User talk:John J. Bulten

Ron Paul talk page

Hey John, thanks for helping out and welcome to Wikipedia. Could you not move things around on talk pages? It makes it very difficult for editors who have been following all along to follow the discussion, and it's pretty confusing. Thanks a lot! --Gloriamarie 16:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words and for wanting to help. I'll take a look at your article soon and let you know-- it's a good idea for an article! The big POV issue atm is probably the abortion thing; a few editors seem to want to make the entire article focus on abortion for some reason... it's odd. There are also some sourcing issues, which I saw you pointed out with the list of federal agencies given. Thanks for noticing that and helping to sort it out.--Gloriamarie 06:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

FAC comments

FAC comments belong on the FAC page, not Talk pages, as far as I can tell. And no comments too small - just wait until User:BQZip01 gets at you with the non-breaking spaces et al. Wasted Time R 20:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Wasted, response is here. John J. Bulten 02:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

you misread the en dash section

From WP:MOS: "The word to, rather than an en dash, is used when a number range involves a negative value or might be misconstrued as a subtraction (−3 to 1, not −3–1), or when the nearby wording demands it (he served from 1939 to 1941, not he served from 1939–1941)." Please leave the wording as we had it - from, to - on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Should be that way on Ron Paul as well. Further - you don't have to follow MOS slavishly even if it didn't say this: common sense should prevail, and common sense prefers narrative to en dashes here. As for HRC - your rewrite was too extreme and introduced error (e.g., she has long been considered a polarizing figure in politics, not a polarizing politician - those two are not equivalent). At this stage, coming in and doing a wholesale rewrite is not the best way to go - and it's not a matter of "favorite phrases", which, again, is a bit insulting. You've just arrived here and might want to spend some time in the archives so you have a better idea of how we got to the place we are on articles - this goes for Ron Paul too in my opinion - it's not always the best approach to come in and just wholesale rewrite. By doing so at this point on HRC, you make it more difficult to respond to the comments made in the FAC, having the effect of derailing the process. I wouldn't want to think that this is your goal. Tvoz |talk 04:20, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The only reason I made one good-faith edit to this article, as I adverted, was to demonstrate that my concerns were well-grounded and that there was much room for improvement. I am sorry Tvoz considered this edit to introduce error, as I don't split hairs between "figure in politics" and "politician". And I did apologize in advance for any unaccepted condensation of favorite phrases, and my edit was in fact in response to my and others' FAC comments. John J. Bulten 02:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Straw polls

I didn't realize there was already a straw poll article. I agree that we should merge them together and create a new article with just the Democratic results.--Southern Texas 01:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I didn't realize you were working on it.--Southern Texas 02:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to your help, articles are now humming along: Dem, Rep, both. John J. Bulten 02:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Problematic edit summary

I found your comment in this diff's edit summary to be problematic. The policy of WP:CIVIL makes it clear that judgmental comments in edit summaries are not permitted.

Please view references numbers 113 and 116 in the References section of this diff. This is the version that existed just before I removed two defunct citations; there is a bright-red error message in each of these references. All I did was convert these empty references to requests for citations. I did not have the time or inclination to figure out which refs were intended by the defunct titles "insideradv" and "gallup92007". Citation requests are an improvement over statements which have nothing but a defunct label as a reference.

To be called "disingenuous" after I made this small improvement to the article is not very nice. If you have anything else to say on such matters, please do it in the proper places, not in edit summaries. Please try to AGF; I want the article to be good too. Thanks. Photouploaded 20:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I do apologize, Photo, I did look at that diff when I tried to source the dereference, but I misread it, came to the wrong conclusion about what was edited, and accused too hastily. The actual dereference was done by TechnoGuyRob, and it was clearly a mistake while adding the new 5% poll. Thank you for pointing this out civilly. I will watch my edit summaries. John J. Bulten 21:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, John. Apology accepted, no harm done. See you on the slopes! Photouploaded 00:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sockpuppets

I hereby apologize to those editors who have been cleared by an administrator of my charges that they were suspected sockpuppets. In each case I believed at the time that I had probable cause to make the accusation, but in at least one case I agree with the consensus that I did not actually have sufficient cause. I believe pride also contributed, resulting in overzeal and several mistakes in understanding the graduated levels of accepted protocols. I'd like to explain how the mistakes arose, not to defend, but only to illustrate.

• I relied on WP:BOLD and its principle that "any changes you make that turn out badly can be reverted, often quite painlessly". I recognize that accusations cannot be withdrawn, so I did not accuse recklessly; but a finding of not guilty is a vindication of the innocent in accord with this principle.
• I relied on input from other editors which I found credible, such as User:TDC, User:Life, Liberty, Property, User:Starkrm. I recognize this input is now also subject to invalidation by admin findings, and although I did not credit it recklessly, the irony of the parallel to Bush's reliance on British intelligence is not lost.
• I relied on the community consensus of banning James Salsman, partly out of agreement, but partly out of overzeal.
• I oversimplified the established processes, partly out of newness, but partly out of pride.
• As a forum moderator, I have experience spotting sockpuppets and abusive accounts, but am still learning how to put that experience to use given this larger community and its different standards.
• In each of the cases I made or joined (1of3, Acct4, Eric Shalov, Squee23), I believe the admin findings are or will be that there was in fact misbehavior. I believe I did not always take the proper response in reporting the misbehavior, and thereby contributed to it to some degree.
• I don't believe I am editing out of conflict of interest any more than anyone else; technically, every edit is made because of some degree of interest in making the change to its subject article. But I affirm WP:COI.
• I don't believe my edits are an abuse of a single-purpose account. I chose to start with a difficult subject area, Ron Paul and the election, and chose to restrict my watchlist to that area until I am comfortable expanding it, which I hope to do in the future.

I will be more careful: for instance, I can discuss charges with more experienced editors rather than send them immediately to admins. Also, having made these mistakes, I will impose a 24-hour timeout on myself, and refrain from edits immediately after linking this note to the appropriate case pages. See you soon, happy Reformation Day. John J. Bulten 15:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not "In the clear" since User:TDC is hell bent on reverting my DU edits, (and ignoring their content) but I appreciate these words. Thank you. Starkrm 15:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I think your reaction to the feedback here shows good intent. I only suggest that your inner meditative mantra can migrate from no harm, no foul with the accusations toward something much more Wiki-like, such as "Assume Good Faith"! Sockpuppets and vandals are pests which automation will probably increasingly deal with, but reliable flesh and blood editors—(moods and attitudes notwithstanding)—will give up if not treated decently. So it helps to be very circumspect when differentiating poor edits from vandalism.

If you've come from forums, I think you can relax a bit about sockpuppets—Wikipedia isn't ruled by numbers. I know election windows are narrow and it may seem critically important if the Ron Paul Wikipedia page doesn't look perfect to your eyes every minute of the day. But Ron Paul advocates absolutely should not be pointing anyone to the Wiki article—they should direct people to an official campaign page that represents his platform directly. (And if there's one thing that needs to be doggedly defended and reverted if corrupted here, its the link to the official campaign site!)

I can understand that you would be hurried to guard the page if you are passionate about the campaign, but that's precisely why your determination might be more appropriate for a non-wiki you can control. If we had to be paranoid about edits moments after they happen we really would spend all our time in sockpuppet debates. All wiki readership must be prepared to dig into the history and talk page to form an opinion about the subject; it is the very nature of the medium. I'm personally glad people are being trained to take Wikipedia with a grain of salt, because that supports the consensus methodology. (And it will get easier...there's innovation in the works here with Meta:Article validation feature and the likes of Wikipedia Trust Coloring which will hopefully evolve to make things even more laid back.)

AND speaking of people who should be doing more useful article editing rather than mired in debating, I'm a living example here. Bah. Though secretly I've done most of my editing while not logged in—just to try and put good edits in anon space to make sure the Wiki High Council continues to see value in keeping anonymous editing enabled! Metaeducation 05:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Hey, no hard feelings, John- I think we both got a little excitable! Things like politics and Wikipedia have that effect on some people! ¡Salud! - Eric 20:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You accuse me of being a Sock Puppet

I'm not exactly sure why. I'm not even exactly sure what that is, or what I can do about it. Could you please explain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Starkrm (talk • contribs) 19:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Probable cause appears here, and at this moment I am awaiting resolution here. John J. Bulten 02:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

So I ask you for help, with a sincere question, the day you accuse me of being a sock puppet, and 12 days later you respond linking what you call "probable cause" which is actually a CLOSED case which determined I was not a sock puppet. You also link where you called for my indef banning which you changed to CU after I pointed out how ridiculous your accusations were. I understand your motives, since I am actually fighting the same fight as you and TDC, but your actions are, IMO, deplorable and border on harrasment. Starkrm 14:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Try making a case about Dlabtot if you want what I think is a real sock puppet. Starkrm 16:27, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Yawn in response to Sockpuppetry accusation

I encourage you to request checkuser or whatever the process is. I'm nobody's sockpuppet and frankly I find the accusation to be boring and not worthy of a response beyond saying that my name is James Lang, I live in Alberton, MT, and I always post from 12.32.36.103 or 216.166.132.57, I made a couple edits from one or both of those IPs before I registered my username and all of my edits since I registered have been made under this username. Do not expect any further response from me on this non-issue. Dlabtot 00:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP and talk pages

WP:BLP is not a license to edit another editor's comments, whether you or I consider them incorrect or not. Please read this before doing so again. --Orange Mike 01:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Mike, I have read that already, I concluded that its reference to "prohibited material" resoundingly includes WP:BLP#Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material. It doesn't matter whether I consider them incorrect, but it does matter if they're unsourced contentious material about a living person. John J. Bulten 01:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

But WP:BLP refers to mainspace articles, not talk pages about those articles. --Orange Mike 01:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Mike, you may not have noticed that my link says (emphasis in original): "Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research). The three-revert rule does not apply to such removals if the information is derogatory. Content may be re-inserted only if it conforms to this policy. These principles apply to biographical material about living persons found anywhere in Wikipedia, including user and talk pages. Administrators may enforce the removal of such material with page protection and blocks, even if they have been editing the article themselves. Editors who re-insert the material may be warned and blocked. See the blocking policy and Wikipedia:Libel." Thank you for your consideration. John J. Bulten 02:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I think I see where the difference is here. I feel that the original editor was not out of bound in feeling that statements which went out over Paul's name were Paul's statements, and that certainly within the confines of a talk page discussion he is entitled to say so without being policed out of existence. You feel that this is a contentious statement, even in a talk page, and should be censored. (I'm sorry, there's no weaker word that expresses my disagreement with you.) I accept that your interpretation is a good-faith one, although I disagree with it. I certainly shan't get into a revert war over it; but I feel that you are wrong in your reading of the guidelines here. --Orange Mike 05:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I think Vidor is not out of bound to feel they were Paul's statements, nor to state that feeling, but is out of bound to state what is felt as if it's an established fact, four times, after being warned twice. The subtleness of how the admitted bias slipped its way into Vidor's comments does not appear to excuse Vidor for treating that bias as NPOV. John J. Bulten 15:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding your edit summary on Ron Paul (talk): I'm editing from an IP because I feel like it and because Wikipedia policy permits me to do so (don't worry, I'm not Ben/James or whoever). Specifically, I reverted you because I felt your removals of someone else's comments were highly inappropriate. More generally I dislike the ownership you assert over the article, and I intend to revert your removal of other people's comments every time it happens. --68.162.80.156 21:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Another instance of the same debate above with OrangeMike occurred today with Photouploaded. My notice re the first instance is still open at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Ron Paul. John J. Bulten (talk) 20:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. The quote in question... is it a problem to reprint it? — Photouploaded — continues after insertion below

Why, yes, especially when you can link the diff instead, as you did with the other case below. John J. Bulten (talk) 17:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

What is the problem here? Just today another user reverted your removal of someone else's comment. I find this trend to be questionable. Please explain the above. Photouploaded (talk) 23:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

No, that user reverted my removal of the only other comment made by the same IP as the comment you want restored. I think my position is fully explained by the above and its attached links, i.e., relying on Jimmy Wales for deriving the proposition that WP:BLP trumps WP:TALK. Is there any question that the edits are unsourced contentious material about living persons, when they allege racism, sexism, condoning of rape, and incomprehension of the Constitution? I requested admin comment at WP:BLPN the first time I did this and am still awaiting comment. John J. Bulten (talk) 17:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

edits

I'll try to look at it tomorrow, but I'm kind of knee-deep in a couple of things and may not have a chance. Will do my best. Tvoz |talk 05:03, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you!! John J. Bulten 15:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding edits to Straw polls for the 2008 United States presidential election

Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia, John J. Bulten! However, your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove spam from Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert a good link, please accept my creator's apologies, but note that the link you added, matching rule \..+-county\.com, is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. Please read Wikipedia's external links guidelines for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! AntiSpamBot 21:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ignore this. Shadow1 (talk) 21:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The Liberty Dollar spammer

The guy stuck identical comments in other talk pages. I feel this falls under "Deleting material not relevant to improving the article"; I gather you do not? --Orange Mike | Talk 00:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

In this case I can give benefit of doubt. The author did at least learn to put them in talk instead of article, after all. When there is hope that the author might get to proving relevance, I can wait and not bite. Also the user shows signs of not understanding the system, which can be remediated or rehabilitated. However, overall, I know we may be at loggerheads on occasion, and may continue to be, but I want to applaud you for your patience and hope I can show you the same. John J. Bulten (talk) 06:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for SoLA Edit

Thanks for dealing with the SoLA edit for me. I'm pretty sure I saw your handle on another page I was looking at to work on too (I've taken a bunch of the candidates to try to put my hand to make the articles better) so hopefully we'll get to work on these things together soon (I hear there's a 4 day rule before I am no longer n00b)! Apartcents (talk) 00:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Food Fight

Yeah I agree something is fishy with foofight. It seems he's more interested in pushing some agenda than adding to the quality of the article. SoLA is much more complicated than just 'revert it to the states.' A finding is not completely non-binding, either. And yeah, "calling the LOC" made me lol. Thanks for the help, I'm a fan of Ron Paul too so don't want to see the page vandalized by dummies. Apartcents (talk) 22:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Communication

BTW, if it would help matters, I'd be happy to chat with you in IMs about the subtleties of Wikipedia policies. I'm easily found on AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo, and MSN. Do you use any of them? --Elonka 19:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Unreliable sources

John, please stop. I'm trying to assume good faith here, but it seems that you're just bit by bit trying to re-add all the information to Moneybomb that was previously removed as unreliable. I'm also very disappointed that you're sourcing some information to freemarketnews.com, which appears to be an obvious campaign site. Please, what you're adding is just going to get deleted again, please don't waste your time trying to re-add it. --Elonka 22:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This is normal consensus procedure. Please pick which edits you disagree with and explain WHY my invocations of reliability policy are incorrect. It is insufficient and wearing thin to continue to simply say "unreliable". Further, your professed knowledge of the future deletion of these edits is starting to cross a line. John J. Bulten (talk) 22:55, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

John, I have seen no consensus for your edits. Instead, I see multiple editors expressing concerns about what you're doing, removing the information that you're adding, and then you go right back in and re-add it. Please see Wikipedia:Tendentious editing. --Elonka 23:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI, I have started a thread on the Moneybomb dispute at the Conflict of Interest noticeboard, in case you would like to participate or monitor. --Elonka 05:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

John, I realize that you're a relatively new editor, but please, throwing every warning that you can think of at me, isn't helping matters. For future reference: A 3RR warning is for cases where editors are repeatedly reverting each other to a specific wording of an article, and reverting in a rapid fashion, multiple times per day. In our case, there's no 3RR, since you haven't edited the article in days. If you disagree with my edits at Moneybomb, I would encourage you to actually participate in the editing of the page, in what's called a WP:BRD cycle: I make a change, you make a change based on my change, I make a change based on your change, and we work together in good faith, to try and come up with a version that's agreeable to both of us. That's the wiki-way.  :) If you would like to continue editing the article, please do, but I again strongly urge you to stick only with information from reliable sources. If you add more information from unreliable sources (such as Ron Paul promotion sites), per one of Wikipedia's core policies, that of Verifiability: "Any edit lacking a reliable source may be removed." But as long as you stick with only adding information from reliable sources, and you present it in a neutral fashion that accurately represents the sources, and isn't giving undue weight or violating original research, I'm really not going to have a problem with it.  :) --Elonka 16:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Your statement demonstrably mischaracterizes how many warnings I have thrown at you, the use of "3RR" warnings for non-3RR, and the steps involved in BRD; but I am not elaborating at this time. Further, just to provide an example of what I think your edits are like (and because it's my talk page), I have removed your claim that you will "have to" consider removal, because while you have (questionably) sourced the permission to remove, you have provided no reliable source demonstrating the duty to consider removal, the "have to". (Interested parties may see the diff of this current edit.) This reductio ad absurdam hypercasuistry is not meant maliciously, but educationally. We now return you to our regularly scheduled civility. John J. Bulten 17:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

A WikiProject or task force for about "U.S. presidential elections"

Hi, As I see there are several editors who work on the articles about "the U.S. presidential elections". I wanted to join but I couldn't find any wikiproject or task force relates to this issue. I propose making at least a task force in Wikipedia:WikiProject United States. Please answer to this comment here--Seyyed(t-c) 10:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Userpages

It's generally not considered acceptable to edit other folks, except to remove vandalism; not even if you are praising them. I'm not reverting your recent edit to Kaz' userpage, in case it was done with his prior approval; but I thought you should know. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:USER, "pages in user space still do belong to the community"; what policy are you citing? Both User:John J. Bulten and User:Jimbo Wales encourage "edit this page". John J. Bulten 22:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userpages#Ownership and editing of pages in the user space: "...by convention your user page will usually not be edited by others." --Orange Mike | Talk 22:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification. I'll grant that I was nonconventional and presumed on Kazvorpal's approval. Thanks for watching so closely, I think. John J. Bulten 22:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I watch the talk and user pages of folks I've interacted with, for better or worse. I even get to revert an occasional vandalism before the user can (common courtesy). I think of it as part of collegiality; and some of these folks get to be friends of a sort, even if we got off on the wrong foot. --Orange Mike | Talk 05:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

User COI

→ In re: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Moneybomb and related matters.

To user John J. Bulten: This is a reminder that if, in the pursuit of your conflict of interest, you continue to edit disruptively and tendentiously and to violate the civility and ownership of articles policies, you risk being blocked from editing this encyclopedia. Some of the suggestions for COI compliance may be helpful to you. — Athaenara ✉ 17:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Notice of 24 hour block

This single-purpose account with a conflict of interest has been blocked from editing for 24 hours for persistent violations of the disruptive editing (definition) and Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point guidelines. If you believe this block is unjustified you may contest this block by replying here on your talk page by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}}, or email any administrator on the list of Wikipedia administrators, or email unblock-en-l@mail.wikimedia.org. — Athaenara ✉ 01:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)