User talk:TheRingess/Archive 3

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Well, here you go...

I award this The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar to TheRingess for his tireless welcoming efforts.

Furthermore, you should consider joining the Welcoming Committee :-). JHMM13 (T | C) 07:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the gender mixup! I've made the change. JHMM13 (T | C) 07:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Random Acts of Kindness Award

For the countless welcomes (KC)

I have noted all your great work in building community and connectivity. Kukini 05:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Recent Behavior (Accusation of bad faith from a fellow editor)

Now, this isn't vandalism. This is just a comment about your recent behavior. Please stop and let it go. A majority of us from around the globe are tired of seeing you try to act like an administrator when truly you are just a user with bad faith. An example of your behavior would be editing David Quinn's article. --RedGlobeWalkerHim 04:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

• • Please explain why I have acted in bad faith.

TheRingess 04:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • I am going to go ahead and reinstate this section. I feel it's vital, because I still don't understand why my edits are characterized as bad faith and wish to give my detractors an opportunity to present their case to the community at large, and if correct, then I can publicly apologize.

TheRingess 04:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

...for your message, it was generous and not necessary at all. But I still thank you. No hard feelings · Katefan0^(scribble)/poll 16:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!!

Thanks!! ^^ User:Visual planet (Talk 17:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello Ringess. I'm using this entry to add my own thanks for the welcome that you sent me. Sorry about your troubles with the David Quinn article, looks like a lot of fuss about nothing much to me. I hope Wikipedia stands its ground. ThomasL 22:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Message

Go back to the Quinn entry. I've left a note for you there. -DQ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.160.17.29 (talk • contribs) .

Just so you can see the lengths some people will go to. Here is a man who felt that his rights to privacy were violated and yet publicly publishes lies about myself and others. Here's the article that prompted all of the ire David Quinn (actor). Here is the full text of the message that prompted the rant that follows it (btw, this really was written by the subject of the article, David Quinn):

--- begin quoted text ----

DELETE: YOU ASKED, I'M ANSWERING I have been involved with online communities since 1991, and I deeply respect the premise of wikipedia. That said, I have to question why so many strangers (Ringess, FCYTravis, RedGlobe, Trey, OlympicFlame) would care at all about my biography or this entry. I would hope that there is a more valuable use of your lives than the endless reverting of this entry (or the many hours some of you appear to have spent researching and documenting elements of my life). Here's a shout-out to Ringess: You have too much time on your hands.

I returned from a brief trip to California this morning (BTW, the Image Awards are a lot of fun, and I urge you all to donate to the NAACP). I came back to school to get some paperwork done and found more than a few emails in my box. Most are from students, but at least one is from a resourceful wikipedian who very simply searched the Edmonds School District website for our directory, then sent me an email, directing me to this page. Anyone who wishes to email me may, of course, do this as well. You can even get my phone number from the directory and call and leave me a message. I'm happy to verify myself.

That said, I really could (mostly) care less about what you all are doing here. I didn't create this entry, I think that it is a complete waste of space, and I find the behavior of some of you to be completely anti-intellectual and downright childish. I don't suppose that anyone had my privacy rights in mind when they created the first Quinn entry, but now that I'm here, I think you should all just stop it. I'm voting for a delete, mostly because I think that you should all spend more time reading and seeing theatre.

The protected version of my entry is mostly correct, but I still fail to see why an entry for me exists in the first place. I am a private citizen, albeit one who once had a career on television and who has a career as an entrepreneur. My life is private, which is why davidquinn.com doesn't exist anymore. The biographical information that is found on my corporate sites exists for a simple reason: it answers basic questions for investors and media folks. If I wasn't required to put it up, I wouldn't have it up. My life is primarily dedicated to education. Anyone who has read my bio knows why: I made a promise to someone, and I'm keeping my side of the bargain.

If you want to continue to waste parts of your life on me or this entry, I cannot stop you. But rather than continue this wiki-farce, I urge you to delete this meaningless entry and concentrate your time and karmic energy making the world a better place to live in. Rather than spend all night reverting my bio, why don't you spend all night sending emails to political figures so they hear your voice? Or to relatives, so that they know that they are loved? Or how about just get in your car and go volunteer at a soup kitchen or an AIDS charity? I'm sure that you all have favorite causes. They need your help. Go.

Me? I'm "peace out" of here. Peace out. I'm going to reply here. (btw, this is not in any way directed to Mr. Quinn, this is directed to the user(s) editing from the anonymouse IP address above).

-- end quoted text ---

My response:

Firstly, I feel that your characterization of my having too much time on my hands is irrelevant and inaccurate. But that's beside the point. You are correct, that there are lots of ways to help improve the world, but how do you know that in my spare time (which admittedly I don't have a lot of lately) I don't do those things. How could you know that I do or don't belong to and support charitable organizations or how do you know that I don't call my relatives a lot.

What gives you the right, to claim, on a public forum, that you have specialized knowledge of details of my private life?

Secondly, I repeatedly asked why some of the simple contributions I made to the article, were being repeatedly deleted without what I would consider a reasonable. Yes, yes, I realize that you might object to having an article, but how could I possibly evaluate whether or not that is true. All I know, is that certain users, were reverting the article and claiming knowledge of your desires. There is absolutely no way that I can verify that.

Also, since certain users did voice their concerns on the talk page, I felt it only fair, since I had become so involved, to try in some way to address their concerns. Since I am not fully cognizant of all of Wikipedia's guidelines, I may have inadvertently given them incorrect information. So wherever possible I tried to direct them to the relevant pages that I thought might help answer their questions more fully. I even offered, in what little spare time I have left, to help one user to track down the relevant information and suggested a route they might go in order to find it.

At a certain point in time, both admins and users requested that I more carefully document the changes that I was making, in order to give them a chance to state their objections. It was also becaue I became caught up in "the heat of the moment" and started performing the exact same behaviors that I was objecting to (namely wholesale reversion of edits without explanation). So I did. I made small incremental changes, documented them in the edit summary, and on the talk page, and when I felt that I had done as much research as I felt I wanted, I stopped. What happened? The same editor who requested that I document all of my changes, did not respond to a single one of them, and went ahead and deleted all of them anyway.

Let me give you an example. It took me roughly 5 minutes to locate the "40 under 40" website and find the date of your award. I then added the date to the article and a link to the website (the link is for reference and is for anyone wishing to find out more about the award). Did it improve the article? Maybe, maybe not. Was it a biased change? Did it violate your privacy? Was it a non neutral change? I have now spent several days justifying that one small change and a few other small changes. Why? The simple answer is "I'm human", when someone won't talk to me, I get stubborn. So what? Who cares? Life is inherently not fair. In a few days, this will be a slightly unpleasant memory, very soon after that I won't even think about it. Life goes on.

As another example, one version of the article made a certain claim about your roommates at the Theatre Camp. At first noticing that there was no source cited for that statement, and feeling that it was somewhat unencyclopedic, I requested that someone provide a source. That was removed and replaced with a link to a web page that contained no information about the statement. Thinking that truly the only reliable, reasonable source would be the camps website, I visted there to see if they mentioned it somewhere. I didn't stay long, and could find no material that supported the statement. I then decided to go "live my life" and wait 24 hours to see if anyone interested would provide the reference. 24 hours later, no one had, so I deleted it, and explained my reservations on the talk page and in the edit summary. With the caveat of course, that anyone who wished to reinstate it with the source, could freely do so. After all, just because I couldn't find it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. No one responded. Yet, every reverted version contains this piece of information. Is it true? How would I know without a source?

The editors who continually revert the article, claim that the version they are reverting to, is the "correct" version. I contend that a "correct" version is a myth. I base this upon my own personal experience and limited knowledge of the history of science. At one point in time, members of the human race, believed that the "correct" version of the world, was that it was flat, and the sun revolved around the earth. That "correct" version was later replaced by a new "correct" version that states the world is round and revolves around the sun.

As pointed out, life is not fair, and this little dispute will probably have no larger effect upon the world. So ce la vie.

Perhaps, I obsess about things I shouldn't, but that's my problem, to resolve as I see fit, and not your concern.

Personally, the way I see it, when a person tries to prevent someone else from contributing, by deleting their contribution, in any forum, in any class, on any website, it's censorship, pure and simple.

To refuse to discuss rationally with a person your objections to their actions and instead to simply gang up in order to ensure that your version is the only acceptable version, is bullying pure and simple. Furthermore it shows an utter lack of respect for a fellow human being and also a lack of maturity.

Regarding privacy issues, it's my contention that the only way to guarantee privacy on the internet, is to ensure that all material on Wikipedia (and other similar websites) is within the public domain, has credible verifiable sources and maintains a neutral point of view.

If every editor, who ever created a biographical article, had to confirm that they had permission of the subject of the article and provide evidence that they did, no article would be written. It would be unworkable.

It would also be similarly unworkable if we automatically deleted an article every time someone claimed that the subject desired the article to be deleted.

All we can hope for, when an article's existence is questioned, is to discuss the issue, try to judge the accuracy and merit of the material and hope that we all respect each others viewpoints. We also have to be willing to change our minds and admit that we could be wrong. We are human, and though my previous statement describe lofty goals those goals are not always achieved and the methods are not always executed perfectly (just a subjective opiniont) because humans are not perfect (another subjective opinion). That's why there are guidelines, to help ensure that material is judged on its merit. Perhaps, that is one reason why the GFDL is very carefully worded.

Personally, when the issue came up, I originally thought the article should be deleted, because I thought that previous editors were claiming copyrights to the material, had made the edits in good faith without fulling understanding the GFDL. I thought the most reasonable course of action was to allow the article to be deleted.

I changed my mind. I'm human.

So sue me. You have implied that you are going to anyway.

As for me, the sum total knowledge of your life that I have comes from this article. Since everything in the article, now has a reference, and seems easily verifiable, I have no further interest in editing it.

Of course, only time will tell.

If you want to see what I do in my spare time when I am not "wasting" my time on Wikipedia, you can check out http://www.beautifulandes.com.

I also have plans to create a charitable organization that sends much needed school supplies to poor children in Peru.

Your points are valid. Thank you for at least giving me the chance to respond. I think that it is time to put my other plans in action.

That said, as one private citizen to another, as a person who is not even an admin, or a member of the foundation, I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to summarize your argument down to one sentence. Keep in mind that this is simply one point of view, not very neutral, but then again, this talk page is not an article. Here, from me, a guy who doesn't know a whole lot, is my summary (and only mine) of your position:

This article should not exist because I said so.

Also, it doesn't work to try to revert another person's edits, claiming that you reject the GFDL. "My" edits are licensed. You cannot revoke that license for me, or for any other person for that matter.

Try to keep in mind that everything is all right, and everything happens for the best.

TheRingess 20:13, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The Afd you proposed.

Please see my notes on improving the article in its discussion area. I am aware that this was not your article to begin with. In an effort to keep clear the difference between vanity and marketing, I think your comments in the Discussion area of that article would be helpful. Shortly after casting my vote in the AfD you proposed, the article was incorrectly moved from AfD, and renamed. I do not believe that it received the appropriate amount of due scrutiny by fellow editors. Please see Authorship of A Course in Miracles, its discussion areas, including the original debate for deletion, if you would, particularly my latest additions. Thanks. Ste4k 08:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

You deserve a day off :)

You deserve a day off, a walk on the beach, and a Corona for your hard efforts!

Nah, I'm just having fun. I found your welcome message, found it pretty cool. Shadowrun 00:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't I know it. Ha ha. TheRingess 01:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Julia Lennon

What's all this fan POV rubbish? Are you actually going to do anything about this so-called copyright violation or just leave it as a blank waste of an article?--Crestville 13:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

My take on Wikipedia's policies regarding copyright violations is that you are not supposed to edit an article until the copyright issues is resolved. The Julia Lennon article was copied and pasted from a webste in 2004 that had a copyright notice righ at the bottom of the page. TheRingess 15:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD for Lily Allen

Hey there -- Just as an FYI, I noticed that you nominated Lily Allen for AfD. She currently has the number one song in the UK, so I voted to keep. On the AfD page, I originally said this was a bad-faith nomination, until I reviewed the page's history and noticed you likely saw the rampant, biased information about just another MySpace user instead of an article on the UK's current top artist (There are tons of reverts around the time you nominated the article). As such, I apologize for calling your nomination bad-faith, and struck my comment with an explanation on the AfD page.

Thanks,

--Ataricodfish 01:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD

Hi, as I stated on the AfD, I don't know you or the subject of the article, and I never made any claims about whether you have an obvious bias or not. I was attempting to clear up a misconception you seem to have about User:Jaime234's comments, nothing more - I was attempting to explain, not criticize. Anyway, seeing as I don't personally care one way or the other, I'm bowing out of this particular discussion - if Jaime234 has anything to add, I expect they will. Ziggurat 04:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well we seem to have two fundamentally different approaches to editing Wikipedia. You give an example of a judge recusing himself. You seem to be arguing that the community should judge material added to the encyclopedia according to the merits of the editor adding it. So it seems to me that your argument is that as long as an editor is not too close to the subject they can and should be allowed to edit the article but once an editor feels that they are too close (or other editors feel that way) to the subject matter, then they should excuse themselves or other editors should take steps to prevent them. I hope this is a fair and accurate assessment of your points on that talk page.

Personally, I take the approach that the content added to an article should be judge on it's own merits, according to the pillars of Wikipedia. So if an editor adds material to any article in a way that is in accordance with the pillars (i.e. easily verifiable, improves the article and is non neutral to name a few) then they should. To extend that, I feel that if Wikipedia is to grow, an editor should feel an obligation to expand articles, request citations, provide them, or delete unverifiable material.

Perhaps its just semantics. If an editor is truly too close to an article, then their edits will not conform to the pillars. That's my point though, if you can't add material that conforms to the pillars, you have an obligation not to.

So perhaps we were both making the same point.

Perhaps we should always assume good faith, until an editors contributions prove otherwise.

Take care.TheRingess 19:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

More allegations of bad faith

From Jaime: I don't have enough time available to keep discussing this matter with you, but since you asked for some specific examples of what I see as your biased and bad faith approach to the subject, who is a member of the same small spiritual path that you are, and with whom you clearly have some kind of personal issues - aside from the obvious example of your pegging the entire article for deletion, here are some unnecessarily malicious and incorrect statements of yours from the original afd that you initiated against the article.:

Ringess: I've come to the conclusion that this article is a thinly veiled advertisement. Even though subject is an author, I am not convinced that they are notable enough to warrant inclusion. Plus the only link provided is a link to a commercial site.

Reply My bad, I violated one of the basic principles of Wikipedia and instead of assuming good faith on the part of the original author, I assumed bad faith. I have since apologized on both the discussion page and the author's talk page. I hurt their feelings unnecessarily.TheRingess 01:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Jaime's comment: Thinly veiled advertisement? It is a Wikipedia entry for an accomplished person. The link was to the subject’s website, which is hundreds of pages of all-free multimedia spiritual resources – your claim of it being a commercial site is your own projection.

Reply And in response to that I struck out my statements and changed them.

Ringess: Though my vote is still to delete, as I agree with most of the comments from the other participants. I apologize if my language was in any way abusive, malicious and/or disrespectful, as I happen to admire the Wikipedia philosophy of treating every editor with respect.

Jaime: Well, okay, you did offer an apology, but then continued to defame and judge harshly.

Ringess: Although the website does have free things, it is still a commercial website. The comments made by other editors about the emmy award are still true. To me, the article is still vanity and self promotion.

Reply Here you continue to call the free resources a commercial site, and also say that the claims of the subject winning an emmy award is false, in agreement with the incorrect assessments of other editors who jumped on your delete bandwagon, and in spite of a link I posted to many photos that show her winning the award. To you, the article is still vanity and self promotion? Obviously you are not the right person to be editing this topic, and are more interested in casting negative aspersions against the subject, with whom you obviously have a vendetta. Headshaker, who initiated this article, has contacted the subject of the article, and posted her response on his talk page. It seems your efforts to discredit the subject of this article are part of a larger effort to harm her, therefore, I would think you might consider recusing yourself from editing her page (which based on her letter, she would likely agree with.) I’m sure there are other subjects that would interest you and not create so much ill-will.

ReplyOnce again, the link is to a business. My understanding is that Wikipedia discourages commercial links unless they support the material in the article. Your statements that "I am not the right person", "have a vendetta", "part of a larger effort to harm her", "are more interested in casting negative aspersions" are allegations for which you have supplied insufficient proof. Also you insult the intelligence of fellow editors, acting as if they are incapable of judging the material for themselves and reaching their own conclusions. Your response here is an attempt to get me to censor myself. I suggest that rather than leave comments like this on my page, that you present your evidence to an arbitration committee. I also refer you to Wikipedia's guidelines on civility, in my opinion, denigrating the intelligence of the other editors who participated politely in the AFD discussion is uncivil.

And with that I officially exit this discussion and move on to more useful use of my time and energy. Jaime234 21:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Reply I am sorry that you do not wish to engage in a polite discussion with me. I do not agree with your statements.TheRingess 01:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)