User talk:William M. Connolley

Beware the Flag of the Rouge admin!

To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency and humility, is to honour him; as signs of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently is to dishonour. Leviathan, X. This is a Happy Talk Page. No bickering. Proverb for the year: if you have nothing new to say, don't say it. If you're here to talk about conflicts of interest, please read (all of!) this. You are welcome to leave messages here. I will reply here (rather than on, say, your user page). Conversely, if I've left a message on your talk page, I'm watching it, so please reply there. In general, I prefer to conduct my discussions in public. If you have a question for me, put it here (or on the article talk, or...) rather than via email. I "archive" (i.e. delete old stuff) quite aggressively (it makes up for my untidiness in real life). If you need to pull something back from the history, please do. Once. Please leave messages about issues I'm already involved in on the talk page of the article or project page in question. My Contribs • Blocks • Protects • Deletions • Block log

The Holding Pen

The <div> tag and Cascading Style Sheets

The <div> tag is part of the HTML standard, and in essence lets you group things logically in a HTML page. Since different user agents have different needs and treat the data differently (e.g. a screen reader for the visually impaired, a bot or a normal browser like Firefox) the rendering of elements and the logical structure has been separated into two different languages: HTML and CSS.

HTML is supposed to structure the document logically while CSS is used to change the visual appearance of a page. A website usually only has one or a few CSS documents (style sheets). Many HTML documents can then share the same style sheet, providing consistent formatting across the site.

The div element has two attributes, class and style, that are linked to the style sheet. The class attribute determines what "class" the element belong to. It is then possible to define a default style for elements of this class in the style sheet .

The style element is what's most interesting here though, it lets you override the default style of an element. So the part within the style="" is actually CSS.

W3C (website) is in charge of the CSS standard and it can be found on their website. Unfortunately, the dominating browser sets the de facto standard so things might not work as expected or even be implemented yet.

The W3C specifications aren't particularly good for learning but they are good as a reference. What you are looking for is probably: [1].

If you search the webb for CSS you will find countless examples and tutorials. Quick Googling turned up this for example: [2].

I took the liberty to modify your div tags on this page as an example, feel free to modify and revert as you like. I hope this is somewhat helpful at least. :)
—Apis (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! William M. Connolley (talk) 20:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Reviving Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Fluid dynamics

Crownest has expressed interest in reviving this. Since you were a member of the FD project (now converted into a taskforce), I'm wondering if you'd be a part of the Taskforce. The taskforce is undergoing a significant overhaul at the moment, and by the end of it, it should be fairly easy to get around and there should be a nifty compendium of useful tools for people interested in FD. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 10:55, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

In principle, I can help in small ways, though no longer being professionally involved. I wonder if there is an embedded prog taskforce? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Prog taskforced?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Current

Ocean acidification

A reader writes:

"Leaving aside direct biological effects, it is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.[31] This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2 with moderate (and potentially beneficial) implications for climate change as more CO2 leaves the atmosphere for the ocean.[32]"

I'm not sure, but it sounds odd. You can beat me to it if you like William M. Connolley (talk) 18:09, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, looks like it was User:Plumbago [3] William M. Connolley (talk) 18:27, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Correctly deduced. It was me. It may not be worded well, but I think that it's factually correct. Basically, as well as its other effects on living organisms in the ocean, acidification is also expected (see the references) to dissolve existing carbonate sediments in the oceans. This will increase the ocean's alkalinity inventory, which in turn increases its buffering capacity for CO2 - that is, the ocean can then store more CO2 at equilibrium than before (i.e. the "implications for climate change" alluded to). As a sidenote, it also means that palaeo scientists interested in inferring the past from carbonate sediment records will have to work fast (well, centuries) before their subject matter dissolves away! Hope this helps. --PLUMBAGO 06:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Double diffusive convection

Bit surprised there is no article on DDC? Has the term gone out of fashion? It was half the course in "Buoyancy in Fluid Dynamics" when I did Part III 23 years ago. --BozMo talk 13:13, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I remember is was a nice demo on the fluid dynamics summer school DAMPT ran. Not sure I would still be confident of writing it up 10:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I might have to suggest it to Huppert or someone. --BozMo talk 10:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

If one of you two makes a stub, I'd be willing to read up on it and make it a longer stub. Awickert (talk) 10:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

What a kind offer. I have started here: Double diffusive convection--BozMo talk 10:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

All right - I'll get to it (eventually). It's on my to-do list. Awickert (talk) 16:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Puzzle for the world

Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Resignation is rather interesting. Naturally, I'm inclined to wonder about the validity of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Geogre-William M. Connolley. Coren finds the idea of re-considering SB's votes in old cases uninteresting [4], presumably on the grounds that no conflict of interest could ahve occurred. I shall inquire of C directly whether he stands by that.

The issue of Dbiv / Fys / BS's contributions comes up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Dbiv shows nothing before [5] but this is very clearly wrong. Where have Dbiv's early contribs gone (are they are yet another account names?). Who, if anyone, can remember where User:Irishpunktom comes into this? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

In olden days when a user was renamed, deleted contributions were not re-attributed to the new name. If a deleted contribution was later restored, the old account would appear to have edits. In all of the edits for the Dbiv account, it appears that the pages were once deleted and were later restored. All of the edits you are looking for should be under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Fys or Special:DeletedContributions/Dbiv or Special:DeletedContributions/Fys. MBisanz ^talk 19:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Aha! Thanks. You can't remember the bit about IPT can you? William M. Connolley (talk) 19:41, 26 May 2009 (UTC) Might be stuff like [6] William M. Connolley (talk) 19:44, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that bit of history is well before my time and I'd hope to avoid having to study it when User:MBisanz#Articles written is still so short. MBisanz ^talk 19:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I now think it was a red herring - sorry for that William M. Connolley (talk) 21:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I immediately thought of that case when I looked at the editing histories of Fys and Dbiv, one of which ends in the frivolous RFC against you. Trying to hide his identity or not, he should have recused in that case and some others. I think Coren is flatly wrong here. Cool Hand Luke 19:46, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: I doubt reopening these cases would be helpful (he was not a prime mover in most of them), but I strongly disagree with the assertion that this was proper behavior for an arbitrator. Cool Hand Luke 19:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, alas, I can't see his vote as being decisive in any of that. Whether he said anything on the private mailing lists I don't know, but from what I've seen so far in the on-wiki logs I can't see strong grounds for asking William M. Connolley (talk) 19:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I immediately recognized the problem with Sam Blacketer voting in your case. This was largely the reason that I felt the situation needed to be addressed ASAP by Sam and the Committee. When I learned of the connection, I did some checking of my emails stored in my gmail account. I've checked emails sent to ArbCom and the old private sitting email list. He did participate in discussions about the case, but I did not see anything that showed him pressing for a harsh sanction or pressing for a particular outcome for the case. His comments were just as you would expect of an arbitrator that was weighing his opinions about a case. They were similar in nature to the comments that he makes in all case by private email and on site. So, while worrying, I don't see evidence of an actual problem of undue influence by him with his undisclosed identity. I'm going to do some more checking, and will let you know if I see anything that I think would warrant reconsidering the case. FloNight♥♥♥ 20:10, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for checking William M. Connolley (talk) 21:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Monty Hall Problem

Hello William. In February we were discussing on my talk page the Monty Hall Problem vis a vis Morgan's paper. I now have an electronic version of that paper. Please let me know if you have any further interest in this continuing dispute. Thank you. Glkanter (talk) 13:51, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

If you care to send me the paper, I'll read it William M. Connolley (talk) 14:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I have sent you a Wikipedia e-mail. Glkanter (talk) 09:29, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

A study on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies

Hi. I have emailed you to ask whether you would agree to participate in a short survey on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies in articles pertaining to global warming and climate change. If interested, please email me Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 19:35, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Having looked a the list of people you've asked, I'm concerned about your quality control. How are you screening responses? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:43, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Survey is posted here. It looks like the survey will fail unless you participate in it. :) Count Iblis (talk) 02:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Um. "ON WRITING THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA ARTICLE" looks designed for EB type people, not wiki. Looking at the rest it simply doesn't look very relevant to the wiki-process William M. Connolley (talk) 06:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I've had the same impression, and have contacted the author about it. I think that the one of the biggest issues is the questions that go along with "your article"; like you said, more designed for a professional single-author encyclopedia article. Awickert (talk) 07:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I managed to handle this by writing enough text. I claimed Global warming as my article, on the basis of being the 4th-most frequent named contributor, with a whopping 460 out of 13000 or so edits ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I talked to her and she said she didn't mind which article we used to answer each question, just as long as we made clear which article it was. And sheesh - next to you folks, I don't feel like I have any business responding! Awickert (talk) 07:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi all. Yes, the questionnaire was not designed specifically for Wikipedia, rather a range of different encyclopaedias, so it requires flexibility to answer it due to generic wordings and context. And yes, it may a bit hard to capture the wiki process through the questionnaire, but I am hoping to raise that question (and any other relevant point) during follow-up interviews.

To select participants: I looked at the list of articles from the Category: Global Warming and Category: Climate Change. For each article, I checked the History tab and from the revision history statistics, I compiled the list of all users who made major contributions. I am contacting contributors who made major contributions to 10 or more articles on GW and CC. Will also be included in the study are those who have contributed in less than 10 articles, but whose average contribution exceeded 10 edits per article (well, still not done as I ended up with a list of 360 users).

A comment I have already received about the screening approach: I may miss some key contributors to article content whereas users mostly involved in reverting changes/vandalisms may be overrepresented. It was recently suggested that I focus on the “top 10” climate articles and rank the contributors – I may give it a try, if I find a way of defining what the “top 10” are.

And sorry for not coming back earlier to all of you. I now know I have to keep an eye on the talkpage of other users Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 08:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think you've made a very good selection of people to contact. The most obvious mistake is User:JonGwynne, but there are any number of others on your list who aren't actively malicious, but have just made negligible contributions in this area: User:Gogo Dodo is just one random example, there are many more. I am contacting contributors who made major contributions to 10 or more articles on GW and CC - I don't believe this, unless you've got a very different definition of "major" to me William M. Connolley (talk) 20:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, at this stage, my definition of “major” is just based on statistical numbers and nothing to do with the quality of contribution yet. But I had to make some arbitrary (not necessary good) decisions on how to go with sampling before getting in touch with you.

May be I was not very clear about how I proceeded. So, to take the example of the Global warming article, I went to the history page and clicked on the Revision history statistics. I checked the boxes so that the statistics is grouped by users and that all minor edits, bots, and anonymous are hidden. The resulting table was simply copied into an Excel spreadsheet to get the basic list of contributors per article. In total, for the 200 or so articles from Category: Global Warming and Category: Climate Change, I ended up with a list of more than 9.800 users who supposedly made “major edits”. For sampling purpose, I only filtered down the list to users who contributed to 10 or more articles + users who have contributed in less than 10 articles but whose average contribution per article exceeded 10 “major” edits.

The 360 shortlisted users are what I call “major contributors”. But as you stated very clearly, my list does not make any distinction between malicious users, users with negligible input and those who really make major contribution to the content of the article.

I know, I will have to look beyond the numbers and really focus on the quality of edits at later stage of the research. Long-term active Wikipedians know what is happening within Wikipedia so, if any of you guys have suggestion, I am really eager to hear it Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 10:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to gather some thoughts William M. Connolley (talk) 21:32, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Slow edit war

User:Miriamw18 has been slow edit warring on Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, removing content that she seems to not like. She has refused all requests to explain her edits, has repeated them twice, and works for the ELCA. You might consider giving her a short block to wake her up to the idea that she needs to stop doing this? Awickert (talk) 16:49, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Warned / advised. Oh, and if *you* would like some advice, I will be clear: I will never stop reverting you until you explain why you are deleting that content is a hostage to fortune :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 21:31, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree, but I've been getting frustrated with POV-pushers lately. Speaking of, my edit summary (if you even read) on solar variation was pointed at D: you reverted POV-vandalism to status quo (albeit an partial truth status quo). He re-reverted to keep the POV idiocy there. Good thing I'm about to be away for a week. Awickert (talk) 01:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You mean Solar cycle? I saw that :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 07:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Yep - that's what I meant. I'm sure reading my original edit summary would have been much more enjoyable as it was actually witty and sarcastic, but I didn't want to risk being banned. :-). Just finishing packing up - as usual, can't find a few small but vital things and it's 2 AM here and I'm about to drive across Colorado and Utah... :-). Enjoy the coming week, and good luck with the bees, rowing, etc. Might upload a few nice pictures and send you a link as I'll be in the northern tributaries to the Grand Canyon. Awickert (talk) 08:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget to calculate your carbon footprint for the trip :-). Do upload the pix William M. Connolley (talk) 22:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Block evasion

I blocked Student of philosophy (talk · contribs) for block evasion on your block of 194.124.140.39 (talk · contribs). If this is not in keeping with the intent of your original block, please feel free to modify my block however you see fit, or undo it. Guettarda (talk) 23:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

[7] seems clear enough, so thank you for your action William M. Connolley (talk) 08:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

FYI [8] Guettarda (talk) 22:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Has form

This must be the slang of some country across the ocean from me. When you say 'has form' at AN3, you mean the person named already has a block record? EdJohnston (talk) 20:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I read it as just confirming the report is appropriate. (wikt:good form) –xeno^talk 21:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah no, Ed was right, I use it in the sense of police / court. I thought it was a commonplace. As in "bang 'im up guv, 'es got form". Like this [9]. Oh yes, or [10] (sense 1, of course :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:09, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining =) Never heard that one. –xeno^talk 13:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Your edit to Cold fusion

William, I appreciate your edit to Cold fusion, which did improve the article over the version as originally protected. However, at the time that GoRight made his suggestion there were two existing polls, with four !votes showing, that indicated a preliminary consensus for the version of May 31 as having the broadest support (though not enough editors have participated yet for it to make much sense.) This version was actually suggested by Hipocrite as a compromise, Verbal had signed onto it, and I had given it almost complete acceptance. I don't think it was right to neglect existing process in favor of some spur-of-the-moment suggestion from someone who had no understanding of what was in the revisions, and who didn't express an opinion in either of the polls.

There is a lot of backstory here, it's really quite a mess. --Abd (talk) 01:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

As I noted on the talk page subsequent to your taking action, I had merely meant to offer up another option for the consideration of those who are actually involved on the page and never really intended for it to be acted upon without discussion by those involved. There clearly has been no discussion of my proposal to date, per se, and so it would be hard to say that it has any more consensus behind it than any of the options suggested within the polls ... except perhaps the tenuous consensus it seemingly enjoyed for a 5 day period.

I assume that if the community there reaches consensus on a different and more up to date version that you won't object to switching to that, correct? So I guess we need to wait and see what the polling and the mediation turns up.

Thanks for your quick response even though we may have jumped the gun a bit. --GoRight (talk) 04:09, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

CF is something of a disaster area and until more people take an active interest I wouldn't be too surprised if it stayed that way. I'm not terribly interested in A's opinion, so that he doesn't think what I did was right weights rather lightly with me. I'm amenable to exerting some admin oversight there if I can be useful, but I don't expect to make everyone happy William M. Connolley (talk) 15:20, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

"CF is something of a disaster area and until more people take an active interest I wouldn't be too surprised if it stayed that way." - Given all the high visibility actions related to this topic even at the Arbcom level, I doubt that anyone would disagree. One thing is for certain, though, you have taken on a rather thankless job that, in the end, is likely to leave some loving you and others hating you ... barring a miracle, of course.  :)

Perhaps a selective cooling off period as you have put into play will allow the less assertive editors there to take a more active interest than they have been able (or at least willing) to recently. --GoRight (talk) 01:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

CF topic bans

Perhaps should be logged somewhere, given the propensity for WP:LAWYER etc. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:33, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone else suggested that, but over the deniable channel of email. Could do; I'm not sure I'm too bothered. If you want to note I've done it, feel free William M. Connolley (talk) 22:35, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I was half-way through a post to ANI on the thread started by Woonpton when I lost the lot, got annoyed and went to bed. This morning, I find a bold solution has been implemented, saving me the need to re-collect diffs, etc. Thank you. EdChem (talk) 23:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I also want to thank Connolley, now I can pospone again the collection of lots of diffs for a RFC/U. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

WMC, your banning me and Hipocrite from Cold fusion was actually a solution I had suggested in several places (banning from the article, not from Talk. The article ban is not the problem. Your being the one to do it is a minor problem, because of our prior involvement, and the above exchange shows clear bias and personal involvement in a dispute (an extended, long-term dispute) with me. I posted this response to your comment at Cold fusion:

WMC, I dispute the Talk page restriction, and you are an involved administrator with respect to me, it's easily and immediately shown, and you have, ordinarily, no business imposing a non-voluntary ban on me. However, because the concern here is the article, not the Talk page, I will waive my right to contest the ban based on your involvement, and will accept it, if you limit the ban to 30 days for the article itself, for both Hipocrite and myself. Both of us, on my Talk page, already agreed to a mutual ban like this, limit unspecified, in order to expedite unprotection and allow the article to follow consensus without fuss, so your imposition of something greater than that merely means you haven't been paying attention, this was all pointed out to you. Please advise if you accept this. Until then, I will consider the full restriction to be in place, as declared by you, upon provision of notice to myself and Hipocrite on User Talk pages -- so that it is mutual and properly noticed --, and would later appeal. Until then, or, better, until you lower the ban to just the article, which is all that could be justified from the situation, I will make no further posts to this page.

Thanks. If you modify it as requested, this may have cut the Gordian knot. Otherwise, I'm afraid, it will increase disruption, not reduce it. --Abd (talk) 19:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

You deleted that brief comment, with [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Cold_fusion&diff=next&oldid=294842682 (Decision: deleted adb comment - the terms of the ban are clear):

[Deleted. Do this again and I block you William M. Connolley (talk) 20:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)] --Abd (talk) 19:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

This is utterly unnecessary wikidrama and threat.

• I'd already agreed to an article topic ban and considered it in effect, under the terms of my agreement with Hipocrite on my Talk page.
• I stated in my comment that you deleted that I would make no further edits to the page, pending resolution, even though I disputed your right to declare the ban without my agreement. Therefore the threat was unnecessary, and, in this case, you would not be an appropriate admin to enforce the ban in any case, you are clearly involved and biased.
• There was no warning over Talk page participation.
• I had just challenged your choice of version to revert to; when you made that choice, it was, on the face, based on a suggestion from GoRight, with almost no discussion but a consent from one party whose editing goals were actually furthered by it, he had edit warred to keep the material present in the May 31 version out of the article (that was the occasion for your protection of May 21); most of that material had been accepted by consensus, and we were working on more when he edit warred again, resulting in additional protection, and because he had gamed RfPP, major POV changes had been made that were worse than reverts. There were, as you know, two polls set up to consider what version to revert to. I set one up, listing some versions that I thought should be considered. Only one of these was my own preferred version of the possibilities, it was the version that existed when Hipocrite reverted himself, probably to avoid hitting 3RR (I wasn't edit warring at all in this sequence), then went to RfPP, then made a major POV edit to the lead, immediately, knowing that protection was coming down. That was the version that I thought best, it simply undid the result of gaming RfPP. Hipocrite refused to participate in that poll, instead setting up his own poll, proposing versions more to his liking. A few editors participated in that poll, since I believed that !votes for all versions should be collected in one place, I copied those !votes, in equivalent form, to my own poll, so that it would be complete. I also added the version as reverted by you. You might notice that, looking at both polls, it's the May 31 version that *everyone* supported, with, so far, low support for the May 14 version you chose. You ignored an expressed article consensus to pick a version on your own. I must conclude that it's possible you personally preferred this version, or realized that you would effectively be supporting Hipocrite's edit warring by choosing that version. GoRight had no knowledge of the history.
• Your complete ban from the article and from Talk looks punitive to me.

Please reduce the ban to 30 days from the article only, and recuse yourself from further administrative involvement, and please notify Hipocrite of the ban, if you have not already done so. You hadn't last I looked. --Abd (talk) 02:10, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I decline your request. I am happy to note that portions of the ban correspond to a voluntary agreement. Whilst I anticipate it lasting approximately one month, the period remains indefinite. Since the page is now unprotected, the version I chnaged it to under protection is now moot William M. Connolley (talk) 10:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not moot to questions of admin use of tools while involved, and to editing an article to a preferred version while it's under protection, without consensus having formed for that version. See you around. --Abd (talk) 13:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Evening Dr. Connolley, I can't seem to find a policy justification for the topic ban on cold fusion. Can you point me to one? Thanks, Geoff Plourde (talk) 05:16, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I refer you to the user box in the top right hand corner of your page :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 10:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Dr. Connolley. I sometimes edit the cold fusion article. I'm sorry but I don't understand your reply above to Geoff Plourde. I would appreciate it if you would tell me what policy or process you're using as a justification for topic-banning Hipocrite and Abd, (and if IAR, then what the reason is for invoking it), and also what behaviour you're addressing. Thank you. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, you see GP's user page? And you see the box in the top right corner? That's what I meant by "I refer you to the user box in the top right hand corner of your page". I'm using common sense. I might make up a process if you forced me to William M. Connolley (talk) 07:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

GoRight's Follow-up Questions

Now that the dust has settled on this and things are moving again at Cold Fusion I have been going back to review the process which was followed at arriving where we are in terms of the topic bans. This caused me to go back an review the substance of a similar case involving JzG and his ban of Jed Rothwell.

My interactions with JzG in that case are documented here. Because of this reflection the parallels between that case and this one are now becoming evident to me, and so I have a couple of questions in this regard:

1. Are you planning to record your declaration of a topic ban at WP:RESTRICT as would be customary for such bans?
2. While you don't appear to have been involved in the content dispute at Cold Fusion, do you recall if you have ever had occasion to support any bans or other sanctions against either User:Hipocrite or User:Abd elsewhere? I only ask because recent Arbcom decisions related to Abd and JzG have indicated that prior involvement such as that may render the current bans suspect in some respects and I just want to make sure that proper procedure has been followed in this case.
3. In the Arbitration request I participated in (referenced above), there was never a clear articulation of the policies JzG relied upon to declare a ban of Rothwell without significant community discussion of the topic. Given that you took action without any such discussion could you please describe the basis of your authority to unilaterally declare such a ban in this case?

As I have said earlier, I certainly support an enforced cooling off period for some amount of time in this case for these users, but only if such action is within the bounds of Wikipedia Administrative norms and policies. So if you have any sort of contentious history with either of the banned users it might be best to explicitly recuse yourself from further action and find another completely uninvolved Administrator to sanction and enforce this ban. If you have no such entanglements then we should be good to go.

The only real problem that I, personally, have with the current ban (assuming the proper i's are dotted and such) is that you have not declared a date certain for the expiration of the ban and in fact have indicated that you consider it indefinite (but approximately one month in duration). I definitely have a problem with an indefinite ban for either of these users, especially without community discussion on that point. Lacking such community consensus for such indefinite action would it punative, IMHO, which is not the purpose we should be approaching things from. Would you consider setting a date certain for the end of the ban?

Do you have any other thoughts or concerns in these regards that should be addressed to properly enforce these bans?

Thanks for your time and assistance. --GoRight (talk) 03:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

1. No, but feel free.
2. You can read A's and H's block log as well as I can. I recall a RFC on Abd but can't find it just now.
3. There has been endless discussion.

I think that things are moving again at Cold Fusion is correct and the most relevant statement here. Second-choice goes to your arbcomm link [11] which on a cursory reading appears to support JzG's prior action. Wiki isn't for editors to have fun at; it is an encyclopaedia. Discussion is good, and endless discussion can be fun if you like that, but is bad if obscures progress as it has at CF William M. Connolley (talk) 07:33, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

(Don't mind me, I'm just kibitzing. Disclosure: As far as I know I have no previous involvement in this topic. I have advocated for a block of – or actually blocked – both of these editors in the past for their actions in unrelated areas.)

As WMC says, the key is that things are moving again. While I'm not a mindreader (and WMC is welcome to expand on or correct my interpretation), I would assume that the article and talk bans were issued for three reasons:

1. Long-term low-level edit warring;
2. Persistently unpleasant, obnoxious, antagonistic tone on the talk page; and
3. Inability to stop arguing by one or both participants.

No outside editor wanted to wade into the pit of flame, and any who did anyway could barely get a word in edgewise. The article was under long-term protection, third parties weren't being heard except to be used as tokens in fights on the talk page.

Post-ban, the article is unprotected, civil discussion is taking place, and so far nobody's words are getting lost in pages of circular screed. I hope it will last, and I certainly think that the experiment is worthwhile.

I'm not a fan of time-limiting the bans. This problem wasn't going away by itself, and neither editor should be allowed to return to this topic until he shows the underlying problem has been resolved. Both Abd and Hipocrite expressed an interest in mediation at User talk:Cryptic C62/Cold fusion. If they demonstrate an ability to work collaboratively and collegially there (or in some other forum), perhaps WMC might consider lifting their bans at cold fusion. In the meantime, there's no point to disrupting the work of editors who are behaving themselves. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Mooretwin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

I just declined an unblock request there. This is clearly a problem user with 10 EW blocks. How do we institute a 1R sanction? I've never done such. Does it have to go to ArbComm?Toddst1 (talk) 22:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

It is up to the admin how to go about it. One approach is simply to say "I impose a 1RR parole on you". OTOH I would suggest a simpler approach: if he returns to edit warring after the 1 month block, just indef him. I can't see this as important enough to go to arbcomm - they would reject it William M. Connolley (talk) 22:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Toddst1 (talk) 22:40, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Mooretwin has just raised a concern about possible sock-puppetry. GoodDay (talk) 22:43, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Cold fusion bans

Greetings! I have recently been informed that you banned a number of editors from editing Cold fusion and its talk page. You may or may not be aware that I am currently attempting to mediate the Cold fusion content issues User talk:Cryptic C62/Cold fusion. The involved parties, namely Hipocrite and Abd seem to believe that this sort of content mediation is a step in the right direction. I would prefer that this mediation move forward, but I thought it would be a good idea to discuss it with you first. Should Abd and Hipocrite be permitted to post at the mediation page? On the one hand, the page in question is in my user talk space. Given the rules I have set forth regarding this mediation, it is unlikely that either of them will be able to continue the behavior that you have identified as being bannable. On the other hand, the discussions contained on said page will be focused on cold fusion. The end result of these conversations may lead to substantial changes to the cold fusion article, thus allowing them to indirectly edit the article. What do you think? Thanks! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 00:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello. You have been correctly informed. I in my turn apologise for not have done so myself. I don't see that these bans need to affect the mediation process - whether they can post or not is at your discretion William M. Connolley (talk) 10:36, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Alrighty. Thanks. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 15:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Unblock offer - do you agree?

Hello WMC. Please look at User talk:PasswordUsername#Offer of a deal and comment there if you support this offer. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 17:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I've seen the comments there, so I don't think I need to intervene William M. Connolley (talk) 18:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Referencing awards

WMC, I'm currently working with the subject of a biography article on referencing claims in the article and to avoid any further COI concerns. There are some military awards listed in the article which in part establish notability but there is no online source for verification. He has the certificates/letters from the government that he can scan in but I'm not sure how to use those files as there's no place to host them reliably. Do you know of a way to use these scans as inline citations? Should I just have him upload the scans as pictures to Wikipedia then somehow use them inline? I'm not really sure how to proceed here. OlYeller^Talktome 18:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a question that I think many people get wrong - I mean your "there is no online source for verification". That doesn't matter. As long as there are reliable sources, that is all that is needed. If the letters and certificates exist from the government, and are in government files somewhere, then that is a good source. Demonstrating that the source exists is of course rather harder. A scan of a letter is pretty good evidence - not 100%, they can be faked of course, but that unless this is a major article it is unlikely that level of effort would be appropriate. So the guy can send you the scans, and you can if you please put them onto wikisource - or just upload them as images here. It might be important in that case to remember that the scans aren't the source - they are merely evidence that the true source really does exist William M. Connolley (talk) 18:35, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Sustainability disruption

An editor has again become disruptive on the sustainability article. You had imposed a 1RR ban on this editor a few weeks ago. He is now violating that [12], [13]. Sunray (talk) 06:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't look like a vio to me, from the datestamps William M. Connolley (talk) 07:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

71.244.168.61 has returned

Hello, you recently blocked 71.244.168.61 for edit waring. The user's IP address has changed to 71.244.183.57 and has continued edit waring the same edit. Jolly Ω Janner 21:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Semi'd. Let m eknow if other pages suffer William M. Connolley (talk) 21:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The user is very regular (probably the most active) across those news pages and always adds excessive levels of wikilinking. It is a very minor issue, but the fact that the user edits wars days afterwards suggests the user has an attitude problem and is not suitable for Wikipedia. I don't think that you should semi all the news portal pages, because IPs are a very good source of adding news items from all over the place. Therefore I have no idea what to do. Jolly Ω Janner 21:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I blocked .57, though I doubt that helps. Again, let me know William M. Connolley (talk) 21:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, cheers. If this problem never goes away (and I doubt it will), should I just continue telling you the user's latest IP address, or is there a different process that should be done. I just wish that user would stop the overlinkg and edit waring. It is such a minor issue, but the user's lack of communication is a real problem. If only we could persuade the user to stop. Jolly Ω Janner 21:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Keep telling me the IPs for a bit, see if that helps William M. Connolley (talk) 21:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/71.244.175.76. Jolly Ω Janner 14:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Done William M. Connolley (talk) 15:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Protection on Cold Fusion

No problem. I protected the page as a routine operation at WP:RFPP because I didn't have time to actually do any mediating myself and wanted to at least put a stop to the edit warring. I'm glad someone has that situation under control. --⟳ausa کui ^× 20:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Your attempted ban of me from Cold fusion

Dr. Connolley, given objections raised above, I'm withdrawing my consent to any ban from Cold fusion; I've concluded that:

• You are involved, and were engaged in a content dispute with me based on my questioning of your reversion of the article while under protection to the May 14 version.
• You were also involved due to prior dispute with me. You are not neutral.
• I proposed that I would accept the ban, regardless of that, if you did not include Talk:Cold fusion, made it 30 days, and notified Hipocrite on his Talk of the dual ban. You did not accept this offer, it is withdrawn. A voluntary ban was originally proposed as an attempt to encourage rapid unprotection of the article so that serious damage could be repaired, and I extended that offer in an attempt to avoid conflict. However, you insisted on maintaining your extreme position without compromise, and the need for unprotection is now moot.
• You have no authority to ban a user from an article, on your own initiative, per WP:BAN. You may block for disruption, and you may propose or accept a voluntary ban in lieu of a block, but I was not engaged in disruptive activity at the time of your issuance of the ban, or at any other time; and even if I was, a normal block would have expired and imposing one now, absent present disruption, would be punitive and contrary to policy.
• The ban does not exist. IAR isn't just for you. And, please, do read the essay that you cited as part of your ban justification above, Don't be a dick. Maybe read it a few times. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 04:13, 10 June 2009 (UTC)