User talk:Ryan Postlethwaite

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Sathya Sai Baba article

Sathya Sai Baba is a living person, who lives in a small city called "Puttaparthi", in South India, state of Andhra Pradesh. Thousands of people gather everyday to see him, in a place called Sai Kulwant Hall, inside a complex called "Prasanthi Nilayam", where Sai Baba's residence is located. This people believe he is a saint.

On the other hand, there is a group of people who believes he is a criminal.

So, we have two radically opposite points-of-view.

The article in Wikipedia is being used by the group with the "anti-Baba" point-of-view to do theirs propaganda. This group is engaged in a strong effort to avoid the article to be a truly representative of NPOV.

Currently, the article suffers from:
- lack of NPOV
- offends Basic Human Dignity
- suffers from Information Supression

Link to the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sathya_Sai_Baba

In the brief description of the case, above, I myself have assumed a neutral point-of-view.

Below, a link to my first comment about the article. There, I write with my own POV feelings, but using NPOV arguments, so neutral editors could follow and, with common sense, agree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sathya_Sai_Baba#What_if_Sai_Baba_is_really_an_Avatar.3F

But, after that, I found many unpleasant things:
- trying to edit results in "removal of large-scale vandalism", and the edit vanishes from the history; (thus, the history itself is biased)
- there is an editor, "White adept", acting as policeman to maintain biased, not-NPOV status quo;
- there is another user, "Andries", faking a positive POV; (thus, you are mislead)
- their combined actions drive anybody who arrives to read all negative-POV references;
- also, they managed a pack of ready-made arguments that classifies the huge amount of positive-POV references as "not reliable";
- making, in this way, extremely difficult, if not impossible, to restore or improve the article's quality.

This article constitutes a very serious issue for Wikipedia itself. Millions of people around the world support Sai Baba's efforts (six million, in the negative-POV estimate; from 50 to 100 millions, in the positive-POV estimate). The current article is an offense not only to Sai Baba himslef, but also to all of them.

Thank you.

Request status update for Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Roman Catholic Church

Mediator ([[User:Shell_Kinney|Shell) has been in active on Wikipedia for 5 days and his sole activity yesterday was a single revert. This mediation has hit an impasse and needs a mediator who can be active on a daily basis. --Richard (talk) 17:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello Richard. Shell is a little busy in real life at the minute so Sunray is going to take over. I hope that helps. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 14:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

How to go in this dispute?

An edit-war situation is developing at Talk:Melodrama#Race Melodrama over issues that will speak for themselves. Can you please read the discussion and advise us, preferably on that talk page, how we can go about achieving finality here? Cheers Bjenks (talk) 11:51, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Er, time passes and I've decided to post this on FTN as an interim measure. Cheers Bjenks (talk) 09:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

How are you feeling?

Ryan, I believe I read some post of yours somewhere that you were extra busy lately and, on top of that, weren’t feeling well. How are you doing on both counts? The Date linking RfC has seen 95 edits since you last weighed in twelve days ago on February 19th. Can you please provide us an update on your availability? Greg L (talk) 03:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Greg, sorry for the late response. I'm actually working on the actual RfC as we speak (User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Draft RfC). To make it as clear as possible, I think a poll would be best. My proposal is for it to be in two stages (if you read the draft you'll see what I mean). At the minute, I can only create phase one because phase two depends on the results of phase one. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 14:04, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The Aviator

Please see the following page, The Aviator. I have been observing some vandalism of a section of the article, but now it's advanced instead of through other means to a legal threat. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC).

Mediation committee question that needs to be addressed

Your input regarding a question for the mediation committee is requested. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_mediation#Would_this_case_be_accepted.3F. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 14:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Nuances on date linking

Ryan. Please explain how you intend to address the nuances of date linking. I understand you plan two RfCs. This mysterious second RfC may be where all the magic has to take place in order to settle the details of date delinking. The wording you have here at Draft RfC#Month-day markup, which is “I support the concept of month-day markup” is overly binary. The past RfCs have hinged on more nuanced language like the RfC I posted, which had this wording:

Proposed motion of consensus regarding date linking: Per Wikipedia:Why dates should not be linked, it should be a rare date indeed that is linked in regular body text. All links should be particularly topical and germane to the subject matter. Links to lists of historical events that have little to nothing to do with the subject matter at hand should generally not be made.

The overwhelming majority of the Wikipedian community agreed with that statement. Then, the dispute arose among the warring parties about what exactly “rare date indeed” meant. Your new wording gives the editors who have previously expressed their view that it is not an issue of “never” but “very rarely.”

I tried to address this nuance with my proposal here on your Date linking RfC, which reads as follows:

Question–Should the following MOSNUM guideline be adopted: Date articles should not be linked on Wikipedia unless the date article to which is being linked has content that predominantly shares a common theme (besides the fact they share a common day or year) that is particularly germane and topical to subject of the linking article. For instance, Timeline of World War II (1942) may be linked to from another article about WWII, and so to may 1787 in science when writing about a particular development on the metric system in that year.

Again, the community has already clearly stated that it is not an issue of “I support” or “I don’t suport”; it is a nuanced issue. The challenge before you is to get some sort of question in a community RfC that better drills down and clarifies what the community wants than what we already have. Greg L (talk) 20:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I understand where you're coming from. Would you possibly be able to provide me with some more proposals for additions to the guideline? Perhaps your idea may be a better way to move to. Rather than trying get support/opposition things that cover a large number of situations, have support/opposition based on specific guideline additions. In you suggestion above, how about you provide an example of when not to link to dates? E.g. Linking to 1987 when discussing when an actor first appeared on screen.

One area I'd like you to work on is month-date markup. Could you provide a proposal to add to the guideline for the RfC? Something along the lines of "Month date articles should not be linked to unless they have the article being linked from has particular revelence to the month-date article" (You will probably be able to word it better than me) then provide examples of when to, and when not to link to the month-date articles. We could quite easily get away with asking just 3 or 4 questions that way on date linking. Autoformatting is obviously another area, but let's get date linking sorted first. If we could do it this way, we'd only need one poll. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 20:21, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

• Fabulous. Here are some additional thoughts. If an RfC goes into too great of detail, it makes it exceedingly difficult to get unambiguous results. For instance, if we were to propose specific, highly detailed wording for a MOSNUM guideline, like Dabomb87’s RfC summary results, there will undoubtedly be editors who say “I agree with most of this, but don’t agree that ‘{{seealso}} tag in a paragraph where the date is relevant to that paragraph’ properly speaks to… (blah, blah, retching details, ad nauseam).”

  To my knowledge, most—perhaps all—of our date de‑linking side supports Dabomb87’s summary as the actual guideline wording. We believe Dabaomb has properly and faithfully read the RfCs and has captured the spirit of the comments from the community. Such a lengthy guideline would properly be a separate sub-page of WP:MOSNUM. The short summary of the principle of when to link (very rarely), should, IMO, be what appears in MOSNUM and it is that wording (our best effort at capturing the principle) that should appear in a community-wide RfC.

  If we can agree that this is the basic approach, then the wording in the lower of the above two quotes can be tweaked—perhaps with Dabomb87’s help—to ensure it properly conveys the basic principle as fleshed out in his summary. Greg L (talk) 20:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

• As I said, any chance you could come up with a proposal for a guideline addition for month-date links on the same line as your year links proposal? I've read the summary, but I really stink at things like this. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 20:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

• Thinking… Greg L (talk) 20:52, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

• One thing I will say is that it's only fair to allow the "other side" to have their say as well in this. It's all good and well having proposals which are slanted to your view point, but your major concerns about this whole process centered around it not being neutral. Turning this around going from something that was relatively neutral to being completely skewed towards the anti-linking side isn't really fair. For this to be a fair process, a proposal supporting more linking should also be offered to the community and once I get the anti-linking side, I do plan to get the pro-linking sides ideas as well. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 20:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)

• As to your last post: Understood. I would submit that if you read the user comments on the last RfC, and ignore my (biased) proposed questions and read the community vote statements, you will find that wording as shown below fairly captures the community consensus. I look forward to seeing what the “other side” would propose. I expect only that their proposed wording not be what they want, but is their best effort at reading the RfC results and capturing the views of the community.

  Here is a proposed guideline to run past the community and see if they agree with it:

  Proposed: Date articles should not be linked on Wikipedia unless the date article to which is being linked is particularly germane and topical to subject of the linking article.

  For instance, Timeline of World War II (1942) may be linked to from another article on or closely related to WWII. Similarly, editors may link to 1787 in science when editing a science-related article, such as a particular development on the metric system that occurred in that year. Specific day-month dates make be linked in articles about holidays that fall on the same day every year; e.g. Christmas Day, April Fools' Day, and Cinco de Mayo.

  In all cases, links to articles that are compendiums of events that happened on a date throughout history or during a particular year must be particularly relevant to the article one is editing. What editors should not do, in Sydney Opera House for instance, is link any portion of the date in this sentence: The Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, since the vast majority of the contents of June 28 and 2007 are not germane to either UNESCO or the Sydney Opera House.

I think an RfC with this wording, which gives the community an opportunity to comment on whether they think this basic principle should go to MOSNUM will see good participation. Perhaps another step out of this ArbCom, coming out of the upcoming community-wide RfC, is for you to read the vote comments and decide if Dabomb87’s detailed proposed guideline properly captures community consensus so there is no bickering of that either. Greg L (talk) 21:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

For a viewpoint from the pro-linkers, see User:Kendrick7/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:47, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

• Ryan, OK, I just now figured out what you were clearly saying: you need wording on month-day similar to what we now have for year links. Gotta go walk the dogs with the wife. Will get to this shortly. Greg L (talk) 04:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

• Ryan, this is my suggestion for inclusion here at Draft RfC:

Month-day articles (e.g. February 24 and July 10) should not be linked on Wikipedia unless the month-day article to which is being linked has content that is particularly germane and topical to the subject of the linking article; that is, their content shares an important connection other than the fact they are events that occurred on the same date throughout history. For instance, specific day-month articles make be linked in articles about holidays that fall on the same day every year; e.g. Christmas Day, April Fools' Day, and Cinco de Mayo. An important exception is articles that are intrinsically chronological and list-based by nature (e.g. 1789, January, 1940s, and Sunday); these may also contain linked dates.

Editors should not link the date (or year) in, for instance, a sentence such as this (from Sydney Opera House): The Sydney Opera House was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007, because little, if any, of the contents of June 28 and 2007 are germane to either UNESCO, World Heritage Site, or the Sydney Opera House.

Greg L (talk) 05:29, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

• • Excellent, that's exactly what I wanted. I'll copy that over to the draft RfC later tonight or tomorrow morning and I'll also get to the other sides proposals as well to get things moving. What would you suggest regarding autoformatting? Perhaps a simple support/oppose of a number of different methods and also for complete removal from user preferences might be the best way to go. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Sounds good. You might consult User:UC_Bill, as he seems to be the expert on autoformatting. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Suggested approach to autoformatting

Ryan,

In the upcoming, ArbCom-sponsored RfC, I don’t think the precise same technique used for year linking and day-month linking will work for autoformatting; it truly is a very binary issue. I advocate a simple Statement by arbitrator (what, exactly, is the nature of the issue?), a ≤500-word statement for, and a ≤500-word statement against. Caveat: My technical description in the Statement by arbitrator may have errors. As Dabomb87 wrote above, User:UC Bill can be of some facility in ensuring it is factually correct. The following are my proposed wording for the first and last sections:

---

Statement by User:Ryan Postlethwaite:

Intended effects of the proposed autoformatting system:
Articles that contain dates would be tagged at the top or elsewhere (e.g. {{DATEFORMAT:DMY}} or {{DATEFORMAT:MDY}} ) to set the default date format throughout that article. Throughout the article, editors would write all dates with double brackets, such as [[January 1, 2007]] or [1 January 2007]].

For visiting readers, these bracketed dates would consistently default to the format established by the tag. Thus, an article on the Chicago Cubs would have a {{DATEFORMAT:MDY}} header that sets all dates to default to American-style dates, January 1, 2007 regardless of the code within the double brackets.

However, registered and logged-on Wikipedians who had set their date preferences to something other than “No preference” would see the dates formatted accordingly; for example, those who had set their date preferences could see Euro-style dates (1 January 2007) even though Chicago Cubs was tagged to default to American-style dates for regular users.

Statement for:

[To be determined]

Statement against:

(342 words)

We adhere to the fundamental principle that all editors should see the same article content as regular I.P. users. The Wikipedian community does not want to have date formatting tools in articles that creates a default format for a given article for all regular I.P. readers to see, and which then provides a custom view per the preferences setting that would benefit only A) registered editors, who B) have set their date preference to something besides “No preference”.

For example, an article on United States Declaration of Independence might have a special magic word that globally establishes the date format in that article. This technique would further require that every date in an article be tagged with something like {{4 July 1776}}. When done this way, all dates in a given article could appear in the “July 4, 1776” format for all our regular, everyday, non-registered I.P. users (which is the vast majority of our readership). Registered editors however, who don’t like looking at the date format that everyone else sees would be spared from this default under this proposal. They could set their preferences in order to see only “4 July 1776.” We feel that this is totally unnecessary effort that does not benefit our I.P. readers any more than simply writing out “July 4, 1776”. We see no need whatsoever to make it any more complex.

Further, per Wikipedia:Why dates should not be linked, there is an advantage to ensuring editors see precisely what our I.P. readership sees. Editors would not be able to see when articles have inconsistent or incorrectly formated dates if they are the isolated from the article content that everyone else sees due to these proposed formatting tools. The community embraces the notion that we should not be burdening editors and page code with tools that only provide special views of article content for registered editors. The community believes that for the vast majority of circumstances, regular dates in body text should be simple fixed-text dates in a format chosen per MOSNUM guidelines governing that issue.

---

Greg L (talk) 02:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed modification of statement of fact:

Statement of fact:

Effect of autoformatting if approved:
Articles that contain dates would be tagged with a special magic word, such as {{DATEFORMAT:DMY}} or {{DATEFORMAT:MDY}} that would set the default date format throughout that article. Further, editors would write dates with brackets like [[January 1]], [[2007]] or [[1 January]] [[2007]].

Regardless of the format within the brackets, the effect would be that all bracketed dates would, for anonymous users, consistently default to the format established by the tag. Thus, an article on, for instance, the Chicago Cubs would have a {{DATEFORMAT:MDY}} tag that sets all dates to default to American-style dates, January 1, 2007 regardless as to how the editor coded the date within the double-brackets.

However, Wikipedia users who are A) registered editors, and who B) have set their user preferences on date format to something other than “No preference” will see the dates formatted in their format of choice. Thus, even if Chicago Cubs is tagged to default to American-style dates for regular I.P. users, registered editors who have set their user preferences setting accordingly, could see Euro-style dates if they chose (1 January 2007).

I prefer "anonymous user" to "I.P. user", also the DATEFORMAT tag can appear anywhere in the article (it's been suggested it be placed at the top, but it could just as easily be placed at the bottom alongside categories, for example). I also fixed the syntax used. I'm still not 100% sure on this language since a final Dynamic Dates (auto formatting) system would likely provide a method for anonymous users to select a date format without needing to sign in. And if this is to be a "final RFC" on the subject, I want to know if the community would approve of such a system (even if interim fixes didn't resolve this). This also affects the wording of any "statement against". —Locke Cole • t • c 02:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

• Upon first reflection, this proposed wording seems OK. Thinking about it… Off-line consulting… Greg L (talk) 02:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

• I am not at all happy with the structure of this, although the wording seems to be evolving well. My first issue is that "Ryan's statement", which needs to be as neutral as possible, casts the proposal as "what would happen", without a single mention of the technical, administrative and strategic difficulties that lie in the way of achieving this. Here, the real state of affairs needs to be put to the community, not a statement that seems to hinge merely on acceptance by the community (the most likely meaning of the "woulds" as currently worded) .Without the writers' intention, it has become a solid entree into the pro-linkers' "Advantages" statement, which follows it immediately. One or both of the following remedies need to be applied: (1) reference in the "official, neutral" statement to the fact that there may be technical and administrative difficulties in achieving this; and/or (2) the Disadvantages section comes straight after it, not relegated to last as elswhere. That in itself has been a skew we have had the goodwill to accept, but here, it matters much more. Tony (talk) 04:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• PS I'd prefer much less than 500 words, given that people will switch off if faced with 1000 words. Below 300 each would be good, if it can be managed. I intend to trim the "Against" statement accordingly. Tony (talk) 04:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Tony, regarding your note above, could you please provide examples of real-world situations where disadvantages are listed first? The natural flow is "advantages and disadvantages" or "pros and cons", not "disadvantages and advantages" or "cons and pros". --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed tweaks to the intro:

Effect of autoformatting if approved:
Articles that contain dates would be tagged with a special magic word, such as {{DATEFORMAT:DMY}} or {{DATEFORMAT:MDY}} that would set the default date format throughout that article. Further, editors would write dates with brackets like [[January 1, 2007]] or [[1 January 2007]].

Regardless of the format within the brackets, the effect would be that all bracketed dates would, for anonymous users, consistently default to the format established by the tag. Thus, an article on, for instance, the Chicago Cubs would have a {{DATEFORMAT:MDY}} tag that sets all dates to default to American-style dates, January 1, 2007 regardless as to how the editor coded the date within the double-brackets.

However, registered Wikipedia users will have the option of customizing how dates are formatted through options in their user preferences. Thus, even if Chicago Cubs is tagged to default to American-style dates as per the above example, a user could choose to see Euro-style dates (1 January 2007).

This is clearer and more direct. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

"Statement of fact" is highly misleading. It cannot possibly have this title, since the technology is at a very immature stage, with much to be ironed out. Apart from that, I see no added value to Greg's version at the top. But all of this is moot, since 15 March is far, far too early to be putting this to the community. What, exactly, would the question be, in any case? Tony (talk) 08:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

An extensive statement is here. Tony (talk) 15:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Tony, while I had hoped you might actually consider this instead of just dismissing it, your response did catch one inadvertent cut-and-paste bit of text (the "fact" line) which wasn't in the original version. I've removed it, and invite comments as before. --Ckatz^chat_spy 19:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

We have here an opportunity to finally eradicate the gross mistake originally perpetrated when date-autoformatting was allowed to be confused with date-linking. Please consider the folly of once again using [[]] to delimit dates. There are plenty of other characters available, why use ones already in use for wiki-markup of links? Is there any disadvantage of using something like ##10 March 2009## or @@Dec 31, 2008@@ or even %5–23 July 1944%? If new software is to be developed, then surely it is simpler to parse for a different delimiter than one already in use and it would allow date-links to be mixed (in the very rare case they are justified) without the software having to sort out which is a link delimiter and which delimits a date. --RexxS (talk) 01:53, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Dynamic Dates

I've made a statement regarding this RFC issue at Wikipedia:Date linking request for comment/Call for participation#View by Locke Cole. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:31, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Quoting you (from that link): …including the ability for anonymous users to choose their own date format. That’s fine. I’ve asked for this feature for months and months. But I don’t see it in the offing anytime soon. Are UC Bill et al., including you, willing to drop this current proposal for now? If so, we can leave autoformatting off the table on the ArbCom. Greg L (talk) 15:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

• And I've never denied there was interest in that feature, but it will take longer to get right than every other problem UC Bills proposed fix resolves. You must realize that a large portion of the problems with the current Dynamic Dates system are easily resolved to varying degrees of your satisfaction. My point with my comment at "Call for participation" is that we shouldn't be discussing one specific proposal (UC Bills, or Werdnas), but rather whether the community feels this is nice to have at all. We can move forward with fixing it if they affirm a desire for it, and stop working on it if they don't. I don't see why this should hold up inclusion in the RFC though. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

• I’m not going to be chasing your around to debate on two different pages. We have a lengthier and more probative thread here: User_talk:Ryan_Postlethwaite/Date_linking_RfC#Comments. I’ll see you there. Please respond to my last post there. Greg L (talk) 16:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

RFC timing

I've seen March 15th mentioned as the start date of the RFC; I would suggest holding off until arbitration has concluded since I believe the behavioral issues will simply cause more problems during the RFC (as you're no doubt aware some editors have been engaging in socking to avoid blocks and bait other editors, as well as general attitudes and behavior by all involved (myself included, regrettably)). Plus the issue of Dynamic Dates has no chance of being properly presented in that time frame given the disputes over how it should be worded. I think Dynamic Dates is a central issue here that could render some of the linking issues moot, but obviously we need to agree on how best to present this to the community. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Concur. There is no need to rush this. If we mess up this RfC, the community may not accept another. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. My initial time frame was a little too enthusiastic. Aside from sorting things out with all the perties to make sure everyone's happy, I'd like to have some time getting neutral comments on the RfC process from totally uninvolved people by advertisement on WP:CENT and the village pump. We're probably at least a month off to be honest. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you seeing this?

User_talk:Ryan_Postlethwaite/Date_linking_RfC#Comments

Greg L (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Ryan, I'm going to disengage from discussing the issue of Dynamic Dates with either Greg L or Tony1. This edit, coupled with Tony's total lack of knowledge of the subject (but insistence on pushing his lack of knowledge on the community at large), make these discussions fruitless. But I will reiterate here: Dynamic Dates (auto formatting) is a central issue on this discussion, and to table it (while still asking about linking of dates/years) would be a disservice to the work being done by developers working to resolve this problem (rather than consistently attempting to derail and disrupt progress). —Locke Cole • t • c 16:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed I have seen it. The key to this whole RfC is to not rush things. I'm currently dealing with the linking issues, then I plan to move on to autoformatting. I do see autoformatting as a very key point in this RfC - we need to put the issues across as neutrally as possible and let the community decide. The RfC needs to show exactly what currently happens with autoformatting and we need to get developer input about what is likely to and likely not to be done in the future. Nobody should be dropping the autoformatting issue - it needs to be sorted out in this RfC. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 22:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Why do you see them as "a very key point in this RfC"? I can't quite see the connection, except that the old system unfortunately piggybacked on top of linking. DA seems to be an entirely different issue, and one that could be dealt with another time, if and when these people come up with a demonstrable, workable system: I doubt that they will. Tony (talk) 02:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

• In a nutshell Ryan, Locke and UC Bill are distancing themselves from the Autoformatting tool (the one described in the proposed wording for the RfC). Locke wrote After all, why bother working on something if the community will shoot it down? We could push forward with autoformatting in the RfC, but it appears no one feels interested in trying to write the Statement for, since they now realize/concede the inevitable outcome. They now have a new idea for autoformatting, but it is just that: a new idea and needs to go through the normal channels for such things. Greg L (talk) 02:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Signpost — 9 March 2009

This week, the Wikipedia Signpost published volume 5, issue 10, which includes these articles:

• News and notes: Commons, conferences, and more
• Wikipedia in the news: Politics, more politics, and more
• Dispatches: 100 Featured sounds milestone
• Wikiproject report: WikiProject Christianity
• Discussion report: Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations
• Features and admins: Approved this week
• Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Delivered by §hepBot (Disable) at 00:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Bold RFC Suggestion

Ryan, I hope you recognize the behavioral issues surrounding this dispute, particularly the tendency to argue things indefinitely as well as overstate opinions as established facts. With that reality in mind, I have a very bold suggestion:

Should this RFC go live after reaching some agreed upon language, proponents on both sides should

• a) be forbidden from participating (via !votes) on the discussion itself or on the associated talk page for a period of two weeks,
• b) be blocked from editing for a period of at least one week at the start of the RFC to prevent behavior from tainting the results (should an outcome become obvious sooner than one week, the blocks may be lifted early, but I'd suggest at least a week to keep the peace), and
• c) the blocks be enforced with random checkusers to ensure compliance by all involved.

It is my hope that we can avoid the many problems that plagued the earlier RFCs, in particular the combative tone and behavior, which might cause people to shy away from offering an opinion. I think (and you do as well it seems) the key is to get uninvolved editors to voice an opinion in an environment free of behavioral issues and without biased and loaded responses misinforming the community about the issues. And yes, this would mean myself and others supporting me would also be blocked per the italicized guidance above. I'm willing to do this to find some finality and resolution to this. As an aside, if a block isn't reasonable, a topic ban might suffice as well (so long as it were enforced by blocks for violators). —Locke Cole • t • c 03:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the craziest proposal put forth yet. I wouldn't mind item A being put into play though. How about a one-week topic ban? There are other parts of the encyclopedia that editors can contribute to; no need to block everything out. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:15, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

• Translation of Locke’s “Bold” suggestion: “Shut Greg, and Dabomb87 and Tony up. Shut them UP! Their writings have that inconvenient attribute of “truthiness” that influences others’ opinions. And I, Locke, am willing to be silenced in order to silence them.” Indeed, “Bold” (if Websters now defines bold as “galactically absurd”). Greg L (talk) 17:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not going to start blocking people, but when the RfC has been agreed by all the parties, I'm going to open it up to the wider community and ask all the parties to stay out of it. I want neutral opinions before we start the RfC, and I want to have neutral opinions free from argument. As I said however, that will only happen when the parties are happy with what we have. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 17:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

• Whoa there Ryan. There are always interim measures you can employ besides completely muzzling all parties with the requirement that they not participate whatsoever in the RfC and must remain totally silent. If the concern is a crap pile of back and forth arguing and filling up the RfC voting pages with endless rants (a legitimate concern), just put all named parties on a one-post-per question, word-limited ration. I would suggest a vote-comment limit the size of Locke’s last paragraph in his above post: 130 words plus autosignature. Greg L (talk) 23:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I will not accept some kind of topic-block on the parties in response to comments by outside people. If the parties here have formulated a wording that they can live with, I see no problem in waiting while others make comments. Preventing certain people from making comments would undermine the credibility of the process. Tony (talk) 03:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Adminship Anniversary

Wishing Ryan Postlethwaite a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Versus22 talk 05:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Request

Could you keep tabs on User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Date linking RfC and related pages a little more? I know you're busy and some amount of free reign is needed so that we get the wording and structure right, but the edit warring and roundabout discussions are getting out of hand—it seems like MOSNUM, MOSLINK, and BTW all over again. I've stepped away from those pages generally because it's so heated and nonproductive over there. The behavior and comments (from both sides) are off-putting, this coming from someone who has been involved with the dispute for about half a year now. No wonder we are receiving little input besides the usual crowd, and a couple developers. Anyway, just hoping that you can cool everything down. Again, thanks for all your work. Regards, Dabomb87 (talk) 23:35, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed wording on the "generalities" of autoformatting

Since the key members of the pro-autoformatting side—UC Bill and Locke Cole—have conceded that the results of the previous RfC on “son of autoformatting” would likely repeat itself if we conducted an ArbCom-sponsored RfC (∆ here), where Locke wrote I propose putting it to the community in a generalized manner to ensure there is support for it. After all, why bother working on something if the community will shoot it down?, I am tempted to ask that you, Ryan, issue a declaratory judgement due to their default. I can’t help but suspect that they knew all along that the previous RfC was a fair measure of the true community consensus when Locke dragged us all to this ArbCom. However…

I instead propose that we do as Locke proposes: present autformatting to the community in a more generalized manner, not attached to any specific implementation such as UC Bill’s “son of autoformatting” as described above.

Here is what I would propose for inclusion here at Draft RfC:

---

Statement by Clerk Ryan Postlethwaite:

Is the Wikipedian community receptive to date autoformatting schemes?

Scope There are a variety of proposed ways that the autoformatting of dates might be implemented on Wikipedia. The question being posed to the Wikipedian community in this RfC is whether it desires the basic, common elements that autformatting has to offer.

What is date formatting? There are two dominant ways dates are formatted in the English-speaking world. In America and many of its territories, dates are formated March 11, 2009. This is known as “MD,Y”, or for simplicity, just “MDY” format. Throughout the rest of the English-speaking world, dates are typically formated 11 March 2009, which is known as “DMY” format. The collaborative writing environment of Wikipedia and the different customs of our many contributors sometimes causes inconsistencies across Wikipedia’s articles and within articles.

What would be affected? Currently, WP:MOSNUM has a guideline governing the format of date to use in articles. It is largely founded on the principles of consistency within the article, long-term stability, and that articles with a strong national tie to a particular country should use the date format that is customary for that country. Dates are simply written out in fixed text, such as March 11, 2009 in an American-related article.

How would autoformatting work? Autoformatting is a way of marking up dates so their format automatically changes to a preferred look for some registered editors. There are different schemes to accomplish the end. The elements in common to known schemes would call for a way to tag any given article so that it has a default date format. For instance, Chicago Cubs, which is an American-related article that is likely to have a heavily American readership, would be tagged so that regular, anonymous users (“I.P. users”), who comprise over 99% of Wikipedia’s readership, would see American-formatted dates (MDY). However, a certain segment of our readership: A) registered editors, who B) have set their date preferences to something other than “No preference”, would see dates formatted per their preference.

Effect of the change If the community expresses its desire for some method of autoformatting in this RfC, then eventually, a specific proposed scheme will one day be advanced to the community wherein dates would be surrounded with curly brackets {{March 11, 2009}} or with square brackets [[March 11, 2009]], or with some kind of template, such as [[templatename|March 11, 2009]]. As explained above, some sort of tag would establish an article-wide default format establishing the format that all I.P. users would see. It would be necessary for all dates in articles that use this scheme to be marked up with the autoformatting method in order for dates to appear consistent for all users.

Statement for:

[To be determined]

Statement against:

(456 words)

We adhere to the fundamental principle that all editors should see the same article content as regular I.P. users. The Wikipedian community does not want to have date formatting tools in articles that creates a default format for a given article for all regular I.P. readers to see, and which then provides a custom view per the preferences setting that would benefit only A) registered editors, who B) have set their date preference to something besides “No preference”.

For example, an article on United States Declaration of Independence might have a special magic word that globally establishes the date format in that article. This technique would further require that every date in an article be tagged with something like {{4 July 1776}}. When done this way, all dates in a given article could appear in the “July 4, 1776” format for all our regular, everyday, non-registered I.P. users (which is the vast majority of our readership). Registered editors however, who don’t like looking at the date format that everyone else sees would be spared from this default under this proposal. They could set their preferences in order to see only “4 July 1776.” We feel that this is totally unnecessary effort that does not benefit our I.P. readers any more than simply writing out “July 4, 1776”. We see no need whatsoever to make it any more complex.

Further, per Wikipedia:Why dates should not be linked, there is an advantage to ensuring editors see precisely what our I.P. readership sees. Editors would not be able to see when articles have inconsistent or incorrectly formated dates if they are the isolated from the article content that everyone else sees due to these proposed formatting tools. The community embraces the notion that we should not be burdening editors and page code with tools that only provide special views of article content for registered editors. The community believes that for the vast majority of circumstances, regular dates in body text should be simple fixed-text dates in a format chosen per MOSNUM guidelines governing that issue.

Just adhere to the MOSNUM guideline for the date format to use in an article, write out dates in that format in fixed text, and be done with it. There are 21 fixed-text dates in Wikipedia’s Kilogram article. Check it out. The editors there elected to use Euro-style dates since it was an article not closely associated with America (and the first major contributor is an American no less!) Do you see anything broken there? We don’t either. I.P. users and registered editors see the exact same thing. Horsing around with autoformatting just so a few registered editors can be spared the displeasure of looking at Euro-style dates in that article is beyond unnecessary.

---

Ryan, we had reached an impasse with the pro-autoformatting group over my above proposed wording regarding UC Bill’s “son of autoformatting” since they refused to write a statement for in support of it. I claim no “ownership” of the above “Statement by Clerk Ryan Postlethwaite”. It is my best effort at divining the “general attributes” of autoformatting (in general in a generalized way). It was made doubly tough by what was a less-than-helpful response by the other side to specific questions on that point. Getting nowhere with that tact, I’ve taken the liberty of posting the above proposal. All are free to edit away on the “Statement by Clerk Ryan Postlethwaite”-portion. And, of course, they need to fill in the “Statement for” section too. Greg L (talk) 04:21, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion area for this

My talk page

Hey Ryan I think that you may be online and was hoping you could quickly consider my report at ANI regarding my talk page. Cheers. Nja²⁴⁷ 09:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Block disputed

See [1]. Whatever the category, this is not a pseudoscience topic, as should be obvious if you read the article. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

• Please undo your block, this is scientific fraud not pseudoscience. Verbal chat 09:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the quick reaction. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Admins are not necessarily expected to know if an editor has received permission when an editor has edited near some kind of edge, doesn't inform the community of that, and there is no crisp edge between pseudoscience and fringe science. The proper procedure for any editor who was aware of the Arbcomm permission would be to inform Ryan of it immediately and request unblock. It does appear that Ryan did respond promptly, but any other admin could have, in this situation, immediately unblock because of the obvious error.

The question of whether or not N-rays were fringe science related or not is a somewhat more complex one. Obviously, Ryan thought it was and so acted. Even if he was incorrect, administrators may make errors. If an editor pushes the edge of a ban, and given how many administrators there are, a block is simply not surprising.

However, given the pattern of edits over the last few days, the N-ray edit was quite possibly a deliberate provocation, and, once again, the community overreacted. And all this fuss over what? Getting SA unblocked for three more hours until the ArbComm three-month sanction was closed, it already had a majority? Normal procedure: SA is blocked, puts up unblock request stating permission from ArbComm. Somebody believes him, or verifies it, and it's over quickly, no fuss, no AN/I report, no groups of users shouting. But if the purpose is disruption, if the edit is a trap, set because SA knows that some admin will make the "mistake," the matter is quite different, and, in fact, just a more sophisticated continuation of the spelling corrections and other openly defiant provocations that led to the three-month ban.

I know of editors who were blocked by an admin, uncivilly, while the admin was involved with the related article, totally improper block, and if the editor doesn't put up an unblock template, there is practically no hope that I could get it reversed as long as that admin keeps his or her admin bit. I was blocked, and waited a few days before putting up an unblock request just to see what would happen. Nobody would lift a finger until I put up the template. When I did put it up, as I considered very possible, it was denied, and then I was unblocked by another admin with no further ado. Due process. Don't leave home without it.

I reviewed SA's set of edits to N ray and the edits themselves, on the face, are just fine. There is a hint, however, on AN/I, that SA has been trying to "spin" N rays as fringe science, or to spin fringe sciences as being like N rays. And then I noticed, under See also, Cold fusion. That wasn't put there by SA, and it has sat there for over a year. It is a POV-pushing "See also" reference. Cold fusion is fringe science, by the Wikipedia definition, and is not pseudoscience or fraud (usually!), so there may indeed have been a "fringe science" agenda involved in improving the N-ray article. However, the edit itself was inoffensive, and if SA had confined himself to helpful edits like this, and excepting the possible provocative intent, he'd not be blocked today.

Ryan, you acted properly, both in the block and in the rapid (30 minutes) unblock. --Abd (talk) 14:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Where were you yesterday?

Maybe I'm assuming too much but why couldn't you have handled my situation instead of another admin? On a more serious note, why did you remove the warnings off of Nja247's page? They were completely appropriate. Beantwo (talk) 09:43, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I was an idiot?

Ryan, I just apologized to Moonriddengirl about this. I must have mistakenly clicked rollback on my watchlist, when I went to click WP:AN instead. Slap me with a trout for that one, I need more coffee...Wildthing61476 (talk) 12:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

As soon as I posted to you, I saw that you had reverted yourself and it was obviously just a mistake. I was just worried there may be more to it. Thanks for getting back to me - It's certainly no big deal. I've done it a number of times when just going through my watchlist and hitting rollback by mistake. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 12:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)