User talk:Anythingyouwant

Some thoughts

Hi, Ferrylodge. I'd just like to make a couple of points. I'm sorry that you've been having quite a rough time here. For me, as a strongly pro-life Catholic, one of the most positive aspects to my general experience at Wikipedia has been gaining the respect and friendship, and I might even add affection of people who have POVs that are extremely different from mine. Some Catholic beliefs are complicated, and cannot be explained in two sentences. Therefore, it's easy to twist my belief that an embryo is a unique but very vulnerable human being with an immortal soul into an indifference towards the distress of a rape victim or towards the plight of someone with a life-threatening illness for whom a cure might be found if the research were not blocked by intolerant, heartless hypocrites like me! It's unfair, of course, but being judged unfairly is part of holding a minority viewpoint, so you just learn to cope. I actually cope extremely well with it, but I won't say that it doesn't ever cause pain. It does.

Since joining Wikipedia, I've seen various pro-life or Christian editors getting abused and blocked — repeatedly. I don't mean editors who happened to be pro-life or Christian; I mean people who were very likely on Wikipedia solely because they wanted to promote a particular POV. I tend to look quite kindly on people whose contributions show that they're here for a reason — even if it's a pro-choice reason. Wikipedia frowns on it, but I don't think it necessarily shows a lack of good faith. Someone feel strongly about an issue. He discovers Wikipedia. He believes his POV to be the correct one, and therefore sees various articles as being very biased. He tries to fix them. He doesn't vandalize. He doesn't engage in name-calling. Yet he meets with resistence. Why?

This is something I've given a lot of thought to, because my own experience on Wikipedia has been so different. Nobody except the kind of trolls who end up indefinitely blocked anyway has ever been really abusive to me. And in all such cases (except for someone who is now in police custody), the people who were abusive towards me were far more abusive towards others and were banned because of their behaviour towards others. But people who just had "the other POV" and who were ordinary, decent people treated me extremely well. I joined Wikipedia, edited Terri Schiavo (guess what my POV was!), was almost immediately accused of vandalism, acted as if I hadn't seen the accusation, and received a very gracious apology a few days later, which I accepted. The person who had made the accusation and apology later wrote about me in quite flattering terms. When I took the part of an editor who I felt was being bullied, an administrator posted a comment that I had been there only two days and had shown no interest in anything but Terri Schiavo. I felt slightly unwelcomed, but ignored the comment. Months later, that administrator described himself as one of my fans. I doubt if he even remembered his original comment, and and I certainly wasn't going to hold a grudge.

I do not think that the disputes you have been in have been 100% your fault. I have seen some posts either addressed to you or addressed to someone else about you on a page which you were sure to read which can only be described as taunting. It was for that reason that I did not take part in the RfC that you brought. It would only have added to the general pile on of opposition that you were getting. To be frank, I wish that Bishonen had not blocked you. But I absolutely do not accept that she was wrong to block you, or that she was abusive in any way. A wish that she hadn't blocked you is based on the fact that it caused so much bad feeling as to do more harm than good. I would have preferred a gentler approach, but it's something on which administrators can validly disagree, and it's quite possible that she was right and that I'm wrong. Even if I'm right, I don't feel at all that it was an abusive block, just one that, in retrospect, caused more harm than benefit. Even though I think highly of KillerChihuahua (very highly of her, in fact), I would have been willing to subject her to a small amount of extra annoyance rather than subject you to a lot of humilation and frustration. Umm, if you're reading this, Puppy, please accept my apologies ;-). Part of being an administrator is being able to cope with such annoyances, and it's my belief that KC has shown herself able in the past. Perhaps I'd have blocked you after your fifth clearly unwelcome post rather than after your third. Would you have stopped after three?

One piece of advice that you might take on board for the future is this: Don't ever continue to post on the talk page of somebody who has started removing your posts. That is regarded by many Wikipedians, myself included, as harassment. As Bishonen and KillerChihuahua both know, I have reason to be aware of what the word harassment means in real life. I do not at all think that what you were doing was to be compared with creepy, sinister, spiteful tracking down of people in real life, posting their real names on Wikipedia and other sites, phoning their superiors at work, sending them sexually explicit e-mails, etc. Bishonen certainly wasn't implying that you'd be guilty of that. But, just as the word "cold" can cover many points on a thermometer and can have some overlap with "freezing", the word "harassment" can cover various degrees of nuisance and perstering while also covering threats and stalking. Perhaps if I had blocked you, I might have put something like "continued pestering after warning" in the block log, but I doubt if you would have liked that either.

Anyway, I'm sorry that this happened. I'm sorry also that instead of swallowing your pride and letting go, you chose to make more of a fuss, which, predictably, led to more frustration and humiliation for you. Although I've been very busy lately, I did see the RfC you brought. Under no circumstances could I have endorsed your statement, as I saw no wrongdoing on the part of Bishonen, even though I'd have turned a blind eye to your last post, rather than blocking. However, I did not enjoy seeing it turn into an RfC about you, and therefore refrained from endorsing any of the views.

What can you do now? I suggest go back to editing, and try and put this behind you. Try not to edit war. (I'm not saying you do; this is just general advice.) If you think your opponents are edit warring, ignore it. Use the article talk pages as much as possible. Use preview in your talk page posts, and modify them again and again before submitting, until you're satisfied that each post deals with the arguments you want to make about what should or shouldn't be in the article, and not with your opinions about your fellow editors. If other people are not following the same strict guidelines, ignore it, since there's nothing you can do about it anyway. Don't even bother pointing it out. I also think it would be a good idea for you to do some editing in areas that are completely unrelated to your POV. Revert some vandalism. Find some articles about a book you've read, a place you've been in, and correct errors, improve the wording, or add content. It will put you in a stronger position when editing articles that you feel strongly about if you have built up a record which shows that you're here to improve the encyclopaedia, and not just because you have an agenda.

Of the people you've been in dispute with, there is, as far as I can see, only one who is unlikely to treat you with generosity if you swallow your pride and try to move on. And even he will be less in a position to taunt you if you don't make it easy for him. In particular, I can give you my personal assurance that KillerChihuahua, Bishonen, and Severa are kind, sensitive people who would never take pleasure in trampling on someone who was feeling frustrated, especially if he gave some signs of wanting to collaborate and move on. And, although I have seen less of Andrew c than of the other people I mention, I'm fairly sure I could add him to the list as well.

I'm trying not to edit too much in the next two or three months, as I have papers to finish writing over the summer. (I've said that before and have continued editing in spite of myself!) If you feel the need for any help, click on my contributions, and if I'm active, feel free to ask me. If I'm not active, you could try Phaedriel (but please check her user page first, as her baby is ill at the moment, and I'd hate to be responsible for someone coming to her for help at a time that she has real life problems), ElinorD, or GTBacchus. They may not all be pro-life (in fact, I know that one of them isn't), but I'm not talking about help in the sense of getting an article to say what you want it to say, but simply help if you feel that there's a general "anti-Ferrylodge" atmosphere at a talk page. I should tell you, though, that I have not asked these people for permission to give their names, and they may not be in a position to help you. I mention them because all three are administrators who feel strongly about treating people as human beings (to use a phrase from GTBacchus), and who, as far as I know, have not ever been in dispute with you (unless you count Phaedriel's "Outside view" in the RfC as a dispute, but believe me, she's one of the kindest administrators we have).

Best wishes, and I hope this will work out. Musical L inguist 18:44, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Some thoughts