly support me and know a lot about me. And yes! I do have a substantial experience! I was here for around three years and I have made very useful pages to Wikiversity! [...]  --Draubb [...] 27 May 2013"
      • Failed to provide proper licenses for files. Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship/Actovi4: "Atcovi is by far our most scofflaw user at Wikiversity when it comes to uploaded files. There are currently 16 files missing source or author information. 15 of those files were uploaded by Atcovi. He has been repeatedly notified of the missing information, but simply ignores the requests and the requirements. If he's not willing to meet licensing requirements for content he uploads himself, he's not yet ready to enforce licensing on others."
      • Attacked a major cleaning force (me) instead of only attacking the problem he cared about, Wikidebates and their design as collections of all arguments free from censorship.
        • Suggested I was an obstacle to cleaning Wikiversity (here). The "Review of my curatorial work" below shows the opposite is true; I was number one cleaner in 2025 by far.
      • Deleted my problem handling and tracking page on Marshallsumter, in May 2026. Without this page or similar, I would have hardly been able to handle the massive Marshallsumter problem and figure out he was likely a prankster. The page is still in Wayback Machine and in my view shows how problems caused by highly disruptive editors (which Marshallsumter was) can be systematically and properly managed, investigated, tracked and addressed.
        • This looks like Atcovi's trying to hide tracks of his curatorial incompetence (he was a curator since 2015) as well as that of other Wikiversity administrators: the page is/was the most detailed documentation of the Marshallsumter problem I know of (hardly anyone noticed the problem for 7 years, I think).
      • Moved my pages outside of mainspace to my user space apparently with no process and with a dubious rationale (this is quasi-deletion; user space is not indexed by Google). I have more notes on the matter in Meta, especially in my Meta blog. I know of no policy or guideline to support such a move, nor do I find much of precedent. May 2026.
        • When I raised the issue on his Meta user talk page (Wayback Machine), he refused to engage with me and requested my block. An indefinite block was implemented. (Meta, from my experience, is a place run often by dubious characters. I guess I asked for what happened. Hello to Jan Hus, a Czech national hero. For instance, if on my wiki someone registered user name "XXBlackburnXx", I would block them for an inappropriate user name; on Meta, this is a steward.
        • And thus, Meta is part of the problem. When I find evidence that Atcovi engaged in highly problematic behaviors for multiple years, that is "hounding" according to them. Compare that to the treatment of Brett Kavanaugh, for whom putative or real misdeed was raised from decades ago. Meta admins could have said: oops, the vetting processes in Wikiversity and Meta are subpar; people are not paying enough attention to the profile of the person being voted into a position of power. That did not happen. (Admittedly, one can object that Atcovi was a minor; not so much for Kavanaugh. But even for Kavanaugh, one can insist he was young and foolish, back then.)
      • He stated in April 2026: "Wikiversity's biggest issue in recent times was the hosting of low-quality, trash content. Thankfully we've done a great job in removing pseudoscience and other embarrassingly trash content (Wikidebates, for example), but the biggest concern moving forward is proper maintenance IMO. [...]". That is a gross misrepresentation: 1) the English Wikiversity is full of trash content (which I called "junk") and there is no "great job" being done; 2) Wikidebates were in general not trash content but rather some of the best/most interesting that Wikiversity had to offer, by my assessment.
      • On Meta, removed my posts inconvenient for him from archiving history, including one on Involved closure of the Community Review in the English Wikiversity  (May 2026). Such a behavior is typical of bad actors who want to escape scrutiny.
  • Bad vetting of administrators, examples
    • Juandev has history of incorrect use of personally identifiable information (PII) yet they) made him an admin in 2026 again.
    • Marshallsumter had bad history in Wikipedia and started doing the same kind of bad things in Wikiversity yet they made him an admin.
      • He lost adminship many years later, after having left behind many dubious pages in the mainspace (quite possibly some kind of prank on his part).
      • I created page Change request on articles by Marshallsumter, which proved eminently useful in my investigation; that is, the wiki with its markup, revision history, autoTOC, refs etc. is super useful.
    • Atcovi has a history of sockpuppeting/meatpuppetting to get himself elected under the username Draubb (evidence), yet they made him a full admin (=custodian) (in 2021).
      • A lot of history of hat-hunger and hat-collection as well
        • E.g. the 2021 nomination was his # 5 in the English Wikiversity.
        • I saw other nominations elsewhere that raised doubt. 
    • Abd – it seems it should have been clear that he should not have been made an admin ("custodian"), but I am still researching the question, as per below; he supported Marshallsumter.
      • Internetworked badness, one bad actor supporting another.
      • Abd was indefinitely blocked on 1 May 2011 in Wikipedia, a red flag
      • A community ban in WP came in June 2011.
        • Quoting part of the lead: "Abd has been a disruptive presence on this wiki for several years now. This disruption is characterized by attempts to influence project governance in ways orthogonal to accepted modes (e.g. delegable-proxy, self-reversion whilst blocked/banned, placing huge walls of text inside collapse boxes which "you don't have to read" but will be referred to nevertheless as being accepted if not read, maintaining unacceptable pages in userspace on the claim they constitute "evidence" in arbitration cases); a latter fixation on the topic of cold fusion, including promotion of copyright-violating external links and support for other site-banned editors; and sockpuppetry in the support of that same cause. An aggravating factor is Abd's participation at external and sister-project sites where they pursue the same agenda, and COI pursuit of commercial interests in cold fusion" 
      • Even if the English Wikiversity did not want to automatically block Abd as well, they should perhaps at least not have made him an admin.
      • In En Wv, Abd received probationary custodianship (their word for adminship) on 9 June 2010, as per a message by Jtneill. 
      • The first use of blocking tool by Abd is from July 2010.
      • On 20 April 2010, Abd wrote as a response to what to my view was a reasonable delete vote by Kaldari: "Wikiversity is not a place where pseudoscience is excluded, and WV pages are not required to be NPOV unless they are represented as such. Pseudoscience, fringe science, emerging science, all can be studied on Wikiversity. "Rantings" is uncivil. Thanks for understanding this. --Abd 17:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)". An early red flag since pseudoscience is allegedly not excluded?
      • There are all sorts of red flags in the custodianship nomination for Abd. There was also a second nomination.
        • Despite all the red flags, the following oppose is not unequivocal but merely qualified: "Oppose I am opposed to full custodianship primarily on procedural grounds i.e., the mentor didn't recommend for full custodianship and a new mentor wasn't found before a discussion and vote about full custodianship was conducted. However, I have been encouraged by Abd's willing engagement and good faith efforts to help and contribute to Wikiversity, his civility, and his transparency in discussing his ideas and actions. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 15:21, 6 August 2010 (UTC)"
      • To be clarified: there were some blocks of Abd back in 2010 already in Wikipedia. I suspect that a careful review of Abd in the spirit of critical rationalism could have discovered enough red flags to prevent his adminship. But that would require more research. 
  • Lead remedy - receivership
    • Emulate to some extent "receivership" for the English Wikiversity
      • An imperfect analogy; which one is better? 
      • Desysop all the bad admins listed above
        • Bad at least as per the Harold Foppele scandal 
      • Put in at least one professional admin appointed by the Wikimedia Foundation
        • The "community" will probably protest.
          • That should not matter: they have proven unable to properly administer the project.
      • Is "conservatorship" also an analogy worth considering? 
  • Alternative remedy - handle the most eggregious cases of badly assigned adminship
    • No adminship for sockpuppeteers/meatpuppeteers ==> desysop Atcovi.
    • No adminship for those who incorrectly use PII ==> desysop Juandev.
    • Sent an admonition/reprimand to the talk pages of the now demonstrably incompetent administrators
      • To the effect of: we would ideally removed your power tools but we are keeping them so you can help Wikiversity further.
  • Alternative remedy -  closing the English Wikiversity project
    • My assessment: the potential for the project is great.
    • Minus: the project has been taken over by incompetence, laziness, complacency and sometimes perhaps by malice.
    • I find quasi-receivership or the like much better than closing.
    • The English Wikiversity has proven extremely helpful to me; I love it. I feel sorry for the project and its lost potential.
  • Root source of the problems
    • Excessively broad conception of what is educational about an "educational resource"
      • Pushed e.g. by Juandev, who, to my knowledge, produced hardly any pages worth keeping.
        • There may be some, but a glance at pages created by him suggests most of the pages should be moved to user space.
          • Or they could be deleted, as he seems to prefer.
      • The overbroad conception was accepted by some other users as well.
    • Whether a page can be useful for someone else but the creator is often not considered.
  • My (Dan Polansky's) role in the English Wikiversity
    • I was a curator (=semiadmin) for about a year from 2024 to 2025 before I was desysopped and blocked.
      • I was nominated by Jtneill; I did not ask for the role of a curator. 
    • Before that, I was a moderately large content contributor.
      • I created many Wikidebates and got thanks from the guy who launched the Wikidebates, on my talk page. 
        • I created a page explaining my views on Wikidebates and defending them.
        • I even created a Wikidebate on whether Wikidebates are a good thing (meta).
      • I created other pages. Some of the best include Technology as a threat or promise to life and its forms, I think.
      • An incomplete list of my contributions is in the history of my user page, before the sockpuppeteer/meatpuppetter Atcovi removed it.
    • I made a lot of cleanup by moving pages to user space, including those by Marshallsumter (using my curator tools, which made it possible to move pages without leaving a redirect behind).
    • I made a report of that cleanup effort in my Blog page in user space, but that was deleted by the sockpuppeteer/meatpuppeteer Atcovi. See Review of my curatorial work below but also the Web Archive version.
The above outline is very incompletely covered below, if at all. What follows now are rather complementary paragraphs.

Limitations of this write-up: The above should be ideally better linked and substantiated than it is. That is a lot of work. Unless someone contacts me to ask me to do more work on it and is planning to do something significant about the English Wikiversity, I do not have the energy to do all the work now. On the other hand, the referencing is now not too bad either (although it is no match for MediaWiki-grade inline referencing).

Recent criticism from Wikipediocracy: There is some criticism from Wikipediocracy ("Wikiversity is a mess", 10 Nov 2025). Incidentally, the editors are attacking my content. I find the criticism not compelling; if, as a engineering review moderator, I would get this kind of material as comments on a review, I would dismiss it as poorly articulated.

Disclaimer: my conflict of interest: I was desysopped by Mu301 after he received an email from the sockpuppeteer/meatpuppeteer Atcovi. I was later indefinitely blocked by Atcovi, as a result of what I think was a dubiously conducted community review about myself, with dubious participation criteria and dubious participation (is the absence of posts from multiple admins an act of cowardice or shirking of responsibility?). I can easily be seen as just a disgruntled editor. However, I think that there is quite a bit of evidence that I really cared about the project. It would have been so much better for me to just pretend not to see the problems and mind my own business, editing my articles. Perhaps I should have rejected the curatorship nomination, which came from Jtneill (I did not nominate myself; I am not a hat collector but rather usually hat refuser.)

Admissibility of this form of criticism: The idea that this form of criticism is not admissible and must be censored, if present, is part of the problem. Often, problems cannot be effectively addressed unless they are properly documented and tracked. That is at least suggested by the corporate practice of problem reporting, issue tracking, etc. I worked at two large international corporations, the German SAP (business software) and the American Honeywell (embedded software for aerospace), and both are very competent at problem reporting and issue tracking. This is an inspiration. (They are rather different companies in style.)

Why is this in Blogger: Sockpuppeteer/meatpuppeteer Atcovi already deleted two pages where I collected criticism of Wikiversity, with rather dubious rationale: Problem reports (about Wikiversity problems), archived at Wayback Machine, and my Blog page (alleged vandalism per log), also archived at Wayback Machine; see also list of userspace deleted pages for me). Pages on wiki are liable to be deleted by those who would rather stiffle/censor criticism than face it straight on and refute it or discuss it. The anti-free-speech/anti-Millian tendencies are well alive in many cultures and environments. I find wiki editing greatly superior to Blogger, but Blogger is not too bad and that's what we have when there is this attempted censorship and opposition suppression. I could perhaps build this on Meta, as I would like to do, but I fear to be harassed and blocked as a result.

The Harold Foppele case: This is one of the most revealing cases of overt administrative neglect and incompetence. I document the case in detail at Meta. As of 13 Mar 2026, many pages created by Harold Foppele are still in mainspace: Quantum, Quantum A Spooky Action at a Distance, Quantum: The Secret of Cohesion: How Waves Hold Matter Together, Quantum: A Walk Through the Universe, Quantum Noisy Qubits, Quantum mechanics measurements, Quantum Computing Algorithms in the NISQ Era, Quantum Ultra fast lasers, Quantum Matter Elements and Particles, Quantum mechanics, Quantum optics beam splitter experiments, Chess, Speed of sound experiments, Chess/Board Configurations, Number of independent spatial modes in a spherical volume, Quantum A Matter Of Size, Quantum Formulas Collection, Quantum/See also, Quantum/Andrew N. Jordan, Quantum Computing Algorithms in the NISQ Era/Quiz, Quantum/See also/Images, Chess/Play with other Wikiversitans, Completing the square, Python/Handler for references at Wikiversity pages. Perhaps the non-quantum mechanics pages are not so bad; I haven't looked.

The KayYayPark case: I was requesting help from custodians in vain, e.g. here and here. Months elapsed before proper intervention took place.

Mini-audit idea: Check for yourself. For instance, use the random page function 20 times and ask yourself how often what you see can possibly be of hardly any use to anyone but the author.

Review of my curatorial work: I posted the following to my Wikiversity Blog, which was deleted by Atcovi (the links do not work, though; I produced this by placing the wiki markup to preview in a Czech Wikiversity and copying and pasting the HTML here). Italics below indicates it is a quoted text originally published elsewhere.

It is quite possible that I will be indefinitely blocked in the English Wikiversity, as per the proposal made by user Atcovi at Wikiversity:Community Review/Dan Polansky. As part of a potential farewell, let me review some of the results of my curatorial work that I have done in the English Wikiversity since September 2024 when I was made a curator, over a year ago (Wikiversity:Candidates for Custodianship/Dan Polansky). The work can be seen in part in the action log, Special:Log/Dan Polansky.
Item Description/Note
Completing the clean-up after Marshallsumter I have moved ca. 680 pages created by Marshallsumter out of main space and Draft space into user space; ca. 330 were moved out of main space. Data is at User:Dan Polansky/Change request on articles by Marshallsumter. I thus largely completed the important work started by Dave Braunschweig and Guy vandegrift, both unfortunately inactive. I opened a Colloquium discussion for this to make sure there was enough consensus (Wikiversity:Colloquium#What to do with remaining Marshall Sumter pages) and then interacted with Marshallsumter on his user talk page, which lead to discovery of evidence supporting the notion that he is very likely an intentional disruptor and hoaxer. I waited at least a month to make sure enough time was given to collect input. This was a lot of effort and also risk (one can easily make a communication mistake), but the result seems very important, bringing an embarassing chapter of the English Wikiversity history likely to the close. I in fact moved some of his pages before I opened the discussion in Colloquium, but then realized opening a discussion to produce evidence of lack of serious opposition was very much preferable.
KYPark's literature pages I proposed moving them out of mainspace via RFD and then I implemented the proposal when there were no objections after at least a month (Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion#Literature). These were about 500 low-value pages (a search "intitle:/KYPark.Literature/" finds 482 pages. By my assessment, these pages were an embarassment. The pages are now at User:KYPark/Literature. (I now requested more KYPark's pages from other root page for removal, via another RFD, Wikiversity:Requests for Deletion#Pragmatics/History.)
Smaller clean-ups I moved a range of pages to user space, as per the move log. Examples include User:Andra Rei/Human Behavior, User:Jaredscribe/Foreign policy from Obama to Trump, User:Ktucker/Start a Wikiversity Project, User:Journey Into the Other Side of Nothingness/Ontorealis. There are many more. Part of it was moving bad pages by User:MarsSterlingTurner to his user space and then requesting his block for block evasion. Example page: User:MarsSterlingTurner/Consciousness. He kept on creating bad pages until he was blocked.
User:Saltrabook pages I got on the case of Saltrabook, starting an inquiry about a possible copyright violation: User talk:Saltrabook#Possible copyright violation. The English Wikiversity needs to figure out whether the person (or persons) who control that user account could have been able to author the pages inserted; unless the user starts cooperating and properly responding, it is perhaps advisable to delete all pages created by him as a preemtive measure. Dave Braunschweig and Guy vandegrift did some decent work toward limiting problematic conduct of that user account, but probably more needs to be done.

From what I can tell, I was the biggest driver of the English Wikiversity clean-up in 2025 by far. One can review WV:RFD, WV:Request custodian action and WV:Colloquium to in part verify or at least plausibility check this notion, as well as the page move logs (I was usually moving pages without leaving a redirect instead of using the deletion tool). My page move log, 4000 last move actions (all are from 2025): here.

Some good structural things for which I did not need curator tools were the following recent proposals relating to GenAI:

Unfortunately, there does not yet seem to be enough support; I cannot claim the proposals passed. The first one has no support at all, it seems.

I have also made some mistakes. One learns, just like Popper's beetles, Popper's Kepler or Popper's Einstein (a nod to the great Austrian-British philosopher). --Dan Polansky (discuss • contribs) 08:17, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

My problem reports that were deleted ("Problem reports (about Wikiversity problems)"):

I quote from Wayback Machine, using italics to indicate a quotation: 

What follows are problem reports, especially something like requests for deletion or block. They are here so that they do not overflood common processes such as request for custodian action. I am a curator and I can delete pages, but I cannot block people and cannot prevent them from creating new pages. The following is my way of flagging problems without getting emotionally exhausted by trying in vain to convince custodians/full admins to intervene.

Recently created pages are listed at Special:NewPages and can be reviewed.

Problem reports:

Location Status BLR[1] Problem description with possible proposed intervention
Neurological Path Theory of Stress Management Closed Yes Unduly promotional, with GenAI wibe. Delete and block the creator. Or at least move to user space.
Executive Summary Open Yes Inappropriate page name; undue self-promotion. Delete and block the creator, for offenses documented at request for custodian action (or the like).
= A Brilliant Strategy That Solves a Difficult Problem (📜 解难妙计 jiě nàn miào jì) = Open ? Dubious page name; why the equal sign? Icons in page names are a bad thing, IMHO. Excessive use of icons in the page itself, IMHO.
User:Harold Foppele/Quantum A Matter Of Size Open Yes Contains traces of copyright violation despite repeated explanation to the user how to quote word sequences taken from elsewhere. To wit, "Alexey Ekimov or Aleksey Yekimov solid state physicist and a pioneer in nanomaterials research. He discovered the semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots in 1981, while working at the Vavilov State Optical Institute.[4][5][6] In 2023, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery." is (nearly?) identical to text from W:Alexey Ekimov. (The page is a dubious collage anyway, but it would be okay for user space.)
See also W:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Open-system formulations in quantum computing. for the communication style/quality of the user, including his emptying the page or the like as per revision history.
Articles by user account Harold Foppele Open Yes The user account created articles in the subject of quantum mechanics that use wiki-voice and do not state the author. Since it is very likely that he does not understand quantum mechanics as per evidence in the revision history of his user talk page, it is also likely that they contain countless errors. The articles are presented to the reader as valid referenced content, not as one person's exercise in who-knows-what. Preventing the user account from creating new pages and moving all his articles to user space would address the issue.
Pragmatics/History Open ? Another "resource" by KYPark of dubious value for others that would be better moved to user space.
Ninefold Resonance Theory Open No Now in RFD. We would need some quasi-votes from curators and custodians, but very few seem interested in participation on RFDs. I could perhaps eventually close it as move-to-userspace, but I could be accused of not following consensus. I could argue that arguments for keeping were weak. This is tricky. I need help.
Pages created by Tomruen Closed Yes? The user created many pages as a copy and paste from Wikipedia without attribution. Even if attributed, they would not be fit for Wikiversity. Handled by Atcovi; good job! See also pages created by the user.
Pages linked from International Communication Law Open No Pages created as part of this effort/project, e.g. Australia's Legal System, probably need to be moved to become subpages, to ensure proper scoping. For instance, "Australia's Legal System" seems to be specifically about communication law.
Building services engineering/Psychrometrics Open No The page seems to be a copy from Wikibooks. Not clear that directly duplicating matter from Wikibooks is a good idea. Needs investigation/figuring out.
Pages by KayYayPark Open Yes The user creates promotional pages and no one seems to care, e.g. About Wikipedia with its "Park laid the conceptual logic,
Berners-Lee the technological skeleton, and
Sanger & Wales the social-epistemological organism of the World Brain." I raised this in Request for custodian action and no admin even responded: Wikiversity:Request custodian action#Block of User:KayYayPark; Wikiversity:Request custodian action#Block of User:KayYayPark or prohibition of new pages. See also "Executive Summary" in particular, raise above. The mode of self-promotion is so overtly absurd as to be almost funny.
Pages by Saltrabook Open Yes? We do not know how many of the pages are copyright violations. To be on the safe side, we would perhaps do well do delete all his (or their) created pages, especially given that their educational value seems dubious anyway? I posted in relation to possible copyright violations at User talk:Saltrabook. I deleted a page in Icelandic, for which he said he was not an author. On his (or their) Commons talk page, there is evidence of repeated copyright violation; and by extrapolation, we get that the person (or persons) has tenuous relationship to copyright adherence.

Archiving at Wayback Machine: As a reminder, some pages that I created in the English Wikiversity and were deleted are archived at Wayback  machine. I linked to some of them above. As another reminder, one can manually trigger a page to be archived at Wayback Machine.

Contacting me: Anyone who cares about these problems and wants me to add some detail to this page can contact me by email from the wiki interface e.g. in the Czech Wikiversity or the Czech Wiktionary.

Openness to comments: Collecting this amount of evidence is all too likely to lead to some inaccuracies. I plan to review all Blogger comments, if any, and correct them as far as applicable.

Related blog posts: My indefinite block in the English Wikiversity.

Remedy/remedies:

  • Some notes on this topic are in the outline already.
  • Introduce a new policy: An editor who is indefinitely blocked in at least one of the foundation wikis must not become an administrator, whether a curator or custodian, regardless whether the the main account is blocked or an alternate account. This applies also to editors who have an alternate account globally locked.
    • Impact/corrolary
      • Abd cannot be an admin since 2011 per WP block.
      • Marshallsumter could not have become an admin in 2014, per 2011 WP block. (Retrospective.)
      • Atcovi cannot be an admin per his multiple globally blocked alternate accounts.
      • Dan Polansky (myself) cannot be an admin since 2023 per En Wikt block. 
    • Advantage: Very easy to administer. Does not require assessment of behavior, which often tends to be subjective and incompetent.
    • Disadvantage: it will be harder to find admins.
      • Admins not barred by the criterion/policy can still be found, including Dave Braunschweig, Guy vandegrift, Koavf, etc. 
    • Note: Such editors can still edit, can place pages to request for deletion (RFD), etc.
    • Note: This policy may seem too stringent but given how small the admin team is in the English Wikiversity, allowing disruptive editors to gain the tools can cause significant disruption and seems not worth it.
      • Objection: A bureaucrat could handle the issue by revoking the tools when something bad happens.
      • Objection: The Community Review process can be used to address bad use of the tools. 
  • Variant: as above, but who is or was indefinitely blocked.
    • Impact/corrolary
      • As above plus other.
      • Juandev cannot be an admin since 2015 per Cs Wikt block.

Unreasonable support of GenAI:

Failed process adherence or bad process

  • In the English Wiktionary, the request for deletion (RFD) process required that a page is discussed for at least a week, typically a month. I find it good and appropriate.
  • In the English Wikiversity, pages are sometimes deleted in RFD within a day or two.
    • Example: one of the Marshallsumter pages in RFD was deleted a day after the nomination (on 9 Dec 2022).
      • The page did not belong to mainspace, but proper process is important. In Sep 2025, I opened a Colloquium discussion to get mainspace rid of most remaining Marshallsumter pages and implemented the proposal about after a month. I notified in RFD of that discussion.
      • Ophmalographer rightly noted: "Please hold off on moving this content for now. There's no rush - the course has existed for a few years, and this discussion just started today - and I'd like to see some further feedback from members of the community and/or outside experts before we decide what to do with it. [...]"
      • ==> Guy vandegrift (who did the deletion) lacks in administrative aptitude. 
    • Example: the page Is slavery good? was deleted by Atcovi on 10 March 2026 apparently with no process (search in Wikiversity namespace does not find anything), when it survived a 2023 discussion.
      • Whatever one thinks of the substance of the matter, a deletion process involving a discussion should be used and should require at least a week for discussion, or even month.
      • In the deletion discussion, previous discussion on the matter should be linked so that the discussion participants can read the previously made arguments for keeping or deleting the page.
      • One could argue that it was a speedy deletion, but a deletion of a page that was there since 2023 and that survived at least one Colloquium discussion cannot properly be speedy deleted in 2026, three years later.
  • Since the proposed deletion process does not use a discussion and requires about three months (90 days) to elapse, it is strange that RFD would not require at least a week.
  • An aside, the Czech Wikiversity requires at least 4 weaks of discussion in its "DOS" (RFD) process.
  • A possible remedy: introduce a formally approved policy like the followings: "a RFD discussion must remain opened for at least a week before it is acted upon, with rare well justified exceptions such as freshly inserted libel of a living person". Alternatively, require at least a month.
  • A possible remedy: introduce a formally approved policy like the following: "a page that has survived a previous deletion discussion must not be speedy deleted/speedy moved to user space, but rather, a process involving a discussion, such as RFD, must be used in attempts to have the page deleted/moved to user space".

Miscellanous and to be expanded

  • Kaldari talk page suggests he was very critical of the English Wikiversity in 2011. It would perhaps be worthwhile to find out how they dealt with his criticism.
  • In the Colloquium, in May 2026 there was a discussion about bringing newswriting to the English Wikiversity now that Wikinews was closed by WMF. Interesting. I for one would assess the English Wikinews as having had much more decent content than Wikiversity. The question that comes to mind is whether the closure of Wikinews forbodes a later closure of Wikiversity.
    • I quote: "[...] In fact, I'd support an entire namespace dedicated to keeping the notion of Wikinews alive here. —Justin (koavf) [...] 23:38, 1 May 2026 (UTC)"
    • The only discussion participant other than the initiator is Koavf.
    • And there is a voted-on proposal. Juandev opposed there.
    • Question: Can this be interpreted as working around a decision made by WMF?
  • It is amazing how fast they turned PieWriter into a curator (ca. 2.2 months after first En Wv edit, 1st En Wv edit: 18 Jan 2026; became curator:27 March 2026), with not much content contribution. It took me years to become a curator in the English Wikiversity and I did not self-nominate, in part since, from the English Wiktionary I brought with me the culture that people should not self-nominate (a culture that I like, in part since I am extremely suspicious of power and its holders).
    • (Perhaps there are some successful self-nominations in the English Wiktionary and I am just confused. But this is my memory.)
    • OTOH: PieWriter gives me a good impression, helped advance the Harold Foppele problem (which none of the bozos admins did), and perhaps this will turn out for the good.

Further reading

License: CC-BY-SA 4.0; last update: 22 May 2026.

posted by Dan at 6:01 AM

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