User talk:Redvers

Redvers is male • gay • married • a socialist • a vegetarian • Welsh • an atheist • and please stand up and defend me 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Don't post your images to Commons. Why not? DON'T post "talkback" templates. I'm already watchlisting your talk page Watchlist this page to see replies

Mysterious discussion

I have just read all of the discussion at Wikipedia:AN#User:_Moondyne_and_User:_Sarah. I never heard of this until it was closed. The discussion leaves me in the dark as to why he was blocked. Apparently I would have to follow a large number of links to find out. Is it unreasonable to expect that such discussions would be clear and explicit about the reason for blocking? I followed ONE of the links and found an objection to his edit to the algebra-stub template. The issue of his edits to that template was discussed at very great length in the appropriate forum and I seem to recall that he ultimately went with the consensus, although I didn't follow the discussion in great detail.

I've noticed that "Topology expert" tends to be lax about various issues of grammar, style, and conformance to Wikipedia style conventions, but that's not a reason to block anyone. He is obviously a competent professional in his field who has made worthwhile contributions here.

If the discussion linked to above is not the appropriate place for people like me to find out why a user was blocked, then what is? I think things like this should be done openly, not behind closed doors. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You appear to have made the assumption that TE was blocked for his previous vandalism and edit warring. You appear to have made this assumption without seeing my statement on AN at the time of the block, my block notice to him, my reply to a thread on his talk page or my entry in his block log, all of which clearly explain what he did to achieve a block. You have also ignored his direct personal attacks following the block [1] [2] and the two other admins who declined his unblock on the basis of him making personal attacks [3] [4]. You have then, with no evidence, made a personal attack against me [5].

I confess to being confused. Either you're having a bad day, or you're deliberately wheel-warring. Which would it be? At the very worst, it would appear I blocked a friend of yours and you've come out with all guns blazing. I think you need to explain yourself. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 23:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

BTW, as you said above, you followed one of the links. I followed them all and replied in detail on the AN thread. Perhaps you should've done more than followed just one link? There's been a misuse of judgment and tools here, I believe. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 23:47, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why I should have to follow all those links; I think the discussion page should have stated the reason for the block without the need to follow links. I can understand needing to follow links to see the evidence, but a simple statement of the reason for the block shouldn't require that. You say I have personally attacked you. What I said was that I thought it was disrespectful to anyone concerned not to be explicit about the reason for the block on the page where it was discussed. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

...I did not ignore all of those things you said I ignored. They just don't add up to a reason to block someone. "Topology Expert" was clearly angry and so were those arguing against his position. If anger is a reason to block someone, then the others would need to get blocked as well. If someone habitually replaces articles with vulgar graffiti or nonsense, that's a reason to block. If someone is angry, even if they're overreacting, that's not a reason to block. It is said that his unblock request was not polite. That is certainly true. And it's irrelevant to the merits of the request. If someone neglects to properly bolt his door and burglars steal something from him, then it is certainly true that he should have behaved otherwise, in order to prevent the burglary, but that does not in the least mitigate the crime; it's a separate issue.

Much seems to be made of his edits to Christ Church Grammar School. It is true that if he wants to make accusations against the school, he should cite clear evidence, and his failure to do so is probably a reason to revert his edits. But is it not crystal-clear that they were nonetheless good-faith edits?

I have blocked users to repeatedly replace articles with graffiti or otherwise deliberately damage Wikipedia. But I would never block a user on the grounds that I'm angry at him—I've had plenty of opportunities to do that and I haven't done it. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Michael, a number of things in your posts here and on my talk page suggest you have the wrong end of the stick. TE was blocked by Redvers for disruptive trolling and frivolous complaints at ANI, nothing to do with his project contributions. I never blocked him. There was nothing done "behind closed doors" that I'm aware of or can see. I too was unaware of the ANI posting until after several others had posted there as you can see from the belated reply by myself. I agree with you that in the ideal world, it would be nice to have an executive summary of all of the issues (which I attempted to do in my 1st response[6]), but if a complainant posts a long winded ramble about all the alleged injustices done to him with a collection of only half-relevant links, is it the fault of his target that 3rd parties have to wade through all of that? If you decide to get involved in such issues, its incumbent on you to research fully before pressing the unblock button. I see that you unblocked Topology Expert, but your reasons for doing so are unclear, whereas Redvers' block reasons aren't. Please comment. –Moondyne 01:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

[7] The fact that Michael said in his block rationale that he personally felt "disrespected" by "those who blocked" TE demonstrates exactly why he had no business at all in overturning the block and unilaterally at that. If he's been disrespected somehow then the unblock review must be left to an uninvolved admin per WP:BLOCK (and the unblock was declined by numerous uninvolved admins). I don't personally care if the user is blocked or not and I didn't even know he had been blocked until I logged on this morning and found that he had been both blocked and unblocked, but this to me is a very clear case of misuse of admin tools. Sarah 01:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

What I felt was disrespectful to anyone who who might be concerned is that the rationale for blocking was cryptic. "Disruptive trolling" to me would mean intentional disruption. He was angry, he often seems unaware of standard Wikipedia conventions, and he often writes clumsily with errors in grammar, spelling, etc., and is something of a hothead. In particular, he made what amounted to an accusation against the administrators of a school that was the topic of an article, saying they wanted to conceal the fact (if it was a fact) that they want their pupils to become professional athletes, without citing sufficient evidence for that accusation. That is certainly a reason to revert his edit and inform him of the problem. But I had always understood blocking to be done to those who intentionally disrupt Wikiepedia, e.g. with graffiti in articles or edits not intended to improve Wikipedia, not to those who do a poor job of editing, or whose formal complaints are found to lack merit, or who are simply angry about what others have said. Are the latter sorts of things what you consider "disruptive trolling"? Michael Hardy (talk) 01:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You keep missing the point. TE wasn't blocked for his article editing, he was only given warnings. The block was given for disrupting Wikipedia, by posting trollish complaints against me (and later Sarah) on the ANI. But you haven't responded to Sarah's, Redvers' and mine far more serious concerns that you have misused your admin tools. –Moondyne 02:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I have been seeing this particular problem for weeks on my watchlist, it wasn't simply "a problematic edit", more of a one-man campaign against the school on its article. I hadn't gotten involved as others already were, and also I have been very busy offline. I have no view either way on the school, apart from maybe concealed envy at anyone whose parents can afford to send them there :) The behaviour on AN/I was clearly disruptive trolling - the initial post was not, but subsequent ones and escalation of the complaint were clearly in that category. I have reset the block to approximately the original duration as I do not believe that unblocks that are such obvious breaches of an administrator's contract with the community should be allowed to impede the community's ability to decide on an appropriate penalty and enforce it. TE had already tried to get unblocked through legitimate channels, and then resorted to illegitimate ones. That in itself suggests he has learned nothing from this and needs a holiday from editing for the weekend (the block will expire about 12am Monday in his time zone.) Orderinchaos 02:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for playing Whackamole

Thanks for restoring my talk page after it was spammed. Looking at your contribs history, it appears that that AnonTalk guy is a freekin' pain in the arse, hopping from IP to IP like he does... :( ...So, good on ya! Binksternet (talk) 13:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

My pleasure! ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 17:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Proxy server?

You had blocked one IP - 24.184.214.254 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). I'm guessing this one is also, as it was posting the same nonsense: 81.10.100.124 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Got 'im! Thanks. The credit for the hard work in spotting that this was a spambot using proxies goes to Spellcast. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 17:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIII (November 2008)

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This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 17:20, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Withdraw

Naw, naw, naw. I mean, it's not like I expected to win. It's an entirely academic matter now anyhow (I wasn't going to charge up from behind at this point anyways). I felt a hanging judge was an option that should've been offered to the community, but I probably was the wrong person to offer that, and they don't seem interested anyways. WilyD 18:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Phew! ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 18:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Collateral damage from Needyourhelp block

This user is requesting to have the autoblock lifted. Would you be comfortable with that? They don't looke like socks, but I'd prefer you made the call. Daniel Case (talk) 19:13, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Jpgordon blocked directly - CU proved that these certainly were socks. Thanks for letting me know! ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 21:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Unblock Request Notification

Hello, Redvers! A user you have blocked, Needyourhelp, has requested to be unblocked, and your username is listed on my notification opt-in page. The unblock request is on his user talk page here. If you no longer want to recieve these notifications, remove your name from my list. If you would like to be notified about future unblock requests from this user, remove this template from your page. Thank you, DavidWSBot (talk) 21:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Denied by Ricky81682. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 21:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello

I think theres duplication with Kaohsiung American School and American School in Kaohsiung. --Techfast50 (talk) 02:05, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Deleted the latter (attack page) and created a redirect to the original page. Thanks for letting me know. Total sockfest there: going to have to move from protecting pages to blocking IPs at this rate. ➨ ❝ЯEDVERS❞ a sweet and tender hooligan 08:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

spam report

Did you see the spam report? I don't understand why my report is being reverted. ANI clearly says to go to AIV for persistent spammers. Please advise. Spamicide (talk) 13:29, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

this user is going out of there way to prove a point to me. I don't know what it is as I have not done anything wrong and have tried to talk with them. They even admitted that this is a SECONDARY wiki account that they use. Is that ok to do? why not show yourself and your clear agenda.....Hollywoodnorthreport (talk)