User talk:Thehistorianisaac

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In your successful unblock request a few weeks ago, you said I will attempt to stay away from anything even remotely related to the TBAN topic. That is plainly false. Almost every edit you've made since being unblocked was only a step removed from the Chinese military: Chinese civilian or paramilitary law enforcement , Chinese foreign relations , Chinese human rights issues , Chinese civilian governance , other countries' militaries , a ship in a navy that was at war with China . I actually only count three mainspace edits that aren't a step removed from your TBAN area .

Nonetheless, I am not blocking you for that part. You were not under any formal obligation to avoid TBAN-adjacent topics. However, the fact that you said you would do so, and then did the exact opposite, keeps me from cutting you any slack for the inevitable TBAN violation that did occur. In this edit (and these 2 related redirect creations ) you directly advanced the POV of the People's Republic of China (something you'd already done in a few of your TBAN-adjacent edits ) on an article on a geographical feature that is actively contested by the Chinese military. The article includes a sentence about an engagement between the PRC Navy and British merchant vessels, and you added a mention of the Philippine Navy removing markings from the "island" , sourced to an article that frames this as part of a dispute between the Philippine and Chinese navies. (You also removed a sourced paragraph about the Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling in favor of the Philippines, which is blatant enough POV-pushing that I'd be tempted to block here even if this weren't a TBAN violation.)

Wikipedians like giving second chances, but are much more hesitant about third chances. You came to this talk page, told three admins you'd stop doing what you were doing, got us all to trust you, and then came back and violated your ban even more blatantly. There are some indefblocks for TBAN violations that convey "You're blocked until you can learn to comply" and others that convey "This is the least restrictive way to enforce the community-imposed TBAN, and so should be treated more like a community sanction". Your first block was the former, and this block is the latter; I'll say in advance that any unblock here, now or 6+ months from now, should go through AN, as it's the community's trust you've violated here, not just mine as one admin. -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 10:12, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

1. None of my edits are, remotely related to the tban.(e.g, I doubt anybody would say railway police in China have anything to do with the military) In fact, none of my edits fall under "paramilitary law enforcement". The examples are not adjacent to tban, they are as related to the tban topic as Moscow is to Berlin.
2. I was, again under the impression that the edit to reed tablemount was completely outside the tban, as none of the content added was related to the military.(For the source, I was just reusing a source I found on the Chinese Wikipedia Version of the article and did not see the part about the Chinese navy; even now I still haven't found anything )
3. Saying I am pushing a POV is false; I added info with reliable sources(for the reed tablemount one, I used a Vietnamese source for better neutrality) to articles. The paragraph was an accidental deletion, where I misread it that it wasn't talking about the subject. I apologize for this honest mistake.

Thehistorianisaac (talk) 10:45, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Thehistorianisaac (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

The block is not nessecary since:

1. My promise was kept, as none of my edits were even ambiguously related to the chinese military.
2. The paragraph removal on reed tablemount was a genuine mistake; if I was informed of this, I would have restored it. My additions are not POV-Pushing(in fact, I've even used sources like VOA or Vietnam news agency in an effort to be more neutral in them), and all my additions had a neutral point of view.

Decline reason:

I don't think there's anything I can say here that will make this any clearer to you. Declined, of course. asilvering (talk) 18:19, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

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If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Thehistorianisaac, I'm very sad to see that you've been blocked again (and it appears to be justified). While you may be discouraged, this isn't necessarily the end of your time on English Wikipedia. I urge you to take a full six months away (meaning no edits anywhere on English Wikipedia at all), the usual minimum time for a WP:OFFER, to take a break and to deeply think what you want to do here in the future. Then, make a request for the community, with a list of topics you'd like to edit, that are far, far, far away from the ones covered in your topic ban, things that couldn't remotely connect to the ban, like chocolate milk or the Tour de France or cloud formation or the color aquamarine. It doesn't have to be one of those things; those are just the first four completely unrelated things that spring to mind out of millions of possibilities. Don't look for loopholes to get unblocked or to make edits to the banned topics; look for a new path, one that might eventually lead to the end of even your topic ban when the community is comfortable with trusting your discipline.

If you do these things, I believe that you would have a decent chance of being given another chance by the community in six months, while right now, I believe that you would have practically no chance of an unblock, either by the community or an administrator. Neither Tamzin or Asilvering are brutes; in fact, both have bent over backwards to give many editors as many chances as possible. Right now, you will likely only find frustration, as topic bans are designed for editors who are able to follow them; they're not intended to be enforced by admins and editors having to watch those with topic bans as a full-time job.

Unfortunately, you took a very risky approach to editing, choosing almost entirely topics right on the edge of your broadly construed topic ban. To do that successfully, you need an ironclad discipline and impeccable knowledge of where the community feels lines are drawn, which is why several people gave you cautions to avoid even nearby topics that were not explicitly covered by your topic ban. An indefinite block from the site may be far better for your future English Wikipedia editing than a parade of topic ban violations and unblocks. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 19:34, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

@CoffeeCrumbs

I really doubt any of my previous edits(post my previous appeal) would even fall under the tban at all, no matter how they are interpreted. I already avoided anything people could possibly see as falling under the tban. None of the examples provided are, really, anywhere even ambiguously close to the tban(other than being from the same country). Thehistorianisaac (talk) 23:44, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

All I'm trying to tell is your best shot of being unblocked. Trying to force it now is not a good idea; you may very well end up with your talk page access removed, and then it becomes much harder to get unblocked. But what you do is, of course, your choice, and I wish you the best. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 00:23, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah I know. Probably gonna change the boundary on what I call the "demilitarized zone"(aka stuff that is not in the TBAN, however I will voluntarily avoid, e.g chinese civilian maritime law enforcement like the CMSA or stuff like the great wall) and "safe zone"(unambiguously unrelated to TBAN topics). Thank you for your advice all these times though.

I think something me, you and @Tamzin can all agree on is that we have different definitions on what I should consider completely safe from the tban. I'm willing to move topics like foreign militaries or chinese civilian law enforcement into the "demilitarized zone" until the tban is lifted if this could make it easier to avoid getting to close to the TBan. However, I would like to ask whether I should completely start avoiding editing chinese topics(assuming the block is lifted in the future) until the tban or if you believe stuff like chinese administrative divisions or national parks is unambiguous enough from the TBAN. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 02:28, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

@Thehistorianisaac, regarding your question, yes, I really do think you should completely avoid some topics. But I think rather than "Chinese topics", it might be better to avoid topics that have anything even remotely to do with government, vehicles of any kind, and conflict of any kind, if there could be any plausible link to China. Most Chinese topics are probably fine. Some topics you evidently don't think of as "China-related" are too close. If you want to write about, say, Vikings or hanfu, you're fine. -- asilvering (talk) 19:28, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

@CoffeeCrumbs

Hey, it's me again; during this break i've sort of sobered up a bit(metaphorically, not literally; I'm legally not allowed to drink yet);

I'm probably gonna take a WP:OFFER in 6 months or so, firstly to clear up my mind to let myself think more rationally, and secondly since I've exams coming up anyways; I also don't want to completely retire, partly since i've seen enough stuff that needs to be cleaned up, and also because I don't want this to be my legacy on wikipedia.

Firstly, I would like to sincerely apologize to all the administrators during this period for causing all this trouble. I should have accepted that I did something wrong, instead of claiming that what I did would fall under WP:BANEX or such. I also realized that I should have been more strict on what fell under "too close to the tban". Furthermore, I feel like I should have overall taken the TBAN(and IBAN) far more seriously than I actually did.

Secondly, I would like to hear you advice on what steps I should take in the future if the standard offer is passed; Originally, I was planning to do national parks as I have enough resources in that aspect, however part of me feels like this still may be too close. May I ask if you know any topics that are extremely unambiguous enough from my TBAN topic that also need cleanup in terms of grammar?

Lastly, I would also like to thank you for trying to help me during this period of time, and I would also like to apologize for letting you down and causing this amount of trouble.

P.S:

May I ask what will happen to my drafts? I definitely won't be editing them until both my ban and the tban are successfully lifted(even though none fall under the TBAN, better to be safe than sorry), which will likely take at least 1 year; may I ask if there is any way to prevent them for getting automatically deleted? Thehistorianisaac (talk) 17:15, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Don't worry about the drafts. If they're automatically deleted it's trivial to ask for them to be undeleted for you in the future. -- asilvering (talk) 03:28, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your response! Thehistorianisaac (talk) 03:32, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

@Tamzin and Asilvering: I can't see an IBAN breach here. The IBAN is for "Chinese military, broadly construed". Editing Chinese civilian police articles is not a breach. Nor is Chinese foreign relations, Chinese civilian governance or other countries' militaries. A ship in a navy that was at war with China is far from the IBAN. The Japanese minelayer Tsugaru article has no mention of the Chinese military in the article, nor did the user add or edit any Chinese military related information in that article. The Reed Tablemount article has no mention of the Chinese military. User Thehistorianisaac might be guilty of pushing a POV and not complying with NPOV. But, correct me if I am wrong, they have never been given a NPOV warning before looking at their talk page. It seems harsh to block a user when no prior warning has been given to them to enable them to correct their behaviour. Melbguy05 (talk) 17:21, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

1) As I said, the block is not for the 15 edits that were adjacent to the TBAN scope. It's just that the existence of those edits, after a promise to not get anywhere near the TBAN scope, makes me disinclined to cut any slack when, on the 16th edit, Isaac did fly too close to the Sun.

2) Again, as I said, the article mentions the Chinese military, as does the source Isaac cited in adding content about the Philippine Navy removing Chinese flags (implicitly, flags planted by the Chinese military). Furthermore, the entire article is about a Chinese military topic. The main thing that the Reed Tablemount is known for, as the article makes very clear, is that the PRC disputes the Philippines' claim on it and expresses this through military actions. If Isaac's edit had been entirely about hydrography or something, then maybe this would not have been a TBAN violation, but in fact the edit was entirely about the dispute between the Philippine and Chinese governments, as litigated by their militaries.

3) Yes, if this were just POV-pushing with no TBAN violation I probably would not block without a warning. (There's a reason I used the word "tempted" above.) However, given that it is a TBAN violation—after three previous blocks for violating the same TBAN or the related IBAN, multiple warnings, and a last-chance unblock—the fact that the edit was pushing a POV, rather than making some innocent change, was a contributing factor to the block. Usually whether a TBAN violation is independently problematic is the main decider of whether I warn or block.

All that said, I'll throw courtesy pings to @Sennecaster, Voorts, and PhilKnight to see if their opinions differ. -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 17:51, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I trust Tamzin to make the correct judgment calls when it comes to ban violations and enforcement and fully support their reasoning here. Sennecaster (Chat) 04:25, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Some clarifications here:

For the TBAN violation, I was completely unaware that the flags were planted by the chinese military, as it wasn't mentioned in the source either.

For the POV pushing part, the paragraph deletion was genuinely accidental; for the additions, the history part was kinda unnecessary, but I do believe that somewhere claimed by China should at least have some mention of it's chinese name(history part can be viewed as sort of POV, as I likely should have added in text attribution, but I think adding what the chinese calls it is not really that controversial). Thehistorianisaac (talk) 12:10, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't speak Chinese, but per Google Translate of the source you cited (emphases added): He said the Philippine Navy could not determine who erected the signs, 'These signs do not have "Made in China" logos or anything else,' just some numbers. But AFP said the Philippines removed the foreign signs in May this year, just before the Philippine Foreign Ministry formally lodged a protest over what it called the Chinese Navy's violation of Philippine territorial waters. Gaining 'US support' on the South China Sea issue also became a top priority for the Philippines on the 15th. ABS-CBN News reported that the Philippine Navy had cleared Chinese military markings in the West Philippine Sea, while the US was increasingly willing to 'get involved in the Spratly Islands dispute' and had issued the latest signal of 'full support for the Philippines.' ... It is said that at least three US warships will participate , which is sending a signal to China that the United States has military relations with these countries and China should not use force to resolve the South China Sea dispute.

For what it's worth, I'm a believer in not applying G5 on constructive pages, so I did look up the two Chinese names you added before I deleted the redirects; I found nothing for either of them . -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 21:51, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

@Tamzin

Oh yeah for the name 礼乐滩, 乐 can be transliterated as Le or Yue depending on the context

This SCMP source uses Liyue bank, and considering the namesake Yue would be correct. That's my mistake, since Le is the far more common transliteration(For example, in my chinese name). Maybe switch it to Liyue bank instead.

For Lu Bank, the source I used said it was a pre-1947 name so it's likely not gonna get mentioned.

For the source, I only read page one of the article, which only mentions the chinese navy at the second last paragraph, and I only read the top of the article which did not mention the Chinese navy. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 04:07, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

The thing is, Isaac, even if I believe you on all of this, and I'm going to be honest I don't think I do, the appropriate remedy would still be an indefinite block, just for a different reason. If you, while on a last-chance unblock from your third block from violating a topic ban on the Chinese military, are somehow able to cite a source that discusses the Chinese military, on an article that discusses the Chinese military, for a claim implicitly involving the Chinese military, while completely overlooking the parts of both the Wikipedia article and the cited source that mention the Chinese military, then this would be a competence issue. Topic bans are a lesser alternative to blocks for editors who are able to comply with them. If an editor is unable to understand what constitutes a topic ban violation, the only option we have left is an indefinite block. -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 06:06, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

I know what counts as a topic ban violation; I explicitly avoided adding any content that mentioned the Chinese military, and I wasn't aware the location markers were made by the navy, I was just aware location markers were removed. As far as I was aware, I was simply adding the chinese name, and also mentioning chinese markers were removed. I probably should read all articles fully that I cite or edit though, however, WP:TBAN never mentions anything about source articles, and I also never touched any part relating to the chinese military, or added anything about the chinese military

On the same topic, I think at this point if I am unblocked there needs to be some huge changes to approach the tban. It's no use saying I will stay away from topics related to the TBAN, when both of us have different definitions. I'm gonna list out the topics I'm going to focus on if I get unbanned, and if you think any of them get too close, please tell me so I could focus on something else instead. IMO it's much easier to comply if there is a list of things I can do, instead of just a broad range of things to avoid or try to avoid which we have different definitions on;

Content edits:

Chinese national parks; may add national parks in a city to municipal articles, but won't touch anything else

Minor edits

Maybe random typo fixes on unrelated topics, will avoid TBAN topics or topics which fall under the "DMZ"(Chinese police(I may still make dummy edits to my drafts on chinese police to prevent them from auto-deletion, but nothing else), other militaries of foreign countries).

Other:

Discussions on village pump or helping new editors on help desk/AFC helpdesk;

I think it's much easier to comply and prevent misunderstandings if I have a proper plan to comply with the TBAN. Any opinions on if there are things I should still avoid? Thehistorianisaac (talk) 07:01, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

@Tamzin thoughts?

I realized(and regret it took me so long) that I probably should restrict myself more to somewhere I definitely won't violate the tban, in oppose to simply avoiding adding/removing/discussing content on chinese military related articles or sections mentioning the chinese military.

My previous way of complying (or trying to comply) was just being aware of what fell under the tban and avoiding articles about it or sections involving it quite obviously failed. Another thing is, there's not much use saying I will avoid stuff that are tban adjacent, if we both have different definitions of that. My idea is it's much easier to comply if I have something to focus on editing that I can be completely sure won't violate the Tban;

(However, I would also still like to be able to make dummy edits to the drafts so they don't get deleted automatically before I manage to appeal the tban; I won't add anything new though) Thehistorianisaac (talk) 15:57, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Everything you've said about your TBAN, now and before, has been about how much you want to comply with it. Everything you've done has shown the exact opposite. I don't know whether that's due to malice or incompetence, but I give more weight to what people do than what they say they'll do. My position remains that the community said you should be banned from editing about the Chinese military, and you've proven unwilling or unable to follow that restriction, and so if there's to be an unblock here, that decision should return to the community. -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 16:07, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Thehistorianisaac (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

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Request reason:

The ban is not nessecary because: #For the listed prveious edits, they were already decently far away from the tbanned topic to not fall under the tban or even be considered borderline. #For the edit on the reed tablemount article , the navy section was left completely untouched per TBAN guidelines; in fact, I had not read that part of the article, and apologize for not being more careful. For the paragraph removal, I have previously explained it was accidental, and would have restored it had I been informed of the accidental removal. Additionally, for the new additions, all of them had adhered to WP:NPOV guidelines as I had used reliable sources in that context along with using a neutral tone. If you have further questions on my previous edits, I will be happy to explain them.

Decline reason:

South China Sea islands whose notoriety is almost entirely based on the naval deployments and maneuvers of the PLA Navy and the navies of other disputing nations are definitely covered by a broadly construed tban on the Chinese military. I would suggest dropping the wikilawyering and sticking to promises to give the topic a wide berth for any future unblock requests. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:27, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

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