User talk:William M. Connolley

To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency and humility, is to honour him; as signs of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently is to dishonour. Leviathan, X.

	You are invited to comment at: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Andrewjlockley
	Cute user page: User:Suicidalhamster I've decided to start an "article in need of attention of the week" (or day, or month, depending on how many come along): Arctic geoengineering. Don't discuss it here; do it there. Archives: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ice sheet demolition - died! Runaway climate change (result: still cr*p)
	This is a Happy Talk Page. No bickering. Proverb for the year: if you have nothing new to say, don't say it. If you're here to talk about conflicts of interest, please read (all of!) this. You are welcome to leave messages here. I will reply here (rather than on, say, your user page). Conversely, if I've left a message on your talk page, I'm watching it, so please reply there. In general, I prefer to conduct my discussions in public. If you have a question for me, put it here (or on the article talk, or...) rather than via email. I "archive" (i.e. delete old stuff) quite aggressively (it makes up for my untidiness in real life). If you need to pull something back from the history, please do. Once. Please leave messages about issues I'm already involved in on the talk page of the article or project page in question.
My actions Contribs • Blocks • Protects • Deletions

The Holding Pen

Secret trials considered harmful [Well, you might hope so]

Well, I've read the evidence: general impression is that this is revenge by DHMO's friends for his RFA failure. Why? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

And now I've read the judgement. And it seems to me that arbcomm has run itself off the rails. It would seem that they've got themselves infected by the bad blood from DHMO's RFA. So:

• Given the sanctions, which are more humiliating that restrictive, the case was clearly non-urgent.
• There is a good deal of interpretation and selective quoting in the evidence. I don't see any eveidence that OM was given any opportunity to respond, and that is bad (looking at OM's page, I think this response [1] from arbcomm [FT2] is revealing: when asked directly if OM was given the chance to respond, the reply is weaselly).
• I'm missing the result of the user RFC that obviously the arbcomm insisted on being gone through first. Could someone point me to it?
• Could all these people please get back to the job of deciding the cases validly put before them, most obviously the G33 and SV/etc ones

William M. Connolley (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, whatever the actual substance of the complaint: I'm deeply concerned about ArbCom (or unspecified parts of it) trawling through a years worth of contributions, selectively quoting parts that support a certain point of view, assemble all this into a large document, and without further input from the user in question or from the community issue an edict from above. And for good measure they (?) declare a priori that an appeal is possible, but will be moot. Well, maybe it's acceptable because, as we all know, the committee is infallible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I admit, my prior opinion was that arbcomm is generally slow but usually got the right answer. In this case, I'm doubtful. BTW, I'm almost sure I had a run-in with OM once. Can anyone remember when/where? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:50, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

In case you have not yet noticed: This seems to be deeper. [2]. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:58, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Holy @#%$! I was wondering how all of them took leave of their senses at once. R. Baley (talk) 22:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

!?! That looks bad William M. Connolley (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Is this some sort of hallucination?????? WTF??? BTW, you did run into me, because you blocked someone in a manner that I felt unfair. When I found out you are/were one of the "good guys" on global warming, I had mixed feelings. Now, I feel safe that you're watching over the article, especially since Raymond Arritt is gone.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 22:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This whole notion of "good guys" and "bad guys" is a seriously poisonous and harmful way of seeing fellow contributors. It encourages the worst excesses and does not lend itself to reaching consensus with the dark side/evil ones/whatever. Orderinchaos 16:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I like to think that the people reverting vandalism might be considered "good", and the vandals "bad". Perhaps thats a bit too old-school, and you prefer a more nuanced approach? William M. Connolley (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm taking William's interpretation of good and bad editors. However, I consider NPOV vandals to be vandals too. Yes there is a nuance to all of this, and that's the problem. It's difficult.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

So whats going on?

Most discussion is at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Orangemarlin and other matters, it seems.

Presumably someone will be along to sort out this car crash at some point. In the meantime I've been trying to see whats going on, and I've found...

• As we know, KL has repudiated FT2's postings [3]. But [4] rather suggests that secret proceedings were indeed going on.
• tB has "temporarily" blanked the page [5], which is nice, though not as good as "permanently"
• Jimbo has weighed in, saying basically "I haven't got a clue whats going on" [6]. Later updated to the Arbitration Committee itself has done absolutely nothing here [7], which does rather suggest FT2 acting alone in acting, though doesn't address discussions.
• CM is cryptic [8] turns on the interpretation of "formal" in "formal proceeding", a semantic point that is not vacuous
• JPG says its miscommunication [9] and begs for patience [10] but confirms the secret case [11]
• FN thanks us for our patience [12] as does Mv [13]
• Jv appears to endorse FT2's version, adding the OM case to those recently closed [14] and posting the result to ANI [15]. How does Jv know this is the will of arbcomm? And interesting question, which I've just asked him, and which he is studiously ignoring.

Other arbs appear to be far too busy to deal with trivia of this type.

So its hard to know what *has* happened. But clearly its not just FT2 running amok, or the other arbs would say so. My best guess is that secret trials (discussions?) were indeed in progress and that they are too embarrassed to admit it; and that there is some frantic behind-the-scenes talking going on to try to get a story straight.

• CM [16]. The statement is bizarre and is going to leave a lot of people (including me) unhappy. It looks like "it was a regrettable miscommunication, please don't ask any more questions" is going to be the line.

William M. Connolley (talk) 18:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC) & 20:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

What stuns me is how any arbitrator thought that allegations of uncivil behavior (however true) needed to be urgently addressed in a blatantly out-of-process manner while a case of full-bore socking by a repeat offender, resulting in high-profile articles being locked for weeks, was allowed to languish. Hopefully the committee realizes they cannot put the business of Arbitration on hold to focus solely on this drama, and will continue the voting. - Merzbow (talk) 03:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yup, still baffled by that one William M. Connolley (talk) 21:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it looks like the official line is it all ended happily ever after [17], nothing to see, move along here William M. Connolley (talk) 06:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

And FT2 is terribly busy [18]

Hmm, so... it all ended happily ever after and everyone forgot about it? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I haven't forgotten. Who knows if it will happen again or is happening now. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

FT2 is back secret activities. I can't believe it.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Current

William M. Connolley was inducted into The Hall of The Greats

On January 2, 2009, User:William M. Connolley was inducted into

The Hall of The Greats
This portrait of Robert De Niro was dedicated in his honor.
David Shankbone.

William - famous scientists is one area I have ignored, and one reason we likely have never crossed paths. I dedicated this photo of De Niro for all the work you do on this important area, one I am of no use to, but one where even I know what good work you do. --David Shankbone 02:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, thank you very kindly, and apologies for taking so long to respond. I'll have to live up to it now William M. Connolley (talk) 20:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

These dedications are for the totality of edits already made. You wouldn't need to make another contribution, and it would still be just as appropriate. Of course - keep editing; we need you! I wish I had something more suited to your area of work, but I thought De Niro was a good compliment. Who doesn't like De Niro? Happy New Year. --David Shankbone 20:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Well Clint would be my option... any way, good work!

Gipset (talk) 07:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

After returning from a wikibreak of a couple of years I've been having a look round some contributors whose work I used to admire and I'm pleased to see you're still going strong. So here's a barnstar for defending the absolutely crucial topic of climate change from the utter bullshit that gets hurled at it by Wikipedia's less informed souls. You are a huge asset to the project and you must have the patience of a saint. Keep up the good work! — Trilobite 03:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC====)

Thanks for the praise; and welcome back yourself William M. Connolley (talk) 11:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The <div> tag and Cascading Style Sheets

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

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

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

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

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

The W3C specifications aren't particularly good for learning but they are good as a reference. What you are looking for is probably: [19].

If you search the webb for CSS you will find countless examples and tutorials. Quick Googling turned up this for example: [20].

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

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

Antisemitic incidents

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		Even though it's been restored, we really need people to be more proactive in deleting NPOV-violating material. Thank you for restoring a little bit of my faith. Sceptre (talk) 00:02, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you William M. Connolley (talk) 08:29, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Reviving Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Taskforces/Fluid dynamics

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

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

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

block review

I'm a bit confused by your assertion that Histopher Critchens and User talk:Wikipedius Reparo are the same user. Both seem to have been revert-warring at Syrian Social Nationalist Party, but they seem to be on opposite sides. See for instance: WR readds a passage that HC later removes, and HC changes "thugs" to "members" after WR changed "members" to "thugs". Are you sure about this? Mangojuice^talk 21:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I'm certainly not sure. I'll have another look William M. Connolley (talk) 21:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, still not sure. My guess was based on [21] begin done by both. W is without a doubt *someone's* sock; check his contribs [22]; real anons don't turn up and post to AIV less than an hour later [23] William M. Connolley (talk) 21:28, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

To be more explicit: I'm not going to unblock now. But if you want to go ahead and investigate and unblock, I won't object William M. Connolley (talk) 21:28, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

CH's contribs are suspicious too: they begin too abruptly William M. Connolley (talk) 21:40, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Again, I am not Wikipedius Reparo. Wikipedius Reparo is not me. The claim that my "contribs are suspicious" is absurd -- back this up with one single example, rather than tossing around unsupported allegations. Please unblock Wikipedius Reparo's account. I can understand honest mistakes, but this is becoming ridiculous -- I'll file a complaint against the offending admins unless you all clean this up quickly. Histopher Critchens (talk) 15:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Presumably WR can speak for himself. You're not blocked; if you edit nicely, you should have no problems William M. Connolley (talk) 17:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

William, I came into this as a outside set of eyes, and as much as I like hunting socks, I don't think this is a case of one. While I have seen socks do good-hand/bad-hand edits, what leads me to the conclusion that the two are not related is that WR added some content here that was later removed by HC here. I don't think a sock would be undoing his own work. So on that basis, I'd be willing to support an unblock HC, but only if you have no objections (I really don't like to override the actions of other admins). HOWEVER - what I find curious is the material that WC added and the HC removed...it was material about, and supported by a cite written by Christopher Hitchens. That, to me, looks like a blatant COI violation. So, while I'd support an unblock, it would be with the proviso I'm thinking that HC should recuse himself from editing this article, as a matter of intellectual integrity. Thoughts? (Oh, and I'm gonna invite FQ to review my observations, since she was involved, as well.) AKRadecki^Speaketh 17:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

HC isn't blocked, as I guess you noticed. WR still is, last time I looked. But if you consider him unblockable, please do. Is HC CH? Don't know William M. Connolley (talk) 21:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Ibrahim4048

So after blocking this individual he/she continues editing Mehmed Talat to suit his/her own views.[24] Any advice?? --Kansas Bear (talk) 21:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, there is Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-03/Ibrahim4048 just created. Needs some help William M. Connolley (talk) 22:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, maybe an admin should step in after the personal attack and threat on the Institute of Turkish Studies talk page[25] and a personal threat here[26], "one day you'll be caught"! Apparently this editor, can't handle facts when backed up by references and has to resort to Ad Hominem and childish threats. --Kansas Bear (talk) 15:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

And now, since he clearly doesn't have consensus, Ibrahim4048 has violated 3RR[27]. Careful, you may end being threaten as well!! --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I was very angry at the time so even tough I was right in my accusations I expressed them in the wrong way by directing my accusations directly against him. Only thing I did wrong was attacking him personally and calling him biased while I should have called his article biased and give only criticism on his article not himself. I realized that and I had already changed the text by 11:12, 2 March 2009 as you can see here [28] but off course Kansas Bear has nothing to gain from that text so he uses the old one. I have never threatened anyone by the way. "The way you are creating articles and manipulating others can hardly be called constructive. You are on a crusade my friend. One day you will be caught tough." I am saying here that one day he will be caught by a moderator who sees how he makes his contributions to further his crusade against turks/muslims. It was no physical threat or any sort of threat all.He keeps evading discussion and he doesn't give reasons for hisr reverts. He just writes RV Vandalism and that's it. If two users keep reverting one users contributions without waiting for moderation what am I supposed to do? I have no choice but to break 3RR Ibrahim4048 (talk) 18:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Kansas Bear

Since Kansas Bear seems only interested in getting me blocked but doesn't even want to go into discussion with me or react on my comments and i can't communicate with him, I would like you to take a look at 2 articles he created. I have some objections [29] about Institute of Turkish Studies and Heath W. Lowry. They don't seem written with encyclopedic purposes but with propaganda purposes and others have noticed it too since someone added advertisement template. I added the neutrality template myself. I don't object if he writes essays about the armenian genocide and tries to get recognition but he shouldn't do it on wikipedia. This is an encyclopedia where people come for neutral accurate information, not for someone's personal views. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 03:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

RFAR?

I've just about reached the end of my rope with AJL's unwillingness or inability to follow basic content guidelines such as WP:V and WP:SYN. I'm nearly ready to make a request at WP:RFAR that he be topic banned. Your thoughts? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Ha, I thought you had gone for it [30] before reading the details. I doubt arbcomm will care about people violating V/SYN much, what is more likely to be of interest is how AJL reponds to people correcting him. So far his pattern seems to revert a few times and make some hurt comments and then give up. Having to check every single ref he inserts is indeed a pain; even the septics from the good old days were better William M. Connolley (talk) 21:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As I mentioned on Boris' talk page, I think we need to give him a chance to be a valuable contributor. If it turns out that he's not able to contribute and accurately cite sources without scrutiny, then he's a detriment. If he can go along without us looking over his shoulder, then he's an asset. I think that we should tell him something like: "Look, man, we'll give you a trial period of being really really good with refs, and if you succeed, then we'll stop bugging you so much, and everything will be happy. If you continue to fundamentally misrepresent your sources, we'll have to figure out something else, because you're wasting everyone's time in clean-up duty." Thoughts? Awickert (talk) 21:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That was supposed to be what the RFC was for. I don't see much evidence from that he has taken anything on board William M. Connolley (talk) 21:22, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

So I'll admit it: I'm a Midwesterner who talks like the characters in Fargo when I'm not careful. And with that: Oh, ya, I thought 'e woulda taken a hint, but oh well, I guess not, so maybe we should just be a little bit more direct, ya know? And if 'e is gettin' a little better, might as well give him a 100% clear chance. Awickert (talk) 21:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

William Happer/JASON Report

Apparently there is a new skeptic in town [31], William Happer, and his claim of credibility is that he oversaw DOE's work on climate change (with disdain) and that his research background in physics overlaps the physics of the greenhouse effect. But when I do a search for him on Google Scholar, only one relevant result comes up [32], which is the JASON report on "The Long-term Impacts of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels" that you (and Atmoz?) discussed on your blog [33]. I was wondering if you could give a quick summary of his contribution to the report, if it happens to have contributions listed separately. Either way, based on his statement to the EPW committee, he seems like another Patrick Michaels (warming will be minor, some warming is good, climate scientists just want funding, etc.). Jason Patton (talk) 01:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Hard to tell. We aren't told who wrote individual chapters. The intro credits Happer, heavily influenced by Dyson, with Appendix 3A on Raman scattering which is largely irrelevant to the issue at hand. If you wanted to make trouble for Happer I would have thought quoting JASON would be good, since it isn't septical William M. Connolley (talk) 08:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

No offense:

Per your statment in my clarification, I have brought SA's spelling corrections to AE three times. I do not intend to stop doing so until such time as the limites of SA's ban are made crystal clear, or I am sanctioned by near unanimous consent. While I would hate for you to be the admin to test-case me, I would note that if you intend to warn an editor for reporting SA's violations of his ban, that warning should be placed on my talk page. Please note that SA, to my understanding. does not find my continued reporting incivil or vexatious, that I have not reopened closed reports, and that I have not, to my opinion, pressed my reports past my initial reporting and responses to requested clarification. However, I will not stop unless you can demonstrate clear consensus that my actions are disruptive. Hipocrite (talk) 22:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I maintain my statement; don't consider it a warning to you; I would indeed have put it on your talk page. I can't see the sense of reporting people for correcting spelling errors; as a form of civil disobedience it seems highly effective. Or is that your point? I have warned this user for this edit which is technically a violation of his (ill-thought out, rediculous) topic ban. Hipocrite (talk) 01:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC) does seem rather pointy. Errm, if so, I'd be cautious if I were you (that is advice, not a warning) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The ban is rediculous, but it's also valid. I oppose violating valid bans. I also oppose rediculous bans. These positions are not at odds with eachother. The only place where it would be a problem is if someone was rediculously banned from petitioning for a redress of their ban. My goal in reporting is to stop SA from violating his valid ban. If SA were to petition for redress of his ban, I would support him, but I would still oppose his violation of the ban until it was recinded. Hipocrite (talk) 22:48, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

You will find that most matters are extremely hard to describe in English, and require common sense to interpret. Arbcomm didn't go specifying a whole list of exemptions to the ban, because they expected people to use common sense. It isn't clear to me what anyone gains by you reporting SA for spelling corrections William M. Connolley (talk) 22:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm really sorry for butting in, but my sense of irony is very tickled. "Ridiculous," with an "i". "Rescinded," with an "s". Awickert (talk) 23:04, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

We need more irony :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 23:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Still dyslexic. No joke. Hipocrite (talk) 00:29, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Are you? No way! Congrats on the spelling then. I am not an admin, and you never approached me for my opinion, but if he's doing things that have no chance of doing anything but improving readability, I personally wouldn't care. Why stop someone from working on something that's benign and good? I'd say that your time would probably be better spent on improving articles than in making sure that the letter (instead of just the spirit) of the law were upheld. Awickert (talk) 00:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Dispute over the New York state election template

I saw that you have taken action in this dispute. I would appreciate it very much if you read carefully all statements made on the subject on the user pages of User:Muboshgu, User:Shakescene and my own, and then answer a question or two: 1. As an active article-writing contributor in the middle of a major project (New York state elections), am I entitled to use a nav box, made by myself, which is necessary to my work, or must I accept that a tagger (one who decorates articles with tags, but does not write text) destroys it? [He could add another tag, or refrain from interfering in other people's work, but he destroyed my template.] 2. Should I stop writing articles, so that the tagger is pleased? [I thought there was a rule not to disrupt Wikipedia.] I hope we get this sorted out somehow. Kraxler (talk) 20:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It is a bit unlikely that I will read all the text. But I can offer you some advice: you can use nav boxes for your own purposes as you please. However, for wikipedia purposes, you are obliged to consider the opinions of other people. You seem to feel that the "tagger"'s edits "destroy" your structure. This seems a rather extreme view; if you are correct, then reporting the tagger for vandalism is your answer. No, you should not stop writing articles William M. Connolley (talk) 22:33, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

GW thanks

Thanks for your selective corrections. I'm really pleased that you've been careful to revert only specific bits that concern you. BTW I think the ssa(g) is a moot point. It's adaptation to GHG levels, but (strictly speaking), mitigation of GW. I changed it to your way.Andrewjlockley (talk) 21:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Emission theory (vision)

As to why I am still confused. . . What is it, either I am to miss, because, of incoherence; rather a redundant answer fimililar with Human Intuition.

Do you understand S.String Theory? Like all the great theories. From Aristole, to Galalio, to Newton, to Einstein, to Plank, to Hawkings and every knowledge there in between. It's just a matter of time; as nothing really changes. . . We just uncover more to question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.252.165.91 (talk • contribs)

Ah, you mean this [34] I think. Hmmm. The English is fractured, which we can forgive, but the meaning is unclear and if straightened out would probably be WP:OR William M. Connolley (talk) 09:10, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi

That person is a sockpupett who constantly uses plenty of multiple accounts and anons to harrass me and vandalize pages. I am just reverting things made by only vandalism account, so I cannot be breaking the 3RR rule. Syjytg (talk) 17:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Alex Rio Brazil

William hi. I reported the sock puppets of Alex Rio Brazil for edit warring and you semi protected Aristotle Onassis recently. Now Alex Rio Brazil is edit warring across multiple articles that he found on my user page. I reported this to ANI but no action yet. This user is creating massive disruption. Please help. Thank you. Tasos (Dr.K. logos 18:13, 8 March 2009 (UTC))

Many thanks William. It is nice to know people like you are around. Tasos (Dr.K. logos 19:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC))

Another sock of Alex Rio Brazil

Hi William. He is at it again. He tagged the film L'Insoumis as school again and he was reverted by another user:diff. Dr.K. logos 12:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Tasos (Dr.K. logos 14:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC))

Advice sought

Hi, I'm looking for tips in dealing with a disruptive/difficult editor and hope that maybe you can advise given your experience. I intervened in one editor's lengthy POV-pushing against another (who I respect as having professional expertise in his subject, and who has been the victim of this editor before). I now find that in turn I am being rounded on and baited by this same aggressive editor who seems to be intent on using WP talk pages for sparring. I don't wish to respond to this confrontational behaviour. However, as it seems we often edit in the same areas, I would like to encourage this editor to either keep to his areas of competence or calm down and become more co-operative, and maybe learn along the way. And meanwhile spend my time on WP editing, rather than getting involved in pointless pedantry. Any suggestions (here)? Ephebi (talk) 16:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific; general principles probably don't help. Who is doing the POV-pushing, where is the baiting? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:45, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

for over a year this user has been trying to edit transportation/economics articles by ignoring the established technical terms and concepts and instead pushing biased terms, more suitable for a motoring lobby group than an encyclopaedia. Granted, in some instances it is encyclopaedic to note that an alternative (minority) opinion exists. But this POV-pushing has happened in many places, e.g. here, here and other places, but more recently here where the "discussion" has been getting uncivil. I have followed much of this conflict as a bystander as a lot of these pages have been on my watchlist. (Which is unfortunate as these talk page postings are frequently characterised by being long-winded, point scoring and pedantic.) The current main target of his aggressive edits is someone who IME has evidenced sound economics and transport expertise, who has been amazingly patient & polite for months and even directed the disruptive editor towards good sources of information and text books (which have been ignored). But I stepped in when he started getting accusatory. He then came back to my talk page seemingly spoiling for an argument. I have a busy life that means I have neither the time nor the inclination for sparring. Ephebi (talk) 20:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Having poked around in this for a while, I'd say this is one of the rare cases in which more reverting and less talking is called for. As you say, he does seem somewhat argumentative; you can solve this by not arguing William M. Connolley (talk) 22:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for your consideration. I know he has crossed swords with other admins, but having seen your edits on CC-related activities I would respect your take on this. However as he has come back to my talk page to bait me again I'll just leave a note to that effect. Ephebi (talk) 12:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Short Brigade Harvester Boris

He put a large picture up on your userpage. The edit comment says, "personal attack." I reverted it immediately so he asked me not to on [User_talk:OlYeller21#Recent_reverts my user page] saying that you two do those sort of things occasionally. The edit comment for the message on my talk page was, "admin abuse." He put the picture up again and some one reverted the page back to pre-nincompoopery. I don't know if it's something you two do and personally don't care but if not, I thought you should know. It just seemed a little weird. No response needed. Just wanted to make sure you knew what was going on. OlYeller^Talktome 04:16, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your concern. In normal circumstances you would be right, but Boris is an old friend William M. Connolley (talk) 08:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

No personal attacks, please! He is not that old! And no need to draw attention to it, you young whippersnapper! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

OlYeller2, don't feel too bad. You aren't the only one [35] who got taken in by this little street performance of theirs....  :) Mark Shaw (talk) 12:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Follow-up

Hello - you closed a case at WP:AN/EW a couple of days ago with a block, but the editor has continued reverting straight after the block expired. I've made a new report - if you have time it would be useful if you could follow through by looking at the case again. No matter if not, someone will get to it! Thanks, Knepflerle (talk) 09:32, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Done, I think William M. Connolley (talk) 21:15, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Bushmaster M17S page follow-up

Thank you for considering my post. Never having done this before, am I now justified in undoing his last revert? Or would that also put me in danger of playing the revert-war game myself? Just not sure what I should, in good conscience, do with the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lagaman (talk • contribs) 21:11, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Dont risk it unless you have counted very carefully. Having had "the other side" blocked for 3RR does not give you license to revert. The guideline is, always: if what you want is obvious enough, someone else will do it William M. Connolley (talk) 21:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI: Nukes4Tots has requested unblocking and I am considering it; see User talk:Nukes4Tots#Bushmaster M17S. Cheers —Travis^talk 00:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Um. Well you've done it now. His refusal to admit that he was reverting and subsequent removal of the section doesn't look like a good sign to me William M. Connolley (talk) 08:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I'll be monitoring his contribs for a while. —Travis^talk 15:14, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Rotational

I hope you don't mind me contacting you directly, but I know you are the admin who recently blocked Rotational. He/she has now returned from the block and starting to engage in similar unconstructive editing again. I was wondering if you'd mind looking into it again. Thanks for your time Jenuk1985 | Talk 11:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I've warned him William M. Connolley (talk) 18:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for taking your time to address this situation, in an ideal world this will be the end of it :-) Jenuk1985 | Talk 18:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Return of an old idea?

Is this related to good old aetherometry? Guettarda (talk) 14:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I've piled in William M. Connolley (talk) 18:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Blunt force cranial trauma

Sadly, such therapy appears to be contraindicated for this patient as there is no evidence of a functioning larf gland. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:19, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

59.91.253.*

Hi, I saw you block 59.91.253.27 and just wanted to let you know there's a thread about it at WP:ANI#Edit war at Socialist Unity Centre of India article, breaches of WP:NPA, allegations of sock-puppetry. The anon is jumping between different IPs in the 59.91.253.*-range so a rangeblock might be necessary. Cheers, --aktsu ^(t / c) 20:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I sort-of noticed, not sure why it hasn't just been dealt with. I presume someone will let me know if the anon comes back. Range blocks are scary William M. Connolley (talk) 20:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration

Seem like arbitration is a good idea for the revert war on Greenhouse effect (Discussion), do you agree?--Damorbel (talk) 22:37, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Note to WMC, WP:AN3 report under construction. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh goody, can I block him? Oh, wait... William M. Connolley (talk) 22:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Too late. [36] --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 22:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The sekret kabal strikes again! William M. Connolley (talk) 22:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Philbox17 and Réseau de Résistance du Québécois

Thanks for looking into this, but reading the 3RR page sends me back to ANI/Edit warring. Where should I go next?

I think I'm justified in going above the 3RR limit (not sure, and keeping it reasonable anyway) because the guy is A) COI & POV (he was instructed by his org to edit Wikipedia entry on the org) and b) he has made several personal attacks and has threatened me. He is suspended on French wikipedia and the article there is semi-protected. Vincent (talk) 23:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)