User talk:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz

Not bad faith

Hi. You're not receiving bad faith or summary mistreatment by admins. Several of us have been extra patient in dealing with this problem because we don't want to block you. But if you keep fighting against community standards, that's what's going to happen, regrettably. There's no rush. Why don't you discuss this. If you can make a good case for your position, we might be able to accommodate you somehow, or there might be a compromise. Jehochman ^Talk 15:43, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to point out the obvious - but Hullaballoo, at the moment, due to the move-war that you've initiated, when you moved User talk:Hullaballoo_Wolfowitz/Archive 2, you moved it to User talk:User talk:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, which was tagged and deleted as an implausible typo. At the moment, you're entire talk page history has been deleted. Continuing to try and redirect your archive to your talk page is, well, futile at the moment. @Fram and Jehochman: can one of you restore the revisions to the archive? Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 15:56, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The history is at User talk:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz/Archive 2. Fram (talk) 15:57, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Derp.... I went off of your edit at User talk:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz/Archive2 ;) /me goes back to sleep Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 16:01, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Block notice

Sadly, I have now blocked you for 24 hours for disruptive editing. You technically still can edit this page, and thus reinstate the redirect. This will only lead to the removal of your talk page access as well, so please don't.

You were given plenty of chances to discuss this, but only replied by reinstating your preferred but for others clearly unacceptable situation. This is disruptive editing. Your user talk page is not your property to do with like you please, it is a place for other editors to contact you. Making this deliberately much harder is not something that can be accepted. Fram (talk) 15:50, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we could back away from the cliff

HW, if I unblock you, and move your talk page back here temporarily as a gesture of respect, can I assume you'll discuss this at WP:AN, and will abide by whatever consensus forms there? That way you could have some control over how it is resolved. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, Flo, you doing that action would be disputed. Please discuss it first. If you are right, I'm sure you are eloquent enough to generate a consensus for your proposal. Jehochman ^Talk 16:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

No, Fram said he was OK with another admin doing it at AN. And you handled this poorly, contributing to the dysfunction. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

No, Fram said if it seems likely that he'll stop redirecting his talk page of course - Not an agreement to restore the disputed talk page here, unblock him, and then ask him to discuss it at AN. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 16:14, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with your proposed admin action. The dysfunction is that the editor is using his talk page in a way that prevents others from communicating with him. You are welcome to disagree with me, but you should not use sysop access in furtherance of a disagreement. Go to WP:AN and generate a consensus to unblock the editor. That will provide an opportunity perhaps to discover the best way forward. Your judgement is not better than everybody elses'. Jehochman ^Talk 16:15, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear God in Heaven, you people are morons. You enjoy this, don't you? You enjoy escalating shit, and pissing all over any attempt to deescalate. This conversation is between HW and me, and if he agrees then I'm going to do this, and if you want to whine about it somewhere, that will be fine. Shame on you. And yes, in this case, my judgement is better than yours, because I'm trying to help, and you're trying to enforce. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:20, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Woah! First of all, you're assuming bad faith, and you're being condescending. I tried getting Hull to open up and talk about why he was opposed, and he kept edit warring to restore his talk page. He chose his actions, not me, not Jehochman. I understand that you're trying to deescalate, but you can't unliaterally go against consensus that's developed at AN. All Jehochman is asking for you to do is see if the there's a consensus to revert, unblock, and then try and discuss with HW. FWIW, I'm deeply offended that you're insinuating that I think this is a great thing to happen. The last thing anyone wanted here was for HW to be blocked. No wonder this community is going to shit with all this bad faith. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 16:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I've unwatched this page. Jehochman ^Talk 16:29, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Guys, yes the talk page was getting to be a problem. But talking it out over days rather than barging in and just changing it would have been a much better call. It isn't like it's some new emergency--it's been years. Let Floq and HW see if they can't find a reasonable way forward. Hobit (talk) 17:51, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• • While I appreciate your comments and Floquenbeam's, no reasonable response from me is going to matter. This was obviously an out-of-process put-up job designed to discredit and remove a "troublesome" editor whose adherence to and enforcement of policies makes a certain claque of administrators/editors uncomfortable.

Note that

1. The AN discussion was initiated by an editor who I had little or no prior interaction with, and who had made no attempt at substantive discussion of the issues with me. That normally precludes resorting to the drama boards.
2. The editor who initiated the AN discussion then canvassed eight users, just about all of whom have engaged in disputes with me over various issues, but not editors who had expressed similar concerns but who were usually on the same "side" as I was in BLP disputes. It is remarkable, to say the least, that Technical 13 somehow managed to select the two admins whose closes I recently supported overturning in currently-active discussions at DRV [1] [2] and one editor whose current DRV proposals I've opposed [3]. Even more remarkably, the editor managed to search my supposedly difficult-to-handle talk page, find all of these users to canvass, and post to WP:AN in about 15 minutes. It is certainly reasonable to suspect this enterprise was set up in advance, and I see no reason to doubt it.
3. There have been roughly 200 posts to the talk page in the last 90 days or so. That hardly is consistent with the claim that I "effectively disable[d] his [my] talk page by letting it get so large it will not load reliably".
4. Despite my running an old OS (Windows XP) and using a notoriously lousy but, in my area, unavoidable ISP, I don't have any trouble accessing the talk page, even if I'm not logged in. The only time I had trouble was when the stinking Visual Editor was active. I suspect that many of the editors who actually have problems have editing "enhancements", scripts, gadgets, addons, browser extensions whatever, that subtly degrade their performance. When some editors report no serious problems and others report dysfunction, it is more likely that the problem's root cause is not the source page. I often have problems getting userspace pages including media files to load readily, and I'm not the only one, but I don't demand that everybody else restrict their pages to fit my idiosyncracies.
5. I'm often in disputes here with publicists, promoters, and other folks who try to use Wikipedia as an internet marketing tool. I note that the summary disputed action here was taken buy a guy in the internet marketing business. That really smells. There's no way around it.
6. I've also often been used as a poster child for admin abuse by commenters at Wikipedia Review and Wikipediocracy, after a particularly atrocious admin blocked me for a comment made by another editor, refused to block the editor who made the comment, and refused to unblock after Checkuser confirmed no association with the other editor. That incident has led to a disproportionate number of conflicts with admins and editors who are hostile toward those sites, as well as a lack of deference on my part to administrative "authority". And some of what's happening here looks to be payback. And I'm sick and tired of Wolfowitz-only rules here, like being told I can't use the phrase "convicted criminal" to describe an actual convicted criminal, while allowing the article subject's girlfriend to use the same phrase to describe someone who was not convicted (or even charged with) any crime. You can't make stuff like that up.
7. I clearly wasn't given anything like a reasonable opportunity to respond. I was notified about the AN discussion at about 1AM my time last night, saw nothing calling for an immediate response, and decided to wait until morning to see how things were sorting out. At the time Jehochman acted, there clearly was no consensus for his action (which he technically botched to begin with). As the length of this response indicates, acting without giving me a chance to respond was utterly uncalled for.

• If you want to post any or all of this to WP:AN, @Hobit:, feel free. But this was a planned lynching, and I don't expect fair treatment in response; that's why I haven't posted an unblock request. It won't be the first time. Could be the last, though. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

  Thank you for taking the time to respond Hullaballoo. Would you mind telling us why you're opposed to the requests to archive your page, and what, if anything, you would rather happen? I'll post this to the AN thread, if that's okay. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 21:02, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

  • Read items 3 and 4, which directly address the threshold question. It's obvious from the responses that already show up at AN, though, that I wouldn't have received a fair hearing even had I responded instantly. And why didn't you post it in the appropriate, initial section? The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 21:44, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

    • There was no smooth place to post your reply, so I made it it's own section. It shows others that you have replied and gives a spotlight to what you're saying, which is important for the overall discussion. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 21:50, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd recommend that you don't revert the archiving of your talkpage, when your 24hr-block expires. Trust me, a combative nature isn't going to help. It's a lesson that I've learned these last 2+ yrs. GoodDay (talk) 22:21, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• HW, perhaps we are BLP enemies (are we?), but here's some serious advice: they archived your talk page because it was absurdly long. If this is a vendetta against you, it is a very dumb one, and one you should ignore. If you're going to get intentionally blocked by reverting edits, let's make it over something really worthwhile to you!--Milowent • ^hasspoken 22:23, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

HW, I don't think you and I have ever had a conflict, and FWIW I agree with everyone else that you should archive your talk page as a sign of respect for people trying to leave you messages (It took me quite a while to load your archived talk page this morning). I just don't agree with the way it was handled. I recognize some sensible people in that AN thread, so it's not all enemies.

You don't have to ask, I'll unblock you now as (at least) a token of de-escalation. Especially since it isn't preventing you from doing what you were blocked for, and because it's easier for you to post to AN than to have someone transfer your comments.

So where do you want to go from here? What reasonable outcome do you want to see? I'm pretty sure the page is going to end up getting archived, reading the writing on the wall, but it makes no sense for this to happen without your input on how. If it makes you more willing to discuss it, I'll move it back here until a final decision is reached, but that's admittedly just symbolic; barring an unforeseen development I can't imagine it staying that way forever. Do you want to archive it a different way? Or argue for not archiving it at AN? Or do you want to cut your losses and move on? Also, I note that while your comments above explain why you don't think it should have to be archived, it doesn't explain why you actually object to it being archived. Is it just a matter of not wanting busybodies telling you what to do, or is there more to it? --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:31, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• (edit conflict × 2)Some responses here as the editor who raised the issue in the first place. I'm guessing you feel like you are being "strong-armed" with "mob tactics", and since I'm aware of the fact that you've had multiple other conflicts (you're not alone in that), I'm not going to assume you are unjustified in thinking so.

As you mention in your first bullet point, The AN discussion was initiated by an editor who I had little or no prior interaction with, which means to me that you acknowledge the fact that I'm not here "just another member of the mob". I'll point out that I'm not an administrator (don't honestly want to be one at this point) and I'm usually on the other end of the stick (that everyone keeps telling me to drop). You seem to be complaining that I did not first try to discuss it with you before heading over to AN, and the reason I did not initiate further discussion with you on the topic before heading over to AN was that I was technically incapable of directly editing your user page; the only reason I managed to add the AN notice was because I did it through the API via Twinkle.

In your second bullet, you accuse me of CANVASSING eight other users, and based on your just about all of whom have engaged in disputes with me over various issues statement, you seem to think I did it to stack the deck against you only notifying people who you've had disputes with in the past. I'll say that I notified exactly nine people of the discussion at AN, yourself and the eight people who I linked to their requests on your user talk page for archival over the last nearly five years now. I notified them, because an action that they had performed involved them in the discussion when I linked those revisions. There was no other reason or motive behind it and I have no idea who you have or haven't had disputes with in the past, nor do I much care.

In the third bullet, you mention how 200 posts have been made to your talk page in the last 90 days. I'm not sure what your point in making that comment was suppose to be considering your page was too large 50 months ago and way way too large as much as a year ago. This is something that should have been done long ago and consistently.

You mention that your system and connection are lousy in your fourth point, and that you have no troubles loading your page. You then try to shift the blame to gadgets, userscripts, beta features claiming that it's not your fault if people can't communicate with you because they choose to use those features. I'll tell you that on my ShoeMaker test account, using nothing but wiki default settings and the monobook skin (I think that's what it is called), and a decent computer with a 15Mb cable connection, I still couldn't access your talk page and make a successful save (I keep getting the Wikimedia Error window). So, blaming the software just isn't going to fly for me.

As for the remainder of your bullet points, those seem to me to be out of context of what my goal was in starting the AN discussion in the first place. You seem to have taken a lot of stuff personally (and I'm not sure I blame you, I've felt very similar at times), and you've let that effect your judgement. For me it is simply a technical issue,l nothing more, nothing less. If you and Floquenbeam can reach an effective agreement for an archiving scheme that is reasonable for everyone and Floq wishes to end the block early based on that, then I entirely support that. I hope that you can resolve this quickly, and get back to happily editing! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 22:32, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Not hardly convincing. You give no explanation of why you decided to personalize this; you cited only one complaint in the last two years beside your own, which to a reasonable person would signal that you ought to consider it's not a major problem, and might well be at your end, you don't make any attempt to explain the remarkable correlation between the open DRVs and the selective list of editors to WP:CANVASS, you had no good reason to open an out-of-place discussion at AN rather than at the Village Pump (policy decisions and "technical decisions" aren't reserved for admins), leaving only the inference that your real interest was provoking action against me. And, frankly, if you don't believe the many recent posts to my talk page are signals that the problems you claim to be concerned with don't seem to affect most users, and in turn that the problems may well be at your end, than your technical competence is likely lower than you believe it is. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 00:58, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

It's just an unnecessary hassle to have to scroll down through a long talk page, the standard convention is to archive it, and a bunch of folks asked you to. So why the stubborn antisocial behavior? NE Ent 01:33, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Why the antisocial behavior? I'm practicing to be an admin! (rimshot) I would find it a bigger hassle to have to rummage through the large set of archives that would result from the standard archiving practices. I'm sick and tired of the Wolfowitz-only rules that get applied to me. No other editor was subjected to being blocked for actions taken by a different editor, even though that editor was not blocked or even warned. The editor who did this [4] wasn't sanctioned or warned in any way as long as I was seen as their main target. On and on, over and over. I don't believe that this dispute was initiated in good faith; the initiator hasn't given any remotely credible explanation of how they came to be involved; the improper CANVASSing was quite apparent, the discussion clearly never approached consensus, and yet summary action was taken for no reason beyond "Oh, fuck Wolfowitz, he's unmutual". As the late Mr Vonnegut would say, "The fix is in". The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 05:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

It's hardly a Wolfowitz only rule; it's right in WP:TALKCOND "It is recommended to archive or refactor a page either when it exceeds 75 KB, or has multiple resolved or stale discussions." One of the commenters on AN made a similar request to another editor three days ago [5]. You were first asked over four years ago [6]. Part of being a member of a community is following conventions simply because they are conventions. NE Ent 12:12, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You may be naive enough to believe that, but it's utter bullshit. The AN complaint that started was obviously pretextual, brought in violation of the prescribed procedures at AN, not to mention those "standard conventions" you want to rely on. And it was improperly WP:CANVASSED, obviously and clumsily. But that's OK, because it's Wolfowitz. This wasn't about the talk page, even if you believe it was. "Part of being a member of a community is following conventions simply because they are conventions"? Nonsense. Part of being a member of a community is recognizing and accepting that communities are diverse, that different styles and opinions are legitimate, and that there's nothing wrong with being "unconventional". I got a few complaints a year about the talk page, mostly from editors pushing their side in active disputes -- and the fact that I have about as active a talk page as non-admins have puts the lie to the claim that the page significantly impeded communication. It's been open season on Wolfowitz here this year: It's OK for a paid publicist to make phony accusations of racism without consequences [7]; a venomous troll bent on defaming an article subject was allowed to continue [8] so long as the only editor she harassed was Wolfowitz [9] [10][11]. If you're going to join a lynching party, don't expect the guest of honor to appreciate your lovely choice of rope. No More Mr Nice Wolfowitz (talk) 14:46, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• The only one personalizing this has been you. I didn't cite only one complaint other than my own, I listed eight of them, including my own ([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]), which to a reasonable person would signal that you ought to consider it is a major problem. There was a different editor for each one of those various requests for you to archive your talk page (using many various methods from starting a discussion on your talk page, to setting up a bot for you, to marking the page with the {{Archiveme}} template), those are the editors I pinged. Your repeated refusal to take a hint over the last five years indicated to me that there needed to be a discussion on a noticeboard that dealt with such issues. If I had gone to AN/I, then I would certainly agree that it would have been out of place; however, I went to AN which seemed like an appropriate place and the resulting discussion and consensus seems to confirm. As for your last comment there, you are certainly more than welcome to your opinion. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 02:00, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• You're working hard to demonstrate your lack of good faith. First of all, you've blatantly misquoted me. I said one complaint in the last two years besides your own. An average of one complaint a year, roughly, would not indicate a major problem, especially when so many of them came from editors on the opposite sides of disputes. There were a few that you didn't cite, but you carefully avoid explaining the fact that you went out of your to spot and improperly WP:CANVASS editors you expected to be hostile to me. Hell, your technically deficient signature may well do more to degrade performance across the project. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 03:52, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• Dear God, this talk page is going to be as long as it was if we keep on with these long responses.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 22:34, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Can we all please get on with the task in hand, not bickering over a page that, frankly, is for constructive discussion? The page has been archived, and the block removed, so there doesn't appear to be anything else constructive to happen here. Let's get back to improving the encyclopedia, which will be good however you look at it. --Mdann52talk to me! 18:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

"We've screwed you over, now get back to doing what we tell you" is not a communication that furthers improvement of the encyclopedia. This obviously isn't about the talk page, or about policy or guideline, but about slapping down an editor who is seen as sufficiently deferential to a claque of editors/admins. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 18:32, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you meant insufficiently. But fixing it might mean deferring to the claque... will the problems never end? Bazj (talk) 20:31, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

HW, you're only making things worst for yourself, by being combative. Don't make the mistakes that I've made in 2011, 2012 & 2013. GoodDay (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you're right about the canvassing; total WP:VOTESTACKING. Which means, if we discount the canvassed editors on AN, there really wasn't consensus for anything. (My personal opinion remains unchanged, but obviously that doesn't mean very much.) So the question is -- what do you want to do about it? I closed the AN thread as much to stop the HW bashing as anything else, and it's unclear to me whether re-opening would make things better or worse. Let me know if you want me to re-open the discussion. NE Ent 20:59, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• For the record I largely agree with NE Ent here. I feel this whole thing moved way (way) too fast and amounted to bullying. But the page was a (small) problem and probably needed to be addressed (from my home computer I'd tried to edit the old page and it took about 30 seconds to load but I've an old/crappy computer and a slow connection). I'd urge you to let it go as there really isn't anything more to be done. I hate letting people bully me (to the point of becoming irrational) so I get that might not be so easy to do. Hobit (talk) 01:58, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

It's a website ... it is what it is. You're not blocked. Go do what you want to do. — Ched :  ?  02:24, 14 December 2014 (UTC)