User talk:Alan Liefting

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Blocked

You have been blocked temporarily from editing for repeat violations of your topic ban against making any non-mainspace category edits. Examples: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], as well as others from your recent contribution history. Your last block for the same conduct was enacted a mere nine months ago here (and your unblock request declined here) and within the same day you resumed editing after that block had expired you also resumed violating your topic ban. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by first reading the guide to appealing blocks, then adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. postdlf (talk) 19:58, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Got to do the chores around the house anyway. Since I am blocked I will have to get others to revert my contentious edits. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:02, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

You're clearly not caring about any of this. So why not make the block indefinite, as Hammersoft suggested last time? postdlf (talk) 20:21, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't want to carry on with another pointless talkfest that goes nowhere again. Or maybe I will??

I don't know what you mean when you say "You're clearly not caring about any of this". What I care about is creating an informational, educational resource that is reliable, robust and respected. Wikipedia can become such a thing. Eventually. But it needs a lot of work to get there. And I like doing that work.

You ask whether the block should be made indefinite? That is up to the community of course, especially admins, who, in my opinion and that of others can sometimes be overly punitive (not sure if this is the case with yourself). If I was indefinitely blocked I could set up a sockpuppet account. I don't intend doing that and I may be caught out anyway. Alternatively I could just edit as an anon. I would have no baggage to weigh me down. I could do what I like. I could do category edits with gay abandon. Vandals get away with all sorts so I could get away with all sorts of edits to improve WP. The lax security inherent in Wikipedia would allow be to do that.

So are any of the edits I did in violation of my topic ban contentious in any way? If not could I just say WP:IAR? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:40, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

None of the edits that I did in contravention of my topic ban are contentious of course, and do not need reverting. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 03:16, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

• Indeed one of the problems with Wikipedia's society is that a person, once blocked, is besmirched forever. Even wrongfully placed, wholly invalid blocks stay with you forever. If more blocks accumulate, there is no way for a person to clear their name. A person with blocks is considerably less respected than a brand new account. In some ways this is good, in others bad. There are many (and I mean _many_) times when a person is hopelessly entangled in the morass and can never extricate themselves, no matter what they do. Even if they are flawless moving forward, there are those that will hunt them with abandon, and never face sanctions for harassing them. I've seen it time and time again. I've railed heavily against it, to no avail. Indeed, I myself am probably one misstep away from another block for defending people like Alan. If my slate were clean, this would likely not be the case. But, I have a block on my record from seven years ago, placed by an admin who has since been forcibly de-adminned, and unblocked by an admin who didn't understand the case at hand. But, once marked you are doomed. It's just a matter of time.
• I don't agree with Alan's actions to edit against the topic ban. Alan, you know better and have acted in ways you know will get you blocked. That said, the actions of the community here towards Alan have been most reprehensible. Such behavior does not excuse Alan's behavior, but the desperation of the community to pigpile on someone who is doing nothing to harm the project is despicable. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:29, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd agree with Hammersoft on this. This block is pointless (and very similar to Eric Corbett's current block). It improves nothing, it protects nothing, it is merely hounding an editor who, broadly speaking, we want to keep as a constructive editor.

Yet it's as a result of actions clearly against the wording of a topic ban. That leaves other editors with no argument against it. How can Hammersoft or I say that "this block is wrong" when it had such a clear pro-forma justification just waiting for it? You threw them enough rope, and they hung you with it. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

It seems that admins follow blind bureaucracy rather than the aim of WP. There also seems to be a desire by admins to wield power rather than make rational decisions. They may be otherwise good editors. Power corrupts, and admin power corrupts admins. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 04:37, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

• Agreed. However, getting blocked by them isn't going to change the system. Rather, getting blocked makes them feel they did some supposed good for the project. It further enhances the broken system. Whenever your block expires, please stop editing categories. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:26, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

But editing categories is what I like doing and I have a lot of experience doing it. And why aren't we fixing the broken system? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:45, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

"It seems that admins follow blind bureaucracy rather than the aim of WP." yes, admins follow topic ban instructions, as is their instruction. Stop deliberately violating your topic ban, work on one or more of the many million articles that need to be improved, and stop goading the community by your continual poking and pushing of your topic ban, and things would be fine. I'm bemused, I know loads of Kiwis, all of them are decent folk, and all they want to do is help, in any way they can, within their boundaries, but you just seem dedicated to proving a point and getting yourself blocked again and again and again. I think there are millions of articles you could improve, without violating your current topic ban, so why not focus there? Otherwise, you're simply trolling here to prove a point? I don't know. What I do know is that I've worked on niche articles a lot this year and got a lot of satisfaction from getting them up to snuff. You could do the same. You don't need to work on the one thing that got you blocked. For what it's worth, I'd unblock you now if you gave me some guarantee that you would respect the topic ban and engage in other areas of interest here. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:30, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

But editing categories is what I like doing and I have a lot of experience doing it. I don't mean to goad the community. I am just trying to improve WP. I cannot respect the topic ban because it is too broad and it was put in place for spurious reasons and because it prevents me from helping out with improving WP.

TRM, I was going to say more but it seems that it is you who is trolling (and have done so in the past). -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:45, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

"It seems admins follow blind bureaucracy rather than the aim of WP"

It seems? We all know this already. Dogs bite too. So why do you keep poking them with a stick? Andy Dingley (talk) 21:09, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

So why they don't let me WP:IAR? I am not editing categories to make the admins bite back. I am doing it because it is a job that needs doing. If I see something that needs doing on WP I will get on and do it. I have a topic ban that prevents me from doing perfectly acceptable edits on WP but if I do them I get blocked. So what is the problem with this scenario? Me? The topic ban? The admins? Everything? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:45, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

IAR only applies in the ivory tower of Jimbo's talkpage. Otherwise this is a bureaucracy of petty teenage traffic wardens, and you knew that already.

You are not allowed near categorization. This is a poor topic ban, because it mis-specified the scope of the real problem, but that's minor. More to the point: it exists. You must either observe it, or be blocked for ignoring it. Which one is up to you. You have a topic ban, I have David Cameron as prime minister. We both have to do what we can within this. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:14, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

(it seems that being blocked stops me from doing the lovey dovey wikilovey thing of thanking you for the edit and there is no facebook style like button) LOL!"a bureaucracy of petty teenage traffic wardens". I think you have hit the nail on the head! -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:27, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

June 2015

Hello, I'm Spyder212. I noticed that you recently removed some content without explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an accurate edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry; I restored the removed content. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Please do not edit pages in the user space - contact the user Spyder212 (talk) 01:02, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

It does seem that I was a little bit lax with edit summaries during my recent, brief editing session but often an edit will be self explanatory. I guess in this instance you are referring to the removal of Category:Articles from User:Spyder212/Articles. User pages do not belong in content categories, especially a high level category such as Category:Articles. Have a read of WP:CAT and its related pages for more information. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 02:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I see that you have only recently started editing Wikipedia. Great to have you on board and I hope you stay and help out the project. With regard to your comment "Please do not edit pages in the user space" that is not really how Wikipedia operates. In my case I do have a topic ban on the edit that I carried out on the page in your user namespace but users cannot claim ownership of their user pages. It is often the case that bots or human editors have to carry out edits on user pages. I guess I could have requested you to do the edit that I did but doing it myself seemed like a reasonable thing to do. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 02:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)