User talk:DangerousPanda

This user has opted out of talkbacks

Note: please do not use talkback {{tb}} templates here unless you are referring to discussion areas that I have not yet been a part of; I do monitor my conversations

Beware! This user's talk page is monitored by talk page watchers. Some of them even talk back.

UTRS Account Request

I confirm that I have requested an account on the UTRS tool. the panda ₯’

Advice

Hello! I was really interested in learning how you had edited your talk page, so I clicked edit and got your even cooler backend. I was wondering if you could point me in a direction that would show me how to do that as well. Recently, my gender has been getting confused, with people using the wrong pronoun. It really doesn't bother me, but, as wikipedia gets more and more users, it would be cool to be able to give trans/gender ambiguous/queer/nonconforming folks the ability to post a notice (like your's on the talk page edit screen) that says "hey, this is my preferred pronoun when you're speaking about me in the third person."

So long story short, send me what you know!Thebrycepeake (talk) 21:32, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

LOL ... all my stuff is pure trial, error, borrow/modify. I'm not a computer-tech-dude generally. In terms of gender, YOU set that in your preferences when you first signed up, or you can click your preferences tab to do it now the panda ₯’ 11:18, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

rfcu

Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/DangerousPanda-EatsShootsAndLeaves (not certified yet). NE Ent 15:55, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Now deleted due to lack of proper certification after more than 48 hours. Please join the discussion on my talk page. We should not ignore the underlying dispute(s). What would be ideal is for everybody to get their concerns addressed one way or another. Jehochman ^Talk 01:48, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Help

Hi, how are yo?. I need your help as a librarian. It turns out that in the article Afro-Latin American placed an erroneous Venezuelan black population of about 5 million people and attach with a reference which I believe is not due; as the only authority to offer and ethnic demographics in Venezuela is "INE" who points a much lower [1] I corrected the info, and user changes reversed, cause I do not want an edit war, and I placed the information is official. Greetings, I hope your answer.Jaam0121 (talk) 14:23, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Good faith effort to resolve long term admin conduct issues

Hi DangerousPanda. As I mentioned on Jehochman's talk page here I have concerns about your fitness for adminship because of your demeanor when interacting with other editors and in some cases, your judgment when using your admin privileges. As you know, similar concerns about temperament and civility were raised in your RfAs.

I think you do a lot of good work here, but your interpersonal skills need a lot of improvement. Your judgment is sometimes questionable, and you sometimes act in haste.

I would like to discuss these concerns directly with you, without distracting comments from other users. My hope is that you will acknowledge that these conduct issue are problematic as a whole, and that you will undertake to change them.

There are areas where I believe your conduct fall shorts of what the WP:ADMIN policy requires of admins. If these were occasional lapses they could easily be overlooked, but they seem to form a pattern.

Relevant WP:ADMIN policy excerpts

“Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others.” “... consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators should strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another.” “..., if an administrator finds that he or she cannot adhere to site policies and remain civil (even toward users exhibiting problematic behavior) while addressing a given issue, then the administrator should bring the issue to a noticeboard or refer it to another administrator to address, rather than potentially compound the problem by poor conduct.” “In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputed cases… to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors).”

Examples of incivility, rudeness and disrespect

Context provided in the diffs. This is a short list of comments from the past year.

1. “I'm sure something could be worked out if The ed shuts the fuck up, or at least tones down the disgusting rhetoric”
2. “for the hard of hearing”
3. “You need to screw off with the suggestion that I'm trying to make him "knuckle under" and the "gosh darn it, you are going to make Barney behave" bullshit.”
4. “so seriously, screw off with that bullshit.”
5. “That's the most ridiculous paragraph ever written in the English language.”
6. “Who says I'm going to handle anything? Jumping off into bizarre conclusions, aren't you? You would have been better off discussing this like an adult with me before coming here, rather than attacking and making random, unfounded accusations. All the best to you - I have little time for people who choose this bizarre stance”
7. “WTF! Discussion belongs on article talkpage, not here - spamming links - especially to a primary source that is unacceptable doesn't belong ANYWHERE” (edit summary)
8. “Go ask the closing admin” (In response to a editor's request for an RfC close review)

Ratcheting up drama

[2][3][4]

Poor judgment and acting in haste

• Edit warring block of Flyer22 for two reverts
• Unilaterally unblocking Eric Corbett four hours after he was blocked, with an edit summary "Consensus appears to be that although an uncivil edit-summary, it was not clearly a violation of WP:NPA". Then refusing to consider comments that were logged in the discussion following the unblock, and dismissing the concerns of several editors as "emotional". See User talk:DangerousPanda/Archive 14#Unfortunate

Not responding well to criticism

• “That one's even more false. Hell, did you even read my extensive analysis? WTF is this, "fuck the Panda over day"? I didn't get a card for that in the mail. C'mon Ed, everything I typed today is in English”

I don't think a long list of diffs is necessary, but I'm happy to provide more if necessary. The reason I'm raising this and the reason that I endorsed NE Ent's RfC/U is because of the visceral reaction I have whenever I see your signature on a noticeboard or user talk page. I cringe at the thought that someone has just been talked down to, cussed out, taken to school, or otherwise subjected to rudeness or hostility.

I don't think I have personal issue with you. I'm torn to some degree because on one hand, your decisiveness and no-nonsense approach can be an asset to the project if tempered with restraint, self-reflection and patience. On the other hand, if, when I first started editing here, I had been treated the way I have seen you treat other editors, I would have quietly walked away and never looked back.

Again, my hope is that you will consider what I have said, change your approach, and put this kind of non-admin-like conduct behind you. The ball is in your court.- MrX 00:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

@MrX:, I appreciate the calm, polite elements above. Some of the above is going to be difficult to address, based in part on it being "opinion" of one or many people when just as many people have the opposite opinion. Obviously, those kinds of things will always be difficult to "resolve". A great many are also pulled completely out-of-context, while others have indeed already been resolved. One of the apparently ironic things: when wrongly accused of being uncivil, it appears I often become uncivil :-) That's probably a cultural reaction more than anything, but yes, one to be curbed. More to come after I have had some time to review and reflect. the panda ₯’ 11:38, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Responses

MrX, I'm going to take these 1 at a time as they take extensive research in some cases. In some ways, these answer may appear to be justification, but that's not the intent - I'm trying to explain because you're right, if people don't know what's going through my mind, they often make up their own stuff :-) the panda ₯’ 13:40, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• The "I'm sure something could be worked out" comment: Yeah, I lost it on my colleague admin - but you already know why, I believe, and my colleagues know better than to do what happened in he first place (that said, someone else's incivility never excuses my own...usually). In case you didn't read the details, as has already been expressed, I changed usernames for privacy reasons - some user of another website "distantly related" to Wikipedia actually phoned my house. In The ed's original post, he re-used that same username TWICE, which possibly put my family at risk again. He also had made tremendously inappropriate comments, included massive WP:ABF, and escalated what could have been an easily resolved situation - and that was detrimental to the other user's well-being. As you have seen, The ed later redacted and apologized for doing so, and recognized that his statements needlessly escalated the entire thing. Did I respond well? No - but I take possible threats to my family very seriously, and I'm certain you can understand. Will I endeavour to say "meh" when people do that in the future? I'll try - but if I perceive a threat, I will act to quash any threat.
• The "You need to screw off with the suggestion" comment:
• The "so seriously" comment:
• The "That's the most ridiculous paragraph" comment:
• The "Who says I'm going to handle anything" comment:
• The "WTF! Discussion belongs on article talkpage, not here" comment:
• The "Go ask the closing admin"comment:
• Ratcheting up drama 1:
• Ratcheting up drama 2:
• Ratcheting up drama 3:
• Ratcheting up drama 4:
• Flyer 22:
• Eric Corbett:
• The "That one's even more false" comment:

Hi DP. I really appreciate your willingness to dialog. I posted some examples of comments and conduct that I quickly gleaned from the past few months. My intention was not for you to have to defend or explain each one, but to recognize that these incidents are not rare, and in fact they are quite common. To put it another way: the overall admin fitness issue that I raised will not be resolved by you defending each of these examples. May I propose that instead we discuss your conduct at a high level, and introduce examples and explanations only as necessary?

My view, and the view of the community as expressed in policy, is that admins need to be cool headed almost all of the time, even when provoked. It's understandable that many people blow their tops occasionally. The concern is that these outbursts, taken in consideration with the sometimes sarcastic, condescending, and authoritarian tone that you frequently use, leaves one wondering if you're not operating in a near-constant stress mode. - MrX 14:38, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

@MrX: You put some odd examples then ... sometimes in odd orders too! But they do, in some cases help establish something else. ArbComm has, for example, essentially stated that "baiting" is unacceptable behaviour. No editor - admin, IP, named account - can bait another party with impunity. For example, we CANNOT ever put ourselves into someone's head and ascribe meaning to their actions. So, if editor A says to editor B "you did this because you were thinking XYZ!", and editor B says "um, no...guaranteed, no", then it is wholly inappropriate for editor A to continue baiting editor B with that same or similar statements.

I'm aware that "perception" takes over, and the written word has its challenges. However, we as a community of interest has to take WP:AGF at face value, and thus value the statements of our editing colleagues. A further extension of this is treating people like adults. Hell, I'm in my mid-30's, there NO need to tell me to stay away from something if it's blatantly obvious that I should stay away from something. Respect is a 2-way street, as is civility. You cannot poke and poke and poke and then be shocked when you get an actual human response from anybody.

Am I saying that in most of the cases you provided above I was provoked? In these cases above, yes. Is it that way in all cases? Admittedly and absolutely, no. Can I say for certain that someone has got angry a number of times on Wikipedia because they either misread my comments, or ascribed their own meaning to it? Yes. In most cases, after a quick clarification between 2 editors, everything went well - I'm a pretty approachable guy as long as someone approaches me with a willingness to AGF.

Try as anyone might, we can never make our words so bulletproof that someone won't misread them. I make a living with the written word, and obviously I still don't always get my point across correctly. There is always going to be some form of interpretation/filtering, and it's not intentional by any of us. If we are, indeed, an AGF-community, then if someone misreads my comment, and I explain/correct it ... then we're all REQUIRED to AGF that that was indeed what was meant. I am human. We're all human. We have backgrounds, histories, differing levels of education, various levels of English grammar. Because of the variances of the human condition, we have no choice but to AGF if we're going to act as a community. I can only think of twice in all my years here where I ever intended to insult or condescend (there, I admitted it).

Twice.

Period.

Above all, the one thing that people know about me here is I don't bullshit about what I mean. Period. If I say "look, I never intended to insult you", then it means I never intended what I typed to come across as an insult, and I'm honestly sorry if it did. It means nothing else, and you can take my statement to the bank.

Now, if you'll excuse me for a bit, we have a bit of a serious incident in the heart of my city, and since I still carry Kevlar, a Camera, and a Notepad, I have a few things to do the panda ₯’ 15:45, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your honesty. I take you at your word that you usually don't intend to insult other users, but the bare reality is that you frequently do. Being baited or provoked is not a license to respond in kind (see Jehochman's insightful suggestions below). This is especially true of admins, whose words carry significantly more authority and impact that the other users. In this exchange (full context here), Msnicki made a good faith attempt to intervene. Your intemperate reaction included an edit summary of "enough of the bullshit" and a suggestion for her to "screw off". Other options available to you were to disagree with her, debate her on the merits of her suggestion or simply ignore her. Unfortunately, you took to low road. Perhaps it made you feel vindicated for a brief few seconds, but I bet you wish you could take back those words. By the way, I say this having fully endorsed your block of Barney the barney barney.

You say that can't control how others interpret your words. Indeed you can, by not responding off-the-cuff and by phrasing things more diplomatically. Almost all of our other admins manage to do it because it's what the community (and society) expects. - MrX 18:25, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

DangerousPanda, I hope you stay safe in Ottawa. This discussion can continue when you get back. Jehochman ^Talk 23:40, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

• Hi DangerousPanda. Please let me know if and when you are willing to resume our discussion.- MrX 16:38, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

MrX, as per my email, please be patient: we had in incident that my work life required me to throw on the Kevlar and get busy on. Yeah, I've poked around a some UAA and RFUB for a few minutes here and there, but not enough time on Wikipedia since last Wednesday to follow up. This quite obviously has nothing to do with "willingness", so if you don't mind me saying, I find that suggestion rather insulting the panda ₯’ 10:02, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

No worries. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't leave you with the impression that I thought the discussion had concluded. I look forward to continuing it when you return.- MrX 17:05, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions by Jehochman

Let me introduce three resources that could help you in situations where somebody is making you, DP, upset:

1. If a remark is rude, unfair or very stupid, feel free not to respond, especially not to respond immediately. Silence is sometimes an appropriate response.
2. Before responding, take a look at How to Disagree. In your own response, try to maintain the highest standard: refuting the central point. If the other person is doing worse, identify what they are doing, such as "You're just calling me names. You aren't refuting my argument."
3. There's an excellent book called The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude.

Regardless of whether you have been meeting admin standards of behavior or not, it would be beneficial for you to work on your skills. Skills aren't innate; you have to develop them. Jehochman ^Talk 15:58, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Wow. I liked that Paul Graham, "How to Disagree" article, especially as it gets to the heart of the dialogue I wish I could have with DP. In the Barney incident, the incivility I experienced was the level 1 stuff Graham is talking about. I've been online over 30 years going back to USENET. By now I've got a pretty thick skin and it's hard to make me care that someone I don't even know was rude to me on the internet. I find it tedious to argue about whether DP's initial response was uncivil in no small part because I've been mentally filtering this stuff for decades and I don't care that he was rude to me personally. I do care that admins simply should not do this, especially if they expect to block others for this same behavior, and that I can't get past that tedious level 1 discussion to talk about the level 6 issues, what Graham calls the Central Point. For me, that central point is the poor judgment and poor choices resulting in poor outcomes. Msnicki (talk) 18:14, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Msnicki, I am glad you like the article. Yes, admins should set good examples of how to behave, but they are human too, and make mistakes. So, you've been around a long time. Do you remember UUCP mail routing? Coredumps? PDP-11's? Ah, the good old days. Jehochman ^Talk 20:25, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Sure do. My first USENET post in mid-80s, something about oversampling that can still be found in the Google archives, shows my path as utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!(redacted). And I sure do remember core dumps, but I worked on S/360s and HP minis like the 2100, not the DEC stuff. Msnicki (talk) 21:00, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

@Msnicki: In my rare spare time over the last couple of days, I've been trying to put together a clear English explanation surrounding the paragraph that I took offense to, and then you took offense to my reply. Prior to that moment, we had a fair amount of only positive interactions - so I was indeed surprised by the response - especially knowing that I had no intent to insult or be uncivil in my reply. I felt at the time that I was merely breaking down the logic in your paragraph, not attacking the person delivering the message. However, based on the path you've gone down since that time, I need to know if you're actually open-minded about hearing my side (you've unfortunately not shown signs of that up until now), or if you're simply going to say "wrong" and continue the panda ₯’ 10:03, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I know you're busy, so I'm going to give you time to think about whether that's your best response before I reply. Feel free to delete this if you decide to make any changes. Msnicki (talk) 16:08, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand? Of course it's not a response...I asked you a question in order to find out if it was worth putting together my response, or if you were simply going to discount my feelings the panda ₯’ 19:14, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I wanted to be sure you weren't rushed. But if you have time to get back to blocking, I suppose you've had the time you need to think about your response to me. Please see below for my thoughts. Msnicki (talk) 16:57, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

A suggestion from someone else

Hello DangerousPanda. I stumbled across this recent activity which, at the very least, indicates that some users want to interact with you directly, and specifically, to discuss perceptions of your conduct. I even see you address a concern here or there., but nothing sufficiently tangible so as to suggest that you value the feedback, or understand why some editors feel so compelled at this time to give theirs. I think it would be in keeping with your stronger attributes to voluntarily opened an administrative review in your name. What do you think of this suggestion?—John Cline (talk) 23:38, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Popped home to grab a change of clothes and was surprised to see this User:John Cline. What, in any of my above words (that are clearly trying to address the situation as a whole, the feelings of those who decided it was time to take some form of action, and even those who have been extremely supportive of me) are you finding that I am failing to "value the feedback" or "understand why some editors feel so compelled...to give theirs"?? I'm absolutely nothing but accepting, valuing, and supporting of the feedback I have seen, and am trying to engage the feelings, concerns and desires of everyone involved. Please do not question my sincerity and concern when the written proof is quite the opposite! the panda ₯’ 14:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for my poorly constructed comment. I was trying to convey something very different than what has come of it. Sincerely.—John Cline (talk) 15:16, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

This is very encouraging! So, dp, what do you think of Jehochman's three suggestions above? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:28, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

User:Kkm010 at ANI again

Hello DP. You participated in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive859#Edit-warring to add original research... earlier this month.

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#More WP:OR immediately following a block. Upon checking the editor's talk page (in a version before he blanked it) I noticed you'd issued a previous block:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Kkm010&oldid=629718090#October_2014_2

I'm almost at the point of thinking that a further block of User:Kkm010 would be allowed per normal admin discretion, based on his continuing to make edits of the kind that led to the first block. An example of the continued behavior is this edit at ZTE, dated October 18. That edit adds mention of what he claims to be an Annual Report, which is simply this 'printout' of financial data sourced only to Google. Perhaps you would feel like commenting in the new ANI thread. I'm wondering if an indef is justified pending a promise for him to clean up his act. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 02:28, 22 October 2014 (UTC)