User talk:Disinfoboxman

Inappropriate comments at Featured article review

Featured article review, Augustan drama
- 20:35, 9 October 2008 - With edit summary fuckwits, makes comment Delete. No infobox. Also various incorrect commas, and missing dashes - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.

Featured article review, Great Fire of London
- 11:49, 10 November 2008 - Delete - no infobox. Anyway, Bloodworth was right: a woman could have pissed it out, if only one with a prodigiously large bladder had been located in time. - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.

Featured article review, Oroonoko
- 12:43, 15 October 2009 - Delete. Far too good for the likes of Wikipedia these days. A few of Geogre's featured articles have not been torpedoed yet: who will be the first to find fault with Ormulum or Colley Cibber or Jonathan Wild? - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.

Featured article review, Augustan literature
- 11:44, 12 November 2008 - Delete. No infobox. Also various incorrect commas, and missing dashes. - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.
- 15:30, 12 November 2008 - I am not going to fix it either, because 3/ like you, I am one of those people "just talking" who doesn't care enough to do anything about it. I suspect we may disagree about whether such "failure" is very important.

Featured article review, Colley Cibber
- 11:26, 19 November 2009 - Delete with maximum prejudice - no disinfobox at all, unlike many far more important articles - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.
- 19:29, 19 November 2009 - Well, I'm sure there is a word for it. Delete - remove, expunge, erase, efface, cancel, wipe out, excise, eradicate, obliterate. Surely we can't keep featured articles by a notoriously "abusive sockpuppet", can we? Particularly if they don't have the requisite density of footnotes, or have too many adjectives. - Reference by Disinfoboxman to the account Utgard Loki (talk · contribs), sock of Geogre (talk · contribs) [1]. (Geogre had used the Utgard Loki account in a similar fashion, to make inappropriate comments at Featured article review pages, while saying with his main account that he was uninterested in participating in the FAR process.)

These are all inappropriate comments at Featured article review. Obviously you do not wish for the Featured articles to be deleted, and obviously you do not wish for them to have infoboxes. Please stop using this account in this inappropriate manner at FAR. This is a violation of WP:POINT, usage of this account to post "Delete, no infobox!" at multiple FAR pages of Featured articles that you clearly feel should remain FAs and should not have infoboxes. Thanks, Cirt (talk) 08:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Giano and Cirt, sitting in a tree

Cirt, there is nothing wrong with adopting a humerous, if cynical take on Wikipedia. Disinfoboxman has done nothing wrong, other than have a different viewpoint to yourself. You have already had him neelessly checkusered and thus, insulted Wetman, one of Wikipedia's most competent editors. Perhaps, when you have appolagised to Wetman and Disinfoboxman, you should back off a little. This is starting to look a little obssessional on your part. Giano 08:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is inappropriate to comment at FAR in this manner. It is a disruption to the process. Cirt (talk) 08:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I expect peole like Wetman find you having them wrongly checkusered mor than rude and disruptive, but that does not seem to bother you. Now go away and stop harassing this user. Giano 08:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would appreciate a response from the account itself. Cirt (talk) 08:58, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Really Cirt, you are becoming very rude in your old age [2]. Good job, I'm not sensitive or I would have to trawl through a billion edits to find out whose sock you may be. Giano 09:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I realized that part of my comment was not the most appropriate, and chose to remove it. But thanks for noticing, no worries. :) Cirt (talk) 09:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cirt - Welcome to my talk page, and thank you for your comments, which I accept in the constructive manner in which they were intended. I have written more than I intended below, but in the hope someone might read to the end, let me begin:

First, some housekeeping: I don't know why you added two headings so I have taken one away. I have also taken the liberty of providing a place for you and Giano to continue your fascinating discussion if you wish (welcome Giano too).

As is plain from the (somewhat selective) quotations that you give above, I have been entirely consistent in my comments at WP:FAR for quite some time. Perhaps you think my comments at WP:FAR are "sarcastic", "inappropriate" or indeed "disruptive". I could not possibly comment on your perception of them - humour is notoriously difficult to pin down, and we each find different things amusing, appropriate or helpful (or not).

However, I do object to you calling me a sarcastic joke account. I don't find much to laugh about in my contributions to A. E. J. Collins and related FAR, or François de Menthon, or Blair Peach, or Brazilian battleship Riachuelo and Brazilian battleship Riachuelo (1883). It is no wonder that I have now been checkusered at least twice, having been suspected of being either George or Wetman - both coincidentally editors whom I respect and admire greatly for all the good that they have done Wikipedia over the years; the comparison is excessively flattering to me - for they are both notoriously enthralled by the obscure details of English schoolboy cricketers who died in the Great War, French lawyers and politicians, political activists from New Zealand killed by the British police, and 19th-century Brazilian battleships. I bet you can't guess what my next article might be, if I get that far.

You mentioned WP:POINT. Have you read it recently? Ignoring the narrow semantic point as to whether is possible to - as you hyperbolically term it - "violate" a behavioural guideline ("a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply") by making comments that you consider "inappropriate", which proposal, practice, or policy in Wikipedia do you think was I applying disruptively because I disagree with it? The thrust of that guideline is that one should discuss issues rather than implementing one's preferred solution (although taking action in advance of discussion can be mandated by other policies and guidelines, such as WP:IAR or WP:BRD). Where else am I meant to discuss articles proposed for Featured article review, other than on the appropriate subpage? I would refer you to the final paragraph, entitled "Important note", which reads

"A commonly used shortcut to this page is WP:POINT. However, just because someone is making a point does not mean that they are disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate it. With that in mind, linking here should be done with care."

In any event, what sort of disruption-to-illustrate-a-point do you think I may have caused at WP:FAR? In due course, there was a clear consensus for Augustan drama, Oroonoko and Augustan literature to lose their featured status; and Great Fire of London was speedily kept. I cannot see how my comments "disrupted" the FAR process in the slightest. For what it is worth, I think the featured article process has been stuck in a mire of WP:MOS-inspired pedantry and footnote fetishism for some time (typified by the FAR of Colley Cibber, apparently because the article has the temerity to use adjectives without each one being explicitly footnoted, and the mechanistic counting of numbered footnotes as a proxy for the thoroughness of inline citation when Harvard citations or the equivalent are just as good). I would ignore the rules, and keep these wonderful featured articles, but consensus seems to be for that status to be deleted (removed, expunged, erased, effaced, cancelled, wiped out, excised, eradicated and obliterated). The determination to collectively shoot ourselves in the foot seems a bit misguided to me, but so be it.

On Colley Cibber, the full quotation would be:

Delete with maximum prejudice - no disinfobox at all, unlike many far more important articles (such as A. E. J. Collins‎). And imagine, someone refusing to force their article on to the Procrustean bed of footnotes (which remain optional), but using instead elegant Harvard citations. And using adjectives like "colourful"? O tempora o mores! More seriously, either we have Cibber's dates of birth and death wrong (11 June 1671 - 12 November 1757) or the ODNB does (6 November 1671 - 12 December 1757) or we both do (11 December, perhaps?). And is Virtue Rewarded the subtitle of his play Love's Last Shift, or is it The Fool in Fashion?[3] But anyway, per my prediction, who will be the first to launch a torpedo towards Ormulum or Jonathan Wild? Don't be shy. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 11:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to read the first couple of sentences and then missed the "more seriously" part, underlined above, which mentions two substantial problems with the article, one of which I have fixed by assuming the ODNB is correct, although the other still needs to be addressed. You also seem to have overlooked the references and the ALT text that I added to the article shortly afterwards: DrKiernan praised the latter as "amusing and accurate, which is an ideal combination". But perhaps you could suggest someone who is dull and inaccurate for me to emulate? -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 18:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]