User talk:A. B.

Thanks re Dutchess County vandalism.

Thanks for the great work you're doing.

Please include [Ticket#2006051210010839] in the subject of future DC emails so we can easily track all responses at info-en@. -- Jeandré, 2006-05-14t12:44z

Alexander Bonnyman

Hi there, I think you should add more biographical information to the page about Alexander Bonnyman, Jr., like that he went to Princeton, lived in Knoxville, etc. --Awiseman 14:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion -- I have just done so. I tried capture the essence of the man without too much editorializing or puffery. I think an important part of his Tarawa story is how multiple components of his personality, skills and background -- some a source of controversy in his pre-war life -- converged in his final three days.--A. B. 15:58, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, it looks good. --Awiseman 16:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Ashe

Thanks for your comment on the Victor Ashe article. I was planning on adding one more paragraph -- on annexation policies -- when I had time. Acantha1979 04:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)Acantha

La Tormenta

I'm not entirely sure why I did that - I think the version I was looking at was with the example image and it looked like a newbie playing around. Anyway, I sent the user in question an apology and removed my warning. Thanks for keeping me honest and on my toes. --Bachrach44 18:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:AN/I

Having reviewed the Victor Ashe article, to which I came after reading your Administrators' Noticeboard posting, I think, even as I won't revert your link excision, that you have misapplied WP:LIVING in this case, although your admonishment of the anon user was likely appropriate, if only in order that he/she might be aware of WP:LIVING and comport any future edits with it (inasmuch as it seems the user tends toward disruption and is decidely biased against the subjects of certain articles he edits, it's likely that he might make future edits that contravene the letter of WP:LIVING). There are a few things, though, that I think you might do well to remember with respect to WP:LIVING:

1. There is profound disagreement over the application of WP:LIVING to article talk pages; at the very least, there is a consensus, I think, for the view that article talk pages ought not to subject to the same strict scrutiny under LIVING that mainspace pages are. In any case, WP:LIVING is a guideline and not policy, and reasonable editors will disagree as to its scope.
2. Though Wikipedia:Template messages/Disputes doesn't offer a clear prescription, it is generally thought that the {{blp}} template ought only to be used on article talk pages and not in mainspace; certainly the former usage is much more common than the latter (since it is a message to editors and not to readers, cf., {{NPOV}} ).
3. The posting of a link to a statement of fact essayed by an external individual is emphatically not libelous, viz., because
   1. It is well settled that, while that, under certain circumstances, the republishing of libellous material may be civilly actionable or, in a few jurisdictions, criminally proscribed, the simple publication of a link provides an insufficient nexus of harm to be colorable.
   2. Assuming arguendo that the publication of a link can be understood as orthogonal to the publication of the actual text to which the link points, a publisher is nevertheless immune from civil suit where he/she/it can be reasonably confident of the veracity of the textual aversions (if only facially in view of the idenity of the author) and is thus non-negligent; here, the author is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor of Nevada, and, though surely a bit kooky and altogether sure to lose, she nevertheless commanded some support to qualify for the ballot and is a source whom we can legitimately trust.
4. Of course, it is generally thought that any civil action undertaken against Wikipedia for libel of this sort would fail for sundry other reasons, but I accept that your redaction was undertaken in view of policy, rather than legal, concerns.

In sum, I certainly understand that you acted to protect the encyclopedia, and I don't think your actions to have been unreasonable (although I don't think we ought to remove the "offending" edit from the history); I write only so that you might know that the precepts of LIVING aren't interpreted consistently, and that their application does not always carry a consensus. In this case, of course, there's absolutely no harm to the project from the removal of the link (although it can be argued that we ought to reference the allegations--not as fact, of course, but as truth asserted by a quasi-notable individual--per WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:V, but if indeed our article ought to note the allegations, someone else will raise the issue), and I suspect that, were the information of legitimate encyclopedic quality, you wouldn't have removed it straightaway. The point of all of this, I suppose, is to say that your good faith is appreciated, that you seem to be doing fine work on the Ashe page, and that, though no one is going to object here, if you consider elsewhere making larger changes in view of LIVING, you oughtn't to be discouraged if some others don't support those changes. Cordially, Joe 19:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

OK. In light of the above, I will drop this matter.--A. B. 23:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

You needn't to feel bound by my singular opinion; even as I would like to think otherwise, I am neither infallible nor omniscient. I don't think it's necessary for us to remove the "offending" edit (if only because, well, it's unlikely anyone's ever going to see it, and no untoward description was included in the edit summary), but neither would the project by ill-served by our removing it; if you feel uncomfortable with it, you should surely seek the advice of others (you might, for example, use the {{helpme}} template, which likely will draw administrator response much quicker than a posting on one of the noticeboards. I suspect that our Wikipedia philosophies, to say nothing of our general morals, are profoundly different, as evidenced by our profound disagreement over how we ought to handle the putative child solicitation (I advocated, at AN/I and on Jimbo's talk page, for our doing absolutely nothing, finding there to have been nothing wrong, other than the misuse of user talk space for extra-encyclopedic purposes, with the conversations), and the divisions between us (generally, with respect to Wikiethics mirror those between good sections of the community), and so it's quite possible that another user will view the Ashe matter differently. In any event, the reasoned and deliberative nature of your correspondences (especially on the noticeboards) is commendable and refreshing; I'm always happy to find project participants who aren't averse to collaborative conversations. Joe 03:45, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Welcoming users

Hi, remember to welcome users on their talk pages and not their userpages. Thanks!--Kungfu Adam ^(talk) 00:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for catching my mistake.--A. B. 01:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Project Galatea

I'm glad you found Project Galatea inspiring. I've kind of abandoned the poor project, for lack of time and energy, but I definitely hope to come back to it someday (soon?). Naturally, you can, and should, make the project your own as much as you like; this is still Wikipedia, after all :) --Ashenai 01:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Enaction

Greetings! Thank you for the pointer re the original editor of the enaction article. I check the history but not always the user, so I missed that this user was new. The other red flag, to me, was the link to the ENACTIVE Network...I guess the spam sensor got a false-positive on that one. :)

I have done three things: first, I changed my {{prod2}} tag on the article to {{prod2a}} and clarified what my objections to the article are. Second, I wrote to the editor on his talk page regarding improvements I'd like to see in the article. Finally, I tagged the article as a stub to hopefully solicit other editors to expand the article. Hopefully, the original editor or somebody else will be able to expand out the article—and with a good expansion, I will gleefully deprod the article. —C.Fred (talk) 04:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Shadowman7

I suspect this user had some connection to the articles he created, but the film he wrote about won an award and they're all listed on IMDB. I tend to not think of blatant advertising as an honest mistake, so I'm afraid I tend to be harsh in that regard. However, I do send a warning the first time, I drop the hammer on a non-notable article. I only get really harsh when someone reposts material they know is inappropriate.

Anyway, thanks for the nice note. It feels nice to be appreciated. Educating newbies is a good cause and I'm glad you're doing it. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Kudos from a neutral in this war

Dear A. B.:

In the talk page of Sovereignty of the Falkland Islands you wrote:

I was impressed to see how neutral this article was (at least in my eyes). I can also tell from the talk page that it took a lot of effort and forbearance on the part of both the Argentine and British editors to make this happen. I know that wasn't always easy. I'm sure that to the truly well-informed there may still be some flaws, but I can't find them.

Maybe so, although the result falls a little bit short of NPOV. For your information, here follows an example from the article.

The table titled "Timeline of de facto control" claims that the islands were under Argentine de facto control during the early 1830s including the period of time when the Argentine settlement was occupied by the US Navy.

There is nothing new in this well known and amply documented undisputable fact. The Americans took full control, arrested and repatriated virtually all the Argentine settlers, some of them in chains. And this is still Argentine de facto control?!

For the sake of thoroughness, cf. say [1]:

El 28 de diciembre de 1831, enarbolando bandera francesa, la corbeta Lexington arribó a Puerto Soledad. Una partida desembarcó y destruyó el asentamiento, tomando prisioneros a la mayoría de sus habitantes. El día 8 de febrero de 1832 el buque norteamericano arribó al puerto de Montevideo con seis de los prisioneros engrillados y otros en calidad de pasajeros. Todos fueron luego liberados en el puerto. Antes de abandonar las islas, Duncan había declarado a éstas libres de todo gobierno (res nullius).

The date when the Americans took control was 28 December 1831, and they stayed 22 days [2]:

La corbeta permanece 22 días en las islas.

Even the facsimiles of the original American reports of the events are available online. (By the way, you might be interested to see there also the facsimile of relevant excerpts from Julius Goebel's pro-Argentine book, which in particular mentions Britain's internationally recognized rights of economic activities on the islands conceded by Spain under the Nootka Sound Convention.)

The missing entry in the table corresponding to that actual situation would be:

December 1831 - January 1832 USA

So it is very important and NPOV whether to put in the table the XVIII Century flags of France and Great Britain or the modern ones, but less so that the US flag is replaced by the Argentine for December 1831 - January 1832. So much for NPOV. Apcbg 09:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear Apcbg,

I guess it depends on your point of view. I'm probably less of a stickler for details.

As I noted in my comment, "I'm sure that to the truly well-informed there may still be some flaws ...". I realize that article is not perfect, but when I consider the historical sweep of the sovereignity issue, I'm not sure the American occupation makes a lot of difference and I am impressed that Argentine and British editors have been able to hammer out a document that's very NPOV overall.

The other thing I wanted to say was how impressed I've been with all your Antarctica-related contributions. Thanks for undertaking all that you've done.

--A. B. 09:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Dear A. B.:

You are right that the importance of that occupation could depend on your point of view — hence to label it 'detail' is POV. The fact of occupation itself however is no POV. (It was more than important by the way, it was crucial; what happened at that time was that Argentina tried to establish effective control which it did not have — there were more English and American sealing ships (on the average 100 ships, each with a crew of some 20) than there were Argentine settlers! So Argentina tried to establish control by force (Vernet's action against three US sealers) and that was rejected by the US Government, the USA responded by force, which opened the door for the British intervention in 1933. If that is 'detail' then the article could be reduced to its title alone. The same 'detail' is the Argentine occupation in April - June 1982 — how come it's in the table and the American one is not? The article is markedly biased, and I though it appropriate to point that out to you as you suggested it was NPOV. Anyway, I see that it's unproductive to get involved in this topic, and prefer to allocate valuable time resource to more constructive contributions elsewhere than correcting old wrongs, even though these become the source of considerable disinformation given the massive reproduction and perpetuation of Wikipedia material by countless Internet sources. Many thanks for your kind opinion of my Antarctica-related contributions. Apcbg 10:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

USS Farragut (DDG-37)

Thanks for your words 150.214.167.153 12:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Your comment to new user CJC47 last month

That's great to hear on both accounts. Thank you for brightening my day! Rklawton 17:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

mikkalai re: my talk page

In your endeavors to bring about a more pleasant environment, have you perchance crossed paths with mikka? He seems a most unpleasant sort, but given his only one brief communication, I'm not entirely sure what to make of him. Rklawton 01:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I have not dealt with this editor/administrator. From looking at his user and talk pages, he looks like a prolific contributor who has not gotten into many disputes (given the extent of all he's done). I see you reverted his April 1 addition as not fitting into the agreed-upon format. It looks as if he was editing in good faith and you, in turn, reverted in good faith. As for his comment, it's a bit cryptic. Maybe he didn't really understand why you did what you did? (My impression from your edit summary is that the date pages have an agreed upon organization and layout that's not to be fiddled with). It might help if he knew that this format is not based on Rklawton's personal whim but a project consensus.

I've got to go. I wish you both the best in working this out. If I can help, let me know. I'll be back next week.

--A. B. 02:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Unfair

I wasn't following him around, U of T is on my watchlist. I was wrong, and I left his revert in tact. As for the other article, I'll leave it a few days, and then put it on AFD. Ardenn 03:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Ardenn, thanks for your patience with new contributor Slagish‎ -- I notice you later helped him with links and categories for his Toronto Region -- Statistics Canada Research Data Centre (Toronto RDC) article . Statistical research is not exactly my cup of tea either, but the centre did seem like it would meet Wikipedia's notability criteria once the article was expanded.

Also, I'm glad to learn you weren't following Slagish around as I'd initially thought. I had noticed that within one or two minutes, you'd both PROD'ed his first article and reverted his edit on another, so I thought maybe you were following him or had an itchy trigger finger.

--A. B. 03:33, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Please assume good faith when dealing with other editors. See Wikipedia:Assume good faith for the guidelines on this. Ardenn 03:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Ardenn, I always try to assume good faith but I'm certainly not perfect; see my B. edits on other users' talk pages and judge for yourself.

When I look at your talk and user contribution pages, I see a highly productive editor (almost 1000 edits in the last month) with an unusually low number of comments. Your Canadian-related contributions in particular have been prolific and very useful to the Wikipedia project.

On the other hand, when I hit your talk page's history links (1, 2), I see over 500 deleted (not archived) comments in the last 6 months, many of them very contentious. This includes deleted warnings, blocks and comments about 3RR violations. It's not a very good faith picture. --A. B. 05:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

potential controversial

Dear A. B.,

Thanks for your reaction, Glencoe is indeed controversial even, but apparently .... But anyways thanx for your comments, I'll keep them in mind secondly, thanks for the comments made on the baron of scales, I hope someone will wikify it. Quaggga 17:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

re Dan Sperber

No problem; thanks for checking (and letting me know). It was busy last night on RC patrol. :) --EngineerScotty 16:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

re: ADARSH SAMAJ SAHYOG SAMITI

Thanks for your comments - I've also supported your views on Staxringold's talk page. -- Tivedshambo (talk) 19:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Adarsh Samaj

I've restored the page per the requests. My reason for the deletion was it does not assert any particular importance, is not wikified, and was titled in all caps (not a good sign for a "real" article). I changed the Speedy Request to a PROD and moved to a proper title. Staxringold _talk^contribs 19:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! I believe PROD is very appropriate under the circumstances. --A. B. 00:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• No problem! Thanks for keeping a careful eye out as being an admin is not a sign of infallibility. Don't worry about the long message, it's always better to include everything you feel is important. I'm going to archive my talk page right now anyways (A new month seems like a good place). Staxringold _talk^contribs 02:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletions

I've deleted your old pages. In the future if you want something that you created speedily deleted, just place {{db-author}} at the top of the page. --Pilot|guy 19:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

thanks!--A. B. 22:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Bacon to Mr. Sausage

No worries about the question, IDK why I wanted to change it, Funny I guess. The password to my account has been changed so THIS is my new account Peach12 Talk Contributions Email 21:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Bacon, sausage, peaches ... personally, I liked Mr. Sausage best. (Commodore Sausage also has a certain ring) --A. B. 22:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Cheddington2001

Thanks for the welcome and advice you left for me the other day.

I play no official role and I'm no administrator -- I just want to make sure a productive newcomer doesn't get tactlessly reverted or inappropriately warned. Reversions are OK if done with tact and explanation; official warnings (vandalism, etc.) should not be given when coaching would work as well.

I hope you'll consider doing the same for newcomers once you get your feet on the ground. I go to Special:New pages and look for new articles contributed by people without user pages or talk pages (i.e., red links). I look to see if the articles have merit, then if they do, I put a welcome template Wikipedia:Welcome template table on their talk page, add a personal comment about their article (with maybe a pointer, as I did with you) and then put both the person and the new page on my watch list for a week or so. If they get mugged or their page gets zapped, I try to help them.

One caution -- as time goes by, I've learned to be picky about who I do this for, particularly if I take on the additional effort of going to bat for someone. I want to make sure that even if it's a semi-vanity article or semi-unnoteworthy article, the author appears to be making other contributions and is genuinely interested in improving Wikipedia and his edits, not just making a drive-by submission of some article plugging his dry-cleaning business.

I learned this after really wasting a lot of time on this one:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GBO Trusted Enterprise Award
• User talk:Pingfan

I even sent the guy e-mails. Compare my earnest (and naive) attempts to help with the user's own subsequent level of effort on Wikipedia's behalf

Anyway, thanks for the nice note!

--A. B. 18:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

...and thanks for the further comment. I look forward to helping others in due course.

{Cheddington2001 12:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)}

I need help with a PROD template

I just tried to add a PROD tag to Adarsh Samaj Sahyog Samiti and got near gibberish when shown in preview mode. Am I doing something wrong?

Here's the first thing I tried:

{{subst:prod|This article still has not been shown to meet Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Notability|notability standards]]}}

Thinking the article link was the problem, I then tried:

{{subst:prod|This article still has not been shown to meet Wikipedia's notability standards}}

Then, I just tried the example from the template page:

{{subst:prod|reason}}

At this point I concluded I need a grown-up's help and hollered for help:

{{helpme}}

I notice the template was recently edited, so maybe the template itself is the issue. Note that I have been working exclusively in "Show preview" mode and have not saved any of these edits.

Thanks in advance for your help.
--A. B. 17:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I've added back in the prod tag for you. --Pilotguy ^{(roger that)} 17:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Name change

FWIW, the celerity of your substitution of the new user name would be improved markedly were you to employ WP:AWB, for use of which I think you'd surely be eligible in view of your having previously accumulated the requisite edits. In any event, I'm sure someone would gladly perform the substitutions for you using AWB (I, for example, once I've downloaded the new version), but you may well be nearly done already... Joe 02:48, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:AWB looks like a powerful tool but unfortunately I'm using a Mac! It's one of the few times when I wish I didn't. I'll poke around and see if there's a Mac equivalent, but I don't think there is. I may take you up on your offer -- let me know if there's a time when you're in a position to do this. I have something like 250 pages left to do and it makes flossing feel exciting.--A. B. 15:48, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

PS "Celerity" is one of those excellent English words you never see used. It's nice to read something from such a semantically discriminating person.

von Wettin

Hi, yes I thought it were vandalism (because of the IP and the change). However, after your notice, I searched in Google and read in my German encyclopdia, if my reversion was wrong. George's surname was definitly Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (before he changed it to Windsor; see here [3]). Wettin was an old royal noble family, from whom the House Saxe-Coburg-Gotha descends (see here: Wettin (dynasty). It's roughly the same case with Lancaster or York and Plantagenet. So you've got right, it wasn't vandalism from User:72..., but wrong information (nonsense :-) ). Greetings and thanks for your note. Phoe 19:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Aqualand

Funny place for our paths to cross again! Please note *Aqualand Bahía de Cadiz, Andalucía was a duplicate on an invalid title (I think there may be a wiki-type markup that uses * to indicate links). I have been scrupulous in preserving every edit made by these kids. Check my deletion log. I have done four deletes all of them of unwanted titles left after I merged histories.

OK, I have not reported all my edits back to the article authors but I did leave a note at User talk:Tenerife costa adeje. -- RHaworth 19:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a lot of Aqualand articles; I was unaware of others besides the 2 for Andalusia. I certainly did not mean to seem like I was objecting to deleting non-unique articles. I just wanted to give a kid a break. Now I'm not so sure -- are these kiddy edits or something from Aqualand's PR dept.? I was unaware that there was a sudden outbreak in one day of new users all spontaneously writing childish-sounding articles about different water parks (yet not editing any other articles). Given the pattern of "coincidences", it all sounds fishy to me -- I think I've been had. Feel free to delete away as far as I'm concerned at this point. I'm glad you caught what I overlooked. At least they're not threatening murder today like our other friend from yesterday.

--A. B. 20:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You are probably right that it is spam but I shall restrict myself to noting this at talk:Aqualand. -- RHaworth 20:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

odd link

I dunno. Some weird SEO site or googlebomb of some sort. Beyond the bizarre MILF page, the rest of the content is completely unrelated to either the sexy MILF or the filipino MILF. - CrazyRussian talk/email 01:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks -- after seeing all those Cyrllic pages not visibly linked to the main page, I figured there was something shifty about it that probably had to do with search engine rankings.--A. B. 01:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Read your user page

I've been here maybe 3 weeks now, maybe 4. I've seen enough. Thanks. Ste4k 07:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Why hang on to "cult" and quibble over its meaning. I'm a fairly new editor and normally a bit timid, but tonight was my night to live dangerously and experiment with "being bold". A lot of electrons were being killed to flog this horse so I went ahead and just reworded the sentence to avoid using "cult". Those masochistically keen on minutiae can read my legalistic reasoning on the article talk page and the truly masochistic can resurrect the word and keep debating it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by A. B. (talk • contribs) Oldest 19:07, 15 November 2005

I'm not originally from the U.S. I was born in Kharkov. In our country, we beat liars, and if one wants to eat, they work. The only POV in that article I wrote was that I wanted to find out the truth, did research, marked it with citations for verifiability, refused to consider any source that came from some primary provider, and all I found out for my trouble was that this encyclopedia isn't even worth quoting. You should be ashamed to have your familiy member's name on this medium. Ste4k 07:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

My response to User:Ste4k's comment above:

I decide to check out the AfD articles, not something I normally get involved in. I come to an article for deletion, "A Course in Miracles (book)". I look over it -- I see it's been documented and footnoted almost to the very last comma. I observe a tremendous argument ensuing over one word, "cult", that's being interpreted multiple ways. Multiple editors are squabbling over whether User:Ste4k is being "POV" for using it. I change the wording to eliminate the troublesome word while meeting what I see as the intent of the original author of the quote, Garrett. I think I do an adequate if not very eloquent job. I go to a lot of effort to explain what and why I made the change, citing the dictionary, etc. I do screw up and forget to sign some of my work, which Ste4k helpfully catches and fixes.

Now I wake up and I find that Ste4k has spent hours during the night sarcastically mutilating her own article. It appears that one word, "cult", and my good faith editing of its usage may have been her tipping point to go into a frenzy. That or my one vote in the AfD process. (Ste4k, if you don't like my cult edit, just reverse it and explain how I got it wrong.)

Then there's this message Ste4k left on my talk page above. What do I make of this? Is she saying that I'm a liar and should (or would) be beaten? That I should be working harder to eat? And what's this about my family?

And as for Wikipedia being flawed, it certainly is that. It is profoundly flawed in terms of the reliability of some of its material. In fact, if so many millions of people didn't use it, I'd say forget about it. But the fact is, Wikipedia is very important and growing in importance everyday. Every day, more people abandon traditional sources of reliable information such as Britannica and turn to Wikipedia. Every month, Wikipedia's Google rankings move up higher and are often in the top 5 for a given search. The fact that so many other sites such as answers.com mirror the content makes what's written in Wikipedia seem all the more "reliable" since to the undiscerning, it looks like other sites are agreeing with Wikipedia.

So like it or not, Wikipedia is here to stay and further grow in importance. You can fume and I can fret, but our children and grandchildren will use it more and more as their first source of knowledge, reliable or not. That almost pessimistic view of Wikipedia's growing role is what motivates me -- not some idealistic, Woodstockian notion that "information longs to be free" or so much of the other idealistic stuff that motivates thousands of mostly earnest, smart but very young editors on this project.

--A. B. 13:44, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

1. you are a timid new user.
2. Your comment about being new here and normally timid but deciding to be bold in my perspective was the worse imaginable joke I have ever heard about anyone in particular, and in particular the butt end of that joke was me.
3. the specific comment I was referring to regarding this heading "Read your user page."
4. my opinion about the entire category.
5. Ste4k 14:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

First, some context for anyone else reading this:

• A Course in Miracles -- the so-called "main" article on this movement/book/not-a-movement
• Talk:A Course in Miracles -- the very busy talk page for the main article
• A Course in Miracles (book) -- the article on the book; most of it was written by Ste4k. Refer to this article at its high points before Ste4k started tearing it back down:
  • Ste4k's last edit before mine
  • my notorious 'de-culted' version
• Talk:A Course in Miracles (book) -- in particular see the section on the "cult" language change and my 350-word analysis of the wording and explanation of my edit.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Course in Miracles (book)
• The "Garrett article" from which the "cult" citation came.

Ste4k, I'm still at a loss. I assumed you were not using Garrett's comment to assert that ACIM is some sort of cult. If you were, then that was more than a stretch -- it was a deliberate manipulation of Garrett's comment. (If you really were trying to distort Garrett's comment to find some sort of "verifiable" source, then I don't think you were editing in good faith and your credibility just went to zero). Instead, I just assumed everyone was stuck on one problematic word and that you were working in good faith, so I just changed the wording. That's why I am so surprised by your reaction today. Now I wonder if I was just being naive in my assumption that your goal was to just comment on the book's sales pattern; maybe you really were trying to push a POV by finding a backdoor way to work an explosive word, "cult", into a very volatile article about a spiritual movement. That's what some others seemed to worry about.

Ste4k, your reference to my comment on my user page about not biting newcomers by summarily deleting their work without comment hardly applies here. I don't see a new user who's just submitted his or her first, somewhat flawed article in good faith. I hardly see a newcomer at all when I read your contribution history for the few short weeks you've been editing Wikipedia -- over 2000 edits, 4 archived talk pages and extensive work in the whole AfD process across many, many nominated articles. I see a prolific, sophisticated editor exposed to all the policies, guidelines and internal processes with much more Wikipedia experience than I have. I see a person who has nominated multiple articles for deletion and seen them through to their (probably justified) demise. So where's this fragile newcomer that needs extra consideration?

As for item 1 in your most recent note above, I'm not sure I where my first Wikipedia edit that you're citing, about a relative, fits into all of this.

As for your item 2, I thought the "butt end" if there was one was the collective group of editors, not any one individual, spending multiple man-hours trying to get past this one troublesome word. It's just so very Wikipedian to get a bunch of really smart, earnest people tied up in a knot over something like this when a simple reword would fix everything to everyone's satisfaction. I'm probably as guilty of losing perspective in some other situations as this group was. Had I thought you were pushing a POV and not editing in good faith, I would have taken a very different tone. (I'm still waiting for you or someone else to calmly explain to me how my rewording did not improve this article and break a deadlock).

Ste4k, I have not set out to become your enemy or to stick a finger in your eye. I have also not seen you as my enemy, although this new dispute is rapidly getting very old and sometimes a bit weird.

Finally, I don't know how to say this without sounding patronizing, but I'll say it anyway. I noticed you have been editing virtually around the clock with 100 edits and no break even as long as 4 hours in the last 24 hours. Can you maybe take a break for a little while? I will if you will.

--A. B. 15:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Listed in the order I read them:

1. 03:52 No signature. This is the comment of someone here maybe a week. A timid new user.
2. 03:36 No signature. This is the inexperienced user being bold. hooah.
3. 04:28 signature. This is the comment of a different, very experienced user, and speaks nothing about the earlier comment.

Insults do not make enemies. They make impressions on others about the character of those who make them.

Per your comments:

1. "Delete and merge into main article." (-- Main article? These articles are on two different topics. One article was about facts that showed that there are several factions that are competing in the marketplace for product recognition all claiming the same product's name. The other article is an example of one particular faction establishing its trademark into speech on Wikipedia, using pattern recognition and associative psychology for it's own particular purposes. Notice carefully that the "main" article that you pointed out even has a photo of the book that is printed by one particular publisher and is silent about at least the other two that I have uncovered in my research. Notice also the frequent use of the acronym "ACIM" which isn't normally used except by this particular faction. It may as well say "ACME".
2. "Delete as POV forks any . . ." (-- Fairly timid new user that hasn't researched the topic enough to understand that these two articles are diametrically opposed, one based on fact pointing out the numerous versions of this book by different publishers, the other resorting to rhetoric and dogma to give the impression that only one specific publisher's version exists.
3. Your first edit? Shows that you have been here quite a bit longer than I have and know the ropes. (timid new user, right, npov... right gotcha. thanks for making your point instead of allowing the cited quote to stand like all other content on the page which were also verbatim except for the portions merged in. If the books under this title were notable in the first place, your suggestion about finding another source would be pertinent. Try finding a source before suggesting that one exists next time. Thanks.
4. cult? woopidy doo.

Ste4k 22:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• P.S. Read your own comments and notice how even you have begun using the "ACIM" term to refer to "all of the various factions, only one of which uses that brandname".

Ste4k 22:22, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

On "cult"

Hello, A. B. I appriciate your comments, and think it was good of you to go ahead and change the relevant wording at A Course in Miracles (book). I believe the discussion surrounding the word "cult" is more of a duplication of the very serious edit war that occured at Wikipedia:Verifiability and the the ongoing debate both there and at Wikipedia:No original research. Most editors agree that verifiability of articles (citation of only reputable secondary sources) and that no original research in articles are two crutial factors in keeping the encyclopedia credible. A minority of editors want occasional exceptions (see the policy talk pages), and this approaches sacrilegious heresy to many others. It is because A Course in Miracles goes against this code in many places that there is such heated discussion about it. I think Ste4k's intention was to correct this glaring omission in policy to the best of her ability, and the discussion concerning this single word should be seen as a microcosm of the greater debate concerning Wikipedia's verifiability policies. —Antireconciler 03:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your note on my user page about this dispute. I also respect and admire your explanation and defense of Ste4k's actions and motives. I would agree with you up until about 24 hours ago. My edit apparently pushed her over some edge; she opened up with a screed on my talk page that included this type of stuff:

"In our country, we beat liars, and if one wants to eat, they work." and "You should be ashamed to have your familiy member's name on this medium."

I still don't know what to make of the first one -- is she making a hollow threat? Calling me a liar? Who knows.

Ste4k went on to spend what appears to have been hours pouring over my edit history and user pages for inconsistencies, hypocrisy and mistakes, then bringing them out for deconstructive criticism. There's plenty of grist for her mill in my history in the way of minutiae, mistakes on my part and misinterpretations on hers, so she could be at it a while. She can keep beavering away at my many petty sins as long as she wants; it's probably a useful if annoying source of feedback on my edits.

Some of Ste4k's other actions during this time have been downright weird, especially her systematic, sarcastic destruction of all her own work on the A Course in Miracles (book) article followed by its replacement with some sort of a parody. This all adds up to form a strange picture; for now, she's lost the respect that I had for her when I first looked at her work last night.

I did notice that Ste4k had just been on a 24 hour editing binge producing about 100 edits without any breaks longer than 4 hours. Since I knew she respected you, I actually started to write you an e-mail earlier today suggesting you leave her a message of support and encouraging her to take care of herself. As I was doing this, however, I received more sniping on my talk page; I'm afraid renewed annoyance overtook my fleeting moment of compassion and I deleted my e-mail to you without sending it. You might still consider this as her friend; as for me, at this point I've pretty much had it with this person.

Again, thank you for your kindness and advice to the various players in this odd drama, including myself ... and perhaps even Ste4k.

--A. B. 05:20, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I definitely appriciate your confidence. I only see that both you and Ste4k, myself, and anyone else I observe here wants simply to make a positive contribution and leave the place better than they found it in some way. How completely human that is, and how warming it is to see, so naturally I would want you two and others to come to terms and agreement. Everyone says things they don't mean sometimes.

—Antireconciler 06:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

(somewhere else) You wrote: <snip> Ste4k went on to spend what appears to have been hours pouring over my edit history and user pages for inconsistencies, hypocrisy and mistakes, then bringing them out for deconstructive criticism. There's plenty of grist for her mill in my history in the way of minutiae, mistakes on my part and misinterpretations on hers, so she could be at it a while. She can keep beavering away at my many petty sins as long as she wants; it's probably a useful if annoying source of feedback on my edits. <snip> A. B. 05:20, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Hours? when? Bringing them out for criticism? Where? When? It takes about 10 seconds to find your first edit. Make sure that what you are spreading around is the truth. You still haven't apologized for pretending to be a n00b then turning around to slap a POV "delete" on the article. Do you think I am stupid, too? I already told you that insults don't make enemies, but if you want an enemy, then you should reconsider your choice, imho. Ste4k 05:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

My final comments to Ste4k on my edits, demeanor, general morality, etc.

You seem to think that I was disingenuous in describing myself as a "timid new user". Here is my response:

"Timid"

First, "timid": Wikipedia:Editing policy makes the following comments regarding editing styles:

"There are also different editing styles in the sense of how bold people are willing to be:"

1. "Generally, most of us think we should be bold in updating pages."
2. "Virtually no one behaves as though previous authors need to be consulted before making changes; if we thought that, we'd make little progress."
3. "Quite the contrary: some Wikipedians think you should not beat around the bush at all—simply change a page immediately if you see a problem, rather than waiting to discuss changes that you believe need to be made. Discussion becomes the last resort."
4. "An intermediate viewpoint accords that dialogue should be respected, but at the same time a minor tweak should be accepted. In this view, to edit radically or not will often depend on the context—which seems reasonable enough."

"There is a place for all of these attitudes on Wikipedia."

As an editor, I've typically fallen into the category 2 above, unless I think a person is editing in bad faith. I tend to be deferential to other editors and explain my actions on article and user talk pages more than most other editors. More than once a more experienced editor has told me to just "be bold". "Timid" was probably not as good a word choice as "circumspect" or "respectful" since timid also implies fearfulness, which I certainly don't feel on Wikipedia.

On the other hand, I am probably less patient with bad faith behavior than most editors and I have no qualms about expressing myself in these circumstance, especially if this behavior is egregiously blatant (vandalism, personal attacks, link-spamming). I can also be very assertive when I see an experienced editor bullying a newcomer. I also feel little need for circumspection when others express hostility my way.

"New user"

I am not a brand new user, but I believe in the context of various administrative actions, such as AfD, I don't have a lot of experience. I'm guessing I've probably made about 1000 to 1500 edits. I doubt I made more than a handful of edits before about mid-May. I suspect a review of my edit history would reveal:

• 100s of minor edits to fix my own mistakes. Even though I doublecheck my work using the "Show Preview" button, I find I am typo-prone and a poor proofreader of my own work.
• 100 to 150 edits in connection with reversing one recent coordinated link-spam attack
• 100 to 300 edits in connection with welcoming new users, coaching them on their articles and occasionally going to bat for them if I see them getting hassled
• 100 to 300 edits involving simple cases of vandalism
• Little participation in truly controversial topics such as ACIM (by the way, I use "ACIM" out of laziness, not out of affiliation with some "faction"). Knoxville, Tennessee, Submarine and Optical fiber are seldom controversial. 1421 hypothesis is about as exciting as my watchlist gets.
• Little participation in AfD, especially contentious cases. In the few situations I got involved in, I've usually felt in retrospect as if I'd missed some key point more experienced editors were making.

I feel relatively experienced as a basic Wikipedia editor, but not when it comes to dealing with policy issues, non-routine administrative actions and dealing with substantive content controversy. I have never just "trolled" AfD before the other night, when I decided to look at several articles. I also assumed most of the other participants in AfD proceedings were more experienced than myself and mostly administrators. I just now spot-checked some of the others' edit histories from the ACIM proceeding and was surprised to learn this described maybe only half the other participants. I see now that I was hardly a "new user" compared to some of the others; I find that a bit scary.

--A. B. 20:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Seriously, that was funny. :) Look, don't sweat it. Toss it off. Consider the facts. Regardless of how you went about it, you did convince me to change my vote on my own article, right? So, put a little ribbon in your political achievement drawer, and forget about it. okay? About the amount of edits, and the frequency of my contribs, if you knew what I used to do for a living, and for whom, you would think I was being lazy. :)

Ste4k 21:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note.

--A. B. 21:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe in miracles, but...

I personally don't ever want to hear or see the words "A Course in Miracles" and Wikipedia in the same sentence. I'm back to Submarines, Knoxville, Tennessee and other easy articles.

--A. B. 21:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

LOL. I felt the same way before I knew anything about it at all. About a week and a half ago. Writing that article unveiled some, hmmmm... ikky, nasty, goo swill drek, (to be nice about it), and I have reached only the top end of that. So, therefore, the, ehem... political nature of this article has a few people up in arms trying to protect that sort of smellery from having some fresh air applied. The (book) article was obviously out to go for the truth, which, of course, is the throat as well, depending at how you look at it. Since it was not finished, not even close, and only about one third of the way there, certain peoples' shorts started to have crawly ants, and itchy fits. Both of the AfD's were in bad faith, but who cares. They have enough experience to go yelling about that sort of thing as if it matters. So, the correct thing to do, to the innocent little week old article is just to pull it's plug. No, I didn't like that at all, and the way you appeared to have gone about it, by not signing those posts, put you in a rather suspicious light. Consider what it looked like to me. What you don't know about this whole thing is that the "main article" is not just an article about a book. It's a smoke and mirrors campaign. Anyhow, if/when I feel like researching that more, I will continue. The article is saved here on my machine as well as elsewhere (i.e. before I bashed and slashed it down to it's nitty knees). Those facts are there, thats fine... but there is quite a bit more to put into it before it should be "released" to the general public. If you'd like to discuss it further, I would ask that you do so on IRC, if you have IRC, then let me know. I have just started a channel today for exactly this sort of thing. By the way, what you don't realize, is that part about "never wanting to hear about it again" is exactly because of the true nature of the other article. (except that on you and me it backfired).

Ste4k 22:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

"the way you appeared to have gone about it, by not signing those posts, put you in a rather suspicious light." I forgot -- I was sleepy; I almost always sign posts, but then I am the typo king. I was happy to see you or someone add the signature tags. I try to be transparent, at least within the Wikipedia community (I changed user names so that industry colleagues couldn't immediately see via Google what articles and talk pages I was editing and how).

I don't do IRC, but I do use e-mail.

I appreciate your fighting the good fight on ACIM, but I would rather work on some articles I really want to do right. I've slowly been amassing material.

--A. B. 23:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

File:Resilient-silver.png		The Resilient Barnstar
		For remaining tactically neutral even after mistakenly pissing off a meticulous bitch. (staying cool while in the line of fire) Ste4k 00:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

This means a great deal -- thank you very much!

--A. B. 05:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

apology

Id like to apologize for the unwarranted threats and terrible comments I made to you and Rhaworth and francs2000 and others from the proxy(205.234.223.167) while it in no way excuses what I did, I have been undergoing some personal problems and used incredibly stupid means as an outlet for my frustrations, I can assure you that I never intended any of you any harm being much more suicidal than dangerous to anyone else and hope you were not caused any stress by them and correctly wrote them off as a stupid prank by an immature asshole. While this is an apology It is completely unreasonable to ask for forgiveness and I dont expect any, I am going to be getting treatment for my problems and can assure you that I am remorsefull for what I did and will never bother you any other admins or this site again — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.225.253.130 (talk • contribs)

1. I accept your apology.
2. What you did was grave. In the U.S. threats such as yours are considered felonies and people are sent to prison -- with good reason -- for making them. You may still face criminal action -- I don't know if the police are investigating or not.
3. One reason the law views such threats as major crimes even when not acted upon is the severe impact they have on the recipients' sense of security. A recipient of such threats has no way of knowing whether something bad will happen or not; they may modify or restrict their own behavior. In effect, when you make such a threat you take away some of another person's freedom. Do not assume the other recipients "correctly wrote them off as a stupid prank by an immature asshole" -- the police would say they'd be foolish to do so.
4. I'm happy for you to hear that you are getting help. Stick with it and you'll be a much happier person.
5. Just stay away from editing Wikipedia and concentrate on your own recovery and needs. That will be a full-time job for a while and Wikipedia's sometimes petty disputes are worth avoiding during this time.

Good luck and Godspeed

--A. B. 01:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

re: ADARSH SAMAJ SAHYOG SAMITI

No worries, better to let the community process run it's course as that makes the decision more clear. Staxringold _talk^contribs 01:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Notice recent changes

You may be interested to note that the "tenor" of my talk page changed dramatically as a result of people like Tom Harrison and Ansell who both have shown a level of hypocricy which doesn't sit well with me. Prior to this I didn't see there was a need to actually be so explicit in having to explain such things... but when you get people constantly telling you to "show good faith" while completely ignoring it themselves, you reach a point where something has to be said. I politely asked Mr Harrison to discuss the matter so that we could reach conscensus but he feels no need to discuss anything, that his view obviously must be the right view and nothing more needs to be said. Such amazingly good faith??? Enigmatical 03:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I've politely sparred with Ansell on an RfD recently and found him to be civil and reasonable to deal with. I've never dealt with Mr. Harrison. I wonder why the difference in our experiences?--A. B. 03:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I am sure you agree, people are not static. Their mood and manner in which they reply changes throughout their entire experience. Somehow I feel that you already know the answer to what you "wonder".... care to be a bit more direct? Enigmatical 06:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

re:Mboverload's RfA

I am very concerned that Mboverload may not be getting treated fairly. See the comment I added below Cyde's on the RfA page --A. B. 04:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

All I can say is, "Wow." I'm shocked that that did not come out in the discussion. Alphachimp ^talk 05:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It's even more disgraceful than I initially thought -- see the noticeboard discussion. This is such a hatchet job. It's especially impressive that Mboverload stayed assertive but very civil in these discussion in the face of really nasty provocation; that made me upgrade my support to "strong". I'm concerned that so many of the nay votes would have been yes votes had they been aware of this. I don't know the rules -- I know Mboverload (with whom I've had very little contact in the past, btw) can't contact others -- can we? Otherwise, many will never read my links unless someone lets them know about this. Unfortunately it's 1 a.m. here and I must turn in. Ideas?--A. B. 05:16, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It's 1 here too. I don't think there's really anything we can do...this nomination. Let's contact mboverload and see what he wants to do about it. Next nomination we'll have a bit more to say. Alphachimp ^talk 05:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, you're right. I am so very umimpressed. Let me know in 3 months when you renominate.--A. B. 05:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

RfA

I looked through them, not too deeply. It's possible you're right and Cyde is wrong, though I did not read deeply enough to pass judgment. And yes, RfA is at least in part a popularity contest - and Cyde is well-known. It's not necessarily a bad thing. More detail later if you care - it's 5PM here and I have to leave work. See ya. - CrazyRougeian talk/email 21:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I hope you will weigh in and vote one way or the other. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Srikeit 2, comment 61. (It's not butt-kissing, it's true). Regards,--A. B. 13:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

---

Message CJC47 05:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

---

RfA thanks

Thanks for your positive comments at my RfA.

Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Hi, I would like to express my gratitude for your participation at my recent RfA. The final vote was 68/21/3 and resulted in me becoming an admin!

For those of you who supported my RfA, I highly appreciate your kind words and your trust in me. For those who opposed - many of you expressed valid concerns regarding my activity here; I will make an effort in addressing them as time goes on while at the same time using my admin tools appropriately. So, salamat, gracias, merci, ありがとう, спасибо, धन्यवाद, 多謝, agyamanak unay, شكرًا, cảm ơn, 감사합니다, mahalo, ขอบคุณครับ, go raibh maith agat, dziękuję, ευχαριστώ, Danke, תודה, mulţumesc, გმადლობთ, etc.! If you need any help, feel free to contact me.

PS: I took the company car (pictured left) out for a spin, and well... it's not quite how I pictured it. --Chris S. 23:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

For the record, I was really impressed by your candidacy. I voted against you based solely on experience; here's what I wrote:

Weak Oppose -- "Oppose" for lack of experience (I'm finicky about that). "Weak" - my opposition is mitigated by good attitude, good contributions. Subject matter concentrated on the Philippines is bad? I think it's good to have knowledgeable people concentrating on articles, not just generalists. As for RC patrols -- they're Wikipedia's first line of defense. They still miss the many subtle errors, spam links and vandalistic edits that slip into articles that only an editor knowledgeable on the topic can discern. RC Patrols catch the common "Joey is gay" stuff but can miss seemingly reasonable items added to articles they are unfamiliar with, such as John Seigenthaler, Sr.'s biography. So it's just as important to have someone knowledgeable intensively watching a cluster of articles. If still in doubt, I encourage non-physicists try independently determining for themselves the merits of the physics edits being disputed at Albert Einstein. ...I will enthusiastically support a second RfA after Christopher Sundita has accumulated more experience continuing what he's already doing.

I very much believe that many admins are over focused on "RC patrol" and just don't realize how important that second line of defense is -- editors knowledgeable in a topic with a long watchlist. As an admin, you will not only be a functionary but also a respected "village elder" -- I hope you can help educate your new peers on the importance of deeper screening.

Finally, to put my "oppose" vote in some perspective,I may have more edits than you but I sure would not vote for myself for at least another 1000-2000 edits, so I'm pickier than most on the experience issue. Based on all that I read, I think you will be better than most of our admins (but you may have a bit rougher patch early). So I'm glad I was outvoted and I'm glad to have you on board.--A. B. 00:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Link spam

Hi A. B. I noticed your messages at several talk pages including Talk:Goa and appreciate your effort in fighting link spam. If you've found a pattern in the spam urls added by the specified address, you could consider adding them to m:Spam blacklist. Once added m:SpamBlacklist extension will prevent anyone from adding those links. Cheers. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 07:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me about m:Spam blacklist. I've spent more hours than I think tracking this stuff down and undoing it. I'm glad I don't have to keep watching these pages. This is really, really helpful!

--A. B. 13:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Glad to know that the info was helpful. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 13:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

imho, we shouldn't link to url forwarding services on Wikipedia, anywhere. Link to the actual url instead. There is simply no reason to, and their abuse potential is too great (insert your redirect to legitimate sites, wait for a week, change the redirects to point to spam sites, without a single edit to WP: redirects as 'sleepers'). For this reason, I would support blacklisting ipfox.com and similar services once and for all. That doesn't solve the problem, though: the spammer can still link to his geocities page. In that case, we can either try to block the spammer, or to blacklist his geocities url, or both (only if he is extremely persistent). regards, dab (ᛏ) 15:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

Thanks! It really means a lot, and I'm glad the articles are useful for others. CJC47 15:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your support!

Greetings, A. B.. Just a quick note to thank you for your support at my Request for Adminship, which succeeded with a final tally of (67/0/0)! Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have suggestions or requests - either of an admin nature or otherwise! :) Wknight94 (Talk | contribs) 03:04, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Your mischaracterisation of my heritage offends me!

I've had to deal with it enough from all the Kerry freaks; I don't need it from you. I'm goddamned proud of my heritage and don't need to prove nothing for anybody to accept me. But go ahead and be the ignorant one. This is one redneck who ain't so ignorant! Attack, I double-dog dare you! You never know what to expect, but Kerry's freaks are driving my heart to severance from my home. It is humiliating to be pressured into leaving my home and hearth, but Southrons are so welcoming and loving--in contrast to Yankee multiculturalists. I'll surely find some place to pitch a doublewide, or build my own cabin in the boonies of Appalachia. Your words seem to accept this status quo; just one more example of us rural North British being treated like we are worth nothing by aristocrats. Rob Roy was a tragic hero. Doughface 15:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to my comment on the Appalachia talk page and your heated response to it.

For what it's worth, I'm certainly not out to make you feel bad, just to help produce something useful, a good article in a reliable, online encyclopedia. So, please, tone down your rhetoric a little; I'm not your enemy. Thanks, --A. B. 15:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's not personal. You have no grasp of the actual distance between what you edit and the truthful existence as life is played out. The summary is, that your facts are fictions to the world in which we live. I live a life that defies your dogma, as do those closest in my network. Please, take into account that stereotypes can have a negative effect upon people. I've already had a few ignoramouses revert my additions because I didn't follow stereotype. Now, they just sweep the issue and my own heritage under the carpet. I'm trying to stick up for it, but that apparently will not get me anywhere on such a liberal, Randian website such as this. Rednecks are just stock characters to the lot of folks here, referenced for comic relief and not dealt with seriously except for polemics against their percieved wrongs as poor whites. Doughface 16:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I even reverted your edit -- someone else did; I just commented on it. Please just assume good faith and observe some modicum of civility (hint: calling someone a "Kerry freak" or an "ignorant one" is considered a personal attack). I certainly don't see any how I'm undertaking some "leftist stereotyping" of your heritage. I also don't see myself calling your mother's cooking or your family's military roots into question [4]. Meanwhile, you criticize my beliefs and background, yet do you really know anything of where I was born, where I've lived, what I've done, how I've voted or what I believe?

The average Wikipedia editor probably is more liberal than you or I but I've found most make a serious effort at neutrality and good faith -- as do most of the very active group of fairly conservative editors on Wikipedia and the hundreds of editors living in states encompassing Southern Appalachia (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Note that all of these people are also only human; like it or not, editors of any ideology or hometown become less neutral and civil when one goes at them with uncivil remarks. Take a look at:

• Wikipedia:Assume good faith
• Wikipedia:Civility
• Wikipedia:Etiquette
• Wikipedia:No personal attacks

In the meantime, if you see factual errors in the talk page comment that I left, then by all means (civilly) contradict them with your own comments. Talk page comments don't have to meet Wikipedia's "No original research" policy, but if you could cite verifiable neutral data from reliable primary or secondary sources that would be great since it could also go into the article. See WP:OR, WP:POV, WP:CITE -- the goal here is a reliable encyclopedia article on Appalachia and that kind of work on your part would help us get there. If you can prove me wrong the encyclopedic way in the process, well, that's fine by me.

If you wish to discuss this further, it may be while before I get back to you, due to my schedule.

Cheers, --A. B. 17:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

You know, the straw man approach works wonders on the feeble minded. I'm not looking for arguments. I had a statement to make about the light-hearted way with which you tossed aside an important issue for me; ignorance can be a degrading thing, even if unintentional. Don't go for the point-by-point thing, because that is not the point I am trying to make. BTW, I have already explained myself. It is up for you to pay attention to what I have said, but I will make an appendix here: I am well aware of conventional stereotypes of Appalachia, while even noting the deep end of lunacy that some of our people have taken up as a result of FDR and LBJ. I may call it lunacy, but it's because I have no use for those who rub my heritage in the mud. Perhaps they could learn some respect for the ways of Old Rough and Ready, Tippecanoe and the Hickories. I might ease up a bit, if they would but merely consider that they have fused Yankee fanaticism into their own communities as a way of getting attention or appearing enlightened. The new good ole boys co-opt Carpetbagging culture to prop themselves up; a case in point would be Wal-Mart. We don't need none of that shit in the frontier. I will suffer no polemic against my heritage; I am an apologist through thick and thin. The New South is a sham and pox on the Southern House. We do not espouse "Hippie values", nor accept them. This is just the way it is in our world, which the goddamned outsiders ought to understand. If they don't, while continuing to praise and insult in the same breath, then they must explain that they are sorry or butt out to mind their own business. I ain't even tolerated or accepted. Why would I keep trying to cash a check in turning the other cheek? It ain't been workin'! I don't need no "Whiteface" portrayed about me and mine! If you don't think so, you ain't a true-blue Appalachian! O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Forrest Gump are totally wrong! Doughface 18:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I will reflect on your comments. As noted above, it will be some time before any further reply.--A. B. 18:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It is all up to you; your choice on whether to have visionary empathy or bat me away like some horsefly. The thing is, I did not strike first. I merely showcased about me and mine. That was just not good enough, so the standard, outsider view comes to the fore and supplants what was added for no other reason than people understanding a bit more about my heritage. Where does one go wrong, except "violating minor technicalities" of a convention steeped in systemic bias? I applaud your personal approach, even if your impersonal form leaves much to be desired. Incidentally, I addressed you because you contacted me. Nobody else put forth this effort at communication. Doughface 19:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

From Fiberoptics Contributer

Thanks for your comments and good communication, A.B. I will review the links you provided and will modify accordingly so it is in the greatest interest to the public. --Fiber-optics 22:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Re:Andypandy.UK's RfA

Thanks for your your support + research/comments. Unfortunately people rarely seem to return to an RFA after the first couple of days to read comments and change votes, so the RFA is almost certainly doomed to failure unless several people remove their oppose and/or a lot more support. The way the !voting system on RFA works means that one oppose cancels out 4 or 5 supports. Petros471 08:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

baron of scales

hi alex

still waiting Quaggga 11:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

response

Dear A.B.,

You have left repeated messages for me to stop 'spamming' with links. I read your suggestions and have responded to them appropriately. At the time of making the links, I added what I thought were relevant links for richer content, serving the public interest. As I am learning more about Wikipedia, I understand now that this isn't a standard practice- contrary to the example Wikipedia pages I mimicked.

No links have been made since I first heard from someone who thought it was inappropriate, and I responded to your comments on your talk page previously. Yet, today I received another round of comments from you to 'STOP SPAMMING'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.181.10 (talk • contribs) 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Technically true but disingenous comment since alternate personnas had already been warned -- see the full record at Talk:Timbercon.--A. B. 13:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the support!

		Thanks for contributing to my successful RfA!
		To the people who have supported my request: I appreciate the show of confidence in me and I hope I live up to your expectations! To the people who opposed the request: I'm certainly not ignoring the constructive criticism and advice you've offered. I thank you as well! ♥! ~Kylu (u|t) 20:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, you did an awful lot of work discussing points with people on that RfA. I really appreciate it! Thanks! :D ~Kylu (u|t) 20:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

RfAs are important for rank and file editors like myself. It's worth the time and your candidacy was worth it in particular!--A. B. 21:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

My RfA thanks

Hello A. B., and thank you for your support at my Request for Adminship, which succeeded with an overwhelming final count of (105/2/0). I was very pleased with the outpouring of kind words from the community that has now entrusted me with these tools, from the classroom, the lesson in human psychology and the international resource known as Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. Please feel free to leave me plenty of requests, monitor my actions (through the admin desk on my userpage) and, if you find yourself in the mood, listen to some of what I do in real life. In any case, keep up the great work and have a fabulous day. Grandmasterka 06:14, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for supporting my recent RfA!

		Thanks for contributing to my successful RfA!
		To the people who have supported my request: I appreciate the show of confidence in me and I hope I live up to your expectations! To the people who opposed the request: I'm certainly not ignoring the constructive criticism and advice you've offered. I thank you as well! ♥! ~Kylu (u|t) 07:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

(Yes, you get the banner twice. Yes, you can delete one if you want. :D )

Thanks for supporting me there, I think 111's going to have to be my new lucky number. :) ~Kylu (u|t) 07:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

My RfA

Thank you for taking part in my RfA and investigating the oppose reasons thoroughly before voting. But as I've seen in past RfA's, people choose to oppose for (what I believe) such little incidents in the past.--Andeh 03:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I was happy to be helpful. I don't mind nitpicky negative comments too much, but misrepresentation and selective presentation and obscuring of facts to scuttle an RfA r-- that really bothers me. I just don't like to see people get away with that sort of thing.

I know you'd do the same for me or anyone else in the future. Good luck --A. B. 04:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I did not misrepresent, but you did. It makes me sad to see you say you are doing right when you did wrong. --05:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Commercial site

The site in question has a bookstore. The admin who looked at it agreed that it was appropriate to speedy delete it. FYI, I have nothing against any of the orgs in question, but I don't think they have references to support the type and length of article these editors are writing. I would have no problem with a short, cited article, but repeating their own version of the history of Gnosticism rather than simply link to existing articles show they are trying to use WP as a soapbox rather than an encyclopedia... -999 (Talk) 18:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

That was a problematic article and I think it should have been deleted. I think speedy deleting it was decidely wrong. See my final comments in the AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Gnostic Movement Incorporated. I am profoundly troubled by your actions in this manner. --A. B. 18:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

To put this in context, if I had noticed it was a copyvio before AfDing it, I'd simply have speedied it without opening an AfD. It's standard process for such a new and extensive copyvio, to keep copyvio material out of the history of the article, where it is still a copyright violation. Certainly a new stub about the org itself without any copyvio can be created, so I don't see what the big deal is. There was no original content to speak of... -999 (Talk) 19:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

You made a point about copyright violation, using .com as one basis for speedy deleting. I wrote up a response and by the time I hit "save", the article was gone. Read that comment and the one before it and I think you'll better understand my concerns. --A. B. 19:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Yup, and I made to reply about the commercial features of the site, such as book sales, but the AfD had been closed and I got an edit conflict. So I followed up here with you... -999 (Talk) 19:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

We appear to have very different views about consensus and process within the Wikipedia community. I'll be tied up with meetings for a while; I will reflect further on your comments and actions. --A. B. 19:38, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that. It's simply that I am a very strong proponent of copyright protection and think that trumps the whole AfD process. It was my opinion that the article met the criteria for speedy deletion (wasn't it you who suggested it might), and the process page stated that the admin responding would review and make sure the criteria were met before deletion (i.e. I am not an admin and did not do the deletion myself). It would not, in my opinion, have been appropriate to leave the copyvio material in the history of the article... I've nominated a number of articles for deletion and generally have no problem with whatever the outcome is. I definitely believe in consensus, but there are certain things, like copyvios and violations of WP:LIVING, that demand prompter action... -999 (Talk) 19:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Gnaa

you're correct, this article looks like complete crap; frankly I'm stunned the other editors are buying it. i searched for standard town-country format "Ngaa, Nigeria" via Google and I got a whopping two pages of results. The fact that there are some prominent admins registering 'Strong keeps' is particularly disturbing. I would consider posting this on the Africa regional notice board or messaging a few of the members (User:BanyanTree, User:Ezeu, User:Wikiwizzy, and User:Mark Dingemanse all come to mind). Once you read what the organization GNAA does, this article becomes an obvious farce. thanks.--gozar 22:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. There's about a 40% chance I'll pass through Makurdi on business next month. Time's not a luxury I'll have (and 40 km in Nigeria probably takes a while to traverse) but I have toyed with the whimsical idea of going to those coordinates with a camera ... But wait -- that's original research.

I left messages on several Nigerian editors' talk pages but have gotten no response.

If the average Nigerian knew what "GNAA" stood for and if there really were a Gnaa, Nigeria, I'll bet it would be renamed in a heartbeat. Talk about offensive! (Reminds me of my summer job in college when the red-neck Texas roughnecks I was with started singing "Dixie" in Douala's most elegant restaurant -- I just wanted to crawl under the table).--A. B. 22:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

PS Nassarawa or Nasarawa State-- how's this state spelled? It seems even Nigerians vary in the number of s's they use. I corrected some spellings last night only to see printed matter with the other spelling.

interesting. what are you heading to Makurdi for? and yeah, i would imagine the mystical land of GNAA would be rather impossible to reach even if such a place did exist (although you can investigate as to whether one of the two or so rail lines the fed. gov. has so generously built traverse the area). also, ive never actually come across Nasarawa before (at this point the states have been divided so many times, geographically assembling a picture of the country's states is a useless). however, you may note the spelling on what appears to be the state gov's official webpage!: Nasarawa thanks. --gozar 02:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The article Gnaa, Nigeria has just entered its 3rd AfD.

Gnostic Speedy Deletion

Hi,

Trust me, I've been called a "process wonk" by fellow administrators for insisting on full AfD hearings in marginal cases where a CSD might or might not apply. (Most often, these questions occur under CSD A7, re: assertions of notability, but marginal cases can occur under almost any CSD.) CSD A8, however, is truly a different creature. Most of the CSDs (and the deletion process in toto) are about determining whether something is or is not encyclopedic. CSD A8, on the other hand, can apply to factual, elegantly-written prose of the highest caliber, worthy of any encyclopedia: if this text infringes on a copyright, it must be deleted as illegal to reprint. A speedy under A8 makes no judgment on the fitness of the topic for inclusion, only that the text in the article cannot belong in a free encyclopedia.

AfD is a good forum that does much better than its many detractors give it credit for, and I still trust it ultimately in determining encyclopedic fitness; however, as I said, CSD A8 is in a separate domain. As you probably know, AfD has never had jurisdiction over copyright issues; as a matter of reasonably objective law, and not community consensus, copyright violations are really a matter not open for debate. For its own reasons (ie., to avoid getting its pants sued off and getting shut down like a latter-day Napster), the Wikimedia Foundation, our owner, has chosen to take a very conservative line in interpreting copyright law, using the narrowest of fair use exceptions. The Gnostic case, though, was not a close one. The text corresponded closely to that on another copyrighted website; you make the point that the website infringed upon was only loosely commercial, but that point is very close to irrelevant. Commercial or not, the site so offended would have a right to sue Wikipedia (the word "commercial" barely made it into the CSD, and is to be interpreted broadly.) A proper CSD A8 claim absolutely supercedes AfD, and I would make that same decision anytime.

The silver lining for you is that the speedy deletion says nothing about the worthiness of the topic. Write a new article in your own words, sourced and referenced according to WP:V and WP:RS, and the previous copyvio speedy will have no baring whatsoever on your content. If an unthinking admin treats it roughly on account of the speedy today, let me know, and I will see that your text gets a full hearing. Best wishes, Xoloz 01:40, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the long and thoughtful note. Trust me, I have no desire to resurrect the dead on this one. It was truly a wretched article worthy of deletion the old fashioned way on a topic in which I had no interest. Furthermore, the topic seemed to draw very contentious people out of the woodwork with their legions of sockpuppets and strong POVs as to which school of thought was the righteous one. (I once asked my sister-in-law, a chancery court judge, if she ever wanted to use her gavel on one of the lawyers; her answer -- "no, but I've sure wanted to use it on some of the witnesses.")

My main concern was the process. I continue to think that the person who engineered this couldn't give a fig about copyright and was really just eager to shut both the article and fellow AfD participants down -- that's been his M.O. elsewhere from what I've seen. I will reflect further on what I've seen.

In any event, it sounds like you absolutely did the right thing for the right reasons, even if the person proposing it was really doing it for all the wrong reasons. I saw on your user page that you're a lawyer -- maybe you should be a judge. In the meantime, pending your appointment to the bench, thanks for being a judicious admin. --A. B. 02:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Anon64 and Blue Tie

Apparently I have offended you by opposing Andeh's nomination. I did not lie nor did I intentionally mislead anyone. I told the truth and I believe you have misrepresented me. It makes me very sad. Perhaps that was your goal. I have been a long time financial contributor to wikipedia, but I have never been an editor. I have tried to be a good editor, but I find that wikipedia is so full of vengeful and vindictive people... it makes me very sad. Maybe you did not understand the reason for my opposition very well. It was not that he corrected the signature, but it was, instead, that he refused to spend a moment double checking. (By the way, it was only recently that I can to understand that the Edit Summaries are important. I did not know it then.) --Blue Tie 05:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Blue Tie raised these same concerns at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Andypandy.UK and I have addressed them in detail there. I am not offended by Blue Tie's opposition to this candidate; it's a touch and go RfA and many editors I respect are opposing it. My primary concern has been that Blue Tie presented negative information on the candidate's record in a skewed pattern without providing requested diffs. I subsequently dug up the links myself, showing not very bad behavior at all by the candidate. The links belied some of Blue Tie's assertions.

It is true that I did not supply diffs. I have never done so before, because I did not really know how. It was only recently that I figured out how to do it. At the time of the request I did not know how. I was also not motivated to do so because I did not really want to link the two accounts as I had said. Providing the diffs would have linked them more directly, which I did not want to do, but I felt that someone would take up the banner and to it. That is why I was reluctant to bring up my objections. Besides, the objections were related not to the actual diffs, but to Andeh's approach to the problem. Somehow that this is my objection, is missing in your focus and would have been missing by simply listing the diffs. However, I do believe you missed at least one diff and I shall look for it. --Blue Tie 17:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Researching the links led to a secondary, tangential concern -- I found out in the process that Blue Tie was not just using the two accounts Blue Tie and Anon 64 to edit different articles (with virtually no overlap) but also a third anonymous account, 72.13.168.149. He was using the anon IP to tag-team edit articles with each of the named account. I published this information in the RFA, leading to the current contretemps. --A. B. 21:20, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. This is where your largest error lies. You believe that somehow I have been abusive. This is simply untrue. And you have taken that assumption and made it a fact with several accusations. It is not that you have linked up the accounts, which I did not want to happen but I expected, but rather that you have made an assumption and let your anger lead your judgment. Based upon your user page, you look to me like an honest and reasonably concerned editor. But this time your instincts failed you and you have maligned an innocent person. --Blue Tie 17:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I have moved my comments today to the RfA's talk page along with copies of Blue Tie's comments today. My comments from earlier in the week remain on the main project page. --A. B. 21:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that is fair. It clogs the page anyway. I actually hate all my edits there. They take up too much space. I am too wordy. --Blue Tie 17:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I am replying on the RfA page you set up. --Blue Tie 17:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe I have completed my reply to your comments. --Blue Tie 17:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Reviewing the merits of your complaints: I am very slowly working through your many comments on the other talk page. Since I will be going overseas for a while, it may be a long time before I can fully address them. I'm still very concerned about that RfA and how you handled it; I remain confident on the whole that I brought more transparency to the RfA. Having said that, I am also willing to change my opinion once I've spent several hours really going through all your material, line-by-line and link-by-link, and I am prepared to publicly eat a plate load of crow if I'm wrong. --A. B. 16:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

More importantly, real life trumps Wikipedia life and Google is the all-seeing eye over almost everything on the Internet. I changed my own user name (my last name) when I saw it turn up on a Google search along with many of my edits.

As I now look deeper at your edit histories, I see why you probably want two accounts. As Anon 64, you are editing highly controversial topics that could have explosive consequences for some family or colleagues should they ever make the linkage between real-life-name, your Blue Tie persona and either your 72.13.168.149 or Anon 64 personas. The nature of an IP account raises further concerns should someone run a WHOIS or Traceroute on the IP account (if you are unfamiliar with these, click on the little links at the bottom of User talk:72.13.168.149).

Even just knowing the topics you are editing as Anon 64 could potentially upset family or colleagues, and that's without seeing the edited text. (BTW, I've seen your history but not really looked at substance of the edits, so I have no sense of any POV you might have). If the edits were all bland and NPOV, people could get still upset. For instance, say I had both a conservative relative and a gay relative; either one, unfamiliar with Wikipedia's neutrality policy, might get upset by some neutral edit I made on homosexuality-related topics ("you betrayed me -- why didn't you stick up for gay rights??" or "How can you tacitly condone such an apostasy??"). Or say you edited pedophilia-related articles, they might ask, "Why are you so obsessed with this?” then draw their own wrong conclusions. If, over time, your edits on talk pages combined collectively to tip your hand POV-wise, there could be even bigger trouble.

I did not raise the issue of Andeh's behavior and your multiple accounts -- you raised it initially and it was already a high profile topic in that RfA when I came along. You had already spilled a lot of ink (bits?) with your multiple longish comments that included references to the existence of a second account. A nosy outsider, already knowing your Blue Tie persona and your real name, could have connected the dots in a few minutes if they were at all familiar with Wikipedia and edit histories.

Nevertheless, I am mindful of my role -- actually digging up the links and pointing out the linkages.

I am very open to any reasonable steps you want to take on this. Especially since this RfA is now moot, I think the community at large, various admins and, if necessary, the Foundation, would be sympathetic to retroactive changes to the record assuming they were made in a way fair to Andeh. I think even Andeh would agree under the circumstances. There could be various ways to do this while still preserving, if desired, some flavor of the disputes about my behavior, Andeh's and yours.

Some various possibilities that come to mind (there are probably more):

• Delete all the links I added
• Delete all comments on this topic
• Change the other accounts where named to ("account name 2") and ("IP address 1") with no links provided
• If technically possible, delete problematic edits from different edit histories. (I'm not sure that's necessary if most everything else is deleted -- a nosy person would probably have to know something were there).
• If required, have a small group of admins look at all of this; render an opinion on various parties' roles. They could then delete all the links and comments spread across the RfA and various talk pages. If necessary to at least keep some record of various editors' behaviors for posterity, they could just put their summaries on these pages. ("Portions of this archived RfA have been deleted due to privacy concerns and the potential breach of anonymity that occurred in some of the comments. We can't share the details, however three admins have reviewed all the evidence and can collectively say that A. B. was a dick, Blue Tie a jerk and Andeh not at his finest” ... or whatever)
  

I am reluctant to unilaterally tamper with my edits on the archived RfA page and its talk page since they are "official" and I think I'd be overstepping my bounds. I don't think you or Andeh should either. However, if some higher non-authorities (such as several admins), yourself and Andeh OK'd it, I'd certainly be happy to see them changed or deleted.

If you wish to pursue this, I suggest having a neutral senior admin or bureaucrat review this and figure out the best, most equitable path. I will have little time to spend on this in the next month due to upcoming urgent overseas travel in an underdeveloped area with limited Internet access. When I do have access, it may only be by e-mail; they can use the Wikipedia e-mail link. I would abide by whatever they decided; they can do whatever they want with my edits and talk page within reasonability. They should not wait on me.

Within reason, I don't mind the consequence for me if a third party deems it necessary for me to be the fall guy should that necessary to pursue the mort important goal of privacy for you. This is just a hobby -- it's hardly the war on terror/cancer/drugs or anything else that might be bigger than the consequences of a breach in your privacy.

I leave the decision on this to you. In the meantime, if you don't want to follow this path, I expect to return to researching your RfA talk page comments in a month or so. --A. B. 16:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your considerate words. I thought that this was more the kind of person you are, and was surprised to see actions that did not match my perception. In a way, I think I was too sensitive about the two names, but even so, I still have a "wish" to separate them. I want to say, for sure, that I do NOT want anyone to "eat crow" or be a fall guy. I have no interest in any sort of revenge and do not believe in or naturally harbor bad feelings. However, I can't seem to help it: When my integrity is impugned I feel like I just MUST defend it. Its a weakness. If my self defense is just recognized as reasonable and I am not viewed as evil, that is sufficient for me! If further, I learn something and others learn something of value, then it is better than sufficient. And I have learned to be more careful in my approach to RfA's. I have also learned how to use diffs. And I have learned not to rely too much upon memory. I heard a couplet once that I think almost applies:

Come on Now

The War is Past

And Friends at First

Are Friends at last

I hope that is true for you and I.

I understand you will go overseas. I hope you enjoy the trip, though you are going to Nigeria I think. (Be careful, lots of criminals there). Incidentally, I read one of your Berryman biographies and was impressed by the war hero who pushed off 100 enemy before being killed. Sounds like a movie. I was touched by his sacrifice.

As far as the edits, I am not sure what I want to do. But I appreciate your offer. I will consider all things. Having been on wikipedia a bit now, I feel a little less paranoid. I have had bad experiences in the past, but perhaps this will not be a venue where those will occur as frequently.

Again, thank you. --Blue Tie 00:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is can be such an all-consuming community all on its own that it's sometimes easy to forget that it's mostly just a sort of virtual construct on a bunch of computers. There is a world outside Wikipedia and they can view the inner workings at any time using Google. Take a look at:

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&client=safari&rls=en&q=+site:en.wikipedia.org+%22blue+tie%22+wikipedia
• http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&client=safari&rls=en&q=+site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+%22anon+64%22+wikipedia&btnG=Search

Give some thought to whether you think it possible that someone might learn your user name in the "real world". If so, pretty much everything is transparent to Google. If not, it's probably not an issue.

I changed my user name after finding my Google had something like a 100 pages with my user name on it (and it was not a discreetly chosen user name.) The good news is that Google's not interested in holding old versions of pages, so, just one month later, you can't find most of those edits of mine using Google.

Anyway, think about it. The offer stands, now or in the future. If you decide to do something, just get a 3rd party involved and keep me posted if I can't be reached within a day or two. I'll be around more or less until Aug 2 (but very busy), then probably incommunicado for 2-3 weeks. I'll try to check e-mail once or twice, but probably not Wikipedia. --A. B. 00:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

RE:My RfA

Hi A. B., I responded to your request for further evidence of experience. I hope I gave the sort of answer you requested, if not, just drop me a line ;). The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 19:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!--A. B. 20:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Misza13's pile!

Thank you for contributing the impressive the pile of supports gathered on my RfA, which passed with a final tally of 0x0104/0x01/0x00. I'm happy that so many people have put faith in my abilities as an admin and promise to use the tools wisely and do my best not to let you down. If I ever may be of assistance, just leave a note on my talk page. Misza13, the rouge-on-demand admin wishes you happy editing! NOTE: This message has been encrypted with the sophisticated ROT-26 algorithm. Ability to decipher it indicates a properly functioning optical sensor array.

Gnaa, Nigeria

Thank you for the note on my talk page. Just to repeat myself, I wanted to let you know that no was offense taken, and that I believe you have been acting in good faith the entire time. My primary concern is that we appear to be in the process of up deleting an article about a real, existing place in West Africa due to our dislike of a particular troll organization. Please see the citation I've provided on the current AFD or the Gnaa, Nigeria talk page. Silensor 16:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I shared Silensor's concern. But your arguement is persuasive and evidence overwhelming. I have changed my vote to delete. Good work. Ifnord 18:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't reffering to you comment, but thanks for the note. This is a very contentious little article and I appreciate that everyone seems to be keeping a relatively cool head about it.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 19:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I noticed the info you posted as it is on my watchlist. Thank you for alerting me to it though.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 05:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Way to go with the information you've gathered. As you just noted, I've been busy with some other things of late, :) so I haven't had research time to look in one of those places with books. Anyway, I'm glad that we now have data to go along with the image. Thanks.—WAvegetarian•(talk) 06:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi there! You're to be commended for conducting some extensive research into the matter. The information you've provided enables one to put things in perspective in terms of population and density. Ultimately, however, I think the issue here is not the notability of the place, but how people feel about an article of a place is used for an internet group's purposes. This Nigerian entity ( be it a town, region, or territory, as it seems a bit unclear how to define this place) seems to be notable for the sheer fact that it exists (albeit not heavily documented yet). I think what people are bothered by is that half of the content of the article is used to mention an infamous internet group. It's reasonable to understand why a small "town" in Nigeria hasn't been well-documented yet. If one looks to Google Earth, the Nigerian detail pales in comparison to that of a major Western city (Dublin, London, New York City, take your pick). This lends to the notion that not much attention has been paid to this region in as far as cartography and such. As this is an encyclopedia, I subsribe to the idea that any town or region carries inherent notability. Having said this, your participation in this AfD has gone beyond the call of duty and your research has been quite good. hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 13:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Sure, good stuff. I in no way meant to call your motives into question in participating in this RfA. It wasn't my intention to pigeonhole you. You've obviously shown quite the dedication into finding out what's what. However, I feel that your research indicates that the place should be included in the Wikipedia. It's obviously a geographic place (whether it be a town, region, or territory), which I think carries inherent notability. One must ask oneself "What's the harm in leaving it as is?" Sources independent of each other have documented the place's existence, and it seems like a cool challenge to flesh out the article a bit and hopefully rid it of its stub status. In any case, you've done good work mate! hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 22:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I just saw your note on my talk page (somehow I missed it yesterday), but I have read your painstaking analysis on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Gnaa, Nigeria (3rd nomination). The discussion was closed before I could post my approval of your work there. Had I saw that to begin with, I probably wouldn't have weighed into the discussion. I also hope that you think I was simply being obstructionist in my objections: my concern is based on having successfuly pushed at least one AfD for an Africa-related subject that I later found verification that proved the article was about something true.

On the other hand, while I still believe in the general reliability of Fallingrain, I would never write an article based solely on material taken from there -- nor from the NGA database. The reason is simple: in most cases, this leads to nothing more than a plethora of what we used to call "sub-stubs" -- articles consisting of a single sentence or less -- that would likely never be expanded on. I've sometimes felt there is a need for a test for inclusion of non-Western small towns & villages -- not for notability, but of verification. (There are any number of reasons to require a cut-off for inclusion, including the fact villages often appear, disappear, or move in parts of Asia, Africa & South America.) I know with Ethiopian town & village articles, I have been following a rule that I don't bother with writing an article unless I have at least 2 of the following 3 sources for it:

• A NGA entry;
• A Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia entry;
• A third party source: travel hand book, travellers account, history text.

I wondering if something similar to this rule should be adopted across the board for other countries. -- llywrch 23:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a great idea. I also think that a minimum size, subject to some adjustments, would be a good idea. For instance, a town of 5,000 in China is not notable, but in the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, or the middle of the Sahara, it's very notable. It might also help to have a minimum article size -- if all you can say is that "Bumpkinville is a town in Ethiopia with some coordinates" -- well maybe you should wait until you've got a little more, like population, etc. Otherwise, it's a sort of a geographical dicdef WP:DICDEF. In fact, modifying notability critera is mushy enough -- maybe it would be easier get the micro-stubs policed by defining them as dicdefs.

I wonder if Wikipedia allows notability consensus among sub-groups -- for instance, if everyone on the Arica agrees on certain norms, then use that in AfDs as a sort of informal consensus. I don't know enough about Wikipedia's functioning.--A. B. 00:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I honestly don't think anyone truly knows how Wikipedia functions -- not even Jimbo. What most people do is just put their idea into practice, & either other Wikipedians decide it's worth copying & it catches on, or they meet resistance (or apathy) & eventually abandon the idea. (Having discussions, polls & the other trimmings of process help things along & smooth out the bumps, but I'm constantly surprised at how much can be changed by just following be bold.)

But to the matter of this discussion: I don't think the critereon should be set to the size of the community, but your second point is more workable: if one can't provide a population statistic or a reason a reader would want to know about the community (e.g., "King Cipher was killed in his bath in Bumpkinville" with a source), then the article should be deleted. Much as I appreciate the research you put into the issue of Gnaa, Nigeria, I feel most Wikipedians would agree one should not work this hard to make the point in an AfD nomination; we need some simpler, more common-sense guidelines. Since posting my message above, I've been thinking about this matter, & as soon as I can express my ideas in a simple form, I'll write it & ask for your input -- as well as others. -- llywrch 05:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I look forward to what you come up with. As to Gnaa, it wasn't a total waste since I'm in the midst of planning a trip to that area in 2 weeks. --A. B. 05:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Shiny (to quote a line from my favorite show that was cancelled before it completed its first season). Hope you take lots of good pictures & upload the best to commons. -- llywrch 02:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - re The Gnostic Movement Incorporated feedback

Hello A.B., thanks for leaving me the comments and explanation re the deletion process for The Gnostic Movement Incorporated It is not so much thinking of you as an enemy but more frustration with learning the ropes of wikipedia and who is an admin, moderator etc and how to absorb all the policies etc so that I can conform to them. The copyright reason, I still don't fully understand, particularly if I had approval from the copyright owner to copy it into wikipedia. Would that still have contravened wiki policy? Was there something I should have done to indicate approval and thereby absolve wiki from any potential legal action, which by reading the few entries above, seems to have been the wiki admins main concern.

Irrespective, the page was created rather quickly, as like yourself, time is often not available to me, to spend hours writing or rewriting articles etc. I had planned on going back into the article to amend it and make internal links etc and hopefully make it conform to wiki articles policies. However, in the few days since posting it up, I hadn't had the time.

I appreciate your attempts to give me some time to clean it up and acknowledge how the speedy delete took over.

Whilst there are many encouraging statements all over wiki, enticing people to edit articles and make new ones, it seems to me, so far, that to actually write an article that fully conforms to the wiki policies would require an experienced wiki article writer, as I suspect the majority of people would not have the time or inclination to really study all of wiki's stipulations prior to making edits or attempting to write new articles. I had originally made the post, thinking it was inevitably going to be a 'work in progress', however, I do understand the reasons for its removal. Thanks again for informing me of the full story. Kind regards, --Clean2 01:47, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Eluchil404's RfA

Thank you for taking the time to express an opinion in my recent request for adminship. I have withdrawn my self-nomination because there seemed little prospect for further productive discussion or the formation of a consensus to promote. Many commentators offered constructive critisism that I will use to improve myself as a user. Others suggested that the nomination was premature and that a re-nom in a few months would be more likely to gain consensus. Thank you very much for taking the time to chck my contributions and form an opinion of your own. I will strive to address the shortcomings pointed out by Tony and others and hope that by any future RfA I will be able to garner your support. Eluchil404 20:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't get too hung-up on "shortcomings", become too self-conscious, or get discouraged by your RfA. Just keep doing what you're doing, maybe adjusting it by 5%, and stay at it for a while and you'll do fine. You're on a good track. I suggest getting to about 3500, then testing the waters. Maybe you could get an existing admin to mentor you (I don't know if they do that or not.). Anyway, good luck! --A. B. 21:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

They certainly do. It is called Admin coaching. —WAvegetarian•(talk) 22:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I certainly am trying not the let the RfA get me down. 57% support and lots of positive comments from oppose and neutral "voters" leave plenty of hope for the future, but I did strive to strike a humble tone in my thank-yous. People did identify real shortcomings for me to work on and communicating that I do recognize that is helpful, IMO. Eluchil404 23:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

WAvegetarian's RfA

No, there's no need to vote twice. I already had Johnny Damon support me and was informed that, "He's worth like, ten support votes." It's really too bad he forgot to login first. :)—WAvegetarian•(talk) 22:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

My rfa

So why'd you feel so strongly about the oppose vote in my RfA? I don't know you, you didn't know me, so I'm a bit lost here. I can only guess you want RfA's to end as fairly as possible. Anyway, I've added a short summary of it on my userpage for the record.--Andeh 22:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Andy, call me old-fashioned or follish, but I was concerned that you weren't getting treated fairly. I understood the other editors' criticisms and they seemed valid whether or not I exactly agreed with them. I assumed the same thing of Blue Tie but I did want to see the evidence (I try to look at all the links cited in RfAs). Concerned about potentially abusive or stupid behavior on your part, I asked for specifics -- diffs. Then I noticed others had asked for this same evidence a long time before and had gotten a lot more criticism of the candidate (you) -- but still no links. Still assuming good faith on Blue Tie's part, I started looking for the diffs myself. The more I looked at what I found, the more I came to wonder if my assumptions about Blue Tie's good faith were correct. I also noticed that your candidacy had slipped from above 75% to below 70% as Blue Tie "piled on". Call me old-fashioned, but I just didn't think that was right. I thought it important for you and the RfA process for someone to get to the bottom of things. Here's some of the later back and forth between Blue Tie/Anon 64/72.13.168.149:

• User talk:A. B.#Anon64 and Blue Tie
• Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Andypandy.UK

I don't know if this answers your questions. I've come to accept that, occasionally, some RfA's are just going to get scuttled by folks selectively presenting negative info. Yours is the second I've seen that happen to recently. I've concluded since then that it's probably best to just let it happen rather than make a big fuss like I did. The Wikipedia community rapidly forgives folks that are (or seem) repentant and that stay out of trouble for a few months, so I figure you'll get another crack at it after a while. In so many other aspects of life, negative memories can have half-lives of decades, but they don't here. ~~----

As I wrote the above, I thought that an often overlooked and unarticulated pillar of the "Wikipedia way" is how it makes a virtue of imperfection and "moving on". Closely related to "be bold", I suppose. Editors aren't asked to be perfect -- just to advance an article some today, maybe some more next week, while knowing other out there are likely to fix typos, add information, correct errors. It all relies on the collective, incremental efforts of multiple editors working over time to continuously improve articles. Producing whole pages of perfectly documented, beautifully written prose all at once -- that's Britannica's goal; it's just not way Wikipedia works. Yet the Wikipedia way usually works almost as well, and often better. I think this "moving on" thinking has probably carried over to non-editing aspects of the culture, including processes like RfAs. Bad outcomes, like bad edits, aren't permanent -- they just take a little longer to get sorted out. --A. B. 00:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

In your desire to do good, you did bad. In particular you made a number of false accusations and injured someone who was basically innocent. Normally people feel badly about that, even if they made the accusations in error. Apparently you do not. Everyone is different. --Blue Tie 03:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to let you know I'm done here, RfA failed, what more can I do? Yes, it may have failed for all the wrong reasons but that's my opinion isn't it. And as there's no guidelines or policies whilst voting in users RfA's anyone is allowed to oppose for any reason, even if it is for personal reasons.--Andeh 16:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

thanks

Thanks for the positive comments. They mean a great deal to me. I thrive by encouragement. Yes I must have started thousands of articles and improved many by now but don't think that I will leave particularly the Italian towns comunes just as starter stubs. Once they are all started I can go through and download the maps, flags and data boxes, translate the Italian articles and research each one. If I do a bit most days when I have some spare time I'm sure it will be valuable to the project. Many thanks James Janderson 07:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually everyone should know them :-)

They're Policy Trifecta, and Foundation issues.

Kim Bruning 08:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

You asked, then later retracted the question -- how did I agree or disagree with them? Your question was a good one, retracted or not:

Foundation issues -- I agree except as noted:

• Ability of anyone to edit articles without registering -- I see a lot of mischief perpetrated by unregistered users. I'd like to see at least partial restrictions on anonymous editing, although I have not thought through what would or would not be workable.
• Copyleft licensing of content; in practice, GFDL (working on changes via GFDL 2.0) -- in general, I agree, however I am not aware of what's going on with GFDL 2.0 (nor do I desire to study this issue)
• Jimbo Wales as ultimate authority on any matter (this is changing; see Arbitration Committee, Board) -- as a practical matter, this has worked from what I can tell. I believe, on prinicipal, that he should be accountable to the Foundation Board, if he's not already.

I also believe in playing by the rules, so to the extent that I disagree, I am content to work within them, since I'm certainly often wrong or poorly informed. I also don't think understanding the foundation issues should be a factor in RfAs unless admins have some special voice in shaping Foundation policy (I'm unaware of any such special privileges).

The page you cited on foundation issues makes mention of instruction creep and cabalism, with links to two very thought-provoking pages, especially for anyone interested in sociology or organizational behavior. I could write pages analyzing and discussing these pages.

The trifecta has stronger relevance to the day-to-day actions of admins and editors. I can interpret your question one or both of two ways:

1. What do I think of this concept for "packaging" or thinking of existing policies
2. What do I think of all the individual policies, guidelines and norms covered by each of these three core principles

There's a lot to chew on there, which will have to wait for another day. --A. B. 12:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

my RfA

Thanks for your opinions in my RfA. Ultimately, the request did not pass, with a vote of (43/16/7). But your honest opinion was appreciated and I'll just keep right on doing what I do. Maybe I'll see ya around -- I'll be here!
Cheers! - CheNuevara 17:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

If you were looking for anonymity, suggest you're long past the time your top-page notice should have been removed. Changing your handle moves your edits, you can even have your anom (IP) edits combined by a sysop, but mirrors will still keep pages for a long while. So if you don't want it found on google, keeping your top post notice is counter-productive! Stop shooting your own foot! <g> Best wishes // FrankB 03:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Fortunately I'm not looking for perfect or instantaneous anonymity. As for the user name change notice -- I thought I deleted that 12 days ago on July 17 -- where are you seeing it? --A. B. 18:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much....

I humbly thank you for taking time off of your wikibreak to come here. If there is anything within my powers that I can do, just ask. Thank you. I'll let you get back to your break, as I know every now and then we all need one. SynergeticMaggot 20:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

No thanks are needed really. I'm happy to do it. Although you were checkuser'd because of coincidence, sometimes RfA voters don't bother to follow the links (which would have shown in this caes that you were quite innocent). I'm glad that of my few brief visits to Wikipedia, one turned out to coincide with this issue turning up. A dead goat in the well for any length of time poisons an RfA, even if it's proven wrong because so many editors don't go back to the RfA after voting to see new evidence. I've seen two recent RfA's get hosed that way. --A. B. 23:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I had noticed something about the checkuser I wish to answer. The reason me and 999 show up in related AfD's is because we edit similar articles, and also cruise AfD's. I'm more inclined to keep or delete an article in an occult related field, as this is where me and 999 edit. I hope this clears up anything you may have wondered about it. SynergeticMaggot 02:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet query

No problem. I guess you didn't notice that before you started tagging possible socks in that AfD, that I had been tagging them, regardless of whether they agreed or disagreed with my vote. Also, I was the one that put the Anon warning template on the AfD, if I recall. Those socks were clearly from competing factions of the Gnostic Movement - of course you couldn't know it unless I say it, so I'll say it now: I'm not a member of any of the competing factions. In fact, while I've been aware of the existance of Samael Aun Weor for several years, I've never read any of his books and have no opinion one way or the other about him. My objection to the article was that it has no sources. I think articles on the individual organizations are a fine idea, and that a composite article is a very bad idea. It's easier for each group to defend their own article. It makes it clear who is taking the high ground and who the low... At least, that was my experience with a similar situation with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Take a look at the set of articles on contemporary orders, you'll see that the POV attackers quickly figured out that they had no leverage once the articles were separated... -999 (Talk) 14:59, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I did notice your tagging them, but then I thought to myself : "this corner of Wikipedia can get so odd, who knows -- maybe someone is playing both sides". Please don't get offended. I was also in the middle of the whole Gnaa, Nigeria AfD (1, 2) situation where I think folks from GNAA were having fun occasionally lobbing in a potshot on either side of the issue to keep the earnest Wikipedians stirred up for their entertainment.

I assure you, I don't think I'm ever going to get involved with another "Gn" article again. I'm back to the calm world of Tennessee history and submarines (after my trip to Nigeria Thursday to search out Gnaa) --A. B. 17:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

My RfA and your vote

Hello again A.B., Thanks for participating in my RFA! Ultimately, no consensus was reached, but I still appreciate the fact that you showed up to add in your two cents. I hope I gain enough experience in order to see your support next time! You can feel free to talk to me about it or add some advice on my improvement page. Sincerely, The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me)

I'm back from traveling

I'm back from spending several weeks in Lagos, where I worked with some new, very professional clients. I also got out and visited some other areas in southern and central Nigeria-- but I never did find the mythical city of Gnaa.

It'll be a while before I can do anything with Wikipedia, however.--A. B. 00:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back! I'm sure it was an amazing experience! Too bad about Gnaa, though, hehe hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 00:40, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

PWU

Thanks for taking a crack at this. I appreciate the historical stuff, especially the links to court docs. The primary problem though, is, what about *now*? So what that the school went through turmoil more than 5 years ago, or 2 years ago or whatever? How would you respond to the new president, who is working diligently to obtain accreditation? There is no doubt any attempt to unring the bell, as it were, will be slammed - but what do you do to give appropriate treatment to fresh blood working to overcome this? When does the school's current situation surpass the scandal? Food for thought.--Brad Patrick 17:11, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Brad, thanks for the response.

Seeing as I'm the guy who inadvertently vandalized your talk page by deleting (1, 2) -- accidentally -- the congratulatory messages on the birth of your child, I appreciate the fact that you're even responding!

You raise good questions and, as a non-admin, it lead me into review of the various policies and guidelines.

I feel the new president's pain (maybe), but I believe we're constrained to be encyclopedic. Does he have anything to cite that we can use? I could see us quoting him saying something factual, dry and brief (3-4 sentences?): "We recognize problems in the past but we are undertaking the following three initiatives to correct this ... One, we're ... etc." Personally I'd be squeamish about quoting either puffery: "PWU is a vibrant institution with world-class faculty, etc." or something very long. Besides, a PR-sounding statement embedded in an otherwise dryly written objective article just makes the person quoted seem slippery, so it's in the new president's own interest anyway to avoid PR-type language.

• Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published sources in articles about themselves
• Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden of evidence -- the standard any edits have to meet, including mine and the new president's

Also, any statement of his we quoted it would have to be posted somewhere, I suppose, so that we could link to it. That or somewhere widely available in written form and publicly accessible. (WP:OR)

The new president is living with some hard truths -- he is running an unaccredited college and it has a problematic past. I've once been in similar shoes in the business world where I had to turn around a business not only financially but ethically. I don't know if he is genuinely sincere or just one more person with big promises. Other than getting a quote from him, my impression is that we have to stick with the publicly available, verifiable, credible truth, hard or not. That some of the truths are hard are his problem not ours, notwithstanding our own personal hopes that he is in fact a true reformer and that he salvages this school.

I did several things in writing this article to bend over backwards in accomodating PWU sensitivities; I'm not sure "bolder", more experienced editors would have felt so constrained:

• I tried to avoid the piling on effect (a.k.a. "Undue weight")-- using multiple, neutral but adverse, encyclopedic edits (quotes from articles in major papers, etc.), each NPOV, but in such quantity as to have a collectively POV effect. I did not use all the encyclopedic material out there.
• I pulled my punches on the Australian scandal. Major Australian newspapers have done more digging into PWU than American media as a result of research into scandals involving a major Australian political figure who holds (or maybe doesn't hold) a PWU degree. These articles have good, factual information on PWU but it's sometimes embedded in unrelated, lurid details of things that happened in Australia:
  • One article with great info I chose to omit from the references simply because the headline was about "call girls", an aspect of the scandal unrelated to PWU. From an earlier editor's version (reformatted here slightly):

"Dr. Detrick is leading the university as it applies for initial accreditation by the nationally recognized DETC Accrediting Commission the same organization that gives California Coast University its accreditation. However, an article related to the Marcus Einfeld controversy in Australia quoted Dr. Detrick as saying that the university's past was a "stumbling block" for accreditation, and that he recommended that it be closed, though it was not clear when he had made that recommendation (quoted from The Australian: "Callgirl enters Einfeld")."

• PWU did not exactly deny the politician attended, but they said they had no record of his attendance (apparently, there were some record storage issues in a recent move or change of ownership). While I felt that I did have to mention the scandal since Australians will come to Wikipedia for info on PWU, I tried to put PWU's role in perspective as a truly peripheral player.

• I did not use the stuff from 1994 another editor posted above due to its age. I still think stuff that's more recent is very relevant -- institutions don't change quickly.
• I did not use the QuackWatch reference even though it's encyclopedic just because the site's name is inflammatory.

The U.S. Department of Education recognizes six regional accreditation organizations which provide the fundamental basis of collegiate and graduate accreditation in the United States today. Additionally, individual programs within a school may have further accreditation within a specialized area. For instance, legal education programs require additional accreditation by the American Bar Association and nursing programs by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education. The Distance Education and Training Council accreditation that PWU is seeking falls into the latter category, however even with DETC accreditation of PWU distance learnign programs, PWU degrees will still be considered as invalid by many organizations becuase the university lacks fundamental regional accreditation.

As for the relevance of 1997 events, I think the fact that the school was fined in 1997 for breaking Hawaiian law and engaging in deceptive business practices is very relevant when you then read that they were back in the same court paying a much bigger fine for a similar (but broader) list just several months ago. (1, 2, 3). There's the 2004 GAO investigation -- 2 years old, yes, but at what point does Wikipedia give a person or organization a pass on adverse information due to some unwritten statute of limitations? It doesn't for a lot of other folks:

• Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
• Boston University Biolabs
• Harvard University#Views of Harvard
• Lawrence Summers
• Dartmouth College#Native Americans at Dartmouth
• Yale University#Criticisms of Yale
• University of Pennsylvania#Controversy

Finally, while I'm not saying the new president is communicating with Wikipedia in bad faith, we don't believe or disbelieve anybody's good intentions; it's against our rules. Look at it this way, if the new president were a fraudster, he'd be saying the same things to us as an actual reformer would be saying. As Sergeant Joe Friday used to say on Dragnet, "All we want are the facts, ma'am."

Let me know any thoughts you have on the above and what I should do next (or recruit an admin to do).

--A. B. 19:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

PS Wikipedia is a hobby for me, a job for you. It's Sunday -- for Pete's sake, don't bother with an answer today!

Did you email me regarding the RJK website about me?

If so, thanks. It's kind of creepy.

Yes -- I was leaving a note for Brad Patrick about another article, saw the link left there by RJK, then followed it back to that site. I thought you and the others involved would want to know even if it is creepy. I still don't understand why you'd combine a Latvian mailing address, NY phone number, while editing Wikipedia anonymously from Toronto to post links on another Toronto site.

I have not been involved with the USAA saga, but it looks tedious for those involved.

--A. B. 22:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Also -- note this thread on the ANI yesterday:

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Legal threats against Carnildo by Spockman

Spockman is apparently RJK.

RJK cites a lot of legal bases for threatening Wikipedia editors. I think he's overlooking some key legal principals and laws in the U.S. such as freedom of speech, but then I'm no lawyer.

Note that he's sending those Carnildo threats via an IP address in Germany, so who knows what he's really doing or where he is.

--A. B. 22:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

(Protected against reverts and noindex: as they say guys, you be "on the record")

[5]

[6]

Actually, I'd like to know:

1. 1: Where exactly is the website?
2. 2: What is creepy about it?
3. 3: Why the obsession about where rjk is and what his phone number is.

You act dogs sniffing another dog's poop. How about this for an explanation?

a: He is in Latvia, a country known for freedom of the press. b: He has an VOIP telephone (try calling it and ask him); and, c: The server he is using, when run through an IP Locator, comes up in Germany.

I know you guys don't have much classical education. And it is obvious that you never had debating classes. That you're stupid is not your fault: that your parents couldn't afford an education is regrettable.

But there is a logical principal, Occam's razor which will help you get smart real fast: just stick to the facts, guys.

Got to run before you revert this and block me for vandalizing . . .

Response to Robert J. Koenig/84.58.192.51's post above

1. My "obsession" with your contact details: I don't think I'm especially obsessed about your phone number, etc. -- just mildly fascinated by what a complicated set-up you use. Also, since various of your user accounts have been banned, it's relevant to find out at least what Internet connection you're using. Clearly, you're a fairly sophisticated operator and capable of bypassing the traditional Wikipedia systems. Beyond that, I didn't have much interest in or time for your ongoing battles. As I noted above, they sure look tedious.
2. My education: I agree, I don't have a "classical" education -- it was mostly technical with a few liberal arts electives. As for my lack of debate training -- I've never been interested.
3. "Stupid" is a rude thing to say and I don't think anyone besides yourself would say that I am. Having said that, it's certainly possible that you're smarter than I am but that's hardly an exclusive club. Statistically at least ten million people around the world are smarter than me. I still manage to get by, however.
4. I'm not sure your comments above constitutes "vandalism" as Wikipedia would define it. As for your earlier fiddling with the link to Dartmouth College above, it's too trivial to be "vandalism"; "peculiar" is a probably a better description.
5. Your comment above, "you be 'on the record'": By all means -- record away. I'm not sure of your purpose, but I'm not particularly concerned.
6. Enjoy Riga; I've long wanted to visit the Baltics and I understand Riga is beautiful. I'll bet it's especially beautiful in early October.

Good day,

--A. B. 21:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Unrepentant Spammer

A.B. As a new Wikipedia contributor, I must admit I only made a cursory review of Wiki policies regarding what could be linked to articles. In reading one of several policy sections, I was correctly under the impression that my website URL was not allowed in the body of content, but mistaken in believing it could be added in the External Links section. I don't appreciate being called an unrepentant spammer, you should follow Wiki policy of courtesy. Wilcoweb 00:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, a quick check of my contributions should quite any doubt about your comments. Wilcoweb 00:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)