User talk:Sean William

Thank you!

Dear Sean, thanks so much for the heads up and your thoughtful suggestion. In fact, my friend Tdxiang, who's also a Simple Wiki admin, alerted me about this circumstance a few days ago, so I was aware of this unpleasant impersonation event. However, I'm not sure what to do at this point - should I do something to get that account deleted somehow, or can it be usurped in order to register myself there? I'll follow your advice on this matter. I registered my name on de.wiki, es.wiki and fr. wiki, but I completely missed the Simple English one :( Again, thanks so much for your help, dear Sean! Cheers, Phaedriel - 21:08, 26 April 2007 (UTC) [reply]

Thank you!

I'll do just that then :) Thank you, dear Sean, and let me know if you ever need my help over here at en.wiki, k? Hugs! Phaedriel - 21:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC) [reply]

Once again, thanks a lot, dear Sean - I'll wait then ;) Cheers! Phaedriel - 23:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC) [reply]

Why the block of 71.41.210.146?

The explanation given is one word: "Vandalism".

I can state categorically (but subjectively) that no edit from that IP classifies as Wikipedia:Vandalism in that it's not "a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia".

But even falling back to the other two lesser legal standards of "wilful", namely recklessness and negligence, I'm not sure what is objectionable about any past edits. How are they even misguided or unhelpful, much less harmful?

My latest big project has been to add accurate SMILES formulae (preferably the canonical "unique SMILES" form usable for database lookup) to the simple molecules in Category:Biochemistry. It's been a bit of a learning experience, as the chirality annotations are a bit subtle to figure out, but http://cactus.nci.nih.gov/services/translate/ has been very helpful.

It's not like switching IPs or waiting out the block is difficult, but as someone who wishes to contribute positively, the possibility that I'm doing harm without meaning to is alarming. I remember being disagreed with over Endianness, but at least that comment said something about why the reverter disagreed.

The one word "vandalism"—describing an offense for which I know the mens rea is absent—leaves me bewildered. Can someone please explain in considerably more detail?

71.41.210.146 03:06, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, reviewing your contributions more closely, I've found that the block was in error. Now, the reason why you were blocked in the first place was due to a report on WP:AIV by a bot named "User:MartinBot". This bot works as an anti-vandalism bot, reverting edits that it deems to be "nonsense". Your edits were reverted immediately by this bot, due to the somewhat random nature of the SMILES formulae. MartinBot automatically reports editors who have vandalized more than four times to the bot section of the Administrator Intervention against Vandalism page. Administrators rarely check the contributions of a user when it has been reported by MartinBot because the bot very rarely makes mistakes. I hope you accept my humblest apologies for this block; it was a general misunderstanding between the parties. Cheers, Sean William 03:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Duh, that makes sense. Yes, I've reverted a moderate amount of "line noise" (although usually I think charitably that someone just leaned on a keyboard and hit "Enter" with the edit page open; I only call it vandalism when there's some obviously hostile text), and the SMILES formulae do resemble that. Um... I'll have to figure out how to get the edits past the bot's un-doing. I wonder why it only started complaining today? Oh! I know! Earlier, I had to add "|- | SMILES = <formula>" to infoboxes. The most recent ones already had (blank) "| SMILES =" entries that I just filled in. Thus, the addition was "purer" line noise.71.41.210.146 03:25, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to notify the bot's creator about this, in hopes of getting it fixed. Sean William 03:31, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I really think it's quite an exceptional case, so maybe it doesn't need a totally transparent solution, but a solution of some sort would be helpful. I could always make some pointless edits, like a large human-readable  and then remove it in a separate edit, if I expect it'll trigger the bot. In case it helps, though, a basic validation of SMILES formulae can be done by checking for properly nested parens, with possibly one innermost level of square brackets. (Oh yes, and my recent edits have included many more chirality @ signs, which might trigger e-mail address detectors.) 71.41.210.146 03:45, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um, in the meantime, I notice that the block is still active. Is that likely to be fixed, or should I just wait for it to time out? 71.41.210.146 03:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have lifted the block. Sean William 03:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

:o

What are the odds that I should drop by your userpage about 5 minutes after you've ~~blatantly ripped off~~ adapted my old userpage design? :) Spooky! By the way, Springeragh is actually responsible for most of that design - just making sure your credit goes to the right place :) Take care! – Riana _ऋ 00:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no! I'm found out! I guess I got tired of the "large user page" thing, so I decided to go with a simple page. I hope you don't mind :). Sean William 00:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'Course not! I got tired of the big flashy thing too, but then got tired of the small simple thing... and now I'm tired of the big flashy thing again. You know, I'm just going to end up redirecting to my talkpage one of these days :) See ya round, – Riana _ऋ 00:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IRC cloak request

I am Sean_William/PullToOpen on freenode and I would like the cloak wikipedia/sean-william. Thanks. --Sean William 15:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

7th Muslim Brigade

Maybe you don't realise that semi-protection would force the anonymous user to discuss his problems with article (he so far refuses). Or if he decided he has nothing substantial to say, he will go away. I've only been here short time, and I can see than for Wikipedia openess=anarchy (mostly). What is gained by letting one anonymous user rip up the version of an article several users accepted, without discussion or justifying himself even?--Methodius 16:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reason why I didn't semi-protect the article is because it would only block the IPs from editing, and not established users. If pages are protected in a content dispute, the page must be completely protected from editing so that all parties must discuss on the talk page. As I said before, if an edit war erupts, ask for full protection and begin discussion. Of course, it would be much easier to begin discussion now, but as you said, the IP doesn't seem to want to engage in discussion. Sean William 17:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"it would only block the IPs" - it is dispute between one IP and several registered users. All except one IP are wanting to discuss. So only the one IP needs "coercion" to discuss, everyone else is already ready for discussion, so there is no purpose to "coerce" them also. So I do not see point of what you say. All is needed is blocking IPs from editing for week or two. Either he will discuss or he will go away.--Methodius 17:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]