User talk:Arthur Rubin

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This user is no longer active on Wikipedia because of hostile editing environment.

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Motion passed in AE arbitration case granting amnesty and rescinding previous temporary injunction

This message is sent at 12:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC) by Arbitration Clerk User:Penwhale via MassMessage on behalf of the Arbitration Committee. You are receiving this message because your name appears on this list and have not elected to opt-out of being notified of development in the arbitration case.

On 5 July, 2015, the following motion was passed and enacted:

Paragraphs (2) and (3) of the Arbitration Committee's motion of 29 June 2015 about the injunction and reporting breaches of it are hereby rescinded.
The Arbitration Committee hereby declares an amnesty covering:
1. the original comment made by Eric Corbett on 25 June 2015 and any subsequent related comments made by him up until the enactment of this current motion; and
2. the subsequent actions related to that comment taken by Black Kite, GorillaWarfare, Reaper Eternal, Kevin Gorman, GregJackP and RGloucester before this case was opened on 29 June 2015.

Noted (for auto archive) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 12:53, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

July 2015 Request self-revert of disruptive editing

Welcome to Wikipedia. At least one of your recent edits, such as the edit you made to Americans for Prosperity, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, please take some time to familiarise yourself with our policies and guidelines. You can find information about these at the welcome page which also provides further information about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. If you only meant to make some test edits, please use the sandbox for that. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you may leave a message on my talk page. You removed the NPOV article hat from a Tea Party movement article, while multiple threads on the neutrality of the article involving multiple editors were ongoing at article talk. Please self-revert your removed the NPOV article hat. Thank you in advance for your commitment to avoiding disruptive editing. Hugh (talk) 01:29, 6 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@HughD: The previous NPOV tag was resolved by consensus, coincidentally while you were blocked. Guidelines suggest that a new NPOV tag should not be added without consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:37, 6 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Arthur_Rubin

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Arthur_Rubin. Thanks. Hugh (talk) 18:14, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Template:Z48[reply]

ANI discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Champaign Supernova (talk) 04:05, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinic rescheduled

5th Annual Wiknic rescheduled to Saturday, July 25, 2015, ~9:30am-4pm

Due to a conflict with the Redondo Loves Wikipedia edit-a-thon, the fifth annual Los Angeles Wiknic has been rescheduled. As before, the location will be at Pan-Pacific Park (map) and will be held on Saturday, July 25, 2015 from 9:30am to 4pm or so. Please RSVP and volunteer to bring food or drinks if possible!

I hope to see you there! —howcheng {chat} - via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:28, 7 July 2015 (UTC) Join our Facebook group here! To opt out of future mailings about LA meetups, please remove your name from this list.[reply]

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Send on behalf of The Wikipedia Library using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:31, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

July 2015

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Books and Bytes - Issue 12

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 12, May-June 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

New donations - Taylor & Francis, Science, and three new French-language resources
Expansion into new languages, including French, Finnish, Turkish, and Farsi
Spotlight: New partners for the Visiting Scholar program
American Library Association Annual meeting in San Francisco

Read the full newsletter

The Interior 15:23, 16 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Recent years RFC

As an editor involved in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Recent years, I wanted to make sure you saw the RFC that I placed there regarding the guidelines. Your comments are of course appreciated. agtx 19:29, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

7/⁊

In response to your [672367663 revert] here, it seemed reasonable to me that someone might see the symbol ⁊, very common in medieval texts, and search for it by entering 7, so I wanted to provide them with a way to find it. Lesgles (talk) 03:13, 21 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Lesgles: How about {{distinguish}}? Although, that's not the only character that looks like a "7". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:15, 21 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Kzoo

99.109.126.84 — Preceding unsigned comment added by HughD (talk • contribs)

Thanks. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:02, 22 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Square root edit

Hey Arthur Rubin, I am new to Wikipedia so pardon me if my edits and other posts are not within the format. I am still learning and wish to contribute postively to the ecosystem I had recently made a correction on the square root page of wikipedia where I had corrected that -4 is not a square root of 16. However, you seem to have felt otherwise and reverted it and I was hoping we could discuss on the topic.

Square root of 16 is only 4, as far as I know. That is why http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=square+root+of+16 shows answer as just 4 and not -4 too. I think where most people confuse this is the fact that -4 squared is 16 and hence they think square root of 16 is also -4.

See x^2=16 is a polynomial with degree 2. That means the maximum number of roots it can have is 2. Hence x = +4 and -4. On the other hand, x = sqrt(16) is a polynomial in degree 1 which means the maximum number of roots it can have is just 1. Hence only +4 is the square root of 16.

I think a popular argument is stating that there are two square roots and only positive is considered as principal. However, I would like citation on the same from a source. Can you provide that as all other credible sources just consider 4 to be square root of 16.

Additionally, I wanted to edit how principal square root is introduced (if at all such a citation exists) in a way so that people are clear only 4 is square root of 16. Students usually mistake on this.

If we can add a section explaining with the polynomial degree why square root is just 4 and not -4 it will be good.

122.169.19.85 (talk) 02:18, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Edit war on MOSNUM

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --Izno (talk) 02:38, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

108.195.137.45 (talk · contribs)

Is there an SPI case page open for this editor? Andy Dingley (talk) 09:49, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No. Why should there be? He's an IP only editor. I haven't kept track of all his IPs lately, but you can see some of the early examples at User:Arthur Rubin/IP list. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:58, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you're blocking and bulk-reverting an editor as a sock, there should at the very least be a sock investigation page to explain why.

Why do you think they're a sock? Why do you think they're a problem? Evidence and explanation for this should be somewhere visible that other editors can see. Your IP list page hasn't been edited for two years, so that's hardly convincing evidence. As to their edits from this IP, they're very rapid and could be seen as overlinking, but I really don't see these as vandalism or as a problem sufficient to justify WP:DENY. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:33, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's obviously the same editor noted in the IP list. If you want to question that, go ahead on WP:AN or WP:ANI, but I am one of at least 4 Admins who blocks and reverts on sight, although VSmith has been known to allow spacing edits (but not "reasonable" substantive edits), and I believe there are still 2 non-admins who revert on sight. If you want to question the original block(s), WP:ANI is the place, but I don't think you'll find any support for the theory that these are not all the same person (or possibly, a tag team on the same computer). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 11:40, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Andy, check the following: Special:Contributions/99.112.215.217, Special:Contributions/108.195.138.93, Special:Contributions/99.112.213.16 and Special:Contributions/108.195.138.224 for a bit more insight from just last night. This blatant block evasion has been going on for several years (original block in 2011?). The individual is simply exploiting a fundamental weakness in WP by simply logging off - restarting with a new ip address and continuing. You, or anyone, is free to re-instate any of those edits you wish to make your edit - if you wish. Take your concerns to AN if you like - altho not a likely productive use of your time. Vsmith (talk) 12:45, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It might be obvious to you, but it's far from obvious to other editors who don't know the backstory. If there's an SPI page, this sort of thing can be made obvious to all who have to deal with them. AT&T users from Mighigan isn't enough on its own.

For another thing, who is the orginal editor and where's their block? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:59, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Andy. I'm familiar with this depressing situation. Please see User_talk:Arthur_Rubin/Archive_2015#1_year_block_of_108.73.115.144. I agree with Arthur and V on the identity of the IP and I'm very sure they are acting in good faith. (I don't agree with the possibility of a tag team, best I can tell it is one person.) Competency is an issue. I am not an administrator. I learned that our administrators can blocked and revert an IP on sight without community process. Hugh (talk) 14:52, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See links here for links to an attempt to work with the person and some background info. Vsmith (talk) 15:18, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So this came up already a few months ago? If there was an SPI page, per usual process, there wouldn't be such questioning of it. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An SPI page for a group of IPs would be out of process. We may need such a process, but it's not SPI. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why not SPI? It's socking that they're being reverted for.

We should not ever let any editor become a "block and revert on sight" target for any sub-group of admins, outside of process. Now maybe this one is OK, but there are a couple of admins out there (two obvious names spring to mind) who use this tactic as a deliberate means to squash dissent on a personal basis. De facto banning any editor should be a public process and above board.

If a particular editor, "The Michigan Kid" has become a problem (another problem, this isn't a novel situation) then we may do this. But it has to be public and clearly visible to other editors who might encounter them. We also have to be careful that this editor really is the same one, and that the punishment is not excessive. We allow enormous leeway for reform to the worst of petty vandals, maybe in the hope that "the kid" will grow out of it, and that should still apply here. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:42, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reporting one of these to SPI would not be helpful in identifying others; unless one were allowed to name the report "Michigan Kid", (which requires modifying templates, as there is no User named "Michigan Kid"), it would appear arbitrary even to SPI regulars. The generally deprecated WP:LTA might be appropriate, where the abuse is block evasion, rather than actions seriously and directly damaging to Wikipedia, such as WoW. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:24, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@JSmith: Do you think a WP:LTA entry would be helpful? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

Saw this [1] and had the same reaction as you, particularly in light of this [2] conspicuous omission. I tire... Champaign Supernova (talk) 16:05, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New page for the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy

I would like to let you know that I created the page for the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instituto_para_la_Diplomacia_Cultural

Please let me know your opinion if this is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Diplomaciacultural (talk • contribs) 09:43, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Diplomaciacultural: I am not convinced it's notable, either in English or Spanish, but it's not a speedy delete. When I have time, I'll consider nomination for deletion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:40, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would be happy to take the challenge to improve the article and would be grateful to receive your suggestions once you can. (Diplomaciacultural (talk) 08:43, 31 July 2015 (UTC))[reply]

Question

Why is the Michigan Kid editing my talk page archives? Has he done something like this before? Viriditas (talk) 00:18, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Viriditas: Yes, he has. I semi-protected one of my talk page archives. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:37, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question as to the right time to use.

Hello. When describing events, which is the right time to use, Simple Present or Simple Past Tense? Editors generally use Simple Present. In the article 1962 Simple Present was used, and now another editor changed everything to Simple Past (edit dated July 30, 2015). I will be thankful for your answer. Radosław Wiśniewski (talk) 08:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)Radosław Wiśniewski[reply]