User talk:NuclearWarfare/Archive 35

page move

WP:IDONTLIKEIT doesnt give you the right tio pick and choose what tickles you [1] and abuse authority!Lihaas (talk) 17:48, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Considering that the previous title was imprecise per the article titles policy and this new one was more accurate, I certainly should have moved it. The articles needed to combined into one regardless. NW (Talk) 18:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by STSC

My appeal had been posted on the notice board for less than a day and you closed it? I strongly oppose that. STSC (talk) 04:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Considering that 3-4 administrators had already opposed it, and it was an appeal on procedural grounds and not one on the merits, I saw no reason to keep the appeal open. You are welcome to post an thread appealing the topic ban on the grounds that it is unnecessary or meritless; that I won't close in a day. NW (Talk) 04:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

On whatever ground my appeal is, it is ridiculous you closed it soon after just two votes (from non-involved editors) were received. STSC (talk) 18:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Not really. Believe me, NW's actions throw up a sizeable red flare for any admins on the page to look over his shoulder and check his work. We haven't undone it because it was right.--Tznkai (talk) 19:00, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, really ridiculous by any standard. STSC (talk) 03:29, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Essay on AE

I just wrote a very rough draft of what is intended as some advice on how to make one's case at AE. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. T. Canens (talk) 10:42, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Please review these blocks

There was a bug in MediaWiki 1.18 that caused blocks made via the API to have talk page access disabled when it should have been enabled. This also affected scripts such as User:Animum/easyblock.js. Please review the following blocks to make sure that you really intended talk page access to be disabled, and reblock if necessary.

1. 74.62.30.66 (talk · block log · block user) by NuclearWarfare at 2011-10-05T15:49:35Z, expires 2012-10-05T15:49:35Z: {{anonblock}}

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to post at User talk:Anomie#Allowusertalk issue. Thanks! Anomie⚔ 02:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Peace

We both insinuated some stuff. I hope there are no hard feelings. It's obviously a frustrating episode, and I'm trying to be constructive. Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:06, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Log needed

Hi NW. If this is your action, don't forget to log the result in WP:ARBPS and notify the user. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 13:15, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

It was KillerChihuahua's decision to implement that, no? Or was her comment only a proposal that I misread? If so, I would appreciate if you would revert my closing; I have to head off right now. Best, NW (Talk) 13:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I was looking for feedback, but its gone on long enough. No one offered an alternate or objected in several days, so I went ahead and implemented it after you closed. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 13:27, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

edit reverted on John DeCamp

Any reason why you reverted my constructive edit to the page John DeCamp, which added a crucial fact that the documentary was never aired, and more importantly, a link to view it?

Even if you can defend this edit, without providing a rationale your are acting wrongly, period. Vandalism can and should be fixed speedily but the blatant removal of relevant content is merely destructive, and it should not surprise you if it leads to an edit-war.

The use of rollback was a mistake; I meant to undo it. See my edit summary undoing your edit at the other article you edited today. First, we cannot include links to "pirated" videos (see WP:COPYLINK), and second we should not include information in the manner that you did (see WP:NOR and WP:NPOV). NW (Talk) 04:16, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

No shit, but the term "pirated" in this context isn't about copyright law. It is pirated in the sense that it was never released. It would be no different from linking to the Collateral Murder video. But even so, that does not validate the undoing of the entire edit.

I know you are an admin so being patronizing is second nature to you, but I am well aware of Wikipedia's stance on neutrality. There was no bias in what I wrote, I merely presented additional information. I would argue, rather, that given that this quite relevant information is not only left out of the article but is being actively concealed (by you), the violation of WP:NPOV is on you, not me.

As for original research, the standard way of dealing with this is to add tags to solicit verification of information, not to delete it outright.

Although I'm sure I've already indicated my perspective, I would like to make it even more clear: Wikipedians like you, who in the name of quality control merely revert others work rather than attempting to actually improve an article, hurt the project. You're patrolling stubs, reverting attempts to expand on them tI hat would deviate from the quality of a finished article. If this were done to every article, progress on Wikipedia would be extremely slow because every edit would have to be perfect to be approved. Not only that, but you do this wholly in disregard to the fact there that there is an actual human on the other side who put far more work into editing than you do in deleting. Overbearing moderation drives away editors. I know this from personal experience as I rarely contribute any more for specifically this reason, and I have spoken to other people IRL who have had the same experience.

Look: I get it. You're "busy". As an admin, you've got to revert so many thousands of edits- how could you possibly give each one attention? Granted, you may not feel this way, but I've heard it before, and it is a terrible excuse. As an admin you should follow the same approach as everyone else- if an article is lacking in some area but you don't have time to improve it, add some indication that improvement is needed or leave it alone. But you don't just delete everything (unless the content is clearly not useful at all, such as vandalism- but that isn't the case here). What you're doing is like showing up at a construction site and saying, "no this isn't right" and then setting fire to the place. Ian Burnet (talk) 18:55, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

First to your copyright point: Even if Google is hosting it, I see no indication that the authors of the documentary have placed it into the public domain or have released it under a free license (the Collateral Murder video is different in that it was automatically put into the public domain by the U.S. Code, even though it was not publicly released—the two are different). We enforce the copyright policy on Wikipedia even if there is no chance of us being sued—that is a clear directive from the Wikimedia Foundation. I have gone back and clarified in the John DeCamp article that the documentary never aired, but it is improper to link to it or even point people in that direction from Wikipedia. Additionally, original research or unsourced material that implies anything negative about biographies of living persons is to be removed on sight, per WP:BLP. I'm thinking in particular of this edit, which was wholly unsourced and implied that someone told the Discovery Channel to pull the program; accordingly it had to be removed on sight. WP:BLP is a fundamental site policy that has been enforced more over the past few years. You are correct that it makes it more difficult to contribute. For better or for worse though, it has been decided by the powers that be that it is more important to get things right than to include them at all. NW (Talk) 19:16, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

How the hell do you think WP:BLP applies? The Discovery Channel is not a living person. Nothing in my edit implies anything negative about a living person. If you mean the hypothetical person who carried the message to pull to documentary, that is absurd. First of all, they have no biography as if they exist their identity is unknown. Secondly, by your logic any allegations against a corporation or any other institution would have to be removed "on-sight" until fully verified (despite this not always being possible- I am referring to coverage about allegations in that context, not allegations presented as factual) because they necessarily imply someone did something negative.

Clearly you're too full of yourself to realize when your actions are crossing the line, despite you steadily backsliding on the complete reverting of everything I wrote. Don't bother pretending you are acting on the consensus of the community- that is bullshit and I'm not intimidated. There's a reason WP:IAR exists- to prevent bureaucratic assholes like yourselves from ruining everything by stretching policies to fit your particular journalistic opinion, which is to delete anything you disagree with. I guess its no more than should be expected though. You've got a hammer, so all you see is nails. With no due respect, fuck you. WP bureaucrats like you are nearly indistinguishable from bots in your "contributions", and I wouldn't waste my time arguing with them either. If you want to crusade against editors, go right ahead. I'll be sure not to be one of them.71.62.223.92 (talk) 19:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Something completely different

If you're in the mood for something a bit different, I finally got around to starting an article on RetractionWatch. Your input would be more than welcome. So far there has been no fighting over dictionary definitions at the article, which should be a step toward sanity. :) MastCell ^Talk 23:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I took the liberty of nominating the article for DYK and also highlighting some important words in your post. I hope you don't mind :)

And thank you for the invitation. I'll do my best to stop by and help soon. NW (Talk) 00:33, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Request to amend prior case: Climate change

This says There are 13 active, non-recused arbitrators, so a majority is 7. and the voting is 8-2-1 so far. Do you know when this is likely to be wrapped up? Thanks, William M. Connolley (talk) 08:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Whenever a clerk gets to it, really. I sent an email to the clerks mailing list last night. If no one gets to it by tomorrow, I'll send a reminder email or ask ArbCom if they would be fine with me closing it. NW (Talk) 13:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. AD has now handled it, perhaps as a result of your mail William M. Connolley (talk) 22:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

New Page Patrol survey

New page patrol – Survey Invitation Hello NuclearWarfare! The WMF is currently developing new tools to make new page patrolling much easier. Whether you  have patrolled many pages or only a few, we now need to  know about your experience. The survey takes only 6 minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist us in analyzing the results of the survey; the WMF will not use the information to identify you. If this invitation  also appears on other accounts you  may  have, please complete the  survey  once only.  If this has been sent to you in error and you have never patrolled new pages, please ignore it. Please click HERE to take part. Many thanks in advance for providing this essential feedback. You are receiving this invitation because you  have patrolled new pages. For more information, please see NPP Survey. Global message delivery 12:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Rfar/clarification refactoring

I know where you're coming from, and I think Spartaz is pushing the line somewhat in how he phrased that, but I don't think it's deletable per se. I recommend you leave it in.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

At least one arb disagrees with you [2] William M. Connolley (talk) 21:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Astonishing. Absolutely astonishing.... Spartaz ^Humbug! 22:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thoughts on i-ban clarification

Context

I thought I'd reply here. Speaking as somebody who has never had any significant mainspace i-ban conflicts (I and the other editor who are under mutual i-bans almost never edit the same topics), I'd consider allowing 1 revert per editor (like in a 1RR restriction). Rationale for this being that it is not always clear what is a significant change and what isn't. In your example, what if editor B makes an edit that he considers insignificant, but A disagrees? A should be able to revert him. If we do not allow that, then editor A who did most of the work at the article is at a disadvantage. B of course should not revert A, but should be able to ask a neutral party to review the article, through an RfC, for example, one that should be closed by an admin. That said, this is a bit abstract for me, as I never had this issue happen to me in practice.

Your second argument seems reasonable, but I don't think that A should cease editing Bar, as long as the editors there are not reverting one another. I'd modify your suggestion as A should not revert C, but should be allowed to ask a neutral party to review the article, as suggested above.

Note that both of my points try to prevent content creators from being chased away from articles, even if they do non-controversial edits.

I'll also note that while your comments may clarify things that Biophys asked about, nobody (but Biophys) has yet made a comment regarding my original question. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 15:45, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The first argument there makes sense, though I think the whole idea of interaction bans to be fundamentally flawed and in need of reworking. I'm not sure I see why A should cease editing Bar; they were never i-banned in the first place. NW (Talk) 00:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

NFCC

Regarding your image deletion here, I cannot find the explanation of why it fails NFCC. Why does it fail?Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The main criterion I was thinking of was NFCC #8: "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding" (emphasis mine). Readers don't need a book cover for a biographical article of the man, especially if the book cover isn't analyzed in the article. NW (Talk) 00:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The article says: "In 2007, Thomas received a $1.5 million advance for writing his memoir, My Grandfather's Son; it became a bestseller." I am not aware of any BLP in Wikipedia history where that kind of sentence was inadequate to justify a book cover image. Can you? In any event, I suppose we'll have to add this to the long list of disputes regarding this article, unless you'd like to suggest what kind of thing would be adequate to justify the image.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you please point me to any Featured or Good Article promoted in the last 2 years on a person that currently uses a non-free image of a book cover in the article? I would be interested in reading the discussions to include such an image, because what you are stating goes against essentially everything I have ever seen about NFCC. NW (Talk) 00:50, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I guess you got me on that one. Things seem to have tightened up regarding book cover use. Personally, it seems kind of silly to allow it in an article about the book, but not in an article about the author. Peace.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:09, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'm not sure if it makes sense to have non-free covers in articles on TV seasons / music albums / books, etc., unless the book cover is written about for more than a sentence. But I'm fairly certain that's a minority view. It's no big deal; it's just about how much you balance free and encyclop(a)edia. I'm sure that in five years, the pendulum will have shifted again. NW (Talk) 01:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Please help NuclearWarfare fix the archive bot

Could someone please tell me why the archive bot has been skipping my page for the last couple of weeks? It would be much appreciated. Best, NW (Talk) 18:44, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

It's becoming self-aware. Isn't this how Skynet got started, as a simple archivebot? MastCell ^Talk 18:50, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

|minthreadsleft=5 is the default setting. Set to 0 if you want your page completely harvested. –xeno^talk 13:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Is that new though? I have had these same settings for what seems like forever, but the bot has only not come around in the last couple of weeks. NW (Talk) 14:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

It is possible that your talk page has just been so active that the bot always had work to do. Since Oct 23 and until yesterday, your talk page has had 5 threads or less. –xeno^talk 18:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Clarence Thomas

I'm a big fan of article talk pages, NW. If you're going to remove five reliable sources with accompanying text, and replace it with the previous version, isn't that worth a word or two at the article talk page? Your edit summary merely asserted that you didn't see any consensus to remove the previous version. Any chance you could take a look at WP:Don't revert because of no consensus? I mean, why not address the merits of the material? And why all of a sudden start reverting? Did the version you reverted to have consensus? The material was stable for over a year, it was changed ths week, so why not revert back to the stable version, instead of to the version that has been under constant and continuous dispute? I'm getting some serious deja vu here. This kind of activity is severely toxic, IMHO. Evidently I wasted a whole day at the library deeply researching this stuff, all undone with a rather hasty click of the mouse, I'd say.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I must have missed your talk page comment last night. I'll take a closer look at it in a few hours, if that's all right with you. NW (Talk) 13:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting revision. By removing 1955, you've succeeded in giving the misimpression that Thomas was rated "one of the lowest" in centuries. I don't see any grammatical or syntactical reason for removing 1955 like you did. Maybe if you would use the article talk page, things would look different. I may take that article off my watchlist for the same reason I took the abortion article off.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:06, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

1955 wasn't in your revision either, so I'm confused as to why you're objecting. Nonetheless, I have tried to clarify. NW (Talk) 18:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't in my revision because it would be nonsensical to say that Thomas had a "relatively low rating since 1955". You made a much stronger statement, and there was no need to drop the 1955. More generally, please don't be so reluctant to use the article talk page.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, has there been some kind of oversight action here? When you reverted my revision yesterday, I saw a complete revert including removal of five footnotes. But today the diff appears as a partial revert, only changing the main text without removing footnotes.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:02, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

In general, a lot of the issues that are argued about on talk pages can be settled with a few bouts of rapid editing with all parties. But if you'd like, I'll make a better effort for this article. And no oversight, I don't think so. I think I had made a mistake with closing a <ref> tag, and I think I ran into an edit conflict that I didn't resolve immediately at one point. But I made sure that the technical points were correct before I went to bed. I'm not sure why the diffs would be appearing differently for you now. NW (Talk) 19:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I went back just now and double-checked. Apparently I mistook your removal of the URLs in the footnotes for complete removal of the footnotes. Why the heck reduce accessibility by removing the URLs from the footnotes? I'd agree that the URLs aren't essential in the footnotes, but when someone goes to the trouble of putting them there to facilitate verifiability, why take 'em out?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The links still lead to the exact same places as they did before; try them out. They are just shorter now. NW (Talk) 19:21, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Maybe nuclear warfare isn't so bad after all.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

If there had been more than one editor at the article talk page arguing to include all this stuff, then I might have spent lots of time to persuade them by citing chapter and verse from all the Thomas biographies proving that they have very modest coverage of ABA rankings. But I'm not going to jump through all those hoops just because one single solitary editor at the article talk page won't build a consensus for inclusion. Cheers to you, Mr. W.Anythingyouwant (talk) 09:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Move of User:Benzband/Garageland

	The Moving Elephant
	Hi, NW, and thanks for moving that draft! I hope this mobile elephant will help you in your tasks, so you can keep up the good work! Benzband (talk) 19:58, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Occupy Wall Street articles

NW, seeing your name at one of the OWS articles was such a sight for sore eyes that I can hardly say how happy I was. They (we) are just floundering and non-POV editors are really having a hard time just keeping up with damage control. Watching your work over the last few months, I have developed a deep respect for your intelligence, your fairness, and your understanding of how Wikipedia works. I know from watching your talk page for a few months a while back that you are very busy, but any time you spend at the OWS articles would be time well-spent. I hope to see more of you in those parts. Gandydancer (talk) 23:57, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I have been pretty busy recently and have stuck to just editing historical topics for the most part. I doubt I'll have time to edit many Occupy articles seriously, but if you ever want me to take a look at any particular article, please do ask! NW (Talk) 02:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I think I should have been clearer when I said "non-POV' - what I meant was editors that are pushing their strong POV, one in particular, that seems to work at it 24/7. I may get back to you with a reference question re one of the OWS articles that you posted at. Gandydancer (talk) 13:41, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

They all seem to be fine now now, thanks for clearing that up, and sorry to have made more work for you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:54, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

No worries. I'm in #wikimedia-tech ^connect trying to figure out what went wrong to see if it's a coding issue. NW (Talk) 03:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#G4: Moving forward

As a participant at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#G4 and subsequent XfDs, would you take a look at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#G4: Moving forward? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 00:05, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Reply

Replied, at Talk:Time, Inc. v. Hill. — Cirt (talk) 15:37, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Abortion

I have been discussing it! You leveled this false accusation at Anythingyouwant also after he made a change that he had given reasons for on the talk page. Do you not read the talk page? Given the number of edits you make many without summary on this article you need to just simmer down. Not to mention protecting pages that you are heavily and one-sidely involved in editing! You are well out of order to say I didn't discuss on the talk page. I was re-factoring the edit when you reverted due to a minor mix up in the wording. Give people a freaking chance to fix their own mistake!DMSBel (talk) 04:39, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I will fix the typo I made and its not violation of 1RR OK!DMSBel (talk) 04:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

This is not "level everything and hope something sticks so NW leaves"-place. Please conduct yourself calmly or don't post.

And I really don't see how your edit helped anything. It may not be a matter of 1RR if you revert, but the purpose of 1RR rules is to encourage discussion. If you can't convince anyone else of the usefulness of your edit (which you haven't so far), you shouldn't be reinstating it. NW (Talk) 04:43, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I am not getting into a argument, I discussed the matter on the talk page, I took out ref to the Scandanavian study. You are heavily involved in editing, you therefore must leave page-protection to other admins! As was said in the past Admins can't act as Admins when they are involved in editing, and a quick glance at the article history shows not a few edits by yourself, as it is you use both NW and NuclearWarfare, which adds to the confusion. DMSBel (talk) 05:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

You discussed, yes, that's true. Did anyone else agree? Not that I can see. Did anyone else object? Sure. And as for the page protection; I have never denied that I am WP:INVOLVED on this article. Every time I protected it, I specifically cited WP:IAR/WP:BAN, and if I was doing it for longer than a very short period, I always referred the matter for review at WP:RFPP. And do you honestly think that NW confuses anyone? Not a single other person has ever objected about this... NW (Talk) 15:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Heads up

NW, could I please draw your attention to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Ongoing edit-warring and incivility by IP editor and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Marknutley for a matter that may interest you. Prioryman (talk) 08:28, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the situation appears to have been resolved while I was offline. Sorry I couldn't help this time, but feel free to ask again in the future if the situation comes up again. NW (Talk) 15:41, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Kelo Edit

Hi, I'd like to know why you undid my edits about Mississippi's initiative 31 in the Kelo v. New London page. I'd like to fix them if I could. (SSJPabs (talk) 19:41, 14 November 2011 (UTC))

Hmm, refreshing the page made things clear. I think I see the problem studying the history of the article. Cheers! (SSJPabs (talk) 19:47, 14 November 2011 (UTC))

I probably should have left more than a blank edit summary, but I'm glad that you were able to figure it out regardless. Best, NW (Talk) 19:53, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It's a small thing...

... but thanks for taking the time to twiddle with my obscure markup to keep the numbering intact. It's busywork to keep the page more readable for the readers I undertake willingly, but the effort is appreciated.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 01:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Quick Q

Is this copyvio at all [3] ? I'm not sure. Let me know pls. Thanks Outback the koala (talk) 07:36, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

It is: [4]. Could you please take care of it? Thank you, NW (Talk) 03:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

OK I will delete the info- Thanks :) Outback the koala (talk) 09:02, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

AT and MOS

In this thread Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive720#Pmanderson / Septentrionalis and MOS you made a statement:

I disagree. Naming conventions are part of the Manual of Style. Wikipedia:Article titles is the summary page for all naming convention pages, and it itself is a spinout of Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles. That is not 100% clear at first glance, but he should now consider himself informed. I'll block him if he continues to edit those pages. NW (Talk) 03:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article titles is a policy page with its own guidelines (naming conventions). It is not part of the MOS (which is a guideline) and never has been. If you look at the history of the two pages:

• MOS 16:01, 6 October 2001.
• AT 23:01, 6 November 2001

There is no mention in the one edit made to the MOS of the Naming Conventions as it was then know before AT came into existence in a much fuller form than the MOS had. Further WP:AT is not a summary of the guidelines it is policy and as a policy page it says "It is supplemented and explained by guidelines linked to this policy".

In fact WP:AT has an antecedence that goes back so far that it predates just about ever policy apart from WP:EDITING (06:53, 18 October 2001) Eg WP:NPOV (17:23, 10 November 2001‎) WP:V (14:54, 2 August 2003‎), WP:OR (15:15, 21 December 2003‎) -- PBS (talk) 12:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, it appears that you are correct and I was both too harsh and too confident in my statement. Someone else corrected me later in the discussion, and although I did not respond further (I think), I certainly kept that in mind. Thank you for taking the time to explain the difference to me though.

On the other hand, I still think that the overall point of the MOS topic ban was to prevent things like this. Of all the policies I can think of, AT seems the most like a "style policy", though of course there are other considerations. NW (Talk) 14:52, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

When you think about it, it is obvious that we have to have a page naming policy. Almost everything else on Wikipedia is a matter of choice but if a page is to exist then it has to have a page name. In hindsight the project would have been much better served with a page lable of an unique serial number and redirects for English names. It would have saved hundreds of (wo)man hours of squabbling as there would be no primary name with all redirects being equal. Of course it would have moved the squabbles into the content ...

In fact PMA has been banned before from MOS (I think it was for a year) but kept contributing to AT. It seemed to have the desired effect before and I do not see why it should not do so again. While he an I disagree about some naming issues and agree on others, I think his contribution to AT is valuable. I personally sopped most of my contributions to the MOS some years ago because I do not like the atmosphere on the talk page there (too much ownership and using it to mandate styles), and most of what I though should be key elements in the MOS that were not in the MOS were added a number of years ago. -- PBS (talk) 21:49, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

DYK for RetractionWatch

Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 16:04, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the notice

Hi - earlier this month you placed a notice on my talk page - I've tried to look into the links it contains but I still don't understand the notice. It appears to be informing me of a situation but not implying any wrong doing on my part. I gather that if there is any perceived problem with my editing activity I would receive a warning to say so. But why am I logged on a list for having received the notice? That seems to imply that I am being sanctioned in some way. FYI, you placed this notice on my page after several editors on the Astrology page edit-warred. I made only one editorial comment on the situation and one single reversion which summarised the logic as I saw it. Other editors made serial reversions but did not receive the notice. Can you explain a little more about why you placed the notice on my page and what the impications of being on the log list are? Thank you, -- Zac Δ ^talk! 00:35, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Zac. The implications of this list are such: If you engaging in editing behavior that an administrator deems to be improper, you may now be sanctioned by any uninvolved administrator. The reason I gave this warning to you was because I had briefly looked over the dispute and seen some troubling editing from you (which I honestly can't remember right now). I just wanted to make sure you went back and looked at some of the policies linked in the decision, the most important of which is probably WP:FRINGE. NW (Talk) 03:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply - so it seems that this was a warning, although the notice states "This message does not necessarily mean that your current editing has been deemed a problem". At the time you placed the notice I was puzzled because I could see there were problems on the page but I was mainly keeping out of them. As I said, I made one talk page comment, which was reasonable, followed one reversion of main space content, based on that logic and my view that the text was compliant with Fringe and appropriately referenced. Within 24hrs you had placed this notice on my page as if I had engaged in edit-warring, but I think you drew this conclusion based only on the fact that my one edit supported the view of another editor who had edit-warred. Yet the editor Yobol had reverted the same piece of text three times within a period of 6 hours and Dominus Vobisdu had done this twice, and no warning like this was given to them. This strikes me as odd. I have placed more reliably sourced, non-controversial content on the astrology page than any other active editor, but the controversial nature of the topic means it frequently involves difficult discussions between polarised positions which lack objectivity on both sides. I am constantly wary of the need to tread a fine line so warnings are helpful, but I am not happy with my name being logged, as if my editing has been noted as problematic, when the message states that this is not the case, and that "the next step, if an administrator feels your conduct on pages in this topic area is disruptive, would be a warning". Bottom line: I would like to contest my inclusion on the log - can you tell me what steps I need to take to do that? Thanks, -- Zac Δ ^talk! 10:25, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

For your question: nothing really. If there are others editing the page who you think should be on the log, I'll be willing to drop them a note too. NW (Talk) 02:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

User:Dominus Vobisdu and User:Itsmejudith are two editors who repeatedly enagage in non-productive edits on astrology pages and generating hostily with inappropriate comments. Almost every post DV makes derides the subject (which he keeps referring to as "complete and utter bullshit" in discussions). ItsmeJudith continually engages (as does DV) in blanking out whole sections of referenced material - the argument is that since astrology is bullshit, all the books about it are bullshit too, so nothing makes a reliable reference. Almost every editor with a knowledge of astrology has been driven off WP now, along with a number of others who came in as neutral editors and had to give up in despair. I think I am the only one who hasn't given up. I try to give sensible justifications for why we should retain and develop astrological content that is well constructed and well sourced. They engage in ad hominem attacks and post false slanderous information about astrologers in forum discussions, in alarmist terms, and not presenting the full facts. They should be presenting their arguments logically on talk pages, but when asked to do that they simply delete whatever content I am trying to add to pages that have been tagged for improvement and give evasive talk posts that avoids specific identification of text that might be innapropriate. For the mindset see this and this (the thread is full of lies and misinformation). I have repeatedly asked for this attitude to stop (see here). I have been trying to improve the content of the Scorpio (astrology) page because the content was very poor. DV has just deleted content that I put together for the mythology section of the article, in an attempt to fix its problems, for no reason whatsoever, returning the text instead to content that lacks references and includes an addition by Itsmejudith that is unsourced and factually wrong (says the Greeks named the sign when there is no doubt whatsoever that the Babylonians named it). I don't know where to go with this situation now, but it needs an admin to look at what they are doing: they obviously get support because astrology is not a popular subject on WP, and there is no shortage of editors happy to see those sun-sign pages remain in a poor state. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 04:29, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Please review the content of the page before and after his revert of my text, because I don't believe he has any justification for his action or his edit summary - and this is what is happening constantly. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 04:37, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

No need to bother. I've read the ruling dozens of times, and, as Itsmejudith is a very active editor on pseudoscientific and topics, I'm sure she has, too. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 05:42, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Apology

NW, I'd like to say sorry for the tone and manner of my comments on your page regarding the 1RR (a couple of weeks ago). On the occasion you were quite correct to revert as the sentence had got (inadvertently) quite muddled after my edit, at least if I recall correctly it may have been a phrase out of position which would have been more difficult to correct than a spelling mistake. My earlier edit was rather hasty also, and could be been brought to the talk page first. So again, sorry, all my fault on that occasion. Best to you with your editing. DMSBel (talk) 23:32, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks DMSBel. The comment is much appreciated.

Incidentally, did either of the links I dropped on your talk page last week help you at all? NW (Talk) 00:27, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't follow them up NW, just had a quick glance. My interest is not really in regard to bio-statistics per se, though its necessary to discuss them on some occasions, but most of any editing I do will not be focused solely on statistics, or bio-statistics in particular, so I probably would not find enough use for it and I don't have a strong interest in that aspect of articles. If something seems very odd I raise it on the talk page, in the last instance it led to a rather long discussion, but its not unusual for aspects of the abortion article to lead to lengthy discussions. DMSBel (talk) 04:03, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Dispute Resolution

You may be interested in this. Peter jackson (talk) 11:30, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Guide to guides

Please watch, correct and update as needed: User:SandyGeorgia/ArbVotes2011/Guides. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abortion closed

An arbitration case regarding all articles related to the subject of Abortion has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

• All articles related to the subject of Abortion:

1. shall be semi-protected until November 28, 2014;
2. shall not be moved absent a demonstrable community consensus;
3. are authorized to be placed on Standard discretionary sanctions;

In addition:

1. Editors are reminded to remain neutral while editing;
2. Structured discussion is to take place on names of articles currently located at Opposition to the legalization of abortion and Support for the legalization of abortion, with a binding vote taken one month after the opening of the discussion;
3. User:Orangemarlin is instructed to contact the Arbitration Committee before returning to edit affected articles;
4. User:Michael C Price, User:Anythingyouwant, User:Haymaker, User:Geremia, User:DMSBel are all indefinitely topic-banned; User:Michael C Price and User:Haymaker may appeal their topic bans in one year;
5. User:Gandydancer and User:NYyankees51 are reminded to maintain tones appropriate for collaboration in a sensitive topic area.

For the Arbitration Committee,
- Penwhale | ^{dance in the air and follow his steps} 04:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

AE

responded--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 16:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

NW, I provided three sources supporting the position that part of Mount Hermon lies in Israel[5][6][7] And now I'm staring down the barrel of a topic ban? Is that fair? I will not be editing or looking at a computer over the weekend but I urge you to please reconsider your position.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 16:36, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

NW, I'll tell you what I've told Ed. I’ve maintained a very low profile on Mount Hermon making only a single edit to that article (restoring a neutrality tag) since the controversy. I’ve instead focused on article creation as evidenced by Operation Egged, Operation Volcano (Israeli raid), Operation Olive Leaves, Operation Elkayam and Operation Black Arrow, among other articles. If you want, I will continue to maintain a low profile. I just don’t to be branded again.--Jiujitsuguy (talk) 19:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

173.238.60.206

Hi there; you have blocked this IP editor for vandalism. He has requested unblock. I have looked, and I really cannot see any vandalism. What am I not seeing? --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 21:00, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Don't see a warning either. Is this a sock of a blocked user? --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 21:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I honestly can't even remember making that specific block or revert, or even seeing that edit. Maybe a Huggle error? I have unblocked. NW (Talk) 21:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Re-block User talk:173.166.149.65

Persistant vandalism even after block which recently expired. Viva-Verdi (talk) 00:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abortion

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification that: The Abortion case is supplemented as follows:

Remedy 1 of Abortion is amended to the following:

• Any uninvolved administrator may semi-protect articles relating to Abortion and their corresponding talk pages, at his or her discretion, for a period of up to three years from 7 December 2011. Pages semi-protected under this provision are to be logged.

For the Arbitration Committee, Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Discuss this

CRU Talk Page

Could you possibly take a look at the CRU talk page, and weigh in regarding hatting the of off topic sections/comments. Specifically this and this? Certainly doesn't seem like the type of thing we want reoccuring in this area, or more precisely on the article talk page. Thanks. Arkon (talk) 17:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes! This is the correct way to do it: ask a neutral admin. NW: while you're there, could you look at whether A has broken the 1RR on that page (I assume the restriction applies to the talk page, too). Don't neglect Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/William M. Conway, either William M. Connolley (talk) 18:15, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Umm, I haven't reverted even once. You know this. Arkon (talk) 18:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I was going to argue that hiding discussion amounts to a revert, and you've done that twice William M. Connolley (talk) 18:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

That's a little more accurate anyway. I hatted two different off topic discussions. The first was still hatted when I did the second. I haven't reverted either unhat, of course. But, by all means, feel free to argue what you wish. Arkon (talk) 18:49, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Arkon, you should really leave this kind of thing to an uninvolved admin. I don't particularly see a need for you to have hatted those sections. I happen to think that the comments made were allowed by the broadly written guidelines. Now, another admin might disagree, but it certainly shouldn't be you who collapses the discussions.

WMC, assuming Arkon's post of 18:49 is accurate, it wouldn't be a 1RR breach. I'm interested to see what the SPI turns up though. This whole thing recent with socks reminds me of User:GoRight. NW (Talk) 19:24, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I think this does feel rather GR-ish William M. Connolley (talk) 19:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

NW, if there were an uninvolved admin patrolling the page, that would be great. But apparently there are not. How do you feel those comments help improve the article? And, why do you believe "it certainly shouldn't be (me)" to hat them? Arkon (talk) 19:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Err, because if that account isn't a sockpuppet, I'll eat my proverbial hat. Alerting other users to the existence of likely sockpuppets is certainly a valid thing to do. And you're involved in the discussion, no? Refactoring or hiding other users' comments by involved editors should only be done in the rarest of the circumstances. You can find an admin from those who have recently edited ANI or AE if need be. NW (Talk) 00:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Sockpuppet he may be, but until this has been determined, he deserves not to be bitten. Bait-ey comments in the middle of discussion isn't good on any article talk page, much less one that's been to Arbcom and is still under sanctions. No, I am not currently involved in any discussions, but I read them, so I like them to be about the actual article. Which they should be. People can take their suspicions where they belong. You were the last admin to log something in the CC sanctions when I looked, and I know WMC generally likes you, so I thought you were the perfect choice for my question. But no, there's not an abundance of Admin's floating around keeping article talk pages on topic. Talk about a potential backlog :) Hatting conversations is quite common, and in cases where it is obviously off topic/inflammatory etc, very uncontroversial. Arkon (talk) 01:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

You know, I actually had to look. For the record my last contribution to that talk page is this, and my only two contributions to the article itself are this and this. Arkon (talk) 02:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, see here on the sockpuppet status. Might want to get a bacon hat :) Arkon (talk) 16:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

You haven't responded further, safe to assume that you are good with my actions? Arkon (talk) 03:37, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Or, I have limited time and would prefer to spend my time on things that I care more deeply about. It basically comes down to this: if someone objects to your hatting, and it happens more than once, you probably should stop doing it. NW (Talk) 21:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

No good deed goes unpunished

Since you handled the WP:AE request on Editor75439 (talk · contribs), would you mind taking a look at 91.122.93.70 (talk)? It's obviously the same user logging out to evade his topic ban, but since I've edited the article recently I'd like to ask you, as an uninvolved admin familiar with the situation, to review. Thanks. MastCell ^Talk 18:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• [From the Department of Redundancy: hadn't seen MastCell's note; they were next on my list to notify--thanks MastCell.] Hi NW, it's pretty obvious that 91.122.93.70 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) = Editor75439 (talk · contribs). I've blocked the IP for a week (to stop the current edit-warring and disruption), but I am not sure what else to do. I'm inclined to block Editor75439 for the same length of time--but perhaps that should be a longer block? Please advise, and please go ahead and mete out the proper block (I think I'm going to have lunch now). Thanks in advance, and I'll be checking back in here to see what you have to say (I've not dealt with such a case before). Drmies (talk) 18:36, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• A week is probably a fair block. I went ahead and applied it to the main account and logged it at the case page. Thanks for dealing with this, DoRD (speaking of which, when did you get a username change?). Best, NW (Talk) 21:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• Oh, I'm just redundant, not yet a Department of Redundancy Department--I noticed how redundant I was after I saw that MastCell had already dropped you a line. I'm just stealing a bit of DoRD's fame. Thanks for taking care of logistics; I'm going to see what you did so maybe I'll know next time. Drmies (talk) 21:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• Ah. Well, I did a number of other things in addition to the block and the log, not all of which were required, so if you want me to elaborate, do ask. NW (Talk) 21:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• I saw your edits on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race and intelligence. If it hadn't been for this remark by another editor, I would never have known what to look for--I am not sure how I found out about the arbitration (perhaps the talk page). It would be nice if there were some kind of tag, only for admins, dangling from someone's user name. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 21:54, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Jericho

FYI: Talk:List_of_Jericho_episodes#Jericho_episode_articles_being_deleted Barsoomian (talk) 01:10, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Abortion article

NW, today I got around to looking at the notice that I was sent re the Abortion article. I was so stunned to find that I have been reprimanded that initially I kept thinking that it must have been some sort of a mistake. When I finally realized that there was no mistake I became very angry and plenty hurt as well. I've spent a lot of time editing here and am well aware that someone from on-high will never be sending me a note of appreciation, but I sure never did expect to be have editors discuss my conduct and even go so far as suggest I be banned from an article either.

According to their notice I have repeatedly used uncivil hyperbole and sarcasm in discussions, and then they list three occasions. I see that I made 186 talk page edits. Are they saying that three disruptive edits constitutes repeated, or have they only used three as suggestive of the other many disruptive edits they say I made? Also, I note that one edit was in reply to an editor that was banned long ago, one was to DSM who they topic banned, and one was to RoyBoy. Looking back at the talk pages, this seems to be RoyBoy's first (or early) edit:

I'll take quick issue with any editor claiming consensus cavalierly (I don't have enough digits to count how many times pro-lifers claimed it here), it's something to be avoided in disputed articles/topics. Do you disagree? If viable remained in the article -- while discussion continued -- I wouldn't be using qualifiers such as "could". To be clear, it was warning of how bad that edit/support was; not a goddamn game of chicken. - RoyBoy 01:30, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Within the next few days he made similar edits using "uncivil hyperbole and sarcasm", which suggested that newbie editors should just move along since wiser editors had settled the questions about the lede years ago. And yet RoyBoy's name was never brought up by the Arbitration group. How could they overlook his edits and yet come to a conclusion that I needed to be "advised", with even five of them (if I remember correctly) even going so far as suggesting that I be banned from the article?

So now I have on my talk page as a constant reminder that I have been grouped with a bunch of editors that have not been willing to work with others in a reasonable fashion to write a good incyclopedia. Other than Orangemarlin, none of those editors are people that I would want to be associated with. If I would have known what was going on I certainly would have at least attempted to stick up for myself, though from the way they managed to smear my name, I doubt it would have done much good. I can hardly say how badly I feel about their decision, and how angry I am, and how it will affect my future editing. Gandydancer (talk) 00:38, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hey Gandy. I too am disappointed by ArbCom's ruling, and felt that they overemphasized a tiny number of slightly sarcastic posts as indicative of a pattern that did not exist. Please remember though that there are plenty of other editors who appreciate your good work. I for one would definitely be disappointed if this decision negatively affected your future participation—you have a whole lot to offer this encyclopedia. NW (Talk) 01:35, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks NW. Your encouragement meant a great deal to me. I am back to my normal sometimes snarky self and am determined to not let one bad experience spoil my fun! Gandydancer (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Clerk business

Hey. Can you look at my addition of a Notices section at WP:TROUBLES and see if it looks kosher. In my opinion, the Committee finally came up with a good formula for the required notices. The advice can be found in WP:AC/DS#Sanctions under the "Warnings" header. Anyone can give the warnings (apparently), they must contain a link to the case, and if appropriate the editor should be counseled on specific steps they can take to improve. If my addition of this header to TROUBLES is OK an update of Template:uw-sanctions should also be made so there is a code letter for issuing Troubles notices. EdJohnston (talk) 19:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Good call. Actually, I have been thinking about this: do you think it would make more sense to archive some of those older sections (sockpuppetry and Troubles restrictions) to the talk page? NW (Talk) 21:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

You added some collapse boxes for the really old stuff. That's got to be better than archiving. Perhaps the 2007 through 2009 admin actions could also be collapsed (by year). Somebody just complained that the WP:ARBPIA page was unwieldy. I'm still reflecting on that. The ARBPIA case page including logs is about 180 Kb while Troubles is about 100 Kb. EdJohnston (talk) 22:45, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Even moar changes to Troubles for your review. Inquiring minds want to know whether the 1RR disappeared on 27 October when the Committee superseded the old remedies and reappeared when T. Canens enacted a new one. Or maybe we don't want to know. Some of the provisions are effectively dead, assuming that the Committee wanted to cancel the community sanction, so archiving from the log the parts that don't apply any more could be useful. So I'm now agreeing with your above suggestion. From the web: The term “supersede” refers to the act of setting aside as void, useless or to annul, replace, or repeal by taking the place of something mentioned.' My guess is that the Committee didn't notice that the 1RR was from the community when they drafted their motion. I doubt that the community will care one way or the other. There is a community 1RR in ARBPIA as well but it looks like that section was left untouched by the Oct 27 motion. EdJohnston (talk) 06:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

No extant remedies were voided by the motion that passed in October (at least that's the intent I read from the motion discussion), so 1RR for the Troubles and the 1RR for ARBPIA are both still active. I'll go through and note that on the case page. NW (Talk) 16:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

OK. sounds good. EdJohnston (talk) 20:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC: Years in LGBT rights

Because of your previous involvement in similar discussion at Talk:2010 in LGBT rights, I'm notifying you that there is a new RFC about the same thing at Talk:2011 in LGBT rights.--В и к и T 19:58, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

How doctors die

Since I think you're interested in healthcare and its associated ethical conundrums, you might find this article interesting. I thought it was well-written and totally on point. MastCell ^Talk 21:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Why was an orthopedist inventing surgical procedures for pancreatic cancer? As to the rest... The insurance company Aetna performed a study about hospice care and coverage a few years ago. I don't recall all the details or where to find them, but essentially they agreed to cover extensive hospice and palliative care for patients in the study, who were given comprehensive end-of-life care information along with a terminal diagnosis. They discovered that the proportion of terminal patients electing for "life-saving" (and extraordinarily expensive) care dropped stunningly, and a large majority entered hospice (some in-home, some in a facility) well before they died. I don't have to tell you how strongly this differs from the normal course of care for a terminal patient. And while initially Aetna was concerned about costs of guaranteeing hospice and palliative care coverage, ultimately the plan costs dropped dramatically. Among other things, the study concluded that part of the problem was the difficulty (and the lack of training) most physicians have with delivering a negative diagnosis, such that most fail to educate patients on their options and the probable outcomes and side effects of treatment. It's no surprise, then, that physicians with direct experience in this area of medicine make different choices than their patients. Nathan ^T

I don't doubt that poor communication is part of the problem. But efforts to decrease inappropriate end-of-life care through better communication and patient education have had mixed results (the SUPPORT study was a landmark in that regard). I haven't seen the study you're describing, although if you have more info that would enable me to track it down, I'd be interested to read it. Of course, I think the problem is laregly societal - our commitment to quality end-of-life care is so tenuous that it's vulnerable to even the most cynically transparent falsehoods. MastCell ^Talk 00:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Nathan, I think that was a misreading on your part: the general surgeon that the orthopedist saw had invented the new procedure. And is this (PMID 19738252) the study you were referring?

MastCell, thank you for the article; it was very fascinating to read. I have batted this issue around with other laypeople before, and the issue that always seems to come up is how do you determine when the end-of-life begins. What if Charlie's pancreatic cancer had been, for some reason or another, more susceptible to chemotherapy than the standard pancreatic cancer? What if hospital care was a better idea than hospice care, even for someone who knew better than most the quality of life he would get from either option? Did he make the right call? Does it matter? NW (Talk) 03:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's exactly the problem. In the end, you're dealing with uncertainty. A physician can tell you that you're 95% likely to succumb to an illness, or even 99%, but you can never be certain that you don't have that 1-in-100 (or 1,000, or 10,000) patient who will have a miraculous response to therapy. Most experienced physicians have seen things they can't explain - patients whom the best prognostic instruments gave a 0% chance of survival, but who walked out of the hospital and came back 5 years later, married with kids, for a follow-up visit. Those kind of things make an impression, and they make it harder to be dogmatic about futility.

After all, when would you call aggressive medical care futile? Let's say an aggressive, expensive intervention has a 5% chance of success? Or a 1% chance of success? Do you tell that patient and his/her family that there's nothing to be done? I'm not going to argue that there's an easy answer here. A lot of writing on the topic seems to assume that, given perfect information from a perfectly communicative physician, all patients would choose palliative care. I think that's oversimplistic and wrong, but that assumption underlies most writing, thinking, and clinical research on the subject.

On another note, part of the problem has to do with a shift in medical ethics and ideals and the role of physicians. A generation or two ago, physicians were (and were largely expected to be) paternalistic, authoritarian figures. Older physicians are much more comfortable in that role, telling patients that they need to be DNR/DNI or families that they should withdraw life support. Of course, in the past few decades patients have become much more empowered (a Good Thing) and the role of the physician has shifted. Modern medical ethics typically emphasizes patient autonomy as a central, if not the central, consideration in decision-making. So modern physicians are much less comfortable "leading" patients to palliative care, and are much more likely to present the patient/family with a barrage of options (from aggressive to palliative) and leave the decision to them. It's deeply fascinating to me that the focus on patient autonomy - while a massive force for positive change in medical culture - has this substantial but largely hidden cost. Physicians used to assume the "what-if" burden - what if the patient was fated to be among that lucky 1% but we pulled the plug? But now that burden is shifted to patients themselves, or more often to family members, and they often don't feel comfortable assuming it. That, I think, is why families so often err on the side of requesting that "everything be done" for their loved ones. MastCell ^Talk 04:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

TPW comment: I really understood that article; I think the theory could be applied to most health care professionals, not just physicians. Speaking personally, I've had one family member beat the odds and be the 1 in 10,000 who actually came out of a critical illness (10% survival rate) in better shape than he was in the beginning; and also been glad that another family member had given explicit end-of-life instructions so that we could follow her wishes with good conscience. I find the hardest thing is persuading members of my extended family that sometimes it's better to have quality of life over quantity of life, particularly when someone is over the age of 80. Those discussions are hard...but they're incredibly important. I know I've made it clear to my immediate family what my own wishes are, and know the wishes of all of my immediate family members. Risker (talk) 05:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

My own two cents, patient autonomy isn't quite the ultimate maxim, especially outside of the medical profession proper, because there is an overwhelming and occasionally irrebutable presumption that a patient wants to live, even if that state of life is questionable at best. The legal structure, which for better or worse shapes behavior, tends to chug along on the assumption that everyone Wants to Live, even if they say they don't, maybe especially if they say they don't. As a society, we have yet to have a grown up discussion about it, and even the end-of-life care advocates avoid the conversation like the plague, shifting the burden to individual families.

I still remember when Jack Kevorkian was big news. A different pathologist I know very well summed up the problem simply: Kevorkian was right to talk about end of life issues, but wrong about almost everything else. Part of his legacy is the crippled state of the conversation. At least for the U.S. culture I'm familiar with.--Tznkai (talk) 07:15, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks NW, you're right, I misread that first bit. And that looks like the right study from the abstract, but I can't see the full version from home. I'll check it out at the hospital tomorrow. End of life care is a tough nut. Studies about difficult conversations, improving medical education, increasing hospice utilization etc. all show promise for making some headway... But the fiscal burden is quickly overwhelming the patient care concerns. It's hard to see an ethical way out that doesn't involve shifting the burden of extraordinary care from society back to patients themselves as a way to rationalize expenditures.

On medical ethics... This has been an interesting source of many family debates over the last few years (which may sound odd, but I can admit to having an odd family). Interestingly enough, the four physicians (two anesthesiologists, a pediatrician and a surgeon) in their 50s and two nurses of the same age all have positions I might describe as "paternalistic" - but they strongly object to that characterization. We usually kick around a few repeating examples - one of an adult married male patient in exploratory surgery when its discovered that he has basically ambiguous gonads (externally, a micropenis and what was assumed to have been undescended testicles). The question was whether to inform the patient. Fellow asks attending, attending says no why bother, so they don't tell him - they do, however, send the records to the PCP. PCP spills the beans, patient ultimately commits suicide. They argue that there was no benefit to the patient from revealing this discovery, only harm. I argue that, if I were in the position of that patient, I would absolutely want to know - but no one else seems to find that very persuasive. Another example is a little more classic... A woman in her 90s with advanced dementia and poor physical health is diagnosed with terminal cancer. She won't remember her diagnoses from one day to the next, and given her overall health the cancer is unlikely to substantially alter her life expectancy. Do you tell her? If she has a family with POA, do you tell them? The folks say no. From my own work experience and reading, I had the same impression about the state of medical ethics in modern medicine as MastCell describes above. But what I hear from some practicing physicians is that it is still quite common to withhold or limit disclosures to a patient based on the physician's anticipation of potential harm or benefit. Nathan ^T 23:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

See now, I'd look at these two cases in such a completely different way. The first one, I'd be telling the patient because he would likely soon be seeking investigations to figure out why he and his partner were infertile; plus, ambiguous genitalia carry an increased risk of gonadal cancer, so this is a significant risk factor the patient has the right to know about. In the case of the senile old lady with cancer, I've seen enough demanding families that I'd make absolutely sure the patient's substitute decision makers were aware of the disease, so they wouldn't come back blaming me when she died, or waste thousands of dollars going from one practitioner to another trying to find out what is "wrong" with Mom. Risker (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Good point on the first example - I left out that the adult man was in his late 50s and had been married for decades, and that the ambiguous gonads were removed (with no sign of cancer). Nathan ^T 04:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Senkaku Islands RfC

In order to get more opinions on the RfC currently running on Talk:Senkaku Islands, I would like to notify the Wikiprojects that are listed at the top of the page (Japan, China, Taiwan, East Asia, and Islands). I'm fairly certain that this is acceptable per WP:CANVAS#Appropriate notification, but I want to be sure, so I figured I'd ask a neutral admin. Is this alright, and are there any other acceptable means I can use to get more people commenting? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwyrxian (talk • contribs)

That should be fine. Try to make your comment short and and as neutral as you can. As far as another means...I'm not really sure. The RFC method has already been tried, so I think you're best off just doing what you can with the Wikiproject notifications. NW (Talk) 14:58, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll set about that now. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:28, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Selina Chen-Kiang

Yes, i agree to the deletion of the page. Zvezda1111 (talk) 23:07, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Another administrator has deleted the page. NW (Talk) 00:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

BLP vio on CRU email article

At Climatic Research Unit email controversy, this edit is a clear BLP violation misusing a blog, despite the user previously having been warned. Gotta leave this alone now, if you could stop further violations that will be appreciated. Thanks, dave souza, talk 23:09, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Not the first time I have run into this user. I have blocked him for two weeks. NW (Talk) 00:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks, dave souza, talk 12:16, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Assistance with closing renaming discussions

Hi NW. I saw on the Senkaku Island talk page that you were willing to close the RfC when appropriate. This is about a different article. Over at the Republic of China article there was a discussion about renaming a bunch of ROC/Taiwan related articles, after the article on the People's Republic of China was moved to "China". For reference, the discussion about renaming the ROC/Taiwan articles started at Talk:Republic of China/Archive 16. A new discussion was started at Talk:Republic of China#New Proposal.

As far as I can see, the first renaming discussion (on Archive 16) did not achieve a consensus. It is worth remembering, of course, that admins can take a view as to the outcome of a discussion based on the opinions, not pure number of votes. This is how (I understand) the PRC page was moved to "China". A panel of three admins decided the arguments in favour of the move were superior to those that advocated it staying the same. However, I'm not asking you to do that. And in any event, as far as I can see, the more recent renaming discussion did achieve a consensus even if there was a modest minority who objected to the proposal.

This is why I'm contacting you, because I saw at least one comment in a thread saying "what consensus?", as if they were refusing to accept the proposal was successful. Even if it's not entirely necessary. I think an admin close would help clarify where the discussion is and how editors can proceed, without others jumping in and crying foul. Indeed perhaps it might be appropriate for another panel of three admins to look into this? I've left this same message on Future Perfect's talk page, given he expressed the same willingness to help close the Senkaku Islands RfC. I'm happy for either one or both of you to look into this. Thanks for your help in advance. John Smith's (talk) 10:53, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi John. I took a look about half the current page, and I'm not sure if I understand everything well enough to get involved. If the involved editors are willing to let an uninvolved close the discussion, then that would be helpful; I think you are right on that point. I could close it if you are still very desperate for closers, but I don't think I am the best person to do this. Perhaps Future Perfect at Sunrise might be able to help you out? NW (Talk) 15:02, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'll ask if he can try to lead on this. Perhaps you would be willing to make up a group of three admins if he can't get the numbers? John Smith's (talk) 15:06, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, FuturePerfect can't help either. Rather than put the burden on you to take a decision (for the moment - you're fault for offering!), given you've done some reading into the matter could you put a message (with a bit of an explanation of the situation) out to the other admins and ask for some kind-hearted volunteers to assist? Thanks. :) John Smith's (talk) 17:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I put out a note at WP:AN. Hopefully you will get some eyes from there. NW (Talk) 00:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Cheers, mate. John Smith's (talk) 08:16, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

ITN

umm, you didnt reset the timer after the belgium posting 1.2 an hour ago...(Lihaas (talk) 20:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)).

Thanks for the reminder. It looks like an another administrator took care of it in my absence. NW (Talk) 21:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry

Didn't even see that. Incidentally it was only a few days ago I was marvelling at how I've managed to avoid doing that in all the time we've had rollback links in the watchlist... – Steel 22:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry about it :) NW (Talk) 22:22, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Jamelli

Hi there NUCLEAR, VASCO here,

could you be a sport and change - i could not - this article's name to its previous title, or better yet, to "Paulo Jamelli"? It was a move without discussion; for good "illustration", since the subject's name is not a nickname or anything, it would be like having Barack Obama's article with the title "Obama", or John Keats's piece being named "Keats".

Attentively, thank you very much in advance - --Vasco Amaral (talk) 23:20, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

 Done. Have a nice day :) NW (Talk) 05:28, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

AE closure

I put the closure box on this request. You logged the ban already in ARBPIA. I assume you intended the ban to include talk pages, since that's what people usually do these days. Please fix any wording of mine you don't agree with. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 01:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks good. NW (Talk) 02:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:ITN update

Hello NuclearWarfare. Is it possible to update the death toll for Tropical Storm Washi (2011) to "over 600" from "over 400" in {{In the news}}? (here is a reference if you need it). Thank you. -- Luke (Talk) 14:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up; I have updated it. WP:ERRORS works just as well if I haven't been editing in recent hours. NW (Talk) 18:19, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Sneaky vandalism FYI

Here. Mildly amusing if you know the context [8] but still, vandalism. Prioryman (talk) 17:03, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Reverted. Thanks for the heads up. NW (Talk) 18:19, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

YehudaTelAviv64, vs Breein1007

Regarding this.

Dimension31 stopped contributing 27 October 2011. YehudaTelAviv64 started 29 October 2011; i.e: no overlapping.

So: they are blocked for socking?

Take a look at Sockpuppet investigations/Breein1007... who has apparently done just the same thing, but were not blocked?

Please explain. Thanks.

Sorry, I'm unaware of that situation's history, and I don't have the time/desire to look into it. NW (Talk) 05:15, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. I hope that in the future you do not close discussions without knowing past history. (Just a tad bit too convenient, and an explanation you have used before, I believe.)

To be honest, I have the time. I really don't have desire though. I wasn't involved, and I'll trust that others handled it appropriately. I briefly look at AGK's actions, and those appeared on the up-and-up. NW (Talk) 15:50, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

ARBCC-type 1RR stuff

Could I draw your attention to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:_86..2A.2A_IP reported by User:William M. Connolley .28Result:_.29? William M. Connolley (talk) 23:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm very butthurt now.

But I shall refrain from a barrage of epithets. Its really that easy for Malleus too.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 01:39, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Heads up

In my view, Pete Tillman is repeatedly pushing the boundaries,[9] which I think clearly contravenes BLP. For context, see my comment at ANI/EW about Pete's earlier edits, including some to the same BLP. . dave souza, talk 09:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I gave him some advice on his talk page, which I shall watchlist for a few days. NW (Talk) 20:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's sensible advice. . dave souza, talk 21:56, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Lawrence v. Texas

I didn't notice the other (I would have removed it if I had), but why are lifespans of the parties relevant to the article about the case? Parties to cases eventually die, but I don't see why we need to report it. It is a fact, and it can be sourced, but so can lots of useless facts.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

As with a lot of things relating to LGBT rights, Lawrence v. Texas reminds me of the Civil Rights Movement. Looking up one of the key court cases from that era, Loving v. Virginia, I see that our article also notes the birth and death dates of the two people involved in that case. It's not so much about the lifespan, which you are right is rather unimportant compared to the overall effect case. I think of it as a nice way to remind people that all cases have a human component to it—real people had to sit for years and wonder whether they would be tossed in jail based on something that a court 1,500 miles away would decide. NW (Talk) 20:11, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, even after I posted my comment above, it occurred to me that this is not a normal legal case and has a much more personal aspect to it. Thanks for your thoughts.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:23, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Senkaku Islands RfC

The RfC on Talk:Senkaku Islands technically expired today. There was one new commenter yesterday, but it's one of only 2 in the last 10 days. As such, it may be time to close the RfC. You and Future Perfect at Sunrise (who I'm also leaving a message for) expressed interest in closing the RfC as neutral admins. If you have time, could you take a look and see if a formal closing statement is appropriate? I don't know if you want to work together, or even form one of the recently popular "triumverates"--I leave that up to you. Qwyrxian (talk) 15:45, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Help requested with page move

Could you possibly move Timeline of the sinking of RMS Titanic to Sinking of the RMS Titanic, over the existing redirect? It has been discussed and supported on the talk page and I would do it myself, but I hadn't realised there was a redirect in the way. Prioryman (talk) 23:43, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Of course. Best of luck with your upcoming FAC. NW (Talk) 23:46, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Cheers, that was a fast response! And thanks for your good wishes. Hope you're having a great Christmas – all the best for the New Year. Prioryman (talk) 23:47, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

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AE appeal

Why are you inclined to decline my appeal exactly?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:41, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

As you may have observed, AE procedures require that any sanction reversal occur only "following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard". That consensus is not currently there. If it does not appear within a reasonable amount of time, there is no reason to keep the discussion open. NW (Talk) 06:04, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not think two days is a reasonable time frame. However, I should note that all the actions concerning me have yet to get any significant outside input at all. You could always get the ball rolling on getting some of that outside input by providing your perspective on the appeal.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

If I didn't make it clear, I think that WGFinley's action was reasonable and do not see a need to overturn it. Would you like me to clarify myself at AE? NW (Talk) 18:21, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I think you really need to clarify yourself. Did you read my statement on the appeal?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

It is a topic ban and it is going to expire at the end of the month.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 04:36, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Somehow I must have misread it as indefinite. In that case, I especially don't see a reason to micromanage and overturn it. Find somewhere else to contribute to for two weeks. NW (Talk) 04:50, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

It is not about micromanaging. No wrongful sanction should be left in place without challenge as it only encourages further wrongful sanctions and harms the project as a whole.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Would you clarify what you considered a "mistake" regarding the topic ban?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:11, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

A mistaken topic ban is one that was applied in a situation where there is no evidence of misconduct or where the sanctioning admin did not look at an important piece of evidence. This was not one of those cases. WGFinley may have taken an additional action with his topic ban that I might not have, but that does not make it a mistake. NW (Talk) 22:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I am going to ask again: did you read my statement? Do you want me to clarify a few points for you?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:26, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I added a clearer explanation of the distortions in the AE report if you are interested.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:53, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

For the record, what additional action are you referring to there?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The topic ban in addition to the block. NW (Talk) 00:40, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean the edit-warring block? WG did not issue the previous edit-warring block. That was another admin who issued the previous block. A week after that block expired those same edits were cited again in addition to what even the filing editor admitted were far less significant edits after the block to push for new sanctions. WG initially accused me of not addressing the diffs provided, but I just specifically addressed the ones after the block expired because I had already spent a great deal of time and effort addressing the ones before the block.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 08:24, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

You're beginning to look obsessed with this, though NW is too polite to say so directly. You must have realised by now that this is going nowhere: just drop it William M. Connolley (talk) 09:51, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I have one very simple and basic expectation: when admins suggest an action I expect some sort of reasonable and accurate explanation for why they are suggesting it. To label me obsessed just for asking for clarification on such points is inappropriate.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 19:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Responding to concerns about the need for further evidence and explanation there are now two sections under the headings "Clarification on distortions" and "On efforts at consensus" at my appeal detailing extensively my objection to the topic ban. It does contain a considerable amount of information, but all of it is relevant to the questions raised about my editing behavior and the reasons given for the topic ban. I do not think the situation can be really understood with a single paragraph or two of comments with half a dozen diffs provided without any context in a complicated case.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 21:53, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

NW, could you please leave some additional comments about the more detailed information I provided? I have asked the other admin who weighed in, but he does not appear to have gotten on in the past five days.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 18:54, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't really care to. I'm not going to close the request though; that can be the job of someone else. NW (Talk) 03:04, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Demi

Thanks for following up. I did actually contact Dweller many days ago to say I'd like to take him up on mediation, but I seem to be the only one willing to sit down and work things out. Is an RfC the next step in the protocol? --Tenebrae (talk) 21:52, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Likely yes. For it to have the most chance of working well, setting up a fair structure is important. Dweller should be able to help you with that. NW (Talk) 01:02, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Q re AE

Hi there NW - I was just wondering, does an AE case have to be formally rejected, or does it just archive if no one responds? I filed a case a little while back and I just wanted to make sure it wouldn't be archived due to a lack of response (from third parties, administrators, or from the party against whom the case is filed). Thanks, –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:43, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

It should be formally rejected, not simply archived without a response. I saw your report, and I think it merits action; I'm not sure why no one has commented yet. I'm too involved in related topics to make a fair assessment on the case, but if you think it will help, I would be willing to add a few comments of my own. NW (Talk) 22:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, good. I didn't mean to poke you to respond, as I figured you were, as you said, a bit involved; I've just interacted with you more than some of the other AE admins, I believe, so you were the one I decided to ask. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:13, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

WGFinley has gotten to it first apparently. I suspect you'll be back at AE within a month, but it is what it is... NW (Talk) 03:12, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I unfortunately suspect the same. Thanks, –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Please add this to your watchlist:

• Outline of the United Nations

Thank you. The Transhumanist 02:27, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

User:Drawn Some

Ran across this while looking at an old AFD. Though his userpage was marked by the wiki scarlet letter, this user had no block log. I reverted his userpage to the last version by you and protected it. I also read Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Drawn Some/Archive where it was suspected that there was a connection to Torkmann and his socks but from reading it, it appears to be inconclusive. Did I do the right thing here? --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:45, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

From a quick lookover, it seems that you did. Have you asked Richard Arthur Norton why he added the tags? NW (Talk) 17:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Mathscis subpages

NW, back in the R&I arbitration, the committee placed restrictions on the use of subpages to present evidence, mostly because Mathsci had spun out dozens of attack pages against other participants in order to bypass limits on presenting evidence. Mathsci is back to creating attack subpages - [10]. I don't remember exactly what the ruling was, but could you check the details and make sure he's reminded of it? thanks. --Ludwigs2 03:34, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

After examining the matter and reading Mathsci's emailed response, I have determined that it is acceptable for Mathsci to maintain this page for now. I will follow up later if need be. NW (Talk) 07:44, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Err… emailed responses? I'm not entirely comfortable with this having been discussed and decided behind the scenes. are those emails available for inspection? --Ludwigs2 14:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Mathsci sent me an email; I responded on his talk page. That's his right to do so. The emails are available for inspection by anyone on clerks-l if they request. NW (Talk) 18:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	For several sound decisions in clerking on a contentious arbitration page. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 06:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! NW (Talk) 07:44, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Opinions/wide range of consensus needed

Hi 'NuclearWarfare', we are presently trying to decide where to place various sections on the Thomas Jefferson page. If interested please join us on the talk page to help resolve the issue. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:05, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Topic-banned editor seeking lift of ban

Hi NW. You topic-banned an editor a while back and he is requesting the ban be lifted, so I thought I would notify you as a courtesy. Thread is here. Best, 28bytes (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Abortion amendment request

Hello. I have made a request to the Arbitration Committee to amend the Abortion case, in relation to the structured discussion that was to take place. The request can be found here. Regards, Steven Zhang ^{Join the DR army!} 04:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

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A request for assistance

Hi,

Are you still interested in the idea of at least some non-admins being able to view deleted pages? I understand that the proposal was shot down previously by foundation counsel; however I believe I have at least two possible answers to their concerns.

One possibility is to make this prospective (apparently the antonynm of retrospective although I'm not so sure) - that is to say that only edits deleted after its implementation can be viewed. For revisions such as libelous edits or copyright violations and so on, there can be a hard delete, lying some way between this soft delete and oversight, which will function just like a present deletion. Admins could also have the power to toggle a deletion from hard to soft (or to undelete) - so selected deletions made before this feature is implemented could be made soft.

The second possibility is to introduce a procedure somewhat like RFA where users are given permission to view deleted edits by the community. As admin privileges are currently granted not just based on trust in general, but also on trust that the tools will be used appropriately, there is a much greater pool of users who would be eligible to be given this permission.

And of course, it is perfectly possible to use both of these systems at once.

I have cross posted this to a few users who were active in the discussion in 2008 - I don't feel this is a violation of CANVASS because I have not made the proposal myself - the reality is I need an experienced Wikipedia with some "street cred" to make it. I already attempted to steer a discussion of a similar proposal this way, but sadly that discussion is irretrievable (see here - or even better, don't!). Because I have posted this to a few users, I would be greatful if you would reply at User_talk:Egg Centric/Proposal and perhaps we can get a discussion going!

Thank you!

Egg Centric 22:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. - silly me, I forgot to link to the original discussion in 2008. Here it is: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Persistent_proposals/Straw_poll_for_view-deleted

Thanks!

I just want to drop in and thank you for helping clean up United States v. Hatter :-)

Additionally, let me again apologize for deleting part of the Arb Tasks template. I thought I knew what I was doing, but alas, no. Anyway, I hope your New Year is starting off well! Cheers, Lord Roem (talk) 00:11, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Sure thing. I was surprised though that the article made it to DYK without any secondary sources. Would you like any assistance in finding them? I have access to some academic databases and can do some searching for you. (and don't worry about the other part) NW (Talk) 00:31, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

That would be great! Lord Roem (talk) 00:33, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Please send me an email. NW (Talk) 00:40, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you check your last ANI edit?

The edit "closed" the bottom half of the page and not just the section you were trying to close. I'm not sure how to fix it. --NellieBly (talk) 00:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, not sure what was up with that. I think it was the result of interaction with another template? It should be fixed now...maybe? NW (Talk) 00:30, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Fine now. With all the templates on that page I just couldn't figure it out. --NellieBly (talk) 00:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Here was the issue...thanks Bugs! NW (Talk) 00:34, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Muhammad arbcom

No problem. I was surprised when I wasn't in the original filing.—Kww(talk) 04:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

User:William M. Connolley/Arbitration committee sanctions

Hi; could you have a look at User:William M. Connolley/Arbitration committee sanctions (and then delete it) and then perhaps have a look into the creator of that, who is presumably some trouble-making sock? Thanks William M. Connolley (talk) 22:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Deleted. I'd be surprised if the user isn't a sock, but I'll be even more surprised if Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Good Sumaritan turns up anything. It doesn't look like there is any active disruption, so I'll hold off on blocking for now. Let me know if anything else turns up.

Happy New Year, by the way. Get a chance to see Sherlock or any of the BBC's other magnificent programming which network television in the States seem determined to not emulate? NW (Talk) 22:19, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. And a Happy New Year to you, too. Alas, being actually in the UK I feel free to ignore the glories of BBC programming entirely. As usual the Christmas highlight was The Queen's Christmas Message though this year it was a touch disappointing - too short - perhaps because it wasn't produced by Aunty William M. Connolley (talk) 22:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Made a couple of related blocks today.[11] NW (Talk) 18:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Ta. I'd noticed RB, but not TP. I see that Duchamps Comb finally came to a surreal end, how fitting William M. Connolley (talk) 18:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

And what about Intranex, I wonder? William M. Connolley (talk) 08:37, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

A throwaway sockpuppet, it looks like. Just let it be; we can always block later if they continue to use it. NW (Talk) 14:38, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Jericho (again)

NuclearWarfare: I posted a note here a few weeks ago, but didn't get a response. Back in 2009 you and I were working on List of Jericho episodes so I thought you would be interested in this. All the separate articles for Jericho episodes linked from that page are being tagged for merge/redirect. (See discussion.) Admittedly, many of them are no more than plot summaries. I wondered if you wanted to look at and hopefully get some over the notability threshold before they're all erased. Also do you know of any WP or external sites to publicise this to get some more hands on deck? I tried Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science Fiction but that seems very quiet. Also looking at Jericho fan sites, but very little activity there either. Jericho fans don't seem to have the sticking power of Trekkies. Barsoomian (talk) 03:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think one of the best ways to move forward is to use Google News to see if you can find a couple of episode reviews for each episode (see for example [12]). If you can find them, that is usually enough to safely establish notability. Doing that for at least one article should be enough to prove to people that the same sources likely exist for the rest of the articles. I don't really have the desire to do so for the Jericho episodes, but if you wanted to give it a try or wanted to try to find other people willing to give it a shot, WikiProject Television might be a good place to start to look for either sources or people. NW (Talk) 18:21, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't want to spend the time either, but I've done a little. However, the Pilot episode already had references and reviews, and yet it was the first one the deleter went for, which I restored. Now there are two of them and they've tagged every single episode article to be merged. It's like wolves circling the campfire, and wood is running short. Even if you can't work on the articles, please weigh in on Talk:List of Jericho episodes because with me being the only voice against summary deletion, it's hopeless. Barsoomian (talk) 04:11, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll stop by. NW (Talk) 06:12, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Should Mathsci be removing a comment that has been replied to?

see this. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:34, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I have found another way of doing the same thing without removing my message. No useful purpose is served by responding there. Mathsci (talk) 22:55, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks good to me. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:56, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Limiting comments by involved editors at AE

Hey NW. You must have seen AGK's proposal to limit participation by involved editors at WP:AE. (Also proposed here). As an Arbcom clerk, do you have any advice as to whether this idea is workable? I realize that Arbcom clerks are not AE clerks (in fact, there are no AE clerks) but it seems to me that there would have to be 'clerk-like activity' if AGK's proposal is put into effect. Self-nominated clerking by random participants might not work, due to the chance of dispute. We would need somebody to say

1. You are involved, you should not be commenting on this request
2. Your comment is too long (if length limits are part of the deal), or
3. Your comment was in the wrong section and I'm moving it

Evidently this works for Arbcom cases. What do you think the chances of success are at AE? (regardless of whether you think the proposal is wise). Can you imagine a scenario where the existing corps of Arbcom clerks would agree to take on a similar role at AE? Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 05:36, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

The same administrators that currently look at filings would have to fill that role I think; there is just too much for any small group of clerks to exclusively handle. There is no scenario where I could possibly imagine the ArbClerks getting involved with AE to any significant event. NW (Talk) 06:12, 4 January 2012 (UTC)