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Hi, welcome to my talk page!

If you are new to Wikipedia, please read A primer for newcomers, it will probably answer most of your questions.

Online now? It is 4:10 PM where this user lives near Udon Thani, Thailand

SEMI-RETIRED

This user is no longer very active on Wikipedia as of March 2020,.

I confess to crassness!

But in all seriousness Chris, I would ask that you reconsider your total retirement. Maybe a semi, whatever would fit your schedule and patience. But you are needed. Simon. Simon Adler (talk) 04:28, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

+1 And Simon, I'll extend my appreciation for his occasional words of wisdom on my UTP and elsewhere on WP. I was also sad over the cancellation of Wikimania 2020 which was my big chance to finally meet the Kudz in person, dangit. To your ever-improving health, Kudpung! 🍻 Atsme 💬 📧 13:31, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In person he's an indescribable treat, especially if he can get his hands on a piano and a beer ;-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:02, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Green for hope

Today, we have a DYK about Wilhelm Knabe, who stood up for future with the striking school children when he was in his 90s, - a model, - see here. - Thank you for your position in the arb case request, - I feel I have to stay away, but there are conversations further down on the page, in case of interest, - in a nutshell: "... will not improve kindness, nor any article". - Yesterday, I made sure on a hike that the flowers are actually blooming ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:56, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration Case Opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Evidence. Please add your evidence by March 13, 2021, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RexxS/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, SQL ^{Query me!} 04:52, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:41, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for standing up for integrity. We lost another good one. He designed this template, DYK? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:41, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Today: Carmen for TFA (on my request), with Bizet's music "expressing the emotions and suffering of his characters" as Brian worded it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:39, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How about deleting the thread/t above? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:38, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hope you're doing well

Hey, just dropping by to say that it's a breath of fresh air to still see your level-headed and informed responses around the site, even after that disastrous ArbCom case. Hope you have a great year, Anarchyte (talk • work) 12:38, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Anarchyte. It's refreshing to note that I'm not as evil as some people are still trying to make me out to be which nevertheless means I have to be careful what I say and where I say it! I haven't seen you around much lately but you're obviously very much on the ball and I certainly remember supporting your RfA 😀 Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:45, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

Hi Kudpung,

I had a bit of free time on my hands, and I'm really not in the mood to edit so I thought I might take a moment to say hello. If I haven't told you before, I do really appreciate what you do here, and I'm glad you decided to stick around. I'll also say that I think you got a really raw deal a while back. Just wanted to wish the very best to you and yours. — Ched (talk) 23:35, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ched, Thanks for the kind words. I think I got a raw deal, and if my bitterness shows through, it's only because I hope it doesn't happen again to anyone else. Trying to defend them as I do with as much caution as I can muster would get me stripped of the bit again (if some had their way) if that were possible, but right now I've got nowt to lose except the ability to make a few minor edits now and again 😉 Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:48, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed this and sighed. I know you're all to painfully aware, but what wasn't said there is that "hatred has no guilt or remorse". That's not to say your comment fell on deaf ears, there are a few folks well aware of the point being made. I really appreciate your comments Chris. (hey - I've seen you post your own name - so no "outting" comments please - but feel free to delete if you'd like) All my best. — Ched (talk) 23:17, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

as empty as the heads of some of the commenters on the noticeboards?

Well, Ched, sigh away - it won't help! If I hadn't stepped on two or three toes and been stripped of the bit almost a year ago to the day, last week I would have also reached the end of the proposed 10-year term and I wouldn't have minded in the slightest, and like others who reach pensionable age like I did a few years ago, would have rejoined the 'rank-and-file' with the dignity of knowing, like RexxS, that I had not been lazy and that not all I did over the years was 'very, very bad'. I've never published a full analysis of the 2019-2020 desysopings, but while I'm still sound of mind, now that I am semi-retired from Wikipedia and well into my 70s, I have nearly 40 hours a week more on my hands for other things, I probably will and now also include the RexxS case and its aftermath. It might not hit the The Guardian or the NYT best seller lists but it will be a good read for protagonists and antagonists alike, especially for them over on the Wikipedia hate sites.

What happens is that once someone offers a catalyst for opening a case (and if they don't like you they will often scour your posts to find something), everything one has ever said is deliberately cherry-picked, parsed, and pulled right out of context in order to infer something damning that can be added as fuel to the fire together with any anecdotal evidence they can dig up. It's almost a perverse sport on Wikipedia and the umpires only count the points and rubber stamp the result.

I can live without the admin tools (I did for years before I was cajoled into running for the bit), but the total character assassination that goes with the cases of some recent desysopings of really industrious and otherwise popular editors, is nothing less than a frenzied, collective heavy-duty PA by a pitchfork wielding mob (hang around and you'll see this post reported somewhere within the next 24 hours!).

Take RfA, ANI, and Arbcom as the trio of most popular fora of any kind on Wikipedia and you'll find that there is basically nothing wrong with the processes (although Arbcom has more bureaucracy than a military dictatorship). The actual problem with those venues all lies within the the behaviour with impunity, and the motivations of some of the participants. Do something about that and you've solved one of the major thorns in the project's side, and at the same time bring to book a few users who are as slippery as eels and manage to stay under the collective radar. Maybe The Signpost will write something, but even their editors have to walk a tightrope these days and the once popular periodical (which I rescued from oblivion) has become little more than a newsletter and yet another platform for the WMF's self-aggrandising.

There is something decidedly dystopian lurking in the dank and steamy corridors of Wikipedia's basements. Whether there are people who would like to ban me for saying it, there really are some mean spirited users around - with or without advanced rights - and there are people who see themselves as Theseus and the sysops as Minotaurs, but throwing out the editors with the most experience, off.Wiki initiative, and institutional memory, to damnatio ad bestias is not the kind of diversion that is needed on a serious Foundation flagship project..

Anyway, I won't bore you with all the details, instead you, or any others (and members of this still active category) stumbling on this, might certainly wish to take 3 minutes to read this short page now in my archives. – Chris (Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:04, 12 March 2021 (UTC))[reply]

What a lovely image, Chris! The title, though, has an obvious spelling error. No time to read the above yet, I'll write one more article in memory of RexxS, and make a statement in the case, after all, - one diff. Not that it will change anything, - this user feels like Cassandre having said that the case would not improve kindness, nor an article. (see User talk:Hammersoft, always good reading) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:54, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Arb chat

Hey there Chris - I hope this finds you and yours doing well. I really like the picture - I might have to change mine. :-) One other thing did cross my mind regarding the RexxS case, but I wasn't sure it was proper to mention at a case page. It appeared to me that a couple ex-arbs were trying to heavily influence the outcome. While all editors are encouraged to speak/type, I wasn't impressed with constant hammering at things. I know it's possible it's only my perception - but it looked like a couple folks were trying to throw their weight around as if their views should be given extra consideration. Am I mistaken in my view? If not, did you experience the same thing? Well, that second sort of answers itself I guess. I know that your own case showed a heavy leaning toward one side. IMO I'd expect a more respectful tone from an Arb (ex or not). I would have thought time spent on the committee would teach one some balance, fairness, humility and perspective. I'm now questioning that thought. Do you have any input? And if you'd like to speak more openly than wiki allows, feel free to respond in email. (or if you'd rather not say anything, that's fine too) — Ched (talk) 13:25, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ched. I have already hinted elsewhere the same thing about former arbitrators - some of it long before I was ever desysoped. Do take a look at a couple of other threads further up on Hammersoft's tp here and here. He makes some scathing comments comments about Arbcom which I thoroughly concur with - indeed, if I were to have said things like that they would have been dug up and used against me on my arbcom case. This thread on Barkeep49's page will also interest you. I've handed my tools in voluntarily twice in the past due to health issues, and if I were still an admin and if RexxS gets desysoped, I would hand them in in protest. Anyway, when the dust has settled - WTT's RfC has failed and it remains to be seen what comes of Tony's - I'll be shutting up for a while until the next popular, industrious admin is hauled before a kangaroo court by a mischievous, vindictive wannabe Wikicop. I really like Beeblebrox, but I'm afraid his vote will close the case; while I nevertheless respect his reasoning, there is an argument for not totally getting rid of editors like RexxS whose Wikiwork is two-thirds important off-Wiki activity that is not reflected in his edit count. Indeed, if all the time he has spent for Wikipedia were to be measured in ec, it would be a million, not a paltry 43K! These are things no arbcom members ever think of when voting to desysop. Some people, like BrownHairedGirl, despite her initial reaction, will not be deterred from continuing to contribute, but others, and I, have things in RL that can keep us just as busy. That's all I'm prepared to say for the benefit of my 600 talk page stalkers; you have mail for the rest. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:34, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One person worries me in all of this, and it's not an arb (current or ex). This person registered an account in late January 2018, and over the next 2 years 4 months made only 31 edits. Then their edit count exploded - on the first day of this new phase they made 38 edits, more than doubling their edit count overnight; in the ensuing nine months it has now passed 20,000 (incl. deleted). For somebody who did very little prior to June 2020, they seem to know a great deal about past events. They also seem to have collected an awful lot of hats too (one of them, rollbacker, was granted just eight days after they made their 32nd edit; and another, pending changes reviewer, followed just three days later) - they've never been an admin or an arb, but what might they try for someday? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:13, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You mean them who don't understand the meaning of Don't. ? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:27, 24 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda, In my opinion, that page should be an essay, or better still an official guidance page. Even better still, it could replace the 5 Pillars. Section 4 is interesting and very often they are exactly the kind of people who won't let go. When they understand that the person they are baiting has walked away, they then make their next disingenuous move: they take the issue to a notice board determined to make believe they are in the right. They are not , of course, but they cherry-pick and take things out of context and the community believes them. I have some classic, irrefutable, recent examples of this but to mention them here would get me ~~desysoped~~ blocked or banned. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64, One former user with advanced rights has a behaviour pattern that would get any other admin dragged before a noticeboard - aye, there's the irony! While another stalks my edits and deliberately reads into them things I never said or intended to mean, and bullies me with them - this is a common sport on Wikipedia and it's a wicked psychological weapon. Quite a few well known people people do it and some of them have ended up indeffed or desysoped but generally for some other reason, or quitely (or not so quietly) resigned from Arbcom and/or retired from Wikioedia. People have tried to pin the same tactics on me, but I'm not that devious, I just bluntly say what think or describe exactly what I've discovered - just doing my job being a former expert on COIN and UPE, smoking people out lost me my tools. As you say, one of the more sinister aspects of this project is that there are some banned/blocked/disgraced former admins and arbs who are ostensibly operating sock farms - nothing I can put my finger on though, but there is someone on another site who is bragging about it. Pastor Theo was probably the worst case in history, but it doesn't mean it can't/won't happen again, and it doesn't help if people who are good at discovering these things and who for example have access to the CU tools are constantly run off the project. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64, PS, I know exactly who you are talking about. It's actually blatantly obvious and what they are aiming at. They will never be an admin if I have anything to do with it. You have mail. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:03, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64, I suspect I can imagine who that might be, and if so, I fully concur.— Ched (talk) 21:09, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So RexxS has finally been desysoped. I'm sorry Primefac, despite some of the good stuff we've done together over the years, I feel I have been voting for the wrong people. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry you feel that way. To be honest, I'm not particularly thrilled with how this turned out either, though had I recused as initially planned this still would have ended up the same way (as regardless of whether I abstained or supported the motion it would have passed, and there just wasn't enough for me to oppose outright; I went through a dozen rejected draft replies to that remedy before finally reaching a conclusion). I don't think any of us ever want to sanction editors, but making hard decisions is what we signed up for. Not trying to make excuses, as I (reluctantly) stand by my position, but I hope that this one decision will not be the end of our relationship. Primefac (talk) 14:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Primefac I've always had a great respect for Beeblebrox and consider him a friend and an asset to the Community–and not only because I have had the huge pleasure of meeting him in RL–and I fully understand his principle which caused the pile-on by you you and SoWhy. However, such principles do not necessarily need to result in the harshest of remedies for which there is no turning back and no appeal, particularly one which in the case of some desysopings can lead to a genuine net loss for Wikipedia. Once elected to Arbcom, for some, the feeling of such immense power throws out all understanding for possible mitigation. CaptainEek, one of the drafters, still has to vote, but it won't make any difference at this stage. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:32, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have quite a history of holding admins to the involved policy, having filed two cases related to it myself, and presenting evidence in a few others. I take no pleasure in this but I truly feel it is one of the most important administrative policies we have. I'm aware that you and Rexx are friends and you really wouldn't like this, but I couldn't let that influence my decision. My hope is that you and others can maybe convince him he didn't need to be an admin to do most of the things he did for so long and he may actually be happier without the tools. I don't want him to leave the project entirely and I don't think anyone else on the committee does either. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:05, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 259: / Line 259: @@
 :::{{U|Redrose64}},  One former user with advanced rights has a behaviour pattern that would get any other admin dragged before a noticeboard - aye, there's the irony! While another stalks my edits and deliberately reads into them things I never said or intended to mean, and bullies me with them - this is [[WP:HARRASS|a common sport on Wikipedia]] and it's a wicked psychological weapon. Quite a few well known people people do it and some of them have  ended up indeffed or desysoped but generally for some other reason, or quitely (or not so quietly) resigned from Arbcom and/or retired from Wikioedia. People have tried to pin the same tactics on me, but I'm not that devious, I just bluntly say what think or describe exactly what I've discovered - just doing my job being a former expert on COIN and UPE, smoking people out lost me my tools. As you say, one of the more sinister aspects of this project is that there are some banned/blocked/disgraced former admins and arbs who are ostensibly operating sock farms - nothing I can put my finger on though, but there is someone on another site who is bragging about it. {{U|Pastor Theo}} was probably the worst case in history, but it doesn't mean it can't/won't happen again, and it doesn't help if people who are good at discovering these things and who for example have access to the CU tools are constantly run off the project.  [[User:Kudpung|Kudpung กุดผึ้ง]] ([[User talk:Kudpung#top|talk]]) 02:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 :::{{U|Redrose64}}, PS, I know exactly who you are talking about. It's actually blatantly obvious and what they are aiming at. They will never be an admin if I have anything to do with it. You have mail. [[User:Kudpung|Kudpung กุดผึ้ง]] ([[User talk:Kudpung#top|talk]]) 06:03, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
+:::{{u|Redrose64}}, I suspect I can imagine who that might be, and if so, I fully concur.[[User:Ched|— Ched]] ([[User talk:Ched|talk]]) 21:09, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 *So RexxS has finally been desysoped. I'm sorry {{U|Primefac}}, despite some of [[WP:AFC|the good stuff we've done together over the years]], I feel I have been voting for the wrong people. [[User:Kudpung|Kudpung กุดผึ้ง]] ([[User talk:Kudpung#top|talk]]) 02:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 *:I'm sorry you feel that way. To be honest, I'm not particularly thrilled with how this turned out either, though had I recused as initially planned this still would have ended up the same way (as regardless of whether I abstained or supported the motion it would have passed, and there just wasn't enough for me to oppose outright; I went through a dozen rejected draft replies to that remedy before finally reaching a conclusion). I don't think any of us ever ''want'' to sanction editors, but making hard decisions is what we signed up for. Not trying to make excuses, as I (reluctantly) stand by my position, but I hope that this one decision will not be the end of our relationship. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 14:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC)