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The Holding Pen

Is empty!

Current

Secret trials considered harmful [Well, you might hope so]

[Hmmm, so this is all a bit weird. Current theory is that FT2 has run off the rails, not all of arbcomm. Presumably it will all become clear in the morning William M. Connolley (talk) 22:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)][reply]

The secret trials stuff is disturbing. I'm going to have a look before saying more William M. Connolley (talk) 21:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I've read the evidence: general impression is that this is revenge by DHMO's friends for his RFA failure. Why? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And now I've read the judgement. And it seems to me that arbcomm has run itself off the rails. It would seem that they've got themselves infected by the bad blood from DHMO's RFA. So:

Given the sanctions, which are more humiliating that restrictive, the case was clearly non-urgent.
There is a good deal of interpretation and selective quoting in the evidence. I don't see any eveidence that OM was given any opportunity to respond, and that is bad (looking at OM's page, I think this response [1] from ~~arbcomm~~ [FT2] is revealing: when asked directly if OM was given the chance to respond, the reply is weaselly).
I'm missing the result of the user RFC that obviously the arbcomm insisted on being gone through first. Could someone point me to it?
Could all these people please get back to the job of deciding the cases validly put before them, most obviously the G33 and SV/etc ones

William M. Connolley (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, whatever the actual substance of the complaint: I'm deeply concerned about ArbCom (or unspecified parts of it) trawling through a years worth of contributions, selectively quoting parts that support a certain point of view, assemble all this into a large document, and without ~~further~~ input from the user in question or from the community issue an edict from above. And for good measure they (?) declare a priori that an appeal is possible, but will be moot. Well, maybe it's acceptable because, as we all know, the committee is infallible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I admit, my prior opinion was that arbcomm is generally slow but usually got the right answer. In this case, I'm doubtful. BTW, I'm almost sure I had a run-in with OM once. Can anyone remember when/where? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:50, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In case you have not yet noticed: This seems to be deeper. [2]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:58, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Holy @#%$! I was wondering how all of them took leave of their senses at once. R. Baley (talk) 22:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

!?! That looks bad William M. Connolley (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this some sort of hallucination?????? WTF??? BTW, you did run into me, because you blocked someone in a manner that I felt unfair. When I found out you are/were one of the "good guys" on global warming, I had mixed feelings. Now, I feel safe that you're watching over the article, especially since Raymond Arritt is gone.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This whole notion of "good guys" and "bad guys" is a seriously poisonous and harmful way of seeing fellow contributors. It encourages the worst excesses and does not lend itself to reaching consensus with the dark side/evil ones/whatever. Orderinchaos 16:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like to think that the people reverting vandalism might be considered "good", and the vandals "bad". Perhaps thats a bit too old-school, and you prefer a more nuanced approach? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm taking William's interpretation of good and bad editors. However, I consider NPOV vandals to be vandals too. Yes there is a nuance to all of this, and that's the problem. It's difficult.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So whats going on?

Most discussion is at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Orangemarlin and other matters, it seems.

Presumably someone will be along to sort out this car crash at some point. In the meantime I've been trying to see whats going on, and I've found...

As we know, KL has repudiated FT2's postings [3]. But [4] rather suggests that secret proceedings were indeed going on.
tB has "temporarily" blanked the page [5], which is nice, though not as good as "permanently"
Jimbo has weighed in, saying basically "I haven't got a clue whats going on" [6]. Later updated to the Arbitration Committee itself has done absolutely nothing here [7], which does rather suggest FT2 acting alone in acting, though doesn't address discussions.
CM is cryptic [8] turns on the interpretation of "formal" in "formal proceeding", a semantic point that is not vacuous
JPG says its miscommunication [9] and begs for patience [10] but confirms the secret case [11]
FN thanks us for our patience [12] as does Mv [13]
Jv appears to endorse FT2's version, adding the OM case to those recently closed [14] and posting the result to ANI [15]. How does Jv know this is the will of arbcomm? And interesting question, which I've just asked him, and which he is studiously ignoring.

Other arbs appear to be far too busy to deal with trivia of this type.

So its hard to know what *has* happened. But clearly its not just FT2 running amok, or the other arbs would say so. My best guess is that secret trials (discussions?) were indeed in progress and that they are too embarrassed to admit it; and that there is some frantic behind-the-scenes talking going on to try to get a story straight.

CM [16]. The statement is bizarre and is going to leave a lot of people (including me) unhappy. It looks like "it was a regrettable miscommunication, please don't ask any more questions" is going to be the line.

William M. Connolley (talk) 18:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC) & 20:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What stuns me is how any arbitrator thought that allegations of uncivil behavior (however true) needed to be urgently addressed in a blatantly out-of-process manner while a case of full-bore socking by a repeat offender, resulting in high-profile articles being locked for weeks, was allowed to languish. Hopefully the committee realizes they cannot put the business of Arbitration on hold to focus solely on this drama, and will continue the voting. - Merzbow (talk) 03:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, still baffled by that one William M. Connolley (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, it looks like the official line is it all ended happily ever after [17], nothing to see, move along here William M. Connolley (talk) 06:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And FT2 is terribly busy [18]

Giano block

See this thread. Three hours seems short for his 4th block under the remedy (and the block should be logged, btw). Avruch 19:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Its done now; I don't think there is any going back. I just saw the edit and blocked for incivility; I wasn't aware of the arbcomm sanctions. If I had been, I would probably have blocked for longer. Hopefully there won't be a next time, but if there is, I'll be aware William M. Connolley (talk) 20:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or at least is was. Now its re-done, on the basis of further incivilty. However, I strongly urge you not to post further to his talk page for the time being, to avoid any appearence of provocation William M. Connolley (talk) 20:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of things. Giano's original comment at FT2's talk on Avruch was clearly uncivil. The most effective way to deal with it was removing it and stopping there unless he reinserts. A short block, while non-optimal to me was understandable, but could escalate (and it did and how we have more drama and 24-hr block.) But in any case, calling Avruch a stupid person was only a PA and not "harassment" as WMC puts in the log. On a side note, the way Avruch deals with that grandstanding at AE and calling for a longer block is an exact drama mongering that derailed his last RfA. Seeing his learning nothing does not help his chances at the next RfA which is without doubt in his thoughts. --Irpen 20:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The block was for incivility. Harassment is just the boilerplate from the pull-down menu. And the bolierplate or OR not AND (I thought you were an admin. Don't you know this?). I disagree with re blocks vs removal: there is too much incivility around, it needs to be dealt with more forcefully than it is. I don't think G's PA was "only" anything. Calling for a longer block was not unreasonable William M. Connolley (talk) 20:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone else is watching: I'm not intending to extend G's block any further no matter what he may say from this point. Anyone else wanting to do so may use their own judgement William M. Connolley (talk) 20:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no intention of commenting further to Giano. I made a not very clever joke about some of his conspiracy comments, and the result is all down to Giano. I didn't call for a longer block, I just asked if 3 hours was appropriate given the context. And if another RfA were in my thoughts, you can be sure that I would be keeping myself far away from this mess. Freedom from that yoke allows me to ask that Giano's remedy and the civility policy be applied to him like they would to anyone else - regardless of the ill-will it will engender for me. Avruch 20:34, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(a) good (b) you did, effectively, call for a longer block. Its not surprising. Lets not argue about that William M. Connolley (talk) 20:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would you please explain why you removed my comment here[19]? without benefit of a response? At the time I was writing it, you were off extending Giano's block for the second time because he had insulted you. That does not seem to be what is currently considered best practice, after the Tango arbitration. We aren't talking about Giano now, we are talking about you. Risker (talk) 21:02, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for that, it was an accident of edit conflict. In fact, I *did* reply, check the history, but managed to delete both your comment and my reply. Restoring:

Ah William, William...Every admin knows that the normal reaction to a block is a bit of drama. In this case, another admin (i.e., me) was already counselling Giano on his use of descriptive language about other editors. Several of the edits that Avruch used in his WP:AE report were, unfortunately, quite correct, if sharply worded; the editors involved were ill-informed of something, involving other accounts, identified by Giano a couple of days ago, that required the resources of two checkusers, two bureaucrats and a couple of admins to straighten out and directly involved a non-Wikipedian living person whose professional reputation was being besmirched; it had just been resolved within a few minutes of the block. And one would think Thatcher himself would have said something to Giano if he was offended by Giano's comment to him. Avruch has seemed to take a special interest in Giano, and that always needs to be taken into consideration when determining a block. There was nobody seriously contesting your original block. Really, this was quite unnecessary. Risker (talk) 20:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused. What does There was nobody seriously contesting your original block or Thatcher have to do with this? And no, it is *not* reasonable to dismiss incivility if the person being attacked doesn't complain William M. Connolley (talk) 20:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The comment to Thatcher was not uncivil, it was actually kind of funny, and I believe Thatcher took it that way too. These are two users who know each other well, they are allowed to have jokes between themselves. And as I point out, your subsequent blocks are out of order per the Tango case. If you felt further action was required, you certainly had the option of re-opening the WP:AE thread. Risker (talk) 21:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I assumed G's comments were directed at Av. Had I thought that one was directed at T, I would have quoted [20] instead. Please don't try to defend G's incivility William M. Connolley (talk) 21:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not defending Giano at all. I am pointing out that you have wheel-warred in a way contrary to an Arbitration Committee ruling that every administrator should know by heart. There was absolutely NO reason for you to keep blocking like that; you should have been taking it to WP:AE or even WP:ANI. Please note the comments from Jehochman below, and those on Giano's talk page from other administrators. Risker (talk) 22:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Im glad to hear that you're not defending G; be aware, though, that you are creating the perception that you are defneding him. I don't know any arbcomm rulings by heart, even the ones involving me. The unblocking of G initiated the WW, and I stand by my reblock. I also stand by my suggestion to take this to the ANI thread William M. Connolley (talk) 22:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Comments on user:GoRight

Your input at Wikipedia:Requests for Comments/GoRight would be appreciated. Raul654 (talk) 20:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you did that, its been so quiet around here recently :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 20:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Giano Block (2)

[nb: this section has suffered numerous edit conflicts. If your text is missing, please restore it and accept my apologies William M. Connolley (talk) 22:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)][reply]

Do you think that the comment "Oh well, make it 48h then" and extending Giano's block to 48 hours is, given the context, appropriate language in terms of tone for an Administrator? (2) appropriate for you to extend the time given that you had just issued two earlier blocks and were obviously in dispute with Giano? (3) and was the language a breach of the very same WP:CIVIL you are stating you are upholding? Sarah777 (talk) 20:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your idea of incivility [21] and mine is very different [22] William M. Connolley (talk) 21:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which is the entire point about that silly sanction handed down by the arbs, isn't it? Who's definition of "incivility" are we supposed to be following here? Tex (talk) 21:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to follow mine, since S777's is incomprehensible to me, and I suspect to others as well William M. Connolley (talk) 21:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a definition! That's part of the point I'm making. None of us have a definition. Sarah777 (talk) 21:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many things are hard to define exactly. But nonetheless can be recognised when seen. G's comments come clearly into the "incivil" category William M. Connolley (talk) 21:34, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please unblock Giano II immediately. Trust me, this is meant to help you, more than him. Jehochman ^Talk 22:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. You can talk here if you like, but I think the appropriate place is ANI, where there is a new thread. Not that I think there is much to say; though the signs are that people will say it anyway William M. Connolley (talk) 22:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. I could have said that more gracefully; apologies. The substance is the same though, I'm afraid. And the bit after the ";" is a general observation, and not directed at you William M. Connolley (talk) 22:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just posted to Giano's talk a message along the same lines. Really, William, your resorting to such clear wheel warring shows that you need to step away. --Irpen 22:24, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. And... errrm... somehow, you've neglected to leave any warning concerning wheel warring on the other half of the wheels page. That seems odd to me. The natural end to wheel warring is to restore things to the pre-wheel state, which I've done. For the rest, I suggest ANI William M. Connolley (talk) 22:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re [23]. I disagree with (nearly) all of that. Once again, let me suggest that you take it to the ANI thread William M. Connolley (talk) 22:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

re [24], I could say "I told you so" if only I was not displeased by this course of events myself. --Irpen 23:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And you still haven't posted anything to the other half of the wheel. Apparently this was a one-sided wheel war. Who would have thought it? William M. Connolley (talk) 07:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The WP:WHEEL is not perfectly coherent and has several widely held interpretations. I happen to subscribe to a view that a single undoing of an admin action that another admin considers truly harmful is not a wheel war while reinstating it (as well as a repeated undoing) is. You may disagree but my interpretation is not uncommon and you have to admit that the policy was not clear on that. On a side note, I can think of several blocks made by you in the past that were very unhelpful. I did not study your blocking log and I am only speaking of the blocks I can remember at the time where you were patrolling AN/3. I wrote on that a while ago elsewhere and we discussed it back then. I remained under an impression that you use a block button to liberally and, perhaps, you enjoy it as it makes you able to show who is "in charge". You may disagree but this is an impression I've been holding for a while. Please do not take is a wide-scale condemnation of you as a Wikipedian. Because of different fields of editing interest, my only interactions with you were related to your blocks. From very little that I know from elsewhere, I do think that you are a great editor. But from what I have seen from your blocks, I disagreed with your attitude to blocking in general. --Irpen 22:27, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with your interpretations. But meanwhile, as far as I'm aware, User:Geogre hasn't explained his unblock. Has anyone asked him? Have you? Or is it so obvious that the answer is "because GII is my friend" that no-one has bothered? William M. Connolley (talk) 22:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now sure how unblocking would be helpful. Geogre (without discussion) unblocked despite clearly having a COI (his name is all over the IRC case). On the other hand WMC, wasn't even aware that Giano was under arbcom sanction at the time (that's about as uninvolved as you can get) which is why Giano got the very short 3 hour block in the first place. R. Baley (talk) 22:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC) Oh and Geogre also unprotected the talk page (which another admin, not WMC, had protected). I don't know how involved previously MSBianz(sp?) was (if there was any prior involvement at all) R. Baley (talk) 22:30, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jumping in here, I've never actually interacted with Giano, but I saw he had been blocked and then his page protected, so I felt it appropriate to leave a note telling him how to request unblock, for the record, the protecting admin was MZMcBride (talk · contribs). And its MBisanz :) MBisanz ^talk 22:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations on having the cojones to deal with Giano appropriately. Stifle (talk) 09:58, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy notice regarding ArbCom case

This is a courtesy notice that I have filed a request for Arbitration about the events of today, and all parties behavior, specifically the wheel-war that occurred.. You can post your statement at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Wheelwar regarding User:Giano II. SirFozzie (talk) 23:26, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't sound sensible, but I'll take a look William M. Connolley (talk) 07:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a few points. I think some people have already pointed you to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tango. Could you take the time to read through the principles laid out there? They may or may not apply, but it would be good if you could indicate whether you were aware of that case and its decision. The other point is what Sam Blacketer has said: "this entirely avoidable case would not have happened had the 'special enforcement' amendment passed". I'm going to post at the request, but I think pointing you towards that amendment might help as well. It got filed under the IRC case after the amendment stalled (there is quite a bit of history here). See Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/IRC#Proposed motions and voting. You might want to say something in relation to that when/if the case opens. Something that might not be clear from that is that the proposal there may have stalled when Giano refused to acknowledge it (see here). It took me a while to track that down, because it was in the page history for the brief time that the clarifications section was moved to its own page. It took me even longer to see that a clerk "fixed" things here (removing Giano's comment). Thus what was eventually filed ([25] and [26]) by another clerk did not include Giano's comment. Strange. I'll ask Daniel about that. It is possible that he was asked to make that "fix", either by Giano or the arbitrators. I would hope people don't make too much of Giano's comment, and focus instead on the fact that three arbitrators had supported the following: "The Committee shall name up to five administrators who, together with the sitting members of the Committee, shall act as special enforcers for this restriction. Only these special enforcers shall be authorized to determine whether a violation of the restriction has occurred, and to issue blocks if one has." Of course, you would have still been free to block outside the restriction, but it is arbitrary enforcement of the "civility" restriction that tends to cause drama. Carcharoth (talk) 10:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think its too relevant, because the original block was totally outside the arbcomm sanctions, and the others could have been either way. I haven't had time to read that fully, but if the implication is that *only* selected admins were allowed to block G, that would seem rather weird to me. More useful would be if only selected were allowed to *unblock* William M. Connolley (talk) 16:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and given the Tango case, I agree: given that decision (which personally I disagree with, but hey it exists) the extension to 48h wasn't allowed, so I've gone back to 24h William M. Connolley (talk) 16:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Tango decision was based on a very clear and definitive principle, and if you don't agree with it, you are in danger. If you were a police officer, and you arrested a citizen because the citizen gave you the finger, you'd be fired (assuming that responsible authorities find out about it.) If you said that you didn't understand why this happened to another cop, you might also be fired (after being given, I presume, a chance to revise your understanding or opinion). Absent some kind of emergency, for an adminstrator to take action against a user based on user incivility toward that administrator is one of the worst things an admin can do. There were plenty of phony arguments presented in the Tango case, and so Tango sits, being told what a shitty deal he got, when, in fact, the community cannot risk allowing an administrator to keep the tools if he or she fails to understand this particular concept. This became very clear to me with the case of User:Physchim62 who resigned his bit under a cloud, bitter over what he saw as mob rule, when, in fact, it was a highly considered decision based on very sound principles, and backed with massive community consensus. It's very, very simple: see a user do something blockable, warn them. If they continue doing it, block them. But if they insult you when you warn them, for example, and you block them for the incivility, this is really an entirely new incident, one which you should not touch with a ten-foot pole. (I have not read the details of the present ArbComm filing, I'm just commenting generally). Instead, you take a deep breath, realize that this is what the "police" hear all the time, it's normal, people get angry when told they can't do things, and you only block them if they fail to heed the warning. If the warning was for incivility to others, you would wait for incivility to others and not consider incivility toward yourself. If you are offended, though, you can, like any editor, go to AN/I, and any uninvolved admin could decide to block. --Abd (talk) 07:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have not read the details of the present ArbComm filing - well do before commenting William M. Connolley (talk) 07:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Daniel (talk) 01:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the notification. It good to know that all you folks aren't letting yourself get distracted from yoour ongoing caseload [27] William M. Connolley (talk) 06:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:Bardcom

User is asking for a review of the block. I notice you made a statement at the RfAr, perhaps it might also be a good idea to initiate an AN thread about the block as well? Or do we not do that about stuff that's presently at RfAr? –xenocidic (talk) 19:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Users always ask for reviews of their blocks :-). AN: up to you. I only posted at RfAr because I thought they might be interested. See-also [28] William M. Connolley (talk) 19:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to start the AN myself, because an AN debate about the worthiness of the block will outlast the block. (For the record, I've no opinion one way or the other at this time, I've only taken a cursory glance at the issue: just doing my bit on the "unblock request patrol") –xenocidic (talk) 19:19, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hasty?

It's very rare that I become concerned with blockings; but isn't your blocking of Bardcom at tad hasty (though it's only 3hrs). GoodDay (talk) 19:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not in my view. Justice delayed is justice denied. Any comment re the anon/GH? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whatcha mean? Isn't the anon a sock of Gold Heart? GoodDay (talk) 19:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly appears to be. A casual inspection revealed a degree of overlap between the anon and Bardcom. Do you believe them to be unrelated? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hoping it isn't Bardcom. But, there's only one way to end such uncertainties - it's checkuser time. GoodDay (talk) 19:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I ain't connected to anybody else. Not to an IP address. Not to another user. And the continued insinuations of sockpuppetery are not cool... --Bardcom (talk) 21:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confident it isn't you Bardcom. I believe Alison has proof that it's Gold Heart. GoodDay (talk) 21:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Polite notice

Not sure if there's a template for this, but you'll get the gist

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=225275453&oldid=225274961

I'm still waiting for a proper justification for your block.

You've already had it William M. Connolley (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm usually a very nice and calm and reasonable person, but after the past 24 hours of my User Page being vandalised, a nasty note in wikipediareview, TharkunColl reverting just about all my edits for the past 24 hours without giving a reason, and then an unjustified block from you .... and it's not even Friday 13th.

--Bardcom (talk) 21:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No I haven't? Where? --Bardcom (talk) 21:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Its the block message on your talk page. Please stop wasting my time William M. Connolley (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this it?

Please stop being silly. You cannot remove the wrods "British Isles" from all of wikipedia and it is vandalism to try it

--Bardcom (talk) 21:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bardcom, William has already explained his actions. He warned you at one page (the bit where he tells you to stop playing silly games) and he explained further in the block template. I don't think this was handled that well, but please back off for a bit and cool down. Haranguing William here isn't going to help. Carcharoth (talk) 22:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you don't mind, but I've had one more look at this. It all looks fine, but I think what might have helped is if you had explicitly said you were blocking Bardcom for this edit. I've checked and I can't find anywhere where you explicitly stated which edit came after the warning and before the block. Sure, Bardcom should have known that it was that revert that was against the warning you gave, but for others looking at this, could you be just a little bit more specific next time? The timing is actually important, if you look at the following sequence:

17:34 (your warning to Bardcom) [You gave this warning on an article talk page, rather than on the user talk page as well or instead of the article talk page]
17:38 (Bardcom's templated warning of you) [This shows he is now aware of the warning you had given him]
17:40 (Bardcom's comment on the article talk page in response to the comment where you warned him) [This is another indication that he was aware of the warning]
17:40 (Bardcom's revert of your edit) [Note that the timestamp is the same as the talk page edit, but it does come after that edit in his contribs log, so even without the template he posted to your talk page, you could argue that he was aware of the warning. This is important because if he had not templated you, and he had reverted at the article before reading and editing the talk page, he could have quite legitimately argued that he hadn't seen the warning yet. This is another reason for leaving warnings on user talk pages. It is a better way to ensure that you have got someone's attention.]
17:43 (you block Bardcom)
17:44 (you notify Bardcom of his block) [You should really have given a diff here to say what edit you were blocking him for]
17:45 (you revert Bardcom's edit to the article)
17:49 (you add a statement at the RfArb) [A bit of a brief statement, but enough to start off with, as presumably you would have been happy to answer any questions anyone had, and later did so at ANI]

I know writing all that out is a bit much to expect, but the least I think you could have done is give the actual diff of the edit that you blocked for, and include that in the notice you left on Bardcom's talk page. Other than that, it all looks fine. I'll put this at the ANI thread and the RfArb thread. Please feel free to point Bardcom at this if you want to. Carcharoth (talk) 23:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah well, Bardcom knew full well what he was blocked for, despite the smokescreeens William M. Connolley (talk) 08:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, this sounds genuine. It also seems that he does have some cogent points to make, even if he does go too far in some cases. The whole GB/UK/British Isles is complicated and poorly-understood. If he or anyone asks for a citation, best to check exactly what the source says. Of course, the source may be using the wrong terminology as well, which leaves people in a bit of a quandry. Hopefully the scientific sources get this right. Less academic sources might not. Carcharoth (talk) 09:45, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe him. As for the BI stuff: yes there are complications there, but no: his isn't a genuine good-faith attempt to improve wiki; its POV pushing be to try to remove a term he dislikes for political reasons. You can tell this, because while removing BI on the bizarre grounds of OR, he adds something equally uncited. But this giant pile of nonsense is now on the article talk page, so best to continue there, if you can bear it William M. Connolley (talk) 12:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AGF used to be policy, and it is still a guideline, and common failure to consider it and follow it will eventually trash your admin bit. He has every right to "try to remove a term he dislikes for political reasons," if he follows guidelines for editor behavior. "POV pushing" is a very dangerous argument to use against an editor. --Abd (talk) 15:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whew! Good thing there's no evidence of WMC not following WP:AGF. . .that was a close one. Once again, I guess his "bit" is safe from being "trashed". As far as editor behavior goes, Bardcom has been blocked again by a different admin for continuing his campaign by disregarding WP:3RR (link). R. Baley (talk) 16:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Wikipedia is not a nomic, and editors who find – or who think they've found – clever loopholes in policy pages that allow them to do disruptive or destructive things should be censured, not applauded. Good call, WMC.

For those who must have alphabet-salad rules, see WP:POINT, WP:GAME, and WP:DE, along with the useful commentaries at WP:SENSE, WP:TE and WP:AAGF. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've placed a warning at User talk:Abd regarding harassment with the trash your admin bit bit, as he has used that and similar indimidation attempts against several users. He replied as expected. Vsmith (talk) 18:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm starting to wonder about Abd... the threats about trashing admin bits seem absurd rather than threatening, but its unpleasant behaviour. I wonder if its sock time yet again? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are accusing Abd of being a sock? He's been around since February 2005. As far as the point: "Bardcom has been blocked again by a different admin" - I would point out that the cycle of "bad" - block - monitor closely - "bad" - block - monitor closely - "bad" - block, etc, only works if the judgements of "bad" are independent from each other. If the initial "bad" is incorrect, then a descending spiral can result from the "reputation" gained from the initial block. Before anyone makes a specific rebuttal, that was a general point. I'm chary, in general, of saying "look, he's done it again", without taking the time to examine each block carefully. I've seen too many bad blocks to trust what a block log says. Carcharoth (talk) 20:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing so specific, I'm just musing. How do you account for the bit-flinging? Ah, and if you still believe in Bardcoms honesty, try reading the wriggling on his talk page about how he didn't really have 4 reverts William M. Connolley (talk) 20:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think he (Abd) is just saying that you need to change the way you do things. I wouldn't put it quite the way he does, but I would agree. You have a very strong focus on a particular area, and that can eventually lead to problems no matter how "right" you are. The whole point of the Wikipedia model is that it shouldn't need people to constantly defend articles. In my view, that is the sign of a poorly written article, and poor management of an article, but I realise that many people disagree with me there, so I don't push things that far these days. The more general point is that there are other articles being handled by other people with less drama - in other words, some of the drama comes from the method of managing an article, as well as the people attracted to an article. Abd's comments are more related to the GoRight thing, in case that wasn't clear. Carcharoth (talk) 21:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point of the Wikipedia model is that it shouldn't need people to constantly defend articles - I disagree. No matter how well written global warming is, it will still need defending against POV-pushers and the simple ignorant. And I've done quite a lot of that in the past. Having said that, of the last 500 edits to GW, only 7 are by me. Stephan has far more than me, as does Bozmo, and probably several other people too. You are "attacking" a strawman William M. Connolley (talk) 21:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I took a quick scan through your last 2000 article-space edits. A large proportion seem to be on global warming or other environmental science topics. Some of the edit summaries also suggest editing peripheral articles on what they say about global warming. In other words, I'm referring to global warming as a topic, not an article. There is one view that: (1) single-purpose accounts that push a POV in a group of articles, unbalancing them are bad; but that (b) accounts dedicated to defending a group of articles against them being unbalanced by a certain POV are good. My view is that these are both single-purpose accounts, and regardless of who is "right", it is damaging to the Wikipedia model. Having said that, I agree that once an article reaches a certain level of objective quality (not measured by those heavily involved in editing the article, or those associated with them), then the rate of change should be drastically slowed (though appeals against the overall assessment of the quality should still be allowed periodically). But for those articles that still need to be improved, every "defence" against a POV pusher should be accompanied by an improvement to the article, bringing it closer to a state where it will be easier to defend in the future. Well-written articles are easier to defend, and just defending alone will not improve things. If you do indeed improve as well as defend (and I'm sure you do), then I apologise, but I hope you see my point that defence alone is not ultimately productive. Carcharoth (talk) 22:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quick note - maintaining quality is as important, if easier, than establishing quality. Writing an informative, balanced article doesn't have much impact if its trashed shortly thereafter and the trashed version sticks. Avruch^T 13:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies

I've apologised here. Sorry about that. Carcharoth (talk) 22:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thats OK William M. Connolley (talk) 08:33, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

July 2008

Please remember to assume good faith when dealing with other editors, which you did not do on User talk:William M. Connolley. Thank you. This comment on your own Talk page here is a clear breach of WP:AGF. I thought about not templating the regulars, but you seem to have a deaf ear with regards to this. You're an admin - you don't need a lecture on personal comments, not assuming good faith, etc, so I'm puzzled as to why you adopt this as "normal" behaviour". I believe admins should have higher standards that editors. --Bardcom (talk) 12:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is more than a little bit silly... – Luna Santin (talk) 12:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly a warning not based in reality. Either the user is upset about his block or he really does not get it. _{1 != 2} 13:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest that "either/or" is not necessarily the connective with the most appropriate semantics here? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]