This week's report is considerably more diverse, for better or worse. As ever, television has a dominant effect on the reading habits of Wikipedia's users, with Netflix maintaining its chokehold, securing eyes both on its own site and over here. The return of a pair of crime dramas also provided some intrigue for the readers of the wiki. The leading article, however, is that of Dolores O'Riordan, the lead singer of the Cranberries, who died tragically at a young age during the week. As ever, we can thank Reddit and Google for a couple of entries on the Report, and sports gasp also managed to make its way in, encroaching on the fiefdom of period drama fanatics. With the apparent addiction to television that is suffered by many a reader on Wikipedia, it is little wonder that we spend our time like zombies, clicking through tangentially related links. Long may it last, I say.

For the week of January 14 to 20, 2018, the most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Feel like the report was pretty much the same from week to week? We've got you covered, as only four entries remain from the last report, the ever-present death list and the subjects of the TV shows Wikipedia readers seem to watch. Most of the changes are sports related: three entries in the build-up to Super Bowl LII, the possibility of another gridiron league returning, an association footballer making his debut, the two winners of the Australian Open, the latest UFC event... and on a darker, off-field note, two entries regarding the closure of a scandal akin to the Weinstein effect, as a pedophile physician who regularly abused American gymnasts is sent to prison. Also shifting things are three Google Doodles - that including the top two entries of the week - and a Reddit topic, four Indian entries (a new Bollywood epic, two historic figures depicted in it, and a national holiday), the Oscar nominations and the latest turmoil the US government has put itself into.

For the week of January 21 to 27, 2018, the most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

• These lists excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

A bicyclist was hit. The driver fled the scene. Left in critical condition, a Reddit user by the name of YoungSalt desperately posted on several forums with a picture of the bumper. "Help identify this piece of a bumper from a hit and run with a cyclist now in critical condition." Using, among other sources, an image from Wikipedia (File:2009 Toyota Camry (ACV40R) Ateva sedan (2015-05-29) 01 (cropped).jpg) other users from Reddit were able to determine that the bumper fragment came from a 2009 Toyota Camry, and the previously unknown attacker was caught. Free culture is valuable for its own sake but even mundane pictures of cars can make a tangible difference in the world.

Ccable62, at a glance would appear to be a very obsessive fan of Tom Cable, removing allegations of violence against the football coach repeatedly. However, it turns out that, as The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post reported, Ccable62 is in fact Carol Cable, Tom's wife. Clearly, they felt that the allegations were unfounded, writing "ALL ACCUSATIONS AGAINST COACH CABLE WERE ORICRN VIA NFL. DA. AND POKICE TO BR ABSOLUTELY FALSE. THEY SHOULD NOT LIST LIES AND FALSR ACCUSATIONS IN THIS WIKIPEDIA AS IT IS SLANDER" in an edit summary. For now the allegations remain up, and Ccable62 has not edited since January 5.

When the University of Central Florida football team went undefeated for 13 games, everyone knew that controversy would ensue. As College football national championships in NCAA Division I FBS do not have a championship, there is no defined winner other than who has the best record. Many, however were and are of the opinion that Alabama truly won the division, and those people edited as such. Edit wars broke out across the spectrum, with an edit every 97 seconds on the 2017 UCF Knights football team page. Discussions broke out as to the color of the 2017 season at pages including coach Scott Frost, UCF Knights football, and the 2017 Alabama Crimson Tide football team (That page underwent 252 edits from mid-November to mid-January; of those, 124 came on January 8 and 9). (Originally reported in Sports Illustrated.)

• Jalopnik covered the efforts of User:McChizzle in updating the article Honda Ridgeline.
• Engadget and others reported on the "Wikipedia Rabbit Hole" phenomenon. See this issue's blog.
• New Hampshire Public Radio in New Hampshire, United States shares its research and reflections on who made the Wikipedia article for their capitol and how editors have developed it.
• Hürriyet Daily News, an English language news source in Turkey, relays that Wikimedia Foundation executive director Katherine Maher has told the Turkish language Habertürk that the Turkish government has not provided any reason about why the Turkish government has blocked access to Wikipedia throughout the country continually since April 2017.
• The Daily Mail, a tabloid newspaper known in the wiki community as being an unreliable source for Wikipedia articles (previous coverage), recently presented evidence on the dangers of Wikipedia's information about suicide methods. Citing a report by British politician Grant Shapps, previously known for editing the article about himself (previous coverage 1, 2), both the tabloid and the government report complain of the dangers of providing encyclopedic information in the way that Wikipedia does. The Signpost invites users who feel that content in Wikipedia should be different to edit articles and comment on discussion pages, including at Talk:Suicide methods, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Death, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. Grant Shapps denies wiki mischief (previous coverage) but even if that were not the case, we are ever welcoming to critics and encourages everyone to check out the report.
• A vendor of chips (French fries) describes his experience of being the subject of a Wikipedia article for two weeks, at which time the wiki's review process deleted the article
• An editor from Slate considers the extent to which Wikipedia is a good place to start solving mysteries involving missing persons
• SPORTbible and FK Panevėžys noted that FK Panevėžys, a Lithuanian football club from the second-level I Lyga, is allegedly duped into signing Barkley Miguel Panzo based on fabricated data from a Wikipedia page. However, the club apologized on 3 February for "the appearance of incorrect information" on its website.

While the world was watching fireworks displays in celebration of the 2018 New Year, the English Wikipedia's editing community was experiencing a different kind of fireworks: back-to-back topic bans and blocks, including a few that were considered controversial and involved tenured editors who have since retired. It gave new meaning to "Should Old Acquaintance be forgot, and never thought upon".

Discussions for two New Year’s resolutions resulted, focused on the blocking policy and block log redaction:

• Phase 1: User:Atsme/Blocking policy proposal, comments welcome;
• Phase 2: User:Atsme/Block log proposals, still in draft form. 

The issues revolve around the way editors treat each other and the manner in which administrators act as "first responders", particularly in situations when a tenured editor becomes the recipient of a controversial block or topic ban.

Edit warring, discretionary sanctions, ambiguity in policies and guidelines, a lack of consistency in administrator actions, concerns over the unfettered use of admin tools, bad judgment calls, biases, human error, anger and frustration are, while not the norm, major pitfalls in editor retention. Blocks and topic bans are intended as remedial actions to stop disruption but at times tend to appear punitive and magisterial, which exacerbates the situation and raises doubt as to whether the end truly does justify the means, particularly when such actions arise from misunderstandings and misinterpretations.

It's natural for editors to defend against a block or ban – to feel angry when they believe a situation was punitive or grossly mishandled. It is also equally as natural for an admin to maintain an opposing view by defending their actions by insisting (and believing) it was neither punitive nor mishandled. An admin's primary concern is to stop disruption and prevent harm to the project. When the dust settles, what usually remains is the user's block log, but what does that log actually tell us?

Controversial topics germinate disruption, and when POV warriors and/or advocacies are involved, content disputes are likely to end in topic bans and/or blocks. Wikipedia doesn’t have content administrators, rather we have what some editors refer to, with levity, as behavior police. Editors also have access to a number of specialized notice boards for discussion, but some are considered nothing more than extensions of the article TP in that the same editors are involved in the discussions. Add discretionary sanctions to the mix, including stacked sanctions that add confusion and make it difficult to interpret their intent or application, and what we end up with are sanctions that act more like a repellent than a preventative...well, perhaps one could consider it a preventative if it repels but that should not be the ultimate goal.

The thought of being "blocked" or "topic banned" is unsettling whereas the action itself can be quite demoralizing, and at the very least, a disincentive.  The term dramah board, in and of itself, speaks volumes as an area to avoid. Perhaps we should consider replacing the block-ban terminology in the log summaries with less harsh descriptions like "content dispute, 24 hr time-out", or "30-day wikibreak – conduct time-out".  The harmful effects of blocks and topic bans are also evident in editor retention research, as are the inconsistencies in admin actions across the board. While the blocking policy provides guidance, admins are still dealing with individual judgment calls and unfettered use of the mop, both of which conflict with the stability of consistency.

Questionable blocks and errors are often attributable to time constraints, work overload, inexperience, miscommunication, and misinterpretations. Other blocks of concern, although extremely rare, may be the result of POV railroading, ill-will, biases or COI, situations which are usually remedied with expediency, and may result in desysopping. Unfortunately, bad blocks remain permanently on the logs.

Another unfortunate consequence of block logs involves the adaptation of preconceived notions and bad first impressions after review, which may lead to users being wrongfully "branded" or "targeted", for lack of a better term, and possibly even rejected by the community. Block logs are readily accessible to the public, and include only the resulting block summary, not the circumstances which may persuade the reader to draw a much different conclusion.

Few, if any, actually care or are willing to invest the time to research the circumstances that led to a block; it's a difficult and time consuming task at best. Accepting the log at face value is much easier; therefore, in reality the block log is actually a rap sheet that is used to judge an editor’s suitability. Unfortunately, the right to be forgotten eludes us. Hopefully that will change.

New requests since the last issue of The Signpost include:

• Request "Joefromrandb" – initiated by MrX on 22 January 2018, reporting Joefromrandb. A number of behaviors were cited including hostile editing in the form of personal attacks, assumptions of bad faith, inflammatory edit summaries, and edit warring. It appears to be a continuation of a 20 October 2017 case naming Joefromrandb and opened by TomStar81. As of publication deadline the case has support from 14 members of the Arbitration Committee and has crossed the ten votes required to be accepted by the Arbitration Committee under the four net votes criterion (barring reversed votes).
• Request "Civility issues" – initiated by Volvlogia on 24 January 2018, reporting Cassianto. At issue, incivility surrounding discussion of infobox artist. Third parties in the request referred back to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes in which Arbcom decided that infobox usage was neither mandatory nor prohibited, and should be left to editor consensus. The prior infoboxes case did not name Cassianto but remedies included other editors placed under editing restrictions on adding, removing or discussing infoboxes. Cassianto is currently under a three-month self-requested block initiated 26 January 2018. "Allegations of pro-infobox sock/meat activity" were raised in this new request by third parties; other parties expressed concerns about Arbcom creating new policy around infoboxes. As of publication deadline the request is 9/0/0.

Update after publication deadline

The two requests mentioned above were accepted as cases Joefromrandb and others and Civility in infobox discussions

• Alice in Wonderland syndrome
• Visual release hallucinations
• Alcoholic hallucinosis
• Middle Earth^boring
• Neverland
• Greenland
• Green Acres
• "Green, Green Grass of Home"
• Shangri-La
• Wikimedia Foundation
• Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
• Petticoat Junction
• Sodor Island
• Gilligan's Island
• Montana