User talk:SarekOfVulcan

Please add new comments in new sections, e.g., by clicking here. Thanks. SarekOfVulcan

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clarification please...

Wrt this excision -- could you please return to Talk:Hussein Salem Mohammed and read my comment about it?

Your edit was characterized, as the ruling of an administrator.

The administrators I know best spend most of their time participating in the wikipedia as plain ordinary contributors, the same as everyone else, editing articles, participating in editorial discussions, and only occasionally put on their administrator hat. And, when they do, they do so in a way that makes clear they had put on their administrator hat.

Since you didn't state you put on your adminstrator hat I am going to assume this was the edit of an ordinary editor. Geo Swan (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Hussein Salem Mohammed

You have removed the medical records from this page. The problem now is that Geo Swan has move them to the talk page. Not even that. There he lays out all details of the records. And start speculating about the health of the individual and wants us to discuss his health. That needs to be removed as well. Iqinn (talk) 03:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Your assistance please...

I saw this comment, which closes with a rhetorical "... it stays out. Clear?" and, no offense, found it quite unclear.

I didn't know this comment followed this edit. I had been trying my best to find a tactful way to explain how unclear I found your comment. I spent about 20 minutes on that reply:

No, sorry, what you wrote is not clear. If you are agreeing with Iqinn that the article shouldn't say he was confirmed to have "reengaged in terrorism", you are agreeing with a straw argument. I am not arguing the article should state he was confirmed to have "reengaged in terrorism". As I wrote on BLPN I am concerned that Iqinn's concerns are partially based on a no-doubt well-intentioned misunderstanding of how limited the NYTimes ombudsman's apology was. Clark Hoyt, the NYTimes ombudsman, acknowledged that the May 21 article headline, and its first paragraph, stated, or strongly implied, that all 74 of the former captives had been confirmed to have reengaged in terrorism. He pointed out that buried in later paragraphs in the article it did make clear that some of the 74 former captives were merely suspected of having reengaged in terrorism. This is a very limited retraction.

Your comment, while still not completely clear, is a lot clearer now that I know it should be read in the context of the edit you made a minute earlier.

What I am going to request is, if a comment you leave on a talk page should be read in the context of an edit you made to the article, as a courtesy to other readers, could you please give some indication of that, in the comment? And, if you make an edit to an article, that you plan to expand on, on the talk page, could you indicate that in the edit summary? I know I am not the only contributor who thinks that sometimes it is best to simply put an edit summary that says something like: "reverting -- see talk", or "excising due to WP:ABCDEF concerns -- see talk".

The final aspect of your comment -- "... it stays out. Clear?" This could be interpreted as a warning from an administrator. I am going to assume that when a wikipedia contributor who is also a wikipedia administrator, feels they have to don their administrator authority, to make a ruling, or issue a warning, they will do so in a way that makes clear that they are doing so as an administrator.

Iqinn has already characterized your edits as administrator's rulings. They characterized you as "an uninvolved administrator". But, if your initial edits of yesterday were edits made as an ordinary wikipedia contributor, and then today, you thought administrator intervention was called for, you couldn't assume administrator authority to make those edits yourself because you aren't uninvolved. Do you think I have that right?

It seems to me that if you thought Iqinn, or myself, or some other contributor to this article or discussion merited an administrator warning your choices would be the same as any contributor who wasn't an administrator. You'd have to either let it slide, leave a note on one of the noticeboards, or contact another administrator directly -- do you think I have that right?

I don't remember crossing paths with you before. Hello. I do my best to take all civil, serious comments about my contributions to article space seriously. If you have serious concerns I will take them seriously, and give you a serious response, without regard to whether you are in a position to assume administrator authority.

Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 18:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello. :-) The thing is, accusing someone of being a terrorist and being wrong is one of the biggest BLP violations we can come up with these days. Even saying they're suspected of terrorism is beyond the pale, unless there's really good information to back it up -- and a single line in a report with no supporting details is not "really good information". Hence, the BLP policy demands that we leave it out -- and if necessary, I will claim administrative authority here. Since my reasoning was the same both times, and I haven't done anything else on the article, I still consider myself uninvolved. (As opposed to the Ireland articles, where I started out enforcing an Arbcom decision, and then found myself interested enough that I recused myself from (most) admin action.)

The other edit we've crossed paths on today, the medical information implying force-feeding, I'm not as sure about. As a programmer for a medical practice, I take medical privacy very seriously. On the other hand, this is information that's been released by the US government, and would therefore be public domain. It's an interesting conflict -- never mind when you start including other countries' laws as well. On that one, I'm just acting as another editor.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:40, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Duly noted

Duly noted. See my recent explanation on User talk:Wperdue for why I am so frustrated with the vandals and keep losing my temper. Yes, I know that I need to keep it civil regardless, but the admins have got to start imposing semi-protection on a lot more articles because the vandalism has really got out of control this year. --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:06, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

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Delivered by -- Tinu Cherian BOT - 12:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

194x144x90x118, should this go back to Arbitration?

I am inclined to file an arbitration request. The last time ArbCom rejected it, it was due to this being an apparent content dispute on a single article. This time, it is a clear behavioral issue, because 194x144x90x118 has plunged himself into three disputes, and in all of them there are serious user conduct issues.

• The DreamHost case, which was the main reason for the RFC.
• The Bobby Fischer case which is what I described in my view on the RFC.
• The European Union case, where 194x144x90x118 was warned about this soapboxing on talkpages, and returned yesterday with this. He has in the intermediary fought a campaign to introduce a "criticism" section to the EU article.

The RFC does not appear to have gotten us anywhere, because the behavior is still the same, and with three cases, I cannot figure out how mediation is supposed to work, so the ArbCom admonition about insufficient attempt at dispute resolution doesn't appear to apply anymore. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to opine on this at the moment. If you want to pursue it, you might want to check in with some of the arbs who declined the first time around and see if you have information that would change their mind.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of David Crawford (colonel)

I have nominated David Crawford (colonel), an article that you edited, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Crawford (colonel). Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Fol de rol troll (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Threats

There is no reason to threaten me. Changing the links doesn't break anything, regardless of the decision on what should be done with the redirect. Yworo (talk) 23:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

It might break something -- after all, the second step in WP:BRD is "revert". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

No, it won't break anything. It should have been done when the page move occurred. Yworo (talk) 23:21, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

And, what to do with the links in articles is not and has not been under discussion. Only where to point Ubuntu itself. Yworo (talk) 23:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

The page move should not have been done without any discussion whatsoever. The proper response _would_ have been to revert it, but I'm willing to consider that it's at the correct location now.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm not the one who moved it, and the actions I am taking are in good faith. You'd better be ready to justify your overreaction and your threatening attitude if you block me. I'm not the only one fixing the links, so you'd also better treat everyone doing so the same. Yworo (talk) 23:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

As you are involved in the issue, you'd have a conflict of interest as an admin if you blocked me. I am going to continue until a get a warning from an uninvolved admin. Yworo (talk) 23:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd _really_ suggest getting that second opinion before I block you. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Whether I'm involved or not, it will be a clear case of blocking to protect the encyclopedia, not an abuse of the tools. Discuss anywhere you like, but until there's consensus on the move and the proper location of the article on the Linux distro, making further changes would be disruptive.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:39, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not harming the encyclopedia. Even if the article is moved again, Ubuntu (operating system) will redirect to its new location. Your argument is weak and without merit. Yworo (talk) 23:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Double redirects don't work, remember. It's just making a lot more work for someone to clean up, if there's another move. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:48, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a double redirect. It would be a pipe to a proper redirect, even if the article is moved. A pipe isn't a redirect. Yworo (talk) 00:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I see what you are saying, but there's really not a problem with specifying the links. It would link directly to the redirect, and not to a double redirect (kind of confusing haha). I'm fairly sure that this will be just fine technically, and anyway, if you take a look at Special:DoubleRedirects, it says that a bot (User:DarknessBot being one of them) goes through and fixes double redirects. Do you agree that it will be fine for Yworo to go ahead and make the fixes? Malinaccier (talk) 00:45, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to tell Yworo to go ahead. There won't be a double redirect problem. Thanks, Malinaccier (talk) 01:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu Links

OK, I have stopped "fixing" links... But... could you please explain why "(operating system)" might not be "the correct dab term anyway"? I am confused, since it seems correct... should we have "Ubuntu (Canonical)" or "Ubuntu (software)"? Is that the issue? I am not complaining, not at all, but I am simply curious about the issue... Cheers. --SF007 (talk) 02:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm curious about that too. If you look at Category:Linux distributions, you'll find it's pretty much the standard disabiguation used for those distros that need disambiguation, as for example on Fedora (operating system). Yworo (talk) 03:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Since that seems to be the standard, I won't argue. I was thinking "Ubuntu (Linux distribution)" might be better, but I don't see that that formulation is actually used at the moment. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 12:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it might be... but not enough better to make changes. BTW, I am discovering what appear to be a concerted effort to promote and link to the Ubuntu article, above and beyond what might have developed naturally. For example, almost every piece of free software seems to have a screenshot of it running on Ubuntu, even if that was not the origin of the software. For example, Debian-developed tools are not shown running on Debian but instead on Ubuntu. Ubuntu is gratuituously mentioned as an example of Linux even when other distros are not. Or every mention of Ubuntu is linked in an article even though other distros are linked only once, etc., etc. Yworo (talk) 12:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I would be hesitant to call it a conspiracy -- all it really needs is one person interested in posting screenshots who has Ubuntu instead of Debian to cause that result -- and isn't Ubuntu Debian-derived, anyhow? Also, it could just be someone who doesn't understand that you're only supposed to link a term once per article, or per section, adding the links. I'll do a run through with AWB later and see if I can reduce the overlinking, if you haven't already taken care of it by then. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:08, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'd hesitate to call it a conspiracy too. It'd only take a couple people working independently, as you say. Some of them are the same people who push using GNU/Linux everywhere instead of just Linux.... Yworo (talk) 14:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

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Delivered by SoxBot (talk) at 06:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

re: canvassing

I noticed that when you created the RFC, you only included it in the science and technology topic, when the matter is clearly of interest to the religion and philosophy topic. Was that a form of canvassing? I wish the rfc template would allow three topics, because we could use some input from languages and linguistics as well. Yworo (talk) 18:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It was not canvassing, because you always have to pick one primary topic for an RFC, and since the article that was moved was the OS article, it definitely went in the SciTech category. If you want to add it manually to the philosophy and linguistics pages, that would probably be a good thing.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the template takes two topics... but not three... I added "reli" almost immediately. Yworo (talk) 18:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

*raises eyebrow* Gee, nice of them to mention that in the RFC instructions.... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Somebody probably added it later. If they'd have been a better coder, we'd probably be able to use 10. Unfortunately anything beyond simple template code is gobbledy-gook to me or I'd try my hand at it. As is, I'd just end up irreparably breaking it, then reverting. Yworo (talk) 19:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I wanted to compliment you on that proactive move protection. I doubt it would have been much longer before somebody decided that move warring was a good idea.... and boy, could that get messy. Yworo (talk) 19:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

*bows* Thank you. WP:IAR can come in terribly handy at times... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:08, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

WTF?

Who do you think you are? What exactly gives you the power to delete the spreadsheet from the IrlProj and then my page? Sarah777 (talk) 00:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I am Garrett Fitzgerald, and the "edit" button gives me the power to delete the spreadsheet. Any more questions?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I can "restore". Ant questions? Sarah777 (talk) 01:01, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I like the first version better. *pictures giant radioactive ant coming over the horizon....* --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)